UFC 114 almost hits a million

Early estimates say 925K... Not bad for a non-title card with no Brock, Couture or Liddell. I almost wish I had PPV'd and DVR'd while being out of town, but I really don't think I missed all that much...


http://www.411mania.com/MMA/news/140982/Updates-on-the-UFC-113-and-114-Buyrates.htm

They have a great promotional team at the UFC. This fight was attracting alot of casual fans, even some boxing fans were interested in the main event.

LikesToFightGuy wrote:

Early estimates say 925K... Not bad for a non-title card with no Brock, Couture or Liddell. I almost wish I had PPV'd and DVR'd while being out of town, but I really don't think I missed all that much...


http://www.411mania.com/MMA/news/140982/Updates-on-the-UFC-113-and-114-Buyrates.htm

Rampage is as big a draw too. Just as big as the ones listed

Weren't the first estimates around 520k then yesterday I read around 700k. That's a pretty big jump. Wish we really knew what the numbers were not what we are told by the UFC.

Pretty big numbers. Imagine what an impact there would of been if they had put equal effort into 113? That event blew 114 away. If they promoted it in the same manner and even got an additional 300k buys that would of poured over to 114 and put it well over 1 mill with the same promoting I bet.

I thought they'd do over 800k. A mate of mine who is a big boxing fan was even exited about this fight after watching tuf 10.

It just goes to show you the perpetual drawing power of this sport as it continues to grow.

And how many of those buys where casual fans who expected to see a slugfest and got a hugfest? It's great they got that many buys on a non-title fight main event but it sucks those people didn't get what they paid for. I blame Page for not coming in shape and I blame Rashad for being cool with hugging Page on the fence for a solid 7-8 mins. And Herb fucking Dean for not breaking the hugfest after Rashad made it clear he was cool with just holding Page against the fence.

You can't blame Rashad. He had to do what he did to win.

freakzilla316ftw wrote:

You can't blame Rashad. He had to do what he did to win.

No no you misunderstand I don't fault Rashad at all for doing what he did to win the fight, I would have just perfered it if he would have said from the beginning, "Hey you can't stop my takedowns, I'm gonna try and punch you in the face and then I'm gonna spend the rest of my time going for the takedown"

I was expecting more for some reason but that' great too.

The potshots at Rashad, who was by far the more complete MMA fighter, are unfounded, but the concern that this particular fight was disinteresting to boxing fans is valid. I hope the initial punch then Page's rally were enough excitment for the boxing fans who tuned in. But if it wasn't, you know what I say? So fucking what. This is MMA, like it or don't. I thought the fight was a great tactic battle and a true test of wills and resolve.

I wish we'd stop worrying about "causals" and boxing fans so much.

I predicted this fight would be the biggest non-title UFC ever with the substantial boxing cross over and interest in the boxing and African American fight-fan community. I think coming on the cusp of Mayweather-Mosley helped as well as interest in combat sports between two African American athletes was already sparked by that fight.

I didn't think it would be this big. This number is HUGE. If this is true and it is close to a million, it is the first card in ages that proves non-title cards can under the right circumstances draw sickening numbers too. Granted, this fight isn't quite the same as a Liddell-Franklin bout or a Tito-Forrest bout in terms of fighter quality. It was a foregone conclusion the winner of this fight would face the champion, Rashad and Rampage were universally ranked 3 and 4 at worst by all ranking sites, and are both recent former champions that are still considered in their prime, who are still considered as competitive or more (before the fight I mean, Rampage questioners) than they were when they were champions, and you had a lot of carry over interest among boxing fans and special interest from the African American fight-fan base. I think it is a special exception to the rule, but a very important one going forward.

This shows the promotional power of appealing to fight fan demographics. Why do you think Cain Valesquez is being featured so much in Undisputed marketing?

On a related note, Bellator and Strikeforce are leaving a good potential payday by not working out and promoting a superfight between Eddie Alvarez and Gilbert Melendez on Showtime. They could reasonably make a case, right or wrongly, that the winner of this fight is the number one LW especially with the title situation in the UFC. The argument is at least worth having now as many writers have suggested. Couple that with the interest from Latino fight fans and the Puerto Rican and Mexican rivalry angle and a recipe for a very successful Showtime fight is created.

Wolfgangsta wrote:

I thought the fight was a great tactic battle and a true test of wills and resolve.

So did I brother but I knew what to expect. It's the people who didn't know that I'm worried about. I get what your saying if they don't like mma then fuck them that's how I feel to most of the time. But the growth of the sport and better pay for fighters which is what will make our sport even greater is at stake when talking about bringing in new fans and keeping the casual ones. You can't deny that Rashad mislead alot of people

I said it would do around 850k and I thought I overshot it by a bit the next day.