The Heat and the Shine

The most underrated match in wrestling history; to my eyes, at least, is Randy "Macho King" Savage vs. The Ultimate Warrior at WrestleMania VII.  Everything about it -- the build, the match and the resolution -- worked. The Build: Warrior was WWF Champion and Sensational "Queen" Sherry, at the time Macho's valet,  demanded a title shot .  Warrior declined.  Savage then got Sgt. Slaughter -- Warrior's title challenger at the 1991 Royal Rumble -- to agree to make Savage the number one contender if Slaughter won.  Savage interfered multiple times on Slaughter's behalf, eventually causing Warrior to lose the title after a scepter shot to the noggin. The Match: Art Barr & Eddy Guererro vs. El Hijo del Santo & Octagon  often gets cited as the greatest match in the illustrious history of the Los Angeles Sports Arena, but I'll take Warrior vs. Savage at WM VII.  Both had huge stakes.  Barr & Eddy lost their hair in a match where Santo &

It's no secret that UFC is short on star power.  Ronda may be gone.  Conor is definitely on hiatus.  Jon Jones is suspended, and calling him a major star was a stretch to begin with. UFC, which operates more like a pro wrestling promotion than a sports organization, is taking a tried and true tact: they are trying to create new stars. Creating new stars isn't easy, or even simple.  One reason is obvious: nobody knows who the public will embrace.  Another reason is less obvious: people who aren't Chosen can get jealous. Tyron Woodley appears to be a chosen one for UFC.  He accompanied Dana White to the Super Bowl and he has gotten panel time on UFC studio shows.  In many ways, it makes sense.  He wants to be a star.  He doesn't mind hyping his fights.  He is explosive.  His public persona is not reckless. Woodley also has the good fortune of being in the right weight class with the right set of competing Champions.  The Welterweight division has a reputation for

On Saturday, UFC drew their best viewership for a Fox Sports 1 (FS1) special since last year.  Even more impressive, the show featured a main event of The Korean Zombie vs. Dennis Bermudez, two fighters not known for their star power. Unfortunately for UFC (and FS1, for that matter),  the underlying numbers weren't so good.  Compared to the previous FS1 show (BJ Penn vs. Yair Rodriguez on a Sunday night), ratings in the 18-34 year-old demographic fell by nearly one-third.  Compared to last year's pre- Super Bowl special on FS1 (a show originally scheduled for pay-per-view, headlined by Johnny Hendricks vs. Wonderboy) fewer than half as many 18-34 year-olds watched. This is not good for UFC or FS1.  Both organizations want viewers, but they want those viewers to be relatively young.  Last Saturday's telecast pulled a strong audience among people over 50 years-old (roughly even with a year ago; up over one-third compared to last month).  Soon-to-be-unfortunately for Your

UFC is expected to set a company record for single-night revenue on November 12, 2016.  That is the night that Conor McGregor chases the UFC Lightweight (155 lb.) Championship at UFC 205 in New York City. In digesting the previous paragraph, three things stand out.  One: UFC's business model is largely based around massive revenue intakes for single-night events.  Two: With rare exceptions, there is little to distinguish one UFC pay-per-view from the other.  A new number pops up every month or so, some fights happen, and the company moves on to the next one.  Three: A man who has never competed as a UFC Lightweight is about to challenge for the UFC Lightweight Championship. Maybe there should be a fourth: UFC fans love it.  UFC is having no trouble making money right now.  Their business model works. Does it work well enough, though? UFC's new owners, WME-IMG, used a very large loan to purchase UFC: $1.8 billion, to be exact.  The new owners are going to have to increa

The good news is that a UFC 199 preview appears on ESPN's front page.  Just scroll down through fourteen other front page stories, the ads for ESPN's sister sites, a handful of pictures and nine embedded videos and it right there.  A thousand words and forty-nine words on tomorrow's pay-per-view by ESPN's top UFC writer, Brett Okamoto. That UFC 199 would be relegated to niche sport coverage is no surprise.  The cynical might point out that the NBA Playoffs (basketball) and the X-Games (skateboarding, etc.) are televised by ESPN, and Disney -- ESPN's corporate overlord -- is well-versed in media synergy.  Those who have a more virtuous view of ESPN (including this blog) might point out that the Stanley Cup Finals (hockey) and Copa America (soccer) are also heavily covered, despite airing on NBC and Fox, respectively. No major stars + a one-sided main event + numerous other big sporting events = minimal coverage of UFC.  That equation is no mystery to anyone w

