UFC 226: Miocic v Cormier & Holloway vs Ortega

Mellor

Ultimate Seduction wrote: »

What's that in fractions? Can't find betting odds on it.

Bandana boy wrote: »

Roughly 1/2 DC

1/2 Would be -200
-145 is just over 2/3

Literally it's 100/145, that what the - means. Easy to work out when you think of it like that.

Mellor

Paully D wrote: »

I'm a bit disappointed with DC.

He constantly (and rightly, may I add) criticises Jon Jones for being a drug cheat, yet as soon as the Brock match-up arises he's all over it.

I'm sick of drug cheats getting a few months off and then straight back into the mix for title shots and huge pay days.

I really wish someone like DC would take a stand and say "I've been through all this with Jon. Brock is a cheat and doesn't deserve to share an octagon with me."

Money talks I suppose. :rolleyes:

I completely agree with the sentiment. However, it's all well and good for us take a moral stand on the internet. But, this is DC's retirement plan. He knows he only has 2 or 3 fights left in him. Very hard to turn down the $4m for a fight he can win.

Fall_Guy

Mellor wrote: »

I completely agree with the sentiment. However, it's all well and good for us take a moral stand on the internet. But, this is DC's retirement plan. He knows he only has 2 or 3 fights left in him. Very hard to turn down the $4m for a fight he can win.

Thats true also, but I think if you are actually committed to the cleaning up of the sport, you can't take the stance of 'drugs cheats don't deserve a platform....unless they can make me a truckload of money and are still probably not good enough to beat me'.

Yes, at the end of the day cormier is the only person who has to step into the ring with the drugs cheat....but he's not the only athlete effected by it, what sort of message does is send to the countless other fighters looking on and seeing an inactive drugs cheat rewarded with an undeserved title shot?

DC was more than happy to take the moral high ground and declare Jones a full-on drugs cheat when his situation was a lot more complicated than that.

Ultimate Seduction

Stipe via Submission

Surprised the amount of people who are almost sure DC beats Brock.. He is a giant and probably the best wrestler DC will have fought in MMA? I'm like everyone I suppose, sickens me to see the chest practically get away with it but I can't wait to see the fight.

Hopefully Jones fights Gus in the meantime

yourdeadwright

Ortega via KO/TKO

Ultimate Seduction wrote: »

Surprised the amount of people who are almost sure DC beats Brock.. He is a giant and probably the best wrestler DC will have fought in MMA? I'm like everyone I suppose, sickens me to see the chest practically get away with it but I can't wait to see the fight.

Hopefully Jones fights Gus in the meantime

The only hope Brock has in any fight against a top heavy weight is to hold his opponent down and smash him, There is no way he gets DC down and holds him there , There for there is no way he wins ,

Tazzimus

DC trains a lot with Cain, who slapped Brock around.
DC also has a much better tank and is massively tougher than Brock, he shouldn't have much on an issue making him his bitch.

kubjones

Ultimate Seduction wrote: »

Surprised the amount of people who are almost sure DC beats Brock.. He is a giant and probably the best wrestler DC will have fought in MMA? I'm like everyone I suppose, sickens me to see the chest practically get away with it but I can't wait to see the fight.

Hopefully Jones fights Gus in the meantime

DC is better than Brock in every way other than physically, and that won't be enough to save him.

Subcomandante Marcos

Holloway via KO/TKO

DC will puck Brock around the place. Finish in the first. Brock to turtle up after getting a f w slaps like the coward he is.

yourdeadwright

Ortega via KO/TKO

I wonder has Brock trained at all in any aspect of  MMA since his last fight ?

Tazzimus

Subcomandante Marcos wrote: »

DC will puck Brock around the place. Finish in the first. Brock to turtle up after getting a f w slaps like the coward he is.

Brock dislikes getting punched in the face.
DC will punch him repeatedly in the face
Brock will say "**** this" and turtle like a bitch.

DC by pucking in round 1.

AlmightyCushion

Tazzimus wrote: »

Brock dislikes getting punched in the face.
DC will punch him repeatedly in the face
Brock will say "**** this" and turtle like a bitch.

DC by pucking in round 1.

I remember people saying similar about Brock when he was fighting Mark Hunt.

Subcomandante Marcos

Holloway via KO/TKO

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I remember people saying similar about Brock when he was fighting Mark Hunt.

The fight where he got a few slaps and then panic wrestled and lay on top of Hunt doing almost no damage for the rest of the fight?

He won't get DC down, and if he does he won't keep him down.

Hunto has probably the worst wrestling background in the UFC, the man's a legend but his kryptonite has always been big wrestlers who are afraid of a slap.

Tazzimus

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I remember people saying similar about Brock when he was fighting Mark Hunt.

DC is a slightly better wrestler than Hunto.
It won't be a good night for Brock, bar the pay cheque.

