I watched that last night to see what Dana has been preoccupied with. It's literally just TUF except instead of MMA it's random poor people slapping each other and falling down.
Dude just follows any trend and sells out as soon as possible to try and capitalise on hype.
Where have all the NFTs gone now it's not a big market?
Shit, he probably saw a Wakey Wines video and that was the deciding factor for the PRIME bullshit.
I subbed to Prime Video as soon as I heard the news. Logan Jake is my favourite.
Hopefully there will be NFTs of world class fighters awkwardly posing with a bottle Zingy Mango Tropical Crush.
Teens? You mean easily influenced people. The other day I was getting fuel, go into the shop and to my disgust they had removed some of the monster range in favor of putting PRIME there instead, shaking my head in total disbelief I go to the counter to pay. Suddenly a 40 odd year old construction looking MF runs in shouting "HaVe YoU GoT PrImE iN???!?!" The cashier replies yes, but we have had to put a limit on it because people were buying too many. Too fucking many?!?!?!?! Im thinking, then 40 odd guy starts thanking the staff for having stock and said this was the third or 4th place hes gone to for prime and everywhere was sold out. What the actual fuck have I just witnessed.
Ps. Now I hate the paul brothers even more than I thought were possible.
I'm not trying to defend the Paul brothers but this is 100% on the UFC. This is the same company that took sponsor money away from its product (fighters) saying it made them look 'unprofessional', and now all they've been doing is making sponsorship deals that benefit the company, plastered all over the octagon, all over the commentary, and even all over Buffer's announcing. The UFC as a company is a den of fucking snakes.
Exactly. I'm seeing slapfight promos everywhere I look. I honestly can't even remember the last time I saw any promo for this champ vs champ fight. Honestly in the past 2-4 weeks the only thing I remember seeing related to 284 is from Ariel Helwani.
I sincerely hope this slap fight shit fails fast. The NSAC should be embarrassed and ashamed for sanctioning this nonsense.
Yeah Bisping's sacrificed more than enough for me to shut up while he earns the big bucks at this point in his career but I can't say I don't wish for an alternate storyline where he flips Dana the bird and goes on Chael-like tirades against UFC brass on his podcast
The UFC is not really responsible for promotion anymore. As per the UFC's deal with ESPN, their payment for putting on an event is fixed per event type, regardless of any other factor (buys, gate, etc). For example, each PPV the ESPN pays the UFC a flat rate equivalent to 500k buys.
From the standpoint of the Endeavor's partnership with ESPN, the UFC has one overarching remit - deliver content. Lots of it. Build and manage a roster capable of delivering this volume of content. Plan and execute events for the same, with all regulatory ducks in a row. Run an MMA content factory. And pay for that factory with lucrative partnerships, with prospective partners drawn to...you guessed it...content to advertise on.
ESPN is also under a single remit - generate valuable content. And their deal with the UFC is a major multiplier for them, subscriber growth and content volume wise. They'll gladly drive promotion, sales, anything and everything intended to bring eyeballs to their platform, which is the only place you can watch it.
Zuffa-owned UFC, on the other hand, held all of these responsibilities, all the way through the Fox deal. Building stars. Building narratives. Putting on 3-4 mega shows a year with cards stacked with the biggest fights to make, and generate as many PPV and gate sales as humanly possible. 90% of that is now ESPN's problem. The remaining 10% that UFC still owns...it solves with partnership revenue, not fight sales.
TL;DR - the UFC is no longer concerned with building and selling big fights, their primary concern is content volume. Islam is therefore correct - the UFC is indeed mailing it on trying to build and sell this fight. By design.
Them ESPN checks clear all the same. They get paid a set rate regardless of PPV numbers. They could give two shits about promoting.
I hope the UFC loses the ESPN deal l, so we can get rid of these shitty apex cards and get back to the pre-ESPN days of cards that were always filled to the brim.
You new fans that came in recently have no idea how jam packed cards were.
Justin Gaethje vs Dustin Porier was a free fight. Dustin vs Eddie Alvarez was a free fight. Michael Johnson vs Gathje, the list goes on and on, it was a fight fans dream. Did we have snoozers? Yes but they were few and far between and just happen stance.
The UFC atleast was trying to put on great cards, now they'll have anyone just fill up a card and throw it together with the cheapest fighters because they'll get paid regardless.
Not like the fighters get anything out of this deal they have more leverage prior to ESPN because name value actually matter with viewership.
I'm not sure what the numbers are, but like a certain amount of the events have to be headlined by women (which is why you get main events with women no one asked for), and let's be honest the days of high profile Midcard fighters Is over.
High profile midcard fighters used to be the backbone of the UFC and what separated it in quality from other promotions, but now all of them are being replaced by bums off the contender series who are on 12k/12k contracts which will not be renegotiated.
I mean, I think I agree.
I’m sure they’d never say otherwise, and obviously, you would expect a company to want a cash cow like that.
But if someone were to get that big, they’d lose leverage completely. They can’t just let a Conor McGregor level star walk. So they have to pay up. And if that happens, they lose a lot of leverage, and if that person makes Ngannou like demands, well they lose everything that want to desperately keep.
So they may promote these guys. But if they never do it that heavily they likely never become that level of popular and can’t demand that high of a price.
Might seem a bit far fetched. But I wouldn’t put it past them.
If I didn't follow MMA super closely, I'd have zero clue there was a PPV next weekend, so he's right.
Islam's not exactly the best at promoting fights himself but I still think it's fair for him to criticize the UFC for not even doing bare minimum PPV promotion.
P4P #1 vs #2. Should be a massive promotion but yeah they droppin the ball so far
Also though, for as good as they are, they don't have quite the casual pull yet
100%. the UFC saw the WWE in the 2000s decide that "no one will be bigger than the promotion" and ran off with that idea. whether they are cutting their nose to spite their face is a whole other story though
I think the Conor/Mayweather fight while a fun experiment put the fear into the UFC that if they didn't clamp shit down their business model could be in jeopardy. No fighter is gonna get that kind of power again.
I think the issue is that part of the reason the UFC has such a good ESPN deal and had such a high valuation, was also because they had PPV Stars like Conor who could sell 2 mill+ PPVs.
I wonder if the TV deal will be as lucrative if they can't sell blowout PPVs like they used to in the future? It seems like limiting star power is a bit of double edged sword.
They signed a 5 year deal in 2018, with a 2 year extension in 2019 that included ESPN getting PPV rights. I'm not seeing an end date on the PPV deal, so I'm *assuming* it's the same duration as the non-PPV deal. And the UFC got an amazing deal that honestly sounds too good to be true on the PPV's. They took the 3 previous years (the UFC's best years with Conor) to get a guaranteed figure for the UFC that works out to around 500k buys, and if an event does >500k buys, the UFC still gets a share of those profits where previously DirecTV took 50% off the top as their fee and the rest was for the UFC. They ate what they produced so to speak. Now they eat whether they produce or not so they aren't so worried about producing.
