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Fox Sports: "Zach Arnold's Fight Opinion site is one of the best spots on the Web for thought-provoking MMA pieces."

« | Home | »

How low can things go?

By Zach Arnold | July 24, 2009

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So what will happen to the fighters on the Affliction Trilogy show who haven’t been paid?

“Where we are right now with all the fighters, is their managers and lawyers are looking at how (the fighters) are going to be compensated for lack of a fight,” said Tompkins.

One source told Sherdog.com Friday that the clothing purveyors-turned-promoters are offering T-shirt deals to the ousted fighters to help offset their losses.

Topics: Affliction, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 52 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

52 Responses to “How low can things go?”

  1. Joseph says:

    How low can things go you ask?

    Dana White:

    I am going on espn 1100 in vegas at 6pm. I will be talking anything mma. Call in number is 702 364 1100! Oh yea and welcome back tito 🙂

  2. 45 Huddle says:

    To announce the signing of Tito Ortiz.

    It’s like Emperor Palpatine turning Anakin to the darkside, destroying the Jedi, and turning the republic into an Empire…. All in basically one day (which he did).

    Affliction folds. Affliction is back with the UFC as a sponsor. Makes me think they will make it easier for the fighters to get UFC deals. Ortiz is back. It’s like all the competition is gone in one major swoop.

  3. Joseph says:

    “Affliction is back with the UFC as a sponsor. Makes me think they will make it easier for the fighters to get UFC deals”

    Not so. Most fighters are tied to other promotions already, so, basically, everyone is a free agent. Some are talking to Strikeforce already. Only fighter I can see going to the UFC is Vitor. Fedor contract is the same as usual.

  4. rudy says:

    How nice of affliction to help them out with t shirt deals.

    I’m sure it’ll be the same as the fight purse they were going to get.

    45 huddle

    excellent analagy.

    All that’s missing is for some fighter to have twins, they’ll be the downfall of the ufc.

  5. 45 Huddle says:

    mmalogic Strikes Again…. On BloodyElbow….

    1ST IMPORTANT POST:

    – EA ban isnt going anywhere…

    – Fedor is not a done deal but theres no one else willing to bank roll finkie’s side projects so the chances are very good he’ll be in the UFC.

    – Zuffa now has the affliction video library of Fedor killing sylvia and arlovski to create the most prestigious HW fight to date against Brock.

    – Most fighters will probably end up with strikeforce or in japan except the ones Zuffa wants.

    – And Affliction will be paying a shit load of money for the privilege of being back in Zuffas good graces 🙂

    2ND IMPORTANT POST

    Zuffa is NOT absorbing any Affliction fight contract…

    Remember these fighters signed with “Affliction Entertainment” – not “Affliction Clothing” so the fighters have limited leverage but Affliction has leverage to get them signed to a Zuffa contract or give them a hard time.

    The fighters Zuffa wants will sign new contracts with Zuffa.

    This is just like what Strikeforce did with Elite contracts except Zuffa doesnt have to buy “Affliction MMA” or any assets.

    Affliction basically agreed to every Zuffa term and condition Zuffa wanted… Attencio now has a new Uncle called “Dana”.

    3RD IMPORTANT POST

    HERE’S ANOTHER INSIGHT:

    The ticket sales for this Affliction show and the ppv WITH BARNETT was trending horribly.

    I say horribly because showtime was behind it and promoting it. This show was a great indicator on what Showtime can do in terms of ppv. Doesnt look good if strikeforce is planning to use this model.

    JUST A FUNNY ONE

    Zuffa doesnt want most of the fighters. Tim Sylvia is about to get bitch slapped again.

  6. 45 Huddle says:

    Of all the things that were posted, and all of it was interesting… Is signing Fedor and not M-1 to a contract. I bet that is the sticking point. If it is, then Fedor’s people are corrupt as sh!t….

    Either way, Fedor is irrelevent to MMA. He is the #1 & Linear Heavyweight Champion but has no backing or leverage.

  7. 45 Huddle says:

    Dana White on ESPN Radio….

