Tag: belo horizonte

Garbage-Ass Lineup, Weekday Time-Slot Translate to Sluggish Ticket Sales for UFC Fight Night 28


(“Put your hands up if you’re going to kick some ass tonight…not so fast, Jussier.”)

After drawing over 16,000 fans to Belo Horizonte’s Mineirinho Arena for UFC 147 last June, the UFC is having a much harder time convincing the locals to return for today’s UFC Fight Night 28: Teixeira vs. Bader. A Combate report published yesterday claimed that only 4,200 tickets had been sold for the event, which is also being held at the 25,000-seat capacity Mineirinho. As a result, the UFC considered moving UFC Fight Night 28 to Chevrolet Hall, a smaller venue seven miles away. As MMAFighting reported, “Technical problems prevented the change, then the organization has decided to reduce the space for fans in the stands.”

First off, let’s have a moment of silence for the poor, downtrodden people of Belo Horizonte, who were given one of the worst events of 2012 in the form of UFC 147: Silva vs. Franklin, and are now being presented with an equally garbage-ass card this evening. In case you haven’t checked out the lineup, it starts out decent at the top (Glover Teixeira vs. Ryan Bader, Yushin Okami vs. Ronaldo Souza), and you have Joseph Benavidez in the #3 spot — which is alright, assuming you care about little flyweights — but then things quickly devolve into “never heard of ’em” territory.

Edimilson “Kevin” Souza? Ramiro Hernandez Jr.? Elias Silvério? Ivan Jorge? Who are these guys? And how did two relatively obscure European prospects (Piotr Hallman, Ali Bagautinov) sneak onto the damn main card? The UFC has a bad habit of filling its Brazilian events with local scrappers in the hopes that Brazilian fans will cheer for anybody who’s Brazilian. And that’s fine for the prelims, but you also have to give people a reason to show up.

Glover Teixeira may not be enough of a reason, especially for those fans who were burned last year by a weak UFC event that was also low on star power. Sure, Glover was born in Minas Gerais, but he’s spent the last 14 years as a U.S. resident, and has been long associated with John Hackleman’s California-based fight camp The Pit. Exciting fighter? Absolutely. Local hero? Not exactly. Main event-caliber superstar? Definitely not. As for the co-main, Brazilian middleweight “Jacare” Souza is well-liked and usually entertaining; his opponent, Yushin Okami, is neither of those things.


(“Put your hands up if you’re going to kick some ass tonight…not so fast, Jussier.”)

After drawing over 16,000 fans to Belo Horizonte’s Mineirinho Arena for UFC 147 last June, the UFC is having a much harder time convincing the locals to return for today’s UFC Fight Night 28: Teixeira vs. Bader. A Combate report published yesterday claimed that only 4,200 tickets had been sold for the event, which is also being held at the 25,000-seat capacity Mineirinho. As a result, the UFC considered moving UFC Fight Night 28 to Chevrolet Hall, a smaller venue seven miles away. As MMAFighting reported, “Technical problems prevented the change, then the organization has decided to reduce the space for fans in the stands.”

First off, let’s have a moment of silence for the poor, downtrodden people of Belo Horizonte, who were given one of the worst events of 2012 in the form of UFC 147: Silva vs. Franklin, and are now being presented with an equally garbage-ass card this evening. In case you haven’t checked out the lineup, it starts out decent at the top (Glover Teixeira vs. Ryan Bader, Yushin Okami vs. Ronaldo Souza), and you have Joseph Benavidez in the #3 spot — which is alright, assuming you care about little flyweights — but then things quickly devolve into “never heard of ‘em” territory.

Edimilson “Kevin” Souza? Ramiro Hernandez Jr.? Elias Silvério? Ivan Jorge? Who are these guys? And how did two relatively obscure European prospects (Piotr Hallman, Ali Bagautinov) sneak onto the damn main card? The UFC has a bad habit of filling its Brazilian events with local scrappers in the hopes that Brazilian fans will cheer for anybody who’s Brazilian. And that’s fine for the prelims, but you also have to give people a reason to show up.

Glover Teixeira may not be enough of a reason, especially for those fans who were burned last year by a weak UFC event that was also low on star power. Sure, Glover was born in Minas Gerais, but he’s spent the last 14 years as a U.S. resident, and has been long associated with John Hackleman’s California-based fight camp The Pit. Exciting fighter? Absolutely. Local hero? Not exactly. Main event-caliber superstar? Definitely not. As for the co-main, Brazilian middleweight “Jacare” Souza is well-liked and usually entertaining; his opponent, Yushin Okami, is neither of those things.

