Antonio Inoki selected for WWE Hall of Fame
By Zach Arnold | February 9, 2010
A fascinating move by Vince McMahon on so many levels (from political to historical). Inoki and New Japan had a long-term business relationship with McMahon’s father and Hisashi Shinma, Inoki’s right-hand man in New Japan, was WWF President for many years. Inoki had long-been rumored as helping support then-WWF when WrestleMania hit the ground and then that was it. The WWF would end up working with the All Japan side in 1990 and then SWS in 1991-1992 before working with WAR in 1994 & 1995 through Wally Yamaguchi to help out Gen’ichiro Tenryu.
The most important footnote historically was the promotion of the Inoki/Ali fight via closed circuit in various big American media markets. Different wrestling promoters had different fight cards going on as a lead-in for the broadcasting of the fight. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime situations that you won’t ever see replicated in modern day pro-wrestling or MMA.
The media spin on Inoki’s entrance into the WWE HOF is that he will be the first Japanese wrestler inducted into it. Inoki met with the press and WWE officials today in Tokyo at a press conference to accept a certificate stating his entrance into the HOF. The ceremony will take place at the Dodge Theatre on 3/27 in Phoenix.
Given that it’s WWE, I fully expect Yoshi Tatsu (Naofumi Yamamoto) to be Inoki’s presenter.
Topics: Japan, Media, Pro-Wrestling, WWE, Zach Arnold | No Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
Hidehiko Yoshida will retire on 4/25
By Zach Arnold | February 8, 2010
He will have a retirement show on 4/25 in Tokyo at Nippon Budokan (show title = ASTRA). J-ROCK, the agency that backs Yoshida and was in charge of Sengoku, is promoting the event. The current plan is for the show to air on SkyPerfecTV as opposed to a free-TV network. It was noted that the reason Yoshida wanted the event at Budokan is because that is the same building that hosts judo championships and major judo events.
With Yoshida retiring in April, it eliminates the possibility of him getting booked against Asashoryu should K-1 sign him. (Unless, of course, Asashoryu and Yoshida do some sort of “exhibition” match.)
Topics: Japan, MMA, Media, Zach Arnold | 4 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
UFC 109 (2/6 Las Vegas at Mandalay Bay Events Center)
By Zach Arnold | February 6, 2010
Dark matches
- Heavyweights: Joey Beltran vs. Rolles Gracie
- Heavyweights: Tim Hague vs. Chris Tuchscherer
- Light Heavyweights: Brian Stann vs. Phil “Mr. Wonderful” Davis (he better watch out for Paul Orndorff)
- Lightweights: Phillipe Nover vs. Rob Emerson
- Lightweights: Melvin Guillard vs. Ronnys Torres
- Lightweights: Mac Danzig vs. Justin Buchholz
Main card
- Welterweights: Matt Serra vs. Frank Trigg
- Middleweights: Demian Maia vs. Dan Miller
- Welterweights: Mike Swick vs. Paulo Thiago
- Middleweights: Nathan Marquardt vs. Chael Sonnen
- Light Heavyweights (#1 contender’s match): Randy Couture vs. Mark Coleman
Topics: MMA, Media, UFC, Zach Arnold | 52 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
The countdown for Asashoryu fighting in K-1 begins now
By Zach Arnold | February 4, 2010
With Asashoryu’s exit from the Sumo world official, K-1’s long-awaited dream of bringing him into the fold is now a mere formality. The question is how much will TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) or Fuji TV be willing to pony up to finance a couple of fights in the promotion? He’s a lock for a NYE date, but the question is if K-1 can get him sooner.
PRIDE desperately wanted him when they still around as a promotion but didn’t have the money to pull it off. In business terms, PRIDE saw Asashoryu the same way UFC saw Brock Lesnar — a sure-fire, can’t-miss, giant business acquisition. K-1 sees him the same way. Once they likely get him under contract, a lot of things will suddenly change for Japanese MMA.
