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Friday media flyer
By Zach Arnold | February 1, 2007
On Sunday, we’ll have a brand new edition of Fight Opinion Radio available for everyone. Believe me, the show will come in handy during the pre-game and half-time ceremonies during the Super Bowl. Instead of spending your time watching six hours of pre-game American football coverage, spend some of that time listening to our new show when it is on the server. Some very interesting guests lined up on this week’s program.
- The Oregonian: UFC makes move toward domination (Dana White – We are going to war with everyone. This is a great article that flashes back to an October 2006 article that Luke Nicholson wrote on this site.)
- The Florida Times-Union: UFC star Chuck Liddell cancels Jacksonville visit (reason given is Liddell’s UFC contract won’t allow his appearance at the local MMA event — prepare for UFC criticism online for this story)
- The Edmonton Sun: This Kid has come a long way (article on Ryan McGillivray)
- The Newark Advocate: 12-year old son of Hammer House fighter Rob Wince dies
- The New York Daily News: Inner Tube (article about IFL being a centerpiece of MyNetworkTV’s new ratings strategy)
- Fox Sports: New MMA message board and a UFC 67 show preview
- MMA HQ: UFC 67 – All or Nothing Preview
- The UNLV Rebel Yell: UFC hosts big card Saturday
- The Knoxville News-Sentinel: Alex Marvez interviews Frank Shamrock
- The Canadian Press (via The Brooks Bulletin): Opportunity knocks for underdog fighters Saturday at UFC 67
- UFC HP: Sam Hoger – Back in the saddle again
- The Boston Herald: Lyrics and knuckles rap in Revere
- The Houston Chronicle: IFL hopes to deliver a knockout at Reliant Arena
Topics: All Topics, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 33 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Good ol Frank, first Ken willingly let the UFC throw him in the garbage with tito and franklin. Secondly, Ken already had a bad knee and the few dollars in his pocket are in the millions. That was the high point in his career as far as paydays go, not to mention he went out fighting A level fighters. Smart move on Kens part i’d say, and whats with Frank exploiting the Gracie Shamrock fued that his bro started? If not for Kens 2 fights with Royce early in ufc history where would Frank be now?
It is ironic however that the ufc built the Ortiz Shamrock rivalry from the foundation of the Frank Tito battle.
Recycle its good for the can.
Also why wasn’t the IFL able to put together Frank v Renzo?
The IFL has their timeslot on Monday from 8pm to 10pm, starting in March.
http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/…3370&zoneid=13
Some of the competition they face:
CBS: Two & A Half Men
NBC: Deal or No Deal, Heroes
FOX: 24, Prison Break
USA: WWE RAW
If they continue this time slot into football season, they will be competing with Monday Night Football.
That is some stiff competition. The majority of the 18-34 age group is already devoted to 24, Prison Break, WWE, or Monday Night Football. Heck, I think the UFC would greatly suffer if it went up against Monday Night Football.
And before I get wrecked with criticism from my IFL comments…. I think that a 11pm timeslot would actually be better (in a weird kind of way). The 8pm telecast has too much competition, and is violent TV for that timeslot. The watch groups are going to like that. It is only going to cause grief for the sport.
And now MMAWeekly are reporting the first good looking PRIDE-business news in a long time(perhaps just as much the final note in the article as the main focus itself):
http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=3371&zoneid=2
Thats horrible to hear about Rob’s son, what a tragedy. My prayers are with him and his family.
If Fishman ends up buying PRIDE, it will be for the best, at least as far as their U.S. marketing. He’s a smart guy and a very good marketer; I can only imagine that he’s been going nuts over some of the more ridiculous DSE marketing decisions. While Fishman is the president of PRIDE USA, we don’t know how much power that gives him. Given the corporate culture in Japan, I’m imagining he has little.
At this stage, a Fishman buyout would be a good thing for the org.
11pm on MyNetwork isn’t an option at the current time. That is not “network” time; it belongs to the affiliates.
Setting aside the fact that the “network” only exists because a bunch of Fox-owned stations got dumped by the CW, MyNet only clears 12 hours of weekly programming (2000-2200 Monday-Saturday). The rest of the time is used by the affiliates for reruns, talkshows, news, infomercials, and the like. Most of which is far more profitable (even if lower rated, which might not be the case) than the network-cleared shows.
