UFC won't hold live show on April 17

http://www.mmamania.com/2010/3/18/1379647/ufc-wont-hold-live-nashville-event
The Strikeforce: "Nashville" CBS fight card will apparently be let off the hook for its debut in "Music City" next month.

Well, sort of.

MMA Fighting is reporting that Zuffa has bailed on a proposed April 17 event, also in Nashville, that would have aired on its cable television partner Spike TV in an effort to impact its rival's ticket sales and television ratings.

No more.

And one has to imagine that even the world's largest fight promotion had a hard time booking an event on six weeks notice -- considering they already have five events under the Zuffa umbrella planned through April 24.

Simply put, there may not have been enough talent to fill a card worth watching.



Instead, the UFC will likely air a recent pay-per-view offering for free on Spike, or a possible compilation of high-profile fights like it did with "Main Events" that ran opposite Strikeforce: "Fedor vs. Rogers" last November.

Good. It also looks like a variation on bad sportsmanship.

Or a variation of good business

If the UFC was THAT good at business, SF wouldn't be as large a player as they are.

I kind of figured they would pull out once a couple weeks went by and not even one fighter or venue was confirmed for the card.

tolivendiewithLA wrote:

Or a variation of good business

airing reruns on spike while SF air's 3 title fights on CBS is good business?

captain organic wrote:

tolivendiewithLA wrote:

Or a variation of good business

airing reruns on spike while SF air's 3 title fights on CBS is good business?

Promoting your own business [probably for free] while taking viewers away from the competition is good business, even if both of those may be to a small degree.

Cap, it's not good business for MMA but it is standard procedure with their business model. Zuffa is out for UFC/WEC and them only. Monopoly in their business model. You can't really get mad at UFC for doing it, you just shake your heads at the morons who actually KNOW there is 3 title fights on CBS and still choose to watch a re-run of some PPV card that happened a month or two prior...however, most of the people that would tune in to a UFC re-run over CBS were probably unaware there even was a Strikeforce card on CBS or probably watched both if one was on a tape delay. So UFC has actually been pretty light on the counter programming IMO because i think they know it's not really hurting Strikeforce just running replays. SF did good numbers on Showtime despite going head to head with UFC 100 or GSP-Penn...IMO It's not REAL counter programming until they eventually do a live card in counter to Strikeforce because i don't think they are "stealing" viewers with what they are doing now.