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Should Tito Ortiz have won the decision at UFC 106?
By Zach Arnold | November 23, 2009

If Jordan Breen thinks MMA judge Glenn Trowbridge is the most dangerous man in the sport, then what will he think about fellow MMA writers who thought Tito Ortiz should have won the decision against Forrest Griffin on Saturday night?
Ortiz didn’t win on the score cards Saturday night, but MMA writers Josh Gross (Sports Illustrated) and Carlos Arias (Orange County Register) believe that he should have.
I had Tito winning the first and second. Griffin obviously took the third.
@titoortiz This is Carlos from OC Register. You won the 1st and 2nd rounds and lost the 3rd. You should have got the dec. Everybody knows it.
Dana has to go w/you and Forrest on TUF 11. That will be huge ratings and set up the rubbermatch. Good luck homie. You’ll get him.
If the tone from Carlos towards Tito is a little off-setting to you, the reality is that it seems to be pretty much the norm amongst the bigger ‘mainstream’ MMA writers. When I was going over the video of the post-fight press conference for UFC 106 on Saturday night, the media sure acted like fans. There was an audible cheer and whooping going on when Dana said that Antonio Rogerio Nogueira won a Knockout of the Night bonus.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 64 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
If the gate is $3mill and 6,600ish tickets were sold then that’s a $454 per ticket average. Seems like the face value of comps must be included. That would put the average price right around $300 per ticket.
UFC is also responsible for giving te commission it’s cut on the face value of the comps, of I recall correctly.
MMA Junkie originally posted it wrong. The way they understood it was that the entire gate was around $3 Million with the comps included. Keith Keizer posted on The Underground to clarify it…
“The Nov. 21 event drew 6,631 paid tickets worth $3,003,250. Comp tickets are seperate from gate.”
Not sure how they are supposed to be announced…. But the UFC sold $3 Million worth of tickets…. And then comped out an additional $2 Million worth of tickets.
Overpriced tickets really….
Here is the link to the post….
http://www.mixedmartialarts.com/?go=forum_framed.posts&forum=1&thread=1557746&page=1&pc=11
The original post has been updated, but it started off with the wrong information. And both Keith Kizer and Dann Stupp explained it out further…
Kizer needs to re-read his own regulations then. Comps given out to firemen, cops, journalists and fight teams are exempt from the calculation into the gate. Comps for anyone else are supposed to be added into the gate total.
Paid attendance: 6,631
Comp attendance: 3,898
Empty seats: 223
Value of tickets sold: $3,003,250
Value of tickets given away for free: $2,331,250
Kizer is missing out on revenue for the state by not enforcing that rule!
Also, this ain’t great: “WEC 44 draws 1,132 paid, 1,845 total, 39% comps, $131,200 gate.”
Any word on how many PPVs were sold?
Prelims on Spike did a 1.0 rating and 1.3 million viewers.
Source: http://www.wrestlingobserver.com
The WEC’s events often draw less than 1,000 paid fans in Las Vegas. In addition, one of their biggest events of the year, headlined by Mike Brown vs. Jose Aldo, only drew 414,000 viewers on Versus. So now they’re drawing less viewers than they were two years ago, and it’s not just because of DirecTV, as they were drawing those kinds of weak numbers even before they lost DirecTV.
Those same featherweight and bantamweight fighters, who are among the best in the world in their weight classes, could draw far greater ticket sales, TV ratings, and yes, even PPV buyrates if they were properly promoted on a cable network that doesn’t consider you its #1 show when you manage to draw 500,000 viewers.
If Zuffa’s reasoning for the WEC fighters’ pay (which is shamefully low for some of the best fighters in the world) is, “Well, they’re not drawing right now!” that’s not a valid reason because that is a problem of their own creation and of their own choosing.
I believe that rating is deceiving. People get together for UFC PPV events. That would cut down on the number of houses for the ratings. Either way, it wouldn’t be a blockbuster rating, but the ratings do likely suffer somewhat from it….
Ivan,
1) What other network would be better? I highly doubt ESPN wants the WEC. They didn’t want Bellator…
2) Do you think the top WEC fighters should go into the UFC?
So the CBS rating was also a deceiving rating due to the “get together” theory?
People don’t typically get together for free events like the one on CBS or Couture vs. Vera….
I’m not sure what high school seniors do, but the biggest crowd I ever had at my house for fights was Kimbo/Thompson. I also had a healthy crowd for Fedor/Rogers.
“People don’t typically get together for free events like the one on CBS or Couture vs. Vera….”
That’s ridiculous…people do it for all types of sporting events – 99% of which are for free.
You really believe on a Saturday night that people wouldn’t have all gone to a buddy’s house to watch the Fedor or Randy fight? Plz.