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Fox Sports: "Zach Arnold's Fight Opinion site is one of the best spots on the Web for thought-provoking MMA pieces."

« | Home | »

Friday media funhouse

By Zach Arnold | March 8, 2007

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Heat. Nuclear heat.

I have no idea why the feeds for the radio show are not updating, but I will try to work on it today. Download our newest show here directly rather than wait for the feeds to update. It’s a good show.

I give you read meat for what was a slow Friday news day, this time in the form of an editorial to The Roanoke Times in defense of cockfighting. Money quote:

As for the brutality of witnessing a farm animal’s death, there are people who watch human bloodsports on television like Ultimate Fighting and they watch NASCAR waiting on the big wreck. You are free to choose your poison.

You want more red meat? Here’s Phil Mushnick in The New York Post.

Onto today’s headlines!

Here’s another dish of red meat — The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that a DEA agent involved in the Signature Compounding Pharmacy steroids/HGH drug case used an MMA-related cover to purchase what he wanted.

March 2006 � DEA agent in Colorado orders testosterone from C.N.A. with the promise he’ll get a physical exam and blood tests done later. DEA agent says he wants it for an Ultimate Fighting competition. Several days later, the drugs arrive from Signature with the authorization of Dr. Louis Frost in Houston, Texas.

Dear Don is back and better than ever. Don Frye knows all about romance.

  1. Sports Illustrated: FOX takes aim at UFC
  2. The Sikeston Standard Democrat: From “over the hill” to “king of the hill” for Randy Couture
  3. CBS Sportsline: Part 1 of interview with Dana White
  4. The Canadian Press: Noted Quebec hockey enforcer looks to make mark in MMA
  5. Manabu Takashima: Let’s think to the rhythm of “Mirko’s Rhapsody”
  6. Mad Squabbles: Here comes the lie parade (Keith Kizer is not going to be on Luke’s Christmas card list anytime soon)
  7. BetUS.com: NHL – Chris Simon and legalized brutality (UFC garners praise, NHL does not)
  8. UFC Junkie: UFC 71 location – MGM Grand or Mandalay Bay?
  9. NBC Sports: Randy COuture talks about life as the champ — again
  10. PR Newswire: World Combat League names Matthew Ody & Associates to handle demand for international distribution
  11. ADCC News: Dan Henderson talks about his future and making history (Henderson claims Silva is a free agent and not under PRIDE contract)
  12. The Worcester Telegram & Gazette: Eric “Butterbean” Esch says he’s the only professional name boxer to make the change to MMA
  13. The Korea Times: Kim Min-Soo vs. Mighty Mo in Nagoya for HERO’s this Monday
  14. Jim Page: Interview with Cage Warriors featherweight champion Danny Batten
  15. The Los Angeles Times: Couture’s victory was one of MMA’s greatest historical moments
  16. MMA HQ: Evan Tanner back to normal
  17. MMA Fever: ESPN Randy Couture chat transcript
  18. MMA California: BJJ seminar in Union City, CA. on Saturday w/ Jon Fitch
  19. Fox News: Fight Game w/ Randy Couture (the subsite for Fight Game is located here)
  20. Troll on NBC Sports: Ultimate Insult Championships
  21. Marketwire: Art of War 3/9 Dallas, TX. fight card
  22. NBC Sports: Looking into the crystal ball – Liddell vs. Mirko could be happening
  23. Columbus Alive: Fight or flight
  24. CBS Sportsline: Frank Shamrock’s Razorclaws reload for LA
  25. Gambling 911: UFC 68 does $3 million at gate, Couture earns cool $250k
  26. The Washington Times: UFC boxes out spot in sports marketplace (the article claims Ratner is going to get an MMA regulation bill in place in Michigan in the next two weeks)

Topics: All Topics, Media, MMA, PRIDE, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 17 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

17 Responses to “Friday media funhouse”

  1. ukiro says:

    I would really like to see how my fellow Swedes perform in Art of War, but until online streams or video downloads become a more established way of (legal) content distribution, I guess it’s time to trawl the bittorrent sites again…

    If they could just set up a simple download for 15 bucks or so, they’d make money out of it AND get some brand recognition going. Put it out with 24 or 48hrs delay if losing gate revenue is a concern…

    Is this even available as a PPV in the US? The website doesn’t mention anything of the sort.

  2. Zach Arnold says:

    The Art of War show is airing on HDNet, which is a network that most people have to subscribe to with special equipment (although I hear more cable outlets may be picking it up).

  3. Zack says:

    Another great radio show this time around. Zach & Whaledog make a great contrast. Good interviews that engage.

  4. GassedOut says:

    Interesting suggestion about Filipovic vs. Liddell. I’d pay for that fight, guaranteed.

  5. The troll from NBC Sports is actually onto something.

    The argument that “I like watching fights, but not BECAUSE I like to see people get hurt” is what everyone says when defending the sport, but that’s total bullshit.

    We like MMA because, at some level (and these levels tend to differ among people), we enjoy violence. I like watching KOs. I enjoy the carnage that comes from watching combative sports.

    But there is a critical difference. I like my carnage packed in a defesnible way.

