UFC Primetime: Evans Vs. Jackson – Episode 1
These guys were on The Ultimate Fighter together and because Rampage decided to do the A-Team movie, they never got to fight. Now, they’re fighting, and they get a UFC Primetime special to build their fight.
This show is only seconds old and it’s already a win. They’re playing Reverend Al Green’s Love And Happiness.
Greg Jackson says that he can take everything Rashad has to a new level. Rashad thinks that Rampage is an insecure little boy who has to play it up for his boys. Rashad says his name should be “Quittin” Jackson.
Rampage says he hates training and makes it the worst for him so he’ll take it out on his opponent for making him train so hard. Strength coach Mark Dolce says that Rampage is top shelf and has done it with terrible training over most of his career.
He says Rashad is a boy and he’s a grown ass man.
Rampage’s sister says that no one messed with him as a kid and didn’t mess with his family either. He gravitated towards wrestling in high school and his grades went up. They show an early power slam in a high school wrestling match. He dropped the poor kid on the back of his head.
Rashad says that he faces the biggest and baddest guys in his gym so that he gets it worse in camp than he will in the octagon with Rampage. Rampage kind of looks like a Clubber Lang kind of guy while training.
This is a terrific old school build and the perfect fight to be hyped like this. It blows the GSP/Dan Hardy Primetime out of the water.
This was a damn good Primetime. After one episode, I find myself gravitating towards Rampage’s corner.
I’m not sure why, but every time they have a show that talks about how great Greg Jackson’s camp is and how they only spar with UFC fighters…it sort of just annoys me.
That High School slam they showed from Rampage was insane.
I think Rampage will end up as the guy most folks root for, especially casuals. Rashad has supreme confidence which comes off as being cocky and Rampage’s confidence comes off as funny and more natural, as if he really means it.
I thought it was a very fun episode.
Man, UFC produced hype shows make me cringe: Ill fitting music, awful narration, embarrassing trash talking, and a painfully dull supporting cast.
I’m aware that I may be in the minority here, but I seriously hate this damn show. I will not be watching any further episodes. Yuck
They played Rakim, KRS-1, and Al Green. How could you hate the music?
I didn’t hate the music, I hated the way the music was used.
Whatever it is about the Rashad/Rampage dynamic, people are watching.
1 million buys?
http://www.f4wonline.com/content/view/13358/
I will take under. The rest of the card just is not good enough to earn a million buys. I think you need at least two main-event caliber fights on the card to have a shot at 1mil and I don’t see it here.
Bisping-Miller is not the greatest of co-main events; I understand that this was initially supposed to be the 3rd fight but Miller is coming off two losses and I just don’t see him as a top caliber MW.
Todd Duffee vs. Mike Russow is interesting simply because it is the return of Duffee, who got pretty popular quick for his hulk-like build and record knockout. But Mike Russow? They couldn’t feed him a TUF guy with some recognition like McSweeney? I actually think Russow is a better fighter than McSweeney but not nearly as recognizable and won’t help draw at all.
Lil Nog vs. Griffin was going to be an awesome fight and would have put a big bump in the sale numbers for this fight. But with Griff out and Brilz in, the numbers will suffer.
Just my uninformed opinion.
I think your theory definitely has legs. UFC 100 had three main events. Rashad vs. Forrest did as well (though I’m not sure what the final number is on that one).
But, to test your theory, off the top of your head, what was second main event for Chuck/Tito II?
I agree with JP, but I think the reason is two fold.
Firstly, because as he said there isn’t the strength in depth on this card. We are just coming off a show with 3 big name matches and this is a one fight card. There is often the believe that the main event is all anyone cares about, but i’m not entirely sure that’s true about MMA.
The other reason is that they didn’t strike while the iron was hot. Remember when Sera/hughes was meant to be this big deal. Then it got delayed, and it just fizzled out to a point nobody cared. I don’t think they have done as much damage here, but you have to believe that it has been hurt some degree by the lay off.
