Bang for your Buck

[ztwhite]

So after last nights boxing match (Paquiao / Hatton), I'm feeling a bit ripped off and ticked off !!!

Let me begin by saying I didn't buy the PPV, just watched it on a hacked internet site (send me a private message if you'd like to know how). BUT... for the majority of the world who did buy and watch the fight, it set you back somewhere in the neighborhood of $50.

That's an awful lot of hype and money to spend on what was being billed as the biggest fight in the last couple of years. Then, to top it all off, Hatton gets his ass knocked out in the second round !!! So when you break it down, you paid $25 a round to watch boxing !!

It also made me think about last months Chuck Liddell UFC fight against Mauricio Rua. "The Iceman" ended up being knocked out in the first round and again, if you would have paid for that event, it was also in the $50 neighborhood. So that one ended up being $50 a round !!!

Now before anyone says, "but you get the undercard fights too...", does anyone really know or care much about the undercards on these events ??? Personally, I did not and do not. I watch the fights for the big names.

With all this being said, a lot of people were bitching and complaining about Wrestlemania 25 a few weeks back. They were pissed because the main event (HHH / Orton) didn't deliver in their opinion. The Divas Battle Royal was horrible, the ladder match was subpar with previous mania ladder matches, Cena & Edge had to fight again with the Big Show thrown in the mix, etc... But... Undertaker & HBK absolutely tore the house down in Houston !!!

Then, this past Sunday night, a lot of people were bitching and complaining about all the rehashed matches on Backlash. But... after it was over, there were a lot of people saying how good the PPV was (and I agree - it was pretty decent).

SO... my question is... doesn't the WWE provide you with the most and best entertainment for your buck ??? I know it costs $40 for a PPV or $50 for Wrestlemania, but you really do get entertained for the entire 3 or 4 hours it's on. You know the main event isn't going to last five minutes and the undercard matches are often times better than the main event.

I understand that it's fixed and fake (it's still real to me ), but it never ends five minutes after it starts. You actually get rewarded with quality entertainment and action, not disappointed when it's over after ten minutes.

Should the WWE try and promote their product with these facts ??? Thoughts.

 

[Dave]

Yeah i have to agree with over most of the points you raised there actually. I do belive that with the WWE you definately get the best value for your money out of any of the PPV's available at the moment. It also important to note that in the UK, it is only £15 for any payperview, be it WWE Wrestlemania or any other WWE PPV, or UFC or boxing. It is always £15 and I think that equates to about $22. Even better value. I too watched a live stream of it on a p2p with one of my friends. I gave him a few quid so it was okay. But back to the orignal point. I am a boxing fan and I would not have been disappointed if I had paid full price for that PPV. It was good.

The other thing is that you can't account for how long things are gonna take on boxing or the UFC and that's why sometimes they take a little less time than WWE. For me, I sort of knew that Hatton would have been demolished by Pacman last night and I think it would have made more sense to get some more undercard fights and a co-main event with some bigger names.

 

[Baller]

I agree and disagree with that. Yes we know WWE gives you good lengthy matches, and you somewhat have a clue whats going to happen. But what would you be saying if that fight went 8 or 9 rounds and was an absolute classic? Thats what great about it you dont know what to expect, and the undercard matches are still good fights most of the time.

 

[Blade]

That's why I'm not a big fan of general combat sports. They can end really quickly. You sit down, about to watch 2 of the best, and it can be over in a few minutes, leaving you with 24 minutes with nothing to do. People talk about the "thrill" of seeing a knockout.... I don't get what the big deal is. I'd get more of a thrill out of watching 2 evenly matched guys go at it, with no clear sign of who will win.

When wrestling fans collectively are certain of a match tearing the house down, we are never wrong. And usually, the lower card matches are much easier to care about than in MMA.
How many lower card mathes did most, if not all, of the fans care about at mania?
HBK vs Taker
World title match
WWE title match
Hardys match
MitB.

And you can probably add the tag match to that, if it hadn't been a dark match. MMA just cannot compete with wrestling in terms of fans getting sucked in to what's going on.

 

[ztwhite]

I agree and disagree with that. Yes we know WWE gives you good lengthy matches, and you somewhat have a clue whats going to happen. But what would you be saying if that fight went 8 or 9 rounds and was an absolute classic? Thats what great about it you dont know what to expect, and the undercard matches are still good fights most of the time.

Point well taken, but it also kind of emphasizes my original thought.

It's a lot of money to spend without knowing what to expect. At least you know that you're guaranteed three to four hours of quality entertainment when buying a WWE pay per view.

The other major PPV events are a crapshoot.

