In the aftermath of UFC 229, the complexion of how we expect honors to be won and lost in the near future have changed drastically, making the non-heavyweight category more marketable than ever.
People from all disciplines of combat sport have long been content to sign product endorsement deals and put their faces on the front cover of video games. However, with online betting still being a young market by comparison – and considered a form of ‘video game’ by some – that phenomenon remains relatively untouched territory, but ripe for picking nonetheless.
So with no further ado, these are the pioneers that we feel will soon have more of a presence in an online casino than any other fighter.
Several UFC-themed slot games already exist, but focusing on one fighter would be a very bold experiment.
’Diaz/McGregor Trilogy’ – hitting online casinos soon?
A slot game based on a specific matchup may seem like an odd concept, but these days we truly believe that anything is possible. Indeed, if you start your search here in the quest for such a game, you can see that there are already several that thrive on specific conflicts – such as Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings – which have a certain tribal feel about them. If a second rematch between Diaz and McGregor didn’t, then we don’t know what else could!
Certainly, ‘sooner rather than later’ seems to be the vibe where a completed Diaz/McGregor trilogy is concerned. With a victory each from their two bouts against one another, it would make a whole lot of sense for the pair to meet in the Octagon again to ‘settle their feud’ once and for all. From a financial standpoint too, this would be an easy one to market. The build-up to their second fight led to one of the more memorable press conferences in recent history, and the fight itself was the most bought UFC pay-per-view ever at the time.
For a special feature, a press-conference themed mini-game could be made to work – somehow! Here’s some ‘inspiration’:
Tony Ferguson – an ‘outside’ candidate?
Ferguson picked up a stoppage victory at UFC 229 and added #7 ranked lightweight Anthony Pettis to his impressive and growing list of victories. Other notable fighters, like Kevin Lee, Edson Barboza and welterweight Rafael Dos Anjos have all succumbed to the Jiu-Jitsu master in the last three years.
Additionally, Tony Ferguson has never been stopped in his professional career, and with ‘El Cucuy’ being the current number one contender for Nurmagomedov’s lightweight title, it makes logical sense to see him as a potential ‘face’ of the next big online phenomenon. While he may not command the same sense of gravitas as his peers in the upper reaches of the same weight category McGregor or Khabib, the fact that he has earned performance-related bonuses in six of his last seven fights is also significant.