Conor McGregor continued to show his drawing power as the first episode of the new season of The Ultimate Fighter was up 27 percent from the previous season’s debut.The two-hour special, of fights to get into the house and onto the European …
Conor McGregor continued to show his drawing power as the first episode of the new season of The Ultimate Fighter was up 27 percent from the previous season’s debut.
The two-hour special, of fights to get into the house and onto the European team coached by McGregor and the American team coached by Urijah Faber, did 622,000 viewers from 10 p.m. to midnight, and another 66,000 viewers from 1 to 3 a.m.
That’s up from the 490,000 viewers for the first episode of season 21, which was the Blackzillians vs. American Top Team season. Season 20 last fall, which was the season that featured the tournament to crown the first women’s strawweight champion, did 563,000 viewers for the first episode.
Wednesday night’s show peaked at 745,000 viewers.
FS 1 was second among sports networks last night with Ultimate Fighter, trailing the Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Los Angeles Angels baseball game on ESPN which did 788,000 viewers, and beat Sports Center on ESPN 2 which averaged 482,000 viewers during the head-to-head two hours.
UFC Tonight on FS 1 on Wednesday did 132,000 viewers.
The ratings for Saturday’s UFC prelims on FOX Sports 1 confirmed much of what had been written all week.
Demetrious Johnson is a great fighter, but people don’t stay home on a Saturday night to watch him.
The prelims leading into UFC 191, airing from 8-10 p.m. Eastern time,drew 663,000 viewers on FS 1. It was the lowest number so far this year for FS1 prelims for a pay-per-view fight. Only three prime time prelims on Fight Night shows this year have fallen below that number.
That number is 35 percent below the 1,014,000 average for FS 1 prelims before a pay-per-view event in 2015. Worse, it was lower than previous prelims of Johnson headlined shows, as the prelims before UFC 174 (Johnson vs. Ali Bagautinov) did 784,000 viewers; UFC 178 (Johnson vs. Chris Cariaso) did 698,000 and UFC 186 (Johnson vs. Kyoji Horiguchi) did 710,000. The UFC 186 prelims were the lowest so far this year, preceding UFC’s lowest drawing pay-per-view of 2015 prior to Saturday.
Labor Day weekend didn’t help. There was also other key sports competition, the most notable being Arizona State vs. Texas A&M college football on ESPN (2.47 million viewers) and the U.S. Open tennis on ESPN2 (1.02 million viewers).
Saturday’s peak was 807,000 viewers during the latter stages of the Ross Pearson vs. Paul Felder television main event.
The pre-fight show airing from 7-8 p.m. on FS 1 did 291,000 viewers.
The post-fight show, on FS2, did 42,000 viewers at 1 a.m., and did another 155,000 viewers when aired in a replay slot at 2:30 a.m. on FS1.
Friday’s weigh-ins on FS2 did 54,000 viewers.
All ratings are courtesy of Neilsen.
The ratings for Saturday’s UFC prelims on FOX Sports 1 confirmed much of what had been written all week.
Demetrious Johnson is a great fighter, but people don’t stay home on a Saturday night to watch him.
The prelims leading into UFC 191, airing from 8-10 p.m. Eastern time,drew 663,000 viewers on FS 1. It was the lowest number so far this year for FS1 prelims for a pay-per-view fight. Only three prime time prelims on Fight Night shows this year have fallen below that number.
That number is 35 percent below the 1,014,000 average for FS 1 prelims before a pay-per-view event in 2015. Worse, it was lower than previous prelims of Johnson headlined shows, as the prelims before UFC 174 (Johnson vs. Ali Bagautinov) did 784,000 viewers; UFC 178 (Johnson vs. Chris Cariaso) did 698,000 and UFC 186 (Johnson vs. Kyoji Horiguchi) did 710,000. The UFC 186 prelims were the lowest so far this year, preceding UFC’s lowest drawing pay-per-view of 2015 prior to Saturday.
Labor Day weekend didn’t help. There was also other key sports competition, the most notable being Arizona State vs. Texas A&M college football on ESPN (2.47 million viewers) and the U.S. Open tennis on ESPN2 (1.02 million viewers).
Saturday’s peak was 807,000 viewers during the latter stages of the Ross Pearson vs. Paul Felder television main event.
The pre-fight show airing from 7-8 p.m. on FS 1 did 291,000 viewers.
The post-fight show, on FS2, did 42,000 viewers at 1 a.m., and did another 155,000 viewers when aired in a replay slot at 2:30 a.m. on FS1.
With UFC’s Fight Pass being about a year-and-a-half old, Eric Winter, who has been hired to oversee the project, has a very simple philosophy.”Live content rules,” said Winter, who was hired from Yahoo several weeks ago as the new Senior Vic…
With UFC’s Fight Pass being about a year-and-a-half old, Eric Winter, who has been hired to oversee the project, has a very simple philosophy.
“Live content rules,” said Winter, who was hired from Yahoo several weeks ago as the new Senior Vice President and General Manager for UFC Fight Pass.
Winter is looking at a future where there is a full fight card every week on the service, and is looking at technological advances for a planned heavily promoted relaunch early next year.
“I owe them a strategic plan for 2016,” Winter said. “I presented them my knowledge of Fight Pass to date and what I’m going to execute. It’s a little early to share, but you may hear some news in the upcoming days and the next week of some cool live streaming stuff. The goal is live streaming with kick ass technology.
“You could have the best content in the world, but it’s like you can create the best cars for the highway, but if the roads are filled with potholes, the car isn’t going to want to drive down our road.”
From a content standpoint, the key driver of subscriptions are the live events.
“We know we have to offer more live streaming than our competition,” he said. “Not just our MMA competition, but any sports streaming business out there. We have to have live streaming not only on a weekly basis but a daily basis. That’s expected.
“There are 40 UFC events next year, and every single one will have a Fight Pass component. Four of them will be Fight Pass exclusives. This year, we’ve got exclusive shows from Dublin (Oct. 24) and South Korea (Nov. 28). Maybe we’ll get another Fight Pass exclusive event by the end of the year.”
Part of it is learning about streaming service customers, who unless the event is live, are going to watch it at their own convenience, rather than television where most watch programming at their set time.
“The beauty of those who are not traditional cable or satellite customers is they don’t want to sit down on Wednesday at 8 p.m. to watch a show,” he said. “But the foundation is live streaming. There has to be a scheduled programming time. Right now we’re still in the nascent stages of building this business. We should have more than 20 organizations signed as content partners. We’ll be announcing new organizations soon. I don’t think we have the regularity that I want and I think that we need, and that we owe to our consumers. We have to have events every Friday or every Saturday, live streaming content, and we’re not there yet.”
While the streaming service has a September theme, “Powered by Ronda,” it also features live events from four different promotions aside from prelims from UFC shows on Sept. 5 and Sept. 26.