AlmightyCushion

Hindsight is 20:20 vision and all that. At the time, a lot of people thought Hunt was gonna win that fight by an early KO and that it would be an easy win for Hunt.

Ultimate Seduction

Stipe via Submission

Yep the same as posters now said the same things "Brock doesn't like getting punched Hunt will hit him and he will turtle"

No one likes getting punched in the face btw.

Subcomandante Marcos

Holloway via KO/TKO

Nobody likes getting punched in the face, but never had anMMA heavyweight been more afraid of it than Lesner.
There's not a single area where Lesner has the beating of DC.

The is a better wrestler, DC is a better striker, and DC doesn't fall apart after a few slaps.
It'll be like the Cain fight all over again.

Bandana boy

Tazzimus wrote: »

Brock dislikes getting punched in the face.
DC will punch him repeatedly in the face
Brock will say "**** this" and turtle like a bitch.

DC by pucking in round 1.

DC will not like been taken to suplex city
the beast incarnate submission by suplex round 1 !

The Nal

Lesnars a funny one. A very boring fighter but people cream themselves whenever hes mentioned or fighting. Huge box office draw.

Ultimate Seduction

Stipe via Submission

If big IF Lesnar gets on top of DC I can't see him getting up no matter how good wrestler he is, Brock is just too big an heavey. DC is a small heavey. I do agree DC is better in every department but size is huge in wrestling

Subcomandante Marcos

Holloway via KO/TKO

Ultimate Seduction wrote: »

If big IF Lesnar gets on top of DC I can't see him getting up no matter how good wrestler he is, Brock is just too big an heavey. DC is a small heavey. I do agree DC is better in every department but size is huge in wrestling

Cain found it pretty easy to get up, he's only 2 inches taller and weighs about the same as DC.

Fall_Guy

Ultimate Seduction wrote: »

If big IF Lesnar gets on top of DC I can't see him getting up no matter how good wrestler he is, Brock is just too big an heavey. DC is a small heavey. I do agree DC is better in every department but size is huge in wrestling

I feel you are hugely over-rating Lesnar's wrestling here. He has admitted himself that he was never the most technical wrestler, relying on his athletic ability to overpower smaller, more technical wrestlers in college.

Well he's still huge, but you'd have to imagine that at forty, he's probably not as explosive as he was 10 years ago. Cormier on the other hand, was a world class wrestler with world class technique, relying far less on brute strength. I would imagine his skill set has aged a lot better than Brocks.

I would back cormier to win in a pure wrestling contest despite the size difference. In an MMA match, given the disparity in skills across all ranges I give Brock next to no chance.

dulux99

The Nal wrote: »

Lesnars a funny one. A very boring fighter but people cream themselves whenever hes mentioned or fighting. Huge box office draw.

I don't know about that. In his pomp he was totally smashing people. I certainly didn't find it boring. The Hunt fight wasn't great in fairness.

The Nal

dulux99 wrote: »

I don't know about that. In his pomp he was totally smashing people. I certainly didn't find it boring. The Hunt fight wasn't great in fairness.

Hmm dunno. Ground and pound mainly vs Kim, Mir (both times), Herring, Couture and Carwin. 90% was Lesnar on top looking for an opening. A couple of decent punches thrown across those fights of course but he really just has a plan A. His best fights were where he got smashed.

Zero-Cool

Ortega via Decision

Man I was so happy when Mir beat Brock in the first fight. I remember thinking who the **** is this WWF guy think he is doing real fighting. But turns out, he was an animal all the same. That size and full of roids made him a monster. And who can forget Bucking Brocko

The Nal

Zero-Cool wrote: »

Man I was so happy when Mir beat Brock in the first fight.

Everyone seemed to call a Mir win via a heel hook/kneebar/leg submission I remember.

I didn't, but people in the know did.

MagicIRL

I honestly think DC will ragdoll Lesner just like he did with old man Henderson.

Tazzimus

DC is also strong as **** for a guy who's not ripped.
He's used to training with heavyweights so shouldn't have much trouble flinging Brock about the cage

Mr. CooL ICE

Remember that Lesnar did manage to take down Cain, albeit for a whole two seconds or something. I'd imagine DC shaking off a takedown in a similar manner.

yourdeadwright

Ortega via KO/TKO

Did the stomach issues really have any impact in the Lesnar we seen v Cain and Ubereem

Tazzimus

Wasn't it diverticulitis? Slightly more serious than stomach issues

Paully D

Ortega via KO/TKO

Paully D wrote: »

DC’s only a -145 favourite against Brock. I’m surprised at that, I thought he’d be a much heavier favourite.

Can’t see him being anywhere near that come fight night.

Brock is +115.

DC already out to -225.

That’ll get even bigger the closer we get you’d imagine.

