Spike TV Fires Another Shot In The War Against UFC

[No More Sorrow]

New York, NY, December 20, 2011 – Spike TV, the recognized home of mixed martial arts on television, has announced a new three-hour programming block debuting on Friday, March 2 (9:00 PM – Midnight, ET/PT) featuring the greatest episodes from the 14 seasons of “The Ultimate Fighter.†From Rashad Evans to Matt Serra, from Forrest Griffin to Kimbo Slice, “The Ultimate Fighter Fridays†on Spike TV will showcase all the incredible knockouts, unbelievable submissions, and tense drama from the seven years of the hit Spike series. The network will air special-themed editions of “The Ultimate Fighter Fridays†with input from fans via Facebook and Twitter. Details will be announced in the upcoming weeks.

Among the UFC legendary coaches and fighters that will appear on “The Ultimate Fighter Fridays†on Spike TV include Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture, Tito Ortiz, Georges St. Pierre, Brock Lesnar, Rich Kranklin, Matt Hughes, Rampage Jackson, Ken Shamrock, BJ Penn, Dan Henderson, Kenny Florian, Josh Koscheck, Rashad Evans, Forrest Griffin, Stephan Bonnar, Matt Serra, Kimbo Slice, Diego Sanchez, Joe Stevenson, Michael Bisping, Roy Nelson, Ryan Bader, Frank Mir, and many more.

Spike TV is available in 99.8 million homes and is a division of Viacom Networks. A unit of Viacom (NASDAQ: VIA, VIAB), Viacom Media Networks is one of the world's leading creators of programming and content across all media platforms. Spike TV's Internet address is SPIKE TV Official Website: Check out highlights and full episodes from your favorite SPIKE shows! and for up-to-the-minute and archival press information and photographs, visit Spike TV's press site at Spike Press. Follow us on Twitter @spiketvpr for the latest in breaking news updates, behind-the-scenes information and photos.


Pretty big deal right there, UFC is going to be having their new live season of The Ultimate fighter on at the exact time that Spike is going to be doing this. Also this wasn't included in the report but on January 28th when the UFC has their second Fox show Spike is also going to be having a best of UFC marathon on at the exact same time. Basically means Spike TV is counter-programming Ultimate Fighter seasons and old fights that they own the rights too. I'm sure Dana white isn't pleased with this at all.

 

[Slim]

Spike TV is going to war with UFC. Live fights vs. taped fights. Thing is... those taped fights we already know are good. The live fights have potential to either be good or suck. So... this is going to be very interesting... but the winners... UFC fans.

 

[No More Sorrow]

To quote Dana, "Spike TV just keeps kicking the UFC in the balls."

I heard that the UFC wants to buy back the video library that Spike owns of all their fights but i don't see Spike selling it, they seem content with trying to fuck over the UFC.

 

[Slim]

Spike TV has the ball in their court right now. Spike has UFC by the neck and can choose to execute their guillotine or let it go if the asking price is good enough. Question I am wondering though... is UFC in full ownership of the Pride tapes as well or are those in the hands of Spike. I would think its in UFC hands. But Spike has a lo of leverage and looks to play some hardball with UFC.

 

[No More Sorrow]

Not sure about that at all. But just to show everybody how bad spike wants to mess with the UFC the following fights were shown on Spike TV while the UFC had their debut on Fox on Nov 12th.

9 p.m. ET/PT

• Jon Jones vs. Ryan Bader
• Junior Dos Santos vs. Shane Carwin
• Cain Velasquez vs. Brock Lesnar

10 p.m. ET/PT

• Junior Dos Santos vs. Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic
• Tyson Griffin vs. Hermes France
• Thiago Silva vs. Keith Jardine

11 p.m. ET/PT

• Cain Velasquez vs. Antonio Rodrigo "Minotauro" Nogueira
• Matt Serra vs. Frank Trigg
• Pat Barry vs Antoni Hardonk
• Mark Munoz vs Kendall Grove

So they'll be using everything they have to offer when they start showing fights every friday, it'll be interesting.

 

[Slim]

Man they got some good fights there. They are going to unload. This is going to be a war for real.

 

[No More Sorrow]

lol

Just got some more info, i guess Spike only own the rights to broadcast UFC programing through 2012 then they have to stop, but still 2012 is a very important year for the UFC with the move to Fox and what not.

 

[Slim]

heh heh so for a year... it is going to be Spike vs. UFC on Fox.

LET'S GET IT ON!

 

[No More Sorrow]

On January 28, the UFC will air its second live fight on Fox, the aptly-titled UFC on Fox 2: Evans vs. Davis, which will feature a light heavyweight tilt between Rashad Evans and Phil Davis. On the same day, Spike is scheduled to run an extended block of their old fights titled UFC Unleashed: Evans vs. Davis.

Basically just showing random fights from both Davis and Rashad, lol @ Spike

 

[Troy]

Smart move by Spike. It will get them some good ratings and they may as well take advantage of UFC's success whilst they still have access to the video library. In the end it is simply good for UFC because it continues to give them even more exposure.

 

[No More Sorrow]

Yeah it's smart for Spike, and ultimately i don't see it resulting in too much but still kind of underhanded by Spike to do when UFC is trying to establish it's self on Fox.

 

[Slim]

Its like UFC really helped put Spike on the map and helped them establish so much... but since UFC is leaving Spike is going to try to hurt them. UFC is gonna win the war overall but this fight is gonna be pretty wild.

 

[Troy]

Spike is simply doing what is best for them. They are losing a great product but they still have access to their video library so it would be crazy of them not to use it to compete against UFC.

 

[No More Sorrow]

Basically what you said Troy, Dana white even admitted that he would do the same thing if he was the Spike Tv president capitalizing off the popularity of a product is smart business. I kind of had mixed feelings about it at first but honestly, it's just helping the product and as a big fan of MMA it'll be cool to have all of these fights on free tv every week.

 

[Troy]

I wonder what this means for Bellator though since SpikeTV now own them so I would assume that they would start to heavily promote them on the network. During their UFC marathons they should be running a lot of commercials promoting Bellator to try to convince some more UFC fans to get into Bellator as well.