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Monday media marks: More UFC/dog fighting comparisons

By Zach Arnold | August 6, 2007

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I present to you the comments from one Bert Sugar in a recent interview:

Toss Sugar a question and he fires back an opinion. I didn’t have to dig too deeply for his take on Ultimate Fighting.

“I think it appeals to people with their hats turned backwards,” he said. “It’s the Michael Vick chosen sport, I’m sure. It’s like dog-fighting. I see nothing to it. It’s bar fighting without broken beer bottles. Right now, I think Ultimate Fighting is the Chia Pet sport of the moment.”

Sean Sherk asks for an extension from the CSAC. Hermes Franca had his suspension upheld by the CSAC today.

Frank Trigg and trash talking.

I’ll be doing some guest writing over at Bloody Elbow this week, and my posts should be on the front page if Kid Nate and crew don’t forget to get an RSS feed to my posting directory to move posts over. Otherwise, expect delays in the times of when I write posts and when they make it on that site’s main page.

Onto today’s headlines.

  1. UFC HP: A mature Joe Stevenson inches closer to the Lightweight title
  2. The Fight Network: Mayhem Miller says Joe Riggs match-up never offered
  3. Bloody Elbow: MMA history – UFC 1 w/ Pancrase meeting BJJ
  4. Sam Caplan: Review of last night’s WEC show on Versus Network
  5. Yahoo Sports (Kevin Iole): World-beater Filho adds to laurels
  6. The Long Beach Press-Telegram: Paulo Filho’s hands do the talking
  7. CBS Sportsline: Paulo Filho successful during U.S. debut at WEC event
  8. The Houston Chronicle: Condit conquers Larson, Filho looks fantastic at WEC 29
  9. The Canadian Press: Brazilian Filho beats Canadian Joe Doerksen to win WEC title
  10. Fight Report: IFL to be broadcast in Asia
  11. 411 Mania (Larry Csonka): Final WEC 29 event thoughts
  12. MMA HQ: BJ Penn speaks his mind
  13. UFC Junkie: Chicago unlikely to have a UFC event in 2007
  14. Fightlinker: Choi Hong-Man fights for tumors everywhere!
  15. MMA on Tap: Gilbert Aldana’s body recovered from Lake Pleasant
  16. MMA Weekly: Randy Couture is a “complex” fighter
  17. Radio (Eddie Goldman): IFL New Jersey event review
  18. Jason Nowe: DEEP 31 event results and report
  19. The Dayton Daily News: More information on StrikeForce’s event at the Playboy Mansion
  20. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin: Niko Vitale KO caps wild X-1 show
  21. New York Newsday: MMA has wide variety of fans
  22. New York Newsday: Boxing facing challenge from MMA
  23. The Cleveland Plain Dealer: Marisol Roman fought to survive, but now she trains women for cage matches
  24. The London Free Press (Canada): Sam Stout – ring king’s crown on line
  25. The Greeley Tribune (Colorado): Colorado State football team likes training in MMA

Topics: Boxing, IFL, Japan, K-1, Media, MMA, Pancrase, StrikeForce, UFC, WEC, Zach Arnold | 26 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

26 Responses to “Monday media marks: More UFC/dog fighting comparisons”

  1. Ivan Trembow says:

    Isn’t Bert Sugar the guy who is always seen in HBO PPV countdowns wearing a top-hat and holding a cigar? Seriously.

  2. Randy Rowles says:

    Nothing like an MMA-Chia Pet comparison?!?

  3. Tomer Chen says:

    Isn’t Bert Sugar the guy who is always seen in HBO PPV countdowns wearing a top-hat and holding a cigar? Seriously.

    He also wrote the ‘legendary’ Pro Wrestling for Dummies book with Captain Lou Albano, I think. He’s the most overrated Boxing writer/historian/analyst out there, I think.

  4. Fluyid says:

    He’s quite flamboyant.

  5. Jordan Breen says:

    Tomer’s post has tested positive for elevated levels of correct.

  6. Rollo the Cat says:

    Bloody Elbow’s look at the early meeting between Pancrase and BJJ was right on point. The early shootfighting style was all about hanging on an arm or a leg regardless of position. The style really changed once they were exposed to JJ. I never figured out why a style that was rooted in wrestling, would ignore the control aspect and go wild with submissions. Maybe Gotch never taught the wrestling since it wasn’t as pleasing to the crowd as the submissions.

