The fourth installment of submission-only grappling series Metamoris will be headlined by a stunt-match that makes very little sense from a competitive standpoint, but we’ll probably watch it anyway. According to an MMAFighting report, Metamoris 4 (August 9th, Los Angeles) will feature freshly-retiredsuperheelChael Sonnen vs. highly decorated jiu-jitsu champion Andre Galvao.
Though Sonnen will enjoy a size advantage against Galvao — who has spent most of his competitive grappling career between 181-194 pounds, and used to compete in MMA as a welterweight — this is a talent mismatch of cosmic proportions. Galvao’s accomplishments include seven gold medals at the BJJ World Championships between 2002-2008, and three golds at the ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship, including his first-place finishes in the 88kg and Absolute categories in 2011.
Sonnen has no such pedigree to rely on. His effective ground-game earned him submission wins against Mauricio Rua and Brian Stann later in his UFC career, but keep in mind, this is the guy who used to get subbed by Brazilians on a regular basis. Our prediction: Sonnen sells a lot of tickets, then gets styled on. (And I guess Metamoris doesn’t drug test its competitors, huh.)
The fourth installment of submission-only grappling series Metamoris will be headlined by a stunt-match that makes very little sense from a competitive standpoint, but we’ll probably watch it anyway. According to an MMAFighting report, Metamoris 4 (August 9th, Los Angeles) will feature freshly-retiredsuperheelChael Sonnen vs. highly decorated jiu-jitsu champion Andre Galvao.
Though Sonnen will enjoy a size advantage against Galvao — who has spent most of his competitive grappling career between 181-194 pounds, and used to compete in MMA as a welterweight — this is a talent mismatch of cosmic proportions. Galvao’s accomplishments include seven gold medals at the BJJ World Championships between 2002-2008, and three golds at the ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship, including his first-place finishes in the 88kg and Absolute categories in 2011.
Sonnen has no such pedigree to rely on. His effective ground-game earned him submission wins against Mauricio Rua and Brian Stann later in his UFC career, but keep in mind, this is the guy who used to get subbed by Brazilians on a regular basis. Our prediction: Sonnen sells a lot of tickets, then gets styled on. (And I guess Metamoris doesn’t drug test its competitors, huh.)
Yesterday, MMAFighting’s Dave Meltzer reported that UFC 173: Barao vs. Dillashaw pulled an estimated 200,000-215,000 pay-per-view buys. While that number is certainly on the low end of UFC buyrates, it’s not a disaster by any means. Keep in mind that UFC 169 — a card that featured a Renan Barao vs. Urijah Faber rematch, Jose Aldo defending his featherweight belt against Ricardo Lamas, and a high-profile heavyweight bout between Alistair Overeem and Frank Mir — only earned an estimated 230,000 buys back in February. On paper, UFC 173 was arguably a weaker offering, but the buyrate wasn’t that far off. Basically, it could have been a lot worse.
“It’s too early to get accurate numbers, but every indication we’ve gotten was very bad, and that it showed a steep decline from UFC 173, which was among the lower numbers of the last eight years. UFC PPV shows usually range from 200,000 to 500,000 Google searches after the event, and are usually in the top few searched for items in the country. A bad show may only do 100,000. Bellator’s show last month hit 100,000. A big show can top 500,000, with the shows that hover around 1 million buys usually doing anywhere from 1 million to 5 million searches. This show did less than 20,000, unheard of for a PPV…
(*crickets* / Photo via Getty)
Yesterday, MMAFighting’s Dave Meltzer reported that UFC 173: Barao vs. Dillashaw pulled an estimated 200,000-215,000 pay-per-view buys. While that number is certainly on the low end of UFC buyrates, it’s not a disaster by any means. Keep in mind that UFC 169 — a card that featured a Renan Barao vs. Urijah Faber rematch, Jose Aldo defending his featherweight belt against Ricardo Lamas, and a high-profile heavyweight bout between Alistair Overeem and Frank Mir — only earned an estimated 230,000 buys back in February. On paper, UFC 173 was arguably a weaker offering, but the buyrate wasn’t that far off. Basically, it could have been a lot worse.
“It’s too early to get accurate numbers, but every indication we’ve gotten was very bad, and that it showed a steep decline from UFC 173, which was among the lower numbers of the last eight years. UFC PPV shows usually range from 200,000 to 500,000 Google searches after the event, and are usually in the top few searched for items in the country. A bad show may only do 100,000. Bellator’s show last month hit 100,000. A big show can top 500,000, with the shows that hover around 1 million buys usually doing anywhere from 1 million to 5 million searches. This show did less than 20,000, unheard of for a PPV.
