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« | Home | »

Friday media fever

By Zach Arnold | February 23, 2007

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UFC signs Fabricio Werdum to fight Andrei Arlovski on 4/21 in the UK. Tough fight for Arlovski. The Werdum signing makes sense considering that he was brought into Mirko’s camp and that Ken Imai would be representing them in UFC (like he did in PRIDE). “PRIDE is in deep trouble. We’ve snatched away half their guys and I’m not done yet.” — Dana White

This is the order of fights for the PRIDE 33 show according to the promotion itself.

  1. Jason Ireland vs. Joachim Hansen
  2. Kazuo Misaki vs. Frank Trigg
  3. James Lee vs. Travis Wiuff
  4. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira vs. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou
  5. Hayato “Mach” Sakurai vs. Mac Danzig
  6. Sergey Kharitonov vs. Mike Russow
  7. Mauricio Shogun vs. Alistair Overeem
  8. Takanori Gomi vs. Nick Diaz
  9. Middleweight Title match: Vanderlei Silva vs. Dan Henderson

Here’s a not-so-friendly (both PRIDE-wise and layout-wise) article on the upcoming PRIDE 33 event.

Plus plenty of other MMA notes.

K-1 announced four new matches for their HERO’s 3/12 Nagoya Rainbow Hall card. The card line-up so far:

  1. Ali Ibrahim vs. Kaoru Uno
  2. Kazuyuki Miyata vs. Black Mamba
  3. Hiroyuki Takaya vs. Andre Dida (Chute Boxe)
  4. Vitor “Shaolin” Ribiero vs. Ryuki Ueyama
  5. Katsuhiko Ngata vs. Hideo Tokoro

Onto today’s headlines!

  1. The Associated Press: Tommy Morrison begins comeback bid with knockout (more background on Morrison coming into this fight can be read here)
  2. USA Today: Ratings on Fox Sports Net go up 30% when MMA programming airs
  3. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: IFL fighting for attention
  4. The Las Cruces Sun-News: MMA events now to regulated by the State Athletic Commission in New Mexico (this is important – is the claim of an MMA death here by the politician quoted in this story true?)
  5. E-Mediawire: SUN & HDNet team up to produce ‘Art of War’ MMA series
  6. The Los Angeles Times: Randy Couture has an ageless story

Topics: All Topics, Boxing, HERO's, IFL, Japan, K-1, Media, MMA, PRIDE, UFC, Zach Arnold | 28 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

28 Responses to “Friday media fever”

  1. JThue says:

    http://www.thefightnetwork.com/news_detail.php?nid=3314

    UFC 70: Four fights announced, WERDUM signed, and plenty of interesting comments.

  2. GassedOut says:

    That’s an interesting statistic about MMA on FSN. I hope tht trend continues…

  3. Mr. Roadblock says:

    Werdum v Arlovski is a great fight. Will let us know a lot about both of those guys.

  4. Zack says:

    I know that Werdum recently tooled Aleksander Emelianenko, but I would’ve much rather seen Aleks vs Cro Cop. That would’ve been fireworks.

  5. The Gaijin says:

    Random Question:
    Seeing the name of Ali Ibrahim reminds me of that Olympic Gold Medalist wrestler Karim Ibrahim (I’m pretty sure that’s his name) who came into K-1 with a great deal of hype and for good reason, he looked to have fantastic potential….then he got brutally KO’d by Fujita.

    What happened to him?? Did that scare him off for good?!? – damn shame!

  6. Diamond Dave Williams says:

    I am surprised that Zach Arnold has not slammed what will still be the best MMA card of the year to date. Way to go Zach, you are maturing.

  7. Diamond Dave Williams says:

    My, error, I just read Arnolds stinging review. It seems if the MMA does not originate in the USA it cannot be worthy. Zach, why is it that most of the top MMA talent come from around the world? The UFC is a good organization, but Pride still houses the top talent. What we as fans need is not organizations being supported, but fighters so we could have true world champions. The fans want the fights not organizations, Zach please wake up and quit dismissing all other organizations that are not labelled UFC.

