Have you heard the news? The UFC is planning on invading Germany this June, and they’re gonna have such great fighters as Randy Couture, Mirko Cro-Cop, BJ Penn, Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera, and Rich Franklin fighting. They’ve even got a TV deal finally with major network ProSieben sports network D:SF in prime time to show UFC events at 1AM! I’m sure the expectation is a clear sell out of 20,000 screaming fans the part of the Kolnarena not curtained off.
Okay, so maybe things aren’t going quite as well as everyone expected, even if no one seems cognizant that the UFC is taking on the hotly contested space once occupied by 6 hour loops of sex line ads and NASCAR Nationwide races. There is also the talk of Japan, based around signing the guy K-1 intentionally alienated and whom is despised by pretty much the entire remaining MMA fanbase of Japan. No word of a new TV deal there, by the way. Now listen, I know there’s a lot of talk out there about how much of a “shot across the bow” this was or whatever, but perhaps I need remind others: Zuffa bought PRIDE, and that never worked. Its tough to imagine signing a guy K-1 parked for 6 months intentionally is gonna change the luck they had with that. What happened to the Philippines talk? Zuffa talking about Mexico for the 5th or 6th time now? How did the ticket sales for 95 go?
So why am I writing about this? Well, for one, there’s the odd assumption that Spencer Fisher is going to get people in the middle of a worldwide recession to take the very first Germanwings flight available to Koln or Dusseldorf, lest they miss an event from a sport the vast majority of Europe doesn’t even know exists when they aren’t exactly killing themselves to go to the ones in Britain via Ryanair. For two, merely stating the obvious (that the current plan is not likely to produce) generally means that you either hate Zuffa, think it will bring about their failure, or both. Instead, I offer a third view; It won’t matter.