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Wednesday war room: Do you care about Liddell vs. Silva?

By Zach Arnold | October 23, 2007

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I want to send my regards to Jeff Comstock, who will moving a lot of his columns over to Bloody Elbow. You can check out Jeff’s latest BE article here.

The IFL stock this morning has plunged down to $0.33/share.

The UFC 77 payscale.

Bleacher Report calls Randy Couture a joke. The author continues to fan the flames:

Your all entitled to your opinions but mine still stands. You say those cheesy movies give him lots of money..then I say he’s a sell out. When does it become more about money than fighting? I’ll be here watching the real fighters. And as I stated before goo, Couture certainly has earned the right to pick his last remaining fights, but then why did he decide to fight for the belt, only to leave so soon. I would of liked to see how far he could of gone with it.

Kevin Iole talks about Tim Sylvia:

Sylvia isn’t a highly skilled fighter. The reason he’s a top guy is his size and his sheer power. But he hurts himself, as I said above, by not throwing more. He needs to be active, active, active, active.

UFC announced that Chuck Liddell vs. Wanderlei Silva will happen on 12/29 in Las Vegas.

Sam Caplan ranks MMA’s Top 10 overachievers. I’m not buying Sakuraba as an overachiever.

The process to make MMA legal in Tennessee continues.

There will be an MMA & BJJ seminar on November 3rd to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Jeremy Horn will be holding a seminar in Glenwood, Colorado on Saturday.

Meet Bryant Craven.

Max Kellerman was suspended from ESPN Radio. (Hat tip: Mikeinformer.)

Shad Lierley will be staying with the IFL.

Eddie Goldman was at the M-1 press conference in NYC on Monday and has some audio clips from the event. He also has some suggestions on how to make Fedor a star in America. MMA Analyst has more details about M-1, Fedor, and how Dana White’s mouth played a role in the way things unfolded. Ben Fowlkes has more details about who’s backing M-1. Plus, an interesting press release about White Chocolate Management working with Latin Television.

Adam Swift has another update about UFC fighters allegedly having problems paying fighters they had sponsorship deals with. I’ll ask the question again — how can a company that is the main sponsor of the largest MMA promotion in the world be able to pay UFC but not supposedly be able to pay the fighters it has separate deals with?

Is UFC throwing UK fighters under the bus?

Randy Couture’s press conference will be carried live on HDNet. If anyone manages to record the video of this and put it on YouTube or DailyMotion the same day, it would be much appreciated it.

The CSAC agenda for the 10/31 Los Angeles meeting.

Amir Khan won’t be driving for the next six months.

Team Link in Mass. has Thiago Silva and Paulo Filho in the fold.

The Halifax Daily News stands up for Roger Hollett.

An article about MMA in Kansas.

Topics: Boxing, Canada, HDNet, IFL, M-1, Media, MMA, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 65 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

65 Responses to “Wednesday war room: Do you care about Liddell vs. Silva?”

  1. 45 Huddle says:

    Jeremy,

    Yeah, but what about the IFL… They have XBOX which is a Microsoft Company as their sponsor. Forget the fact that they basically pay to get the logo on the mat, but this means IFL>UFC!!!!

  2. Do they pay to get the logo on the mat? No idea.

    I doubt that Microsoft pays them much though. Xbox likes to have “partners” for certain sorts of things instead of paying for sponsorships directly. Xbox is part of Microsoft, but it’s a funny sort of relationship…they’re surprisingly independent, and financially they’re more or less on their own, they definitely don’t get an infinite supply of cash from the mothership, that’s for sure.

    Similarly, I don’t think THQ pays too much for their ads, which is why I didn’t include them in the list (UFC is running Conan ads on the website, and they had Stuntman Ignition ads on posts at one of the recent numbered shows). THQ is doing the UFC video game, so I presume that cross-promotion is part of their licensing agreement.

