« A note about MMA clips on ESPN’s Youtube channel | Home | ESPN previews UFC 102 »
Fedor vs. Brett Rogers in Fall of 2009 on Showtime
By Zach Arnold | August 27, 2009
![Print Friendly and PDF](http://cdn.printfriendly.com/button-print-blu20.png)
An entirely predictable fight to book and good for Brett that he will make his first big pay day in the business.
Setting the line for this fight… I’d say Fedor -1000, Rogers +800. -1000 means a 90% chance of winning, for the record, which is a completely fair odd to lay on this fight.
Bonus observation: Behold the power of the Sherdog fighter rankings for Rogers being selected? Rogers is ranked #8 in the Independent World MMA Rankings.
Update: New York Daily News report on fans at the New York PR event yesterday:
“They didn’t organize it well,” said Doug Brown, a warehouse manager from East Meadow. “I’m not too happy right now.”
Organizers for the public workout admitted they were “overwhelmed” by the turnout and were dismayed that some fans left unhappy.
“We didn’t know how many people were going to show up,” said Scott Coker, founder and CEO of Strikeforce, which works with Emelianenko.
“If he had the UFC behind him, he’d be a lot more popular,” Brown said. “And the event would have been run smoother.”
Between the Nick Diaz fiasco and the way the Fedor situation has been handled (from the infamous conference call to this event), the media storyline on Scott Coker is now being established — he’s not ready for prime-time and he finds himself in situations not totally prepared. Is this a fair media storyline?
Topics: M-1, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 70 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I’d put a couple bills on Rogers at +800.
Yawwwn.
Fedors first fight is with a sloppy brawler with no ground game. I guess thats the tough competition Vladim had in mind.
Anything besides Fedor KO 1 or Fedor Sub 1 would be shocking. There is nobody in Strikeforce who is a credible challenge to Fedor after Rogers. Overeem is terrible on the ground (although he may have an advantage on the feet, or at least can be competitive with Fedor on the feet) and Werdum isn’t as good as Fedor at anything. That’s all they have.
Boo for another fight against a top-ten-ranked heavyweight! Boo!
On a serious note, I’m looking forward to Fedor vs. Rogers and I’m glad that the Ricco Rodriguez rumors ended up being unfounded. That would have sucked.
Ivan,
The Ricco rumors were started by Super MMA Agent Ken Pavia. I am stoked for the fight as well. Good first fight for Fedor inside Strikeforce and in a cage.
Fedor is a joke, this bout is a joke. As long as Fedor fights for this sub-par organization, ducking real fighters, he does not deserve to be mentioned in any top ten. He should be shunned by the MMA world for the absurd action of signing with StrikeForce. All you Fedor nut-huggers are ridiculous.You can’t really think this is a good bout for Fedor. Unless he is knocked-out freakishly, this tells us nothing about Fedor.. Where would you rank Rogers among the UFC heavies? I don’t even have him in the top-ten of the UFC. JOKE!!!!!!!!!!!
“Where would you rank Rogers among the UFC heavies?”
1.Brock
2.Mir
3.Nog
4.Couture
5/6 tie: Rogers/Carwin
The way I see it he is no higher than 11. His first fight in the UFC would be against one of those guys from 7-10. He would be eaten up by any of the others, 1-6.
1.Brock
2.Mir
3.Nog
4.Couture
5.Carwin
6.Velasquez
7.Dos Santos
8.Kongo
9.Gonzaga
10.CroCop
11.Rogers
I forgot about dos Santos, but he is at the same level of Rogers/Carwin. Each have one signature win.
Below them I would include Gonzaga, Cro Cop and Velasquez.
Fedor beat Nog and Couture hasn’t won a fight in two years. Mir is massively overrated in terms of ability.
Fighting Rogers/Werdum/Overeem is not as relevant as Brock but its not the end of the world.
(no I don’t know how to re-edit my above post)
I thought Overeem should be first, but Rogers is ok.
I agree with all except Velasquez, I still believe he is the real deal. Wrestlers have an uncanny way of sticking around and making some serious noise in all divisions. I definitely agree with Mir, I just don’t know where to put him. He is now almost like Heath Herring for me. You want to give him a nod, you just don’t know where.
Also, you can look it like this:
Fedor vs Rogers: Champion vs a lower top ten fighter with only a punchers chance and size advantage.
Brock vs Carwin: #2 vs a lower top ten fighter with a punchers chance, solid wrestling and size advantage.
