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Friday flame wars: Boxing vs. MMA argument won’t die
By Zach Arnold | May 10, 2007
The fact that the Miami Herald and a couple of other newspapers (according to Google News) picked up this ridiculous article on MMA amazes me (author e-mail is here).
I sat in front of the TV the other night, stopped flicking when I came to Spike, and decided I’d finally give the violent phenomenon known as “ultimate fighting,” or whatever it’s called…a legitimate chance to impress me.
The referee signaled for the first five-minute round to begin, and the combatants – a short, solidly built dark-haired guy and a tall, pale shaven- skulled fellow – stepped toward each other with what seemed to be bad intentions.
So I sat up, grabbed hold of my cherry-flavored Coke Zero and anticipated tumult.
Problem is now, a full 36 or so hours later…I’m still waiting for the payoff.
Rather than the torrent of punches, kicks and body slams promised by breathless radio spots and other over-the-top ads for the upcoming “UFC 27,397” on pay-per-view, my 10-minute or so viewing stint was much more indicative of gay hotel porn.
Onto today’s headlines.
- Fox Sports: MMA stuff (links and comments and interviews)
- The Houston Chronicle: HBO shake-up could scuttle UFC plans
- The Fightworks Podcast: IFL reaches out to U.S. Military at Upcoming Chicago Show
- MSNBC: ‘Mayhem’ adds spice to middleweight ranks
- CBS Sportsline: Let the Mayhem begin
- The Canadian Press: Mayhem Miller swears off booze, turns to WEC
- New America Media: Can boxing find its heart in MMA?
- NBC Sports: Still notorious, but Tito Ortiz is maturing
- The Omaha World Herald: Nebraska Legislature passes bill to regulate MMA
- MMA HQ: Tommy Morrison vs. Chuck Liddell?
- The Baltimore Sun: MMAC’s Omar Olumee discusses D.C.’s first sanctioned MMA event
- MMA on Tap: Royce Gracie, Gary Shaw talk Dynamite!! USA
- UFC HP: Five added to UFC 72 card in Belfast
- The Boston Herald: TUF Week 6 – Making the most of my shot
- The Sweet Science: Kermit Cintron says he’ll fight UFC
- The Idaho Statesman: Former Steelhead on XFS card in Boise on Saturday (notice that Mike Kyle’s name is not mentioned – he was scheduled to face Patrick Smith on the show)
- NBC Sports: The Iceman fires back at Tito Ortiz
- The Arizona Republic: Mesa ‘fight magnet’ Joe Cronin headlines cage bout
- Jordan Breen: Second Australia vs. Japan card promoted by WWCN this Saturday
- The star Phoenix (Canada): Matt Hughes in Saskatoon this weekend
- Boxing Talk: Gary Shaw offers Kermit Cintron three-fight MMA deal
- The Honolulu Advertiser: Art of muay thai aims for respect, humility
- UFC Junkie: Evan Tanner planning UFC comeback
- Philly Burbs: (Boxing) Hype gets KO’d
- TV Week: Mel’s Diner – Ross Greenburg (hat tip – Mikeinormer)
Topics: Boxing, Canada, HERO's, IFL, K-1, Media, MMA, Pro Elite, UFC, WEC, Zach Arnold | 16 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
We have a new Frank Shamrock interview up at http://www.mmanews.com RSS feed link is http://www.mmanews.com/rss.xml
The worst thing about that article was just how better it was at getting under my skin then that CBS Sportline article. The Sportsline article was like an internet troll post. This guy was more like a stand-up comic in his burns on UFC.
Does anyone know what particular fight the guy is referring to?
But man did it get boring once he started getting into boxing. I’ve been reading a lot of boxing articles the past week and that is the first one I just ended up scrolling right to the end.
Am I the only MMA fan that’s NOT offended by this guy’s article? Sure, it was a bit trollish and needlessly inflammatory, but frankly speaking he’s not the only person who feels this way. There are A LOT of regular people — people who watch sports and are not prudes about violence and blood — that think MMA is boring and looks…well…gay.
If anything, I’m more amazed that a large number of MMA fans — and yes, I honestly do think the morons on Sherdog and other MMA sites represent the average MMA fan — seem to be virulently homophobic, yet see no problem in being entertained by two half-naked, sweaty men grappling and cannot comprehend why outsiders might think MMA looked homoerotic.
I agree with your opinion that there is a level of homophobia that has been on public display in the past by people in the MMA industry (and I don’t like it).
I also believe that a newspaper like the Herald should have not published an article like the one they did today.
Quite frankly most of these guys yapping about this haven’t the first clue about MMA so I take what they say only with a grain of salt. Bunch of punks.
Zach,
I am listening to TAGGRAdio right now and Frank Trigg is saying that he doubts the Pride/UFC deal will ever come off. He says due diligence is now being done and the Pride officials were not forthcoming with the information. He thinks it will fall apart very soon.
I just sent this to Lyle:
Lyle,
That was a pretty intellectually dishonest article. You compare
lame and unknown MMA fighters to De La Hoya.
