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Round 5 MMA beats UFC to the punch on some action figures
By Zach Arnold | November 25, 2008
Denny Burkholder at CBS Sports has a very interesting story about a man named Damon Lau, who was a hardcore PRIDE fan and fan of Japanese MMA toy figures. Mr. Lau and his company, Round 5 MMA, was able to secure licensing rights with fighters like Anderson Silva, Wanderlei Silva, Rich Franklin, Randy Couture, and Sean Sherk for figures before UFC could acquire those licenses.
Which may not be pleasant news to Jakks Pacific, which signed a deal with UFC to produce figures of fighters:
While Round 5 MMA is fighter-friendly, Lau noted that “90 to 95 percent” of their lineup is under exclusive deals, which would legally prohibit most of the UFC fighters under contract to Round 5 MMA from also having a figure in the UFC line by Jakks Pacific. Jakks revealed a wide selection of prototype UFC figures at a recent toy fair, including figure and packaging prototypes for Couture, Jackson, Anderson Silva and Wanderlei Silva.
“All I can say is that there’s a likelihood — well not a likelihood, but there’s a fact — that some of those figurines can not actually go into production,” Lau said. “I’ve seen the prototypes as well, but the rights to those guys have been already signed over to our company.”
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 13 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Ownage!
I wouldn’t want to be in the same office as Dana and Lorenzo tomorrow morning.
LOL!
YAY! A win for the hardcores… in a way.
It’s gonna be very interesting to see what the UFC does about this, considering all the rights that most fighters sign away with their contracts we might have another Zuffa lawsuit on our hands.
Zuffa will probably try and sue 5 Rounds for stealing their intellectual property. It will be something like, “using the term round confuses fans and tricks them into thinking they are buying UFC products because UFC is synonomous with the term round. Round is intellectual property of ZUFFA LLC.”
This is sweet.
According to Sherk’s interview by Caplan, White has been “cool” about the entire situation from the start. This isn’t the first they’ve heard about it. I mean, honestly… Dana White isn’t losing sleep over action figures. Hate to tell ya, but those things aren’t gonna make money in droves.
“Dana White isn’t losing sleep over action figures. Hate to tell ya, but those things aren’t gonna make money in droves.”
What consumer research report are you using to determine how well these action figures will sell?
Also, how are you familiar with Dana White’s sleeping schedule?
Leland, no kidding. People who think this is about anything but the initial license fee need to take a look at those toys. Butt-fuckin’-ugly.
Yea, if you guys think White and Co. wasn’t aware of the situation you must be kidding yourselves.
Those action figures are amazing, very high quality and I love the style. Its good to see a small company succeed in the fight industry, there needs to be more stories like this.
Those Round 5 toys are terrible. I need the Jakks toys so Randy Couture can finally fight my Apollo Creed figure from Rocky.