(Glad to see the UFC fired the “Step Into Our World” guy and hired a graphic designer who doesn’t work in crayon.)
On the heels of their worst performing pay-per-view in years (allegedly), it would be almost impossible to deny that the UFC is in dire need of a fresh, unique strategy to market UFC 175: Weidman vs. Machida. Fights themselves just don’t sell anymore, and even though the card is relatively stacked by today’s incredibly low standards, there ain’t no way it’s selling more than 350k buys without some sort of THE SOLDIER vs. THE COLOSSUS-level advertising.
But being the trailblazers that they are, the UFC has actually forgone the cheap appeal to our love of freakshow fights and/or squash matches in regards to UFC 175 and opted for a different angle entirely: Not promoting it at all.
It’s an…interesting move on the UFC’s part, but one that hasn’t exactly given us much to write about (hence, #WeekofDanga). So in order to do the UFC’s job for them and get you hyped for what should be a hell of a fight between Chris Weidman and Lyoto Machida, we’ve scoured the internet (BloodyElbow) and found you a rare video of Weidman’s upset victory over fellow UFC star Ryan Bader in the 2006 NCAA Wrestling Championships quarterfinals. Check it out after the jump.
Well, it’s no Sangmanee Sor Tienpo vs. Hong Thanonchai Tor Sangtiennoi, but that should satisfy your fight fix for today.
Fun fact: Lyoto Machida has yet to be taken down since dropping to middleweight. According to his UFC profile, he also holds one of the highest takedown defense ratios in the UFC at 83%. Probably because most fighters take one whiff of his piss breath and decide that they’d rather get knocked out while fighting at range than spend another second dealing with such a foul odor in close quarters. Seriously, I imagine that this is pretty much how every car ride with Lyoto goes if the windows are up…
The clip went on a little long, but you get what I mean.