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Dave Meltzer: If Strikforce signs Dave Batista at a decent price, it shows how smart Scott Coker is
By Zach Arnold | June 27, 2010
I have so much audio to transcribe over the next two days, but suffice to say I can tell you with complete confidence what to expect…
I was wondering if the talk radio transcripts I have been doing were being read by the media types. Without question, the answer is most definitely yes. In this radio passage from a late Saturday night Observer show, this message from Dave Meltzer is clearly directed at the Sherdog radio personalities — Jordan Breen, Jack Encarnacao, and Lutfi Sariahmed.
Jordan said that if Strikeforce and Showtime sign Batista that they just don’t get it. Jack and Lutfi talked about how much of a pro-wrestling influence there is over the MMA media writers in regards to their backgrounds and how it’s swaying coverage of negotiations between Dave Batista and Sherdog.
There’s your set-up for what was, in many ways in my eyes, a strange rant by Dave on this subject. Of note, the topic of Batista was the thing that got him the most energized and fired up on that Observer show late Saturday night.
By the way, take note that I have lots of audio from the Observer and Sherdog camps and you could not find two completely different viewpoints on one MMA show than what you heard from these sides and I will extravagantly highlight those passages today and tomorrow. Wait until you read the text on Kim Winslow, the referee who officiated the Cris Cyborg/Jan Finney fight. One side thought that Kim was allowing a murder to take place and the other side thought that Kim did a hell of a job in the fight.
As far as Dave’s rant about Batista signing with Strikeforce, I’ll address some of his points after you read the passage.
DAVE MELTZER: “I have read some stuff, you know, having to do with Dave Batista. OK? And it’s like, OK… I don’t really want to see, I have no desire to see Dave Batista fight in MMA. I really don’t care to see it. I don’t think it’s a good idea for him. However, if… you know, there’s this big thing going on that like if Strikeforce takes him it shows how stupid Scott Coker is. OK? If Strikeforce takes him and books him and get shim at a decent price, it shows how smart Scott Coker is, not how stupid he is. It shows he’s not narrow-minded. It shows he sees the big picture and I’m hearing all these people going like, ‘it’s already proven this stuff doesn’t work and you know the wrestling fans don’t crossover’ and it’s like, WHAT THE [expletive]. WHAT THE [expletive]. I mean, how many times between Japan and the United States does something have to be so obvious in front of your eyes that you don’t see it? I mean, it’s like, what, you know, what, you know… I mean, what did Ken Shamrock’s 2007 year tell people? What did Brock Lesnar’s PPV success tell people? What did the whole history of Japanese MMA tell people? You know, it’s like… it’s like… that’s what it was built on, this fricking thing was built on going right after (WWE) RAW. If it wasn’t for that, who knows if UFC would even exist? I mean, what I do know for a fact is that UFC would be nowhere but that’s a different thing, if Vince McMahon had say no I don’t want them on after (on Spike TV). But the point is is that if Shamrock didn’t fight Ortiz in 2002 and bring some pro-wrestling audience with him to that 2002 fight, I think there’s a pretty good darn chance Lorenzo Fertitta would have said this thing is not marketable, it’s not going to work, and they would have sold it to someone who would have gone down the tubes with it because most people would have at that time. You know what I mean, it would have the money to keep it going. It would have been a disaster or you know I mean that helped save it and certainly the one that took UFC from being number two to number one in the world was the Shamrock/Ortiz feud and again, you know, that was you know, you know Shamrock’s fame was you know yeah he had fame from MMA, but he had fame from pro-wrestling as well. And the other thing is that a lot, you know, you know, Dave Batista was a lot bigger pro-wrestling star than Ken Shamrock and he was a lot bigger pro-wrestling star than Brock Lesnar and he will, on television as far as TV ratings go, if he’s on the CBS show or if they have the opportunity to put him on a CBS show and they don’t… you know…”
BRYAN ALVAREZ: “Then they’re stupid.”
DAVE MELTZER: “Am I missing something here?”
BRYAN ALVAREZ: “Then they’re stupid.”
DAVE MELTZER: “I mean, am I wrong on this one?”
BRYAN ALVAREZ: “No, you’re not. No.”
DAVE MELTZER: “I mean… it’s like I hear people go well Herschel Walker already proved to be a failure. That was the third-biggest Showtime rating they ever did! Because of Herschel Walker. You think that Nick Diaz drew that rating? You’re fricking crazy. Nick Diaz wasn’t even over in the building that night. The guy who was over in the building, the two guys who were over in the building in Miami were Herschel Walker and Bobby Lashley, not Nick Diaz. If you think that rating was drawn by Nick Diaz. You know, again, people don’t understand what’s drawing ratings and the bottom line is for CBS, I mean I heard that it’s the whole fricking stupid Kendall Grove thing. You know, it’s like, all these networks care about is ratings. WELL, DUH! Welcome to the real world, guys.”
BRYAN ALVAREZ: “Yeah.”
DAVE MELTZER: “I mean, I don’t know.”
BRYAN ALVAREZ: “These forums are not good for your mental health.”
