MMA Universe

Thomas Gerbasi, UFC - He's won everything there is to win as a UFC lightweight champion, he's erased every question mark when it comes to his desire and conditioning, and has silenced all the doubters who wondered if he would ever fulfill his potential. So what does BJ Penn, still just 31 years old, do now?

Jesse Holland of MMAMania.com does a good job of breaking down the latest series of UFC figurines to come out of JAKKS Pacific (courtesy of the UFC Toys Facebook page). Information is also available on the Jakks website.

Payout Perspective:

Here’s where the UFC license sharing deal between JAKKS and Round 5 MMA comes into play. Many of the new figurines that debut as part of this new series with JAKKS were fighters originally held by Round 5. The deal has opened up a greater array of options to both companies, including promotional tie-in with the much larger and more recognizable UFC brand.

It’s a good example of co-operation within the industry growing the entire pie of market demand.

Note: the use of social media by the UFC; these guys have  a Facebook page and Twitter account for nearly everything it seems. Traffic on social networking sites is out-pacing even the most highly visited of traditional sites — it’s a smart move.

Las Vegas, NV (USA) - The light-heavyweight title will be on the line on when the Ultimate Fighting Championship® returns to the Bell Centre in Montreal. At UFC® 104 last October, light heavyweight champion Lyoto "The Dragon" Machida and challenger Mauricio "Shogun" Rua engaged in a back-and-forth five round battle resulting in the champion retaining his belt via a razor-thin unanimous decision. On Saturday, May 8, these two warriors will square off once again with the championship on the line for UFC 113: Machida vs. Shogun 2, live from the Bell Centre.

Elias Cepeda, UFC - Every once in awhile you hear stories of pro fighters who, even as kids, loved to mix it up. John Gunderson, though a born scrapper, wasn't one of those kids. Yeah, he was always in a fight, but the way it felt to him was that he needed to be just to survive.

Flash entertainment today announced that following production configuration changes to UFC 112, additional seats for the event will be made available to the public from April 5th at www.boxofficeme.com.

The ever-growing trend of decorated collegiate and amateur wrestlers transitioning to mixed martial arts has surfaced yet again.

Sherdog brings word that 2004 freestyle wrestling Olympic silver medalist Stephen Abas has signed a two-fight contract with Tachi Palace Fights where he will compete at 135 lbs.

32 year-old Abas wrestled for Fresno State University where he earned All-American status all four years, and won the Division I National Championship three straight years at 125 lbs. He finished his collegiate career with a 144-4 record while going undefeated in his last two years.

Not a bad resume. And the standout wrestler isn't jumping into this sport unprepared.

After failing to make the 2008 Olympic squad, Abas retired from competitive wrestling and took to mixed martial arts. Since discovering the sport, Stephen has served as a wrestling coach at "The Arena Gym" in San Diego, California where MMA standouts Diego Sanchez, Cristiane Santos, K.J. Noons, and Rani Yahya call home.

Abas will make his debut with the California-based MMA promotion on May 5.

The Staff at MMAJunkie are reporting that Strikeforce Challengers 7 drew 4,963 to the Save Mart Center in Fresno, California last Friday, which was good for a live gate of $109,222.

“Strikeforce Challengers VII: Johnson vs. Mahe” was the second 2010 edition of the organization’s prospects-based events series.

The attendance figures mark a sharp increase for the previous edition of Strikeforce Challengers, held Feb. 26 in San Jose, Calif. That show drew 2,318 attendees for a live gate of $86,440.

The figures for “Johnson vs. Mahe” represent an increase of an astounding 114 percent in attendance, as well as a 26 percent increase in gate revenue from “Strikeforce Challengers VI: Kaufman vs. Hashi.”

MMAJunkie also reported the event garned a very solid 1.0 rating with an average audience of 316,000 viewers – a 111% increase over the previous Challenger show. However, it should be noted that the event likely benefited greatly from Showtime’s free trial weekend where the premium channel was available to all digital cable and satellite subscribers.

The Staff at MMAWeekly acquired the fighter paydays from the California State Athletic Commission that totaled $73,000.

