Now that UFC on FX 2 has come and gone, I look at my calendar and anxiously crave UFC on FUEL 2 to get here. Sure, I have the kickoff of Bellator season five to look forward to, but just like a crackhead who is offered weed, it helps, but it doesn’t satisfy the juicy UFC fix that consumes me.
Dana White and the boys have done their jobs. When it comes to big-time MMA excitement, nothing can truly compete with a UFC pay-per-view. UFC 144 in Japan showed fans the very best that mixed martial arts has to offer, and did so by offering fans something they had never done before: extend the show by promoting two fights from the preliminary card up to the main card.
What a treat! Many fight fans don’t shell out their hard earned dollars for the pay-per-views. Instead they go to a sports bar, which oftentimes airs the PPV only and excludes the FX prelims. Could you imagine not getting to enjoy the breathtaking moments we experienced in the KO of the Night from Anthony Pettis and the comeback of the year we got when Tim Boetsch knocked out Yushin Okami? It’s just plain wrong.
Hopefully, this will not be a one time thing. Featuring two additional fights on the main card is a great idea for several reasons.
- Notoriety
Preliminary – adj. Denoting an action or event preceding or done in preparation for something fuller or more important
Any fighter who has been on the preliminary card of a UFC event knows that it can be a humbling event. The name preliminary tells both the audience and the fighter himself that the fight is less important that the bouts that are happening in just a few minutes. If nothing more, being featured on the “main card” would serve the purpose of boosting fighter morale.
- Exhausting The Audience
You can never have too much of a good thing, right? Wrong! When SPIKE TV aired the preliminary bouts back in 2011, they never planned to air more than one hour worth of live UFC programming. This served the purpose of not exhausting the home audience before the pay-per-view.
Have you ever noticed that during the preliminary portion of most events, the crowd is still filtering in, and there are a lot of empty seats? That’s because it takes a lot of stamina to make it through the seven hours of fights that occur in a single sitting.
The home audience is no different. While hardcore UFC fans want to watch all of the fights, the casual fan will watch whatever comes on the pay-per-view broadcast, oftentimes neglecting the cable or Facebook options. The people who care about the preliminaries will watch no matter where you air them. Hell, I watched the FUEL TV prelims in the bar of a bowling alley because the channel isn’t available in my area. Get two extra fights in front of them without having them stuck on FX for a few hours before what they want to see.
By putting two extra fights on the main card, you increase the number of fights that the casual fans get to see and thereby increase the amount of UFC content that they are exposed to.
- More Bang For Your Buck
The standard definition UFC pay-per-view sells for $45 a pop. If you want to watch in HD, it’ll cost you an extra 10. For a five card main event, that’s more than $10 per fight. Kinda sucks when you realize that Donald Cerrone vs Vagner Rocha cost you the same price as the epic Dan Henderson vs Shogun Rua.
By adding two extra fights, you get an extra hour of UFC action. Getting a barn burner of a fight like Matt Brown vs Brian Foster can certainly take away the sting of realizing you paid good money to watch Jon Fitch lay on top of someone for 15 minutes. God forbid he finds his way into a main event. Could you imagine nearly half an hour of a guy throwing punches from guard?
- Preview vs Free Show
Due to the purchase of several Strikeforce contracts and the addition of three extra weight classes, the UFC has a much deeper talent pool than it did only one year ago. While that is a great thing for business, it is giving away too much for free.
As an example, let’s look at the upcoming preliminary card for UFC 145. Miguel Torres v Michael McDonald is a contest that features the No. 6 bantamweight in the world against the man ranked immediately behind him. You’ve also got a marketable battle of Ultimate Fighter winners when Efrain Escudero squares off with Mac Danzig. What’s more is that Stephen Thompson and Matt Brown are against one another after both men providing us with thrilling knockouts in their last bouts.
Tack on a fourth bout featuring heavyweight knockout artists Travis Browne and Chad Griggs and you’ve got a totally separate card with the strength of the preliminaries rivals the level of entertainment and star power that you can see on any Fight Night on FX event.
If you have already watched two hours of fast-paced action that features name-value stars and highlight-reel entertainment, your MMA fix has already been provided and you may actually be dissuaded from ordering the event. By taking the top two bouts off of the prelims and transplanting them onto the pay-per-view, you make the PPV more valuable as a whole, and you give the fans just enough to get them wanting more.
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