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Broadsheet coverage leading up to UFC 94
By Zach Arnold | January 30, 2009
For members of the media in Las Vegas reading this post — check out Ivan Trembow’s article claiming that the Nevada State Athletic Commission didn’t do out-of-competition drug testing for the last two months worth of MMA shows. Between the Margarito situation (articles: here, here, here) and this new development, it’s not a great PR situation for the NSAC. Not the end of the world, but certainly embarrassing (if true).
Here is a CNBC interview talking about UFC’s new gym business venture.
- The LA Times: BJ Penn and the pure fighting spirit
- The LA Times: St. Pierre, Penn are the main event now
- The Boston herald: St. Pierre, Penn light up Vegas in bout reminiscent of Hagler-Hearns
- Sportsnet (Canada): The UFC is rolling in dough when no one else is
- The Associated Press: BJ Penn envisions upset win over GSP at UFC 94
- The Boston Herald: Fighters predict who will win in GSP/Penn fight
- The LA Times: GSP favored at -165 in Vegas to win
- The Honolulu Advertiser: Over 5,000 fans show up for GSP/Penn weigh-in event
- AOL Fanhouse: GSP talks about destroying Penn, life in the Octagon
- The Las Vegas Sun: Penn, St. Pierre stay quiet at UFC weigh-in
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 10 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
One of the fighters on the UFC 94 card is Akihiro Gono. I just watched Gono’s previous UFC fight, which was a split decision loss to Dan Hardy in England last October, and that was a ridiculous judges’ decision. Gono clearly lost the first round, but it was just as clear that he picked Hardy apart and out-struck him in the second and third rounds. There are always some wacky decisions on those UFC U.K. shows, although of course this was nowhere near as bad as Bisping’s “win” over Hamill.
Oh, and I just thought of this point to add: You would certainly never know from listening to the announcers’ commentary that Gono was out-striking Hardy in the second and third rounds. But if you ignore the commentary and focus on who is actually out-striking his opponent, Gono clearly wins Rounds 2 and 3. I should have put this in my previous post but it slipped my mind.
I’m getting pumped for GSP-Penn and Machida-Silva. Between those two fights and Fedor-Arlovski, January has been a great month for top-level MMA fights. February, not so much, but at least there are a couple of boxing matches that I’ll be eagerly anticipating in February (Darchinyan-Arce and obviously Marquez-Diaz).
5000 people showed up just for the weigh-ins?
Wow.
Darchinyan vs Arce should be an absolute WAR
Am I missing something? How is the Margarito situation embarrassing for the NSAC, when the fight took place in California?
Ed. — Read the news links attached. It’s in reference to Margarito’s win over Cotto.
Ah, OK. My bad.
I’ve actually had a few co-workers ask me bout UFC 94, so it definitely has the chance of getting some good buyrates. I know it’s completel unscientific, but if the casual of non fans start to talk to me about an event, it typically means over 500,000 PPV buys.
Ivan,
I haven’t seen the fight in a while, but I remember agreeing with the judges decision in Hardy/Gono.
I suspect the dearth of ‘out of competition’ drug testing is due to budget cuts.
With the economy in the state that it is in, every state & local government is hurting. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Nevada is slashing budgets across the board and NSAC decided the out of competition testing program was the most logical place to make their cuts. It is the one area where they are clearly going above and beyond the industry standard.
I give NSAC all the credit in the world for pioneering the out of competition testing program, and will cut them some slack if they had to shelve it temporarily for financial reasons.
They didn’t say any of that, though. The last time they gave fighters a vacation from out-of-competition drug testing, it was over four months long and they said that the reason was to make it unpredictable.
I admit that my post was 100% speculation.
However, I doubt they would announce that they have suspended testing even if that is what has happened. Just the possibility that they might test is something of a deterrent. If they come right out and announce that testing is suspended indefinitely, that last little bit of doubt will evaporate and make the fighters that much more comfortable going back to their old cycling regimens.
Steve, that could be it, but their last testing vacation was even longer than this one.