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Big media reacts to EXC on CBS ratings news
By Zach Arnold | June 1, 2008
Before we get to more broadsheet reaction to Kimbo Slice, I want to point out a pretty big article at Barron’s tonight. The article is titled A Money Manager’s Ultimate Fight Game and it goes into great detail about Wallid Ismail’s lawsuit claims against Elite XC, along with details about a European hedge-fund manager who is allegedly profiting off of EXC’s recent moves.
- The LA Times: MMA show with Kimbo Slice scores big in Los Angeles
- The Baltimore Sun: EXC’s Saturday Night Fights – pros and cons
- The Rocky Mountain News: The pro-fighting game today is ignorant and vile, unlike the past
- The Newark Star-Ledger: Kimbo’s fame takes a hit
- USA Today: CBS’s black eye
- USA Today: Despite victory, Kimbo Slice has long battle to prove legitimacy
- USA Today: Foray into MMA gives CBS optimism (strongest EXC ratings were in The Sun Belt)
- The Tennessean: Nashville viewers show support for MMA
- The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram: Kimbo Slice won, but was it a win for MMA on CBS?
- The Globe and Mail (Canada): CBS’s Kimbo Slice night lives up to the hopes and fears
- Sherdog: Second EXC event on CBS likely for late Summer/early Fall
- Broadcasting & Cable: The horror of Colossus’s exploding cauliflower ear
- Fox Sports: Kimbo Slice obviously still needs some work
- TV Squad: CBS and the EXC experiment – it kind of sucked
- The Dayton Daily News (OH): Timing of Kimbo’s TKO has some crying fix of show
- The Washington Times: You can rest now, Kimbo
- Variety: CBS punches Saturday ratings – MMA strikes blow for network
- Harrison Goodman (Washington Times): Highlight of dreadful show is James Thompson’s exploding ear
- The Philadelphia Daily News: Nationally-televised MMA card far from a knockout
- The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (NY): Kimbo has disappointing performance, but rest of the matches were fast-paced and entertaining
Topics: Media, MMA, Pro Elite, Zach Arnold | 25 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Gary Shaw is a clown, as the guy at Baltimore Sun said. Gary Shaw is also the same moron who orchestrated the ShoBox Super Middleweight tournament a few years ago, for the IBO supermiddleweight belt. Oh boy! I say that is worse than anything he has done with EliteXC thus far. The actual tournament wasn’t bad (even though the finals ended in a draw and still no rematch) but the celebration of a crappy fringe sanctioning body burns my ass. Oh, and he lambasted Jose Luis Castillo for being over weight for the what should have been third Castillo-Corrales fight. Yes, the walking moon himself, Gary Shaw, lambasted a man for being over weight. Oh, and he complained about the financial losses he suffered from Castillo being over weight, even though it was Corrales who decided not to fight. And Gary Shaw is richer than most of us will ever be. Fucking incredible…
“The Saturday night tape-delayed Elite Extreme Combat event from Newark, N.J., came in with a local overnight rating of 4.7 and a 9 share. The rating peaked at 7.2 the final 15 minutes.”
Pretty crazy.
The final ratings are not in for the EliteXC show and are not expected to be in until Tuesday morning. The articles that are being written now are being written based on the ratings from 9:00 PM to 11:00 PM. The broadcast was from 9:00 PM to 11:49 PM.
Tape-delayed? So this is a report from one of the markets that ran the telethon instead…this is going to be a hard national rating to interpret.
Well, there was a delay for timezones. It aired on a one hour tape delay out here in Albuquerque (although I found a way to watch it live, obviously).
MMA was the talk on KNBR 680 “The Sports Leader” in the Bay Area. The hosts are definitely casual fans as they mentioned Kimbo Slice not having a ground game compared to someone like Cung Le. Furthermore, they said there was another fight this weekend between Urijah Flavor versus Yens Pulver.
There thoughts on EliteXC: they thought it was an early stoppage for Thompson, Thompson was supposed to be a tomato can and exposed Kimbo Slice, and get this, they thought Kimbo Slice tapped in the first round!
This link will get you the full Barron’s article without subscribing:
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/money-managers-ultimate-fight-game/story.aspx?guid={449D74F6-C096-48AD-9617-FA05609233F6}
That link didnt work.
Anyone have the full version of the barron’s article?
thanks
It works. You need to select the whole thing. The link missed the last part after the “=” sign.
Yeah, we had a few people I talked to in the Ohio market saying that a Children’s Network telethon blacked out the CBS/EliteXC event. Very odd considering MMA is pretty big in Ohio.
I can’t even see the entire link, it continues under the right column of the website.
I extracted it from the HTML though:
http://tinyurl.com/55g6x4
Tinyurl is your friend, learn to exploit it.
I almost never post. I prefer not to argue with the ignorant, but this Barron’s article is really something else. I have been a huge fan of wallid’s for a very long time and had the good fortune of playing black jack with him the night before the Pat-Renzo fight in IL. This punk Gary Shaw and this company are absolutely disgusting to me. Not just because of the B.S. they tried to pull off as a MMA event on Sat, but this smoke filled back room stuff is the worst. Corruption killed Pride and basically MMA in Japan (it’s finally starting to come back, [full discloser]I am a bit of a Pride fan boy I guess) I have had reservation’s on this company like I did with M1 and it seems as though I might be right again and it make’s me want to puke. It’s just my 2 cents. Being a business owner I see these things from time to time but to see it happen to a phenomenal person such a Wallid is too much.
