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Any interest in UFC 89?
By Zach Arnold | October 15, 2008
The LA Times has been adding more and more MMA-related blog posts on their web site. A message to LAT: I would be happy to add the RSS feed of MMA-related blog posts onto this site, but your blog RSS feeds only grab ‘all posts’ as opposed to giving the reader the option of only reading ‘MMA posts’.
What we’re reading right now…
- The Daily Star (UK): Chris Leben – I love being the bad guy
- USA Today: Defining moment arrives for brawlers (Bisping and Leben) at UFC 89
- Bloody Elbow: WAMMA officials respond to BE reader questions
- The Nevada Appeal: Boxer Joey Gilbert muses on MMA friends
- MMA Junkie: Brett Rogers vs. Paul Buentello for Elite XC 11/8 Reno event
- Deadspin: Did Lloyd Irvin really thwart a home-invasion robbery?
- Sherdog: Lindland/Babalu may happen at second Affliction show
- MMA Weekly: Top 20 most-watched MMA fights of all time (very detailed article)
Topics: Media, MMA, Pro Elite, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 35 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
No interest… Chris Leben is NOT a UFC Main Eventer. Someone please tell Dana White to stop pushing scrubs from TUF as main event guys. There are a few elite guys that were on those shows but just being on TUF doesn’t mean you’re UFC Main Event worthy.
Rp
I have more interest in this card than probably any other because it isn’t top heavy at all. I don’t buy PPVs for one big fight.
Been a while since UFC has put on a show so I am anxious to see a UFC card and then get all the prelims the day after!!
it’s free in canada in HD. can’t complain
So much for “Arlovski is a proven non draw!” given that instead of over 100,000 people leaving their sets (a whopping 1/50th) the MMA Weekly article says it was 17,000. 17,000 out of over 5 million.
His headlining fight against Josh Barnett had a reported advance of 700 paid for Las Vegas. Let’s think about this for a second…
So has anyone gotten the police report for the Lloyd Irvin incident? I hate to think it was all BS and I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
There was an incident here in Philly involving the very high-profile attention whore, Pat Croce, former co-owner of the Sixers basketball team. Croce, a black belt in TKD, supposedly disarmed a knife wielding homeless man in public. Police never caught the guy. I have it on good authority that it was a PR stunt. Stuff happens like this.
I am very interested. While there are no huge name bouts, several have the potential to be very fun.
A nice card, especially for free.
Thankfully it’s free because this really isn’t worth $40 imho.
And frankly I’m far from sold with the UFC pushing Bisping so far down our throats as an “elite fighter”.
He looked positively mediocre at LHW with a hometown GIFT against Hamill (marginal top-20), loss to Evans (admittedly it’s less damaging given Evans last fight) and barely pulling it out of the fire against an undersized-185 journeyman, with a sub-500 record in Sinosic.
Now he’s dropped to MW and beat two guys that are marginal top 25-30 MW’s (and McCarthy is clearly just riding out paychecks at this point) – albeit he did finish them both. And for his next “big test” on the way to a shot at the belt he’s fighting a guy probably on the margins of top-20?!? Frankly, I’m a little unsure if he can pull it out against a stone handed, iron-chinned slugger/brawler like Leben (who looks very motivated) – though he does have some slick technical skills.
If I’m supposed to buy this guy as the next big thing and contender against A. Silva, which he will probably get a magic shot next UK/Euro show if he wins – colour me unimpressed.
“His headlining fight against Josh Barnett had a reported advance of 700 paid for Las Vegas. Let’s think about this for a second…”
Sounds similar to the draw of UFC main eventers Chris Leben & Anderson Silva fighting in Vegas.
ttt – where in Canada do you live? In the Toronto area I can’t seem to find Spike in HD.
Little publicized free-tv offering vs. so-called main competitor’s second “supercard PPV” event…
Not to mention no one outside of the 10% hardcore audience even knew who this guy was that “was going to get sent back to Japan where the easy fights were”.
Just being silly, dude.
Everyone puts down the TUF winners until they prove them wrong.
He has a 16-1 record and an 88% finish rate. That’s amazingly good, especially in MMA where there are multiple ways to lose, and any off day could set you back with a KO. I’m confident that anyone who wins TUF has massive talent even if they don’t have the necessary skills early on. Nobody’s born a gifted martial artist, but one thing they’re born with is talent and heart.
Talent and heart has been key to all TUF winners. Why do fans continue to doubt them?
I’m in the UK and thr fight I’m interested in is Pavlik v Hopkins. Wanna see Hopkins get destroyed.
