Mayweather vs. UFC 103 - Which Event was the Biggest Draw?

Following the war of words between Floyd Mayweather and the UFC, the stage was set this past weekend for one of the biggest MMA vs. boxing head-to-head competitions we’ve seen.

The Mayweather vs. Juan Manuel Marquez bout and UFC 103 went up against each other in a pay-per-view war that sent the best of friends to separate bars on Saturday night and evoked countless arguments over which is the better combat sport.

While the pay-per-view numbers haven’t been published yet, each side can claim a small victory as we wait for the final numbers to be revealed.

In terms of hype and the “water cooler” factor, Marquez vs. Mayweather seems to have won out by most accounts.

As of Monday, Floyd Mayweather was ranked fourth among the top ten yahoo searches while UFC 103 nor Vitor Belfort, Rich Franklin, or any of the other big name UFC fighters on the weekend’s card made the top ten.

Making matters worse for the UFC in that department is that David Hasselhoff came in at number eight.

That result makes a ton of sense, however, considering that boxing fans had been starved for a big-name fight for many months while the UFC just held a series of events that were all deemed more exciting and filled with more star power than UFC 103.

Some people felt the UFC made a mistake in putting one of its least enticing cards of the year in UFC 103 up against the Mayweather fight, especially considering its lack of star power.

Franklin has always been a good draw and Belfort had the attention of the old school UFC crowd; Mirko Cro Cop is always a good draw, but that was about it. There were no Georges St. Pierre or Brock Lesnar-level superstars on the card that could have diverted attention away from Mayweather.

But the UFC did come away with a big success on the night in terms of broadcasting its undercard for UFC 103, as the broadcast drew a whopping 1.3 million viewers, a high number for a Saturday night to say the least.

The broadcast of the UFC 103 undercard was the second-highest rated program on the night in the 18-to-34-year-old male demographic, a coveted slot, and beat out the West Virginia vs. Auburn game on ESPN2.

It was outdraw only by the big Texas vs. Texas Tech primetime college football game.

While not all the results are in yet, the early returns are that both boxing and the UFC are capable of being huge players in the sports scene as long as they offer good quality content for fair prices and especially if when big name guys like Mayweather are involved.

Of course, for a true measure of which sport is tops right now, we’ll need to see each at its best.

For example, how about a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight up against a UFC 100-caliber card in the future some time? Now that would be interesting.