  3. yenny says:

    I really don’t understand why ANY FIGHTER couldn’t be a big draw. Casual fans have been sold all sorts of uninteresting matches from the ufc for the last couple years. It’s advertising advertising and more advertising. Lots of Joe Rogan and Dana White on the screen yapping it up on ufc countdown.

    Selling a badass Fedor should not be a problem to anyone with a pulse. Then again, he could tank like Heath Herring, but I doubt it.

  4. I agree, having Fedor as your only big draw isn’t a smart plan. Even if they add Barnett and some other heavyweights, what about the other divisions? They need to pick up a significant amount of talent fairly quickly. It seems to me unless they suddenly pick up 30-40 fighters suddenly, they won’t be doing very well in their PPV sales.

  5. So let’s review: Under Dana White the UFC has intentionally turned away two top 10 fighters in their respective weight class, their HW champion quit because he was unsatisfied with the treatment he was receiving, and White was unable to sign the most coveted free agent in MMA (Getting beat by an organization run by some dude who produces off broadway shows) and as a result denied one of the most anticipated fights in a long time. And we haven’t even gotten to the fact the lightweight division is up in the air or the whole Pride FC fiasco.

    So wait. After that 1000 word rant, the best you could come up is two fighters that the UFC “turned away?” Let’s review…

    When the UFC dropped Lindland, he was widely considered the most boring top ranked fighter around. People seem to forget that Lindland only started to open up a bit more once he got dropped by the UFC. Since Rich Franklin made the UFC much more money than Lindland ever would have, this is actually one of the smarter business moves Zuffa made.

    As for Randy, that’s the *ONE* legitimate complaint about White’s questionable tactics and quite frankly, the more I read about Maxell on Sherdog, the more it sounds like Randy was in collusion with M-1 to circumvent his contract with UFC.

    Again, where’s the mountain of evidence that proves that Dana’s tactics are doing more harm than good?

    The UFC is a mess and it’s status and success right now has a lot more to do with the incompetence of other people than any actual competence or business acumen of White or Zuffa.

    The UFC just signed Brock Lesner who will internationally outdraw Fedor on any given Sunday. Yup, the UFC is in totally shambles. 😉

  6. Michaelthebox says:

    I was going to respond to Bryan’s arguments regarding football, but then I realized he’s a biased fool, so I won’t bother.

    yenny: You’re missing the fact that it is the UFC promoting those uninteresting matches. Very few of the hardcore MMA fans recognize the immense drawing power the UFC has because its the UFC. The UFC is very, very, very good at selling the product of the UFC. And its a damn fine product. It kicks the crap out of Pride, EliteXC, and pretty much every other organization that has ever been out there.

    Advertising for a single event doesn’t cut it, because when they advertise Silva vs. Lutter, they aren’t advertising the fighters, they’re advertising that it is a UFC event. Other organizations can’t do that. M-1 can advertise their brains out, and if they don’t have the UFC name and image to use, they are going to struggle to sell PPVs.

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the sport of MMA is in its infancy. MMA isn’t challenging boxing, it isn’t coming close. The only reason the UFC is doing the numbers they are is because the UFC does a better job with promotion than any other fighting organization or brand in the world.

  7. ilostmydog says:

    Not only that, but they can advertise Fedor as being the baddest man on the planet, greatest heavyweight, etc. But how are they going to show this? They’re going to have go back to Rings to find footage to use.

  8. ThaDrizzla says:

    In regard to the sponsor issue, UFC isn’t hurting at all. I know the situation all too well. How do I know, you ask? Well, I sit in the sponsors seats. And let me tell you, they aren’t empty.

  9. Skwirrl says:

    Eventually the fact that the Fertitta’s were allegedly into shady activity will eventually come out to the mainstream media and ZUFFA will tank on the same reasons that PRIDE did. This will save MMA as a global sport instead of a US based promotional event.

  10. Eventually the fact that the Fertitta’s were allegedly into shady activity will eventually come out to the mainstream media and ZUFFA will tank on the same reasons that PRIDE did. This will save MMA as a global sport instead of a US based promotional event.

