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Video: Dana White on the Road to UFC 93
By Zach Arnold | January 14, 2009
The promotion claims that the 1/31 show featuring GSP vs. BJ Penn is sold out. The hype TV specials for that fight start airing tonight on Spike TV.
Update: Here are some comments from Dana White on the upcoming UFC Prime Time hype TV specials.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 37 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
A check at Ticketmaster seems to confirm that claim.
I would rather see GSP/Alves and Penn/Florian then this fight. With that said, I’m still excited for the PPV. And hopefully the preview is as fun to watch as 24/7. I’ve had a great time watching a few 24/7 shows, even though I had zero interest in the fights themselves.
I stopped watching the UFC behind the scenes shows after the Wand/Chuck buildup. It was lame that they wouldn’t show Wand training @ Extreme Couture and made him train at the Xyience training center for the special just due to the Couture lockout. If they’re going to tweek shows that are supposed to be a real insight into the lives of these dudes, I’m not really interested in wasting my time watching.
I was a lot more excited for this fight when Penn seemed like the only guy that could give GSP a run for his money. Ever since Alves beat Kos and established himself as a true contender, and Florian beat up Joe Daddy and did the same, the GSP/Penn fight lost some luster.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still very excited. It’s not often two top 5 p4p fighters go at it (I have GSP and Penn ranked at #2 and #4, respectively). They’re the two most complete fighters in MMA; both are great strikers, one is the best wrestler in MMA, period, and the other has some of the best BJJ and TDD in MMA. With any single dimension BJ or GSP could beat most of the guys in their divisions, and they’ll be going at each other with everything they’ve got.
I’m getting chills thinking about it.
lol, this is priceless, from an AOL Fanhouse article:
“White meets up with Marcus Davis at a mall in Ireland and tells him that Kevin Iole considers the Davis-Chris Lytle fight to be the best fight on the UFC 93 card.”
Ivan loves bashing those Yahoo guys.
First it was Meltzer a couple of days ago, and when that proved difficult, he decided to go after the low hanging fruit in Iole. Bashing Kevin Iole is so …. 2007.
I enjoy reading your articles Ivan, but reading your comments on this site just makes me think you are perpetually miserable. If your not attacking promoters, your attacking other people in your profession. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever read a positive comment from you on this site.
“If your not attacking promoters, your attacking other people in your profession. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever read a positive comment from you on this site.”
Pretty much. I used to think he was a UFC hater, until I realized that the UFC was just the easiest target. Ivan hates EVERYTHING.
In all seriousness… is it not funny or amusing that Dana White is using Kevin Iole’s hyperbole to hype up a fighter? I mean, what exactly is that supposed to be worth?
Yeah, I hate everything, and I’m probably the only person who thought that was funny in the video blog. Next thing you know, he’s going to say that the idea for UFC Primetime came from his own video blogs and certainly not from anything called “24/7.” (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but there’s no need to lie about it.)
I’m not sure if I’m entitled to have these opinions or if I’m entitled to express these opinions, but after watching the first episode of UFC Primetime, I think it’s a very well-produced show that is also a lot like HBO’s 24/7 series. It’s amazing to me (although no longer particularly surprising) to see how much the media has been fawning all over the Primetime. For a company that bashes every aspect of boxing as consistently as the UFC does, they sure don’t have a problem with emulating boxing-style promotion of a big fight. Wow, you mean that stuff filmed this week will be on the show just a day or two later? Oh my god, what a unique idea. It’s amazing to see how many web sites have described Primetime in that way (as if it’s a revolutionary concept), without also using the words “just like 24/7.” There’s nothing inherently wrong with copying 24/7; it’s just hypocritical for the UFC to bash boxing all the time and then to duplicate 24/7 so blatantly.
The style in which the music played over the training footage, the close-up camera angles on the fighters’ faces as they’re being interviewed, the footage of their home lives… it was all very well done, and it was all very much like 24/7. And again, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. Hopefully, there will be more of this kind of show in the future. In contrast to the Trash TV of The Ultimate Fighter, Primetime treats the sport with the dignity that it deserves.