The UFC match is better stylistically but the Strikeforce match has the champion fighting.
I hope they keep Overeem hidden from Fedor for a little while. Let him mature a little more. Get some more ground experience. I think it would be pretty ugly for Overeem if they fight within the next 2 years.
My bad, obviously Carwin does not have the size advantage.
Mir maybe overrated but I give him credit in terms of rankings.
Rogers is the top-ranked fighter outside the UFC who has not yet been slaughtered by Fedor. As such, he is the best possible match-up for Fedor.
The next best match-up is Werdum, with Overeem as a distant 3rd. I believe Fedor will easily prevail in all 3 fights.
If Lesnar manages a parallel trajectory, whereby he wins his next 3 fights spectacularly, perhaps the momentum for Fedor-Lesnar will be unstoppable. But something tells me Lesnar won’t be able to defend his title 3 times. Already, I give Carwin more of a chance against Lesnar than Rogers, Werdum or Overeem have of beating Fedor.
If Lesnar manages a parallel trajectory, whereby he wins his next 3 fights spectacularly, perhaps the momentum for Fedor-Lesnar will be unstoppable. But something tells me Lesnar won’t be able to defend his title 3 times. Already, I give Carwin more of a chance against Lesnar than Rogers, Werdum or Overeem have of beating Fedor.
Carwin’s a big boy, can really punch, might be able to stuff a takedown, and isn’t a billion years old. And he has confidence: You put those together, and Brock might be out cold. If that ends up the case, the talk about that fight comes to a dead stop for a long, long time.
Since they’ll appreciate the hits and because it is just that funny, over in the thread about this fight on BE, mmalogic, INSIDER EXTRAORDINARE~, has a phenomenal kookout. It transitions from admitting that Strikeforce exceeded expectations, that they aren’t about to collapse, quickly dismissed all the things he “promised” would happen and then made brand new promises about the UFC having “signed a network deal”, transitioning UFNs to HBO, moving WEC to ESPN (he later admits there is no actual discussion about this), and a whole host of other comedy.
When people start questioning the veracity of his claims, he then claims to be in Dubai and that he drives a Bentley. Solid gold.
Does anyone know what is actual Overeem contract status with Strikeforce? Is he even signed?
In October he is scheduled to fight Mighty Mo at Glory event in Amsterdam and if he beast Aerts at Final Elimination, he’ll fight in K-1 Finals in December.
This is mma and anything can happen. Rogers is a good match up now.
Overeem at heavy weight is a dangerous fight for anyone. Anyone remember the Sergy Karitonov fight?
Heavyweight Overeem is much more dangerous then light heavyweight Overeem.
Glad Rogers will get his chance. Look out Fedor!
You mean first Kharitonov fight or the second? 🙂
From a marketing perspective, Strikeforce needs to push Rogers as someone who’s tough and legitimate…highlight the fact that he’s bigger, more active, and took out Arlovski faster and easier than Fedor did.
Right now, to 90% of the fans he’s just a big dude with not much name value…you almost have to market him as an equal to Fedor.
The problem that Affliction ran into is that they’d promote Fedor’s fights by saying “He’s the BEST IN THE WORLD! No one has a snowball’s chance in hell if beating him!” And then he’d win, and Affliction would say “SEE? Told ya!”
Someone who winds all the time, and we all KNOW he’s going to win? Not a compelling storyline.
You mean like Mike Tyson in the 80’s??
Oh yeah, no one was into that.
Apples and oranges.
Strikeforce doesn’t have 80’s boxing coverage, with thousands of media mentions a day all over the world. It is a small promotion in a growing industry with virtually no media coverage (online or otherwise). Their mainstream attention is zilch, and most sports websites are in the pocket of Zuffa.
UFC can get away with a Tyson-like storyline because a) they have a voice, and b) they have a huge roster of established guys in case their ace (someone like A.Silva or Lesnar) gets caught with a flash KO.
If Strikeforce puts all their eggs in one basket, it’s a VERY dangerous proposition. When your one and only guy loses, retires or gets injured, you’re effed.
We’ve seen this with FMW, Elite XC, and with heavyweight boxing.
They simply can’t afford to say “Fedor is the be-all, end-all” of fighting, because it doesn’t help their other talent, it’s too risky, and it’s not a very compelling reason for the casual fan to buy a PPV.
