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Saturday slice-and-dice: Kimbo vs. UFC vs. Hatton vs. K-1
By Zach Arnold | June 22, 2007
Somehow, I totally missed or skipped over the comment Dana White made about WEC & PRIDE in yesterday’s Entreprenur article. Luckily, both UFC Mania and Jeff Thaler (he’s back blogging!) picked up on what I missed. In order for White’s statement to come true (that WEC will be bigger than PRIDE), WEC would need to generate $60 million USD+ a year and also draw ratings on free-to-air television near the 20.0 ratings mark. Don’t hold your breath, either.
There is a hilarious article in The Miami Herald by Dan Le Batard (I can’t get over the fact that he’s in town for that show) about the Kimbo Slice vs. Ray Mercer fight on Saturday night in Atlantic City. The article claims that there are expectations of this event drawing 175,000 domestic PPV buys in America. To put this claim into perspective, WWE’s last PPV (Backlash) reportedly drew an estimated 120,000 ~ 140,000 domestic US PPV buys. Additionally, here’s a money quote from the article:
Nick Lembo, council to the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board, asked himself the question out loud at this week’s news conference: ”Why is this sanctioned?” He introduced Kimbo simply as “somebody from the Internet.”
Mr. Lembo does not necessarily agree with Le Batard’s characterization.
Kimbo Slice will be paid $50,000 to fight plus a % of the PPV revenue, with the potential to make $80,000 if he wins by KO. Money mark alert.
Chuck Carlton in The Dallas Morning News calls MMA ‘this year’s version of the poker craze.’ I guess the nearly 40,000 that showed up for the first PRIDE in 1997 at the Tokyo Dome don’t count. Here’s Carlton’s e-mail. Also in Carlton’s article, he claims that Mark Cuban’s HDNet channel will have a weekly MMA show. Does this mean Art of War will be on weekly TV?
Carlton is also reporting that Art of War is going to start using a team concept for its future events. Their September 1st show will air on PPV. Dan Severn and Marco Ruas are the expected coaches for the AOW 3 event.
The Las Vegas Sun has an amazing article about Bob Arum’s latest rant. He said that the Nevada State Athletic Commission are good guys ‘but they’re f****** Republicans.’ On the issue of UFC, he stated: “”No, no. Look at the UFC fighters. Ninety-something percent are big white guys from the Midwest. Look at boxing. It’s like a rainbow. Blacks, Mexicans, English … all … different.””
Variety reports that UFC’s deal with HBO is likely dead because (now former CEO) Chris Albrecht is gone from the network.
Save a horse, buy UFC tickets.
Next Saturday, Murilo Ninja Rua will have a training seminar at the LA MMA/Rigan Machado BJJ training center (633 N LA Brea Avenue). For more information, call 323-230-9759 or e-mail them at [email protected].
A modified version of The Zuffa Myth appears in today’s Cincinnati Enquirer (with, of course, no e-mail address for the author but Tim Curtis and Josh Pichler are the assistant managing editors):
Under new ownership, which took control in 2001, Ultimate Fighting helped spearhead an effort to bring unified rules to MMA, which has dozens of fledgling “minor leagues.” Ultimate Fighting implemented 28 rules – it has grown to 31 now – and added weight classes, decisions that helped launch it from a struggling enterprise early this decade to an organization that in 2006 rivaled World Wrestling Entertainment and boxing in pay-per-view revenue.
Onto today’s headlines.
- The Globe and Mail (Canada): A fight to the finish, with fists or fingernails
- The Winnipeg Sun: Matches not expected to go the distance on Cage card (Randy Couture will be in attendance)
- The Houston Chronicle: Coaches get top billing in TUF finale
- The Fightworks Podcast: Robin Gracie comments on Royce Gracie steroid accusations
- The Sweet Science: Light Weights, Lot of Hate: Penn vs. Pulver
- Entrepreneur: Get your kicks – MMA gyms are where the action is
- The Lodi News-Sentinel: Ultimate challenge for Nathan Diaz
- The Manchester Evening News (UK): Vegas diary – Hatton won’t Zuffa
- SLAM! Sports: Catch DVD preserves Snake Pit’s legacy
- The Cincinnati Enquirer: MMA domination overtakes Cincinnati Gardens
- MMA HQ: The Ultimate Fighter 5 Finale preview
- UFC HP: The Ultimate Fighter 5 Finale – weigh-in results
- UFC Junkie: Performify’s Picks for The Ultimate Fighter 5 Finale
- Bloody Elbow: Clay “The Carpenter” Guida on ANY GIVEN SATURDAY
- MMA on Tap: Tuff ‘n Uff 6/22 Las Vegas event results
- The Edmonton Sun: Fightin’ fireman – savin’ lives by day, pummeling each other by night
- The Cincinnati Enquirer: Faith, fights a shared calling – Levi Adams believes God drew him to pursue MMA
- The Honolulu Star-Bulletin: BJ Penn has one more shot at relevance
- MMA Ring Report: MFC 12 report – Scott Junk and Roger Hollett win
Topics: Boxing, Canada, HERO's, K-1, Media, MMA, UFC, UK, WEC, Zach Arnold | 12 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Ortiz, Jackson, Gonzaga, the Silvas, Rashad Evans: the face of white America.
