"UFC 68: THE UPRISING is this Saturday night, exclusively on Pay-Per-View! Randy "The Natural" Couture will come out of retirement to challege Tim "The Maine-iac" Sylvia for the World Heavyweight Championship. Also, two former world champions return to the Octagon! Matt Hughes faces Chris Lytle, and Rich "Ace" Franklin will take on Jason MacDonald. Visit http://68.ufc.com for more info."
My picks:
- Couture (because I’ve watched too many boring fights with Sylvia)
- Hughes (because Lytle is being fed to the former champion after his loss to Canada’s own Georges St. Pierre)
- MacDonald (because he’s a Canadian boy)
Recent numbers confirm the tremendous popularity of the UFC. Last year, UFC beat boxing and WWE pay-per-views by a country mile. I am not surprised. Moves by the management of the UFC to have thier sport sanctioned by State athletic commissions, educate people about their sport, develop stories and rivalries, and recruit top talent, have all contributed to these numbers:
In the tough business of
putting on pay-per-view events, Ultimate Fighting Championship is no
longer getting counted out.The upstart company that specializes
in mixed martial arts matched the once-dominant World Wrestling
Entertainment Inc. in pay-per-view revenues during 2006 and surpassed
boxing-titan HBO. The three companies make up the bulk of the
pay-per-view business.
The performance marks a significant turnaround for
the Las Vegas-based company — once maligned as nothing more than a
money-losing venture that promoted brawlers in a cage. UFC fought back
using a television show on Spike TV, getting more states to sanction
the fights and drawing huge crowds to the live events.
"UFC has reinvigorated the
pay-per-view category," said Deana Myers, a senior analyst at Kagan
Research LLC that tracks the industry.
Dave Meltzer, editor of the Wrestling Observer
Newsletter, says competition between the WWE and UFC has heated up. He
said WWE overexposed itself with too many events, hurting its bottom
line. WWE’s year-over-year buys were down 400,000 from 2005, according
to the company. On the other hand, UFC’s 5 million buys were a fivefold
increase from 2005.
As
for WWE, Rochester said it’s not ready to concede the PPV title yet.
While UFC had one good year, he said, WWE has generated more than $2
billion in total PPV buys over a 22-year stretch.In this smackdown, WWE has plenty of fight left in it.
"We are not worried about UFC," he said.
I can’t believe you tipped MacDonald over Franklin!
I thought the event was fantastic – one of the best UFC events in the past few months.
Couture left me (and Joe Rogan!) speechless! He pretty much delivered Sylvia a MMA 101, and made the (now former) champ look one-dimensional. A Cro-Cop – Couture match-up looks mighty appealing all of a sudeen.
Good to see Hughes and Franklin return to winning ways after losing their belts too, even if their opponents were hardly the top tier they’ve been used to fighting.
I can hardly wait for April 21st. And to think, there’s another event between now and then too!!
I picked Jason MacDonald because he’s Canadian. I knew he was an underdog.
I agree the event was fantastic.
Couture is amazing. I think they’ll build up the Heavy Weight Division with contender matches before making Couture fight again. The guy is awesome PR for the UFC.