Included this month is Invicta, which Winter said is the most popular non-UFC event that they air.
“Invicta does tremendous numbers, the weigh-ins, press conferences or the live fights,” he said. “It’s not if Eric Winter loves or executives like it, the audience wants it. They dictate the type of content and where.”
They will live stream Invicta FC 14 on Sept. 12 from Kansas City, Mo., headlined by Tonya Evinger (15-6) defending the bantamweight title against Pannie Kianzad (8-0) of Iran; Titan FC 35 on Sept. 19 from Ridgefield, Wash., headlined by former UFC fighter Pat Healy (31-18) facing former Bellator title contender Rick Hawn (20-4) for their lightweight title; a EFN MMA show from Moscow, Russia on Sept. 25, and Shooto Brazil 57 on Sept. 27.
It also debuts weekly new episodes of The Road to UFC Japan, a show that was created for Japanese television, and the current season of The Ultimate Fighter: Latin America, which airs on television in Mexico, as well as a number of countries in South and Central America.
Where Ronda Rousey fits in is that they are going to showcase all of her championship fights, as well as most of the fights of her career, including the UFC 190 main event where she defeated Bethe Correia in 34 seconds. One of the changes in the service is getting the pay-per-view fights streaming with a quicker turnaround. It had formerly been 90 days after a show when it would air on Fight Pass. But the Rousey vs. Correia main event is up after only one month.
There will be a package where Rousey’s last eight fights, starting with her 2012 Strikeforce bantamweight title win over Miesha Tate, are presented, in order, in a back-to-back format.
They are also debuting a new series called “The 3rd Degree with Kyra Gracie,” where the third degree Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt goes around the world to gyms in martial arts that in most cases she’s got no familiarity with, to study different fighting styles.
The first episode, which debuted this past Saturday, has her going to Brazil and training BJJ. In the second episode, which also premiered Saturday, she goes to the Don Nacho Gym in Mexico City to learn Mexican-style boxing. The first season of the show will include her studying a wide variety of styles, including kickboxing, Greco-Roman wrestling, and Lancashire-style catch wrestling, a submission form that was popularized in the last century in England that Josh Barnett studied under once of its greatest champions, the late Billy Robinson.
There will be a UFC champions panel, which started this past Sunday, hosted by Mike Goldberg and Megan Olivi, featuring Fabricio Werdum, Chris Weidman, Rafael dos Anjos, Demetrious Johnson and Joanna Jedrzejczyk.
There will be a Women of the UFC panel, debuting on Sept. 11 with Paige VanZant, Rose Namajunas, Julianna Pena and Liz Carmouche.
There will be a Legends of the UFC panel debuting on Sept. 13, with Chuck Liddell, Matt Hughes, Pat Miletich, Oleg Taktarov, Don Frye, Paul Varelans, Guy Mezger and Gary Goodridge.
There will also be a Pioneers of MMA special on Bas Rutten on Sept. 15, which features every Rutten fight, in order, from his first fights in Japan to his final comeback fight at the 2006 World Fighting Alliance show.
There is a Fightography show debuting Sept. 23 with B.J. Penn, featuring every Penn UFC fight and an interview with Penn talking about his career.
“B.J. Penn, for example, sat down for an interview before the Hall of Fame announcement,” Winter said. “We took all that great content. You’re going to see a human side of B.J. Penn and an honest side of B.J. Penn that a lot of people haven’t seen before.”
Winter said that the Fightography interview series is the most popular non-live event programming on the station, and noted it’s far ahead of whatever is No. 2.
“I’ve got a 140-page document sitting in front of me, filled with beautiful designs and wire frames,” he said. “One of the single most important features of the technology update will be the search functionality. Based on searches and search terms, we know what people want. We know Conor (McGregor) spikes heavily going into UFC 189, and Ronda spikes heavily at UFC 190.”
Winter is the first person UFC has hired specifically for Fight Pass.
“I’m the first full-time employee of UFC Fight Pass,” he said. “The product has been stood up by ten men and women who were working on it in their spare time. This isn’t a 9-to-5 company. This is a seven-day-a-week organization.”
Demetrious Johnson on Saturday night continued being Demetrious Johnson.
That is, being the best technical fighter in the sport, and a seemingly untouchable champion with no discernible flaws. And he also, on the flip side, remained so…
Demetrious Johnson on Saturday night continued being Demetrious Johnson.
That is, being the best technical fighter in the sport, and a seemingly untouchable champion with no discernible flaws. And he also, on the flip side, remained someone the public has little interest in, particularly when contrasted with his record.
It’s become the narrative before every Johnson main event about how good he is and how it doesn’t translate to the box office. His previous title defense, in Montreal, did a $668,000 gate ($554,000 U.S.), the lowest total of any pay-per-view show of the modern era. During the modern era, as in post-2005, only three UFC title fights on pay-per-view have drawn less than 150,000 buys, and two were headlined by Johnson in flyweight title defenses against Kyoji Horiguchi and Ali Bagautinov.
Saturday night’s UFC 191 did a $1,362,700 gate, the lowest for a UFC pay-per-view event at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, the company’s home base, in Las Vegas, since UFC 49. That was back on Aug. 21, 2004, before the company had any television deals and an era where fans were used to paying a lot less for tickets.
Fans didn’t leave Saturday night during the match, as had happened at a few Johnson fights over the past few years, although as soon as it was over, people rushed out, not even waiting for the announcement over who won.
Then again, it was hardly a mystery, since round two was the only round challenger John Dodson was even competitive in the five-round fight.
Johnson, the UFC’s first and only flyweight champion in history is someone who will be viewed as far more noteworthy figure long after he’s retired, when the record book will speak for itself. He’s beaten almost everyone of note in his weight class. As far as his two top contenders, he’s beaten them both twice. If it wasn’t for the rise of Henry Cejudo, there would be almost no intrigue left in the division.
Saturday was Johnson’s seventh consecutive title defense. Anderson Silva’s number ran out at ten. Georges St-Pierre retired at nine. Jon Jones ran into legal trouble at eight. So it’s a race between Johnson and Jose Aldo (also at seven), to see if Silva’s record can be broken. But Aldo at least feels like he’s got competition and also faces new regulations come October that are going to affect his weight cutting and rehydrating which somewhat change the game for him. Johnson right now, as a flyweight, doesn’t appear to be threatened by anyone or anything.
Since winning the title, Dodson, on Jan. 26, 2013, was the only fighter who even gave Johnson a rough time, and he still handily took the decision. But in the two-and-a-half years since that fight, it’s clear Johnson has improved far more than his competition. Saturday’s rematch with Dodson was one-sided. With the exception of his first fight at flyweight with Ian McCall, in early 2012, where Johnson was lucky to escape with a draw, he’s never been in a fight where the outcome was really in dispute.