    1. Tito Ortiz is not signed. But he mentioned him in such positive light that it seems like it is a matter of time.

    2. When questioned about the UFC 103 main event, Dana White basically said he wants to give the fans what he wants, and then hinted at something being added to the card.

    3. Press Conference on Friday, and he has a laundry list of things to announce.

    More stuff then that, but those were the 3 biggest I heard. He was really quiet about Ortiz and Affliction, but I think it has more to do with finalizing things before letting the cat out of the bag.

  8. Alan Conceicao says:

    I’ll believe Fedor in the UFC when the bell rings. Until then, I fully expect to see him in New Year’s fighting Josh Barnett to mmalogic’s dismay.

  9. Steve says:

    ‘Fedor is irrelevent to MMA’

    Your trolling is pathetic.

  10. 45 Huddle says:

    Pride, Bodog, RINGS, and Affliction prove that Fedor is irrelevent. What he does has zero impact on the direction the sport is going. ZERO!! No promoter can make money with him as a main event.

    You can bash me all you want for those comment, but it’s the truth. He is not
    marketable. Not even in his home country. If he was, his manager would have used that card a long time ago.

    I love the direction the sport is going in. Sorry the rest of you are so pissed off.

  11. Jeremy (not that Jeremy) says:

    Free t-shirts is an insult.

  12. Ivan Trembow says:

    “Affliction folds. Affliction is back with the UFC as a sponsor. Makes me think they will make it easier for the fighters to get UFC deals. Ortiz is back. It’s like all the competition is gone in one major swoop.”

    lol, try to contain your joy.

    Also, when it says that the fighters are being offered “t-shirt deals,” I’d be surprised if that meant free t-shirts. If fighters who were going to be paid $50,000 to fight are instead offered $50,000 Affliction sponsorships, it still sucks that they don’t get to have the fight for which they’ve been training, but at least they would still be getting paid.

    PS: You’ve gotta love Dana White’s line, through Kevin Iole, that maybe he got the Affliction deal instead of Strikeforce because Scott Coker was in Italy. Because, you know, they don’t have phones or Internet access in Italy. It has been a great day for journalism…

  13. Mr. Roadblock says:

    Fedor is my favorite fighter. I think we can all agree he is the best and is the best that has ever been in the sport to this point. I would watch him fight anyone anytime.

    But he isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things. 1.5 million households ordered UFC 100 if the reports are to be believed. Add in bars and figure on 4 people per house watching that’s probably 8-10 million people that think Brock Lesnar is invincible. That’s just in the US. What maybe 200,000 people on the high end even know who Fedor is?

    Fedor is the Emperor of the echo chamber. He is the Emperor of us the hardcore fans who kept the sport afloat in the absence of TV. UFC has had the four best years in company history in a row. They’ve never had Fedor fight. If he won’t come to reasonable terms, so what. Dana would actually be stupid to pay Fedor a very large amaount and ruin his payscale going forward.

    If Tito is back you have him fight the Randy/Nog winner in December then that winner fights Brock in a megafight. If you’re Dana you pray it is Brock/Tito.

    UFC doesn’t need Fedor. But Fedor is probably at the point he needs UFC. Or maybe the Russian mob can bankrupt Dream or Sengoku on New Years.

  14. 45 Huddle says:

    Strikeforce isn’t going to touch Fedor. They didn’t touch Kimbo or Tito, and both are proven draws compared to Fedor.

    Which leaves Fedor with exactly two options….. Fight in the UFC, or go to Japan.

    By most rankings, once you take Barnett out for roids, the next 4 or 5 highest ranked Heavyweights are all in the UFC. If he goes to Japan, he is avoiding the next slew of top contenders…. Making him even more irrelevent.

    Unlike Mr. Roadblock, he is not my favorite fighter. However, Fedor is the #1 Heavyweight in the world. But he still needs to fight the top guys constantly. And there is no place to do that except in the UFC.

    Plainly put…. Fedor is screwed.

  15. Steve says:

    ‘We want Fedor’ – Lorenzo Fertitta

    So I guess your opinion on this matter is irrelevant.

