MMA Junkie reports the attendance, gate and bonuses from Wednesday’s UFC Fight Night 35 from the Gwinett Center in Duluth, Georgia. Headliner Luke Rockhold heads the list of bonus winners for the event.
Bonuses were the standard $50,000 per fighter and were as followers:
Fight of the Night: Yoel Romero-Derek Brunson
KO of the Night: Luke Rockhold
Submission of the Night: Cole Miller
The attendance at the event drew 5,822 for a live gate of $231,951. The arena has a seating capacity of 13,000 although we do not know the exact configuration for the UFC event.
Payout Perspective:
The attendance figure is respectable for Duluth on a Wednesday night with a mid-level fighter show. At least one of those in attendance was “Nature Boy” Ric Flair. I have no real complaints on the bonuses here either. It was interesting to hear Cole Miller call out Donald Cerrone after his fight and offer to pay for Mike Dolce to help him cut weight.
Cole Miller is a scumbag! You are going to call someone out and hide behind a weight class? Miller could maybe not cut his 15+ lbs and fight at 155 to fight Cerrone? Nothing worse than a big mouth who hides behind weight classes. If someone really has a issue and wants to settle it. There is no such thing as weight classes. Either fight him or STFU! You call him out then make him jump through hoops to accept lol.
Not sure why this event was in Duluth. I never heard of that name until I saw a “Ball room Jeans” commercial. lol But I guess that is the point of these UFN cards. To take the sport to smaller cities and reach fans that normally don’t get to see the sport live. During the prefight show. Buffer was announcing the first fight and the place sounded empty. Also I heard so loud comments from the crowd rednecks that I haven’t really heard at UFC’s in quite a few years. I guess that is expected when you go into rural areas and get fans that are typical not at UFC events. But just stood out this crowds fight IQ wasn’t what we have been used to over the last 4-5 years! Some good fights!
I agree very well put as always.
I was there! dont you dare speak down upon duluth! haha
my first UFC event and it was TERRIFIC!
im hooked now
Felt sorry for Brunson. He was well on his way to victory on his daughters’ birthday, then got his brain decimated. Good for him regarding the bonus. And how awesome was Romero’s postfight interview? “God bless the United States.” Always takes an immigrant to actually love and APPRECIATE this country … instead of constantly bitching about the “social injustice” of not everyone being a millionaire.
Agree AK! No one appreciates what they have anymore. I thank God every day for what I have AND that I still have something to WORK for.
BS –
1. Miller noted in the press conference that Cerrone had made comments about maybe dropping to 145lb and his callout was further incentive as he indicated they had had scraps outside the ring in the past few year,
2. What you heard were the fans in attendance making RIck Flair’s “whooo” that he made famous during his wrestling career. Took me a little while to figure that out as I have not been a “wrastlin” fan since I was 13.
JC –
DW noted in the post fight presser (not many journalists in attendance) that they do these Wednesday night cards to support new seasons of TUF as TUF has shown to do better with a live lead-in of fights. About half the press conference was about GSP as the card itself was highly unremarkable. DW didn’t even comment on the bad ref illegal knee call. Uneventful card on the whole, but it was free so I can’t complain.
Assassin,
I know they have a past. But it is still much easier for Miller to weigh in at 155 than it is for Cerrone to hire someone to get him to 145 over a couple months. It is just silly to make that suggestion if Cole has even a little serious about fighting Cerrone rather than trying to come off as a hard ass. The truth is Cole has been trying to get media attention for a long time now. Has made it a point to be vocal and I think has admitted as much. So this just comes off as fake shit talking in my book.
I wasn’t talking about the Wooo’s. I heard those too. But I heard comments like “Stomp his face”. Not that exact comment. I cant remember what it was exactly. But it was that type of comment. Im sure there is drunks at every event saying that. But its more rare these days. The size of the crowd made it much more apparent than it normally would have been.
“First of all I want God to bless the United States. That’s what makes it such a greaaat country — that it has God’s blessing.” This is coming from an Olympic great formerly living in a communist country (and we all know that Olympic medalists are treated like gods in commie regimes).
In America it’s the other way around — students, professors and countless Hollywood celebs with ZERO experience in commie/socialist states calling for a revolution for such.
Regarding Miller, all I know is that his confetti shorts selection was absolutely mind boggling. Couldn’t see a thing on em. Was he ASKING to never get sponsors again?
And oh, regarding the redneck comments, I’m watching the TJ-Easton fight again right now again, with Easton on the ground, and you could clearly hear someone yell “get up pussyyy!” Pathetic. Learn some effing class and respect.
BS
I didn’t hear the other type of comments, maybe because i was so distracted by the rick flair homage, but with only 5 thousand in attendance and much less early on it would not surprise me that you could hear that type clearly.
Cole MIller should have been on cloud 9: 28/28 with 50k bonus so over $100k for the night. Not bad.
One other thing, I never realized Anick and Florian don’t actually watch the fighters in the octogon, but rather look at the monitors from cage side. You could clearly see them on some occasions, which was weird because the action was right in front of them. I don’t know if Rogan and Goldie do that, I have never sat cage side so I don’t know the view from there.
asssasin: Rogan and Goldie also do that. Monitors have often better view than live action – if fighters are laying on the floor, but have their backs turned to you, you cannot really see what exactly is happening (their hands, etc…). So best method is to alternate between live viewing and monitors (they have several camera views there I believe).
I’m sitting cageside pretty often and not everytime you can see things clearly. No monitors on events where I’m attending, but sometime helps even projection screen on the other side of the hall or projection cube…
I don’t know about the attendance number. Almost 6000 spectators but only $231k revenue with an average ticket price of $100,- should have give a higher revenue? Mmm I think half of attendance number werw comped tickets.
Thanks for the clarification Caidel.
They’ve been doing that for a long time now. I forget if judges do too (state by state maybe?), but if they don’t, it is absolutely craaaazy retarded.
I have seen Joe and Goldy go back and forth like you would expect. I don’t think anyone just stares at the monitor the whole time. Like everyone they are looking for the best view at the time. Be it live or on the monitor. Joe spends more time watching live when it is in front of him than I have seen Goldy. But then again Mike has a lot of notes and stuff on the table so it is probley easier for him to go from notes to monitor than it is to look up for any period of time. Also as PbP it would be pointless to be explaining something the people at home are not seeing. So it is best for him to see what we see as he talks.