Golden Boy Boxing made its debut promoting mixed martial arts this past November with a card in Inglewood, California. The event was headlined by Tito Ortiz taking on Chuck Liddell.
The event was centered around the main event which was a farce to begin with as it was clear that Liddell was in no shape to fight. The California State Athletic Commission, the one that issued a license to Jon Jones, provided Liddell with the license to fight Ortiz. Based on the looks of Liddell, the 48-year-old was in no shape to fight, yet, CSAC granted him the opportunity. To no surprise, Ortiz put Liddell out of his misery in the first round.
Maybe the only good thing that came out of the event was the UFC signing Deron Winn. The 5’7 205-pound Winn earned a victory over former UFC light heavyweight Tom Lawlor.
The pre-fight press conference was one of the worst showings to promote an event as Oscar De La Hoya appeared to be preoccupied with something else.
De La Hoya hopes to be a disrupter in the world of MMA and become an alternative to the UFC as he took aim straight at White. The head of the UFC went right after the Golden Boy and even included salary and PPV specifics in a piece authored by Yahoo! Sports Kevin Iole.
For his troubles, Liddell made $250,000 while Ortiz earned $200,000. The rest of the payouts, attendance and gate from the event are below.
11-24-18 GB MMA Payouts by on Scribd
11-24-18 GB MMA Box Office by on Scribd
The PPV was originally priced at $49.99 but was reduced by $10.00 to $39.99. According to multiple reports, it was estimated at 40,000 PPV buys and as low as 30,000 PPV buys.
Payout Perspective:
Despite the low PPV numbers, Golden Boy professes to continue promoting MMA events. While the competition may be beneficial for fighters, I’m not sure its debut was something to redo. If it can be a place for entertaining fighters that no longer want to be in the UFC or Bellator, there could be a place in for it in the MMA stratosphere. The question will be if Oscar De La Hoya will be engaged enough with this venture to ensure that he develops a quality product rather than attempting to “hot shot” events with something like Ortiz-Liddell.
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