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How the media covered Affliction: Banned
By Zach Arnold | July 20, 2008
- The Los Angeles Times: There was nothing artificial about Affliction’s first fight card
- Sherdog: Fedor reigns supreme
- USA Today: Fedor rings Sylvia’s bell just 36 seconds into Affliction bout
- Fox Sports (Mark Kriegel): The secret’s out – Fedor’s the best MMA has
- The Oregonian: Oregon House nominee Matt Lindland wins MMA fight
- The Orange County Register: Tim Sylvia never knew what hit him
- The Long Beach Press-Telegram: What will Fedor’s next move be?
- The Press-Enterprise (CA): ‘That is the baddest man on the planet’
- The Quad City Times: Fedor didn’t waste any time
- The Canadian Press: Fedor humbles Tim Sylvia in 36 seconds
Topics: Affliction, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 36 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
That was a beautiful win for Fedor, certainly a better Fedor than the one that showed up for Hunt and Coleman. I will never doubt the man again.
I have a feeling Randy’s not feeling so confident about their potential fight anymore.
I wouldn’t see why that would impact Randy’s confidence at all.
Randy basically did the same thing, crush Tim with an early shot, but just wasn’t able to complete the choke.
Very similar, IMO.
The Fox article said it was a sell out of 13,988. Has anyone else heard that number? Is it coming froma legit source, or is this guy talking out of his ass?
That number was the figure given at the building.
Ahahahahhahah, where is D. Capitated now???
Talking about how Tim Sylvia SHOULD have won???
Where are you???
I posted in the Affliction thread, like, a hour or two ago?
The real story for Affliction will be told over the next month.
First with the paid attendance and gate numbers. Then with the salaries. And lastly, and most importantly, with the PPV Buy numbers (likely provided by Meltzer).
Great show, but I really think they are one and done… Potentially two and done, but nothing else besides that.
If Affliction can remain a going concern after this show, then I would consider it wildly successful and influential on the mma world. All the right fighters came through and won their fights and pretty much every fight was action packed and had an exciting finish.
Maybe it’s the type of show that drew enough “celebrity star power” that we’ll see more investors like Trump jump on the bandwagon. We’ll see soon enough.
I’m glad to see Huddle was able to try and diminish the show asap 🙂
big boi,
other than they both initially caught him with a punch off the bat, that’s about the only similarity. Fedor caught him with a flurry of accurate power shots that dropped him, continued to g’n’p him, took his back and immediately sunk in the hooks and choke. The reason Randy didn’t get the choke is because he only really popped him with the one punch and didn’t further daze him with bunches of punches afterwards.
Read my post on the Affliction thread. I didn’t exactly dminish the show.
As for my comments here, I think they are accurate. The current media stuff means basically nothing.
As someone who was in the building, there was definitely 14,000 people there. How many were comps and give-aways? Probably quite a few…
It was a very raucous crowd as far as Anaheim goes.
Well, thank god that Dana White clarified for all of us that Anderson Silva is still better than Fedor Emelianenko. Now the media can repeat it ad nauseum until it’s accepted “fact,” while also acting like the issue of who is “better” out of those two fighters is more important than who is #1 in each weight class.
Ivan, look on the front page of Yahoo.com right now, it’s basically hugging Fedor’s nuts. And those are the people who have a deal with UFC for pay per view. So I don’t think everyone is rushing to mimic Dana White’s talking points this time.
As pointed out by D. Cap in an earlier thread:
Fedor annihilating consensus top #3-5 HW in 36 seconds >>>> Anderson Silva crushing an at best middle-tier 205lb fighter who was handpicked and tailor made for his LHW debut.
Silva obviously looked awesome and should be commended for taking out a guy in a division 20lbs above him (Sylvia had 40+ pounds and 8 inches on Fedor mind you), but Irvin was picked as a sacrificial lamb for a reason. He was only going to stand and try to bang it out with a guy that was light years better than him in his “bread and butter” skill, granted he had a puncher’s chance, but based on their skillsets and styles it was minimal at best.
After seeing those two fights, to me at least, it only makes the argument a lot closer than a lot of people would have thought for the last year or so.
Mark:
Other than Kevin Iole of course, who has no less than 3 articles on Silva/White in the last 18 hours. 🙂
Did I miss something and Iole was only covering the UFN or can he just not be bothered to watch something other than what Dana tells him to?
Ivan,
Trigg and Glazer did the same damn thing.
We knew that if both guys won, we would hear each proclaimed the P4P #1 as well as enough praise to make us all sick.
Fedor’s win was a bigger deal last night, but Silva has consistantly faced better opponents in the last couple of years.
Both are amazing fighters, you could make a very credible argument for either one being P4P #1.
Regarding attendance: I can’t see how they sold out when Ticketmaster was heavily discounting tickets 24 hours earlier.
