UFC 70 to air free on free TV

Discussion in 'General MMA Discussion' started by TFK, Mar 10, 2007.

  1. TFK

    TFK WBC Silver Diamond Emeritus Champ

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    http://cbs.sportsline.com/boxing/story/10050453

    TFK
     
  2. Hanzy

    Hanzy "Twinkle Toes" McJack

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    Can somebody please hire Dana White to oversee boxing????:2:
    But for real, the U.K is 5 hours ahead. So if they're to show an event live at primetime over there, it'll be past midnight here. Best thing to do is show it for free. Helps their brand too.
     
  3. I guess one outta 70 ain't bad.
     
  4. Tam Tam

    Tam Tam "Twinkle Toes" McJack

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    Stop bitching, Pandy. You know its the next step and it scares you. Its OK to be scared. No one expects you to be a rock through all of this.
     
  5. ghfjdgs I'm really not scared. I kinda like MMA. I follow it a little.
     
  6. suiteness

    suiteness Leap-Amateur

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    This is one of their better cards too. Both Arlovski/Werdum and Machida/Griffin are top-notch fights.
     
  7. valdosta

    valdosta Undisputed Champion

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    Yeah that's a pretty good card. They should show it for free after the last few shitty UFC's
     
  8. Jake

    Jake WBC Silver Diamond Emeritus Champ

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    Good news, and i shall make it a point to watch this card. I've been waiting for the right UFC event to sit down and watch; no better place to start than free.
     
  9. Buddy Rydell

    Buddy Rydell Boxingpress Alumnus

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    Hmmm... Last Saturday was UFC 68: The Uprising, and UFC 70 is being held April 21st? That's not a lot of time between ppvs if UFC 69 is being held on April 7th. The PPV buy numbers could show a falling off if the cards are too close together. The last few ppvs haven't been spectacular either, as Val said.

    This could bite them in the ass soon. A free one is a great idea, but too many sparsely talented cards could lead to longterm indifference on the part of the fans. :nono:
     
  10. 20yearoldvirgin

    20yearoldvirgin WBC Champion

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    So, Cro Cop vs. Gonzaga is the main event? :loveballs:

    They couldn't find one title fight to put on there? Like Sherk/the guy who beat Spencer Fisher.
     
  11. 20yearoldvirgin

    20yearoldvirgin WBC Champion

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    I have never seen this Werdum fight. How good is he? And is he a stand up fighter, or a wrestler/grappler?
     
  12. suiteness

    suiteness Leap-Amateur

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    Werdum is an excellent grappler. I'm pretty sure he's won a couple bjj world titles and he's done very well at ADCC. Think a much more advanced version of Pe De Pano. Werdum's more athletic, a better wrestler, although nothing special, has good stand-up for a bjj guy, and is more experienced against better opposition. He's definitely top ten, but I don't see him ever being much else. he subbed Aleks recently and triangled Zentsov who's been on a hot streak. He beat Gonzaga early on too. He held his own against Sergei and Nog, but didn't really impress. Arlovski doesn't really come with a gameplan, except for bombing over hand rights. For that reason I like Werdum here.
     
    Last edited: Mar 12, 2007
  13. Hanzy

    Hanzy "Twinkle Toes" McJack

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    Put his name into YouTube and a whole bunch of his fights will come up. Get with the times, gatti.:jester:
     
  14. TFK

    TFK WBC Silver Diamond Emeritus Champ

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    More....

    http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=3578&zoneid=13

    With a star-studded line-up that includes top ten heavyweights Mirko Cro Cop, Andrei Arlovski, and Fabricio Werdum, the UFC's April 21st show in the United Kingdom is an event that many fans in the United States would have gladly bought on pay-per-view. Instead, due to an unforeseen chain of events, U.S. audiences will be able to watch the event for free on Spike TV.

    The news, which was previously listed on MMAWeekly's Rumors page for UFC 70, has been confirmed in media interviews by UFC president Dana White, who told the Boston Herald that the event "will" air on Spike TV and told CBS Sportsline that the event "will probably" air on Spike TV.

    White previously said that UFC 70 was Zuffa's target date for the company's first show on HBO. Privately, negotiations have been ongoing between Zuffa and HBO, but a number of sticking points have kept the two sides from reaching an agreement in time for UFC 70 to air on HBO.

    Zuffa could not air UFC 70 on HBO without having an HBO deal, and Zuffa also could not air UFC 70 on pay-per-view because all of the PPV advertising deadlines for an April 21st event have long since passed.

    This sequence of events left Spike TV as the only logical option as the U.S. home for UFC 70. Spike TV was interested in broadcasting UFC 70 due to the strong ratings that it is sure to draw, and Zuffa was interested in airing the event on Spike TV not only because there wasn't much of a choice, but also because it will build some goodwill with fans.

    The event is scheduled to air live on Spike TV from Manchester, England on Saturday, April 21st, with the U.S. start time of the broadcast tentatively set for 2:00 PM Eastern Time (although that is subject to change).

    The top four fights on the card are Mirko Cro Cop vs. Gabriel Gonzaga (with the winner fighting Randy Couture this summer), Andrei Arlovski vs. Fabricio Werdum, Ryoto Machida vs. Forrest Griffin, and Michael Bisping vs. Elvis Sinosic. All of those fights look excellent on paper, with the exception of the Bisping bout, as Sinosic has an MMA record of 8-9-2.

    If there is a fifth fight on the live Spike TV broadcast, it would likely be Cheick Kongo's fight with Assuerio Silva. The complete line-up as it currently stands is listed at the end of this article.

