UFC: The working plan is for Brock Lesnar to face Jon Jones, provided Jones beats Daniel Cormier this week, with the idea of late December. But that time frame may not work since Vince McMahon would have to approve of any date until April. We were told that Lesnar vs. Jones was the working idea from a number of sources, but one said that it wouldn’t happen that early and would have to be in 2018. ESPN did a story where Jones said he didn’t believe Lesnar would ever accept the fight, and Lesnar responded by saying, “Would I fight Jon Jones? Anytime, anywhere. Right now he should be worried about DC on Saturday night.” It should be noted that Lesnar and DC are friends. “He’s a massive dude,” said Jones. “It would be a massive draw, really big for the sport. It would be a great challenge. That’s a big old boy. I doubt Brock Lesnar would take that fight, though, I definitely wouldn’t try to wrestle with him the whole time. I’m not going to tell you what I would do.” At the press conference on 7/26, Jones said that he’d beat Cormier and then focus on Lesnar. Dana White claimed there was nothing to the Lesnar story and he hadn’t even talked with him, but at this point, nobody believes that given that the day before the announcement of Lesnar’s return last year White said the same thing. Lesnar would probably outweigh Jones to 40 to 50 pounds when they stepped into the cage. Jones would probably win the fight, and the idea behind it is that UFC needs to create some big stars, and of all the guys they have on the roster not named Conor McGregor, the biggest star is Jones. But he’s not a 1 million buy guy, or even a 700,000 buy guy unless it’s with the right opponent. In fact, Jones’ previous fight with Ovince Saint Preux were more like just over 300,000. But Jones vs. Lesnar would top 1 million and perhaps that would be the catalyst, because Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao were both 300,000 to 400,000 guys until they faced and beat Oscar de la Hoya, and those wins made both superstars and 1 million buy guys

Georges St-Pierre is still pushing for a middleweight title fight with Michael Bisping, but Dana White said that St-Pierre would be getting a shot at the Tyron Woodley vs. Demian Maia welterweight title fight this weekend

White, all week, pushed that he hasn’t talked to Jones in the last year, since the failed drug test. Jones then told Lance Pugmire of the Los Angeles Times that it’s him that’s the reason they haven’t talked, saying White has called or texted him at least four times, but he hasn’t answered any of the calls because he doesn’t want to deal with White. “I just feel like when you’re making the company money and you’re a PPV draw and you’re ultimately putting money in his pocket, then you mean a lot to him,” said Jones. “The moment you aren’t those things, you mean nothing to him, and he’s done a decent job of showing that. I felt completely abandoned by him, in a situation when I needed him the most.” “I feel like he’s shown me his true colors, and now I have no desire to pretend like he cares about me or that we’re friends.” “As of now, I look at Ari (Ari Emanuel) as my boss and Dana as more the face and the voice of UFC.

Mayweather-McGregor will be in movie theaters around the U.S. through Fathom Entertainment with the show starting at 9 p.m. Eastern time on 8/26

Sling TV, which has never offered PPVs in the past, is doing a test marketing run this weekend for the UFC 214 show

The biggest UFC PPV show of the year by a long shot is UFC 214 on 7/29 from the Honda Center in Anaheim, which is going to be the biggest test of UFC on PPV after a series of shows that have ranged from 130,000 to 300,000 this year. Under normal circumstances, I’d say with the great videos and it being since December the last time there was a big show, that 600,000 should be considered a target. The first fight between the two of them did more than 800,000, but there was so much more heat leading up to that one and there was also more of a question who would win since both were undefeated. Jones won four of the five rounds in the first fight two-and-a-half years ago, and he’s moved more into his prime and Cormier, at 38, has moved more out of his, particularly since Cormier’s big skill is wrestling, and wrestling skill is less useful when you don’t have the speed or the knees that you had when you were younger. Plus, in the first fight, Jones got the better of the wrestling exchanges. The two did interviews on the FOX show on 7/22, Jones from Albuquerque and Cormier from San Jose. Cormier did most of the talking. Jones was mostly quiet and gave off the demeanor that he was mad to be there. Jones said that Cormier’s title was fake and Cormier said he’s been defending it for two years while Jones has been gone. When the interview was over, Jones got up, took off his mic and stormed off the set. The big take was that Cormier looked heavy, especially since the interview was six days before weigh-ins and Cormier barely made weight for his Anthony Johnson fight last time out. Jones was 217 this past week so he’ll breeze when it comes to making 205. Cormier on 7/26, two days before weigh-ins, claimed he was at 215, which if that’s a real number, should not be an issue making weight. This is also four weeks before McGregor vs. Mayweather, which has a $100 price tag and I can’t think of a time since 2005 where it has felt like UFC has less momentum. This would be like WWE booking its biggest match of the year a month before Mania. No matter what, it wouldn’t draw. Now think of an event that’s six to ten times bigger than Mania. So that’s going to hurt it a lot. The show opens on Fight Pass at 6:30 p.m. with Joshua Burkman (28-15) vs. Drew Dober (17-8), Jarred Brooks (12-0) vs. Eric Shelton (10-3), and Alexandra Albu (2-0) vs. Kailin Curran (4-4). The prelims will air on FXX instead of FS 1, at 8 p.m., with Andre Fili (16-4) vs. Calvin Kattar (16-2), Renato Moicano (11-0-1) vs. Brian Ortega (11-0), Renan Barao (34-4) vs. Aljamain Sterling (13-2) and Jason Knight (20-2) vs. Ricardo Lamas (17-5). The PPV show has Jimi Manuwa (17-2) vs. Volkan Oezdemir (14-1), Donald Cerrone (32-8) vs. Robbie Lawler, Cris Cyborg Justino (17-1) vs. Tonya Evinger (19-5) for the vacant and ridiculous women’s featherweight title, Tyron Woodley (17-3-1) vs. Demian Maia (25-6) for the welterweight title and Cormier (19-1) vs. Jones (22-1) for the light heavyweight title. The Manuwa vs. Oezdemir winner and Cerrone vs. Lawler winner could both get the next title shots, although Cerrone may be difficult because of his clean-cut loss to Jorge Masvidal

Universal Pictures has announced and released a trailer for a documentary called “Notorious” on the life of Conor McGregor

UFC and Dyaco International have reached a global equipment partnership. Dyaco will develop UFC training equipment that will be marketed in retail stores and on-line including official UFC fight gloves that all fighters will have to wear in fights, training mats, resistance bands, weight lifting belts, push up bars, kettlebells, Olympic bars and weights and speed bags. The new products will be introduced in early 2018

By the way, those of you who hate WWE speak, where you can’t say wrestlers but that the wrestlers are “superstars” and fans are “WWE Universe” should know that UFC is getting in the game. While it’s not been said to the announcers, for the PR department at UFC, the competitors are no longer “fighters” they are “UFC athletes.