If K-1 can sign Asashoryu, this will be a significantly bigger deal than when Sengoku signed Satoshi Ishii. If you thought Yoshida/Ishii did well in the NYE ratings, then imagine how big business will be on NYE for Asashoryu’s debut fight. They could easily book him against Bob Sapp, which would be funny because Sapp faced Akebono. It would be a natural opponent to book.
As recently as 15 years ago, Asashoryu would have been a prime target to enter Japanese pro-wrestling. No longer.
Topics: Japan, K-1, MMA, Media, Zach Arnold | 15 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
Zuffa knows best - WEC PPVs at $45. Everybody has a price…
By Zach Arnold | February 4, 2010
…but I don’t think $45 will generate more than 25,000 PPV buys for the April 24th event with Urijah Faber vs. Jose Aldo.
Then again, Affliction did decent PPV buyrates (not enough to stay in business, however). To Affliction’s credit, they built their deal around the best Heavyweight in the world who had a name from the PRIDE days. Yes, WEC has the best talent at 145, but it’s America and the heavyweights still draw more interest.
Even if Zuffa gets a 50% cut of the PPV profits at $45 a clip, it becomes an issue of math regarding whether or not the move to PPV becomes more profitable. We’ve seen UFC do some ridiculous business in terms of converting cable viewers to PPV customers (UFC 100 will forever be the peak example of this), but it’s hard to see how a largely “I won’t pay a dime” audience on Versus TV converts a lot of the TV viewers into PPV customers. If WEC draws on a good day 500,000 viewers, 25,000 PPV buys would be about 5% of the audience. Sounds about right? Over or under 25,000?
I don’t have a large issue with the $45 price point in the following sense… If they charged $30 for the show, would they really entice more people to buy the show? It’s hard to believe that a drop off in price point would generate any more buys than will happen. Just like with WWE, if you want to pay to watch the show, you will pay to watch the show. If it was $70 or $80, OK, that’s one thing, but $50 right now seems to be the price point range for most PPV events. Let’s say you do drop the price point from $45 to $30 — that means you would need 3 people to buy the show at the lower price to match the 2 people you counted on to buy it at $45. Do you think that there would be enough fans to make up for the 50% slack to buy the show? Doubtful.
Many fighters in WEC said they wanted to be on PPV. Well, here you go. Their wish has been granted. But it’s not under very good circumstances. The 4/24 date opens up Zuffa to get hammered by Strikeforce on CBS (should CBS choose to run that date). We already know that Strikeforce’s show last December from San Jose matched the same amount of viewers as the WEC show from LV did on Versus (Donald Cerrone vs. Ed Ratcliff). By opening themselves up to Strikeforce on CBS, it will no doubt create the urge in Zuffa circles to run UFC programming on Spike against the CBS show. By doing that, Zuffa would be essentially cannibalizing the WEC show and would also give Strikeforce a bump up in media coverage because of the easy storyline that the media would bite on.
Which may be the point of Zuffa’s experiment here. They accomplished keeping off competition from Versus by having WEC as the vehicle to do it. Anything else WEC-related is gravy for them. If the PPV experiment works, great, they make money and the fighters stay happy. If the PPV experiment fails (most likely), then they can turn around and say hey, the marketplace has a verdict, and it’s they don’t want to pay to see you fight. Of course, as alluded to up above, UFC’s brand is so strong (it’s not a meme) for bigger shows that without the UFC label, it’s going to be really difficult for Faber and company to get the PPV buys.
It’s not as if you can tell Faber, Torres, etc. that they need to go out and sell the tickets and PPV buys. They’ve done everything they can already to put on the most exciting fights possible. They had their chance to go to Strikeforce and they decided to stay with WEC. Will it prove to be a mistake for the fighters?
The odds are likely that WEC on PPV will struggle, but it doesn’t mean that I am rooting against the fighters. Far from it — I’d love to see the shows do really well, but the tea leaves suggest otherwise. Which leads us to the long-ball question — if a PPV bombs or you have a couple of WEC PPVs that fail to meet standards internally in Zuffa, then what? WEC keeps saying that they are in it for the long haul and are starting to expand worldwide through various TV contracts, but if the league stagnates business-wise then what? Will a vaunted talent exodus happen with WEC guys demanding to fight on UFC shows?
