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By: Rich Hansen, MMATorch Columnist
In the last week or so, the UFC has begun spoon feeding the public a few fight announcements for three of the most important shows they've had to promote in the last few years. Specifically, the debut on Fox Sports 1 on August 17, UFC 164 on August 31, and UFC 165 on September 21 mark a crucial period for the future of the UFC. The success of these three major shows (along with two FS1 shows on August 28 and September 4) is vital to the long-term health of the UFC. It's of the utmost importance that the UFC book these shows strongly and promote them as well as they possibly can.
The Fox family of networks has made it very clear; they are in bed with the UFC, for better or for worse. When FS1 debuts on Saturday August 17, they will be leaning heavily on the UFC to deliver huge ratings on the fledgling sports network's opening night. A bad number simply will not do. And since the UFC will control FS1's airwaves from 3:30 PM - 11:00 PM Eastern time, it's squarely on the shoulders of the UFC to deliver. The UFC must deliver a number that makes both Fox, as well as their advertising partners, happy. Of course, the best way to do this is to stack the main card with both big fights and big names. Naturally, Dana white is well aware of this pressure, having recently been quoted as saying, "...I'm telling you – it's going to be the best television card we've ever done." Needless to say, a main invent that involves Chael Sonnen in any way, shape, or form invalidates White's quote.
UFC 164 in Milwaukee is a surprisingly important show for the UFC. The UFC seems to have found a plateau when it comes to ratings and PPV buyrates, and they are desperate to break out of whatever shackles are keeping them in their current place in the world. That they made it to the level of prosperity and cultural significance that they have attained with literally zero help from anyone outside of their own office is a fantastic American success story. But to become as mainstream as they aspire to become ("We're already bigger than the NFL" and, "We're neck-and-neck with soccer. Soccer isn't huge here in the United States, but all over the world it is. The only other thing that could work is fighting," both come to mind) they'll need to expand. Clearly, without he help of willing television and advertising partners, the UFC will not be able to expand much beyond the glass ceiling they're concussing themselves upon.
Harley-Davidson, based in Milwaukee, is one of the major partners who can help chip away at the thick glass ceiling that White and the Fertitta brothers are encountering. UFC 164 on August 164 is sandwiched between two consecutive Wednesday night shows on FS1, with the second of those show leading into Season 18 of The Ultimate Fighter. For those of you who are living in a cave, the upcoming season of The Ultimate fighter will be the first season with female coaches, and will be the first with both men and (gasp!) women in the house. The over/under for number of Ultimate Fighter reads Mike Goldberg and Jon Anik do in the month of August is currently set at 582. The UFC clearly wants to pop a huge number for their flagship show, and they need to do everything possible to keep their momentum growing.
Seventeen days after The Ultimate Fighter season debuts, the UFC heads back to their home away from home in Toronto, Ontario. The UFC has been in Toronto three times previously. UFC 129 in April 2011 was kind of a big deal. Only the largest MMA show in North American history, the UFC brought two title fights to Rogers Centre (one of whom being Canadian MMA legend Georges St-Pierre), sold 55,000 tickets in less than 72 hours, and did a record gate of more than eleven million dollars. Less than eight months later the UFC brought UFC 140 to the Air Canada Centre (Note, 11 numbered events in 7.5 months. That's not going to happen again anytime soon, but that's neither here nor there). While the UFC cannot be expected to do north of eleven million dollar gates every time they go to Toronto, they managed a very healthy gate of nearly four million dollars to a crowd of more than 18,000 people. Jon Jones versus Lyoto Machida was the main event that they brought to Toronto, with solid supporting fights as well (Mir vs. Big Nog, Tito vs. Little Nog).
After two very solid and profitable cards to the UFC's most reliable market, the UFC tried to downgrade for their next appearance in Toronto, the notorious UFC 152 card. Had Dan Henderson known how and when to use a telephone, UFC 152 would have been main evented by Joseph Benavidez and Demetrious Johnson fighting to become the first UFC Flyweight Champion. Ticket sales and buzz were minimal, and the city of Toronto, accustomed to major shows with the biggest names, yawned apathetically. Fortunately, Jon Jones did Torontonians a solid by murdering the sport, and the UFC hastily booked Jones vs. Vitor Belfort at UFC 152. Paid attendance, despite the late rush for tickets, was less than 17,000, with a gate of under two million dollars. Needless to say, the UFC, penny-wise and pound-foolish as they were being, showed what the law of diminishing returns meant. Toronto is still probably the best North American market the UFC has to count on, but Toronto has made it very clear that if the UFC doesn't come big, Torontonians will not come in the droves that the UFC once took for granted.
