Face-Off: UFC 151 had us Jonesin’ in our Bonesin’

For those of you MMA fans who have been too busy watching the panoramic views provided by the Mars Curiosity rover, UFC 151 didn’t happen.

The main event in that Pay Per View was, arguably, the only appealing match-up to be decided on September 1st. In the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s main event, Light Heavyweight Champion Jon “Bones” Jones was to take on the veteran and sure-to-be Hall of Famer Dan Henderson. But all of that changed last week when it was revealed that Henderson partially ruptured his MCL.

Henderson wanted to keep the fight, so he kept the injury to himself until it was too late, and he hadn’t healed enough to compete. This led to Dana White calling on the controversial Chael Sonnen to step into Henderson’s place in the bout against Jones. Sonnen accepted the fight on 8 days notice, but, when Jones’ camp was told of Sonnen’s availability, they declined the fight.

Seeing no other possible opponents for Jones, Dana White cancelled the entire event. Upon hearing that news and trying to help out the organization and the fighters on the rest of the card that would be losing out on money, Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva offered to fight a light heavyweight bout against anyone other than Jon Jones. White declined citing it wouldn’t be beneficial to Silva or the organization.

So, UFC 151 did not happen. Also, UFC 151 will not happen. The next Pay Per View will be held on September 22, 2012, and it will be called UFC 152.

UFC 151, simply, will never exist.

White blames Jones and his manager, Greg Jackson. Some critics blame White, even going so far as to say there needs to be a fighter’s union. The fans blame both.

The question remains of how damaging this was to UFC’s brand, or, perhaps, Dana White can learn from this debacle, so it never happens again.

Our latest contributor, Cardinal Gary Brooks has taken sides with how detrimental losing UFC 151 is to the company, while I couldn’t help but preach to y’all that said UFC Pay Per Views will have quite the everlasting life.

 

Losing UFC 151 may just be a saving grace

Dana White is a savvy businessman. Well over a decade ago, he and the Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta saw an opportunity to create an empire by purchasing Ultimate Fighting Championship for a song. White has since helped create a cash cow that has continued to grow exponentially even over the last few years of a horrible economy.

White has long claimed that MMA would become the biggest sport on the planet. In order to reach that goal, he’s thought outside the box by creating reality shows, buying out other promotions and “Pro-Wrestle”-izing the way that MMA is broadcasted.

In business, successful men use failure as a motivation to find a new way to succeed.

Akio Morita, the co-founder of Sony, said, “Don’t be afraid to make a mistake. But make sure you don’t make the same mistake twice.”

I don’t know that quote directly from Morita. I looked up that quote after watching an episode of AMC’s “Breaking Bad” [to which our wonderful Brother podcasted about on FOX Sports Radio right here!]. But it fits. And it makes sense. On that show, Walter White is trying to create a crystal meth empire with his premium product. Dana White is trying to do the same with the UFC. Emperor White. I bet they both like the sound of that.

Somewhere Emperor Palpatine looks wrinkly.

UFC 151 was an utter failure. It cannot happen again. What we’ve heard about are the fighters and how they didn’t get their miniscule paychecks. But the real loser monetarily in the whole deal was the UFC. They have to somehow recoup the losses from Pay Per View buys and advertisers. Not only that, but they have to persuade advertisers that something like this won’t happen again.

It won’t.

Here’s how.

Dana White has spent the last five years making sure Zuffa (UFC’s parent company) put their biggest competition out of business by beating their product or buying them out. From Pride to Strikeforce, fighters and backlogs of footage have become Zuffa property. Now’s the time for White to go back and watch the footage to see what worked in those entities and what didn’t.

My idea? Bring back the Grand Prix tournaments they had in Pride. By now, UFC has enough fighters under its umbrella that there should always be two main events. UFC 151 barely had a Bellator card after Jones/Henderson. Something like that should never happen.

Besides the two main events, there should be a Grand Prix, Pride-style, that would put four fighters in a mini-tournament against each other for a right to be the number-one contender in a weight class. Then, that fighter would have a chance to either fight the gatekeeper of that division (say Josh Koscheck on the way to GSP) or, if there’s an injury in the main event, that fighter gets the opportunity to fight for the Championship.

Once the cycle gets going, there’s always a fail safe – A fighter who would be willing to take the fight, no matter what. And a Champion who can’t complain because he knows the terms of the deal in advance.

UFC 151 can never happen again. And, it won’t. Adapt or die. This failure makes success inevitable.

–Brother Joe

The Pay-Per-View That Wasn’t

Ok, so I agree with just about everything that Bro-Joe wrote. Not really what you wanted to hear now, right?

Boo-hoo…

just like “my man” Jones, and his unwillingness to fight Chael on 8 days notice.

Come on, congregation. This would have been all creamy lemon pie sticks compared to the original plan. ‘Least Hendo had a puncher’s chance at beating Jones.

Chael — not so much.

Besides, Mr. Sonnen recently came off a scrap with only arguably the best fighter in the world, Anderson “Spider” Silva. Chael may or may not be 100% but, look, he also would have had no training camp whatsoever to prepare for Jones too, yet he said yes anyway.

That’s what I call warrior spirit or Budo! [Or pure stupidity. – Editor Moody]

You don’t back out of a fight just cause your opponent changes, Jon. You were preparing to fight a wrestler with an amazing clinch game and knockout power in both hands. Yet instead, you were asked to fight another wrestler from basically the same camp — with no knockout power and no real clinch game!

What were you afraid of, Jon? It was going to be an easy fight for you, right?

But, no, your humorless ego got in the way when Chael talked his usual WWE-laced trash and hurt your little behind. You’re are a UFC Champion, man! Suck it up! If you wanna be the face of the UFC, then act like it!

Champions don’t back down.

So, while my Brother and this Cardinal can agree to disagree, I’m all in favor with his Grand Prix idea — easily my favorite thing about PRIDE FC. The tournament simply made for a stacked card of potentially exciting fights.

Now, I know I’m no matchmaker (we’ll leave that to Chuck Woolery and, eck, Roger Lodge) and the job Joe Silva and Dana do matching up the fights each and every event is undeniably a tough one, especially with the abhorrent plague of injuries that has derailed the UFC as of late. But, like many of the more recent PPV’s 151 had “weak” all over it, sans the main event.

Interesting match-ups, sure; but nothing worthy of even co-main event status, which saddens this longtime fight fan and martial artist.

Is UFC getting watered down with simply too many Pay Per Views? Is this FOX deal hurting the quality of the fights that are now put on pay per view? Free fights are free fights, man, but we’ve got: UFC on FOX, UFC on FX, UFC on FUEL, UFC on.. Bravo, UFC on PBS, UFC on Playb..

Oops, okay, got carried away there. But don’t be surprised!

There’s no surprise Dana has done a remarkable job mainstreaming the sport up there with baseball, NASCAR, and football (ESPN has quite the UFC coverage these days, and, hey, I just called UFC a sport), and, of course, FOX will want the best possible fights on free television. But, now, my friends, this popularity contest has come at the expense of destroying PPV’s in between their glitzy free shows.

Let’s bring back the “Pride” tournaments over to UFC; hope Jones gets a the snot kicked out of him from Vitor Belfort — another #1 contender replacement *wipes brow*; and hope these cards start shaping up again, so we don’t have to cancel the entire thing for one freaking injury.

Either way, the debacle that was UFC 151 can’t ever happen again.. for the UFC, for the fighters and especially for the fans!!

–Cardinal Gary