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Saturday headlines: Yahoo upgrades MMA/boxing coverage
By Zach Arnold | June 15, 2007
Royce Gracie comments on his suspension from the CSAC.
Loretta Hunt on Fight Network Radio reported Friday that the UFC 72 show in Ireland is not sold out and that UFC is giving out comps. The Odyssey Arena seats 9,000-10,000.
We have been able to confirm that Dave Doyle, frequent guest on Fight Opinion Radio, has left FoxSports.com and will head over to Yahoo Sports to be the managing editor for their MMA/Boxing section.
Jamal Patterson has been pulled off of today’s IFL Las Vegas show due to injury. On Friday night, Showtime announced in a mass mailing that Murilo Ninja Rua did not pass a CSAC physical. Therefore, his fight with Joey Villasenor has been canceled.
Charles Jay has a pretty interesting article about seeing the UFC Fight Night 10 show live in Hollywood, Florida. He has some very interesting observations, including the fact that the audience was a) predominantly white and b) full of women. Also, his observation about trying to watch the action in a cage versus a ring should not surprise anyone.
Onto today’s headlines.
- The Washington Post: Okami poses a ‘big threat’ to Franklin in UFC 72 bout
- The Long Beach Press-Telegram: Rich Franklin hopes to ace latest test
- Fightlinker: Clay Guida is a superfreak
- Sam Caplan: A commentary on the Gracie family MMA legacy…
- Bloody Elbow: Royce Gracie no more
- UFC Junkie: Performify’s Picks for UFC 72
- Yahoo Sports: Rory Singer – Traveling man
- The Oregonian: After a blockbuster, UFC turns down the hype
- The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: MMA enthusiasts believe sport is catching on
- WTOC (GA): MMA making a splash in Savannah
- The Roanoke Times: Ultimate change in lifestyle worth it (article on Tim Sylvia)
Topics: HERO's, IFL, K-1, Media, MMA, Pro Elite, StrikeForce, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 19 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Wow, how the hell did Ninja not pass his physical?
Yeah, seriously, what the hell. This was one of the fights I was looking forward to the most on this card. Lame.
Is there a part 2 to the Charles Jay article? It seems to end awkwardly.
There could be any number of things causing Ninja to fail the test: An infection, a torn tendon or ligament, a recent concussion (from training, presumably), etc etc.
I foung Charles Jay’s article quite good. It was pretty fair.
The Charles Jay article has racist statements that people don’t seem to point out. So I will.
“with a scattering of Latinos but most predominantly Anglo.”- Why is the writer mentioning the race and ethnicity of the crowd. How is that relevant. When he covers a boxing match, does he mention the black or mexican crowd? And weren’t the angles a germanic tribe from northern Germany?Is the audience all dressed in traditional Angle clothing? When Mr. Jay refers to “Anglo”, I’m guessing those are Celtic, Germanic, Slavic and Finno-Urgic people in the audience. Each of those groups have their own culture and history.
“There’s a possibility that the same group referred to by some as the Angry White Male was well-represented. So were, I suppose, the Angry White Females.” A blatant racist, hateful statement. How does he get away with writing that hate in a mainstream boxing website? Why does the writer suppose the Celtic, Germanic, Slavic or Finno-Urgic people are angry? They are fight fans wanting to see a show. Their ethnic or racial backgrounds shouldn’t even be mentioned in the article. Would Mr. Jay call the fans at the De la Hoya fight “angry mexicans”? Or angry blacks? What disgusting staments by Charles Jay.
I probably won’t be ordering the Strikeforce PPV now. It was a borderline purchase to begin with, but now that Villasenor/Rua is off, I have little interest in the card. I still want to see Baroni/Shamrock, just so Baroni KO’s him but the rest of the card is basically UFC Fight Night type of material.
It’s a good thing Warpath can’t cut to 185.
Damn. Looks like I won’t be able to show off my fight accumen.
I have heard that Strikeforce knew Ninja failed his physical as early as the beginning of the week. They asked Jake Shields to come up in place and take his spot. No word on whether he accepted, as he was worried that his week of partying after Dynamite! wasn’t going to help him much in this fight.
MMAWeekly mentions Vitale as a possible replacement.
Zach, anything about Aoki going to the UFC in japanese media today?
