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Dana says Liddell/Silva unlikely to happen
By Zach Arnold | August 11, 2006
By Zach Arnold
CP (Canadian Press) reports that UFC is now postponing plans for a fight in November between Chuck Liddell and Vanderlei Silva. This news comes one month after Dana White announced on PPV (in Las Vegas) that Silva would fight Liddell.
He cited problems in dealing with the Japan-based Pride Fighting Championships that is home to Silva.
So, once again, PRIDE continues to talk big in the Japanese press (like a pro-wrestling promotion would do over there) and Dana White kills those imaginations with a dose of reality, similar to how K-1 matchmaker Sadaharu Tanigawa claimed that UFC 60 did 800,000 buys — only for Mr. White to call that claim the dumbest thing he had ever heard of.
Without Liddell vs. Silva happening, any talk of a mutually cooperative “interpromotional war” between PRIDE & UFC seems false, as UFC isn’t acting as a willing partner. Furthermore, Mr. White looks immensely idiotic for once again promoting the competition (PRIDE) on national PPV and then not getting the fight signed, sealed, and delivered.
Topics: All Topics, Japan, Media, MMA, PRIDE, UFC, Zach Arnold | 42 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
God forbid Dana’s golden boy Chuck fight a real champion; WANDERLEI SILVA. Whatever, Dana’s a little bitch anyway, paying his fighters 1/10th of what a pride fighter makes. Hope he has it as bad as he possibly can, when karma bites his stupid ass.
Question: Who’s the real champion? The one, who puts his title on the line each fight, like Chuck, or the one who has had almost no defenses, as most of his fights were non-title fights like Wand? And correct me if i’m wrong (and i don’t think that i am), but exactly who do you know that Dana just pays 1/10th of what Pride pays, if Pride doesn’t even disclose its salaries, hmm? God, how do i hate stupid nuthuggers…
I don’t disagree with you very often Zach, but you’re way off base here. How is Dana not “acting as a willing partner”? He put Wand, who was wearing a Pride shirt, in the middle of the Octagon during a PPV and told people he was coming to fight Chuck. The impression I get is that Pride is the one at fault here. If you don’t think Dana White wants to see this fight happen more than any other, you’ve lost your mind. Until we have the details of what the hold up is, I would seriously doubt that Dana is at fault. You’re not new. You know UFC has been trying for years to work out fighter exchanges with Pride and the results have been one sided. Now all of a sudden you site UFC as being uncooperative? Think this through.
[I don’t disagree with you very often Zach, but you’re way off base here. How is Dana not “acting as a willing partner� He put Wand, who was wearing a Pride shirt, in the middle of the Octagon during a PPV and told people he was coming to fight Chuck.]
Is UFC marketing “UFC vs. PRIDE” on their HP? No. What is PRIDE pushing in Tokyo Sports and other lines of Japanese media? “PRIDE vs. UFC.” PRIDE wants an interpromotional war. UFC, as I noted, clearly does not seem interested in marketing a war against PRIDE. Dana wanted Liddell vs. Silva to happen, but not UFC vs. PRIDE. PRIDE clearly wants a full scale war and is talking big about it.
[If you don’t think Dana White wants to see this fight happen more than any other, you’ve lost your mind. ]
That’s not what I said. My statement is that Dana promised something to the fans (Liddell vs. Silva) and according to his own admission, it isn’t happening. If you want to attack Dana for his past comments about boxing and how boxing is dying because they can’t make the big matches anymore (and then he can’t deliver Silva vs. Liddell after announcing it on national PPV), that’s fine. I’m not angry at UFC for not wanting a “PRIDE vs. UFC” war, but he should have immediately known going into negotiations with PRIDE that they wanted an interpromotional war to market to the fans at home.
[Is UFC marketing “UFC vs. PRIDE†on their HP? No. What is PRIDE pushing in Tokyo Sports and other lines of Japanese media? “PRIDE vs. UFC.†PRIDE wants an interpromotional war. UFC, as I noted, clearly does not seem interested in marketing a war against PRIDE. Dana wanted Liddell vs. Silva to happen, but not UFC vs. PRIDE. PRIDE clearly wants a full scale war and is talking big about it.]