    I also question the assertion that Luta Livre evolved into something akin to catch wrestling. Luta LIvre was BJJ with a no gi emphasis and some muay thai cross training.

  7. Zack says:

    “I know he doesn’t pull the gay crowd like Frank, but that’s no reason not to fight him. ”

    What a classy blog. This will be the first and last time I ever look at it.

    “Since when did MMA become a popularity contest where t-shirt sales matter more than your skill in the ring?”

    MMA has been about selling fights, not finding out who the best fighter in the world is, for a long time now. This goes across the board for all organizations.

  8. 45 Huddle says:

    According to the latest Wrestling Observer, Fedor Emelianenko’s offer by the UFC was for more then Chuck Liddell is making. The fact that Liddell made around $2.5 Million for UFC 66, makes me think Fedor’s management should just shut up and sign the dotted line already.

  9. Kid Nate says:

    Hey Zack, I promoted you to Author so you should be able to frontpage your own posts. Let me know if you have any other troubles.

  10. Ivan Trembow says:

    “According to the latest Wrestling Observer, Fedor Emelianenko’s offer by the UFC was for more then Chuck Liddell is making.”

    That’s not what it said in the Wrestling Observer. It said that Fedor would be offered more GUARANTEED money than Chuck Liddell, which is like $300,000 to $500,000 per fight. It did not say that Fedor would be making more total money. As Dana White says frequently in interviews, there is “secret money” (to use his words from one interview) that nobody else knows about that he pays to some PPV main event fighters.

  11. Jeremy (not that Jeremy) says:

    Which may have something to do with there being no UFC57 DVD in the US yet (royalties to Couture and Liddell).

    I know it’s a little late, but was anyone else bothered by Josh Barnett’s overall tone in the FO interview this week?

    The idea that he somehow has retained basically every title that he’s had vacated because he wasn’t “allowed” to defend it is silly. I also wasn’t impressed with his vacillations on steroids. Basically he spends several minutes arguing that whether fighters do or do not use steroids is not information that either fans nor the media should have access to, since it’s equivalent to watching hotdogs manufactured; then he goes from there to argue that a lot of people might test positive because of various OTC junk; then he argues that many things are entirely legal but might be banned; then he argues that the fighters may know what they’re taking, but they don’t know what’s banned. All the while, he totally avoids manning up and just straight-up admitting that he was juicing and that it’s his own damn fault that he wasn’t able to defend his UFC title.

    Talk about a weasel session.

  12. The Gaijin says:

    I’m getting tired of this Sherk song and dance. He tested TWO HUNDRED PERCENT higher than the already generous allowable ratio (12 vs. 6). If this were under Olympic standards he’d be triple and there’s really no friggin question that he was on something.

    Last I checked if the average person is a 1:1 and you’re testing at 12:1, I don’t even care how in shape you are or how much you’re working out – that’s pretty ridiculous.

  13. Tim Lee says:

    Sean Sherk DID NOT ask for a extension. Sean Sherk’s ATTORNEY asked for a extension, because his attorney has other cases to deal with right now.

  14. The Gaijin says:

    That really wasn’t the POINT of my post.

    He clearly cheated and it’s pretty ridiculous to see him (and Dana) trying to weasel out of this. He pissed a 12:1 when WADA standards are a generous 4:1 and the SC’s standards are even more generous at 6:1 and he was nowhere close meeting either of them.(

  15. The Gaijin says:

    ^ I think me previous post was actually incorrect. He was far higher than two hundred percent of the allowable rate.

    I think more correctly interpreting the measurement, since it is a ratio, is that he was actually something like 6x higher than the allowable amount. My math skills are a little rusty these days…

  16. Zach Arnold says:

    You’re mixing up testosterone with the issue of natural levels of nandrolone. Don’t fret – the mix-up actually underscores your argument.

    On the issue of nandrolone, you’re talking 0.1 (using the urine test) for the average man. This myth Dana’s pushing that “you and I have 6” is laughable (as Fightlinker pointed out) because that would mean 6 is 60 times normal. 12 is 120 times the amount of nandrolone the average person has. Remember, 6 is considered at a level of “genetic freak.”

