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Monday headlines: Rampant stupidity
By Zach Arnold | December 3, 2007
Gina Carano reportedly will be a character on the new American Gladiators show, which features Hulk Hogan doing commentary. She’s running wild on all of us, brother.
An interview with Georges St. Pierre.
Joachim Hansen is not a fan of Zuffa:
“I just hope people understand that the problems [with Zuffa] weren’t about the money,” Hansen said. “It was about them treating me with honor and keeping their word. I would rather fight for free, then to bend down to them. My soul is not for sale.”
Looking ahead to UFC 82.
Caleb of MMA Predictions fame was at the NAMMAE event yesterday. Check out his report.
An event report about the MMA show that took place over the weekend at the Patriot Center (George Mason University). The report includes a mention of a “DJ Hapa” moment:
Then there were matters of production. The ring announcer was one of the most unprofessional characters I’ve come across in quite some time. During a long break where a fighter took a shot to the groin, he had the gall to groan on the mic: “Does anyone have a Snicker’s bar? We’re going to be here for a while.” The backstory here is that a fighter took a shot the groin and elected to use the entire 5 minutes allowed under the rules to recover from the strike.
Don’t tell this guy about Shooto or RINGS. Then again, the writer thinks Jeff Monson was a ‘leading fighter’ in PRIDE.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 23 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
To bad they didn’t ask Hansen about his participation in Yarennoka.
MMA being traced back to UFC in 1993? Are you f*cking kidding me? Shoot was started in 1989, there was Shootboxing in 1985 if you want to count that. Brazil has always had Vale Tudo, and Japan has had mixed rules matches (thank you Antonio Inoki) for a long time. K-1 was also started in 1993, and there is also Pancrase. What a goon at Eurosport. Too bad I couldn’t find an email address on that web page to correct that writer.
First Filho, now Hansen, whats with all this junk about being a prostitute being bad?
Chucky, Hughes and the boys seem to think it’s just dandy.
Work is work, you get paid to put up with a certain amount of shit. If you decide the money isn’t enough, you quit, unless you don’t think you can get enough somewhere else to deal with the same shit.
The rhetoric coming out of these guys sounds an awful lot like the stuff that has been coming out of the mouths of certain competing promotions though, so that may have something to do with why it’s being parroted right now.
Short version: now there’s someone else who can pay them what they want, and they like to echo the company line maybe.
My personal attitude is that the primadonna act is pretty tiresome. If this stuff was worked, we’d have a snarky “man of the people” character who would enter stage left and give these guys shit for it. In reality, we’ve got the blogs.
Not being bullied by a promoter or boss is being a primadonna?
I like that some people have a spine.
You gotta do what you gotta do. But agonizing about it in the media and pretending it’s not about the money is prime fat lady material.
Well, he did go and fight in Shooto for peanuts after negotiations with the UFC fell through. That’s pretty much proof that it wasn’t all about money.
Or it proves that he was shortsighted enough not to consider whether or not he could get an equivalent or better contract before jumping ship.
Or, Zuffa just decided not to re-sign him, and he’s making shit up.
I’ve got his word, and his word is whiny. 😀
Zuffa had Hansen via his DSE deal but they tried to leverage it to make him sign for less. I’d be pissed too.
If an employer is underpaying, disrespecting, or otherwise treating an employee like shit, the employee SHOULD speak up. If everyone is afraid to speak out and tell the truth, then nothing ever improves.
In Canada and the US, we’re the most apathetic motherfuckers when it comes to letting employers walk all over us. That’s why we’re working more hours for less pay than we were 10-15 years ago, are bullied into unpaid overtime, and take less vacation than we’re owed…while in France, they work 35-hour work weeks and get 6-8+ weeks of paid vacation each year. Because in (most of) Europe they get pissed, protest, and speak out against bullshit.
They tried to leverage it to make Hansen sign for less, but the plain fact is Zuffa wasn’t willing to pay him what DSE was paying him for. You can’t blame them for offering less if he isn’t worth what the contract was for (he isn’t).
