UFC will stream Fight for the Troops II prelims on Facebook (Update)
Posted on January 18, 2011, 08:37 PM by Joey SantosusTwo of this Saturday night's UFC: Fight for the Troops II preliminary bouts will be streamed for free viewing on the social networking website, Facebook.
The stream will start at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT) ahead of the event's main-card and will feature DaMarques Johnson (11-8) vs. Mike Guymon (12-4-1), as well as Cody McKenzie (12-0) vs.Yves Edwards (38-16-1).
"I'm always looking for ways to give fans fights for free, and this is just another example of that," UFC president Dana White stated. "Facebook is such a great tool for people to stay connected, and we're excited to put two live fights on our UFC page for free."
UFC: Fight for the Troops II goes down January 22nd from Fort Hood, Texas and will be headlined by a Lightweight clash between top contenders Evan Dunham and Melvin Guillard, as well as Heavyweights Matt Mitrione and Tim Hague, who will square off in the co-main event attraction of the night.
UPDATE:
Just hours ahead of the UFC: Fight for the Troops II event, the promotion has announced that instead of the originally scheduled two preliminary bouts, there will now be four fights streamed live to their Facebook page. The additional match-ups will include Lightweights Waylon Lowe vs. Willamy Freire, as well as Featherweights Mike Brown vs. Rani Yahya. The live stream will now begin an hour earlier at 7p.m. ET (4 p.m. PT).
Streamed Live and Free to Facebook
Waylon Lowe vs. Willamy Freire
Mike Brown vs. Rani Yahya
DaMarques Johnson vs. Mike Guymon
Cody McKenzie vs. Yves Edwards
To gain access to the stream, simply visit the UFC Official Facebook page and click the "Like" button.
Comments
Interesting option
cool mortal combat icon
This is a great Idea but why not just stream all the fights if they're doing it on Facebook? Unless they're unsure how well this is going to work or Facebook is somehow charging them a large sum of money to put the stream up I don't see any downside of letting people watch all the fights like this, it's great exposure for their undercard fighters which means more pay per view sales whenever they get a main card spot. Still great move by the UFC.
They are probably just testing the waters of streaming over facebook. I assume with the huge fanbase, they probably dont have faith in facebooks ability to stream a full event to millions (I'd assume). Facebook also has security problems (i.e. the leaked info this week of addresses and phone numbers to app creators, etc). I agree with codemaster below, I'd rather it stream on UFC.com
Man MMA is going everywhere Spike TV, MTV, ION TV, Facebook, ESPN, and possibly more.
don't forget Showtime! :)
I would rather they stream directly from the UFC website than Facebook. It worked fine last time.
Who has a Facebook really?
Just saw the TUF commercial. They are actually calling Brock Lesner the BIGGEST name in MMA. Ridiculous.