UFC to counter-program April Strikeforce card?

Part of me wants to come up with reasons as to why the counter-programming won’t happen and hope that I won’t have to decide between watching the StrikeForce GP with one of my favorite fighters going up against one of my least favorite or a great UFC card.

But the rest of me knows it makes sense and that it will more than likely happen :/

I say wicked! More MMA! You make it sound like competition is a bad thing. I think its been making MMA bigger and better as a whole. If they want to fight over viewers eyeballs, i say let them and ill sit back and watch it all happen.

rec’d for bringing that to my attention

No, they wont, its called they will use those weeks to hype the hell of 129.

If they counter it will be with a rerun of a PPV, not a live card, frankly look at the cards, 126 128 129 130 131 wth Brock/JDS and maybe Carwin/Kongo, they have stacked cards lined up, what could they possibly put on?

They could run a rerun of this event, 126, thats probably the only thing they would do.

They wont air a fight night or nothing.

I mean, when you think having a card come 3 weeks after another card, that’s not really that close.

But when you put it in terms of marketing, TV promos, countdown shows, ads and etc…it essentially amounts to the latter show getting onl 3 weeks for it’s entire promotion cycle. It makes little sense to start promoting UFC 132 when UFC 131 is still a week away itself. So the next show can’t be promoted until the first show is done.

That minimizes their advertising time. When you have stacked cards that are loaded top to bottom…the stacked aspect sells very well, but these cards also need a maximum amount of marketing space in order to reach their highest buyrate potential.

I think in 2010, while they saw consistent buyrates from UFC 111 to UFC 118 that were never lower than 500K, and only one card from 111 to 124 that did less than 500K(119) they may have seen some oversaturation.

I mean, imagine if the very best fights from UFC 119 and UFC 120 were one PPV event(with the leftovers making up a Fight Night card), with the time spent to promote both events devoted to advertising that single event…they certainly could have pulled off a better buyrate than what 119 did alone.

Basically, I think that the UFC might be taking a stance of doing a few less PPV events, but having each PPV be that much more stacked with that much more marketing time, and that may yield more bigtime buyrates than 2 ‘good’ cards each with half of the marketing time.

Clearly they are still doing a high number of events, but it’s obvious that they want to give their bigger PPVs time to gestate and really have awareness and hype build up. UFC 129, the debut in Toronto, the huge fight that is GSP vs Shields, the co-main of Aldo vs Hominick, and the fantastic matchup that is Couture vs Machida…it’s a fantastic card and deserves the attention on the marketing side of things.

Intruiging card overall. I am more excited to see Couture/Machida and Aldo/Hominick than GSP / Shields though.

GSP is a great fighter. Record wise, one of the greatest. Finishing opponents wise… not so much. I just am not as impressed with a fighter whose goal is only to neutralize the other fighter and grind out a decision. They take no chances, certainly not logical to them to put themselves at risk when the decision is almost guaranteed by controlling them on the ground, or jabbing them away on the feet. I don’t see Shields penetrating any of GSP’s defenses. I think he gets punished with light to medium punches while not able to land a takedown; GSP will get him down a few times though I bet. Then after 25 minutes of that… decision for GSP.

Maynard broke his own rule and really went for the KO, this tie did more for him than winning the fight in his normal style would have done. Why? The fans will love him for it and his drawing power will increase dramatically. Fans want to see fighters that can finish their opponent. It is that simple. That is what Martial Arts should be about. Defeating your opponent

But I can see something like Wandy vs. Stann and then four other fights that would be “Fight Night Quality” (example is Tom Lawlor vs. Tim Credeur). They’ll advertise the hell out of Wandy.

Any excuse to have more free MMA is fine by me.