One thing is for sure — the WEC PPV announcement got zero air time on American sports media. When I saw the “MMA” tab on ESPN’s news ticker yesterday, I thought the WEC PPV announcement would be covered. Nope. What was ESPN’s MMA story? That Jose Canseco wrote on his Twitter account that he wanted to fight Herschel Walker.
I guess I may have to show Herschel Walker who the real bad Boy of the Sports industry is. If the powers that be are reading, I want in.
My people spoke with Cesar Gracie today. Looks like things are moving at a fast pace. Dan Black and Cesar seem to have a plan together.
The irony of Canseco mentioning Cesar Gracie’s name is that Cesar can’t get any media ink for his boy Nick Diaz’s win over Marius Zaromskis at last weekend’s Strikeforce event. The two big stories coming out of that event: 47-year old Herschel Walker beating a jaybrone and Rex Ryan getting fined $50,000USD for flipping the bird. I got a kick out of how many times the general US sports media called Strikeforce’s event “the Miami MMA show” on ESPN, about 8 million times.
As for Herschel’s response to Canseco…
“Jose wants to do this for money,” Walker said. “My thing is, if he wants to fight me and he thinks it’s going to be a circus, I will hurt him. This is not a joke, I will hurt him, because I don’t do things as a joke. I don’t do this as entertainment. If we go out and play a flag football game, that’s entertainment. We’re having fun. But this MMA fighting, is real. You can get hurt, and he doesn’t understand it. I do this as an MMA fighter, not as a joke.”
Jose Canseco vs. Herschel Walker is getting more sports media attention than the WEC… and we’re in 2010. Ugh.
Topics: MMA, Media, StrikeForce, UFC, WEC, Zach Arnold | 37 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
PR: Fight Advertising Network to offer affordable MMA advertising
By Zach Arnold | February 4, 2010
New online niche advertising network for MMA advertisers and MMA publishers set to launch on February 1st, 2010.
Allentown, PA (web) January 21st, 2010 – MMA advertisers can now affordably expand their online presence while MMA publishers can monetize their website traffic with a new online advertising network that is geared toward the sport of Mixed Martial Arts and the male 18-35 year old demographic.
MMA business owners, once forced to seek out their own publishers for online ads, can now use Fight Advertising Network to display a range of static or dynamic web banners on MMA-related web sites. MMA web site owners now have to choice to display advertisements geared towards the male demographic with MMA advertisements and other sports-related products and services.
“As a publisher, I was constantly seeing advertisements for national banks, tires, and other products and services that would be of little interest to the viewers on the site. I knew that my viewers would be more likely to click the ads of MMA-related products and services.” – Brandt DeLorenzo, Owner of Fight Advertising Network
Unlike other generic sports advertising networks, Fight Advertising Network is focused primarily on one demographic and a single sport. Businesses that advertise through the network are not required to sign yearly contracts or spend a minimum dollar amount. Publishers can start getting paid just one month after joining and statistics are available 24/7 through a user-friendly web interface.
For additional information on the news that is the subject of this release contact Brandt DeLorenzo or visit www.fightadnet.com.
About Fight Advertising Network:
Fight Advertising Network is a part of Backfist Media LLC, a company focused on MMA publishing, photography, and advertising.
Contact:
Brandt DeLorenzo, Owner
Fight Advertising Network
Backfist Media LLC
brandt@fightadnet.com
http://www.fightadnet.com
Topics: MMA, Media, Zach Arnold | No Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
Sengoku 3/7 Tokyo, Ryogoku Kokugikan
By Zach Arnold | February 3, 2010
- SRC Middleweight Title match: Jorge Santiago vs. Mamed Khalidov
- Featherweights: Yuji Hoshino vs. Wilson Reis
- Featherweights: Shigeki Osawa vs. Kyung Ho Kang
Topics: Japan, MMA, Media, Sengoku, Zach Arnold | 2 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
Bellator gets Joe Warren, DREAM left to wonder what to do
By Zach Arnold | February 2, 2010
The news for DREAM is getting ugly. Marius Zaromskis gets clocked by Nick Diaz, then Hayato Sakurai is more than likely next in line for ND, and now Joe Warren is off to Bellator for their upcoming Featherweight tournament. If Warren isn’t back in DREAM soon, it will be a blow for DREAM given how much credibility Warren earned by beating Kid Yamamoto last year.
