Seven fights have been added to the Invicta FC 25 event which features two title fights in August. Five unbeaten fighters and three more making their pro debuts will be in action on August 31 from Lemoore, California and the Tachi Palace Hotel and Casino. The event streams live on UFC Fight Pass. Katharina Lehner, […]
Seven fights have been added to the Invicta FC 25 event which features two title fights in August. Five unbeaten fighters and three more making their pro debuts will be in action on August 31 from Lemoore, California and the Tachi Palace Hotel and Casino. The event streams live on UFC Fight Pass. Katharina Lehner, […]
The upcoming UFC 214 pay-per-view event is coming together nicely, as news has arrived that the card will feature two title fights from Rogers Place in Edmonton on Saturday, September 9. TSN Sports confirmed that dominant flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson will headline the card against No. 3-ranked challenger Ray Borg, while women’s bantamweight champion Amanda […]
The upcoming UFC 214 pay-per-view event is coming together nicely, as news has arrived that the card will feature two title fights from Rogers Place in Edmonton on Saturday, September 9.
TSN Sports confirmed that dominant flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson will headline the card against No. 3-ranked challenger Ray Borg, while women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes will meet Valentina Shevchenko in the co-main event. Nunes and Shevchenko were supposed to fight in the main event of July 8’s UFC 213, but chronic sinusitis forced “The Lioness” out of the bout until it was recently rescheduled.
UFC President Dana White has said Nunes would not headline the card featuring here rescheduled rematch with “Bullet,” and this time, he’s apparently kept his word after saying the same thing about Jon Jones after he was unceremoniously removed from his UFC 200 main event against Daniel Cormier last year, but booking the same fight for the main event of July 29’s UFC 214 anyway.
White said he had smoothed things over with Nunes regardless:
“(Nunes) and I talked, she was a little upset about the situation that I said she was medically cleared to fight,” said White. “Her and I talked about it and I think we’re in a good place now.”
Mark J. Rebilas for USA TODAY Sports
There’s also some controversy surrounding Johnson’s next fight after the consensus pound-for-pound best fighter in the world refused to fight former bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw for the 125-pound belt in his next fight, in which he will attempt to break Anderson Silva’s record for most UFC title defenses.
White expressed dismay at not being able to book that fight:
“It’s unfortunate, I think (Johnson vs. Dillashaw) would have been a great title fight,” White told TSN. “It would have been a fight that a lot of people would have wanted to see, but it is what it is.”
In any case, two title fights are headed for September’s UFC 215, and on paper, it definitely presents an interesting event with the world’s most dominant fighter facing a young, up-and-coming contender who is one of the very few legit challengers in his division, while Nunes and Shevchenko will rematch barring any setbacks in a fight that will certainly showcase the evolution of the women’s bantamweight division in the years post-Ronda Rousey.
Photo by Ron Chenoy for USA TODAY Sports
But there’s a few other aspects of the event that don’t offer as much promise, and that’s the fact that the UFC has chosen to book Johnson in a pay-per-view event the day numbers arrived that UFC 213, which was set to ironically feature Nunes, did some of the lowest pay-per-view buys in a decade, with “Mighty Mouse’s” PPV title defenses the only card selling so dismally.
In a month sure to feature the hangover of the all-out circus that Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor will most definitely present on August 26, perhaps the UFC thought they should save bigger names able to carry a pay-per-view card for more anticipated events later in the year.
Thus far this year, however, not many UFC stars have proven they can do that. Will Johnson and Nunes combine to help lift the UFC out of the ratings gutter, or will the card deliver the same low ratings they’ve traditionally delivered?
When July 8’s UFC 213 from Las Vegas lost its Amanda Nunes vs. Valentina Shevchenko main event the day of the fight, it seemed like the International Fight Week-ending card that with much of the wind taken out of its sails, was doomed to bring in a low pay-per-view buyrate . And according to recently […]
When July 8’s UFC 213 from Las Vegas lost its Amanda Nunes vs. Valentina Shevchenko main event the day of the fight, it seemed like the International Fight Week-ending card that with much of the wind taken out of its sails, was doomed to bring in a low pay-per-view buyrate .
