Author: Dave Meltzer

While promoted as the biggest show of the year, the lackluster prelims for UFC 189 did an average of 847,000 viewers, which is at the average level for 2015, and well below the numbers that the prelims for the three biggest pay-per-view events did.

The atmosphere over the weekend at the UFC activities was like no other in Las Vegas, but the television ratings did not reflect that anything was significantly different.

Ratings of Fox Sports 1 for the prelims before UFC 189 and for the entire The Ultimate Fighter finals ranged from average to below average. The only television event of the week that did much better than usual were the Friday weigh-ins for the pay-per-view show.

The prelims for UFC 189 did 847,000 viewers, which is average level for such a show. While the correlation isn’t always perfect, the bigger pay-per-view events will generally do higher ratings for the prelims, for all the logical reasons. For a comparison, for the three big shows this year, the Jon Jones vs. Daniel Cormier prelims did 1,039,000 viewers, the Anderson Silva vs. Nick Diaz prelims did 1,546,000 viewers (boosted by the Miesha Tate vs. Sara McMann fight that headlined) and the Ronda Rousey vs. Cat Zingano prelims did 1,203,000 viewers.

Regarding the bigger question, which is how the pay-per-view itself did, it is too early to get an accurate number. The earliest indications are very strong, with it likely being the biggest number so far this year. The largest so far this year was UFC 182, the Jones vs. Cormier show, which is estimated at doing close to 800,000 buys.

The prelims peaked at 989,000 from 9:15 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., which would have been the latter rounds of the Mike Swick vs. Alex Garcia fight. The prelims had been lackluster up to that point, but it is a surprise the audience didn’t peak for Matt Brown’s fight that followed.

The prelims faced competition from the NASCAR Sprint Cup race from Kentucky that drew 3,216,000 viewers on NBC Sports Network, which is a phenomenal number for that station. It did beat PBC boxing on ESPN with the Keith Thurman vs. Luis Collazo main event, that did 799,000 viewers.

The post-fight show on FS 1 did 194,000 viewers. The pre-fight show did 345,000 viewers.

The strongest number of the presentation in comparison with usual was the weigh-ins, which did 178,000 viewers. That number is 39 percent above the usual levels. In addition, it was the most watched weigh-in show ever on FS 1 that didn’t include Ronda Rousey.

The Ultimate Fighter finals show headlined by Stephen Thompson’s win over Jake Ellenberger did 691,000 viewers. It would be the second-lowest main card number this year for a prime time UFC card on FS 1, beating only the March 21 show headlined by Demian Maia vs. Ryan LaFlare, that did 617,000 viewers. Even throwing out the ridiculous number that Conor McGregor drew in January, the prime time Fight Night cards this year are averaging 900,000 viewers.

The show peaked at 778,000 viewers for the Hayder Hassan vs. Kamaru Usman battle which the Blackzillians winning the team championship in the finals of The Ultimate Fighter. The prelims for the show did 470,000 viewers, the lowest for prelims on FS 1 for a prime time event this year.

UFC was the third-most watched sports event of the night, losing head-to-head to a St. Louis Cardinals vs. Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game on ESPN that did 2,216,000 viewers and a Mexico vs. Guatemala soccer game on Univision Deportes that did 1,400,000 viewers.

All ratings are tabulated by Neilsen.

In an interview with the Russian web site Union MMA on Tuesday, forrner Pride heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko said that negotiations are taking place for him to return to fight. Both UFC and Bellator have been aware of this possibility. .

The consensus fighter of the last decade, Fedor Emelianenko, seems to have reversed his position regarding fighting again.

Emelianenko, 38, was reported Tuesday by the Russian web site Union MMA to be contemplating a return to the sport. Sources within UFC and Bellator have been aware of this and there have at least been pitches with the idea of him doing one last fight. Bloody Elbow also reported the heavyweight fighter is returning to competition. 

“For every athlete, it is very important to be able to engage in their favorite thing:  Give all the best in training, performing in competitions, defending the honor of the motherland,” said a translated version of Emelianenko’s comments in Russian to Union MMA.

