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Tuesday headlines: Rickson Gracie is returning
By Zach Arnold | August 28, 2007
There is a brand new SEC filing by Pro Elite. Any new information in the filing? I did notice this gem on page 15:
The material weaknesses noted were: (1) the Company inadequately maintained accounting records, (2) accounting policies and procedures were not formally documented, and (3) the accounting department did not have sufficient technical accounting knowledge. The significant deficiency noted was that an affiliate did not provide adequate accounting for funds advanced by the Company.
The Company has begun taking remediation steps to enhance its internal control over financial reporting and reduce control deficiencies. We are actively working to eliminate the internal control weaknesses and deficiency noted by: bringing all accounting and record maintenance in-house, implementing Microsoft Dynamics/Great Plains accounting software; formally documenting accounting policies and procedures; creating centralized, on-site document repositories and maintenance; and hiring personnel in the accounting and legal departments.
On page 25 of the filing, it states that future reality show contestants for the Mark Burnett-produced show-to-be will sign dual contracts (one with Pro Elite or PE affiliates and one with Burnett’s production company). Furthermore, Burnett will have the full rights to the reality TV show footage (if produced). The last lines of the paragraph states:
Subject to specified exceptions, JMBP and Mark Burnett have agreed to exclusivity with respect to mixed martial arts programming. The term of the agreement extends until the earlier of the end of the term of the license agreement with the broadcast of the series or the failure of JMBP to enter into such a license agreement by June 15, 2008.
Additionally, on page 27, the filing states that Pro Elite currently has 37 full-time employees. On page 31, the filing claims that Gary Shaw receives a $10,000 USD per-month housing allowance in the Los Angeles area.
Jeff Comstock points out that Entremetrix Corp. has bought out Gladiator Challenge. Pro Elite had previously shown interesting in buying out the independent MMA organization. You can track Entremetrix’s stock price right here and view their SEC filings right here.
Rickson Gracie is going to fight on New Year’s Eve. Only one promotion runs on NYE now – K-1.
K-1 announced Choi Hong-Man vs. Mighty Mo for their 9/29 Seoul, South Korea World GP event.
Hiro Yokoi is retiring.
There’s a report claiming that famous Japanese pro-wrestling writer Fumi Saito has stomach cancer.
You remember Dana White’s comments a couple of days ago when he said that the Japan fans don’t want another MMA organization? I’m sure you do. To punctuate the hilarity of that statement, Tetsuya Sano at Swimming Eye posted a review of a Samurai TV program from a couple of days ago in Japan. The theme of the program? The future of PRIDE. It included a panel of Japanese MMA writers and man-on-the-street interviews with hardcore MMA fans talking about how much they missed PRIDE in Japan. More details in Japanese at NHB News.
The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that 11,000 tickets have been sold for UFC 77 in October.
There were a couple of interesting items in Dan Henderson’s UFCJunkie.com chat on Monday night. First, Henderson admitted that he had no idea that PRIDE was ever in financial trouble. Second, he (like Rampage Jackson) says he likes the PRIDE rules better than the Unified rules. I guess Dana White can’t change the leopard’s spots on the PRIDE fighters.
Sanity has prevailed in K-1, as the promotion announced Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Katsuyori Shibata for their 9/17 Yokohama Arena event. Not only is this a safer fight for Sakuraba (as opposed to facing Denis Kang), it’s also a fight that will draw more money in Japan.
Luke Thomas says everything I would say about the Renato Babalu/David Heath choke situation, only in more eloquent terms. Of course, Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports (who called critics of his column about GSP last week “keyboard warriors”) is now calling Renato Babalu “Babaloser.” I’m sure the late Giant Baba is thrilled with the spelling of that nickname. Furthermore, Kevin is usually a good columnist but that latest Yahoo Sports article is… it is what it is. Mike Freeman of CBS Sportsline might be jealous of that new column, actually…
I still don’t understand why hardcore MMA fans and online writers continue to demand that Fedor sign with UFC. The rhetoric that ‘he needs UFC, UFC doesn’t need him’ is silly. Fighting is a business and Fedor has made plenty of money being the best heavyweight in the world. He has nothing left to prove to anyone. Besides, if I’m his agent, I’d much prefer to get him signed to a deal with K-1 in Japan or work out a series of fights in Russia. That is where Fedor’s marketability lies and where he has the best shot of making money. You don’t see ad agencies like Dentsu clamoring to sign up UFC fighters, do you? The only fighter left that could provide a challenge to Fedor is Josh Barnett, and I have my doubts that we’ll ever see that fight in America. The only location that fight can happen at is in Japan.
