As for the Harley-Davidson ad potential, you must be on crack, do you know who their target demographic is? Trust me, it’s not smack talking, young BLACK men. That sponsorship is clearly in the wheelhouse for someone exactly like Chuck.

You would think that young black men aren’t the target audience of Cadillac and yet the Escalade is an icon of hip hop culture. Sometimes advertising is about opening up new markets like Nintendo targetting senior citizens–which also isn’t the traditional videogame audience.

As for me providing you of examples…look at all the interviews Liddell’s been doing – Letterman, Conan etc. he’s the top Xyience guy, whom it’s been shown is a front company for Zuffa (I don’t recall Rampage having a high profile Xyience sponsorship). I don’t see the UFC pushing Rampage to get on tv shows like Entourage or doing any type of media tour (which would have been huge following his win over “poster boy” Chuck) to increase his exposure.

I’ve already addressed the Xyience sponsorship deal, but apparently you weren’t paying attention. Xyience is bankrupt and have outstanding payments to fighters. Why would Rampage endorse a dead company?

The Entourage appearance occured long before Rampage signed with UFC and this was after Iceman during an unprecedented title reign and had built up his popularity after years of success. Rampage just became champion and is getting opportunities that even Chuck didn’t get in his first year.

At the end of the day, all you got is appearances on “Letterman, Conan etc.” First off, I’d like to know what the “etc” is. Otherwise, a couple of appearances on talk shows is hardly supports the notion that the UFC doesn’t know what to do with Rampage and is under promoting him.

As for the Harley-Davidson ad potential, you must be on crack, do you know who their target demographic is? Trust me, it’s not smack talking, young BLACK men. That sponsorship is clearly in the wheelhouse for someone exactly like Chuck.

As for me providing you of examples…look at all the interviews Liddell’s been doing – Letterman, Conan etc. he’s the top Xyience guy, whom it’s been shown is a front company for Zuffa (I don’t recall Rampage having a high profile Xyience sponsorship). I don’t see the UFC pushing Rampage to get on tv shows like Entourage or doing any type of media tour (which would have been huge following his win over “poster boy” Chuck) to increase his exposure.

As for “switching gears”, you provided me with examples that clearly had little to do with the influence of Zuffa getting Rampage any media exposure. So I gave you the explanation that it would appear that this type of exposure is mainly due to him and his management. This is hardly a stretch and definitely not a troll Zuffa-boy.

It seems increasingly true based on the fact that they’re still relying on Rampage to sell PPVs.

That doesn’t make any sense. They are relying on Rampage to sell PPVs so that’s proof that they didn’t expect him to be champ? Isn’t that quite the opposite?

Chuck’s been given PPV fights and pushed back into a #1 contender slot while Rampage is sitting around doing nothing. He won’t do anything until May-June at the earliest. Chuck may very well fight again before that.

You do know that Rampage was injured right? That’s why he’s been on the shelf.

I don’t think you know what you’re talking about, and you’re inventing talking points to make up for it. Silva had fought and lost to Tito Ortiz in a 200 lb title fight, along with making numerous notable PRIDE appearances before the fight with Sakuraba.

Silva has gone on record many times about how this was the most important fight of his career and how it made him an international superstar and also why he didn’t mind fighting Sakuraba two more times. So I guess Wanderlei has no idea what’s he’s talking about.

It seems increasingly true based on the fact that they’re still relying on Rampage to sell PPVs.

And since you didn’t provide any examples of how Chuck was promoted over Rampage, I’ll speculate.

Chuck’s been given PPV fights and pushed back into a #1 contender slot while Rampage is sitting around doing nothing. He won’t do anything until May-June at the earliest. Chuck may very well fight again before that.

Silva was not that well known and when he beat Sakuraba, that really put him on the map internationally.

I don’t think you know what you’re talking about, and you’re inventing talking points to make up for it. Silva had fought and lost to Tito Ortiz in a 200 lb title fight, along with making numerous notable PRIDE appearances before the fight with Sakuraba.

That in my opinion is where they dropped the ball – they had no contingency plan whatsoever for Rampage actually beating Iceman and following his win they did little to change their focus.

