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Saturday media splashing
By Zach Arnold | January 20, 2007
IFL results from Oakland on 1/19 (Friday night): Observer (Meltzer edited out his ‘small crowd’ comment) | The Fight Network | IFL Press Release (they’re claiming 5,000)
- Gryphon: Aoki vs. Kikuchi set for Shooto 2/17 event
- The Fightworks Podcast: Jake Shields heading to BodogFIGHT?
- Fight Report: The best fights this weekend are not on TV
- MMA HQ: Babalu vs. Lambert at UFC 68
- The Oregon Statesman-Journal: A new kind of fight (surprise, an anti-MMA article)
- The Houston Chronicle: WEC cuts TV deal with Versus Network
- The North County Times: Eddie Sanchez comfortable as crucial bout approaches
- SLAM! Sports: UFC’s perfect antagonist – Tim Sylvia
- The Ottawa Sun: Now that’s a 1-2 punch! (article about women flocking to ‘ultimate fighting’)
Topics: All Topics, IFL, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 30 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Best part in Meltzers report: “The power went off in the middle of the round. The whole place went dark. Lights went back on but Sabu wasn’t in the ring.”
hehe 🙂
btw, plenty more than the Babalu fight confirmed for 67 & 68 at UFC.com yesterday.
Was Alexander Emilianenko always scheduled to fight at PRIDE.33? I can’t remember having seen him listed before, but he sure is now.
Go figure, an Anti-MMA piece written for an Oregon paper, especially when some of the best schools are located there. Makes sense though, most people I have talked to on message boards from Oregon were not fans of MMA from what I remember. But then again those same people IMO, were not the best examples of what Oregon had to offer either, that’s a shame too. But, it does explain the state’s history with combat sports :D.
Wow. Just wow. The guy in the Oregon Statesman article managed to blame rudeness, violence, sexual predators and more on everything from MMA to the Government to Miss America.
I don’t even worry about these guys anymore we’ve hit a point where no news is bad news (with the exception of a death in the cage). I don’t know if anyone read the “Real Fighter” magazine but they did an interview with Monte Cox but he tells a story in ther interview where he was promoting an MMA event that was selling poorly. So he instructed his friends to make signs and go protest MMA outside of the arena and then Monte called the news himself. Once everyone heard about this “horrible violent event” that was going to be held from the news, they went and bought tickets and checked it out.
The Babalu vs. Lambert fight is a good one. I like it. Both are kind of stuck in limbo right now. I am hoping that Babalu wins, and Tito wins his next fight, setting up a fight between Babalu & Ortiz. That would be quality.
It was reported earlier this week that the IFL sold less than 500 tickets to the Oakland show. Even if they sold some last minute tickets, they still papered the majority (50%-85%) of the arena. That is bad.
My biggest problem with a lot of these MMA Websites is their lack of journalism. None of them researched how many tickets were sold. That should really be in the article of the story. That is almost a story in itself. Josh Gross will probably have the number of Beatdown, but nobody else ever reports on it. Anybody can fly to an arena and do a play-by-play, and then tell people if you agree with the scoring. MMA really lacks those good reporters who aren’t afraid of pissing off the organizations, and get the real facts behind the story. Sadly, most MMA writers are just fanboys with websites.
The MMA Critic,
I also think a big problem is that IFL seems to be sponsoring a lot of MMA sites. Even if it’s not intentional bias still shines through in many cases, take for example NHB with Eddie Goldman, how many shows has he done recently that hasn’t been puff pieces for the IFL?
Again, people can’t see the forest for the trees. How long did it take UFC to turn a profit? IFL is starting a league from scratch. The real thing to keep an eye on is whether the crowd grows the second and third time they hit a city, not the first show.
Someone posted a translation from Fedor’s website that Aleksander was offered Big Nog for Pride 33 but it was turned down.
Minotauro said in an article on TATAME that he wanted to rest more in 2007 and was only traveling to Vegas to coach Rogerio.
I’ve actually stopped listening to Eddie Goldman. I was a fan of his since his days back at Eyada. Now, he only feels the need to bash everything the UFC does, and praises everything about the IFL or Showtime. It is really sad. And his side commentary when talking to the IFL guys often doesn’t directly mention the UFC, but a lot of his negative comments (to a smarter fan) is to put Zuffa and the UFC down every chance he has. I thik he is actually worse than most anit-MMA boxing journalists. At least they are honest with their opinions. He wears the costume of an MMA fan, but he is just as much of a hater as all the rest.
Mike,
There are 2 major points. The first is about the journalists of MMA, and their lack of quality. Secondly, it is the quality of the IFL’s fights. If you look at their recent Oakland show, there was exactly 1 fighter who can be ranked in the Top 20 in the world. Yet, they are charging over $100 for some tickets. Thats horrible. No wonder why the paid attendance was probably less than 1,000 people. You can’t give people garbage and expect them to want to see it. When you remove the gimmicks and coaches (who typically don’t fight), you are left with events that have KOTC or less quality fights.
And the UFC has never, in the history of their company, ever put on events with as poor quality as we are seeing out of the IFL.
Well, that was a short fight for Valuev. The big russian retained his title through injury of his opponent Jameel McCline. Apparently he blew out his kneecap. A shame, it had the potential for an entertaining fight….
“And the UFC has never, in the history of their company, ever put on events with as poor quality as we are seeing out of the IFL. ”
Unfortunately I don’t get a great deal of exposure to IFL (SportsNet Canada has started showing it now), but what do you mean when you’re saying poor quality? Bad fights? Bad visual presentation?
McCline was doing very, very well against Valuev. The slip and injury was hilarious though; Michael Grant is smiling somewhere right now.
