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Mike Kogan has had enough of Rampage’s complaining w/ UFC

By Zach Arnold | March 18, 2012

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When we last joined you on the Rampage/UFC saga, Rampage was doing the media rounds on Thursday and managed to create more trouble. This time, he apparently name-dropped his sports doctor — which appears, based on photographs & postings on his own web site, to be Dr. William Kessler (chiropractor) who works with various MMA fighters.

Rampage’s comments have raised key issues regarding Testosterone usage in MMA and also the role of doctors & alleged relationships with the UFC. This is his own doing, for better or for worse, and Rampage clearly thinks he’s on the right end of this PR battle.

With that as the latest background, fighter agent Mike Kogan has had enough of Rampage’s act. Here’s what he posted on Twitter on Saturday night:

Mike raises an interesting angle to the current UFC/Rampage crapfest and that’s which fighters supposedly get their doctor bills paid for and which ones don’t. Given the current Zuffa ‘insurance policy’ plan and King Mo’s struggles with medical bills, you could see why Mike is frustrated for his client. How effective are the insurance policies for fighters in terms of what gets covered and by what criteria? There’s that debate. Then there’s the debate as to whether or not certain doctors are getting preferred status or not, plus the cash or insurance payment angle to this story.

Of course, it should be duly noted that there’s bad blood now between King Mo & Rampage. Mo also has an upcoming hearing in Nevada on the 27th regarding his failed drug test.

There’s a million questions that can be asked now given that Rampage claims Dr. Kessler supposedly led him to an age management doctor which resulted in a prescription for T, combined with the fact that Rampage fought at the UFC Japan show — an event that the UFC ‘regulated’ on their own. Who in Zuffa allowed Rampage to fight on T via a Therapeutic Use Exemption (if there was one in the first place)?

As far as where the heat will go in regards to the current UFC/Rampage PR battle, count on Rampage getting the majority of the heat from those inside the business. He’s an easier target and he’s not feared like Zuffa is. Zuffa’s the only game in town, so fighters & agents are grateful for whatever they can get. Rampage complaining about his current situation is rubbing people the wrong way, which is entirely the opposite of what he is trying to accomplish with his current PR campaign against the UFC.

For now, I’ll close with a quote from Chris Barton: What kills me about this thing is that there is apparently a horrible disease running rampant through the MMA community wrecking all of these poor fighters “natural testosterone levels”. When will we ever find the culprit!?

On a related side note, The New Scientist has an article out today about the future of drug testing. Hint: not blood or urine testing. Try ‘muscle biopsy.’

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 12 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

12 Responses to “Mike Kogan has had enough of Rampage’s complaining w/ UFC”

  1. edub says:

    People care less about King Mo because he failed a drug test right before all his troubles started.

    Rampage might not be too far off with the TRT, but in his mind it’s not cheating. That isn’t the case for King Mo with most fans thoughts on the situation. Too many have heard the tainted supplement defense now he gets no benefit of the doubt (whether that’s fair or not).

  2. zak420 says:

    mo should not say thing like “fuck the fans” if he wants people to care for him.

  3. Phil says:

    No one cares about Mo’s medical bills because when the story first broke about his issues with staph he said that he was happy with zuffa’s insurance and that his out of pocket expenses were “minimal.”

  4. 45 Huddle says:

    1) Medical Bills can creep up on anybody, even people in white collar jobs. You can be co-payed to death. The only people I know who are not effect by this are the ones who work a government job.

    2) According to that MMA Junkie article, he had $96,000 in medical expenses and only paid $1,400….. Wow that is good. I’ve had surgery that has cost in the $15,000 range and ended up paying around that same amount. So he doesn’t have it too bad.

    3) In general, I do not feel sorry for any fighter who is making nearly $100,000 per fight and doesn’t go out and get his own health insurance. Some personal responsibility needs to happen with fighters….

  5. The Gaijin says:

    Anyone catch the Martinez-Macklin fight? Great boxing fight…super exciting.

    Best development is that we might get PBF vs. Martinez next (Martinez said he’d take the fight for 20% split) and it would probably be at/around 150. Martinez is legit top 5 p4p boxer so this would be really intriguing…he could give PBF tons of problems, though a cut that big at this point in Sergio’s career (current 160lber) could cause him a lot of issues and lose him the fight at the scales.

    Interesting…

    • bluerosekiller says:

      Goddam but modern fighters are SUCH pussies!

      If Mayweather manages to get through Cotto next month & takes his light middleweight belt, then damn it, he should be willing to fight at 154 lbs. Not some silly catch weight of a buck & a half.
      Martinez hasn’t had to make ’54 in three years. And at 37, cutting those extra six pounds could be murder on him. Cutting to 150?!! C’mon!
      I know Sergio wants to make some big money before he hangs ’em up, but cutting to 150 is a ridiculous handicap in my book. Hell, why doesn’t Floyd just ask him to cut off one of his arms?
      I’m just so sick of all Mayweather’s BS.
      When Emile Griffith was the welterweight champ he was given the chance to fight Dick Tiger for his middleweight title & Tiger was a thick, big middleweight who successfully moved up & won the light heavyweight title a year or so later. Anyhow, Griffith gladly stepped up to the challenge & beat Tiger over 15 rounds.
      He weighed in at 150 lbs.

    • edub says:

      As much as I love that fight, I don’t want to see Martinez cut all the way to 150. If PBF fights Cotto at 154 I see no reason for him not to fight Martinez there (other than him handicapping Martinez).

      BTW brk – He weighed in at 157 for his fight with Macklin, and he almost never reaches 160.

  6. Nappa says:

    mo is getting screwed over. i bet the doctors are just charging him as much as they can,giving him medical procedures he actual does not need. i know they do this a lot in american.

  7. Megatherium says:

    And Tiger himself weighed 168 pounds when he lost the lhw belt to Bob Foster. Tiger never was a real lhw, he just got chased by Griffith to a less competitive division.

  8. 45 Huddle says:

    1.1 Million for the TUF ratings. Not good news.

    Friday’s is a tough day for a weekly reality show. I think the dip in the ratings from SpikeTV is showing exactly this.

    MMA has sort of been relegated to Friday’s from now on…. UFC with TUF and Bellator on MTV2 (future on SpikeTV).

    Personally, I tried out the new live format and I already am bored with it. Doesn’t change that much from the SpikeTV show.

    What Zuffa needs to eventually do is put on a weekly show like Friday Night Fights. Heck, FNF does 500,000 on ESPN and has lasted a long time. The UFC could probably do 3 times that audience with a better 18-34 audience and be just fine.

    I think it’s time to kill TUF.

  9. MMA Tycoon says:

    I gave up listening as soon as the first question was “so you just want to figure out how they got in your body, is that right?”

    I think everyone knows how they got in his body…

  10. […] – Mike Kogen has had enough of Rampage’s complaining with the UFC (Fight Opinion) […]

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