Dana White went on ESPN Friday night to announce that the Ronda Rousey-Holly Holm fight is being moved up and to another location. Rousey will now face Holm in Australia as part of UFC 193.
White appeared by phone on ESPN to make the announcement. It was later discovered that the original main event for that card Robbie Lawler-Carlos Condit is now off due to an injury to Lawler.
The UFC plans to break an all-time attendance record for an MMA event in Melbourne. The event is taking place at Etihad Stadium. UFC 193 was awarded to Melbourne after a law restricting cage fighting was lifted earlier this year.
UFC 129 which drew over 55,000 fans and registered a gate of over $12 million is the current record for attendance and gate. This past January, the UFC drew 30,000 fans and a $3 million gate in Sweden for UFC on Fox 14.
Etihad Stadium has a capacity of over 55,000 although one might expect the UFC to boost the seating configuration so attendance would surpass UFC 129.
UFC 190 drew 900,000 on PPV based on Rousey and one might expect her to draw similar numbers.
Payout Perspective:
White’s appearance Friday night seemed impromptu as he did not do a live remote but over the phone. Also, the timing of the event seems out of the ordinary as it was done 8:30pm PT/11:30 ET on Friday night. Usually, this type of announcement would occur during the week. Moreover, the original thought was that this news would trump the news earlier in the day that the organization had lifted the suspension of Travis Browne. However, it now looks like it was done to jump the news that Robbie Lawler was off the card. It will be the second straight title defense outside of the US for Rousey and she will look to produce another PPV hit.
Wow. This is crazy. Now it looks like they could hit close to 8m ppv buys this year. Biggest year ever for the UFC and MMA! Boxing trolls self destructing.
I’m Canadian so do not have access to ESPN. Can someone clarify the announcement for me?
Dana went on ESPN and announced that Ronda is fighting on 193 but he didn’t announce that the Lawler fight was off the card. Is that right?
Hi Dave,
Dana just made the announcement re Ronda-Holm not mentioning Lawler-Condit. However, immediately after ESPN’s Brett Okamoto tweeted the news that Lawler was out. Clear that they wanted to do it that way and also clear that the news of Lawler being out was going to leak soon. So, to maintain the relationship between ESPN-UFC, White was allowed air time in exchange for the news.
Sucks Robbie/Condit is off. Would have been perfect if that was co main and you added Ronda to sell the PPV and tickets. Though Condit/Robbie is a much better fight if UFC wants to sell 60k tickets then Ronda is easily the better main event.
First event there after the ban was lifted, they are going big, probably gonna be only chance fans in Aus get to see a star like Ronda. Aus gets decent fight nights but chances of huge stars like Ronda/McGregor coming around to headline cards are slim.
If they price the tickets right, its a big market for them, first event, Ronda is a star, they could break their 55k record and some good number of PPV.
Hahahahaha….ronda show
the last 3 out of 5 articles on rousey!!!! bahahahahahhahahaha the ufc has bad news and now rousey news and nothing else hahaha soon no one will care
Sal forgot to change his diapers again.
Hahah boxing killing mma again.
I guess mma is strictly a woman’s sport now.
Hahaha. The gayest is beyond delusional. He lives in the bizarro world where everything is backwards. Probably all the trannies involved in boxing that are affecting his brain.
U think the UFC and the WNBA will start to cross promote?
Jason what do you make of the boxing trolls on this site constantly putting down mma/UFC over Ronda’s star power?
Like its a bad thing to have a mega star female fighter who can crossover and hit demos and reach places no other male fighter in boxing or mma can reach.
Just sour grapes and jealously that ROnda is bigger star than everyone in mma and 98 percent of the boxers in the world?
Haha yea what demos?
Getting interviews on The View?
You think the Gayest will get his sex change – following the footsteps of his beloved boxing promoters?
Ur biggest name is a woman.
She runs ur ass
Your biggest name is a woman too, and he runs your ass and in the ring! HAHAHA!!
Kostya TSzyu V Jesse James Leija was at Etihad Stadium (known as Telstra Dome back then) very good card w/ a very bad configuration of seating. I watched the giant screen from the nose bleeders. Uzbekistan undercard fighters. Melbourne is a fight town…..Jeff Fenech V Azumah Nelson was a near sell out at outdoor AFL stadium. 1992. I still feel Rod Laver Arena in a normal 18-20k capacity configuration would set the sports crazy city(think Philly, Boston) on fire. Why does the UFC have to make a statement? I paid 450.00 AUD to be close to the cage in Sydney 110. I do not regret that. I almost cried when Big Nog got KOed, but I was there and felt the pain. Not sure if the UFC still holds that passion and sports drama. Melbourne is a Fight Town. No Question.
This is how u know boxing is bigger than the UFC.
The UFC has just two events in September.
PBC has 9. And thats not counting every other boxing event goin on.