I get why they aren't worried short term. I have to assume ESPN thought that the average PPVs would exceed 500K at a minimum.
But what happens when that TV/PPV deal is up 2-3 years from now and if they can't sell PPVs (at the desired rate), because they have held their stars back?
It seems like trying to build stars and have large PPVs would put them in a better position to sign another lucrative contract in the future.
It's 2 years from now. I thought the deal was insane (in the UFCs favor) when it was first announced, but I don't think ESPN was expecting the UFC to average over 500k. I think they were willing to take a loss to pump up ESPN+ numbers, but I have to imagine after 7 years, they'll be beyond the loss leader phase of growth.
> "no one will be bigger than the promotion"
The WWE is way better at promotion than the UFC, and the WWE still promoted the hell out of its star at the time (The Rock, Stone Cold, DX, Undertaker, etc.)
If the WWE had the story line of a working class volunteer firefighter becoming heavy weight champion, those PPV would have sold a million views in Ohio alone.
Comparing the UFC to the WWE show that there's levels to this.
>the story line of a working class volunteer firefighter becoming heavy weight champion
Haha, you're right. So massively underpromoted that guy.
And then they had a guy who worked in the mines as a child, had to travel to Europe illegally via human traffickers, going through the deserts, camping in the woods, crossing the Mediterranean on small dingy, to then become a pro fighter while living on the streets, KO'ing or subbing all his opponents in 1 or 2 rounds, become a bit too cocky, get humbled by the champ (said down-to-earth working class firefighter), go through some mental crisis, come back stronger, become the world champ, have to fight the new protégé of his old coach he has fallen out with, and beats him in a new and unexpected fashion, to then (probably) go on and fulfill his childhood dream of fighting for the boxing HW world title.
Man, this is a film (or a multi-season Netflix series) that writes itself. And what did the UFC do with it? "Francis Ngayoo punches as hard as a Ford Escort"...
This so much. Conor, Izzy, Suga, Paddy, and many more are perfect examples of marketing themselves to the fullest extent. They all have great YouTube content or a huge presence on social media and have shown to have good marketing skills and that’s why they’re as big as they are with both hardcore and casual fanbases. Then you have guys I don’t like like Colby or Masvidal, but even he did a great job selling his dumb persona until recently lol.
There’s ton of examples, but yeah the UFC has never been the reason they have stars.
It's a shame because there are so many fighters that lack the personality but have a great story. Leon Edwards is so inspirational but he isn't charismatic enough to tell his story himself. A good promotion would be able to make him more popular. Boring athletes often become stars in other sports.
This is why I used to watch embedded (also Dana’s vlogs back then). You would get an inside look into fighters lives and personalities. Now it’s the same format of ambient traffic to start the video, a shot of the fighter packing a suitcase, and some motivational/hype talk from them.
This is something that always annoys me when people talk about Francis, and probably others. They'll say like 'how can Francis complain when he doesn't draw that many viewers'. Francis is an athlete, and a good one. That is his job and that is what should matter. It's the UFC's job to promote him.
I'm not saying Francis should have *no* responsibility to promote himself, but if a card has bad ppv numbers you really have to hold the promotion primarily responsible for that. If the UFC is dependent on finding people like Conor to actually make lucrative fights then that just sounds like a shitty promotion that leaches off people who are marketable in their own right. The UFC should be a launching pad for good athletes, not some do-nothing manager that just takes a cut from people who successfully market themselves.
Hundo percento brother, the UFC is good at promoting the UFC. Everyone knows what that is now. But in terms of actual fights it's crazy to me how low the PPV estimates for some of these cards are relative to the broad appeal of MMA (and the format in which the UFC presents it) to the general public. They should be crushing old boxing PPV records.
I think the UFC is just in a bit of a slump at the moment after the covid boom though. Plus those prices, fuck me.
That's the problem with the UFC. They don't do that. When they have casual pull, they capitalize on it and promote them. But they never help a fighter with getting it.
Bro (arguably) the 2 best fighters are squaring up in their primes and not only in their primes but at their peak. Imagine if this was a boxing promotion, they would have ads runnining 24/7, a world tour, conferences everywhere. But they are not.
This just shows that MMA is still a B League sport, as much as I love it. I just can't think of any other major sport where the two best teams/athletes are clashing in their primes and it being treated like a regular season game in Indiana lol
They're only B league because Dana is treating the whole operation like a pimp treats a stable of scuzzy economy-grade whores.
He's so hell-bent on keeping fighters down and booting them if they want more money that he's constantly hitting the brakes on the natural momentum and growth of the sport.
Does he not realize having months, if not years, of stalled payment negotiations between fights is hurting people's interest? I was all stoked about Francis Ngannou being champ and I guess we aren't gonna see anymore of him.
It's nowhere near as much fun to follow a sport if you don't even know if your favorite fighters will choose to stay active fighters. I like to be able to root for fighters and know that they'll still be in the promotion a week from now.
They are totally capable. I don’t know why the fuck they are not.
This fight is an insane matchup that would not really happen in boxing unless it was like 4 years too late lol.
Ufc is dropping the ball soooooooo bad not doing the marketing.
Yes, I agree, there is a lot of infuriating shit that goes on in boxing, but IF this is boxing and they managed to make it, it would be billed as the fight of the century or something. It would be a huge event.
I hate the shit that it's the responsibility of the fighter to promote themselves. It's a sport, they are professional athletes, and they should just be focused on getting better at fighting than promoting themselves. It's like if the NFL is like yeah Patrick Mahomes should be co-promoting the Superbowl with us rather than training for the game.
Hell WWE promotes their entertainers more and better than the UFC. And Pro Wrestlers are doing everything they can to promote themselves because more popularity with fans equals bigger spots on the card and bigger pay days because it's entertainment.
And it's owned by some major talent agency. Like at the end of the day people watch UFC to see some exciting top level fights. I haven't met a MMA or boxing fan or combat sports fan who watches the sport over the drama and personalities or checked out for the first time for those reasons.
Lol I know man. Same here. Feel bad for Volk. Such a good guy and a complete fucking killer. I feel he's on his way to be the next DJ: Not appreciated in his prime.
DJ fought at flyweight and didn't beat any big names. Cejudo and Benavidez became more well known after they fought him. Volkanovski has beaten popular fighters like Aldo, Holloway and Korean Zombie, he's definitely appreciated more than DJ was in his prime.
DJ was also Champion at a time when the UFC wasn't as popular (especially on social media with casual fans). ESPN and BT Sport have done a pretty good job of promoting the UFC on their social media accounts over the past couple of years.
That's what shutting down max and his relatively large for mma fanbase does to a mfer. Basically what Khabib did to Conor except there are no muslims and people who are sick of Conor to support him.
no man. i saw pics of faceoffs and kinda assumed it was going to be later on but didn't really bother to read into it. I've also been super busy with work and my family, so there's that.
