« Now is not the time for unforced errors by Strikeforce | Home | Tito Ortiz angling for a UFC trilogy fight with Forrest Griffin »
Measuring interest in UFC 127
By Zach Arnold | February 25, 2011
If there’s one thing about Michael Bisping that we’ve learned it’s the fact that he’s horribly insecure and easy to agitate despite putting on a front that trash talking doesn’t bother him. It does. That, and you should be prepared to really give him a lot of compliments after he a wins a fight or he might not be in the best of moods on shows like MMA Live.
I’m truly amazed that some goofy Youtube videos have legitimately irritated him, but hey, I guess it sells a fight? It was fascinating to watch how much time UFC devoted on their 127 Countdown show to Jorge Rivera versus everyone else on the card, including the main eventers Fitch & Penn. Bisping’s going around saying that he’ll finish Rivera and prove that the guy is out of his league, while out of the other side of his mouth allegedly claiming that he would fight Dan Henderson ‘for free’ if he could get a rematch. Don’t hold your breath on that one. So, how are the Aussie fans treating him? They’re calling him a wanker.
Video courtesy of Yahoo Sports/Cagewriter.com
It’s interesting that while Penn vs. Fitch is labeled as the main event, the Bisping/Rivera and Sotiropoulos/Siver fights are the ones getting the most international attention. When Fitch, Penn, Sotiropoulos, and Kyle Noke did PR last November for this Sydney show, all of them were treated as huge stars. Dana White has been impressed by the reaction from the fans there and it’s clear that Australia will be a lot more successful than some of their other international forays. Check out the pictures of the fighters meeting the Sydney Roosters.
For Jon Fitch, this is a make-or-break fight. I remember Dave Meltzer making the case that if Fitch loses the fight and does so in boring fashion that he might end up joining Mark Coleman as the only Zuffa-era high-profile UFC PPV main eventers cut after a loss. Before his last fight, Jon was stressing how important it was to pick his game up and be more exciting and fan-friendly. In the end, it didn’t happen. His new stance publicly? Everyone loves a winner no matter how ugly it is. I read an article where Fitch was quoted as saying that he didn’t want to become MMA’s version of Dan Marino, an athlete that never won a title. Kenny Florian says that Fitch’s new vegan diet has eliminated any sort of size advantage that he would normally have against Penn in this upcoming fight. Despite the trial balloons about wanting to go back to Lightweight (155 pounds), Penn said on the Countdown show that he likes fighting at Welterweight (170 pounds) because he doesn’t have to cut any weight.
With Spike TV now seemingly airing UFC PPV prelims mainly for shows in the States, UFC is taking another plunge onto the ION platform. ION, the over-the-air station in the States, will air three prelim fights from the UFC 127 card starting at 9 PM EST/6 PM PST (including an intriguing fight between Nick Ring and Riki Fukuda). Facebook will also have a prelim fight or two starting at 8 PM EST/5 PM EST. Then the PPV telecast starts at 10 PM EST/7 PM PST. Here’s a list of ION affiliates in the States. The last time UFC aired prelims on ION, it was last January for the PPV headlined by Frankie Edgar vs. Gray Maynard II.
There’s been plenty of local press for the show, but not a lot of Stateside writers (outside of Ariel Helwani and Dan Herbertson who returned home from Japan). I heard that a few writers will make the trip but it will be a get-in, get-out type of deal which is unfortunate. Although, I reckon that Jordan Breen’s trip last year to watch the Impact FC MMA shows didn’t do any favors when he railed against how expensive and how awful internet access is in the country. *shrugs*
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 13 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Get ready kids. We’re going to have at least a year of fitch title defense snooze-fest main events. As much as I’d like to think that Penn can/will K.O. that blanket, more than likely he’ll get smothered for 15 minutes. Here’s a quote from him on getting more fans from an ESPN article:
“It’s more of a slow progress, but it’s definite that I still gain a number of fans with every win, with every performance,”
http://sports.espn.go.com/extra/mma/columns/story?columnist=gross_josh&id=6157461
Amazing: Ariel Helwani and MMAFighting lose their spot with AOL, but they still find a few thousand dollars under a couch cushion to fly him to Australia like they did Abu Dhabi. Just ignore the fact that he’s the only journo UFC puts on TV, please. No way there can be a connection. LOL
I guess internet people should care that Ion is watched by no one but you know what? If the UFC is willing to buy time on ION to put prelims on TV for free, I’ll watch them. Ring/Fukuda is like the best fight DEEP could make right now and I’m appreciative to watch that for nothing since I’ll skip the PPV for Showtime boxing.
