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As the world’s biggest MMA promotion, the UFC is tremendous when it comes to making a big fight and building it up in the eyes of the fans. However, at times the organization is more than willing to build up a fight that isn’t quite as good as the marketing makes it out to be.
On numerous occasions, we’ve seen the UFC market bouts in a huge way, despite there being little chance of it delivering the goods inside the octagon.
Sometimes these kinds of fights are mismatches, and other times the fighters involved might be past their primes. Either way, the UFC has proven that they’re more than capable of sucking the fans in with their tremendous marketing, regardless of the eventual fight quality.
Here are five times that UFC fans got roped into a bad fight by good marketing:
#5. Tito Ortiz vs. Ken Shamrock – UFC 61
The likes of Dana White often suggest that the success of the UFC under the Zuffa umbrella was built on the back of the feud between Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock.
The two men had been sniping at each other since the 1990s, with a dislike built around Ortiz’s disrespect of two Shamrock-trained fighters – Jerry Bohlander and Guy Mezger. Zuffa were finally able to put the fight together in 2002 at UFC 40.
UFC 40 ended up being the promotion’s first big pay-per-view hit, and the fight turned Ortiz into a megastar as he dominated Shamrock en route to a third-round stoppage win. Basically, it was clear to anyone watching who the better fighter was.
Somehow, just over three years later, the UFC, Shamrock, and Ortiz were all able to convince fight fans that a rematch was necessary, despite the initial meeting being a thoroughly one-sided beatdown.
Shamrock managed to sell the fact that he had a serious knee injury coming into UFC 40. Despite turning 42 in February 2006, he had some fans believing that he stood a better chance against ‘The Huntington Beach Bad Boy’ the second time around.
The UFC used the third season of The Ultimate Fighter to build up to the fight, and the event they booked the rematch on – UFC 61 – ended up shattering the UFC’s pay-per-view buyrate record at the time, drawing 775k buys.
Ortiz unsurprisingly won the rematch, again in one-sided fashion, but a semi-controversial referee stoppage meant that, incredibly, there was a clamor for a third fight between the two. The UFC duly obliged – and another one-sided Ortiz beatdown managed to pop a huge TV rating three months later.
#4. CM Punk vs. Mickey Gall – UFC 203
The history of MMA is littered with attempts by professional wrestlers to prove themselves as legitimate tough guys. Still, perhaps the most infamous example of this remains CM Punk’s brief dalliance with the UFC in 2016.
After a highly publicized fall-out with WWE in 2014, it was expected that Punk would join a rival wrestling promotion. Instead, he stunned everyone by appearing at UFC 181 that December to announce he’d signed a contract to fight in the octagon.
On the face of it, the idea was ridiculous. Punk had no legitimate martial arts background, was already in his late 30s, and was badly banged up from years of pro-wrestling. His chances of ever succeeding in the UFC were slim.
And yet, just under two years later, when the UFC announced that he’d be facing neophyte Mickey Gall – who had just two professional fights to his name – at UFC 203, plenty of fans were suckered right in.
It helped that Punk had genuinely been training hard for the fight at the Roufusport camp – something that naturally, the UFC heavily documented and marketed to build to the fight.
In the end, though, the doubters were proven right as Gall beat Punk down in one-sided fashion, finishing him in the first round with a rear-naked choke.
It was an embarrassing showing from the former WWE champion, but UFC 203 still did an above-average buyrate on pay-per-view – proving that the UFC’s marketing skills were able to trump any lack of fighting skills from Punk.
#3. Georges St-Pierre vs. Dan Hardy – UFC 111
In 2010, Georges St-Pierre was arguably the most dominant fighter in the UFC. The reigning UFC welterweight champion, GSP had turned back the challenge of Jon Fitch, BJ Penn and Thiago Alves after claiming the belt for the second time. He was then on the lookout for his next challenger.
And so, although rematches with Fitch and Josh Koscheck seemed like a possibility, the UFC instead took the opportunity to find a fresh challenger and matched Dan Hardy against Mike Swick with a shot at GSP going to the winner.
