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November 30th, 2009 | by Jesse Campbell
“I own it. I stand behind it and people know that, even if they don’t know me anymore than they know the chairman of General Foods….”- Frank Lucas
In the film, “American Gangster,” there is a scene where Frank Lucas (played by Denzel Washington) addresses Nicky Barnes (played by Cuba Gooding, Jr.) about distributing a substandard form of heroin under the brand, “Blue Magic”, which was created by Frank.
Nicky, unaware of the impact his decisions would have on Frank or the marketplace, was selling his form of “Blue Magic” at a lower cost and in greater quantities. The initial result garnered Nicky more customers because he was feeding off the demand created by Frank’s quality brand, but eventually, Nicky’s version of “Blue Magic” would leave his customers unsatisfied.
If boxing promoter Bob Arum had a civil conversation with UFC President Dana White, White would have a lot more in common with Nicky Barnes than his prevalence for profanity-laced tirades and ‘destroy you before you can compete with me’ approach to competition.
Because lately, Dana has undertaken Nicky’s approach to business with his ‘more is better’ attitude, as he has flooded the mainstream with mass episodes of The Ultimate Fighter, Ultimate Fight Nights and at least one pay-per view per month (some spectacular and some not).
He has done away with the traditional approach to marketing a pay-per view card created by the boxing industry, instead choosing to follow Vince McMahon’s professional wrestling strategy of cranking out a minimum of one pay-per view per month, and within a day of it ending, marketing the next event. That’s a business model which couldn’t be more different than boxing’s more spacious strategic planning. ( For instance, the next HBO boxing pay-per view isn’t even advertised on their website. Boxing promoters have long ago realized that some fights aren’t worth requiring someone to pay $49.95 for. In the words of Frank Lucas, “…at a certain point, that’s just greed son.”)
With the exception of a few “we’re out of the country and this card is so awful, we’d be despicable to charge U.S. fans $ for this” events, Dana & Co. have been cranking lackluster pay-per view after lackluster pay-per view over the last several months.
Injuries to the sports biggest star, Brock Lesnar (Intestines), the sports pound for pound best, Anderson Silva (Elbow), Light Heavyweight Champion Lyota Machida and Welterweight Champion, Georges St. Pierre have made it difficult to make exciting headline matches.
But with a lack of top tier talent ready to compete, UFC continues to shop its watered down product to consumers attempting to convince us it truly is “Blue Magic.” For instance, UFC 106 featured a main event between Tito Ortiz, a broken down injury-plagued fighter who hasn’t fought since UFC 84 in May, 2008 and Forrest Griffin, a popular slugger whose last defeat was so humiliating, he ran from the octagon post-knockout.
Because it’s a privately held company, UFC does not have to release official figures on its pay-per view buys. However, there are unofficial numbers on a few of its recent outings. Just for comparison purposes with the numbers below, UFC 100 reportedly sold over 1.5 million PPV buys.
UFC 104: Machida vs Shogun (Range: 350K to 450K ppv buys)
This event was promoted without a co-main event and while Cain Velasquez’s destruction of Ben Rothwell was memorable, this promotion was nothing more than testing Machida’s drawing power in Los Angeles. (Hard to promote a pay-per view where the neither fighter in the main event speaks English)
UFC 102: Couture vs. Nogueira (Range 300k to 400K ppv buys)
All four of the men participating in the co-main events were coming off TKO losses (Keith Jardine, Thiago Silva, Randy Couture and Nogueira). Would this event even be possible to market in boxing? Is there an equivalent to this is another sport?
A look ahead to the next couple of months, and it doesn’t appear that Dana has plans on slowing up on his sale of “Blue Magic.” UFC 108 is set to feature Rashad Evans (last scene suffering a brutal knockout at the hands of Lyoto Machida) and Thiago Silva. UFC 109 is set to feature a main event where the combined age of the participants is 90! (Another way to promote 109 could be to ask Randy Couture to break out his sneakers and have him and Mark Coleman both fight in their ‘wrestling’ shoes. Why not? I think it’s safe to assume neither of them is going to throw a single kick and risk injury.)
Nicky: “What do you want Frank? You want me to call it something else?”
Frank: “I have to insist that you do. If you call it “Blue Magic”, that’s misrepresentation.”
We can only hope Dana and the UFC can come to the same conclusion as Nicky and stop trying to sell us “Blue Magic” and just call it something else.
This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 2:48 PM.
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November 30th, 2009 at 8:17 PM
Good article. Though I am not a fan of UFC, the breakdown of each entity as they are compared to the “dual” in American Gangster is a great metaphor that makes the delineation much easier to understand. Kudos to you on your writing style!
