UFC, Strikeforce, Brock Lesnar and Fedor Emelianenko Top MMA Stories of 2009
by Kid Nate on Dec 28, 2009 3:17 PM EST
in MMA News
31 comments
Dave Meltzer makes a list, here's the full-list and excerpts of the parts I was most interested in:
10. Georges St. Pierre dominates rematch with B.J. Penn
9. Death of Charles "Mask" Lewis
8. Kimbo Slice leads "Ultimate Fighter" to record ratings
7. Injury and illness rate skyrockets
6. Strikeforce signs Fedor: After spurning a multimillion dollar UFC offer, Strikeforce and Fedor Emelianenko's parent company, M-1 Global, reached a complicated co-promotional agreement. Under the agreement, M-1 gets 50 percent of the proceeds from any card the Russian heavyweight appears on. The agreement covered not only Emelianenko, but M-1's Gegard Mousasi, who quickly won Strikeforce's light heavyweight title. Emelianenko, who hasn't lost since 2000 and is generally regarded as the greatest MMA fighter in history, knocked out Brett Rogers on Nov. 7 in Chicago in his first match with the new promotion.
5. Affliction bites the dust: The T-shirt company that tried to compete with UFC by spending huge money on fighter contracts found the pay-per-view business much more difficult than expected. After substantial losses on its first two shows, the company threw in the towel eight days before a scheduled third event that was to be held on Aug. 1 in Anaheim, Calif. The card unraveled when Josh Barnett, scheduled to face Emelianenko in the main event, failed a pre-event steroid test taken weeks before the fight, and the California State Athletic Commission refused to license him.
Affliction claimed it would not be allowed to hold a show because the main event advertised wouldn't take place, but the UFC regularly has changed main events due to injuries. In reality, Affliction wanted out after heavy losses and made a deal with UFC, which got contracts with the fighters it wanted from the Affliction stable, such as Vitor Belfort and Ben Rothwell, in exchange for Affliction sponsorship of UFC events.
4. UFC 100 sets records: A triple main event with Brock Lesnar retaining the heavyweight title beating Frank Mir, St. Pierre retaining the welterweight title beating Thiago Alves and Henderson (in his final UFC match before signing with Strikeforce) finishing Michael Bisping became the biggest UFC event in history. Doing an estimated 1.6 million buys on pay-per-view, the July 11 show in Las Vegas became the fourth biggest event of its kind, trailing only boxing blockbusters Oscar De La Hoya vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. (2.4 million), Mike Tyson vs. Evander Holyfield (1.99 million) and Tyson vs. Lennox Lewis (1.97 million). The show also aired live on Televisa in Mexico, with the Lesnar vs. Mir fight doing a 13.3 television rating.
3. Lesnar's future in question: After establishing himself at UFC 100 as not just the biggest money draw in the sport's history, but the sport's most controversial and polarizing figure in a post-fight interview that put UFC atop sports headlines like never before, Lesnar found his future in jeopardy not long afterward. The UFC heavyweight champion, 32, who made his name first as a star with World Wrestling Entertainment, pulled out of his Nov. 21 fight with Shane Carwin due to an illness that had left him run down and unable to train properly. First diagnosed with mononucleosis, Lesnar then collapsed weeks later while visiting his brother in rural Manitoba and was diagnosed with diverticulitis, an intestinal infection.
As the year comes to a close, there is no timetable as to when he would be able to fight again or even the certainty that he would fight again.
2. Strikeforce becomes solid No. 2 promotion with CBS and Showtime contracts
1. UFC sets all-time pay-per-view record
I know from our traffic and comments here at BE that Meltzer pretty much nails it as far as what topics he included, but I'd say the whole incredible month of July and August was the biggest story. If you combine UFC 100/BROCKLESNAR/Affliction dying/Fedor to Strikeforce into one mega-story, the way we experienced it in the real world, it was easily the story of the year.
As exciting as the year was, it's kind of a drag that the GSP vs BJ Penn fight, which happened so early in the year was the biggest in-Octagon event. Although you could argue that Fedor's two fights and two wins against ranked heavyweights was right up there in the top 15.
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My BROCKLESNAR has made into a professionally written article.
My work here is done.
Keep firing Assholes!
Editor of www.downsyndromematuremidgetsheltlandponyporn.com/
by Ubernoober on Dec 28, 2009 3:29 PM EST reply actions 4 recs
I came to this thread just to comment about that.
haha. well done Mr. Honorary Filipino.
by Anton Tabuena on Dec 28, 2009 9:21 PM EST up reply actions
One thing about the ppv numbers: if you take out UFC 100 both 2008 and 2009 have 12 shows with almost identical buy numbers (6.2 million buys in 2008 and 6.3 million buys in 2009). I wonder how much Brock is responsible for the “explosion” in UFC popularity?
not so sure about Fedor’s popularity
cagar é uma filosofia profunda...
a merda bate na água e a água bate na bunda.
I didn’t mean Fedor’s popularity to the general public, only on this site. Every time a Fedor story comes up it seems to guarantee a 200+ reply thread. And lets not even talk about the July and August Fedorthon.
Fedor drives traffic like no one
other than Brock.
And after his CBS debut he’s making serious inroads with the casual fans as well.
Follow me on Twitter @KidNate
K-1 headlined a card in Los Angeles with Brock and it was just about the biggest flop in MMA history. Let’s not try to pretend the UFC’s marketing know-how had nothing to do with Brock’s success. People who never watch MMA were commenting to me the week of the show about the Countdown show.
UFC doing 8 million ppv buys is the story of the year. Underneath and more important long term is how the UK market has developed and how mexico, south korea, etc.. are shaping up… This means the UFC and the model can be canned and cloned globally.
