(“Sorry Frankie, but based on the terms of your pay-per-view bonus scale — as clearly stated in your contract — you actually owe us $10,000.“)

It wasn’t just UFC 150‘s live-gate that fell way below expectations. According to a new report from Dave “Doom ‘N’ Gloom” Meltzer, last weekend’s Edgar vs. Henderson 2 card pulled in an estimated 190,000 pay-per-view buys. Judging by the MMAPayout.com Blue Book, that would make UFC 150 the second worst-performing UFC PPV since February 2006. And what’s the #1 worst-performing card of the last six years? The UFC 147: Silva vs. Franklin 2 show from just two months earlier, which took in only 175k buys. (UFC 149: Faber vs. Barao didn’t fare much better last month with a modest 235k buys.) Sorry Fric and Frack, Christmas has been canceled this year.

A couple caveats:
Keep in mind that there was a technical issue on Saturday night where DirecTV subscribers were unable to order the UFC 150 broadcast by phone or computer, although they could still order it via their remotes, according to reports. Plus, Bendo vs. Frankie ran up against the penultimate night of the 2012 Olympics, which may have stolen a few more viewers.

That being said…

(Pic: MMA Soldier)

It was rampant speculation time across the interwebs on Friday, after yesterday’s announcement that Brock Lesnar’s diverticulitis has returned with a vengeance. “Is Brock done?” we all wondered aloud. Is Carwin vs. dos Santos actually a better fight? Can the UFC rebound from a couple of weeks that saw the main events of UFC 130, 131 and 133 all go up in smoke? And, dear God, are Urijah Faber and Dominick Cruz next to suffer some bizarre malady, causing a reshuffling of the only PPV still left in one piece? Nobody knows.

What we do know is this: Brock Lesnar turns 34 in July and twice now since 2009 he’s seen his career indefinitely sidetracked by being the world’s only millionaire athlete to get a near fatal disease from not eating enough vegetables. Age has never been particularly kind to jumbo-sized athletes and even for a professional wrestler, Lesnar’s job history has been pretty flighty over the years. So, while we can’t say with any kind of certainty that his MMA career might be over over, Lesnar’s second bout with a strange digestive infection nobody had ever heard of before two years ago can’t exactly be considered a good thing. Apparently, the first time he went through this the UFC forgot to tell us that diverticulitis is something that sticks around for the rest of your life. Whoops. But we digress. What it all means for Lesnar, dos Santos, Carwin and – most importantly – you, after the jump.

(The first taste is free, but the second dose is going to cost you.)

Taking full advantage of his position at Versus.com, Ariel Helwani just posted an interview with WEC Vice President Peter Dropick where they discuss the future of the organization and rumors of a move to pay-per-view.  Dropick was all too eager to confirm those rumors, telling Helwani that the first WEC pay-per-view will be headlined by the much-anticipated rematch between Urijah Faber and WEC featherweight champ Mike Brown, and it could happen as soon as this June.

If you’re worried about how you’re going to afford all the MMA this summer, you’ll be glad to hear that Dropick also promised the price of a WEC pay-per-view would be less than a UFC event, though he didn’t specify by how much.  As for what else might appear on that card, he wouldn’t rule out an appearance by Miguel Torres, saying he wants the pay-per-view to be “stacked.”

Obviously, the WEC is considering Sacramento, where they’ve done extremely well in the past, as a potential venue for this event, but Dropick said there were “three or four different cities” they were considering as well.  He also commented on the status of the lighter weight classes in the WEC, and the potential for Gina Carano to head up a women’s division at some point in the near future.  The whole interview is worth a read, so give it a look.

(Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas.)
 
For nearly two years, UFC 66 — which featured the light-heavyweight title bout between the organization’s two biggest stars, Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz — was the UFC’s best-selling pay-per-view card of all time, with an estimated 1,050,000 buys. Few UFC events even came close to the lofty record, until UFC 91 in November almost surpassed it on the strength of the Couture/Lesnar superfight, bringing in a reported 1,010,000 buys. A month later, the stacked-to-death "Ultimate 2008" card smashed the old record with 1,200,000 buys. And now, if Dana White is to be believed, last Saturday’s UFC 94 show has broken the record again, with an estimated 1,300,000+ pay-per-view buys. That figure even beats the 1,250,000 buys that the Oscar De La Hoya/Manny Pacquiao boxing match pulled down in December. 

