Iole on Buyrates between Mayweather vs JMM and UFC 103:

The UFC is a privately owned company and does not have to release its pay-per-view sales, which it chooses not to do. Occasionally, we’re able to find out what a particular fight sold, but it’s not often. From what I’m hearing, though, the Mayweather fight had a convincing victory. I’m hearing the Mayweather-Marquez pay-per-view is going to come in at or near 1 million sales. I don’t have a verifiable figure for the UFC, but I believe it will be far lower than 1 million. The boxing number should be released by Thursday at the latest and perhaps on Wednesday.

Various websites had estimated that the Mayweather vs Marquez PPV was going to be at around 600K- 700K PPV buys.  The UFC 103 PPV was estimated at around 400-600K PPV buys.  We will find out the actual PPV numbers for the boxing event later on this week.  There was extensive amount of advertising done by Golden Boy the last week of the event, specially in Southern California.  This could have created a boost in the PPV buys.

Dana most likely saw the writing on the wall a few days before the events took place:

“Here’s the reality, here’s the reality. Let’s say Floyd does a million buys out there… there’s a million stupid fucking people out there. All right? That has nothing to say, that doesn’t mean, oh God, boxing’s better and bigger than the UFC, that’s not true. The reality is, the UFC is bigger than boxing and the WWE combined. The funny thing about the Floyd Mayweather thing is he runs around and he says, you know, money money is all he’s talking about, you know, they’re paying me [unintelligible], you’re fucking paying him that! You the fans are paying him that money! You talk about how much you fucking hate him and you don’t like the way he fights and you don’t want to see him run around in circles and you’re the ones giving him that money.”

UPDATE FROM IOLE'S TWITTER:

 I’ve heard from some good sources since last Tweet that it may even be as high as 1.6 million

If this did 1.5-1.6 million buys, this would be HUGE for boxing and completely unexpected by everyone.

More after the jump...

More MMA News:

Iole Makes the case that Signing Herschel Walker Will Be Good For Strikeforce and MMA:

Walker is 47 now and not likely to be anything more than a blip on the screen when it comes to making his mark as a fighter. But Walker may turn out to be a key player in helping MMA’s march toward mainstream status.

Walker is a 1982 Heisman Trophy winner, College Football Hall of Fame member and a two-time Pro Bowl running back in the NFL. When he makes his MMA debut, sometime likely early next year, he’ll bring with him hordes of attention.

Media that probably would never give MMA a second thought will write about Walker and talk about his motivations. His fight will get unprecedented media attention, much like one-time street fighter Kimbo Slice did before debut on CBS in 2008.

Iole on Walker's knowledge of MMA and as a good bridge to the Media:

Walker is an articulate man who has a great passion for MMA. I sat next to him at an Ultimate Fighting Championship card at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas in 2006 and talked about the sport for hours. He loved it, knew it intimately and was able to discuss it with ease.

There are many such athletes in MMA already, but non-MMA media pays them little mind. Walker can be one of the guys who helps to bring an extra level attention to the sport, which will subsequently help attract new fans to the game.

Had he gotten into MMA when he was in his athletic prime, he would have been a serious threat to become a heavyweight championship. He’s an elite athlete with a rare combination of size, speed and power.

His contribution to the growth of the sport will likely not be measured by wins and losses and titles won, but rather by the impact he makes in attracting positive attention for the sport.

Iole on Strikeforce on CBS and the UFC on Network in the future:

Strikeforce is a quality promoion and I think it will do well with the programming on CBS. The UFC has become a major success without network TV, so its executives are going to be picky before they make the leap. The networks make promoters jump through a lot of hoops, but given that the UFC has been successful without network TV to this point, I don’t think Dana White or owner Lorenzo Fertitta are inclined to jump. Strikeforce is becoming a national promotion now, but for most of its existence has been a regional promotion. This will help Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker get exposure for his brand and generate badly needed income. I trust Coker to do the right thing.

Cung Le on how many fights he has left with Strikeforce and his loyalty to Scott Coker:

KP: If you do come back, how many fights will you have left on the contract with Strikeforce?

CL: I’ll have four fights left.

Cung Le compares pay between movies and MMA:

KP: So, just to give the fans some idea of the film environment context: how many fights would you need to take in order to balance out what you might make on your next film?

CL: Basically it depends on the part. I think the best thing to say would be that I’m one to two movies away from making seven figures. You could say that my next project, I’m expecting to make three times as much for 8-10 weeks of film work as I would for one fight.

Relationship between Cung and Coker:

Coming to the decision was not easy especially considering his long standing relationship with Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker. "It was a very difficult decision. I have been fighting and competing in martial arts since 1994. I turned pro in 1998. I have been with Scott Coker since 1998 when I signed with him. He put me on ESPN 2 on Strikeforce Kickboxing and made me fight for titles in super fights. Also we went over to K1 USA to do super fights and then when he opened up the mixed martial arts Strikeforce division I was part of his first show and my last show with him was against Frank Shamrock."

UFC 103 Spike Prelims Ratings from MMAJunkie:

ABC's broadcast of an NCAA college football game between top-ranked Texas and rival Texas Tech proved the highest-rated program in any Saturday night time slot.

The total viewership of 1.4 million viewers for UFC 103's preliminary card special earned Spike TV a 1.0 household rating.

While the figure pales in comparison to the Sept. 16 mark of 2.9 million viewers that tuned into Spike TV to watch "UFC Fight Night 19: Diaz vs. Guillard," the network will undoubtedly view Saturday's ratings as a success – especially when considering the event featured only preliminary card matchups.

With the UFC 103 buyrate possibly being less than the boxing PPV, only getting a 1.0 rating in Spike for the prelims, and with an estimated buyrate of around 400 - 600K PPV buys, I wonder if Zuffa will give us free prelims on Spike TV again.  As a fan, I hope they were happy enough with those numbers to give us free prelims again. 

Sengoku News:

According to Internet magazine"MIRUHON Net", SENGOKU lost about 1.5bilion Yen($15000000).in two years.........

...

and, MIRUHON said that ISHII Satoshi -SENGOKU contract is only in japan, ISHII can fight in other country's promotion

So, it seems that 2 years of running their promotion has cost Sengoku roughly about $15 - 16 million dollars. This was expected as they lost a ton of money in their first 6-8 months of operations, though it has been stated that they started to make some money earlier this year.  It also doesn't hurt World Victory Road that Don Quijote is their main sponsors and are started to be heavily supported by other companies in Japan. 

Also, it is very interesting to see that Ishii's deal is only exclusive in Japan, meaning that he can fight for any other promotion outside of Japan.  If that is the case, expect Senogoku a similar deal to Gomi for their NYE show so Gomi could fight in the states as well.