For once, UFC is making it about the fighters and not the brand. I personally applaud that. Granted, there may be other motivations for that but it still should be applauded. Further, UFC seems to be looking for cooperation rather than war. UFC is more than willing to cooperate with Pride to get the best matchups. If anything, Pride is the one posturing.
[My statement is that Dana promised something to the fans (Liddell vs. Silva) and according to his own admission, it isn’t happening.]
Read the piece again. He said “I don’t even know if Silva’s going to happen”. This sound like the fight is in very serious jeopardy but not completely off. I’d really like to get the details on what is causing the problem before I blame Dana. For all we know, there could be a contract in place but Pride is refusing to honor it. Dana has been extremely hesitant in the past to announce anything that isn’t written in stone. For example, the press lists the entire card for UFC PPV events long before we ever see them on the UFC website. I can’t help but think that there was something concrete behind the announcement. Based on what we know about Pride and the company it keeps, Wanderlei may have been “encouraged” to change his mind.
Fred – I’m not saying that this situation is Dana’s fault, but the way he handled it in July and the way it’s being handled now comes off as clumsy and a mis-step. He just put over the competition on national PPV and they didn’t have to do a thing for it other than appear at the show.
Dana knows better than to be oblivious to who he’s working with (PRIDE), as he worked with them in 2003. He knows how they operate, what their M.O. is, and what they want. “Ignorance” isn’t a good-enough excuse here.
[…] Zach Arnold at FightOpinion.com gives his take on the situation. […]
It seems quite vague. WHY is it not happening other then not being able to reach a deal? Why can’t the deal be reached? Is it Pride holding back, perhaps on rules or is it UFC holding back, perhaps on money? To many questions still linger to put blame on anyone.
If anything White is at least being honest, something no other promoter in any sport seems to be able to do.
Whoever is at fault, its unfortunate…The fans would love to see this fight happen.
The more I read it, the more I question the legitimacy of the story. Where did this statement come from and why is the Calgary Sun the only media outlet on the planet that has heard anything about this? Something doesn’t seem right.
Fred – people keep making the mistake that the Calgary Sun wrote this. They didn’t. If you look at the header, it’s written by the CP – Canadian Press, which is a national newswire service that serves many of the big papers with articles (similar to AP).
Tokyo Sports is a tabloid paper.
Most of the stuff that’s written there is totally crap so don’t believe it.
seems like Pride just wanted some free american promo, then pulled their fighter. I don’t see the UFC helping get the Pride’s name out to US fight fans on their PPV for no reason. However, I can see Pride using a fight they never intended to happen to promote their Oct card in Vegas. I don’t care what Pride is saying in Japan either, sounds like they just want to make headlines.
If Pride is betting the house on breaking into the US market and using the promotion war angle as their vehicle, then wouldn’t pullout (or feinted pullout) strength Whites bargaining position? It has been stated before that in this scenario Pride needs the UFC more than the opposite, this could just be a power play.
Zach – I’m not questioning the legitimacy of the CP. It just seems that none of this is adding up. No one else has anything on this and it wouldn’t be the first time that a major news organization has been hoodwinked. In addition, Silva himself said he signed a three-fight deal with the UFC. I just don’t see how all of a sudden the whole thing has blown up and the only sign is what amounts to a snippet by the CP. I’ve just decided that I’m not buying in until I get more info.
I dont think he should get to fight in the UFC until he has gone through the rigors of TUF like all of the other guys at 205. Why should Silva get a chance at the belt before the American Warrior Josh Haynes??
I expected this specially when Silva is fighting in the Pride GP final only a few months before November.
No matter what the case is here, the CP article is thin as hell. One quote, and a mention of another thing “Dana said”. When did he say it? What was he asked and why? What was the occasion? Where?
