Welcome to another edition of Payout Perspective. This time we take a look at UFC 201 at the Philips Arena in Atlanta, Georgia. The main event featured Robbie Lawler taking on Tyrone Woodley for the welterweight title.
The wait was worth it: Woodley new WW champ
Tyron Woodley waited almost a year and a half for his shot at the welterweight title. What was almost a nothing fight for the first minute exploded quickly as Woodley laid the hammer down on Lawler. It has to be one of the bigger upsets in some time. Then again, it’s yet another title change in the UFC.
So does Nick Diaz actually get the first shot at him? It’s the “money fight” and could happen sometime this fall. But, doesn’t Lawler deserve a rematch? While he got caught, I doubt this could happen in another fight. Lawler should still be near the top of the rankings for this division.
Karolina edges out Rose for chance at Joanna
Karolina Kowalkiewicz defeated Rose Namajunas in the fight of the night. We now get an interesting all-Polish for the women’s strawweight title. Hopefully, the UFC can build this fight for women’s MMA as well as its international expansion. Certainly, this fight with Joanna Champion should take place sometime this fall in Poland.
Attendance and gate
It’s not surprising that this event drew less than the prior two PPV events in Atlanta. The previous two: UFC 88 and UFC 145, had highly anticipated fights in Evans-Liddell and Evans-Jones. The UFC did draw a 1 million gate. Specifically, 10,240 for a gate of $1.07M.
Bonuses
Bonuses of $50K each went to Rose-Karolina, Woodley and Jake Ellenberger. Rose-Karolina earned the Fight of the Night while Woodley and Ellenberger scored the Performances of the Night for their respective stoppages.
Sponsorships
The usual UFC sponsors were in the octagon including Bud Light, Toyo Tires, Harley Davidson, UFC Fight Pass, MetroPCS, and Monster had the middle of the octagon. QT, a software company, shared the post with Monster’s logo.
Also in the octagon was signage for UFC 202 August 20th for Diaz-McGregor.
EA UFC2 had the prep point.
Tyron Woodley wore Monster head phones to the ring. This is something you rarely see any more.
Notably, MusclePharm was all over the UFC Embeddeds. Matt Brown even drove a car with the MP logo on the side.
Odds and Ends
On Friday, UFC 201 drew 500,000 google searches which is corrected from our original report that it drew just 50,000 searches. Still, it did not feel like strong momentum going into this.
Another thing going against this card was that the UFC Prelims were moved to FS2.
Recall this was to be a double title night with Demetrious Johnson defending his title against Wilson Reis. Johnson was injured, so Reis was bumped off the main card. He did record a submission victory over Hector Sandoval.
Why do fighters still strip down at the televised weigh-ins if their official weigh-ins were earlier that morning? No need to be in your underwear in front of the crowd. You can just wear your fight shorts.
It was interesting that Pat Barry, Rose Namajunas’ boyfriend and coach was not a part of the UFC Embeddeds. Rose talked about this prior to the fight.
Speaking of the UFC Embeddeds, this is the first time that I thought most of them were bland. However, the one thing that I enjoyed (aside from the Woodley kids) was that we were introduced to Karolina Kowalkiewicz. The other thing we may have learned from the video series is that Coy Wire and Robbie Lawler look alike.
Ian McCall received his win bonus and show money after Justin Scoggins could not make weight. McCall remained an alternate on the card which may explain him receiving the win bonus. It’s the first time I’ve heard of a fighter receiving a win bonus when they did not fight.
Did Reebok get Erik Perez an official Lucha Libre mask?
Jake Ellenberger was going to be cut but was given one more chance. He won with a liverkick that stopped Matt Brown. It’s not his last fight after all.
Conclusion
This PPV felt like the “forgotten PPV” as it is sandwiched between UFC 200 and UFC 202 (featuring the rematch between Diaz-McGregor). Both of these PPVs will draw over 1 million buys while 201 will fall far short of that. While Robbie Lawler is an exciting fighter and produced some great battles. Does it equate to his PPV average of 333,000 buys? Perhaps. But with the UFC seemingly promoting UFC 202 prior to UFC 201 even happening (e.g., Nate Diaz on Conan as well as the promos starting earlier), the PPV likely drew 285,000-300,000 PPV buys.
300k is probably a success for this card.
By the way, I just read that the breakeven for Crawford-Postol is 80k PPVs, and that’s with a ~$2M purse for the fighters. Which means the UFC breakeven is probably slightly lower.
Postol and crawford no matter how unpopular still got tv rights fee from other countries