mma / Columns

UFC 203: Why CM Punk’s MMA Debut Was a Success

September 16, 2016 | Posted by Jeffrey Harris

UFC 203 is in the books. All signs points to the card being an overwhelming success, at least on the financial side of things. MMA Fighting’s Marc Raimondi revealed on Twitter that this could very well have been the biggest UFC PPV buyrate for card without Conor McGregor, Ronda Rousey or Brock Lesnar since UFC 183, which was headlined by Nick Diaz vs. Anderson Silva. That card pulled in a reported 650,000 PPV buys. Raimondi also said it could even be the biggest UFC PPV without those aforementioned names since UFC 182, which featured Jones vs. Cormier and pulled in about 800,000 buys. The event had almost 19,000 fans in attendance, and a live gate $2.6 million. It was the second-biggest gate ever for a UFC event in the state of Ohio, and it also marked the UFC’s first ever run in Cleveland, Ohio, bolstered by heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic competing in the main event. Miocic also happens to be a Cleveland native. After the disclosed payouts were release, a lot of people questioned Punk’s salary. However, when you look at the results for the card, the fighters who likely received PPV points as a result of his presence, such as Miocic or even Overeem, can thank CM Punk for that.

In a report on MMA Fighting, expert wrestling and PPV analyst and reporter Dave Meltzer indicated that the event likely would’ve only done about 250,000 to 300,000 PPV buys without CM Punk. Considering the lack of buzz a heavyweight title fight such as Miocic vs. Overeem was creating outside of the hardcore MMA fandom, that sounds like a feasible observation. In conclusion, CM Punk was the spark and main attraction that drew fans into UFC 203. Honestly, there is nothing wrong with that. When CM Punk was first announced as signing to fight for the UFC, this is what I saw as the ultimate end game. Punk would fight on a PPV card, likely get smashed, but everybody would tune in. And tune in people did.

By the time Sunday came, everyone and their mother had watched the Punk fight and probably UFC 203 for that matter. That means if they saw UFC 203, they likely stayed around for what turned out to be an exciting heavyweight title bout, showing the hometown boy of Stipe Miocic battling back from adversity and ultimately crushing Alistair Overeem. I don’t think that’s a bad thing for the industry. Now let me preface this, I do not think this is a strategy UFC should go with often. I think it’s something they can do once in a blue moon, similar to the James Toney vs. Randy Couture fight from 2010. Mind you, that was still a fight where some people convinced themselves that Toney would win.

Then the disclosed salaries for the fight were revealed, and CM Punk’s disclosed payout before deductions or taxes, or any behind-closed-door bonuses, turned out to be $500,000. A lot of fans and fighters had an opinion on this. Some fighters who work and toiled away their whole careers and even had some strong runs in the UFC would rarely see that kind of payout. I can see why some fighters would be unhappy about this. I can definitely understand it. But does CM Punk deserve that kind of money for just showing up and getting his ass kicked? Yes, he does. The results speak for themselves. It was because of CM Punk’s presence this show was a huge financial success and was one of the UFC’s biggest PPV events without a McGregor or Rousey at the top in a while. And it’s because of CM Punk that Miocic is walking away from the fight as a potential millionaire instead of a thousandaire if he’s getting PPV points.

At the end of the day, the UFC’s payment model is performance and incentive based. I’m not saying that it shouldn’t or will never change. But in it’s current form, CM Punk earned his payout because most of the card was sold on the interest of what would happen in his fight. Without Punk, people certainly would’ve been talking about Overeem vs. Miocic for a couple days, but Punk’s getting smashed on the card put the interest for this fight way over the top. It became a highly searched and trending topic.

In many ways, it’s similar to the interest Brock Lesnar brought to the sport in his heyday. Yes, Lesnar may have had a more legitimate athletic background compared to Punk, but no one truly knew how well Lesnar could fight or even if he could. Many of the complaints about Punk were similar to Lesnar. And for all his flaws, when Lesnar left, it created a void in the sport, and many pundits and fans were desperate to see him again. But does it change the fact that Lesnar was hot-shotted into big high-profile fights and title bouts he didn’t “earn” or “deserve”? No, it doesn’t. When you get right down to it, Lesnar never earned or deserved his title shots from a merit standpoint. However, at the time, Lesnar was the guy to fight Couture for the title because that was the fight fans wanted to pay for. And ultimately, Lesnar was matched up against all the toughest fighters of his division. But Lesnar was still a man with only a handful of fights getting all the big paydays and all the benefits. Did this benefit the fighters lower down the pecking order? I would say it did. Lesnar’s presence helped the UFC expand. With that expansion, more opportunities for fighters were created.

Now, I would say fighter pay is still an issue, but the superstardom of the likes of PPV draws like Lesnar later begat people such as Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor, who were able to draw big paydays as well and break through with fandom and popularity. Miocic’s last disclosed payout before UFC 203 was his fight with Arlovski at UFC 195, which was $60K/$60K. At UFC 203, his pay went up basically 600%, and possibly even higher thanks to CM Punk. If anything, whatever extra money Miocic and Overeem made off that card can largely be credited to Punk because it wasn’t them that everyone was tuning in that fight for. But maybe as a result, now people will be more interested in tuning into their next fights.

That’s why I think it’s OK to do a CM Punk experiment every once in a while. Sometimes it works out far better than any expected like with Lesnar. That said, I never want to see CM Punk ever fight in the Octagon again. And if he fights at all, he needs to go back to a smaller stage and start with much lower-level amateur fights and go from there, if at all. Either way, respect to CM Punk because he did go out there and make the walk, which many doubted he would at all.

Jeffrey Harris is 411mania’s resident Jack of All Trades and has covered MMA for the site since 2008. You can shoot him an e-mail at [email protected] or hit him up on Facebook. He also co-hosts the 411 Ground & Pound Radio podcast along with Robert Winfree. You can listen to the latest episode of the podcast in the player below.