Welcome to another edition of Payout Perspective. This time we take a look at UFC 252 at The Apex in Las Vegas as it featured Daniel Cormier challenging Stipe Miocic for the heavyweight title.
Miocic successfully defends title against DC
An eye poke may have changed the course of the fight as Daniel Cormier was poked by Miocic at the end of Round 3 in their championship bout. The referee didn’t see the poke although that did not impact the course of the fight. What did shift in the fight was Miocic being able to work on DC and his compromised eye. He circled toward the injured eye and attacked the side which he could not see. Without the peripheral vision, DC’s reflexes were slower to react.
With the poke, one has to ask where was the NAC ring physician to check on the eye. If Cormier could not continue, it may have meant that a replay would have been shown to see if there was an eye poke and whether Miocic would be disqualified. This would have been a mess especially for what is presumed to be DC’s last match. But there wasn’t even an inkling of a sign that a physician would actually check Cormier who could be heard on the broadcast saying that he could not see.
You may recall that Donald Cerrone lost a fight to Tony Ferguson when he blew his nose and his eye swelled shut rendering him unable to see in the eye. At UFC Fight Night 159, an accidental eyepoke in the first 15 seconds of a fight between Yair Rodriguez and Jeremy Stephens caused the end of the matchup due to the fact that Stephens could not see. Similarly, Cormier was unable to see and replays show that the eye was compromised. Yet, no physician.
Although Cormier proclaims that this was his last fight, its hard to believe that this will be the case.
For Miocic, a potential showdown with Jon Jones could be of interest. If not, he has Francis Ngannou ready for the challenge.
Marlon Vera cancels Suga Show for now
It felt like this was going to be another step in the right direction for the Suga Show as Sean O’Malley faced Marlon Vera in the semi-main event Saturday night. But a misstep causing O’Malley to roll his ankle and hurt his foot/leg in the first round hurt his chances of rolling on with the Suga Show. To his credit, Vera didn’t make O’Malley get up when he fell to the ground to invite a ground battle. Instead, Vera landed heavy blows to end O’Malley’s night.
A big win for Vera who was an underdog in the fight. Earlier in the night during the Prelims, ESPN aired a feature on O’Malley dubbing his super stardom. I even got into the hype by wondering if he was the next big thing.
Bonuses
Kai Kamaka and Tony Kelley earned Fight of the Night honors for their back and forth performance in their debut. Kamaka earned the victory. The Performance Bonuses went to Virna Jandriroba for her first round armbar victory over Felice Herrig and Daniel Pineda who upset Herbert Burns. Each earned $50K.
Notably, it was Kamaka and Kelley’s UFC debut in the Octagon and they likely will have more fights with the promotion after their matchup.
Promotional Guidelines Compliance payouts
Stipe Miocic: $40,000
Daniel Cormier: $30,000
Marlon Vera: $10,000
Sean O’Malley: $4,000
Jairzinho Rozenstruik: $5,000
Junior Dos Santos: $20,000
Daniel Pineda: $5,000
Herbert Burns: $3,500
Merab Dvalishvili: $5,000
John Dodson: $15,000
Vinc Pichel: $5,000
Jim Miller: $20,000
Virna Jandiroba: $3,500
Felice Herrig: $5,000
Danny Chavez: $3,500
TJ Brown: $3,500
Livinha Souza: $4,000
Ashley Yoder: $5,000
Chris Daukaus: $3,500
Parker Porter: $3,500
Kai Kamaka: $3,500
Tony Kelley: $3,500
Ratings
The three-hour UFC 252 Prelims on ESPN did 831,000 viewers overall and won all of the young demos including A18-49, M18-49 and A25-54. The last hour averaged 1 million viewers. Saturday was notable since Top Rank Boxing was the lead-in for the UFC telecast and only mustered 264,000 viewers.
Sponsorships
A couple new sponsors in the Octagon at The Apex. First, Trojan Condoms was featured on the mat in the Octagon. With the tag line, “Protect Yourself at All Times,” the condom company is the first to return since the likes of Condom Depot graced the shorts on UFC fighters. Also, in the Octagon was Jimmy Johns. The sandwich maker, which notably sponsored Brock Lesnar in WWE, is now a UFC sponsor. Also, in the Octagon was Monster Energy, Body Armor, Toyo Tires, Modelo, DraftKings, Nemiroff, Guaranteed Rate, EA UFC 4 the video game, Manscaped, and PPP.
DraftKings Sportsbook is now presenting the UFC Fighter Odds.
Devour Frozen Foods also was a part of UFC 252.
Although not on the mat, DAV.org, an organization helping disabled veterans was a part of the broadcast.
The Embedded Episodes were sponsored by Body Armor Sports Drink. It’s interesting how the UFC has been able to work around the pandemic in still getting interesting content out of these Embedded episodes. Granted, parts of Vegas have reopened and the UFC has centered a lot of the filming at the Performance Institute
As part of the launch of the new EA UFC 4 game, the UFC sold shirts that the fighters in the game wear. This happened 10 minutes into the telecast on ESPN. Also, on Friday, they had a celebrity night where notable people played the game to create a buzz.
Sean O’Malley’s walk out music was a song made for the fighter.
As we wrote, he was heavily promoted leading into UFC 252.
Although a loss, JDS gets a thumbs up for his ‘Rocky” theme walkout.
We talked about whether O’Malley was the next big thing and he may be but this loss and his injury will set him back. O’Malley has now been set back due to two drug suspensions and injuries. While there are several key factors to becoming a PPV star, one of the things not highlighted is being injury-free. Luck may be involved in this, but being away from the Octagon hurts a fan following. O’Malley does have a healthy Twitch following but being away from the Octagon for prolonged periods of time gives others a chance at taking your spot.
It was a busy day of combat sports as there were 3 boxing telecasts and the UFC.
ESPN+ bumped up its price $1 the same week as the PPV although this did not dissuade people from buying 252.
Conclusion
We may infer that since there was no announcement early this week, the UFC did not have a blockbuster PPV number. But that doesn’t mean the PPV didn’t do well. Its worthy to note that a number of Endeavor clients, maybe more than normal, sent out tweets in support of the UFC. A number of the tweets may have shown exuberance for the sport, but it was obvious that the plot was “uncovered” when Paris Hilton sent out a ‘cut and paste’ type tweet in support of the UFC.
I love @UFC 👊 Watching the main event. ⚡️ #UFC252
— Paris Hilton (@ParisHilton) August 16, 2020
This may be helpful in getting the casual viewer to buy the PPV if we consider celebrity influencers are helpful in persuading their followers. The UFC has a robust A18-49 following if we look at the ratings Saturday night. It was the best in cable for the demographic.
As for a prediction we may never know is right, I would think with the promotion of the heavyweight trilogy and the O’Malley push we would see a buy rate of between 375K-400K.
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