Ennis' Take
ENNIS BLOG: Clarifying thoughts on Anderson Silva's draw following Chael Sonnen fight at UFC 117
Jul 28, 2011 - 10:05:24 AM ENNIS BLOG: Clarifying thoughts on Anderson Silva's draw following Chael Sonnen fight at UFC 117

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By: Shawn Ennis, MMATorch Senior Columnist

Last week, in the first part of a series I'm doing about the UFC's promotion of events, I talked a bit about how the UFC could, well, better promote its events. Obviously there's more detail in that particular part, but to sum it up my argument is that the UFC doesn't do a good enough job getting people to care about the fighters participating (chiefly in the main events), and that if the viewer does care it's more the fighter or fighters' doing than that of the promotion. We ended last week with the example of Anderson Silva – my argument is that Anderson Silva wasn't a real star until Chael Sonnen came along. My fellow columnist Jason Amadi took exception to that assertion, saying the following: "As I've pointed out in the past, Anderson Silva's bout with Chael Sonnen did the lowest buyrate of any Anderson Silva fight in about two years. There is no clear, demonstrable evidence that Chael Sonnen is a draw."

This is true to a certain extent. However, the argument here is not that Chael Sonnen is a draw. The argument is that Anderson Silva wasn't a real draw until he fought Sonnen – to wit: "And yet, Anderson Silva was not a star until Chael Sonnen came along. Chael Sonnen made people care about watching Anderson Silva fight. Whether you wanted to see him win or lose, you cared. And when we saw the best fighter in the world (for my money) take a beating for four rounds only to come back and win out of nowhere in the fifth, that was when Anderson Silva arrived."

I probably should have gone into detail about that point when it was made, but it's better late than never. Let's look at the past eight cards headlined by Anderson Silva, followed by the approximate buyrate:

UFC 77 (Silva-Franklin II) – 325k

UFC 82 (Silva-Henderson) – 325k

UFC 90 (Silva-Cote) – 300k

After UFC 90, there was no question that Silva wasn't a draw at the top of the card. So on the next three cards, Silva was joined by pretty significant co-headliners:

UFC 97 (Silva-Leites & Liddell-Rua) – 650k (You can't convince me that Silva's performance against Cote earned him more than double the PPV buys for that fight.)

UFC 101 (Silva-Griffin & Penn-Florian) – between 850k-1M (Ditto this, though there was curiosity with Griffin in the picture)

UFC 112 (Silva-Maia & Penn-Edgar) – 500k (A bit of an aberration here since this was an international card that aired originally in the afternoon)

UFC 117 (Silva-Sonnen) – 600k (Almost double what he was drawing before UFC 97)

UFC 126 (Silva-Belfort) – 725k

UFC 126 is what makes my point. After the Sonnen fight, people were more interested in seeing Silva compete. This card had semi-decent promotion, and resulted in a top-15 buyrate for the UFC. So – did Silva's fight with Sonnen draw fewer buys than his past three fights? Yes. But was Silva the main draw in those fights? No way. Two title fights on a card is a draw, and Chuck Liddell was a draw. And now, after he fought Sonnen, so is Anderson Silva. The point remains, though, that all we know about Silva we learned from watching him fight. And he didn't become interesting to the casual fan until he almost lost. Personality sells, whether we see it in promos or in the Octagon. It would just be nice if the UFC made people care more before the fight – then more people would care afterwards too.

Hopefully this explains the point I was trying to make a little more clearly. Part two of the series will be up later on this week. See you then.