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Friday headlines: Heat-up for UFC 75
By Zach Arnold | September 7, 2007
Matt Hughes joins Full Tilt Poker.
Art of War 4 will take place on 10/27 at the Grand Event Center in Tunica, MS.
Movement business-wise for The Fight Network.
Jon Fitch made an appearance on the Any Given Saturday radio show on Thursday (audio here). Plus, a UFC 75 preview (Fitch picked Henderson, Bisping, Mirko, and Alexander to win their fights.) Fightlinker comments.
A case of plagiarism for The Sun newspaper in the UK? If so, Sam will have the backing of CBS Sportsline lawyers. That’s a lot better legal representation than what a normal blogger would have.
Brand new financial filings from Pro Elite (here and here). Any thoughts from our market wizards?
A comment from Gary Shaw on Thursday’s Elite XC conference call:
EliteXC is inclusive and not exclusive, as Nick Diaz, if he was on the call, would tell you. We believe by acquiring all these brands worldwide we become a global brand and we can help build Mixed Martial Arts and the dream can come true for the directors of this company that it becomes an Olympic sport — hopefully as early as 2012. I have always said that when someone holds up a belt and says I’m a world champion, that it truly should mean world champion and not a club champion from someone’s own organization. So we will continue to acquire brands. We’ll continue to let our fighters fight all over the world and we will continue to offer everyone from every organization, wherever they are, an opportunity to fight for our belts.
More fallout from Signature Pharmacy scandal. I still suspect (as previously written) that we could see someone in boxing or MMA who is on that Signature client list (or a client list of an online pharmacy related to Signature).
Onto today’s headlines.
- Mike Coughlin: UFC 75 – the end of PRIDE
- Dave Doyle: Around the octagon – what to watch at UFC 75
- The Guardian (UK): Quinton “Rampage” Jackson – the champion on London ladies, chillaxing with Mickey Mouse, and beating up people for a living
- The Independent (UK): The five-minute interview with Mirko Cro Cop – politician and cage fighter
- The Orange County Register: Rampage-isms – strong, rampage, font, ass, black
- The Memphis Commercial Appeal (TN): UFC star motivated to ‘make history’
- Sprawl ‘n Brawl: Gabe Ruediger, where did you go wrong?
- The News & Star (UK): Doctors won’t rattle my cage
- The New York Post: Miguel Cotto-Shane Mosley takes the cake
- The Oregonian: MMA notebook – Prognosticating the “Super Bowl”
- Gleidson Venga: Alessio Sakara promises a show against Houston Alexander
- The Winnipeg Sun: Cage Wars with brains
- The Globe and Mail (Canada): Fight Network flexing muscle
- MMA on Tap: TKO 30 – Sean Pierson out, Jesse Bongfeldt in
- Irish Boxing: Wayne McCullough in London on UFC business
- British Boxing: London ready for UFC 75
- The Peterborough Evening Telegraph (UK): Fighters hit back at cage bout critics
- Buddy TV: Corey Hill turns down Team Hughes
Topics: Boxing, Canada, Media, MMA, PRIDE, Pro Elite, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 26 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
That whole EliteXC style sounds all nice and dandy… But when push comes to shove, those guys will be pressured into fighting for the EliteXC show. As for the shot at the UFC by calling it a club champion…. Well, those club championships are the most prestigious titles in the business by far…. So obviously something with that strategy works. Not to mention that in the span of 6 months, all of the Top 6 Welterweights are fighting each other, we will have a unified Light Heavyweight Champion, and possibly Fedor in 2008.
Yeah, I read that. There’s an interesting thought here though. By buying up enough of the competition, they may form something that can compete with the UFC. I think it remains to be seen whether this is truly the case, but you have to give them credit for the attempt. (Nice shot though, yes? LOL)
Mosley-Cotto is going to be the tits.
Something about Gary Shaw is just…. weird.
LOL, some of those quotes from the Orange County Registrar are just plain hilarious:
Rampage and PRIDE announcer Mauro Ranallo calling a Kevin Randleman fight:
Ranallo: “Theres a left by Jackson … or make that Randleman, sorry”
Rampage: “Thats alright, all black folks look alike.”
“Quotes courtesy of CBSSports.com and Sam Caplan.”
This is now at the bottom of the article.
If the article made the print edition of The Sun and someone can get Sam or CBS a copy of it without that credit attached, would that not set up a potential legal situation?
“Something about Gary Shaw is just…. weird.”
Agreed. As much as I would like to see a major competitor to the UFC, Showtime/Elite XC just gives me the creeps. If anyone thinks Shaw’s intentions are benevolent, with all that “inclusiveness”talk, is too naive to live in this world.
I agree that Gary Shaw is shady. I don’t trust fat people, period. JK JK JK.. Zach ty for the great news reporting. I can always count on this site.
Shaw is trying to promote with the basis that he will let fighters go fight other events and vice-versa. I think he comes off creepy because he really has no defense against what the UFC is doing. He can sit there and say all day long that they treat their fighters better, they are trying to get MMA into the Olympics, they want to find out who the real champion is in the world, but the UFC is already on the fast track to solidifying who is the best champion in each weight class by grabbing up all the talent.
He’s just trying to not come off as a complete jerk and wanting to get along with the UFC for the simple chance that they may try to promote a fight in conjunction with each other, which probably won’t be happening.
As far as I’m concerned almost all upper-echelon businessmen are weird and creepy. They always come off as if they’ve just put on their human skin for a temporary measure while they’re talking to the camera.