-Lavar Johnson $16,000 (includes $8,000 win bonus) def. Lolohea Mahe $3,000
-Ron “Abongo” Humphrey $7,000 (includes $3,500 win bonus) def. George Bush III $5,000
-Andre Galvao $10,000 def. Luke Stewart $5,000
-Miesha Tate: $5,000 (includes $2,000 win bonus) def. Zoila Frausto: $3,000
-Justin Wilcox: $12,000 (includes $6,000 win bonus) def. Shamar Bailey: $4,000
-Daniel Cormier: $500 def. John Devine: $2,500

STRIKEFORCE CHALLENGERS 7 DISCLOSED FIGHTER PAYROLL: $73,000

Payout Perspective:

The Strikeforce Challengers 7 event held in the Save Mart Center in Fresno, California turned out to be a successful event for Strikeforce.  Coming into the event, I was unusually noticing a healthy amount of traffic for the event, which is rare for a Challenger events.  There were 4 factors that played a huge role in the building the hype for this event:

1. Lavar Johnson’s Story Line – Coming back after being wounded from a gun shot was definitely a story getting a fairly good amount of press.  The Fresno crowd was definitely behind Johnson in his comeback fight after almost losing his life.
2. Miesha Tate vs Zoila Frausto Storyline – There was a legitimate storyline between these two fighters even before the bout was booked.  Zoila wanted to fight Miesha and said some words, which then were addressed by Miesha.  This back and forth spilled over to the internet, interviews, and chat rooms.  Not only the storyline, but MMA fans have taken a liking to Tate, and may be the 3rd most marketable fighter Strikeforce has after Gina Carano and Cyborg Santos.
3. Solid Matchmaking – Strikeforce booked Johnson, Tate, Galvao, Stewart, Cormier , Humphrey, Wilcox, and Bailey.  All are considered young prospects in MMA and were all matched up in competitive matches coming into the event.  A good number of fans considered this one of the better Strikeforce Challenger events.
4. Showtime Advertising  Free Preview Weekend – Showtime and Strikeforce did a great job at letting MMA fans know that this weekend everyone would get the chance to watch the Strikeforce Challengers event along with the Super 6 Boxing tournament bout between Dirrell and Abraham event for free.  The free Showtime weekend exposed a good amount of combat sport fans to tune in on Friday, which was almost treated as the appetizer to a great combat sports weekend.  Through the free weekend promotion, Showtime’s reach jumped from around 12-18 million homes to 54 million.

Numbers in Perspective:

Now, there is no denying the fact that the 316,000 viewers had a lot to do with the free weekend preview, but lets take a closer look.  The Challengers 6 event, which was headlined by Kaufman vs Hashi for the 135 lbs Women’s Strikeforce belt, and which did not benefit from a free-preview weekend garnered 150K viewers, peaking at 189K.  These numbers were substantially higher than the usual numbers Challenger events get, which are estimated to be around 100K viewers. For the sake of contrast, lets take a look at other Strikeforce ratings:

• Strikeforce Challengers 7 – 316K viewers
• Strikeforce: Lawler vs Shields – 275K viewers
• Strikeforce: Le vs Smith – 341K viewers

Here are the ratings for the weekend, which pinned the UFC, HBO Boxing, and Showtime Boxing head to head:

• UFC 111 Prelim’s on Spike – 1.2 Million viewers
• Showtime Boxing (Dirrell vs Abraham) – 736K viewers
• HBO Boxing (Maidana vs Cayo) – 650K Viewers

After comparing these numbers, its obvious to see that Showtime benefited greatly due to the free-preview by getting good ratings for the Strikeforce Challengers show on Friday and the Super Six boxing bout on Saturday, beating out HBO boxing .  One thing we will keep our eyes on is the Strikeforce viewership numbers, which appear to be rising ever since the Novemver 7th Strikeforce: Fedor vs Rogers CBS event.  In their latest big Showtime event, Strikeforce Miami (Diaz, Walker, Lashley) garnered 517K viewers, which just finished behind Kimbo vs Tank (522K viewers) and the MMA ratings leader event at Showtime, Gina Carano vs Cyborg Santos (576K viewers).