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« | Home | »

Wednesday fight notes – don’t make Bas Rutten angry

By Zach Arnold | March 14, 2007

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I want to give special thanks to all of our readers in Singapore. If you are reading this and/or have any regional MMA-related news items, send me an e-mail.

Congratulations to Aaron Crossen for becoming Editor-in-Chief of The Valley Vanguard newspaper. Now add more fight game coverage to the publication.

Jeff Monson wrote on his personal blog that he is going to be facing Kazuyuki Fujita at PRIDE 34 on 4/8 at Saitama Super Arena. This is interesting on a lot of levels. First, Fujita is expected to work in the semi-main event or main event slot on the card. Second, it fits into the PRIDE Japanese management mentality of “UFC vs. PRIDE.” Once this fight is officially announced in Japan, I expect Monson to receive the exact same coverage and spin job in the Japanese media that Nick Diaz got for his fight against Takanori Gomi (i.e. “UFC top class vs. PRIDE”). Third, Monson’s fight salary is not very high (if my memory serves me right, he fought Tim Sylvia for little money – $13,000 USD? – at the UFC November ’06 Sacramento event).

Just asking: An acquaintance of mine in the ‘MMA media’ was flabbergasted about Sherdog’s main site not having any articles detailing the IFL’s MyNetwork TV show this past Monday. The only thing I saw IFL-related was this press release issued this morning.

  1. China Combat: The Ultimate Kung Fu Fighter (someone put this show up on YouTube or Daily Motion soon)
  2. Sam Caplan: Bas Rutten and Mauro Ranallo fire back at Jerry Millen (more from Bas here including a claim that Jerry Millen is a kayfabe name — and making this even funnier is that Sherdog moderators put this in their ‘wasteland’ category)
  3. Fight Report: Larry Merchant gone by June?
  4. Mad Squabbles: Jake Rossen has lots of friends
  5. The Canadian Press (via CBC Sports): Lend me your ear — UFC fighter Frankie Edgar never gives up
  6. UFC Junkie: Sean Salmon discusses training, Las Vegas, and UFC 71
  7. Sports Navigator (Japanese): Katsuyori Shibata and Kazushi Sakuraba booked for HERO’s Light Heavyweight tournament in July
  8. The American Chronicle: Sneaking up on Vince — is UFC the next big thing in PPV?
  9. MMA California: CSAC upcoming training
  10. BTT HP: Dana White interested in The Nogueira Brothers
  11. The Utica Observer-Dispatch: Breaking the sound barrier (article about Matt Hamill)
  12. The Albuquerque Tribune: Johnny Tapia’s brother-in-law dies
  13. Boxing Scene: The sport of boxing & instant replay (this is about New Jersey’s athletic control board adopting the use of instant replay for both boxing & MMA)
  14. The Verde Independent: World-wide Fighting Championship – Desert Storm
  15. Bradford Publishing: Knockout Factory cage fighters make good showing at national event
  16. Jordan Breen: Akiyama’s slippery scandal spawns HERO’s rule reform

Topics: All Topics, Boxing, HERO's, IFL, Japan, Media, MMA, PRIDE, UFC, Zach Arnold | 26 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

26 Responses to “Wednesday fight notes – don’t make Bas Rutten angry”

  1. Stu says:

    Gary Millen’s grave must be getting too deep to escape from very soon.

  2. Zach Arnold says:

    From the CBS Sportsline interview:

    “Bas had some personal demons that he had to deal with it. And Mauro, it was determined that his services were no longer needed so he was not retained. Now I made that decision and I was his superior at the time. I feel that the behavior was neither professional nor competent for the broadcast field.”

    Usually, that kind of language is used to indicate a drug or alcohol problem…

  3. Jordan Breen says:

    Dana can be interested in Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira all he wants. The guy ain’t getting no license to fight in the US. Dude is practically blind in one eye.

  4. Stu says:

    This could get ugly.

    Bas:

    As for Millen, I let is rest now, but if he starts again, I haven’t even started yet myself, this was a tip of the ice berg!

  5. sebastian says:

    Jordan Breen: Really? I’d like to hear more about that.

  6. PizzaChef says:

    Whoever doesn’t believe Bas after his post has to be stupid, I’m 100% convinced.

  7. Mr. Roadblock says:

    That skit w/ Randelman still cracks me up. Remember the PPV where Bas and Mauro were in the bar talking about fightsand arguing and then they’d cut to the fight. Hilarious.

  8. GassedOut says:

    Wow, Millen is in deeeeeeep. How can the guys in Japan even look at him at this point?

    Hmmmm…I think I smell a fall guy in the making…

  9. CapnHulk says:

    “I told you not to touch me! RARRGGHH!”

    Bas is a fairly decent actor, and a funny one at that, having been on “The King of Queens” and the like. He also did this little indy film that looks interesting.

    http://www.pilotlightpictures.com/trailer.htm

  10. The Gaijin says:

    Jordan Breen Says:

    March 14th, 2007 at 1:21 am
    Dana can be interested in Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira all he wants. The guy ain’t getting no license to fight in the US. Dude is practically blind in one eye.

    Breen:
    Where did you get that info from?? I’ve never heard that before…wasn’t he doing amateur boxing at the Brazilian Olympic Trials etc.?? I’d think they’d have checked his sight etc. in order to allow him to box.

    That’s pretty amazing that he’s so freaking accomplished with one good eye!