Dana White is notorious for making things sound bigger/better/worse/less bad than they really are at any given time. Combine this with all the unknown facts listed above, and you get… Oh wait, one more thing:
“I don’t even know if Silva’s going to happen,”
Okay, so he doesn’t know. This is news since when? The fight has never been announced, and there has always been definite obstacles on it’s way towards meterializing in November.
If we’re trying to draw conclusions based on this almost nothing news piece, the quote sounds to me like something Dana will typically say when he’s pissed off about something and wants to whine in public, just like all other fighting promotors 🙂
STOP BITCHIN ABOUT UFC PAYS BECAUSE YOU DON’T KNOW HOW MUCH THEY GET AND WHY THE FUCKS ARE YOU COMPLAINING IF THE FIGHTERS ARE NOT COMPLAINING!!!111oneone
please, now it’s dana white the one who you blame? You should blame Pride, Dana sent Chuck in PRIDE on 2003 MW GP, so it doesn’t seem like he wouldn’t give him a fight with Silva..
Liddell had a better chance beating Silva than winning 3 hard fights in PRIDE 😉
PRIDE is talking about how they will challange UFC etc. first give us Liddell vs Silva then talk…
Read the full article and you will see that it’s the problem on the PRIDE side, who the fuck would announce a fight on a PPV if he was not sure, but I guess there are always problems with Japans doing bussines
Bad timing by Pride if true, since Spiketv was apparently going to air a Wanderlei special in the upcoming weeks. The exposure would obviously put to shame the exposure received during UFC 61. I
This is a classic Dana White move. Dana likely watched video of Chuck almost losing to Allister Overeem, then watched a signifigantly younger Rampage Jackson destroy the over-rated Chuck Liddell. After all of those bad memories and the loss of $250,000, Dana has possibly realized that when Chuck would get inevidably get embarassed by Wandy, the UFC may never recover as it would definatley be viewed as a minor league organization. With the “mystique” of never having Chuck fight Silva, the UFC could still talk like the big leagues, but deep down know that they are no match.
I didn’t read the article, but is “I don’t even know if Silva is going to happen” all he said? There are many issues surrounding the health of both fighters in Nov. so it is possible that the fight will not happen as planned. I just hope we are not reading too much into that one comment.
Diamond you are a fucking PRIDE nuthugger, but still I don’t fully trust the source, I would like to see it officially said by Dana
TMF – Neil Davidson is the author listed on the CP (Canadian Press) newswire report, and he has a good track record for his past UFC articles. His report has now been picked up by all the major Canadian newspapers.
I don’t understand how or why one would get in the ring and announce a fight if contracts haven’t been signed. That just defies all logic.
Re: TRUE MMA FAN; Try being a real thinking MMA fan. With all of the hype that the UFC has been pushing with Chuck Liddell, the loss to Wanderlei Silva, will be the easiest marketing tool for the Pride product in America and it would seriously harm the UFC reputation. For casual fans of MMA who have never seen a Pride fight, but have been UFC fans, will want to see where is calibre of fighter came from. Will these new fans jump on the Pride bandwagon and dump the UFC? In all likelyhood no, but they will have exposure to both organizations and may split their pay per view purchases on the fighters that they find exciting, not nessessarly the promotions that they are in.
So without using profanity Mr” TRUE MMA FAN” Dana White is a businessman and I am sure that he would love the publicity of matching his franchise player in 37 year old Chuck Liddell against the younger, stronger, more experienced fighter in 30 year old Wanderlei Silva. But his advisers have probably explained to him that Chuck has failed against weaker competition in his last attempt against a Pride fighter. The $250,000 that Dana lost in his bet in that go around, may add up to be millions in future PPV buys when Chuck is retired by Wanderlei in Chucks last fight of his career.