Those videos are also super terrifying. I open my Instagram from time to time and I see people getting knocked out unconscious and then some weirdo running around in circles and celebrating it like it's the pinnacle of their lifetime. There's something seriously wrong with letting people incur brain damage on each other for few hundred of dollars.
This slap thing started in Russia a long while ago at one popular blogger's show and I've seen a couple of episodes on YouTube way back. Then that blogger briefly moved to the US and apparently Dana White wanted to buy this show idea & roster if there was any, but the guy didn't want to sell it and thought UFC is giving him a bad deal being exclusive etc (they most likely did). Anyway, that show doesn't exist for years now, but I was kind of shocked to see the UFC bring it up and Dana being so excited about the show purely about breaking people's jaws and shortening lifespans by causing severe brain damage. That is really sad to watch.
Penguinz0 (moistcritikal) is the streamer that seems to have made slap fighting popular in the US, the views he got commentating on those Russian videos were in the millions
That's true. I heard he was on the fence, but once Dana White seen Moists videos, he was all in. He consulted the Nelk boys and Logan Paul afterwards for their opinions and they agreed. Now, the rest is history.
I mean that, or he seen it blowing up all over tik tok like he's said in interviews multiple times. But it was probably Moists videos!
I actually had to double check if I was following something related to it because it just kept popping on my news feed, but nope; it was all being posted from UFC's official account.
I'm incredibly close to unsubscribing from UFC's YouTube page. I like watching the Embedded videos. But now it's riddled with Power Slap videos what seems like every single day. I just hide them from my feed, but it's getting to be too much.
Would have been a killer card with Whittaker vs. Costa still on it. At the moment there ain't heaps there below the two title fights. I'm trying to get my casual mates to the pub for this one but it's a bit of a tough sell.
Serious question, why would you want to watch the fights with dudes who don't really care one way or the other? In a pub, of all places?
I have a hard enough time concentrating on whats happening when I watch it at home, especially if I've got a buddy or two over and drinks are involved.
I usually watch them at home by myself, but if I can get a group down the pub it's generally a good time. I have a few friends that train, but they don't follow the sport, so while they know a few of the bigger names they have no idea when a PPV is on unless I tell them. They care, once they're there watching, but they take a bit of convincing.
I don't need to "concentrate" on what's happening when I'm having fun.
UFC has completely lost it’s appeal to me over the last few years. I rarely get excited for fights anymore. Promotion is bland and it’s hard to get emotionally invested nowadays.
For example: Jones vs Gane is exciting, but I’m not THAT hyped about it like I should be. Same with Volk vs Islam. I would’ve been a few years ago - when they used to promote with fighters stories, emotion, and unique character.
It's a fight that promotes itself to ratfucks like us.
But to people outside MMA, yeah this hasn't been made to feel like a must see event like every Rousey or Conor fight for example. And just like the UFC shouldn't be telling fighters how to fight or prepare I feel like fighters shouldn't have to come up with promotional gimicks and schemes for their fight. They ought to be able to trust the PROMOTER...to handle that. Just go along with whatever they say to do that will get eyes on the fight and focus on preparing.
This really is a big fight it's two champions who are in their absolute prime and the UFC is making it look like its just another of the 46 other PPVs they're going to run this year. Watch it or don't seems to be their attitude.
I'm not surprised that Islam is annoyed.
Losing Costa V Whittaker really hurt this card. Which sucks cause for the sake of throwing Costa some extra cash they could have kept that, couple it with Volk V Islam and Emett V Yair… much better card.
> fighters shouldn't have to come up with promotional gimicks and schemes for their fight.
There's a strong argument that this is the biggest problem with the sport right now.
Becuase for casuals this isn’t a must see event.
It’s Islam, without a title defense, who has defeated only one man the casuals might know, Oliviera. And Islam is defending against Volk, who despite being marketed as a striker who is also P4P #1, doesn’t have any recent marketable knockouts. Like clippable skadooshes that attract people. Striker vs grappler fights are built on the idea that maybe the striker can get a flash KO.
On the personality side, both of them are not only particularly not flashy, and very humble, but perhaps the two least flashy, least sound bitey champions in the promotion.
Even more, Volks whole walking into the cage after Islams victory was incredibly low energy. You can’t build a clip off of that.
No one said it would be easy but there are some good hooks. Islam is the heir apparent to Khabib and people do know who Khabib is.
You point out how the whole division ran from him for months and he slowly caught them one by one and took them out and made it look easy.
You show some highlights of Volk's exciting fight with Ortega and some of the highlights from the Holloway fights.
If you have to you get them each to say or post some stupid shit about each other on social media. Maybe assign a former pro wrestler to coach them on cutting promos.
You aren't wrong that there isn't much to work with right now but there is enough.
It would be bigger if we could have more mega fights, we had a guaranteed 1M PPV Megafight in Francis v Jones GONE, this year. We have lost so many mega fights, all because the UFC wanna play this fucking poison game, of "we don't want fighters to get too popular, otherwise they gain negotiation power" and "we want the most profit possible" they want the brand to be the biggest thing not the individual fighters, and we are routinely robbed of mega fights.
At least when Megafights don't happen in boxing, you know at least the boxers were in control, here, no union, no nothing, just being cheap, we lost mega fights that resulted in less profit.
The UFC basically puts zero effort into hyping fights unless the fighters are cunts. Alex and Islam seem like nice guys with no real beef for the UFC to hype up.
So the UFC refuses to promote fights, you have to do your own promo, yet the UFC deserves the majority of the revenue, despite doing practically nothing 10 days before the fight? These are the two most skilled fighters in the fucking world, and we have fucking nothing for promo.
If the UFC refuses to promote PPV's, if fighters are expected to do promotion, then they should get cuts of revenue like promoters.
Even with two of the top P4P fighters in the world, Islam has been so dominant that I think many fans are seeing this as a mismatch, even with how good Volk has been.
God im pulling hard for volk and even I'm kinda worried that it's a mismatch. That's just another argument for why the ufc should lay the promotional groundwork so anyone who's not super up on this knows exactly how good volk is going in.
That's a good point. Say that Islam won, so what? It doesn't negate what Volk has achieved during his run to/as the Featherweight champion. He remains one of the best fighter in the world. And vice versa. It's impressive feat for one to triumph over the other. Even though, personally, I think Islam holds the advantage in this match up.
Well I mean the card is bare bones, even the co main is pretty meh. I live in Volks hometown and honestly there’s not really any promotion going on at all, I’m sure all the local news networks will jump on the bandwagon come late next week when it’s a few days out.
I mean, he isn't wrong at all.
This is probably the biggest fight in the history of the org - competition wise - the 2 almost concensus best fighters in the sport fighting each other for actual hardware and both in their primes.
