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Sunday news review: Law and order
By Zach Arnold | November 25, 2007
The lead story of the day comes to us from Nikkan Sports. The newspaper claims that due to the damage inflicted on K-1’s public image from two recent incidents (Masaaki Miyamoto going to jail for possession of marijuana and Hiromi Amada facing charges for assault), the company is basically reading the riot act to both staff members and fighters. Nikkan Sports claims that there will be ‘crime prevention’ lectures soon for both Japanese fighters and gaijin fighters. The gaijin will be lectured on the importance of various Japanese laws.
Luke Thomas makes the argument in support of Dana White and interim titles. I plan on making the argument against interim titles on the next edition of Fight Opinion Radio.
The other lead story is that Mark Hunt appears to booked for both the Hustle afternoon & Yarennoka MMA evening events on 12/31 at Saitama Super Arena. That’s right – wrestling in the afternoon, MMA fighting in the evening. Look at Hunt dancing with Kintaro Kanemura (Kintaman) & Tetsuhiro Kuroda (Kurodaman), as they are doing the Brief Brothers dance.
Just remember that Hustle’s public stance is that they have no relation to DSE. Yep.
The Fightworks Podcast has an interview with the promoter of the upcoming Super Challenge Grappling event.
Jeff Comstock has this week’s upcoming MMA event schedule.
An interview with Manny Gamburyan.
Results from the HOOK ‘n SHOOT event in Evansville last night.
A thought came to mind when reading about Shonie Carter losing in Edmonton on Friday night… isn’t Carter’s fight the same contest that Hardcore Championship Fighting boss Keith Crawford was complaining about being too one-sided and could result in a serious injury?
A message for the folks at Hardcore Sports Radio – your RSS feed for podcasts of Fight Network Radio doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked in the past (it breaks down constantly) and it isn’t working now. Here’s the current feed they are using, and if you try to embed it into your web page or use it consistently in your RSS browser, over time it breaks down. Please fix the RSS feed, HSR.
Results from today’s HEAT event in Nagoya.
Topics: Brazil, Canada, Japan, K-1, Media, MMA, Pro-Wrestling, UFC, Zach Arnold | 11 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I am willing to make an argument that the UFC Interim Titles are neither positive or negative. They just are. They give us 5 round fights between Stevenson/Penn & Hughes/GSP. And by the middle of 2008, it is likely that those interim titles will no longer exist, and these discussions will be pointless.
You are spot on with the HCF complaining about the Carter fight, that it was too one-sided. Pretty damn funny if you ask me. At least we now know that HCF and MFC have a great working relationship and view each other with the outmost respect 😉
I AGREE WITH 45 HUDDLE.
Seriously though, I can’t wait to hear the argument of what would be a better solution, short- and long-term, than interim, specifically in this latest case. Stripping the champ could be one argument, but saying “you got injured in November instead of August, tough luck, you’re out” in a sport where mid-long term injures are a norm doesn’t make sense to me. And not stripping or interimming(HAH!) leads to the old lesson of holding back big fights in MMA. Will try to stay somewhat open minded until I’ve heard the show though.
Did the Yarennoka ticket on-sale date get pushed back from today to Dec. 2nd, or was it just a pre-sale that began today, OR have I completely misread the whole thing?
Today is the pre-sale. General public is Dec. 2.
All #1 contender matches should be 5 round fights. Also, they should have clear cut #1 contender matches in the first place. Interim titles make no sense because the guy holding the belt isn’t the champion, he is the #1 contender. Having more people wear belts than just the champ dilutes the meaning of the real title.
I don’t mind the Interim title thing, but I agree with Zach on having clear cut #1 Contender Fights that are 5 rounds.
I’m Zack…Zach does the website.
In about 90% of all of my correspondence in the MMA world (e-mails, online), people always call me “Zack” and do it without hesitation. What’s it like to have a twin online MMA brother?
I just wanted to make sure people don’t get us confused. I’ll gladly post under a different name if you’d prefer. I just didn’t want to have something too anonymous like 45 Huddle or anything.
I think in certain circumstances interim titles are fine. It’s obviously something you want to avoid as much as possible, in the Sherk situation I think it is wrong, in the Hughes/GSP I think it is correct.
I’d be shocked if Sherk wasn’t on the gas and if he wasn’t and CA got it wrong they are even more of a disgrace than they look like. That is a scientific situation where a chemical test will determine yes he did or no he didn’t take steroids. So either BJ vs Joe is for the belt or it is to be the #1 contender.
Notwithstanding the fact that UFC’s poor booking decision to hold off on Hughes vs Serra for 8 months so they could make a reality show with diminishing returns, this is a good use of an interim belt. The show was booked around the 170lb title fight. The Welterweight division has been the jewel of the UFC for several years and Serra being out is clogging the whole thing up. A herniated disc stopped Vitali Klitschko’s career dead in its tracks. There is a chance (and I hope it doesn’t happen) that Serra never fights again. There is a better chance that he can’t fight for 6-8months. This way GSP and Hughes fight for the title and will defend the title if Serra isn’t able to come back soon. If we hit April and Serra can’t fight the interim belt becomes the official belt and hopefully UFC does the right thing, they give Serra a tuneup and title shot when he is healthy.
The messy part about interim titles is if you do one and then the interim champ gets beat by the champ and you have a guy in your title history who really shouldn’t have his name associated with a belt. When Randy Couture won the interim belt against Chuck he then beat Tito who held the official belt and things were orderly.
I think UFC should do #1 contender fights. They don’t. That has long been a critique of mine against them. I would also like to see #1 contender and/or good fights be 5 rounders. Boxing has it where there are several different durations fights can be based on the fighters’ experience level and if it is a title fight or not. 3 rounds is good for most fights, but there are some non-title matchups that deserve a longer bout duration.