All UFC Thread

[Blackout09]

Frankie Edgar pulled out. Bummer. I was really excited for that fight

 

[OzExorcist]

Yeah that sucks - Dominick Cruz is off UFC219 with a broken arm too.

 

[underdog140]

Real talk though, there's only one legit Big Money fight in the UFC right now, and that's Conor McGregor.

In pretty much any other fight, GSP would be his own draw. Last time Anderson Silva fought, it was as the co-main on UFC208, one of the worst-selling PPVs in recent history. It's been years (and multiple losses) since he was a legit PPV draw, there's no evidence he is that any more. There's no evidence yet that GSP still is either, for what it's worth

But the point is, if GSP fights anyone other than Conor then he is the draw. Sure some opponents would probably sell better than others (Anderson, Nick Diaz, probably Condit or Lawler), but none of them would be legit BIG MONEY fights in the same way Conor would.

And as for his legacy... I mean nobody took Bisping seriously as MW champ, so how seriously are we supposed to take GSP winning that title from him unless he fights actual MW (or WW) contenders after that?

Conor isn't the only big money fight. He is GSP biggest and GSP is his.

Opponents matter. Nate ( or even Nick ) Diaz are perfect opponents to complement Conor outside the cage antics. The fight would sell not only because of Conor but because of the fighters personas.

Same can be said about GSP vs. Anderson. The two have lots of history the fight will do really well regardless of Anderson last PPV numbers.

As for GSP not being a draw. Early reports are saying 1 Million + seen some mention 1.2 - 1.3 million. And that was against Bisping who's last PPV sold 290 000 Buys.

Lets not get on the topic of who deserved what title shot. WW Goat + Big draw + never lost his belt is more deserving then 1-1 Conor with a belt from a division he longer fought in + big draw.

Conor is a big money fight for who ever he fights. I agree with that but Conor don't want just anyone. He too wants big money fights. Truth is there are not many left for him. He has the Nate trilogy and GSP as the top two big money fights. Nick Diaz could be another if Nick would accept the fight. In order for that to work Conor will have to defeat Nate which isn't gntd.

Outside of that I find it hard to think of someone that will boost the sales Conor wouldn't bring himself vs. just about anyone.

 

[andyt5303]

Andddddd silva has just failed a USADA test - out of the Gastelum fight in shanghai. Also given his previous failed tests I wouldn't be surprised to see a lengthy suspension which could be pretty much it for his career... possibly. Either way I wouldn't hold your breath on a gsp VS silva fight anytime soon.

 

[underdog140]

Such a same. A fight that should of happened so many times. Retirement for Silva ?

Under / Over on how long the suspension will be ...

1 - 2 years ?

If it is for Roids he should just retire and save himself the trouble of going through the process.

 

[OzExorcist]

Andddddd silva has just failed a USADA test - out of the Gastelum fight in shanghai. Also given his previous failed tests I wouldn't be surprised to see a lengthy suspension which could be pretty much it for his career... possibly. Either way I wouldn't hold your breath on a gsp VS silva fight anytime soon.

Daaaaaaamn

Predicting the suspension is a tough one, his previous failed test was before the UFC-USADA arrangement began, but they might still take it into account.

As for Conor and opponents, he's kind of proven that they don't matter when it comes to his drawing power. Eddie Alvarez is... let's just be charitable and say he's not exactly a draw. They had the gimmick of going for two belts helping with that one but still. And I know people think Nate Diaz is a draw in his own right, but I still haven't seen anyone provide any numbers that prove it.

Anywho, will be interesting to see what they both do next. Conor appeared to be pushing for the Tony Ferguson fight (again proving that opponents don't matter when promoting LOL) before all this happened, and a fight with Anderson is no obviously off the table for GSP.

 

[underdog140]

Conor isn't going to be fighting anyone anytime soon. He jumped the Bellator cage and pushed the ref ... Rumors are he also slapped a commissioner outside of the Bellator cage. To be fair .. it looks like the ref pushed him first while he was celebrating the winner.

 

[andyt5303]

Conor isn't going to be fighting anyone anytime soon. He jumped the Bellator cage and pushed the ref ... Rumors are he also slapped a commissioner outside of the Bellator cage. To be fair .. it looks like the ref pushed him first while he was celebrating the winner.

Well there's Conor's new opponent guys!

He had beef with Marc Goddard in Lobov's last fight after he kept shouting into the octogon essentially acting as an extra cornerman, and this time he jumps the cage and gets in his face!

This is a fight that will sell!!! hahahah

 

[WVHillbilly]

You don't actually believe they'll give Conor any type of meaningful suspension that would mean he would miss any fights do you???

 

[andyt5303]

You don't actually believe they'll give Conor any type of meaningful suspension that would mean he would miss any fights do you???

