The UFC is “dumping its iconic ‘Gladiator’ opening to its pay-per-view broadcasts and live shows and replacing it with an homage to the fighters who helped build the company,” according to Kevin Iole of YAHOO SPORTS. UFC President Dana White has named the open “Evolution.” It was “scored by Academy Award winner Hans Zimmer and produced by Digital Domain, a company founded by Academy Award-winning director James Cameron.” The new open includes “moves that represent all of the disciplines that make up mixed martial arts, and concludes by sweeping down a hall of flags from the countries where the UFC has held events, coming to a finish with the faces of the night’s main event fighters on a scoreboard.” White would “not disclose how much the company paid to have the new opening produced, but he said it was ‘an obscene amount.’” Producers culled through “nearly 25 hours of highlights to come up with the finished product, which took six months to make.” The scene “begins with Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock, who met at UFC 1 in 1993, grappling in a dojo.” All of the footage from the old UFC fights, “which were recorded in standard definition, were digitally remastered to include minute details” (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 2/2).
GET YOUR GLASSES READY: MULTICHANNEL NEWS’ Thomas Umstead wrote for the first time, In Demand and the UFC “will make a pay-per-view event available to cable operators in 3D.” In Demand execs said that Saturday's UFC 143 event between Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit “will be offered in 3D to consumers with a 3D-ready TV set and a compatible HD settop box.” The 3D feed "will retail at a suggested price of $64.99, with the standard definition and high-definition feeds retailing at $44.99 and $54.99 respectively." In Demand Senior VP/Programming & Business Development Mark Boccardi said that the company is “talking to the UFC and other event distributors about bringing future 3D PPV events to cable” (MULTICHANNEL.com, 2/2).