IMO everything he’s gotten in terms of exposure has been on the part of his own management rather than Zuffa’s attempts to get him out there. They’ve done it with Liddell, Couture, Franklin but from what I’ve seen they’ve done absolutely nothing in terms of promoting Rampage up to the point of him being named a coach for TUF 7.

Nothing you’ve said above is supported by any evidence. Its pure conjecture based on your hate. Do you really think UFC was unprepared for Rampage to beat Chuck? Rampage was the last guy to dismantle Chuck in convincing fashion. You don’t sign guys to long-term contracts for them to lose.

And since you didn’t provide any examples of how Chuck was promoted over Rampage, I’ll speculate. Most of this so-call “exposure” you’re talking about amounts to all those Xience commercials that everyone saw. Now we all know what’s going on with Xience so this isn’t an option for Rampage. UFC just bought on Harley Davidson and some other sponsors so it will be interesting to see if Rampage gets any endorsments deals.

And nice trolling effort on switching gears and saying that all the exposure that Rampage supposidely wasn’t getting should be credited to Rampage’s management team and not Zuffa. The correct answer is we don’t know.

And why did you say Liddell put Rampage over? Last I checked, even though MMA is pretty similar to pro wrestling in quite a few ways, it isn’t fake. I don’t think Liddell did “the job”.

I’m not saying that Liddell threw the fight, but Rampage’s newfound fame is predecated on the fact that he beat UFC poster boy Chuck. This was the same with Silva vs. Sakuraba. Silva was not that well known and when he beat Sakuraba, that really put him on the map internationally.

Liddell is still doing commercials and whathaveyou. I haven’t seen Rampage in any non-UFC commercials. I can’t remember what the commercial was for, but they showed him throwing a punch, and calling it the “hard sell”, and showing a hot chick, God I can’t remember exactly what happened and what the product was. I think it was the same commercial that Burt Reynolds was in.

And why did you say Liddell put Rampage over? Last I checked, even though MMA is pretty similar to pro wrestling in quite a few ways, it isn’t fake. I don’t think Liddell did “the job”.

As for Chuck “putting over” Rampage, this isn’t professional wrestling. In that vein Serra was given a rub by GSP for losing to him, even when UFC had all their eggs in the basket for GSP to win that fight, much as they did for Chuck. That in my opinion is where they dropped the ball – they had no contingency plan whatsoever for Rampage actually beating Iceman and following his win they did little to change their focus.

IMO everything he’s gotten in terms of exposure has been on the part of his own management rather than Zuffa’s attempts to get him out there. They’ve done it with Liddell, Couture, Franklin but from what I’ve seen they’ve done absolutely nothing in terms of promoting Rampage up to the point of him being named a coach for TUF 7. Rampage is a young, charismatic and exciting fighter with plenty of upside and thankfully has the ability to sell himself – I think the situation would be a lot different if you had Machida or someone like Keith Jardine (god forbid) winning the belt. I really don’t see how this point can be argued at all, I really don’t.

As for the Letterman appearance, there’s two possibilities: 1) Letterman wanted Iceman 2) UFC wanted to repair Iceman’s stock. That said, what other glaring examples has Chuck been publicized over Rampage?

BTW your attempts to laugh off my points lack substance and quite frankly, its rather immature. You demand solid evidence and examples from me–to which I’ve indulged because I want to see how long you can keep this up, but apparently that standard doesn’t apply to yourself.

KO of the Iceman on ESPN – of course they showed it, the UFC hyped the shit out of how awesome Liddell was and how this was “the biggest fight ever”. Clearly they’re showing this fight regardless of the outcome.
- Remind me…who got bookings on Letterman after?

TMZ – hahahahahahahahahahaha. that’s all I have to say about that one. OOOhhhh…80’s rapper enamoured with “ultimate fighter”. Great job there.

TUF coach – I said already in this thread that it appeared their push of him was about to change b/c they couldn’t just shoehorn Liddell back into the title picture. Go READ it…i never said they weren’t going to push him. I said they shot themselves in the foot following their biggest media exposure to date b/c they showed an inability or unwillingness to start pushing him as the champ rather than continue to hype up Liddell.