Regarding the IFL Houston show, the only way they will have 4,000 is to paper heavily. Apparently, they are doing a buy 1 get 1 free on tickets. Local advertising has been almost non-existant. I’ve seen a short ad on local tv stations a couple of times and nothing else.
Wasn’t Fishman the brain surgeon that got rid of Bas Rutten and Stephen Quadros? And Mauro Renallo left because of?
Eh, no. Fishman is the NEW US-chief, as of shortly before PRIDE.32.
No that was Jerry Millen. I also believe that the IFL going head to head with RAW on Mondays is a bad decision. That’s the group of people who the UFC drew most of their new fanbase from.
Has no one noticed IFL is replaying in the same timeslot on Saturdays? Raw, MNF, whatever, it’s a great deal for IFL to go from irregular FSN-broadcasts to two prime time airings per week on network TV. Do people in the States not flip channels during commercials, btw?
Honestly i think IFL will be ok, lots of companies make mistakes their first few years and to be able to expand as quickly as they did can both be a blessing and a hinder. Itswhat they learn and improve from all this that will set their future.
The ‘source’ of the “Ed Fishman buying PRIDE” report was basically an anonymous Yahoo e-mailer (not even using a name) who sent out this report to basically every MMA writer.
“The ’source’ of the “Ed Fishman buying PRIDE†report was basically an anonymous Yahoo e-mailer (not even using a name) who sent out this report to basically every MMA writer.”
That e-mail was not one of the sources. There were multiple sources for the story that had nothing to do with that e-mail.
“I also believe that the IFL going head to head with RAW on Mondays is a bad decision.”
And it’s a better decision to go head-to-head against the Super Bowl, the biggest TV event of the year?
KennyP,
Thanks for that info. I did not know that.
Xenos,
I assume you are speaking of the UFC putting on an event the day before the Super Bowl. That concept has actually been a really good one for Zuffa. And I would have never predicted it. First, Vegas is jammed packed during the Super Bowl. Yet, there is no Super Bowl taking place there. So people still want to see a live event, and the UFC is a great event for that. The live gate will be fantastic. Secondly, many guys look at the entire weekend as one big party. They have had relatively solid PPV buys during this weekend in the past based on this.
Very interesting…. From WrestlingObserver.com
Yet another new TV deal announced
Trifecta has syndicated a new show called UFC Wired in most of the major markets starting in the fall. The show has already been cleared by most of the MyNetworkTV affiliates. This comes one day afer MNT officially announced its deal with IFL.
This is not the last network television deal that will be announced this week.
““The ’source’ of the “Ed Fishman buying PRIDE†report was basically an anonymous Yahoo e-mailer (not even using a name) who sent out this report to basically every MMA writer.â€
That e-mail was not one of the sources. There were multiple sources for the story that had nothing to do with that e-mail.”
I hate to be critical but I’m not completely surprised that Zach would be so dismissize of “good” news about PRIDE.
Quite frankly there’s so many stories about them and coming from Sakikabara’s mouth that its easy to be pretty cynical about any good news.
Gaijin— I undertand the concern but that is not the case here and I don’t think it was necessary to badmouth MMAWeekly.
Also, the UFC syndicated show was announced in early December and reported on by MMAWeekly at the time (http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=3090&zoneid=13). The Observer appears to have just learned about it because it was in Broadcasting & Cable, but it’s not a new development.
“I assume you are speaking of the UFC putting on an event the day before the Super Bowl. ”
You assumed incorrectly. The IFL has generally been airing their events on Sundays at 7pm (where I am anyways). That would be going head-to-head with the Super Bowl.
Mirko Filipovic only weighed 223 lbs. Easily could be fighting at Light Heavyweight.
Travis Lutter came in 2 pounds heavy. Needs to lose 2 pounds in 2 hours. Shouldn’t be an issue. One other fighter weighed a pound over, but I forget who it was. The Yahoo Sports UFC Weigh-In Video Feed was very good. Not very choppy. I was impressed.
I guess I’m officially an ASSumption.
Considering that I saw the ‘anonymous’ e-mail and the various list of writers it was sent to, I would hardly call my statement a stretch. And it is not an attack on MMA Weekly.