So, keeping all that in mind, the UFC is in a tight spot here. If they play their cards right, they could completely re-energize their entire brand (not that it needs re-energizing, per se'). But if they fail to strike while the iron is as hot as it is, the next phase of unfettered growth may be delayed by several years. The UFC can promote and sell their brand all they want, but that brand is only responsible for a certain number of PPV buys and a certain number of tickets sold. Solid undercards are nice, and make fight-geeks happy. But let's face it, the inclusion of Ben Rothwell on the Milwaukee card will sell 50 additional tickets and garner maybe five extra PPV buys. No offense to Rothwell, whom I particularly like, but undercards do nothing for the bottom line. If the UFC is going to capitalize, they need the right main events for each of these three shows. After all, main events are what get people to open their wallets and to press the order button on their cable remotes. They need to do whatever possible to make logical cards in Boston, Milwaukee, and Toronto that make sense for Fox, their advertisers, and their own bottom line as well.
Obviously, the UFC can't put Anderson Silva vs. GSP and Jon Jones vs. Alistair Overeem on every card, so to complete this flight of fancy, let's take a look at the fight status of each UFC Champion so we can see which fighters are available and realistic for each show, sorted by weight class:
Ronda Rousey: Won't be available until the end of The Ultimate Fighter.
Dominick Cruz: Injured. Unlikely to return before fall. Remote chance he could fight in Toronto.
Renan Barao: Fighting Eddie Wineland in June. The winner is possibly available for 9/21, which would be a 14-week turnaround.
Jose Aldo: Dropping the belt to Anthony Pettis on August 3. As much as Pettis would love to fight on August 31, that ain't happening.
Benson Henderson: Mister Fox himself, who was in the main event of the lowest selling PPV in years, cannot be put anywhere near a PPV main event right now. UFC 150 did fewer than 200,000 buys, and the gate was barely $600,000. Henderson last fought in April.
Georges St-Pierre: St-Pierre last fought in March, and pretty much must be booked to one of these three shows. He has finished filming his scenes for the Captain America sequel, so that is not an impediment.
Anderson Silva: Silva defends his belt on July 6. He won't be available, unless Jon Jones murders the sport once again.
Jon Jones: Jones is the wild-card. His gruesome injury turned out to look much worse than it actually was, and there's a really good chance he'll be ready to fight by mid-August. There's also a chance that he's being held back for a fight against Anderson Silva in November, to commemorate the UFC's 20'th anniversary.
Cain Velasquez: Assuming Velasquez comes out of his 48-second slaughter of Antonio Silva without a broken hand, he's going to be counted on to main event one of these three shows.
So, that leaves us with a main event candidate pool of Henderson, St-Pierre, Jones, and Velasquez, with bantamweights as a remote possibility. Not that the UFC would be wise to put Mister Versus Dominick Cruz in a main event with Mister Fuel Renan Barao.
Now let's take a look at the three cards in question and figure out who should main event each.
UFC on Fox Sports 1, Boston, August 17: If Ben Henderson is going to be on any of these three cards, it has to be this one. Top four fights featuring Henderson vs. Gray Maynard or T.J. Grant, Chael Sonnen vs. Wanderlei Silva, Daniel Cormier vs. Roy Nelson, and Matt Brown vs. Thiago Alves would probably qualify as the best TV card they've ever done, if you want to split hairs. That said, it's physically and emotionally impossible to be overwhelmed by anything involving Ben Henderson, unless the category is stupid-ass tattoos for $400, Alex. If the UFC is serious about making a splash, the fight to make here is Jon Jones vs. Lyoto Machida. If they choose to go Jones vs. Machida, Jason Reinhardt and Kalib Starnes could be in the next top two fights and they'd accomplish their goal of making this the biggest card they've put on TV. Now, what about Alexander Gustafsson, you say? Well, hang on, I'm getting there.