Even with a few weeks of air, it's hard to digest just how successful UFC 196 was .  UFC sold eight million dollars worth of tickets , set a record for undercard viewership  on Fox Sports 1 and beat UFC 100's revenue record for overall event revenue.  But so what?  Those things are impressive, but more or less expected at some point for a star like Conor McGregor. What makes the success of UFC 196 so amazing was that it was done in two weeks. UFC has long been a company that thrives off of star power and grudge matches .  McGregor brought the star power, but when Rafael Dos Anjos retired to a life of poverty pulled out with injury less than two weeks before March 5th, there had to be real questions of whether McGregor would continue his upward pay-per-view buy trend without a new championship to shoot for. Somehow, some way, Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz generated a grudge match out of thin air.  In two weeks; really in just two days, the audience of pay-per-view buyin

American college basketball drew some impressive viewership this year, and nowhere was the viewership more impressive than in Kentucky.  Not only did the state’s two marquee teams (University of Kentucky Wildcats and University of Louisville Cardinals) draw superb viewership throughout the entire season, but a full one-third of the population of Louisville — Kentucky’s largest city — tuned into a national championship game that did not even feature a local team.  (University of Wisconsin Badgers vs. Duke University Blue Devils was the matchup, in case you missed it.) Conventional wisdom’s explanation for the rapt attention Kentuckians give to college basketball is that the area is mad for the sport.  For decades, the theory goes, Kentucky college basketball teams have been successful and have made the sport bigger in the Bluegrass State than other American pastimes like the NFL and Major League Baseball. As anyone who grew up watching college basketball in the 1980’s can attest to

The Wrestling Observer website has a very good article up today tracking the drawing power of UFC pay-per-views (PPVs) in the Ultimate Fighter (TUF) era (2005 to Present).  The article is recommended reading, but just in case here's a summary: UFC will always have two or three top stars.  Those top stars' pay-per-view buyrates will always draw far larger numbers than pay-per-view events headlined by fighters with lesser star power. The ostensible lesson told in the article is that non-star PPVs stay pretty much constant, while PPVs that feature stars and/or grudge matches tend to fluctuate dramatically based on the quality of star.  Towards the end of the article, there is a graph (created by Paul Fontaine , author of the article) that purportedly shows a relatively constant level of non-star PPV buyrates (the lower line on the graph) and a fluctuating line of star/grudge match PPV buyrates (the graph's upper line). Neat stuff all around; good job, Paul.  But I thi

On March 28, 2013, UFC and Fox Sports were married.  That wasn't the day that UFC announced that it was leaving Spike TV.  It wasn't the day that Can Velasquez fought Junior Dos Santos in the first UFC fight on national, broadcast television in the United States.  It was the day that Fox Sports 1 was announced.  For better or for worse -- mostly for worse -- the two have been married ever since. Fox needed big sports properties to create Fox Sports 1.  UFC was not Fox's largest cable sports property -- that would be college football -- but UFC was essential.  UFC was young, cool -- not it's peak of cool, but close enough -- and singular.  UFC fans would follow UFC wherever it went, or so it was assumed.  (The amazing audience for Chael Sonnen's fight on Fox Sports 1's first night was evidence of that.)  UFC provided volume content -- Ultimate Fighter, live events, hype specials, fighter profiles -- which is extraordinarily valuable when launching a new televi

Critics of UFC's decision to sign CM Punk are in an unassailable position.  They are right.  Signing CM Punk would be similar to a Major League Baseball team signing Nelly.  Punk's signing does alienate fighters; especially those on the border of UFC and the lessor fight promotions.  The move is -- at least in part -- a publicity stunt.  There is no way to counter these arguments.  Calling Punk's ESPN "car wash" a PR win is pointless to someone who wants to watch great fights.  Supposing that Punk's first pay-per-view will draw a great buyrate matters not to someone who's had to argue whether MMA is a real sport.  UFC decision makers have hurt the public's ability to accept MMA as a sport.  The detractors have that argument won. All is not lost, however.  UFC and CM Punk can still make the best of things.  They can still make a lot of money in the short term (the short-term money argument, of course, is the argument that proponents of Punk's signin