But until he’s the guy admired far more when he’s no longer around, things are likely to not change much. While the days that the heavyweights are the marquee division in fighting sports are long over, there is still an issue with size in the UFC. With the exception of B.J. Penn and Conor McGregor, and to an extent Urijah Faber, nobody under 170 pounds has been a big pay-per-view draw for UFC. Johnson’s personality and ring style are set in tone. As is the public’s reaction to what it is.
Perhaps if he gets to where he’s going to break Silva’s record, it will at least be a news story to where there is some intrigue.
The other issue is opponents. People don’t either love or hate Johnson, either emotion would be preferable to the combination of respect and somewhat indifference. So people aren’t willing to pay just to see him win, like some champions, or pay in the hopes of seeing him get beat, like other champions. So he needs either a colorful challenger, or a challenger who becomes a real rival. Perhaps Cejudo can be that guy, but he has to get through Jussier Formiga on Nov. 21 in Monterrey, Mexico.
The other option is moving up a division. It would create new matches and challenges, but the reality is that Johnson is much smaller than bantamweights. He did well in that division before there was a flyweight division, good enough to get a title shot at Dominick Cruz, and he’s a far superior fighter today. So that does remain an option. He will be testing himself, but given his natural body frame, it really isn’t fair to him. And will he want to make that move before he gets the record?
Let’s look at how Fortunes Changed for Five of the stars of UFC 191:
DEMETRIOUS JOHNSON – Johnson’s fortunes didn’t change, as he performed as expected, got the results as expected, and faces the same future as expected.
In a perfect world, Cejudo (9-0), who captured the gold medal in freestyle wrestling in the 2008 Olympics, would get maybe another year under his belt before challenging Johnson. But there are no other challengers. If Cejudo doesn’t win, the next challenger would comedown to Formiga (18-3), the current No. 3 contender, or Joseph Benavidez (22-4), who has dominated contenders John Moraga, Ian McCall, Dustin Ortiz and Formiga, but lost twice to Johnson.
If Benavidez can dominate at UFC 192 on Oct. 3 in Houston against Bagautinov, and if he aggressively campaigns for a shot, which he hasn’t done to date, perhaps he can get a third chance. But UFC’s reaction regarding the women’s bantamweight division and Miesha Tate, shows how difficult that is going to be. But in the flyweight division, they are also running low on options.
ANDREI ARLOVSKI – Sometimes, when there’s a great fight, people say that both guys came out as winners.
With Arlovski’s unanimous decision win over Frank Mir, you can argue nobody came out a winner. Arlovski’s reaction after his hand was raised was of someone who blew a big chance, apologizing for his performance, even though he just beat a former two-time champion.
With Fabricio Werdum not wanting to defend the heavyweight title until March, Arlovski may have had a chance to get that title shot with an impressive win over Mir.
Former champion Cain Velasquez was announced as Werdum’s next opponent, but history shows that can change at any time. When Velasquez was announced, a lot of people felt that Arlovski should have gotten the shot, given Velasquez was coming off a loss. So this was Arlovski’s golden opportunity.
But Dana White saying afterwards that he thought Mir won the fight makes him changing his mind over who faces Werdum in the spring less likely. Arlovski (25-10, 1 no contest), himself a former UFC champion a decade ago, is probably in a position to have to sit and wait.
With the exception of Velasquez and Werdum, every top tier heavyweight is booked over the next few months. From a timing standpoint, Arlovski’s next opponent should be the winner of the fight in three weeks between Roy Nelson (20-11) vs. Josh Barnett (33-7) in Saitama, Japan. If the winner of that fight isn’t ready soon enough, he’d likely have to wait for the winner of the Oct. 24 fight in Dublin, Ireland, with Ben Rothwell (35-9) vs. Stipe Miocic (13-2).
ANTHONY JOHNSON – Johnson (20-5), is another fighter who looks to have to sit and wait. Johnson shouldn’t be too far from a title shot. Current champion Daniel Cormier (16-1) faces Alexander Gustafsson (16-3) on Oct. 3 for the title. Cormier just beat Johnson, and as dangerous as Johnson is, he’s not exactly the kind of challenger someone rushes to face a second time.
If Cormier wins, he would face either Jon Jones (21-1), if Jones can return, which is dependent on settling legal issues, or the winner of the Oct. 3 fight with Ryan Bader (19-4) vs. Rashad Evans (19-3-1).
If Gustafsson wins, given that Johnson knocked Gustafsson out on Jan. 24, Johnson would probably get the shot, unless Jones is back.
If the title shot isn’t available, the best fight for Johnson to build him, would be Rampage Jackson (36-11), but Jackson’s future is held up in a court fight with Bellator right now and may not be available. And even if he was, Johnson isn’t exactly the guy that people who are careful who they fight are looking at mixing it up with.
The other choices are Bader, if Jones faces Cormier next, or Glover Teixeira (23-4). Evans is out of the picture since the two are training partners. And Teixeira wouldn’t be available until the spring of 2016 since he’s fighting Patrick Cummins on Nov. 7.
JOHN LINEKER – Nobody at UFC 191 probably upped their overall stock like Lineker (26-7), who choked out Francisco Rivera in just 2:08 in his forced move to bantamweight.
Lineker has a flyweight frame, and looked tiny next to Rivera. But after missing weight at flyweight four times in eight UFC fights in that division, he was told he wasn’t getting booked as a flyweight any longer.
Lineker rocked Rivera, hurting the bigger man with punches and ending speculation as to whether the knockout power he had as a flyweight would move to bantamweight with him. But it’s too bad for him, since there is a far shorter road to a flyweight title fight right now than a bantamweight shot.
A strong next test would be Aljamain Sterling (11-0). A winner of that fight shouldn’t be far from a title fight, and it would make a good match on a T.J. Dillashaw vs. Dominick Cruz title fight card.
PAIGE VANZANT – VanZant (6-1) is in the weird position of being the contender who would garner the most attention in going after Joanna Jedrzejczyk’s strawweight championship. Normally, with three wins in a row, that would put her in title discussion. But it’s almost universally agreed that right now, that would be the worst of ideas.
VanZant and Jedrzejczyk right now are totally different caliber of fighters. With VanZant being only 21 and improving rapidly, she’s still got several years before her own goal of being the youngest UFC champion of all-time runs out in late November 2017.
For now, VanZant should be going against a higher level of somewhat known opponents. Randa Markos (5-2), who made the final four in the tournament to crown the first strawweight champion would fit that bill. Lesser known, and not in the UFC, Alexa Grasso (7-0) of Invicta would also make a good opponent, because Grasso has the potential to be a star in the Mexican market. If she can come into UFC and beat VanZant, Grasso has more of an upside to build than almost anyone else with that win. Plus, with Grasso being 22, if they fight a close fight, they could be rivals for years to come.
