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Tuesday MMA notes – Wanderlei Silva returns

By Zach Arnold | March 13, 2007

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A note to all F.O. Radio listeners.

Boxer Johnny Tapia overdoses on cocaine.

Someone uploaded all of the matches from the HERO’s 3/12 Nagoya show online. Some interesting moments. I was interested by the fact that Yoshihiro Takayama (famed pro-wrestler) did color commentary on the TV broadcast. He had a killer shirt on. The buxom Waka Inoue was the ‘navigator’ for the program. The best moment was showing the sparring footage of Melvin Manhoef when he legitimately beat up his sparring partner, and they turned the camera to a few Japanese reporters in complete and total shock. Ali Ibrahim was labeled an an Egyptian Olympic judoka. Kaoru Uno was labeled on TV during his fight as a “pioneer of kakutougi.” Kazushi Sakuraba came to the ring under the Masked Superstar gimmick. Yuriy Kiselov wore a black judo gi with the Playboy bunny logo on it. I recommend watching the Andre Dida vs. Hiroyuki Takaya fight. I chuckled at the video package they did for Mighty Mo, where he talks about why he fights (to make money to feed his family) and then they show video of he and his family eating pizza. Mo vs. Kim Min-Soo had a wild finish. Gary Goodridge vs. Jan “The Giant” Nortje was also a spectacle. That fight might have been stopped early in America in favor of Nortje. If I’m not mistaken, Bernard Ackah is a comedian in Japan. He fought well.

PRIDE announced Mark Hunt, Sergey Kharitonov, Josh Barnett, Wanderlei Silva (who was medically suspended by the NSAC until 4/11), Kazuyuki Fujita, Denis Kang, Minowaman (Ikuhisa Minowa), Makoto Takimoto, Zulu, and Butterbean for their PRIDE 34 (4/8 Saitama Super Arena event). This sure puts things into perspective regarding lack of plans to run in America in the near future.

Results from our last site poll: Who would win in a UFC Heavyweight title fight?

Based on those odds, a sportsbook odds maker would place Couture at nearly +400 on the betting lines if the fight happens.

Onto today’s headlines.

  1. Boxing Scene: Hall of Famer thinks Evander Holyfield is anything but ‘The Real Deal’
  2. Jake Rossen: Nine who need to hang up the gloves
  3. Reuters: Ultimate fighting kicks violent image and pulls in crowds (The Zuffa Myth appears in paragraph 2)
  4. UFC HP: UFC vet Gilbert Aldana presumed drowned after tragic boating accident
  5. MyFox Phoenix: Video report about Gilbert Aldana
  6. Webwire (PR): Art of War claims they’re running The Alamodome in San Antonio on June 30th
  7. Eastside Boxing: Roy Englebrecht promoting boxing/MMA doubleheader in Irvine, CA. on 4/1 and 4/2
  8. The Rochester Post-Bulletin: A visit with Jami Klair, ultimate fighting promoter
  9. NHB News (Japan): HERO’s 3/12 Nagoya show draws 12.1% rating on Tokyo Broadcasting System
  10. Gambling 911: Calvin Ayre – Forbes cannot have information on Bodog
  11. The Los Angeles Daily News: Bas Rutten teaches Anacondas to strike
  12. The Independent: Australia charges Sylvester Stallone over ‘banned substance’
  13. The Peoria Journal-Star: Derrick Noble on BodogFight tonight
  14. The Los Angeles Daily News: Never count out Randy Couture

Topics: All Topics, BoDog, Boxing, HERO's, IFL, Japan, Media, MMA, PRIDE, UFC, Zach Arnold | 27 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

27 Responses to “Tuesday MMA notes – Wanderlei Silva returns”

  1. Liger05 says:

    How about Fujita v Barnett. Two wrestlers with New Japan History.

    Not surprised Silva is back in action so soon. Wasnt Mirko back in action straight away after the Randelman loss.

    I swear Takayama has done colour commentry before. Melvin Manhoef is a beast.

    What next for Shibata?

  2. The Gaijin says:

    Zach:
    I wouldnt say that the mere fact they posted Silva’s picture under fighters for PRIDE 34 really means anything. God knows they usually just announce a slew of big names waay before the card and then begin announcing that fighters X and Y will not be on the card. Knowing them they’re probably too dumb to realize the suspension date and the event date criss-cross and they’ll end up pulling his name in a few weeks (or 5 days before the card, when all the matches are announced).

  3. Zach Arnold says:

    They need a fight card quickly, that I agree on.

  4. sebastian says:

    Denis Kang suffered a (hand?) injury after his recent fight in Korea and if remember correctly he’s estimated to be out of action for quite some time.

  5. Liger05 says:

    Doesnt the suspensions only apply to the US?

  6. Stu says:

    Doesnt the suspensions only apply to the US?

    Technically yes, but if they’re ever planning on doing shows in the US again they better follow it to get a license.

  7. Ever since the OWGP the PRIDE lineup process goes like this: Throw a ton of names onto the site as participants. Over the weeks watch as fighters say in interviews “I don’t know who i’m fighting” or “I’m definately not fighting”. Slowly add one fight every week, until finally adding 4 matches a week before the event. Never explain why half the fighters on the original list aren’t on the final lineup. Rinse and repeat until company goes out of business.

    On a side note, while i can see PRIDE being irresponsible enough to book Wanderlei before his suspension is up, I can’t imagine he’d be that reckless. The question here is if Wanderlei’s April 11th date was the minimum no contact date or if he can be cleared to fight before then by a commission.

  8. PizzaChef says:

    The Masked Superstar? I thought he was doing the Destroyer, instead I’m pleasantly surprised that Sakuraba did a tribute to Demolition Ax!