PBC Schedule fot September:
September 6th (CBS)
Anthony Dirrell vs Marco Rubio
September 8th (Fox Sports 1)
Austin Trout vs Joey Hernandez
September 11th (Spike TV)
Adonis Stevenson vs Tommy Karpency
September 12th (NBC)
Peter Quillin vs Michael Zerafa
September 15th (Fox Sports 1)
Sammy Vasquez vs Jose Lopez
September 18th (Bounce TV)
Fernando Guerrero vs Caleb Truax
September 22nd (Fox Sports 1)
Julian Williams vs Luciano Cuello
September 26th (NBC)
Deontay Wilder vs Johann Duhaupas
September 29th (Fox Sports 1)
Javier Fortuna vs Carlos Velázquez
You are such an idiot. So what that they have more events? That makes zero sense. The UFC is insanely profitable, PBC is a money pit- and when all is said and done will have lost 500m. Bellator will beat those events numbers wise.
Moron.
D you got the proof that UFC is making the money? let’s see it cause you talk as if you’re their accountant.
Fag Fan, do I have proof? There is a ton of supportive evidence proving they are generating massive sums of money. It doesn’t seem like the overhead is really that bad- you know how you guys love pointing out the fighters make the lower end of the split.
Do you have any proof that anything to do with boxing is making money?
PBC on ESPN Santa Cruz vs Mares was dubbed an instant classic by ESPN.
They will be replaying the fight Tuesday on ESPN2 9pm Eastern.
What sucks is you list all those fights nad they suck, mismatches.
Adonis vs who?
HW champ Wilder vs ?
If PBC put on fights like Sat’s event they’d be great but 75 percent of their matchmaking is shit.
GOod to see Boxing on FS1 and with a decent name in Trout, now we can compare their ratings to UFC on FS1 ratings.
“◾ d on August 31st, 2015 10:55 AM
You are such an idiot. So what that they have more events? That makes zero sense.”
More people will watch boxing than MMA. All those events will do ok numbers since there is no real great matches during any of those events. Well there is a few good couple undercard fights, but 9 PBC events, a PPV, 2 other televised events on TruTv and CBS Sports Net….
The UFC has only 2 events in September and one is a ppv that will probably do low numbers.
I also notice with UFC fans that the tend to not watch any MMA besides the UFC.
So that’s a pretty boring month for UFC fans, while boxing fans are getting a boxing event every few days.
“PBC on ESPN Santa Cruz vs Mares was dubbed an instant classic by ESPN.
They will be replaying the fight Tuesday on ESPN2 9pm Eastern.”
The station that aired the fight is dubbing it an instant classic? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! In other news, ABC says its the best news station in the world. Fucking idiot. How many people watched that bullshit? PBC operating at a massive net loss 6 months in.
“More people will watch boxing than MMA. All those events will do ok numbers since there is no real great matches during any of those events. Well there is a few good couple undercard fights, but 9 PBC events, a PPV, 2 other televised events on TruTv and CBS Sports Net….
The UFC has only 2 events in September and one is a ppv that will probably do low numbers.
I also notice with UFC fans that the tend to not watch any MMA besides the UFC.
So that’s a pretty boring month for UFC fans, while boxing fans are getting a boxing event every few days.”
They won’t do ok numbers you delusional freak. They are doing horrible, embarrassing, worse than Bellator numbers. It is a joke to even compare the two. If UFC fans don’t watch any mma besides the UFC, then how is Bellator beating PBC in the ratings game? Haha.
If anything, all of these events will turn people off from boxing. The ratings per event are fucking horrible and this experiment will be gone in less than 2 years- probably sooner if they are smart enough to pull the plug. They were expecting very solid ratings and it flat out didn’t work.
This must be driving you crazy that PBC is shitting the bed, and the UFC is on fire. HAHAHA!!
Terrific thread.
D finally admitted that the UFC makes plenty of money.
I guess that means its finally time to double all the fighter’s pay!
Yeah, it is a great thread. Just too bad Joe is too big of a retard to realize I already acknowledged they are making plenty of money.
The conclusion you drew with your latter statement just goes to show how much of an idiot you are. Did you study at the Saldaqueer school of economics?
No, but I did study the Moody’s and S&P reports.
Double fighter pay for all!
Let’s not forget that we’ve proven these guys are all getting raped financially.
Ali Act for MMA would be better than a union.
You didn’t study well enough apparently.
“Let’s not forget that we’ve proven these guys are all getting raped financially.
Ali Act for MMA would be better than a union.”
This is so ignorant it is unreal. Okay, so first off, who’s “we”? You haven’t proven shit. You just ramble and make shit up. The only thing I agreed was that the ppv headliners are somewhat underpaid. I don’t agree that they are getting raped, nor do those headliners themselves. The fighters who are complaining about pay, are the ones who don’t deserve a raise. Maybe someone like Aldo does, but most of the individuals involved in the suit had no business complaining about pay. They were overpaid if anything. Those fighters don’t sell fights. That’s what this business revolves around.
As for the Ali Act, how has that been for boxers? It hasn’t done shit for anyone other than the big stars, that’s it. The undercard fighters- the one’s you are claiming are underpaid, they make far less in boxing than they do in mma. There are literally guys who pay to fight on major ppv undercards in boxing. That doesn’t happen in the UFC.