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Tuesday media mania
By Zach Arnold | February 6, 2007
- Nevada State Athletic Commission: Injury report for UFC 67 show
- WSB TV: Atlanta boxer O’Neil Bell arrested for ax attack
- Mac Danzig: PRIDE wanted me to do a pro-wrestling style promo
- Mainichi Daily News: 3 shooting incidents in Tokyo believed related to killing of gang boss (story update here)
- MMA HQ: Heath Herring returns at UFC 69
- UFC Mania: UFC headed back to Japan? (read my primer about this story here)
- The Buffalo News: MyNetworkTV experiment ends, mercifully
- Prime Newswire (PR): For first time ever, major MMA event to stream live undercard bouts for free
- WOWT TV: Teens face charges after fight (the dreaded ‘ultimate fighting’ imitation creeps up)
- The Daily Journal: Son of WWF star sees other side of beast (interview with son of Dan Severn)
- CBS 2 (Los Angeles): Rampage Jackson knocks out Beastman (video included)
Topics: All Topics, Boxing, Japan, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 19 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
OK, in story #3 – “Unless, of course, we’re talking UFC vs. PRIDE New Year’s Eve 2007.”
I’ve posted this too a couple of times here a few months ago, and I keep seeing more people who say the same thing (I also see more people telling me it will never happen too :P)
2007 will be the Ultimate NYE event!! Or so we keep hoping…
http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=3391&zoneid=13
– Joachim Hansen re-signs with PRIDE 🙂
UFC was talking about doing a fight in Japan right when Mir had his motorcycle accident or was it Sylvia’s steroid suspension, remember? There was a date set and everything but then they cancelled because Zuffa said it couldn’t promote the show without a Heavyweight Title fight.
Dana White giving an interview to Sherdog isn’t worthy of a mention?
Can it be the end of the Zuffa vs mma media?
Nice article on Renzo and the IFL in the NYTimes today, with some great quotes from Dana:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/sports/othersports/06fight.html
Pierre-Luc:
Sadly probably not, they have had short video interviews with him since the media ban. He will talk to them but won’t give them credentials. Mo money mo problems!
Sounds like DSE’s alleged bosses are involved in a gang war in Tokyo?
The gang involved in the yakuza shooting, OTA KAI, is the yakuza gang (a part of YAMAGUCHI GUMI) which is rumored to own DSE – the infamous ISHIZAKA was a member of this gang and Sakakibara is his front man
Mirko’s manager, Ken Imai is also allegedly affiliated with this group according to people like Kawamata.
Good to see Dana White has made some nice new friends
God. That WOWT TV article was written by some crazed retarded Republican. Kids fight in school all the time and kids will always come to watch. And they fight over anything.
The NY Times article stating that nearly 70% of the IFL tickets in Oakland were papered is a flooring statement.
No shock that Herring is fighting on the Houston card. While the UFC doesn’t need locals to get attendance these days, it will get a nice pop from the audience when they know one of their own is in the octagon. Probably the same reason Swick/Okami was pushed back to UFC 69 as well.
Zach!
Question?
With Zuffa putting up this “April Blitzkrig”, do you see it successfully “dethroning” Wrestlemania and if not, will it somewhat at least take a chunk out of it’s revenue?
Interesting to note that the UFC’s Houston show has already sold nearly 7000 tickets. Dana and Joe Rogan talking to Sherdog, Pride and it’s fighters getting talked about during broadcasts … somethings going on here, policies must be changing.
To add to the UFC Houston Comments….
The entire floor and upper level are completely sold out. So are all the $150 lower level tickets. Have to wonder if it will sell out.
Well considering it’s 2 months away, I’d say yeah.
My gut feeling says “no.” WWE likely will do much better this year with WrestleMania given the matches they have booked (even if it is cutting it close time-wise). Cena vs. Michaels is a match that should carry them to the point of not being damaged by UFC.
The WWE has a completely unique fan base. The fans will completely hate a story line, complain online about the entire direction of the company…. And then tune in every week and still purchase the PPV’s. It is just amazing. It is shocking when a PPV has absolutely no build-up, basically no quality matches, and they still get above 100,000 PPV buys.
Zach, what’s with Danzig blaming the request for a pro-wrestling style promo on “UFC Fans” and the American audience instead of on the guy telling him to cut the promo, Jerry Millen?
I think, in an odd sort of way, the success of MMA’s boom in Japan before America ended up creating a hardcore fan mentality with a lot of the lesser-known American fighters who follow everything PRIDE or K-1 related. They wish the fans were like the Japanese, they wish the Japanese interviews translated to America, etc. The reality is, however, that much of what PRIDE & K-1 does with video packages, interviews, etc. is a lot wilder than anything we’ve seen so far in America. There will always be a segment of fighters in MMA who don’t want to be recognized for as much being an entertainer as opposed to being an athlete.
The UFC already has dethroned WrestleMania. It remains to be seen whether the UFC’s April 2007 PPVs will draw more domestic PPV buys than WrestleMania 2007, but as far as “dethroning WrestleMania” goes, the UFC has already done that. They had two different events in 2006 that beat WrestleMania’s domestic PPV sales (UFC 61 and UFC 66), and a third that came very close (UFC 60).