November 30th, 2009 at 8:37 PM
Yeah, we get it. You’re jelous of the UFC. Get over it.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:13 PM
This is a great way to put the understanding for Dana White and his UFC overload. You are the new writer for the new year. Wow the American Gangsta quotes was genius. I do believe Dana will Be the hand that squeezes the cookie. The crumble of UFC will Be his fault. Awesome writing !!!!!
November 30th, 2009 at 10:28 PM
great article!!!!!!!! i dont watch mma anymore realising the FAD dat it was always watch boxing cant remember nothing but greatness in last couple bouts UFC IS HORRRRIBBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
December 1st, 2009 at 3:16 AM
Great article. I am a loyal UFC fan and I’ve gone from hosting a UFC party for every event to stopping by a hooters to check it out for free while I have a few drinks or even worse, reading about the results online. The quality of the events has definitely been saturated. I think the UFC should stick to 4 strong pay per view’s per year and have the rest on spike for free.
December 1st, 2009 at 4:17 AM
general mills dude.
December 1st, 2009 at 9:01 AM
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December 1st, 2009 at 9:31 AM
Is Diva Style your Mom? Is she just trying to cheer you up? Because this article sucked. Unfortunately I’m not motivated enough to write a long, drawn out, diatribe of a response, because that would be giving you too much credit. If you don’t like it, don’t watch. We will.
December 1st, 2009 at 9:41 AM
I have noticed the same: UFC events have been coming shortly after one another, and have been by-and-large uninteresting. A comparison with the Strikeforce event (Fedor vs Rogers) – which was very exciting to watch – is a good illustration of the case. Dana not being able to attract Fedor may have turn out to be his gravest mistake, because now that Brock Lesnar is unavailable, Randy Couture – too old, Tito Ortiz has virtually no cardio, and Lyoto Machida clearly loosing to Shogun (but somehow being given the fight), UFC definitely has a talent deficit.
December 1st, 2009 at 9:55 AM
Wow! What a metaphor. This writer is cranking.
wewillie
December 1st, 2009 at 10:00 AM
Very good article. UFC is shit and I’ve said it from the start.
December 1st, 2009 at 11:27 AM
Honestly, I think White is trying to catch the popular appeal of professional wrestling while simultaneously painting MMA as “real fighting” to catch the bored boxing fans. The fact that fight of the night pretty much only goes to stand-up fights shows that UFC is more about promoting excitement then quality matches or realistic combat.
ps: Lyoto Machida not Lyota Machida.
December 1st, 2009 at 11:29 AM
Very interesting article….good angle. Way to capture and hold my attention. GOod work!
December 1st, 2009 at 11:37 AM
Nice concept. As a fan of both boxing and mma, I definitely feel the metaphor.
December 1st, 2009 at 12:17 PM
I fail to see the metaphor =( I must be dumb as all hell =/
Written a long post pointing out where you’ve lost me in your article, as a mmafan and as a person who tried to follow your “logics” in the metaphor.
Not gonna post it here since it will be humiliating for both of us, for you since it would point out where you went wrong and stopped making any sense and for me; since it would show how much time and effort I spent making a reply to your article.
An article I would say you spent no more than 5 mintes on and posted it only to provoke MMAtrolls like myself with.
If you want to read it, contact me and I’ll mail it to you. Other than that, keep enjoying movies, leave the UFC alone until you have constructive criticism.
Good luck in your future writing Mr Campbell.
December 1st, 2009 at 12:57 PM
Good point, but how long did it take for pac vs cotto fight or pac vs lil money. Better yet how many stars fighters does boxing have that you can put on a show with no belts or titles not even in the future. What we do have is great fighters that give it their all no matter what the crit say or betting line, without title or with it. Our world goes on without title defense or fighters who think they should make million dollar a fight(lil money mayweather). That why people are tune in see UFC, Strikeforce, or any other promoto that out there to watch
December 1st, 2009 at 1:23 PM
great article!!! i am more of a quality over quantity type of guy. all those ppv ufc matches are not achieving anything positive to the sport or its fans.
December 1st, 2009 at 3:20 PM
Great article. I actually understand…kinda
December 2nd, 2009 at 12:50 AM
I would rather watch UFC events with fighters whose records are less than pristine than have a culture and an industry of protecting records, as happens in boxing.
The UFC 106 card was a rockin’ card, Ortiz and Griffin aside, those fights on the undercard and before the main event were fantastic.
The UFC might find that it has to slow down from a monthly schedule to something more realistic, just given the injuries its fighters are facing but for now, I’m paying my money and enjoying the hell out of it.
December 2nd, 2009 at 2:18 AM
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March 9th, 2010 at 4:26 PM
UFC is awesome butreally I prefer watching the TUF to the actual events, my favourite fighter ever is either Pat Barry or Rashawd Evans. Bye.