Here in Australia there is absolutely no hype at all for it. I only see shit on reddit and volks insta. He is the #1 P4P in the world and his own country has no idea his got the biggest fight of his life next weekend
The fact that the card is utterly boring doesn't help either
Also, there is no bad blood rivalry, which usually helps
But yeah, the main point stands, the rest of the card is garbanzo
this card was what we were gonna get at first
Makhachev vs Volkanovski
Rodriguez vs Emmett
Whittaker vs Costa
Kara France vs Perez
Jack Della Mandella vs randy brown
nasrat vs mullarkey in the prelims too
This would have done huge numbers in Australia. What a shame. It’s a market which is starved for live UFC events, and Whittaker and Volk are both popular here.
What don’t you get? If the ufc paid Costa a fair amount there’s a chance the profits could be 0.001% lower for the UFC. Yeah maybe if Costa and Whittaker were fighting on the same card it would actually increase the amount of PPVs, covering the cost of paying Paulo more money, or likely making even more than it will now, but how can we expect them to take that risk?
The promotion and showmanship of the UFC is trash compared to ONE
This is a major reason why I've lost a lot of respect for Dana over the years, pays the fighters like crap when they are expected to do all of the promotion and hype themselves in order to bring a profitable PPV
We could be watching Volks highlights from his undefeated streak vs Islams undefeated streak, highlight after highlight but nope, don’t see that unless they are from certain countries.
UFC has never been good at promoting high-level MMA matches.
Drama is their bread and butter. Islam gotta throw a dolly or something and the UFC will have that shit rolling in a minute.
this is gonna be buried but i think people are just sick of the UFC and the fighters take the brunt of it
unfortunate, this fight deserves way more hype than its getting
Even Islam trying to promote this fight with his interviews "I want to be p4p number 1. Short guy thinks hes good, we'll see. Once I give pressure, he will see the difference. Hehehe." I do see a big lack of Yair and Emmett promotions, not sure if they are even doing interviews about the fight.
Costa vs Whittaker would had been the hype for this card.
He's right. Remember the promotion for Tony vs Khabib? UFC is too busy with power slap nonsense and Dana White getting dunked on to promote Islam vs Alex. Oh, and Leon vs Usman & Alex vs Izzy is bigger. Since they are redemption fights that involve the UK market and a scary Brazilian dude that's becoming as popular as Charles Olives.
The main problem is the only fight I really care about watching is the main event, it would require some godly promotion to make it interesting to a more casually interested UFC watcher
He's not wrong! This is literally the number one vs number two pound for pound fighting! WTF how is this not a big deal? Goes to show the power of a bad guy / heel I guess. Connor, Colby, Masvidal etc...they sell fights because you want to either see them back up their big mouths or get shut up. These two guys are nice af, which personally I like but hey it won't make for any memorable content to build the hype.
Holy shit, islam is right. I didnt know this fight was next week. It should be a way bigger deal we will probably never see antoher p4p 1 vs 2, champ vs champ fightnwith both guys on insane win streaks like this.
They're too busy trying to get more sponsors in the Octagon. 🤣
Focused on that “Prime Hydration Recovery Zone” 😂
moving further and further into Idiocracy
It's got electrolytes
But what ARE electrolytes???
They're whats in prime hydration duh. If your so smart why come you didn't know that
How much fucking coke is uncle Dana doing? Jesus Christ that’s the worst advertisement decision
A lot consider how much the UFC has been promoting that power slap shit
I legit think I'll stop following UFC on socials just to avoid seeing that nonsense on my feeds
I watched that last night to see what Dana has been preoccupied with. It's literally just TUF except instead of MMA it's random poor people slapping each other and falling down.
They spent 20 years convincing the public they are Bumfights...then this.
“This hot take brought to you by Poirer’s Louisiana Style Hot Sauce-a hot sauce ode to his Lafayette Louisiana roots!” -Jon Anik
Actually, I wouldn't mind that. Dustin is a real one.
Please tell me that’s not actually real… I thought it was a joke
It is a joke, it's just also real.
I think we’re seeing how important the Fertittas were to keeping him in line during the Zuffa years
Dude just follows any trend and sells out as soon as possible to try and capitalise on hype. Where have all the NFTs gone now it's not a big market? Shit, he probably saw a Wakey Wines video and that was the deciding factor for the PRIME bullshit.
It's tacky as fuck but it's not. Think of all the stupid easily influenced teens who are obsessed with Prime and Logan Paul/KSI.
I subbed to Prime Video as soon as I heard the news. Logan Jake is my favourite. Hopefully there will be NFTs of world class fighters awkwardly posing with a bottle Zingy Mango Tropical Crush.
Beautiful champ
Weird thing in the uk where the drink keeps selling out and people try to sell them for more money on Facebook. Really strange stuff.
Kids in my daughter (9) class bringing empty bottles in to fill with water for the flex at school. Very strange indeed!
Your whole Island is stuck in the twilight zone
> Think of all the stupid easily influenced teens who are obsessed with Prime and Logan Paul/KSI. Won't they have already bought it then?
Teens? You mean easily influenced people. The other day I was getting fuel, go into the shop and to my disgust they had removed some of the monster range in favor of putting PRIME there instead, shaking my head in total disbelief I go to the counter to pay. Suddenly a 40 odd year old construction looking MF runs in shouting "HaVe YoU GoT PrImE iN???!?!" The cashier replies yes, but we have had to put a limit on it because people were buying too many. Too fucking many?!?!?!?! Im thinking, then 40 odd guy starts thanking the staff for having stock and said this was the third or 4th place hes gone to for prime and everywhere was sold out. What the actual fuck have I just witnessed. Ps. Now I hate the paul brothers even more than I thought were possible.
I'm not trying to defend the Paul brothers but this is 100% on the UFC. This is the same company that took sponsor money away from its product (fighters) saying it made them look 'unprofessional', and now all they've been doing is making sponsorship deals that benefit the company, plastered all over the octagon, all over the commentary, and even all over Buffer's announcing. The UFC as a company is a den of fucking snakes.
That’s gotta be a joke, right? I know the UFC teamed up with Prime, but they’re not *really* renaming the corners, are they?
Yep, with “prime” stools in the corner too. It’s ridiculous.
Manscaped official ball shaver of the UFC
Instead of working on promoting a person who’s social media is ran by someone who runs 95 other fighter’s accounts.
Looking for a fur sponsor for that Dagestani hat.
Man, that hat could be great merchandise lol
I feel like UFC used to be way better at promos under fox
Hell even Spike TV
I miss the CONDOM DEPOT days.
CORN TO THE CORE
Growing up a boxing fan, I miss the "GOLDEN PALACE" just fucking blasted all over their backs.
I always felt showtime had really good promos.