Hey, a Gabe Ruediger sighting.
Onto today’s headlines.
- UFC HP: Shogun’s quest – conquer the UFC Light Heavyweight division
- MMA HQ: Roger Huerta’s next fight
- MMA Madness: Measuring fighter performance
- China Combat: Can you guess the next MMA hot spot?
- The Fightworks Podcast: The 2007 BJJ World Mundials – seven interviews
- Eddie Goldman: Radio interview with Pedro Rizzo
- The UNLV Rebel Yell: The tarnished image of MMA
- Javno: Blood sport (meaning money)
- SLAM! Sports: GSP wants winner of Serra/Hughes
- The Chicago Sun-Times (Rick Telander): The ultimate truth – twice
- The Toronto Star: Mixing up martial arts
- RJ Broadhead: Bad, bad Babalu
- The Daily Star (UK): Babalu’s blood money storm
- The Canadian Press: Canadian referee Yves Lavigne climbs the MMA ladder in North America
- The Cincinnati Enquirer: Brazilian Anderson Silva confident heading into rematch
- The Stockton Record (CA): When life struck, S.J. man struck right back
- The Orlando Sentinel: Djimon Hounsou is a star leader, motivator
- Javno: Mirko Cro Cop can conquer UFC
Topics: Canada, HERO's, Japan, K-1, Media, MMA, PRIDE, Pro Elite, UFC, Zach Arnold | 56 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Ref Yves Lavigne rates Big John “the best MMA referee in the world along with Pride’s Yuji Shimata” – isn’t that the psycho PRIDE ref who drags lifeless carcasses to the center of the ring for more pummeling?
What Babalu did not was not criminal…who in their right mind would try and press charges? The fact is that those tow men were fighters and were fighting in a ring. Babalu could have very easily kept the choke on but didn’t…not sure what all that means…but it is not criminal.
It certainly WAS/IS a criminal act.
The fight was OVER as indicated both by the tapout and the referee several times – to the extent that he had to be physically by the referee (quite physically, I might add). This is beyond what is expected in a fight – the fact that they are two fighters, in the ring, involved in a fight does not give a fighter carte blanche to mete out the “street justice” he sees fit to teach the fighter a lesson.
Just as sure as if he had continued to strike a KO’d opponent after the referee called a stop to the fight and then needed to be physically removed. It was a malicious act and would not be considered to be within the normally accepted “rules of engagement”.
Quite certainly he could be charged and convicted.
The problem, of course, is proving the mens rea of such an act. Babalu would likely argue temporary insanity due to the adrenaline rush or what-have-you and it’d be very hard to prove the criminal mind behind such an act. It’s one thing when Panama Lewis was removing padding from gloves or James Butler taking off his gloves and then sucker punching Richard Grant bare fisted after a bout, but latching onto a choke a little too long is a bit more gray to prove criminal intent, even when he said he did it as revenge for the insults (hell, he could use it as part of a temporary insanity defense that he was blinded to right and wrong, yada yada).
I don’t know how insanity defenses work in Nevada, but here in Massachusetts, they fail at about a 75% rate. And when they don’t, typically the person is committed indefinitely, so they might as well be in jail.
I’m pretty certain temporary insanity is a completely different beast than pure legal insanity as temporary suggests that someone ‘blacked out’ for a brief moment where he couldn’t differentiate between right and wrong, whereas completely insane means even at the trial and he can’t tell the difference.