UFC must be dreaming.  In a year so wrought with drug failures and sinking buyrates and miniscule ratings, they get Daniel Cormier.  They get the perfect fighter with the perfect personality at the perfect time. It's the silly season of sports.  At no other point in the calendar year would a press conference brawl have found this much of ESPN's oxygen. Cormier is a natural babyface.  He is humble.  Self-efacing.  Aware of his tics and flaws and, importantly, still supremely confident in his abilities. And there's Jon Jones.  For whatever flaws one wants to affix to him, this much is true: He was chosen by God to fight.

It is time for another edition of Coors Light Cold Hard Facts (because Bud Light doesn't pay me).  Whenst last we separated Fact (not actual facts) from Fiction (more predictions, really), it was to discuss cable and satellite providers' distaste for WWE Network .  Your humble essayist is back, this time to discuss the business issue of the moment: UFC's declining pay-per-view and television numbers. Fact or Fiction: UFC's pay-per-view decline will reverse itself this year Fact. Yes, there are fewer MMA fans than ever (at least since the boom).  Yes, GSP is gone.  Yes, Cain and Ronda are hurt.  Yes, (about) 500k for Weidman/Ronda is unimpressive.  But it's got to get better. The first half of 2014 was about as ugly as it can get.  UFC has had exactly one PPV main event in the marquee weight classes (Light Heavy and Heavy) this year, and it went head to head with LeBron and Kevin Durant in the playoffs.  Ronda fought twice, which helped.  Otherwise, it's

Dave Scholler , UFC's head flack (technically Director of Communications, but I view the ol' Variety-style term "flack" for PR people with some fondness) took me to task a bit on Twitter recently because I wrote that UFC scaled the pricing too high for the UFC pay-per-view in Milwaukee on August 31.  Dave correctly pointed out that tickets had yet to go on sale to the general public, so my criticism was unfair.  My point was that anyone who wanted to but a UFC Fight Club membership for about $80 USD could gain the right to buy tickets, so essentially the event was on sale with an extra $80 tax added to each ticket order. Tickets to the August 31 UFC pay-per-view in Milwaukee are on sale now, and sales are meager thus far.  The Ticketmaster arena map shows that the cheap seats on both the upper level ($70 plus fees) and lower level ($150 plus fees) sold pretty well.  The best ringside seats ($400 plus fees) have also sold.  The problem is that the other sixty perce

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE By Ben Miller Email: benjamiller@icloud.com Twitter: @benjamiller UFC 155 is in the books and it showed once again that Raven was right.  About a decade ago the former ECW champion appeared on an audio show with Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez saying that all that matters is the finish.  On a night where three of the five pay-per-view fights were one-sided and uninspiring, nobody is talking about anything except the final fight because it was that damn good. The second Cain Velasquez vs. Junior Dos Santos fight was fantastic to a neutral observer and dramatic as hell to anyone with a rooting interest.  Yours truly was rooting for the Brazillian (blame an overreaching pre-show essay for that) and from the opening bell it was a riveting tale of survival.  Cain was a monster in a perpetual state of attack and Junior kept fighting and fighting to survive the beast.  For supporters of Velasquez some of the drama may have been lacking (drama fund

The Cost of Abandoning Fair Play: Why UFC 155 Won’t Draw By Ben Miller Email: benjamiller@icloud.com Twitter:  @benjamiller   The temptation is to blame the mismatch.  A year ago, the striker knocked out the wrestler in a minute.  What has changed?  The wrestler still wants everyone on the ground.  The striker still seems to always be able to stay off the ground.  The striker isn’t getting any shorter and the wrestler isn’t getting any younger. And so maybe the mismatch is the reason that Junior Dos Santos vs. Cain Velasquez for the heavyweight championship at UFC 155 has tepid interest.  No front page headline on ESPN.com a day out.  The sports section of the Los Angeles Times (the newspaper from the nearest major media market to Las Vegas, the site of the fight) has nary a mention.  Deadspin.com has a feature, but even that is a feature about the  bumbled promotion of the challenger . The problem with blaming the mismatch is that the sporting public seems fine with