Supposedly Conor was set for the main event on Dec 30th against tony Ferguson but the UFC have pulled him from that spot now after the incident. Whether that's true or not who knows, could just be saying that to make it appear he's being punished.

 

[OzExorcist]

You don't actually believe they'll give Conor any type of meaningful suspension that would mean he would miss any fights do you???

Yep, this ^... though it might depend who you mean by "they"

The incident was largely benign and commissions love the money he brings in so he'll get a slap on the wrist at most from them over this, as far as the commissions are concerned.

The UFC might be a different question. They won't care about what he did so much as where he did it (ie: in the Bellator cage). That he drew eyeballs to the competition will be a much greater sin than touching a ref in their eyes I'd think. And they've shown the capacity to be petty with him before, pulling him from UFC200 for example.

At the end of the day he's still their only star so they're not going to lose him over this. But you've gotta imagine the UFC front office will be pretty pissed at him...

 

[Blackout09]

He will probably get fined. They wont suspend their cash cow.

 

[underdog140]

Conor isn't UFC only star. GSP just did over 1 Million PPV Buys. There are other stars as well.

I call BS on UFC pulling Conor. It is likely they were negotiating with him for the event and that is about it. UFC releasing a statement that they "pulled" Conor from an event makes it look like the UFC is punishing him.

Conor might get in trouble from the commission depending on a few things.

 

[OzExorcist]

Conor isn't UFC only star. GSP just did over 1 Million PPV Buys. There are other stars as well.

LOL I feel like we've had this exact same discussion before but what the hell, let's revisit this...

Dana claims UFC217 did over a million buys. But you ought to know how big of a pinch of salt you have to take most of Dana's claims with

Other independent estimates put it below a million, and more around the 875-900k mark: http://www.bjpenn.com/mma-news/ufc-...7-ppv-buys-are-high-but-not-notoriously-high/

Don't get me wrong, that's still very good. It's just not Conor-good. Plus it was GSP's first fight in four years, he'll get a bump for that that won't necessarily transfer to all his future matches. He pulled somewhere in the 900k range for his fight with Nick Diaz IIRC, but his other pre-retirement fights (Condit, Hendricks) were more around the 600-700k range.

He's only been on one card confirmed to crack the 1 million mark, as the co-main of UFC100. And while he gets some credit for that, more of it has to go to the famous-with-the-casuals, so-hot-right-then Brock Lesnar.

Basically, GSP's late-career numbers put him about on a par with Jon Jones in terms of drawing power.

McGregor, on the other hand, has four of the top five events in history in his past four fights - and two of those were against historical non-draws in Jose Aldo and Eddie Alvarez.

GSP isn't as big of a draw as Conor. Not even close. That's not a knock on GSP in any way, or me saying I don't like him or anything (quite the contrary). But it is fact.

 

[OzExorcist]

Or put it another way: Floyd Mayweather came out of retirement to fight Conor McGregor. There's not a hope in green hell he would have done that for a fight with GSP or anyone else in the UFC.

 

[underdog140]

I am not sure what you consider a star but in most other fans perspective Conor isn't the only one in the UFC.

217 PPV Buys .. . Dana likely included all PPV sales while as you are listing early estimates from U.S. and Canada PPV sales which don't include internet PPV's.

But who knows for sure .. it could be 900K it could 1 million + either way it was success.

 

[andyt5303]

In most fight fans perspective Conor is not the only star in the UFC of course. But to get those 'Conor numbers' you MUST appeal to the casuals which I believe right now GSP and a lot of other big fighters don't. I know so many people who don't watch a lot of UFC events but whenever Conor is fighting they will tune in 100%.

 

[OzExorcist]

In most fight fans perspective Conor is not the only star in the UFC of course. But to get those 'Conor numbers' you MUST appeal to the casuals which I believe right now GSP and a lot of other big fighters don't. I know so many people who don't watch a lot of UFC events but whenever Conor is fighting they will tune in 100%.

Yep, this is entirely my point.

As actual fight fans, we of course see the value in all sorts of fighters. We're the ones who enjoy Mighty Mouse matches, even though the casual observers clearly never tune in for him.

Something else to keep in mind too is that we've been following the sport for a long time. But these days there's likely a lot of casual fans who discovered the sport through Rousey or Conor. GSP was out of the cage and largely out of the limelight during that time, so it's entirely possible those new casual fans are only just having their first GSP experience now. It's very possible they take to him - GSP is awesome, after all. I'm just saying don't take it for granted that the casuals of today are the same casuals that made GSP a big-ish draw during his previous title run.

 

[Salavat Kozhakhmetov]

Conor brought something new to UFC daring trash talk,and the ratings the UFC has increased significantly,right now, ask in the street at a random person who is Conor MCgregor anyone know!he's Super Star,and Diamond for UFC!

