Could YAMMA Be Any Worse?

There do appear to be two SHW vs HW matches taking place. Perhaps they're bending the rules in some way? For example, could they just let the SHW fighter miss weight and get the HW fighter to accept the fight anyway, and pay the 10% purse fine? What about if they set catchweights of the heavier fighter's fighting weight, how far below a catchweight are you allowed to weigh in at without the commission canceling the fight? From what I can remember I've seen at least 10 lbs before.

• Oleg Taktarov (221.2) vs. Mark Kerr (266.2)
  
• Patrick Smith (240) vs. Eric " Butterbean" Esch (416.2)

I saw these weights listed in a thread on the UG, not certain that they are accurate, but that's what I based my comment on.

I'd call YAMMA a train wreck, but I have too much respect for train wrecks to do that.  I'll be surprised if this isn't the worst MMA card in a number of years, if not of all time.

I agree that this fiasco has the potential to hurt the sport, but here's the good news:  NO ONE WILL BE WATCHING!  Knowledgeable MMA fans know that to watch an event headlined by Butterbean vs. Pat Smith the promotion should be paying them not the other way around.  And why would casual "curiosity seeker" fans want to pay for Butterbean and a bunch of guys they've never heard of when they can see the UFC or EliteXC for free?

Consider this--the BoDog Fight PPV from Russia did around 13,000 PPV buys. That's with Calvin Ayre's money and couple of pretty fair fighters named Fedor and Lindland headlining.  This has less PR and a Butterbean v. Pat Smith main event.  To top it off BoDog had a TV show to promote the event (albeit one on a fourth or fifth tier network)and Yamma doesn't.  They'll be very lucky to do 10,000 buys and I'm thinking more along the lines of 7,000.

By way of contrast, UFC 81 did 650,000 buys.  The only good thing about Yamma is that assuming no one dies on the show (knock on wood) no matter how bad it is no one will notice and it'll fade away into obscurity where it belongs.