  8. Jordan Breen says:

    “I am surprised that Zach Arnold has not slammed what will still be the best MMA card of the year to date. Way to go Zach, you are maturing.”

    Why would Zach slam Shooto’s BACK TO OUR ROOTS? That just seems foolish.

  9. DarthMolen says:

    LoL @ Jordan.

    I read the same article. He did not state that any of the matches would be bad, just that their marketing hasn’t been that good plus the matchmaking is wonky.

    I will go find PRIDE 33 somewhere and watch it, but what names does it have to attract the casual fan??

    Nick Diaz is about the only name that casual fans “might” know and he ain’t that big of an attraction, being a “UFC Reject” in most casuals minds (although I still like to see him fight and think that “reject” is farthest from the truth).

    I will agree with Diamond though, in that most of the UFC cards have been pedestrian since the start of the year. I think that will change with UFC 68 but hey, gotta give it to PRIDE to strike the hammer first.

  10. Jordan Breen says:

    “LoL @ Jordan.”

    Why? I was dead serious. This card is obviously head and shoulders above your run-of-the-mill MMA card, but given how dickriders perceive the enormity of PRIDE, you’d figure you’d come up with something better than this. A woefully terrible title fight and main event and a slew of horribly uninteresting match-ups hurt the card on the whole. Overeem/Shogun is one of the most interesting bouts on the card, and it’s a pointless rematch. While I don’t doubt that it’ll be amusing to watch, it speaks very little to any larger pursuit for either man, or the division.

    As for the UFC’s cards, I don’t think they’re “pedestrian” at all. People attack them cause they’re not stacked wall to wall with talent, or claim they’re “watered down” because they have unheralded undercard talent. That’s pretty much the most extremely myopic view you can have, given that the UFC is trying to establish a slew of fighters in the public eye, and just because you don’t recognize guys, doesn’t make it a poorer card.

    I see people shitting on the UFC 68 and 69 cards, and I am perplexed. Yeah, the main events are bunk as fuck, but fights like Okami/Swick, Huerta/Robinson, Fioravanti/Fitch, Kampmann/McFederies and fights of that nature are compelling and should prove to be entertaining bouts which both stratify the divisions and promote the winners up the ladder. I’ll take those fights over some garbage like Silva/Henderson 2 any day.

  11. Diamond Dave Williams says:

    Jordan, my point is that for the funds that both organizations are asking for to view the fights, the fans are asking for the best fights possible. If the UFC or Pride for that matter want to build up no name fighters, have them do it on free tv, or atleast match up styles for ppv to ensure the fan gets their moneys worth. Eventually we will not have these organizational concerns, we will be pushing fighters to fight the best, that day is coming.

  12. Jordan Breen says:

    “Jordan, my point is that for the funds that both organizations are asking for to view the fights, the fans are asking for the best fights possible. ”

    And so you champion Rogerio fighting Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou? Um, k.

    There isn’t a single “best fight possible” in any division on the PRIDE card. In fact, you can probably make a better card, using the same guys scheduled to fight, and rearranging them. If anything, this card is worse than the current UFC events, because its main event is every bit as patently useless, and despite having more star power, they’re using it in absolutely retarded match-ups which don’t speak to anything remotely relevant at all.

  13. Diamond Dave Williams says:

    There isn’t a single “best fight possible” in any division on the PRIDE card. In fact, you can probably make a better card, using the same guys scheduled to fight, and rearranging them. If anything, this card is worse than the current UFC events, because its main event is every bit as patently useless, and despite having more star power, they’re using it in absolutely retarded match-ups which don’t speak to anything remotely relevant at all.

