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Friday fight notes
By Zach Arnold | January 18, 2007
Hate mail on the boss’s birthday, plus lots of interesting media story links. Entertain yourself.
Today’s love mail from 12 34: You are a disgrace to MMA. You are the biggest piece of s___ reporter with bias opinions. Posting links to news stories is one thing but you always throw your little 2 cents in which is always biased and bashing PRIDE. Suck a d___ you faggot Virgin. You are a f______ nerd. Eat s___.
My reaction: UFC Junkie says…
Onto today’s story links!
- Reuters: America NETeller arrests deal blow to Net gambling
- The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Media images and our kids (a boxing fan uses MMA to bash violence in American culture)
- Radio: Eddie Goldman interviews Gareb Shamus of the IFL
- UFC HP: Spencer Fisher – from a small town to the big time
- The Hollywood Reporter: Steady sales as NATPE closes
- CBS Sportsline: The Fringe – Kit Cope wants title but won’t rush things Saturday
- The Fresno Bee: Card a knockout at first blush (results from the Palace Fighting show in Lemoore, California)
- PR Web: Kenny Florian loves the Kevin Kearns’ 30-minute core strength workout
- The Houston Chronicle: sellout crowd set for latest MMA fight night in Houston
- The Winnipeg Sun: UFC ultiamte goal for Winnipeg scrapper Chris Fontaine
Topics: All Topics, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 19 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
“you always throw your little 2 cents in”
I think that’s the point of “opinion” in Fight Opinion. I could be mistaken though.
Stupid question (and no need to pull this out of the junk bin to post it, but I have no other way to contact you Zach…anyways…):
Why am I able to post on othe “blogs” or “sites” that run on the same basic server etc. than your’s without being spam filtered?? I find it quite odd that people who post on your blog with much greater frequency than I (i.e. Trembow, MMACritic, Mr. Roadblock…) seem to be able to post without any troubles. The purpose of most spam filters is to block out attempts at multiple postings and/or bulk postings on many pages (from my understanding of the operation of spam filters) and quite frankly I feel you’re just putting me on with the whole “…the spam filter is what it is and I have to control over it…”.
I like this site, it provides tonnes of good news links, rumours and things between. Sometimes I take issue with some of the postings or opinions which I (in my opinion of course) find somewhat biased, but as a whole I enjoy the site and being able to put my “2 cents” in when I can. But if it really isn’t wanted or appreciated I’ll take my browsing elsewhere if that would appease you.
You have my email since it’s required to make a post, so you can let me know or otherwise likely make a sneering comment about me on the board.
Regards,
Mike
I think the last two sentences of that little psychotic rant pretty much says everything that needs to be said about this guys crediblity.
I don’t see the point in stirring the pot like this. This is such a frustrating website for me, it has great news and info but it when it comes to pride it loses all credibility. Example, we break down ufc 66 and we talk about the pride scandal. The shockwave show had HUGE fights that changed the lw division up a lot but you guys don’t concentrate on the sport enough. UFC marks man, yous gotta change brothas! You also bash sherdog a lot, I still don’t get that one?
I think Pride has always been superior to the UFC, but I don’t understand the Zach Arnold hate. In fact, I used to go to Puroresupower.com just for Japanese news. This site makes it even easier. He broke the news and analyzed the Pride/Fuji TV/Yakuza fiasco before any of the main “MMA Media.” That’s respectable in my opinion. He’s also been open minded in the past of respecful criticism. For a while, I though it was really hard to listen to Erin on the radio show, but now she doesn’t talk about MMA history or business as much, and I can respect her opinion on current events as a smart fan. That’s enough for my drunken rant…cya tomorrow 🙂
I don’t dispute the Man Festival show having good fights. Fight quality, no dispute. UFC, however, was the biggest show on NYE (for better or for worse).
PRIDE’s in a weird situation right now where it’s show to show rather than year to year for promotional direction. Take for example Dan Henderson. They had built everything up perfectly after the Bushido 11/3 Yokohama Arena show with Kazuo Misaki getting a second chance and winning the tournament. Naturally, this would set up Misaki vs. Henderson for the Welterweight belt, right? They had a great chance on NYE to do it. They chose not to. They had a chance to do it on 2/24 in Las Vegas. They’ve passed up on it. Instead, they chose to use Henderson, the Welterweight champion, to fight for the Middleweight championship against Silva.
That, along with the Aoki/Melendez situation, it’s just a situation where PRIDE’s booking produces good fights now, but there’s no real continuity at the moment. And I don’t see that changing until they get back on TV.
I normally just lurk here, but the negative Pride bias has been my main gripe with this site for a while, so I’ll drop a few lines.
Recently, there has been much better attempts by the writers here (mainly Zach) at justifying the criticism against Pride, taking a more objective stance and backing things up with intelligent reasoning. This deserves encouragement and applause.
But there is still a different between how Pride and UFC are reported on here, and I’m beginning to realise that it’s the UFC reporting that might need adjusting rather than the Pride reporting – I think you should perhaps try to be a little more criticising against the UFC, dissect and analyse their strategies the same way you do with Pride.
