By Karl Freitag
On Saturday night at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida, UFC staged a successful pay-per-view show. This was the first major combat sports event in the United States since March. The show took place with no fans in attendance and all fighters, officials, production crew, and anyone else involved had to pass multiple temperature checks, an antibody test, and a nasal-swab test. UFC has shows scheduled for May 13 and May 16 at the same venue.
Florida has been open to hosting boxing events as long as there are no spectators in attendance, which unfortunately sidelines the state’s vibrant club show circuit. But major promoters with TV dates have so far been gun-shy about coming to the Sunshine State.
With UFC’s blueprint, we hope the pugilistic lockdown will end soon as the world’s fight fans suffer through another weekend without boxing.
Not a mega UFC fan but they did a good job last night. You could tell arena was empty but it didn’t seem stupid. It is promising for boxing events. I think UFC fans are more willing to pay PPV though. Hopefully boxing fans will be willing to pay something to make up for lost ticket prices
Not just PPV. ESPN, DAZN, FOX and Showtime are currently desperate for live sports. Fanless fight cards are the road back for now.
True , but a lot of people are even unwilling to pay for DAZN and ESPN +. It amazes me. I understand how the 60$ event is a stretch , but DAZN and ESPN+ are great value
What a waste of money DAZN was! I paid them $99 and I have found one single fight interesting, that being the Joshua rematch with Ruiz, and now, of course, there is nothing at all on it except replays.
With all due respect, if you only found AJ v Ruiz rematch interesting, you are probably not the type of person to be subscribing to a boxing channel. I was watching (and enjoying) shows pretty much every week. There is nothing wrong with you not being a big boxing fan, but you can’t criticise the network’s efforts when the only fight that interested you was literally the most anticipated fight of the year in the sport. They even do a one month $20 subscription to cater to fans like yourself. Cancel the subscription and, in future, just find a way to watch the big fights
We all know Youtubers upload the fights hours to a few days after the smoke clears. Sorry, but true…
It is a shame. I am not exactly wealthy but I just see a 10$ subscription as nothing considering what you get. I can spend that amount on a sandwich.
Sometimes it’s literally minutes. When you have only a slightly delayed, free alternative, you’re going to have a lot of people who won’t pay.
It will take a while before we are back to normalcy. Patience and working together are the two key factors. Eventually, all of us will develop some immunity against the COVID-19 and we can move on in life and enjoy our daily living. Some models are predicting another surge this fall/winter during flu season. However, nobody can predict how bad the surge will be. Either way, we will prevail.
It’s the unknown that makes it scary. I’m for seeing new fights but the unknown with this virus makes me say let’s wait.
Yeah, I mean a fighter and 2 cornerman had Covid. We can say this now, but if UFC has a covid outbreak they are going to look extremely stupid. I think patience is the only answer really.
I really enjoyed the fights last night. I’m primarily a boxing fan but to see live sports again was a treat. I was surprised how good it was without fans.
“Boxing can use UFC as a blueprint”
Yes!
This was news. 20 years ago
Multiple temperature checks, antibody tests, and a nasal-swab test? This is beyond insane. Promotors should just ignore these ridiculously useless “safety precautions” and get back to business as usual. Nothing has changed.
It’s better to be extra cautious and safe than sorry.
Boxing can use a lot of UFC concepts as blueprints. Like how about starting with good fighters having to fight each other to earn title shots. And then the best fighting the best and not padding records. Why are we going to have to wait until Spence and Crawford are collecting social security before we will be able to see them fight? This obsession with undefeated records is BS. Randy Couture is an absolute legend in MMA and he was 16-9! Boxing is the greatest sport in the world, it’s a shame we are forced to constantly ask ourselves “what if this guy fought that guy.” There should be ONE champion per division, period. Also in the UFC you can earn 50k bonuses for fighting your heart out. I know so many fighters who weren’t in with the right promoters and left the best part of themselves in the ring for peanuts. $100 a round. No bonuses, bad decisions. 99% of the money goes to 1% of the fighters. The sweet science deserves better.
Boxing fan when a prospect gets his first loss: “He’s a bum!”
MMA fan when a prospect gets his first loss: “He will learn from his mistakes and get better.”