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Tuesday headlines: Catch wrestling fever
By Zach Arnold | July 30, 2007
Kendall Grove prepares for UFC 74.
A message from Antonio Inoki’s MySpace account (there is one for the IGF) on the death of Karl Gotch. Simon Inoki also released a statement. Josh Barnett also posted a statement. John Wood also has a post about Gotch. Here’s some information pertaining to the politics surrounding catch wrestling in the last few years.
Osamu Nishimura (via Joe Malenko in Tampa) revealed to Nikkan Sports that the cause of death for Karl Gotch was due to a cardiovascular aneurysm that ruptured. Nishimura told the press that Gotch was hospitalized a couple of weeks ago in Tampa with an acute pain in the back/waist area and had emergency surgery, but did not recover.
Confirming reports last week in South Korean media, WBC South Korean featherweight champion Chi In-Jin has quit boxing to go to K-1.
HA: And one last question. How widespread a problem do you think steroid use is in MMA, at this point?
OTTO: Honestly, my gut is telling me that it’s not as crazy as people think it is. I think we just happen to be hitting a high point, where…Fortunately our organization hasn’t been hit with that problem yet.
Two more cyclists that participated in this year’s Tour de France race failed drug tests (Sinkewitz & Mayo). We need our loyal European readers to give us a total count of TDF cyclists who have gotten busted this year. There’s also this little news item to think about.
Onto today’s headlines.
- Bloody Elbow: Andrei Arlovski vs. Brandon Vera could be fight-of-the-year
- The Fight Network: Antonio McKee – The Professional
- Sam Caplan: KJ Noons could be Nick Diaz’s first opponent in Elite XC
- MMA on Tap: Jeff Joslin eyeing UFC return
- Kevin Eck (Baltimore Sun): Pacman’s impact on TNA
- Fightlinker: Evan Tanner is going crazy
- The Mississauga News (Canada): BJ Penn shows ’em how it’s done
- The Moore American (OK): Fighting back – Wayne Cole to fight for a shot at IFL title
- The Houston Chronicle: Spring’s Todd Moore excels in transition to his MMA career
- Radio (Eddie Goldman): IFL roundtable with Ken Yasuda, Renzo Gracie, Ben Rothwell, Savant Young, and Bas Rutten
- Sprawl ‘n Brawl: Free agent madness
- UFC Mania: Video of Tim Sylvia ‘Dancing with Quad Cities media stars’
- The Canadian Press: Canadians to play role in IFL semi-finals
- Yahoo Sports (Kevin Iole): Hero by day, fighter by night
- The Delphos Herald (OH): MMA gives Lima fans a good show
- Mike Farrow: The politics of MMA in the UK
- MMA Weekly: London calling – saturation point
- The Victorville Daily Press (CA): Local MMA fighters set for King of the Cage
- Media Post: Versus channel to air more MMA
- Businesswire (PR): ProElite.com and Grapplers Quest join forces
- The Anchorage Daily News (AK): Fighting chance – fully-recovered Daniel Leituala wants to try his hand at MMA
- Sherdog: Jovial Frank Shamrock discusses future in and of MMA
Topics: Canada, IFL, Japan, Media, MMA, Pro Elite, Pro-Wrestling, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 13 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Rumor is Noons might be out with a broken hand and the fight is unlikely, at least for Diaz’s first fight.
Who is Diaz going to fight then? I don’t think he can fight Shields because they train on the same team. That has been my biggest problem with EliteXC shows so far. They have some talent: Shields, Silva, Shamrock, etc… But not enough talent to make good fights over and over again.
Arlovski vs. Vera would be a very good fight and we will be able to tell quickly if Vera is the real deal or not.
As for the IFL….. I doubt there will be many steroid positives in the IFL…. At least not for their regular fighters. First, half of their events are in states that don’t test. Second, they fight too often for the fighters to be able to cycle on and off of the roids, making it almost a non-issue. This doesn’t mean I am saying the IFL system is better. I’m not sure what is worse. Fighting 7 times a year or putting roids in your system. Both can be detrimental to a fighters health if done year after year over an extended period of time.
Also it’s a different culture in the IFL.
