Issue 098

February 2013

With Anderson Silva, Junior Dos Santos, José Aldo and Renan Barao holding four pieces of gold as UFC champions, it’s no shock to hear of UFC plans for seven events in Brazil in 2013. If true, a clear sign of where the market is headed. 

Gareth A Davies

MMA and Boxing Correspondent for The Daily Telegraph, London, is feeling that samba beat

Brazil has much to boast of going forward with the soccer World Cup in 2014, the Olympics in 2016, and, indeed, a host of new venues being built in and around the major cities of that country, with its 200 million citizens. 

I’m fortunate to be a member of the International Olympic Committee press commission, and I’ve had a sneak preview of plans for Rio de Janeiro ahead of the Olympic and Paralympic Games there. Three entire areas of the city are to be rejuvenated with a host of venues and stadia, prime opportunities for MMA events as the venues are commissioned, built and tested. It would not surprise me in the least to see a UFC event alight on one of the Olympic venues pre-2016. 

There is now a regular audience of 30 million watching UFC and MMA events in that country, heralded by those four UFC champions, and potentially more on the way. Indeed, look across every division right now, and potential title contenders are springing up, such as Erick Silva at welterweight, Glover Teixeira at light heavyweight. It means a simple sell to audiences.

Stars create markets, just as Georges St Pierre has done in Canada. That market reached double figures quickly in events as GSP emerged as a champion emeritus in the last four years. Indeed, go there, and bars, cafes and restaurants are replete with the event being staged. 

For pure numbers alone, going forward, watch the China market, and Asia as a whole, with interest. Mark Fischer, the UFC’s MD in Asia, revealed to me on a recent trip to Macau that a staggering 20 million viewers watch a free-to-air weekly UFC show (similar to UFC Unleashed) in the Chinese language, and that the live events now reach 500 million homes.

Incredible figures, but when you’ve got a country with 1.3 billion inhabitants… 

“CAGEFIGHTER”? GET A GRIP, MAINSTREAM MEDIA

The mainstream media ought to get a grip of themselves. Where it hurts. How often are we frustrated by news lines denigrating “a cagefighter” (quote, unquote) involved in a brawl, attack, violence, and when you read the article, it has no bearing on the sport we know. 

Tiresome. And we should all do our utmost to campaign against it. There is still work to be done on perception shift. A few unsung UFC fighters do that, without it ever gaining headlines.

Guam’s Jon Tuck wears the necklace of the Chamorra warriors to the Octagon, carved from a giant clam. It represents pride and honour. Mac Danzig leaves the Octagon to photograph brown bears from feet away in the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, and takes amazing pictures of desert sunsets. He has had three exhibitions already. And cool cat ‘Bruce Leeroy,’ likes nothing more than to concoct new recipes and write poetry after another gruelling session at the gym. These are the real fighters.

WOMEN IN THE UFC. PAY-PER-VIEW NOVELTY OR FOR KEEPS?

Ronda Rousey is all the rage at the moment. Sassy, smart, sexy and very, very marketable as a fighter. Great back story, too. And a disarming honesty. 

Like her assertion last month about sex. And having as much of it as she can before a fight. “For girls it raises your testosterone, so I try to have as much sex as possible before I fight actually. Not with everybody – I don’t put out a Craigslist ad or anything. But if I got a steady I’m going to be like, ‘Yo, fight time’s coming up.’” Brilliant. 

From Strikeforce to the UFC, we hear, on a pay-per-view card in 2013. It is less about equal opportunities, more market forces. But the credo in fight sports was ever thus. 

It was mid-November when Dana White confirmed Rousey, an Olympic bronze medalist who has armbarred her way to six successive victories as an MMA fighter, would be included on a women’s roster. When you have a star like Rousey, it’s worth a punt. 

In White’s words, Rousey “has the whole package.” No argument against that, but beyond perhaps four fights – Liz Carmouche, Miesha Tate, Sara McMann and Cris Cyborg (if she can get down to Rousey’s weight) – what is there? Gut feeling is that it will be short-lived, but fun while it lasts.