Same broadcast partner as the UFC. i've read that PFL is looking for other options though. Some people might watch when Francis Ngannou fights for the first time. Same for the Paul brothers.

PFL certainly isn't profitable. I also highly doubt Bellator is. But being profitable isn't relevant as long as you're able to raise capital. Bellator is owned by Paramount Global (owners of CBS, Paramount+, ShowTime..) who are trying to disinvest from non-core-business items. They just sold off Simon & Schuster to KKR.

It just doesn't seem like MMA is big enough to where someone like Izzy or OMalley can get out of their UFC deal and have some other promotion pay them like 2x as much and that makes sense for any parties involved. The UFC brand is just too strong in this niche sport.

Maybe like 10 years ago when Rousey/McGregor hit I would've thought differently but now I just think this is largely the model going forward.

MMA is certainly not a huge sport but the UFC was valued at $12bln in the WWE merger.

Compared to PFL which markets itself as sports league, the UFC managed to find its spot in the entertainment world. The only relevant difference between UFC and WWE is that UFC fights aren't fixed (at least most of them). Other than that, the UFC follows a strict playbook with entertainment and marketing >>> sports. I don't think there's any "real" sport where management a) tells a reigning champion who just fought that another guy is fighting for their title in 3 month and its up to them to decide if they want to be the opponent for that fight and b) make sure all their talking heads mention non stop that said reigning champion is one of the greatest of all time in the build up to the fight.

I doubt anyone really knows if there's any way to make money in MMA without the UFC approach. For the last 10 years they used a cookie cutter concept to produce a show almost every weekend. Thanks to the ESPN deal they don't even rely on gate revenue anymore. Therefore half their shows are at the APEX now and PPV numbers aren't as big of a concern as they were in the past. Pre ESPN+ PPV they would have never done a card like the one in Sydney in a couple of weeks.

I'm not a fan of Middle Eastern / Saudi money in sports but that might be the only way to break the death grip the UFC has on MMA. OTOH, they could just spend $25bln or something like that to buy the whole UFC/WWE thing and save themselves the hazzle to build something on their own. Or they do it like in golf and first fund a competitor and when that fails they go and buy the big one.

ya that is crazy how Aljo got railroaded like that

I think the fact that everyone thought he was just going to steamroll OMalley and was the GOAT all of a sudden made the criticism of that muted (atleast most of the commentary I listened to)

I'm generally not a huge fan of GOAT conversations unless it's something super obvious like Mighty Mouse at 125 or Bones at 205. But the fact that we even had one about Aljo is mostly due to the MMA media being either part of the UFC (through ESPN) or 100% dependent on access to the UFC. Everyone is afraid that a bad word might get them blacklisted like Ariel Helwani.

I like Aljo but there's nothing on his resume that justifies a placement above Dominick Cruz. He wouldn't even have won the title without his best actor performance in the first Yan fight. And while I think he deserved the decision in the second Yan fight, that was a pretty close one. Less than a year later Yan got 50-45'd by Merab. After that Aljo beat one-armed Dillashaw and Cejudo after a 3 year lay-off. Again, I thought he deserved the decision in the Henry fight but that one was razor thin. Add the Sandhagen fight which was his most impressive performance + Jimmy Rivera & Pedro Munhoz and that's basically his full resume.

O'Malley already opened as a sizable underdog for a potential Merab fight, but that's obviously not the route the UFC is going. He'd also be an underdog vs. Sandhagen, but that's also not going to happen. They either pick the guy who just lost 50-45 to Sandhagen (Suga would be a -205 favorite in that one right now) or they're going to get creative and let him fight Cejudo. The latter actually sounds intriguing. If anyone at the UFC meant the "Aljo GOAT" talk seriously, they would offer him an immediate rematch like everyone else gets these days. Pretty sure that's not going to happen unless they somehow run out of options (see Izzy vs. Strickland)

i agree about Aljo.

Pretty insane that O'Malley is champion. He fought a bunch of cans. Then had the NC eye poke vs Munhoz, in which he lost the first round. After that he won a robbery vs Yan (all Media Scores had Yan).

And now Chito can become champion after a big obvious loss against Sandhagen followed by a boring decision win over Munhoz.

What a weird division

Fun fact: Sal D'Amato scored round 1 for him. Unless something really crazy had happened, O'Malley wouldn't have lost a decision there. They had Paddy Pimblett win a decision where half the media had it 29-28 for Gordon and the other half 30-27 Gordon.

In the following days a bunch of MMA media came out to claim they rewatched the fight with no sound and O'Malley was the rightful winner. Go figure..

Then they could go full circle and first have Cruz come out of semi-retirement followed by Dillashaw when he's done doing steroids. If he loses to the latter, we have a similar storyline to Bisping getting a shot at Rockhold as a second replacement (after Weidman and Jacare dropped out), beating 45+ year old Hendo before Georges correctly estimated that adding a second title would be easy.

I thought Yan won but definitely wasn't a robbery after I rewatched it.

