# He has the strength of Two Santas!!! **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [November 13, 2011, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-has-the-strength-of-two-santas/602760 "2011-11-13T02:56:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2011, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-has-the-strength-of-two-santas/602760/1 "2011-11-13T02:56:46Z")
So Junior dos Santos just knocked out Cain Velasquez in the 1st round of the UFC Heavyweight Championship bout. I like Junior and I was glad to see him get the win. My question, though, is about the format. For those who didn’t know, the UFC broadcast this fight on Fox, rather than have it as a Pay-Per-View event. This is pretty much the first time a big fight has been on Network TV. They have done some fights on Spike. Typically, the PPV events have many, many undercards before 1 or 2 main events. It can be a little excessive. Tonight, the took the opposite approach, showing just 1 fight - the big one. I think they went too far. This was a big effort on their part to reach out to a larger audience - which is great - and I understand not wanting to try to do a huge marathon like the PPVs come off. But it may have backfired, with a 2 hour TV block only containing about 1 minute of fighting. I think having 2 _very good_ undercards would have been a better approach. Any thoughts? ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2011, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-has-the-strength-of-two-santas/602760/2 "2011-11-13T20:34:51Z")
If the commercial went too long, nobody would have seen the fight. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2011, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-has-the-strength-of-two-santas/602760/3 "2011-11-14T03:35:29Z")
This ‘event’ was an epic failure on the West Coast. I knew the results 2 hours before the broadcast. If they are going to do this again it should be live across the country. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2011, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-has-the-strength-of-two-santas/602760/4 "2011-11-14T04:05:48Z")
I was on the east coast and didn’t realize that it wasn’t live. Yeah, that definitely makes it even worse. I think the UFC has done a great job of developing their brand over the past few years, but this missed in a big way. ---
**Author:** ![vdgg81](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/3d9bf3/32.png) [@vdgg81](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vdgg81)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2011, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/he-has-the-strength-of-two-santas/602760/5 "2011-11-14T14:52:30Z")
I didn’t see the fight in the US, so I’m not sure how the experience was there, but this card did have the regular number of fights, including an absolutely amazing co-main featuring Clay Guida and Ben Henderson. Henderson won and now he’ll face Frankie Edgar for the lightweight title in early 2012. This event was a bit of an oddity. Next year Fox will show 4 UFC cards and in those I’m pretty sure they’ll transmit the whole main card (5 fights). But Cigano was amazing, wasn’t he? Can you believe he had a torn meniscus and was in crutches less than 2 weeks before the fight? PS - The whole card, some 9 or 10 fights, was streamed for free on several websites. This year the UFC decided they’d show every fight in every card and so they stream the prelims for free. Some of the best fights are buried deep in the undercard every time, so you may want to check that out next week.