Thanks to Ronda Rousey, Conor McGregor, and fewer key injuries, the UFC’s pay-per-view business is up almost 65 percent from last year. But having more people buy pay-per-views hasn’t affected the average UFC television event as much as you may think.
One year ago, the UFC’s numbers indicated that the company wasn’t in trouble, as it was still profitable on the cushion of all its worldwide television deals, but it appeared that things were on the decline.
Just looking at the pay-per-view turnaround, one would come to the conclusion that UFC declined steadily from its peak of years ago until 2014, and that this year has had a pronounced turnaround.
From a revenue standpoint, that is almost surely the case.
But upon further examination, the turnaround isn’t nearly as big when it comes to overall brand popularity. The turnaround is almost entirely due to the huge increase in popularity and name recognition of Ronda Rousey, and the emergence of Conor McGregor as the company’s first true featherweight mega-draw.
There were clear obvious reasons for a lot of the 2014 pay-per-view decline. The UFC’s two biggest draws, Georges St-Pierre and Anderson Silva, were gone. The former took a sabbatical that looks more and more like a retirement, perhaps becoming the rare fighter who truly leaves at the top. The latter suffered a broken leg and he didn’t fight once during the year.
The reality is there was only one fight all year that hit a major nerve with the public to where it was the closest thing UFC had to a must-see fight, the Jon Jones vs. Daniel Cormier light heavyweight title fight. Due to Jones being injured, that was moved to the first week of this year, where it became the start of the pay-per-view turnaround.
McGregor and Rousey’s popularity averted what could have been another bad year, due to unforeseen problems. Silva returned, popped a good buy rate, and then failed a steroid test and wasn’t eligible to fight again. Jones failed a cocaine test which didn’t help his image, and then was charged with a hit and run. After doing the biggest numbers of his career with Cormier, he was stripped of his title and out of the sport for the foreseeable future.
The last weekend of 2013, when UFC presented a huge show, UFC 168, with Weidman vs. Anderson Silva and Rousey vs. Miesha Tate, numbers were in the 1 million buy range, give or take a little. The often spoken doctrine that pay-per-view was dying based on 2014, ignored that people were very willing to pay a price increase for the biggest fights. But UFC was never able to present them for a full year.
Today, the really big fights continue to do well. But the days when a UFC pay-per-view is a lock to do 300,000 buys, as was once the case, or even 200,000 buys, are long over.
This year, across the board, key business numbers have increased, but upon further examination, it’s really mostly a huge change in the pay-per-view category.
The floor for a UFC show is still barely 100,000, and unless you have Rousey, Jones, Silva or McGregor, there’s no evidence anyone else on their own is going to hit much over 400,000 buys.
UFC 191, the company’s next PPV event on Sept. 5, headlined by Demetrious Johnson vs. John Dodson for the flyweight title, will be a test to see if the stardom of McGregor and Rousey will carry over to build UFC’s base audience. Any number above about 135,000 buys would indicate some brand strengthening at the base level.
Between January and the end of July of this year, UFC produced eight pay-per-view events, doing an estimated 3,945,000 buys, or 493,000 per show. That is a whopping 65-percent increase in the estimated per show average. During the same period in 2014, the company did seven events, doing an estimated 2,095,000 buys, or 299,000 buys per show.
Keep in mind these figures don’t include UFC 190, the Rousey vs. Bethe Correia show, because it’s still too early to get an accurate estimate on that event. But based on early reports, a show that a lot of people expected to do in the 400,000 to 500,000 buy range, given it being held in Brazil and being three weeks after a major event, is expected to wind up doing the biggest numbers since UFC 168, perhaps doubling those estimates.
The gap will almost surely be far more than 65-percent by the end of the year. The August show, with the Rousey vs. Correia blockbuster, will greatly increase that average.
Last year, from August through the end of Dec. 2014, the UFC had five pay-per-view shows, only one of which topped 205,000 buys.
The total of those five shows was an estimated 1,095,000 buys. That could conceivably be approached this year by the Dec. 12 show alone, given the double headliner of the long-awaited Jose Aldo vs. McGregor fight, combined with a strong middleweight title fight with Weidman vs. Luke Rockhold.
During the first seven months of 2014, UFC’s seven PPV shows averaged 13,138 fans paying $2.19 million for live attendance. In 2015, the average attendance was up to 14,828 per show, but the average gate increased to $2.82 million, a 29-percent increase.
But this year the numbers were all over the board, from a very weak $554,000 gate in Montreal for UFC 186 in April with Demetrious Johnson vs. Kyoji Horiguchi, and an all-time U.S. record for UFC 189 of $7,201,648 for McGregor vs. Chad Mendes in July. There was a second monster gate, for the Memorial Day show, which did $5.19 million. It should be noted that when the vast majority of tickets were sold, the top of the card featured both Jones vs. Anthony “Rumble” Johnson and Weidman vs. Vitor Belfort. Given that Jones vs. Cormier, a bigger light heavyweight fight, only did $3.7 million live, seems to indicate that it was the combination of the two fights that made the show do so much better and not just Jones on his own.
For pay-per-view preliminaries that aired on FS1 during the same period, this year has averaged 1,067,000 viewers, up 23-percent from 865,000 for the same period last year. In a television industry where everyone in cable is struggling to maintain audiences, that’s significant. With more attractive pay-per-view shows, it makes sense that more people will be watching the prelims.
When it comes to the major FOX network shows, the difference isn’t as great. The three shows so far this year average 2,850,000 viewers, up four-percent from last year’s 2,730,000 viewers.
Last year had two sets of FOX prelims on FS1, averaging 617,000 viewers. This year had one, doing 607,000 viewers. Last year over the first seven months of the year had one set of prelims on FOX itself, doing 1,330,000 viewers, and this year had two, averaging 1,350,000 viewers.
It doesn’t appear that having far more attractive pay-per-view shows has changed the audience much on FOX. The FOX shows feature name stars, or at least champions or top contenders matches in most main events, but not the big pay-per-view movers.
However, UFC’s third set of shows, the Fight Nights, have also gone up substantially this year. But looking deeper into that, it’s not what it appears on the surface.
Because the time slots are so important in drawing audiences, in this category, we’ve combined both regular Fight Nights and The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) finals, since both essentially serve the purpose of being the almost weekly shows. To make the comparisons valid, we are also only figuring in shows that aired in prime time, as the three morning or early afternoon shows this year would skew the average and give a less meaningful comparison.
In 2014, though the end of July, there were nine Fight Nights or TUF finals in prime time, that averaged 864,000 viewers. Five of them had prelims on FS1 that aired in prime time, which averaged 618,000 viewers.
So far this year, there have also been nine Fight Nights or TUF finals that aired in prime time. The main cards are up 24-percent, averaging 1,073,000 viewers. The prelims are up 16-percent to 715,000 viewers on average. But there’s an outlier which gives those numbers somewhat of a misleading conclusion.
