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Wednesday war room: New fighter ranking system online
By Zach Arnold | October 16, 2007
Danny Hodge, Chairman of the Oklahoma Professional Boxing Commission
Sick of various MMA web sites producing their own Top 10 fighter rankings? Dr. J has come up with a solution that involves audience participation. Check out his new rankings project.
Monte Cox appeared for an interview on Fight Network Radio yesterday (audio here).
Fox News Fight Game has two new videos (here and here) featuring highlights from the HDNet Fights debut event last weekend in Dallas. The second link points to a video interview with Josh Barnett talking about Randy Couture’s departure from UFC. Frank Shamrock also has some thoughts on this particular topic. So does the staff of Five Ounces of Pain, along with the staff at MMA Opinion. More details on the contractual dispute between Couture and UFC are available at Yahoo Sports. I don’t know how the $13-15 million USD figure was calculated in terms of hard numbers. Then again, Kid Nate is not buying what Kevin Iole is selling. Neither does the audience at Five Ounces of Pain.
Adam Smith = real man of genius, and I’m not talking about the famed economist, either.
Here’s a Q & A that Wanderlei Silva did with Yahoo Sports.
Why it would make good business sense for Dan Henderson to fight in UFC’s Middleweight division.
Luke Thomas has big plans for Bloody Elbow.
Tim Sylvia thinks that if he had been 100% healthy going into his fight against Randy Couture, the results might have been different. He has also hired a new boxing coach.
Sports Illustrated recently interviewed Chris Horodecki.
Eric Gargiulo can’t figure out the pro-wrestling/MMA cross-over appeal:
I honestly find nothing much in common whatsoever between pro wrestling and MMA. I think the two are completely different and it would be more rare than common for someone to be a fan of both. Fans of pro wrestling enjoy the show and fans of MMA enjoy the sport.
The irony of it all is that you never see a MMA website, newsletter, or magazine cover pro wrestling. Yet almost every pro wrestling outlet covers MMA. I cover MMA here but I cover everything on phillyburbs.com. If my coverage was exclusive to pro wrestling, other than a Brock Lesnar story I wouldn’t write about it.
The question remains what does pro wrestling have to do with MMA and vice versa? If there was a true connection how come the MMA community laughs at anything pro wrestling? Once again I think the wrestling fans have been worked.
Oleg Maskaev vs. Samuel Peter is set for February 2nd at Madison Square Garden. Meanwhile, Amir Khan is currently on trial in Bolton Crown Court.
A preview of upcoming episodes for The Ultimate Fighter.
Topics: Boxing, HDNet, IFL, Media, MMA, Pro-Wrestling, UFC, Zach Arnold | 63 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I was a pro wrestling fan who switched to MMA. Its not unusual, most pro wrestling fans follow boxing as well. I also used to follow kick boxing. In the 90’s with Severn and Shamrock on WWF programming there was some interest to see where these guys do there thing. Many of the early japanese fighters were pro wrestlers, some still are. There are all sorts of MMA influences with Pro wrestling roots specifically Danny Hodge, Billy Robinson, Antonio Inoki, Gene La Bell etc.
That Pro -Wrestling contributed to MMA at different points in history is undeniable. But the roots of the UFC–which is what started it all–are in Brazil. Someone can go back to different tournaments held all over the world before that, or they can even go back to ancient Greece, but not for our purposes.
Danny Hodge is a legend, an olympian, a gold gloves boxer who competed as a pro, and even at his age he can still squash an apple with one hand. He’s like a real-life John Wayne.
Brazilian vale tudo. Period.
UFC brought the vale tudo/gracie challenge “hybrid”, if you will, to the masses in North America. And that has evolved into what is the UFC and most of mma today.
As I said, I don’t know much about Vale Tudo (well, anything really), but I’ve seen comments on this very site suggesting that Vale Tudo style fighting is what kick-started pro wrestling in Japan in the first place.
Vale Tudo fighting and puroreso had nothing to do with one another until the fateful day that Yoji Anjo decided to go to Brazil and challenge Rickson Gracie in order to legitimize Japanese pro wrestling. Before that, there was nothing but the occasional call out from Takada towards them. The brazilians certainly didn’t give a crap about them.
If you’re going to defend Vale Tudo’s honor, then why not go back to the source?
Vale Tudo didn’t have to go back there: They called everyone out in the entire world, man. Everyone. 5 billion people and they were willing to fight any and all of them.
But the Japanese were already doing an early form of pro MMA or shoot fighting before UFC came around. Sambo has been around forever around the world as has Pankration. Tough man contests were happening all over the world before UFC. The Gracies and UFC didnt start MMA, they helped fine tune it, to think otherwise is to exclude every other influence worldwide and there are plenty. Sakuraba is a perfect example of a fighter from Japan with a Pro Wrestling background, trained by a prowrestler in shoot fighting with no influence from the Gracies or UFC who excelled. BJJ and Vale Tudo aint the be all and end all of MMA.
But the Japanese were already doing an early form of pro MMA or shoot fighting before UFC came around.