I forgot the show was free so I might watch but Leben is nowhere near main event worthy.
Also how does Arlovski get all the heat but your boy Barnett gets none? Arlovski hadn’t been pushed as a heavyweight main eventer since his second loss to Sylvia and it seemed like UFC matchmakers were saddling the guy with non-exciting opponents that didn’t want to stand up with him as a way to devalue him before his contract expired.
Arlovski has not had the full benefit of the UFC promotions machine… Barnett is a zero draw in America, Affliction did zero advertising for the show they were to headline as well as dropping some big names off the show, and they barely advertised the first big show.
Yeah it’s all Arlovski’s fault.
Rp
couldn’t agree more with CagePotato’s article about the latest press release from Kevin Iole…his article about Rachelle Leah is just embarassing. Usually when Kevin Iole is drooling all over somebody like that, it’s Dana. How did he say that UFC ALL ACCESS is Spike’s wildly popular documentary series and a ratings hit????? It has about 3 episodes per year and it airs at midnight or later and every rating report I’ve ever seen for that show has said 0.5 or 0.6 rating. that’s not wildly popular or ratings hit
liger05-
I want Pavlik to win that but stylistically it could be a nightmare if Pavlik can’t keep Hopkins off of him. Hopkins is a holding, headbutting, bore. His fight with Calzaghe was pretty boring and Calzaghe throws a lot. (The fight with Winky Wright was one of the most boring fights I have ever sat through).
Rp
Cyph:
I’d say the argument stands for people not giving due to guys like Diego, Griffin, Joe Daddy and Evans.
But look at the completely diminishing returns they have been getting out of TUF winners there on.
Grove? Bisping beat Josh “Bring the Pain” Haynes in the TUF 3 finals. That speaks to the depth and quality of talent for certain.
TUF 4 brought us Lutter and Serra, which is probably the one glitch as it was a “comeback” for veteran fighters.
TUF 5 gave us two “upper-tier” fighters in Diaz and Maynard.
TUF 6 – Danzig and he couldn’t even get by a gatekeeper in Clay Guida.
TUF 7 – Sadollah who is a LONG way from being a contender.
Let’s not forget that since the time Bisping took down the vaunted “Bring the Pain” Haynes he’s beaten Eric Shaefer, Sinosic, “beaten” Hamill, lost to Evans and then beat McCarthy and Day.
Why is he main eventing and being slotted as a MW contender? Especially when it appears his “qualifier” fight is against Leben.
I’m not saying Bisping is horrible, but he’s being pushed mighty heavily and I just don’t think he is “as advertised”.
Messiah,
Hopefully we’ll see a referee that doesn’t stand for the garbage fighting and won’t let all the clutching-and-grabbing happen.
We saw in PBF vs. Hatton that there are referees who will step in and make fighters fight, but the question is will it happen here?
“TUF 5 gave us two “upper-tier” fighters in Diaz and Maynard.”
TUF 5 gave us maybe 5-7 guys who either are or will be top fighters in their division. It may have been the best season ever for talent.
Hopkins will try and spoil and I can see the 1st 4/5 rounds pavlik struggling to get his shots off but by rounds 8-10 I expect hopkins to be stuggling to keep with the pace and pavlik should then be hitting hopkins with his big right hand.
It doesn’t have any top draws, but it’s got some very good fights. When you break it down, this show is a good UFN. I’m happy as a lark.
With Diego getting scrapped from his fight, in my opinion Bisping vs Leben, on paper, is the most entertaining fight out of everything that has been announced for the remainder of this year. Bisping is aggressive almost to a fault, and Leben loves throwing down. It can headline my free card any day.
Rollo, it’ll be very hard to beat season 1. Half the guys from that show are in the top 10 of their divisions according to Fightmatrix, and one is the undisputed champion of his division after beating two #1 ranked fighters consecutively.
“ttt – where in Canada do you live? In the Toronto area I can’t seem to find Spike in HD.”
Sportsnet has been showing fight nights and Ultimate Fighter recently
oops did more research. i think the last UFC fight night w/ Anderson Silva was on Sportsnet HD
this time around Sportsnet West and Pacific have it on at 3PM their time. otherwise in the East Coast it’s 1 AM. no HD this time, maybe because of the baseball going on. i don’t have spike 🙁
The fact that Junie Browning is STILL not kicked off of The Ultimate Fighter is ridiculous. After all that he had already done (or even without it), jumping over the cage in an aggressive manner, as if to instigate a fight, would have likely been enough to get his license temporarily revoked by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, as Dana White said. But because Keith Kizer wasn’t there in person on that day, it’s like it never happened? That’s a B.S. cop-out. The UFC officials who were there couldn’t have decided that was the final straw to kick Browning off the show? Of course they could have. Anybody who was present to witness the incident couldn’t have later said to Keith Kizer, “Hey, there was an incident at the TUF tapings, I think you need to take a look at this”? Of course they could have.
