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Quote of the Day – Marcus Davis
By Zach Arnold | December 8, 2008
My online brother Zack pointed out this gem… From a Eurosport interview:
“I don’t know whether anything like this has ever been done before. The thing that makes this fight different is that both of us, as athletes, really want to do it; we have got together and decided to go out and put everything on the line – for the fans, and because we both love the UFC, who we work for.
“I don’t even care whether I win or lose this fight. It is about more than that. We want to put on a fight that promotes the best of MMA, and the best way for us to do that is for two guys with absolute respect for each other to go into the Octagon and let it all hang out for three rounds.
“I know, and Chris is the same, that no matter whether I win or lose, if we go out there and bang at each other and put on a fight that people remember for a long time, then Dana White isn’t going to fire us from the UFC. If we went out and lay on each other for three rounds, that’s why you get fired.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 20 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
“We’ve both been like, ‘I respect you, respect what you do, but a fight between each other is money in the bank,'” said Davis about a fight with Lytle. “I basically said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it and the first guy to take the other guy down is a pussy.'”
It’s pitiful to hear. He sounds like any broken worker coerced to do the bidding of the boss.
Marcus Davis understands not only the realities of the business, but what about 94% of the sport’s fans want to see. Good for him.
I’m sure there will be people trying to seem “smart” and “pure” that will say all sorts of things about how he is wrong. There’s a reason why the BJJ Mundials and Abu Dhabi aren’t on TV in this country.
The last thing we need are two guys who have an actual professional boxing pedigree (Davis was 17-1 in pro boxing, Lytle 13-1) going into this fight throwing wild haymakers and looping punches. These guys, if their records are any indication, probably know how to box. And yet they are going to give us a C-level toughman contest.
MMA needs to move away from the toughman contest mentality. Having guys like Freddie Roach involving themselves with the sport’s top athletes is exactly what MMA should strive for. Hopefully one day we’re going to see a top boxer and more top kickboxers making a successful transition to MMA. Or vice versa. When you look at ADCC and world BJJ tournaments, you’ll often see guys who will go on to compete in MMA or have already competed in MMA. World champions, olympic champions in wrestling and Judo get into MMA. We need to see that cross-over success in boxing and kick boxing/muay thai.
If he means let it all hang out ala Diaz/Gomi then I’m all for it. If he means let it all hang out like Gonzaga/Jordan….then that sucks.
I’m really getting sick of this mentality that to be a good fighter it means you have to get punched in the face for three rounds. Then again, when you have two fighters who aren’t even remotely close to being top level contenders, I s’pose the only thing they can do to keep their jobs is to go out there and have a glorified Kickboxing match. Just make sure to sign your licensing deals guys. Gotta sell them video games and action figures.
This is the message that the UFC has been sendings its fighters for a long time, and many of them have gotten the message loud and clear. C-level kickboxing: It’s the wave of the future!
so if this is what the fans want, why is K-1 so unpopular? A level v. c level, but c level is more popular, makes no sense to me, any ideas from the peanut gallery?
It’s C-level kickboxing in an MMA setting where it COULD go to the ground at any time, but it’s better if they just “stand and bang.” There’s no reason for that to necessarily be what the fans want, but it is undoubtedly what UFC management wants.
I get so bored during sloppy slugfests. I fast forwarded both Huerta vs Garcia and Gurgel vs Riley, both of which got “fighto of the night” but I found them completely tedious.
“It’s C-level kickboxing in an MMA setting where it COULD go to the ground at any time, but it’s better if they just “stand and bang.””
I think Ivan nailed it. That’s why MMA is popular and kickboxing isn’t. I’ve always wondered myself why kickboxing never gained any traction stateside despite the demand for C-level kickboxing while MMA became so popular.
Also, Zuffa is so much better at marketing to the American audience than FEG is. FEG and DSE don’t understand American fans. Except for the gaijin otaku niche audience. But Zuffa understands the 18-34 white American male demographic. Nu metal, crappy rap music, posterboys that can appeal to their audience, WWE-styled promotion, TV graphics with blood splatters and cage fencing, testosterone-filled Tapout wearing meat-headedness. K-1, Muay Thai or any other type of kickboxing doesn’t appeal to this demographic at all. This is the same demographic that supported WWF and WCW a decade ago. Definitely not a former boxing demographic. Boxing on the other hand appeals to older men and young minority males.
The WWE factor can not be overlooked. I was introduced to UFC and PRIDE through the pro wrestling community. A friend of mine got me into UFC and my Wrestling Observer subscription brought PRIDE and K-1 to my attention. At the time, as a pro wrestling mark, if you told me to go watch kickboxing, I probably wouldn’t be interested. What drew me to the UFC was that I was told, “it’s like wrestling but REAL”. I felt that this concept was intriguing at the time. I think appealing to the pro wrestling crowd and the “As Real As It Gets” marketing is what did it for the UFC.
