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Today’s chalkboard (6/26/08)

By Zach Arnold | June 26, 2008

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I have a new article up at MMA Memories discussing the prospects of Urijah Faber vs. Kid Yamamoto happening. It’s a fight that I think we all want to see, but it will be a very complicated process politically to get it booked.

  1. Business Week: Giving UFC its proper due
  2. The Stockton Record (CA): EXC fights to hit Stockton arena – ticket prices from $35 to $700
  3. KSBY 6 Action News: NHL veteran Darcy Hordichuk trains with Chuck Liddell
  4. The Desert Sun (Palm Springs, CA): Chuck Liddell appears at Playboy Mansion boxing event Wednesday night
  5. Kevin Iole (Yahoo Sports): Ben Rothwell can make statement at Affliction
  6. Josh Stein (MMA Opinion): Lyoto Machida – the inevitable contender
  7. 2008 US Presidential Candidate Charles Jay: UFC lobbyists – who will be waiting in the ‘lobby’?
  8. The Honolulu Advertiser: From fight fans to publishers – inside uproar magazine
  9. The Town Times (CT): MMA fulfills nothing more than bloodlust
  10. Fight Metric: Kendall Grove-Evan Tanner and the phantom split decision

Topics: Affliction, K-1, Media, MMA, Pro Elite, UFC, WEC, Zach Arnold | 15 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

15 Responses to “Today’s chalkboard (6/26/08)”

  1. GassedOut says:

    Boxing, for all its inherent flaws and undeniable corruption, is not as barbaric as MMA; the refereeing is not as lenient as MMA.

    Wow, what an uneducated opinion piece written as fact. The authors of the Town Times article are way off the mark and likely don’t understand that a referee stopping a bout versus giving a guy a standing 8 count so he can get beat in the face and head some more is not more lenient. I’m disgusted by the shlock journalism.

  2. D. Capitated says:

    As I’ve said many times, the proponents of MMA who talk about there “not being 8 counts” look utterly foolish when you watch the most active and longest running organization in the sport. T

    The simple fact is that not everyone on earth is going to take to MMA. It is a brutal sport. Regardless of the fact that people hit each other in football games and hipcheck in hocket, there is nothing as viscerally disturbing as Kondo intentionally getting his head stomped by Silva. Some are okay with that, some aren’t.

  3. GassedOut says:

    D, I realize you’re right, but that article still burns me.

  4. cyph says:

    Every MMA hit piece has been written by an insecure boxing fan.

    Boxing, for all its inherent flaws and undeniable corruption, is not as barbaric as MMA; the refereeing is not as lenient as MMA.

    Barbaric in perception or in reality? Brain damage is inherently more barbaric. Being allowed to get up to take more punishment after being pummeled is more barbaric.

    No one can tell me that it is a fair fight when one person is on top of another driving their opponent’s head into the ground; it makes waiting for the referee to call one of these fights painful to watch.

    Tell that to Amir Sadollah and CB Dollaway. Wait, the guy getting pummeled on the ground won?

    This ‘sport’ is supposed to be immensely popular, but where are all of the stars?

    Boxing has had numerous stars over the years; what is MMA’s excuse?

    I can name a dozen MMA stars and only a few boxers. Oh wait, that’s because I’m an MMA fan and not a boxing fan. Funny how that goes?

    I don’t think that MMA is salvageable when it comes to this problem; there are no rules specific enough to limit the injuries and irreparable damage that the fighters absorb, and it doesn’t look like anything will happen too soon.

    Speaking like a noob. I’m amazed that most MMA haters are boxing fans. They try to take the high road by claiming injuries and rules, but in reality, injuries on the body is far better than injuries to the brain. Which unfortunately is what boxing is about. The only way to win is that you beat the other guy so badly in the head that he can no longer get up after an 8 count.

  5. Jeremy (not that Jeremy) says:

    Unfortunately, I think that the door has closed on Kid vs Faber for the time being. HERO’s is dead, and Dream is shacked up with EliteXC and HDNet.

    I could conceive of a “US vs Japan” style super event with all of the champions facing one another, but Dream doesn’t even have champions in all their weight classes yet, and I don’t know how you would even project how Condit and Filho would fare against whoever Dream brings to the table. If WEC guys managed to at least put up entertaining fights, then I think you could definitely count that a feather in their cap, and generally I don’t think that the level of talent in Dream is significantly higher than Pancrase, which I put generally on the same level as WEC. Of course, the champions in any division should be above that standard.