Could the UFC be a recession-proof business, with a steadily growing base of consumers? Or are the killer numbers for St. Pierre vs. Penn 2 a direct result of the event’s marketing blitz, which included the flashy new documentary series UFC Primetime? And how long will this new record last? Though there are no bonafide superfights on the schedule right now, DW reminds us that we have Mir/Lesnar, Penn/Florian, Rashad Evans’s first title defense, and Randy Couture’s next fight coming up, so there’s no shortage of great matchups to be had. Meanwhile, the UFC’s competition is thrilled to get 150,000-200,000 buys, which just illustrates the gulf in success between the top MMA outfit in the world and everybody else.

Unfortunately, not all is rosy in the financial realm of Zuffa. Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta’s Station Casinos empire announced that it would be going through a "prepackaged bankruptcy" to avoid being crushed by the $2 billion in debts it accrued when the company went private in 2007. Station has been one of the hardest-hit casino groups during the current economic downturn, which has greatly affected Las Vegas’s tourism and real estate markets.

(“Screw it, nobody’s watching anyway.”)

I know, I know, you’re all antsy to learn how many pay-per-view buys UFC 91 took in, and whether Dana White’s estimate of 1.2 million was either strongly optimistic or batshit delusional. You’ll have to be patient, because numbers from UFC 90 are just coming out now — and they aren’t too encouraging. Says the Wrestling Observer Newsletter:

The trending patterns as a prediction of the buy rate continued to be right on as the 10/25 show in Chicago headlined by Anderson Silva vs. Patrick Cote did 300,000 buys.

Silva has never been a big main-event draw, PPV-wise. His headlining appearances at UFC 82, 77, and 67 all translated to buys in the 330,000-350,000 range. But in the run-up to last month’s Chicago show, the UFC had been trying extra hard to push him over as a fan-favorite, frequently repeating the talking point that UFC 90 was your chance to see the world’s greatest pound-for-pound fighter in action. The Spike TV special Countdown to UFC 90 brought in a record number of viewers, which was seen as a great sign for the event’s performance on pay-per-view, though MMA Payout points out that the strong viewership could have been due to having a high-rated TNA wrestling show as a lead in.

From The Adam Carolla Show via MMA Mania:

I’d love for the UFC to step up and make the fight [with Fedor Emelianenko] happen. It has the potential to be the biggest mixed martial arts fight to date…It has the potential to do 700,000+ pay-per-view buys which is a helluva lotta money. I think 6-10 [million should be the salary] for each of us and they’re still gonna make a boatload of money on top of that.

Generally speaking, cable operators take half of the revenue for PPV events, which would mean that the UFC gets $22.495 per buyer these days. Though it’s been suggested that the UFC has been able to work out a slightly better deal with its distributors, multiplying that figure by Randy’s estimate of 700,000 buys would mean that the UFC would take in about $15,746,500 from a PPV card headlined by Couture vs. Emelianenko. “Boatload” may not be the right word if you’re taking at least $12,000,000 off the top to pay the headliners. Pay Randy and Fedor $8 million apiece or more, and the UFC’s profit from the broadcast is eliminated altogether. Of course, the equation changes completely if the fight does Liddell/Ortiz-caliber numbers, but its hard to predict if Couture vs. Emelianenko will mobilize the casual UFC fan like UFC 66‘s grudge match did.

In other words, there’s no way the UFC is going to cave to Couture’s asking price. I’d imagine they’re still interested in negotiating — if for no other reason than to take Affliction’s hope of a big-drawing superfight away from them — but they won’t agree to a situation where they’re only breaking even financially. Just as importantly, paying headliners that much money for a single fight sets a precedent that could have even more of their contracted fighters giving them grief about “respect.” We just hope the two sides can eventually come to terms, because if the UFC can’t afford to put this fight on, it’s doubtful that anybody else can.