 

[underdog140]

MM does 100K PPV Buys ... GSP pushes Close to 1 Million consistently. It is silly to compare the two.

As I pointed out before GSP was a bigger draw then Ronda. A month apart and GSP doubles her PPV Buys Below.

02/23/2013 UFC 157 Rousey vs Carmouche 450,000
03/16/2013 UFC 158 GSP vs Diaz 950,000

According to some here Diaz brothers aren't a draw so I guess GSP got that Million himself.

Ronda Biggest PPV - 1,100,000 Buys
GSP Biggest PPV - 1,600,000 Buys

Ronda has fought 8 times in the UFC. One of her PPV did 450K and another did 350K. Another event where she was Co-Main did 500K +. The one after that 600K.

Her Biggest PPV have been her most recent fights where she lost the belt and then try'd to make a comeback.

When GSP fights casuals take notice. If they didn't he wouldn't be doing 900K + PPV's. You can't do 900K + without casuals tuning in.


You all fell for the hype Dana and Co. was pushing when they kept saying Ronda is/was the biggest draw in MMA. She never was. There was always someone bigger. GSP before he retired. Currently it's Conor.

As for who is the bigger draw today Ronda or GSP. I am not certain. But over all GSP still is the bigger draw.

Conor obviously has passed them both.

Conor top fights in the UFC PPV wise are GSP and Nate Diaz

GSP's are Conor and Anderson Silva.

 

[underdog140]

GSP vs. Bisping pay-per-view estimates in for North America

https://www.mmafighting.com/2017/11...g-pay-per-view-estimates-in-for-north-america

Looks like 875K PPV Buys from US and Canada not including internet purchases and not including Australia ( According to the article the PPV did very well in Australia ). So it may have just went well over the 1 million mark.

There was a lot of questions leading into the show regarding how big it would be in Canada, as there was a question whether the old St-Pierre audience would come back after four years away. St-Pierre was voted by fans in Canada in 2008, 2009 and 2010 as Canada's athlete of the year, and during his heyday, on a per capita basis, Canadian cities were the strongest overall for UFC's pay-per-view business. St-Pierre and Brock Lesnar were UFC's two biggest pay-per-view draws from 2009 to 2013, with St-Pierre being No. 1 after Lesnar left to return to pro wrestling. The decline in MMA interest in Canada coincided with St-Pierre's departure from the sport in 2013.

There was some concern because the newer UFC fan base that had exploded big show numbers in 2015 and 2016 was brought to the sport by McGregor and Rousey, which were unique fan bases, and had no emotional attachment to St-Pierre.

The nature of the numbers being similar to the UFC's patterns prior to 2013 of a heavy Canadian skew seemed to indicate that St-Pierre brought back an audience in Canada from years earlier.

 

[OzExorcist]

As I pointed out before GSP was a bigger draw then Ronda. A month apart and GSP doubles her PPV Buys Below.

02/23/2013 UFC 157 Rousey vs Carmouche 450,000
03/16/2013 UFC 158 GSP vs Diaz 950,000

According to some here Diaz brothers aren't a draw so I guess GSP got that Million himself.

Ronda Biggest PPV - 1,100,000 Buys
GSP Biggest PPV - 1,600,000 Buys

What on earth are you talking about?!? GSP has never, ever, done 1.6m buys.

And comparing Rousey's first EVER PPV (hell the first women's fight in the UFC, after Dana had spent years telling the audience women's fights weren't worth watching) to the already-established GSP is taking the piss.

So let's not cherry pick. If you have a look at this complete list of UFC PPV buy rates you'll see there's only a limited number of names that appear over and over again at the top of the list. And the ranking seems to pretty clearly be:

1: Conor McGregor, and it's not even close. Average of 1.24m buys as a PPV headliner
2: Brock Lesnar, average 1.05m*
3: Ronda Rousey, average 745k
4: Georges St Pierre, average 719k**
5: Anderson Silva, average 544k
6: Jon Jones, average 524k
7: Chuck Liddell, average 503k

Everyone's numbers (except for Conor, who jumped basically straight from midcard / Fox headliner to 800k+ as a PPV headliner) are dragged down slightly by their early career numbers. Yes Rousey's early career numbers were bad, but so were everyone else's, and her ceiling was pretty clearly higher than GSP's given she had two 1m+ headliners and one 1m+ co-main compared to one for GSP as a co-main. That one, of course, was...

...UFC 100, which is a Lesnar headlined card, not a GSP card. You can quibble over how that should be counted but like UFC 168 (a Silva card with Rousey in the co-main, counted here in Silva's numbers not Rousey's, and the only time he ever topped 1m buys), basically what it proves is one star good, two stars very good.

