Honestly, it really doesn't matter who you put on in the fight, to me at least. I like MMA, I'm a casual follower, but 90% of it is boring as fuck and there are so few fighters (Penn and Silva being the only two really) that you can watch knowing that the fight will actually be action packed, as with Manny Pacquaio I know I'm going to see the definitive boxer of my time go out there and attempt to slaughter whats in his path. That's just my two cents.
Meh. There are plenty of exciting fighters in the UFC, but your opinion on 90% of it being boring as fuck is pretty common amongst the casuals. I'm not knocking you or anything but I think that maybe a lot of the excitement comes from learning and understanding the intricacies of the sport. Like, on the flip side, I'm not a huge fan of boxing but that's probably because I don't have as solid a knowledge of boxing.
Also, your first statement is what I'm talking about. You would watch anyway. The point is to get the people who wouldn't and heavyweights plus free title match does that.
As far as there being no war, didn't know they weren't crossing each other's paths. Just read Arum's smack talk a few weeks back and figured UFC was crossing paths.
I really don't think that Dana White cares what Arum thinks. Boxing may put on one or two major fights a year that, I'm pretty sure, will out draw any single thing the UFC does that year but at the same time the UFC will put on more solid cards that have more depth and name recognition beyond the main event.
But it is kind off dumb to run the Heavyweight title match on free tv if it's a one hour show. Plus, De Los Santos and Velasquez have something that makes certain they draw like no other heavies not named Lesnar, they have the huge fucking Latino market.
Yeah, but from what I understand the Latino and African American markets are pretty much tied up in boxing and don't really pay for UFC fights. If you look at the buy rates for JDS last fight it was between 325,000–335,000 buys and you can't really count Velasquez's last fight even though it did over a 1,000,000 buys because it was against Brock Lesnar. Hell, even Anderson Silva isn't considered that big a draw and he's the greatest fighter that MMA has ever seen.
Also, Dana White is known to give the fans what they want as often as he can, which is another reason I have a man crush on him. Gotta love a promoter who actually respects his fans.
If I were Dana, I'd have either moved it to PPV or had the nuts to put them up against the Pac fight. Latinos are the main purchaser of fights (boxing) but they are also deadly loyal to their own. It certainly would have been interesting to see how it would have unfolded.
I don't disagree that it would've been interesting but I would imagine the UFC would still get smoked even though it is free. Pac fights do big business.
Either way you put it, it wasn't necessarily the right choice. Lost money for a one hour show that they could have had two established guys looking for contention in that main event.
This is where people are wrong. It's not lost money, it's an investment in future buyers. This is their first show on FOX and they need to come out swinging if they hope to grow the sport. A heavyweight title, plus FOX's promotional machine should bring a lot of eyes to the fight and they need two guys with a lot of heart who are going to go out there and put on one hell of a fight, which these two are sure to do.
Isn't BJ up to fight soon? He's more familiar to the casual fans than these two dudes anyways.
Yeah, he's fighting Carlos Condit on Oct 29th for what is assumed to be a #1 contender's match for the WW belt. BJ's gonna get smashed though, Condit is a beast. I also want BJ to lose (GSP is fighting Nick Diaz for the WW belt that night too and Diaz is going to choke on it) because I don't particularly want to see BJ/GSP again, it'll pretty much just end up the same as their last two fights. Though I have to admit BJ's corner throwing in the towel between rounds in their last fight made me rofl.
