I don’t know how many of you follow mixed martial arts here. There’s something interesting going on with the UFC ratings. A couple of years ago the UFC sold for something like $4 billion. They trotted out a lot of celebrities as minority owners but the rumors are that most of the money came from China. Conan O’Brien was one of them and joked he would be fighting in the UFC. In fact a lot of the celebrities have since been bought out. http://mmajunkie.com/2016/09/ufc-releases-list-of-23-new-celebrity-owners-and-it-includes-a-bunch-of-friends-of-the-program When I see something like that, I wonder if Vince McMahon’s ultimate goal with XFL is to sell it to Chinese investors. But the UFC has been in trouble. Its two biggest stars ever are no longer active. Ronda Rousey lost twice by knockout and now has moved to the WWE and is trying her hand in movies. Conor McGregor made tens of millions fighting Mayweather and doesn’t seem interested to returning to fight for only a few million a fight. Injuries and age decimated the heavyweight ranks. Heavyweights are always big ticket draws. It’s third biggest draw, Jon Jones, keeps getting busted in drug tests, but is scheduled to return. No stars are taking the place of the other stars. The second woman to knock out Rousey set the record for the lowest-rating UFC show a few months ago with a title defense. That record got eclipsed last night. https://www.mmafighting.com/2018/1/28/16942314/ufc-on-fox-show-ronaldo-jacare-souza-derek-brunson-draws-record-low-overnight-rating Meanwhile, competitor Bellator counterprogrammed a UFC card a week ago by scheduling a fight to go against it, and then moved their heavyweight tournament fight onto that Bellator card. Both people fighting in the heavyweight fight, Quinton Rampage Jackson and Chael Sonnen, are washed up. So their fight was happened the same time as the UFC’s fight. But the Bellator fight got double the viewers that last night’s UFC fight had with no MMA competition. Maybe the piggybacking strategy worked, with people turning both shows on instead of Bellator detracting from the UFC? https://www.mmamania.com/2018/1/24/16925068/bellator-192-rampage-vs-sonnen-tops-1-3-million-viewers-for-the-main-event The UFC seems desperate for new stars. Dana White seemed firmly on the Francis Ngannou bandwagon for the heavyweight title. Ngannou is a big, muscular bruiser and was the betting favorite. But reigning champ Stipe Miocic had an excellent strategy of wearing down Ngannou so his muscle mass worked against him after being flooded with lactic acid. Ngannou was gassed by the fourth round. After retaining the title, Miocic refused to let White put the championship belt on him and took it away and handed it to his coach. http://metro.co.uk/2018/01/23/coach-respects-ufc-heavyweight-champion-stipe-miocic-explains-dana-white-snub-7251981 Heavyweight is the money division. Look at what having a couple of washed up fighters at heavyweight did for Bellator the week before. Miocic is likeable. He seems to be popular in Cleveland, where he was raised. But he doesn’t have much charisma and isn’t catching on nationally. Khabib Nurmagomedov looks fierce but took almost a year to recover from problems he had making weight for one fight. He said his time in MMA is limited. Demetrious Johnson is spectacular at flyweight and had an incredible win last year, but no one cares about flyweights. So Dana White faces renegotiating the FOX Sports contract, or moving someplace else, while ratings sag. This is after he reportedly made several hundred million in the UFC sale. It may be that the glory days of the UFC are over. The question is whether anyone can justify the $4 billion investment.
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