“I was able to recover and heal old injuries,” he said. “The last three years I have maintained physical form, but this level is not enough to go into battle, therefore recently I started intensive training. We have assembled a team of versatile coaches and athletes who will help me in the training process. There is still work to do to prepare to leave the ring. Negotiations are underway with promotions. Once agreements are reached, there will be information on the date of the fight and rival.”

As recently as March, Emelianenko had said that he would never fight again, even for a $10 million offer against Brock Lesnar.

Emelianenko (34-4, 1 no contest) last fought on June 21, 2012, when he knocked out Pedro Rizzo in the first round St. Petersburg, Russia. He retired after the fight, but there were negotiations shortly after that with he and his management with UFC for a big match at AT&T Stadium in Dallas, where he would have faced Brock Lesnar. Lesnar had agreed to the fight at the time, but the fight fell through when Emelianenko’s father passed away and he said he was no longer interested in fighting. He is considered the biggest star in MMA history that has never competed in UFC. 

Those close to Lesnar, who were aware of Emelianenko possibly wanting to fight, have indicated that ship has sailed, as Lesnar, also 38, is said to be no longer interested in fighting. Lesnar turned down a contract which he claimed was worth ten times what he had started with UFC at to sign a new three-year-deal with WWE in late March, and at the time said his signing the new WWE deal meant his fighting days were over.

Emelianenko was considered the top fighter in the world for much of the period from 2001 to 2009, where he compiled a 27-0 record with one no contest. He defeated Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira via decision on March 16, 2003, in Yokohama, Japan, to win the Pride heavyweight championship. At the time, Pride featured much of the best heavyweight talent in the world. He remained champion until the promotion folded in 2007.

In many ways, UFC 189 was the company’s biggest event ever.

From a live event perspective, every record was broken. The attendance of 16,019 was the largest ever turn out for a Las Vegas event. This was done in large part by having extra seats. The gate, reported by Dana White after the show as almost $7.2 million, is slightly more than the second Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen fight, at UFC 148 on July 7, 2012, which did just under $7 million. UFC 189 now has the Las Vegas record, and it’s the second largest gate in UFC history, trailing only the $12,075,000 for UFC 129, for the Toronto debut.

But a sellout is a sellout and the gate for both UFC 148 and UFC 189 were going to be as large as ticket prices allowed. The demand was slightly higher as far as tickets were concerned on Saturday, as the median ticket price on the secondary market was $500 for this show, while it was about $450 for Silva vs. Sonnen.

Sonnen vs. Silva had huge ticket demand from Brazil, where arguably the greatest fighter of all-time was defending his title against a tremendous talker who’d beaten him for four-and-a-half rounds at UFC 117. This event was all Conor McGregor, drawing heavily from Ireland, a country with a much smaller population, and Chad Mendes, who looked like McGregor’s antidote with his wrestling. It wasn’t the culmination of years of talking and a legendary first fight, like the prior record setter.

On Friday, the weigh-ins for McGregor-Mendes were also record setting. Sonnen vs. Silva drew 8,000 to the weigh-ins. McGregor vs. Mendes drew 11,500, and people were turned away about 30 minutes before the weigh-in started or the number would have been significantly larger.

“This thing was trending bigger than anything we’ve ever done,” said UFC President Dana White, who noted that he was including UFC 100. “It crushed any fight on social media. It was a massive event, and everyone delivered.

“Leading up to this week all the numbers we look at, pre buys on pay-per-view, pre buys online, traffic on UFC.com, the list goes on and on, were the biggest ever. In our analytics, everything we look at, it destroyed everything we’ve ever done. Embedded did 14 million viewers for our world tour. This (week) crushed the one for the world tour.”

The most important number is the pay-per-view number. Early indications should be available later in the week. White had thrown out a figure of 1 million buys, a number the company has only hit a few times in its history, as a prediction when Jose Aldo was still in the main event defending the title.

Historically, UFC’s pre buys of the pay-per-views online have been a very strong predictor for overall pay-per-view numbers. When White first brought up the 1 million figure, it was easy to be skeptical, given that Jon Jones vs. Daniel Cormier, which seemed like the biggest grudge match possible, fell around the 800,000 buy range.

“Pay-per-view is looking good,” said White at the UFC 189 post-fight press conference.

No matter what the numbers are, they are almost sure to be shattered if (and when) Aldo vs. McGregor happens. White said that match would be in Las Vegas, although he wouldn’t even hint at a time frame.

