Last Saturday was the second time in six months that the UFC held a show in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and the show was exciting to say the least. Yet from the outset, when the card was being filled out, it didn’t really live up to previous cards, especially since it was the first card of the year. If you compare it to the previous Brazil card, UFC 134, it gets completely blown out of the water.
While UFC 134 had a main card headlined by the middleweight title match between Anderson Silva and Yushin Okami, you also had a rematch between Shogun Rua and Forrest Griffin, a heavyweight bout between Brendan Schaub and Minotauro Noguiera, and a lightweight fight between Ross Pearson and Edson Barboza.
Yet when promoting UFC 142, the only matches that were really being promoted were the featherweight title match between Jose Aldo and Chad Mendes, the supposed middleweight debut of Anthony Johnson against Vitor Belfort, and a middleweight bout between Rousimar Palhares and Mike Massenzio.
The cards themselves were almost identical as well with both having many of the same fighters, although UFC 142 did have two fewer matches.
With that in mind, UFC 142 should have been aired for free on TV everywhere, not just in certain markets. It makes a lot of sense when you think about it, too, in considering what the UFC is trying to succeed in as a brand. While Jose Aldo may be one of the pound-for-pound kings, not many casual MMA fans have watched his fights.
When he was in WEC, most of his fights were on Versus a channel that many don’t have access to, and he’s only had a small handful of PPV fights.
Since he is not as big of a draw as other more established fighters, it would make sense to have him fight on free TV in order to expose him to a wider audience similar to what the UFC did with Dominic Cruz’s most recent title defense, although that, too, was on Versus.
What the UFC should have done was air the preliminary fights on Fuel TV, which would give some airtime to the fighters lower down the card, then with the main card, air it on FX since Fox was showing the San Francisco 49ers-New Orleans Saints playoff game.
Then, consider that the marquee playoff game of the Denver Broncos-New England Patriots was playing the same time as the PPV, the buys were destined to take a hit. So why not treat this event like those that have happened in the UK and air it on free TV?
That way, with it being free, you get more viewers watching than if they were to buy it on PPV (best estimates are putting it at around 200,000 buys) and the UFC would have the income from advertisers running commercials between fights and rounds.
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