Philly is a fight town baby!

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If UFC 100 was suppose to be the high water mark of attention UFC 101 certainly rode the wave very well. The Philadelphia media definitely embraced UFC 101 as MMA was heavily featured in print, web, radio and television. 

Even outside the MMA blogosphere sites like Deadspin, Hugging Harold Reynolds and Sports by Brooks all covered the event. Deadspin even got press credentials to UFC 101, so much for the UFC's "no blog" rules. 

But really, MMA fans should be grateful that the city of Philadelphia bequeathed its majesty to our beloved sport. Almost as if a grand Hajj to Mecca was fulfilled on Saturady.

At least that is what John Gonzalez thinks, 

Last night, the UFC put Philly back on the mega-fight map, holding its first-ever event here. Philly, in turn, did for the UFC and its athletes what it did for boxing for so many years - bestowed legitimacy and importance on the event. Because when you fight in this town, in front of these people, you become part of a long and noble tradition, and you're remembered well after the blood and sweat is scrubbed clean from the canvas.    

I wasn't aware that the UFC needed the Philly stamp of approval in order to be legit? 

All kidding aside Gonzalez has a point but it isn't nearly this grandiose. 

The fact that the UFC held a legitimate main event (really two legit main events) on an east coast city allowed them to tap into one of the oldest media biases, the infamous east coast bias. That was the real prize, not some archaic symbolism that most people under thirty don't even understand. Our only experience with Philly as a fight town was through the Rocky movies.

The media and population centers of the country reside along the east coast, extending from Boston to New York to Philadelphia to Washington D.C. That corridor holds a great deal of power over the rest of the country, both economically and politically.The bias even extends beyond traditional media. A.J. Daulerio, the editor of Deadspin, is from Philly and everything that happens from the nation's first capital seems to have precedence over everything else. On top of that a great deal of the major sports blogs have connections back to Philly. 

Perhaps the presence of top fights coupled with good coverage in a big media market (read as: east coast bias) helped push UFC 101 towards the upper echelons?

While there is no way to quantify this suspicion WKR will try anyways. 

UFC 101 was very good for business around here as we beat our previous one day traffic record (yes even beat UFC 100). UFC 101: Declaration was on the top of Google Trends and Twitter's trending topics for most of Saturday night. While this is the new school methods of measuring interest let's all consider the possibility of a million PPV buys plus a record gate at the Wachovia Center.  

If WKR's suspicion is correct than it shows just how important it is for the UFC, and MMA as a whole, to be able and tap into the east coast market. 

UFC 101: Declaration coverage