“…the media storyline on Scott Coker is now being established — he’s not ready for prime-time and he finds himself in situations not totally prepared. Is this a fair media storyline?”
We’ll know in, say, six months. I have a feeling that he’s totally ready and capable.
It is highly unlikely that Coker is capable of doing well at this level. In the business world, there are people who are good at doing small business and people who are good at doing big business (as a real simplification). It is extremely uncommon to see people be able to handle both.
Guys like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were able to do both. They were with their companies from the beginning and could handle being CEO’s as well. However, they are also both literally geniuses. Most original owners of the company typically move into a smaller roll or end up selling the business and starting from scratch again.
As for Fedor vs. Brett Rogers…. From a rankings perspective, this is the best fight Strikeforce could put on. From the MMA business perspective, it isn’t very good. Then again, they don’t really have a great option at this point.
1. They can’t really build towards Fedor vs. Overeem if Overeem is unable to have 2 fights in Strikeforce (on Showtime) before their showdown.
2. Fedor vs. Rogers could be good if built up, but the problem is that they have nobody build this fight up with. As it stands right now, Rogers comes across too shy and completely lacks the “IT” Factor that a guy like Lesnar, Ortiz, Kimbo, or GSP have.
Lastly, I know the boxing world is stuck in the past, so I can see why Showtime would want to do an open sparing session like this in NYC. However, Coker needs to be smarter. The concept of having the media come to a workout was cool back in the 1970’s when Ali was boxing. It is pointless now. They could have spent a fraction of the money on a great online video and pushed it that way.
Not to mention the people they would be attracting to the open workout are likely newspaper guys…. And the people who buy papers aren’t likely in the demographic of MMA.
The other day I rewatched some Rogers fights on youtube. I kind of bought into the Rogers hype recently and pegged him as a big, dangerous stand-up fighter with a ? groundgame. I forgot how completely average he looked in his fights before AA. Against Humphreys, Rogers looked slow, stiff, and his punches looked horrible. I can’t see him beating Fedor on the feet at all.
Also, anyone that’s thinking about blowing a few bills on Rogers should take another look at the Thompson fight. If Thompson can get a quasi-judo takedown 30 seconds in, Fedor is going to have a field day against Rogers.
“Does anyone know what is actual Overeem contract status with Strikeforce? Is he even signed?”
Great question, and one I have been wondering for a while. And it seems nobody has actually straight out asked Coker about it, which amazes me.
The other question nobody asked Coker (or at least I haven’t seen it), is if Brett Rogers signed a contract extension with Strikeforce before signing on to fight Fedor? It was reported that Rogers has 1 fight left on his deal before he signed with Fedor.
I’m not sure what you call it, but Fedor definitely likes to fight bigger, slower Heavyweight’s. That is for sure.
And beyond the entire rankings thing, this is one of the reasons I wanted to see him in the UFC. They have some quick, big Heavyweights. Some might be unproven, but stylistically, they pose problems for Fedor. Rogers, Werdum, and Overeem do not.
Alan C. wrote: “Since they’ll appreciate the hits and because it is just that funny, over in the thread about this fight on BE, mmalogic, INSIDER EXTRAORDINARE~, has a phenomenal kookout. It transitions from admitting that Strikeforce exceeded expectations, that they aren’t about to collapse, quickly dismissed all the things he “promised” would happen and then made brand new promises about the UFC having “signed a network deal”, transitioning UFNs to HBO, moving WEC to ESPN (he later admits there is no actual discussion about this), and a whole host of other comedy.
When people start questioning the veracity of his claims, he then claims to be in Dubai and that he drives a Bentley. Solid gold.”
lol, the person using the “mmalogic” alias is quite a fraud. It says a lot that his posts are still being taken seriously by many.
“In the business world, there are people who are good at doing small business and people who are good at doing big business (as a real simplification). It is extremely uncommon to see people be able to handle both.Guys like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were able to do both.”
A not so thinly veiled attempt to put Dana White in the same boat as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Nice try. The difference is Dana had two billionaires willing to blow 50 million dollars on a business. I wouldnt exactly call that business genius.
“Fedor definitely likes to fight bigger, slower Heavyweight’s”
First of all, no apostrophe needed. Its plural, not possessive. Second of all, this is a ridiculous statement, obviously aimed at simply slandering Fedor. Arlovski and Barnett have never been considered slow heavyweights, and Matt Lindland, Crocop, and Randleman, also are not slow. Nogueira is bigger than Fedor but also was never considered slow when Fedor beat him. Actually he was considered #1 and then #2 in the world at that time… What a troll.
