What a week for the UFC.
This has been a big week for Zuffa for both good and bad reasons.Zuffa held there annual fighters summit in Las Vegas where all Zuffa and its subsidiary contracted fighters showed up for orientation on all things from Social Media to insurance. Than came the big reveal that Zuffa had signed a deal to give all 350 of its contracted fighters accident insurance to help keep them health while training. In a bit of irony both Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard had pulled out of there rubber match set for UFC 130. Than yesterday came the even bigger news as former UFC Heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar was forced to pull out of his UFC 131 bout against Junior Dos Santos due to his diverticulitis acting up again.What a week. It's not all bad the fact that Zuffa has acquired insurance for all of its contracted fighters across both UFC and Strikeforce. This is a great thing for the fighters and a huge coup for Zuffa. It further helps them look like the industry leader,which they are as well as keep fighters happy. Happy workers wouldn't want to unionize against you. During the fighter summit Zuffa got most of there fighters to tweet about it using the hashtag #ufcsummit. This was great since many twitpics were shared and you actually got a idea of just what went on down there. This also lead into the new Zuffa media strategy of paying there fighters to tweet. Thats right the complete opposite of MLB and NFL they want there fighters to tweet and interact in with the fans. The fighters also get bounuses for reaching certain goals. Now this has in someways exposed the fact that some fighters aren't as twitter savy as others but this push is a good for fans since it builds that relationship with fighters and gets them to help buy what people are selling. Than came all the pull outs. Michael David Smith of mmafighting.com on twitter wondered how many PPV buys Zuffa has lost with the loss of Edgar Maynard,Jon Jones and now Brock Lesnar. He guesses a million that seems a bit low if you are throwing in Lesnar.
The loss of the Edgar Maynard fight turned a already non casual freindly card into a worse no casual freindly card. At least they would of been able to sell hey its a title fight. Now they have Rampage in the main event against Matt Hamill. Rampage will get a in the moment treatment in the lead up to the fight. They are doing the best with what they can. UFC 130 is still a really fun good card.
Brock Lesnar pulling out of UFC 131 was like a punch to the gut and than a swift kick in the balls. The replacement bout between Junior Dos Santos and Shane Carwin is a great replacement fight. This is still a intriguing heavyweight fight and sure to end with someone getting knocked out. Junior Dos Santos is at -170 to -200 while Carwin is at +160 to +140. This card also has some great fights on it just not a lot of name power like Brock Lesnar or GSP. Hopefully they push multiple fights on this card as Damian Maia and Kenny Florian are on the card. What a great and terrible week for Zuffa. O yea its Friday the 13th maybe the bad luck gods will take pitty on them and nothing terrible will befall them. You can Follow me on Twitter @MaZZM
