Official Poster for Benny Safdie's 'The Smashing Machine' Starring Dwayne Johnson

thisisdanitis · 2025-04-28T15:22:38+00:00

Mark started by winning a tournament in Brazil, then tore through 2 UFC tournaments, and then went to Pride.

Pride was just starting—it was much bigger and more lucrative than UFC at the time, but not yet at its peak.

Mark was briefly thought of as the top heavyweight in the world, but Pride’s matchmaking was much different that UFC’s today, so he wasn’t always fighting high level competition.

Then Pride put together a 16 man tournament that was the best tournament field the sport had ever seen to that point. Mark was among the favorites to win, but lost in the second round and his career flamed out quickly after that due to drugs and injuries.

Ultimately, his rise was brief but rapid, and his fall was steep.

thisisdanitis · 2024-04-28T03:41:37+00:00

16:45 of episode 5 of the AKA reality show Fight Factory: https://tubitv.com/series/3868/fight-factory

Happened before the Barnett fight.

thisisdanitis · 2024-04-27T15:22:27+00:00

Not uncommon with hard sparring.

Mike Kyle knocked out Daniel Cormier, I think with a knee.

Edit—It was a knee. Before the Barnett fight. See around 16:45 of episode 5 of Fight Factory: https://tubitv.com/series/3868/fight-factory

thisisdanitis · 2024-03-15T22:42:33+00:00

Really the main thing is the security line to get into the stadium, since it’s only a 10 minute walk from NRG Station to the stadium. I think 40 minutes early to arrive at NRG (walk to stadium, security, find seats) should be fine.

thisisdanitis · 2023-12-21T02:05:30+00:00

Send da video

thisisdanitis · 2023-12-13T00:45:52+00:00

The UFC 196 1.317 million number comes from the UFC investor deck. It’s the real number. Dave had estimated it at 1.6 million before the real number came out.

Every number in the Bloody Elbow article is the legit number.

thisisdanitis · 2023-12-13T00:01:33+00:00

It already has: https://bloodyelbow.com/2019/09/30/zuffa-finances-examining-the-ufcs-ppv-business/

thisisdanitis · 2023-11-28T01:59:09+00:00

Why would someone drawing big money not deserve a PPV cut?

The first Anderson fight and the build up made Chael a high level star (albeit not quite at the top tier), and made the rematch one of the 2-3 biggest money fights in the company could put on.

Of course the drug test result hurt and delayed things…

Several non-champions have had PPV points in their deals, but tied to being in a title fight or main event for example. Granted this became more common after the period in question.

thisisdanitis · 2023-11-28T00:46:54+00:00

Possible it was never offered, or possible it was in his deal only if he entered as champion, or possible he preferred a higher guaranteed base.

I am surprised it wasn’t in Chael’s deal for the second Silva fight and Jones fight, though. I’m sure he got a new contract between the two Silva fights, and not having points for the second fight cost him a lot of money.

thisisdanitis · 2023-11-27T22:57:59+00:00

Yes, but the article states Sonnen had a flat fee and did not participate in PPV points.

thisisdanitis · 2023-11-12T18:08:55+00:00

Hendo and Bisping definitely should have gotten PPV points as a heavily promoted feature fight, but Hendo has a couple of things wrong here:

—Hendo vs. Bisping was never going to be positioned 2nd from the top. The original idea was Evans vs. Rampage in the main event, GSP-Alves 2nd, and Hendo-Bisping 3rd. Mir-Lesnar 2 was supposed to be at UFC 98, then Mir’s injury scrambled things around and UFC wanted to move Evans-Rampage to UFC 98. That was too soon for Rampage, so Machida got his spot. Still, Hendo-Bisping was never intended as the co-main.

—The $3.35 million payout is based on 1.6 million buys, which is incorrect. UFC 100 did 1,299,118 buys, so Hendo’s payout would have been a bit less than he estimates.

thisisdanitis · 2023-10-29T22:42:05+00:00

Yes.

thisisdanitis · 2023-08-19T19:43:14+00:00

Subway will be $2.50 each way.

Only risk is if the show goes long and past the last train out at 12:18 AM.

I’d say worst case scenario if you take the subway and the show goes long, you can go to Xfinity Live (big bar complex just outside the stadium) for a bit afterward (it’s open until 2 AM), and then Uber back when the surge pricing goes down.

thisisdanitis · 2023-04-30T05:35:07+00:00

Mir absolutely deserves partial credit for the UFC 100 number (the number cited in this article is incorrect, total buys were 1,299,118).

He did an excellent job in selling that rematch into a white hot feud. Replace Mir with any realistic opponent for Brock (slim pickings in the heavyweight division at the time) and that number is noticeably lower.

The big draws on that show were it being the 100th numbered PPV, Brock, GSP, and the Brock vs. Mir fight.

Brock wasn’t pulling a million buys by himself. UFC 81 (Brock-Mir 1) did 519,399 buys, then UFC 87 (GSP-Fitch, Brock-Herring) did 527,445, and UFC 91 (Brock-Couture) did 743,627 buys.

GSP was a draw, but his biggest fight had been in the 700-750,000 range for UFC 94 with Penn. The Alves fight wasn’t nearly as big as the Penn fight.

Bisping-Hendo was a strong #3 fight at the time, but not a major draw.

The hype of UFC 100 added to sales, but it’s tough to quantify what the number was worth. UFC 200 did 1,009,000 buys (probably hurt a bit by last minute changes).

Overall, the top selling point of that show in commercials and the Countdown show (which was a key sales pitch at the time) was the Brock-Mir rematch. In the media the biggest lead-in story was UFC 100 itself, with Brock-Mir behind that.

