Thread: UFC remains king of PPV hill

I agree with the person who said Dana White makes it so fighters cant duck each other. Dana cops a lot of shit from everyone but not from me, I like his no bullshit attitude. At least hes speaking his mind and at least the UFC get super fights happening immediately, where as boxing it takes yrs and yrs of ego bruising and then finally a fight.

Dont get me wrong, I love boxing way more then UFC but in the end there is something to be learnt from the way ufc is managed.

Originally Posted by Snakey

I agree with the person who said Dana White makes it so fighters cant duck each other. Dana cops a lot of shit from everyone but not from me, I like his no bullshit attitude. At least hes speaking his mind and at least the UFC get super fights happening immediately, where as boxing it takes yrs and yrs of ego bruising and then finally a fight.

Dont get me wrong, I love boxing way more then UFC but in the end there is something to be learnt from the way ufc is managed.

hell of a lot of home truths in that snakey

But its hard to compare a major UFC showdown where there are hundreds of thousands at stake and a major boxing showdown when your talking about tens of millions of dollars.

Originally Posted by hattonthehammer

UFC/WWE have the sense and knowledge to know the hardcore fan is much more likely to pay 50bucks to see his favourite fighter/fighters over an entire night and they both dont segregate themselves to showing 1 fight cards.

If you dont particularly enjoy a UFC/WWF main event no biggy, the rest of the night is full of world class matchups, scantily clad women, theatrical entrances etc who cares if the sport in general is either gay or fake.

If you dont happen to be a particular fan of floyd mayweather you dont buy the card end of story.

The day a mayweather-pacquiao card is backed up with jones-hopkins, hatton-marquez etc is the very day boxing takes both showhorse sports to the cleaners.

Could this be the reason why UFC remains king of PPV hill?

Originally Posted by hattonthehammer

Originally Posted by Snakey

I agree with the person who said Dana White makes it so fighters cant duck each other. Dana cops a lot of shit from everyone but not from me, I like his no bullshit attitude. At least hes speaking his mind and at least the UFC get super fights happening immediately, where as boxing it takes yrs and yrs of ego bruising and then finally a fight.

Dont get me wrong, I love boxing way more then UFC but in the end there is something to be learnt from the way ufc is managed.

hell of a lot of home truths in that snakey

But its hard to compare a major UFC showdown where there are hundreds of thousands at stake and a major boxing showdown when your talking about tens of millions of dollars.

This. UFC has a PPV every month and when you compare the UFC's revenue to every other major sport including boxing, it's peanuts the percentage of that revenue that actually makes it back to the fighters.

Just to add to my first post - You guys reminded me with the subject of wrestling...

I used to be a big fan when I was younger - The stories were well written, charachters were bold and belts meant a lot, even though it was "sports entertainment". (I'm talking about the 1998-2002'ish period)

The reason this is relevant is that back then WWE could sell out 20'000 seat arena's weekly and I imagine (but don't know for sure) that they did better ppv sales too. Anyone flicked through recently on some WWE? They're lucky to get 4'000-5'000 in attendance.

Why is this? It relates back to boxing. Since WWE aquired ECW and WCW there are now too many belts! Too many world champions, too many different rosters of wrestlers and too many "promotions" (even though they're under the same company).

WWE has split it's roster 3 ways and given each roster/TV show 4 or 5 different belts. The public don't know what the hell is going on anymore, nor do they care.

So, there is obviously a case for having ONE show, belt and organization shown by the WWE's business model! I hear they only really make money through their international tours these days

For the good of the sport of boxing, it would be perfect to have one body - For the good of greedy individuals? Not so much..so I don't really see it changing in the near future.

Originally Posted by hattonthehammer

UFC/WWE have the sense and knowledge to know the hardcore fan is much more likely to pay 50bucks to see his favourite fighter/fighters over an entire night and they both dont segregate themselves to showing 1 fight cards.

If you dont particularly enjoy a UFC/WWF main event no biggy, the rest of the night is full of world class matchups, scantily clad women, theatrical entrances etc who cares if the sport in general is either gay or fake.

If you dont happen to be a particular fan of floyd mayweather you dont buy the card end of story.

The day a mayweather-pacquiao card is backed up with jones-hopkins, hatton-marquez etc is the very day boxing takes both showhorse sports to the cleaners.

Great post here Hammer. I always remember paying for Judgement night on Sky. It had Benn Vs Collins, Naz Vs Molina, Winky was on the card and then the main event was Evander Vs Tyson now that was worth the tenner. (My Dad actually paid as I was only a little squirt)

Just checked out the whole American card and that had Michael Moorer Vs Botha , Henry Akinwande and Ricardo Lopez on the undercard. Now that would sell big time right now!!

