Welcome to another edition of Payout Perspective. This time we take a look at UFC 268 which took place at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Usman defeats Covington in rematch
Kamaru Usman maintained his dominance over Colby Covington with a unanimous decision victory over the challenger. Once again, Covington was game and put on a stellar effort. This time around he attempted to incorporate more wrestling in this matchup. But, it was the champ that once again maintained control over most of the fight earning the UD. Notably, the two shared some mutual respect after the fight. Covington shed his ‘gimmick’ persona to offer congratulations and Usman offered what seemed like nice words for his MAGA challenger.
Usman may face Leon Edwards if he were to get past Jorge Masvidal on December 11th. If not, it could be another rematch with Masvidal or perhaps Vincente Luque.
Namajunas takes rematch with Zhang
Despite a better effort from Weili Zhang, Rose Namajunas retained the women’s strawweight title. Zhang may have had an argument that she won, but a takedown in Round 5 and Zhang’s inability to get out of the position likely was the reason for the loss. Well, except for one judge who had it 49-46 for Rose.
Gaethje outlasts Chandler in Fight of the Year candidate
The FIght of the Night delivered with Justin Gaethje defeating Michael Chandler. The fight is what we all had hoped would be as both fighters stood and threw huge punches at each other. Gaethje had a little more highlighted by an upper-cut that dropped Chandler.
It was announced early in the week that this fight would start the PPV and with good reason. The UFC wanted the crowd in their seats from the start of the PPV telecast as well as get PPV buyers to hop-in immediately to watch. It was a good idea.
Attendance, gate and bonuses
UFC 268 was the 4th largest event in its history in New York. While that might not sound unimpressive it was still a sell out with 20,715 and drew a reported gate of $9.9 million.
There were 4 Performance Bonuses and a Fight of the Night. Obviously the $50K FOTN bonus went to Gaethje-Chandler. The four bonuses went to Marlon Vera, Chris Barnett, Alex Pereira and Bobby Green.
Vera earned his with a stoppage of Frankie Edgar. Barnett was the darling of the early card despite ending the career of Gian Villante. The big, burly heavyweight pulled off a spin wheel kick on Villante. Former Glory Kickboxing star Pereira used a flying knee in the 2nd round of his fight to earn his bonus and Bobby Green downed Al Iaquinta to earn his.
Sponsorships
There were several new sponsors in the cage for UFC 268 including logistics company Easypost and gopuff, a food and alcohol delivery service. GoPuff also sponsored Embedded. Also, Pedal Commander, a throttle response control company.
Also in the Octagon was, Toyo Tires, Howler Head, Crypto.com, Sweet Sweat, Devour, Dav.org, DraftKings, Modelo, EA’s UFC 4 (promoting a new update to the video game), guaranteed rate, Hospital for Special Surgery, Monster and Rocket shared an octagon corner, Jose Cuervo, Manscaped, Trojan Condoms, Body Armor and Monster had the center of the Octagon.
Manscaped and Howler Head had the outside skirting of the Octagon.
Notably, there was a commercial for Crypto.com featuring Matt Damon.
Odds and ends
Dana White did an interview with Fox News to discuss why he’s against mask mandates and why it was good for his business for the UFC to work through the pandemic.
Halle Berry faced off Rose-Weili during the weigh-ins as her movie about Mixed Martial Arts is debuting on Netflix this month.
Trevor Whitman coached 3 big winners on Saturday: Justin, Rose and Kamaru.
White admitted to watching Canelo’s fight while Octagon-side during the Rose-Weili fight. He stated he bet $100k on a Canelo KO. He won.
UFC had over 2 million google searches on Saturday night. Notably, Canelo vs. Plant drew over 500,000 searches on the same night.
Conclusion
White stated at the post-fight press conference that the PPV buys exceeded expectations. If this is true, it would be a testament to the UFC brand. Even with stiff competition from Canelo-Plant (which likely did well too), the UFC probably drew between 700-800K buys and maybe more dependent on the UFC expectations.
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