Media Forbes: Khabib Nurmagomedov might be the best, but he needs Conor McGregor to be a Mega Star

[Mike]

So you're telling me that Khabib vs Dustin Poirier on a shit card in the morning drew less eyes than the biggest ufc ppv ever? Wow, never would've thought.

Seriously. This card didnt even have a real co main. Felder vs Barboza? Fuck outta here. It's impressive that card generated as much interest as it did.

 

[Ogata]

Winning fights>>>>>>>>>> super duper totally crazy massive OMG Mega Star!

 

[AP_RESURRECTION]

Thank you. I don't give a shit about popularity as it's only going to bring more casuals and ignorant people to the sport. UFC needs to concentrate on making real champions and the UFC can get back it's golden age of dominant champions.

I get that the UFC wants more viewers so they can get more money. But we don't need this stupid social media popularity bullshit watering down the sport. Pretty soon we'll have nothing but average fighters who talk a great game, but aren't great fighters. In the end, I only want to watch great fights, because reality TV trash talking drama is literally on every channel these days.

I read your post and thought of an old man shaking his fist at change. And your join date supports that!

 

[ViD]

People who argue here that Khabib is a mega star because, supposedly, 500 million Russians watch his fights on potatoes connected to aluminum foil antennas, are beyond delusional. He's a grinding wrestler with little personality.

When I see people with yellow cards, they usually live up to their status, posting absolute dumb shit

 

[Bill Laimbeer]

This is crank material to Conor fanboys, don’t mean shit to me.

 

[thewhiterooster]

who gives a shit what Forbes thinks... I mean, when Khabib whooped Conor's ass it definitely skyrocketed his popularity, but now? he certainly doesn't "need" Conor. dumb article, dumb thought

 

[toutadixballes]

When I see people with yellow cards, they usually live up to their status, posting absolute dumb shit

 

[asdf122345]

stupid article..

 

[Post 2 Decision]

Kebab without Conor is a nobody in the casual world

 

[MMAart]

Kebab without Conor is a nobody in the casual world

This might be true before Khabib took Conor's soul. Now, everyone who follows MMA know who Khabib is.

 

[Timurd123]

A “Russian” Muslim named Khabib will never be popular in America on that level Forbes is hilarious at times, they should know better about global markets

He is pretty big in other parts of the world, he will never have McGreggors presence, they are worlds apart and it doesn’t matter how much he wins or who he beats, that’s the nature of the game

 

[flairleguccijoints]

Nurmagomedov is worthy of the accolades because he’s arguably the most dominant champion in the UFC. However, social media statistics from this past weekend suggest his popularity is noticeably lower when he’s not involved with former champion and bitter rival Conor McGregor.

..

Per stats I’ve obtained from the social media listening firm ListenFirst, almost every Nurmagomedov-associated social media tag and post saw less engagement than last year’s mega-brawl between the Dagestani great and McGregor.

In fact, social media interest around UFC 242 looked to be down when compared to other recent high-caliber UFC PPV main events.

Love or hate McGregor, the Irishman moves the needle like no other fighter before him. He is truly the Floyd Mayweather Jr. of MMA (without the undefeated record) because simply associating his name with an event or fighter leads to more interest and revenue.

If you include his 2017 boxing match with Mayweather, McGregor has headlined every one of the five highest-grossing UFC events in history. Nurmagomedov is an all-time great in the Octagon, but still a second-tier star when it comes to drawing power.

• Overall, there were 196K Tweets mentioning the hashtag #UFC242 on September 7, 2019. The top performing Tweet using the hashtag was Dana White sharing a video of Nurmagomedov jumping out of the octagon to hug him, which generated 45,582 responses. You could argue this moment was only interesting because it was directly relatable with the brawl that followed Nurmagomedov’s win over McGregor last October.
• That puts UFC 242 slightly below the level of real time social media interest around other recent hight profile UFC events. There were 255K Tweets mentioning the hashtag #UFC239 on July 6, 2019 around the Jon Jones vs. Thiago Santos main event, with the #UFC241 hashtag generated 219K Tweets on August 17, 2019 around Daniel Cormier vs. Stipe Miocic.

[...]
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianm...onor-mcgregor-to-be-a-mega-star/#49e912e9102f

Do you agree with it ? I thought Khabib was starting to become a star by himself, but stats may show otherwise

Are you a female? Forbes is fast becoming irrelevant, with real time analysis available, by the time they print or post something, the world has moved on.

 

[car epic win]

forbes.com is not forbes magazine you goof. forbes.com is a content farm

 

[Misanthropist]

Remember the good ol days when MMA used to be an underground sport and no one gave a shit about that celeb wannabe crap until recently when the sport became mainstream?

 

[San Griente]

It's true, without Conor Khabib would have never got the exposure that he did and WME would have never even though of getting into mma by purchasing the UFC. People love to hate Conor but most of them are casuals who discovered this sport because of him in the first place

I’m sure you are right. But funny thing is I started watching this “sport” one week after Khabib/Nurmagomedov, even though I’d never heard of the event or either one of those fighters.

I just saw an AXSTV thumbnail on Youtube, clicked on it, an said Hell yeah, THIS is the kind of sport I can enjoy.
I’d been watching WorldStar and road-rage fights in Russia and the algorithm said “You will like AXSTV.”

Is this most peoples’ path of descent into this hell? WorldStar>AXS>UFC ?

 

[Post 2 Decision]

This might be true before Khabib took Conor's soul. Now, everyone who follows MMA know who Khabib is.

That's what I mean though

Kebab owes it to Conor

 

[San Griente]

I read your post and thought of an old man shaking his fist at change. And your join date supports that!

If more old men had the courage to take a break from cursing at clouds to shake their fists at change, the world would be a better place.

 

[MescalineDreams]

Wow, that was a woeful article.

Sure, 'tweeting' is a useful metric for measuring interest. But an even more useful metric is the number of fucking people that actually watched the thing.

Here is a number for you: 26 million. That is the number of Russians alone that watched Khabib's last fight.

https://www.bloodyelbow.com/2019/9/...agomedov-dagestan-russia-dustin-poirier-fight

To put that in perspective, that is 5 times the entire population of Ireland. That is 25% of the number of people that watched the Superbowl. That's right, only 4 times as many people worldwide watched the Super Bowl as Russians alone watched this one Khabib fight.

On top of that, I am guessing the PPV sales will be around 1.5 million. Khabib is a bigger star than Conor. Bigger.

Lol wow 1.5 million

Quite hopeful

 

[Substance Abuse]

Irish only 6 million, Russia 150 million

Boom.

 

[ColombianFist]

he's already a star, the thing is, mma is aniche sport and needs a stupid drunken coke head like Mcg to bring it to the spotlight.

If the UFC wants to book khabib to maul McG again i'm fine with it, the booze, inactivity and partying are going to fuck Mcg's already shitty cardio.