Oh, god, one more time, for those unwilling to follow:
But the Brazilians were already doing Vale Tudo bouts before UFC. There are documented bouts of Wallid Ismael’s 2 years before the UFC, and Marco Ruas has a documented bout in *1984*. Rickson Gracie/Zulu I was in 1980. Those two are before Sayama left the UWFi to start Shooto Gym, to say nothing about undocumented events from this time period. We just have no idea how many bouts there were, but they were bare knuckle contests far closer to modern MMA rules than were the catch wrestling organizations in Japan.
Now, remember with the UFC that we are talking about an organization that was founded for the sole principle, essentially, of promoting BJJ, copromoted by the Gracie family, featuring rules they designed and a ring (the Octagon) they chose. Yes, Pancrase had its first show a month earlier. Yes, Shooto Gym had been in existence and done some amateur bouts under a limited rules set. But, UFC 1 happened, people punched each other bare knuckle standing and on the ground and full chokes were allowed (unlike Pancrase) and everything changed. Pancrase and Shooto were forced to change their rulesets either immediately in the case of Shooto (who promoted Japan Vale Tudo) or did so inevitably after losing critical fanbase (Pancrase).
These things happened specifically because of the Gracies. No Gracies, people probably still wear kick pads and hit each other open palm. It is obvious, it is inargurable, etc etc etc. Pro wrestling certainly was important in Japan, but it has never had any effect on MMA here and isn’t remotely as influential as people would like you to believe.
No Gracies no UFC, yes. But no Gracies no MMA? Nah, NHB has been around ALOT longer than the ’80 bouts you cite around the entire world. I repeat The Gracies are important to UFC but UFC isnt the be all and end all of MMA. Throughout this thread I have seen posters use “UFC” instead of “MMA”. Mostly by Dana bashers? Weird, maybe the UFC is doing something right…
No Gracies no UFC, yes. But no Gracies no MMA? Nah, NHB has been around ALOT longer than the ‘80 bouts you cite around the entire world. I repeat The Gracies are important to UFC but UFC isnt the be all and end all of MMA. Throughout this thread I have seen posters use “UFC” instead of “MMA”. Mostly by Dana bashers? Weird, maybe the UFC is doing something right…
Where are these NHB bouts? There was pro wrestling that had shoot elements and boxing with one minute rounds. There were no “NHB” fights on a worldwide basis until there was a UFC. Period.
Correction: No NHB on PPV, TV or Video until there was a UFC. There were so called toughman contests all over the place before the UFC came around. Boxers facing Wrestlers was popular in the 70’s. Wrestlers in carnival tents in the 1900’s taking on all comers…All precursers to what we have today. Limiting MMA influence to the Gracies and the UFC is very narrow minded. And where does Pankration fit in, The Greeks were fighting each other thousands of years ago? Or Sambo? Or Submission grappling? Or Wrestling which has had at least the amount of influence that BJJ has? The shoot wrestling happening in Britain for generations can and should be included as it had a huge influence on later Japanese wrestlers and shoot fighters. With all due respect to the Gracies and the UFC which I think is great, but they do not encompass the entire history of MMA.
Correction: No NHB on PPV, TV or Video until there was a UFC. There were so called toughman contests all over the place before the UFC came around. Boxers facing Wrestlers was popular in the 70’s. Wrestlers in carnival tents in the 1900’s taking on all comers…All precursers to what we have today. Limiting MMA influence to the Gracies and the UFC is very narrow minded.
No, its not, because wrestlers taking on boxers in worked bouts in the 1970s was not NHB or even close to it. It had nothing to do with the rise of the UFC and has no influence on MMA of today in the US and for virtually the entirely world.
And where does Pankration fit in, The Greeks were fighting each other thousands of years ago? Or Sambo? Or Submission grappling? Or Wrestling which has had at least the amount of influence that BJJ has?
Real wrestling is one thing. Sambo as a style is one thing. They matter because they are real sports represented in MMA, unlike pro wrestling. Pankration had been dead for millennia. No one even knows it exists, much less was it a heavy influence on the public when it came to MMA today.
The shoot wrestling happening in Britain for generations can and should be included as it had a huge influence on later Japanese wrestlers and shoot fighters.
And as we’ve already covered, Japan and the US, Brazil, Europe, etc are different worlds. No one is refusing to say that there is no or even little pro wrestling influence in Japan and Japan alone. You have not been reading, you’re simply assuming and making ridiculous claims.
So Quinton Jackson and Josh Barnett are Canadian?
So Quinton Jackson and Josh Barnett are Canadian?
Refer to Gamecritic.com’s argument about Pro Wrestling fans trying to ascribe Muhammad Ali’s popularity to pro wrestling in regards to Quinton Jackson, particularly given that no one under 25 has any idea what character he’s copied from in certain aspects.
As for Barnett, he’s never been a draw in America, he’s not fighting in America right now, he’s not indicative of even 1% of the people professionally fighting in MMA from the US, Canada, Europe, or Brazil, blah blah blah. He’s a guy who tries to push pro wrestling on MMA fans with minimal success, not a guy who’s puro and anime worship is indicative of the people making the million buys for major MMA shows.