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Report: Michael Bisping vs. Yoshihiro Akiyama at UFC 120 in London
By Zach Arnold | July 9, 2010
Detailed report here, including discussion of Dan Hardy vs. Carlos Condit.
Guess we won’t see Bisping vs. Vitor Belfort…
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 9 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
It’s a very solid free show. I’m looking forward to Condit/Hardy.
I’m looking forward to Hathaway-Kim … and to hearing Bisping tell Akiyama to ‘go back to judo’ after he beats him.
I like Akiyama, but he eats way to many punches and Bisping (unlike Leben) won’t stand there and eat the return fire. Bisping via uneventful jab & jog decision.
As a fan in the UK wanting to go to the UFC live events I am yet again disappointed by the same fighters taking up the main fight card slots.
Nothing personal against the fighters or the fights that have been put together for this card individually, however my issue is with the amount of these types of fights that are put on the UK cards without the ‘main event’ level headliner.
With the ticket price for attending a UFC show for me it just isn’t worth paying the high price when Bisping and Hardy etc have taken up prime slots on previous UK shows. Again nothing personal against the fighters, but I dislike what seems to be a very ‘tribal’ attitude towards the UK live shows, and in my opinion Bisping has proven to be a mid level fighter so shouldn’t be headling the show.
UK UFC’s do not live up to the name value of what brand UFC is in the US, yes the UK live shows are well put together and likely they will be good exciting fights, but the high ticket price is not matched value for money with the UK shows imo, if the ticket prices were brought down to reflect lesser fighters/names or debuting UK fighters than I would happily go. At present I feel I am being miss-sold.
It is this tribal attitude of filling the UK cards with UK fighters that bothers me the most, I attended the first run of EURO shows 70, 75, 80, 85, 89, 93 and 95, but didn’t attend 105 near where I live because it had so many of the fighters I had already paid to see multiple times, whilst I was longing to see many of the UFC fighters who have made me such a fan of the sport in the first place.
There is a video interview of Dana White at the moment saying how the UFC do not need to fill a card with homegrown fighters when they go abroad, and the sport is not tribal and fans are fans of fighters wherever they come from – this is exactly how I feel, so I completely agree with him – BUT they have not proven themselves to follow this with the UK.
I am left disappointed with the news/rumours of 120, wanting to pay my money to attend and experience the brilliant live experience of the UFC show, but yet again will not be going.
Imo since the injury problems of 85 in London the UK shows have lost the comparability of the US UFC brand name , since then we have had 89 in Birmingham without a main event (to me Bisping Leben is/was not main event worthy) and 95 which ended up with Sanchez Stevenson as the headliner (again not main event worthy) 105 I have to respect Randy for stepping up but unfortunately I thought it was a bad match up with Vera’s performance record and imo it turned out a poor fight. All the while those cards were also loaded with UK fighters
Each of those events had tickets on sale early and it felt like each time they were scrambling for a main event. I feel they just didn’t bother putting main events on for 89 and 95, and by that time I had lost my trust in the UFC so didn’t buy tickets for 105.
I can understand this being a fine card for those in the US to watch free, but not for attending live in the UK. Maybe UFC doesn’t mind replacing fans while growing the sport in the UK, because 120 would still be great to attend live for someone who hasn’t experienced the show live, although it lacks the UFC star names, but I have no desire to pay to see fighters I have seen countless times.
Boo hoo.
It’s a free show.
This is a much better card than the typical free show that American fans buy tickets for. At least you guys don’t have to pay $600/year to watch the PPVs.
On a less sarcastic note, I would like to add that you probably don’t represent the norm for British fans.
If the UFC booked a card full of Americans & Brazilians, they would do WORSE at the gate, not better. Casual UK fans are not all that different from casual American fans who mark out for their TUFers and chant ‘USA’ every time an American is fighting a ‘dirty foreigner’. Like it or not, the people who drive the UFC’s success in the UK come out to see British fighters (especially TUF veterans).
I’m sure Zuffa has done a cost-benefit analysis and determined that having expensive foreign talent on UK cards is a losing proposition for them financially. They put a ton of talent on those early cards and obviously came to the conclusion that it was costing them more than they were getting in return.
yes you have fair points, and I also think that is what Zuffa had likely done
I would like to add that my post was aimed at the UFC boss’es and how they organise the UK cards, and not the individual fighters at all. All the respect in the world to the fighters who step up, work so hard and risk what they do.
I really want to go to a UFC show again but have to stand by my principles and not pay to go to 120 as it stands now, in the hope that it will create some kind of voice to be heard.
I even booked flights and hotel to Vegas for 100 before it was officially announced, but just couldn’t get tickets and they soon were priced way out of my reach combined with the cost of the trip over to the US, in the end I had to cancel the trip and lost the deposit… just couldn’t face being in Vegas (would be first time in US) without getting to go to the big show! Hopefully will get to go one day.
You won’t create a voice…The UFC always sells out in the UK (or thereabouts) no matter who is on the card.
Also, going back to you point about value for money…UFC 95 was one of the best ‘value for money’ cards in the promotion’s history. 105 was also a fantastic live event; apart from the main event and the Taylor/Hathaway fight, it was all good.
The fact is this: 8pm in the UK is what, 2pm in the US? They can’t put a PPV on at 2pm with a tape delay and expect it to sell. Noone will be watching it live and people generally don’t pay for a fight that happened seven hours previous for which they already know the results. Previous low buyrates for overseas events are proof, if it were needed.
If they can’t put it on PPV, they can’t pack it with big names or headline it with a Lesnar, Penn, GSP-type fighter because those guys demand the big bucks. Newsflash, if attendance drops of at UK UFC’s, they wont throw more money at it, they’ll do less shows here so that the demand is greater.
120 is already shaping up to be a great night of fights, like likes of which you wont see anywhere else in the UK this year. If you enjoy good fights, buy a ticket, you wont be disappointed. You can sit halfway down the bottom deck for £100, nothing wrong with that.
Yawn..easy decision win for Bisping.