It’s not just 24/7 inspired, the UFC hired the same production crew that did 24/7 to do the UFC Primetime show.
Of course it’s 24/7 inspired. Hypocrisy is kind of the last cry of people without arguments. Who cares? He’s a promoter. He’s not trying to keep his statements perfectly in line, he’s trying to sell his show. Wasting time looking for Dana’s contradictory statements is an exercise in futility. He called Randy-Brock the biggest fight ever…but why is this getting the countdown special and not that one!?! What a hypocrite!
If you could actually find me Dana saying 24/7 is a bad concept, then you’d have a good point. Otherwise it’s a stretch. The things he bashes about boxing have nothing to do with 24/7.
The show was a lot better than HBO’s most recent outings, though not as good as the Mayweather stuff (but close). It’s the same crew anyway supposedly. The only thing that really makes a difference from one to another is the guys fighting and whether they can sell fights. Both guys in this are very good at it.
UFC Primetime is a Copy of a Copy.
With recent history, UFC started this trend with “UFC Countdown” on SpikeTV. Boxing used this concept, took it to the next level, and created 24/7. The UFC wants to hype up a big fight, and they are trying to emulate the level of what 24/7 is.
Either way, it makes for fun television. The 24/7 series is fantastic, even for fights I have little interest in. I do agree that the last one wasn’t as good, but perhaps it’s just not as effective the 5th time around, or perhaps the characters involved were not as interesting.
To me, the UFC
With recent history, UFC started this trend with “UFC Countdown” on SpikeTV.
UFC Countdown was a copy HBO’s “Countdown To” series which began airing even before the UFC was on Spike.
” 45 Huddle Says:
UFC Primetime is a Copy of a Copy.
With recent history, UFC started this trend with “UFC Countdown” on SpikeTV. Boxing used this concept, took it to the next level, and created 24/7. The UFC wants to hype up a big fight, and they are trying to emulate the level of what 24/7 is.
”
Boxing has been doing countdown shows on HBO and SHowtime years before the UFC even signed with Spike bro
get a clue
Play nice….
“With recent history”
HBO Boxing Countdown shows were pretty much obscelete when Zuffa reinvented it with their SpikeTV shows.
And the entire point of the post is to show that they are each pull from each other and upping the anti. That’s all. Not looking to get into a debate of who started it first. Honestly, who cares about that.
exactly, get a clue buddy.
If you want to insult, then go to Sherdog. This is not the place.
“Insult”?
Your offended by what I said?
Dont get all butt hurt dude, Im just tellin it like it is bro.
“Go to sherdog”
What is that? is it still 2001? Is that still considered an insult?
“With recent history, UFC started this trend with “UFC Countdown” on SpikeTV. Boxing used this concept, took it to the next level, and created 24/7.”
Are you kidding?
^^^^^
Exact thing I was thinking…..
Do you really think we would have 24/7 without the success of the UFC Countdown Show on SpikeTV? I highly doubt it.
They had to find a way to up the anti, which is what 24/7 did.
lol, Affliction’s PR person can’t pronounce “Emelianenko” during their Fedor teleconference
As seemed likely just from watching the show, the whole angle of, “BJ Penn is taking a vacation and Dana White is angry about it!” was apparently just a fake, manufactured storyline.
http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2009/1/15/724954/bj-penn-s-trainer-calls-da
I agree with Luke Thomas, who wrote in that post, “I’d like to see deeper looks into the fighters themselves, their rivalry, their similarities, their differences and their first fight than any manufactured storyline.”
Ivan,
I know you like being critical, but your desciption of it being “fake, manufactured storyline” is off base.
BJ did indeed take Tues-Saturday off. They did use that footage last to end the show on an edge, but nothing more than that. The show was edited this week and BJ’s time off was days earlier.
