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« | Home | »

Sunday news & notes: Money, money, money

By Zach Arnold | October 27, 2007

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Chael Sonnen wants to fight Frank Shamrock.

An interview with Carlos Newton.

Taking a look at UFC’s PPV bonus scale. Plus, two interesting posts (here and here) at the Xtreme Couture MMA site.

I went to the UFC 78 web site and noticed that the folks at Zuffa sure like the blood splattering effect a lot in their UFC 78 video promo.

Russian MMA has a curious report about Aleksander Emelianenko vs. Gilbert Yvel being booked for the first M-1 Global show this February in Chicago. Chicago is the closest big-market city to Monte Cox’s home district, which is the Quad Cities area. Regarding claims in the report about MMA happening in Illinois and in a ring, that’s nothing new (considering that the IFL has ran in the Chicago area before). What makes this news item interesting is that MMA was recently approved for regulation in the state of Illinois, but sanctioning won’t start until July 1st of 2008.

So, what does this mean for M-1? On paper, the theory would be that M-1 can run their Chicago event under the PRIDE-style rules that they claim they will run under and not have to deal with the Unified Rules that an athletic commission would impose on them. It’s a clever tactic on their part. The other big state in which they could pull off a similar tactic is in Massachusetts, where the Boxing Commission right now isn’t regulating MMA events (so you can run with the rules you want to). As you’ll note in the Sun-Times article, UFC wanted the regulation to be passed by January 1st. I’m sure UFC is even more interested now in seeing an amendment to the legislation to speed up the regulation process.

Javier Vazquez wins at ShoXC and then retires afterwards. Plus, Shayna Baszler (friend of Fight Opinion) won her fight in quick fashion. Adam Morgan has a recap of the ShoXC event.

Blaming Tsuyoshi Kohsaka for not allowing Couture vs. Fedor to happen. Outrageously outrageous.

Another new Japanese MMA event.

MMA writers are actually contemplating putting Anderson Silva in the top spot as MMA’s best pound-for-pound fighter.

The NSAC says knees to the head on the ground are not coming any time soon in MMA.

Trying to figure out Andrei Arlovski’s MMA future.

Topics: Japan, M-1, Media, MMA, Pro Elite, UFC, Zach Arnold | 14 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

14 Responses to “Sunday news & notes: Money, money, money”

  1. Ivan Trembow says:

    Regarding that article on MMA Payout, I don’t think that the figures in the Couture bout agreement represent the consistent PPV bonus structure across the board for UFC PPV main-eventers. I think that’s the PPV bonus structure for the top of the top UFC PPV main-eventers.

    Of the reputable sources that have reported on this subject (which include the Wrestling Observer and MMA Payout), the Observer previously reported that there are UFC PPV main-eventers who make somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.50 per PPV buy (these would be the mega-stars like Couture and Liddell), and there are UFC PPV main-eventers who make somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.00 per PPV buy (fighters like Rich Franklin who are very big stars, but not on the level of Couture or Liddell), and there are UFC PPV main-eventers who don’t get any PPV bonus money at all (Keith Jardine’s manager, for example, is on the record saying that Jardine really did have a deal of just $7,000/$7,000).

    Who is the author of those posts on the Xtreme Couture blog? Not the one from Kim Couture (which is obviously written by Kim Couture), but the other ones that don’t have an apparent byline. Who generally updates that blog and composes its posts?

  2. Sam Caplan says:

    Ivan:

    I think it MIGHT be Sean O’Heir (no, not the WWE/K-1 guy) who does PR work for Xtreme Couture… but I’m not 100% positive.

  3. Matthew Watt says:

    Another reason for M-1 having the show in Chicago is that I believe the United Center only costs $75,000 to rent for a nite. That is not very much money to lose for a mult-million dollar venture.

  4. Zack says:

    Interesting that a Couture based website uses the word “retirement” in the URL.

  5. Sandra F says:

    The Xtreme Couture MMA links are now gone …

  6. lynchman says:

    Ivan,

    Did Jardine’s manager say Jardine had a deal for 7+7 or that he rec’d 7+7? I had heard he ended up with just into six figures.

  7. Ivan Trembow says:

    He said he received 7/7 and that if he lost he would have only received 7 (as in $7,000).

  8. Ivan Trembow says:

    Looks like those Xtreme Couture links aren’t working, but the open letter from Randy Couture regarding his relationship with his “Hollywood agent” is also posted at this URL, too.

    Also, I saw this on the BloodyKnux forum. These quotes from a 2001 Dana White interview are hilarious now with the benefit of hindsight:

    The previous UFC president Bob Meyrowitz was “very confrontational”

    also: “You have to understand Lorenzo and I. Lorenzo comes from the Nevada State Athletic Commission, and what do they do? Their job is to look out for fighters. I was a manager, what was my job? To look out for fighters. So we really want to put alot of emphasis on the fighters. The old UFC’s emphasis was the UFC.”

    also: “I called Terry Trebilcock from King of The Cage, Paul Smith from IFC. I talked to Jamie Levin from WEF today. Basically, these guys were all at war with each other and I want to work together. The sport of mixed martial arts is fighting so many other foes, whether it’s cable companies or political foes, that we need to stick together and work to further the sport.”

    also: “Even if I have to co-promote with PRIDE, and we don’t have a problem with co-promoting, they do it in boxing… is [we want] Sakuraba.”

  9. The Gaijin says:

    http://russianmma.blogspot.com/2007/10/bunch-of-insiders-information.html

    Don’t know if anyone caught this while checking out the Russian MMA blog, but a link to another posting caught my eye. I’m not sure how legitimate this site is or how accurate the info is so take it with a grain of salt, but here’s two things I thought were pretty interesting:

    1.) Apparently M-1 is (rumored to be) in negotiations with ESPN; and

    2.) Fedor and Red Devil actually own the rights to footage of all of his PRIDE fights…so M-1 will actually be able to use this to introduce fans to Fedor and hype their events. I wonder what other fighters might have IPR over footage of their fights from PRIDE?

  10. dice says:

    Ivan

    Those quotes of dana’s give hypocrisy a bad name.

    And you are right, they are hysterical in hindsight, but also a little frustrating.(due the fact that people still blindly support everything the guy does or says and refuse to look at his history, and maybe, just maybe think critically about what he says).

  11. RussianMMA says:

    The Gaijin,

    Actually this link was posted here a while ago. I can’t prove the credibility of that information by anything, except by showing my face (in some of the previous posts), explaining my position and showing some of my predictions. I can also hope that this will the a turning point after which my site will be credible enough for the majority of people here. πŸ™‚

    But I can only be sure, that this information came from the M-1 camp and that I didn’t change it. I can’t be 100% sure, that I was told correct information and that this is true.

    2. This also brings another interesting detail: might this be the reason why UFC is not using their Pride footage to promote Pride fighters?..

  12. The Gaijin says:

    RussianMMA,

    Sorry must have missed it the first time around. I certainly wasn’t trying to crap on the credibility of your site, but rather add the caveat that I was unfamiliar with your site and wanted to give the disclaimer on my behalf.

    All the best with running your site.

  13. JThue says:

    M-1 reps actually said they HAD been using PRIDE-rules, but would now, with M-1 Global, adjust towards the unified ones.

  14. RussianMMA says:

    The Gaijin,
    No hard feelings. πŸ™‚ I think that you SHOULD doubt a new source of that kind of information. I wasn’t trying to attack your right, I was only trying to introduce myself and explain a bit about the site.

    JThue,
    When/where did they say that? AFAIK they only said this quostion was raised as one of the most important and that they still have to decide what kind of rules to take.

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