    HERE COMES THE AX! AND HERE COMES THE SMASHERRRRRR! *sings the rest, lol*

  9. sebastian says:

    Fightlinker: No contact until 03/27/07 for Wanderlei. 04/11/07 is the cleared to fight date.

  10. Liger05 says:

    I thought Saku was the Destroyer as well. Dida also wore a Pro-wrestling mask as well and a SAKU T-Shirt.

    fightlinker that description of the Pride booking policy sounds just like what New Japan were doing with there Tokyo Dome shows in recent times. Finalise a card just a few weeks before the event and then hope the fans will care about it.

  11. Allen says:

    So, HEROES has half of their initially announced fighters drop-off, they throw together the card a few weeks before the event, have freaks, pro-wrestlers, and comedians, and their biggest star, Sakuraba, fighting a nobody with an 0-2 record, and that’s cool. But Pride hasn’t gotten together their entire April card announced yet, and it’s final wars?

  12. Euthyphro says:

    Allen: HERO’S has TV and is backed by a company with $. PRIDE has neither. If they want Kamikaze to be a success, they need to announce big up front as early as possible, and promote the hell out of it.

  13. The Gaijin says:

    Euthyphro:

    Exactly!! PRIDE is still trying to operate like they were when they had their big TV deal and money-backing. They don’t seem to realize that the way they were operating before would be nowhere near successful without the unlimited bankroll and promotion they had been working with for the last decade.

  14. Zack says:

    I’d really like to see Fujita vs Hunt in a battle of the iron heads.

  15. Actually, I’d say HEROs is just as bad if not worse. But we’re not talking about HEROs right now … mainly because very few of us care about that promotion.

  16. Euthyphro says:

    Zach: Dave Meltzer’s quote on the IFL show last night: “It went from using elements of pro wrestling, to using the most desperate “territories about to fold” elements of pro wrestling promotion.”

    I thought that was an interesting quote, and one that you’d disagree with based on what you wrote.

    http://www.wrestlingobserver.com/wo/news/headlines/default.asp?aID=18929

  17. There’s a pretty bad taste article on Sherdog about ‘9 fighters who should retire’. And they wonder why they don’t have press credentials for the UFC. If they start acting like journalists and drop the garbage op-ed, perhaps they’d be taken more seriously.

  18. 45 Huddle says:

    IFL got a .8 Rating. MyNetworkTV can’t be happy with that. It is slightly better than the Telenovelas the station was receiving before. And those shows were cut back because of those poor ratings. Those ratings just don’t cut it for Network Television.

    Not to mention that next week might have an even lower rating with a good portion of the hardcore fans tuning out.

  19. The Gaijin says:

    Fightlinker:

    Funny you should mention that b/c Phil Baroni himself started a thread to tell them off, literally stating in the title of the thread “Jake Rossen go F@#k yourself”.

  20. Gus says:

    Well the psoter on their website does say Silva is pending Clearance from the NSAC

  21. The Gaijin says:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeZWNLDhjNw&eurl=

    Looks like they’ve already got a teaser up for PRIDE.34 – pretty good production actually!

  22. In case anyone has ever read a newspaper, it’s not like op/ed sections have a history of being agreeable.

    People incessantly bitch about Sherdog’s columnists, but they’re just that: columnists. You will not see columns written by “Sherdog.com staff,” as the site does not author bias-revelaing editorials. Better yet, Sherdog doesn’t publish undefended fighter rankings, (or fighter rankings, period) unlike other MMA sites.

    The problem lay in this: there is no ‘opinion’ section on Sherdog, and columns don’t have their own place, so to speak. Real news, decent journalism and various other news-like updates get the same time and space as the opinion pieces, and this troubles people.

    So while you might disagree with their columns, don’t be so simple-minded as to associate the opinions of some of the staff with that of the site, and I think if you compare the news pieces that Sherdog publishes with any other MMA or mainstream publication, you’ll see that it’s actually better.

  23. David says:

    Regarding the IFL tv ratings, how did they think it was going to do having never advertised for it?? I had never even heard of MyNetworkTV before this IFL disaster, and I did not see a single ad anywhere for the show. It was doomed to fail, which judging by the quality (or ridiculous lack thereof) of the product, is a good thing.

  24. IFL owners were on MMAWeekly radio saying they were very happy with the ratings, but generally unhappy with the some aspects of the product and that they’d be changing many things in the next episode.

  25. The Gaijin says:

    I wasn’t really laying any sort of judgment on the column at all Aaron.

    Jake’s entitled to his “opinion” as much as everyone else, including those of us at FightOpinion. I was merely pointing out that it seemed a few people here were voicing the fact that they were less than thrilled with the article and that fighters themselves (i.e. Baroni) shared similar “opinions”.

  26. It’s extreme bad taste for an article on a major MMA site. Do you think you’d ever see something like that on thefightnetwork.com or mmaweekly.com? It’s simply unprofessional and it’s that kind of work that keeps Sherdog in the ‘doghouse’ as far as legitimacy is concerned (which is really too bad because a lot of the work by their regional correspondants is simply without peer). Honestly, this kind of caustic fighter bashing is the kind of thing you’d expect to sit next to fantasy fights in the Wasteland section of Sherdog forums, not the front page.

    Overall if you take a look at Jake Rossen’s work you’ll find it’s like this most of the time. He was the one who wrote the pointless ‘Early 07 Report Card’ column, and a very similar ‘The Dissapointments’ column, another exercise in arbitrary fighter bashing.

    Anyways, long story short: the guy has a right to voice his opinion, but i’m amazed that the editorial staff of Sherdog allow this kind of garbage to sit on the same page as their excellent journalism, because it honestly cheapens the whole site.

  27. Rick says:

    Absolutely. Best case scenario.

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