Freaks can be freaky sometimes

"On October 3, K-1 World Grand Prix '99 Opening Round, Le Banner fought against Matt Skelton. Skelton became pro boxing WBA world Heavyweight title contender, WBO world Heavyweight number 5 contender. Skelton had never been knocked down by punches in his fighting career but Le Banner dominated Skelton with his boxing skills and knocked out Skelton in the first round."

lol

skelton had had zero professional boxing bouts when he fought le banner

what are you talking about dude

Blame Wikipedia for being weirdly factually correct

Skelton was 32 when he fought Le Banner, it's not Le Banner's fault this dude had the weirdest career ever

That's cool that Le Banner beat a boxer in a kickboxing match. If Ngannou fought Tyson Fury in MMA it would probably look a lot like Randy Couture vs James Toney..ie Ngannou would take him down, then pound him out, and possibly finish by submission.

Skelton had his background in kickboxing when he faced Le Banner, according to your theory Skelton shouldn't have been able to establish himself as a challenging WBA heavyweight, especially so late in his career because apples and oranges or something.

Maybe Fury is just an N'Gannou punch away from sleeping with the fishes, like everybody else

Not at all. There's a difference between changing careers and simply taking a one off boxing match like McGregor did.

If they decided to go smaller MMA gloves as Fury has eluded to, then certainly Ngannou would have a puncher's chance. If it was a true boxing match with actual boxing gloves then Fury absolutely smokes him nearly every time. Fury has already been in there 3 times with Wilder who has more power than Ngannou.

Why is Ngannou not marketable? I am way more interested in watching him fight than Stipe.

There-in lies part of the problem. Stipe was not marketable at all, and 2 of the 3 times Ngannou main-evented a PPV he fought Stipe. Even though Stipe is regarded as the greatest HW of all time a win over him doesn't do as much for Ngannou's marketability as, for example, a win over Brock Lesnar would do.

He's also at a disadvantage being from Cameroon, as opposed to somewhere where he would have an automatic built in fanbase such as Britain or Canada. English not being his first language has hurt him as well. He's never been great on the mic.

All that being said, he has an exciting fighting style and the fans could definitely get behind him. He's only 2 wins into his championship reign, so there is room for growth. As it stands now though he is not a huge marketable star. His 2 fights vs Miocic each did under 300k ppv buys. Last night, Brandon Moreno got the biggest pop by far and Figueiredo got the most boos, which now makes me wonder if that should have actually been the main event over Ngannou vs Gane.

The were like 3 posts regarding last night event this morning. People just aren’t excited for him.

Shrug, I just attributed that to UFC kind of getting a bit tired lately. I don't track the PPV buys very closely but it feels like overall interest is down period, not directly related to Ngannou.

Also I feel like it is worth considering Ngannou's appeal might be greater if his previous two fights had been in front of live crowds.

I quickly rewatched his last couple fights, just night and day the amount of energy he had in them vs. last night.

2021 was the biggest year for the UFC in its history. Interest is definitely not down.

That's pretty much any non-Conor fight around here, MMA thread is pretty dead if you look through it.

@Dream, what metric are you using to say 2021 was most successful year for UFC? McGregor fighting twice would have to be a big part of that. His career is very close to being over.

I thought after his last fight vs Poirier, interest died pretty hard the rest of the year. Not many big fights took place at all. And not many more seem on the horizon besides Colby/Masvidal.

No one really cares about 125, 135, 145, 155, 205.....170, 185 and HW have some interest with the 3 African champs but not a ton. Izzy/Usman have kinda cleaned their divisions out and besides a potential Jones fight there aren't a lot of places for Ngannou to go either.

I agree with g-bebes statement interest seems down from 2019-2020 (and obviously 2020 being only show in town during pandemic was big for the promotion

DC/Khabib are done, Diaz is close to done, McGregor is close to done, Jones hasn't fought in 2 years, Poirier had some hype from the McGregor wins and immediately gets owned.

Saying we are in a lull period for interest is correct IMO


What are the 2022 fights people are looking forward to? I don't think any of them are going to get you or my casual fan friends to ask about them.

Chimaev and Islam need to emerge fast, not sure what other future stars are on the horizon. Can't really think of any. I like Jiri but 205 has sucked forever.

O'Malley?