I can’t really predict buyrates because I don’t live there, so i can’t really get a feel for it . I would guess 800 or less though. I also think the last show will come in higher than most expect.
Busted me G.G. Taken me back before I was big into the sport (I had to look it up; my gut was telling me Andrei Arlovski verse someone lame).
At the time though Chuck and Tito were the unquestioned and unchallenged stars of the promotion. Randy had just retired. Chuck was on a 6-fight winning streak and held the belt. Tito was on a 5-fight winning streak.
Not sure there is a fight like that currently in the UFC. The competition is too good at 205.
I didn’t mean to bust you at all JP. I was kind of agreeing with you, but I couldn’t really remember myself. I remember Bisping was on that card, but don’t remember much anything else. I think what you and Duan say is right in that in this day and age, you probably need more than just one thing, unless, like you say it’s just the biggest match in the world. I think Lesnar and Carwin will do 1 million and they wouldn’t need a secondary main event.
As far as striking while the iron is hot, I somewhat agree there too, but if you look at the ratings for the show, it seems like there’s still major interest there. We’ll see if they hold up.
regarding /chuck/Tito 2, That was actually a big card at the time. And no I didn’t remember the card off the top of my head, I looked it up on wikipedia. Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFC_66
If you look at it now it doesn’t seem so hot, but you have to consider it at that stage in time.
Both Forrest and Jardine were probably bigger stars back then than they are now.
Leben is a good guy to have on the card. A guy who people know and always brings the fight.
It was Arlovski’s first fight back after losing to Sylvia. Pé de Pano had recently mauled Frank Mir.
It was Bisping’s long overdue first fight after coming off TUF.
When you put that in perspective, it is a pretty good card
I think Forrest was a decent draw by then because of his fight with Tito. But everyone else was just a TV draw. Forrest and Arlovski may have meant some buys. But really, they didn’t even try. That was a one match show.
You are looking at it with the mindset that each fight on its own, either adds or doesn’t add buys to the show.
I don’t think it’s that simple. I believe a lot of people look at it as an entire package. They may not be buying the show specifically to see one of the undercard matches, but it all adds together for a synergistic effect.
I would look at a card and say “OK, that’s a nice main event we have here. Now what else is on the card. OK, there’s so and so from tuf, there’s this guy i know from a previous show, and he fought for the title before. Lots of names I know. That seems like good value: I will buy it”.
But Duan, I specifically remember that time frame. Absolutely no one cared about the undercard. And I remember hearing that the reason there wasn’t a secondary main was because they didn’t need one. Instead, White plugged his young guys in there to give them eye balls.
When comparing the cards we were talking about, there’s no way in hell you’d put Forrest/Jardine in the same ball park as a Mir/Nogueira interim title match as far as what it means for business.
I never came anywhere close to suggesting it did. I just said there were names on the card. I also Remember quite specifically that Bisping’s debut was a relatively big deal. If you don’t believe me go back and watch the show.
Forrest and Arlovski were both names that were popular at the time.
Again, I specifically stated that none of these guys alone were getting people to cough up their money. I do however believe that people look down a card before deciding to buy it. You look for the names you know. I look at shows with that mindset and i know a lot of other people who do as well. Anyone who grew up watching pro wrestling on PPV probably has that outlook.
Come on, can you honestly tell me you think the same number of people would have bought this show if the untelevised prelims were to replace the rest of the main carder on PPV.
If it doesn’t matter than why do you see close to full houses from doors to main events at UFC shows?? Answer me that? If nobody cared wouldn’t they just stay at the bar and get smashes till the main event kicked off??????????
I agree with you about Bisping. I was intrigued for his fight, but didn’t think they tested him.
If you want to use that analogy though, you could say that for any card. The houses are full on cards that do 300,000 buys.
But my point is, they didn’t even try to put together a quality undercard because they knew the main event was going to do bonkers business.
