Welcome to another edition of Payout Perspective. In this edition we take a look at UFC 226 taking place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Cormier is a Champ x2
Daniel Cormier knocked out Stipe Miocic to win the UFC Heavyweight Championship. Cormier becomes just the second fighter (behind Conor McGregor) to hold titles in two divisions at the same time. The former Olympian described post-fight that video study showed Stipe drops his hands coming out of the clinch and that is exactly how Cormier dropped Stipe with a short shot to the chin.
The bigger news came when Brock Lesnar came into the Octagon after the fight and shoved Cormier. He then cut a promo on the heavyweight division and he weak it was.
Lesnar has been put back into USADA testing program and should be available by the end of the year. Cormier, who has already announced his retirement plans on a handful of fights left despite just earning the title. We shall see if one of those is his arch-nemesis Jon Jones.
Lewis-Ngannou turn in Worst Match of Year Candidate
This fight should have been one round. Not because there was heavy-slugging and someone would have been knocked out, but because it was such a boring fight. What most thought would be a back and forth home-run hitting fight, turned into one of the lowest striking fights in the history of the UFC.
Derrick Lewis came out as the “winner” although he stated he hurt his back during the fight. Ngannou was buried post-fight by Dana White who claimed that the guy that was deemed a future superstar had an ego.
With Brock Lesnar coming in, Lewis will have to wait in line for a title shot. More likely he’ll have to go through Curtis Blaydes before he gets a shot post-Lesnar fight.
Max Holloway pulls out of fight with Brian Ortega
Max Holloway was forced to pull out of his fight with Brian Ortega due to “concussion-like” symptoms. Holloway’s team decided it best he not fight despite going through media obligations. Ortega took it in stride but declined a fight against Jeremy Stephens as a replacement. While Dana White was not pleased with missing a fight, Ortega had trained for Holloway and not Stephens. A loss by Ortega would be a disaster for his title plans. Remember Luke Rockhold did not have to take the fight with Yoel Romero when he missed weight. He did and lost.
Despite the loss of one title fight, it didn’t seem to damper the attendance.
Prior to the Holloway-Ortega fight being scrapped SeatGeek reported tickets on the secondary market being the highest since UFC 205 when the company had its first show in New York.
Bonuses
Daniel Cormier, Anthony Pettis, Khalil Rountree and Paulo Costa all received $50,000 bonuses.
Payouts
The Nevada Athletic Commission list of disclosed the full list of payouts prior to the event. Stipe Miocic earned the most with $750,000 followed by Daniel Cormier’s $500,000.
Promotion of the Fight
The Embedded series seemed to have a focus on Ortega-Holloway from the outset and had to refocus and it appeared that there was a pause between episodes 3 and 4 so that they could do extra filming for Cormier, Miocic, Michael Chiesa, Anthony Pettis, Lewis and Ngannou.
Toyo Tires was active leading up to this event as it had a new commercial with former rivals T.J. Dillashaw and Dominick Cruz starring and former UFC light heavyweight champ Forrest Griffin in a starring role.
The company also ran a marketing campaign with Brian Ortega ads.
Metro PCS ran a social media campaign using Stipe Miocic and Daniel Cormier in promoting their SuperFight.
Did Drake reference Max Holloway in “8 out of 10” on his new album? I didn’t think so. The UFC paid homage to the Scorpion album with an Instagram post hyping the main event.
Ratings (all on FS1)
UFC Weigh-Ins – 239K
UFC Pre-Show – 254K
UFC Prelims – 668K (peaked at 800K in the 9:45-10:00pm ET quarter hr)
UFC Post Show – 155K
Sponsorships
UFC sponsors Harley Davidson, Metro PCS, Toyo Tires, Monster Energy, EA’s UFC 3 and Modelo in the center of the Octagon. It also had signage for EA UFC’s latest version of its video game and the first glimpses of the logo for the company’s 25th Anniversary show in November.
There was an extended promotion for the latest version of EA’s UFC 3 with Tito Ortiz and Kimbo Slice.
Kamaru Usman introduced the promoted movie for this event, Denzel Washington’s
Odds and ends
It was International Fight Week which included the induction of individuals (and a fight) into the Hall of Fame. Headlining the list was Ronda Rousey. It also gave us a Chuck-Tito faceoff for a fight that appears to be happening in 2018 or 2019.
Despite an International Fight Week curse of headlining matches scratched, UFC 226 came through with several great main card performances from Khalil Rountree, Anthony Pettis and Daniel Cormier. Also, the Mike Perry-Paul Felder fight was an entertaining bloodbath with Felder fighting at least 2 rounds with a broken arm or hand.
Dominick Cruz covering the fights during media leadup and as analyst on the PPV broadcast is great.
Chiesa missed weight but wore a Shawn Kemp jersey so he gets some press here.
Conclusion
This was the biggest UFC event to date and with the 25th Anniversary Show being announced in November and a possible Cormier-Lesnar fight to end in December the latter half of 2018 could be exciting. The loss of Holloway-Ortega did not hurt the gate, but it may have hurt the PPV. Despite being one of the best ever, Cormier has yet to prove he is a PPV draw without Jon Jones. So, this event likely does above average but still nowhere near Conor/Ronda levels. Look for estimates between 450,000 to 500,000.
Leave a Reply