[I dont think he should get to fight in the UFC until he has gone through the rigors of TUF like all of the other guys at 205. Why should Silva get a chance at the belt before the American Warrior Josh Haynes??] as said by Randori
What the fuck? Why should Josh Haynes get the title shot? The dude is a mediocre fighter who would get destroyed by Lidell or Silva. Nothing against Haynes, he’s a tough as hell dude, and he is a hard striker. But Lidell and Silva are HARDER strikers, and both have better arm and leg reaches, so Haynes would have very little chance against either guy, especially Silva. And Liddell and Silva are better technicians (as strikers and grapplers) than Haynes. On paper, Haynes would probably be an 80orso-1 underdog.
Preach wrote:
“Question: Who’s the real champion? The one, who puts his title on the line each fight, like Chuck, or the one who has had almost no defenses, as most of his fights were non-title fights like Wand? And correct me if i’m wrong (and i don’t think that i am), but exactly who do you know that Dana just pays 1/10th of what Pride pays, if Pride doesn’t even disclose its salaries, hmm? God, how do i hate stupid nuthuggers…”
You also have to take into consideration how often a fighter fights. Chuck is basically semi retired at this point. He does not choose to put the title on the line everytime he fights – he does not make that decision. Of course it is easier to make every fight a title fight when he only fights twice a year and you have no GPs or other “interesting” things going on.
UFC’s titles are mostly irrelevant (170 div is an exception). You must understand that when you have people like buntello and Eilers as no 1 contenders, title fights are not always necessary. Now Chuck has fought better guys than Eilers and so on, but basically since he didnt lose, you could say that those title fights were pointless. Just because a fight is for the title does mean it will be a better fight. Would Silva have been more of a real champ if his fights against some of his “cans” were title fights?
Bobish got paid 30k (apparently), so if you compare that to the normal purse you get in the UFC if you are a “new” fighter, 1/10th seems like a reasonable assumption. That kind of works when you compare some of the highest paid Pride fighters as well (yoshida/ogawa/saku >=1 mil vs Chuck/Randy/Tito 100-200k).
Randori is not posting these comments. At least not the person that uses that name on MMAweekly forum.
Preach,
Chuck and Tito each made over 1 million dollars for their last fights. So did Couture, Gracie, Hughes and Shamrock.
This is a comment from a fellow that asked Mark Coleman about the Silva/Liddell issue.
Jeff said:
:Ok I have been looking into this story more and more and I even called mark today about it because baroni was suppose to fight on the same card and he said and I quote”Pride is trying to backout of some of the things they agreed on and the UFC won’t let them”He told me that Pride is trying to back out of helping pay their fighters. Thats what baroni and him were hearing. So that first reason I gave yesterday is whats going on. According to MarkAs for the Roid he said that the one thing about Silva is he is honest about his roiding. When he is on them he tells the fighters who he is fighting he is on them and if he accepted the fight in Nov that means that he eaither isn’t taking them or is taking a kind that would be out of his system by november.If what Coleman is saying is true, the issues are more on the side of Pride than the UFC. Hopefully this does get worked out and the match takes place
I’ll be honestly very disappointed if this fight doesn’t happen, I was planning on going to Vegas to see it, it woulda been my first time in Vegas and my first UFC, to see one of the very few fan dream matches that comes to fruition. This is a true let down for me, but I guess I was being too nieve and optimistic actually thinking it would happen in the first place.
I know it may sound a little naive, but i thought the silva/liddell match would’ve been a win-win situation for UFC. If silva lost it would’ve established chuck as the number one fighter in his weight class and if silva won he was going to be signed for 3 more fights. Considering Pride’s financial situation, zuffa could’ve been able to give vanderlei a decent amount money through fights and endorsements(I’ve heard that chuck and George St. Pierre stand close to making a million from ufc). Plus maybe Vanderlei might not want to fight in Pride anymore considering that it may not provide him the financial security it once did.