The producers of TUF and the people who make the decisions on who gets kicked off or doesn’t get kicked off have made abundantly clear, if it hadn’t already been made clear in the previous week’s episode, that they don’t have much faith in the concept of “a bunch of young fighters struggle to earn their way into the TUF finals.” Instead, they are determined to promote, exploit, encourage, and profit from the 1990s reality show concept of “get a bunch of Type-A personalities in a house, get them wasted by stocking the house with an unlimited supply of hard alcohol, and film the ensuing chaos.” You think there’s going to be another incident of some kind involving Junie Browning before the season wraps? Of course there is, and that’s the point. It’s “Trash TV” at this point, and it could be so much better than that.
I started watching TUF again this season hoping the idiocy would be toned down. I was wrong. I agree with Ivan. Junie should be off and the fact that he isn’t makes the show a circus.
Danzig is under size for lightweight.
Diaz and Maynard could be stars.
Anyone who goes undefeated out of a pool of 32 fighters are talented. Nobody said that they will be contender any time soon.
Sadollah is the real deal. And so is Bisping. I have no doubt he will beat Leben.
Lets not forget that Lutter gave Silva the toughest fight in his UFC career. And Serra knocked out GSP.
I don’t know why people still think TUF churn out chumps.
Danzig’s never fought at 145 in spite of having all the opportunities in the world. In fact, he’s actually a pretty big lightweight with a history campaigning around welter even outside of TUF. The problem with Danzig is that he’s simply not very good and came from an enormously weak set of fighters.
I’ll believe Sadollah is the “real deal” when he’s maybe 6-0 or 7-0. We are still at least a year away from that.
Cyph,
I thought I was pretty clear when I stated that Lutter and Serra were “the goods”, but the fact that TUF 4 – The Comeback involved people who were for the most part already proven commodities made it an outlier from all of the other seasons.
And I have no qualms about Diaz and Maynard being talented fighters. The fact is that the show is producing diminishing returns on finding top end fighters and is basically making for cheaper lower card filler with “name” value.
And I’m not saying “Bisping sucks” or that he isn’t a talented fighter, but for Zuffa to shove him down people’s throats as “championship contender” when he hasn’t proven that he is yet is my issue.
Maybe he will prove me wrong in the future, but he’s been more protected than any other fighter in recent memory.
Shaefer, Sinosic (at 205), Hamill was supposed to be an easy hometown win but apparently he didn’t get the memo. And now he’s dropped to MW (after losing a match with Evans that was supposed to determine who was a top end LHW) and has been fed a steady diet of fighters to crush. I’m sure they want to build up some hype for the guy to make him seem like a killer, but since when does a “top” fighter move down in weight and get a plethora of “warm-up” fights?
A guy moving down in weight, and one that’s supposedly as good as Bisping shouldn’t be getting protected and fed guys to beat. He should be jumping in with the Jason MacDonalds, Lutters and Okamis of the division.
I agree that the UFC is taking a slow approach with him. Which may be why he’s getting some of the hate from people, which I think is somewhat justified in that context.
However, I don’t think his record can be criticized. Sinosic is a difficult guy to finish, and has put. His record betrays the fact that he’s fought top competition and loses to the some of the best in the past. Bisping still finished him with a TKO early in the 2nd round. Even the invincible Silva gets in trouble on the ground as well. I don’t know how you could criticize him for that.
The mark of good fighters is not how fast you win, but how you can come back from a bad situation. I remember Silva getting the same criticism from his doubters for having trouble with fighters on the ground.
As for Hamill, he’s a talented guy as well. I have no idea what happened to him with during the Franklin fight, but he’s a rising star. Hamill is a great wrestler, and Bisping is known to be weak with wrestlers.
His fight with Leben, I think is the UFC’s way of seeing where he’s at. This is a dangerous fight for him because Leben is a guy with KO power which he often use to end fights that he clearly was losing.
I can see the criticism of his being protected. But Bisping’s 16-1 record is top notch when you consider that Anderson Silva and most top fighters receive the majority of their losses early in their careers.
Not much interest, but its free.
I am looking forward to the EliteXC Nov 8th show more, really.