If you want to be honest, instead of just finding lame excuses to bash
MMA, watch a UFC PPV and compare that to what boxing has to offer.
For me, I’ve been a boxing fan for 20+ years. I remember watching Ali
and the other greats of 35 years ago with my Dad as a kid. I was
hooked from that point on. But currently the sport of Boxing is a
joke. Yeah, there are a few good fights. Mostly you have a bunch of
organizations that protect their fighters from good fights.
And if you want to talk about violent, how much more violent than
death can you get? It really amazes me that the boxing apologists/MMA
bashers are so dishonest that they won’t admit the obvious facts:
Boxing is way more dangerous than MMA. The simple facts are that
deaths in Boxing are much, much more common than MMA. I have
*never* heard of an MMA death. I read about deaths due to Boxing
every month or so. In fact, 2006 was such a bad year for Boxing
deaths, the weight of gloves was increased. Finally, the reason
MMA deaths will never reach Boxing levels: MMA fights are stopped
once a fighter cannot defend himself, which means repeated blows to
the head that cause brain swelling and lead to death will be very
unlikely in MMA fights.
Lyle, everyone is entitled to an opinion. You, however, showed very
little journalistic ability in the linked article.
Kevin Layer
I bet the Freeman article (CBS sportsline) got such good traffic that will be seeing more of these for a little while.
I won’t discredit Trigg’s opinion on the UFC/PRIDE situation.
What I can confidently state is that I suspect he’s not the first to know what is happening in the situation, but he does talk to various people who might be hearing rumors in fighter circles.
Ultimately Trigg’s talk is worthy because fighters are now asking themselves what blog geeks have been asking for a few months now, “where do the PRIDE fighters go?” We’ve already seen Nogueira and others head to UFC, Barnett to IGF, etc.
In effect, PRIDE is dead already – it would not surprise me to see UFC walk away from the deal because they accomplished their mission in killing their top rival off. The prospect of them doing it for a price tag of $0 would be even sweeter for them.
All I ask from everyone is to remember who said what first about the whole PRIDE situation. I laid down my markers bit by bit long ago before other writers or personalities in the business said anything. Nobody gets credit for being right, just blame for being wrong.
Don’t worry Zach, i let it be known in Trigg’s chat room where it came from first. I nominated you for journalist of the decade.
I think what is real interesting now is that people like Trigg are actually coming out and saying some of what they know. That is a sure sign that it is done.
It’s been a hell of a decade covering Japan and all the major scandals in this decade. The 1990s was both the rise and the rapid decline of Japanese pro-wrestling (which got hurt badly by the rise of MMA), and this decade really is the rise and collapse of MMA (as a pure play) on a major level in Japan.
Rollo – on what date did Trigg make his PRIDE comments? Thursday or today?
It’s hard for me to put stock into anything Trigg says unless he’s talking about his own affairs, he’s been all over the map with this PRIDE thing.
I do believe something is going to give very soon though.
But while we’re throwing out theories, I’ll share a couple of my own. I think the reason why (PRIDE) fighters aren’t on the market now is because their contracts with DSE are legit. That’s only way I can rationalize great fighters with supposedly bogus contracts sitting on their hands. Either that or Zuffa has been in negotiation with a lot these guys and that’s keeping them still.
I think the hold up is the transfer, we know about Sak signing Shogun and Arona to new contracts in March, haven’t heard any other fighters that have went through a similar process, but I wouldn’t doubt it.
Basically what might be going on is Sak/Zuffa are trying to update key fighter contracts and they may be having trouble with a few guys.
In the end I believe it’ll get done because because Sak is in a lot of debt and needs the money and Zuffa wants the fighters along with a presence in Japan.
But it’s also entirely possible that deal could fall through, if it does I think the UFC ends up with a lot of these guys.
Eh, this why I don’t like speculating about things I don’t know about.
At this point, is it even worth wasting time thinking about what Frank Trigg says? He’s the guy that said we’d all be SHOCKED by Wanderlei’s opponent at PRIDE 34 and that PRIDE had such and such big deals in the works.
This is not to say the deal won’t eventually fall apart as it is clearly not looking good right now, but Trigg is hardly a credible source of information especially since Zuffa already fired him in advance.
Anyone who is familiar with Japanese law:
If Zuffa pulls out of the deal with DSE but still keeps the fighters that it signed to contracts through the acquisition process, would DSE be able to sue Zuffa for misrepresentation, tortious interference, etc. (basically, anything that says “You lied to us about your intent to buy, stole our assets (fighters) and then ran off laughing!”) in court? I figure it also depends in part on whether these contracts that were already signed were made with free agents or guys who had existing DSE contracts as well.
.. if you are going to pretend to be a journalist, at least get the names, dates and events correct… I haven’t read any of his other blurbs, but judging by this one, this guy makes an ass of himself daily…
“my 10-minute or so viewing stint was much more indicative of gay hotel porn.”
…maybe he should stick to watching Gay Porn then!