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By: Rich Hansen, MMATorch Columnist
So, we're a week deep into June now. To a lot of people, June is the best month of the year. And why not? School is out. The weather is turning nice. The beaches are teeming with the beautiful people. Families are on vacation. Baseball is in full swing. Hockey is in the best playoff season in sports. Basketball is almost over. There's something for everybody.
Well, there's something for everybody except for your common MMA fan, that is.
What is it about June that makes the UFC lose their way? And this is no knee-jerk reaction to the fact that UFC on Fuel 10 and UFC 161 are among the weakest TV and pay-per-view cards the organization has put on in the last 10-plus years. Oh no, Gentle Reader. Every year, every card, the UFC tries their damnedest to find their groove like Stella, and every attempt ends up in flames. But the question is why.
The first answer is the easy answer. June is smack dab between May and July. No, really. Go look at a calendar, it really, really is. June is the one month that is smack dab in the middle of Memorial Day and Independence Day here in the States. And every year since 2006 the UFC has run major pay-per-view events on Memorial Day Weekend (late-May) and Independence Day Weekend (early-July).
When even the hardcore fan is picking and choosing which events they want to pay $45-$60 to watch, trying to shoehorn a pay-per-view in between two biggies that are usually five weeks apart is a tough act to sell. Depending on whether or not you believe the rumors that were swirling in the spring of 2012, the UFC definitely tried to make sure that UFC 147 (June 2012) would be a must-buy pay-per-view event. This was the show that was going to be held in a soccer stadium in Sao Paulo, but they couldn't pull it off due to local noise ordinances. Had they booked a soccer stadium, UFC 147 would have had slightly more than Franklin vs. Silva 2 on the top of the card.
But it isn't just pay-per-views that happen in June. The UFC has also put on tepid Ultimate Fight Night cards and underwhelming Ultimate Fighter Finales in the month as well. They even had unmemorable shows on FX and Versus (remember them?) in the month of June. From 2003 through 2012, the UFC has put on twenty one shows in the month of June. They breakdown as nine pay-per-view events with twelve on cable. The two most important pay-per-view cards were the two that happened first, 2003 and 2004. UFC 43 in June 2003 was headlined by the first of three fights between Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell. UFC 48 in June 2004 (Imagine only 5 pay-per-views in a 12-month period!) was headlined by Frank Mir and Tim Sylvia. The one common thread between those two pay-per-view events is that they occurred before the UFC started running pay-per-view events at the end of May and in the beginning of July.
Let's take a little trip in the way-back machine and look a little closer at every pay-per-view the UFC has offered since June 2003.
UFC 43: Meltdown June 2003 Buyrate: 49,000
Imagine an era where Couture vs. Liddell would do fewer than 50,00 buys and still be considered a success. Kinda puts things into perspective when we flip out about Ben Henderson vs. Frankie Edgar pulling 190,000 buys at UFC 150, eh? There was certainly nothing wrong with UFC 43, but it did do only about half the business of the very next pay-per-view (also headlined by Randy Couture).
UFC 48: Payback June 2004 Buyrate: 110,000
UFC 48 is certainly memorable for Frank Mir snapping Tim Sylvia's arm, but other than that it was a disappointment. Evan Tanner had his rematch with Phil Baroni on this card, and like most rematches, it didn't live up to the original. In the co-main event, Ken Shamrock KO'd Kimo in less than ninety seconds. Kimo responded to the loss by never having another meaningful fight. Shamrock took the momentum from this victory and promptly lost both five fights in a row, and, evidently, his shit.
UFC 53: Heavy Hitters June 2005 Buyrate: 90,000
UFC 53 was the second pay-per-view after Couture-Liddell 2, and the second pay-per-view after THE seminal moment in UFC history: the first Ultimate Fighter Finale which featured Forrest Griffin vs. Stephan Bonnar. It was headlined by Andrei Arlovski defending his HW title against Justin Eilers (!!). This was the last UFC pay-per-view to do fewer than 100,000 buys, and was the last June pay-per-view to not be wedged in between Memorial Day and Independence Day weekend pay-per-view events.
UFC 72: Victory (kinda makes you appreciate that the pay-per-view names are now just Fighter A vs. Fighter B, doesn't it?) June 2007 Buyrate: 200,000
UFC 72 was one of the UFC's ill-fated forays into trying to trick Europe into believing that any numbered event was going to be a pay-per-view quality event. This event aired on tape-delay in the United States, and featured a main event between former champion Rich Franklin and relatively unknown Yushin Okami. Because Belfast loves Okami, #amirite? The original main event was Franklin vs. Martin Kampmann, but Kampmann pulled out due to injury. So you have a weak event, being sold to European fight fans as pay-per-view quality, being sold on pay-per-view anyway, and featuring a weak main event that suffered from an injury replacement.