EagererBeaver

Paully D wrote: »

DC already out to -225.

That’ll get even bigger the closer we get you’d imagine.

Yeah, the odds will probably stretch too.

Roki Vulovic

Brock is gonna pin DC to the mat and pound him out within 2 minutes.

Paully D

Ortega via KO/TKO

Early estimates that this card did less than 400,000 buys.

If so, the current model is as good as dead and something will need to change.

Roki Vulovic

Paully D wrote: »

Early estimates that this card did less than 400,000 buys.

If so, the current model is as good as dead and something will need to change.

Meltzer trashed and dismissed the idea of the WWE network for years, writing doomsday kinds of articles about it. It is now clear that the WWE were ahead of the curve and now have a much less variable form of income, not dependant on windfall gains from big PPVs. Vince knows best.

UFC should look to move more towards a subscription based model. PPV is dying in the US. In boxing in the US, the only big star is Canelo. Boxing PPV market is as good as dead and UFC is tapering off except Conor and Brock.

Legend_DIT

Ortega via KO/TKO

I am not sure I agree that the UFC's business model is much different to the past.

UFC has always relied on stars to sell PPVs - Wikipedia lists the top 28 bought PPVs where buys range from 1.65 million down to 770k

Looking at the number of PPVs with buy rate over 770k sorted by year, we get:

2006: 1
2008: 2
2009: 3
2010: 5
2011: 2
2012: 1
2013: 2
2015: 5
2016: 5
2017: 2

To me, that distribution doesn't necessarily suggest PPV is dying for UFC - if that was the case, I don't think we'd see so many strong performances in 2015 and 2016

What are the other commonalities to these strong performing PPVs? Star power, the IT factor.

So who has the greatest pull?
GSP (7)
Brock (5)
Conor (5)
Ronda (4)
Anderson Silva (4)
Forest Griffin (3)
Mir (3)
Jones/DC Rivalry (2)
Carwin (2)

Of these top performing PPVs, very few did not have at least one of these featuring in a main event/co-main event.

Let's go back to the best years: 2010, 2015 and 2016

2010:

UFC 111 (featured GSP headliner and Mir co main event for Interim Heavyweight title against Carwin who had a lot of steam behind him)

UFC 114 (one of the rare ones without a consistent draw in main event - Rampage vs Evans)

UFC 116 (Lesnar vs. Carwin)

UFC 121 (Lesnar vs. Cain)

UFC 124 (GSP vs Koscheck)

So 2010 was bolstered by having GSP and Lesnar active, with the presence of a dominant Carwin also helping.

2015:

UFC 182 (Jones/DC 1 which had a particular animosity behind it building interest after the buildup to UFC 178 - press scuffle)

UFC 189 (Conor/Mendes - the true cementing of Conor as a star, main eventing a numbered event for an Interim title over an actual Title fight)

UFC 190 (Rousey/Correia - Ronda gained real mainstram cross over appeal in 2015)

UFC 193 (Rousey/Holm - the headkick heard across the world)

UFC 194 (Conor/Aldo finally taking place)

So again 2015 was helped by having 2 stars fighting - Conor and Ronda

2016:

UFC 196 (McGregor/Diaz 1 - a true test of Conor's pulling power - a hastily put together fight after RDA withdrew with nothing on the line except pride and bravado)

UFC 200 (Supercard bolstered by both Brock and Anderson Silva)

UFC 202 (McGregor/Diaz 2 - Press conference BS likely increased prominence of this fight further but the highest selling PPV in UFC history was centred around Conor looking to avenge his loss)

UFC 205 (Mcgregor/Alvarez - Conor realises his ambition after the Diaz detour)

UFC 207 (Rousey/Nunes - Similar to UFC 202, Ronda suffering 1 loss didn't affect her drawing power as fans tuned in to see how she would react albeit not in a direct rematch)

In 2016, Conor carried UFC and 4 of the top 5 buyrates are where Conor headlined between Dec 2015 and Nov 2016.

Rather than PPV being a dying model, UFC needs to get lucky or learn how to position their top fighters as being unmissable to even the most casual of fans like Conor, Ronda, Brock and GSP. Unlock the code to doing this and buyrates will trend upwards...

callaway92

^ ^ ^

Wonderfullife in disguise?

Legend_DIT

Ortega via KO/TKO

callaway92 wrote: »

^ ^ ^

Wonderfullife in disguise?

Haha not quite but i’ll take that as a compliment!

I just had time over my lunch to research whether my initial gut instinct was right...

callaway92

Totally in agreement with your post btw.

The ESPN deal should help.

People can buy PPVs through ESPN+, therefore, ESPN will be doing their own advertising for UFC events during other shows since they'd get a large cut.. This is different to Fox as they didn't get a cut of PPVs.