The other challenge for this event is the time-slot itself. When Yuri Villefort and Sean Spencer face off in the opening bout at 5:30 p.m. local time, Belo Horizonte’s working folk will still be making their way to the arena. (If it was me, I’d enjoy a couple caipirinhas at happy hour, have a nice dinner somewhere, then show up midway through the Benavidez fight. Or more likely, I’d be watching the Atletico Mineiro vs. Fluminense soccer game that’s also happening tonight, and which is clearly stealing some interest from this third-rate UFC card.)

The bottom line is this: When UFC events underperform in terms of ticket sales or TV ratings, there’s always a logical explanation. If you put on a badass card in a town that doesn’t often get them, the fans will turn out. If you treat a small market like it’s not worthy of big fights, the fans will tell you to shove it up your ass. Maybe an empty arena will make the UFC pay attention this time.

(BG)

Countdown to TUF Brazil

This Sunday, here in America, The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil will be debuting on Fuel TV; just two weeks shy of when coaches Wanderlei Silva and Vitor Belfort were scheduled to face off. But instead, for.

This Sunday, here in America, The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil will be debuting on Fuel TV; just two weeks shy of when coaches Wanderlei Silva and Vitor Belfort were scheduled to face off. But instead, for yet the fourth time out of the past six seasons, that fight’s not going to happen (but that’s another article for another day). Now the UFC 147 main event will be Wanderlei Silva versus Rich Franklin. Two future Hall of Famers going to war in a five round Fight of the Night rematch from three years past, sounds pretty great doesn’t it? Until you look at the facts and how this is just the latest in a long line of disappointments and changes made to the upcoming UFC: Brazil show.

In one corner we have TUF: Brazil coach ‘the Axe Murderer’ Wanderlei Silva. Who following his UFC 99 loss to Rich Franklin, announced he would be out of action for a while to undergo facial surgery. A scar tissue removal surgery which he desperately needed to repair an oft-broken nose and avoid being easily cut open for future fights, which in the end resulted in a 30% increase in his oxygen intake for his February 2010 middleweight debut against Michael Bisping. A matchup Silva was the Vegas favorite in, (despite only winning one of his last six fights). And after three well contested rounds, Silva wound up getting the win by unanimous decision (his first victory in nearly two years). Yet soon after he would be break three ribs training for a fight against Yoshiro Akiyama, follow that with knee surgery, and in the end wouldn’t be seen in the octagon again until UFC 132 against Chris Leben. An embarrassing 27 second TKO loss that would leave Dana White stating in his opinion, Wanderlei should hang it up. Yet just four months later Silva was given another chance to prove himself, with a thrilling second round TKO victory over Cung Le earning him his third Fight of the Night honor.

And in the blue corner, ever the company man, Rich ‘Ace’ Franklin has again answered the call and will be returning earlier than expected from shoulder surgery to fill in for yet another injured TUF coach. Ironically Franklin followed his UFC 99 victory with a loss to Vitor Belfort. Before stepping in to coach the last two weeks of The Ultimate Fighter for a released Tito Ortiz and knocking out Chuck Liddell with a broken arm. Before going on to lose by unanimous decision to Forrest Griffin, and being out of action ever since.

All leading Sportsbook to open the odds at
Wanderlei Silva -145
And Rich Franklin + 115

While it is always fun to see two legends slug it out in the octagon, with both fighters past their prime and out of title contention, in the end this bout is pointless.

Which is probably the reason the coaches’ battle was originally scheduled to be the co-main event, underneath the Anderson Silva Middleweight title defense. Call it simple fight hype, or Chael Sonnen’s brilliant marketing, either way his death threats were able to get their fight relocated to Las Vegas at UFC 148. So how do the more than 12 million weekly Brazilians who tuned in to The Ultimate Fighter get rewarded? After that, and moving the show to Belo Horizonte, the UFC further dissed the Brazilian faithful by refusing to bump up Jose Aldo’s title defense two shows, leaving them with only one other top-name fighter Fabricio Werdum to cheer for. Bottom line: no Jose Aldo, no Anderson Silva, no Junior Dos Santos, and neither Nogueira, Brazil deserves better.

By: J A Keenan