Lesnar

Give Ronda 2 cans (if she can beat them) and then Cyborg.

Outside of Conor, GSP, Lesnar, and Honda, there probably isn't a (realistic) card you could make that cracks 1 million.

Miocic-Cain
Cody-TJ

No way. Neither guy is a draw. They always do around 300-330k PPV buys (except Cain vs. Lesnar hit a million).

Cody could eventually develop into a star, but he's not there yet. That's a helluva jump going from never even headlining a PPV to all of a sudden a 1 million PPV guy. TJ doesn't add much.

This is kind of my point. Who's the biggest non-Conor draw in the sport today? It's probably Jones right? If you have your (2nd) biggest guy atop a stacked card with a couple other solid draws on it and don't break a million buys, and then you tell me the only way to break a million is with two 35+ year old nostalgia fights, I refer back to my initial response: Woof.

I don't think either of these break 1M

Not even 500K imo


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Cyborg vs Silva vs. The Diaz Brothers fatal 4 way

I think Nate/Cowboy sells better than Lawler/Cowboy as a co-main, I know it got third or fourth billing last card.

I don't know how much Cyborg brings to the table when the B side is a can. Cyborg/Misha or Cybory/Holm obv sell.

Cyborg/Holm might sell as a headliner actually, Nate/Cowboy as co-main and that gets close to 1M. Nunes/Holm or Nunes/Cyborg prbly do okay too.

Lawler/Nick is a fight that people would want to see, him vs Cowboy too.

Both diaz bros are draws, Cyborg could be a draw, i feel Joana will eventually be a draw, Cody & Max has the possibility, Khabib is huge in Russia & if he wins a belt he will be even bigger.

The Diaz's haven't had a big buyrate other than vs. Conor or GSP (and to a lesser degree Anderson). It's yet to be seen if people care that much about Nate other than when he's fighting Conor. Obviously he will have some bump in popularity due to the Conor effect, but I doubt a guy who's been somewhat of a UFC gatekeeper is all of a sudden a top draw.

Cyborg/Holm
Nate/Cowboy

Don't think that's a million PPV card, probably 600-700k. Tough to say how big a draw Cyborg is at this point.

Regardless it's still in the range of Bones was more of my point.

So if we rejiggered last card to be like:

Bones/DC
Nate/Woodley
Cyborg/Holm

I think does ~1.2M and better than 200 (which I didn't realize barely did 1M)

Nate also hasn't had a fight since his two fights with Conor. I do think he failed to capitalize on the timing of his peak shine. Not unexpected that he wasn't excited to fight for 3M or whatever tho.

Yah, Nate has maybe 1 fight post-Conor to capitalize before people are like "oh, dude's really mediocre against guys his own size".

Conor's the only guy in history who's done 1.2 million+ buys (other than UFC 100 which was absolutely stacked and had Lesnar+GSP). I'll believe it when I see it that a card like the one you proposed can do 1.2. If 200 couldn't do it, then it probably can't be done without Conor or probably 2 of Lesnar/GSP/Honda.

UFC has to be pretty alarmed with the #s for 200 and 214, which were underwhelming for how loaded those cards were.

The headliner on that card was Misha Tate and Amanda Nunes. 200 was a pretty meh card really.

It was supposed to be Bones/DC II.

Agreed that the UFC sans Conor is floundering tho.

This was ultimately my point. You empty the clip and get 850k after paying 4.4B for something? I'm not a happy camper at that point.

I think it is more about they hit a peak with conor.
Like a good run of cards which make your run good for a while but it is not sustainable rate...

Ufc hit a good variance run with conor.
But trying to make this a regular thing with 1 millions buy in is a mistake imo.
If you build right, good things will happenes and the way the ufc is trying ti run thing is pretty bad now ( trying to replicate something unique like conor) and more bad thing will happen instead of good things if they keep that road.

Yah, it was a bit meh for hardcores, but they're buying/streaming regardless. Getting a bunch of casuals interested is how you get a million buys and that card was stacked with fighters who appeal to casuals and yet they still couldn't hit a million.

With the ease of streaming and getting free content in general, getting people to buy these PPV's is becoming more and more challenging.

And UFC is catering to 20-30 y/o demographics for the most part. A generation that grew up with free music, movies, television. GL getting people to cough up $60 for a main event fight that lasts like 13 minutes on average.

In fairness, this fight was stutter started a few times.