    Don’t worry 45, I’m not bashing you.

    You’re a simple child.

  16. 45 Huddle says:

    You don’t make any sense. How does Lorenzo saying they want Fedor make my opinion irrelevent? Fedor is still screwed. Let me spell it out for your infant brain….

    He goes to Japan and kills his reputation amongst the hardcore fans by ducking the top contenders.

    or

    He goes to the UFC, and is required to sign a contract like no other he has ever signed in his career.

    Either way, the guy is not in a good place right now. Not to mention that he is always one fight away from his value dropping down by two zero’s really quickly….

  17. Mr. Roadblock says:

    I think what 45 means by screwed is Fedor can’t hold them up for tons of money.

    Fedor will probably get a deal similar to Brock’s. 400-600k compensation and a piece of PPV buys.

    That seems fair to me. UFC should let him compete in the Sambo events. Nobody really gets hurt in those, it makes Fedor happy and if he loses it allows you to bring the guy who wins in for a UFC fight. I think it’s a no lose.

    Fedor isn’t screwed but his management is as far as leverage goes. I’m sure if you sat down for a vodka with Fedor he’d tell you he wants to fight Brock, Randy, Kongo, Velasquez, Carwin, etc. He’s a true warrior and a great sportsman. His goons are just out for the money though.

  18. spacedog says:

    is my opinion that you are generally misreading Fedor’s relevance and his effect on promotions. When he fought for Pride he was one of several stars. Wand, Saku, Shogun, Yoshida, Nog and so on. He was a huge draw, along with the other stars, and he was not the reason they fell apart. Corrupt, shady, Japanese mobsters are to blame for the fall of Pride, not Fedor.

    The other orgs, BoDog, affliction ECT. All failed because they were just poorly run companies, soup to nuts. Again not Fedor’s fault, although his pay scale and the lack of depth in the (HW) roster are both good examples of how those companies were mismanaged.

    As for his popularity, I think a lot more people know whom he is than you think. I know a lot of casual fans that will mention his name and he has been given a fair amount of exposure over the years including recently by the UFC.

    The popularity of the UFC and the sheer brand dominance of Zuffa can’t be overestimated. I honestly think far more people have at least a passing familiarity with Fedor than the average fighter on a UFC card, bar the 5-10 mega stars of the UFC, and it is brand loyalty and dominance that drives the UFC PPV numbers. Put Fedor on top of a UFC card and PPV buys will fucking kill.

    As for his future obviously the UFC is the best place for him as far as fans are concerned but I really fear that his management screw it up. They want to milk the cow as long as they can and strike me as some very backward and corrupt SOB’s. I have a feeling that Sambo is not the issue, nor is pay. I bet the issue is M-1 wanting to be a co promoter and have their name involved and their desire to promote the Red Devil fight team and their own interests as much as possible.

    Lastly, if Fedor does end up in the UFC I truly fear it will be a less than stellar run. I would LOVE to be wrong but I have a feeling that the beasts that make up the UFC HW division, the HW of the future, will be too much for Fedor sooner rather than later. IF he would drop to 205 I would have an easier time seeing him retire undefeated bit his trick of swarming one dimension mid sized or under skill HW’s won’t work against the next generation of talented behemoth we are seeing.

    Again I hope Fedor proves me

  19. spacedog says:

    add ” again I hope Fedor proves me wrong”
    to the above post.

    And I do think he can beat Brock.

  20. Mr. Roadblock says:

    Spacedog,

    I agree 100% that more casual fans know Fedor than the average UFC guy.

    That isn’t the point I made above.

    The “avergage UFC guy” is (not to be insulting) meaningless. They get paid somewhere between $3,000-$20.000 to fight. They’re there to fill up a card in a sport where the longest a fight can go is 25 minutes of action.

    UFC is running boxing’s business model without people realizing it. They just give a little more attention to the undercard. Boxing only promotes and on HBO and Showtime events only broadcasts the main events. UFC gives you 5-8 fights each time out. But the only guys really getting paid are the top 2 – 3 fights.