Warren was supposed to fight on the Vale Tudo Japan card last October but pulled out. Warren stated to Yahoo Sports that he can still fight in Japan, but given his wrestling aspirations along with Bellator’s upcoming schedule, it might be difficult to see Warren getting consistent bookings in Japan due to scheduling conflicts. DREAM put some PR effort behing pushing Warren and it will be interesting to see what they do next…
Topics: DREAM, MMA, Media, Zach Arnold | 23 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
Japanese press: This KOTC show is really…
By Zach Arnold | February 1, 2010
…like an MMA show in America with an American audience. That’s mostly the takeaway that the media came away with from this weekend’s King of the Cage event in Okinawa at the Convention Center. The show was a success in terms of attendance (even though an official number was not given) based on first-hand accounts.
Topics: Japan, MMA, Media, Zach Arnold | No Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
Strikeforce 1/30 Sunrise, Florida
By Zach Arnold | January 30, 2010
- Strikeforce vs. DREAM - Welterweights: Nick Diaz vs. Marius Zaromskis
- Women’s Title match (145 pounds): Cris Cyborg vs. Marloes Coenen
- Heavyweights: Bobby Lashley vs. Wes Sims
- Middleweights: Melvin Manhoefvs. Robbie Lawler
- Heavyweights: Herschel Walker vs. Greg Nagy
- Welterweights: Jay Hieron vs. Joe Riggs (Streamed at EASportsMMA.com)
A lot of NFL stars were in attendance at tonight’s Strikeforce event, including New York Jets HC Rex Ryan. Jay Glazer brought several Pro Bowl players to the event in Sunrise.
Thoughts on the show
Go to full-page view if you don’t want spoilers.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: MMA, Media, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 117 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
Kansas State basketball fans commit gimmick infringement
By Zach Arnold | January 29, 2010
Quick, where are those Cease & Desist notices from Zuffa lawyers?
The backstory - Kansas and Kansas State have a renewed basketball rivalry. Kansas State fans have renamed their home court arena as the Octagon of Doom. If you search for that phrase, you will see it used on all the major sports news wire services. The name is picking up steam on ESPN Radio.
Topics: MMA, Media, UFC, Zach Arnold | No Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
DREAM 3/22 Yokohama Arena
By Zach Arnold | January 28, 2010
The news regarding the show is that Bibiano Fernandes will face Joachim Hansen for the DREAM Featherweight title. Also booked on the card is Ryo Chonan.
There was also a press conference featuring comments from K-1/DREAM management. They were asked about what kind of punishment Shin’ya Aoki will face? The answer: He’s been punished enough. No further punishment is coming his way.
Regarding the DREAM schedule for 2010 - 3/22 Yokohama Arena, April date (South Korea), May, July, September, October, and then Dynamite. The focus will be on a DREAM Light Heavyweight GP tournament with either 8 or 16 fighters. Plus, hope for Aoki vs. Kawajiri along with focusing on booking Alistair Overeem in high-profile fights.
Topics: DREAM, Japan, MMA, Media, Zach Arnold | 11 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
UFC Abu Dhabi presser
By Zach Arnold | January 27, 2010
No surprises regarding the announcement — BJ Penn vs. Frankie Edgar and Anderson Silva vs. Vitor Belfort. Plus, Matt Hughes vs. Renzo Gracie at 170 pounds.
It’ll be interesting to see how this open-air event takes place as far as the set-up. Remember, it was only last week where there was grandiose talk of a coliseum-like feel with fans “on top of each other.” MMA Unlimited notes that the venue is Concert Arena, Ferrari World, Yas Island where a lot of, well, concerts (like Aerosmith and Rihanna) have taken place. Information and graphics on Yas Island here.
Given the fact that both Penn and Silva are on the card, the PPV buyrate should be really good.
Topics: MMA, Media, UFC, Zach Arnold | 18 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This