And according to recently released estimates, that’s true. A report from MMA Fighting’s Dave Meltzer put the usually successful midsummer card’s buys at a measly 125,000-150,000, continuing a trend of lackluster-at-best sales for the UFC in the new WME-IMG era. There has yet to be a single UFC pay-per-view event that drew a significant amount of buzz and buys yet this year, compared to last year when numerous cards surpassed the coveted one million-plus buy threshold.
It’s hard to argue that UFC 213 should have or could have done much better, however, as the card lost its original Cody Garbrandt vs. TJ Dillashaw bantamweight tile headliner, and an anticipated contest between Robbie Lawler and Donald Cerrone was moved to UFC 214 on July 29. The late replacement Robert Whittaker vs. Yoel Romero fight for the interim middleweight title was a great fight to be certain; but at that point many fans – and all casual ones – had clearly been turned off by the dissipating event.
The low numbers put the card on par with the worst-selling UFC pay-per-views of all-time, joining the cards that dominant but low-selling flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson headlined. Obviously UFC 213 was never going to outsell last year’s UFC 200, even though that historical event also lost its main event right before it was scheduled to take place. Nunes headlined the card opposite former women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate, but the real attraction seemed to be Brock Lesnar’s return against Mark Hunt.
Last year seems like ancient history for the UFC, however, and the while the promotion is expected to bounce back with big numbers at next week’s UFC 214 from Anaheim, which features the long-overdue Daniel Cormier vs. Jon Jones rematch, is on point to be by far the best pay-per-view of this year with three title fights. And of course Conor McGregor will box Floyd Mayweather in their monstrous August 26 showdown that is expected to bring upwards of five million buys and countless eyeballs to MMA. It’s not solely a UFC fight though, as SHOWTIME Sports is producing the majority of it.
Regardless of the outcome, this cant be what WME-IMG envisioned when they paid $4.2 billion for the promotion during the height of McGregor and Ronda Rousey’s drawing power.
2017 is quickly getting away from the new owners, and even with a potential blockbuster like UFC 214 waiting in the immediate future, they’re going to need something special to bring the overall year out of the slums and back into the penthouse the UFC enjoyed last year.
And as recent trends in MMA has shown, that will probably be up to the return – or lack of – from one infamous Irishman. Megastars tend to sell huge these days, and the rest of the roster seems to draw increasingly concerning and dismal buyrates.
The anticipated UFC women’s bantamweight title bout that fans were cheated out of at this month’s UFC 213 has reportedly been rescheduled for the previously speculated-upon date. UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes will reportedly take on top contender Valentina Shevchenko at September 9’s UFC 215 from Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada according to […]
The anticipated UFC women’s bantamweight title bout that fans were cheated out of at this month’s UFC 213 has reportedly been rescheduled for the previously speculated-upon date.
UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes will reportedly take on top contender Valentina Shevchenko at September 9’s UFC 215 from Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada according to a report from Brazilian outlet Globo.
The two longtime competitors were set to headline July 8’s UFC 213, the pay-per-view (PPV) which capped off the UFC’s traditional International Fight Week, but a now-infamous last-minute withdrawal from Nunes due to illness meant the interim middleweight championship bout between Robert Whittaker and Yoel Romero became the destroyed card’s new feature bout.
Nunes and Shevchenko met once before, with “The Lioness” outlasting “Bullet” two rounds to one at March 2016’s UFC 196, a fight which many believe the Russian-born kickboxing specialist would have won were it scheduled for five championship rounds.
Shevchenko will get her chance at making that discussion a reality when she meets Nunes for five rounds on September 9 from Edmonton, but if these two elite fighters’ recent results are any indication, it may not last that long. Nunes recently finished all-time great former UFC champion Ronda Rousey in 48 seconds at last December’s UFC 207, while Shevchenko submitted top-ranked contender Julianna Pena with a picturesque armbar in the main event of UFC on FOX 22 in late January, taking on the touted wrestler in her area of expertise.
If and when the bout is confirmed by the UFC as expected, Nunes vs. Shevchenko II will join the previously announced Junior dos Santos vs. Francis Ngannou heavyweight bout and a featherweight affair between Gilbert Melendez and Jeremy Stephens.
