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« | Home | »

Saturday sound bites: UFC 73 in Sacramento

By Zach Arnold | July 6, 2007

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I have a UFC 73 preview write-up over at Fox Sports. Check it out. Also, Brian Kenny on ESPN Radio previews this weekend’s action in combat sports.

Also, I made an appearance yesterday on Bryan Alvarez’s Figure Four Daily radio show. One of the topics we discussed was the Chris Benoit murder-suicide story and how there could be some tangential fallout in the world of MMA. After I wrote my CBS Sportsline article on the Benoit story, I was preparing to do an MMA spinoff of the story in relation to the drug culture in the industry. On Tuesday, Phil Baroni was suspended by the CSAC for a year and I could see the media ball was already rolling in regards to the issue of MMA’s drug culture. Today, both The LA Times and The Long Beach-Press Telegram have articles focusing on fighters failing drug tests. Over at Fight Report, they’re predicting which fighters might fail their drug tests at UFC 73. We’ve added a new poll to the right side of the main page about the drug culture in MMA.

Also on Bryan’s radio show, I mentioned that there is an RSS feed for the Observer site. Here it is. Our friend John Griffin made it. Hey John, an iPhone theme for WordPress? Test it out!

Bas Rutten hits Sunset Strip.

Onto today’s headlines.

  1. Kevin Iole: UFC 73 weigh-in notes
  2. Sam Caplan: Predictions for UFC 73
  3. UFC Mania: Introducing NateMarquardt.com
  4. Komikazee: UFC 73 – Luck is in the eye of the beholder
  5. The Patriot Ledger (MA): Aloha – Quincy resident Joe Lauzon eyes big move to Hawaii
  6. The Wichita Eagle (KS): Mixed success in ring – local MMA group is laying the foundation for success in Las Vegas
  7. Sports Illustrated (Todd Martin): MMA 101 – Breaking down the different MMA organizations
  8. Sports Illustrated (Todd Martin): UFC 73 preview – Ortiz vs. Evans highlights an action-packed card
  9. The Prince George Citizen (Canada): Ryan Chiappe fights his way to the top in jiu-jitsu
  10. SLAM! Sports: Sean Sherk’s skills can now pay the bills
  11. This is Hampshire (UK): Interview Rocci Williams
  12. The Truro Daily News (Nova Scotia): Chris Hughes ignores the pain to earn purple belt
  13. The Orange County Register: Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira ready for UFC debut
  14. MMA Insider: July a slow month for MMA events
  15. Sprawl ‘n Brawl: Human Weapon on The History Channel
  16. The Washington Post: ‘Bad Boy’ Ortiz has a good side, but not tonight
  17. The Canadian Press: Nate Marquardt looks to add UFC Middleweight Title to his collection
  18. Whaledog: Rickson beachfight – the complete video
  19. The Montrose Daily Press (CO): Fight club
  20. The Yankton Press & Dakotan (SD): Marissa Inhofer following in her brother’s Ultimate Fighting footsteps
  21. The Newark Star-Ledger (NJ): Frankie Edgar will look for the answer against Mark Bocek
  22. The Tonawanda News (NY): Rashad Evans ups the entertainment ante
  23. The Long Beach Press-Telegram: There’s more to see at UFC 73 than just Tito Ortiz
  24. Sherdog: Marcus Aurelio vs. Clay Guida set for UFC 74
  25. The Shreveport Times: Title fights highlight ISCF MMA card on July 14th at Harrah’s Louisiana Downs
  26. The Shreveport Times: UFC fight card is Stacked
  27. The Sacramento Bee: A new rival enters the ring – boxing has taken a hit in popularity from UFC
  28. The Sacramento Bee: Maloof Brothers are cashing in on UFC action at Arco Arena
  29. The Klamath Falls Herald and News (OR): Title bout features Jake Wonser facing surprise opponent Brandon Love
  30. Sportsnet (Canada): Definition of promotion – UFC

Topics: Brazil, Canada, Media, MMA, Pro-Wrestling, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 25 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

25 Responses to “Saturday sound bites: UFC 73 in Sacramento”

  1. John Griffin says:

    Cool, now I just need an iPhone 🙂

  2. 45 Huddle says:

    According to UFC Junkie….

    Mike Swick vs. Chris Leben at the next UFC Fight Night.

    Diego Sanchez vs. Jon Fitch at UFC 76.

  3. Adam Morgan says:

    I thought Swick was dropping to 170?