Jones vs. Machida is the only Jon Jones fight that the UFC should be willing to put on cable. Machida right now is not exactly popular with the UFC fan-base, as the momentum he gained against Ryan Bader was pissed away against Dan Henderson. Jones vs. Machida, a rematch lest we forget, isn't going to do a big PPV buyrate. Not that Jones vs. Gustafsson is going to do Mayweather like numbers or anything, but you don't want to put a fresh match-up on cable, period. So as a gesture of good will for Fox, give them the future of the sport, who might already be the best fighter in history.
As an addendum, there has been talk that maybe you really juice this card by putting GSP vs. Johny Hendricks in Boston. That's not happening. They want to make Fox happy, but not that happy. Plus, if GSP vs. Hendricks does happen on this card, that's an eight-figure hit to the UFC's bottom line when they get to the PPV that GSP won't be available to headline. Not to mention, they've spoiled Toronto by hotshot booking (wrestling term, yay!), they don't need to set such a precedent for Fox Sports 1 as well.
UFC 164, Milwaukee, August 31: A training session with Cain Velasquez is part of a promotion that the UFC and Harley-Davidson are sponsoring. Again, assuming he doesn't break his hand on Antonio Silva's face (always a possibility), he should be a mortal lock to main event UFC 164. Of course, this cannot happen if he doesn't have an opponent who's available (I would say available and credible, but Antonio Silva...). Assuming Junior dos Santos defeats Mark Hunt (or Roy Nelson) next weekend, and assuming JDS comes out healthy, Velasquez and dos Santos will have their trilogy fight in Milwaukee. If JDS somehow loses over Memorial Day Weekend, then Hunt or Nelson (whichever fighter it is who fights JDS next weekend) could slide into the slot against Velasquez on August 31. If the UFC decides to go with Fabricio Werdum (assuming he defeats Nogueira on June 8), Werdum might not be ready to turnaround to fight on August 31 (12 weeks). UFC 164 tickets will likely go on sale about a week and a half after Junes 8, so that's the time we should expect to hear something.
Now, if it falls in such a manner that Cain Velasquez can't fight on this card, Jon Jones is a possible replacement for UFC 164 (which would likely shoot Ben Henderson to Boston). It's also possible, but undesirable for all parties for reasons already discussed, that Henderson headlines UFC 164.
UFC 165, Toronto, Sept 21: And sometimes it's not that difficult. Despite Dana White's previously stated desires to get Georges St-Pierre a fight in Las Vegas, this isn't the right time to do it. If GSP is able to get past Johny Hendricks, GSP can fight in Vegas on New Year's Eve. Toronto has had it's fill of Jon Jones (haven't you as well?), and they haven't have a GSP fight in their city in two and a half years. That might not sound like a long time, but they have the metric system up there so it's like a decade to us. Don't quote me exactly on that one, but that's my understanding of how they work up north.
Now, since we're trying to look at as much as possible from as many angles as possible, let's imagine here for a moment that the UFC does book an Anderson Silva superfight... versus Georges St-Pierre... rendering GSP unavailable for UFC 165. Now what do we do here? I'd doubt Jon Jones fights here, which leaves two realistic options. 1.) Put Cain Velasquez here and do Jon Jones in Milwaukee. Or 2.) If Dominick Cruz is ready book Cruz vs. Barao here as a co-main event to a Ben Henderson main event. After all, it would take a lot of chutzpah for Toronto's fight fans to complain about getting two title fights for each of two years in a row. That said, this isn't going to happen, because GSP has zero interest in moving up. As a matter of fact, I certainly wouldn't argue with him stepping down to 155 and challenging Ben Henderson for the Lightweight Title.
Summary: So, here's the most likely slate of main events, in my mind-brain. Jon Jones versus Lyoto Machida goes to Boston. If Jones can't fight, or if he's going to fight Anderson Silva when the weather turns to crap, then Ben Henderson defends his title and the UFC overloads the undercard. Cain Velasquez defends the Heavyweight championship against the most worthy contender in Milwaukee. Georges St-Pierre fights Johny Hendricks in Toronto.
@MMATorchRich - The Twitter home of my mind-brain's alter-ego.
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