The new season of Ultimate Fighter, which will be a 16-woman tournament to crown the first women’s flyweight champion, featuring Eddie Alvarez and Justin Gaethje as coaches, debuts on 8/30. The season already started filming

Luke Rockhold and Yoel Romero have no fights scheduled, but are going off on each other on Twitter. It started when Romero claimed that Rockhold didn’t want to fight him. Rockhold came back and said that Romero was the one who turned down the fight. Rockhold said that Romero was offered the main event on 9/16 in Pittsburgh against Rockhold, but turned it down, saying he didn’t want a five-round fight. Romero then said how Rockhold would never give him a title shot when he was champion. “Remember when you were champion and you said no to fight me? That was five rounds. Remember the last time you took the easy fight?” Rockhold then brought up that Romero was asked to headline on 9/16 but said he was too hurt to make the date. Romero then said he only needed another 20 days to fight, but Rockhold hasn’t fought for 14 months. Rockhold then brought up how Romero headlined the last UFC and it broke the all-time PPV low (it didn’t, but it was among the lowest) and said that when he was champion, he chose to defend against Chris Weidman (which ended up falling through due to a Weidman injury and that’s where Bisping ended up as the replacement) . Rockhold also called Romero a cheater

Similarly, Chris Weidman and Michael Bisping have been going off on each other. Weidman made fun of Bisping’s bad eye and Bisping felt that his eye problems shouldn’t be something that another fighter mocks him for. Weidman also made note of Bisping being champion for well over a year and still not facing anything resembling a top contender

UFC officially announced 13 fights for the 9/9 PPV show in Edmonton. This won’t be doing much business either. There are two title matches on top, with Demetrious Johnson going for the record for most consecutive title defenses when he defends the flyweight title against Ray Borg. Johnson is currently tied with Anderson Silva with ten straight title defenses. The other main event has Amanda Nunes defending the women’s bantamweight title against Valentina Shevchenko. I guess it really doesn’t matter which is the main event, but in the past the idea was, unless there was a big star involved, that the heavier weight class goes on top. Johnson going for the record may be the bigger story but Nunes vs. Shevchenko is a closer fight. If you’re looking at star power and name recognition, it’s Nunes that blows away the rest of the field, and Shevchenko is well above Borg but well behind Johnson. The other matches are a key heavyweight fight with Francis Ngannou, who is probably going to be considered for a title show with a win, facing Junior Dos Santos. Gilbert Melendez is moving down to featherweight to face Jeremy Stephens. In a battle of top flyweight contenders, Henry Cejudo faces Wilson Reis. Former lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos faces Neil Magny. A battle of ranked light heavyweights had Ilir Latifi vs. Tyson Pedro, plus Sara McMann faces Kelten Vieira, Gavin Tucker faces Rick Glenn, Ashlee Evans-Smith faces Sarah Moras, Arjan Bhullar (a Canadian wrestling Olympian with Indian ancestry) debuts against Luis Henrique, Alex White faces Mitch Clarke and Kajan Johnson faces Adriano Martins

They also announced a number of matches for an FS 1 card on 9/16 from Pittsburgh with a main event of Luke Rockhold vs. David Branch. Branch comes into the fight with an 11-fight winning streak and held both the light heavyweight and middleweight titles of World Series of Fighting when he signed with UFC. This is Rockhold’s first fight since losing the title last June to Michael Bisping in one of the bigger title upsets in history. A Rockhold win would likely get him the winner of the upcoming Bisping vs. Robert Whittaker title fight, or at the least get him a match with Yoel Romero or Chris Weidman where the winner gets a title shot. Other fights announced for that show are Hector Lombard vs. Anthony Smith, Krzysztof Jotko vs. Uriah Hall, Kamaru Usman vs. Sergio Moraes, Gilbert Burns vs. Jason Saggo, Anthony Hamilton vs. Daniel Spitz and Justin Ledet vs. Dmitri Smoliakov

The injury that Whittaker suffered in the first round of his 7/9 decision win over Yoel Romero was a severe Grade 2 MCL tear of the left knee. Basically it’s a partial tear. He said he strained the knee during camp and then Romero kicked at it and it went out

Germaine de Randamie vs. Marion Reneau has been added to the 9/2 show in Rotterdam, Holland. De Randamie has postponed her hand surgery so she could fight in Holland. Nick Hein is moving to featherweight and will face the debuting Zabit Magomedsharpiov, who is 12-1, on the same show

Added to the 9/23 show at the Saitama Super Arena is the debut of Pancrase women’s strawweight champion Syuri Kondo, who faces Chanmi Jeon, Jussier Formiga vs. Yuta Sasaki and Janel Lausa vs. Naoki Inoue

Humberto Bandenay was picked to replace Chris Gruetzemacher and face Martin Bravo on the 8/5 show in Mexico City. Bandenay, 22, comes into UFC with a 13-4 record



BELLATOR: Aaron Pico’s second Bellator fight will be on 9/23 from the SAP Center in San Jose. It will be on the TV portion of the show and no opponent has been named, but I’m sure they’ll have someone closer to his level of experience and someone who isn’t a whiz at submissions. Also added to the San Jose show is Paul Daley vs. Lorenz Larkin.

