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Did Jim Ross point the finger at K-1?
By Zach Arnold | September 7, 2006
By Zach Arnold
Several years ago, WWE announcer Jim Ross used to have a weekly column on the WWE site called “The Ross Report” that became controversial for many reasons, with one of those reasons being some of the cryptic comments he made in the reports. No matter what you thought about Ross and his columns, he always knew how to stir the pot.
Today, Jim Ross has essentially brought up a new version of The Ross Report online. Here’s today’s column. One item that I immediately noticed was his paragraph about Kurt Angle. For those who are ardent readers of Fight Opinion, you know my feelings about where Kurt Angle’s career direction is heading (and all roads point to Japan). As I wrote last week, I fully expected K-1 to make Angle an offer to face Brock Lesnar (perhaps on New Year’s Eve).
On Thursday, Jim Ross not-so-cryptically touched upon Angle’s upcoming career direction:
There is no doubt that the UFC-like entities will dream of Kurt Angle (some, no doubt, against Brock Lesnar) competing in an octagon or similar battle ground but my advice to Kurt would be to stay away from such activities and focus solely on getting healthy.
We all know that Lesnar is sign, sealed, and delivered to be working with K-1 & HERO’s shortly. The fact that Ross would name-drop Lesnar into the conversation is a clear sign, in my opinion, that K-1 has already started backing up the Brinks truck to make a mega-money offer to Angle to fight Lesnar in an MMA match (worked or legitimate). The fact that someone prominent in WWE would make this comment publicly suggests to me that, pardon the pun (given Angle’s reported medical condition), they are deathly nervous about Angle accepting the offer to work in HERO’s.
Last week, the Fight Opinion writers held a pilot radio show taping for an upcoming FOR show on the web site. During that pilot taping, we had a segment that included myself and Luke Nicholson in which the topic was Kurt Angle’s future plans. During that segment, I stated that K-1 & HERO’s would immediately attempt to book Kurt Angle vs. Brock Lesnar for New Year’s Eve in Japan. Furthermore, I stated that the purpose of this match would be for HERO’s to put it on American PPV and immediately become a big player in the American marketplace. I truly believe that this is what K-1 is considering right now, and that by having Kurt Angle in the fold, HERO’s suddenly could become a major player in the American marketplace – competing both with WWE (on the wrestling side because of Angle’s name) and with UFC (because HERO’s has many big-name MMA stars).
Topics: All Topics, HERO's, Japan, K-1, MMA, Media, Pro-Wrestling, WWE, Zach Arnold | 4 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
Looking forward to the re-return of the radio show
When is it going to be up?
With UFC building the US MMA fanbase into a cash cow, I can only imagine how much more PRIDE and K-1 want in. Seeing as Lesnar vs Angle will never be a better matchup than now (both available, popularity and health can only get worse) it absolutely makes sense for K-1 to shove cash at Angle. There are some issues of course:
1. New Years Day might be troublesome as a PPV broadcast time for the US
2. They only have a few months to promote. Would UFC/Spike or WWE allow ads on their shows? Doubtful… and that’s right where the market is. Where else would they advertise for mainstream male audiences? NFL? NBA? MLB playoffs? Like they have that sort of cash.
Spike likely won’t sell commercial time to K-1. But Spike doesn’t control all of the commercial time during TUF or the specials. Some of the time is sold by local cable companies. K-1 can buy ads during that. WWE & WCW both used that technique to advertise on each other’s programming during the Monday Night wars.
[...] If you’ve been a regular reader of this site, you have read our reports (here and here) about the chances of Kurt Angle working in MMA. All signs point to Japan, the country with promoters who can offer the most money (and a country with no commission). [...]