DAVE MELTZER: “What?”
BRYAN ALVAREZ: “These forums are not good for your mental health.”
DAVE MELTZER: “Well, this isn’t forums, this is MMA reporters. I don’t care, FORUMS are the FORUMS. They don’t know. But I’m talking about guys who follow the sport and then say, we’ve already proven that this stuff doesn’t work when in fact we’ve already proven that he does.”
BRYAN ALVAREZ: “That’s even more disconcerting.”
DAVE MELTZER: “Granted, again, Brock Lesnar… Brock Lesnar, there were reasons that Brock Lesnar could have been successful because of his legitimate background that Dave Batista doesn’t have. But Dave Batista is still a bigger, you know, was a bigger star in pro-wrestling than Lesnar. Will those people follow him in the same numbers that they followed Lesnar? Probably not. I think that there’s something, there’s a missing piece in the dynamic, but will he mean more than Herschel Walker? Debatable. I mean, Herschel Walker got a lot of mainstream press that Batista won’t have but Batista was relevant on television, you know, as of two months ago on a show that really drew big ratings and Herschel Walker wasn’t in that position since he left the NFL you know in the 90s. You know, many many years ago.”
BRYAN ALVAREZ: “The missing piece of the puzzle, I think actually, if we want to go back to that very quickly is as far as wrestling fans are concerned, I think that even fans who knew, I mean I think every fans knows it fake, but I think wrestling fans looked at Brock Lesnar as, here’s a guy who could kill you and I think they look at Batista as, here is a big jacked up bodybuilder that happens to be a pro-wrestler, and if push came to shove, which guys are you going to want to see in a real fight, I think people are going to choose Brock because they have this idea that he’ll kill dudes.”
DAVE MELTZER: “I agree with you, but as far as the curiosity and the ratings and everything like that…. there’s going to be people who are going to watch Dave Batista fight just because, I mean it’s going to cause curiosity.”
BRYAN ALVAREZ: “Of course, yeah.”
DAVE MELTZER: “When Herschel Walker played football, there was nobody watching the NFL going like, if Herschel Walker was in a real fight, you never thought of him… there are guys in the NFL who had that tough guy reputation and Herschel Walker wasn’t one of them. Herschel Walker was just a really, you know, a famous and a great football player. You know, Dave Batista did headline Wrestlemanias and things like that and he’s got you know tremendous name value in that industry and that industry that we’ve already seen crosses over to MMA when it’s promoted to them. I mean, Lesnar, you know again, you know… look at the buy rates Lesnar drew. Where did those people come from?”
BRYAN ALVAREZ: “Wrestling.”
DAVE MELTZER: “Well, not all of them, some of them came from the UFC. But I mean the point is like, put it this way — the first Lesnar/Mir fight of that 600,000… 300,000 had never bought from a UFC before. They came from wrestling.”
BRYAN ALVAREZ: “Yeah.”
DAVE MELTZER: “And that’s 300,000 buys and you know again if and TV ratings are different from buys, but you know Dave Batista’s going to mean more fore TV ratings. Like someone was talking to me, there’s actually another MMA promoter was talking to me about you know Dave Batista and what he would mean on PPV and I was not that high on that. They were going like, could we get 150,000 buys on PPV putting Dave Batista against a scrub and I thought, I don’t think so, and he was like, I think so. I don’t think so. But I said like you know if you can get him on television even against a scrub I think he’ll draw curiosity ratings. I mean… what’s her name, Chyna (Joanie Laurer), remember when Chyna fought on television against Joey Buttafuoco?”
BRYAN ALVAREZ: “Yeah.”
DAVE MELTZER: “I mean, that did something like I don’t remember the number but it was like a 10 rating or a 9 rating, I mean it’s ridiculous. The number was unbelievably ridiculous. It was a number that like MMA will never get in its history. That’s what draws unfortunately in our society that’s what draws ratings. That’s a lesson. You know and it’s like, rather than bury your head in the sand and say you know like I don’t like it so it won’t work, it’s like hey, I don’t like it either… but when push comes to shove and you know let’s face it, especially God… especially that last CBS show with Dan Henderson on top, look at what rating it drew. These guys need, isn’t that a lesson learned? Dan Henderson was a big-time superstar in the MMA world and he couldn’t draw [expletive] for ratings on top. Fedor can draw because of that mystique, OK? Gina Carano can draw because she’s very pretty and for whatever reason. Kimbo can draw and he can still draw today, even though people think oh Kimbo’s done, Kimbo would still draw today because he’s a star and people will pay to see a star just like Liddell lose over and over again but he’s a star and people will you know pay to see him, watch them for free, and Batista is a star from another world, you know, but he’s a real TV star.”
If you look at a lot of the arguments that Jordan and Jack & Lutfi made about Batista being an awful signing for Strikeforce, it more or less has to do with the fact that Batista can’t fight. He’s a 41-year old guy. Great. So he pops you one rating on TV. He can’t do anything else for you.