Also, even as a semi hardcore fan I did not hear about it all that much except where I seek out mma content. I actually forgot that it was coming up until a week before and I am a big Lawler fan also. It was not getting the kind of exposure other big fights did. I don't know what impact the Conor FM circus that was unfolding right ten had in it but it must have had some, with casual fans, gift press and Dana White all preoccupied.

That said, I am not excited about any fights coming up. I will likely be skipping more ppv buys than usual in the near future.

Nate vs cowboy 2
Nick diaz vs robbie lawyer 2

^^ Both on the same card does 1mill buys i think, the hardcores are going to be so turned on that it creeps over to the casuals, don't even care about belts, those two rematches would just be epic.

Wtf bro, you realize how good the ufc is ending the year?

Cody vs Dillashaw
Gsp vs Bisping( could be better i know, but still a attention grabber)
Khabib vs Ferguson
Jones vs Gustafson 2 ( looks likely)
Stipe vs Cain
Joana vs Rose ( don't hate, Joana is epic)

I'm looking forward to all those fights & not sure how a fan of mma can not be excited about those + Conor is like 50% to fight on the december 30th card vs nate diaz most likely considering khabib vs ferguson is in november, unless conor wants to go for third belt.

End of the year looks real good though bro.

Those are all good fights, you are correct, but none that I'm waiting for in any meaningful way. When DC vs jones fell off last minute and when Aldo vs Conor got postponed I was crushed. Any one of those could be cancelled or substituted and I would find it mildly disappointing to not giving a ****. I will watch and enjoy some of those fights but literally do not care who wins any of them aside from mildly hoping bisping gets embarrassed which is unlikely.

I might be more of a casual than I thought.

Bisping way bigger than GsP though right? I have him at even. Siding towards bis

860k for 214 is not bad at all, it beat the first fight that seemed to have a lot more buzz.
Bigger problem for UFC is the declining number of buys for "regular" PPVs.

If you aren't happy for Cody vs tj, Jones vs gus 2 & Khabib vs Ferguson then yea you're a casual fan. Jones vs gus 1 was one of the best fights of all time, cody vs tj represents two men in their prime & two of the best fighters p4p going for the belt & Khabib is a 24-0 monster vs Ferguson who's on a 9 fight winstreak & also a monster. All 3 of those fights are about as high a level a mma fight as you can get, as a hardcore fan those fights have me so excited i can't even put into words.

I don't see it as particularly close.

GSP hasn't fought since 2013, and hasn't stopped anyone since BJ Penn in 2007.

Bisping is a genuine 185er, if a little smaller than the biggest guys ( weidman/rockhold ).

When has anyone held Bisping down?
I'd say Bisping by decision is about 75%, Bisping by stoppage 10% and GSP by freak KO/sub about 15%.

As I said, all good fights and I get why. Cody and tj I believe could go either way but tj is not in the pvp convo at all to me. Cody may be. Tj beat barao to make his name and that's really the most impressive thing, meanwhile barao has been exposed. He is really good and was good against Cruz but Cody next leveled Cruz. I think TJ is overrated and I don't care if I'm proven wrong really.

The missing variable is I just don't like either of them and can't root for either to win. This doesn't mean I don't see why it's a good match, but it has no added element. That emotional element may be a casual desire, but I'm not ashamed to admit I like that aspect of the events. I enjoy great technical match ups, and those happen all the time on prelims, TUF etc. For me to mark my calendar and think about the fight I need to give a **** about the outcome.

As for Jones vs Gus while I recognize he was the closest to beating jones to date, if he wins we have a champ who has been beaten by all of the top three contenders recently. This is another reasons I am not excited for the tj fight. He wins and now we have another triangle. This is also why I don't care about heavyweight. I guess some people like that, I prefer the way it used to be with new fighters rising to the top, creating new fights, trying to dethrone a dominant champ--not previous losers testing how they match up against the guy who beat the guy who beat them. Maybe that's WWE mentality but that feeling of excitement I get about a big event doesn't exist without that kind of drama no matter how much I enjoy the fight on a technical level.

However you judge me for it, I was buying 90% of the events over the last 5-8 years if I wasn't watching them at someone's house and none of these fights as a headliner alone will get my $.

ETA: I also just enjoy MMA less than I used to. The political belt bs, the negative way they treat fighters, Ariel, the hypocrisy about roids, goldy, blonde supermodel promotion, the events being demolished by the stupid weight-cutting rules, the ridic match making and also just realizing how terrible it is for the fighter's health....I am losing interest but have not let go yet.