As the WBC super flyweight title fight between Cristian Mijares and Jose Navarro was taking place this past weekend at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Marc Ratner, who was a fixture for years on the Nevada State Athletic Commission, would sit down next to me at press row. Even though he now is an administrator for the UFC, Ratner, to me and many others, will always be a ‘boxing guy’, and when his itinerary allows, he is still a presence at all the big cards in Vegas.
He makes no bones about it – he will always love the game of boxing. And he still cares about the welfare and the health of the business.
As we were watching the artistic Mijares put on a beautiful display of boxing against the game Navarro, we were lamenting the fact that the arena was still basically empty and devoid of any energy. The doors had opened at 3:30 that afternoon and the televised portion of the card was well underway, beginning with Ronald Hearns’ eight round decision over Juan Astorga, which began a few minutes after six. Over an hour into the televised portion of the program, just another bout from the main event, the crowd was barren and the atmosphere was non-existent.
This is in stark contrast to mixed martial arts events, which seem to reach near-capacity as soon as the doors open. And from the very beginning – from the first non-televised bout to the featured main event, their audience seems fully entranced by the action taking place in front of them.
“I think it’s a matter of custom and maybe it’s the customers, that there’s more hotel, casino-type guests (in boxing),” speculates Ratner, on the difference between the audiences. “But the MMA customers know they’re going to get nine fights, they’re going to be exciting and they want to be there because they know some of these undercard fights will be just as good as the ones on TV. So they don’t consider it an undercard, main event and television.
“So I would say that easily 60-percent of the crowd will be there for the first fight and if we start at five, by six o’clock, they’ll be over 85-percent.”
Ratner would mention later: “Our first fight in Columbus, five o’clock, it’s the same way – they had 18,000 people in there, which is phenomenal. I look for Montreal (on April 19th) to have the place completely full before we start. I really believe that.”
And this isn’t a recent trend. While a regulator for the NSAC, he noticed that MMA events have always brought out their partisans early and often.
“It stunned me, and I had no idea,” Ratner admitted. “The first fight card, when I got there – and I got there a couple hours early – I saw this line waiting to get in at the Mandalay Bay. It was September 2001. I had no idea.”
And unlike boxing events, which are controlled by a network, which sometimes results in long delays between fights, the UFC controls their own production from the very outset of their shows.
“Everything is finely timed,? he said. ?You add the music and with the crowd being excited you use the big screens for the videos, and plus, they can see real well, so I just think that they’re accustomed to it and they want to be there early. It’s wonderful and I’m really happy for these guys fighting at five o’clock,” says Ratner.
If you’ve ever been to a show that is covered by one of the major networks at a Vegas venue, the scene can be as lifeless as a morgue. Fights are brought in at a snail?s pace, loud music is disallowed as the announcers go through rehearsals, and there is a sea of empty seats that won?t be filled till about 10 minutes from the entrance of the main event participants. Certain promotional entities like Top Rank have done their best to spice up their shows, but for the most part, not much in the way of excitement takes place on boxing undercards.
Perhaps it’s true that boxing events have more casino comps – which is usually the sect that shows up fashionably late to the cards – but MMA has had its fair share of shows in casinos too. But it’s clear that they are populated by a whole different demographic.
“Oh, absolutely, it’s a different demographic” agreed Ratner. “Our demographic is 18 to 35, they come early, they buy more beer, more than any other event maybe besides motocross, and a lot of merchandise is sold. So the venues are happy.”
And there’s certainly a difference between a ‘casino crowd’ and one that goes to a traditional arena or stadium.
?Yes, I think that when you go to a regular venue like the one we went to Saturday night, the Bank United Center on the University of Miami campus, and everybody?s buying tickets and it’s a true ‘four wall’, in that you’re responsible for everything,” said Gary Shaw, who is part of the EliteXC, which held a promotion featuring Kimbo Slice’s MMA debut against Tank Abbott this past weekend. “Those fans that buy tickets, which in this case was 6,100, it was a sell-out crowd, they’re there. They bought the tickets, they want in and they want a part of it versus someone who was handed a ticket for free.”
There is a belief that the boxing crowd, which skews older, gambles more at the tables. The MMA crowd, more or less, goes for the event itself. But even that might be shifting. Ratner says, “What I do know is that the hotels are having them on Super Bowl Saturdays so they can invite some of their better customers. So they see it as good business now.”
But perhaps the main – and most important reason – that MMA crowds show up earlier is that they are given better fights from the get go.
