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Round two of UFC and Ricky Hatton

By Zach Arnold | July 27, 2007

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Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports reported on Friday night that Floyd Mayweather Jr. will fight Ricky Hatton in Las Vegas on December 8th. Eastside Boxing reports that the MGM Grand Garden Arena is being discussed as a possible host for the event.

Why is it possibly news-of-concern for UFC?

December 8th is when UFC is tentatively scheduled to run a Spike TV event at the Palms Casino.

There are a few storylines that make this scenario interesting to watch unfold…

  1. This could be the second head-to-head battle between UFC & Top Rank (which promoted Hatton’s last fight in Las Vegas), although Golden Boy Promotions may have a say in the matter. Dana White and Bob Arum have had quite a war of words in the media over the last year with each other. Hatton’s last fight was on June 23rd in Las Vegas against Jose Luis Castillo at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. That event ran against the BJ Penn vs. Jens Pulver fight at the Palms.
  2. This will be Mayweather’s return to Las Vegas (last fight – 5/5 versus Oscar De La hoya). More importantly, expect a media circus because of Mayweather’s anti-MMA comments he made against UFC in the lead-up to the Mayweather/De La Hoya fight. It was White who masterfully played off of Mayweather’s comments to gain major mainstream media credibility, which fueled the ridiculous “boxing vs. MMA” arguments that lasted for the month of May.
  3. Will the media choose to cover UFC or Mayweather/Hatton? Unless UFC is able to sign two major names to fight on the 12/8 card, expect most of the media to focus on the boxing fight. With that stated, it was surprising to see how many big media names covered the 6/23 UFC event instead of Hatton/Castillo.

Topics: Boxing, Media, MMA, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 8 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

8 Responses to “Round two of UFC and Ricky Hatton”

  1. Iain Liddle says:

    With all the big names already tied up in fights before or after December 8th, if there is a UFC card on the same day Hatton-Mayweather then surely they can hope to receive a small fraction of media coverage comparitively at best? I doubt they would even try and compete. Simply put on their show, attract their usual viewers and then put their weight behind promoting the pay per view at the end of the month.

  2. Jordan Breen says:

    Not a terribly difficult position for the UFC, who in the end, just have to look to win their key demographic on cable. The only real pertinent question becomes to what extent 18-34 year old males want to save some dollars and watch the UFC for free?

  3. 45 Huddle says:

    You never want to run a PAY PPV against a FREE Cable fight show. Especially a fight show that typically gets really solid ratings. And it is still unknown is Mayweather can draw when Oscar isn’t on the card.

  4. Jordan Breen says:

    “And it is still unknown is Mayweather can draw when Oscar isn’t on the card.”

    Against Hatton, he faces a popular, known name with an established niche fanbase, a mixture of British natives and established boxing fans, as opposed to casual sports consumers that De la Hoya. You may be able to draw a comparison to Gatti as far as that goes. The Gatti-Mayweather massacre got about 340,000 buys, for reference.

  5. liger05 says:

    Mayweather v Hatton would draw. no doubt.

  6. K. Fabe says:

    How is this bad for UFC? The Palms holds about 1,000 people, they will fill it, and the people watching the boxing will probably flip over to check out UFC instead of snoring through the boxing prelims.

  7. D. Capitated says:

    The first UFC Fight Night at the Palms did horrible business. I know people already forgot it, but there were a ton of empty seats. Meanwhile, the media is going to cover Mayweather/Hatton. Mayweather is a huge name right now after the Oscar fight, and 10,000 people+ are likely to fly in again (as they did for the Castillo fight) to see Hatton in the biggest bout of his career. The media has barely given a shit about any event since Chuck’s KO loss at UFC 71. What would make you think that they’re gonna ignore potentially the second biggest boxing event of the year with major implications for the UFC’s B-show, which they’ve historically never ever cared about?

  8. Ivan Trembow says:

    Hatton missed his calling as a Greco-Roman wrestler with the way he fights in boxing. That said, it’s a cultural event whenever he fights with scores of people from the U.K. flying across the Atlantic Ocean to the West Coast of the USA to see him fight.

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