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Monday media marks: HBO > Spike TV for UFC
By Zach Arnold | August 12, 2007
In Japanese media circles, Ed Fishman’s appearance at the K-1 Las Vegas event on Saturday night drew some buzz. Ed said he received an invitation from K-1 to watch the show, so he did. It looks like K-1 is going to find a way to get Musashi onto the World GP show on 9/29 in Seoul after all.
If you didn’t get a chance to listen to our latest radio show, go do so now. Or, you can subscribe to our iTunes feed and download the shows automatically.
Here is an interview with Sergey Kharitonov. Lots of interesting updates lately at the Mix Fight site.
What can I say about Kevin Nash mocking Inoki’s IWGP title on the TNA PPV Sunday night? Of course, this is the same organization in which none of their title belts have any credibility in the first place.
The state of TNA pro-wrestling in America:
“It’s interesting. People say wrestling is fake. We’ve gone from being fake to hazardous.”
History has shown being associated with Jones is potentially hazardous in itself. In fact, you couldn’t blame some fans if they ducked for cover when pyrotechnics blasted as Jones made his ring entrance.
To his credit, Jones was professional in his backstage dealings with TNA personnel even though some grapplers were upset that he was given his own Winnebago for a dressing room while they were forced to change inside a double-wide trailer parked behind the arena.
Jake Rossen on the legacy of Fedor:
Of the eight fighters on Sherdog.com’s heavyweight rankings (not including the man or his brother), Fedor has fought two of them.
He’s got some work to do.
Josh Barnett has a seminar scheduled for this Friday at OC Shootwrestling.
How important is the IFL GP tournament for Antonio McKee? Apparently not very important. Dr. J at MMA HQ has more on the story.
Onto today’s headlines.
- Bloody Elbow: MMA history part four - Rickson brings jiu-jitsu back to Japan
- MMA California: Cage Combat - Meltdown press release
- China Combat: MMA Beijing trailer
- The Fightworks Podcast: Rolls Gracie recollections from Bob Anderson
- The Houston Chronicle: The wait continues for Andrei Arlovski
- Radio (Eddie Goldman): Interview with Dr. Margaret Goodman about steroids in MMA
- The Anderson Herald-Bulletin (IN): Chris Lytle makes Matthew Brown tap out in UFL bout
- The Houston Chronicle: Chuck Liddell ready for his comeback, Iceman has date with Jardine and is seeking a chance at Jackson
- TV Week: UFC - Today Spike TV, tomorrow the world (notice what Dana says about where he would place HBO events in relation to Spike TV events)
- The Arizona Republic (Norm Frauenheim): Boxing battling back with Cotto-Mosley
- The Dayton Daily News: Local talent worthy of slots at UFC 77 Cincinnati event
- The Crawfordsville Journal-Review: Creekside Lodge to host Cage Rage event Saturday (I’m sure the CR folks in the UK are thrilled about this)
- The Shreveport Times (LA): Joey Freid, Brandon Rondon win MMA bouts at the Municipal Auditorium
- MMA Weekly: Heath Herring taking some time off
Topics: Boxing, IFL, Japan, K-1, MMA, Media, Pro-Wrestling, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
Dana White quote from a radio interview on April 23, 2006 (nearly 16 months ago), as reported at the time by MMAWeekly: “We will be on HBO very soon.”
I guess it depends on what your definition of “very soon” is.
Also, if Spike TV does end up paying over $100 million to keep the UFC’s basic cable rights, they can’t be happy about being publicly positioned as the C-brand behind the “HBO fighters” and the “PPV fighters.”
Also, I fail to see the significance of Ed Fishman attending a K-1 USA show. That event isn’t even going to be on PPV in the U.S. (not even on a tape delay), nor are any of the upcoming K-1 or K-1 Hero’s events, at least not in the next couple months. They really need to fix that because right now the people who do want to buy those events on U.S. PPV can’t even do so.
With Rob McCullough now joining Kenny Florian, Kalib Starnes, and other Zuffa-contracted fighters in calling for random, year-round drug testing, it just highlights how unusual the situation is for a major sport.
Usually, if the management or owners in a given sport push for comprehensive drug testing, the athletes and their union fight against it (paging Donald Fehr).
In MMA, the athletes are publicly calling for year-round testing and the management has repeatedly said in interviews that they don’t know what else they can do besides supporting the athletic commission’s legally binding suspensions that they’d have no choice but to support anyway. It’s exactly the opposite of the way it is in most major sports.