The McGregor vs. Dennis Siver fight blew away all numbers the company has drawn since leaving Spike TV, doing 2,750,000 viewers. When you factor that show out, the average is 863,000 viewers for the main card and 683,000 viewers for the prelims.
In other words, the numbers are really close to identical when you have what were basically the same level of star power on the shows.
There are also minor demographic changes that are considered for the better. The average viewer age of a UFC event on FS1 this past year was 40 years old, down from 41. That’s younger than almost every major sport, with the exception of soccer, on the network. The median household income of a UFC fan watching on FS1 this year is $60,500, up slightly from $58,100 last year. That’s well ahead of the national average. It’s lower than golf or soccer, but along the lines of baseball.
The conclusion from the television ratings seems to be that UFC is really not that much hotter, or colder, as a brand than a year ago when it comes to the average non-pay-per-view show. It shows that for the most part, the much stronger pay-per-view numbers this year really don’t trickle down all that much to anything but those big shows themselves.
That means if McGregor was to lose a few fights, or to get hurt and be out a long period of time, and if Rousey was to retire, UFC would probably revert back to about the same level as last year. Pay-per-view would probably be a higher than 2014 unless they got as unlucky as that year with injuries.
However, the Aug. 8 show may contradict all of this. The show, featuring Glover Teixeira’s win over Ovince Saint Preux, seemed about average in strength for an FS1 show. It also took place during the summer when viewership should be lower. But it wound up doing 1,159,000 viewers, some 34-percent above this year’s prime time non-McGregor average. It came one week after the surprisingly strong Rousey pay-per-view numbers.
And that’s the key when looking at numbers. Perhaps they are related and it’s the start of a new trend. Perhaps, it’s just one show. Because the big picture thus far is telling a different story, that the two-person turnaround doesn’t seem to have carried over to shows that they aren’t on.
Thanks to Ronda Rousey, Conor McGregor, and fewer key injuries, the UFC’s pay-per-view business is up almost 65 percent from last year. But having more people buy pay-per-views hasn’t affected the average UFC television event as much as you may think.
One year ago, the UFC’s numbers indicated that the company wasn’t in trouble, as it was still profitable on the cushion of all its worldwide television deals, but it appeared that things were on the decline.
Just looking at the pay-per-view turnaround, one would come to the conclusion that UFC declined steadily from its peak of years ago until 2014, and that this year has had a pronounced turnaround.
From a revenue standpoint, that is almost surely the case.
But upon further examination, the turnaround isn’t nearly as big when it comes to overall brand popularity. The turnaround is almost entirely due to the huge increase in popularity and name recognition of Ronda Rousey, and the emergence of Conor McGregor as the company’s first true featherweight mega-draw.
There were clear obvious reasons for a lot of the 2014 pay-per-view decline. The UFC’s two biggest draws, Georges St-Pierre and Anderson Silva, were gone. The former took a sabbatical that looks more and more like a retirement, perhaps becoming the rare fighter who truly leaves at the top. The latter suffered a broken leg and he didn’t fight once during the year.
The reality is there was only one fight all year that hit a major nerve with the public to where it was the closest thing UFC had to a must-see fight, the Jon Jones vs. Daniel Cormier light heavyweight title fight. Due to Jones being injured, that was moved to the first week of this year, where it became the start of the pay-per-view turnaround.
McGregor and Rousey’s popularity averted what could have been another bad year, due to unforeseen problems. Silva returned, popped a good buy rate, and then failed a steroid test and wasn’t eligible to fight again. Jones failed a cocaine test which didn’t help his image, and then was charged with a hit and run. After doing the biggest numbers of his career with Cormier, he was stripped of his title and out of the sport for the foreseeable future.
The last weekend of 2013, when UFC presented a huge show, UFC 168, with Weidman vs. Anderson Silva and Rousey vs. Miesha Tate, numbers were in the 1 million buy range, give or take a little. The often spoken doctrine that pay-per-view was dying based on 2014, ignored that people were very willing to pay a price increase for the biggest fights. But UFC was never able to present them for a full year.
Today, the really big fights continue to do well. But the days when a UFC pay-per-view is a lock to do 300,000 buys, as was once the case, or even 200,000 buys, are long over.
This year, across the board, key business numbers have increased, but upon further examination, it’s really mostly a huge change in the pay-per-view category.
The floor for a UFC show is still barely 100,000, and unless you have Rousey, Jones, Silva or McGregor, there’s no evidence anyone else on their own is going to hit much over 400,000 buys.
UFC 191, the company’s next PPV event on Sept. 5, headlined by Demetrious Johnson vs. John Dodson for the flyweight title, will be a test to see if the stardom of McGregor and Rousey will carry over to build UFC’s base audience. Any number above about 135,000 buys would indicate some brand strengthening at the base level.
Between January and the end of July of this year, UFC produced eight pay-per-view events, doing an estimated 3,945,000 buys, or 493,000 per show. That is a whopping 65-percent increase in the estimated per show average. During the same period in 2014, the company did seven events, doing an estimated 2,095,000 buys, or 299,000 buys per show.
Keep in mind these figures don’t include UFC 190, the Rousey vs. Bethe Correia show, because it’s still too early to get an accurate estimate on that event. But based on early reports, a show that a lot of people expected to do in the 400,000 to 500,000 buy range, given it being held in Brazil and being three weeks after a major event, is expected to wind up doing the biggest numbers since UFC 168, perhaps doubling those estimates.
The gap will almost surely be far more than 65-percent by the end of the year. The August show, with the Rousey vs. Correia blockbuster, will greatly increase that average.
Last year, from August through the end of Dec. 2014, the UFC had five pay-per-view shows, only one of which topped 205,000 buys.
The total of those five shows was an estimated 1,095,000 buys. That could conceivably be approached this year by the Dec. 12 show alone, given the double headliner of the long-awaited Jose Aldo vs. McGregor fight, combined with a strong middleweight title fight with Weidman vs. Luke Rockhold.
During the first seven months of 2014, UFC’s seven PPV shows averaged 13,138 fans paying $2.19 million for live attendance. In 2015, the average attendance was up to 14,828 per show, but the average gate increased to $2.82 million, a 29-percent increase.
But this year the numbers were all over the board, from a very weak $554,000 gate in Montreal for UFC 186 in April with Demetrious Johnson vs. Kyoji Horiguchi, and an all-time U.S. record for UFC 189 of $7,201,648 for McGregor vs. Chad Mendes in July. There was a second monster gate, for the Memorial Day show, which did $5.19 million. It should be noted that when the vast majority of tickets were sold, the top of the card featured both Jones vs. Anthony “Rumble” Johnson and Weidman vs. Vitor Belfort. Given that Jones vs. Cormier, a bigger light heavyweight fight, only did $3.7 million live, seems to indicate that it was the combination of the two fights that made the show do so much better and not just Jones on his own.
