Welcome to another edition of Payout Perspective! This week we look at the much-maligned UFC 133 event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In the main event, Rashad Evans took out Tito Ortiz to cement his spot as the number one contender in the Light Heavyweight division.
Evans knees Ortiz for win
Rashad Evans looked phenomenal and displayed no signs of rust after a 14 month layoff. Tito Ortiz looked good too but Evans was too much for Tito and a knee to the chest ended Tito’s night. This was a fight that no one really lost. Evans secured his title shot and Ortiz spun his loss as “taking one for the team.”
Belfort takes care of Akiyama
Vitor Belfort made quick work of Yoshihiro Akiyama as he knocked out Akiyama in the first round. An impressive showing coming off of being KO’d by Anderson Silva. Interesting the finish came when Akiyama attempted and missed a front kick similar to that of Silva.
Ebersole KO’s Hallman and speedo
While most thought that Brian Ebersole’s “harrow” would be the quirky story of this match, it was Dennis Hallman wearing a speedo that convinced Dana White to award Ebersol a special KO bonus as well as banning all speedos from UFC competition. When I saw Hallman’s short shorts I immediately thought of what boxer Bernard Hopkins was thinking. As some may know, BHop used to hate MMA until the pubicity came to Philadelphia. He did get off one of the best takes about the sport on the Jim Rome show when he said he would lose to any MMA guy since he had notfought like that since “he was in prison or a kid.”
Ebersole received a “special” bonus as a result of his KO. For better or worse, the short shorts received mainstream notoriety from Deadspin and ESPN’s Page 2 created a list of “Worst Looks in Sports History” in honor of Hallman’s shorts.
Attendance and gate
11,583 were in attendance for a gate of $1.5 million according to MMA Junkie. The number of complimentary tickets were not provided. In comparison, 2009’s UFC 101 was a sellout with 17,411 in attendance for a gate of $3.55 million. The event, held in the same building as UFC 133, featured Anderson Silva vs. Forrest Griffin.
Bonuses
MMA Junkie reports the following bonuses for UFC 133. There were no submissions, so no submissions of the night were awarded. However, White awarded Ebersole a $70,000 bonus for getting Hallman’s speedos off of PPV. Other $70,000 award winners included:
Fight of the Night – Evans vs. Ortiz
KO of the Night – Vito Belfort
PR for UFC 133
Rashad Evans workouts were featured on Yahoo! Sports. Evans and NFLers Maurice Jones-Drew and Larry Fitzgerald were featured in a weekly series on elite athlete workouts.
Many Philadelphia celebrities were in attendance including Charles Barkley and Bernard Hopkins. Interesting that Hopkins was in attendance considering that he had bad mouthed MMA for some time.
White and Ortiz appeared on the Jim Rome Show. Similar to NASCAR, the Rome show has embraced the sport by having UFC fighters on as well as talking about it on his show.
White gave away tickets for UFC 133 through its #Hunt4UFC twitter contest where White sent out tweets to locations of where to go if fans wanted free tickets.
Sponsorships
SafeAuto Insurance sponsored its usual band of UFC fighters as well as a contest, “VIP at the UFC.” The brand activation integrated social media into its fan contest. When fans “liked” the SafeAuto Facebook page and filled out a contest form they had the opportunity to win a trip to UFC 133.
Tapout had a similar contest for UFC 133 in which followers either liked the Tapout Facebook page and tweet out “#TapoutTickets” in order to qualify. The winner was announced during the appearance of Skyscrape and Punkass on The MMA Hour last Monday.
According to Bloody Elbow, Rory MacDonald’s fight banner never made it behind him before introductions. A faux pas if you want to keep sponsors. Here it is:
Training Mask made a big splash with the sponsorship of many of the fighters on the card including Rashad Evans. And, it also sponsored the front of Hallman’s shorts. Training Mask put out what seemed to be a tongue in cheek tweet about its sponsorship of Hallman stating that it has no control of what its fighters wear.
Middle Easy sponsored Brian Ebersole. It was interesting to note that at the end of the fight, Joe Rogan referred to Ebersole’s “Bloody Elbow” after pummeling Dennis Hallman. Coincidence?
The fighter fashions are detailed in this post. Notably, Evans sported a white Jaco track suit top with a subtle Jaco logo. Yet, he wore a Tapout shirt post-fight. Nam Phan wore a gi that he took off in the entryway so that his t-shirt sponsor, Throwdown, got the visibility during the walkout.
Conan 3D had the fighter checkpoint sponsorship. Fortunately, no interview with its star this time around.
Harley Davidson, Dodge, Gamefly.com, Xyience, Edge, Boost Mobile and Bud Light had the center of the ring.
Post-UFC 133 Headlines
Evans vs. Jones/Rampage Super Bowl Weekend 2012. Book it. Nobody get hurt.
Rory MacDonald. Probably the most impressive young fighter out there. It will be interesting to see what fights are ahead of the Canadian.
Tito Ortiz. Although he lost, he put on a good fight and it didn’t look like he was mailing it in. He’s regained respect with the UFC and will likely have a fight or two left with the company.
Despite many alterations to the card, UFC 133 had some entertaining, albeit short fights. If you wanted to see knockouts, UFC 133 gave it to you.
Odds and ends:
Did Shane Victorino help promote UFC 133 by starting a bench-clearing brawl Friday night?
Does everyone have Beats by Dre headphones that Evans wore at weigh-ins and walkout?
Joe Rogan mentioned Diamond MMA, a company specializing in compression shorts that hold cups in place to prevent groin shots, during the fights giving the company some good publicity.
The main card fights ended with almost an hour to spare. This happens when there are 4 KOs during the PPV. This was a night with lots of filler fights. It was a good chance to show the Facebook fights live.
mmaguru says
Thanks for the recap Jason.
Always interesting to see the “numbers” side of things.
Jose Mendoza says
Good job Jason. I liked the tidbits.
Arron Pegg (@pegson) says
do you want to send the fighters from the fb card re fight their fights live.