As far as the fight being called off, you have to look at the different fight promotions and their policies. Drug testing in japan is a joke from what i understand, whereas the state athletic commissions in america are very strict about that kind of thing, especially for title fights. I’m not 100% sure but i’m willing to bet that a lot of pride’s fighters have dabbled in them or are still using some type of illegal performance enhancement drug. And one really important thing is the fighter’s schedules. Vanderlei still has to fight 2 opponents in one night in the OWGP. His first opponent is Crocop, so he may come out of that fight a little roughed up. And even if he wins he still has to fight the winner of barnett/nogueira. Depending how he comes out of those fights the state athletic commission may or may not let him fight in november seeing as they do suspend fighters for a certain amount of time depending on their injuries.
I’m really not too surprised with this fight being cancelled considering some of the factors listed above. What really bothers me is the fact that Dana wasn’t smart enough to sign a contract with Pride before he promoted the fight on PPV, especially given his past relationship with pride.
The only reason this fight will not happen is Dana White. If this was not Dana White’s choice, he would have been all over the press trying to ensure that the fight will happen, or he would explain how the deal broke down. The true fact is that the UFC realizes that Pride is trying to make inroads into the United States of America and if their posterboy were to get destroyed by an unknown to the general American public, The UFC would lose millions of fans to PFC.
Ref: Liddell vs. Silva
In situations like this, I like to boil everything down to basics. Dana White announced the fight on a UFC PPV, thereby letting everyone know that PRIDE and the UFC had agreed to the matchup. Chuck Liddell and Silva met in the center of the octagon and pretty much gave me the impression that they wanted to go. For Dana and Chuck to do that, I’d like to think they both thought it was a done deal.
Fast-forward to now, where Dana is pretty much saying he thought he had a matchup, and that the UFC and Liddell are ready, willing and able to do the fight. Whats PRIDE saying? Nothing, nada, zip, zilch. Just more of the same from PRIDE…losts of talk at the start, then the wheels mysteriously fall off, and everyone starts pointing fingers, usually PRIDE pointing at the UFC.
Liddell isn’t ducking Silva, he wants the fight bad. Have we heard from Silva? Nope. At least, I can’t find anything where he’s openly advocating for the fight. Maybe PRIDE has him muzzled, I don’t know.
My honest opinion is that if Liddell couldn’t stand in the ring with Quinton, and Quinton couldn’t stand in the ring with Wand, Chuck can’t feel to confindent about the now vague possiblity of this fight. Besides, with no stomps or kicks or knees to downed opponents, I truthfully find it hard or boring to watch UFC. Whenever a stomp situation comes about in a UFC fight, I can’t help but to think about how much more exciting Pride is to watch.
No, no, no. You got it all wrong. Liddell beat Tito, Tito beat Silva, so Liddell can beat Silva. 😐
Defender, Liddell does not have the cardio to hang with Wandy. He knows, Dana knows and the educated fan knows that Chuck would not last past round 1. The reality of Chuck is that he is too old and should retire when he is dismantled by the true 205lb champ Wanderlei Silva.
MAybe Wand is just way to roided up to pass american tests. Maybe he is a dumbass and didnt realize that the crap he puts in his system in Japan wont fly here. Wand is a great fighter, but he wasnt so good in his ufc days when he couldnt juice up as much. Not saying its just the roids but you gotta at least consider that he may not be confident in cleaning up for the ufc.
defender ur a dumbass liddell got his ass kicked by rampage, rampage got his ass handed to him twice by silva. silva lost to tito a LONG time ago if they were to fight now tito would get his ass beat too!
Fernaxx – since you’ve revealed to everyone online that I’m a dumbass, I guess I’ll share with them all that you’re a not-so-closet homosexual who tries to talk about fighting to bolster his public confidence – to no avail.
But since you want to try and use ridiculous logic to determine the outcome of a fight, here you go:
Silva beat rampage, rampage beat Liddell
Liddell beat Tito, Tito beat Silva
Liddell beat Vitor, Vitor beat Silva
So you’re trumped 2-1 in your own ridiculous reasoning. So after that second UFC butt-kicking he headed over to Pride to beat up a bunch of little Japanese guys. Yeah – real impressive.
Enough.