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November - 2014
SCRAPP! FIGHT MAGAZINE
24
Just 26 days before the Ulti-
mate Fighting Championship’s
long anticipated debut in Mex-
ico, main event headliner and
UFC heavyweight champion
Cain Velasquez had to with-
draw from his scheduled bout
against Fabricio Werdum after
sustaining a partially torn me-
niscus.
His departure from the UFC
180 card is particularly deflat-
ing when one takes Velas-
quez’s Mexican heritage into
account. As a bridge between
the Hispanic community and a
UFC product that was entering
virgin territory in Latin Amer-
ica, Velasquez was a crucial
component of the promotion’s
intent to make the biggest im-
pact possible.
Ironically, as crushing as the
news was to the MMA commu-
nity, particularly those who will
be in attendance on November
15, the episode also breathes
new life into the debate re-
garding promotion strategy in
MMA.
This argument concerns which
entity should be the primary
focus of advertising, market-
ing and public relations efforts
within the MMA industry. The
promotion or its talent? The
company or its fighters? The
business or its faces?
Each approach has its merits. In
the case of prioritizing talent,
one might argue the idea of
emotionally investing in anoth-
er human being is the lynchpin
of any successful story. The
ability to relate to a central
character on some level gives
us, as viewers, greater motiva-
tion to engage ourselves with
content, which translates into
financial investment and com-
mercial success.
Back in the mid 2000s, this
outlook was characterized by
another leading MMA promo-
tion, Pride Fighting Champion-
ship.
Pride FC would organize events
that profiled the fighters first
and foremost, marketing the
likes of Wanderlei Silva, Fedor
Emelianenko and Mirko Cro
Cop over the company itself.
In an allusion to this strategy,
some shows would open with
talent being brought out onto
the stage and profiled ahead
of their fights. It was through
building these fighters into
headliners that the brand de-
veloped intrigue around its
events. People attended on the
merit of headlining bouts, not
necessarily the promotion be-
hind it.
WHY UFC 180
REINFORCES THE STATUS QUO
Article By: Aidan O’Connor
(Esther Lin/MMA Fighting)