    All good points, but in the early stages of boxing, the middleweight champ would fight the heavyweight champ, each fight on tomorrows card may not be the best “match”possible, but do hold considerable interest. Pride needs to showcase American talent to get American PPV buys. With that said, with the exception of the Shooto’s BACK TO OUR ROOTS card, this is the best card year to date.

  14. Jordan Breen says:

    “Pride needs to showcase American talent to get American PPV buys”

    Considering most of the American talent is going to get shat on, that part is probably gonna be a rousing failure.

  15. Body_Shots says:

    There’s nothing wrong with Zach’s article, it’s a pretty honest account of PRIDE 33 (which no one seems to give a shit about btw).

    Even on the forums, the buzz for the event is lukewarm. One day away and most people are talking about Lyoto vs. Griffin/Arlovski vs. Werdum rather than Silva defending his title against Henderson.

    In the mainstream media? Zip, zero, nada. Even the newspaper sites who have sections dedicated to MMA don’t give a shit. There has been more talk about the possible future owners of PRIDE than the event taking place Saturday. You don’t need an agenda against PRIDE to see that.

  16. Royal B. says:

    Diamond Dave is a very good example of Point Five.

  17. David says:

    I haven’t seen a single commercial or print ad for Pride’s show, they have no real tv outlet, and this show is going to produce an anemic buy rating. If Pride can’t succeed in Japan, they should move into South Korea or Taiwan, but going to a country that already has an oversaturated mma market, without any kind of buildup, is asking for trouble.

  18. ED says:

    There is more mainstream media coverage of this Pride show than the last one in Vegas. CBS Sportsline.com has a preview, FoxSports.com has a preview, and Henderson has been covered by local L.A. TV. It’s not a lot, but it’s more than they got last time they came to the U.S.

  19. Al Yu says:

    “but given how dickriders perceive the enormity of PRIDE”

    I’d rep you but there’s no repping here. I got my laugh for the day.

  20. CapnHulk says:

    I’m pretty excited to see Werdum in the UFC.

  21. JThue says:

    For anyone to hail this PRIDE card as good is just proposterous. Unlike 32, this really does look bad coming in.

    To be fair though… Unlike 32 once again, this show actually has the chance to be a lot better than it looks coming in, whereas 33 had a very limited potential beyond expectations. Of course, along with this also comes a bigger chance (for 33)to go completely down the drain once all is said and done.

  22. Zach Arnold says:

    My, error, I just read Arnolds stinging review. It seems if the MMA does not originate in the USA it cannot be worthy.

    Considering that I’ve covered or written about virtually every Japanese major MMA event that has ever taken place, this is the most laughable statement of all time.

    The UFC is a good organization, but Pride still houses the top talent.

    I can’t believe you are willing to defend the PRIDE 33 card. Really, there’s a big difference between defending PRIDE’s talent base (which is still a perfectly acceptable argument) and the line-up they produced for the Vegas show, which is a giant turkey.

    What we as fans need is not organizations being supported, but fighters so we could have true world champions.

    No, we do not need this industry devolving into what the American sector of boxing has become.

  23. David says:

    Ed,

    Thanks for pointing out the e-previews of the show. If there is more coverage than last time, why do you think there is such a paucity of hype/interest going into this show?

  24. Shaolin says:

    Negative pride peice by zach? This is strange.

    Bet this show is way more exciting then the last ufc, but i would have to put a gun to your head to get some unbiased journalism from you.

  25. Shaolin says:

    Even if zach who has already spun one of the best mma american shows into a negative peice already I think this perdiction shows that zachs journalism is biased, and cannot be taken seriously.

  26. […] I want to point out this particular article regarding MMA in New Mexico. In our Friday news update, I linked to an article in which a New Mexico newspaper claimed that there had been an death at an MMA event. In Sunday’s Quay County Sun: MMA fight fan falls short, state weighs MMA restrictions details concerns about MMA after a fighter was shot outside of an MMA training gym facility. As with other states like Utah, Louisiana, and Michigan, keep your eyes open to the politics of MMA in New Mexico. […]

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