The question then becomes, is Jackson-Evans a sure thing to do bonkers business? I’m not sure it is at this point. If it had been at UFC 107, that card would have been epic.
But all these months later…momentum has been lost. Maybe Primetime can get it back but we shall see.
Some people think it will do 1 million buys. That would be bonkers. I think it will be right around what GSP/Hardy and Mir/Carwin did which is right under 800k.
I’m saying 600k.
You could be right, but if they do 600K for this fight, they’ll blow up the Primetime specials and never do them again.
Another thing to think about here – this fight is only 5 months delayed. Hughes/Serra was delayed much longer and still did a good number.
Shamrock and Ortiz was delayed a few months from what I remember as well. The idea that the delay will hurt them may or may not be correct.
You think they would view 600k as a failure?
Huge failure. They have to be expecting between 800k and 1 million buys. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t see a Primetime.
I see Primetime more as an effort to get people back into the fight. With no belts on the line, I think their expectations have to be hedged.
Do you think Lesnar-Carwin gets a Primetime then?
You just described what Countdown is for, not Primetime. Primetime is only for the fights they think they can push and make big time money with. It’s expensive to produce, which is why they don’t do it for every fight.
I think the belts are a big deal and they do a great job with them, but Shamrock/Ortiz had no belt on the line and it was their first huge PPV number. Grudge is just as important as a title.
As for Lesnar/Carwin, I doubt it because Lesnar doesn’t like the camera around him that much. They can barely get him to do Countdown stuff.
What is more recent big number (500k+) card without a title on the line though? All the way back at UFC 60 when Matt Hughes fought Royce Gracie is the last time a non-title fight card did more than 500k. That was in May of 2006, and even then Hughes was the belt holder. Since then, any card to do more than 500k buys has had a title on the line for the main event.
That is why I think 600k is a very good number for UFC114. That is 100k more buys than any other non-title main event has done in four years.
Also in regard to Shamrock/Ortiz, the first time they fought, the buyrate was only about 175k according to Wikipedia. The second time they fought, Tim Slyvia and Andrei Arlovski were fighting for the heavyweight belt.
The X-Factor here is the Primetime series. It is the first Primetime that did not focus on a title match, so I really have no idea how much extra business it will generate for the card.
But if I am working for the UFC’s marketing, with the buy rate trends in my hand, I’m putting my line of success at 600.
Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski meant very little to that number. Very little.
The first time they fought, they didn’t have any TV. 175K for a show back then was like 2 or 3 times the amount they were generally doing.
There are very few shows where they don’t have title fights. But, who do you think drew the number in Montreal? Anderson Silva vs. Thales Leites or Chuck Liddell vs. Shogun? Even if there was a title fight on that card, that title fight had very little to do with that buyrate.
Who do you think drew the buyrate for 81? Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir (no title) or Sylvia vs. Big Nog?
If they do 600K, they’ll be deeply disappointing. In fact, if they do anything less than 750K, I think they’ll be disappointed.
All valid points but I can’t look past the fact that cards with no title on the line never do better than 500k.
I am not denying that it may be that Joe Silva and Dana always strategically place big time fights w/out belts on the same card as a title fight so they mutually benefit one another, but the trend is too consistent for me to assume against.
600k would break a very long trend. 750k would shatter it.
I think it all comes full circle back to my original comment that to do big buys, you need at least two main event caliber fights. The best formula is probably a title fight and a marquee matchup. I’m not seeing that with 114.
This is a good friendly bet. I say it does 800K and you say it does 600 K. If it’s in the middle, we’ll see who is closest. .
I predicted 1.5 million buys for May/Mosley and it did 1.4. I’m on a roll.
GG
We can count on at least one buy from me. You know that I have wanted to see this fight since it was announced. I am also very interested in seeing Todd Duffee.
Won’t get one from me because I’ll be there live!
Take a sign so I can spot you.
I’ve heard between 850,000 and 1 million for buys, but it’s still way early. I’m sure we’ll get a good estimate in the next week or so.