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Wednesday war room: IFL makes a business pitch to everyone
By Zach Arnold | November 14, 2007
The IFL sent out two press releases on Tuesday. The first release talks about their 12/29 Mohegan Sun Arena card. The second release talks about their video deals with YouTube and Google Ads. Adam Swift analyzes the business deal. Steve Sievert says the promotion still has no live TV deal for the 12/29 show.
Thoughts on Riddick Bowe fighting in MMA. Who will he face?
Mark Kriegel praises Norman Mailer.
A UFC book that costs between $2,500-$3,500 USD to purchase.
Paulo Filho will fight Chael Sonnen on 12/12 in Las Vegas.
Interesting media item of the day: ESPN has now hired away two of America’s most notable media reporters on steroids, TJ Quinn of The New York Daily News and Mark Fainaru-Wada of The San Francisco Chronicle.
Someone attempts to defend the WAMMA.
Michael Bisping as Saddam Hussein.
Saturday night reassured my faith in the sport. Boxing is a violent triumph of one individual over another, yet it remains rooted in respect and usually is dignified. Unlike the up-and-coming Ultimate Fighting Championship, the dignity of the sport is why boxing will always find an audience to entertain.
Topics: Boxing, IFL, Media, MMA, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 22 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
My thoughts on the IFL / Google ‘partnership’
I did a bit of research on WAMMA as well, RSS feed didn’t ping for some reason. Check it out.
I came across where I heard David Szady’s name at though, it was in the book “Enemies”. It outlines the complete failure of the U.S. in the counterintelligence division of many of the major government organizations. There are countless points where Szady was to blame, and the author actually makes a case as to how one gets fired from the FBI.
Most notably, Szady headed the case to bring down Robert Hannsen, the Russian spy who infiltrated the FBI. Szady never actually brought him down and never actually concentrated on Hannsen much at all. Hannsen was only brought in after some anonymous tips, not investigation techniques. Apparently, this was an ongoing thing with Szady. Chinese spy case as well in which two of his team members were actually sleeping with the spy. It’s an interesting read.
It strikes me odd that his name is on WAMMA.
i’d like to see Filho v Marquardt or Rich Franklin.
You too can partner with Google to share ad revenue generated from your YouTube videos:
http://www.youtube.com/adsense_learn
The publisher of the UFC art book is kind of a specialty art house. Looks like limited and special editions routinely sell for $250 to $350 or more.
Link potentially NSFW (it’s an arthouse publishing company, expect nudes): http://www.powerhousebooks.com/books!/forthcoming-fall2007.html
The price here is pretty steep, but with such a limited run…I’m guessing it’s targeted at the coffee tables of the celebrities who are constantly showing up at UFC events.
I hope the WEC’s decision to match Filho with Sonnen pays off, because getting two guys with that good wrestling and jiu-jitsu together in a championship match is asking for a 25 minute decision.
In other news, if anyone’s interested, today marks the release of FightMetric’s report on the Tyson Griffin-Clay Guida fight.
http://www.fightmetric.com/blog/2007/11/thinking-outside-guard.html
I’m becoming less and less interested in the battle over who “won” close matches.
We all recognize that they were close. I think it’s a rarity that there’s a decision that’s clearly wrong once you actually go back and look at it. The one I was actually worked up about was the Bisping Hamil fight, but you know, whatever, it went down how it went down. My sense looking back is that I was more upset at Bisping’s ATTITUDE than about the actual judgment.
It’s far more common in MMA for fighters to get up at the end of the match and congratulate each other, to have some respect for the defeated opponent, etc. Bisping threw all that out the window, which gets my jeer.
I am surprised that Bisping knows who Saddam Hussein is, considering he is dead….
i agree with Jeremy, I was a Bisping fan going into the Hamill fight, and while I wasn’t AS shocked by the decision as most seemed to be, some humility in the post fight interview was definitely called for. Now, I’m rooting for Rashad to whoop that ass.
Jeremy makes a point that I’d like to address, as it cuts to heart of what FightMetric is about. What it is NOT about is trying to prove or decide who won. There will never be a numerical system perfect enough to replace human judging.
The value in discussing and analyzing close decisions is to highlight problems with the current judging system and inform ways to make it better. In most cases, controversy over a decision starts because people have differing opinions about what techniques matter more than others. Some value takedowns, some submission attempts, some striking, and on and on.
Discussing close decisions forces some accountability into the system. When fights consistently go to disputed decisions, it indicates something wrong with either the judges or the system, but certainly not the fighters. Our research goal is to see whether actual judgements are consistently out of line with what statistics would indicate the decision should have been. Close calls will always remain close.
Except Bonnar-Jardine. Man, Jardine got hosed on that one.
