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« | Home | »

BoDog humiliates PRIDE VP

By Zach Arnold | November 15, 2006

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By Zach Arnold

On this week’s edition of BodogFight TV (download the 215 MB QuickTime video here), the promotion decided to humiliate PRIDE VP Sotaro Shinoda.

And they weren’t secretive about it, either.

During the first BodogFight series of tapings in Costa Rica, Shinoda appeared to watch the events (because of the involvement of MFC & Red Devil Fight Club, which backs Emelianenko Fedor). One anonymous source, who was at the Costa Rica tapings, said that BoDog staff was not happy with Shinoda showing up. There was a question as to whether or not Shinoda would be treated kindly or frowned upon.

This week’s BodogFight TV show gave us that answer. In a big way.

I first read about Bodog’s portrayal of Shinoda from a review of the Bodog Fight show online. At first I didn’t believe it.

It’s a great honor to be invited here to Bodog Fight. I enjoy trips abroad where my shameful behavior… does not disgrace my family or PRIDE.

So I decided to download the new BoDog Fight TV show. The following images are screen captures from Shinoda appearing on the TV show, starting at the 28 min, 45 sec mark. The images tell the whole story.

Topics: All Topics, BoDog, Media, MMA, PRIDE, Zach Arnold | 40 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

40 Responses to “BoDog humiliates PRIDE VP”

  1. MMA T-Shirts says:

    Wow. BoDog sucked donkeyballs anyway but this is so pathetic.

  2. Tomer says:

    I guess Calvin Ayre doesn’t mind blowing some money in court from the pending lawsuit(s) for defamation of character, yadda yadda…

  3. KennyP says:

    The real question is “What did he actually say?”

    Followed by “Does Costa Rica have laws regarding defamation of character?” 🙂

  4. Ivan Trembow says:

    Wow, they really showed ’em! How humiliating! (sarcasm intended)

  5. Mr. Roadblock says:

    Zach,

    My question is do the fights on Bodog still suck? I watched the first two episodes and was unimpressed. Great production values and a slick website. But lame fights. What are they up to now fight six or seven?

  6. Zach Arnold says:

    I will finish watching this week’s fight (it featured Trevor Prangley) later tonight during a radio recording break. The production and the commentary was pretty slick, I’ll admit that. I’ll probably give a verdict on the fight quality on the radio show later tonight when I get a chance.

  7. Mr. Roadblock says:

    Great tease for your radio show, brother. I listen religiously as is. But I’ll definitely tune in to this edition to hear the answer to my question. 🙂

  8. w says:

    bodog sucks

  9. Japanime says:

    lol. Looks like Zach Arnold is still bitter that DSE humiliating him when he applied for a job with them.

    The title of his posts are very misleading. His bias against PRIDE is ridiculous. I visit this site to see what kind of ridiculos bullshit he comes up with next. So hey, if you don’t mind being the laughing stock of ‘internet reporting’ keep on doing your thing Zach. You suck and you have no credibility but atleast it’s funny as hell.

  10. KennyP says:

    Many of the fights sucked. Either because the fighters were unskilled or because the fight was an obvious mismatch (Sonnen-Credeur).

    The better fights were: Episode #4 Nick Agallar-Nardu Debrah (lightweights bring it, Agallar is talented, decisive ending) and Episode #3 Tara Larosa-Amanda Buckner (decent women’s fight). By far, the worst fight was Mario Rinaldi-Mark Burch (poorly conditioned heavyweights abandoning any semblence of technique or skill; round #3 was embarrassing)

  11. WAR GSP! says:

    theres a summary of the whole series in 2 minutes on the website – i found that more than enough 😀

  12. KOP The Tame says:

    Bodog deserves about 5% of the press they actually deserve. They have yet to put on a solid card. They have no TV contract or PPV’s so far. Even if they do, the buyrate will probably be horrible.

  13. Zach Arnold says:

    Roadblock – I didn’t get to mention this on the show taping after all (sorry), but this week’s BodogFight show… Trevor Prangley had little trouble beating his opponent, Kyacey Uscola, early in the second round.

