Monday, March 15 9:45 pm PT: Old news, but what can I say? I’m slow. In hyping a spring fight between Floyd Mayweather and Shane Mosley, HBO’s Mark Taffet indicated to media that there was only a “5% overlap” between boxing and MMA fans. At the same press conference, the fighter implied the UFC could be exaggerating their buyrates. “The pay per view numbers we’re doing, we’re really doing,” he said. “We’re not making up fake numbers.”
Clearly, we do not seek out the opinion of Mayweather when it comes to things he takes an adversarial position against. (He has referred to the sport as something “for beer drinkers,” as if boxing’s faithful are Amish.) If the UFC were intent on fudging numbers, you would assume they would disseminate information more flattering than the rumored 215,000-household rate for UFC 110 in February. But there is also no auditing system for either the information they might leak or the cable industry “insiders” that pass estimates to media. No Nielsen system exists for pay-per-view.
Back to Taffet’s point. He seems satisfied with the idea there may be so little crossover between the two combat sports, but that’s puzzling. MMA fans are feeding highly-rated basic cable programs, merchandising sales, gate, and pay per view numbers. Why would boxing be content to think 95% of those freely-spending fight fans aren’t interested in HBO’s product?
It’s money left on the table. Then again, Mayweather would know all about that.
Monday, March 15 2:35 pm PT: There were once two promoters who looked at semi-professional hockey in Oklahoma City and had a revelatory idea: lose the hockey, keep the fights. They invited members of regional teams, had them punch each other into paste, and thought they had it made.
The hockey games in Oklahoma City could draw crowds upward of 15,000. The hockey brawl drew 1,200.
The lesson: you can focus on a dimension of a sport you think is the most attractive, but what you don’t realize is that it’s attractive only in context. NBA fans love theatrical dunks, but if you had a venue comprised only of a slam-dunk contest, you would draw crickets.
The people behind Instinct Fighting, a promotion that insists its fighters will only kickbox with no grappling tolerated, are clearly not historians. Athletes will be fitted with seven-ounce gloves, allowed to punch and kick, and can toss opponents to the ground. The logic must be that audiences will appreciate the demotion of all that boring wrestling.
“More exciting than kickboxing,” ads read. This is a considerable claim when you account for the fact that it is kickboxing. (Saying something is more exciting than itself is, I admit, intriguing.)
Stephane Patry, Instinct’s promoter and the former head of Canada’s TKO MMA promotion, might argue that the addition of throws provides a marked difference: I would argue that this is San Shou, Cung Le’s base art, and that was not exactly a combat sport that caught the world afire. Tosses might actually have the opposite effect, with audiences disappointed the fight isn’t allowed to follow its natural flow to the mat. We are now feeding a generation that identifies “real” fighting with cross-training. This appears diluted in comparison.
Instinct will promote April 17, the same night as a Strikeforce event on CBS and a possible UFC card on Spike. You guess which two of the three have very little to worry about.
While the UFC has invested considerable labor and energy in getting programming funneled to major Spanish-speaking markets and television stations, there is not yet the sense that the sport appeals to that demographic in quite the same way boxing incites their passion. MMA has not yet found its Julio Chavez.
Roger Huerta had his foot in the door. Talent and good looks got him exposure, including movie deals and a Sports Illustrated cover, but he couldn’t overcome the last few inches of adversity against Kenny Florian and Gray Maynard. He disappeared, uncertain about his focus in life and perhaps punished for complaining about his pay. Now Huerta is resurfacing in Bellator, the MMA promotion that found success on ESPN Deportes last year and intends to run on Telemundo this year.
Whether Huerta made the right decision in vacating the UFC depends on your impression of being a big fish in a small pond or a mid-sized one in a lake. He will probably be the beneficiary of a promotional push that doesn’t have to be interrupted by fights against top-shelf talent. (Huerta, tough as he is, can’t threaten off his back and would not have many answers for B.J. Penn or his numerous contenders.) If Huerta navigates the eight-man tournament, he could face 155-pound champion Eddie Alvarez, a fight that would draw attention outside of the norm for the promotion.
The UFC is inarguably the most prominent and respected fight league in the world, but that is no guarantee their methods or structure are a good fit for everyone. Strikeforce’s Cung Le and Frank Shamrock make good money that would evaporate in the UFC’s shark tank. Huerta is nowhere near as limited in ability, but the fact remains that there is a glass ceiling under every banner. Huerta bumped his head in Vegas, so he might feel it’s time to try his luck elsewhere.
Monday, March 15 12:09 pm PT: MMAJunkie.com notes that Spike will be re-airing UFC 108 tonight at 6:30 p.m. ET. The show, taped January 2, was an underwhelming bit of business headlined by Rashad Evans and Thiago Silva.
Why is this noteworthy? Because Anchor Bay will release UFC 108 on DVD Tuesday. You can look at this either as a smooth marketing move, or the kind of goof that happens when there are too many moving parts. While the DVD has the benefit of additional preliminary fights, a portion of the audience tuning in tonight will have their curiosity about the show satisfied by Spike’s rebroadcast.
It’s a small hiccup in an otherwise lucrative and unique revenue stream. For reasons probably having to do with substantial cards and multi-layered fights, UFC events tend to perform very well on home video. That’s in big contrast to boxing, which hardly bothers releasing even their biggest bouts.
A 48-year-old Ray Mercer is not exactly a perfect precedent for James Toney’s MMA aspirations, but it’s about as good as he’s going to find. That’s why Toney may find some interest in watching Mercer get a spoon-fed return to MMA on April 16 against underwhelming heavyweight Ron Sparks (5-0, with four of those wins against one-and-done fighters who had not fought before and have not fought since).
Mercer may be the one to blame for the recent boxing imports -- Toney, Ricardo Mayorga, BJ Flores, possibly Shannon Briggs -- because of that viral win over Tim Sylvia in the summer of last year. For his part, Sylvia taught his MMA peers that if you stand perfectly still in front of a professional boxer, you might find yourself able to point out weak spots in the arena’s roof.
Sparks may use more wisdom, and Mercer may not have much of a defense even against a sloppy tackle, but this is about the speed a pro boxer can expect to remain competitive in. If James Toney can learn to defend a world-class grappler’s clinch or takedown at the age of 41, it would be a miracle the Vatican would have to acknowledge.