For pay-per-view preliminaries that aired on FS1 during the same period, this year has averaged 1,067,000 viewers, up 23-percent from 865,000 for the same period last year. In a television industry where everyone in cable is struggling to maintain audiences, that’s significant. With more attractive pay-per-view shows, it makes sense that more people will be watching the prelims.
When it comes to the major FOX network shows, the difference isn’t as great. The three shows so far this year average 2,850,000 viewers, up four-percent from last year’s 2,730,000 viewers.
Last year had two sets of FOX prelims on FS1, averaging 617,000 viewers. This year had one, doing 607,000 viewers. Last year over the first seven months of the year had one set of prelims on FOX itself, doing 1,330,000 viewers, and this year had two, averaging 1,350,000 viewers.
It doesn’t appear that having far more attractive pay-per-view shows has changed the audience much on FOX. The FOX shows feature name stars, or at least champions or top contenders matches in most main events, but not the big pay-per-view movers.
However, UFC’s third set of shows, the Fight Nights, have also gone up substantially this year. But looking deeper into that, it’s not what it appears on the surface.
Because the time slots are so important in drawing audiences, in this category, we’ve combined both regular Fight Nights and The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) finals, since both essentially serve the purpose of being the almost weekly shows. To make the comparisons valid, we are also only figuring in shows that aired in prime time, as the three morning or early afternoon shows this year would skew the average and give a less meaningful comparison.
In 2014, though the end of July, there were nine Fight Nights or TUF finals in prime time, that averaged 864,000 viewers. Five of them had prelims on FS1 that aired in prime time, which averaged 618,000 viewers.
So far this year, there have also been nine Fight Nights or TUF finals that aired in prime time. The main cards are up 24-percent, averaging 1,073,000 viewers. The prelims are up 16-percent to 715,000 viewers on average. But there’s an outlier which gives those numbers somewhat of a misleading conclusion.
The McGregor vs. Dennis Siver fight blew away all numbers the company has drawn since leaving Spike TV, doing 2,750,000 viewers. When you factor that show out, the average is 863,000 viewers for the main card and 683,000 viewers for the prelims.
In other words, the numbers are really close to identical when you have what were basically the same level of star power on the shows.
There are also minor demographic changes that are considered for the better. The average viewer age of a UFC event on FS1 this past year was 40 years old, down from 41. That’s younger than almost every major sport, with the exception of soccer, on the network. The median household income of a UFC fan watching on FS1 this year is $60,500, up slightly from $58,100 last year. That’s well ahead of the national average. It’s lower than golf or soccer, but along the lines of baseball.
The conclusion from the television ratings seems to be that UFC is really not that much hotter, or colder, as a brand than a year ago when it comes to the average non-pay-per-view show. It shows that for the most part, the much stronger pay-per-view numbers this year really don’t trickle down all that much to anything but those big shows themselves.
That means if McGregor was to lose a few fights, or to get hurt and be out a long period of time, and if Rousey was to retire, UFC would probably revert back to about the same level as last year. Pay-per-view would probably be a higher than 2014 unless they got as unlucky as that year with injuries.
However, the Aug. 8 show may contradict all of this. The show, featuring Glover Teixeira’s win over Ovince Saint Preux, seemed about average in strength for an FS1 show. It also took place during the summer when viewership should be lower. But it wound up doing 1,159,000 viewers, some 34-percent above this year’s prime time non-McGregor average. It came one week after the surprisingly strong Rousey pay-per-view numbers.
And that’s the key when looking at numbers. Perhaps they are related and it’s the start of a new trend. Perhaps, it’s just one show. Because the big picture thus far is telling a different story, that the two-person turnaround doesn’t seem to have carried over to shows that they aren’t on.
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, who officially retired to take an office position with the UFC in Brazil, won championships in the UFC and Pride FC, and at one point, was considered the best fighter in the entire sport.
But his most memorable moment came against a fighter that nobody would take seriously today, but was taken very seriously at the time.
It was Aug. 28, 2002, and there were 71,000 fans in attendance for a Pride show at the outdoor Tokyo National Stadium, which to this day still stands as the largest assembly in MMA’s history. Bob Sapp, who came into the fight weighing 375 pounds of ridiculous muscle, had become one of the biggest celebrities in Japan. Nogueira who weighed 230 pounds, was at the time the Pride heavyweight champion. Sapp had less than three minutes of in-ring MMA experience in winning two fights against pro wrestlers Yoshihisa Yamamoto and Kiyoshi Tamura, the latter of which fought at 190 pounds.
If ever there was a match-up of size and power against technique, this was it. While Sapp would go on to become a joke of a fighter — who later in his career would tap out at the very sight of a punch headed his way — at that point in time he was a physical powerhouse who made Brock Lesnar look tiny. The Brazilian Nogueira was considered a master of submissions and the best heavyweight fighter at the time — if not the best overall fighter in the world.
Nogueira immediately went for a double-leg takedown, but Sapp easily blocked it, picked him up and dropped him on his head in what the Japanese fans called a ganso bomb, essentially an incredibly dangerous version of a pro wrestling power bomb. Sapp continued to overpower him until Nogueira reversed, got side position and busted Sapp up over the right eye. Sapp reversed and started pounding on Nogueira badly.
Nogueira would catch Sapp in triangles, but Sapp was so strong he would power bomb his way out.
The 10-minute first round seemed to last forever. Nogueira’s face turned into hamburger meat, long before he had that look permanently late in his career due to all the punishment he had taken. At different points, the fight was stopped to allow the doctor to check on the cuts of both men.
Nogueira was quicker and more skillful standing. But Sapp was so strong that he’d just shove Nogueira, and “Minotauro” would go flying. This spectacle looked more like a sci-fi movie fight where the lead character was locked in mortal combat with an gigantic member of an alien species. Nogueira decided to go for takedowns, and always wound up on his back, but at least he could try his submissions from there.
After the first round ended, which Sapp clearly won, the monster looked exhausted and Nogueira looked like a crazy man had attacked his face with an ax.
Bill Goldberg, who was doing commentary at the time, and who knew Sapp since both trained together for pro wrestling, noted that there wasn’t enough oxygen on the entire planet to fill up Sapp’s lungs. Nogueira grabbed an armbar and Sapp tapped at 4:03 of the second round, and the place went ballistic. Stephen Quadros, doing commentary, exclaimed that that performance turned Nogueira into a living legend of the sport. “The Fight Professor” was onto something.
One could say that particular fight told the story of the career of Nogueira. At his peak, he was far from the biggest, or the strongest, but in those early days, his jiu-jitsu was the equalizer when facing the biggest and the strongest. And nobody was more durable.
The problem with a fan favorite like “Big Nog” is that while turning apparent brutal losses into crowd pleasing submissions, it takes its toll. That toll was the last five-and-a-half years of Nogueira’s career where he won only two of seven fights in the UFC.