“Let’s say on a UFC card you get nine fights,” says our very own Tom Gerbasi, who is also the editorial director for the UFC, “you’ve got nine fights where, at the very least, you?ve got Top 30 guys fighting each other. Not a top 30 guy fighting a guy with a 9-10 record. Not Ronald Hearns fighting this guy he fought the other night, I can’t even remember his name. That’s how bad the fight was. There are not fights in the UFC that are fixed in the matchmaking.”
By ‘fixed’, Gerbasi does not mean guys diving like Greg Louganis, but fights in which you can just look at the bout sheet (and figure out who is promoted by the house promoter) and predict the winners automatically. The undercards (especially the non-televised portion) of most events that feature major fights up top are used as a minor league or developmental staging areas where prospects are built up.
“One of the problems is that in boxing they don’t try to give you a great card from top to bottom,” says Shaw, who promotes both boxing and MMA. “So when the undercard fights are guys you’re trying to build their records and they’re fighting a nobody, it’s a non-competitive fight. Where in the MMA, from top-to-bottom they?re competitive. I think that’s a huge difference.”
Which goes to another major philosophical difference between the two realms. Boxing loves the unbeaten record. In fact, because the network decision makers seemingly insist on having a zero on the right hand column of a young fighter?s ledger, promoters and managers are deathly afraid of getting their young prospects tripped up for fear of becoming an afterthought. In MMA, a loss is just that, a loss. You don’t have guys with spiffy 30-0 records in MMA. In fact, many of their biggest events have featured fights where both combatants each have more than five or six blemishes on their records.
What’s interesting about this card that took place recently is that not only did it have an anticipated main event, it had two anticipated title fights on the televised portion, and some hot young prospects in Daniel Jacobs and Miguel Garcia and former jr. flyweight titlist Brian Viloria on the ‘dark’ portion of the card.
Perhaps geography played a role, and judging by the attendance (which fell short of 10,000) this card probably should’ve taken place somewhere east of the Mississippi. But beyond that, none of the fighters on the card could be considered a local draw in the Las Vegas area. And as talented as Jacobs and Garcia might be, they are still largely unknown quantities to the casual fan. The show taking place this weekend at Madison Square Garden in New York should be lively from the very beginning, as the non-televised portion of the card (which has a main event of Wladimir Klitschko-Sultan Ibragimov) has John Duddy – a huge ticket seller in the Big Apple – performing before the television lights go on.
The UFC also has a built-in vehicle to curb the problem of anonymity among its younger fighters ? the Spike TV reality series, The Ultimate Fighter.
“There are a lot of guys on the reality show who after the show ends, they’ll make their names on the ‘Spike’ TV shows,” says Gerbasi. “And then once they reach a point where they win a couple of fights on ‘Spike’, where they’re being exposed to a free cable audience, then they’ll be put on the pay-per-view cards. And yeah, they have a built-in following.”
But even then, they aren’t given Secret Service matchmaking. In other words, no protection is given.
“They’re not being thrown gimmes right from the start,” Gerbasi points out. “We’ve had a couple guys who won the reality show and then they lost their next fight (season two?s Joe Stevenson and season four?s Travis Lutter). They’re being tossed in tough and a lot of people criticize that and say, ‘Well, you’re not building guys.’ But to me, at least, I don’t want to see a guy get built up. I want to see a guy tested and that’s what you’re doing in mixed martial arts, you’re testing guys right from the start.”
After years of predictable undercards, it seems boxing fans have adapted their viewing habits. In effect, they may have been conditioned to now arrive later and later into the night. To many of them, the card doesn’t start until HBO or Showtime go on the air.
“Yeah, I think that’s part of the culture and I think the boxing fan knows that the main event is going to start between 7:45 and 8:30, somewhere along those lines, and they don’t leave home till probably 6:30, quarter-till-seven, and they’re not interested in the four rounders early,” agreed Ratner.
Gerbasi, who has covered a multitude of events ringside and adjacent to octagons, has a clear preference in covering UFC events.
“And it’s not because of the atmosphere, it’s because of the fights,” he says. “I may be in the minority, but I always loved the Don King cards because there was always a little something for everybody. You had the former champion coming back, the entertaining guy, the local guy, the flyweight title fight. You had a little something for everybody and it was worth getting there early to watch it.”
Shaw says it’s changed the way he fills out his bout sheets as a boxing promoter.
“Of course it’s changed mine and that’s why I try to put better fights on my undercards, better opening fights and a lot more competitive fights. That’s how Alfredo Angulo came up, and that’s how James Kirkland came up, fighting real fights. And Nick Casal against Antonio DeMarco, one great, great fight, both of my guys and we knew it was going to be a war.
“Before MMA, I would not have done that.”