It looks like Ronda Rousey could potentially be returning to the ring, although not for a MMA fight. According to a report from Dave Meltzer of MMA Fighting, Rousey appeared at World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) tapings at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida, last Thursday and Friday to support her longtime friend and training partner, […]
It looks like Ronda Rousey could potentially be returning to the ring, although not for a MMA fight.
According to a report from Dave Meltzer of MMA Fighting, Rousey appeared at World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) tapings at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida, last Thursday and Friday to support her longtime friend and training partner, former UFC bantamweight Shayna Baszler.
Things started out calm enough in Thursday evening according to the report, as Baszler won her opening-round match in the Mae Young Classic, a 32-woman tournament. But from that point, the fostering of a feud began, as Rousey sat ringside with Jessamyn Duke and Marina Shafir, the other two members of “Rowdy” and Baszler’s oft-publicized “Four Horsewomen” group.
Of course, the group name stems from the ultra-popular “Four Horsemen” stable of the 1980s consisting of legendary champion Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, and several other members. Rousey and her stablemates used their version, but apparently never trademarked it, as WWE soon marketed a stable of women wrestlers including Flair’s daughter Charlotte Flair, whose real name is Ashley Fliehr, Sasha Banks, Bayley, and Becky Lynch as their own version of the “Four Horsewomen.”
So although Rousey and her “Four Horsewomen” group’s role was unclear, it became clear after Baszler won her second-round tournament match over Mia Kim with a MMA-inspired choke and flaunted a four-finger “Four Horsewomen” taunt directed at Flair, Lynch, and Bayley (Banks was in Australia working on a promotional tour for WWE). Both groups of women got into a bit of a smack-talking match, although it remains to be seen just how far this angle will proceed.
Meltzer said a WWE official called it, “foreshadowing in essence, just in case.”
The bit will reportedly not air until this September, but Rousey’s love of and history with pro-wrestling has been well documented. During the height of her popularity, she appeared alongside mega-famous actor and former WWE champion Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to mix it up with WWE executives and personalities Triple H and Stephanie McMahon at 2015’s WrestleMania, and the WWE has made no effort to hide their infatuation with Rousey, who herself is a longtime professional wrestling fanatic.
The Vince McMahon-owned pro-wrestling juggernaut reportedly wanted Rousey to wrestle Stephanie McMahon at WrestleMania in 2016, something that never came to fruition after she lost her long-held UFC title in a shocking knockout loss to Holly Holm at UFC 193 in November 2015. Now that Rousey appears to be done with the UFC for the time being, an opportunity for her to appear in her beloved pro-wrestling, where she would engage in scripted physical activity rather than get punched by the most dangerous 135-pound female fighters on the planet, could be an obvious choice for her next career move post-UFC.
Baszler has been involved with pro-wrestling for quite some time, having trained with several of the WWE’s female wrestlers during the time following her retirement from MMA, and has supposedly been seeking employment with the WWE for quite some time. She was also trained in both pro-wrestling in addition to catch wrestling by former UFC champion Josh Barnett.
Although it was thought that she had not been signed to the promotion, Baszler has now been booked to be one of the performers at the forefront of the Mae Young Classic, where she will wrestle Japan’s Kaire Sane in the finals on September 12, a date during which the storyline involving Rousey is expected to continue.
So nothing is set, but it appears Rousey’s next trip to a ring could potentially be in the WWE. Do you like that direction for her career, or would it better to give MMA and the UFC one last shot?
It wasn’t the card originally planned, but the ladies of Invicta FC 24 once again put on a solid event. Originally, Megan Anderson was to defend her featherweight title against Helena Kolesnyk. However, the UFC signed Anderson away to fight Cris Cyborg. Invicta FC president Shannon Knapp moved Tonya Evinger, the reigning bantamweight champion, into […]
It wasn’t the card originally planned, but the ladies of Invicta FC 24 once again put on a solid event. Originally, Megan Anderson was to defend her featherweight title against Helena Kolesnyk. However, the UFC signed Anderson away to fight Cris Cyborg. Invicta FC president Shannon Knapp moved Tonya Evinger, the reigning bantamweight champion, into […]