Originally Posted by amat

Originally Posted by hattonthehammer

Originally Posted by Snakey

I agree with the person who said Dana White makes it so fighters cant duck each other. Dana cops a lot of shit from everyone but not from me, I like his no bullshit attitude. At least hes speaking his mind and at least the UFC get super fights happening immediately, where as boxing it takes yrs and yrs of ego bruising and then finally a fight.

Dont get me wrong, I love boxing way more then UFC but in the end there is something to be learnt from the way ufc is managed.

hell of a lot of home truths in that snakey

But its hard to compare a major UFC showdown where there are hundreds of thousands at stake and a major boxing showdown when your talking about tens of millions of dollars.

This. UFC has a PPV every month and when you compare the UFC's revenue to every other major sport including boxing, it's peanuts the percentage of that revenue that actually makes it back to the fighters.

Exactly, its how the business pie is being split. Its real simple to figure. The percentage of money from the PPVs that is given to the fighters is minimal. I never get why people don't see or understand this is why UFC easily runs the PPV numbers for the year. Boxing could do a better job but there is no way it can match UFC in PPVs because in comparison the UFC fighters are getting sweatshop wages. St. Pierre, arguably the p4p guy of the sport, got $60,000 for one of his last two fights. If Pac or PBF were normally getting less than 6 figures then boxing would have no competition in PPV sales because you could load a card riddled with p4p guys and have a total payroll of less than $1 million. For Pac and PBF to get in the ring together they command a predicted $70 million pie to split. That kind of pie would pay every UFC notable for years to come. That would include getting Anderson Silva/GSP, UFC's top 2 p4p match, together. Boxing PPVs have a payroll of many millions while UFC PPVs have at best a tenth of boxing's. Many of the UFC fighters have complained about their wages and that they have to earn those bonuses, like KO of the night, in their fight to even get a decent wage. As long as the UFC can consistently get away with paying their fighters 5 or 6 figures they will always have a PPV every month and with many top guys in it. The UFC and the fans get what they want and the fighters have no better option. Its simple business.

Do you know what's funny comparing UFC's fight purses and boxing's? Muhammad Ali in his early days and even career earned more than UFC's stars today. Ali's biggest pay day before the 1st Liston fight was around 56k the same kind of money that some stars in the UFC are making and this was back in the 60s.


29/10/60 vs Hunsaker $2000
27/12/60 vs Siler $200
17/01/61 vs Esperti $545
07/02/61 vs Robinson $645
21/02/61 vs Fleeman $913
19/04/61 vs Clark $2548
26/06/61 vs Sabedong $1500
22/07/61 vs Johnson $6636
07/10/61 vs Miteff $5644
29/11/61 vs Besmanoff $2048
10/02/62 vs Banks $5014
28/02/62 vs Warner $1675
23/04/62 vs Logan $9206
19/05/62 vs Daniels $6000
20/07/62 vs Lavorante $15,149
15/11/62 vs Moore $45,300
24/01/63 vs Powell $14,331
13/03/63 vs Jones $57,668
18/06/63 vs Cooper $56,098
25/02/64 vs Liston $464,595
25/05/65 vs Liston $361,819
22/11/65 vs Patterson $300,078
29/03/66 vs Chuvalo $66,332
21/05/66 vs Cooper $448,186
06/08/66 vs London $290,411
10/09/66 vs Mildenberger $211,576
14/11/66 vs Williams $405,000
06/02/67 vs Terrell $585,000
22/03/67 vs Folley $275,000
Exile: April 1967 - September 1970
26/10/70 vs Quarry $580,000
07/12/70 vs Bonavena $925,000
08/03/71 vs Frazier $2,500,000
26/07/71 vs Ellis $450,000
17/11/71 vs Mathis $300,000
26/12/71 vs Blin $250,000
01/04/72 vs Foster $200,000
01/05/72 vs Chuvalo $200,000
27/06/72 vs Quarry $500,000
19/07/72 vs Lewis $200,000
20/09/72 vs Patterson $250,000
21/11/72 vs Foster $260,000
14/02/73 vs Bugner $285,000
31/03/73 vs Norton $210,000
10/09/73 vs Norton $535,000
20/10/73 vs Lubbers $200,000
28/01/74 vs Frazier $1,715,000
30/10/74 vs Foreman $5,450,000
24/03/75 vs Wepner $1,500,000
16/05/75 vs Lyle $1,000,000
30/06/75 vs Bugner $2,100,000
30/09/75 vs Frazier $6,000,000

The problem with comparing money from boxing and mma is you are using the superstars of the sport.