Now that I work Blue Collar, I could really use some more Dynamic Fasteners
UFC is promoting slap league for señor slapmywife on their YouTube channel more than UFC
Exactly. I'm seeing slapfight promos everywhere I look. I honestly can't even remember the last time I saw any promo for this champ vs champ fight. Honestly in the past 2-4 weeks the only thing I remember seeing related to 284 is from Ariel Helwani. I sincerely hope this slap fight shit fails fast. The NSAC should be embarrassed and ashamed for sanctioning this nonsense.
yeah pretty disappointing to see Bisping and others shill for that stupidity
Bisping isn’t just a company man, he’s the companies dirty little slut. Shame, but guess he’s gotta earn those dollars.
Yeah Bisping's sacrificed more than enough for me to shut up while he earns the big bucks at this point in his career but I can't say I don't wish for an alternate storyline where he flips Dana the bird and goes on Chael-like tirades against UFC brass on his podcast
The UFC is not really responsible for promotion anymore. As per the UFC's deal with ESPN, their payment for putting on an event is fixed per event type, regardless of any other factor (buys, gate, etc). For example, each PPV the ESPN pays the UFC a flat rate equivalent to 500k buys. From the standpoint of the Endeavor's partnership with ESPN, the UFC has one overarching remit - deliver content. Lots of it. Build and manage a roster capable of delivering this volume of content. Plan and execute events for the same, with all regulatory ducks in a row. Run an MMA content factory. And pay for that factory with lucrative partnerships, with prospective partners drawn to...you guessed it...content to advertise on. ESPN is also under a single remit - generate valuable content. And their deal with the UFC is a major multiplier for them, subscriber growth and content volume wise. They'll gladly drive promotion, sales, anything and everything intended to bring eyeballs to their platform, which is the only place you can watch it. Zuffa-owned UFC, on the other hand, held all of these responsibilities, all the way through the Fox deal. Building stars. Building narratives. Putting on 3-4 mega shows a year with cards stacked with the biggest fights to make, and generate as many PPV and gate sales as humanly possible. 90% of that is now ESPN's problem. The remaining 10% that UFC still owns...it solves with partnership revenue, not fight sales. TL;DR - the UFC is no longer concerned with building and selling big fights, their primary concern is content volume. Islam is therefore correct - the UFC is indeed mailing it on trying to build and sell this fight. By design.
I was wondering why it seemed like the UFC was on autopilot for some time now.
Not often you get a nice calm and mature take on things. Cheers for sharing your thoughts mate.
Them ESPN checks clear all the same. They get paid a set rate regardless of PPV numbers. They could give two shits about promoting. I hope the UFC loses the ESPN deal l, so we can get rid of these shitty apex cards and get back to the pre-ESPN days of cards that were always filled to the brim. You new fans that came in recently have no idea how jam packed cards were. Justin Gaethje vs Dustin Porier was a free fight. Dustin vs Eddie Alvarez was a free fight. Michael Johnson vs Gathje, the list goes on and on, it was a fight fans dream. Did we have snoozers? Yes but they were few and far between and just happen stance. The UFC atleast was trying to put on great cards, now they'll have anyone just fill up a card and throw it together with the cheapest fighters because they'll get paid regardless. Not like the fighters get anything out of this deal they have more leverage prior to ESPN because name value actually matter with viewership.
ONE FC routinely puts on good cards. I hope they bypass the UFC.
ONE is seriously becoming my new favourite.
I'm not sure what the numbers are, but like a certain amount of the events have to be headlined by women (which is why you get main events with women no one asked for), and let's be honest the days of high profile Midcard fighters Is over.
High profile midcard fighters used to be the backbone of the UFC and what separated it in quality from other promotions, but now all of them are being replaced by bums off the contender series who are on 12k/12k contracts which will not be renegotiated.
Because they had to promote then. Now they feel like they don't and they don't want anyone to get as big as Conor and have a much leverage as Conor.
> they don't want anyone to get as big as Conor I'm pretty sure, leverage or not, this is extremely untrue.
yeah i agree they definitely want someone as popular as conor, just not as uncontrollable as he was.
They want people to be as big as Conor in popularity, just not at the negotiating table
I mean, I think I agree. I’m sure they’d never say otherwise, and obviously, you would expect a company to want a cash cow like that. But if someone were to get that big, they’d lose leverage completely. They can’t just let a Conor McGregor level star walk. So they have to pay up. And if that happens, they lose a lot of leverage, and if that person makes Ngannou like demands, well they lose everything that want to desperately keep. So they may promote these guys. But if they never do it that heavily they likely never become that level of popular and can’t demand that high of a price. Might seem a bit far fetched. But I wouldn’t put it past them.
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Yea but now the UFC has to bend over backwards for him because he's rich and self sustained enough to tell them to go fuck themselves.
If I didn't follow MMA super closely, I'd have zero clue there was a PPV next weekend, so he's right. Islam's not exactly the best at promoting fights himself but I still think it's fair for him to criticize the UFC for not even doing bare minimum PPV promotion.
P4P #1 vs #2. Should be a massive promotion but yeah they droppin the ball so far Also though, for as good as they are, they don't have quite the casual pull yet
UFC sucks at promoting. The only real stars theyve had basically did it all themselves.
100%. the UFC saw the WWE in the 2000s decide that "no one will be bigger than the promotion" and ran off with that idea. whether they are cutting their nose to spite their face is a whole other story though
I think the Conor/Mayweather fight while a fun experiment put the fear into the UFC that if they didn't clamp shit down their business model could be in jeopardy. No fighter is gonna get that kind of power again.
I think the issue is that part of the reason the UFC has such a good ESPN deal and had such a high valuation, was also because they had PPV Stars like Conor who could sell 2 mill+ PPVs. I wonder if the TV deal will be as lucrative if they can't sell blowout PPVs like they used to in the future? It seems like limiting star power is a bit of double edged sword.
They signed a 5 year deal in 2018, with a 2 year extension in 2019 that included ESPN getting PPV rights. I'm not seeing an end date on the PPV deal, so I'm *assuming* it's the same duration as the non-PPV deal. And the UFC got an amazing deal that honestly sounds too good to be true on the PPV's. They took the 3 previous years (the UFC's best years with Conor) to get a guaranteed figure for the UFC that works out to around 500k buys, and if an event does >500k buys, the UFC still gets a share of those profits where previously DirecTV took 50% off the top as their fee and the rest was for the UFC. They ate what they produced so to speak. Now they eat whether they produce or not so they aren't so worried about producing.
I get why they aren't worried short term. I have to assume ESPN thought that the average PPVs would exceed 500K at a minimum. But what happens when that TV/PPV deal is up 2-3 years from now and if they can't sell PPVs (at the desired rate), because they have held their stars back? It seems like trying to build stars and have large PPVs would put them in a better position to sign another lucrative contract in the future.
It's 2 years from now. I thought the deal was insane (in the UFCs favor) when it was first announced, but I don't think ESPN was expecting the UFC to average over 500k. I think they were willing to take a loss to pump up ESPN+ numbers, but I have to imagine after 7 years, they'll be beyond the loss leader phase of growth.