  4. D. Capitated says:

    I’m sure glad we had the Chris Benoit story to wake us up to the dangers of performance enhancing drugs! My god, what will the Olympics do now that they’ve been revealed to exist by this horrible tragedy? WHAT IF FOOTBALL PLAYERS USED THEM?

  5. Tomer Chen says:

    Why can’t there be an Option 3: The MMA drug use/abuse is about part with the other sports industries?

  6. Tomer Chen says:

    Sorry, par, not part.

  7. D. Capitated says:

    Why can’t there be an Option 3: The MMA drug use/abuse is about part with the other sports industries?

    Great, I agree. So then perhaps we should discuss steroids as if its possible that they were introduced to MMA fighters in other methods than that of pro wrestling? Call me crazy, but I bet Stephan Bonnar took boldenone for reasons other than that he loved the Powers of Pain and found out their success in pro wrestling was largely due to their use of anabolic agents.

  8. Mike says:

    D. Capitated, master of the non-sequitor.

  9. D. Capitated says:

    D. Capitated, master of the non-sequitor.

    -OJ Simpson killed his wife and her boyfriend
    -OJ Simpson played football
    -Johnnie Morton played football
    -Johnnie Morton fought in K1 Dynamite USA and tested positive for steroids

    WHERE DO THE COMPARISONS END? They are inexorably linked.

  10. 45 Huddle says:

    Sokoudjou is getting paid $150,000 to show and $50,000 to win for each of his 4 fights with EliteXC. This according to Dave Meltzer.

    Think about that for a moment. Let’s say EliteXC can get a gate as high as $800,000 like Strikeforce did. And let’s say they have 30,000 PPV Buys at $35 each (they get half). That is about $1.3 Million of revenues before any expenses are taken into consideration. Then consider that the building gets some of the tickets money, the production costs, paying all of the people behind the scenes. and they would be lucky to be left with $600,000. But let’s just use that as an extremely high estimate.

    That means they want to spend 1/3rd of their payroll on a guy that can sell exactly 234 PPV’s. That is INSANE.

  11. Tomer Chen says:

    Sounds like a modern day Harold Smith story where Smith was tossing wads at cash to fighters, far more than could be recouped by gates and TV rights. Hopefully the ending isn’t like Smith’s story (with one of the largest bank embezzlement scandals in history from the Wells Fargo bank using L. Ben Lewis).

  12. klown says:

    D.Capitated,

    You’ve made your point. I, for one, agree. But it’s time to move on.

  13. 45 Huddle says:

    And K-1 Dynamite got an unofficial PPV Buyrate of 30,000. At $35 a pop, and K-1 getting half of that, they took home $525,000. That doesn’t even cover the cost of the fee they paid to EliteXC to use their ability to get on Showtime.

    Of course, they have huge revenue streams in Japan, so they probably still made money on the show. But it is just more proof that no company outside of the UFC can sell on the big scale.

    It will be interesting to see what the Strikeforce PPV did. I would be shocked if it is more hen 50,000….. But it should be more then Bodog, which only got 13,000 for Fedor/Lindland.

  14. klown says:

    Did you see the Bodog advertisement on SI.com? It says:

    Our halftime show is a mop and a pool of blood

  15. 45 Huddle says:

    Anybody watch Klitschko vs. Brewster 2 just now on HBO? I never knew a fight could be so boring. 6 rounds of Klitschko throwing a jab, taking absolutely no chances to try and end the fight, and then the fight is stopped after the 6th round. A fight can’t be more boring then that. I know Emanuel Steward is a fantastic coach, but he sure knows how to take any fun out of the Heavyweight Division (as if there was any there anyways). Between the Klitschko Brothers and also Lennox Lewis, he teaches the most boring style of boxing known to man for the big guys. Absolutely horrible.

  16. Jordan Breen says:

    I didn’t find Brewster-Klitschko boring. But I don’t fight Paulie Malignaggi or Ivan Calderon boring, either.

  17. Xenos says:

    I didn’t think the Klitschko fight was boring at all. Wlad put on a clinic. I should note however that I’m a bit of a boxing purist, so of course I enjoyed it.

  18. chairibofjustice says:

    I find it interesting how little is made of the fact that Tito is quite a bit larger than Rashad Evans.

