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Doing the hard sell for Ken vs. Frank Shamrock
By Zach Arnold | January 21, 2008
The most interesting item in Steve Sievert’s article is this:
While they have had their differences, the Shamrocks are finding common ground to make their mega-fight a reality — money. Tearing a page from the business playbook of boxing superstar Oscar De La Hoya, Frank will control the purse strings and promote the bout himself.
“All the power in our sport has been with the promoters,” he said. “This is a unique business model. My company will hire the team to promote the fight. We’re currently in our second round of financing and working on finding partners for the pay-per-view and arena.”
This would explain why http://www.bloodbrothersppv.com is registered to Frank Shamrock USA in San Jose. Interesting that neither Strikeforce or Elite XC will be promoting this fight.
Topics: Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 37 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Like Tito Otriz vs. Ken Shamrock or Frank Shamrock vs. Phil Baroni, this will not be a fight to see who’s ‘Top 10’ or worthy of a title match (just to clarify, Huddle 45, and save you a post/complaint)
BUT – it IS an interesting fight, and should generate a lot of interest with the casual fan.
The numbers don’t lie: The Shamrock name puts asses in the seats, and generates PPV dollars. This might not be UFC-big, but if promoted right, it could create a large non-UFC show.
I hope so at least…the MMA world needs it.
Throw some solid ex-UFC or up and coming EliteXC/IFL fighters in the mix and you could bring in some good numbers for sure. I know the UFC recently released some of their TUF fighters and while they aren’t solid guys yet, they can add name recognition – more important. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with this card. He have a ways to go yet though.
This is actually really, really interesting. If Frank can promote his own fight, draw well and make good money this could be a very good thing for the world of MMA.
I predict a lawsuit.
Yeah, this is a good money fight for both guys. It makes sense, really. Frank’s fight with Cung Le is similar in that respect, and I’m sure down the road should someone like Tito Ortiz become available for instance, that will do his bank account wonders as well.
That was reported first at Total MMA
http://total-mma.com/?p=98
and at the Wrestling Observer
http://www.wrestlingobserver.com/wo/news/headlines/default.asp?aID=21861
Funny for you not to give credit where deserved? Hmm…
Maybe because I didn’t see the item about Frank promoting the fight on his own until Steve’s article?
As much as I try to read every web site known to man, sometimes it is legitimately hard to keep up.
What’s with the attitude from commenters this weekend?
By the way, it’s not clear at all that Strikeforce or Elite XC won’t be promoting the fight. If they do, they will promote it in the employ of the Shamrocks, the way Bob Arum worked with De La Hoya when Golden Boy was just starting off.
Zach,
Was a joke mate. Of course you can’t read all the stuff out there. No one could. Just wanted people to be able to find the original stories with a bit more depth.
E-mail me.
I’m looking forward to Cung Le VS Frank Shamrock. That, I feel is competitive and will tell us much about Cung Le.
However, who will pay to see Frank Shamrock destroy his estranged brother? After what Tito Ortiz did to Ken, I shudder to think what Frank would do to him.
I’m pretty sure Frank was in charge of promoting the Pardoe and Cesar fights
Wasn’t Pardoe in the WEC? I could be way off. Cesar fight was promoted by Strikeforce.
How soon until Frank starts releasing negative videos about Ken on his Youtube account?
“I predict a lawsuit.”
Read this comment below, taken straight from the Wrestling Observer:
“After he completes his commitments to Strikeforce and EliteXC he will be ready to make the giant jump from fighter to promoter.”
Once he is done contractually with both of those companies (I don’t know when that is) he is promoting this bout himself. I think it’s great that fighters anymore are having more business sense and promoting fights themselves. I think Frank Shamrock will be more positive to the business than maybe 80% of MMA promoters out there. Hell, De La Hoya is is more positive to the business than probably 90% of boxing promoters out there.
But in the end, I wouldn’t be surprised if Strikeforce works with Shamrock for his fight against his adoptive brother. And like most here I would LOVE to see the Frank Shamrock vs. Cung Le bout.
“Funny for you not to give credit where deserved? Hmm…”
So long as he references the news item where HE FOUND IT, I see no problem with the way it was reported.
Sand in the crotch or what?
So it looks like Frank Shamrock is going to be a promoter/fighter now. Very interesting. That makes sense now why he’s holding off fighting Ken until 2009. He has two contracts to fufill, one with Strikeforce and another with EliteXC. Hopefully the Blood Brothers PPV has a decent undercard of non-UFC talent. It would suck if the undercard blew and Frank made short work of Ken in the main event. That would make for a total waste of money.
I like Frank Shamrock but I wonder if becoming a promoter would change his values. Frank so far has been the “MMA organizations should be about the fighters. Pay the fighters well. Dana White is exploiting the fighters” type of advocate. But with him as a promoter/fighter, would he practice what he preaches and give the fighters a bigger share of the revenue? I don’t think Frank Shamrock has the pockets to do that.
I’m absolutely surprised how many people are basically handing Lesnar the win over Frank Mir already.