I’d love to see UFC on HBO with a fresh, independent broadcasting team that treats it more like a sport. But Showtime has, in my opinion, a really bad broadcasting team, so maybe I shouldn’t get my hopes up. And Dana might still be able to put his own team in there.
What time was the fight over…..do you know the time of the very last fight.
I think the USA “Cage Rage” pre-dates the UK “Cage Rage”…now re-branded as the Cage Rage Championships for several reasons
However it is “positioned” the reality has been that some of the cable shows recently HAVE been better than the PPVs, with the exception that they haven’t been holding title bouts on them.
That’s unlikely to change if they continue to use the cable shows for up and coming lighter fighters as opposed to the creaky old heavyweights and light heavyweights that have been (let’s give them some due here) keeping this promotion alive to this point.
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Man, that’s harsh stuff, I thought TNA was supposed to be IGF’s partner promotion. I watched their first event because some of the names were familiar, and there was quite a bit of hype out there for Lesnar vs. Angle and I was sorely disappointed (never been a pro wrestling fan). Slow slow slow.
The Antonio McKee article really brings up the biggest news story of the week….. How are the IFL Contracts structured?
How can a company like the IFL put so much effort into a fighter and not have him under some sort of exclusive contract? I can understand if they allow the fighter to compete in other organizations when he doesn’t have an IFL fight. But to not have a guy locked down who has basically run through your competition…. That is just stupid business practice.
It also makes me wonder if the winners of the IFL Grand Prix are going to be locked down. I can easily see the IFL crowning 5 new champions, and then the UFC swooping in and signing each guy to a contract. What a blow to the IFL that would be.
For as much grief as the UFC has gotten over their exclusive contracts and their handling of the Fedor contract…. The situation with the IFL & McKee is proof of why the UFC is forced to put the fighters through this. Why spend money and give TV time to fighters who will just up and leave the company?
With all this talk about Fedor having to stay active against top 10 competition, it reminded me of an old HL video I made:
http://mma.tv/tuf/index.cfm?ac=ListMessages&TID=755473&FID=1
Did you guys see Chuck’s new sponsor?
http://shockernutrition.com/
LOL
“Did you guys see Chuck’s new sponsor?”
Is that for real? Based on their wed design, I’m guessing those guys can’t really offer the same type of money Chuck used to get from Xyience.
I’m also actually amazed that he would make the “shocker” hand sign on a promotional photo of any kind.
I’d like to see Arlovski vs Nogueira. Winner gets a title shot.
Nog should get the winner of Couture/Gonzaga.
Do Cro Cop vs Arlovski for a title shot against the winner of Nog vs Couture/Gonz
Re-watching UFC059.
The boo birds were out in force in Anaheim too (this was the first regulated UFC in California). I think California just hates MMA, maybe
Ugh, Tito making excuses for eking out a decision against Griffin. Great fight, but Griffin had it.
I thought Dana already said that Cro Cop would fight Nogueira if he beat Kongo, and then the winner would get a title shot.
” thought Dana already said that Cro Cop would fight Nogueira if he beat Kongo, and then the winner would get a title shot.”
He did say that. I wonder though if they intend to put a HW championship match on the NYE card. It would be hard to squeeze that in if they have a CC v Nog fight.
Ivan, while I’m sure that Spike would love to remain in the position they’ve enjoyed over the past couple of years as the sole cable broadcaster of the UFC, they must’ve known that as the sport grew that the day would come that premium cable would get involved. And that when they did, that said premium cable network would demand a better quality of bout than what the UFC’s audience had been getting for “free” ( or more accurately, whatever the percentage of their monthly cable bill goes toward the Spike network’s licensing fee ).
As long as Dana & the Fertita boys don’t get greedy & suddenly start to supply Spike with garbage bouts in order to fulfill their commitment, then I think the new arrangement ( when ever the HBO FINALLY gets done! ) will work out just fine. In much the same way that a similar arrangement has worked in boxing for years with the FNF ( & other basic cable fights on Fox Sports, MSG & now Versus ) establishing those that move up onto HBO or Showtime & eventually PPV.
The HBO deal will likely include all of the UFC’s European events. I’m sure there will be a few title fights here and there, but the majority of it will be quality fights but not PPV worthy.
It has been forever since I wrote here, but I clicked on a link to a Dan Henderson interview and this is the message I received from YouTube.com
“This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Pride FC Worldwide Holdings, LLC”
HAHAHAHAAH!
David…Pride FC Worldwide deleted my Hogan vs Fedor vid off youtube too.