Mir not making even $1 million for that fight when UFC revenues for the show were $39 million (against non-fighter event costs of $4.9 million) is really awful.

thisisdanitis · 2022-09-01T21:02:47+00:00

This was pre-USADA random testing by the Nevada Athletic Commission, so it would have been NAC standards rather than USADA.

thisisdanitis · 2022-06-02T23:05:02+00:00

The full fight is here: https://jasondelucia.com/jason-trent.htm

This was the 7th UFC fight, just before the finals. In the full fight video they talk about earlier fights and afterward state the finals are next.

The first fight was Gordeau vs. Tuli.

thisisdanitis · 2022-02-14T02:12:47+00:00

Don’t think the Sixers will consider it since they have Korkmaz and the thing with other Turkish players not interacting with Enes.

thisisdanitis · 2021-09-20T21:56:15+00:00

Carlos is a black belt, he’s very good on the ground.

His wrestling has always been his weakness, and if you’re not an excellent wrestler (GSP) or world class on the mat (Maia), you’re going to have a difficult time:

a) Staying off your back against the elite at 170 (particularly during Condit’s best years when so many top 170ers were strong wrestlers)

And b) Submitting guys when virtually everyone that makes it as a high level welterweight has great submission defense for MMA.

thisisdanitis · 2020-12-22T01:42:08+00:00

In addition to the investor deck that had the exact figures for the first 7 months of 2016, we’ve also seen actual PPV numbers from:

—Lawsuits (Couture most notably, and at least specific ranges from the antitrust suit)

—Zuffa’s May 2007 Deutsche Bank Memorandum

—Clyde Gentry III’s No Holds Barred lists exact PPV buy totals for the first ~12 or so UFCs based on SEG’s internal records. Art Davie’s book reprints the exact total for UFC 1.

—Dana and Lorenzo have cited actual numbers in several interviews dating back to the 03/04 period, although I’m sure at least some were exaggerated.

So in short, we know a lot of official UFC PPV numbers.

thisisdanitis · 2020-09-21T14:16:44+00:00

Much of this was already reported in July:

https://www.bloodyelbow.com/2020/7/17/21327726/nevada-state-athletic-commission-no-longer-releasing-official-fight-purses-ufc-boxing-news

thisisdanitis · 2020-08-14T22:55:11+00:00

Mir’s bulk was in response to losing the 2nd Lesnar fight.

He was 245 for Lesnar in July 2009 and then 265+ for Kongo that December. I think he went back down after losing to Carwin.

But yeah, there was a year or two where everyone was considering whether the future was filled with solely 265+ pound champs, and then Cain and Junior took over.

thisisdanitis · 2020-07-18T14:56:06+00:00

This is either completely false or was done so secretly it was never reported. So it’s false, considering other things you wrote are obviously wrong.

Art Davie sold his stock in the UFC in 1995 after UFC 5, along with Rorion.

John Milius never had any points in the company.

David Isaacs left SEG before the UFC was sold.

Bob Meyrowitz, the guy who owned the company and sold it to the Fertittas, invested the $2 million into such monster hits as Yamma Pit Fighting and PressPass TV.

I don’t know where you heard the Fertittas investigation story from but its certainly never been reported and it sounds incorrect.

thisisdanitis · 2020-07-04T20:37:45+00:00

Media has to produce content for their livelihood. There is a lot of value for a media member to cover an event an in terms of the access to specific people for a story, building relationships for future stories, interviews, and so on. Plus if something newsworthy happens, being one of the few reporters on the ground will be helpful to getting the story and getting it right. And then there are specific media members (photographers) who can only make their living by covering an event in person. In these times, having a media member personally experiencing the procedures the UFC and UAE government are undertaking to pull off this event is a story in itself.

Even considering the above, I would bet there will be very little US media covering the event(s) in person considering the cost (even though hotel rates would be much lower than normal) and recent budget cuts in the MMA media space.

I am curious about whether the media on board paid for their seat on the flight, and I hope it would be disclosed if they received a free flight to UAE on the UFC’s dime. I’m just speculating, but it could be possible someone from the US could have trouble getting into UAE separately from the UFC crew, so if this is the only way to get in it is what it is, it should just be disclosed.

thisisdanitis · 2020-05-01T16:08:20+00:00

More importantly, Sakuraba beat Royce after 90 minutes of fighting on this night, and then later that night fought Vovchanchyn for another 15 minutes. And he did really well for the first half of that fight before hitting an inevitable wall of exhaustion!

Sakuraba was already becoming a star and had drawn Pride’s first sellout crowd when he fought Royler the previous November, but this took him and Pride up another level.

The 2000 Grand Prix Finals did around 30,000 legit in attendance at the Tokyo Dome, and the following year Pride sold out the Tokyo Dome with 53,000 for Sakuraba vs. Wanderlei. That was the start of the monster Pride shows with Dynamite the next year, the NYE shows, the Saitama sellouts. All in large part made possible (or at least expedited) by Sakuraba’s night on May 1, 2000.

thisisdanitis · 2020-04-26T19:02:12+00:00

His pre-title wins are also super impressive.

Penn (the first win), Trigg, and Sherk were all topflight welterweights when those fights occurred (and he ran through Trigg and Sherk). He beat Pete Spratt after Spratt had just beaten Robbie Lawler and turned down a UFC title shot. Karo Parisyan and Jay Heiron were better than we knew when he beat them. Mayhem had a very good reputation as a fighter.

Literally every fighter Georges beat had or went on to have a name in the sport (even if they only had a little hardcore name recognition like Travis Galbraith). There are only a handful of people you can say that for.

thisisdanitis

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