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MMA News wrap-up: UFC 313 ends with a whimper, Dana White’s boxing league, Jean Silva steals the show, more

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Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC

Magomed Ankalaev is the man to beat at light heavyweight, whether people like it or not.

It’s unlikely Ankalaev reaches the same level stardom as Alex Pereira, the man he just outworked to become champion in Saturday’s UFC 313 main event, but the reality is that Ankalaev is yet to lose in 14 straight fights dating back to 2018, so fans and critics might have to get used to seeing his face on the marquee.

The reception hasn’t been warm so far, with Ankalaev and Pereira putting on a five-round fight light on memorable moments that ended with Pereira’s sizzling championship run going out with a whimper. It’s possible we see an immediate rematch between the two, with the hopes that it can’t be any worse than the first fight. Right?

Regardless, readers roasted UFC 313’s headlining bout and you can check out some of the best running results commentary below.

Barnabus Dupree
Well that fight sucked.
Abstractions
Dana saw the scorecard before it was announced and he frowned haha
MJD1989
that was the delay. Dana was debating whether or not to change it
thehivemind
Never thought Ank could just stand with Alex like he did. Most damaging punch of the night was from Ank. They’ll run it back.
Best part of the night? F JON! Defend or vacate.
LJamal
These fights were not worth 80$, OneFC on Prime yesterday was way more exciting and fun to watch. Poitan looked bad and Dustin almost lost to someone on 12 days notice and please dont give him anymore more title shots! 80$? lol

Dana White, Turki Alalshikh announce new boxing league under TKO banner

It’s official: Dana White is putting his money where his mouth is and entering the world of boxing. Well, technically a large chunk of that money is coming from Turki Alalshikh, but White and company are actually doing this for real this time.

Underdog Fan
“Access for all boxers to the UFC Performance Institute…”
Now there’s gonna be never-ending talk about crossover fights.
stippenstoh
“The model is proven to redistribute as much money as possible from athletes and fans into our personal bank accounts deliver the fights that the fans want to see,” White said.
aceknighthigh

A highly structured system to develop new talent from around the world, including athlete combines and academies.
Access for all boxers to the UFC Performance Institute, the world’s leading combat sports performance training, research, rehabilitation, and nutrition center.
TKO’s production, media, and promotional expertise, to deliver both in-arena experiences and top-tier, state-of-the-art broadcasts to fans around the world.

Honestly I would prefer the UFC did this for MMA. A feeder league to find and develop talent rather than watering down their UFC would product would be preferable to most fans.
It sounds like DWCS for Boxing with more hype….except it remains to be seen if they will pay enough for blue chip talent to even bother. 15-20% of the money isn’t going to work in an industry with actual competition.
The other worry is that their model is to MMA centric where potential athletes with no MMA experience and just experience in one discipline, can develop in their 20’s to become the best. Boxing is so focused on one small skillset it’s more about depth of skill than broadening one’s skillset. To be the best guys generally need to be training fulltime by their teenage years unless they are just insane physical talents. It’s pretty rare for anyone to come out of nowhere in the sport and make it as a top guy p4p. They would need to either acquire talents like this or find and develop essentially kids if they want to control whole generations of top boxers.
mburtoni
“Access for all boxers to the UFC Performance Institute…”
This is just a ploy to increase profits at the juice bar.
Also, damn, doesn’t that place get crowded enough already?
Tomato Can
DW in 2023: “The boxing business is completely broken, I’m not getting involved.”
DW in 2025: “Yes your excellency, just sign right there.”

Jean Silva trolls Bryce Mitchell with globe at heated UFC 314 press conference

Like it or not, Bryce Mitchell has a fight booked for UFC 314 against up-and-coming featherweight contender Jean Silva.

At a press conference for the April 12 event, Silva stole the show by mocking Mitchell’s ignorant comments and penchant for conspiracy theories, and his antics drew plenty of reactions.

Greatknightofights7
Normally don’t like this kind of stuff but this is wonderful
Motivated_BJ
He did the shtick of being sorry other people were offended. That’s not sincere or remorseful.
Besides that, going on a rant about Hitler being an okay guy because he was trying to prevent Germany from having too much Jewish influence or having its people influenced or “gayed up” or whatever his specific wording was, isn’t something that should be disregarded. What he had to say was hate speech and endorsement of the person who led a movement to eradicate entire peoples from the face of the Earth while starting the second World War in an attempt to achieve global conquest.
But please, be upset and whine about how people would want to grill this little pissant and/or get more information on why he said those things.
MMAY
The globe is actually brilliant as was the barking up the wrong tree comment
Scholar Diaz
Imagine going fishing with Bryce and we reach the end of flat Earth
SaintsWillConquer
I thought Bryce’s head was going to explode. He was so pissed. But he couldn’t even out talk someone who doesn’t speak English. Absolutely priceless!

