On Combat Sports Marketing: Saturday’s UFC vs. Boxing Showdown Was A Win For All Fans
By Cassandra Cousineau for LVSportsBiz.com
It was the night that a championship boxing bout in Las Vegas and a high-profile UFC fight show in New York collided.
And for combat sports fans, it was a win.
On Saturday night, New York’s Madison Square Garden hosted UFC 244 and the much-anticipated Jorge Masvidal-Nate Diaz showdown, while 2,800 miles away MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas had a super fight, too, as boxing superstar Canelo Alvarez took on Sergey Kovalev.
In the end, a controversial decision directly ordered by Golden Boy Promotion’s founder Oscar De La Hoya, who promoted the boxing match, was a huge win for fans across the board.
The promotions were successful even as frustrated boxing fans waited at home for approximately 90 minutes, resulting in ticket holders inside of MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas taking in UFC 244 for free while their event was delayed.
Some thought it was the moment when the established old guard of boxing blinked. But the fact is boxing fans inside MGM Grand Garden Arena got a free PPV of Masdival vs. Diaz.
UFC President Dana White billed his New York City fight event as the Bad M*** F**** Championship between violent anti-heroes Masvidal and Diaz. Even movie star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was on hand to present a custom-made belt with BMF ominously etched into its face. President Trump also arrived to look on cageside. For two months, the promotion and its fighters embraced all of the drama leading to the big show for the 20,143 fans packed inside Madison Square Garden.
At the same time, the history-making light heavyweight debut of boxing’s biggest star, Alvarez, and a fading Russian champion was taking place at Las Vegas in front 14,490 fans. It’s a boxing title that will certainly be part of the conversation during Canelo’s inevitable Hall of Fame induction ceremony one day.
During the fight’s Las Vegas press events, DAZN had been promoting the card as part of “fight season” for the streaming service.
Except the biggest bout was between MMA and boxing cards on the same night Saturday. For whatever reason, the two cards were scheduled at the same time on the same night and it will be the subject of debate for weeks, months, and even years depending on which promoter is at the podium.
Alvarez (53-1-2, 36 KOs), the reigning middleweight world champion, moved up 15 pounds to take Kovalev’s world title. It was the 29-year-old Canelo’s fourth weight division, putting himself in the conversation as one of the sport’s all-time greats.
UFC’s White gave an animated account of how his MMA event ended up headlining part of Oscar’s boxing show. “So we were sitting there, and MGM called and said that, ‘you guys are halfway through your co-main event right now, people are losing their minds here.’ ‘Can we show the Diaz fight at the MGM?’ ”
White continued, “And I was just like, ‘Holy sh-t! This is crazy! This is getting crazier by the minute!’ I woke up and dreamed all this, that it could happen. It was nuts. And of course, we said yes, and they did and wow.”
White previously warned De La Hoya to hold Canelo’s big fight on a different date. “They’re not showing my main event at their cards because somebody won and lost, it’s a much bigger picture than that,” White underscored.
Indeed, it is a much bigger picture. More than 30,000 fans of combat sports in two cities were given an option to view some of the best athletes on the planet. Complaining about too much food on the buffet is indicative of a sports experience that is healthier than was previously given credit.
The night was full for boxing fans who were oscillating between apps. Las Vegas-based Top Rank Boxing card took place in Carson, California at the Dignity Health Sports Park between World Boxing Council junior lightweight champion Miguel Berchelt vs Jason Sosa. It was streamed on ESPN and ESPN Plus. Unfortunately, one of the most exciting cards of the night was sandwiched between two mega combat sports events in Las Vegas and New York.
White, poised to launch is own Zuffa Boxing on a large scale in the coming months, couldn’t help himself from adding salt to the wounds of his nemesis.
“You guys know how I am, I f—-ing hate Oscar De La Hoya, he’s a scumbag, a snake. I told him not to go on this night. He did what he wanted to do and here we are. I respect Canelo and all the other fighters and guys who participate in the sport of boxing, and we got it worked out yesterday to where fans could see the other fights.”
When the numbers come in from the sports books, Las Vegas-based gaming companies will be counting the fat sums of cash left in the aftermath of the biggest fight weekend of the year.
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