Lou – in defense of Charles, I will say that he comes from boxing (was a matchmaker and jack-of-all-trades) and his comments are really a glimpse into the mindset of a promoter from that sport. If you don’t think that the top boxing promoters think and analyze UFC crowds that way, then reconsider. Race, ethnicity, and nationality are all major factors that boxing promoters take into consideration when promoting shows. This is why guys like Bob Arum are so ‘shocked’ when they see a lot of white people at UFC events, hence they make bold statements in newspaper interviews stating this.
The Charles Jay article has racist statements that people don’t seem to point out. So I will.
“with a scattering of Latinos but most predominantly Anglo.”- Why is the writer mentioning the race and ethnicity of the crowd.
As I’m sure you’re entirely ignorant to, boxing fans in the US (Jay’s background) are typically males and are of darker complexions, as he prefaces in that very sentence.
Maybe the fact the boxing types seem to look at audiences in terms of racial composition and not simply as fans who all pay green dollars to get in is another factor why boxing is so effed up.
Maybe the fact the boxing types seem to look at audiences in terms of racial composition and not simply as fans who all pay green dollars to get in is another factor why boxing is so effed up.
If you don’t understand the context of why he might point this out, then maybe you shouldn’t be discussing the business aspect of combat sports. But I will help you in this rather simple manner. See, boxing promoters, especially guys like Bob Arum, have been complaining for the last two decades about how difficult it is to get mainstream fans (read: white middle class) to watch boxing. There’s been a slew of arguments. For instance, that there isn’t a white American heavyweight champion, or that men are more effeminate than they were 30 years ago. The UFC’s success in spite of these claims has rendered them all worthless as one would logically expect. Everyone knew that there was no massive societal difference making people not watch two men fight, it was the fact that it was promoted horribly and burned fans repeatedly until they stopped watching. The hispanic and urban audiences stayed as they were given strongly promoted athletes to their audiences. Don’t believe me? Ask yourself why people care at all about Tommy Morrison. Or why Felix Trinidad is so popular and with whom. The rest of the report from Jay explains why this entirely expected deduction matters to him, a former boxing manager. You should consider reading the entire article next time and putting it in context.
DCapitated Jackass,
I did, in fact, read the entire column, you smug, presumptuous bag of feces. And I stand by my premise. Boxing types are obssessed with the color of their customers. Others have moved on. But go ahead, enlighten us simpletons with your beknighted wisdom again …
I don’t think it was a coincidence that Miguel Cotto vs. Zab Judah was booked for MSG the day before the Puerto Rican day parade in NYC…
I did, in fact, read the entire column, you smug, presumptuous bag of feces. And I stand by my premise. Boxing types are obssessed with the color of their customers. Others have moved on. But go ahead, enlighten us simpletons with your beknighted wisdom again
There’s nothing obsessive, merely an observation and what UFC essentially does right. Why shouldn’t there be? The UFC got the demographic boxing promoters vehemently claimed didn’t exist anymore.
I don’t think it was a coincidence that Miguel Cotto vs. Zab Judah was booked for MSG the day before the Puerto Rican day parade in NYC…
Oscar/Floyd was also on Cinco De Mayo. I cannot for the life of me imagine why.
The boxing community used the phrase “great white hope” for a long time. The boxing community made those “white” fighters a punchline. Nobody in the boxing world seemed to understand or cared how offensive that phrase is to Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, or Finno-Urgic Americans. Most of the Heavyweight champions now are caucasian from the former Soviet Union. How stupid that phrase looks now! And racist.
The boxing community recognizes the black american fans, mexican fans, puerto rican fans- but didn’t seem to care about, recognize, or cater to the Germanic, Celtic, Slavic, or Finno-Urgic fans.
Enter the UFC. Royce Gracie, scottish-brazilian. Mark Coleman, Randy Couture, Pat Militech, Guy Mezger,Ken Shamrock, Jens Pulver, Josh Barnett, Chuck Liddell, etc.
The UFC, starting in 1993, had Germanic, Celtic, and Slavic fighters. The type of fighters that were mostly missing in the American boxing scene. Those Germanic, Celtic, Slavic, and Finno-Urgic fight fans started watching the UFC. What a suprise!
Did the boxing promoters or boxing writers even know that these ethnic groups reside in the U.S.A? Did they think there had been some type of ethnic cleansing in the US? I am not a boxing fan, Zach, so reading the stuff about ethnicity and race in Charles Jay’s article was strange to me.