OTHER MMA: Campbell McLaren said in an interview with MMAUNO.com that Alberto El Patron is stepping down in his role as figurehead President of Combate Americas. The cover reason being given is that he wanted to concentrate on his pro wrestling career. Combate had also lost Nelson Swegglar, who was the head of TV production for WWE before Kevin Dunn in the 80s, who also recently left the promotion. McLaren has always defended Alberto when every different news story broke. When we talked to McLaren this week, he refused to talk about the subject and said that Alberto and Paige would both be at their show on 7/27 in Miami. Combate now airs live on ESPN 3, a streaming service, and on TV in the U.S. on Azteca America, but it’s biggest following is in Mexico with its weekly Friday night time slot on TV Azteca

Renzo Gracie, 50, said he would be returning to MMA soon. He said that he is still under contract to UFC, although he wasn’t fought with the promotion since 2010. He said he had talked with Scott Coker and was in talks for a fight with Matt Hughes, although obviously, that is now out of the question. .. Rizin has a show on 7/30 at the Saitama Super Arena. At this point, there is no word on if the show will be available via streaming but Rizin shows are, as far as the show aspect itself goes, are the most entertaining around with all the pageantry and would have more mainstream appeal. The first round of the bantamweight tournament is the key to the show with former UFC fighter Kyoji Horiguchi vs. Hideo Tokoro, Anthony Birchak vs. Takafumi Otsuka and Keita Ishibashi vs. Khalid Taha. Lei’D Tapa, fresh from her being at the WWE camp as an alternative in the Mae Young tournament, will face King Reina (Reina Miura), who has become a female pro wrestler hunter having beaten Shayna Baszler and Jazzy Gabert in her last two fights. She’s giving away a ton of size to Tapa. Miyu Yamamoto, the former world champion wrestler in the 90s, faces Cassie Robb

Rocky Batolbatol, 32, a fighter out of The Philippines who had fought several times for ONE, passed away on 7/23 after a road accident. His team released the news, saying the accident took place in Cagayan de Oro at 12:30 a.m. that day, and said he died in a vehicular accident. The post said that a second person, a pedestrian who was not a fighter, Gennar Moradas Ponce, also died in the accident. Batolbatol and Ponce were both walking when they were accidentally hit by a taxi, whose driver was identified as Jerson Barsabal. The accident took place in front of the Capitol University Medical Center. The two were rushed to a different hospital about three miles away and were declared dead on arrival. Batolbatol, who started his career as a boxer, had a 5-3 MMA record and was scheduled on the 7/29 show in Indonesia that had just been canceled two days earlier.
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From a business standpoint, the most important long-term news story for both WWE and UFC is the status of rights fees for television programming when the current contracts expire.

There has been tremendous speculation, with the decline in viewership of cable television, decreased ratings for both groups and the sports networks having long-term big contracts with the major players like the NFL, NBA, Baseball, Hockey, the major college sports and NASCAR, and signs that revenue growth for television is slowing down.

Over the past week, there has become speculation of new players competing with television, such as Amazon, Twitter, Facebook and Verizon. Thus far, none of those companies have become true competition in bidding against television, but there was talk this past week of Facebook perhaps being a player who could lead to a bidding war that would increase the value of the WWE U.S. contract.

Times are changing and nobody really knows the landscape. Most of the key sports rights are tied up for years to come, with perhaps the two most significant contracts in the U.S. being the UFC deal with FOX, which expires at the end of 2018, and the WWE deal with NBC Universal, and really the USA Network, which expires in September 2019.

Currently, by contract, there is a three-month window that ends 10/1 where FOX has exclusive negotiating rights for a new UFC deal. In October, UFC can start shopping around to everyone with a new deal.

The television contract is key to both UFC and WWE. While UFC derived far more revenue from PPV than television in 2016, that is very unusual in sports and that was a freaky year for PPV, and one that needs multiple major drawing cards active at the same time to pull off. WWE had banked on the WWE Network, which is a success, but not at nearly the level those internally had predicted by this time, so it is television that is by far the key profit margin item in the company’s ledger.

It was these television rights negotiations that was the key in the bidding getting up to $4 billion in the UFC purchase. And remember that WME IMG was not the only bidder in that range at the time. In hindsight, looking at how business, and most importantly, television ratings, have fallen for UFC since one year ago when the sale went through, that Lorenzo Fertitta picked the perfect time to sell and that he knew it was propped up by Conor McGregor, who was getting more and more difficult to deal with, and Ronda Rousey, who even then it was figured was on her way out, and with nobody upcoming that could fill their shoes.

For most of 2016, the narrative was how WWE had been significantly declining in ratings, while UFC was having a great year. And if the TV talks for UFC took place last year, it would feel like a growth business with momentum. Now, this is the worst time for UFC to begin talks, although a lot depends on what happens with McGregor in the fallout of the Mayweather fight. Even though in MMA, every fighter is short-term, a star like that generates incredible revenue and if he comes out of the fight with his star power stronger in some form and comes back, he’d at least be able to carry the PPV end and as last year showed, a rising tide on the big shows helps the entire product.

UFC is getting somewhere in the range of $120 million annually in U.S. television rights. When WME IMG purchased the company, the key, in their eyes, was that the company was immensely profitable with TV revenue in that range, and figured that the new deal in 2019 would be way up, meaning a huge increase in profitability to where the debt it took to purchase the company made economic sense.

Ari Emmanuel had talked about a new television deal for $400 million a year, and if they get that deal, then the purchase price, if anything, would be undervalued. But privately, even before the current fall in ratings, those in the company were thinking $250 million was a more reasonable expectation. Most in the TV industry felt the $400 million figure was hard to justify, but at the time of the sale, UFC was riding high. But one person at WME IMG had told us even when riding high that $250 million was the real goal and nobody truly expected $400 million. The point is at $250 million, if $130 million is added to current revenue and most of that ends up as profit, that can carry the interest on the debt.

For wrestling fans and business aficionados, the UFC talks over the next year will likely give a view of the landscape for WWE. WWE’s numbers in recent weeks have gotten better, with the return of John Cena, more long-term weekly advancing soap opera storylines that tend to build the audience and being in the sports gap after the end of the college and pro basketball playoffs and before the start of the NFL. So it’s not the weekly double-digit drops from the prior year which was the case for most of 2017. But the key to ratings as it pertains to negotiations is more where things stand next year than this year, just as the key to UFC talks would be ratings over the next several months.

On the flip side, even with the low ratings, there are those who believe that should McGregor continue to fight after the Floyd Mayweather fight, that his star power will be greater than ever because of all the exposure he’s expected to get over the next month.

Both suffer from stigmas where major companies don’t want to be involved with them. WWE has gotten its negative stigma softened to a degree, but even so, it’s rights fees and ad rates as compared to the audience it delivers are astoundingly low due to the perception that remains.

