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Monday musings: Zuffa & Xyience
By Zach Arnold | November 5, 2007
For the MMA insiders and hardcore fans, today’s big news item is a report that Xyience and Zuffa are supposedly linked together much more closely than apparently first thought. Luke Thomas elaborates on why this is an important story to follow. The one thing I don’t understand is that if the report is true that Zuffa has deep connections with Xyience, what does this say about UFC’s ability to attract major league, blue-chip corporate sponsors (outside of Hollywood movie ads)? Is Corporate America simply not buying into MMA right now?
Here is an interview with Jake Shields. Plus, an interview with Javier Vazquez.
Brock Lesnar vs. Andrei Arlovski coming soon to an arena near you?
The IFL channel on YouTube has all the videos from this past weekend’s IFL GP event in Chicago. Sherdog claims the Chicago event drew 4,106 paid. Fightlinker has some thoughts about the live telecast on MyNetworkTV over the weekend. MMA Opinion elaborates about the live TV experiment for the IFL.
More bad luck for David Terrell - torn ankle tendons. Joe Doerksen will take his place in the UFC 78 fight against Ed Herman.
Joe Calzaghe beat Mikkel Kessler over the weekend in front of 50,000+ fans in Cardiff, Wales. Event promoter Frank Warren says that there is no way that Bernard Hopkins can avoid facing Calzaghe. Dan Rafael says that Hopkins is more than looking forward to the upcoming fight in 2008. Carl Froch has other plans.
Everyone’s favorite athletic commission boss, Ken Hayashi, continues his current stance against professional MMA.
Here’s a recap of this past weekend’s Rebel Fighter: Unleashed Fury event.
How Dana White’s mouth may get him in trouble.
An update on Yves Edwards.
Thomas “Wildman” Denny has signed with Elite XC.
A report about the latest moves with Nova Uniao.
A report from the Fatal Femmes show over the weekend.
Topics: Boxing, Brazil, Canada, IFL, MMA, Media, Pro Elite, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
Top notch reporting as usual FightOpinion. Thank you. I just assumed after the first couple months of the Xyience sponsorships and The Iceman’s infamous X, that the UFC was in on the promotion of Xyience’s products.
It is a technically legal way of sponsoring fighters without being liable for payment, and other stipulations.
I am too lazy, and too busy in school to read about Nova Uniao but I love their fight team and trainers. I can’t wait for EliteXC’s show this weekend, KIMBO!!! Hopefully he brings in casual fans. I am also really excited for the UFC’s 78th show in two weeks.
I wish the IFL wasn’t so cheap that they were forced to show only two fights. Three letters, W-T-F?
Has Yushin Okami signed with K-1?
They’d certainly be doing a trial by fire with Lesnar if they put him in with Arlovski for his 1st UFC fight.
I have to wonder what kind of self respecting athletic commission would “ok” a fighter with 1 professional fight under their belt to fight a former world champion with 16 fights on his docket and a number of competitive opponents.
And if one was thinking of arguing that guys like Pe de Pano were fighting with very few number of fights, I would think you could at least point to the fact that he was involved in competitive martial arts bouts and grappling competitions vs. professional wrestling and an amateur wrestling career from 6 years ago.
Dear Sherdog,
For a website that wants to be seen as one of the leading authorities on mma and is in partnership with ESPN for reporting on world mma - why the F#ck are you running ads for “bareknuckles brazilian fighting - RioHeroes” prominently on your banners??
Use your heads.
G
If NSAC ok’d Lesner vs Arlovski, that would be total bullshit. They wouldn’t sanction Mark Hunt vs Butterbean for one of those Pride USA shows because it was a “mismatch.”
The Dana White quote at the end of the Xyence story seems to be either taken out of context or misused on purpose. The author should have at least said whether it was taken from a press release or if it’s in fact White’s reply to the accusations that Zuffa is funding Xyence. Otherwise, it seems as if White is openly endorsing the whole deal even though he hasn’t said as much. That’s a minimal standard of serious and ethical journalism that should be observed.
RE: Sherdog.
Why is it also running John McCain for President ads? Isn’t it ironic? The guy who went after MMA 10 years ago now running campaign propaganda on an MMA website. Never mind that Sherdog is also running ads for the specific type of MMA that led the Arizona senator to target the sport in the first place.
I think Arlovski/Lesnar would actually be one of the best “big-name” matches they could have for Lesnar if they really want to do trial by fire. Lesnar’s biggest worry is sprawls and subs, and Arlovski isn’t a great ground fighter and has never shown any great sprawling. Kongo really isn’t a big name yet, and the UFC doesn’t want to give Cro Cop another potential loss. Beating Arlovski would be huge for Lesnar’s rep, and a loss to the former HW champ won’t dim Lesnar’s star that badly, especially if he looks good.
^ “Big name” or not - no commission worth it’s salt should be giving the thumbs up to an absolute rookie with little mma training or experience a match against a former hw champion with 8x the fights (that’s only professional too) on his resume.
We saw what happened when Johnnie Morton fought someone with even less experience than Arlovski…granted Lesnar has an excellent amateur wrestling pedigree, but he hasn’t participated in like 5-6+ years.
The problem with this fight being so “big name”, with the accompanying media exposure, is that if something bad happens (likely due to a disparity in experience) there could be serious repercussions.
Gaijin, I wondered the same thing about Sherdog. Rio Heroes is located in Brazil for 1, and 2, open your eyes and open your mind, they need money and its not like they are promoting it hardcore. It is a combat sport, I don’t agree with Sherdog but I love their site and their reporting and I ain’t hatin’.
Hayashi is a bum. He tells them to get it sanctioned at the amateur level first, but he’s done his best to avoid and block any attempts at doing so in Ontario. I wish someone would finally get rid of this guy (politically, I don’t want him dead :)).
Lesnar vs. Mir @ the Superbowl Show.
http://www.ufc.com/index.cfm?fa=news.detail&gid=8534
sebastian: From what I heard, Denis Kang actually mentioned Okami was signing with K-1 after the Korea event.
“Rio Heroes is located in Brazil for 1, and 2, open your eyes and open your mind, they need money and its not like they are promoting it hardcore. It is a combat sport,…”
So what if it’s in Brazil?
Open my eyes and mind to what? That this crap sets the sport backwards about 10 years, nevermind if someone suffered a serious injury in this amateur hour exercise.
Is Sherdog that hard-up for money and sponsors (considering the exposure they’re probably getting from teaming up with ESPN) that they need to have huge front page banner ads (w/ accompanying sound effects) from some 3rd rate company?