I wish every reporter who asked moronic questions at press conferences got their credentials taken away. It's something that should happen a lot more often. Don't blame UFC at all. They don't owe anyone press credentials and nobody is going to care enough about this to make them care.

I'm with tut. Could really care less about the lolmedia being treated unfairly. Almost the entire industry is hacks.

Im 100% on board the media sucks train but they just banned a guy for life for breaking news before they had a chance to announce it. It feels like something a child would do.

i assume most children have more intelligence and maturity than Dana White

+1 was thinking the exact same thing

Agreed, we're discussing one of the few who isn't.

Ariel is like Woj except he understands the sport he's covering (Woj is horrible on analysis) and doesn't have the stain that Woj does with Dumars.

Ariel is pretty much the best member of the journalistic sports media.

He does seem to be well-received by his peers although Deadspin has accused him of soft-reporting in the past. I don't care though (I get others do), the whole industry reaps what it sows.

The only thing I can think of that makes sense is Ariel was given the Brock info by some UFC bigwig and told to keep it quiet until they announced it themselves.

He's pretty well connected with every fight camp, I highly doubt the advanced notice came from anybody within the UFC. I think Dana would rather have a guy like Colin Cowherd be the media voice of the UFC which is pretty sad.

Ariel pretty much lost here. They can't keep him from talking to fighters and their camps(so he'll probably continue to break news before UFC wants), but he's only really popular with the ~500k fans who buy every PPV, not the million+ who only pay attention when Mcgregor or Lesnar are fighting. Casual UFC fan has no clue who Ariel is.

Funny thing is, they get so pissed that Ariel broke the news of the Lesnar fight and ruined their big reveal, but if you actually bought the fight and didn't spend the entire night with your face buried in your phone checking twitter you probably didn't notice until they revealed anyway. Meanwhile news about Brock Lesnar being on the the 200 card is still nowhere to be found on the UFC main page ~15 hours after the big reveal. The UFC is really bad at media and they just banned the most respectable member of the media for life.

fixed

Thinking about it, Brock is prob a bigger draw than the UFC itself and reaches more people. Announcing/news breaking of his return makes more sense before the PPV than during it like the UFC wanted.

POTY

The UFC business model epitomizes penny wise, pound foolish. This is not news.

Is he? He is 38 and hasn't fought in the UFC in like 4 years.

How much do we even think he is helping the buyrate? It was already going to do big numbers.

It makes complete sense if they're actually shopping the company.

He adds another 3-4 hundred thousand buys would be my guess.

I agree and when I saw the posts about Brock/200 blowing up last night I expeted it to be done at some point during the pre lims.

Seems like that would be a bad use of him then. He could get a 1M buyrate fighting on his own card rather than be the 4th biggest fight on a title card.

Is his opponent definitely going to be Hunt? Assuming they feed him a striker that he can take down so he can fight again. If he loses then the cash cow is hurt a lot. Just another old guy...

Lesnar returning for 1 night only then back to wwe for an event in August.

Means he'll be getting someone that won't **** him up for a start, so wtf is the point?

Given how absolutely ****ed they're going to be legally in the coming years, I'd say it's a mortal lock they are actively shopping the company.

The UFC signed the most popular WWE wrestler when he left WWE and he had no combat experience except some basic training. They clearly think that the WWE fanbase is something they can tap into.

I could be wrong and anyone feel free to correct me but i thought the UFC PPV's with Brock were some of if not the best buyrates the UFC had.

UFC 200 is a stacked card and any MMA fan is gonna be interested in it. The reason they originally had McGregor on the card was because they want UFC 200 to be something that brings new viewers in. They want someone that moves the needle. With McGregor off the card, Brock makes sense as he moves the needle.

Return of the man that lost his last 2 fights and turns turtle when he gets hit on his big face wouldn't make me want to purchase 200 with someone else's money.

My 8 year old was pretty excited to hear Brock will be fighting at UFC200 though.

I think he's mainly doing it bc it's 200 so dunno if anything else would be an option that he or the WWE is interested in otherwise.

UFC 100 (headlined by Brock) is the #1 UFC PPV of all time. UFC 116 and 121 featuring Brock were #4 and #6 respectively.

Casual fans don't care about this. Casual fans want to see Brock/Conor/Rousey and once they lose a few times, they move on. Then, after a few years away, they mark out over a comeback of their old flavor of the month.

That's how the game is played.

yeah I think Brock was big when he was the monster that hadn't been beat. Not so sure now. I really don't think he does a ton for a card that already has 3 title fights and the former HW champ fighting.

WWE seems like they are taking a legit risk here, what if he gets hurt and can't perform at the Summerslam PPV? Then who is the Undertaker going to bury alive?

I guess it is possible the WWE fans tune in but not sure.

Also, why will UFC be screwed legally in a few years? Missed that.