Paige VanZant wants women’s titles introduced after latest win at Power Slap 12: ‘We’re here to knock b*tches out’

Former UFC fighter and BKFC standout Paige VanZant continues to make headlines, this time in the world of Power Slap as she competed for the organization for the third time. Whether this latest career choice of hers is worth following, well, mileage may vary.

dannyzee4
I watched it…wtf is this lol. It’s like when you have a dream and the most random stuff happens – in this case, people slapping each other in an arena.
Jack Reacharound
There to “knock bitches out” by going to decision every time & never knocking anyone out… ok
NordicFightFan
I’d be down as fuck for a power kick promotion, where fighters traded leg kicks!
Meetch
Who the fuck finds this entertaining?

UFC owners address rumors about seeking over $1 billion per year in new broadcast rights deal

Could the UFC sign a 10-figure broadcasting rights deal soon? Folks are skeptical if the world’s largest MMA promotion is worth that kind of scratch.

Cape MO Guy
I can’t imagine anyone giving the UFC $1 billion a year for the hog slop fight night cards they’ve been putting on.
SenseiLawrence
The UFC is so meh at this point. They are not worth this kind of money.
And who would pay it? ESPN is meh and not a great fit for the UFC because the app sucks and there is too much content. The only plus is the deep pockets of Disney and ad revenue from channels. I have ESPN (not for UFC) and rarely watch fights. When my other sport ends, I cancel ESPN immediately.

But who can even compete with Disney/ESPN? Do the UFC think someone like Amazon or YouTube will shell out that kind of money? Nope. They are already established and not ready to try and expand their base on some expensive test market. YouTubes biggest plus is the PPV side would be easy for them. But Amazon gets paid from shoppers, not TV viewers. They dont need the UFC.

It has to be ESPN and they are not going to pay that much if they are smart. The UFC has no real leverage.

SexyFatGuy
I hope they go away from the PPV model. Not just cuz I’m about done buying em, but the lack of exposure means absolutely almost no one (relative to the population) watches these things.
The last time I ran into someone offline who knew about the UFC was about a year ago at an animal shelter where this girl had named her dog Rousey, and we struck up a conversation.
There was a debate about Jon Jones PPV numbers. I forget if it was here or another site. Anyway, as I’m looking at his PPV buys, which averaged out to about 500,000- I’m thinking while I don’t like the guy, to have your best fighter only have 500,000 people pay attention isn’t much.
I get there’s some pirates, and the people who buy usually have more than 1 watching. Still, the UFC hasn’t felt like an entity the average fan was talking about a lot since they were the only show in town during covid.
I don’t think they’ll ever overtake the NFL or college football, but I bet if the UFC had their biggest fights on free, or mostly free (like ESPN) tv, they’d be a solid #3 in all the sports leagues.
I don’t watch the NBA, but from what people have told me it’s tough to figure out where to watch the games a lot of times. Same with the NHL. I’m older, so the people I’m talking to aren’t tech savvy kids. The UFC could fill that void for some people if they kept it simple in how to watch it.
Then finally, I’ve pretty much put a $250 limit on how much I’ll spend on the UFC this year. I was thinking $200 at first, but yea I’d pay $20/month for some kind of streaming option.
I didn’t renew my ESPN+ this year. I want to wait and see what the new contract looks like.
nuts!!!
Honestly, I’ll never understand how broadcasters value a product like UFC. I really have no idea what the international audience for UFC is, or how much that audience is worth in terms of a broadcast contract.
But looking solely at the US, where the full-price PPV suckers customers are, I’m amazed that there is still a market for that. The NFL on any given weekend draws more viewers than the UFC gets in an entire year. No idea what the NBA, MLB, NHL and Soccer get. It’s mind-boggling (to me) that any broadcaster might think UFC has such a huge potential audience that it would generate enough revenue to justify bidding $1 Billion to broadcast it. Anyone who thinks the audience for MMA / UFC is growing is probably delusional.
But hey, I’m just some ignorant idiot who knows only one thing for certain: They won’t get a penny out of me. My days of paying to watch MMA are long gone. There’s too much free content out there, and it’s not like in the old days where watching a UFC (or even Tachi Palace or Bellator) card was a major event.

In other MMA news…

Belal Muhammad started a conversation about the UFC’s flag policy when he spoke out about the Palestinian flag being absent from his official UFC profile

Twin brothers allegedly pulled the ol’ switch-a-roo to win an amateur MMA tournament in Germany
A bizarre skit of Marlon Vera supposedly fending off a knife-wielding attacker with a shotgun went viral
Check out what fighters got paid at UFC Seattle

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