Unlike UFC 173, which looked weak on paper and everyone knew wasn’t going to draw much, it still had Dan Henderson and Daniel Cormier in the No. 2 spot. They brought some star power in what was really the main event. It also had a lot to talk about after, due to T.J. Dillashaw’s upset win over Renan Barao.
This show didn’t have much interest going in. But most of the time, those type of shows deliver good action. This had none of that. It wasn’t terrible, but there was no fight you needed to see. As a likely sign of how the show went, Dana White didn’t even attend the post-fight press conference.”
In response to Meltzer’s story, our twitter friend @Niko138 added some inside information that suggests the UFC 174 buyrate was beyond dismal. Treat this as a rumor for now, but holy crap:
I’ve heard from a couple of people who would know, that early estimates of 174 buys have it just a bit under 100k. The sole reason I am posting about this (I normally try not to be one of those ratings/buys posters who everyone hates) is because if the show truly did this bad, it will be a good thing for us fans who complain about watered down cards. The UFC’s core audience was really being tested with this card, to see how much they could get away with buys wise, for a card with absolutely no drawing power to the casual viewer.
If this is the case, it sends a strong message to the UFC that the watered down cards are no longer going over with fans. For me, considering the cards are $60 and there is 14 a year…this is great news.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the number that comes out in the press is just above that, like 125…If you see the number come out around that area, then trust me, it did under 100k. This has to piss Dana off to no end considering the Bellator show did do a legit 100k
This is really interesting stuff to me, because like I said.. if true, the UFC is going to realize they can’t keep putting on shows like this as a numbered PPV, and expect its fans to continuously just blindly shell out the cash.
That’s a step in the right direction.. they know they are losing PPV buys, and hopefully they step their game up to fix it, by putting on more big fights per card. We can hope anyway.
So, a couple things. MMAPayout’s PPV Blue Book only dates back to UFC 57 in February 2006, and doesn’t show any UFC pay-per-view doing less than 140k buys. But according to Wikipedia (I know, I know), the last UFC PPV that did under 100k buys was UFC 53: Heavy Hitters, which took in just 90,000 buys in June 2005. In other words, you have to go back nine years to find a UFC PPV that performed as terribly as UFC 174 allegedly did.
My other thought is this: “Putting on more big fights per card” is not necessarily the answer. After years of seeing these UFC buyrates ebb and flow, my totally non-scientific conclusion is that 1) casual UFC fans only care about who’s fighting in the main event, and 2) nobody cares about little flyweights. Seriously. Non-Rousey bantamweight and featherweight title fights have always underperformed on pay-per-view, and it should come as no surprise that the first time the UFC tried to put a flyweight title fight in a pay-per-view main event, it would pull record-low numbers.
So, if the 100k buyrate is accurate — or even close to accurate — it’ll get the UFC’s attention. But don’t expect the promotion to start putting together more stacked PPVs in response; remember they have like 50 events/year to fill out, and they simply don’t have the manpower for it. Instead, the UFC’s major takeaway will probably be this: If we have to put a flyweight title fight on a pay-per-view card, there had better be a bigger fight on top of it.
(I only chose this photo to enrage you further. / Props: hiphopnews24-7)
Twitter erupted today with spontaneous, unsubstantiated rumors that Kimbo Slice — yes, the former King of the Web Brawlers and occasional boxer — is in the process of signing with Bellator. Until we hear anything from a reputable source, you should only treat this as wishful thinking from a bored fanbase, like those “CM Punk to UFC” rumors that also made our tongues wag for a week.
(I only chose this photo to enrage you further. / Props: hiphopnews24-7)
Twitter erupted today with spontaneous, unsubstantiated rumors that Kimbo Slice — yes, the former King of the Web Brawlers and occasional boxer — is in the process of signing with Bellator. Until we hear anything from a reputable source, you should only treat this as wishful thinking from a bored fanbase, like those “CM Punk to UFC” rumors that also made our tongues wag for a week.
The gates of hell are open. Demons walk the earth. Brace yourselves for the Friday Night Wars, MMA fans. We’ll let you know if this Kimbo thing turns out to be legit.
(“No scared, homie. Trust me — no scared.” / Photo via MMAFighting)
On Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, Anderson Silva‘s manager Ed Soares stated that the former UFC middleweight king is looking to return to competition in early 2015, and Nick Diaz is one of the opponents that Soares has in mind for his next opponent.
“Nick Diaz has said he’s wanted to fight him before,” Soares explained. “You could argue that Nick Diaz and Anderson probably have some of the best boxing in MMA, so we’ll see what happens.”