    The UFC right now is Brock, Mir, Nog, Randy, Machida, Forrest, Rampage, Shogun, Anderson & Wanderlei Silva, Hendo, Bisping, GSP, Koscheck, Diego, BJ and Florian. And maybe a couple other guys I forgot.

    Those are your top of card guys. Everyone else is filler or a prospect working to the top of the card.

    All your main events come from those guys listed above. Then you fill out the event. Most people just want to see blood and a knockout or a crazy submission.

    If Fedor demands $3 million or $5 million per fight without having part of that be contingent on PPV buys I think UFC will say no. Why upset the apple cart.

  21. Mr. Roadblock says:

    If UFC makes a deal with Fedor. They can make him a MEGA-Star quickly. UFC has the rights to all the PRIDE footage and apparently the Affliction fights. It won’t take long to get the Spike TV audience psyched to see him. You can make Fedor vs Brock Rocky IV. Though the irony is Fedor is Rocky and Brock is Drago.

  22. spacedog says:

    Road,

    Truthfully I was not even aiming my comments directly at you. I just feel it is a common meme among the hard cores that Fedor is this sort of unknown and I don’t think its true.

    Also I don’t think fedor is demanding 3-5 million a fight. I hope to God he’s not. He should get the best deal the company has to offer and a ppv % but 3-5 is too much right now.

    If he does sign he will be a mega star, particularly if he Zulu’s Brock.

  23. skwirrl says:

    “mmalogic Strikes Again”

    Your first mistake is taking anything he says serious.

    That dude works in a friggin call center and gets paid to spout the party line. He was completely wrong about Affliction 3 until Barnett MADE him right by popping hot. Affliction 3 won’t happen blah blah. The dude proved he’s no better than any other troll.

    Also unless the UFC revamps their contracts they will NEVER get Fedor. He gets enough from M-1 and he doesn’t need money. If you were personal friends with a president who’s personal fortune makes the Bush’s, Kennedy’s and Obama’s combined look insignificant you think you would need money? People are stupid to thing Fedor cares about the money. He wants his freedom. If he doesn’t get it you’ll see him in Japan or unifying against Overeem somewhere else.

  24. Good luck getting Overeem to defend that Srikeforce belt.

    It’s doubtful the UFC will revamp their contracts JUST to get Fedor…they haven’t done it yet…and right now have way more leverage than in the past in regards to signing him…Strikeforce probably won’t sign him…and the only thing left is Japan…which offers nothing but meaningless fights.

  25. EJ says:

    The more things change, the more powerfull the UFC gets. Funny how regardless of how many so called scandals and bad news at the end of the day the Zuffa machine gets stronger and the haters get more desperate.

    The UFC has proven once again that their way works and their dominance over the sport will only continue to grow. All this while Fedor becomes less relevant and his paychecks continue to keep running out. They don’t just seem to be crushing their org competition they have pretty much relegated Fedor to fighting in Japan against freak shows where he’ll be 1 loss away from being just another name.

    No wonder people hate Zuffa, they are a bunch of nasty bastards but god damn they are good.

  26. Mike Rome says:

    Actually, when he posted it Affliction had made one of its many attempts to get the UFC to bail them out of the fight promotion business. It fell apart like most did.

    Affliction’s been begging the UFC to bail them out of the fight business ever since their first show, all while business geniuses insist their business model is going great because it’s giving them strong advertising. This would be news to Affliction executives that were desperate to get out of the promoting business and back into the octagon.

    There’s always a convenient excuse when people are proven wrong. First it was Pro Elite collapsing, conveniently blamed on Seth Petruzelli, when the real reason was they were run by idiots that put their company in a position where it had to fold when CBS didn’t buy it out. Now it’s Affliction which used Barnett’s failure as a convenient excuse to do what it has been trying to do for well over a year.

    I don’t think Fedor will end up in the UFC because neither party needs the other. My guess is maybe Fedor will fight in Japan for the rest of his career; but who knows, with Dana making amends with Tito Ortiz, Militech, and Sherdog it’s hard to say what he’ll do next. Maybe he’ll agree to build a stadium.