I remember when Zach first alerted us to the situation with Wallid and Elite on his podcast. I have no idea how the MMA community, which is still relatively tight, could let this sleazebag promoter get a foothold in MMA.
I remember when Zach first alerted us to the situation with Wallid and Elite on his podcast. I have no idea how the MMA community, which is still relatively tight, could let this sleazebag promoter get a foothold in MMA.
1) lol, I like the idea that there are lots of nonscummy promoters to work with.
2) He got a foothold by spending money. Fighters fight for money. If you want fighters not to fight for him, tell other promoters to spend more money than him.
Q: How could the MMA community let Gary Show get a foothold in MMA?
A: ABZ.
Having at least two independently owned major promotions is good for the sport, it’s good for fighters (increased purses), it’s good for fans (competition to show better cards).
People legitimately believed that with the money that Shaw was ready to spend, plus his experience as a boxing promoter, he could create a promotion that was going to be able to compete effectively with Zuffa’s stable of promotion brands.
In retrospect, he has succeeded in regards to creating the media connections that he needed to make to succeed, he’s got a three tiered system in place with PPVs, premium network, and “free” shows. He’s done an excellent job here.
EliteXC has had more trouble getting top fighters. The appearance of other upstart promotions that seem/seemed to have a lot of money to throw around has made this even more difficult, on top of the problem of having to wait for fighters to leave Zuffa’s promotions, which can be difficult since he doesn’t know how much they make now (so he has no basis for an offer), and there are well known contractual complications for those fighters as well.
The style and brand is a more debatable topic, I think. I’ve been turned off by it, but some people insist that it’s the greatest thing since Pride (which it may well be to them…).
Thanks for the link to that article, it was completely fascinating.
“1) lol, I like the idea that there are lots of nonscummy promoters to work with.”
There are. At least compared to Shaw. LOL all you want.
“Having at least two independently owned major promotions is good for the sport, it’s good for fighters (increased purses), it’s good for fans (competition to show better cards).”
Yes, but they have to be two good promotions. What I find sad is that the worst of all the possible competitors to the UFC has made the most headway. That isn’t good for the sport. Good for the fighters? In the short run. Good for fans? Was that crap Saturday good for fans? It wasn’t good for me.
On the bright side, Affliction is putting together something nice. Too bad it will fail on PPV.
I’m not bullish on Affliction, I don’t understand their business plan at all.
Who would you consider the other former competitors that failed? I wasn’t an IFL fan. WFA was dead before it (re)started. The current Japanese promotions seem to be in their own little world for the most part (i.e., they have very little focus on producing something for the US market, they’re leaving that up to HDNet, who are rapidly gaining that experience, but it’s not a core competency yet).
There are.
The difference is perception. If you really believe there’s a deep difference between Dana White and Gary Shaw in terms of ultimate goal, you’re an ignorant fool. Hell, White’s about as willing to force the world to see hundreds of attempts at reliving Bonnar/Forrest.
You are a fool. Now stop name calling.
The UFC views this as a sport. EliteXC views it as a specticule. Yes, the UFC uses elements to sell fights, but at the end of the day, they are trying to get the best to fight each other. They have proven this time and time again with their matchmaking.
I pretty much agree with you for the most part, but why was Machida fighting Ortiz then?
They aren’t ALWAYS about best vs. best, they are about what sells and best vs. best so long as it sells to some extent.
Because it gives Machida a win over a former champ from the LHW division. It’s a legitimate test of his skills, and should put him within spitting distance of the number one contender spot.
Or, Machida loses, and he goes back to the drawing board. In retrospect at least, it was a good match by Joe. We all kind of missed that in the runup because everyone was talking about how Ortiz was being disrespected.
It was a total middle finger to Tito (re: this guy’s gonna have a bland fight with you and make you look bad) rather than an attempt to “build” Machida for all intents and purposes. But fair enough…I thought they could have had a more relevant fight for Machida based on Tito’s past performances in the last few years and non-entity as a top flight LHW over the last 3-4 years.
A far better example that I just thought of was the pulling of Werdum from his #1 contender’s position and supposed title shot against Nog for Frank Mir on the basis that he beat Brock Lesnar?
From a business standpoint I completely understand it, but let’s not act like Dana and the boys are totally innocent saints on the issue. Asses need to be put in seats and ppvs need to be bought.
“There are. At least compared to Shaw. LOL all you want.”
Would you like to name these alleged non-scummy promoters? Dana doesn’t count, because he is scummy. He’s good at what he does, but he is no saint. ALL promoters have some sort of skeletons in their closets. Some worse than others. Okay, there are good guys out there, but they are the small time promoters. You know why they are small time? Because they are too nice and too sincere to want to screw anybody over, that’s why.
If you want to see nice guys in combat sports and for the sports to be about the sports, go down to the amatuers. It’s ONLY about the sports, because they don’t get paid. That and for a good stepping stone until it’s time to go pro.
The UFC views this as a sport. EliteXC views it as a specticule.
What the hell does this have to do with anything? You solely see the quality of matchmaking as being the determining factor as to whether or not a promoter is “scum”? Ahmet Oner in Germany has made some very interesting fights over the years with Arena Box Promotions. He also jumped in this past weekend to the timekeepers table of a fight he promoted and rang the bell to save his fighter when he was hurt, ending the round halfway through. I guess that doesn’t count though.