UFC isn’t as bad, but Ford Motor Company, for example, which advertises heavily on Fox Sports, will not advertise during UFC programming.

A story in the Hollywood Reporter this past week on UFC’s television situation, noted that 34 percent of the prime time hours on FS 1 and 24 percent on FS 2 was UFC programming, and that would be a major amount of time needed to be filled on both stations if FOX doesn’t renew the deal. And it should be noted that 2016 was the company’s best year for ratings since signing the deal with FOX, before the recent big drops.

That story said that Fight Pass, the streaming service, is an area of concern to FOX, although I don’t really know why, as Fight Pass only airs prelim fights on most shows, and the occasional live event, which are usually shows in Europe or Asia in bad time slots for the U.S. audience to begin with. There are also the questions regarding the biggest stars and biggest fights on PPV.

There are a lot of ways UFC can go with the experience of watching the successes and mistakes of the WWE Network.

The biggest fights with McGregor, and hopefully others, are likely to remain on PPV for a long time to come. There is no other way come close to the current level of big show revenue, not through a streaming low-cost monthly service (which is a business disaster for a big show), or the current level of TV rights fees, to come even close to the type of revenue generated for a 1 million buy show.

However, if the last UFC PPV show did 130,000 buys, as estimated, that’s around $4.5 million in company revenue. If Fight Pass subscriptions could increase by 500,000 or more from current levels, a big if, those type of shows may be better served as part of the streaming package. Or if the television deal guarantees them $5 million or more for that level of show, and pays for production, now those shows would have far more exposure and less risk. Of course, the 130,000 number is unusually low, and most of the shows this year have been between 200,000 and 300,000 buys even without one major marquee main event this year.

A major key when it comes to UFC is the status of ESPN. It was very clear, both based on ESPN coverage of big shows, and the status of ESPN as the sports leader, that UFC had hoped ESPN would get in the game. But with ESPN making cutbacks, and being on the hook for years when it comes to both the NFL and NBA deals, that ESPN may not have interest.

UFC either could have used ESPN to up its price, whether to go there or stay with FOX, or make deals like with other sports where they are on both networks.

The Hollywood Reporter story said that ESPN is instead looking at a boxing deal with Top Rank, as ESPN just aired Manny Pacquiao’s recent fight with Jeff Horn. It also stated that CBS Sports is unlikely to have interest in UFC. CBS was the first network to air MMA in prime time, but hasn’t done so in years. The CBS Sports Network is not nearly the priority that FS 1 is, doesn’t have the penetration or audience, and thus isn’t likely interested in the type of money it would take to land UFC. They stated that Turner and NBC Sports Network (which aired World Series of Fighting and now airs Professional Fight League) may have interest.

The story said that UFC is in talks with Amazon, Facebook and Verizon. Amazon did pay the NFL $50 million to simulcast ten Thursday night games that were already on either CBS or NBC, but that’s still tiny compared to what television was paying for those games.
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The Association of Boxing Commissions voted unanimously on 7/26 to add new weight classes to MMA.

Promoters are not obligated to stage fights in all weight classes so for UFC and Bellator, this may or may not make a difference. But it will give more leeway to local promotions.

The positive is that from a fair sports standpoint, the more weight classes, the better a weight class will fit someone’s natural weight. From a sports standpoint, it’s a positive. From a business standpoint, it makes an even stronger negative. The more champions there are, the less the titles mean because the public won’t be able to focus and care about so many championships.

This was already proven in boxing, when during the sport’s mainstream heyday, there were limited numbers of weight classes and championship fights were all a big deal. Then as more and more weight classes and sanctioning bodies were created, titles starting meaningless and less to the point now that fans very rarely care about championships, and it’s only about larger than life fighters.

MMA has undergone a similar transformation, but not quite as bad. When MMA first landed on television, there were five champions and every fan knew who they were. Title fights were almost guaranteed, even with weak challengers, to do 300,000 or more buys on PPV.

The existing five titles have expanded to where UFC now has 12 divisions, and is in the process of adding a 13th. Title fights no longer mean as much, and only the most hardcore of fans know who the champions are.

The argument, as stated by Andy Foster, the head of the California commission, who has worked harder than any commissioner when it comes to trying to make the sport safer when it comes to the weight-cutting issues, is that if there are more weight classes, it will keep fighters from cutting as much weight.

We’ll have to see how that works in practice. In theory, if you have a 190 pound guy, and before he was cutting to make 170, since he’d be too small for the modern 185 pound division, if you are adding 175 and 165, will he cut less and fight at 175 and be healthier, or will he go, “I can’t make 155, but I think I can make 165,” cut more, and be more unhealthy and take more risks? My gut knowing fighters is that they are more likely to choose the latter rather than the former. We’ve already seen with the early weigh-ins, which were supposed to keep fighters healthier by giving them more time to rehydrate, that instead, fighters are trying to cut more, knowing they have more time to get the weight back on, and more fighters are being hospitalized and missing fights due to weight-cutting issues than ever before.

Foster, in detailing the new weight classes, said that weight cutting and dehydration is the biggest issue facing the sport and that adding the new weight classes are critical to addressing the problem.

The new weight divisions listed don’t include the current 170-pound welterweight division, which has been a staple of the UFC for almost 20 years, including being the home of two of its greatest fighters, Matt Hughes and George St-Pierre.

UFC has been against changing its current weight classes, and its only changes are to potentially add more divisions, although at this point I don’t see any additions since they’ve added women’s championships at 125 (a tournament is going on right now) and 145 (which will have a champion decided on 7/29 with the Cris Cyborg Justino vs. Tonya Evinger fight, after first creating a champion in February when Germaine de Randamie beat Holly Holm in the first title match). There has been talk of eliminating men’s flyweight because it hasn’t drawn, but I’m guessing that doesn’t happen. I could see adding a women’s atomweight division at 105, particularly to market Michelle Waterson, who is on the small side at 115, but haven’t heard any movement in that direction.

The current weight classifications as per the new ABC regulations would be 105, 115, 125, 135, 145, 155, 165, 175, 185, 195, 205, 225 and heavyweight.

They would be called atomweight, strawweight, flyweight, bantamweight, featherweight, lightweight, super lightweight, super welterweight, middleweight, super middleweight, light heavyweight and cruiserweight.