MMA is still a very young sport and with the enormous turbulence going on with all the promotions etc, patting any given organisation on the back isn’t really doing much good. Instead, help build fan opinion and awareness around the things that need to change or improve. This is how I see Fight Opinions role. The things discussed here and the opinions expressed, eventually trickle down to the grassroots in the forums, even though they may not read this site directly. Use this influence wisely and fairly.
Well one only has to check the meaning of ‘Opinion’ in any Oxford Concise English Dictionary.
And I hardly see the lack of follow-up to the Kazuo Misaki – Dan Henderson story as particularly important. DSE are attempting to break the US market, and what percentage of this target audience actually viewed the Bushido in question?
*yawn*
*zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*
OK, just woke up. Sorry, the Pride whiners put me to sleep again.
Seriously … it is so hard to take Pride fans seriously because it seems like they love having their little persecution complex. Everyone is biased against them, everyone is out to get them, anyone who says anything other than “Pride is the single greatest thing ever devised by God or man” is clearly out to get Pride, etc. Get the effing chips off your shoulder and maybe you’ll get taken a little more seriously.
I wish that instead of perpetuating the ongoing battle between yourself and Pride fans, you’d at least address some of the issues they have with you.
Obviously the guy in the email is an idiot, but there are plenty of fair minded, balanced posters on here that feel you are overly critical of Pride and often display a clear disdain for the company.
I wouldn’t consider myself any more a fan of Pride than I am of the UFC (or K1 for that matter), but your attitude towards them frustrates the life out of me.
You’re missing the big picture with PRIDE, Brian. The bigger issue is their matchmaking having continuity and a direction. Great fights are great fights, no question. But ultimately it’s the promoter’s job to lead fans into a certain direction as far as storytelling and feuds. What is the storyline behind Silva vs. Henderson other than they had one previous fight? There’s no transition to set up that fight. In the PRIDE 33 ad just released for that 2/24 Las Vegas show, the tagline is that Dan Henderson “is the only American champion brave enough” to fight Silva, which is a cheap shot at Chuck Liddell. The Japanese pro-wrestling style tactics work in Japan for a reason and don’t necessarily apply in America.
It’s all about putting together a complete package in the American marketplace and marketing characters.
“This just in! UFC loses deal with HBO and Spike TV and Dana White and the Fertitta brothers suspected in dealings with organized crime. Financial troubles loom as fighter contracts end and competing organizations offer refuge.
But, oh boy, doesn’t that New Years Eve show look exciting?!”
Sounds silly to me.
The big picture is making money. DSE will attract more mainstream fans with Silva vs. Henderson then BOTH Silva vs. Arona AND Henderson vs. Misaki.
I’m not buying Henderson as a strong attraction in Las Vegas. At least with Mark Coleman, you had a former UFC champion. Fedor was the unstoppable monster. Silva’s coming off a vicious loss to Mirko (the guy who jumped to UFC) and Henderson, the Welterweight champion, is relatively unknown in American circles. Plus, he’s the Welterweight champion who lost in the ’06 GP tournament and isn’t booked to face the guy who won that tournament (so what’s the point of the tournament?).
Bah, this isn’t about PRIDE disdain or UFC-favoring. It’s about PP and FO’s fortress being to be the leader of bringing the Japanese headlines and rumors to a western news site. When does FO ever “break” a big UFC-headline? Pretty much never. Because Zach Arnold is in UFC’s pockets? No, because everyone else is doing that to a “T” already, and it’s a market this site can not compete in. When it comes to Japan however, Zach Arnold w/ sources(even with the sources being headline news in Japan, it still needs to be dug out) still lead the way(here), and so that becomes the focus and ‘speciality’. If Zach Arnold had the ultimate exclusive source inside the UFC, we’d probably see the same, more business-related and critically opinionated coverage of them.
Does all this make what we see right? Absolutely not. It’s a site portrayed to be a general MMA-site that instead offers skewed coverage with an intense tendancy to over-analyze anything to do with it’s main drawing point, and of course one can only speculate on why that is maintained. But does it boil down to PRIDE and UFC? Ehm, not even close.
Exactly, what was the point of a tournament saw by perhaps 10,000 people tops in the US? I predict PRIDE will draw 7,000-8,000 fans at the live gate regardless of who is facing Silva. It’s the PPV audience that will be important, and I still stand by Silva – Henderson being more marketable to that audience then BOTH Silva – Arona AND Henderson – Misaki.
Outside of a very central hardcore fanbase, Pride FC does not have casual fans. They could put on a card with Fedor/Barnett, Silva/Nogueira, Rua/Arona, Gomi/Melendez, Henderson/Misaki, & Kang/Filho. And you know what? It would still have around the same number of PPV buys, and attract only a little bit more of a crowd. That is the reality of Pride in America.
This is the same thing that was happening to Zuffa between UFC’s 30-50, minus the Ortiz/Shamrock PPV.
I agree with the realities facing DSE, but regardless, Dan Henderson challenging Wanderlei still has potentially a better chance of drawing more buys from the casual audience than any Brazilian or Japanese challenger could.
Since the comments on the radio show thread are still off: Happy belated Birthday, Zach!