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Wild Wednesday – MMA overload

By Zach Arnold | May 8, 2007

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There is a Mil Mascaras self-defense course available now for purchase?

The first Hustle event under the Hustle Entertainment banner happened today in Tokyo at Korakuen Hall. Naoya Ogawa, under the ‘Celeb Ogawa’ gimmick w/ Yuji Shimada as heel manager, defeated Ryoji Sai with a school-boy roll-up.

K-1 is inviting the UFC owners to watch their LA Coliseum show on June 2nd with front-row tickets.

Here is a new site offering MMA events on the computer. It’s called MMA World League.

Here is a conference call Eddie Goldman called in for with Richard Pound of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

The Indianapolis Star reports that Chris Lytle will be featured at a major MMA event in Indianapolis on August 11th at Conseco Fieldhouse.

The Detroit News reports that Toughman promoter Greg Ahrens will ignore the state of Michigan’s ruling to not run an MMA event at Cobo Arena on Saturday night.

The Williamsport Sun-Gazette in Pennsylvania eludes to the fact that the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission has just legalized MMA, but none of this legislation (in regards to MMA rules in the state) appears to be available online by Greg Sirb (executive director of the PSAC). Can these rules be made available online soon?

Ian Dean of Cage Warriors gets some print coverage in Japanese, putting over Dan Hardy and how good he will do on the upcoming Cage Force 5/27 Differ Ariake event in Tokyo.

Onto today’s headlines.

  1. China Combat: Wohsai MMA Event Short Recap
  2. Radio (Komikazee): MMA Smackdown #22 w/ Brad Pickett
  3. The Liberty Champion: Jerry Falwell – UFC fan
  4. F4W Online: Mike Sawyer interviews Brittney Skye about MMA
  5. The Associated Press: HBO Head Takes Leave After Arrest (Sam Caplan spells out the story implications here)
  6. Boxing Scene: Boxer Kermit Cintron wants to fight in UFC
  7. God Bless the Ring: Rickson Gracie will not fight on the June 2nd LA Coliseum show
  8. Fox Sports (Dave Doyle): Mayweather backs off UFC
  9. Five Ounces of Pain: Yushin Okami likely to fight Rich Franklin
  10. Grapplemonkey: Open-source fighting
  11. Mad Squabbles: PRIDE buyout in comic book form?
  12. Jake Rossen: An Upsetting Trend?
  13. AOL News Bloggers: How PPV killed boxing
  14. The Morning News (Arkansas): Extreme Fight Night at All-Star Sports Arena on Saturday
  15. Fox Sports: On the Mark: What’s next for boxing?
  16. AOL (The Fanhouse): Jim Lampley – Boxers have skills you can’t find in UFC
  17. The Brockton Enterprise (MA): As boxing’s popularity wanes, new area ring spotlight shifts to MMA shows
  18. AOL Sports Blog: Chuck Liddell graces ESPN magazine cover
  19. Marketwire (PR): Frank Trigg, GSP, Mark Coleman, and others to watch Art of War II event in Austin, Texas
  20. Yahoo Sports: Gone too fast – Diego Corrales
  21. The Los Angeles Times: The ending was almost inevitable (for Diego Corrales)
  22. Yahoo Sports: Fighting words – boxing vs. MMA
  23. The Boston Herald: Chuck Liddell, Dana White have it covered
  24. ESPN’s Page 2 (Tim Keown): Looking for perspective in the sports world
  25. Major Wager: The bout to save boxing? Think again
  26. UFC Junkie: Tim Sylvia – “I’m used to the UFC kicking me around”

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

28 Responses to “Wild Wednesday – MMA overload”

  1. Body_Shots says:

    About the assest hold up, Josh Gross reported on Friday’s Sherdog radio show that certain fighter contracts are holding up the transfer. Basically, Lorenzo is not going to give Sak a cent of his money until he secures the deal on his end. Josh’s source also told him that deal would get done and that Sak should be back in the US this week (I believe).

  2. Zach Arnold says:

    Interesting you note that – since today is Hustle at Korakuen Hall, the Japanese will probably be back for that show.

  3. MMA Game says:

    Can someone please explain what the hell I just sat and watched for 3 mins? Anyway, whoever those batman and robin wannabees were, I’m saying Joey Karate by bucket defense.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xalHsedxfI

  4. Grape Knee High says:

    Poor PRIDE. It self-destructed in the wake of Sakikibara’s financial incompetence. He can’t even sell the company properly.

  5. Mateo Suge says:

    I personally don’t think the UFC should get rid of Tim Sylvia. I think Sylvia is a good enough fighter that he should be brought back. I think Sylvia is an intimidating fighter and the UFC should maybe work with him on finishing fights.

    The only good thing that would come of the UFC letting Sylvia go is that he would be able to go to that one organization and give that guy who doesn’t want to fight the UFC’s top competition a run for his money.

  6. Shane says:

    It’s not from a message board thread. I can’t give up my source but I’m pretty sure that Zach knows at least something close to what I’m talking about, just not sure that he can report on it yet.

    BTW, some apologies are in order for Zach because of my rant the other week. Just had a bad day…

  7. Tomer Chen says:

    I think Sylvia is an intimidating fighter and the UFC should maybe work with him on finishing fights.