I guess, it is still 135 and he's kinda overrated

my points stand

Dana has said multiple times that 2021 was their biggest year ever, albeit that is really based on the business side in which much of their revenues come from distribution deals with ESPN and international providers as well as sponsors and licensing. Remember the UFC was sold for $4 billion in 2016 and people thought that was a crazy high price. Now the UFC is valued at more like $10 billion.

I'll post this graph which likely only add to the confusion:



Regardless of how well the business did, UFC PPVs did very well in 2021. Of course Conor was a huge part of the UFC's success in 2021 (he is a UFC fighter afterall). His 2 fights vs Poirier each had over 1.5 million PPV buys. Never in the history of the UFC has the UFC had two events do more than 1.5 million PPV buys in a single year. UFC 264 McGregor vs Poirier 2 did a gate of $15.75 million which is 3rd best in the promotions history.

UFC 259 Błachowicz vs. Adesanya did 800k PPV buys. UFC 261 Usman vs Masvidal 2 did 700k PPV buys. UFC 268 Usman vs Covington 2 did 700k PPV Buys and had the 4th highest gate in the history of Madison Square Garden (any type of event) at $9.8 million. That's a higher gate than either Conor vs Nate Diaz fight. Hell, even Adesanya vs Vettori 2 did 600k PPV buys.

It will be interesting to see how 2022 shapes out, but the fact that the UFC is willing to have a non-title fight in Covington vs Masvidal headline a Vegas PPV is a very good sign.

In this game, stars are made through social media (and the media in general). It's not like football where the team plays 17 times a year (+preseason, +poststeason) or basketball/hockey with 82 games a year, or baseball with 162 games a year. UFC fighters generally fight just 1, 2, or 3 times a year. So, they need to make an impact in press conferences or on social media (instagram/twitter etc). That's where Ngannou has failed.

Even when Conor has a broken leg I get news stories on my phone about him talking **** to somebody or doing something on social media. He's the biggest star but he's not the only star. Other guys like Colby Covington, Masvidal, Adesanya, Chimaev, O'Malley, and the Diaz brothers are also growing their brands and are great assets for the UFC to utilize.

Mayweather and Pacquiao proved that weight is nothing but a number in the fight game. Of course there are certain weight classes that selll better than others, but if you have a McGregor personality to go along with McGregor talent and a nationalistic core-fanbase then you can sell at any weight class.

Yeah my original comment about interest being down was very anecdotal, but I would have had the same question that Onlydo2days did, how is the most successful year gauged.

Just with people I know locally, I feel it is being talked about way less these days. Of course my heydays of following UFC was in university over a dozen years ago where every event we'd be at the local bars and hype was pretty intense.

I also should admit I'm far more interested in HW and LHW than I am any other divisions so some natural bias.

The UFC absolutely killed it during the pandemic because they came back way earlier than all the other sports. It was less than a 2 month shutdown for the UFC as they started airing events again in early May of 2020. In July of 2020 Usman vs Masvidal did 1.3 million ppv buys. That's the same # of buys that UFC 100 did, which is the only PPV from 12+ years ago that ranks in the top 10 ppv buys of all time. The rest are all McGregor events.

It's funny because I thought PPV would be dead and gone by now but people still open their wallets.

Thoughts on Whitaker/Izzy? This seems like the last possibly intriguing fight for Izzy at MW. After that? Umm, I dunno. He'll have basically cleaned the division unless people feel like talking themselves into Cannonier? No one really on the horizon.

I saw Usman's manager said Usman/Izzy after they both win their next fights, that might be the route for a big payday for both but Izzy would kill Usman and I can't see Usman signing up for that. Especially since they are friends anyway. If Vettori couldn't use his size/physicality/grappling on Izzy then Usman ain't doing nothing.

Anyone else watching this evening? I've been day drinking uk time and figure I may as well keep it going through to the main event. Impressions of first fight: competent though unexceptional Gishin vs pot bellied Knight who came in 12lbs overweight. Knight threw some pretty kicks and nothing else, Gishin made him look like hard work.

GL I've tried and failed that a number of times! Rather go to bed now as I wake multiple times in the night anyway. Think I read Championship fight was ~6am.

I've nothing planned for the next two days so i'll give it a go. 2nd fight was nothing special kickboxing specialist got taken down and submitted. 3rd fight Silva de Andrade vs Morosov was great, Guy came back from having his forehead spraying like a geyser to win vs a decent opponent.

Also I hope you're still doing well on the wagon! I've occasionally lurked the oot quitting alcohol thread and seen your posts.