As bad as Mir has looked overall since his motorcycle accident, we’re talking about an opponent who has had 1 mma match (69 seconds in total) and hasn’t wrestled (real, NCAA) at a high/competitive level in about 8 years. As much as you cannot deny Lesnar is a genetically gifted athlete, I just have to think that given huge experience advantage Mir has fighting under the bright lights of the octagon (which seems to affect even the most experienced of pros) and variety of opponents he’s faced – people are gobbling up far too much of the Lesnar hype.
But as we’ve seen over the course of 2007, you cannot discount anybody.
Zach,
Sherdog’s reporting Shawn Bias is in the hospital with a “30 percent chance of surviving.”
@ The Gaijin
Although it was his first fight in nearly two years, we have already seen Frank Mir get beat up by someone who had roughly the same amount of MMA experience as Lesnar in Pe de Pano. Mir has looked bad since then, but not quite as bad in that fight so I don’t know how much you can draw from that performance.
One thing we’ve seen historically is that Mir does not like being hit or having the action pressed upon him. I think that if Lesnar starts to gain momentum and pushes Mir around, we could see him fold quite early into the match.
Mir’s biggest problem is conditioning. His standup is decent, his ground game is great, but the dude is just fat. If he gets in shape, he can hang with anybody – he’s not going to beat everybody, but he’ll put up some resistance.
Lesnar is a wild card. Arguing anything else is folly.
Wow, you people are sad. The day that fighters promoting their own fights becomes the norm… Is the day that the sport of MMA officially becomes like boxing and has no hope for the future.
Imagine Roger Federer promoting his own tennis matches instead of doing the Grand Slams. Imagine Tiger Woods promoting his own tour instead of doing the PGA. That is what fighters going on their own is the equivalent of. It is a bad idea. We should be pushing towards one organization with a union…. Not this garbage.
As for the fight… If Shamrock is waiting until 2009, then this fight won’t be taking place in CA or NV…. Because those two athletic commissions will likely say no to this fight due to Shamrock’s age. Which means the chances of making it a big gate have just become that much harder. And even though Ken Shamrock has a name, it will still look like the left over UFC event. And until a fight card outside of the UFC can draw more then 30,000 PPV buys, I will always be a skeptic.
“Imagine Roger Federer promoting his own tennis matches instead of doing the Grand Slams. Imagine Tiger Woods promoting his own tour instead of doing the PGA. That is what fighters going on their own is the equivalent of. It is a bad idea. We should be pushing towards one organization with a union…. Not this garbage.”
Competition is good for the sport. It’s good for the fighters as it improves the fighter market and not only that, it gives organizations the incentive to put on good cards, which benefits the fans.
“As for the fight… If Shamrock is waiting until 2009, then this fight won’t be taking place in CA or NV…. Because those two athletic commissions will likely say no to this fight due to Shamrock’s age. Which means the chances of making it a big gate have just become that much harder. And even though Ken Shamrock has a name, it will still look like the left over UFC event. And until a fight card outside of the UFC can draw more then 30,000 PPV buys, I will always be a skeptic.”
Ken Shamrock is a year younger than Randy Couture. If you don’t feel that a “left over UFC” event with former UFC stars wouldn’t draw, then what would? Would you rather they throw a main event without any star power or something? Oh of course you would, since you clearly have a bias towards non-UFC organizations and want the UFC to have a virtual monopoly on the American MMA market. But hey, I don’t blame you Kevin. You gotta do what you gotta do to get on them Countdown Shows. 🙂
Also I believe PRIDE’s American shows had more than 30,000 PPV buys each.
But the PGA and Tennis Association have no real competition. And things work out perfectly fine for them.
As for Shamrock/Couture comparison… that is a BS one. The two major Athletic Commissions can clearly see that Shamrock is not the athlete that Couture is in terms of fighting against today’s fighters. He hasn’t even been competitive in a fight since June 2004 against Kimo, who is another washed up fighter.
Lastly, it isn’t a UFC bias. It is a bias against segregation of the sport. It just happens that the UFC has the best chance of unifying everything… And that is the most important thing at this point.
“But the PGA and Tennis Association have no real competition. And things work out perfectly fine for them.”
This isn’t Golf or Tennis man. And I don’t know about or care enough about golf or tennis (or at least watching these sports) to really comment. All I know are a few names in each sport like every other average Joe that doesn’t know anything about the sport. The business model that the UFC operates is a hybrid between WWE and Boxing. That business is different from golf or tennis.
Wow – just read an article about Krazy Horse getting arrested again. Gary Shaw better drop this criminal dumb ass asap, he represents everything that you DO NOT want associated with mma fighters, an mma organization and the sport of mma as a whole.
There has been serious discussion before in the US sports media about Woods going out on his own. They’ve also cracked about how PGA events without Woods on them have significantly less appeal to the casual fan.
Ken Shamrock is a year younger than Randy Couture. If you don’t feel that a “left over UFC” event with former UFC stars wouldn’t draw, then what would?
Wow. Did you just compare Ken Shamrock to Randy Couture?