At 26, McGregor has changed the fence of the featherweight division, which was loaded with good fighters, yet usually did in the low 200,000 buy level on PPVs. Through his gravitational pull — coupled with the UFC spending record amounts to promote the show — Aldo and Mendes have become significantly bigger stars and one could argue it has become the company’s marquee division.

The entire idea that this could be a possibility sounded ridiculous even one year ago, but once McGregor destroyed the FOX Sports 1 ratings record for his fight with Dennis Siver, his value was no longer theoretical. 

At the end of the day, if McGregor beats Aldo, it would seem like a lock that he’ll become the company’s biggest draw in history.

White noted that they’ve promised him a fight at Croke Park, an 80,000-seat stadium in Dublin, for his first defense of the actual featherweight title if he beats Aldo. That would give him another record, breaking the UFC 129 mark of 55,724 set on April 30, 2011 for Georges St-Pierre’s welterweight title defense against Jake Shields on the company’s first show in Toronto.

Matt Hughes, Frank Trigg and Bas Rutten, along with Lori Blatnick, the wife of the late Jeff Blatnick, spoke about the changes in the sport, PED usage, and who should go into the Hall of Fame next.

Matt Hughes, who will become the first person inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame a second time this weekend, and now works for the company in fighter relations, brought up a financial aspect of drug testing and fighters paychecks on Monday.

“I just had a fighters summit in Vegas and I told the fighters, the next time you get to the table and want a bigger payday, I want to remind you the cheaters have cost the UFC and you $4 million (for the new testing program went into effect on July 1),” he said. “That’s $4 million that will not be going to the fighters because of those cheaters. The reason we have these new rules are that people aren’t playing by the rules in the first place.”

Hughes started in the sport in 1998 and started with UFC a year later. He had a career that saw him win the welterweight championship twice. He made the comments on a press call to promote UFC’s 2015 Hall of Fame inductions this coming Saturday, hours before UFC 189.

Hughes was on the call with fellow 2015 inductees Frank Trigg and Bas Rutten, as well as Lori Blatnick, the wife of the another inductee, the late Jeff Blatnick. B.J. Penn, who is also being inducted, was not on the call.

Hughes was inducted into the Hall of Fame as a fighter in 2010. On Saturday, the April 16, 2005, welterweight title fight with Hughes vs. Trigg is being inducted Saturday in the legendary fight category. In a sense, you could argue he is the second, because while Forrest Griffin was inducted only once, he is considered a Hall of Famer both as a fighter and for his April 9, 2005, fight with Stephan Bonnar in the finale of the first season of The Ultimate Fighter. The irony is that even though UFC ran far fewer events, its first two Hall of Fame fights took place within a week of each other.

The subject of PEDs, and its role in the sport, past and present, was a key topic of discussion, particularly when a question was asked about the history of the sport and people who are considered all-time greats that perhaps shouldn’t be because part of their success was built on PED usage.

While nobody would name fighters in specific, when asked, with a comparison made to the Mark McGwire/Barry Bonds era in baseball, they all agreed there are those who would fit the bill.

“I think there were people in my era who people think are great who were cheating,” he said. “We did have drug testing, but I don’t think the drugs were as prevalent as they are now, and there aren’t the ways to get around the testing like nowadays.”

On the flip side, testing in many cases was nonexistent in that era. Even when done, it was in its infancy. For years, unless you fought in a few selected locations, like Las Vegas, there would be no PED testing at all. Before 2002, there were no penalties for usage of PEDs at all. Even when testing was done, it was only on the day of the fight, making it ridiculously easy to beat. And in many ways, if there was a pioneer era before regulation, and a modern era after, this coming Saturday, the first show since UFC contracted with USADA to handle significant drug testing, will be the first show of a third era.

Trigg feels the percentage of fighters using during their heyday was extremely high.

Trigg also brought up Jeff Blatnick, who won the gold medal in the 1984 Olympics before becoming an important figure in the early days of UFC, including naming the sport mixed martial arts and writing its first rulebook. He noted Blatnick won his medal beating a guy who was cheating.