Due to an existing CagePotato Ban, we decided not to pass along Soares’s statement initially. But the idea is starting to gain some traction. During yesterday’s installment of UFC Tonight, Ariel Helwani reported that Diaz would be willing to come out of retirement to fight Silva, “if the money was right”:
According to Helwani, Diaz said that a bout against Silva is a fight he’s wanted for a long time, and that he considered such a matchup as potentially one of the biggest fights in MMA history.
(“No scared, homie. Trust me — no scared.” / Photo via MMAFighting)
On Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, Anderson Silva‘s manager Ed Soares stated that the former UFC middleweight king is looking to return to competition in early 2015, and Nick Diaz is one of the opponents that Soares has in mind for his next opponent.
“Nick Diaz has said he’s wanted to fight him before,” Soares explained. “You could argue that Nick Diaz and Anderson probably have some of the best boxing in MMA, so we’ll see what happens.”
Due to an existing CagePotato Ban, we decided not to pass along Soares’s statement initially. But the idea is starting to gain some traction. During yesterday’s installment of UFC Tonight, Ariel Helwani reported that Diaz would be willing to come out of retirement to fight Silva, “if the money was right”:
According to Helwani, Diaz said that a bout against Silva is a fight he’s wanted for a long time, and that he considered such a matchup as potentially one of the biggest fights in MMA history.
You can’t argue with that. Two enigmatic superstars fighting in a gangsterweight attraction would actually give MMA fans something to get excited about. And of course, that’s why it’ll never happen — because the MMA Gods hate us and want us to be miserable.
Still, it’s interesting to see Diaz’s ridiculous “I’ll only come back for a title shot” stance begin to thaw a bit. Apparently, he’ll also come back for a non-title fight if it’s against a beloved superstar and an assload of money’s on the line. That’s progress.
In a way, that’s a success — despite losing its main event a week out from the show, Bellator 120 cleared the somewhat arbitrary 50k buys figure that was being touted as its break-even mark. It’s not a great number, but it certainly could have been worse. (See: Bodog, Fedor vs. Lindland, 13,000 buys.)
On the other hand, 65,000 buys is still less than half of what the UFC produces on its worst day. The question is, will MMA fans who stayed away from Bellator 120 be swayed into buying future Bellator PPV cards now that we know how bizarrelyentertaining they can get? If you’re not psyched about the promotion’s upcoming Super Hulk Tournament, you’re just not a real fan.
In a way, that’s a success — despite losing its main event a week out from the show, Bellator 120 cleared the somewhat arbitrary 50k buys figure that was being touted as its break-even mark. It’s not a great number, but it certainly could have been worse. (See: Bodog, Fedor vs. Lindland, 13,000 buys.)
On the other hand, 65,000 buys is still less than half of what the UFC produces on its worst day. The question is, will MMA fans who stayed away from Bellator 120 be swayed into buying future Bellator PPV cards now that we know how bizarrelyentertaining they can get? If you’re not psyched about the promotion’s upcoming Super Hulk Tournament, you’re just not a real fan.
This picture of Gina Carano has been making its roundson the Internet this weekend. As you can see, it depicts Gina Carano either pre-workout or post-workout holding a Black House t-shirt within a Black House gym.
Carano, herself, hasn’t announced anything. It’s entirely possible that she’s just visiting the gym. If that’s the case, this photo will no doubt lead to tons of errant speculation.
However, it’s possible that Carano is starting to get back into fighting shape. After all, UFC president Dana White said that Carano in the UFC was simply “a matter of getting a deal done.” But Dana is known to be among MMA’s greatest prevaricators, so we won’t put too much stock in what he says.
This picture of Gina Carano has been making its roundson the Internet this weekend. As you can see, it depicts Gina Carano either pre-workout or post-workout holding a Black House t-shirt within a Black House gym.
Carano, herself, hasn’t announced anything. It’s entirely possible that she’s just visiting the gym. If that’s the case, this photo will no doubt lead to tons of errant speculation.
However, it’s possible that Carano is starting to get back into fighting shape. After all, UFC president Dana White said that Carano in the UFC was simply “a matter of getting a deal done.” But Dana is known to be among MMA’s greatest prevaricators, so we won’t put too much stock in what he says.
We’re not saying she’s going to fight in the UFC. We’re just saying there’s a picture of her at a serious MMA gym. Maybe she’s just getting in shape for the summer, but maybe there’s something more to it. Maybe she’ll fight Ronda Rousey at the end of the summer in a blockbuster PPV. Or maybe she’s slimming down for a role in Razor Fight II: The Slashening. All explanations are equally likely at this point.
Until then, let’s preemptively cringe about how awful any potential Carano-Rousey fight trailers will be.