From a UFC standpoint and Bellator as well, adding 225 makes no sense because in both cases, there aren’t even enough quality fighters to have a heavyweight division, as opposed to splitting it in two with the addition of 225.

Plus, if you add a 225 division, that would mean everyone under probably 245 would fight at that division, making the heavyweight division quality even worse. Granted, there is concern with such a huge gap between 205 and 265 on paper. In practicality, it’s not really the case. Aside from Brock Lesnar and Tim Sylvia, most recent UFC heavyweight champions and most top contenders were guys who were 240 pound guys like Fabricio Werdum, Cain Velasquez, Junior Dos Santos and Stipe Miocic. All have had no issues competing with 280 pounders who cut to 265, because size is a detriment in a fight once you get past a certain size, unless you’re the very rare freak athlete like Lesnar, and he wasn’t a skilled overall fighter and lost quickly when matches with Velasquez.

Of the UFC’s top ten heavyweights, Miocic, Werdum, Velasquez and Dos Santos, or basically everyone of note right now except Alistair Overeem and Francis Ngannou, could make 225. And Overeem and Ngannou under other circumstances may try and make it as well, although it would serve them no purpose, and may not serve anyone a purpose since the heavyweight division is so shallow, and heavyweight champion sounds more prestigious than cruiserweight champion, even if all the best heavyweights would be natural cruiserweights based on how much weight is cut to make other divisions.

If there actually were great 285 pound fighters and a 240 pound guy like Velasquez or Miocic were too small to compete with them, and they did the same cut everyone else does, the only true heavyweights of note in UFC would be Mark Hunt and Derrick Lewis.
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After three straight losses by stoppages, Chris Weidman’s career as a top middleweight fighter was on the line in his fight with Kelvin Gastelum that headlined the 7/22 UFC on FOX show from the Nassau Coliseum.

Weidman, who had been the undefeated UFC middleweight champion, and considered one of the company’s biggest stars after two wins over Anderson Silva, lost his title to Luke Rockhold, and was then stopped by Yoel Romero in Madison Square Garden, and then lost again to Gegard Mousasi.

Things weren’t looking good for him when Gastelum connected with a left to the jaw late in the first round where Weidman took the timber style fall. Gastelum was landing punches on the ground and Weidman was in serious trouble, but the round ended.

Weidman came back to win the second round with his wrestling, and finished Gastelum with a head-and-arm choke submission in the third round.

Weidman, who grew up in Baldwin, NY, minutes from the Coliseum, was emotional talking about how he drove past the building every single day, and grew up going to hockey games, as well as seeing friends from elementary school including a kid he used to get into fights with in fifth grade, in the stands cheering for him as he came to the ring.

It was a great moment that capped off a strong show, and Weidman came off like the hometown hero is supposed to on television with the superstar-level crowd reactions. He immediately challenged Michael Bisping to a title fight, but there are people ahead of Weidman and a fight with Ronaldo Jacare Souza would feel more likely for him next.

Gastelum after the fight was talking about moving back to 170 pounds. He’s very thick and had trouble making weight in the past, and until this fight had been successful at 185.

The bad news was the business numbers.

The show did a 1.23 rating and 2,046,000 viewers on average, making it the third lowest UFC on FOX show in its history. The only shows that did worse were the 4/15 show headlined by Demetrious Johnson vs. Wilson Reis, which did a 1.22 rating and 1,996,000 viewers, and the 8/27 show headlined by Demian Maia vs. Carlos Condit, that did 1,983,000 viewers, although that’s an unfair comparison since it was preempted in a number of markets that aired local NFL preseason football instead.

As compared to last year’s show on the same weekend, headlined by Holly Holm vs. Valentina Shevchenko, which was the most-watched UFC summer live events in history, the ratings were down 32 percent and the audience was down 31 percent from the 1.80 and 2,975,000 viewers.

The Weidman vs. Gastelum main event averaged 2,714,000 viewers.

It should be noted that this came on a night with very weak competition not only in sports, but all of television. The No. 2 sports event that night in prime time television was poker on ESPN that did 741,000 viewers.

The UFC show ended up as the second most watched show on television in its time slot, trailing only reruns of that averaged 2,409,000 viewers, and best CBS, NBC and every cable station. UFC was also No. 1 for the night in all of television in 18-49 overall, all key men’s demos and even was the most-watched show on network TV in its time slot in women 18-49, the latter of which is very rare. It speaks more to the lack of competition.

Even though the main card was well down from one year ago, the prelims were only down ten percent from the prior year, as last year’s July show did 1,261,000 viewers in the 6-8 p.m. time slot on FOX, while this year’s show, headlined by Elizeu Zaleski Dos Santos’ win over Lyman Good, did 1,137,000 viewers.

The show, the UFC’s first in the building, did 11,198 fans and a gate of $1,088,332. The usual target for a FOX show is a $1 million gate so on the surface that sounds fine if it was a usual FOX show and not the first time ever in the building and with so many local fighters headlining, including the main eventer, as I would have expected a sellout from this show. They were several thousands shy of capacity. Even though it was the first time in the building, it was the UFC’s third trip to the New York market since November, so that probably played a part in the show not selling out as you’d think the first show in a major arena, with a legit hometown star on top in a very important career match, should do.

The show delivered overall, with a lot of good fights and some controversial judging, but they were close fights that could have gone either way, such as the Darren Elkins win in the semifinal over Dennis Bermudez.

Besides a strong main event, the most important FOX bout was a great back-and-forth fight where Jimmie Rivera won his 20th fight in a row in taking a decision win over Thomas Almeida, in a fight that had fighters with a combined 42-2 record.

With wins over Urijah Faber and Almeida in succession, Rivera has to be considered among the top contenders for the bantamweight title. When champion Cody Garbrandt returns, he’s going to face T.J. Dillashaw since they’ve got a story pushed through Ultimate Fighter. That leaves Rivera for Dominick Cruz, and he realized it, cutting a promo on Cruz after his win. Cruz, who announced the show with Jon Anik and Brian Stann, immediately responded and that fight makes sense for a bout where the winner would get the Garbrandt-Dillashaw winner.

The bonuses of $50,000 went to Junior Albini and Alex Oliveira for their knockout wins, and for the Dos Santos vs. Good fight for best fight on a show with several contenders.



