How can you call Hayato Sakurai a journeyman, he is one of the best in the world at whatever weight he chooses to fight at.

You won’t get an argument from me on this.

The problem for Sakurai is finding the right opponents and getting booked at this point on enough shows. His last booking was a ShootBoxing fight, so he’s stuck in limbo right now.

I listened to most of the Fightlinker interview namedropped at the end of this podcast. That guy has a really bad habit of talking himself into things, and taking rumorangs from the web and using them as if they were actual facts.

There are some odd things going on between the Fertitas and Xyience, no doubt, but when you start citing reports as facts, and start saying that it is KNOWN that fraud has been committed without very solid evidence or a conviction, I get very very nervous. It’s no wonder this guy is being sued.

There are differences between circumstantial rumor based suspicions and actual factual evidence, and I’m not comfortable with his ability to discern between the two. Especially when he starts ranting about all the little guys getting fucked over while fat cats take windfalls, less than half an hour after admitting that he asked for (or considered asking for) a million dollars to walk away quietly.

I’m about as staunchly anti-corporate as they come when the circumstances justify it, but this guy talked himself from an interesting source with some good information into a raving maniac in front of my ears.

Its not that I want MMA orgs to be run by criminals, but if it makes for good fights, so be it.

So you would have been OK with Frankie Carbo and his ‘associates’ running the 40s & 50s Boxing scene (causing dives, screwjobs, etc. en masse and causing what is generally regarded as the decline of Boxing the sport through their actions) because, hey, we can get a few good fights with the Mafia-run promoters?

To quote the great John McEnroe: “You can’t be serious!”

Newslfash, Arnold, fans dont give a F#CK who runs the organizations. American boxing fans havent cared for the past 100+ years

That’s kinda weird, since there were plenty of letters that great Boxing writers from the 40s & 50s IBC-run Boxing era such as Dan Parker and Jimmy Cannon posted showing concern about the Carbo influenced IBC killing Boxing by the Boxing public…

Urging MMA promoters to abide by the law is the first step to ensuring that we don’t get paper champs, canfests, steroid-fueled win streaks and a dearth quality of opponents fighting one another. If you sweep the management’s wrongs under the rug, you risk losing the value of the core entertainment product.

Don’t disassociate bad management with a bad product, cuz the two have historically gone hand-in-hand.

I do agree that – for me at least – it doesn’t matter who runs a fight promotion. If I love the product, I love the product, period.

However, I don’t agree with your “we’re watching people try to kill each other so who cares about anything” mentality. Competing in martial arts is a sport, and has been for thousands of years. Just because the UFC is throwing that art into a cage doesn’t make it a vicious bloodsport, or anything immoral.

And while I don’t particularly care that a tax evader or yakuza boss is running a promotion, I do want to know that the men and women risking their health in this dangerous sport are being compensated fairly.

Having said that, although I love the insider information I get from Fight Opinion, I would like to hear a little more than 5 minutes dedicated to discussing a MMA card on a Fight Opinion Radio show. The last UFC event was almost completely swept under the rug…surely you guys can give the fights a little more time and attention? I love hearing your pre and post fight comments, so keep them coming!

The point is that Zach is trying “to figure out and rationalize how MMA fans are getting excited about a company whose grandmaster is currently sitting in a jail cell.”

That just doesnt make sense. Do fans get excited about the promoter of a fight?? Of course not, they get excited about the fighters. Only Zach Arnold judges an organization by the backroom business politics, and not the quality of the actual athletic competition.

Zach does a great job of reporting all of the insider information and I love to read about it but sometimes he loses touch with reality.