One destroys people with his hands, the other destroys people with his submission.
How can you take away Silva’s #1 status through no fault of his own? Everyone knew that Fedor would win through submission because that is Sylvia’s Achilles’ heel. What is Dan Henderson’s weakness? Sylvia has destroyed more rounded fighters.
Sylvia has been beaten by Nogueira, Couture, Mir, Arlovski, and Fedor all in the same manner. Who has destroyed Dan Henderson, Irvin, Marquardt, and Franklin in the way he did?
Fedor is the best heavyweight in the world, that is not in doubt. However, it’s very debatable if he’s the better pound for pound fighter.
It wasn’t as if Fedor was able to sink in the choke because Sylvia was useless on the ground. It was because Sylvia was turtled up on the ground having absorbed a bunch of punches to the face and was barely hanging onto consciousness. How was that comparable to the Noguiera loss?
As someone who was in the building, there was definitely 14,000 people there. How many were comps and give-aways? Probably quite a few…
Just to make a comparison for the ridiculous “it was empty” or “it was dead” or “it was just papered”, the UFC loves to claim sellouts that are visibly anything but. UFC 60 in LA is a good example, in which there were numerous empty seats in spite of 4,000 giveaways. UFC 81 is even better, as the “sold out show” only was at about half capacity.
Listen to Beatdown After The Bell. Jordan Breen says it best when discussing the P4P rankings.
The basic premise is that Fedor has one big win in 3 years, and guys like GSP & Silva have multiple big wins over the last few years, making them higher up on the list.
45 is exactly correct. People were having religious experiences over Pride 33. No need to explain what happened after that.
This is why fans are so often wrong. They think like fans. A successful show has to make money and and a successful promotion has to do it over the long run. Saying you liked the show has nothing to do with success. We don’t even know the numbers yet.
Jeremy— Yes, Trigg and Glazer did the same thing with Fedor, but the difference is that they haven’t shown the ability to actually set the agenda, affect media opinion, and establish new “facts” by repeating them often enough, nor have they been able to effectively change what the conversation is about in the first place.
A lot of the coverage after last night’s events are a typical example of that last point. Much of the Affliction coverage, instead of essentially saying, “Wow, that was impressive,” or, “This removes any doubt that there may have been about Fedor being the #1 heavyweight in the world” instead said things like (paraphrasing), “Wow, that was impressive… but is Fedor better than Anderson Silva?” … as if that is even a relevant issue, as if that has anything to do with how great of a fighter Fedor is and how great of a fighter Anderson is… as if that was even something that anybody ever talked about before it was very deliberately (and very successfully) put on the agenda as a question that needed to be answered (and then was answered with exactly the answer that you’d expect) in the months after the Zuffa-Fedor negotiations broke down. The PR job here has been masterful not only in affecting media opinion but also in changing what the conversation is about in the first place.
45 is exactly correct. People were having religious experiences over Pride 33. No need to explain what happened after that.
Dana’s willingness to pay tens of millions for what was nothing more in the end than a tape library tells me PRIDE had some intrinsic value. If Affliction’s fight promotion was worth that much right now, that would pretty impressive.
Oh, and on a separate note about the business aspects of Saturday night, anyone who thinks that the Affliction event did NOT lose huge amounts of money is fooling themselves (or their investors). The question is whether they’re willing to stick with it over multiple shows in an attempt to eventually turn a profit. The pre-show comments by the Affliction exec (about not being in this business to lose money) make me wonder about that.
I went to the same arena for UFC 59…Affliction was more crowded. Also, at 59 many people left after the Tito/Forrest fight and it was probably only two thirds full by the time Sylvia & Arlovski fought.
It’s almost hilarious that some people are still even debating this.
Fedor is the best in the world. The best in any division. The best of all time. Period.
Virtually every top fighter in the world will admit to this fact (including Randy Couture), but some keyboard warriors still beg to differ! “I’m smarter than you, Mr. Couture! AND I’m a level 70 in World of Warcraft, so suck on THAT!”
Fedor is the best. End of discussion – find a new topic because this is getting silly.
I think the new discussion should be why the UFC is so horrible at negotiating? They’re going to potentially lose out on Fedor/Couture, Fedor/Barnett, Arlivski/Barnett, and a bunch of other huge main event fights.
What does the UFC have to offer in the way of Super Fights in 2008 and into 2009?
Chuck Liddell vs. a bunch of guys from The Ultimate Fighter?
Ultimo Santo:
Chuck/Forrest
Wandy/Forrest
Wandy/Chuck II
Wandy/Rampage III
Rampage/Forrest II
Wandy/Hendo II
If Thiago Silva were to beat Machida, toss him into that mix.