UFC 85: Bedlam June 2008 Buyrate: 215,000
Bedlam, indeed. Y'all remember this cluster, don't ya? Anthony Johnson's role model and dietician Thiago Alves came in at 174 pounds, and then destroyed a suddenly old Matt Hughes. Nate Marquardt lost not one but two points in a decision loss to the arachnophobic Thales Leites. Brandon Vera got chased out of the heavyweight division by then non-contender Fabricio Werdum, who was about four months away from welcoming Junior dos Santos to the UFC. The original main event for this card was Chuck Liddell vs. Shogun Rua. Rashad Evans took Shogun's spot, then Liddell got hurt and was replaced by James Irvin. Irvin pulled out shortly thereafter, Evans was pulled off the card, and the ever-loyal Hughes made the worst decision of his career by agreeing to fight on this card on short notice. Oopsie-doodle! There were three or four other fights that were supposed to happen that didn't happen, most notably Michael Bisping vs. Chris Leben.
UFC 99: The Comeback June 2009 Buyrate: 360,000
This is about as good as it gets for June, I suppose. This event was the UFC's first foray into Germany, of which there would be only one more. Germany hasn't latched onto the UFC as passionately as many other countries have. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they sent yet another weakened pay-per-view card at full price, no? Rich Franklin vs. Wanderlei Silva (foreshadowing!) was a fun yet meaningless catchweight fight, but certainly one of the most meaningless main events ever. Cain Velasquez and Cheick Kongo engaged in a decent little fight, but this was several months before Velasquez knocked out Rodrigo Nogueira and announced himself as THE next big thing. Velasquez was supposed to face Heath Herring before Herring pulled out due to a case of Lesnaritis. Mirko Cro-Cop fought Mostapha al-Turk, but only Pride made shitty fights, right? The UFC has returned to Germany only once since then, presenting what was one of the very worst numbered events of the last decade (UFC 122).
UFC 115: Liddell vs. Franklin June 2010 Buyrate: 520,000
UFC 115 was an unqualified financial success for the UFC, no two ways about it. The main event fight was certainly a more relevant fight than the scheduled Liddell vs. Ortiz 3 match that was initially being pushed. Of course, Tito Ortiz pulled out of the fight with Chuck Liddell due to a case of the yellow flu, leaving Mister June himself Rich Franklin to step in and retire Liddell. To be totally honest with you, UFC 115 is the one card that doesn't really fit the narrative here, because there was a lot to remember on this card. Not only was this Liddell's last fight, but this card featured Carlos Condit's epic comeback over Rory MacDonald, as well as the birth of a beautiful singing tandem as Pat Barry broke his hand and foot against Mirko Cro-Cop. This was the UFC's first time in Vancouver, where they would return one final time in June 2011 (foreshadowing!).
UFC 131: Dos Santos vs. Carwin June 2011 Buyrate: 325,000
Hey Vancouver? You don't want us in town? Well screw you, we're coming back. We understand that you think Ultimate Fighting is just barbarism at your best. But considering how your hockey fans tried to burn the city to the ground, don't we just fit right in? The UFC returned to Vancouver, where the city council did not want them to be, and brought with them JDS vs. Shane Carwin in the main event. Yet another June pay-per-view event without a title fight. This was supposed to be Brock Lesnar vs. JDS (see? They'd been trying to load June events, they know...), but Lesnar diverticulitissed his way out of Canada. The rest of the card was nothing to write home about, although Mark Munoz and Demian Maia had a nice little fight. I scored it a draw, the judges gave it to Munoz. Several other planned fights were changed or scrapped due to injury.
UFC 147: Silva vs. Franklin II June 2011 Buyrate: 140,000
Yes. 140,000. This was the lowest selling pay-per-view since 2005. Even had the main event remained Wanderlei Silva vs. Vitor Belfort, the buyrate wasn't going to improve. Rich Franklin at the time was as much of a pay-per-view draw was was Belfort. There were so many changes to this card that the UFC offered full refunds to any fan who no longer wanted to attend the event. How often does that happen? It didn't happen in Calgary. It's not happening in Winnipeg, either. Originally the UFC wanted UFC 147 to take place in a football stadium in Sao Paulo, but they couldn't get local clearance due to zoning laws. There were no other stadiums in the country that would work due to massive renovations taking place in most of the other football stadiums due to the World Cup in 2014 and Olympics in 2016 (in Rio). There were strong rumors that Jose Aldo would fight Erik Koch, but that got pushed back to Calgary (and eventually never happened at all). The main card featured not one but two Ultimate Fighter Brazil Finale fights. Compare that to 2013 where the one and only TUF finale fight took place on Fuel TV. Mike Russow was the fourth most recognizable name on the card.
And that's just the June pay-per-views. The history of the non-pay-per-view events in June isn't very lustrous, either. More on that next week in part two.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
STAFF COLUMNISTS: Shawn Ennis - Jason Amadi
Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
Interested in joining MMATorch's writing team? Send idea for a theme to your column (for Specialist section) or area of interest (i.e. TV Reporter) along with a sample of writing to mmatorch@gmail.com.