1. Shane Burgos (10-0) beat Godofredo Pepey (13-5) on scores of 30-26, 30-26 and 29-28 in a featherweight bout. Burgos knocked Pepey down with a knee and got a second knockdown with a right in the first round. Pepey was able to take him down. Burgos got up and hurt him with more punches and that was the 10-8 round. In the second round, with Burgos getting the best of the standup game, Pepey tried to pull guard. Burgos would say up and the crowd would boo him. Pepey was able to pull guard late in the second round. Burgos continued to land big shots in the third, including a knockdown with a body shot.

2. Junior Albini (14-2) beat Tim Johnson (11-4) at 2:51 in a heavyweight fight. Albini got some coverage beforehand, as it was noted he was broke and was never able to afford getting his young daughter gifts, so he’d give her empty shampoo bottles and claim they were presents. Albini was expected to be cannon fodder here, but dropped Johnson quickly with a series of punches and it was stopped.

3. Marlon Vera (10-3-1) beat Brian Kelleher (17-8) in 2:18 in a bantamweight fight. Kelleher landed some good punches early and got a takedown. But Vera quickly snatched an armbar on the ground for the submission.

4. Jeremy Kennedy (11-0) beat Kyle Bochniak (7-2) on scores of 30-27, 30-27 and 29-28 in a featherweight fight. Kennedy took Bochniak down right away. After Bochniak got up, Kennedy was landing knees to the body and took him down again and kept him down for the rest of the round. In the second round, Kennedy opened with a takedown. Bochniak would get up, but then be taken down again. Kennedy got four takedowns in the second round. Bochniak was able to keep it standing in the third round and did the better of it early. Kennedy was finally able to take him down and landed punches from back position. Kennedy got a second takedown before time ran out.

5. Chase Sherman (11-3) beat Damian Grabowski (20-5) on scores of 30-27, 30-26 and 30-27 in a heavyweight fight. Sherman wasn’t as aggressive as in the past. The first round went back-and-forth but Sherman had the edge. The same happened in the second round. Sherman took control I the third round, landing punches but it was still a slow round. Sherman landed elbows and punches to take the easy decision.

6. Alex Oliveira (17-3-1) beat Ryan LaFlare (13-2) at 1:50 of the second round in a welterweight fight. LaFlare worked hard but got Oliveira to the mat twice and kept him there almost the entire first round. In the second round, Oliveira threw a low kick that took LaFlare off his feet. He started landing good punches and was blocking takedowns. LaFlare was bleeding from the nose. Then Oliveira connected with a right cross that knocked LaFlare out. Oliveira, after winning, jumped over the cage and ran into the press section it appeared and seemed like he wanted to yell at someone.

7. Eryk Anders (9-0) beat Rafael Natal (21-9-1) in 2:54 in a middleweight fight. Anders was a former starting linebacker at the University of Alabama who played on the 2009 team which won the national championship beating Texas in early 2010, a game where he forced a fumble and had seven tackles. He later played in the CFL and in Arena Football before moving to MMA. Natal was doing well early but Anders, who was coming off fighting a five-round fight four weeks earlier, knocked him out with some lefts. Anders noted that after studying films, he found that when Natal tries to fight southpaw, it’s easy to land a left on him, and that’s exactly how he beat him.

8. Elizeu Zaleski Dos Santos (17-5) beat Lyman Good (19-4, 1 no contest) on scores of 30-27, 28-29 and 30-27 in a welterweight fight. I thought Dos Santos clearly won, but 57 percent of the reporters scored the fight for Good. This was a hell of a fight. Dos Santos got a takedown but Good got back up. Dos Santos took him off his feet with a low kick but again Good got back up. Good took Dos Santos down off a kick. Dos Santos was bleeding from the left eye. Both went back-and-forth in the first round. In the second round, both were landing and trading. Dos Santos landed a jumping knee and also scored a knockdown with a punch. In the third round, Dos Santos landed punches and a spinning kick. He was landing big punches in the round. Good came back but Dos Santos had Good hurt again late in the round.

9. Jimmie Rivera (21-1) beat Thomas Almeida (22-2) on scores of 29-28, 30-26 and 30-27 in a bantamweight fight. The crowd was super hot for this fight, since it was an exciting fight and Rivera is local. Rivera dropped Almeida in the first round and Almeida tried to tie him up. Almeida started to land good punches late. In the second round, both were landing and this time Almeida dropped Rivera. Aside from being put down momentarily, Rivera was in control most of the round. Rivera used a sidewalk slam to start the third round. He used knees. Almeida did a spin kick to the body. Then both traded. Rivera got a late takedown.

10. Patrick Cummins (10-4) beat Gian Villante (15-9) on scores of 29-28, 28-29 and 29-28 in a light heavyweight fight. Even though Judge Sal D’Amato had it for Villante, 100 percent of media scores were for Cummins. Cummins kept going for takedowns and not getting them. Villante hurt Cummins with punches early. They two cracked heads and Cummins’ head got the worst of that one, as he was bleeding all over the place. He was covered in blood. Cummins got a late takedown. Villante seemed tired after the first round and Cummins landed punches. Villante came back with an uppercut but Cummins continued to land punches and fail on takedown attempts. Villante came back with a few punches late and a great low kick. In the third round, Villante came out with punches as Cummins looked tired. But then Villante looked tired and Cummins came back to clinch the needed round with better striking.

11. Darren Elkins (24-5) beat Dennis Bermudez (16-8) on scores of 29-28, 28-29 and 29-28 in a featherweight fight. This was another close fight. I had Bermudez winning and reporter scores were 56 percent for Bermudez, 39 percent for Elkins and five percent had it a draw. Both traded punches and Bermudez had nice low kicks. Bermudez slipped when throwing a kick and Elkins got behind him. Elkins threw him down and got another takedown when Elkins threw a punch. Elkins picked him up and slammed him for another takedown, but Bermudez got up and landed knees and punches. Bermudez went for a takedown and Elkins caught him in a guillotine. Bermudez escaped and got a takedown. In the second round, Bermudez was getting the better of punching exchanges and went for a takedown. He had Elkins hurt at that point and probably should have tried to finish it. He finally got the takedown. Elkins went for another takedown and Elkins grabbed a guillotine, then got his back and slammed him down. In the third round Bermudez was landing punches and knees. Elkins got the clinch and worked for a takedown. Bermudez landed punches and Elkins came back with punches. Pretty much everyone had Elkins winning the first and Bermudez the third, and it came down to a close second round.