Nogueira’s career lasted 16 years, and what looks to have been his final fight took place a month ago. But the last time the near prime version of “Big Nog” showed up may have been his 2009 fight with Randy Couture, where he won a thrilling decision in a bout where Couture was able to survive multiple submission attempts. He may have hung around a little too long, but perhaps he was looking to turn the tables on his career, the way he did while thrilling fans in his most memorable fights.
Nogueira won born in Vitoria da Conquista, Bahia, Brazil on June 2, 1976, long after the television heyday of the sport in that part of the country. Growing up, he and his brother, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira — twins who are easily the most successful brother combination in the history of MMA — studied all forms of fighting, from boxing to judo. He became so well versed in jiu-jitsu that he was brought to the U.S. to fight on small shows in 1999.
From there, he was discovered by Akira Maeda, a Japanese fighting celebrity known for winning high-profile worked fights in his own RINGS organization. As Pride FC and Pancrase were starting to gain popularity in Japan, Maeda saw that his RINGS promotion — a group that he insisted wasn’t pro wrestling, when, for the most part, really it was — was doing a style that was about to be obsolete.
So he tried to turn things real and Nogueira became his best fighter. Nogueira dominated the first legitimate King of Kings tournament in 1999-2000, but lost a very controversial decision to Dan Henderson in the $250,000 final fight of a 32-man open weight tournament. He came back the next year, and dominated everyone, winning four of his five matches via submission and the other via a one-sided decision, establishing him as a star in Japan.
Pride, with stronger financial backing, lured him away from RINGS after his tournament win. In his second fight in the organization, he established himself as Pride’s best heavyweight with a submission win over Mark Coleman — the “Godfather of Ground & Pound” — on Sept. 24, 2001. Coleman, a year earlier, had won the biggest tournament in the history of the sport, the famous 2000 Pride Open weight Grand Prix tournament.
Coleman was considered the champion based on the tournament win, although technically there was no champion in Pride yet. Six weeks later, Nogueira beat Heath Herring at a sold out Tokyo Dome with 53,000 fans, in the fight to determine the first Pride world heavyweight champion. Nogueira went 6-0 in 2001, becoming the best fighter in Japan’s two biggest organizations. He went 5-0 in 2002. If it wasn’t for one man — Fedor Emelianenko — Nogueira would have remained undefeated through 2006.
Emelianenko was the one opponent the prime Nogueira couldn’t stylistically match. Emelianenko hit harder standing. His higher level judo allowed him to dictate where the fight would go, and he could take Nogueira down whenever he wanted. And his submission defense was such that Nogueira couldn’t finish him.
Emelianenko won the Pride title from Nogueira via decision on March 16, 2003, at the Yokohama Arena. But when an injury to Emelianenko caused him to miss a title defense on a Nov. 9, 2003, show, Nogueira had another version of the Sapp match, this time with a far more dangerous finisher, Mirko Cro Cop.
Cro Cop beat Nogueira half to death in the first round, but one mistake in the second round allowed Nogueira to get the armbar and win the interim heavyweight title.
The 2004 Pride heavyweight division was built around a 16-man heavyweight Grand Prix. Nogueira and Emelianenko, the two champions, were put on separate sides of the bracketing, seeded to meet in the finals.
That’s exactly what ended up happening. Each man won three times. This set up the finale, which ultimately played out as a very disappointing fight. Nogueira has many times felt that this was his night to beat Emelianenko. Unlike in their first and third fights, where he never really threatened much on offense, his ground game off his back was looking sharp early. Still, he never caught Emelianenko. After their heads collided, Emelianenko had a deep cut opened up and the fight was stopped and ruled a “no contest” due to the head-butt causing the cut.
But Emelianenko won the third fight on Dec. 31, 2004, the heyday of the New Year’s Eve fighting spectaculars that were a huge part of Japanese culture.
Nogueira capped off his championship career with a come-from-behind win once again, on Dec. 27, 2008.
By this point, Pride was no more, and the financial success of UFC on pay-per-view in 2006 allowed them to bring in many of Pride’s biggest stars. After Couture left UFC as heavyweight champion in a public battle with management, the UFC created an interim title, where Nogueira, the star Pride import, faced Tim Sylvia, who had held the UFC title twice.
Sylvia looked too strong early. His reach enabled him to get the better of the standing for two rounds, but Nogueira finished him in the third with a guillotine.
Nogueira, moving slowly due to knee and hip problems, and coming off a staph infection, looked like a fighter who needed to retire as Frank Mir lit him up and took his title in a major upset. Until that loss, Nogueira would have been either the No. 1 or No. 2 heavyweight in the sport for somewhere between eight and nine years, a period at the time matched but only a few fighters in the sport’s history. Given that longevity, Nogueira made good on Quadros’ prediction after the Sapp fight, and he has to be considered a no-brainer when it comes to a Hall of Fame induction down the line.
Yet it was that same mentality that caused him to never quit in his biggest wins, that saw him continually try and come back while clearly past his prime over the past six years. Even now, not having won a fight since 2012 and battling all kinds of injuries, he was still in recent weeks making noises that he wanted another shot at Mir. Yesterday’s announcement that he was taking the office job, acknowledging his retirement, was clearly the fight call, even if a little on the late side.
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, who officially retired to take an office position with the UFC in Brazil, won championships in the UFC and Pride FC, and at one point, was considered the best fighter in the entire sport.
But his most memorable moment came against a fighter that nobody would take seriously today, but was taken very seriously at the time.
It was Aug. 28, 2002, and there were 71,000 fans in attendance for a Pride show at the outdoor Tokyo National Stadium, which to this day still stands as the largest assembly in MMA’s history. Bob Sapp, who came into the fight weighing 375 pounds of ridiculous muscle, had become one of the biggest celebrities in Japan. Nogueira who weighed 230 pounds, was at the time the Pride heavyweight champion. Sapp had less than three minutes of in-ring MMA experience in winning two fights against pro wrestlers Yoshihisa Yamamoto and Kiyoshi Tamura, the latter of which fought at 190 pounds.
If ever there was a match-up of size and power against technique, this was it. While Sapp would go on to become a joke of a fighter — who later in his career would tap out at the very sight of a punch headed his way — at that point in time he was a physical powerhouse who made Brock Lesnar look tiny. The Brazilian Nogueira was considered a master of submissions and the best heavyweight fighter at the time — if not the best overall fighter in the world.
Nogueira immediately went for a double-leg takedown, but Sapp easily blocked it, picked him up and dropped him on his head in what the Japanese fans called a ganso bomb, essentially an incredibly dangerous version of a pro wrestling power bomb. Sapp continued to overpower him until Nogueira reversed, got side position and busted Sapp up over the right eye. Sapp reversed and started pounding on Nogueira badly.