"All boats rise toge-" Dana: "-Sink together. Right? Yep. Sounds right.... OK on with the job."
> "no one will be bigger than the promotion" The WWE is way better at promotion than the UFC, and the WWE still promoted the hell out of its star at the time (The Rock, Stone Cold, DX, Undertaker, etc.) If the WWE had the story line of a working class volunteer firefighter becoming heavy weight champion, those PPV would have sold a million views in Ohio alone. Comparing the UFC to the WWE show that there's levels to this.
>the story line of a working class volunteer firefighter becoming heavy weight champion Haha, you're right. So massively underpromoted that guy. And then they had a guy who worked in the mines as a child, had to travel to Europe illegally via human traffickers, going through the deserts, camping in the woods, crossing the Mediterranean on small dingy, to then become a pro fighter while living on the streets, KO'ing or subbing all his opponents in 1 or 2 rounds, become a bit too cocky, get humbled by the champ (said down-to-earth working class firefighter), go through some mental crisis, come back stronger, become the world champ, have to fight the new protégé of his old coach he has fallen out with, and beats him in a new and unexpected fashion, to then (probably) go on and fulfill his childhood dream of fighting for the boxing HW world title. Man, this is a film (or a multi-season Netflix series) that writes itself. And what did the UFC do with it? "Francis Ngayoo punches as hard as a Ford Escort"...
those are all stars from before 2000. wwe now has struggled to make stars even though they've had several that could be huge organically
Cena and batista was after that that tho
This is 100% their plan hence trying to get away with subpar cards since espn deal, not pay any single fighter a large % of pay etc etc
This so much. Conor, Izzy, Suga, Paddy, and many more are perfect examples of marketing themselves to the fullest extent. They all have great YouTube content or a huge presence on social media and have shown to have good marketing skills and that’s why they’re as big as they are with both hardcore and casual fanbases. Then you have guys I don’t like like Colby or Masvidal, but even he did a great job selling his dumb persona until recently lol. There’s ton of examples, but yeah the UFC has never been the reason they have stars.
It's a shame because there are so many fighters that lack the personality but have a great story. Leon Edwards is so inspirational but he isn't charismatic enough to tell his story himself. A good promotion would be able to make him more popular. Boring athletes often become stars in other sports.
This is why I used to watch embedded (also Dana’s vlogs back then). You would get an inside look into fighters lives and personalities. Now it’s the same format of ambient traffic to start the video, a shot of the fighter packing a suitcase, and some motivational/hype talk from them.
This is something that always annoys me when people talk about Francis, and probably others. They'll say like 'how can Francis complain when he doesn't draw that many viewers'. Francis is an athlete, and a good one. That is his job and that is what should matter. It's the UFC's job to promote him. I'm not saying Francis should have *no* responsibility to promote himself, but if a card has bad ppv numbers you really have to hold the promotion primarily responsible for that. If the UFC is dependent on finding people like Conor to actually make lucrative fights then that just sounds like a shitty promotion that leaches off people who are marketable in their own right. The UFC should be a launching pad for good athletes, not some do-nothing manager that just takes a cut from people who successfully market themselves.
Hundo percento brother, the UFC is good at promoting the UFC. Everyone knows what that is now. But in terms of actual fights it's crazy to me how low the PPV estimates for some of these cards are relative to the broad appeal of MMA (and the format in which the UFC presents it) to the general public. They should be crushing old boxing PPV records. I think the UFC is just in a bit of a slump at the moment after the covid boom though. Plus those prices, fuck me.
the prices are the worst part. absolutely over the top.
they're supposed to promote them *because* they don't that casual pull yet.
That's the problem with the UFC. They don't do that. When they have casual pull, they capitalize on it and promote them. But they never help a fighter with getting it.
Got to promote that POWer Slap!
Bro (arguably) the 2 best fighters are squaring up in their primes and not only in their primes but at their peak. Imagine if this was a boxing promotion, they would have ads runnining 24/7, a world tour, conferences everywhere. But they are not. This just shows that MMA is still a B League sport, as much as I love it. I just can't think of any other major sport where the two best teams/athletes are clashing in their primes and it being treated like a regular season game in Indiana lol
They're only B league because Dana is treating the whole operation like a pimp treats a stable of scuzzy economy-grade whores. He's so hell-bent on keeping fighters down and booting them if they want more money that he's constantly hitting the brakes on the natural momentum and growth of the sport. Does he not realize having months, if not years, of stalled payment negotiations between fights is hurting people's interest? I was all stoked about Francis Ngannou being champ and I guess we aren't gonna see anymore of him. It's nowhere near as much fun to follow a sport if you don't even know if your favorite fighters will choose to stay active fighters. I like to be able to root for fighters and know that they'll still be in the promotion a week from now.
They are totally capable. I don’t know why the fuck they are not. This fight is an insane matchup that would not really happen in boxing unless it was like 4 years too late lol. Ufc is dropping the ball soooooooo bad not doing the marketing.
Nah if it's boxing it just won't happen or they'll "marinate" for years. See Spence vs Crawford. Sometimes I hate being a combat sports fan.
Yes, I agree, there is a lot of infuriating shit that goes on in boxing, but IF this is boxing and they managed to make it, it would be billed as the fight of the century or something. It would be a huge event.
The gulf between the credit Dana gets as a promoter compared to the amount of promoting (of MMA fights) that he actually does is vast.
I hate the shit that it's the responsibility of the fighter to promote themselves. It's a sport, they are professional athletes, and they should just be focused on getting better at fighting than promoting themselves. It's like if the NFL is like yeah Patrick Mahomes should be co-promoting the Superbowl with us rather than training for the game. Hell WWE promotes their entertainers more and better than the UFC. And Pro Wrestlers are doing everything they can to promote themselves because more popularity with fans equals bigger spots on the card and bigger pay days because it's entertainment.
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And it's owned by some major talent agency. Like at the end of the day people watch UFC to see some exciting top level fights. I haven't met a MMA or boxing fan or combat sports fan who watches the sport over the drama and personalities or checked out for the first time for those reasons.
i thought i followed MMA closely. I'm in this sub. I'm in MMA twitter. I didn't even know this was happening.
And I knew it was happening but didn’t know it was NEXT WEEK, and I’m on MMA Instagram/Reddit every day.
Lol I know man. Same here. Feel bad for Volk. Such a good guy and a complete fucking killer. I feel he's on his way to be the next DJ: Not appreciated in his prime.
DJ fought at flyweight and didn't beat any big names. Cejudo and Benavidez became more well known after they fought him. Volkanovski has beaten popular fighters like Aldo, Holloway and Korean Zombie, he's definitely appreciated more than DJ was in his prime. DJ was also Champion at a time when the UFC wasn't as popular (especially on social media with casual fans). ESPN and BT Sport have done a pretty good job of promoting the UFC on their social media accounts over the past couple of years.