Not to mention Okami, Vera, St. Pierre, Penn, Kampmann, Nogueira, Bisping, Arlovski, etc etc.
The Variety report doesn’t really say much than we already know. Doesn’t sound like they actually have any dirt into the situation.
Even if Chris Albrecht hadn’t allegedly attacked his girlfriend in the parking lot after the Mayweather-De la Hoya fight and gotten fired from HBO, the UFC-HBO deal had already hit a concrete block. UFC president Dana White said in late April that he had finally agreed to let HBO be in charge of the production team and that the deal was “signed, sealed, and delivered,” then said in late May that he was hoping to get the deal done at some point in the future but that he is not willing to let HBO be in charge of the production team. HBO made it very clear, even when Albrecht was there, that they have never given up control of produuction on any sports event and never will.
also, lol at the Kimbo-Mercer fight drawing 175,000 PPV buys (or even 50,000 PPV buys)
A) Those are some strong words from Nick Diaz about the UFC, and B) Is Bob Arum really such an ignorant, short-sighted man that he thinks MMA is popular because of “laser shows and DJs”? Did the DJ at K-1 Dynamite add to the experience?
i am glad that the press conference is available for free viewing online at http://www.cagefuryfighting.com for Kimbo-Mercer so you can judge for yourself if Dan LeBatard properly characterized my statements.
http://www.cagefuryfighting.com/mercer_kimbo_finalpresser_lembo.php
1. can we take bets on the mercer kimbo “mma fight” if it does 20,000 buys they are doing well. This is a fight made for You Tube.
2. I think what Arum is trying to say is MMA has mainly white athletes where as in boxing they are few and far between. It is relevant because in boxing whenever a Tommy Morrission or Gerry Cooney came in to the picture he could attract a “suburban” audience that was lacking in boxing. UFC reaches that demographic that boxing has a hard time reaching except for with Mike Tyson and the “great white hopes” that seem come around that sport every 10 years.
Arum is specifically saying that there ISN’T diversity in MMA, though, which is idiotic. Nobody who really follows MMA with any regularity could say it. “More whites than boxing”, sure… but then boxing is the sport white Americans seem worst at today. The sport is dominated by Russians though, which doesn’t count for attracting US PPV buys.
As far as the ‘great white hope’, I live in western NY so one of the biggest ongoing sports stories this decade has been Joe Mesi’s quest to recover and return to the heavyweight ranks. If he wasn’t white it might still be a story but it wouldn’t be nearly as big. There’s no denying that factor.
Another boxing person talking about race and ethnicity.
“Ninety-something percent are big white guys from the Midwest.”
So what if that were true? Does Mr. Arum have a problem with that? The NBA is still mostly black Americans, even with the recent influx of Euros and players from Argentina. The NFL is mostly black Americans. Take away the quarterbacks and kickers- it is almost all black Americans.
So what is his effing point? Does Bob have an issue with the NFL and the NBA. Or maybe race and ethnicity is only an issue when the majority of competitors are “white guys”.
“Look at boxing. It’s like a rainbow.”
It is so much like a rainbow that the term “great white hope” is used for many, many years. A racist term like ‘great white hope” is freely used in the boxing community for decades. That is how diverse boxing was. Do you think certain people are going to forget that term, Mr. Arum? I’m not going to forget.
English fighters. Like Ricky Hatton. One guy. Or the Welshman Joe Calzaghe. One guy.
One more thing. EFF you Arum. And eff you to the American boxing community. I will never pay money for your boxing events. Never. Get those old promoters out. Bring in new promoters who will give everybody a chance.
Hey how does Melvin Manhoef get to fight at the K-1 show. He only fought a couple weeks ago? Damn just watched his fight. Melvin was brutal!!!
I think you’ll be surprised with how many PPV buys this Kimbo/Mercer fight gets, Zach.
There are lots of Kimbo marks.
I think the story is more “How long until Mesi gets crippled or killed by a decent puncher redamaging his subdural hematoma?” than “When will our new great white hope win all the belts?!”, though. Mesi dying will be very bad news because he is a white American fighter and like Luther McCarty during the ‘real’ era of the white hopes (1910s during Jack Johnson’s reign), his death would have shockwaves.
Was that Sapp fight on the K-1 show a work? What happened there.