Years and years ago I wondered aloud why they were bothering with Germany when Australia was obviously a better market in every way. Still do. They should be running two shows a year minimum down there and working with a local promoter to operate some sort of UFC Australia series. The number of independent shows with legitimate talent fighting on them in that country is shocking, and they get decent crowds too. No reason that the UFC shouldn’t in some way be profiting off that and selling DVDs of it later to people stateside.
The talent isn’t there to do an exclusive Australia UFC. Unless they want to expensively fly in talent for every show from other countries.
What they are doing is the correct thing. Start with a few big shows. Catch peoples eye. Get people to start training and then increase the number of shows once the talent increases. It’s what they did in The UK with some success.
They know what they are doing far better then you do. It why they have hired smart people with international business expansion experience to implement it.
We get to find out what BJ Penn’s bottom butyrate is with no supporting cast.
I wouldn’t be shocked if he got 350,000 to 400,000 buys.
Me either.
I am still baffled on the amount of people I have talked to that are going to be watching this event one way or another (House, Bar, etc..). I really didn’t think BJ was that popular to the casual fan.
I’ve seen BJ Penn fight 4 times live. Not by design. Not a huge fan of his. He just happens to fight on the east coast a lot.
It’s amazing how many people are huge Penn fans at the event. Many travel all the way from Hawaii.
1) Strikeforce in Dallas, TX on June 18th. It’s the likely event for the 2nd half of the first round. That’s over 4 months between the fights. Which means Silva & Sergei probably aren’t fighting until September. It also means the CBS Sweeps month rumor is probably untrue. SF, by messing up the April date, has to wait 2 months now due to SHO & UFC scheduled events. Coker really did bet it all on Japan. What’s worse? Him being so dumb to do that? Or the Showtime executive who knows so little about this sport giving the OK to the idea? Complete incompetence…..
2) Paul Daley missed weight for the 5 time in 11 fights according to MMAFighting. The guy is a headcase. He could cause SF some serious issues if he wins their belt and decides he doesn’t have to make weight still…..
3) ION TV is garbage. But it beats no prelims at all. All of the good PPV’s have spikeTV prelims which is what really matters….
At this point being on ION is better than not being on at all…though I wonder how much better it is than being on Facebook?
I think we’re clearly in the space where every ppv’s prelims will be shown, one way or another. And if it’s on Ion it’s just another avenue for them to reach eyes of fans…and it’s free so I’ll watch even if I’m not watching the ppv.
Sergei has said he wants fights inbeteen anyway, Strikeforce better hope he wins those.
Paul Daley doesn’t have much to gain from this fight, so he probably doesn’t see the point in cutting down, he would make weight for a title fight as it’s not like he’s huge for a WW.
Some people would flame this, but I think it makes more sense at this point.
Ditch the 8-man tournament.
Do Bigfoot Silva vs Kharitonov. Have Overeem fight Werdum for the title. Then the winner defends against the Silva/Kharitonov winner.
“2) Paul Daley missed weight for the 5 time in 11 fights according to MMAFighting. The guy is a headcase. He could cause SF some serious issues if he wins their belt and decides he doesn’t have to make weight still….” (45 Huddle)
“Paul Daley doesn’t have much to gain from this fight, so he probably doesn’t see the point in cutting down, he would make weight for a title fight as it’s not like he’s huge for a WW.” (hutch)
Not that this is a complete excuse, but he weighed in at 170.4lbs and apparently the hotel
fuckedup huge and the sauna’s were out of order…seems like that could screw up people’s cuts especially if they are really sucking the water out to make the weight.Bottom line is you are a professional fighter and should be making weight, but that’s some partially extenuating circumstances when the venue takes away the thing you’re relying on to shed the weight. Not that this is completely out of the realm of possibilities for a minor league promotion.
Daley would get a pass if this was his first time missing weight. It’s not. It’s his 5th in 11 fighters. He gets negative benefit of the doubt.
He has the weight on his body that could be lost. He’s not overly ripped.
Plus, combine 5 missed weights and the Kosheck incident and he’s a headcase. If I was Coker I would be worried about relying on him for April…..
True…5th time in 11 fights is a pretty stable pattern of unreliability (plus all of his other indiscretions). I guess I was trying to point out that this incident on it’s own is understandable, however, as you’ve pointed out this is not a case of an isolated incident. I could actually see Diaz use this as a reason to duck Daley.