After UFC 90, Dana White did an interview with Steve Cofield where he indicated that they had no intention of doing a big media push for Lesnar and Couture, because the fight would sell itself. It looks like he was serious.
A little over a week out, there has been no substantial push to hype this fight. The best piece on it so far was done by ESPN, not the UFC. Initial plans to do a 24/7 fell apart supposedly because the staff is so overworked that they did not get the show off the ground in time to get on the Spike TV schedule.
ESPN will actually be covering this fight, though to what extent remains unclear. They are counting on traditional media to push this over the top, but if there was one clear lesson of last year it was that a day’s worth of ESPN exposure makes basically no difference for buyrates.
The last week is really what matters when it comes to fights, because people tend not to think about things weeks in advance. Still, that is a logic better applied to your typical UFC than to a super fight like this one. They’ve decided not to do any co-promotional deals with WWE, even though that is clearly where the extra buyers come from when they do well, probably because they’re in denial over that fact.
I still think the show will do well, but I think it has virtually zero chance to set the kind of records Dana was predicting.
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