    Sylvia used to finish fights until his back-to-back UFC losses to Frank Mir and Andrei Arlovski via (technical) submission. I think Sylvia has become more gun shy because he’s afraid of ending up in another submission or bad position by overextending himself and is content to get decision victories.

  8. Paul Sebert says:

    Over at The Beat there’s a pretty well written recap of last week’s Ultimate Fighter.

  9. Body_Shots says:

    Gross stated on today’s Beatdown that Jamie Pollack is in Japan currently.

  10. Love The Beat. Heidi is always awesome. We used to post in the same pro wrestling forum.

  11. 45 Huddle says:

    De La Hoya vs. Mayweather got over 2 Million PPV Buys. A bunch of writers are proclaiming that boxing is not dead now. I couldn’t disagree more. The fight did nothing to attract new fans. The older fans are only getting older, and there is honestly no good fights on the horizon. Two fighters getting a great payday does not mean an entire sport is saved from corruption.

  12. Zviggy says:

    The sport will not die. 2.3 million people aren’t just going to dissapear. The sport has been through worse phases and still fans return. Will be interesting to see when their next big fight will be.

  13. JOSH says:

    The sport of boxing isnt dead persay BUT IMo I think the De La Hoya/Mayweather fight did more harm than good, as the casual boxing fan will not sit through another “fight of the century”…if they can find one. Boxing is definitly not going to recover due to the fight.

  14. 45 Huddle says:

    Perhaps abroad, but in America, it is still in the process of dying a slow, painful death.

    1. ESPN barely covers it. Network TV does touch it. Cable TV has more MMA then boxing now.

    2. The baby boomer generation, once gone, will take a good portion of the boxing fans with them. The big divide between MMA and Boxing fans is 40 right now. In a decade it will be 50. Way too high of an age to help boxing.

    3. People have already seen MMA, and the younger people know it is the true combat sport.

    4. No more De La Hoya. No more Hopkins. Who is left? The amateur boxing system is gone. No more stars coming out of it. The Heavyweights look horrible. Vitali & Wladimir both look clumsy to the average eye.

    This was the last horray. People bought this to see if the sport would somehow make a comeback. It’s like the last Pride. The fans cheered, but deep down they knew they were watching a funeral.

  15. 45 Huddle says:

    I meant to say Network TV doesn’t touch it.

  16. Rollo the Cat says:

    If the Chuck-Tito fight got a fraction of the mainstream meida attention and a fraction of the advertising and hype that ODLH-PBF got, how many buys could it have gotten?

    The UFC has managed to grow essentially as an underground phenomenon, making it all the more impressive.

    On another note, does anyone have any real idea as to why UFC 70 is now a PPV event???!!! Whose fault is that?

  17. Zack says:

    People complaining about the Oscar/Floyd fight are delusional. The fight went EXACTLY how most expected. I had a blast. Great reason to get together with a bunch of friends and drink Mexican beer.

  18. liger05 says:

    2 million buys is huge. The sport aint dead. Stars will come again. I never thought it would get 2 mil. I thought it would be big but not reach 2 mil. The sport is in a downturn but all these talk of dead is BS!!

  19. liger05 says:

    Zack I agree. The fight was fine and how anyone could of expected any different is beyond me.

  20. Rollo the Cat says:

    “On another note, does anyone have any real idea as to why UFC 70 is now a PPV event???!!! Whose fault is that?”

    I meant to say UFC 72. Somebody screwed up at either Spike or UFC.

    Maybe HBO will come and pick this card up for free TV?! Well, that is looking less likely now that the HBO president has been given his walking papers. MAybe there are more people at the top of HBO who will push for the UFC.

  21. D. Capitated says:

    Oscar’s reaction is essentially, “We learned some things about how to properly promote” which is a nice way of saying they’re probably gonna run a bunch of specials and do some extra PR for Hopkins/Wright in the summer. I already have heard a bunch of people talking about that fight as well, though I doubt it’ll far exceed 500,000 buys. Then again, I didn’t think De La Hoya/Mayweather would top 1.4 million. Go figure.

    Arguing that Ortiz/Liddell might have done more is entirely missing the point. More people are aware of Mayweather and De La Hoya than either of the two then biggest draws in MMA. I hate to break it to you, but its true. Its possible that MMA can do a similar number to that, but I don’t know what fight they can possibly do it with in the next year. Shit like UFC 72 on PPV won’t help matters.

  22. Preach says:

    Mainstream MMA-reference of the day:

    Randy Couture guest-starred on last night’s season finale of the CBS-series “The Unit”

    A few screenshots:
    http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/9624/vlcsnap8830737ot5.png
    http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/11/vlcsnap8831003il9.png
    http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/5566/vlcsnap8834322ys2.png

  23. Allan says:

    David Mament, legendary writer and creator of The Unit, is actually an MMA fan, and his next film, Redbelt, takes place in the world of “underground cage fighting”. Normally I’d roll my eyes at that, but with Mamet behind it, it could be great.

  24. MMA Game says:

    Rollo, I saw a post on Sherdog from someone who’d emailed Zuffa. The reason given was that Spike declined the show. No reason was given as to why.

  25. 45 Huddle says:

    Probably because they already have two shows for the month….

  26. BTW, I’m not going to lower myself to Greg Ahren’s and Art Dore’s level….

    but I’ll let Sheiky do it for me.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K-wEUCCvE0

  27. Liger05 says:

    How many people will buy UFC 72?

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