{"id":52333,"date":"2015-04-25T15:41:11","date_gmt":"2015-04-25T20:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=52333"},"modified":"2015-04-25T15:41:11","modified_gmt":"2015-04-25T20:41:11","slug":"ufc-ppv-shocker-mma-breaking-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=52333","title":{"rendered":"UFC PPV Shocker – MMA Breaking News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MMA<\/a>By Barnaby Kellaway<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

There are very few cases where a fighter draws widespread attention based purely on their fighting ability, there aren\u2019t many Anderson Silva\u2019s or Fedor Emilianenko\u2019s 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\u2019t 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.
\n<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u20193 and 125lbs he is the smallest male UFC champion.<\/p>\n

To substantiate Johnson\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Things don\u2019t 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\u2019t 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\u2019s not so broad shoulders. Judging by recent comments, he himself feels somewhat aggrieved by the situation, \u2018Of all the sports, this is the only sport scrutinised where it falls on the athlete\u2019\u2026\u2019Why does it always fall on the athlete for not selling the product?\u2019 Unfortunately for him this will never change, in the fight game it will always fall on the athlete.<\/p>\n

But it seems like \u2018Mighty Mouse\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

He appeared on America\u2019s Pregame and was posed the question bouncing around all of martial arts, \u2018Would you beat Floyd Mayweather?\u2019 Johnson returned with an uncharacteristic, brash response, \u2018Being the fastest man in martial arts, give me 15 seconds\u2019\u2026\u2019I\u2019ll be able to take out that knee of his\u2019. On the same show he also took a swipe at Ronda Rousey, on the topic of who is the more dominant he claimed, \u2018I think you have to see a champion go through hardship to see if they have that championship caliber\u2019\u2026\u2019I\u2019m going to say it\u2019s me, dammit\u2019. In the past you\u2019d expect a mundane, PR friendly response from Johnson to this type of questioning, not this week.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately the majority of MMA fans won\u2019t give DJ the respect he deserves until he manages to get himself on their radar, so it\u2019s 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, \u2018I\u2019m slowly starting to let my personality come out\u2019. A few minutes later he produced a wonderful soundbite which hit most MMA media sites, \u2018If you don\u2019t wanna watch me that\u2019s your fucking bad, go watch a soap opera or WWE\u2019. In talking about why he doesn\u2019t make headlines he managed to grab some of the biggest of the week.<\/p>\n

Whilst he is a long way away from mastering the dark art of self promotion, \u2018Mighty Mouse\u2019 is at least taking a step in the right direction. And we like it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10374],"tags":[12679],"class_list":["post-52333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mma-2","tag-ufc-ppv-shocker-mma-breaking-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52333"}],"version-history":[{"count":-4,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}