Welcome to another edition of Payout Perspective. In this edition, we take a look at UC 212 from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where the Featherweight title was unified.
Holloway scores TKO over Aldo
Max Holloway scored an impressive stoppage of Jose Aldo to unify the UFC Featherweight Title (technically Aldo held the title and Holloway won the interim belt in December). Holloway stopped Aldo in the third round. It was an impressive showing of Holloway’s talent and his “no fear” attitude in going to Brazil, embracing his surroundings and winning.
Holloway is probably hoping Conor McGregor returns to division for a rematch of their first fight which took place the first day of FS1 in August 2013. It was Holloway’s last loss in the UFC. If that doesn’t happen a showdown with Frankie Edgar or perhaps Cub Swanson should happen. My only bias, but I’d like to see that fight happen with the UFC going to Hawaii. The logistics and expense would be tough but it would be a great visual to see the fans go crazy for the first Hawaiian fighter to win a UFC title since B.J. Penn.
The UFC covered the homecoming for Holloway which was a great visual and a sign that the company will get behind the new Featherweight king.
Now THAT’S a homecoming‼️ Hawaii welcomes their NEW featherweight champ @BlessedMMA & @YMedeiros home today ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/QDCms20UIY
— UFC (@ufc) June 6, 2017
Claudia Gadelha submits Karolina Kowalkiewicz
Gadelha looked impressive in submitting Kowalkiewicz. The problem for the UFC is whether they can really have her face Joanna Jedrzejcyk for a third time when she lost the first two. Perhaps they go with Rose Namajunas against Joanna before Gadelha gets another shot.
It was a disappointing performance for Kowalkiewicz as she previously had a good showing against Joanna.
Attendance and Bonuses
The event took place at Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and drew 15, 412 as reported by the UFC. The attendance likely means it was a sellout as the capacity is set at over 14,000. UFC 134 was held in the same arena and drew 14,000.
The bonuses went to Max Holloway, Jose Aldo, Claudia Gadelha and Brian Kelleher. Holloway-Aldo drew Fight of the Night and Gadelha and Kelleher drew Performance of the Night. One could argue that Yancy Medeiros, Paulo Borrachinha or Matthew Lopez could have drawn a $50,000 bonus for their performances. Also, Medeiros-Erick Silva could have been a FOTN candidate.
Sponsors
Budweiser was a prominent sponsor in Brazil as it had the center of the Octagon as well as the fighter prep point and the Embedded episodes. Kingdom on Audience, UFC Mobile game, UFCStore.com, Hudson Shipping Company, Nissan, General Tires, Manguinhos, a previous UFC sponsor, was on the mat on Saturday.
The Nissan and General Tire sponsors are probably ‘one-offs’ for the Brazil event.
No Monster Energy in the Octagon. Recall that TNT Energy Drink had the Brazil market at one point as the UFC sponsor. Aldo was a big sponsor but it looks like that is no longer true.
Odds and Ends
Here is the local coverage in Hawaii for Max Holloway and Yancy Medeiros. The report states that a lot of the UH Football team showed up to see him.
Hawaii News Now – KGMB and KHNL
The UFC Prelims were late on FS1 as baseball ran over into the time slot. The event had to be put on FS2. This may have had an affect on the ratings as it drew 732,000 viewers on FS1 for the bulk of the telecast. The beginning part, shown on FS2, drew 218,000 viewers.
The Brazilian Commission did not adopt the new unified rules of MMA. Fortunately, the rules did not come into play.
The UFC 214 promo came out and they look pretty good.
It was interesting that there was promotion for the UFC Fight Night Singapore event two weeks from now but not this week’s Fight Night from New Zealand.
The first Japanese UFC Champion, Sakuraba, will go into the UFC Hall of Fame. The announcement was made during the PPV.
The “UFC Unfiltered” Podcast ran commercials throughout the PPV Prelims on FS1.
UFC 212 drew 200,000 google searches on Saturday.
Conclusion
200,000 google searches the day of the event, the MLB overrun on FS1 for the Prelims and the fight card in Brazil probably means that this PPV draws somewhere between 150K to 200K PPV buys. In comparison, UFC 134 (ASilva-Okami) drew 335,000 buys in the same venue in September 2011. Aldo-Mendes 2 in Maracanazinho, Brazil drew 180,000 buys. The event took place in October 2014 at UFC 179. Holloway’s last PPV in December against Anthony Pettis drew 150,000 PPV buys although a replay on Fox during Christmas Eve did well. Still, we’re talking about buys for PPV and with a string of UFC events coming up for June and July’s International Fight Week coming up this PPV may have been one that the casual fan skips.
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