- UFC 109 UFC 109 Fighter Salaries: Couture Nabs $250,000
- UFC Undisputed 2010 Video Game Details, Images
- Ultimate Fighting Championship showing its age in Las Vegas
- How San Jose became a mixed martial arts hotbed
- Middle East could be focus of first international edition of “The Ultimate Fighter”
UFC 109 UFC 109 Fighter Salaries: Couture Nabs $250,000
MAIN EVENT FIGHTERS
-Randy Couture: $250,000 (no win bonus) def. Mark Coleman: $60,000
-Chael Sonnen: $64,000 (includes $32,000 win bonus) def. Nate Marquardt: $45,000
MAIN CARD FIGHTERS
-Paulo Thiago: $30,000 ($15,000 win bonus) def. Mike Swick: $43,000
-Demian Maia: $62,000 ($31,000 win bonus) def. Dan Miller: $15,000
-Matt Serra: $150,000 ($75,000 win bonus) def. Frank Trigg: $30,000
PRELIMINARY CARD FIGHTERS
-Mac Danzig: $40,000 ($20,000 win bonus) def. Justin Buchholz: $8,000
-Melvin Guillard: $28,000 ($14,000 win bonus) def. Ronys Torres: $4,000
-Rob Emerson: $24,000 ($12,000 win bonus) def. Phillipe Nover: $10,000
-Phil Davis: $10,000 ($5,000 win bonus) def. Brian Stann: $17,000
-Chris Tuchscherer: $20,000 ($10,000 win bonus) def. Tim Hague: $7,000
-Joey Beltran: $12,000 ($6,000 win bonus) def. Rolles Gracie: $15,000
UFC 109 DISCLOSED FIGHTER PAYROLL: $944,000
UFC 109 AWARDS & BONUSES
(Each fighter was awarded $60,000 per award, which is in addition to his disclosed salary.)
Fight of the Night:
-Chael Sonnen and Nate Marquardt
Knockout of the Night:
-Matt Serra
Submission of the Night:
-Paulo Thiago (MMAWeekly) … [MMA Payout’s Perspective]
UFC Undisputed 2010 Video Game Details, Images
THQ Inc. and Zuffa, LLC on Monday announced the first game play details surrounding UFC Undisputed 2010, the follow-up to the critically and commercially acclaimed debut video game based on the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Poised to deliver intelligent and intuitive combat, increased fighter customization, robust career progression, challenging new game play modes and explosive online offerings, UFC Undisputed 2010 is currently in development for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation3 computer entertainment system and PSP (PlayStationPortable) system. Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 system versions are scheduled for release on May 25, 2010, while the PSP system version is scheduled for release later this year.
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“UFC Undisputed 2010 will deliver the most advanced and superior virtual MMA action based on the world’s most prominent and respected organization in mixed martial arts, Ultimate Fighting Championship,” said Brian Coleman, Vice President of Global Brand Management, THQ. “Through enriched game play and extensive new options, players will understand and appreciate what it takes to be a real UFC fighter.”
“Brock Lesnar’s intensity and relentless commitment to the sport of mixed martial arts, as well as to the UFC, make him a perfect candidate to be the cover athlete for UFC Undisputed 2010,” said UFC president Dana White. “You want to be a fighter? Videogamers and fight fans around the world need to step up to Brock’s level when they enter the virtual Octagon in UFC Undisputed 2010!” (MMAWeekly) … [MMA Payout’s Perspective]
Ultimate Fighting Championship showing its age in Las Vegas
For the third consecutive Ultimate Fighting Championship event in Las Vegas, one question dominates: So, when is Brock Lesnar fighting again?
The UFC will stage a third straight title-less Vegas main event Saturday night when veteran light-heavyweights Randy Couture and Mark Coleman lead the card of UFC 109 at Mandalay Bay Events Center.
“There’s great fights on this card . . . me and Mark are a couple of old wrestlers banging heads, two active Hall of Famers,” Couture said.
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Yet, in the final card before UFC’s biggest names — Silva, welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre and heavyweight champ Lesnar — finally start returning to action after injury- and health-related absences, pitting the 46-year-old Couture (17-10) against the 45-year-old Coleman (16-9) is not creating the buzz usually associated with UFC’s high-energy shows.
From the high of UFC 100 in July, when the organization claimed a live gate of about $5 million, MMA interest tailed off to the Jan. 2 card at MGM Grand, when the live gate tally was $1.9 million, with 8,004 tickets sold and 5,314 reported as comps to the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
And now, Couture-Coleman. (LA Times)
How San Jose became a mixed martial arts hotbed
The nondescript gym is tucked away in a San Jose strip mall, book-ended by a Big Lots and a fabrics store. Shoppers, pushing carts on the sidewalk, glance curiously through the windows at the muscular men tossing each other around inside.
“And they look at us like we’re from another planet, if we run out to our cars with our shirts off to grab something,” said Josh Thomson, one of the mixed-martial arts fighters who train at the American Kickboxing Academy.
Welcome to an unlikely epicenter of the MMA boom.
The facility has become a top camp with a who’s who of fighters including up-and-coming heavyweight Cain Velasquez. But just as a fight gym seems out of place in a shopping center, so is San Jose an improbable hotbed for an edgy sport that once was disparaged by Sen. John McCain as “human cockfighting” and wasn’t even allowed in California until 2006.
