UFC 155 is set for Saturday, Dec. 29. The event is loaded with talent from top to bottom, boasts what looks to be a plethora of competitive matches and features a main event to be contested between the two best heavyweights in the world for the right to wear the UFC strap.
If you’re wondering where I’m going with this, my point is simply this: UFC 155 is a very meaningful event, undoubtedly one of the most important and potentially exciting from 2012.
Only you wouldn’t get that sense from the lack of attention the show has garnered from mainstream media, or MMA pundits and fans. In fact, UFC 155 has received so little fanfare that it seems half the world is still in a holiday food coma.
That’s my theory, and while it’s an ill-advised attempt at humor, it might not be that far from the truth.
This time of year sees a whole lot of people celebrate Christmas, Hanuka and New Year’s, and there is enough going on among those events’ celebrations to hold the entirety of an individual’s attention.
Perhaps that is why Brock Lesnar vs. Alistair Overeem brought in just 535,000 PPV buys on New Year’s Eve 2011. Not a terrible number, but not one of Lesnar‘s best.
Before that, a 2011 New Year’s Day showdown between Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard garnered just 260,00 PPV buys. And Rashad Evans vs. Thiago Silva saw just 300,000 people fork over PPV money the previous year.
So maybe it’s as simple as that. Maybe there are a lot of people out there that just don’t have the time to add a UFC event to their already loaded schedule. It seems like a mundane explanation, but there seems to be a substantial correlation between disappointing buyrates and end-of-the-year UFC cards.
While there are many who relish the thought a card like UFC 155 at any time of the year, MMA seems to get lost in the December/January shuffle for many others.
The UFC perennially stacks these cards with ample talent, yet continually, it fails to draw in PPV numbers reflective of the product it puts out.
That’s a trend.
And that these cards fall either between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, or on New Year’s Day, can’t just be happenstance.
Instead, that points to a reason.
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