I watched the Bisping/Hamill fight again last night and still don’t see why people think its such a huge injustice. I always thought the second round was the more controversial one, but on the second view, I think Bisping’s crisper and much more active combinations near the end of the round sealed it for him. The third round was actually more closer than I thought and that one could have gone either way, but I agree with Bisping’s comments afterwards that he outboxed him.
I think people overrated Hamill for walking forward for a majority of the fight and for the takedowns. He may have been walking forward, but he was getting tagged by Bisping through out the 2nd and 3rd rds and as a couple of judges have already said on record, he didn’t do much with the takedowns so they were’t a big a factor as many think.
I don’t want to get into the whole aspect of the Hamill/Bisping debate, but Jeff Mullen contradicted himself in various interviews regarding takedown points. Specifically, he stated that takedowns count for something no matter what during one of the Guida fights, but then stated after the Bisping-Hamill fight that they do not count if you don’t do much. I tend to disagree with that thinking.
I love the match up of Nathan Marquardt vs Thales Leites for UFC 81.
Add in Heavyweight championship match and maybe Anderson Silva. I’m going to really get excited for this Show.
Source is Five ounces of pain.
FM:
Well, what if the result is “correct” in your view, but is a split decision?
It’s judging. If it gets to the judges, you get a judges answer as to who won. You want to win, take the opponent out. It’s that easy.
Nothing important.
Jeremy:
In that case it would cast aspersions on the dissenting judge if the decision shouldn’t have been a close one. For example the Fitch-Sanchez fight was a split decision but the fight was not very close according to the values used by our system. The dissenting judge was Marcos Rosales, who also gave Liddell the W against Jardine that same night.
There is nothing wrong with split decisions unless certain judges show a pattern of disagreeing with their peers. In that case, it might be evidence that someone’s priorities are out of line.
I feel like the sentiment that the only way to win a fight for real is to get a stoppage is a cop-out. It turns bad decisions into a punishment for a fighter not ending his fight. No fighter should be penalized for operating within the rules of his sport. Telling a fighter who should have rightly won “That’s what happens when you put it in the judges’ hands” absolves judges from any accountability. At that point, what makes these fights a sport and not a violent form of performance art? Is MMA really no better than figure skating?
1. I agree that Marquardt vs. Leitas is a very good fight on paper. I am excited for it. It really adds depth to that card.
2. I really hope Sokoudjou signs with the UFC. A Machida/Sokoudjou fight at UFC 79 would really make that card better, as right now the rumored card really only has 2 powerhouse fights.
3. I’m a little disappointed in Chael Sonnen being the opponent for Paulo Filho, but I guess for a free TV show, 3 titles fights are still hard to complain about. Plus, I ave a feeling that not to many people want to fight Filho.
The WAMMA guy, or one of the men who worked for them, called sherdog 2 different times.
Just take a listen on tuedsay, it’s funny really. they can’t say they hate the idea, but they cut him off and treat him like dirt.
Does anybody know if DirecTV or DishNetwork has UFC PPV’s in High Definition? My cable company does not, and I just bought a new HDTV, so I’m thinking about switching. But I don’t want to make the switch unless I’m positive. I couldn’t find a definitive answer on either of the companies websites.
Right now I have Showtime (EliteXC) & Versus (WEC) in HD. I don’t have HDNet (HDNet fights), SpikeTV (UFC), or PPV in HD (For UFC).
I will say the WEC cards look awesome in HD.
DirectTV has it in HD.
“There is nothing wrong with split decisions unless certain judges show a pattern of disagreeing with their peers. In that case, it might be evidence that someone’s priorities are out of line.
I feel like the sentiment that the only way to win a fight for real is to get a stoppage is a cop-out. It turns bad decisions into a punishment for a fighter not ending his fight. No fighter should be penalized for operating within the rules of his sport. Telling a fighter who should have rightly won “That’s what happens when you put it in the judges’ hands” absolves judges from any accountability. At that point, what makes these fights a sport and not a violent form of performance art? Is MMA really no better than figure skating?”
I couldn’t have said it better myself – the biggest bullshit cop-out in mma, “You shouldn’t have left it to the judges.” Well if judges are so unreliable, why even have them…
So far FIOS does not seem to have the HD feeds. Actually, I don’t think we get any InDemand or OnDemand HD anything yet.
I do get a nice array of HD channels, just not PPV stuff.
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I guess I just disagree on the winning thing. You win by ending the fight. The “judges decision” is just a cop out to placate the American exceptionalism of requiring a winner at everything. If the fight times out, then to me, that was a draw within the confines of the fight.
If you feel like drawing straws to pick a winner, that’s fine with me, because it’s all bullshit after the final bell rings.