I have been to their pep talks between the owners and their employees (athletes). There is a very clear communication line there with the athletes. They are told directly that it is a “pure” sport where no drugs will be tolerated. They are also told the harsh penalties of breaking that regulation.
The athletes get it. They will be railroaded if they screw with that policy.
I do not doubt that eventually somebody will test positive in the IFL … and it will be interesting to watch the fireworks fly.
If you have any interest in the UK scene, then make sure you read Mike Farrow and Lee Whitehead’s columns. They both make some very good points.
IFL does hold many events in non-testing states.
In the press call excerpts from Eddie Goldman’s most recent NHB, Otto sounded extremely nervous about the whole situation. I was struck by how much he seemed to be asserting that it was the coaches the coaches the coaches. It was like he knew there was a problem, and was pre-emptively passing the buck.
Their internal steroid testing policy for their “next season” seems to be exactly the kind of non-public don’t ask don’t tell testing that people have complained about in general. I guess we’ll all see, presuming the IFL exists next year.
Eddie Goldman himself, if I’m not mistaken, is opposed in principle to in-house testing by the promoter, because it creates a conflict of interest.
Media Post apparently thinks that the World Combat League is MMA (as opposed to kickboxing).
Trigg vs Shields in Oct @ the Cow Palace
Source: http://mma.tv/tuf/index.cfm?FID=1&a=331&TID=0
Actually Sinkewicz tested positive three weeks ago. It just made the headlines again, since he didn’t want them to open the B-sample, openly admitting that he had been doping (which he initially denied).
Confirmed (so far) are:
– Patrick Sinkewicz (Team T-Mobile)
– Alexander Winokurow (Team Astana)
– Christian Moreni (Équipe Cofidis)
– Iban Mayo (Saunier Duval)
Suspected:
– Alberto Contador (Discovery) Tour Winner !
– Andreas Klöden (Team Astana)
– Michael Rasmussen (Team Rabobank, suspended while being in the lead)
Cyclists on the Tour that admitted to have been doping in the past:
– Erik Zabel (Team Milram)
And that’s just what happened ON the tour. There had been much more just shortly before it started. You had cyclists that were supposed to be on the tour getting busted for steroids (Matthias Kessler, Astana), cyclists admitting that they had been using for years (Jörg Jaksche), Team CSC manager Bjarne Riis (Tour Winner 1996) admitting to have been doping all through his career, Team Astana manager Walter Godefroot (Team Astana) more or less admitting to have been involved in systematic doping…
And i’m sure there’s been much more that somehow didn’t make too much noise…
I’m really looking forward to the Olympics 2008 in Beijing. Wanna bet how clean the games are going to be? I mean, it’s not that the host-country is known for both having the most athletes getting busted for doping, and producing most of the worlds steroids and “performance enhancers”…
I don’t know about Arlovski vs Vera.
It’s a very intriguing matchup. The results interest me a lot.
It has very little chance of being a fight of the year contender with the way Andre has been fighting.
I haven’t seen the pit bull be a pit bull in a long time.
Did everybody see the UFC Fight Night card that was announced? A really solid Fight Night card. I almost wish we could see all 9 fights live.
MAIN CARD
* Spencer Fisher vs. Din Thomas
* Jonathan Goulet vs. Mike Swick
* Junior Assuncao vs. Nate Diaz
* Chris Leben vs. Terry Martin
UNDERCARD
* Nate Quarry vs. Pete Sell
* Leonard Garcia vs. Cole Miler
* Gray Maynard vs. Joe Veres
* Thiago Alves vs. Kuniyoshi Hironaka
* Edilberto Crocota vs. Luke Cummo
Meh – colour me unimpressed with the Pitbull as of late and really overall. He’s got some flashy stand-up *IF* he’s not too gun-shy to stand in there and throw some leather, but at the same time he’s gun-shy b/c he’s got a glass chin.
I think he’s pretty overrated, but I guess he’ll be a good yardstick for where Vera stands overall in the HW division. Anyhow I think he should be moving down to LHW.
“Moving forward, I am putting the b—- slap on guys who get caught using steroids from here on out.”