...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!
BY WADE KELLER, MMATORCH SUPERVISING EDITOR
I think a lot of us who have been watching, following, and reporting on UFC since its infancy were watching Saturday night's fight not just as fight fans, but like a parent watching their child at graduation or starring in a play or starting in a big football game. We all had scenarios that we knew might be bad for the sport in terms of introducing it to new fans (and mainstream media snobs who "don't get it" yet). We also had dream scenarios. UFC's been both lucky and unlucky in that regard.
The last "biggest night ever" was the Spike TV "Ultimate Fighter 1" finale between Stephan Bonnar and Forrest Griffin. UFC couldn't have asked for a better fight in terms of generating buzz and creating new fans.
Before that, back in September 2001, UFC debuted in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand. This was a big night for so many reasons. After years of being knocked off pay-per-view on almost all cable systems (thus relegated to DirecTV), they were cleared again for the first time. Also, it was the first-ever event in Las Vegas, after years in Alabama and other smaller, unregulated towns off the East Coast/West Coast big media radar. Plus, burgeoning star Tito Ortiz was in the main event against flashy young phenom Vitor Belfort in a battle for the Light-Heavyweight Championship.
While everything went right for UFC with Bonnar-Griffin, everything that could go wrong did go wrong in Las Vegas ten years ago. I was there, and the contrast between Dana White's optimistic glow before the show, and his sullen disappointment afterward couldn't have been more stark.
First, Belfort got hurt and couldn't make it, so the less-than-marquee Vladimir Matyushenko took his place in the main event. Second, and far worse, every fight on the main card ended in a draw and not one fight was particularly exciting. Some were downright awful. Jens Pulver was assuring people before the press conference afterward that he felt he brought it and did what he could.
Back then, a dejected White told me afterward it was a worst case scenario, but it wasn't a crushing blow and they'd be back. It just happened that in the unpredictable world of MMA, you can't ever manufacture a sure-thing. Just like he is telling people since Saturday night's fight, this wasn't an all-or-nothing night. It's just the very beginning of a new relationship with thousands (and millions, really) of new potential fans.
Saturday night's fight wasn't a sure thing. It was the right fight to feature, even if a one minute knockout gave some people the wrong impression of the totality of what makes MMA a great sport. It just so happened, as White has since pointed out, that one of the likely finishes occured - a huge power striker took down the undefeated champion early in the first.
I asked MMATorch editor Jamie Penick on our live podcast on Friday what scenario would be worse - a knockout in the opening minute that kept the viewership from seeing a classic back-and-forth fight with all the skills required to be an elite MMA fighter, or a five-round draw that went to the judges. Jamie believed an early knockout would be a good thing; not ideal, but good. The five-round tentatively fought boring draw was a much worse case scenario. Ideal, of course, would have been a back-and-forth fight with great stand-up, intense back-and-forth ground fighting, near submissions, and flashy moves on display before a decisive fifth round tapout of KO.
That didn't happen. What did happen is a mix of good and bad.
The bad is that critics of the sport will think this heralded undefeated champion went down with one blow and showed no defense on his feet. Also, some new viewers may think it's just a tough-man type slugfest since they didn't get a chance to see much skill or finesse. Others will see it as a brutal sport because "obviously boxing gloves would have protected that poor fellow from being knocked out so quickly." Those who haven't seen a lot of MMA might have also wondered why the ref stepped in and stopped the fight when the champ wasn't really completely knocked out and seemed fine in the post-loss interview a few minutes later. And on and on.
The good is that new viewers got to see a powerful striker beat a previously undefeated champion. That is what made Mike Tyson a legend and a huge PPV draw - the sense that he had the power to end a fight quickly with a devastating knockout. The idea of Brock Lesnar, with his name value, against Junior Dos Santos on pay-per-view (or Fox) next year is enticing for new viewers who didn't previously know Dos Santos. The idea of seeing the well-known Lesnar with a wrestling background try to battle this new champ in his first title defense who has awesome knockout power is an attractive fight that's easy to market.
There is another good thing coming from this one-minute knockout Saturday, but it's part of the big picture of what makes MMA so exciting. Without finishes like this one, the opening seconds of every fight wouldn't be so edge-of-your-seat exciting. Sure, a first inning home run is fun to watch in baseball. Yes, a kickoff returned for a touchdown at the start of an NFL game is exciting. But a UFC Title fight from the opening seconds is always like game seven overtime of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The very fact that it can - and often does - end quickly and decisively is what makes every second of every fight so nerve-wracking and relevant.
Yes, this finish would have been better if it were part of a show with other fights that were longer and showed more action. Some of the six million plus viewers who watched the fight (5.7 million on average throughout the whole hour) may have felt ripped off by investing so much time into so little action, but if they stuck around long enough to watch the knockout, they will almost assuredly be back the next time they know about a big fight on TV. And next time, they won't blink, they won't look away, and they won't take for granted that the fight will last past the opening minute. Because of Saturday night, viewers for every minute of every big fight - start to finish - will be locked on the screen on the edge of their seats.
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Wade Keller is supervising editor of MMATorch. He has covered MMA since before UFC 1 for the Torch Newsletter, and is among the longest tenured reporters covering the sport. He is a double-black-stripe belt in tae kwon do and has practiced judo and jiu jitsu at the North Star Martial Arts Academy under Michelle Holtze and Tom Crone. He founded MMATorch.com as a dedicated MMA website in 2006 and launched the MMATorch App in 2008. MMATorch is among the top five most read MMA-dedicated brands in the world.
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