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Ken vs. Tito III draws huge ratings
By Zach Arnold | October 11, 2006
Spike TV press release says that Tuesday night’s event from Florida drew a 3.1 rating cable, and also beat the Oakland A’s vs. Detroit Tigers game that aired on FOX in the male 18-34 year old demographic. Ratings breakdown here.
“Last night was a turning point for the UFC. This will further drive the evolution of mixed martial arts into a mainstream sport,” said Dana White, President, Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Meanwhile, WWE-promoted ECW drew a 1.8 rating on Tuesday night on the Sci-Fi Channel (the show aired right after the conclusion of UFC’s show on Spike TV). The pro-wrestling writers are going to have a field day with this.
Also, Dave Doyle has a response for Rick Telander.
Topics: All Topics, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 18 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Interesting it took a Pro-Wrestling like storyline between Tito & Ken to drive in these ratings. It really sounds idiotic whenever the UFC & WWE are in the same sentence. It really shows that these journalist are living under a rock and don’t know Pro-Wrestling is Entertainment. I don’t read or hear anything about last nights UFC event being compared to any other program or network station besides the WWE. The UFC should be worrying about the global appeal of Pride Fighting Championships and their expansion to the states. The drama of a tournament produces 100x’s more value then to former sparing partners dislike for each other (Tito/Liddell).
Tito vs. Chuck could draw a million PPV buys.
That would be higher than WWE (wrestling), which was always the high benchmark for PPV buyrates. That’s why there’s wrestling comparisons.
A million buys would be more than De La Hoya, who’s the real single biggest PPV draw on earth.
The true high water mark is Tyson, of course. When the UFC is banging out 1.3 million-1.7mil like Tyson did with the Holyfield, Lewis, and Ruddock fights, then we can really talk.
It will interesting to see how the American public will embrace Pride Fighting Championships. I think it has 100x’s more substance than the UFC. Pride Final Conflict 2006 had enough fights on it’s card to main event 3-4 UFC PPV’s. They have all the tools to draw huge numbers. But Dana white controls the NSAC therefore Pride can’t show their full potential ex. tournaments, rules, & production. I believe it would be wise to host their tournaments in Hawaii where they won’t have to compromise anything and have live PPV’s.
NSAC is controlled by Dana = LOL. My god. I love these conspiracy theories.
Yeah, I’m sure the best idea for PRIDE to show international strength is to go to Hawaii and play to 3000 people in Honolulu. Why not just run some backwoods Indian Reservation? I bet there’s one in Northern Montana that will give them their rules set and judges.
ZDL:
Friendship between influential/wealthy groups is not conspiracy. Zuffa and NSAC are tightly linked.
Zuffa does not hide their close ties to athletic commissions (see, recent hiring of Mark Ranter, previously employed by … well, look it up), making your facile dismissal of any linkage unrealistic.
I suppose you think there’s no relationship between congress men and multi-national corporations as well? Yeah, because business and law are two separate entities. Right? Yeah, right. Good grief. Give me a damn break.
The pro wrestling writers are getting more and more ridiculous ny the day with their mixing in of MMA with pro wrestling. What are they trying to prove anyways? MMA and wrestling are different worlds no matter how hard these people try to link them together. MMA is not going to get any recognition as being real sport if they are made out to be the same business as wrestling. It’s also ridiculous how these pro wrestling reporters want people to believe that everything they say is gospel, yet they are clearly biased and a bunch of shills. People like Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez are exactly the same way with MMA as Bob Ryder was with WCW when Ryder was working for them.
In the old days of pro-wrestling, it was a shoot. As the TV age came about, the business turned into a big work. Now that the “work” isn’t so entertaining, perhaps more wrestling fans are being entertained more by something that they see is a reality-based extension of what wrestling isn’t right now.
Dennis, if you think that about Meltzer, you have no clue. Meltzer has been covering MMA since UFC1. He was around for the birth of Pancrase and followed Japanese MMA from then to today. He has covered MMA since before there was a world wide web, nevermind MMA Websites. When it comes to MMA journalism, there is Dave Meltzer and then there is everyone else. Get a bleeping clue Dennis.
Zach,
I seriously, seriously doubt the ‘old days’ of Pro Wrestling were any less worked than today’s product. Considering that guys like Steve Yohe found a bunch of articles crying ‘fakery’ all the way back to the late 1800s and the fact that it would have been more profitable to work together in ‘competitive’ contests around the country and share in the side bets made, I seriously doubt the older Pro Wrestling product as a whole was legit (although a few matches here and there, like John Pesek vs. Nat Pendleton, Wayne Munn vs. Stanislaus Zbyszko and Danno O’Mahoney vs. Dick Shikat were probably shoots, but besides cases like Pesek/Pendleton, most of those were one party attacking the other one unknowingly and beating the crap out of them).
If the Pro Wrestling product in the early days as a whole is reflected by Joe Stecher vs. Earl Caddock II, I don’t think it would have been too hard to work the type of contests they had, anyway (full of collar-and-elbow types, a few takedowns and a lot of stalling on the ground to set up their signature hold).
Correction on the previous post, as I meant tie-ups, not types after collar-and-elbow.
Just because they hired Marc Ratner doesn’t mean that Zuffa owns them. If they did, why wouldn’t they change the ruleset for themselves? Do they gain something by not allowing knees to the head? Why not force the Nevada Commission to run cage only, much like the rules in California? Then PRIDE likely wouldn’t run Nevada at all.
