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ASK THE TORCH: Amadi answers reader questions on too many UFC events, and Anderson Silva
Aug 13, 2012 - 3:00:29 PM ASK THE TORCH: Amadi answers reader questions on too many UFC events, and Anderson Silva

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By: Jason Amadi, MMATorch Columnist

Stephen writes: I, among others, have noticed a general lack of name quality on UFC cards recently because of the amount of cards being promoted, and when a main card or co-main event fight is broken up the overall quality of the card may suffer as a result.

The UFC is in a tough spot here trying to attract more casual fans to buy these cards. I'm lucky since I live in England and only need to pay for ESPN.

My question is this: Do you think the UFC would benefit from putting a stacked card on followed by a standard card a few weeks later and offering a "buy one, get one half price" deal on the cards as a package?

A: For a while now I've been on the fence about whether or not the UFC was putting on too many shows, but I don't think this recent stretch really proves that. The UFC was on a serious roll this year with their first five pay-per-view offerings. They were all spread out, the action on all the cards was pretty great and for the most part, they did well on pay-per-view.

However, the UFC ran into so much bad luck this summer, I'm not sure it's fair to judge them based on that. Four pay-per-view events in seven weeks is still too much no matter how you look at it, but the planned cards were strong enough to handle it.

UFC 147 was supposed to have Fabricio Werdum vs. Mike Russow and Wanderlei Silva vs. Vitor Belfort underneath what was by far the most anticipated fight of the year in Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen II. What we got was Rich Franklin vs. Wanderlei Silva as the headliner of what essentially became a TUF Brazil pay-per-view.

UFC 149 was supposed to have Jose Aldo vs. Erik Koch, Shogun vs. Thiago Silva, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Cheick Kongo, Thiago Alves vs. Yoshihiro Akiyama, and Michael Bisping vs. Tim Boetsch. That could have been the best card of the year. Instead, what we got was Hector Lombard vs. Tim Boetsch in a snoozer, Cheick Kongo vs. Shawn Jordan in a snoozer and Urijah Faber vs. Renan Barao (which was pulled from an even more stacked card due to injury) in a fairly unspectacular fight.

So we're not really talking about one or two tweaks ruining already weak cards; we're talking about the injury bug devastating the UFC's summer plans and ruining stacked cards.

Another thing people don't take into account when they talk about watered down cards is the fact that we're now seeing every single fight that takes place. For a long time, the only way you could see prelims was to buy them off the UFC website. Now, there's so much focus on all the fights that the UFC has to try to put name fighters on televised prelims in order to keep interest and pop a rating.

Things are definitely going to get better later in the year. UFC 151 and 152 are okay, but 153, 154 and 155 are going to be absolutely stacked from top to bottom with fights that should have happened earlier in the year.

As far as whether or not the UFC could benefit from offering pay-per-view packages, I definitely think they could. Casual fans would definitely still buy events a la carte, but hardcore fans would definitely see the value in it. The problem is that kind of decision isn't up to just the UFC, and even if it were, I'm not sure they would see the value in it either.

Nathan writes: Do you really think it is fair that Anderson Silva should be able to choose his opponents? I mean he is the champion and should defend his title to whoever is worthy. I understand everyone wants to make big money, but he has the endorsements and he also gets the big pay cheques no matter who he fights. Should fighters like Weidman, Belcher, Lombard, and other fighters never get a title shot because Silva says so? That's not a true champion IMO.

A: I'm still getting a lot of emails about this, so perhaps I haven't done that great of a job to this point. So, I'm going to try to be a bit more thorough in my explanation this time.

But before I even get into this, let me just say that what I'm about to say has nothing to do with what I think about Anderson Silva personally or the specifics of what he's accomplished. This whole Anderson Silva-Chris Weidman situation is an incredibly rare circumstance, and a lot of different things need to be taken into consideration before forming an opinion.

First of all, Anderson Silva doesn't just get the "big pay checks" regardless of who he fights. I'm obviously not privy to the specifics of his UFC contracts, but generally the way it works for big stars is that they get a specific dollar amount for every pay-per-view unit sold after a certain point. For example, in his UFC debut against Brock Lesnar, I believe it came out that Alistair Overeem received $2 on every pay-per-view sold in excess of 500,000.

Now, again, there's no way for me to know the dollar amount Silva receives or how many buys his events need to sell in order for him to start getting cut in, but when he fights guys who fans don't really know or think can beat him, the shows don't perform well at all.

In 2011, "UFC 126: Silva vs. Belfort" did about 725,000 buys, whereas "UFC 134: Silva vs. Okami" did about 335,000 buys, less than half the number he pulled for his first fight of the year. These aren't abstract numbers that maybe/sort of/kind of tie in to his pay; Silva can literally make two or three times the money against a known opponent vs. what he can make against someone people don't know or don't believe can actually challenge him.

Really, the fight Anderson Silva is looking at next is Georges St-Pierre sometime early 2013. That is a fight that people have been talking about for about four years and would be an order of magnitude bigger than the Chris Weidman bout. That kind of fight would mean more money for Anderson Silva, more money for the UFC, and more money for Georges St-Pierre because that's the kind of fight that fans want to see.

All the talk of financials might not be what you want to hear, so let me come at this from a different angle. Chris Weidman is not the undisputed number one contender for the UFC Middleweight Championship. Chris Weidman is a really talented fighter that hardcore fans got jazzed up about only because the best performance of his short career happened to take place in close proximity to Anderson Silva's last title defense.

Weidman doesn't necessarily "deserve" an immediate title shot, he was never promised an immediate title shot and it looks like he's not going to get an immediate title shot. I just don't see the issue with Silva taking a legacy fight with Georges St-Pierre, while Weidman gets another win under his belt and builds his name.

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