    If the Fertitta’s have plenty to hide, why did they do a reality series about one of their casinos? I don’t even know why I bother sometimes.

  11. Preach says:

    Skwirrl, is there anything else that you dream about at night, apart from seeing the UFC crumbling down?

    You can’t blame Frank III and Lorenzo for the sins of their father, Frank jr.
    Or better yet his “alleged” sins, since he was never convicted, because the prosecutors couldn’t find anything to nail him on. And even if they did – do you really think America would care? I don’t think so. They didn’t care for Sinatras, Bennett’s or Martin’s mob ties. And they didn’t care as much for the John Gotti trial than they did for “Growing up Gotti”.

  12. Zack says:

    “But how are they going to show this? They’re going to have go back to Rings to find footage to use.”

    His footage vs Nagata would be pretty solid if Inoki was down. Does anyone know the legalities of using still photos? It’s been used recently in a pretty effective manor.

  13. ilostmydog,

    Good call. UFC owns his “greatest hits” reel.

  14. Bryan says:

    “So wait. After that 1000 word rant, the best you could come up is two fighters that the UFC “turned away?” Let’s review…

    When the UFC dropped Lindland, he was widely considered the most boring top ranked fighter around. People seem to forget that Lindland only started to open up a bit more once he got dropped by the UFC. Since Rich Franklin made the UFC much more money than Lindland ever would have, this is actually one of the smarter business moves Zuffa made.

    As for Randy, that’s the *ONE* legitimate complaint about White’s questionable tactics and quite frankly, the more I read about Maxell on Sherdog, the more it sounds like Randy was in collusion with M-1 to circumvent his contract with UFC.

    Again, where’s the mountain of evidence that proves that Dana’s tactics are doing more harm than good?”

    Where is your refutation of my “rant?” You’ve ignored most of it and then attempted to argue that getting rid of one of the best fighters in the world was a good move. Especially, in light of the lack of competition in the division.

    Maybe you’re right and the guy who has been booed by the UFC retards at every event is so awesome that people will pay hundreds of dollars just to see him beat up scrubs and aren’t interested in actual competition.

    Oh wait, that statement is completely ridiculous and devoid of logic.

    Kind of like your baseless assertion that Randy Couture was colluding with M-1 all along. Any intuition you gain from reading a Sherdog article is not evidence of anything.

    I also have to laugh at your contention that Brock Lesnar is going to be a huge draw. Half of the MMA fans on the internet hate him because he’s a wrestler, half of the wrestling fans hate him because he walked on wrestling organizations and he hasn’t been on WWF tv in like 5 years. Huge draw, right there. Oh wait…

    UFC’s main rival in MMA went bankrupt this year and the UFC purchased them. The UFC was on the verge of becoming the NFL of MMA, they were going to simultaneously run the two most powerful MMA organizations in the world have a veritable monopoly on all of the greatest fighters, put on some of the greatest MMA fights in history and give us the most anticipated fight in a long time.

    Instead, the UFC botched the Price situation horribly, so that went out the window. They failed to sign elite fighters and allowed them into other organizations, could not even negotiate a contract with one guy who would have enabled them to put one of the most anticipated fights in history. More than that they lost their HW champion.

    In the UFC, the HW division is up in the air, the MW division is up in the air since the only legitimate challenger on the roster is fighting at LHW, their LW division is up in the air since their champion is invited in a steroid scandal, their LHW champion is injured and cannot fight until next year. Rashad Evans and Bisping are headlining a ppv, in the Post-Pride era.

    Look at that and think of what the UFC could have accomplished if it had competent leadership. Yeah, White is doing a great job.

  15. Blocker says:

    M1 will have 1 or 2 PPV type events and then disappear as will Fedor…I sincerly believe the Fedor/Couture era is done and we are about to see a new evolution in HW fighters. Bring on 2008.

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