  11. Rodrigo’s blind? Holy shit.

  12. Zach Arnold says:

    I saw this post and I had to laugh, not at Meltzer but at the fact that he’s now being given credit for breaking the news on PRIDE losing their Fuji TV deal in Japan in ’06. Yet when it comes to the other stories that he does break or is totally accurate on, he gets crapped on by a lot of online fanboys.

  13. Stu says:

    Where did you get that info from?? I’ve never heard that before…wasn’t he doing amateur boxing at the Brazilian Olympic Trials etc.?? I’d think they’d have checked his sight etc. in order to allow him to box.

    That was Rogerio.

  14. CharibOfJustice says:

    “Bas had some personal demons that he had to deal with it. And Mauro, it was determined that his services were no longer needed so he was not retained. Now I made that decision and I was his superior at the time. I feel that the behavior was neither professional nor competent for the broadcast field.”

    Usually, that kind of language is used to indicate a drug or alcohol problem…

    It’s also the vague kind of language one uses to insinuate an addiction problem when no evidence of the kind actually exists.

  15. JThue says:

    Zach Arnold wrote:

    “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.”

    – You of all people should know better than to jump to conclusions like that when it comes to PRIDE booking. They ALWAYS start out wiht a list of fighters they ideally WANT to have on the card, and end up with half of them fighting due to different obstacles along the way. And, lo and behold, from PRIDE themselves:

    “*Card Subject To Change”
    “*Wanderlei Silva – Pending approval by NSAC”

    BTW, the start time of the Live US PPV broadcast has been announced as 2:30 AM ET.

  16. AJAX says:

    My God, when I read about this Millen piece of trash and then think about all the great memories I have immortalized on VHS between Mauro and Bas, I feel like I’m trapped in a straight jacket. “Dammit Pride, get out of your own way and make a good decision for once!” Watching all this hurts like hell. If Pride was really involved with the Yakuza to the degree that it seems like, I guess the reprocussions of those decisions were inevitable, and I can accept that as something I really don’t understand. On the other hand, pushing Fishman to the point where he’s taking a buisness crippling legal action against them is just foolish. It feels like when a good friend keeps getting DUI’s and you’re trying to help him but he wont stop making bad choices. Hell, I’m not entirely angry they hired Millen. Every company makes a bad call once in a while. I’m angry because they won’t fire him. Talk about bad publicity. You just can’t say those things about Bas Rutten, period. As for Mauro, after reading this article, I can understand why he would leave his “dream job.” Self respect is more important to him than the job, and I admire that. In the end, I want to watch MMA in the Pride ring, period. I want my stomps, knees and headkicks, and whether it’s with Fedor or anyone else, that’s the biggest reason I watch. It’s frusterating to watch events in America, but I also believe that people here are not ready to see that kind of intense violence. All us hardcore fans know about the misconception that MMA is more violent than the NFL, but I also know for sure that the American front runners…I mean mainstream public, would be too shocked to witness stomping and the like. I can see it now, Silvia’s on his knees, dazed from a Cro Cop punch, almost defenseless, and from out of no where he gets blasted in the face with a left kick. The UFC would have soccer moms threatening to sue for screwing up their kids. I tell people the most exciting thing in sports (to me) is a clean headstomp, and that truly is the reason I started watching MMA. I never wanted Pride in America to begin with, and I just hope that if they have to downsize in a tragic manner to stay afloat, they go that route instead of something worse.

  17. Zach Arnold says:

    I am not sure how you can possibly make Bas Rutten into an evil heel. I think it’s next to impossible.

  18. David says:

    There will never be headstomps nor soccer ball kicks to the head of a downed fighter allowed in US fighting. Frankly, I don’t even think they are worth all of the negative publicity they would cause. Knees to the head on the ground should be allowed, but stomps and soccer ball kicks to the head give the impression of taking away the skill from the sport.

  19. Jordan Breen says:

    Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira has suffered severely with the site in one of his eyes in past years. Go back and look at the Openweight Grand Prix opener from last year. One of the guy’s eyes is completely bluish gray with cataracts.

    Anyway, as I understand it, after the cataract removal, he had like 40 percent vision or so in his eye. He was given the opportunity for some procedure which would either restore the vision in his eye, or harm it worse. It did the latter and now he only has 10-20 percent vision in one of his eyes.

  20. ukiro says:

    Someone a little less tired than myself needs to do some serious googling for sources on this whole big-nog eye story. UFC have mentioned the nogs so much that I can’t help but think they’ve been trying to sign them, and if there eye thing is real and the UFC haven’t realized, it’s a pretty bizarre (and newsworthy) story.

  21. ukiro says:

    there = the. Sorry, tired, etc.

  22. Jordan Breen says:

    “Someone a little less tired than myself needs to do some serious googling for sources on this whole big-nog eye story.”

    Nah. My word should be taken as the Gospel at all times.

  23. Stu says:

    Grypon reports that Weekly GONG and GONG kakutougi now officially are folding.
    http://d.hatena.ne.jp/gryphonjapan/20070314

  24. Tunak says:

    Source on the Rodrig-big nog eye story cause that is just unbelievable that he beat both barnett and werdum with one eye.

  25. Monkeymatt says:

    That Jerry Millen is a total slimeball.

    I don’t see how anybody can enjoy his arrogant and vacuous drivel.

    He is just so irritating.

  26. Royal B. says:

    Congrats Aaron. Now go cover the judo Club.

  27. Jordan Breen says:

    “Source on the Rodrig-big nog eye story cause that is just unbelievable that he beat both barnett and werdum with one eye.”

    A guy who knows the Nogueira brothers personally, and manages a variety of fighters in Brazil. I’d have no reason to call BS on the guy. I consider him a highly credible source.

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