Strikeforce needs star power plus roster depth. Batista gives them star power only for one show and that star power is largely very questionable. When I hear the argument that Batista is some sort of TV star, think of all the times you saw those horrible ratings WWE would draw on NBC in the modern era for either the reincarnation of Saturday Night’s Main Eent or Tribute to the Troops. On network television, the WWE guys aren’t draws. So, throw that “TV star” argument out the window.
Focusing on what Dave said about MMA’s history in Japanese pro-wrestling, this issue of course is up my alley because it’s damn near my backbone as far as where I came from to become a writer covering this industry. You can’t compare the MMA crossover in Japan to the MMA crossover in America. There are different reasons for what happened in each sector. In Japan, professional wrestling has always been covered as a mainstream sport in the media — TV, newspapers, magazines. It was always treated as legitimate. When PRIDE rose to fame starting in 1997, the reason professional wrestling got hurt by it is because the mirage of wrestlers being the strongest fighters in the world got shattered. (Think: Yuji Nagata against Mirko Cro Cop.) In America, Vince McMahon made wrestling into a completely bigger circus and nobody looked at the wrestlers as legitimate fighters. So, what attracted Japanese wrestling fans to MMA is an entirely different set of circumstances than the ones leading to American wrestling fans watching MMA now (and they are doing so because they are sick and tired of WWE being so corporate and fake and insulting to their intelligence.)
As far as the Ken Shamrock/Tito Ortiz feud, two points. Dave argues that Shamrock’s wrestling background brought new fans to UFC. He’s right. But the reason those fans stuck around with Ken is because they saw him as legitimate. No one sees Dave Batista as a legitimate fighter. Ken Shamrock had an amazing career in MMA as far as star power was concerned. On the second point that the Shamrock/Tito Ortiz feud made UFC go from #2 to #1… in what sense? Domestically in America, sure. Worldwide? If it wasn’t for the yakuza scandal that destroyed PRIDE, PRIDE still would have been drawing some very big numbers on Fuji TV. If Fuji TV had not cut the financial cord to Dream Stage Entertainment, PRIDE still would have drew big numbers.
Regarding Herschel Walker being a ‘failure’… no one said he was a failure. None of the Sherdog writers said that. What they did remark upon, however, is the same everything everyone else did which is that he said he only wanted to fight a couple of times in MMA and that was that. He was not a guy you could build your promotion around. He had a great story, but at the end of the day he’s largely a promotional gimmick. Dave Batista signing with Strikeforce would be the ultimate promotional gimmick. Strikeforce needs both star power and roster depth and signing guys like Herschel Walker and Dave Batista doesn’t address the many problems the company has in regards to building new talent and being able to actually promote shows on a network platform.
By the way, this whole transcription is yet another surreal moment where my name or the site doesn’t get mentioned at all during the discussion of where these conversations and articles are taking place. It’s funny because I have all the evidence I need to prove that everyone in the business is reading this place these days but for some reason it’s dangerous, I tell you, to mention whom they are speaking of.
Topics: Media, MMA, Pro-Wrestling, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 6 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Who thought the ref in the Cyborg/Finney fight did a good job? They should be castrated.
I guess you didn’t listen to after the bell with TJ De Santis and Jordan Breen.
Jordan Makes a solid case that it was an ok job of reffing and made lot’s of solid point’s. I guess Cyborg is destroying people with weak ground and pound.
Maybe I’m wrong but I heard a good argument.
I think Meltzer (as usual) makes some good points, but I also agree with your counters, namely that Brock, Shamrock, and Lashley all have some legitimate fighting background, whereas Batista is just a roided-up guy prancing around in his underwear pretending to be tough. It may pop a rating, but I really think that at this point there isn’t much crossover between MMA and pro-wrestling in America. I think that most people who are mma fans in this country watched WWF as kids, and then once they saw what real fighting actually looked like, could never go back to watching the faux version. I know a lot of mma fans, and none of them watch pro wrestling.
Lesnar looks like the scariest man in the world, had the amateur background, and was in the WWF when it was still somewhat culturally relevant. Also, he got a lot of buzz for his attempts to play pro football; he has a look/aura and star power that Batista does not have.
what are you stupid batista has a better look than lesnar and a
shitload more star power than lesnar ever had or ever will have sure batista is 41 minimal fighting skill that doesnt mean he wont be a big draw oh and FYI lesnar was tested positive for steroids batista was never tested positive even in wweDave lost me at “gets him at a decent price”. Batista’s not going to come in cheap. He’s going to milk Strikeforce for as much dough as possible, as he’s in it for the money.
Speaking of not learning, did Dave Meltzer learn anything from Kimbo Slice going to UFC? Sure, Kimbo drew some huge ratings for the Ultimate Fighter reality show and its season finale, but it didn’t translate to any positive effect on UFC’s other business streams. At best, Batista is going to be Strikeforce’s Kimbo.
[…] Remember Dave Meltzer’s comments about just how big Batista would be if Strikeforce signed him? Yeah, I disagreed with him as well when he said it. However, Jim Ross keeps pushing this line of thinking as demonstrated in this article at Bloody Elbow, this time for a concept involving Batista vs. Herschel Walker. […]