(Tom’s the guy standing second from the right, stunned by Tim Sylvia’s body odor. Photo courtesy of Combat Lifestyle)

Speaking with Yahoo! Sports’s Kevin Iole, Affliction VP Tom Atencio claimed the final number of pay-per-view buys brought in for the company’s debut MMA card last Saturday would “definitely” be over 100,000:

“I don’t have everything on that yet, but for the people who felt this was going to be a total flop in that regard, I have news for them. It’s already done a lot better than what I’ve heard people speculating. I’m not going to release the (official) number, but it’s already well beyond what people have been saying. Well beyond.”

We’ll take that claim at face value for now, but Atencio could be blowing smoke, obviously. Iole reports that $500,000 of the event’s $2.1 million live gate haul came from tickets purchased by Affliction itself. Atencio also admitted that the show’s ridiculous payroll was intended to grab attention:

“We had to come out swinging and make a big splash and we did. Having said that, we realize this is a business first and that if we don’t turn a profit, we’re not going to be around. We need to have the guys understand that. We know (fighters) want to be treated well and we’re willing to work with them, but they have to be willing to work with us. We just can’t go out there and throw money around without thought. The guys have to be willing to work with us and can’t simply look at us as a cash cow.”

Of course not, Tom — they’re interested in you because of your mind.

(What do Mr. Glass and Dave Terrell have in common? Read on…)

Remember how Dave Terrell was going to be the next big thing in the UFC’s middleweight bracket? Well, happy days are gone according to GracieFighter.com. Terrell has been released by Dana’s organization.

Terrell went 2-1 in the UFC and got off to a great start – a quick KO of Matt Lindland at UFC 49. He was then sidelined for a while because of various injuries before a TKO loss to Evan Tanner and a ho-hum submission win over Scott Smith. But that last fight was almost two years ago. It’s now apparent that Terrell is made of glass because he kept getting injured and had to pull out of three fights – one due to a sinus infection, two to assorted injuries.

It looks like the Cesar Gracie-trained and BJJ black belt fighter will continue battling elsewhere and hopes to get a better contract next time out.

Plagued by injuries and unhappy with the financial terms of his bout agreements, Terrell sat out the remainder of his contract. Now focused on getting his career back on track, Terrell will be looking to signing and fighting with another organization.

5oz of Pain is making a case for Terrell heading to EliteXC. Nick Diaz and Jake Shields – Terrell’s teammates – fight for EliteXC already and could pull him over. Although that “unhappy with the financial terms” thing might get even worse with that organization unless he’s headlining events – which will be hard to do if he continues his injurious ways.

Dave Meltzer over at Yahoo! Sports has his own version of FMK today. The contestants being MMA, boxing and pro wrestling (okay, it’s impossible to properly play FMK with an entire sport, but go with it). He rambles on for what seems like hours and covers much of what we already know – that MMA is growing rapidly, but douches like Mayweather and De La Hoya keep boxing at the forefront with their hordes of mindless fans. And rednecks keep procreating at a rapid pace, thus keeping pro wrestling afloat.

However, he does a decent job of breaking down the numbers, mainly the TV stats. While the PPV numbers are not yet available for UFC 78 and 79 (how long does it take them to print out their numbers anyway?), the expectations are that both events will be in the top 15 PPV events of the year. Why top 15, you ask? Because that’s what Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer gave us:

1. Boxing: Oscar De La Hoya/Floyd Mayweather, May 5: 2,400,000
2. Boxing: Mayweather/Ricky Hatton, December 8: 850,000
3. WWE: Wrestlemania, April 1: 760,000
4. UFC: Chuck Liddell/Quinton Jackson, May 26: 675,000
5. UFC: Tim Sylvia/Randy Couture, March 3: 540,000
6. UFC: Couture/Gabriel Gonzaga, August 24: 520,000
7. UFC: Liddell/Keith Jardine, September 22: 475,000
8. UFC: Tito Ortiz/Rashad Evans, July 7: 425,000
9. UFC: Anderson Silva/Travis Lutter, Feb. 2: 400,000
10. UFC: Georges St. Pierre/Matt Serra, April 7: 400,000
11. Boxing: Manny Pacquiao/Marco Antonio Barrera, October 6: 350,000
12. WWE: Summerslam, August 26: 344,000
13. Boxing: Miguel Cotto/Shane Mosley, November 10: 340,000
14. UFC: Anderson Silva/Rich Franklin, October 20: 325,000
15. WWE: Royal Rumble, January. 28: 314,000