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Bad news: A deal could not be reached between the network and the promotion meaning the Dublin event, headlined by Mauricio "Shogun" Rua vs. Mark Coleman and Rich Franklin vs. Dan Henderson, will air live on pay-per-view in the afternoon and on tape delay in the evening.
And don't bother getting your hopes up about UFC 95 either; we've been able to confirm that it will be a PPV, as well. That event is rumored to be headlined by Chuck Liddell vs. Anderson Silva.
The simple reason why both these cards won't be airing on Spike is because the network has a yearly production budget that kicks in on Jan. 1, and they don't want to pay the high price of airing a UFC PPV from Europe so early in the year. The network was able to air two events in December and UFC 89 in October because it's the end of the year and they had extra money in the production budget.
January is shaping up to be an expensive month for MMA fans with UFC 93 on Jan. 17, followed by Affliction II on Jan. 24 and UFC 94 on Jan. 31. This doesn't bode well for Affliction.
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Comments (3)
11/18/08
If the Liddell vs. Silva rumors are true 93 will end up being a better event. I'm much more interested in a great match up of Henderson/Franklin and the return of Shogun than I am in watching Anderson Silva pick apart Chuck Liddell which will end in a KO or a one sided decision.
11/18/08
Its not like Dana or Zuffa is paying the fighters like boxing (10-20 mil a fight) I think he could afford to give spike a break on the oversea's show's, beside's it would make them more money in the long run building more fans for the larger ppv's ie. more exposuer more fans willing to pay more often. So How's taste that peepee?
11/18/08
I'm curious as to how much money the UFC pulls in from a Spike broadcast as opposed to a pay-per view. I understand 95 being ppv if Silva vs Liddel headlines, but I can't see UFC 93 doing more than 300,000 buys. Anyone with financial insight on this?
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