    Think of a rollercoaster. Humans love the thrill of the ride. It’s dangerous, fast, and unlike just about any other physical experience. Simply put, we love the thrill of danger. But up to a point. At some point (and again, this point is fuzzy and tends to differ) the danger becomes too much and the thrill turns into fear. The thrill was always fear, but a watered-down digestible fear that was pleasant in hindsight. People want to spin upside down, but they want to be securely strapped in. They want the danger, but the also want the safety.

    MMA is the same. I honestly want to sse violence, but I want to see two willing participants. I also want to see those who can fight the best – trained athletes with tons of skill – going at it. But I want safety. When a fighter’s out, I want the contest stopped. I don’t want grotesque mismatches. I want weight classes, some rules to minimize more serious injuries. And so on and so on.

    It’s perfectly acceptable to say I enjoy the brutality that comes with being a fan of MMA. It’s perfectly natural and actually suggesting the violence is byproduct or secondary reason to disingenious. Ignoring the gigantic elephant in the room only makes fans of MMA appear ashamed of the key entertainment features of the sport.

    I, too, enjoy watching nonviolent portions of the sport. I like the scramble, the takedown and takedown defense, the pummeling, etc. Those are also what make the sport interesting and so dynamic.

    My point, then, is simply there is no reason to deny the sport is violent and there is no reason to deny that’s enjoyable.

  6. penxv says:

    Butterbean’s fights that haven’t been in big promotions have been kind of a sham.

    He got a standup when he was about to be RNCed by a guy named Rich Weeks I think.

    “Butterbean rules” are automatic standups after like 10 seconds on the ground… it doesn’t matter if the Bean is in a submission apparently.

  7. JThue says:

    “Heat. Nuclear heat.”

    Please please please please please please please please stop spending time looking for threads about yourself on Sherdog! Every week someone new mentions in the comments here how much of a relief the relatively civil discussions here are, and your answer to is to ignore answering a lot of fair comments here and instead spend time linking to… the freaking Sherdog forums??!? What is wrong with this picture? And that thread isn’t even outrageous, which makes the reasoning behind linking to it even harder to comprehend. There’s about a 1/5 quotient of morons in it, and the others make some perfectly reasonable points, both for and against.

    Boy, K-1 sure can’t be too happy about Mo KO’ing Techno Giant :S

  8. Euthyphro says:

    JThue: it’s his site. He thinks it’s funny. Chill.

  9. Stu says:

    In other news, Gomi shaved his head.
    http://www.t-gomi.com/voice.html

  10. Mr. Roadblock says:

    Did Gomi also join a Japanese boy band?

  11. JThue says:

    “it’s his site. He thinks it’s funny. Chill.”

    I know Ishii thinks it’s funny to let useless Kim get revenge for his country, but that doesn’t mean we have to accept it!

    😛

  12. Armen says:

    I think it takes more intelligence that can be found on the Sherdog forums (or most any forum on the web really) to generate nuclear heat. Nuclear physics is tough…

    Maybe we’re talking coal-fired heat here.

    Gomi is funny to me but maybe the way he carries himself is normal for Japanese culture. His post-fight interview didn’t show him upset with losing the match. He somehow redirected most of his answers to how he wanted to enjoy Las Vegas now before he headed back to Japan.

  13. Harold says:

    why do you constantly link to the sherdog forum like its a big deal what they say there? who cares what they say there? i’m sorry, but it’s not news if some idiots at the sherdog forum are talking about you.

  14. […] Report: UFC Considering Washington D.C., Atlanta, Tampa (and Michigan, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee) Posted by UFC Junkie on March 9, 2007 at 5:43 pm ET While stopping by FightOpinion.com earlier this afternoon, I got a link to an interesting story at The Washington Times in which UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner added a whole new list of possible cities and states for future UFC events. […]

  15. David says:

    On CBS Sportsline Sam Kaplan’s 2 part interview with Dana White is up and is definitely worth reading.

    It’s awesome that nbc sports and cbs sportsline have legit mma sections on their site; only the espn idiots are still refusing to give mma any respect.

  16. There’s a lot more than ESPN … msnbc and cnn still ignore mma … and these are sites with entire sections devoted to HORSE RACING and articles about darts and bowling. Anyways, who cares. In a few more years it’ll come.

  17. The Gaijin says:

    Cro Cop vs. Liddell is not going to be a good idea. Go watch Cro Cop vs. Silva II for a pretty good idea of what its going to look like…Cro Cop even made Aleks E. look pretty amateur standing and he’s got some of the best hands of all the mma guys.

    And please, please, please can we quit having people trumpeting ridiculous statements like “The way Couture looks, he could really beat Cro Cop”. With all due respect to Randy, he looked good fighting Tim FUCKIN’ Sylvia…he was actually able to employ standup that kept Sylvia off guard to take him down. Thats NOT, repeat, NOT happening against Mirko. I’m sorry but if guys like Nog (ino he won), Barnett et al. had problems pulling him to the ground with the size advantage they have (over Couture) and remembering the fact that those guys have pretty good standup as well…as Winston Wolf said “let’s not start sucking each other’s dicks quite yet…”

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