Why Metamoris has no women on the PPV
“We had that one match and it was cool, but that was more of, ‘That’s cool and that was interesting and I want to see that again if the girls are cute.’ You know how it is.”
After just five event, Metamoris has established itself as one of the world’s premier grappling and BJJ events. However, there has only been a single female match, between black belts Mackenzie Dern and Michelle Nicolini at Metamoris 2, back in June of 2013.
Metamoris president Ralek Gracie said that women’s events will be part of the online subscription network, Metamoris All Access. The G-in-a-Gi added however that the constraints of an online PPV preclude women from being on the main PPV cards.
“We’re actually working on having some prelims on this next card, like gi prelims. More gi matches before the actual main card,” said Gracie to Luke Thomas for MMAFighting.com.
“What it really comes down to is we only have six matches on the card and of those six matches, we have a lot of pressure to sell pay-per-views. An extreme amount of pressure. People think we’re just rolling in the dough and we can just choose whoever we want and we’re going to sell millions of pay-per-views no matter who we put on the card.
“With every match, there has to be a unique story and there has to be an element that will bring out people from all walks of life in a lot of ways. Even though we know the core audience and what they’re interested in, we have to constantly be on the boundaries. We have to be constantly pushing the edge of what our viewership is, otherwise we won’t survive. All we’re doing is reinvesting all of our money into these athletes. We’re spinning a wheel. We have to keep the wheel moving. I just don’t think there’s women who are really going to bring it on that level.”
“We had that one match and it was cool, but that was more of, ‘That’s cool and that was interesting and I want to see that again if the girls are cute.’ You know how it is. The UFC wouldn’t even have a women’s division if it wasn’t for Ronda Rousey. They wouldn’t even have it. It’s a really, really tricky thing.
“We’re not a charity right now. I have aspirations beyond Metamoris that are charitable and everything I need to do, but right now we have to succeed. We have so many people riding on it with so many things and people wanting to see it succeed. Our obligation is to make sure people say, ‘Holy s—! I need to watch that!’ Otherwise, there’s no way.”
“We’re interested in having Ronda Rousey and we’re willing to invest and potentially take a loss on that opportunity and risk that opportunity because of how big she is, but we can’t do that on just any women as much as I’d like to.”
Metamoris 6 takes place on 9 May 2015:
#1: Jeff Monson vs. Road to Metamoris champion
#2: Clark Gracie vs. Roberto Satoshi
#3: Alexandre Ribeiro vs. Keenan Cornelius
#4: Joe Lauzon vs.Dillon Danis
#5: Chael Sonnen vs. Renato Sobral
#6 (Heavyweight Championship match): Josh Barnett (c) vs. Roberto Abreu
The event is sold out, but you can purchase the online PPV for a pre-event rate of $29.99. You can also buy an all access membership for $7.99 per month.