But you can't argue that he's already a massive star in the sport, and is more of a household name than Silva or GSP or Hughes or BJ ever were or ever will be.
NO. Please stop.
I hope you are trolling me.
I coudn't care less if Conor sells 100 zillion PPV buys. He's yet to be time tested like those fighters you mentioned.
Just for the sake of discussion, if he dies tomorrow, will Conor be considered a legend or future hall of famer?
Kim kardashian is not more of a household name than Charlie Chaplin, Audrey Hepburn or Elizabeth Taylor even if this generation doesn't know who they are. It doesn't matter how many idiots watch her stupid show or buy her shitty products.
5, 10 years after she dies, no one would give two ****s about her.
NO. Please stop.
I hope you are trolling me.
I coudn't care less if Conor sells 100 zillion PPV buys. He's yet to be time tested like those fighters you mentioned.
Just for the sake of discussion, if he dies tomorrow, will Conor be considered a legend or future hall of famer?
I think what lol_donkaments is getting at is Conor may be more popular today but won't stand the test of time when compared to the greats of the sport. He won't be talked about as highly as fighters like G.S.P. or Anderson. By the average Joe or by anyone in the fight business once all is said and done. Which I would agree with.
Yes I know what he's saying - but what I'm saying, and everyone seems to be ignoring, as that there's simply no way to say whether or not Conor will reach that same level in the future.
People are saying this one loss is "proof" that he'll never be an all-time great, and that he was fast-tracked into a title shot without any justification. I'm saying that GSP, Silva and Penn were all as guilty, if not more so, of the exact same things at the same stages in their careers and they went on to be legends despite that.
As for attendance and gate figures...
First of all you're comparing two very different shows - GSP-Shields was in a 55,000 seat stadium, while McGregor-Diaz was in a 16,000 seat one.
And if you want to say that Diaz and Holm had a big impact on the past weekend's sales, then you've gotta also concede that Randy Coutoure, Lyoto Machida and the same Nate Diaz (I'm not even mentioning the Aldo title fight on that card because we all know he's not actually a draw) helped GSP sell all those seats. As did the novelty of the UFC's first proper stadium show in a country that doesn't get many events (compared to Vegas, which has them every other week).
So let's look a bit broader, here's the four most recent events for each (all stats from Wikipedia):
UFC129 GSP-Shields: 55,724 attendance, $12m gate, 800k PPV buys
UFC154 GSP-Condit: 17,249 attendance, $3.14m gate, 700k PPV buys
UFC158 GSP-Diaz: 16,523 attendance, $3.63m gate, 950k PPV buys
UFC167 GSP-Hendricks: 14,856 attendance, $5.76m gate, 630k PPV buys
For the lulz too let's note that GSP got to fight all but one (UFC167) of those events in his native Canada. McGregor, of course, has to import his home-town crowd from the other side of the world. That's more impressive to my mind, but mileage may vary. Anywho, here's McGregor's numbers:
UFCFN McGregor-Siver: 13,828 attendance, $1.3m gate, not on PPV, 2.75m viewers, easily the best FS1 card ever
UFC189 McGregor-Mendes: 16,019 attendance, $7.2m gate, 825k PPV buys
UFC194 McGregor-Aldo: 16,516 attendance, $10.1m gate, 1.2m PPV buys
UFC196 McGregor-Diaz: 14,898 attendance, $8.1m gate, no PPV data yet.
FWIW the FS1 prelims for UFC196 did 1.9m viewers, a prelim record, and that bodes well for the PPV sales.
Anywho, in similar-sized venues McGregor's gates are almost double GSP's. There's not a lot of PPV data to go on but what there is backs up everything the UFC has been saying about McGregor's popularity. And we're looking at in-his-prime, certified legend GSP (with a home-field advantage in 3/4 cards). GSP also fought less often, with less risk of fatiguing the market (McGregor just fought in Vegas for the third time in eight months).