Which is reflected in the fact that the Japanese also wouldn’t pay him what DSE was paying him.
Sometimes, it’s time to whip out your college degree and use it instead of fighting for a while. If you don’t have one, consider it a good opportunity to cram for the GED.
I forget the exact numbers, but when Zuffa was trying to sign him, the amounts he would get per fight were released. I believe Dave Meltzer was the person who broke that story. And they seemed more then fair compared to what other FEATHERWEIGHTS were receiving at the time. Because remember, he was going to compete at 145 lbs if he signed with Zuffa.
Basically…. Hansen was one of the last people to sign a Pride contract before the company went out of business. They likely overpaid him, but what would they care? It was just more debt anyways. And then when a fiscally responsibile company comes around, he is mad that the offer is for less. I’m sure fighting exclusively for Zuffa wasn’t high on his “likes” list either.
But lets be honest. These guys work for peanuts in Shooto and love it. I swear some people just want to be poor and miserable. I know people will say: “But he said it wasn’t about the money.” Yeah, just like it wasn’t for Couture wasn’t about the money, and then spent a good portion of a news conference complaining about the money. It is almost ALWAYS about the money. Even in the case of Fedor Emelianenko. The only difference is that it was about the money to Fedor’s MANAGEMENT and not so much for Fedor himself.
Jeremy why the hansen hate?
he’s probably quite upset being forced on the sidelines and not fighting waiting for his contract to expire, especially if it became clear that Zuffa wasn’t going to sign him
^He had a contract with Zuffa the whole time, but was upset because he said he was only being paid half of what he would have bee getting in Pride (Meltzer reported the contract as beign $35k/$35k). So he refused to fight. Then he got himself a lawyer and asked for a release. He got one. The only one that forced Joachim onto the sidelies was himself.
I love the Wrestling Observer, but when Meltzers sources are directly from the UFC, I don’t always consider his info as the end all be all when it comes to contract disputes. Zuffa’s smear campaigns are semi brilliant.
It’s amazing how many people love an organization more than the fighters.
No more amazing than loving a team more than the players.
Eh, the only real info in my post from Meltzer was how much the contract was for. If you want to, dig up Hansen’s video interview on Sherdog that was conducted before his fight against Mitsuoka. He says basically the exact same thing that I said in my post (minus the $ value of his contract).
Of course, he’s probably in on the ‘Zuffa smear’ of himself and is making this all up to make himself look bad.
Yeah, because Boston Red Sox fans would never chear for Johnny Damon, and then boo him out of Fenway because he changed teams.
Cheering for an organization/team as a whole is much more common then cheering for a specific athlete. That is the way most sports take place around the world. Minus the really big named players who will either be cheered or booed no matter what.
after reading 45’s bit, i looked it up some more and yes, it was about the money. but i can see where he’s coming from. the Zuffa “you can’t resign out of a contract” should work both ways, if they are assuming a fighter from somewhere else, it shouldn’t necessarily mean that they get to renegotiate the contract. this seems to be a problem that henderson had too
what the offered didn’t look bad tho, i think i just really wanna see Hansen fight on the big stage again
Don’t have to wait long, he is confirmed for Yarennoka.
ttt, I don’t “hate” Hansen. Heck, I don’t know the guy from Job. I just find those comments pretty sickening these days because I’m seeing them with increasing regularity.
This is professional fighting. It’s ALWAYS about the money. If you love fighting and don’t care about the money, then you can get a fight behind a local dive bar every Thursday night. Or, better yet, run the amateur circuit or fight in small shows. You can get a lot more fights that way.
If you’re in UFC, ProElite, IFL, Bodog, M-1, it’s about the money. That’s what being a professional is about, being paid.
As much as Tito disgusts me with his antics, at least he admits that it’s all money.
I’m an equal-opportunity hater, I’ll hate you for admitting that it’s about the money, and I’ll hate you for pretending it’s not 😀
I think the moral of the story is that it is tacky to talk about money in public. Plain and simple.