This was written at lunchtime on February 3. Seven hours later, this poster appeared in Las Vegas… just saying.
The poster people got the memo from .@TheNotoriousMMA – new poster complete with belts & champion vs champion on it. pic.twitter.com/PkRghryd2r
— Heidi Fang (@HeidiFang) February 3, 2016
When McGregor complained about the posters for UFC 196 (then UFC 197), it was with bated breath that we waited to see whether White would stick or twist.
“That’s what I just noticed,” McGregor said at the pre-sale press conference. “Where is my damn belt?
“This is a super-fight. I look up at that poster, I see myself tucked in the back there. I see a guy whose last gate was 1.7 million. He (Rafael dos Anjos) fought on free TV. He’s never brought a dime to the company. He’s never made a dime yet he is sitting there on the front of my poster.”
Whether or not the promotion was right or not to exclude McGregor’s featherweight belt doesn’t really matter but the precedent had been set in the past with the promotional content for UFC 94 when BJ Penn, the UFC lightweight champion at the time, moved up to welterweight to challenge for Georges St-Pierre’s welterweight belt.
And Penn’s belt was there, shining away, in all posters and at all press conferences.
But McGregor’s was missing.
‘The Notorious’ is, without exception, the most powerful player in the promotion.
Typically, what he says goes and that was evident by the fact that the UFC broke their initial word by allowing McGregor to keep his featherweight title as he moves up to lightweight to challenge Rafael dos Anjos.
Immediately after McGregor claimed 145 lb gold, UFC Vice President of Public Relations Dave Sholler outlined the plan.
“He (Dana White) laid out two scenarios,” Sholler said. “One scenario is that he (McGregor) stays at 145 lbs and fights Frankie Edgar.
“The second scenario is potentially vacating that title, moving up and getting the next shot following the FOX card next weekend between Cerrone and Dos Anjos. So those are the two scenarios.”
But neither scenario took place. McGregor was allowed to keep his belt after expressing his unhappiness with the UFC’s plan, proving just how much power he possessed over the promotion’s top brass.
His power isn’t absolute though, and we can see that by the fact that the UFC haven’t budged an inch in terms of putting McGregor’s belt in all further promotional material.
It’s not like they didn’t have to change the posters. A rebrand took place in order to replace the UFC 197 graphics with ‘UFC 196.’
And it’s not like they’d need to re-shoot anything because, as we saw in the promos for both UFC 189 and UFC 194, technology can work wonders.
The two pictures on the left of the below image are screenshots from the UFC 189 promo, which was initially scheduled to be Jose Aldo versus a very beltless Conor McGregor.
Aldo got injured, McGregor beat Chad Mendes for the interim featherweight title and the promo looked to have been wasted.
But, unwilling to lose out on the record-breaking promotional figures, the UFC reused it for UFC 194 but inserted McGregor’s interim belt using CGI, exhibited in the pair of screenshots on the right.
The UFC could have used the UFC 197 to UFC 196 rebranding process to keep McGregor happy by placing his belt on his shoulder for all new posters.
But they didn’t. The most recent promo was broadcast on Saturday night and, although he dominated the footage, there wasn’t a featherweight belt in sight.
The UFC didn’t kowtow to McGregor!
And in the process, they showed that they’re not willing to relinquish all power to their biggest star.
Or so we thought…
The poster people got the memo from .@TheNotoriousMMA – new poster complete with belts & champion vs champion on it. pic.twitter.com/PkRghryd2r
— Heidi Fang (@HeidiFang) February 3, 2016