  27. Zach Arnold says:

    There’s always a convenient excuse when people are proven wrong. First it was Pro Elite collapsing, conveniently blamed on Seth Petruzelli, when the real reason was they were run by idiots that put their company in a position where it had to fold when CBS didn’t buy it out. Now it’s Affliction which used Barnett’s failure as a convenient excuse to do what it has been trying to do for well over a year.

    This sounds like a strawman argument, because most of the blogs and MMA sites really did focus on the fact that Pro Elite did in fact lose $55 million – and I’d say I was the main cheerleader of that stat. 🙂

    It is fair to say that Petruzelli did harm Pro Elite because PE was about to get more help from CBS and then he went on the radio and everything fell apart there. You’re absolutely right that PE needed a bridge loan from CBS just to run the Miami show, but after that debacle there was (incredibly) a chance PE could have gotten a bigger deal with CBS for ownership. Don’t ask me why.

    No one I think ever really questioned the fact that Affliction was losing their ass financially on the MMA shows. But to say that Barnett failing the drug test didn’t put a crimp into their third show plans is pretty intellectually dishonest and not-so troll-worthy.

  28. Mike Rome says:

    Obviously it was the last straw that made them cancel this show. But Affliction was going under regardless. They tried to fold the week of UFC 100 and offered the same deal to Dana then, but it got rejected. This was before Barnett popped positive.

  29. Alan Conceicao says:

    Why does it look like Rome is parrotting mmalogic? lololo

    I have no doubt that they probably have talked to the UFC numerous times. I see no reason to believe that they would have folded right after UFC 100 based on a single, since rescinded quote from Dana White. Unless of course, Mike is claiming “insider info”.

    That’s what makes this whole thing comical. Obviously there was an alternate plan to crawling to the UFC involving Strikeforce which fell through. Collapsing after Barnett’s positive doesn’t mean anyone who predicted there wouldn’t be a second show or the booking of a third was right. Its like predicting that Marshall wouldn’t have won their next game against a top team, having the plane crash, and be like “Well, see? I was right!”

  30. 45 Huddle says:

    The UFC really doesn’t mimick boxing’s model at all.

    They have really 3 payscale levels. The entry level fighters, established fighters, and superstars. The established fighters and superstars all make over $100,000 a year. A FOTN bonus can take a entry level fighter and really make his year very good financially. Every company (even non sports related) pays its top employees a very large amount compared to the rest of the employees. Let’s say I’m working in accounting. I might be making $50,000 to start. My boss after bonuses will likely be making closer to $250,000. So with the UFC paying it’s superstars a lot of money, that doesn’t mimick boxing. That just mimicks every private industry in America.

    “The more things change, the more powerfull the UFC gets. Funny how regardless of how many so called scandals and bad news at the end of the day the Zuffa machine gets stronger and the haters get more desperate.”

    The UFC really hasn’t had a scandal. The internet fans try to make one, but there really hasn’t been a scandal. If a fight is fixed, that is a scandal. People just want to see the demise of the UFC, and grasp at straws to find anything to bash them with.

    Everytime a MMA company goes out of business, it’s the same old story. There was a lot more going on behind the scenes then people realized.

  31. Jeremy (not that Jeremy) says:

    I don’t think there’s any curse of Fedor. However, I do think that his managers are extremely good at finding weakly managed organizations as targets. A badly managed organization with weak market position is an organization that is willing to overpay for their fighter’s services.

    Naturally, the cash that Fedor then drains out of the organization (both for his salary and for the kind of money that you have to pay people to fight and lose to him) just puts them in that much worse a position.

    I’m aware that there are probably very few free t-shirts involved in the transaction, but I think it’s funnier to picture guys getting boxes of t-shirts instead of cash after their paychecks bounce.

  32. Mike Rome says:

    They went to the UFC multiple times throughout their existence to get bailed out and tried to cancel both their second and third show through a UFC settlement. The deals fell apart over and over, I’m not the only one posting this, plenty of other MMA writers know about it too. The fact that they also went to Strikeforce to try to find a deal to cancel their show doesn’t help your point.