  14. Mr. Roadblock says:

    Prangley is a good fighter. And I’ll listen to episode 32 regardless. Can’t wait to hear what you guys have in store.

  15. Mike says:

    Anyone else get the impression Japanime never gets out of his mommy’s basement?

  16. GassedOut says:

    Mike, he kind of reminds me of Hiro Nakamura from that new show called “Heros.” Before he looked cool with the swords.

  17. cjfighter says:

    JAPANime sounds like he (or she) may have been turned down for a job with fight opinion. As for bodog, I like the effort they are putting in to the sport, but I think their (his) money would be better placed as an investment in an established organization. Here’s an idea; Ayre joins forces with WFA and saves a promotion that looked very promising as well as ending one that shows little promise at all. Just a thought.

  18. Nikita says:

    I’m not sure exactly how REPORTING that BoDog showed Pride’s VP on the air with a false translation under his name reflects a Pride bias.

    Is it derogatory to Pride? Yes

    Did it really happen? Yes

    Is it newsworthy? Yes

    Is Zach Arnold behind BoDog airing this clip? I’m guessing no.

    I’m tired of people saying this site and/or Zach is bias. If you feel that strong about it, why do you still come here and read ? If it offends you, go somewhere else for your news & OPINIONS.

  19. Classless, shameful, pathetic. Bodog needs to get run out of the fighting industry before they give it a black eye it can never recover from. Calvin Ayre is LITERALLY a felon in the USA, he can’t step foot in the country or he would be immediately arrested on the spot.

  20. TorontoMike says:

    Humiliate???? Assuming that’s the correct translation, sounds to me like Shinoda made a pretty funny joke.

    See… that is bias. Zach assuming the guy should be disgraced and shamed for those words, and me assuming the guy’s got a great sense of humour. Honestly, who knows whether my interpretation or Zach’s is correct. BUT… let’s not pretend Zach doesn’t have a huge anti-Pride bias, because he does.

    But with that said, he does a good job on his blog collecting the various news sources most recent MMA news.

  21. BSP says:

    Wow, Bodog is getting even sillier than it was before… and considering that ridiculous reporters-crowding-around-Calvin-Ayre’s-car scene, that’s saying something. What a thoroughly classless display. Zach, were you able to understand what Shinoda actually said?

  22. “Bodog needs to get run out of the fighting industry before they give it a black eye it can never recover from.”

    …too late 🙁

    http://www.mmauniverse.com/news/SS1022

  23. Zach Arnold says:

    Humiliate???? Assuming that’s the correct translation, sounds to me like Shinoda made a pretty funny joke.

    See… that is bias. Zach assuming the guy should be disgraced and shamed for those words, and me assuming the guy’s got a great sense of humour. Honestly, who knows whether my interpretation or Zach’s is correct. BUT… let’s not pretend Zach doesn’t have a huge anti-Pride bias, because he does.

    But with that said, he does a good job on his blog collecting the various news sources most recent MMA news.

    You would be wrong if you think that I’m exactly a big supporter of BoDog’s attack on Shinoda. Like I stated in the post, when I first read the review of what happened, I didn’t believe it. So I spent time downloading that insanely large 215 MB video file just to see if it was true. And it was. Which is why I took screen captures (so no one else would have to download it).

    The reason I think it’s a story is that we have heard BoDog and MFC (both in rumors and interviews with the Japanese magazines) talk about how they are trying to get Fedor. The idea of BoDog, of all groups, trying to tinker and tweak PRIDE amazes me.

  24. Zach Arnold says:

    Zach, were you able to understand what Shinoda actually said?

    The audio on his comments wasn’t of great quality, but he clearly did not say what they labeled him as saying. It’s the old Most Xtreme Elimination Challenge gag attempt (the show on Spike TV that has silly English commentary dubbed over Beat Takeshi’s old Japanese game show footage).