Strikeforce, which promotes fights that appear on CBS and Showtime, is based here. Its MMA events — which meld elements of boxing, wrestling and martial arts disciplines into a flurry of violence — draw thousands at HP Pavilion.
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Some of San Jose’s MMA fixtures, like Mendez, are homegrown. Vietnamese-American fighter Cung Le grew up here. And Scott Coker, who has built scrappy underdog Strikeforce into a rival of industry giant Ultimate Fighting Championship, is a Gunderson High grad.
But any discussion of San Jose as an MMA destination begins with the arrival of Frank Shamrock, one of the sport’s pioneers.
There was an anything-goes sense of mayhem to “cage fighting” back in 1997 when Shamrock moved here from the small northeast California town of Susanville. He was “chasing a girl,” and the only other person he knew in town was Mendez.
“I asked if he minded if I come over and wrestled on his mats,” recalled Shamrock, who now runs two local gyms. “I guess it helped spawn a movement because San Jose has become the biggest producer of mixed-martial arts fighters in the industry.” (Mercury News)
Middle East could be focus of first international edition of “The Ultimate Fighter”
But really, the Middle East could be the first of the “TUF” international editions?
“Yup,” White told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) over the weekend. “There are a thousand years of heat over there that we can do.”
Flash Entertainment, an event company and wholly owned subsidiary of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, recently purchased a 10 percent minority stake in Zuffa LLC, the UFC’s parent company. That opened the door for UFC 112, which takes place at Concert Arena at the Ferrari World theme park on Yas Island, and will also help fund the UFC’s continued international expansion.
White didn’t go into details about the Middle East edition of “TUF,” and its not known if it would extend beyond the UAE, but in November, he told MMAjunkie.com that UFC officials are working on distribution and production deals to bring UFC programming worldwide.
He said “TUF” has to be the foundation of those offerings, whether they’re through traditional television partnerships or online broadcast deals.
“How do we plug this whole thing in with television and how to watch it everywhere?” White pondered. “We’re trying to figure that whole thing out and build that now. But the groundwork for this thing is ‘The Ultimate Fighter,’ and we’ve been working it very hard, and we’re making it happen. ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ is going to be all over the world. That’s the goal.” (MMAJunkie)
QUICK HITS
- Warrior ethos emphasized in UFC partnership (Marine Corps Times)
- Season-one semifinalist Wilson Reis enters Bellator’s season-two 145-pound tourney (MMAJunkie)
- UFC 109 medical suspensions: Sonnen, Maia, Danzig and Guillard suspended (MMAJunkie)
- Hidehiko Yoshida to Retire on Inaugural ASTRA Card (MMAFighting)
- Chuck Liddell ‘Strong and Healthy’ Preparing for Tito Ortiz (MMAFighting)
- MMAjunkie.com poll results: How much would you pay for a WEC pay-per-view? (MMAJunkie)
- Mixed martial arts appears to be nothing more than an act of bullying (BC Local News)
- The Case for WEC on Pay Per View (Heavy)
- UFC 109 Post-Mortem: Falling Hammer, Sonnen, More (Sherdog)
- Couture Chokes Out Coleman at UFC 109 (Sherdog)
- PVT Mag Profiles Belfort, Kyra Gracie & ‘Pele’ (Sherdog)
- Analysts: THQ Turnaround Underway, Proving Time Ahead (Gamasutra)
VIDEO OF THE DAY
- UFC 110 Promo: This summer’s biggest event: UFC 110 from Sydney!
IMAGE OF THE DAY
TV LISTINGS
- HDNet Fights Presents K-1 Classics (Maeda & Teixeira, 2008) at 8 PM ET on HDNet (02/12/10)
- InsideMMA (Randy Couture, Mike Swick, & Bobby Lashley) at 9 PM ET on HDNet (02/12/10)
- HDNet Fights Presents King of the Cage – Vengeance at 10 PM ET on HDNet (02/12/10)
- Best of Pride FC at 10 PM ET/PT on Spike (02/12/10)
UPCOMING EVENTS
UFC 109 was the last weak card that came about as a result of all the injuries. The UFC’s spring schedule looks amazing.
momentum could be lost. Its going to have to be a hard push to get back those PPV buys.
jj:
I think UFC 110 (Sydney) and 112 (Abu Dhabi) will be very interesting to watch in terms of PPV buys. Both foreign shows with pretty darn good cards.
MMAGuru,
I don’t think there will be any problem drawing well for 111, 113 and 114. All of those have strong line-ups and will do just fine.
As Jose said, it will be interesting to see how 110 and 112 (especially 112) do as those are loaded cards. 112, were it a U.S. card, would likely do 700k buys. We will now see just how much the time slot affects buy rates. Previous Overseas cards have generally been weak.
UFC 110 is on a sunday in Sydney so that the US watches it at the usual 10pm time on the east and 7pm in the west coast. There’s no tape daley for that event.
UFC 112 is 12 hours ahead of the west coast. If the UFC does the prelims on Spike at 9pm/6pm as usual then fans will watch the tape delay @ 7pm. Fans have become used to the routine of the UFC events. BJ and Anderson Silva on a card will sell well.