    Plus you have the problem of the two weight classes that the promotions don’t have in common.

    If an EliteXC fighter was a Dream champion, then I think you could definitely kiss such a super event goodbye.

  6. D. Capitated says:

    Being allowed to get up to take more punishment after being pummeled is more barbaric.

    So Shooto was barbaric for 20 years? What about Pancrase for the first half decade or so?

    Honestly, the whole thing doesn’t read like he’s a boxing fan. He barely even mentions it. He mentions the fact that he doesn’t like seeing people on their backs being punched in the face, which makes him like an overwhelming number of people in our society.

  7. Jeremy (not that Jeremy) says:

    I wonder if 5-round fights might be better for Machida than 3-rounders. His opponents always seem really frustrated and he seems to pick things up in the third round often. Adding another two rounds might increase his probability of knockout or submission substantially.

    We don’t really have a metric for what he would do given ten more minutes yet.

  8. Brandt says:

    A five rounder might hurt Machida as well. If he begins to abandon his cautious style, he’ll be subjected to same danger as all of his opponents. If he gets that title shot, we’ll find out. Maybe Griffin will beat Jackson, and then Liddell will beat Griffin, and then it’ll set up a fight between Liddell and Machida. Or not.

    I’d like to see a bunch of guys up against Machida at this point just based off of their strengths to see what would happen. Kinda like putting two aggressive insects in a cage like all those weirdos on YouTube do.

  9. Hawk says:

    A five rounder wouldn’t affect Lyoto’s style at all. Watch him fight. He makes sure he comfortably wins one and two, and then turns up the heat in round three. For him, it’s a backup plan. If he can win the first two rounds, then the fight is his as long as he doesn’t get KO’d in round three. He usually always tries to win the fight in round three because of this.

    Lyoto would do the same thing in a five round fight, the only exception is he’d fight so he wins one, two, AND three and then begins to gradually turn up the heat in four before trying to kill in five. It’s his pattern.

    I think it says a lot that Brandon Vera was willing to fight Wanderlai in five weeks notice, but when Silva wouldn’t do it and Lyoto was proposed, Vera backed out. No one wants to fight Lyoto Machida at this point, and really…who blames them? No one still has come close to beating him. *I* wouldn’t want to fight him if I was in the LHW division.

  10. Mateo says:

    If that guy wants to rip on MMA, have at it. But to than go and defense football, boxing and hockey in the same article is too much.

    Hockey has goons and retribution threats.

    Football has players getting paralyzed, popular quarterbacks retiring from too many concussions and high school players dying each year.

    Boxing has corruption, brain damaged fighters and many deaths from letting one fighter take way too much punishment.

    No high contact sport is guilt-free. I personally don’t like hockey, football or boxing. I do like MMA and I don’t think it’s that brutal. Sure, some of the knock outs can look extreme and bones have been broken, but fighter safety seems to be paramount. While I want a good fight every time I watch, I don’t want any of the fighters to suffer long term damage.

    The veterans so far like Gracie and Shamrock don’t seem to be suffering from any long term injuries or brain damage. Hopefully it remains that way.

    And I don’t have blood lust at all. I want to see two tough fighters have at it, and reach a definitive conclusion, but actual bleeding doesn’t do anything for me.

  11. Ivan Trembow says:

    Looks like a “non-denial” denial from Jared Shaw regarding his father’s future with ProElite.

  12. 45 Huddle says:

    Sadly, Faber/Kid makes zero sense for all parties involved. One company would have to completely give into another. There is no way for anything even ground at this time.

    To me, the big news of the day is how nicely the EliteXC card is shaping up. Shields/Thompson & Silva/Sergei are both really good fights.

  13. Zack says:

    Weren’t Kid’s last two fights at 135?

  14. IceMuncher says:

    If that’s the case, I’d still be just as excited to see Kid fight Torres.

  15. Josh Stein says:

    Ummm… thanks for posting the idiotic article. I’ll be tearing it to pieces shortly, and asking that these morons be fired for writing about things that they have never watched.

    Anyways, I will genuinely thank you for showing my piece on here. This is a good site, and it’s nice to be on a respectable board.

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