    Wasn’t it just the other day you were predicting Oscar’s influence and Ring Magazine would shoot Affliction to the top? I suppose you were probably one of Affliction’s head business consultants.

  33. Fightlinker says:

    Everything Rome said is true, I’ve heard the same thing from several others as well. Seems like a lot of people trying to shoot the messenger claiming they’re oh so pro or anti zuffa. The comments are becoming pathetically partisan, which is really too bad.

  34. MickDawg says:

    45 Huddle…Fedor is irrelevant?

    You’re saying the #1 fighter in the world is irrelevant?

    Are orgs willing to pay Fedor MILLIONS because he’s irrelevant?

    Is the fact that every time names come up Brock’s for potential opponents, the dream match is Fedor?

    Fedor must be irrelevant if the UFC offered him the largest contract they’ve ever offered, right?

    It’s 2 ways.

    Brock’s legitimacy as the #1 Heavyweight in the world cannot be cemented for hardcore fans w/o beating Fedor.

    And it seems, Fedor’s hold on #1 cannot be for long if he doesn’t come to the UFC.

    Fedor is relevant.

    Even the UFC’s actions disagree with you.

  35. 45 Huddle says:

    Whether Fedor is in the UFC, has 0% relevence on their success. No impact on their bottom line. If he cones to the UFC, it won’t have really any impact. All the proven draws are in the UFC already. And if doesn’t sign with The UFC, he is ducking the next 4 or 5 legit contenders.

    Yes, he is the # 1 Heavyweight in the world. I’m not debating that. He just doesn’t mean anything, which has been proven by these out of business companies who thought he had any value.

    At this point in his career he has no impact on the sport. That makes him irrelevent.

    Heck, Kimbo Slice is more relevent and it will be proven when TUF 10 ratings come out. And a fight with Lesnar wouldn’t sell any more PPVs then a fight between Lesnar and basically any other half worthy challenger.

    I know hardcore fans hate hearing this, but it’s true.

  36. IceMuncher says:

    45 is talking about Fedor in the business sense, not as a fighter. Fedor is irrelevant in that the UFC with Fedor would be just as successful as the UFC would be without Fedor, and an upstart promotion that has Fedor is just as doomed as an upstart promotion that doesn’t have Fedor. Fedor makes no net difference in either case.

    On top of that, Fedor is hard to deal with, will screw you over in a heartbeat for his own gain, and would make the UFC less money than the current heavyweight champ.
    The UFC only wants him because they are fans of the sport, and they want to have all the best fighters fighting each other. Fedor’s too much trouble to bring in for any reason other than that.

  37. skwirrl says:

    Rome – MMAlogic made that statement the day after Day of Reckoning. He said verbatim that Affliction is done they will never have a 3rd show. Well, Affliction was certainly about to have a 3rd show and he was wrong. Doesn’t matter how much Subo, Logic, Who Me and Iiown want to circle jerk each other over Affliction’s death while you stand back and faux-disapprovingly watch. That’s a fact. HE WAS WRONG. He’s nothing but a call center astroturfer.

    Honestly, Supremacy is about the same as him and has been more accurate on more stories than Logic has. However, because you guys are trying so hard at Bloody Elbow to get credentialed by ZUFFA you are perfectly willing to let him get libeled from the ZUFFA nuthugger idiots that make up your core audience. While anybody that says word one against one of the above named gets warned or banned. Seriously does ZUFFA pay your site as a large scale astroturf maneuver now? The writers that work there are all top notch, EVEN YOU, despite the fact that I disagree with your ZUFFA love. But your comments section becomes more and more like a ZUFFA re-education center by the day. It’s intent? To rewrite the history of MMA into the history of Ultimate Fighting. Hell, that’s even becoming the phrase to call the sport over there now. I think ZUFFA has seen how much astroturfing can spread its aims as MMA has been an internet driven grassroots movement since the early days and is in a full-fledged push as of late.

