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Pre-UFC 81 event notes
By Zach Arnold | February 2, 2008
On a side note, results from today’s mystery K-1 show at Nippon Budokan. Show recap here.
The first scheduled hearing in Zuffa LLC’s court case against Randy Couture is on March 4th at 9 AM. Zuffa LLC attorney Donald J. Campbell has filed a motion for a preliminary injunction.
Lots of audio previewing the upcoming UFC 81 event tonight in Las Vegas. If you haven’t listened to the latest edition of Fight Opinion Radio, go do so. Mike Sawyer and Oliver Copp have a report from Mandalay Bay Events Center on the latest edition of their radio show. Some notes from Mike & Oliver:
- WWE has purchased 30 ringside tickets for the show tonight.
- As of 5pm Friday, they still had tickets left (325).
- TNA guys will also be at ringside (Tenay, Borash and Kurt Angle)
Article row: Las Vegas RJ | Las Vegas Sun | Washington Post | Wilmington News Journal
The king of interviews, Steve Cofield, has several available to listen to on his site. Interviews: Alex Marvez | Kenny Florian | Keith Jardine | Joe Lauzon | Brock Lesnar
Dave Meltzer has notes (here and here) about Friday night’s UFC weigh-ins.
Topics: K-1, MMA, Media, UFC, Zach Arnold | | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
Does that mean WWE wrestlers are going to be at the show? Or just WWE staff?
WWE+UFC=Pride+Pro wrestling
UFC>Pride
WWE>ProWrestling
Pride=ProWrestling
ergo,
UFC>PrideFC
Sorry, just had to do it…I wonder how much on-camera time. The wrestles will get.
If Mir wins, it won’t be that much of a loss for UFC as they’ll proclaim form the highest peak UFC>ProWrestling in terms of talent/toughness.
If Lesnar wins, UFC has a new poster boy, until of course he actually loses…Watch them try to push Lesnar vs. Fedor as the next mega-event. Couture who?
I assume The Undertaker will be in the stands….
“WWE+UFC=Pride+Pro wrestling
UFC>Pride
WWE>ProWrestling
Pride=ProWrestling
ergo,
UFC>PrideFC”
Actually for pride = pro wrestling, it must also be UFC = WWE. Therefore, UFC = Pride
Stop with this PRIDE = Pro Wrestling stuff. Some of the early Takada matches were fixed but that’s it. Rampage was not encouraged to take a dive. PRIDE had a policy where they’d pay a bonus to fighters if they lost by stoppage because they wanted to discourage fighters from quitting to make the fights more exciting (stupid policy I know. If you want to make fights more exciting, a KO/TKO/Sub bonus would do it).
PRIDE did have roots in Japanese pro wrestling but there’s nothing wrong with that. Japanese pro wrestling is a different animal from American pro wrestling. The UFC, whether UFC fans want to admit it or not, owes a lot of thanks to pro wrestling marks. Dave Meltzer covered the UFC since 1993 and the pro wrestling community has made up a good base of UFC fans. The greatest drawing UFC PPV before TUF was Shamrock vs Ortiz I. TUF was a drawn-in (I think thats what its called?) from WWE RAW on SpikeTV. The UFC also incorporated the WWE business model (which I went over about before) and they market their sport similar to pro wrestling (nu metal music, WWE-style production and announcing, etc.)
Is it really any surprise why boxing purists (like Lou DiBella) love to compare the UFC to WWE? You know how embarrassing it is to try to get uninitiated friends to overlook the stupid Gladiator intro and crappy nu metal? Obviously PRIDE’s presentation has a carny feel to it but they have an excuse, the product is made for a Japanese audience and western Otaku audience and not for an American audience. When non-Otaku Americans see Freakshow matches, a wailing Lenne Hardt, and Takada in a diaper hitting the drums, etc., giant fists/fingers, they’re going to freak out. But the UFC is an American organization and they have to do what appeals to a mainstream American audience. Right now, it looks like they hired former WWE staff for their production team and that’s going to prevent them from hitting mainstream in America.
thanks for clearing it up Dave2. Great post!
WWE = NBC
I should point out that I believe WWE did not pay for the tickets….
Yep, nice job Dave2.
It is,indeed, quite interesting just how defensive some MMA fans get over the whole pro wrestling lineage & connection to the sport. Many of whom remind me of a bunch of born agains from the Bible Belt who absolutely refuse to acknowledge ANY sort of proof of evolution. Even when confronted with undeniable scientific evidence of it’s existence.
Personally, I just don’t get it.
I’ve been a lifelong fan of all fightsports. Begining with my falling in love with boxing back in 1976 when I was 14. Then, becoming a fanatical MMA fan as well in ‘93 after the initial UFC.
In between & in addition to my diehard devotion to both of these legitimate combatives, I also began to follow pro wrestling to varying degrees in the early ’80s. Suspending my disbelief just enough to enjoy the hell out of a lot of it. Mostly the WWF & WCW, but also the AWA, ECW & some of the other smaller organizations that showed up on television.
I got a kick out of the combination of athleticism, over the top characters & bizarre storylines.
Though very far from being one of it’s biggest fans, I’ve maintained a mild to moderate fascination for the pro wrestling world thru the years. Even to the point of ordering many PPV events years ago. Something that stopped due to financial limitations, barely being able able to keep up with all the boxing & UFC PPVs that I need to see these days!
I think it is also interesting that in addition to WWE employees being there, there will also be TNA employees (specifically Mike Tenay, Jeremy Borasch [who is known to be a major kiss-ass in pro wrestling], and Kurt Angle).
What’s next? Will Cary Silkin send Ring Of Honor wrestlers and staff to the event too? This is getting ridiculous. I am gonna call it now. Brock Lesnar via F5 through a table, FOR THE PIN!!!!!!!! But because of a run-in by Kurt Angle, since Angle would want Lesnar healthy for a match down the line of course.
Come to think of it, as long as it doesn’t interfere with a house show that he’s scheduled to appear on someplace tonight, there probably is a good chance that the ‘Taker WILL be among those sitting in that WWE block of seats.
Mark Calloway is, in fact, a huge boxing & MMA fan. With an impressive amount of knowledge about both sports & their participants.
He’s even added a small array of MMA submissions to his “arsenal” over the past year or so.
For those of you not buying the PPV, Total-MMA.com will be doing a liveblog on the main site of what’s going down.
Prelim results going up now as they happen.