Lutter couldn’t make weight. His fight with Anderson Silva is now a 3-round non-title fight.
WHAT A LOSER!!!!! WHAT A LOSER!!!!! WHAT A LOSER!!!!!
Very unprofessional. I can’t believe this. He could only cut 1/2 pound in 2 hours? That is pathetic. The UFC has to be pissed at him. I expect this sort of thing out of Joe Rigss. But not out of Travis Lutter. He is going to be mentally and physically drained at the end of this. Silva should beat him bad for not making the weight.
He’s had a lot of trouble cutting the 20 or so lbs. of weight to get to 185 in the past. He should really be fighting at 205.
He looked SO exhausted at the initial weigh-in, and had even resorted to cutting off all of his hair. That wasn’t a good sign at all. I feel bad for the guy because this was a serious, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Eh, he’s going to get his ass handed to him no matter what. He’s a very pedestrian fighter who has a lot of heart and seems like a great guy, but that’s it. He has nothing for a world class striker the likes of Anderson Silva and his wrestling ability if he does get the takedown is not advanced enough to hold off Silva’s jiu jitsu skills. The unfortunate thing is that now he is going to get his ass handed to him and will suffer the indignity of looking unprofessional while it happens. With the fight becoming a non-title bout this card should officially be moved to noon eastern, put on either FOX or USA and can called “UFC Across America” or “UFC Superstars”. Maybe Mike Sharpe can fight Cro Cop and the Brooklyn Brawler can battle Silva. This is an HBO boxing free card. It’s 2 set up fights, Jackson & Cop get title shots if they win and a build fight with Silva, now UFC will have 3 highlight finishes to hype his Franklin rematch or the next poor schumck to fight him Swick or whomever. UFC should really start pumping him up as a Mike Tyson undefeatable champ (even though his game does have holes there is no one on the UFC roster at 185 to exploit them). UFC has a hangup that if a guy can’t speak English you can’t push him. Because he can’t sell those those stupid black and white interviews they run before fights. They should just book him as an invincible monster and play up the nice guy, hard worker traits of his opponents which makes him all the more fearsome when he wins. If you see Franklin training 8 hours a day for 2 months and he can’t last 3 minutes with Silva, then holy shit Silva must be a super-man.
Likely the reason he could only cut 1/2 pound in 2 hours is that he’d already cut all his body could in the days leading up to the fight. Something needs to be done to discourage these monster weight cuts. I don’t know why Rogan acts like it is heroic of Joe Riggs to cut 30 pounds for a fight. It’s actually the opposite of heroic. It is cowardly. Fight closer to your weight.
I’d like to see random weight checks throughout the year to develop a median weight for a fighter (the average of all the weight checks) and then allow fighters to compete 12 pounds below their median weight. Also if you miss weight you should get an automatic six or twelve month suspension. That would dissuade guys from shooting for unrealist/unattainable cuts. I understand my median weight idea is not feasible because it would be difficult to make sure foreign fighters tested legitimatley and even weighing domestic fighters randomly around the country would be hard.
“The Observer appears to have just learned about it because it was in Broadcasting & Cable, but it’s not a new development.”
Meltzer reported it back then too. I think the update was more about the show being cleared by most affiliates.
You can put all the regulations in place, but it still comes down to the individual fighters to monitor their body weight and properly make weight in which there is a live gate over $1 Million and PPV buys over 100,000. When you fight o this stage, you must fight as a true professional. He did not demonstrate that tonight. He was able to make weight on 3 occasions for the TV show. Twice during the taping, and once for the finals. So it’s not like he hasn’t made the weight recently.
And may I say… Shame on the UFC for their website.
They have “Weigh-In Results” as a headline, and you have to read the text to actually see that there is no title fight. That should honestly be the title at the top of the page. It should read: “UFC Middleweight Title Fight Is Off Due To Lutter Not Making Weight”, or something like that.
“Considering that I saw the ‘anonymous’ e-mail and the various list of writers it was sent to, I would hardly call my statement a stretch. And it is not an attack on MMA Weekly.”
I totally understand…I was actually sticking up for you – as far fetched as the idea seems lol!