    Sherdog reported that Sherk also showed elevated levels of testosterone in his drug test. As we’ve learned now, the CSAC uses a basic drug with a 6:1 T/E ratio (4:1 is considered the standard now, the avg. human is 1:1). So, the fact that Sherk is over 6:1 means he has over six times the level of testosterone as the average human. Testosterone is the original base chemical that makes up anabolic steroids.

  17. Luke says:

    “‘I know he doesn’t pull the gay crowd like Frank, but that’s no reason not to fight him. ‘

    What a classy blog. This will be the first and last time I ever look at it.”

    Classy? No, but some very good humor isn’t. Lighten up a little. Their blog is great.

    Classless, yet incredible and intelligent humorists:

    Lenny Bruce
    Richard Pryor
    Doug Stanhope
    Bill Hicks
    Patrice O’Neal

    …to name but a few.

  18. Zack says:

    I’m down for offensive shit…trust me. His blog comes off as more whining than anything. To compare his site to any of those comedians you mentioned is hilarious though.

  19. Zach Arnold says:

    Ivan – 45’s post over at Sherdog with the bad WON info has over 13,000 hits.

  20. Zack says:

    Is that really 45? I saw the same post on the UG.

  21. Zach Arnold says:

    45 Huddles here = UFC Fight Night on Sherdog

  22. Rollo the Cat says:

    When I first saw the Fightlinker blog, I wished them a painful death. After a while I came to understand their ways. Now it is one of my favorite sites. Give it a chance.

  23. Ivan Trembow says:

    “Ivan – 45’s post over at Sherdog with the bad WON info has over 13,000 hits.”

    Well, it’s nice to see how quickly false information spreads, I guess. (shrugs)

    I agree with the general sentiment of what “Jeremy (not that Jeremy)” wrote about Josh Barnett’s appearance on Fight Opinion Radio. I couldn’t help but lose a little bit of respect for him as a result of the tone of his comments about steroids on the radio show.

  24. Preach says:

    Gaijin: “He clearly cheated and it’s pretty ridiculous to see him (and Dana) trying to weasel out of this.”

    My guess is that they wanted an extension in order to get testing on the supplements that Sherk took. Like i wrote a few days ago in another thread here on the page, german scientists discovered that approximately 16% of all supplements from the USA, 11% from Germany and a whopping 24% from the Netherlands are contaminated with steroids and other substances, so that you can test positive without knowingly being on something. And make no mistake, even if he was just using american made supplements – the 16% is a HUGE number in itself. In UFC All Access we saw Sherk taking lots and lots of supplements (they showed 50 in the show, i read elsewhere that he was taking more than a 100 in total). So, theoretically (guessing that he didn’t have the “Kölner Liste” to check the supplements against) 8 of the supplements he was taking in that show would have been contaminated, which in turn could’ve raised his testosterone and nandrolone levels.

    Yes, this is all theoretical, and sure, he could “simply” be on the juice. But after reading about these heavily contaminated supplements and seeing Sherk popping that stuff like crazy, i’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. At least for now.

  25. Grape Knee High says:

    Does the fact that he -hypothetically- ingested contaminated legal supplements change the fact that he had documented, reliable, repeated elevated levels of nandrolone (and testosterone)?

    If the CSAC lets him off on this technicality, that would open doors for fighters simply buying supplements known to be contaminated, not take them but take steroids instead, and then present the supplements if they happen to have cycled off the steroids incorrectly. Either that, or the CSAC will have to maintain a database of supplement brands and lots known to be contaminated.

    That would be ridiculous. Whether Sherk is “guilty” or not is not relevant to me. The only relevant point is if the urine tests were accurate or not. If they were (which it seems they are), then throw the book at him. End of story. Any other outcome opens doors for gaming the rules.

  26. Dedwyre says:

    “I agree with the general sentiment of what “Jeremy (not that Jeremy)” wrote about Josh Barnett’s appearance on Fight Opinion Radio. I couldn’t help but lose a little bit of respect for him as a result of the tone of his comments about steroids on the radio show.”

    I agree. I also take exception to his comments towards the UFC title being a “paper belt,” and his title being the real one. By that logic, the lineage of the UFC title ends with Fedor Emelianenko, as Barnett’s first loss since beating Randy Couture was to Mirko Cro Cop, and then Cro Cop went on to lose to Emelianenko.

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