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Are you buying or selling Tito Ortiz vs. Renato Babalu?
By Zach Arnold | July 29, 2008
Any time you have headlines screaming ‘Pro fighters tasered, beaten in hotel room’, obviously your eyebrows raise up a little bit. One person is currently in a coma. Keep up-to-date on story developments at TKO Xtreme.
Steve Cofield has stirred things up by reporting on Affliction wanting to book Tito Ortiz vs. Renato Babalu for October.
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Topics: Affliction, Brazil, Canada, Media, MMA, Pro Elite, UFC, WEC, Zach Arnold | 18 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
October 2008… This could be the most important month in MMA History. Or at least one of the most important months.
Both Affliction & EliteXC with do or die shows. Things have just gotten very interesting.
By the summer of ’09, one of these companies will be out of business. That is my prediction. The other will be struggling along, but still in business.
As for Ortiz, I assume he would want $1.5 Million to $2.0 Million for a fight. If a PPV costs $40, and Affliction gets half, that means for Ortiz to earn his money back, he needs to get 75k to 100k in PPV Buys. Can his name value due that without the UFC behind it? It’s really hard to say.
I’ve been waiting for this fight for a while. It seemed like a natural under the UFC banner, but they were only interested in protecting Tito and saving him for a big pay-per-view pay offs. Ortiz vs. little-nog would be good, too.
Tito isn’t the PPV draw he once was…his PPV #’s from UFC 59, 61, 66, 73, and 84 are all skewed to hell…he was the headliner in ONE of those events. I don’t want to see Ortiz take Babalu down and lay on him for 3 rounds.
Interesting point, 45. I do think Ortiz, if marketed properly, could bump the PPV buys by 100k.
As a fan, Tito Ortiz vs. Renato Babalu is not overly exciting. Mostly because I can’t remember the last time I was actually excited watching an Ortiz fight.
Fedor vs. Arlovski is an awesome match-up, and I can’t wait for that one. Aside from Barnett, who else could possibly have a chance to beat Fedor?
The WEC show is August 3rd, not August 5th.
Signing Tito Ortiz for whatever he’s asking is a bad deal. Ortiz is not worth 100k without the UFC name. If Affliction were a stock, I’d short it right now.
I disagree with all of Coughlin’s proposed changes.
I agree with the intent of the second one, but I think he’s wrong about which standard to prefer.
Cyph…don’t you have better things to do than troll the comments section of a blog site?
zack,
I think he has a legitimate comment there. Affliction, based on their behavior previously, is going to massively overpay Tito Ortiz with the apparent assumption that some of UFC’s glow is going to rub off on them (with the exception of one early fight, all his events have been under UFC’s banner).
Would you hand the guy 500 to 800k to fight for you? He’s a previous UFC belt-holder…but what has he done for you lately?
This is one fight I’m not sure who to root for. I can see how some might be interested in it, but I sell this one, and make people buy it. As a headliner — no, but as an added treat on the undercard — of course. This is the closest thing we are going to get to a Freak Show fight.
Zack,
Pot, kettle, black?
Update on the first topic from the fight network.
http://www.thefightnetwork.com/news/mma/852/freedom_fight_promoter_expounds_on_postshow_attack
Not sure what’s going on, as I’ve seen reports from guys getting broken bottles shoved into their eyes and in comas to everyone being pretty fine with just a few bruises.
“zack,
I think he has a legitimate comment there.”
How about the comment on the other page about Arlovski having as much drawing power as Tito. Moron or troll?
If you disagree, then post why you disagree. Attacking other people’s opinion does not equal opinions of your own.
If you want to call people morons, I suggest Sherdog.net.
Tito,
Is that you?
Are we talking about Tito right now, or Tito in his prime? Because if it’s the former, I think that’s a legitimate, and admittedly debatable, position.
As far as I deciphered from his comment, he meant Tito wasn’t going to get “more”, as in cash, than Arlovski.
Tito who? Come on guys, nobody really cares about Tito, right? Of all fo the UFC rejects, he’s the worst.
Tito is a puss! He couldn’t win a fight against a legitmate MMA fighter if his life dependeed on it.
The ONLY reason he was ever relevant was in his drawing power vs. Liddel, and he got his ass kicked.
The sad truth is that once Couture spanked him (literally), he became a nobody.
The only thing interesting about Tito is jenna, and she treats him like a B!