I’m actually not here right now. I wrote this yesterday while listening to Kanye West’s new album, which I’m still deciding if I like or not. I think my opinion right now is, “Meh, I can take it or leave it.” (I think Big Boi’s album is better, and I’ll never say a bad word about The Roots.) Nicki Minaj’s verse on “Monster” is pretty dope, but beyond that? Whatever. Maybe Kanye can go back in time and ask Eric B. and Rakim to teach him how to rap. That would be cool.
But on with the tech discussion!
UFC. A fine organization, and one that I support both monetarily, with the occasional PPV buy here and there, and with the constant attention I pay to it here on CG. Who could forget the time I interviewed Chuck Liddell and found out that he was among the first wave of iPad buyers? Those were special, special times for us all.
But this next story, man. Word on the street is that Dana White, the modern day Vince McMahon (in that he’s a successful promoter—put down your pitchforks, Sherdog), may be letting his Twitter followers book fights for him. I’m pretty sure Joe Silva has done a good enough job of putting together fights without having to listen to all that #rabble.
In other words, because some of White’s Twitter followers don’t want to see the fight, the average person out there, the person who doesn’t spend all day long on Sherdog but rather gets their UFC news from SportsCenter, has a potentially great (and exciting!) fight ruined for them. Thanks, guys.
And that is “UFC news,” by the way. If you want any more evidence of how popular “MMA” is, just look at the sales of EA Sports MMA. No buys. (Shame, too, since the game is pretty good.) But the fact is, it’s UFC that’s popular today; nobody cares about “MMA.”
The thing is that Brock Lesnar, who recently lost the heavyweight title to Cain Velasquez, needs an opponent. If you look at possible opponents—for the sake of argument, let’s consider his possible opponents Mirko Cro Cop, Cheick Kongo, Frank Mir, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Ben Rothwell, and Brandon Schaub—the first, and only, that should even be considered is Frank Mir. That’s probably an instant million plus buy event. And once Mir starts running his mouth? That’s a million plus one, to be sure.
Why? Because Cro Cop is coming off a loss (to Frank Mir, as it were) and hasn’t ever looked particularly good in UFC (of course, he was insane in his Pride days, but that’s a few years ago at this point); because Kongo hasn’t done much in the past year (and would you really offer him up Lesnar following his performance against Travis Browne?); because Nogueira is clearly past it, and if he wins, what, does that set up Nogueira vs. Velasquez II (provided Velasquez beats Junior Dos Santos, which is by no means a forgone conclusion), a sequel to a fight that didn’t too many PPV buys to begin with?; because nobody is going to buy a PPV headlined by Rothwell v. Lesnar; and because Schaub is still probably one or two wins away, against a “name” opponent, to be considered “in the mix.”
I’d mention Shane Carwin and Roy Nelson, but Carwin just had back surgery so he’ll be out for a while, and Nelson has some sort of contract situation with a rival organization that would seem to preclude him from being used by UFC for the foreseeable future.
So, it should be Frank Mir. Mir v. Lesnar II headlined UFC 100, the fourth biggest PPV event of any kind in history. Lots of people tuned in because of the Mir-Lesnar dynamic. Let’s just say the two of them won’t be fighting over the last drumstick at Thanksgiving dinner today.
Mir v. Lesnar has buys written all over it, but no. Because White’s “Twitter” doesn’t want the fight, the fight is in jeopardy.
Once again, Twitter has ruined everything. Lame.
And as if Twitter is indicative of anything of Planet Earth! We’ve seen time and time again this year that just because something is “trending” doesn’t mean, oh, golly gee, people sure are talking about this.
No, the people on Twitter are talking. Think of Twitter like you’d think of a small town: word spreads fast there, but it’s only spreading among the same dozen people over and over again. It’s hardly something you’d base multi-million dollar business decisions on.
I wonder if some of these Twitter users are some of those same people who were against signing Lesnar in the first place, you know, because of his pro-wrestling background? Gotta keep MMA pure, right?
I guess these people forgot that Lesnar was also a Division I wrestling champion.
I don’t know, I sincerely hope Dana White won’t allow himself to be bullied, 140 characters at a time, by such a vocal minority.
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