“We always knew the other governments were supporting the guys,” said Trigg, whose UFC career was best known for that second fight with Hughes, the highlights of which get played as part of a video montage during nearly every UFC live event. “We got tested all the time (during his days as an Olympic hopeful in wrestling, before MMA). It was always random, and guys got caught pretty frequently. In my era of fighting, it’s rumored that 50 to 90 percent of the guys were on something. A lot of great guys were doing PEDs. The reality is in that era that testing was in place, but it wasn’t focused on like now. Starting on July 1st, it’s now a reality. Look at Gilbert Melendez, guys you’d never think of, Anderson Silva and Jon Jones had problems with drugs one way or the other. The reality is there were  people you’d never think about before when there wasn’t as much testing. We wrestled guys on drugs all the time.”

The UFC will also induct Rutten in the pioneer era, which is for fighters whose careers began before the unified rules were put in place in 2000. Penn will be inducted for the modern era, for those who stated their careers after 2000 but are at least 35 years old. Older active fighters are eligible. Blatnick will be put in as a contributor to the sport and Hughes vs. Trigg as a stand-alone fight. In UFC’s quest to make the Hall of Fame more legitimate, they have broken it down into categories and there will be one person or fight honored annually in each category for the next few years. The fight category also allows the company to make historical sense out of its induction of Bonnar, who was never a champion or top contender, but whose fight with  Griffin could be argued was the most important fight in UFC history, and was also among its most exciting. 

The induction ceremony will take place at the UFC Fan Expo, at 11 a.m. Pacific time at the Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas. It will also be streamed live on UFC Fight Pass.

When the subject of future inductees was brought up, the names mentioned across the board were Frank Shamrock, Don Frye and referee John McCarthy.

“It’s a hard one,” said Rutten, when asked who he thought should go in next. “Frank Shamrock, Don Frye, those two pop up for the pioneer section.  Modern era, I think they should have stopped fighting. I’m shooting a blank on that one.”

“As far as a pioneer, because he had so much to do with setting up the rules, John McCarthy at some point,” said Trigg. “I think a fighter should be retired. We shouldn’t have people in the Hall of Fame who are still competing. McCarthy is still a referee. Why Don Frye and Frank Shamrock aren’t in, that doesn’t make sense to me. Those were the guys I looked up to when I was starting.”

“I definitely agree with Frank and John for sure,” said Blatnick.

The UFC rules allow for fighters to be put in the Hall of Fame as long as they are past 35 years old. An issue with retiring is that many fighters in the Hall of Fame, such as Tito Ortiz, Bonnar, Ken Shamrock and Randy Couture at one point announced their retirements, and then came back. 

“I do think a modern fighter should be retired,” said Hughes, drawing from personal experience. “It put a lot of pressure on me when they put me in in 2010 when I still had fights to go. So that’s how I’m going to answer it.”

The Hughes-Trigg fight was a rematch of a championship fight two years earlier that Hughes won via choke. There was a lot of bad blood going into the rematch. Hughes looked down and out after an accidental low blow, and was caught in a choke.  Suddenly, like a scene from a movie, Hughes escaped the choke, picked Trigg up, ran across the Octagon and slammed him, and quickly finished with a choke.

For Hughes, this was just one of many fights in his career. He considers his biggest win as his second match with Penn, in 2006, where he avenged a 2004 loss,. At the time the two were considered as among the most talented pound-for-pound fighters in the world.

For Trigg, it’s a the second fight is something he can never escape, and considers a life changing moment in time. It already was the lasting memory of his career, and wit this honor, it will only become even more legendary.

“I don’t think about it until somebody brings it up, which is every day,” he said.

He noted whenever he meets people in his different walks of life, even when he’s doing stunt man work and meets actors, invariably someone will come up to him and ask about that fight.

“If I finish that choke or I knock him out, I’m a millionaire,” he said. Trigg believed that if he won the fight, he’d have retained the title several times, probably until the Georges St-Pierre era.

“My confidence increases,” he said. “My ego is bigger. I wouldn’t be the great champion Matt was, but I’d be pretty damn close. I went left. I didn’t go right. That’s how it is. It’s a part of history.”

Before the main card starts at almost every UFC event, unless there is a timing issue, there is a music video to the 1971 classic song Baba O’Riley by The Who, featuring a montage of the biggest stars and moments in UFC history. No matter how many clips and changed or added over the years, the slam and the Hughes celebration with his corner after the win always come cross as a highlight moment to almost every crowd.