12. Chris Weidman (14-3) beat Kelvin Gastelum (14-3, 1 no contest) at 3:45 of the third round in a middleweight bout. The crowd was hot for Weidman. Weidman was landing more early and got the takedown. You could see Gastelum’s idea here was to have Weidman work hard early and then take over in the later rounds. Gastelum tired a triangle but Weidman easily cleared it. Gastelum got back up but Weidman took him down into side control. Gastelum got up again. Gastelum landed a head kick, but then knocked Weidman down with a left to the jaw. Weidman was in trouble as Gastelum punched him on the ground but the round ended. Weidman had the entire round until the knockdown. In the second round, Weidman landed a right and got another takedown. He got Gastelum’s back. He secured two more takedowns and Weidman has Gastelum’s back as the second round ended. In the third round, Gastelum started landing punches. Weidman decked Gastelum and was landing big punches. Weidman got two more takedowns in the third round and finished him on the ground with a head-and-arm choke.
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Santiago Ponzinibbio appeared to be the opponent for a triumphant main event for European star Gunnar Nelson, but the unpredictable world of MMA saw Nelson stopped for the first time in his career by a straight left to the jaw in just 82 seconds in the main event of the 7/16 UFC show in Glasgow, Scotland..

The win was a career changer for the Argentinean, who came in ranked No. 14, but with that kind of a win should be in line for a next bout that could put him near title contention. It was Ponzinibbio’s 15th first round win of his career. It was his fifth win in a row, and was by far the biggest of his career.

After the fight was over, he was talking about names like Neil Magny and Carlos Condit, who were ranked No. 5 and No. 6.

For Nelson, it was yet another detour for a fighter who came into the company with a lot of hype, had overall done well, but it was his third loss in the promotion, and easily the most decisive and most damaging to his career.

The show was entertaining, but there was nothing that was must-see and didn’t have much in the way of names.

The live event at the SSE Hydro was a major success, a sellout of 10,589 fans paying $1.2 million, and a mostly hot crowd for a show filled with U.K. and European fighters.

Because of the time zone difference, the show aired from 1-6 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon in the U.S. The show did 402,000 viewers, peaking at 496,000 for the main event. That was down 19 percent from the last Sunday afternoon UFC show, on 5/28, which was the Alexander Gustafsson vs. Glover Teixeira fight that did 496,000 viewers and peaked at 665,000. It also should be noted that show went head-to-head with the Indianapolis 500.

The prelims, with no major names featured, did 284,000 viewers, down 20 percent from the 353,000 viewers for the last Sunday show.

Cynthia Cavillo scored her third straight UFC win, beating local favorite Joanne Calderwood, who failed to make weight. Cavillo, who has only been fighting for 11 months as a pro, coming into the UFC after three wins in five months, scored her sixth straight win and with the lack of depth in that division, should already move into a top ten spot.

Paul Felder also made a big impression with a first round win over Stevie Ray of Scotland. Normally, that would get a fighter booed out of the place. And it’s not like the crowd wasn’t going to do that, but once Felder told the story about how his father had just died of pancreatic cancer one week before he started camp. He then talked up how great the fans were in Scotland, and by that point, they couldn’t dare boo him.

Felder and Ponzinibbio both got $50,000 performance bonuses for their quick finishes. Danny Henry and the debuting Daniel Teymur got $50,000 bonuses for best fight in a classic example of what happens to someone who always wins in the first round, and suddenly doesn’t.

Teymur, whose brother David is also a UFC fighter, came in with a 6-0 record, all first round finishes. But after landing hard shots that didn’t put Henry away, his first trip to the second round wasn’t pleasant, as he got tired and taken apart for the next two rounds, both of which could have been scored 10-8.

1. Leslie Smith (10-7-1) beat Amanda Lemos (6-1-1) at 2:53 of the second round in a women’s bantamweight fight. First round went back-and-forth with each getting a takedown and landing solid shots. Smith took over in the second round, landing knees and punches until Smith kept landing shots and Lemos couldn’t protect herself and the fight was stopped.

2. Brett Johns (14-0) beat Albert Morales (7-2-1) on scores of 30-27, 30-27 and 30-25 in a bantamweight fight. Johns took him down in the first round and landed punches and elbows on him for the rest of the round. Morales got some offense in at the start of the second round until he was taken down again. Johns stayed on top the rest of the round. In the third round, Morales was getting the better of it early until Johns took him down again. Johns beat on him and went for an arm triangle, keeping the top position until the end of the fight.

3. Danny Henry (11-2) beat Daniel Teymur (6-1) on scores of 29-28, 29-28 and 29-26 in a lightweight fight. I had Teymur winning the first round, but Henry getting 10-8s in two and three. Henry was the crowd favorite coming from Edinburgh, Scotland. Henry was much taller. Teymur was throwing with full power from the start looking for a first round finish. Henry was able to hold on, but was hurt and being overwhelmed, but was never in danger of being stopped. Once they got into the second round, Teymur was suddenly human. Teymur landed hard punches early, but Henry took over , landed a right that dropped Teymur and landed punch after punch on the ground. Henry had Teymur’s back, working for a choke at the end of the round. Basically Teymur was just holding on as the round ended. In the third round, Teymur was tired and Henry was landing big punches. Henry took him down and got his back again. He went for a choke but didn’t get it fully. Henry got mount and was landing all kinds of punches on the ground, and went for a choke again late, but the round ended before he could get the finish.

4 Galore Bofando (5-2) beat Charlie Ward (3-3) at 2:10 of a welterweight fight. Bofando threw Ward down hard and Ward landed with his head on the mat and a big thud. He was probably knocked out from the landing as he hit face first and after a few punches on the ground, it was stopped.