What about Corey Hill? They’ll be another season of the Ultimate Fighter done and gone before he has a pro fight…who is he again?
“As far as I’m concerned almost all upper-echelon businessmen are weird and creepy.”
It’s because they’re part of the reptilian humanoid underworld.
“2. Can Dan Henderson hang at light heavyweight? The Southern California native has traditionally fought at middleweight (welterweight, under Pride classifications). But after fighting up in class and beating Wanderlei Silva for the Pride light heavyweight title in Las Vegas in February, Henderson has committed to staying in the 205-pound weight class. Can Henderson hang with the big boys on a consistent basis?”
What glue is Dave Doyle sniffing?
Henderson has spent the majority of his career fighting guys at 205 or higher (RINGS). Not to mention his fight before Silva was a dominating win over Vitor Belfort, a not to distant UFC LHW champ and contender.
I’m pretty sure he’s shown throughout his entire career he can get up to 205 and hang with the elite. I thought he actually looked bigger than ever in his last fight and it didn’t look like it affected him a bit.
I dont find anything creepy about Gary Shaw.
He has promoted great boxing matches for years.
For years, people complained that MMA was not in the mainstream (I wasn’t one of them). Now an established fight promoter with major ties (Showtime, money backing) comes along with a good attitude and some pretty decent fights to start off. And people are talking shit?? As they say, the grass is always greener.
I don’t think Sam wants to spend the time or the money on something like this. Would probably be more trouble than it’s worth.
“What glue is Dave Doyle sniffing? ”
I thought the same thing- Dave’s comments are exactly what someone would say if they’ve only been watching the sport for two years.
He also came with this Gem:
“The second Quinton “Rampage” Jackson strapped UFC gold around his waist, he magically transformed from “underrated” to “overrated” in the minds of many hardcore MMA fans. Funny how that works.”
Perhaps the problem was that Chuck Liddell was being grossly OVERrated by the mainstream media until that fight.
^ You don’t say…
Also, LOL at Buddytv.com referring to “Robert” Lawler
Oddly, that’s the only part of the story they didn’t lift from us:
http://mmajunkie.com/2007/09/06/corey-hill-opts-out-of-team-hughes-affiliation/
http://www.buddytv.com/articles/ufc/corey-hill-turns-down-team-hug-10483.aspx
i dont see where there is a legal issue between sam and the sun over quotes. its unethical dont get me wrong, but once quotes are public, i can’t see it going anywhere.
Other then to get a good laugh over how much some of these other media outlets suck.
If you dislike UFC, then very soon if you don’t already, you will dislike EliteXC. This is a situation where EliteXC has determined that you must become your enemy to defeat them.
The ONLY way, in my mind, to actually compete with UFC (i.e. the way that you ultimately displace them as the top level fighting organization) is by consolidating most of the small organizations and then running large scale PPV, subscription, and free to cable events on a frequent basis.
However, there is a “third path” between the reckless stupidity of the IFL and the agressive compete-at-all-costs mentality of EliteXC. That path is probably best defined by the organizations in Japan that have made a business of it in a market dominated by Pride, K-1, and massive fly-by-night glam pro wrestling companies. In a word, Pancrase.
But they operate with much smaller costs and much smaller revenues. They pay less money. They have thier TV deal, but they don’t run PPVs, and they aren’t as reliant on DVD revenues either. They live within their means and still manage to put on a good show with some well known names from the bigger organizations.
I don’t know if an organization of that sort could exist on a nationwide level in the US though.
I agree with the multiple posts above about EliteXC. I don’t mind competition, but Gary Shaw is horrible.
I could see if the UFC had a bunch of paper champions and Shaw was dissing them for this. But in all honesty, they don’t. The guy seems to be grasping at straws.
And their whole internet push is pretty bad. These Cage Rage events online are meaningless in the scope of MMA. So is the money spent on these organizations. Think about it this way. EliteXC purchased a company that has been a staple of the UK MMA Scene for years. Yet, on the UFC’s 4th European Show, they are headm shoulders, waist, knees, and ankles above Cage Rage. So what is the point of buying Cage Rage? All this is going to do is put a lot of MMA companies out of business if EliteXC fails (which they have a high probability of doing so).
I know they think they will be getting all of this talent that they can prosper from the ground up. But that just isn’t going to happen either. A young fighter with talent 99 times out of 100 would choose TUF instead of ShoXC as a platform to become a star. So EliteXC can buy companies like Cage Rage and ICON… But the UFC is the company that will come into those local markets and sell out major arenas and perhaps arenas in HI….
It’s The Sun. It’s a disgrace to the UK. 😛
“And their whole internet push is pretty bad. These Cage Rage events online are meaningless in the scope of MMA. ”
Do you ever just enjoy watching fights? Watching Cage Rage live on the computer for free at noon on a Saturday is pretty fuckin awesome.
EliteXC commentators or UFC commentators. Hell, I will pay a fortune for either show but the dream team beats the omg omg omg its over glamour team. I love MMA and I wasn’t dissing Gary Shaw’s business you doochebag from up above me in the comments, read through the lines buddy, he gave off a real insecure vibe in his most recent media bit.
Thanks for all the comments guys, they make a great supplemental read in dire mma fiend times like these 🙂 take care guys
“Do you ever just enjoy watching fights? Watching Cage Rage live on the computer for free at noon on a Saturday is pretty fuckin awesome.”
I have an older Mac, so watching those events are not an option for me.