Surprised OMalley is only -150 vs Chito though, I'd favor him by more than that there in what should be a strictly standup fight

People like to do the whole "Oh he's being overhyped because of his name, fan base" thing but it actually seems to go the other way with those guys a lot of times. On their way up, people doubt if they are legitimate because of all of that stuff. McGregor was the same way in that people doubted him when he fought Aldo and Alvarez.

O'Malley was +220 vs Aljo, I mean people were treating Aljo like he was Khabib in the content that I consumed (reasonably intelligent podcasts I'd say)

People might have doubted Conor but he was a pretty sizable betting favorite over Alvarez, start to finish. Aldo was interesting because Conor opened as a decent favorite with the line moving a couple times but Conor keeping the -odds until close to the fight when a bunch of smart money came in on Aldo. I don't even remember if one of them closed as a slight favorite.

Difference is that Conor actually beat former (Siver, Mendez) and future (Holloway, Poirier) stars on the way to the top. And Aldo was exactly what people only tried to market Sterling as before last weekend. Back in 2015 Aldo was the boss. #1 P4P (thanks to Bones peeing hot), 10 title fight wins in a row across WEC/UFC. Might be easy to forget because after the Conor fight he went 6-6 the rest of his UFC career.

iirc McGregor/Alvarez was pretty close to PK, ditto for RDA/McGregor before it was cancelled

and obviously neither of them really did much with the belt before fighting him

Conor/Eddie closed at around -160, not sure about RDA but he was -450 vs Nate come fight time

And still a small favorite for the second Diaz fight after getting subbed in round 2 five months earlier. FWIW, if the second Diaz fight happened today, I think most people would score it a draw with Nate winning round 3 10-8. Back then I agreed with 48-47 Conor.

Pretty sure those two fights at 170lbs against a fringe 155 contender were the main reason the line against Alvarez wasn't more lopsided.

Most ridiculous Conor line was when he closed at +130 (or 135?) against Khabib who was -160ish. That was one of the few times I had a sizable amount of money on a MMA fight.

technically the most ridiculous Conor line was vs PBF (quite possibly the most ridiculous sports bet of all time)

Khabib -160/130 was the open, closed was closer to -200, I know this because I slammed Khabib at -160...ahh those were the days....Khabib did not look great vs Iquinta, that probably helped it some. Nothing like he looked like vs Dustin/Gaejthe. His resume was pretty lame in general even though everyone knew he was legit.

with legalization (or perhaps another reason) I feel like lines have gotten a lot sharper in MMA last few years but I digress

Just rewatched the fight on ESPN+. The odds shown at the start of the fight had Conor at +140 and Khabib at -170.

Tomorrow a Euro-friendly UFC card regarding fight times. A local fighter from my area, Jarno Errens is on the card. Go Jarno !

Let's go Zombie!

TKZ had a crazy UFC career. First two fights he had a twister finish (first in UFC history, sub of the year) and a 7 second KO, tied for fastest in UFC history. That second fight was the last time he didn't fight in the main event.

How can you not love a guy who comes out for round 3 and decides that's it, someone is going to get finished right now.

Doesn't happen very often but for Smith vs. Spann I agreed with 2/3 judges against 9/14 media members scoring. Optics looked bad for Smith in R3 with him walking back and hands up high a lot but he outlanded Spann 45-27 in significant strikes in that round and it's not like Spann did any damage after R2.

MMA is down in my mind because Khabib is still the champ of regular sized guys. And, an in shape, young, Bones at 205, is the best big guy, and a Francis-type is the best monster... but none are champs. Yes, Jones might beat Francis now and is a champ, but it's just too easy to see him at 205 and be a much better fighter... and Francis...the imagination won't allow me to see Jones as some scary, GOAT heavyweight. Probably not making sense, but we have seen Francis, the one punch. Maybe his take down D would be fatal weakness vs. Jones, idk. But a 260lbs athlete like that could have developed that skill quite easily in theory (take down d, solid wrestling as a youth), so the current heavyweight champ, Jones, is far away from what I view as an ideal baddest man on the planet.

The Saudis have taken a stake in PFL and it sounds like all the Superfight PPV's will take place in Saudi,to begin with at least

What a shitty UFC card tonight (and next week). Anyone else feels this is happening more and more?

What's wrong with tonight's card? Just looking at the lineup it looks like a pretty standard Fight Now to me with the "international" kicker. Main event has the biggest name in French MMA and co main the #1 French female against one of the biggest names in female MMA. If Rose wins that one they might give her a title shot right away or have her fight Blanchfield in an eliminator.

Next weekend is a disaster for multiple reasons. Wouldn't be shocked if that PPV generated less than 200k buys in the US. Not entirely the fault of the UFC, they obviously had different plans and have T-Mobile Arena in Vegas booked for the following weekend. Occupational hazard when you have to work with unreliable talent.

yeah pretty good for a fight night, most fight nights are bad

cant say there is 1 fight in the next 4 months i'm looking forward to that much though

dana is gonna keep merab from omalley as long as he can it looks like

edwards/colby id be looking forward to if it happened

whats going on with 205 with hill out?

izzy/bones/machachev all pretty sizable favs coming up

volk cleaned out his division

What a lazy performance by Spivac

Wondering if there is any value on Strickland at over 4/1 versus Izzy.