    Zuffa could have booked a United States pay-per-view date for UFC 70 while privately hoping to have reached a deal in time for the event to potentially air on HBO, as was the case with UFC 69. The fact that Zuffa never did book a U.S. PPV date for UFC 70 demonstrates how confident the company was that an HBO deal would be reached by this point.

    Now, without a PPV date booked for UFC 70 and without an HBO deal in place, UFC 70 is set to air on Spike TV.

    As a result, HBO has lost out on an event that would have likely garnered more interest than many of the lopsided boxing offerings that have aired on HBO recently, and Zuffa has lost out on millions of dollars in PPV revenue. The winner in this unusual chain of events is clearly the fans, who will be able to watch a PPV-quality event for free on Spike TV.

    As for why Zuffa wasn't able to reach a deal with HBO in time for UFC 70 to be the company's first event on HBO, there have been a number of snags in the negotiations between the two sides.

    Zuffa president Dana White has said consistently over the past eleven months that the UFC would be on HBO "very soon." However, while HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg has publicly said things like, "We're still measuring it, looking at it, and getting comfortable with the UFC" (which he recently said in an interview with trade journal MultiChannel News), Greenburg is said to be strongly against the UFC deal behind the scenes.

    Acclaimed boxing writer Thomas Hauser wrote in an article on the Seconds Out web site in January that Greenburg had "opposed the UFC deal as vigorously as possible" and was doing "everything in his power not to televise mixed martial arts." In the same article, former HBO Sports president Seth Abraham actually compared MMA to "naked boxing." Abraham said that MMA would tarnish HBO's boxing heritage, a view that is shared by many people who still work at HBO Sports.

    In an unprecedented move, HBO Chairman and CEO Chris Albrecht actually veto'd HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg and insisted that HBO would air MMA programming at some point, leaving Greenburg only to negotiate the details of such a deal. According to Hauser, this move "represented a marked shift in HBO's corporate culture... in the past, an HBO chief executive officer would not have ordered sports programming over the objection of the sports department."

    Left only to come to terms on the details, some of the key disagreements between Zuffa and HBO Sports have been whose production crew will film the event, whose announcers will commentate on the event, and how those announcers will go about commentating on the event.

    Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer recently summarized the dispute as follows: "HBO wants full control of the product, and to use its crew and its announcers and cover it like a network broadcast team would cover a major sporting event. UFC doesn't want to give up its control of the product, wants its own crew to film it, and wants to use its own announcers, who are closer to pro wrestling announcers whose role is to build up the product as opposed to providing detached, objective commentary."

    UFC 70 Line-Up
    -Mirko Cro Cop (#2 Heavyweight in the World)* vs. Gabriel Gonzaga
    -Andrei Arlovski (#7 Heavyweight in the World)* vs. Fabricio Werdum (#8 Heavyweight in the World)*
    -Ryoto Machida vs. Forrest Griffin
    -Michael Bisping vs. Elvis Sinosic
    -Assuerio Silva vs. Cheick Kongo
    -Dennis Siver vs. Jess Liaudin
    -Alessio Sakara vs. Victor Valimaki
    -Terry Etim vs. Matt Grice
    -David Lee vs. TBA


    TFK
     
  15. Hanzy

    Hanzy "Twinkle Toes" McJack

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    Sillyness by HBO. Why be dismissive of a product that brings in the 18-34 demographic? They'd do no wrong by airing a few UFC events, especially while the UFC is hot right now. No matter, it's free on Spike and once HBO sees the ratings it delivers, they'll come begging. But I don't really care about the HBO/UFC deal anyway. HBO is a subscription channel and it's not available anywhere outside of the States. Spike TV is part of our basic channel lineup.
    The Shamrock/Ortiz 3 Ultimate Fight Night Event on Spike last year garnered a 3.1 rating, biggest rating ever for a Spike show. It even had Vince McMahon in shock and wanting to get into the MMA market.
     
  16. TFK

    TFK WBC Silver Diamond Emeritus Champ

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    It's the 'old school' thinking among the boxing folks at HBO that is hurting this deal. They're scared that UFC is gonna 'tarnish' boxings reputation, completely ignoring the fact that they are the ones tarnishing their own reputation, not UFC.

    If HBO fumbles this one, I'm sure someone else will step up to work with UFC.

    TFK
     
  17. Hanzy

    Hanzy "Twinkle Toes" McJack

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    MMA is still very new to most folks. Heck, nobody even knew what the UFC was until just 2-3 years ago. When 70,000 ppv buys became 700,000 ppv buys when Spike brought UFC's reality series to its lineup.
     
  18. ghfjdgs And those guys buying are the same people who were really, really excited for Ortiz/Shamrock II and III.
     
  19. royyjonesjrp4pno1

    royyjonesjrp4pno1 "Twinkle Toes" McJack

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    UFC has PPV's every Month. 1 free card and Dana White is Jesus. :jester:

    Tonight is Boxings first PPV this year.
     
  20. royyjonesjrp4pno1

    royyjonesjrp4pno1 "Twinkle Toes" McJack

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    Right. This guy likes giving free cards even though there is a PPV every Month.
     
  21. mikE

    mikE "Twinkle Toes" McJack

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    Interesting.

    I consider myself to be a mid-level mma fan and imo, the card is horrible. Arlovski is crap. I don't recognize Werdum or Gonzaga. Does Sinosec ever win?
     
  22. Hanzy

    Hanzy "Twinkle Toes" McJack

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    The most interesting fight on this is Arlovski/Werdum. Werdum is a crappier version of Noguira but he has a few skills. Probably enough to take care of Arlovski on the ground if it goes there.
     
  23. Dollar-Fifty78

    Dollar-Fifty78 Leap-Amateur

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    Lay the crack pipe down:notallthere:
     

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