Breaking the UFC 189 World Tour down by the numbers yields some fairly interesting results. 13,142 nautical miles. Two fighters. Eight cities. One sentient toilet. And a seemingly endless supply of both staredowns and luxury hotel rooms.
UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo (25-1) and challenger Conor McGregor (17-2) fight for the first time in four months on July 11 in Las Vegas. But when they do, UFC fans worldwide will be primed and ready for the clash.
The promotional effort here has been unprecedented, especially for smaller fighters who have traditionally struggled at the box office in MMA. But did quantity equal quality? Is this among the best promoted fights in the sport’s history?
Bleacher Report lead writers Jeremy Botter and Jonathan Snowden, a modern-day Turner and Hooch, tackle that question below. Have an opinion of your own? Sound off in the comments.
Jonathan: For years the UFC’s bag of promotional tricks was infinitesimally small. It basically involved two tropes, tossed out in the weeks before the pay-per-view, complete with Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg screaming incoherently and nu metal blasting in the background.
The first, and most common, was fairly simple. “Fighter X poses the greatest threat Fighter Y has ever faced.” Georges St-Pierre could have been squaring off with Fred Ettish, and the UFC would have had Rogan do as many takes as he needed to say Ettish was the toughest fight of St-Pierre’s career with a straight face.
The second, used more sparingly, was the grudge match. Think Tito Ortiz vs. Chuck Liddell. Think Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir. Think printing presses at the national mint running overtime and making special deliveries to Lorenzo Fertitta’s suite at the Red Rock.
At the UFC’s promotional height in 2010, the brand alone sold pay-per-views by the truckload. They didn’t need to be particularly creative—even the lesser shows of that era would be hailed as financial successes today.
Then came the crash. The WWE was driven right out of the pay-per-view business. Boxing limited its offerings to only the brightest of megastars. UFC numbers were in free fall.
It’s been a sobering time for the combat sports business—and one that’s demanded creative problem solving. WWE went with a subscriber-based web platform. Al Haymon pushed boxing onto free television.
And UFC?
It’s reinvented its promotional model as well, focusing for the first time in years on the individual fighters instead of the brand. It’s turned Ronda Rousey into the sport’s biggest crossover attraction—and the promotion is following that success with a concentrated push for Irishman Conor McGregor. And it’s working.
Maybe it’s too much of a good thing at times. But it is a good thing. McGregor has emerged as the sport’s next big thing, despite weighing just 145 pounds. That’s a pretty big deal, Jeremy.
Jeremy: I think the one point to keep in mind, since Rousey and McGregor are our two test cases, is that they are very good at self-promotion. Rousey used her mouth to get the important fight she wanted (Tate), but since then, she hasn’t needed to talk much. That’s because she makes people dead in mere seconds. That speaks for itself.
With McGregor, yes, he’s getting over, and he’s doing it by acting like the crazy person he appears to be. But as you hinted at, it feels like too much of a good thing. I attended the second leg of the World Tour here in Las Vegas, and let me tell you that it feels like an eternity ago. It was last week. Nearly every single day since then, we were bombarded with faceoffs and press conferences and with what McGregor would do to Aldo and what Aldo would not do to McGregor.
It was sensory overload. Tickets went on sale halfway through and were sold out quickly, and yet the carnival train continued rolling. By the end of this thing, I was exhausted and actually less interested in the fight than I was when it started. I am thankful we have a few months before it happens, because I’m sure I’ll be frothing at the mouth to see it by that point. But right now, I’m World Toured out.
Jonathan: I thought the World Tour was brilliant from beginning to end. The creative team behind UFC’s Embedded, Dana White, UFC’s senior vice president of production and operations, Craig Borsari, and the VP of production, Chris Kartzmark, have a lot to be proud of.
Together with a crack staff of shooters and editors, they’ve put together nine compelling mini-documentaries, each one a variation of the overall theme. McGregor vs. Aldo is more than an athletic contest. It’s the final word in a battle of wills, one we’ve seen play out over the last couple of weeks all around the world.
Remember, the World Tour isn’t just for the hardcore fans watching each and every episode. It is also designed to generate buzz and excitement in each of the UFC’s core markets. Sure, it sold out the venue days ago. But how many more fans will be pumped for this on pay-per-view, Globo in Brazil or TV3 in Ireland? I’d wager a lot.
Jeremy: You’re right on both accounts. It wasn’t designed for hardcore fans and media who have no choice but to watch, discuss and report on every stop. It was designed to promote the UFC’s biggest fight of 2015 in major markets. And if I can take anything away from this tour, it is that the Embedded series is the best thing the UFC currently produces. It takes the things we used to love about the Primetime series and amps them up, making them even MORE current and fresh. I love that, and I think Embedded needs to be a regular part of the pay-per-view experience, and it needs to be a regular feature on Fight Pass.
All I’m saying is that McGregor’s and White’s stuff grew a bit tiresome when repeated daily. I still believe this is the UFC’s biggest fight of the year, unless it magically signs Gina Carano and pits her against Rousey. And I’ll be all over this fight come July. I’m just a little burned out on it right now is all.
Jonathan: Everyone is talking about McGregor for obvious reasons. But, to me, Aldo was the star of the show.
For years he’s been an enigma. We’ve all watched him destroy anyone foolish enough to challenge him in the cage. But we’ve never really gotten a feel for what he’s all about.
You and I even sat right next to him at breakfast when Zuffa was heavily promoting him as the standard-bearer for the WEC—but the language barrier made it really hard to relate to him in any organic way. Thanks to UFC Embedded, I really think I’m starting to get Aldo. He’s prickly, proud and yet a big kid at heart. He’s human.
Showing him as such means that this isn’t just Conor looking to take the strap from the longtime champ. It’s both bigger and smaller than that. It’s a collision of two proud men, two athletes suddenly fighting for their legacies. It’s mesmerizing—and the best job of fight promotion UFC has ever done.
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