    Why isn’t there anybody here trying to rewrite history then you ask? Because this site is a bastion of the hardcore who has followed the sport for years. If somebody says Semaphore Bob here everybody already knows the whole he said, she said history of the start of ZUFFA. (Including that the minutes of NSAC say there was never a meeting scheduled… But also that the last two commissioners of said NSAC both work for ZUFFA and a fox is watching that hen house). So there is no point in trying that bullshit here. If there is one thing ZUFFA is good at its penny pinching and they know it would be a waste of money to attempt rewrite history at ground zero for the breaking of the fall of PRIDE story.

    It disgusts me to go over to BE and see such insightful articles written but then to see the comments section and the absolutely shameless levels of praise that get heaped on faultless ZUFFA. What this all boils down to is you’re allowing your comments section knowingly or unknowingly, (my belief is quite knowingly), to become a completely 1-sided driving force for ZUFFA and that you’re allowing call-center Kim to represent him/herself as some sort of legitimate source when they’re just spreading the company line, all in the hopes of ZUFFA recognition and credentials. I hope I’m wrong

  38. Zach Arnold says:

    Wasn’t it just the other day you were predicting Oscar’s influence and Ring Magazine would shoot Affliction to the top? I suppose you were probably one of Affliction’s head business consultants.

    Not sure who you are directing that quote to, Mike. I hadn’t talked about the Affliction show at all on the site…

  39. skwirrl says:

    Also 45 – You’re making 50K after taxes as an accountant. Those fighters are making that before paying their camps, training partners, travel expenses and taxes. Some cab drivers that run their own cabs make 100K a year after taxes. You’re really not helping your argument that ZUFFA is blessing their fighters with cash when the company is making ENORMOUS profits the vast majority of which is going back into the owners pockets.

  40. Jeremy (not that Jeremy) says:

    Entry level accountants in the US don’t make 50k after taxes. Even these days (a decade after I entered in the industry), you’d be extremely lucky to be making 50k at an entry level before taxes.

  41. skwirrl says:

    Jeremy fair enough. I just used his accountant as an example. A cop in LA makes over 50K per year before taxes entry level. I’ve heard you can write off your duty weapon and other gear as a business expenditure. A professional fighter for ZUFFA entry level makes nowhere near that after their job expenses. If they can write those hours in the gym with sparring partners off on their taxes as business expenditures let me meet their tax man.

  42. skwirrl says:

    Hell, maybe you could get away with it using the proper wording. “3 month Professional development seminar Brazil w/Andre Galvao 15K… 6 month professional development seminar Las Vegas/Shawn Tompkins. 15K…”

    Would be interesting to see the tax write-offs a good CPA could work for a gym’s fighters.

  43. Joseph says:

    Great post about BE skwirrl. Completely agree an all accounts there.

    Also, the way supremacy contributes to that site and continually gets bashed is a complete joke.

  44. UFCRULES4EVER says:

    boy, it sure seems someone like someone is pissed they got bannned for life from BE. act like an adult and it wont”burnzwhenupee”. get a life.
    also it seems that mr. conceicao did a peter-tuck and ran off once Fightlinker backed up what rome had to say. or maybee he decided to stop trolling and start writing on his own little piss-ant site total mm..b.s.
    trembow is a retard who most internet fans would rathe kick in the nuts than to read what crap he spews. mma weekly has the worst rankings on the net (and yes i know he’s on the immmwr ranking comittee. wait till they find out how anti-ufc he his. oh wait, i’m sure they already know.
    Joeseph-while your’e at it, why don’t you go write another puff piece on Gary Shaw (how can you live with yourself and how long can you keep this up. All you anti-ufc guys are just going to LOSE in the end, no matter how hard you try and twist shit around, it always floats to the top and gets exposed.

    J-Mechanic,your’e an idiot as well. might as well throw that in there, even though you didn’t even post on this thread, i know what your’e thinking.

    p.s. in case you hadn’t noticed- THE UFC AND EVERYTHING ZUFFA MMA RULES!. Peace out bitches. 🙂

  45. Mike Rome says:

    Skwirri:

    I think you just have too conspiratorial of a worldview. We don’t have any sort of editorial policy aimed at getting a credential, and have no contact with “mmalogic” outside of when he posts. When he posted the item you’re talking about, Affliction and the UFC were in the process of trying to hash out a deal for Affliction to fold and for the UFC to take them back in. Dave Meltzer has now written and talked about it on his radio show; these deals were attempted numerous times, and all fell apart for bitter personal reasons. The deal fell apart and he ended up being wrong in that case.