You take a guy in ufc that's just a contender, nothing special and compare him to a light weight guy that fights on undercards, or friday night fights.

What you'll find is guys is ufc on average do better than average boxers.

The top paid boxers are way above ufc, but it's more like baseball or football being that they belong to a league and the lowest paid guy is better off than the lowest paid boxer. You don't get nearly the same highs and lows as boxing has. Most boxers don't make enough to earn a living. Only the top level and even then lots of them don't hit the million mark.

Originally Posted by luvfightgame

The problem with comparing money from boxing and mma is you are using the superstars of the sport.

You take a guy in ufc that's just a contender, nothing special and compare him to a light weight guy that fights on undercards, or friday night fights.

What you'll find is guys is ufc on average do better than average boxers.

The top paid boxers are way above ufc, but it's more like baseball or football being that they belong to a league and the lowest paid guy is better off than the lowest paid boxer. You don't get nearly the same highs and lows as boxing has. Most boxers don't make enough to earn a living. Only the top level and even then lots of them don't hit the million mark.

Were talking about PPV though. Basically the top guys and the guys you pay to see. Not FNF. The average PPV payroll for boxing is in the millions. For UFC, the average payroll is hardly even a tenth of a boxing PPV payroll. But even the FNF boxers get what a lot of UFC top fighters get. My friend Marcos Ramirez was a constant ESPN2 fighter and he was getting $20,000 to $50,000 on his televised fights. And the average UFC fighter is not like an average MMA fighter. UFC fighters are picked and signed and they are above average MMA fighters. Many of the UFC fighters get that range or less than that and only a few get more. But I do have some friends in MMA and the bottom level MMA fighters do usually get more than the bottom level boxers.

That's kind of sad that St. Pierre got 60k for 1 of his last fights as someone pointed out and this guy is a top star in his sport. Muhammad Ali an unknown green boxer was getting around that kind of pay 56k before his Liston fight, and this was about almost 50 years ago!

Originally Posted by generalbulldog

That's kind of sad that St. Pierre got 60k for 1 of his last fights as someone pointed out and this guy is a top star in his sport. Muhammad Ali an unknown green boxer was getting around that kind of pay 56k before his Liston fight, and this was about almost 50 years ago!

Where is the source for this quote ? I'd be very suprised. Also GSP will have earned 4 times that amount with all the other sponsors, bonus's thrown in. There is no way on this earth that GSP earned 60k for one of his recent fights, no chance.

Originally Posted by Jimmy G-Force

Originally Posted by generalbulldog

That's kind of sad that St. Pierre got 60k for 1 of his last fights as someone pointed out and this guy is a top star in his sport. Muhammad Ali an unknown green boxer was getting around that kind of pay 56k before his Liston fight, and this was about almost 50 years ago!

Where is the source for this quote ? I'd be very suprised. Also GSP will have earned 4 times that amount with all the other sponsors, bonus's thrown in. There is no way on this earth that GSP earned 60k for one of his recent fights, no chance.

Don't ask me, ask blegit he pointed it out that GSP only got 60k in 1 of his last fights. It's the post before the one I made about Ali's fight purses.

Originally Posted by generalbulldog

Originally Posted by Jimmy G-Force

Originally Posted by generalbulldog

That's kind of sad that St. Pierre got 60k for 1 of his last fights as someone pointed out and this guy is a top star in his sport. Muhammad Ali an unknown green boxer was getting around that kind of pay 56k before his Liston fight, and this was about almost 50 years ago!

Where is the source for this quote ? I'd be very suprised. Also GSP will have earned 4 times that amount with all the other sponsors, bonus's thrown in. There is no way on this earth that GSP earned 60k for one of his recent fights, no chance.

Don't ask me, ask blegit he pointed it out that GSP only got 60k in 1 of his last fights. It's the post before the one I made about Ali's fight purses.

Ufc 100 GSP got 400k bit different to 60 k lol plus a 200k win bonus so in total 600k.

UFC 100 fighters salaries: Lesnar and St-Pierre get top paydays in $1.8 million payroll | MMAjunkie.com

Sorry if this is a little blunt, but I'd hazard a guess that UFC isn't "King" of any hill, and this thread should be moved, i'm bored of seeing the thread title up there. UFC, MMA or any other contest of similar ilk won't be taking over boxing anytime soon. I don't think two men spending half the time or even any time grappling each other on the floor appeals to a wide enough audience..... ha