    Maybe I should have worded this post as “Bodog makes fun of PRIDE VP,” but that wasn’t their intent. They were trying to humiliate Shinoda on purpose.

  25. Nikita says:

    Calvin Ayre is LITERALLY a felon in the USA, he can’t step foot in the country or he would be immediately arrested on the spot.

    Slightly OT, but…

    What exactly did Ayre do? I’ve heard people mention that he is a felon before, but I have never seen a mention of what he did. I know he lives in CR and is a native Canadian, but what did he do in the US?

  26. Clint says:

    He runs online poker sites. Since gambling is illegal in most states he’s violating federal laws by using the phone systems to run illegal gambling.

    They actually just passed a law that further cracks down on online gambling sites. However, since they are almost all based outside of the US the companies are fine as long as the owners and such do not attempt to enter the country.

  27. KennyP says:

    “Felon” is probably the wrong word to describe Calvin Ayre or the other owners/officers of offshore gambling sites (though I don’t care to familiarize myself with the details of his private life). More likely they are either “indicted on felony charges” or “flagged for detention at any US customs checkpoint”. Or something like that.

  28. Here’s the article detailing his business and his criminal status in America.

  29. Ian Dean says:

    Why did Shinoda have subtitles becuase he speaks good English, i’ve met him a couple of times now and chatted with him and he is an incrediibly hard working guy

  30. sheeperz says:

    whoa, they sure showed him!

    how’s it feel being on the bottom rung of the MMA world again, bodog?

  31. BSP says:

    “Why did Shinoda have subtitles becuase he speaks good English, i’ve met him a couple of times now and chatted with him and he is an incrediibly hard working guy.”

    Because if they let him speak English, the classy Bodog folks wouldn’t be able to ridicule the Asian guy with “funny” captions. What a bunch of d*cks.

  32. Ian Dean says:

    This is interesting becuase i’ve always found the guys at Bodog (Least the ones i’ve dealt with) to be extremely professional. And it would make no sense to do something like that.

    This surely has to be the work of some kind of rogue employee.

  33. Zach Arnold says:

    Ian – read the backstory about Shinoda/BoDog at the top of the post. It’s as best of a guess as I could come up with.

  34. Amy Robinson says:

    Geez! And we all thought Dana was real confrontational!

  35. The idea that a rogue employee was responsible for something that got on their TV show is kind of silly. The number of eyes that pass over an episode on it’s way out the door is way too high for something like this to slip by unseen.

  36. mr.a-hole says:

    It was funny.
    Everyone should lighten up.
    Next you’ll be bitching about too many hot chicks.
    And I bet bodog gets better and better fighters.

  37. […] While the news was taken with a grain of salt by virtually everyone, Bodog ratcheted up their campaign against PRIDE by making fun of PRIDE VP Sotaro Shinoda. Shinoda supposedly appeared in Costa Rica to check on what was happening with MFC and Bodog for the tapings that were taking place on the island. Fedor appeared, along with the rest of the Red Devil Fight Club and MFC management. […]

  38. […] Takasu claims that Ken Imai showed up at the BodogFight event in St. Petersburg, Russia on 4/14. Imai supposedly got backstage at the show without a pass, using his status as Mirko’s agent to get in. However (supposedly in front of some mass media/journalists), a BodogFight staffer told Imai to go buy a ticket like everyone else if he wanted to be at the show. (Ed. BodogFight has a past history of telling snooping Japanese DSE-affiliated agents of going away. See: Sotaro Shinoda.) […]

  39. […] According to The Fight Network, Hiroyuki Kato and Sotaro Shinoda (Sakakibara’s right hand man) are behind the proposed Saitama Super Arena NYE MMA event (although I had heard another name as well behind-the-scenes). Whenever I think about Shinoda, I think about what Bodog did to him on their TV show. […]

  40. […] past, type his name into Google and you’ll see this entry at the top of the search engine. It was an old screen capture we did of him several years ago when he had a last-minute trip to Costa Rica for a Bodogfight TV taping. Read the old post to get a […]

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