UK fight fans may have been treated to a title fight double header this past weekend in Manchester but UFC 304 didn’t hit expectations.
There was a lot of disgruntlement from both fans and fighters when it was announced that the event would be taking place at US time, meaning that the night wouldn’t kick off until 11 pm local time at the Co-Op Live arena.
It was clear to see how it affected the ticket-buyers on the night, with videos of the crowd being literally asleep in their seats during the event.
This strange schedule will have also impacted the fighters, with Leon Edwards stating inside the Octagon after losing his welterweight title that he felt low on energy all week after training in the middle of the night.
After Dana White slated the in-Octagon action, which had a run of seven consecutive judges’ decisions, the idea of how much the timings affected the night, was called into question.
‘Big’ John McCarthy & Josh Thomson Say UFC Need To Take Some Blame For Time-Related Issues At UFC 304
On a recent episode of the Weighing In podcast, “Big” John McCarthy and Josh Thomson discussed the impact of UFC 304 taking place at US time despite it being held in England.
McCarthy said that the UFC – namely Dana White- needs to take some of the blame for why the card didn’t end up delivering due to this decision.
“When you’re pointing one finger forward, there’s three coming back at you Josh and you got to look at those and you gotta say well, we did put these fighters in a position where they were fighting at 3 o’clock in the morning, 4 o’clock in the morning, 5 o’clock in the morning. No one works out at those times, no one fights at those times. It is an unusual situation and even if you try to prepare for it, it’s odd. It’s just an odd time for you, your body doesn’t feel the same, you don’t feel like you’re on top of things.”
Thomson went on to add how it wasn’t just the fighters from the UK that would have struggled with the difference in event scheduling.
He noted how fighters and staff coming from other countries would have also experienced difficulties because they would have needed to sleep throughout the day- even if the actual time wouldn’t be any different for them.
“You kind of offset both parties by doing this. What happens is when you go to another country and they’re there five days before, some of them get there seven days before, some of the staff, and sometimes that’s not good. But, what I’m saying though is that now you’ve asked them to stay awake during the night so they can be awake during the night.
“So, the ones that come from the states that work for the UFC, their body clock is trying to change to get adjusted to the UK time when in fact they can’t because their show is at 5 in the morning. Then, the fighters that are there, they’re getting all screwed up because they’re having to fight when they’re normally sleeping. So you really kind of messed up both sides of this equation. You messed it up for the people that work for the promotion and some of the fighters that came over having to fight.”