Hardy won and was granted the title shot, and on the face of it, there was nothing wrong with that. ‘The Outlaw’ was a great fighter and had won his first four UFC bouts. The only problem? On paper, at least, he stood no chance against St-Pierre.
That didn’t matter to the UFC, though. Hardy could talk a better game than his rivals, and so the promotion dedicated a UFC Prime Time series to build up the fight, selling ‘The Outlaw’ as St-Pierre’s most deadly challenger to date.
For his part, GSP was more than happy to run with that narrative, largely to ensure his motivation for the fight was high. And so, despite only having one knockout in the UFC to his name, Hardy was marketed as the most dangerous power-puncher in the entire sport.
Fans bought into it and millions tuned in on pay-per-view to see St-Pierre dominate Hardy across five rounds, giving the British fighter barely any offense throughout the fight.
Again, there was nothing wrong with the matchmaking here – Hardy was a worthy contender – but the fact that the UFC managed to sell him as such a huge threat to GSP was a piece of marketing genius.
#2. Ronda Rousey vs. Bethe Correia – UFC 190
While it’s now hard to dispute the idea that Conor McGregor is the biggest star in UFC history, back in 2015, it was probably fair to suggest that then-UFC bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey was neck-and-neck with him.
‘Rowdy’ had entered the UFC in 2013 to plenty of fanfare after her dominant run in StrikeForce, and her brand of intensity, charisma and dangerous fighting skills quickly won UFC fans over. And when she began to dominate anyone she faced in one-sided fashion, the hype behind her became ridiculous.
By the summer of 2015, the UFC could probably have matched Rousey against a random person plucked from the streets and sold pay-per-views, such was her star power.
And while they obviously didn’t do that, their matchmaking at UFC 190 – which pitted ‘Rowdy’ against Bethe Correia – was questionable. Correia had won her first three UFC bouts, but only one – a TKO of a past-her-prime Shayna Baszler – was truly convincing.
Still, the UFC pushed ‘Pitbull’ as a dangerous challenger to Rousey, and evidently, UFC fans bought into the marketing. UFC 190 sold out the HSBC Arena in Rio de Janeiro and drew almost a million buys on pay-per-view.
And sure enough, Rousey dispatched Correia with a knockout in just 34 seconds. The fight was one of the most one-sided in UFC history – but incredibly, nobody really minded, proving that Rousey’s star power would always win out.
#1. Jon Jones vs. Chael Sonnen – UFC 159
Perhaps the best example of the UFC marketing a bad-sounding fight brilliantly came in 2013. The contest in question pitted then-UFC light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones – arguably the most dominant fighter in the sport – against Chael Sonnen, a challenger who hadn’t fought at 205lbs in nearly a decade and who was coming off a loss.
How the UFC ended up making the fight was bizarre in itself. Jones had been scheduled to fight Dan Henderson at UFC 151 in August 2012, but when Henderson blew his knee out, the UFC quickly searched for a replacement.
Sonnen was one of the fighters who offered to step in, but Jones balked at the idea, feeling he didn’t have enough time to prepare for a different opponent.
UFC 151 ended up being scrapped altogether, with UFC President Dana White furious with Jones for turning down what most people felt was a softball fight with ‘The American Gangster.’
Sonnen, though – always a tremendous trash-talker - used the situation to his advantage. He sold the idea that Jones had been afraid to fight him, and with fans catching on, the UFC went all-in and booked the two rivals to fight at UFC 159.
And to build the fight up even further, they dedicated the 17th season of The Ultimate Fighter to promoting the feud between the two.
Despite the fight looking incredibly one-sided on paper, fans somehow bought into the idea, viewing Sonnen as a real threat to Jones’ title reign. And when it came to the pay-per-view, UFC 159 drew over 550k buys, with millions around the world tuning in.
Unsurprisingly, of course, Jones dispatched Sonnen with a first-round TKO, making the fight seem as easy as a lot of fans had suspected it would be. It didn’t matter, though – the UFC’s marketing machine had once again turned a weak-sounding fight into a mega-seller.