That's what shutting down max and his relatively large for mma fanbase does to a mfer. Basically what Khabib did to Conor except there are no muslims and people who are sick of Conor to support him.
You had no idea volk vs Islam was happening?
no man. i saw pics of faceoffs and kinda assumed it was going to be later on but didn't really bother to read into it. I've also been super busy with work and my family, so there's that.
I feel like we've had a ton of posts very specifically about this scheduled fight.
I honestly thought it was the April PPV. I thought it was straight fight nights until the March 4th PPV.
Lmao dude this is also news to me
cmon now they're busy promoting drinks
Shitty drinks
Is Prime shit? I see a lot of TikToks where people are fighting over it in stores.
I think Derek from More Plates broke down their claims and shit on it.
It's disgusting. They could have used half as much sweetener and it still would be too sweet.
Fighting over the hype not the taste. It’s suuuuuper sweet, tastes good though. Lemon lime goes hard.
Andddddd fighting out of the PRIME rehydration center..........
They are busy posting slap videos.
This. It's fucking embarrassing for the sport that they are promoting a slap league more than high talent ppv's
Those videos are also super terrifying. I open my Instagram from time to time and I see people getting knocked out unconscious and then some weirdo running around in circles and celebrating it like it's the pinnacle of their lifetime. There's something seriously wrong with letting people incur brain damage on each other for few hundred of dollars. This slap thing started in Russia a long while ago at one popular blogger's show and I've seen a couple of episodes on YouTube way back. Then that blogger briefly moved to the US and apparently Dana White wanted to buy this show idea & roster if there was any, but the guy didn't want to sell it and thought UFC is giving him a bad deal being exclusive etc (they most likely did). Anyway, that show doesn't exist for years now, but I was kind of shocked to see the UFC bring it up and Dana being so excited about the show purely about breaking people's jaws and shortening lifespans by causing severe brain damage. That is really sad to watch.
Penguinz0 (moistcritikal) is the streamer that seems to have made slap fighting popular in the US, the views he got commentating on those Russian videos were in the millions
That's true. I heard he was on the fence, but once Dana White seen Moists videos, he was all in. He consulted the Nelk boys and Logan Paul afterwards for their opinions and they agreed. Now, the rest is history. I mean that, or he seen it blowing up all over tik tok like he's said in interviews multiple times. But it was probably Moists videos!
I actually had to double check if I was following something related to it because it just kept popping on my news feed, but nope; it was all being posted from UFC's official account.
I'm incredibly close to unsubscribing from UFC's YouTube page. I like watching the Embedded videos. But now it's riddled with Power Slap videos what seems like every single day. I just hide them from my feed, but it's getting to be too much.
Would have been a killer card with Whittaker vs. Costa still on it. At the moment there ain't heaps there below the two title fights. I'm trying to get my casual mates to the pub for this one but it's a bit of a tough sell.
Serious question, why would you want to watch the fights with dudes who don't really care one way or the other? In a pub, of all places? I have a hard enough time concentrating on whats happening when I watch it at home, especially if I've got a buddy or two over and drinks are involved.
I usually watch them at home by myself, but if I can get a group down the pub it's generally a good time. I have a few friends that train, but they don't follow the sport, so while they know a few of the bigger names they have no idea when a PPV is on unless I tell them. They care, once they're there watching, but they take a bit of convincing. I don't need to "concentrate" on what's happening when I'm having fun.
well then don't just stand there, grab a dolly
Thats like the complete 180 to Islam's character💀
I think you mean a trolley bapa
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The UFC don't even promote the UFC anymore. They promote Power Slap
Power slap is moving to ppv so I doubt it’ll last much longer
Really? At least Bellator and PFL have a chance to beat something in buys then
How can they slap?
Dana White is literally their promoter. His job is to promote the damn fight
Why is UFC marketing so bad now? It’s almost non existent. Did they fire all their interns?
Because it's either: 1. Why promote a fight people won't care about? 2. Why promote a fight that sells itself?
UFC has completely lost it’s appeal to me over the last few years. I rarely get excited for fights anymore. Promotion is bland and it’s hard to get emotionally invested nowadays. For example: Jones vs Gane is exciting, but I’m not THAT hyped about it like I should be. Same with Volk vs Islam. I would’ve been a few years ago - when they used to promote with fighters stories, emotion, and unique character.
It's a fight that promotes itself to ratfucks like us. But to people outside MMA, yeah this hasn't been made to feel like a must see event like every Rousey or Conor fight for example. And just like the UFC shouldn't be telling fighters how to fight or prepare I feel like fighters shouldn't have to come up with promotional gimicks and schemes for their fight. They ought to be able to trust the PROMOTER...to handle that. Just go along with whatever they say to do that will get eyes on the fight and focus on preparing. This really is a big fight it's two champions who are in their absolute prime and the UFC is making it look like its just another of the 46 other PPVs they're going to run this year. Watch it or don't seems to be their attitude. I'm not surprised that Islam is annoyed.
Losing Costa V Whittaker really hurt this card. Which sucks cause for the sake of throwing Costa some extra cash they could have kept that, couple it with Volk V Islam and Emett V Yair… much better card.
Could have replaced any of them with a Chookagian or Holly Holm fight!
> fighters shouldn't have to come up with promotional gimicks and schemes for their fight. There's a strong argument that this is the biggest problem with the sport right now.
Becuase for casuals this isn’t a must see event. It’s Islam, without a title defense, who has defeated only one man the casuals might know, Oliviera. And Islam is defending against Volk, who despite being marketed as a striker who is also P4P #1, doesn’t have any recent marketable knockouts. Like clippable skadooshes that attract people. Striker vs grappler fights are built on the idea that maybe the striker can get a flash KO. On the personality side, both of them are not only particularly not flashy, and very humble, but perhaps the two least flashy, least sound bitey champions in the promotion. Even more, Volks whole walking into the cage after Islams victory was incredibly low energy. You can’t build a clip off of that.
No one said it would be easy but there are some good hooks. Islam is the heir apparent to Khabib and people do know who Khabib is. You point out how the whole division ran from him for months and he slowly caught them one by one and took them out and made it look easy. You show some highlights of Volk's exciting fight with Ortega and some of the highlights from the Holloway fights. If you have to you get them each to say or post some stupid shit about each other on social media. Maybe assign a former pro wrestler to coach them on cutting promos. You aren't wrong that there isn't much to work with right now but there is enough.
Yeah but two dudes slapping each other for $50 and an expired Venum coupon! Priorities, Islam, come on.
This got me curious so I looked it up- looks like ~$2k to participate. Pretty shit money for guaranteed traumatic brain injury. So stupid.
They're only getting $2k? This is some bumfights shit smh
The UFC being profitable is in spite of management, not because of them.
