UFC's annual Super Bowl weekend card shifts from Las Vegas to Newark in 2014
- from http://www.mmajunkie.com/ on Jul 05, 2013
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The promotion will touch down at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., for a show on Feb. 1, 2014. Super Bowl XLVIII takes place the following day at MetLife Stadium in nearby East Rutherford.
The announcement came as part of a FOX Sports 1 promotional video following a question-and-answer session with FOX analyst Jay Glazer at the UFC Fan Expo in Las Vegas. UFC officials could not immediately confirm to MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) a working event number for the card.
The video teased several major sports events for the new FOX Sports 1 cable network that will take place during the week leading up to the Super Bowl, including a college basketball invitational at New York’s Madison Square Garden, a Golden Boy boxing event at Barclays Center in Brooklyn and, as the voiceover said, “Saturday night in primetime, it’s the main event – the UFC live from the Prudential Center, all leading to Super Bowl XLVIII from MetLife Stadium, live on FOX.”
Although specific broadcast plans for the card were not announced, the event is likely to be a pay-per-view with prelims on FOX Sports 1 leading into the main card. Assuming a pay-per-view, it could wind up being UFC 169. The promotion has tentatively booked UFC 166 for Oct. 19 in Houston, UFC 167 for Nov. 16 in Las Vegas and UFC 168 for Dec. 28 in Las Vegas.
The UFC next month shifts its cable broadcast platform from FX and FUEL TV, owned by broadcast partner FOX, to the new FOX Sports 1 channel, which launches on Aug. 17 and includes a five-hour live UFC broadcast that night from Boston – a six-fight main card and a four-fight preliminary card. (FX will cease the majority of its sports programming. The FOX-owned Speed channel will rebrand as FOX Sports 1, while FUEL TV is expected to become FOX Sports 2.)
Newark’s gain will be Las Vegas’ loss. The UFC has held a pay-per-view card in Sin City the night before the Super Bowl each year starting in 2004. Nine of those 10 cards have taken place at Mandalay Bay Events Center, while UFC 94, featuring a champion-vs.-champion fight between Georges St-Pierre and B.J. Penn, took place at the nearby MGM Grand Garden Arena.
In February, UFC 156 took place at Mandalay Bay Events Center with a main event featherweight title fight between champion Jose Aldo and former lightweight champion Frankie Edgar, with Aldo taking a unanimous decision. The 2012 Super Bowl card was an interim welterweight title fight between Carlos Condit and Nick Diaz.
No main event has been announced yet, but the UFC has tried to feature title fights on its Super Bowl weekend cards. The most recent Super Bowl weekend card to not feature a title fight was UFC 109 in February 2010, which was supposed to feature a middleweight title bout between Anderson Silva and Vitor Belfort, but was moved because of a Silva injury. Randy Couture headlined that card against fellow UFC Hall of Famer Mark Coleman.
The UFC most recently visited Newark for UFC 159 in April, which featured Jon Jones‘ successful light heavyweight title defense against Chael Sonnen. Jones, a native of neighboring New York state, is scheduled for his next fight at UFC 165 on Sept. 21 in Toronto against Alexander Gustafsson. A win there would give him more than four months between fights, should he be considered for a headlining spot on the Super Bowl weekend card.
For the latest on UFC in Newark, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.
(Pictured: Jon Jones)
John Morgan contributed to this report from Las Vegas
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