By Ben Miller
Oscar de la Hoya changed boxing. That seems an obvious statement, but Oscar de la Hoya really changed boxing. Before the Golden Boy, boxing was a sport built on heavyweights. There were big fights at lesser weights, to be sure. Pernell Whitaker and Sugar Ray Leonard before him and Willie Pep before him all drew well when matched up against great opponents. But if you look at the actual numbers, for all the deserved praise given to the welterweights of the 80’s or the middleweights of the 90’s, the biggest money matches always remained the heavyweights.
Today, size barely matters. While its true that professional football and other less violent sports have strip mined boxing of many potential heavyweight stars, it seems that the emergence of a lighter weight icon like de la Hoya has torn up the old rule that heavyweights rule. He now owns the largest pay-per-view buyrate in sporting history. He is so big, in fact, that his recent million-plus buy events was looked at as a disappointment.
UFC does not have an Oscar de la Hoya. Though UFC has done a superb job of getting over its stars to an ever broadening audience, the biggest money events are still headlined by the biggest size fighters. Shows headlined by heavyweights and light heavyweights have drawn UFC’s only million-plus pay-per-views. Even the biggest shows under one million buys have been headlined largely by the big guys. No show headlined by a fighter weighing less than 200 pounds has ever bested 650,000 buys. All other things being equal, that means that big guys are seeing premiums of 50% or more placed on their fights by the event-buying public.
For UFC 94: St. Pierre vs. Penn 2, UFC hopes to change all of that. Dana White is publicly predicting that this show will beat by more than 100% the best ever pay-per-view performance for a show headlined by lighter weight fighters. And it may well happen. The show is sold out, the weigh-ins had to be closed to the public twenty minutes before they started and casual MMA fans all seem to have great interest in this fight. Whether it’s their contrasting personalities or their similar excellence, there’s something about this matchup that gives it a chance to shatter UFC business records for a lighter weight main event.
Even a pessimist would concede that the old threshold of 650,000 buys will be beat. But by how much? 800,000 buys would be a 28% bump above St. Pierre’s last championship defense, but would also be considered a failure. When the UFC president predicts 1.3 million buys, even one million buys would still be 23% below projections. Still a failure? Probably not. But surely disappointing to some.
If UFC 94 doesn’t disappoint, then all of this is moot. If UFC 94 hits 1.3 million buys or even if it just sets a new company record, the company will be pleased and the smaller guys will have proven their drawing power.
If UFC 94 does disappoint, then that bodes ill for the future. There are only so many marketable heavyweights and light heavyweights in the sport. UFC will probably remain successful drawing huge for the big guys and drawing well with the little guys, but their aims of exporting their brand around the world could be compromised. They have two of the best lighter weight fighters in the world facing off while in the prime of their careers. If that can’t do business with the big boys, what can?
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