Nogueira would catch Sapp in triangles, but Sapp was so strong he would power bomb his way out.
The 10-minute first round seemed to last forever. Nogueira’s face turned into hamburger meat, long before he had that look permanently late in his career due to all the punishment he had taken. At different points, the fight was stopped to allow the doctor to check on the cuts of both men.
Nogueira was quicker and more skillful standing. But Sapp was so strong that he’d just shove Nogueira, and “Minotauro” would go flying. This spectacle looked more like a sci-fi movie fight where the lead character was locked in mortal combat with an gigantic member of an alien species. Nogueira decided to go for takedowns, and always wound up on his back, but at least he could try his submissions from there.
After the first round ended, which Sapp clearly won, the monster looked exhausted and Nogueira looked like a crazy man had attacked his face with an ax.
Bill Goldberg, who was doing commentary at the time, and who knew Sapp since both trained together for pro wrestling, noted that there wasn’t enough oxygen on the entire planet to fill up Sapp’s lungs. Nogueira grabbed an armbar and Sapp tapped at 4:03 of the second round, and the place went ballistic. Stephen Quadros, doing commentary, exclaimed that that performance turned Nogueira into a living legend of the sport. “The Fight Professor” was onto something.
One could say that particular fight told the story of the career of Nogueira. At his peak, he was far from the biggest, or the strongest, but in those early days, his jiu-jitsu was the equalizer when facing the biggest and the strongest. And nobody was more durable.
The problem with a fan favorite like “Big Nog” is that while turning apparent brutal losses into crowd pleasing submissions, it takes its toll. That toll was the last five-and-a-half years of Nogueira’s career where he won only two of seven fights in the UFC.
Nogueira’s career lasted 16 years, and what looks to have been his final fight took place a month ago. But the last time the near prime version of “Big Nog” showed up may have been his 2009 fight with Randy Couture, where he won a thrilling decision in a bout where Couture was able to survive multiple submission attempts. He may have hung around a little too long, but perhaps he was looking to turn the tables on his career, the way he did while thrilling fans in his most memorable fights.
Nogueira won born in Vitoria da Conquista, Bahia, Brazil on June 2, 1976, long after the television heyday of the sport in that part of the country. Growing up, he and his brother, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira — twins who are easily the most successful brother combination in the history of MMA — studied all forms of fighting, from boxing to judo. He became so well versed in jiu-jitsu that he was brought to the U.S. to fight on small shows in 1999.
From there, he was discovered by Akira Maeda, a Japanese fighting celebrity known for winning high-profile worked fights in his own RINGS organization. As Pride FC and Pancrase were starting to gain popularity in Japan, Maeda saw that his RINGS promotion — a group that he insisted wasn’t pro wrestling, when, for the most part, really it was — was doing a style that was about to be obsolete.
So he tried to turn things real and Nogueira became his best fighter. Nogueira dominated the first legitimate King of Kings tournament in 1999-2000, but lost a very controversial decision to Dan Henderson in the $250,000 final fight of a 32-man open weight tournament. He came back the next year, and dominated everyone, winning four of his five matches via submission and the other via a one-sided decision, establishing him as a star in Japan.
Pride, with stronger financial backing, lured him away from RINGS after his tournament win. In his second fight in the organization, he established himself as Pride’s best heavyweight with a submission win over Mark Coleman — the “Godfather of Ground & Pound” — on Sept. 24, 2001. Coleman, a year earlier, had won the biggest tournament in the history of the sport, the famous 2000 Pride Open weight Grand Prix tournament.
Coleman was considered the champion based on the tournament win, although technically there was no champion in Pride yet. Six weeks later, Nogueira beat Heath Herring at a sold out Tokyo Dome with 53,000 fans, in the fight to determine the first Pride world heavyweight champion. Nogueira went 6-0 in 2001, becoming the best fighter in Japan’s two biggest organizations. He went 5-0 in 2002. If it wasn’t for one man — Fedor Emelianenko — Nogueira would have remained undefeated through 2006.
Emelianenko was the one opponent the prime Nogueira couldn’t stylistically match. Emelianenko hit harder standing. His higher level judo allowed him to dictate where the fight would go, and he could take Nogueira down whenever he wanted. And his submission defense was such that Nogueira couldn’t finish him.
Emelianenko won the Pride title from Nogueira via decision on March 16, 2003, at the Yokohama Arena. But when an injury to Emelianenko caused him to miss a title defense on a Nov. 9, 2003, show, Nogueira had another version of the Sapp match, this time with a far more dangerous finisher, Mirko Cro Cop.
Cro Cop beat Nogueira half to death in the first round, but one mistake in the second round allowed Nogueira to get the armbar and win the interim heavyweight title.
The 2004 Pride heavyweight division was built around a 16-man heavyweight Grand Prix. Nogueira and Emelianenko, the two champions, were put on separate sides of the bracketing, seeded to meet in the finals.
That’s exactly what ended up happening. Each man won three times. This set up the finale, which ultimately played out as a very disappointing fight. Nogueira has many times felt that this was his night to beat Emelianenko. Unlike in their first and third fights, where he never really threatened much on offense, his ground game off his back was looking sharp early. Still, he never caught Emelianenko. After their heads collided, Emelianenko had a deep cut opened up and the fight was stopped and ruled a “no contest” due to the head-butt causing the cut.
But Emelianenko won the third fight on Dec. 31, 2004, the heyday of the New Year’s Eve fighting spectaculars that were a huge part of Japanese culture.
Nogueira capped off his championship career with a come-from-behind win once again, on Dec. 27, 2008.
By this point, Pride was no more, and the financial success of UFC on pay-per-view in 2006 allowed them to bring in many of Pride’s biggest stars. After Couture left UFC as heavyweight champion in a public battle with management, the UFC created an interim title, where Nogueira, the star Pride import, faced Tim Sylvia, who had held the UFC title twice.
Sylvia looked too strong early. His reach enabled him to get the better of the standing for two rounds, but Nogueira finished him in the third with a guillotine.
Nogueira, moving slowly due to knee and hip problems, and coming off a staph infection, looked like a fighter who needed to retire as Frank Mir lit him up and took his title in a major upset. Until that loss, Nogueira would have been either the No. 1 or No. 2 heavyweight in the sport for somewhere between eight and nine years, a period at the time matched but only a few fighters in the sport’s history. Given that longevity, Nogueira made good on Quadros’ prediction after the Sapp fight, and he has to be considered a no-brainer when it comes to a Hall of Fame induction down the line.
Yet it was that same mentality that caused him to never quit in his biggest wins, that saw him continually try and come back while clearly past his prime over the past six years. Even now, not having won a fight since 2012 and battling all kinds of injuries, he was still in recent weeks making noises that he wanted another shot at Mir. Yesterday’s announcement that he was taking the office job, acknowledging his retirement, was clearly the fight call, even if a little on the late side.