If this is the peak and we forget about the 2 billion people who will be entering the consumption base Zuffa’s ceiling is 4 times the present size making the UFC as the biggest sports franchise in the world a certainty.
This is also assuming the 18-34 year olds will not get older and without even factoring in the projected metrics that are favorable and only expanding the current numbers as a peak with a lower plateau .
What to look for in 2010:
1) the fight night numbers on versus.
- If Zuffa can beat the faber vs pulver ratings with a fight night on versus – which is expected… This pretty much seals the deal in folding the wec into the UFC brand and when a new deal is inked with spike in 2011 the lighter weights will be UFC fighters.
2) Strikeforce ppv numbers
- It’s almost a definite that the 3rd Fedor fight will be on PPV. If they can break 200k buys they hit the ace on the river and double up the few chips they have and will remain for another hand… but the ante’s and blinds will be going up. (payscales are going up and soon north american ppv will account for less than half of Zuffa’s revenues)… Time is not on their side as they’ll be all in on pretty much every hand. Unless CBS really commits some mega bucks and more air time soon the end game doesn’t look good.
I’ve long said that if you want to compete with Zuffa from North America you gotta get the UFC out of the ppv model, and with more and more revenue sources being developed overseas this hole is closing.
A Few Realizations
First. Affliction only did 2 shows… This isn’t new information, but is even more reflective of the “UFC against the World” phenomenon" now that StrikeForce is also considered a threat after only a few major shows… While the UFC is continuously breaking PPV marks, and improving yearly (in terms of PPV sales, media attention, sanctioning, revenue, etc).
Second. M1 can almost control Strikeforce’s future by the end of 2010, now that so many feel Coker has established his promotion as competition for the UFC. Gegard and Fedor are signed through M1, and will only appear on cards together (I think). When their contract with Strikeforce lapses, they’ll have a great deal of leverage in negotiations, since Fedor and Gegor are being groomed as legitimate stars in MMA, and likely the biggest stars SF will have to that point (if they perform at their best).
If they both win, they’ll have CBS/SF and UFC (maybe others) lobbying for their service; However, unless the UFC continues to suffer from this injury bug, the latter part of next year looks to BIG, with the end of TUF, the Fan Expo, Australia, return of Brock, Rampage, GSP, Silva and everyone else.. With their unwillingness to co-promote with ANYONE, the deal still may not happen… So then while you have SF and CBS trying to re-sign M1 there is also a possibility that Japanese promotions (who’ve shown a willingness to co promote) could snare two of the best free agents with the most baggage… Co Promotion in the perfect world could work, cuz there are numerous positive possibilities that could stem from such a situation, but there are also some that could cause the downfall of another UFC competitor.
I'm like PacMan fightin you silly kids... throw ya Hatton the ring, and get knocked outlike Ricky did.
lol.
My question is
if Fedor beats Werdum and then they can get Overeem to fight and Fedor takes the title does Fedor fall into “the champions clause” that supposedly Showtime has put into effect and same with Mousasi? Or are their contracts with M-1 so it doesnt matter?
Also after the next 2 matches Fedor’s contracts with not only Strikeforce but also M-1 Global are done so it will be interesting to see what happens but I still doubt he leaves M-1.
Plus if Strikeforce continues to push forward it will be interesting to see if the UFC tries harder to push them back or take them out. Sure you can argue that UFC is already trying to push back with the counter programming but the reality is that the UFC has not really fought back that much because the other promotions killed themselves pretty much.
The item that jumped out at me
The year also marked the first in which UFC, not boxing, had the year’s most purchased event, as UFC 100 (1.6 million) topped boxing’s biggest event, Manny Pacquiao vs. Miguel Cotto (1.25 million).
No matter how big UFC got in the past, boxing types were always able to hang on to the notion that the biggest boxing cards were always bigger than the biggest UFC events. This year, even that wasn’t the case.
Wow.
I never really thought of it that way, and I’m not being facetious. The UFC’s biggest card actually did beat the biggest boxing card last year.
Boxing main cards are still a better bet for leading the industry year-in, year-out, but that may be changing.
I guess it never really occurred to me that this had already happened..I was still sort of waiting for the time when the UFC would own the top slot for the year. It’s not like it’s definitive that the UFC WINZORZ! or anything stupid, but it’s a pretty important milestone.
There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.
by misterjonez on Dec 28, 2009 11:19 PM EST up reply actions
Josh Barnett's
failed test and the aftermath with Affliction’s downfall IMO the biggest mma story of the year.
Followed by Strikeforce acquiring Pro Elites assets and the Brock Lesnar drama not just the health issues, but also the stink he stirred up with his comments right after abusing Frank Mir at UFC 100.
Actually the biggest sports story of the year is Tiger’s pussy run costing more than 12 billion dollars in stock value.
This has to go down as the highest dollar per lay in history.
by mmalogic on Dec 28, 2009 6:13 PM EST reply actions 5 recs
And unquestionably
the WORST $$:value ratio in the history of tail-chasing. Absolutely humiliating performance, Tiger. I can do as well as most of the stuff on his list, and I’m an absolute nobody.
There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.
by misterjonez on Dec 28, 2009 11:20 PM EST up reply actions
I’m embarrassed to admit that I actually went out with one of them. And perhaps the skankiest of them.
Did you have to pay for it?
If you didn’t, then she wasn’t the skankiest one.
Keep firing Assholes!
Editor of www.downsyndromematuremidgetsheltlandponyporn.com/
I knew her before she started charging.
by nottheface on Dec 29, 2009 6:59 AM EST via mobile up reply actions
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