As for Meltzer covering MMA, he believed that UFC was a complete work initally, and he covered Pancrase because of their connection to the Shooto style worked feds. Meltzer’s history with any legitimate sport prior to 1993 is limited at best.
Wrong, ZDL! Meltzer worked as a sports reporter for several newspapers before quitting to write the Observer full-time. So much for your “priot to 1993” argument. And he did not call UFC 1 a work.
Meltzer’s specialties in the field were (big surprise) pro wrestling and roller derby. His knowledge of the fight game is extremely limited. This is a guy who might have been at the Coliseum all the time, but was never there for boxing.
And he DID call UFC1 a work. I’ve had that confirmed with people who were getting the Observer back in 1993.
To expand on my previous post a bit, I am not slighting the great wrestlers of the past of Pro Wrestling such as William Muldoon, Martin ‘Farmer’ Burns, Frank Gotch, Joe Stecher, Ed ‘Strangler’ Lewis (and his namesake, Evan ‘Strangler’ Lewis), Earl Caddock, Stanislaus Zbyszko, Ad Santel, Jim Londos and so forth. I do believe they did have legit shooting/hooking ability that could put the fear into their opponents if they decided the opponent was messing around too much. However, I believe that, for the most part, they saw more gain from have worked matches with the premise that it was true competition being watched (hence, going 2+ hours somewhat often) rather than ‘blatant fakery’. Since most of the people that generally ran the side bets were affiliated with the wrestlers, they were able to fleece the fans into betting onto one party or the other and run away with a nice cut of money. In addition, by not trying to actually shoot on each other, the parties managed to minimize the damage they received and, given the relative slowness of news travel in the early 1900s, they had the ability to re-enact the same match (or similar matches) in various states with little to no real uproar about their constant (up to 3-4 times a week in some cases) ‘legit’ bouts. On occasion, however, the fakery would be revealed and they’d try to play it down by either challenging the critics or doing a real exhibition match to shut up the critics.
There were legit contests in Pro Wrestling (either a pre-agreed contest by both parties (most notably, John Pesek vs. Nat Pendleton and Mildred Burke vs. June Byers) or, more common, one party shooting on the other, such as Stanislaus Zbyszko vs. Wayne Munn or Dick Shikat vs. Danno O’Mahoney), but around 99% of the time, the industry seems to have been, as far as I can tell, always working the fans.
Tomer,
I’d say your account on pro wrestling’s shoot history is fairly accurate. From the people I’ve heard most of wrestling was worked well into the 1800’s and while the guys who competed had shoot backgrounds and typically had the skills to go, but most of their matches were worked. While there were exceptions they were just that exceptions, not the rule.
Zach however is also correct in that the age of the non-shooter was heavily influenced by TV. As personality became a more and more important aspect of the business, and the need to top yourself became a bigger and bigger deal. Thus the guys like Lou Thez and Karl Gotch became lesser stars to the Gorgous George’s and Freddie Blassie’s.
Dennis, Everyone is human and no human is perfect. Virtually all writers, reporters, and people are biased in some way. So the best you can hope for is to find people who are atleast more unbiased than others. I’d say Meltzer is about as fair as it gets in terms of MMA/Pro Wrestling Columnists. It’s all the same so there’s really no reason to distinguish between him and the people who just cover MMA.
And just to bring up a guy who apparently never learned that in Pro Wrestling you are supposed to work with your opponent and not against him: Bert Assirati. A legend pretty much because he was a 40s and 50s Akira Maeda who beat up guys who were not prepared for a shoot with him (only he tended to do it on everyone whereas Maeda primarily did it to guys he didn’t particularly care for). He ended up getting himself blacklisted from Pro Wrestling after a good, long while when no one wanted to ‘work’ with him.
Everybody pretends they are “above” the pro-wrestling drama of Shamrock Ortiz 3.
Then more people than ever tune in to watch it.
Come on people… you (and we all) loooooove the drama.
My two cents on the whole “MMA/Pro Wrestling connection” debate is this…
I think your average joe six pack doesnt differentiate between wrestling and MMA like “we” do. By “we” I mean MMA/wrestling fans, which I will call “die hards”.
Wrestling die hards know it is a work, and are entertained by it anyways. MMA die hards are fans of the competition. Joe Six pack wants to see a fight, and could care less as long is it is fun to watch. Both Wrestling and MMA can deliver that to Joe Six pack.
When people in the wrestling business (usually wrestlers or promoters) argue that there is no cross over between wrestling and MMA, they are full of shit, just like MMA fighters and promoters like to think their fans would never watch a “work” like wrestling. In reality, joe six pack at the sports bar wanting to see a fight will watch whichever fight appeals to them most. Right now, UFC is doing that, and they grab ratings. Your average mainstream reporter probably thinks UFC is crooked (just like boxing) anyway, so why would they not lump it in together? Both have the same basic business model, geared toward the fan buying PPV to see “the good stuff”. Neither are covered in the sports section of your local newspaper, ESPN, or the local news.
I think your average joe six pack sees wrestling as “fake fighting”, and MMA as “real fighting”. Right now, real fighting appeals more to Joe Six pack than wrestling. This is the same problem the Japanese promotions faced a few years back when K1 and Pride were hot hot hot – wrestling suddenly was not. Inoki’s solution was to have “fighters” wrestle. It didnt work. In the US, that attitude of wrestling and MMA pretending the other doesnt exist will not work either, because no matter how much the die hards and the competitors and the promotrers of each refuse to admit they are in competition for the same audience, it is not “apples and oranges”. In reality, they are Red Delicious and Granny Smith – both apples, both delicious for different reasons, but not the same fruit.