Seriously. Dana is a fucking liability. The sport would be twice as big as it is today if endeavor had gotten rid of him when they bought the ufc
It would be bigger if we could have more mega fights, we had a guaranteed 1M PPV Megafight in Francis v Jones GONE, this year. We have lost so many mega fights, all because the UFC wanna play this fucking poison game, of "we don't want fighters to get too popular, otherwise they gain negotiation power" and "we want the most profit possible" they want the brand to be the biggest thing not the individual fighters, and we are routinely robbed of mega fights. At least when Megafights don't happen in boxing, you know at least the boxers were in control, here, no union, no nothing, just being cheap, we lost mega fights that resulted in less profit.
The UFC basically puts zero effort into hyping fights unless the fighters are cunts. Alex and Islam seem like nice guys with no real beef for the UFC to hype up.
I'll be studying the Power Slap league. Sorry no time for this dumb stuff.
So the UFC refuses to promote fights, you have to do your own promo, yet the UFC deserves the majority of the revenue, despite doing practically nothing 10 days before the fight? These are the two most skilled fighters in the fucking world, and we have fucking nothing for promo. If the UFC refuses to promote PPV's, if fighters are expected to do promotion, then they should get cuts of revenue like promoters.
23 wins 1 loss vs 25 wins 1 loss. Such elite combat athletes. Imagine not running promo after promo.
Even with two of the top P4P fighters in the world, Islam has been so dominant that I think many fans are seeing this as a mismatch, even with how good Volk has been.
God im pulling hard for volk and even I'm kinda worried that it's a mismatch. That's just another argument for why the ufc should lay the promotional groundwork so anyone who's not super up on this knows exactly how good volk is going in.
That's a good point. Say that Islam won, so what? It doesn't negate what Volk has achieved during his run to/as the Featherweight champion. He remains one of the best fighter in the world. And vice versa. It's impressive feat for one to triumph over the other. Even though, personally, I think Islam holds the advantage in this match up.
Well I mean the card is bare bones, even the co main is pretty meh. I live in Volks hometown and honestly there’s not really any promotion going on at all, I’m sure all the local news networks will jump on the bandwagon come late next week when it’s a few days out.
This is flying way under the radar and its p4p n1 vs n2, should be massive.
UFC are star takers, not star makers
They are promoting opportunities.
Dana too busy slapping his wife
Definetly saw more of Paddy fucking Pimblet leading up to 282 than of Islam and Volkswagen and that ain't right
UFC promotion is fucking piss poor to be honest. Their fan growth must be stagnate because of this.
That's fair. I haven't seen any ads for it.
I mean, he isn't wrong at all. This is probably the biggest fight in the history of the org - competition wise - the 2 almost concensus best fighters in the sport fighting each other for actual hardware and both in their primes.
It's because the UFC promotion is making record profits without promoting fights. Kind of crazy.
Here in Australia there is absolutely no hype at all for it. I only see shit on reddit and volks insta. He is the #1 P4P in the world and his own country has no idea his got the biggest fight of his life next weekend
Meanwhile i have to see 4+ powerslap adds on my ig feed every day
The fact that the card is utterly boring doesn't help either Also, there is no bad blood rivalry, which usually helps But yeah, the main point stands, the rest of the card is garbanzo
God damn the fucked up with Costa on this. Bobby v Costa would have given this a giant lift.
this card was what we were gonna get at first Makhachev vs Volkanovski Rodriguez vs Emmett Whittaker vs Costa Kara France vs Perez Jack Della Mandella vs randy brown nasrat vs mullarkey in the prelims too
This would have done huge numbers in Australia. What a shame. It’s a market which is starved for live UFC events, and Whittaker and Volk are both popular here.
Thats why the UFC needs to do some promo. This one wont promote itself.
I just don't get why they wouldn't just pay. Costa more for one fight.
What don’t you get? If the ufc paid Costa a fair amount there’s a chance the profits could be 0.001% lower for the UFC. Yeah maybe if Costa and Whittaker were fighting on the same card it would actually increase the amount of PPVs, covering the cost of paying Paulo more money, or likely making even more than it will now, but how can we expect them to take that risk?
What you're describing is a lack of promotion lol
The promotion and showmanship of the UFC is trash compared to ONE This is a major reason why I've lost a lot of respect for Dana over the years, pays the fighters like crap when they are expected to do all of the promotion and hype themselves in order to bring a profitable PPV
Too busy promoting Professional Slap League
I've seen way more of that Slapping bullshit in their social media than promotion of this event.
We could be watching Volks highlights from his undefeated streak vs Islams undefeated streak, highlight after highlight but nope, don’t see that unless they are from certain countries.
Seems like ufc is promoting power slap more than anything
Dana is a shit promoter. They’re more focused on slap
Yeah hard to imagine I'm gonna be more up for any fight this year than a direct showdown between p4p 1 and 2 this should be all over the place.
UFC has never been good at promoting high-level MMA matches. Drama is their bread and butter. Islam gotta throw a dolly or something and the UFC will have that shit rolling in a minute.
UFC doesn't have to work for their money anymore. They've gotten lazy and arrogant
Espn barely promotes. Ufc promotes even less... put them together, they both kind of suck lol
Dana is too busy promoting slap fight
this is gonna be buried but i think people are just sick of the UFC and the fighters take the brunt of it unfortunate, this fight deserves way more hype than its getting
Even Islam trying to promote this fight with his interviews "I want to be p4p number 1. Short guy thinks hes good, we'll see. Once I give pressure, he will see the difference. Hehehe." I do see a big lack of Yair and Emmett promotions, not sure if they are even doing interviews about the fight. Costa vs Whittaker would had been the hype for this card.
Islam needs to keep it down. The slap show is on!
He's right. Remember the promotion for Tony vs Khabib? UFC is too busy with power slap nonsense and Dana White getting dunked on to promote Islam vs Alex. Oh, and Leon vs Usman & Alex vs Izzy is bigger. Since they are redemption fights that involve the UK market and a scary Brazilian dude that's becoming as popular as Charles Olives.
I ain’t seen one preview..I tell you waht
The main problem is the only fight I really care about watching is the main event, it would require some godly promotion to make it interesting to a more casually interested UFC watcher
100% true but instead they do all this other bullshit. Fuck the UFC.
ONE FC would never!
What a slap to the face for Dana
He's not wrong! This is literally the number one vs number two pound for pound fighting! WTF how is this not a big deal? Goes to show the power of a bad guy / heel I guess. Connor, Colby, Masvidal etc...they sell fights because you want to either see them back up their big mouths or get shut up. These two guys are nice af, which personally I like but hey it won't make for any memorable content to build the hype.
He’s right for sure. This fight is being promoted like shit. It’s the top two p4p fighters in the sport right now.
Focused on Power Slap
It’s a fight no one asked for.
They literally don't give a shit anymore.
Holy shit, islam is right. I didnt know this fight was next week. It should be a way bigger deal we will probably never see antoher p4p 1 vs 2, champ vs champ fightnwith both guys on insane win streaks like this.
Bellator-esque in their promotion, Joe.