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Tuesday news & notes: Sakuraba vs. Funaki officially booked
By Zach Arnold | October 22, 2007
The big news of the day is that K-1 announced Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Masakatsu Funaki for their 12/31 Osaka Dome event.
Regarding the M-1 situation, there are two separate SEC dockets related to Sibling Entertainment (here and here). Which docket should we be paying more attention to?
Mistaken translations at the M-1 NYC press conference.
“From the first conversation I had with Brock Lesnar, I was confident that he was gonna fight in the UFC,” said White. “He had fought in another show, and after he fought in that show, he realized what it was like to fight in a rinky-dink organization. Fighters and athletes of that caliber want to come to the UFC because this is the place to be. It’s the most professional, it’s got the best fighters in the world and if you want to make your name and cement your legacy, the UFC is the only place to do it.”
The San Antonio Express-News is reporting that “Jesse” James Leija is going to promote a 12-fight MMA card on 11/10 at the AT & T Center in San Antonio.
Jerry Millen wants back in MMA.
Figuring out who the future contenders will be for Anderson Silva in UFC. Silva might have something to say about that.
Bad news for Roger Hollett — he will be out of action for an estimated four months due to a knee injury he sustained in the fight against Lew Polley this past weekend in Halifax.
Did you know that more people watch MMA than the Super Bowl or the Rugby World Cup? Me neither.
The Omaha World-Herald has a feature article on Houston Alexander.
I had no idea that Legend Credit taped an MMA event over the weekend.
Adam Morgan has a write-up about attending UFC 77 live. Plus, Adam is doing the radio rounds again.
Shu Hirata is looking for Arbocius Tiger.
Steve Sievert has more thoughts about M-1 Global. MMA Analyst has more links for you to read. Dave Meltzer tries to put the M-1 Global situation into a larger context in relation to MMA’s current landscape. Last week, I asked when Monte Cox will start drawing heat for being both the CEO of M-1 and an agent to fighters. I’m still asking…
Regarding the M-1 situation, there are two separate SEC dockets related to Sibling Entertainment (here and here). Which docket should we be paying more attention to?
More trouble for Xyience. Here’s a simple question… How can a company be able to afford to be the main sponsor of UFC, yet not allegedly pay some of the top fighters it had sponsorship deals with? Furthermore, why isn’t Dana White being asked by media writers about this situation?
A fire sale for IFL tickets to the next event in Chicago? I thought the attendance number for the September event in Florida was in the 3,400 range… The IFL is working with Stats LLC now.
Boxing Scene is reporting that Jermain Taylor wants to have a re-match with Kelly Pavlik in the near future.
Topics: Boxing, Canada, IFL, Japan, K-1, M-1, MMA, Media, Pancrase, UFC, Zach Arnold | | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
Is the winner of Sakuraba Vs. Funaki still rumored to face Gracie?
It seems strange that their entire strategy for acquiring new fighters is hoping that they’ll be drawn to the organization by the presence of Fedor.
“It seems strange that their entire strategy for acquiring new fighters is hoping that they’ll be drawn to the organization by the presence of Fedor.”
That and having company executives who manage a combined stable of over 100 of the world’s top fighters.
I’m still wondering who the major backer is. All these small LLC’s with no capital seems like a front of some sort or a bad businesss. Are they relying solely on banks and Fedor as getting them big PPV numbers?
Its becoming more clear that Randy left for the money and all the talk about respect and being underpaid was just a smokescreen. So far Randy has not handled this well as evident by the goodwill he burned with a lot of fans by renegging on his UFC contract. It will be very interesting to hear his side of this on Thurs.
“Its becoming more clear that Randy left for the money and all the talk about respect and being underpaid was just a smokescreen. So far Randy has not handled this well as evident by the goodwill he burned with a lot of fans by renegging on his UFC contract. It will be very interesting to hear his side of this on Thurs.”
Clear that its merely for the money and not a “smokescreen”?
He’s admitted that it was a combination of factors - money and respect. Part of the respect issue was that he was (a) being lied to about his level of pay w/r/t other fighters and (b) that they were offering huge sums of money to fighters who hadn’t been loyal UFC fighters and/or were not proven drawing cards.
Where has it been evidenced that he’s burned up goodwill with the fans?
At most that’s anecdotal and more than likely it’s your own personal opinion. I’ve seen nothing one way or the other showing who the fans are siding with.
It’s really become no more or less clear than it was two or three days after all of this went down, but whatever you say.
On a side note, I’d be interested to see how much money they’ve thrown at Lesnar in light of the fact that right now they have neither of the top 2 HW’s in the world.
To add to the Xyience story, which I owe Zach a lot for, I’ve been able to confirm that Matt Hughes has also parted ways with Xyience and that Franklin’s split was for nonpayment as well.
I don’t think Lesnar was entirely a panic signing.
He doesn’t even rank yet.
If UFC was worried about getting another guy from the rankings, then they would have gone on bended knee to Barnett.
I apologize for being vague. I didn’t mean to imply that people were universally against him, but I was very surprised that bloggers, message board posters and even callers on the Beatdown were not universally supporting Randy given his “nice guy” status.