Wait, so everyone now thinks Marcus Davis is a C-level striker? This isn’t Gurgel saying he’s going to stand and trade, this is a former pro boxer with great hands saying he’s going to be aggressive on his feet and go for a finish. He’s primarily a striker, so more power to him.
How many of you guys would have a problem if Wanderlei Silva had said this? Nobody, right?
If Davis was a ground fighter, I’d share in your sentiments, but that’s just not the case here.
““I know, and Chris is the same, that no matter whether I win or lose, if we go out there and bang at each other and put on a fight that people remember for a long time, then Dana White isn’t going to fire us from the UFC. If we went out and lay on each other for three rounds, that’s why you get fired.”
Replace Dana’s name with Gary Shaw, and replace Chris & Marcus with Robbie Lawler & Scott Smith….the internet would implode.
No, it wouldn’t be a big deal.
You’re also reaching with that analogy. Shaw’s name is tainted with shady business practices, the most relevant one to the topic being standgate. Lytle and Davis have each received a submission of the night bonus from the UFC. They’re both well aware that having a good ground game can be very rewarding financially.
The reality of the situation is, if you want a job in a stacked MMA promotion like the UFC , you have to be one of two things: (A) one of the best fighters in your division, or (B) an exciting fighter. If you’re neither, they’ll drop you for someone that has the potential to do better than you did.
If you’re a borderline top 20 fighter like Davis or Lytle that can’t quite hang with the elite in the division, you better go out there and give a great fight for the fans. It’s the difference between being cut to make way for the new talent and being kept around as an exciting gatekeeper to test that same new talent. Davis seems aware of this, good for him.
The problem is that Lytle/Davis – two professional fighters in the UFC – equate “exciting fight”/”good fight”/”fight the fans want” with “sloppy slugfest”.
If that’s the message to the fans from actual fighters…guess what you’re educating your fans to want/expect/think is good mma?
Exactly.
“Marcus Davis understands not only the realities of the business, but what about 94% of the sport’s fans want to see. Good for him.”
Eddie Goldman is then correct! What 94% of the fans want to see is glorified tough man/junior boxing, wrestlers punching each other, not MMA.
Marcus Davis and Chris Lytle are both experienced though I wouldn’t exactly say good boxers. Definately better than the average schmuck but their records are filled with supercans.
Lytles 13-1 is actually appears much better than Davis’ 17-1 record and he fought several 8 rounders. He even fought the legendary Reggie Strickland, who has one of the most impressive (that hes still alive) records i’ve ever seen, (64-256-15) in 2004. So uh… Go right ahead with the Toughman competition guys. I know Dana labels you guys as incredible boxers… Personally I’ll wait for Kermit Cintron or David Haye to cross over to MMA to watch amazing boxing in the Octogon. I just wanna see Davis and Lytle in a glorified hockey fight.
OH just don’t try and tell me its MMA. Just call it a glorified brawl between 2 C-level strikers and leave it there plz.
I would be interested in knowing who is the most accomplished boxer in MMA. Is it that Japanese boxer guy who fought in K-1? I forget his name now. Nishijima or whatever. Matt Skelton actually challenged for the WBA heavyweight title against Chagaev and lost a UD. He was a top 10 heavyweight boxer not too long ago too. Skelton only did one MMA fight though. He doesn’t count. He’s a K-1 guy. Lil Nog also has a bronze medal at the Pan-Am games in boxing.
So far from what I’ve seen, it appears that almost every single MMA guy whose done pro boxing was pretty much a club fighter who raked wins against tomato cans.
I have big hopes for Andrei Arlovski under Freddie Roach’s tutelage. He won’t be a top 10 heavyweight boxer like Roach claims but Arlovski would do a hell of a lot better than Chris Lytle, Marcus Davis, Alessio Sakara, etc. Even if Matt Skelton started incredibly late in pro boxing, I think his pro kickboxing experience better prepared him for a boxing career than Arlovski’s MMA career. But hey, Arlovski does have Roach and Roach sees something in him apparently. I would love to see MMA fighters really give pro boxing a shot just like they have with olympic wrestling, ADCC and BJJ Mundials.
And I would love to see Kermit Cintron or David Haye cross over though I don’t think they would be serious about it unless the money was right. Cintron would be the more successful of the two since he has collegiate wrestling experience. A former pro boxing champ still in their athletic prime with collegiate wrestling experience and a good mma training camp will be very dangerous. He’d be a monster at 155 but I doubt Dana would make it worthwhile for him financially to compete in MMA.
Perhaps the UFC needs a good boxer to show up the MMA fighters they’re trying to portray as top strikers.