Sorry to say it but the numbers bear out that Dana isn't blowing smoke up your ass. McGregor headlining a show really does move the needle. We'll see if he continues to I guess.
It's hard to say what Nate Diaz does BTW: in his past 10 fights he's only been in the headlining match four times, and of those UFC196 with McGregor was the only one that was on PPV. His best gate of those headline spots, outside last weekend, was v Henderson for the lightweight belt: 14,387 attendance, $1.5m gate. Some others were just sad: 4,853 attendance and a $300k gate for his most recent fight with Grey Maynard, for example.
I agree that GSP added to UFC 100 but it was the Brock Lesner show. Brock is one of the very few fighter who was bigger than Conner imo. He's also not an all time great. Just hugely popular due to his time in the WWE.
"People have been telling me 'what are you going to do when Chuck Liddell retires?' then 'what are you going to do when GSP is gone?' There is always new great fighters coming down the pipeline," White told ESPN's Max & Marcellus. "In this sport, we put the best against the best, or sometimes we do crazy stuff like on Saturday night, where Conor McGregor says 'I want to fight Nate Diaz. I'll fight him at 170 [pounds].'
"These are things that capture people's imaginations. That is why the thing does 1.5 million PPV buys. That is because it captures the imaginations of fight fans."
To say casuals didn't want to watch Holly ( the girl who just beat up the one and only Woman UFC champion - this PPV did 1.1 million buys ) is a little silly ( no offence ). These are the type of fights casuals tune into see.
Now that Holly lost ... casuals most likely lost interest in her and chalked her win on Rousey as a fluke. They will line up again to watch ( what they think ) is going to be Ronda getting her revenge.
Nate boosted sales as well. His following isn't near Conors but it is big enough to boost sales in a fight vs Conor. Due to both fighters attitudes and persona.
Sorry but there's just no proof of anything you're saying there. Nate's numbers as a headliner don't back it up. And there's simply no data on Holm to prove she's a major draw either. Her and Rousey headlined a 1.1m buy event, but Rousey also got 900k buys with Bethe guddam Correia as her opponent, in a fight that was poorly timed for US audiences... so let's not go pretending anyone other than Rousey was doing the promotional heavy lifting in either case. I'd give credit to Jedrzejczyk for contributing to those sales before Holm.
And numbers aside, saying that casuals want to watch a Holm fight is saying that casuals want to watch a technical outfighter who's polite to a fault, doesn't do much of anything to promote her fights and is very likely to go to a "boring" decision. The Demetrious Johnsons of the world will tell you that's exactly what casual followers of the sport don't want to see.
Anywho, onto different news: both Kimbo AND Shamrock failed their drug tests from Bellator 149!
http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2016/3/1...-drug-screens-steroids-dada-5000-royce-gracie
But because LOL Texas commission they'll probably only be suspended a maximum of 90 days or something.
Can't get the twitter image to show but there are reports of Conor turning down a rematch with Diaz.
https://twitter.com/FrontRowBrian/status/708814664444960768?ref_src=twsrc^tfw
Article:
http://www.lowkickmma.com/UFC/conor...utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=sumome_share
Makes sense. Conor should stick to fighting at 145. 155 is too much for him to handle unless he makes improvement in his camp.
Can't get the twitter image to show but there are reports of Conor turning down a rematch with Diaz.
Makes sense. Conor should stick to fighting at 145. 155 is too much for him to handle unless he makes improvement in his camp.
The reports are only saying that he doesn't want to fight Diaz at UFC200 - he's since come out and said that he's very much open to a Diaz rematch at some other point, and that he feels he won the first round and a half of that fight: http://www.mmafighting.com/2016/3/1...iaz-miesha-tate-holl-holm-dana-white-mma-news
FWIW (and I'm gonna get hate for this, I know), Diaz isn't a big enough fight for him to main event UFC200 with anyway. That fight kinda has to be for a belt, either his or RDA's. And even if he did take a Diaz rematch next up there would still be people complaining that he was dodging Frankie, or Aldo.