Arguing that 100 should be counted as a GSP card doesn't do a lot to help his case though. At best all it proves is that he' never broken the 1m buys mark without help from a legit huge crossover star in Lesnar and a special one-off promo push for the company's 100th PPV.


* I haven't included the mess that was UFC 200 in that (he was midcard, but nobody's buying that Miesha Tate was the actual headliner of that card are they?). It was 1m buys though, which is right on his average.

** Doesn't include UFC100, for reasons state above. If you insist on including it then you're wrong But his average would still only get to a Rousey-esque 760k. You'd also have to bump Rousey's numbers up to include UFC 168. I used 950k buys for UFC 217.

 

[underdog140]

Well lets use your formula then.... Co-Main don't count.

Its hard to compare due to Ronda only having 8 fights to GSP's 22 fights. Ronda only has 6 if we are only including Main event fights.

I listed Ronda's 8 Most recent and only UFC fights then excluded two for being non-main events.

I listed GSP's 8 most recent main event fights and then used his top 6 and most recent 6 to compare.



Ronda

UFC 157 - 450K
UFC 168 - Co Main - Don't count
UFC 170 - 350 K
UFC 175 - Co-Main - Don't count
UFC 184 - 600K
UFC 190 - 900K
UFC 193 - 1.1 Million
UFC 207 - 1.1 Million

GSP

UFC 94 - 920K
UFC 111 - 770K
UFC 124 - 785K
UFC 129 - 800K
UFC 154 - 700K
UFC 158 - 950K
UFC 167 - 630 K
UFC 217 - 1 Million*


Ronda total PPV buy for her 6 main events = 4.5 million PPV Buys

GSP's most recent top 6 out of last 8 = 5.2 million PPV Buys ( give or take 100K for UFC 217 )

GSP's total for most recent 6 = 4.9 million PPV Buys ( give or take 100K for UFC 217 )

Ronda isn't / wasn't the bigger draw.

If we only use there top three:

Ronda: 3.1 million
GSP: 2.9 Million* ( depending on UFC 217 )


Ronda entered UFC at a much different time then GSP did. To compare first fight with first fight and so on wouldn't be fair. UFC had a much bigger following when Ronda entered UFC when compared to GSP. For example GSP first fought for the UFC at UFC 46 that did 80K PPV Buys outselling at least 12 of the 14 events that took place before it. Possibly more.

This is where I get my numbers : http://mmapayout.com/blue-book/pay-per-view/

Both are draws. History has shown GSP was the bigger one and has longevity. Ronda has three big events she was the main event for. 3 events that were average or slightly above and two cards she was Co-Main.

 

[OzExorcist]

LOL - you're willing to acknowledge Conor is a bigger draw despite having even less PPV main events than Rousey though I'm not saying you're wrong to do so, it's pretty clearly correct. I just think it's funny.

Same goes for Brock actually, he only had a small number of events.

Anyway, point is there's some VERY clearly tiers to this: Conor is on his own, then Brock. Then GSP and Rousey are at about the same level. Then it's Silva / Jones / Liddell, then everyone else.

 

[underdog140]

LOL - you're willing to acknowledge Conor is a bigger draw despite having even less PPV main events than Rousey though I'm not saying you're wrong to do so, it's pretty clearly correct. I just think it's funny.

Same goes for Brock actually, he only had a small number of events.

Anyway, point is there's some VERY clearly tiers to this: Conor is on his own, then Brock. Then GSP and Rousey are at about the same level. Then it's Silva / Jones / Liddell, then everyone else.

You were clearly saying Ronda was a bigger draw then GSP. She isn't.

Conor had a giant PPV with Floyd in boxing. This is a large reason to why he is ahead of everyone else. I am not sure what number is correct but I read 4.4 million buys to 6.7 million buys. There is going to be some boxing fans cross over there the next time he fights. Plus he was already a big draw.

He should fight Diaz Next as it would be the smart thing to do on his part. It's his least risk fight and brings him the most PPV buys outside of a fight with GSP imo.

On a side note Oscar Dela Hoya is trying to box Conor.

There is no doubt Brock is a big draw. But he isn't much bigger then what GSP has become if at all.


Brock is clearly the bigger star due to WWE. And has drawn the bigger PPV's then GSP has when comparing single top PPV of each fighter head to head. But an over all picture shows they are closer then you may think in terms of MMA PPV Buys.

You have been tricked by Dana and Co.

I also think you let that 1 million mark trick you. There isn't much difference between 900K + and 1 million.

Brock has been on two staple events UFC 100 and UFC 200. GSP and himself have been on two PPV's together UFC 100 and UFC 86. He is / was a big draw and also had the luck of being put on a couple key events that likely would have sold above average with any decent line up. And I don't say that last part negatively. There was big buzz around UFC 100 / 200.

I also look at longevity in the sport and only GSP has that thus far.