5. Alexandre Pantoja (18-2) beat Neil Seery (16-13) at 2:31 of the third round in a flyweight fight. This was Seery’s retirement fight so he was the favorite. Pantoja looked good most of the way. He dropped Seery with a right. Both landed hard punches in the first round and Pantoja came back with a lot of knees. In the second round, Pantoja landed punches and knees to the body. Seery came back and it turned into a great fight. Both landed big shots and Seery was starting to take over late in the round. In the third round, Pantoja got a takedown, moved to mount, got a body triangle and got Seery’s back and finished him with a choke. Seery got a nice sendoff. He said that he didn’t know what he would do next, but it was time to leave, and his time in UFC was fantastic. He thanked his teammates and the UFC,. Dan Hardy tried to play it up big, the same way he did for the Brad Pickett retirement but it wasn’t the same because Seery was never a name fighter.

6. Danny Roberts (14-2) beat Bobby Nash (8-3) at 3:59 of the second round in a welterweight fight. Nash wrestled at Michigan State. He did well in the first round, landing uppercuts and head kicks, and then got a takedown. After Roberts got up, Nash landed knees to the body from the clinch. He got a second takedown late in the round. In the second round, Nash wasn’t able to get a takedown. There was an accidental low blow by Nash. Nash got a takedown but Roberts got up and dropped Nash with a left hook and it was stopped after punches on the ground.

7. Justin Willis (5-1) beat James Mulheron (11-2) on straight 30-27 scores in a heavyweight fight. This wasn’t much of a fight. Willis landed more, and got a takedown and back position. Mulheron got up. Willis landed a solid left and more hard punches to win the round. The second round was boring. Willis got a takedown late and bloodied Mulheron’s nose. In the third round, Willis took Mulheron down and got his back again.

8. Khalil Rountree (7-2) beat Paul Craig (9-2) at 4:56 in a light heavyweight fight. It started slow, but Rountree started taking over and put Craig down with a left uppercut and landed hammer fists on the ground until the fight was stopped.

9. Jack Marshman (22-6) beat Ryan Janes (9-3) on straight 29-28 scores in a middleweight fight. Marshman controlled the first round landing hard punches. The crowd was heavily into this. Marshman continued the attack into the second round, but Janes did get some offense in. During the third round, Janes landed a knee and a lot of punches from close range. Janes took the round but it wasn’t enough.

10. Paul Felder (14-3) beat Stevie Ray (21-7) at 3:57 in a lightweight fight. Felder put him down with a knee and started landing punches and elbows on the ground until it was stopped.

11. Cynthia Cavillo (6-0) beat Joanne Calderwood (11-3) on scores of 30-27, 30-27 and 29-28 in a women’s strawweight fight. Calderwood is probably the most popular fighter in Scotland and got a ridiculously huge reaction. She just has that likeable thing going for her. She wasn’t able to make weight, and she’s probably better off moving to the new flyweight division. Cavillo has some potential star power as well, and great cardio which is important in this weight class. Calderwood was getting the better of the standup, but Cavillo too her down and got her back. She was working for a choke and an armbar, and was on the verge of completing the armbar when the first round ended. In the second round, Cavillo landed some punches and Calderwood had a bloody nose. Cavillo missed a kick and went down, but Calderwood didn’t capitalize on it. Calderwood landed a spinning elbow and a body kick and I had her winning the round, but two judges didn’t. In the third round, Cavillo got her back and was working for a choke and once again, Calderwood was in trouble and just survived until the end of the round.

12. Santiago Ponzinibbio (25-3) beat Gunnar Nelson (16-3-1) at 1:22 in a welterweight fight. Nelson landed an uppercut and Nelson came back with a good left. Ponzinibbio hurt him with a right, and then landed a left to the jaw that finished the fight.
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While history credits Art Davie as the creator of the UFC, and rightly so, as Davie came up with the concept and did the legwork, and then sold the idea to Semaphore Entertainment Group that led to the creation of the promotion in 1993.

But somewhat lost in history is that it wasn’t a new concept in the United States. A new documentary, called “Tough Guys,” which premiered last month at the 2017 AFI Docs Festival last month in Washington, DC talked about the Pennsylvania-based promotion that started in 1980, the “Tough Guy Championships,” and its organizers, Bill Viola and Frank Caliguri.

According to the documentary, the two Western Pennsylvania martial arts instructors came up with the idea while eating at Denny’s in Monroeville, PA in late 1978. They got into a discussion regarding who would win a fight, Muhammad Ali, Bruno Sammartino or Bruce Lee.

Ironically, that discussion was nationwide in that era, with Ali and Bruce Lee in every discussion. Most discussions also involved a heavyweight pro wrestler, usually a name like Jack Brisco or Billy Robinson, who had the shooter reputations, but it varied by Denny’s location and parts of the country. But when was in middle school and high school, that was a frequent subject. Lee, who had already passed away by that point, was still the name people believed, because of his movie fights and speed, as the representative of karate or kung fu, both of which were marketed big for self defense, while Ali, as the boxing champion, was believed to be the baddest man on the planet (Ali was actually past his prime by this point) and pro wrestlers doing their simulated matches were portrayed as real-life tough guys. At the time, judo and Jiu Jitsu weren’t really known to the general public and the pro wrestlers, at least the shooter types, were thought to be the ones best versed at submissions. Sammartino at the time was the wrestling hero in that part of the country, and known for being incredibly strong, at a time when people thought people who could throw around massive poundages in the bench press would enable them to be badasses in fights.

Viola and Caliguri’s idea was called “Combined Fighting,” with the idea that all moves from all different disciplines would have to be legal.

The first event took place in March 1980 at the Holiday Inn in New Kensington, PA, before a turn away crowd. The promotion only lasted a year.

Because the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission legally only had jurisdiction at the time over boxing and pro wrestling (while kickboxing had broken into some states in the 1970s it wasn’t big on a national basis), they were running the shows unsanctioned. The commission attempted to shut the promotion down, but didn’t have the power. So the Pennsylvania state legislature rushed into passing a law banning mixed fighting events and in specific, the events promoted by CV Productions, the company formed by Caliguri and Viola. The law wasn’t overturned until 2007, when UFC spearheaded the drive to legalize MMA in all 50 states.

The promotion garnered a very small amount of press during its brief existence, and was largely forgotten about until Viola’s son and Fred Atkins wrote a book about the short history of the promotion, called “Godfathers of MMA: the Birth of an American Sport.” The book led to the making of the documentary.” The Heinz History Center Sports Museum for Western Pennsylvania, in Pittsburgh, has had an exhibit crediting the birth of the sport of MMA in the U.S. to the Pittsburgh area in 1980.
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