The people of Vancouver complain that they haven’t had the UFC in over two years and then when one does get announced and the main event is a title fight, they still complain — what gives?
This is the same city that booed Roberto Luongo out of town and that is currently chasing Ryan Kesler away from the Canucks. But if they are doing well, the bandwagon is booming.
Rewind to the last time the UFC was in town and the Canucks were currently in the Stanley Cup Finals. Downtown Vancouver was buzzing, not due to the fact that the big fight organization was here, but because the Canucks were ever so-close to holding the Cup. When there were fights at bars downtown, instantly, they were instantly blamed on the UFC being in town. “Big, bad fighters are here, that must be why this violence is happening,” clucked some of the ignorant critics.
Attendance at UFC 131, which featured a main event between Junior dos Santos and Shane Carwin, was 14,685 for a $2.8 million gate. This number was down from the year before at UFC 115, which featured Chuck Liddell and Rich Franklin in the main event. Attendance for that event was 17,669, with a gate of $4.2 million.
First reports leading up to UFC 174 are stating extremely low ticket sales — in the sub 8,000 range. Heck you can even pick up tickets for the event on Team Buy (which is like Groupon). Why is this? Is the UFC 174 card really that bad?
In my honest opinion, and I’m not just saying this to fluff things up, but I am stoked about the entire fight card from top to bottom.
A bunch of Canadians are featured on the undercard, including British Columbia native “Ragin” Kajan Johnson. He is making his UFC debut after a stint on The Ultimate Fighter Nations. If that isn’t enough to bring out a few hundred fans alone, I don’t know what is.
Moving up to the PPV portion of the card, kicking things off are light heavyweights Ovince St. Preux and Canada’s own Ryan Jimmo. St. Preux is known for scrappy stand up style and Jimmo is tied for the record for fastest knockout at a mere seven-seconds.
A heavyweight clash between former UFC Heavyweight Champion Andrei Arlovski and Brendan Schaub is guaranteed to see one man hit the canvas in brutal fashion. Of Arlovski’s 21 victories, 15 of them have come by knockout — Schaub has 10 wins with seven of them coming by knockout.
It’s unfortunate that B.C.’s own Rory MacDonald is not a household name to casual fans, because despite UFC President Dana White stating that the winner of Matt Brown and Robbie Lawler will likely be the welterweight number one contender, a spectacular victory in his co-main event fight with Tyron Woodley would likely catapult him into that status. Flip the cards the other way and Woodley could also be right there.
Let’s get to the main event. It’s a huge disappointment to me that fans aren’t going bananas over the fight between UFC Flyweight Champion Demetrious Johnson and Ali Bagautinov. “Mighty Mouse” is one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world, but doesn’t get the credit for it because he is “little,” and “Puncher King” is currently riding an 11-fight win streak with three of those under the UFC banner.
UFC 174 is a fight card that should have casual and hardcore fans excited. Come on Vancouver, you get a title fight, a potential number one contender bout and the former UFC heavyweight champion on the same card. It doesn’t get much better than that.