As for the pay/respect, whether you want to believe Kevin Iole’s report or not, we’ll never know the numbers for sure as far as who was getting what, but we do know that Randy got what he wanted on his current contract with the UFC since the UFC desparately needed a HW contender, he never complained prior to this and the UFC not taking care of one of its biggest stars makes very little sense. I’m just fining it harder and harder buy Randy’s side of it.
Regarding Randy and Dana, there’s plenty of he said this and interpretation based on what been said.
I look back and only remember Randy being a gentleman. Looking back at Dana, I just remember all these tough guy tirades and arrogance.
Lesnar was not a panick signing. They were pursuing him long before Randy Couture thought about leaving the company.
Yes, it is true that Randy Couture has only appeared to be a gentleman to the public. But public perception can be extremely fake. In all honesty, nobody knows anything about these fighters. A guy like Tim Sylvia, who comes off like a tool, could be the nicest guy in the world. A guy like Randy Couture, who comes across as a true gentleman, could be a wife beater for all we know (not saying he is, just making an example).
My point is that you never know how somebody truly is by the way they are shown in the media.
“As for the pay/respect, whether you want to believe Kevin Iole’s report or not, we’ll never know the numbers for sure as far as who was getting what, but we do know that Randy got what he wanted on his current contract with the UFC since the UFC desparately needed a HW contender, he never complained prior to this and the UFC not taking care of one of its biggest stars makes very little sense. I’m just fining it harder and harder buy Randy’s side of it.”
I totally see where you’re coming from on this end…he likely did get a pretty good deal his last go-around, that appeared to be a top end contract at that time. And its hard to tell who said what and when in the contract negotiations, but one thing is sure and it appears that Randy feels grossly slighted to be doing what he did. Maybe they were claiming “poor-broke” and he took less cash b/c he loves to fight and wanted the challenge of getting back in the ring, only to find them doling out huge guaranteed deals to a dozen other fighters. Maybe he feels he’s being ripped off on his PPV %ages, since these numbers are rarely openly released. He has always been the model of sportsmanship and a great steward for the sport - its hard to imagine he’s doing this out of sheer greed.
The reality of the situation is that in pro sports athletes re-negotiate their contracts (while they are in place) all the time. It’s true he has a contract, but its also pretty apparent that he was being paid far below market value in comparison to the contracts being given to other fighters, many who had not stood with the UFC through it all and even more who were NOT the proven PPV revenue generators that he has been. And I honestly do believe that in failing to sign Fedor, coupled with Couture’s age he believes he only has a few fights and wants to fight Fedor to determine who is truly #1 at HW.
As someone a wise person once said, there’s two stories here and the truth lies somewhere in between.
“Lesnar was not a panick signing. They were pursuing him long before Randy Couture thought about leaving the company.”
I never said it was a “panic”, merely that I wondered how much money they paid him. I’ll bet his bargaining power increased significantly in light of the fact that they didn’t sign someone who they’d been openly hyping as the best HW on the planet and the guy that was their champion, who they’d been pushing as the challenger for guy A - which would be “one of the biggest HW fights ever”.
But don’t be totally naive…they lost out on two big HW’s, one being their most marketable and reliable PPV draw and the other a HW that could have been portrayed with a huge invincible aura that could have drawn huge ratings (with proper promotion) as the “Drago” challenger or champion for their HW’s to topple. This signing is most likely related to their now suddenly shallow HW division - which was spurned by their inability to retain the two - and the hopes that they can market a guy with the look and credentials that he has to fill the void.
How many undeserved and unearned title shots did Randy receive? How many times did he not earn being marketed, and was anyways? How many times has he left the UFC when it was no longer convenient for him to be there? Oh, and while we’re on the topic of respect, is it respectful to resign, by fax, from another continent while you play being an actor? Randy, my respect for you has dropped.
How many undeserved and unearned title shots did Randy receive?
Depends how you want to argue that. Randy won *ALL* of them. How undeserved can they be when he does that?
many times did he not earn being marketed, and was anyways?
He was one of the biggest stars in the promotion’s history. Who else should they have marketed instead?
How many times has he left the UFC when it was no longer convenient for him to be there?
Once? Before Zuffa?
Oh, and while we’re on the topic of respect, is it respectful to resign, by fax, from another continent while you play being an actor?
If he’s not getting paid what he feels he is owed, he can do whatever the hell he wants. I’ve resigned via letter before from jobs. So have most people in life.
^ Forecast from Hell: Heavy snow.
I actually agree with D.
I’m sure Zuffa is equally if not more guilty of fucking guys over and firing them in the same way.
I actually agree with D.
I’m sure Zuffa is equally if not more guilty of fucking guys over and firing them in the same way
I’ve had people disagree with me over many things. Eventually they come to pass and people admit I was right. Everyone that is even mildly intelligent knows that Randy/Fedor will draw in any organization and get a Rampage/Liddell ESPNpush because its the biggest fight that can be made. That may be hard for some to accept, but its true. Now, just wait awhile and see what happens if a guy like Forrest Griffin decides to check out on Zuffa when his contract comes up in ‘08….