“I don’t really watch any of my fights,” said Hughes. “I do like that soundtrack. That’s my favorite clip to watch, the only one I watch.”

Hughes says when it comes on the screen at the show, he watches it, but doesn’t focus so much on the running slam, but more on the faces of his cornermen, when he is running across the Octagon carrying Trigg.

“I’ve been in corners when the fighters lost,” said Hughes. “It’s hard when you’re in a corner and your guys is beat up and losing. They thought that I was going to lose and the fight was over. When I dumped him, it’s right in front of my corner. I watch that clip and I love that clip but I’m not watching me, I’m watching the four cornermen.”

“I leave the arena when that clip comes out,” Trigg joked. “I can’t even stand the song when it comes on the radio station. You’ll always catch me by the bar when that comes on.”

Both recognize that they were linked from the fight, and the link is going to be even stronger historically due to the induction. While Hughes said the animosity a decade ago was very real, it’s long gone today.

“Frank and I cross paths all the time when I’m in Las Vegas,” said Hughes. “We’re definitely friendly now. We’ve definitely matured. I know I’m retired. Frank is retired. We’ve got nothing to fight for. But it was very real back in the day. We were different then.”

“You’ve got to remember that he’s a Midwestern farmer, he hunts and fishes, and I’m an East Coast kid,” said Trigg. “We had two different mindsets. We were both super competitive, both super alpha males. We pushed each others buttons and tried to sell fights.”

Trigg noted there is also a different in the impact of fights and the time given to promote them was very different when the schedule wasn’t like it is now.

“Our feud lived up to the fight,” said Trigg. “We were rivals, and that’s what athletes are. It’s been ten years.”

Rutten noted that when he first heard about the UFC, shortly after it started in late 1993, it was something he didn’t want to be part of.

Rutten was a kickboxer who was signed by Pancrase in Japan, which started a form of MMA with a different rule set in 1993, just before UFC started. Ken Shamrock, who fought in Pancrase, was in the first UFC tournament.

“I didn’t think it was a healthy thing,” said Rutten about the original UFC. “I didn’t think it was a smart thing to do, when we saw (Gerard) Gordeau kicking the guy’s teeth out and no referee was allowed to stop the fight. I talked to Ken Shamrock in the dressing room when we fought on the same card. I wouldn’t do it. A lot of these crazy guys who will knock you out and then feel the need to hit you five more times after you’re knocked out. Those punches can ruin your life. If there’s a referee there, that’s a different story.”

That era of UFC ended quickly, as McCarthy, who started refereeing at the second UFC event, then told the organizers after that show that people that the results would be catastrophic if the referee wasn’t given the power to stop the fights. He insisted on it or he wouldn’t come back. He was persuasive enough that the rule was immediately changed.

Rutten only fought in UFC twice, but was heavyweight champion when he retired due to a number of injuries (although he came back once years later for a different promotion), Rutten is being inducted primarily for his Pancrase career, where he was one of the biggest stars of the 90s. Now more well known for being a commentator, a TV show host, an actor and for commercial endorsements, Rutten had nothing but good things to say about his experience in UFC before the Zuffa era.

“I had a great time,” he said. “Those guys (Semaphore Entertainment Group) were awesome. Anybody who puts you on the poster calling you “the world’s greatest marital artist,” they pushed me so much. I had a great time, no problem at all.”

Because he had only fought twice in UFC, he was shocked about his induction. The Rutten induction was to specifically show that they are going to honor entire careers. The idea is to make it a Hall of Fame for the sport itself.  But there’s also a marketing reason. Rutten’s career was mostly with Pancrase, and UFC has purchased the rights to the Pancrase tape library, so in a sense, owns its visual history.

Rutten said he never expected to be inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame as a fighter, but did think that he could get in at some point.

“Maybe in ten years, because of the contributions I’ve made to MMA in general, commentary, not only in the UFC, I thought maybe that would get me in.  That was my hope. I didn’t expect it at all now.

“A buddy told me that there are only nine guys in the Hall of Fame (actually there were 12 before this class gets inducted),” said Rutten. That’s so cool once you realize that.  It’s really cool.”