    Zach,

    I was referring to Alan, who posted this on BE quite a while ago. In retrospect, it’s a gem of predictive analysis:

    “So what difference is Golden Boy going to make in the long run?

    Assuming this ends up true, probably a big one. Golden Boy is responsible for the promotion of most of the major names in boxing, the biggest PPV in the history of boxing, owns the parent company of Ring Magazine, has most of HBO’s dates and is obviously the most influential force on them, which is pretty key when HBO’s boxing budget for ’07 was about on par with the entirety of the 5 year deal Zuffa and Spike have. Putting the fights on HBO, even through HBO PPV, gives them a legitimacy that no one else can touch with the best creative teams and production squads on the planet.

    Is Affliction going to somehow turn around and make millions the second show? Doubtfully. And how much is Golden Boy willing to invest in an unprofitable venture or have their name associated with it?

    If Golden Boy actually gets involved, that tells me that Affliction probably did a lot better than most have been openly thinking of late. Would they be willing to work with an unprofitible venture for awhile? Depends on the kind of growth it shows. If they do a mixed card with Diaz/Casamayor and Fedor and Tito doing the MMA thing and there’s a solid level of buys that increase over the previous show, even if they lose a nominal amount of money, they’re gonna continue on. Its ridiculous to think that Golden Boy’s entrance into MMA wouldn’t be a paradigm shift.”

    It’s astonishing anyone can be so wrong so regularly but still proudly post and mock other people.

  46. skwirrl says:

    Actually UFCrulez – I have a much better site that I’ve posted at for a much longer time, (I have almost 15K worth of posts there vs around 800 or so at BE which is a format much more conducive to mass posting), with a generally much more in the know crowd. However, I went to BE and posted because of the fact that as I mentioned the crowd there is generally trying to re-write MMA history for the noob fans. I showed up to keep the record straight, as i’m sure Smoogy also did despite him also having a very quality site that he admins. However as UFC is what appeals to the mass audience, the history they want known is generally what is allowed to be passed off there as what really happened.

    Kinda like how Japanese schools pretty much eliminate anything that happened between them and the Chinese circa 1940’s.

    To be fair though – BE is great for its live blog of Japanese events. Probably the best on the net for that. I do miss that aspect. The rest of it, all I can do is shake my head in disbelief at the Pro-Zuffa circle jerk that goes on there.

  47. 45 Huddle says:

    skwirrl,

    You completely missed the point on my accounting comment. The point isn’t exactly how much an accountant makes. It is to show the pay difference between the different level of employees. And in every industry the pay difference between the entry level, the experienced, and the executives is becoming greater and greater. The UFC is no different.

  48. Jeremy (not that Jeremy) says:

    Skwirrl,

    Any kind of expenses associated with conditioning are indeed deductible as unreimbursed business expenses (unless UFC or someone else is paying them on behalf of the fighter) when the fighter itemizes his deductions.

    That’s no different for a fighter than it is for any other kind of pro athlete or for any other kind of person who is in a given line of work.

    A lot of fighters teach at gyms that they train at though, so there may not be any expense associated with their standard day to day training. It’s going to be those business trips, manager fees, flying to New Mexico for two months etc.

    And I guarantee you that a lot of the lower level guys are doing all those things on the cheap as much as possible, like low level pro athletes in other sports (roomates, sleeping on couches or in guest rooms with friends, driving or taking a bus instead of flying, etc, you don’t have to go very far to find stories of guys living above the gym).

  49. afflictioninsider says:

    Are we pretending, since he has come up again in a FO comments thread, that mmalogic isn’t just Mike Rome parroting the UFC storyline?

  50. Jeremy (not that Jeremy) says:

    Says “afflictioninsider.”

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