“And the UFC has never, in the history of their company, ever put on events with as poor quality as we are seeing out of the IFL.”
Always funny when someone makes perfectly valid points and then just balls it all up with a bombastic statement like that. Not only IFL, but also Strikeforce, WFA, WEC, Cage Rage and others have produced better quality events than the absolute worst in the history of the UFC.
IFL’s awful ticket sales are embarrassing(altough this was probably their worst card ever). And they’re not the only ones either. Lower prices, smaller venues, smarter marketing, please.
That sure was three fun rounds of boxing tonight.
UFC.com has the Nakao-Heath video up.
I mean OH MY GOD, ZUFFA HAS PURCHASED FEG, K-1 AND YAMAMOTO’S WIFE!
Don’t be so overly dramatic, J, there’s just a K-1/UFC working relationship in the works (the proposed Stevenson/Uno bout comes to mind). And besides, they’ve been on good terms for a wjile now, since both BJ and Royce were under K-1 contract when they returned. Who wouldn’t like to see guys like Manhoef or LeBanner in the UFC, or Tokoro duking it out with Faber in WEC? Or finally Saku back in the Octagon, one more time?
Maybe those MMA journalists are thinking in big-picture terms beyond just knee-jerk responses that instantly declare everything a success or failure based on how things literally went the night before, MMA Critic. Maybe that’s why they’re journalists, and you and I are just second-guessing anonymous blog commenters.
Preach: I think you may have missed the sarcasm directed at a lot of people’s reactions when UFC all of a sudden had Cro Cop footage. TV footage in the end means less than nothing.
No, i didn’t miss the sarcasm, but some people could actually believe what you were writing, without some clarification this would certainly end up to be a major story on the sherdog-boards 😉
And by the way, MMAC – Josh Gross a good example for journalism? *cough* *cough* TUF4 *cough* *cough*
The MMA promoters and the commissions are the ones who give media writers and outlets clearance to attend shows.
So, if you’re a relatively-known MMA web site, guess who determines whether or not you get a media credential? Hint: The promoter.
Sure, I suppose people could pay to get in and then give an unbiased viewpoint…
The Gaijin,
The shows presentation is very slick. They do a nice job on that. My complaint is mostly with the quality of the fights themselves. For how much attention the IFL is getting, the only fight they have put on worth a mention is Matt Lindland vs. Jeremy Horn. A lot of the fighters just aren’t of a high quality.
Mike,
I’m not asking for knee jerking reactions by the writers. I’m looking for them to do some research and present the real facts. Saying that the crowd size was 5,000 people is telling only half the story. That’s what a good reporter does. That is something that almost never happens from Sherdog or MMAWeekly.
Zach,
You make a valid point. Sadly, I don’t see this changing anytime soon. I guess it isn’t like baseball were writers can completely bash a particular player or owner, and still have press credentials the next day.
Since when does “completely bashing” count as “good reporting?”
If I implied that Josh Gross was a good MMA journalist, then I apologize. In no way was that my intent.
“And by the way, MMAC – Josh Gross a good example for journalism? *cough* *cough* TUF4 *cough* *cough*”
Uhm what does that has to do with journalism? He had information and he shared it, he never signed an NDA.
If a journalist has information of the direct locations of american, british or german military camps in Afghanistan, should he share that information with the public? Or if a journalist knows that Celebrity X was molested by his uncle repeatedly – should he tell the public about it, going into detail?
Sure, these two comparisons are a bit far stretched, but there are just certain things you do NOT report as a Journalist (though Gross is far from a journalist, he’s a Gossip reporter at best). You would’ve never found a film critic opening a review of “The sixth sense” with “First things first, Bruce Willis character is dead. What a twist, eh?” or previewing Season 6 of “24”, and starting with “Okay, the bodycount of this season includes: Jack biting the jugular of a terrorist, Jack shooting Curtis Manning in the throat to save Assad…”. Not even the most unprofessional writer (like Harry over at AICN) would do something like that.
Gross behaved like a spoiled kid, who was pissed because he didn’t get what he wanted at the candystore.
Please your grasping at straws, he clearly told everyone that a big spoiler was coming up. Blame the UFC for not being able to keep it a secret.
You clearly do not see the point here. Like i said, there are certain things you just don’t report. Especially if you claim to have standards, and have a certain “spoiler policy” on the website you’re working for. It’s one thing to start a thread and put a “SPOILER” in the thread title, so people do not even click on the thread if they don’t want to know, and another to just say “Yo, we have a spoiler coming up” in a radioshow. It’s both bad journalism and hypocritical. But then, those are two things Sherdog has been known for quite some time now…
I don’t agree with any of your points, and I think the only reason you’re mad about it is because you missed the spoiler part.
I didn’t even listen to the show to begin with. I’m simply seeing the whole situation through the eyes of a real writer and journalist, and not just some fanboy. I’ve been writing reviews and articles for several german newspapers and fanzines for the last 12 years, and never in my dreams would i think of doing something so unprofessional. Hell, there are quite a few labels and production companys that don’t supply me with screeners or passes to press-screenings anymore for writing negative articles about their products, yet i’ve never gone out and spoiled any of their films or dvds, just “to stick it to the man” like Gross did. He (and the rest of the Sherdog staff) should have just accepted the fact that the UFC withdrew their press credentials and free tickets, like most of the other MMA-related media outlets did, instead of going on a UFC-bashing rampage and spoiling the end of TUF for many fans. You may not believe it, but there are actually people out there who listen to Beatdown or PPH or Fight Opinion why they’re doing something else, so that some things slip through. And to these people it probably sucked big time to listen to Gross spoiling the show. But yeah, i know, you’ll probably counter with “Well, they should’ve listened then” or something equally intelligent.