WILL THE FEDOR EMELIANENKO VS. TIM SYLVIA FIGHT DRAW IN THE US MARKET?
By David Tees on 4/23/2008 6:38 PM
This week, the long awaited bout of Fedor Emelianenko vs. Randy Cout…..I mean Fedor Emelianenko vs. Tim Sylvia bout was announced by the new Affliction MMA organization. It has been rumored for almost a year now that Randy Couture and Fedor Emelianenko wanted to have an MMA battle, but the legal/personal issues between Randy Couture and the Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC) have halted that fight at this moment.
Affliction, a clothing line associated with Randy Couture, put together another fight with Fedor Emelianenko against former multi-time UFC Heavyweight Champion Tim Sylvia. Tim Sylvia was recently granted his release from the UFC, after losing the UFC Interim Heavyweight Title fight to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira at UFC 81.
There is no doubt that the hardcore MMA fans who watch anything from the UFC to YAMMA Pit Fighting to King Of The Cage will watch the fight with much interest. However, will the average fan who watches an occasional UFC pay-per-view or MMA television event want to spend there time and/or money on this fight. The more popular of the two fighters in the USA anyway is Tim Sylvia, the aforementioned former multi-time UFC Heavyweight Champion.
Despite having a well known name, most can argue that Tim Sylvia hasn’t really had an excellent MMA performance since his fight against Andrei Arlovski at UFC 59: Reality Check. Most will say that his fight with Randy Couture at UFC 68: The Uprising was also exciting, which is true, but it was Tim Sylvia who was dominated by Randy Couture. Since his battle at UFC 59 against Andrei Arlovski, Tim Sylvia fought and defeated Andrei Arlovski via a five round decision (UFC 61),then Tim Sylvia defeated Tim Monson by decision after five rounds (UFC 65), then fought Brandon Vera in his first fight after losing the UFC Heavyweight Title to a three round decision victory (UFC 77).
In all of those listed fights, Tim Sylvia did only lose one fight (Randy Couture - UFC 68), however all of his other fights left the fans jeering him uncontrollably and audibly on UFC broadcasts. I mention this because if you are the average MMA fan who possibly views Tim Sylvia, one half of the main event, as a boring fighter, will you put you hard earned money up to buy the pay-per-view?
Now for the other half of this main event, the last heavyweight champion of the PRIDE organization, Fedor Emelianenko. Many MMA insiders and myself included consider Fedor Emelianenko to be the top heavyweight fighter in the world right now. However, since the PRIDE organization closed down a few years ago, Fedor Emelianenko has only fought twice. The first time was a catch weight fight against top middleweight fighter Matt Lindland for the now defunct Bodog Fight. That fight was broadcast live on pay-per-view and eventually shown on the ION Network, Fedor Emelianenko won the fight after forcing Matt Lindland to tap out to an arm bar.
Then Fedor Emelianenko fought and defeated Hong Man Choi at an Yarennoka event in Japan on New Years Eve 2007, a fight not broadcasted in the United States. That means that since the PRIDE organization shut down a few years back, the MMA fan base in the US only had one real opportunity to see Fedor Emelianenko compete in any form. If fans would fail to spend money on a very popular, but seemingly boring fighter in Tim Sylvia, why would they spend the same money on a fighter who most casual MMA fans never saw compete before.
An outside factor could not even be the fault of either Tim Sylvia or Fedor Emelianenko would in fact be the company promoting this whole card. That company in the Randy Couture affiliated Affliction clothing line, which would be putting on its first ever MMA event this July. From a consumer perspective, Ultimate Fighting Championships is known for the events, World Extreme Cagefighting is known for their events, Elite XC is known for their events, but Affliction is known for their clothing line and not for putting on live events. Brand names mean a lot to the casual MMA fan, who would most likely put their money into a UFC pay-per-view over a less known company entering the pay-per-view market.
Lets take another new MMA organization for example, YAMMA Pit Fighting made their official debut on April 11th of this year. The event had a slew of well known MMA names like Mark Kerr, Eric “Butterbean” Esch, Patrick Smith, Ricco Rodriquez, Oleg Taktarov and Travis Wiuff. YAMMA Pit Fighting even introduced a new fighting surface to the MMA community in the YAMMA, which was basically a circular bowl where the ends raised up like a hill. The event not only failed by live accounts for mostly awful fights, but failed by revenue and live gate because MMA fans didn’t trust the brand name. That is an issue that Affliction and indirectly Tim Sylvia and Fedor Emelianenko must deal with, the lack of brand name when it comes to putting on live events.
One thing that is very costly to the promise of the Affliction event to is television, which at the time of this writing, will not have any before the event commences. This is something very detrimental to Affliction because it will be hard to hype the event with internet, radio and print because the TV coverage is what attracts the most fans. Just look at the UFC, they have TV programs like UFC Unleashed, UFC Ultimate Fight Night live and replays, pay-per-view preview events, The Ultimate Fighter and UFC Wired. On any given month, they have anywhere from 9 to 12 hours a month to hype a single monthly pay-per-view event where Affliction currently has zero TV time. I look at it like this, would you be more willing to pay money to see an event that has been hyped for that 9 to 12 hours a month or the event you heard in passing on an radio spot or read about on the internet?
If you are a hardcore MMA fan, there will be no doubt that most of you will be buying the Affliction event headlined by Tim Sylvia vs. Fedor Emelianenko. However, if you are the casual MMA fan, are you going to spend your money on an unproven event where you may have only heard of one of the two fighters involved in the main event?