 

[Agent-67]

I understand what your saying in you get WWE action for the full amount of time. However, UFC is taping dark matches that happen before each show. So in the event of a quick match or two or even three, they can and do show their dark matches. So even though the matches may end quick you get to see more fights. As for the main event ending quick, there is nothing any sport can do about that outside of fixing the fight. Which no one wants to see happen. Its real sometimes you get hit and thats it. I love wrestling but I can say as many times as I have been disappointed by a UFC ppv I have been just as disappointed by WWE ppv's. Their writing team has terrible ideas and hasnt had a good idea since the Rock won his first title at SS 98.

 

[y2empleh]

I can see what the original poster was trying to get at; however, he was basing it solely off the theory that "the main event of boxing/ufc will be short", but what if it is the scheduled amount of rounds that ends in a knockout/tapout/whatever with only a few seconds left? Yea, it is a crapshoot but ideally you aim for about 50/50 percentages of good and bad, which in my opinion would be about the same percentages we've gotten from wwe ppv's this year (royal rumble and wm25 being subpar and NWO and Backlash being very good)

 

[rubxcubedude]

It also made me think about last months Chuck Liddell UFC fight against Mauricio Rua. "The Iceman" ended up being knocked out in the first round and again, if you would have paid for that event, it was also in the $50 neighborhood. So that one ended up being $50 a round !!!

For me the UFC always brings the most bang for the buck. I've never been disappointed by a UFC i've boughten. Since you mentioned UFC 97 I'll compare it to Backlash:

Luiz Cane beat Steve Cantwell by unanimous decision-This fight was akin to the CM Punk/Kane fight. you had the young untested fighter(Cane) against a vet(former WEC champ Cantwell). It was better though because the young gun won.

Cheick Kongo beat Antoni Hardonk by second-round TKO (strikes)-This match is the Hardy I quit match. Two strikers who you just knew where gonna stand and strike. In the end though, you knew Kongo had to win because he is just simply the better fighter

Mauricio “Shogun” Rua beats Chuck Liddell by first-round TKO (strikes)-This match can't touch a Backlash match. You complained that it ended in the first round. That is what makes it so compelling. You saw the end of an era. Basically, this is Flair losing at Wrestlemania in his retirement match. The end of an era.

Anderson Silva beat Thales Leites by unanimous decision-A 5 round squash match...basically. Silva is just that good that he doesn't have to try with these mediocre opponents. Now management(Dana White) is punishing him for not finishing the fight by making him fight Forrest Griffin!!! How awesome is that going to be!

There is no denying that UFC is great PPV money spent. You argue that you know WWE is going to provide 3 to 4 hours of entertainment. So does UFC, the only difference is I also know UFC isn't scripted

 

[ztwhite]

Let me start by saying I'm not a UFC fan and it's hard to really get in to boxing with all the controversial endings. Plus, when the two best heavyweight fighters refuse to mix it up because they're brothers, that really chaps my ass.

But, I wanted to reply to two of the points you made.

Mauricio “Shogun” Rua beats Chuck Liddell by first-round TKO (strikes)-This match can't touch a Backlash match. You complained that it ended in the first round. That is what makes it so compelling. You saw the end of an era. Basically, this is Flair losing at Wrestlemania in his retirement match. The end of an era.

So I'm not sure about you, but I know I would have been pissed if Ric Flair had been nailed with Sweet Chin Music less than five minutes in to the match. Since this was "the end of an era", weren't you disappointed that it didn't last longer ??? We all knew Flair was done and he definitely wasn't the Flair of the 80's, but we wanted to see one helluva swan song and the WWE delivered better than UFC... albeit UFC is REAL and you never know what will happen.

Anderson Silva beat Thales Leites by unanimous decision-A 5 round squash match...basically. Silva is just that good that he doesn't have to try with these mediocre opponents. Now management(Dana White) is punishing him for not finishing the fight by making him fight Forrest Griffin!!! How awesome is that going to be!

So this sounds a lot like Big Show facing Kung Fu Naki. Hypothetically speaking, Big Show would flat out destroy Fu Naki, but he fucks around with him for 25 minutes (the equivalent of five UFC rounds I believe). You knew, thousands of UFC fans knew, and apparently Dana White knew that Silva was that damn good too, but yet he still fucked around with him. Doesn't it disappoint you that Silva didn't knock him out in the first round ??? And if Silva is/was that good, why is he facing a guy like Leites on PPV ??? Why not give it to the fans for free on Spike ???

Overall, each person ultimately decides how to spend their money and how much of their money to spend, so I'm not trying to ridicule anyones personal level of entertainment or tell them how to spend their money. It just makes me wonder why so many people complain about the cost of a WWE pay per view or the quality of the matches they see. At least you know what your getting before it happens - sometimes too much so.