  19. Preach says:

    Just came back from the Klitschko/Brewster fight here at the Arena in Cologne. Somewhat of a lopsided fight, but not bad or boring at all. I thought that the booing sucked, but it was understandable, the people were just pissed that Brewster gave up. But all in all, not the worst way to spend your birthday 😉

    My predictions for the UFC card:
    Edgar b. Bocek
    Lytle b. Gilliam
    Saraiva b. Gurgel
    Bonnar b. Nickels
    Florian b. Robinson
    Nog b. Herring
    Evans b. Ortiz
    Sherk b. Franca
    Marquardt b. Silva

  20. Tomer Chen says:

    I didn’t find Brewster-Klitschko boring. But I don’t fight Paulie Malignaggi or Ivan Calderon boring, either.

    I agree. Brewster got owned by Klitschko because Klitschko was able to stop him from coming in and punched him repeatedly with a jab. Was it Corrales-Castillo I in terms of excitement? Certainly not. But it was a good technical bout. If you expect crazy blood and guts fights like Corrales-Castillo I or Gatti-Ward I or III, then yeah, you’re probably going to be dissappointed by the fight. But Wlad was certainly more aggressive than, say, Jermain Taylor was against Cory Spinks (Taylor being another Steward fighter).

  21. The Gaijin says:

    I cannot believe the gall of people actually trying to legitimately call this “Stacked” card – truly “stacked” and one of the best ppv line-ups ever.

    UFC seems to have given up even trying to hype cards up and put on some huge cards – I guess its pretty clear to them that the UFC name sells and they don’t need to go out like PRIDE and put on dream cards every ppv just because they have the roster depth to do so.

    – Herring vs. Nog III, other than Ortiz vs. Shamrock has any other rivalry had three fights where one guy always won decisively and it was a basic lock going into the 3rd?

    – Silva vs. Marquardt???? please – this does not excite me in any way whatsoever…Silva plows through him or we have the possibility of seeing a super sweet l’n’p

    – Sherk vs. Franca – I am actually excited at the possibility of this being a nice little war, but at the same time there’s a probably even realer possibility of it being a Sherk “ground control”-fest

    – Ortiz vs. Evans – full marks to these two for doing their best to make people care about a nothing fight. Ortiz is pretty much exposed as being a protected poster boy who has totally made his name being mma’s “pro wrestler bad-guy”, who’s really out of his league with A-level guys. I guess on one end if Evans wins it shoots him up the ladder, but with UFC getting all of PRIDE’s LHWs I really don’t want to see UFC try to stuff Evans down our throats as a legit belt contender with all of these other top 10 guys waiting in queue for a shot at the top.

    I’m the biggest of the big mma fan but colour me unimpressed about this so-called “stacked” UFC 73.

  22. 45 Huddle says:

    I don’t expect boxing barn burners everytime out.

    However, when one fighter is obviously outmatched, and the other fighter does absolutely nothing to try and finish the fight, that is boring to watch. It is like Sylvia vs. Monson.

  23. chairibofjustice says:

    “Ortiz vs. Evans – full marks to these two for doing their best to make people care about a nothing fight. Ortiz is pretty much exposed as being a protected poster boy who has totally made his name being mma’s “pro wrestler bad-guy”, who’s really out of his league with A-level guys.”

    You don’t have to like the card, I could care less. But the statement above is just plain silly.

  24. Tomer Chen says:

    I don’t expect boxing barn burners everytime out.

    However, when one fighter is obviously outmatched, and the other fighter does absolutely nothing to try and finish the fight, that is boring to watch. It is like Sylvia vs. Monson.

    I don’t see how Wlad wasn’t trying to finish the fight. He was staggering Brewster numerous times in the last 2 rounds with his hard rights and he was landing a ridiculous amount of jabs (Brewster was essentially using his face as a shield). He was fighting a slowly pace because the last time he fought Brewster, he blew his load in about 4 rounds when he went all out.

    Sylvia vs. Monson was essentially Sylvia dancing around Monson, stopping the takedowns and hitting Monson a few times to cause a raspberry/cut. Wlad was obviously blasting Brewster, but at a much slower pace than in his first fight so he could break him down. And considering Brewster quit on his stool (he said “OK” to throwing in the towel to Buddy McGirt), he did just that. The apt comparison of a fight to Sylvia vs. Monson would be the aforementioned Taylor vs. Spinks where there was maybe 1-2 moments of ‘real’ action in the whole contest. Klitschko-Brewster was significantly better than that.

  25. The Gaijin says:

    “You don’t have to like the card, I could care less. But the statement above is just plain silly.”

    Tell me what exactly is “silly” about that statement….I think it’s 100% true. What a crap fight too.

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