GSP/Penn
GSP/A.Silva: Book the Olympic stadium in Canada and hold this bout…there will be 30K+ on hand.
Hughes/Serra…is there anyone that does not want to see that?
As far as HW goes, the UFC has little to offer until Carwin and Cain become established. Those two will likely be superstars by the end of 09.
Affliction has some very nice match-ups with Barnett, AA, Fedor and maybe Couture. Until the legal stuff is figured out, Couture should not enter into any discussions.
Personally, I am hoping Tito signs. I would love to see Babalu take him apart…Lil Nog also.
Jason Miller would also be a nice addition. Lindland/Miller would be a good match-up. I think Miller would destroy Lindland, but it is a good match-up.
As far as Fedor being the best of all-time, of all weights, it is not as though we have heard “Virtually every top fighter in the world”
Have some said it? Sure, but hardly all. Right now, there are plenty of guys that are saying the same of Anderson as well.
Both guys are superstars and deserve respect and credit. Both are amazing fighters and resepectful, class acts.
Fedor and the UFC could not make a deal…so be it.
I fail to see why either side should be blamed. They could not agree to terms.
A lot of the coverage after last night’s events are a typical example of that last point. Much of the Affliction coverage, instead of essentially saying, “Wow, that was impressive,” or, “This removes any doubt that there may have been about Fedor being the #1 heavyweight in the world” instead said things like (paraphrasing), “Wow, that was impressive… but is Fedor better than Anderson Silva?” … as if that is even a relevant issue, as if that has anything to do with how great of a fighter Fedor is and how great of a fighter Anderson is… as if that was even something that anybody ever talked about before it was very deliberately (and very successfully) put on the agenda as a question that needed to be answered (and then was answered with exactly the answer that you’d expect) in the months after the Zuffa-Fedor negotiations broke down. The PR job here has been masterful not only in affecting media opinion but also in changing what the conversation is about in the first place.
Despite the volume of words used here, you still avoided the point … you essentially said the mainstream media would mouth Dana’s talking points, and they’ve done the exact opposite.
Jeremy,
It’s actually Wand x Hendo III
Wandy/Rampage III
Wandy/Hendo III
These are great fights for hardcore fans, but I don’t know that they are “megafights”. They’re headliners while everyone else is busy.
Also, they better hope Carwin and Velazquez become stars and quick. The heavyweights in UFC suck. Its just gonna be a shame when someone like Carwin gets thrown in over his head given the dearth of talent to prep against.
“I fail to see why either side should be blamed. They could not agree to terms.”
Pride, Affliction, and other organizations all found a way to sign Fedor, and deal with him.
UFC, the biggest and the best, was unable to get him, and worst of all I don’t think they care.
Why?
Because they believe that the UFC name, NOT the fighters, sell PPVs. That people will pay $50 to see ridiculous fights like Chuck Liddell vs. Rashad Evans and Frank Mir vs. Nogueira just because they’re inside UFC’s famed octagon.
And unfortunately, for the most part, they’re right.
“That people will pay $50 to see ridiculous fights like Chuck Liddell vs. Rashad Evans and Frank Mir vs. Nogueira just because they’re inside UFC’s famed octagon”
I think Jardine vs Liddell is the most absurd example. Why pay millions to sign Fedor when you can get guys like Jardine to headline PPVs for $10K? There’s a million guys with shaved heads and tribal tattoos and if they can put on a couple of highlights and Joe Rogan calls them “dangerous” enough times you have a UFC Star on your hands, and you can pay them whatever you want.
Why is everyone assuming that people will pay $45 for Noguiera/Mir? Seriously. I wouldn’t even be shocked to find out the finale ends up on Spike, a la Penn/Pulver II. The UFC has done some really less than great fights and ends up hitting at a bottom of around 325,000 for US events and 200,000 for European events.
Mark— I should have clarified that I meant the MMA media (ie, not print publications). If they haven’t yet, give it time. They will. At the very latest, wait until the next time either one of those two fighters compete and see how the context of the debate is framed.
Also, some of the talking points that I mentioned have already been parroted. Not the talking points from that same night, when there was no choice but to make a small concession in order to maintain any semblance of credibility, but the talking points from all the previous PR spin sessions. Just the fact that the context of the debate coming out of Saturday night was largely, “Yeah, but is Fedor better than Anderson” says a lot about the success of the previous PR campaigns.
Regarding using the UFC name to sell PPV’s, it will work for the casual fans and the hardcores with $ to spend. I’m not paying $54.95 to see this PPV. I’m driving to the nearest bar to pay a $5 cover and buy two beers and some fries.
D. Capitated— The answer to your question can be found in a Lorenzo Fertitta interview with Kevin Iole from last December. He stopped just short of saying that they can put whatever they want in the main event and still have a good buyrate guaranteed by the UFC brand name.