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Slate of four UFC March 2014 fight cards (Macau, London, Dallas, Brazil)

By Zach Arnold | February 24, 2014

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Event: UFC Fight Night (Saturday, March 1st) at Cotai Arena in Macau
TV: Internet only (8 AM EST/5 AM PST)

Event: UFC Fight Night (Saturday, March 8th) at O2 Arena in London
TV: Internet only (3 PM EST/12 PM PST)

Event: UFC 171 (Saturday, March 15th) at American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas
TV: Fox Sports 1/PPV (8 PM EST/5 PM PST)

Event: UFC Fight Night (Sunday, March 23rd) at Ginasio Nelio Dias in Natal, Brazil
TV: Fox Sports 1 (7 PM EST/4 PM PST)

Topics: Brazil, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 22 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

22 Responses to “Slate of four UFC March 2014 fight cards (Macau, London, Dallas, Brazil)”

  1. 45 Huddle says:

    5 Good fights spread across 4 cards. Whoopie freaking doo….

  2. klown says:

    171 looks alright… the rest is trash.

  3. Dick Tracy says:

    1st quarter PPV looks to be a rough one for UFC. With these cards Id say they should be happy with 1M buys. Unless there is a huge fight that can occur later in the year 2014 will see a big drop from last year.

  4. joe says:

    Why is Alexander Gustafsson fighting a no-name on a fight night card instead of being the co-main of either the Jones/Teixiera or Hendricks/Lawler? And people wonder why the UFC has trouble building new stars.

    • Nepal says:

      The card is in London, both Alex and Manuwa are Europeans. Manuwa is a Brit. This is how they build the market internationally. But yeah, it’s not ideal for Alex.

      On another subject, I can’t believe 170 did 300K buys. It was a horrible card. Do people really want to see Rhonda fight??? I watched her last fight only because I had nothing better to do after the DC fight. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have bothered.

      I’m amazed people would have paid good money for that card. For what? One intriguing fight… Rory vs. Maia. Otherwise nothing.

      • Alan Conceicao says:

        You build the market by taking a mostly unknown local fighter and placing him in a main event he’s unlikely to win? Uhhhh.

        • duck says:

          This will be the first time a UFC event has ever aired live on free TV in the UK, having a Brit fight in the main event against a top ranked guy is probably why.

          I think they are only airing the main event live and then highlights of the main card and it’s the same platform that Boxer Tyson Fury has been able to make himself a star on.

        • Alan Conceicao says:

          Tyson Fury is a name because:

          1) he’s entertaining in the ring

          2) he’s entertaining out of the ring

          3) They give him people he can beat

          If Manawa gets run over in 2 rounds by Gustafsson, what good does it do anyone?

        • edub says:

          He’s also stepped up and won fights a lot didn’t think he would win (Chisora).

        • Alan Conceicao says:

          Chisora was a very slight favorite:

          http://www.badlefthook.com/2011/7/23/2289795/chisora-vs-fury-odds-boxing-theophane-vs-cook

          Up until then, Fury had been matched very smartly. And as far as his career since then, the same is true. Manawa/Gustafsson, meanwhile, makes no sense. It isn’t an even fight and the hometown fighter is likely to lose, while the winner gets no perceptible public bump for winning in spite of being the clear preferred top contender to the champion in his weight class. Golden Boy wouldn’t go booking Erislandy Lara/Charlie Ota in Tokyo in an internet PPV because it would be stupid and a waste of time, and yet…

        • edub says:

          I thought he was a farther dog then that.

          Yep, I completely agree with all of that. All of the reasons the UFC gives for booking the fight make no sense to me. It gives Gus a fight in Europe, but Europe isn’t buying the PPVs which he will eventuatlly be on against Jones. Manuwa is a tough old dude, but he could very well have a larger payoff down the line if he trounced somebody like Bader or somebody even lower then that in a main card role. It sucks.

        • duck says:

          No UK casual fan knew who Tyson Fury was before he fought on Channel 5 against Chisora and it was the first time Boxing had been on free TV in a few years.

          Sky Sports the massive subscription network kicked every non matchroom promoter off their network, the only other networks putting on Boxing at the time were PPV companies and UK promoter Frank Warren started BoxNation a subscription network but you can’t become a big name fighting on a network that’s only ever really watched by hardcore Boxing fans.

          Tyson Fury’s promoter Henessey Sports signed a deal with the free to air Channel 5 (presumably for less money but the chance of mainstream exposure) and that was were he became a star.

          Like I said the UFC have never been on free TV live in the UK, only one or two MMA fights have been and they featured Alex Reid, who is a bit of a joke and only famous because of who he was married too and cross dressing, even if Manuwa gets smashed it should lead to their biggest UK rating by far and perhaps lead to people checking the UFC out on BT Sport (a new sports network but who actually have the money to compete with Sky Sports for sports rights)

          As far as Gustafsson goes, flights between London and Sweden are dirt cheap, so the o2 Arena will probably be filled with Swedes supporting their country man and it will air on prime time over there as well.

          They have brought in guys straight from Pride to headline or co-headline UFC cards and I’m pretty sure their largest NA buyrate was 40,000, Gustafsson has fought on Fox and went to a close decision with Jon Jones and it’s not as if they can’t re-air the fight another time.

  5. rst says:

    Aaaand…
    Gus/Manuwa…

  6. 45 Huddle says:

    UFC 169 did lower 200k

    UFC 170 did 300k

    I don’t think Lawler or Hendricks will get more then 350k. Which means even if 169 did 250k, the UFC is looking at 900k for the entire quarter. Things not looking up for the UFC right now.

    Vince McMahon had the right idea….

    It is only going to get worse in the future.

  7. nottheface says:

    The 300k ppv estimate for UFC 170 is based on comparisons between google searches for this card and other UFC events. Since Ronda is kind of a special case, it\’s probably a useless metric to use. My guess based on the gate, which gauges hardcore MMA interest, and searches for previous Rousey cards, is that this show did remarkably bad. Anything above 200k has to be coming from non-traditional MMA fans.

  8. edub says:

    And TRT is no more in Nevada. Finally.

  9. BuddyRowe says:

    Looks like the NSAC outlawed TRT. Now if they would get their testing in order they could really limit the amount of testosterone use in MMA.

    • 45 Huddle says:

      That really is the last element of it. TRT had to go. But it leaves a hole in the process.

      Year round drug testing needs to be implemented by the UFC. 2 times a year randomly. And then two times at the UFC’s choosing before each fight.

  10. unhappy_meal says:

    Thanks for your excellent work with the TRT issue, Zach. You were a major cog in this, whether the mainstream media acknowledges it or not.

  11. klown says:

    Hallelujah (re: TRT)

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