They played around with the timeframe (by days, not weeks) but hardly manufactured a storyline.
I don’t buy Rudy’s comment that BJ had not taken any time off in the last three months. That period includes Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and a trip to various cities to promote GSP/Penn.
Jeremy, you raise a good point in that I didn’t specify what exactly I was referring to when I wrote the words “fake, manufactured storyline.”
The fake, manufactured storyline is not that BJ Penn took a few days off, because he did take a few days off.
The fake, manufactured storyline is that this is anything out of the ordinary for top-level MMA fighters a couple of weeks before a big fight.
This kind of thing happens all the time in an effort to ensure that the fighters “peak” at fight time instead of a couple of weeks before fight time, and the UFC knows this very well.
But it was portrayed on the show like, “Oh my god, BJ Penn just stopped training! He’s just not taking his training seriously!” And then in Episodes 2 and 3 when they show footage of Penn training hard, it’s going to be portrayed like, “Wow, BJ Penn is once again serious about training… he slipped up a couple of weeks before the fight, but now he’s serious again, just in time for the big fight!”
It’s not that Penn taking a few days off is manufactured, it’s the acting for the cameras like it’s a big deal, or alarming, or even unusual that is manufactured.
That is why I used the words “fake, manufactured storyline.”
The fake maufactured storyline is that BJ Penn in any way earned a fight with or should be fighting GSP, and that he has any chance of beating him.
How’s that.
HBO Boxing Countdown shows were pretty much obscelete when Zuffa reinvented it with their SpikeTV shows.
They still do them. They still have the same format.
“The fake maufactured storyline is that BJ Penn in any way earned a fight with or should be fighting GSP, and that he has any chance of beating him.”
Come on, you don’t think Penn has a chance of beating St. Pierre? Not even a chance? I’m saying that it’s necessarily greater than a 50% chance, but he’s got a decent chance.
Well, yeah, that was a bit of hyperbole.
Larson vs Condit 2 is a better headliner than this fight (as a fight, not based on names), and will probably be a better fight.
I’d say the chance is under 20 percent though, i.e. worse than normal for a rematch. That’s not a fight that you book because it’s going to be a good fight. It’s a fight that you book because you have to cater to the talent on occasion.
I can’t tell whether that is some serious BJ hate or some serious man-love for GSP.
Claiming Penn only has a 1 in 5 shot is ludicrous, especially considering how the first fight went. I’m with Ivan on this one. I don’t know if BJ’s chances are better or worse than 50%, but they are pretty close to 50% regardless of which side of the bar they fall upon.
Penn is overrated and believes his own hype.
GSP is better now than he’s ever been, and has been facing better fighters than Penn has.
My opinion is that this fight shouldn’t be happening, I don’t approve of titleholders fighting outside their weight class and I don’t honestly understand what benefit GSP thinks he’s getting out of the fight by taking it. A win is a win against a guy that he previously beat from a lower weight class. A loss would be a massive blow.
It’s mindboggling to me that this fight is happening at all.
“I don’t honestly understand what benefit GSP thinks he’s getting out of the fight by taking it”
I suspect that GSP does not share your opinion about BJ and wants to fight him because he thinks he is one of the best fighters in the world.
I also suspect that GSP was ‘not impressed by his performance’ the first time around and wants to see if he can get a decisive victory over Penn.
Besides,man. We ARE talking about a fighter that was belted out in about a minute not all that long ago …
Sure, GSP’s looked phenominal since then. But, he was coming off a similar streak when he got KO’d by Serra a couple years back. And with Penn’s hands being as good as they are, I’m just sayin’, anything can happen.
And that’s not even taking into account what ay happen if it goes to the ground.
It’s a 50/50 fight.
Or, I should say, a 51/49 fight. ‘Cause I’m picking Penn this time.
Inside the distance.
I can definitely see what Steve identified as being “the reason” actually. GSP is the kind of maniac who doesn’t like to leave loose ends out there, and he probably does think that he can improve on his previous win over Penn.