“But the PGA and Tennis Association have no real competition. And things work out perfectly fine for them.
As for Shamrock/Couture comparison… that is a BS one. The two major Athletic Commissions can clearly see that Shamrock is not the athlete that Couture is in terms of fighting against today’s fighters. He hasn’t even been competitive in a fight since June 2004 against Kimo, who is another washed up fighter.”
Opinions and mind-sets like this keep the sport from getting big. Who cares how old Shamrock is? Or how he’s looked in recent fights? State athletic commissions who decided to aby fighters because they SEEM like they can’t fight anymore is BULLSHIT!! If you are gonna ban someone from fighting just becasue they LOOK like they can’t fight anymore, then what’s the point of testing fighters. My stand is this; if a fighter passes his physical, you have to let him/her fight.
And you have the shittiest business acumen EVER!! Seriously, what’s wrong about competition? This is America last I checked. If companies decided to run against UFC or want to get big and become competition, what’s so wrong with that? And if companies go out of business because pompous jackasses like yourself don’t like it that you “oh so great” UFC has competition and you get your way then that means less fighters, less fighting, and fighters will make less money. Is that really what you want?
Oh, and I had to laugh about your comment on one organization with a union. If you believe Dana White and the Fertittas care about the fighters enough that they will start a union and/or a pension plan then I have a beach side resort in Iowa that I want to sell you. So 45, how does Dana White’s dick taste like this season?
Why I just spent this much time on a retarded person like 45 Huddle, I don’t know.
“There has been serious discussion before in the US sports media about Woods going out on his own. They’ve also cracked about how PGA events without Woods on them have significantly less appeal to the casual fan.”
I’m sure it’s good for the sport though. Competition always is. Right Dave2?
I’m sure it’s good for the sport though. Competition always is. Right Dave2?
Go find some golf fans who think Tiger Woods is bad for the sport. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard here, and that says a lot.
But the PGA and Tennis Association have no real competition. And things work out perfectly fine for them.
No one is threatening to leave the PGA because the pay is low, you know. Not only that, you have to understand the pay structure. There’s appearance fees for top name golfers and purses are won in tournament formats with 200 golfers. MMA has two men walk into a cage, both making guaranteed money just to show up with the assumption that they will fight competitively, sometimes with a win bonus.
“I’m sure it’s good for the sport though. Competition always is. Right Dave2?”
It would be good to the sport. You take away Tiger Woods and a lot of the “fans” won’t give a damn about the PGA. This would give the PGA the sense to stop being so bad boring for once. When you don’t have competition, you don’t have the incentive to go that extra mile. Without Tiger, they are nothing. He brought in huge money into the sport. Watching Golf sucks, that’s why Tiger Woods is the only reason casual fans watch golf. Heck I won’t even watch golf period Tiger Woods or not.
“No one is threatening to leave the PGA because the pay is low, you know. Not only that, you have to understand the pay structure. There’s appearance fees for top name golfers and purses are won in tournament formats with 200 golfers. MMA has two men walk into a cage, both making guaranteed money just to show up with the assumption that they will fight competitively, sometimes with a win bonus.”
Exactly. Golf shouldn’t be compared to MMA. Golf is pretty much a leisure hobby and if you are any good, you can get nice prize money. It’s not the same as getting punched in the face. It’s a joke to think MMA fighters should be treated the same as golfers.
Am I the only person who think Chuck’s comments are way out of line?
“Am I the only person who think Chuck’s comments are way out of line?”
Yes. Considering that my post went through administration to see if it is a bad comment, and it wasn’t changed in the least bit, I guess you are the only person who thought my comments were out of line. But wasn’t Huddle’s comments out of line too? He sounded like a God Damn Communist speaking that anti-competition babble. And you have to admit it too, 45 Huddle is a fanboy of the worst kind. He takes MMA way too seriously, he thinks it is an absolute sport that is only about the competition. He thinks MMA fighters have the same thinking-processes and mind sets on sports that Olympians and competitors in the Goodwill games have on sports, which is to win and go for medals and shit. But what is the MAIN point in fighting professionally? To make money, especially doing it if you love it. Even if you aren’t looking to be a multi-millionaire and mega-stardom, but at least make a more than average pay and make a good living for your family. And Huddle wants to take all of that away because of his mindset that ONLY the UFC should exist. It’s a bullshit mind-set, and I can’t stand it.
I’m actually inclined to agree with cyphron.
There’s no need for the ad homenim attacks nor the absolutely deplorable language and lewd comments made by Chuck.
You want to make a valid argument and points on that argument that’s fine. But I feel there’s absolutely no room or use on this site for excessive and unnecessary swearing and despicable language (re: how does Dana’s d*** taste? etc.). It adds absolutely nothing to the argument and shows you don’t have the capability to conduct a debate like a civilized human being.
It was just some humor. I apologize about my comments. I am not so much apologizing to 45 Huddle, but to everyone else and to Zach. My opinions still stand though. But why didn’t Zach edit my comments? He could have, especially because they went through the administration process. I would have had no problems with that.