UFC PPV Shocker – MMA Breaking News
By Barnaby Kellaway
MMA, along with boxing, is unique in the sense that just being a world champion is not enough to be a superstar. To be a massive name in these sports you must also be a personality.
There are very few cases where a fighter draws widespread attention based purely on their fighting ability, there aren’t many Anderson Silva’s or Fedor Emilianenko’s around. In a majority of cases they must be able to talk the talk as well as walk the walk. Had Tito Ortiz not opened his mouth at any given opportunity he wouldn’t be the historic figure he is today, nor would he have made so much money. Good or bad, showmanship is a huge part of the game.
UFC flyweight champion, Demetrious Johnson, knows this all too well. Despite being the number three ranked pound for pound fighter in the world, he is the UFC champion with the least pay per view (PPV) pulling power. His poor numbers can be in no way attributed to his skill in the cage, which is undeniable, but instead to his lack of showmanship in front of the cameras.
When you also consider that to start with the lower weight classes get less attention than the higher ones, then DJ has an even greater problem. At 5’3 and 125lbs he is the smallest male UFC champion.
To substantiate Johnson’s poor pulling power we must look at the numbers. Last years UFC 174, his first headline PPV, was the companies worst selling in a decade with 115,000 buys. His next, UFC 178, hardly did better with 205,000 and this was largely thanks to a packed main card featuring Conor McGregor, Donald Cerrone and Yoel Romero. At that event there were also numerous reports of streams of people leaving before the main event had even begun. Bluntly his promotion to PPV headliner has been a catastrophic failure.
Things don’t look to get much better for DJ this weekend either with many predicting UFC 186 to get under 100,000 buys, a pitiful return. This can’t all be blamed on the flyweight champ, the card suffered two gigantic setbacks with the TJ Dilashaw injury and the Hector Lombard suspension. These unfortunate circumstances have left a lot weighing on Johnson’s not so broad shoulders. Judging by recent comments, he himself feels somewhat aggrieved by the situation, ‘Of all the sports, this is the only sport scrutinised where it falls on the athlete’…’Why does it always fall on the athlete for not selling the product?’ Unfortunately for him this will never change, in the fight game it will always fall on the athlete.
But it seems like ‘Mighty Mouse’ may be taking note, this fight week we have seen a slight change of approach. To the appreciation of the fans and media the champ has been more outspoken than ever before.
He appeared on America’s Pregame and was posed the question bouncing around all of martial arts, ‘Would you beat Floyd Mayweather?’ Johnson returned with an uncharacteristic, brash response, ‘Being the fastest man in martial arts, give me 15 seconds’…’I’ll be able to take out that knee of his’. On the same show he also took a swipe at Ronda Rousey, on the topic of who is the more dominant he claimed, ‘I think you have to see a champion go through hardship to see if they have that championship caliber’…’I’m going to say it’s me, dammit’. In the past you’d expect a mundane, PR friendly response from Johnson to this type of questioning, not this week.
Unfortunately the majority of MMA fans won’t give DJ the respect he deserves until he manages to get himself on their radar, so it’s good to see him take a step in the right direction. In his pre-fight interview with Ariel Helwani on Thursday he attested to his fresh attitude, ‘I’m slowly starting to let my personality come out’. A few minutes later he produced a wonderful soundbite which hit most MMA media sites, ‘If you don’t wanna watch me that’s your fucking bad, go watch a soap opera or WWE’. In talking about why he doesn’t make headlines he managed to grab some of the biggest of the week.
Whilst he is a long way away from mastering the dark art of self promotion, ‘Mighty Mouse’ is at least taking a step in the right direction. And we like it.
