UFC 222: Cyborg vs. Kunitskaya (3/3/2018) - Las Vegas, NV (T-Mobile Arena)

[TheVileOne]

WON is saying about 250-260K PPV buys for the event.  Pretty good all things considered.  Cyborg isn't a huge draw, but she's proving to be a mid-level draw, which is something WME-IMG can certainly use right now with their struggling PPV business. 

[supremebve]

2 minutes ago, TheVileOne said:

WON is saying about 250-260K PPV buys for the event.  Pretty good all things considered.  Cyborg isn't a huge draw, but she's proving to be a mid-level draw, which is something WME-IMG can certainly use right now with their struggling PPV business. 

That's a great number for that card.  A short notice main event, a cancelled title fight, and a bunch of prospect fights isn't usually a recipe for success.  

[TheVileOne]

It seems Cyborg is reliable at this point to at least break through that 250K threshold. Not even Mighty Mouse can do that  

[Elsalvajeloco]

It should be noted that the FS1 prelims drew a good number and peaked during the Dern fight. 

[OSJ]

1 hour ago, TheVileOne said:

It seems Cyborg is reliable at this point to at least break through that 250K threshold. Not even Mighty Mouse can do that  

That's about as good as can be expected when the question isn't "Will X fighter win?" but rather "How quickly will X fighter win?" Poor Cris has the problem of not being that interesting to the casuals as it's a known factor that no one is going to beat her, Nunes is a monster and I don't even see that fight being all that competitive, she's just at such a higher level naturally and now that she's added nuance and skill to her game the only foe that will be able to take her down is age, and she's got a long way to go before worrying about losing a step or two. It's an interesting problem to have, even Fedor never quite got to that level, you always thought his opponents had a chance, even if it wasn't a very good one; with Cris you can barely take the idea of her losing seriously. In any other universe we'd be talking about Amanda Nunes as the baddest woman on the planet, I wouldn't be surprised to see her as a 300-1 underdog against Cris.

[Lawful Metal]

21 minutes ago, OSJ said:

... she's just at such a higher level naturally ...

I don’t know about that.

[Elsalvajeloco]

4 hours ago, OSJ said:

That's about as good as can be expected when the question isn't "Will X fighter win?" but rather "How quickly will X fighter win?" Poor Cris has the problem of not being that interesting to the casuals as it's a known factor that no one is going to beat her, Nunes is a monster and I don't even see that fight being all that competitive, she's just at such a higher level naturally and now that she's added nuance and skill to her game the only foe that will be able to take her down is age, and she's got a long way to go before worrying about losing a step or two. It's an interesting problem to have, even Fedor never quite got to that level, you always thought his opponents had a chance, even if it wasn't a very good one; with Cris you can barely take the idea of her losing seriously. In any other universe we'd be talking about Amanda Nunes as the baddest woman on the planet, I wouldn't be surprised to see her as a 300-1 underdog against Cris.

I don't know if you can say Nunes the best female fighter on the planet without Cris Cyborg. She beat Ronda Rousey coming off a year long layoff, Miesha Tate who seem frightened before she got in the cage, and a fighter who is obviously a better fighter ten pounds down in another weight class. When you look at Amanda's losses, she took a round off Cat Zingano and then proceeded to get snap suplexed into oblivion the next round. 

I think is Amanda is certainly a good fighter, but we have to stay grounded this isn't the best period for the bantamweight division. It's more a regression towards the mean. Pennington is a decent fighter and she was baptized by fire early in career which explains her borderline .500 record, but is Pennington any better than what 135 looked like before Strikeforce was folded into the UFC? If this was 2011 or 2012, Nunes-Pennington would be the co-main or third from the top for a Josh Barnett fight or something on Showtime.

The whole reason Cyborg vs. Nunes is feasible is neither has opponents really, and Cyborg right now is the biggest female star they have. Thus, Nunes not having any viable opponent is a bigger problem than Cyborg being the entire featherweight division. Hell, I would argue if Aldo-Stephens joined that card in Rio, you would have at least three fights (the others being Belfort vs. Machida and Jacare vs. Gastelum) that would be more appetizing to Brazilian fans than Nunes vs. Pennington as a main event. Therefore, you basically have a Mighty Mouse vs. Cariaso situation. It's only the main event in name because the Brazilian fans don't really have a connection with an Amanda Nunes like a Vitor Belfort or even a Jose Aldo or Jacare who are both from Manaus far away from Rio in the North region. 

[OSJ]

6 hours ago, Lawful Metal said:

I don’t know about that.

You're just bound and determined to push this shit, aren't you? I'd really suggest knocking it the fuck off, otherwise I don't see it ending well.