“lol, the person using the “mmalogic” alias is quite a fraud. It says a lot that his posts are still being taken seriously by many.”
I realize I’m persona non grata around here, but I thought I’d share this with you all. I have no idea if mmalogic is a fraud or not. I’ve sent emails to the address he/she used to register on BE, but he/she has never responded.
However, I checked the login IP address of mmalogic’s last login and it’s the United Arab Emirates. I swear on everything that I can I’m not joking.
Like I said, they could be a fraud, but their IP address is, in fact, Dubai.
I also don’t think Rogers poses any threat to Fedor, he will either be destroyed on the feet like Sylvia or taken down and armbared. Still I belive it’s the second best match-up they could put.
As for Brett contract status, from what he says in the interview with Jordan Breen I assume he didn’t sign contract extension. He basically says that if he beats Fedor he will weigh his options outside or something like that. He also admits that his payday is nowhere near 500 k.
I think you took what I said it skewed it in a different direction. White isn’t even in the same ocean as Gates & Jobs. White took other people’s money, lost a bunch of it, and then stumbled onto TUF. That’s not exactly good. I do think since TUF has taken off, he has done a very good job and knows how to run a bigger business.
As for Fedor wanting to fight bigger slower guys…. I think when Vadim has the ability to pick, they definitely go after that more times then not. Sylvia, Choi, and now Rogers. And Lindland was never a fast Middleweight, if anything he was one of the slower ones.
“As for Brett contract status, from what he says in the interview with Jordan Breen I assume he didn’t sign contract extension. He basically says that if he beats Fedor he will weigh his options outside or something like that. He also admits that his payday is nowhere near 500 k.”
Wow, just wow!!! He has a really bad manager. A good manager would have done 1 of 2 things:
1. Gotten him a new contract with Strikeforce for much more money.
2. Not taken the Fedor fight, fought once, and then see how much the UFC offers him.
It makes no sense to take this fight and risk it all. There is too much money out there for it to be a smart move.
It is just my assumption, before you start blasting Pavia we should have some more info.
“Like I said, they could be a fraud, but their IP address is, in fact, Dubai.”
Owned.
I fully expect Rogers to get KOd on about 45 seconds. But I hope he wins. And if anyone were crazy enough to do +800 I’d drop two bills on it just to get me interested in the fight.
Rogers is a slow footed, plodding brawler with looping punches. Tailor made for Fedor. That’s why his management wanted him to fight Rogers who wasn’t in camp over Belfort.
By the way, Nogueira looks to be in very good shape for this upcoming fight. A complete 180 from how he looked against Mir. Doesn’t mean he has his reflexes back, but it can’t hurt.
An in shape Nog will KO Randy.
Got this from BE, and it falls in line with the discussion that has happened a few days ago about the UFC and WEC merging….
Question: “What about more weight classes?”
Dana White: “If we do any more weight classes, it’s going to be lower. Adding lighter weight classes.”
Question: “What are the chances of that happening? And how soon if it does happen?”
White: “Very good and probably very soon. We are doing like three fights a month next year.”
I’m not sure what it proves for mmalogic’s IP address to be Dubai. Mine’s Dubai, too, but I don’t claim any insight into the UFC’s business strategies…
Because god knows there aren’t very many people with internet access in Dubai.
36 events in one year. It definitely sounds familiar.
We’ll see if it happens. If it does, they’re going to have to spread way out. They’re going to have to do Mexico City, they’re going to have to have some of the other northeastern cities open up for shows, or they’re going to need to have minor shows in small out of the way places they haven’t been in ten years (which they could easily pull off).
I don’t think you can run 18 shows in Vegas in a single year.
Coker’s in over his head right now. He’s going to either learn to swim really fast, or he’s going to lose his company. Which would be a shame.
I’m not sure what it proves for mmalogic’s IP address to be Dubai. Mine’s Dubai, too, but I don’t claim any insight into the UFC’s business strategies…
Well, jesus man, start. Go with something obvious. Networks want to not spend money because they don’t think the ratings and demo demonstrate the need and the UFC wants it, so predict that the UFC will one off with a network with the idea that if it is successful that they will re-up for a more substantial contract. Do things like that until something turns out right. Rinse, repeat.
My take on mmalogic is that he behaves like a shill on the zuffa payroll.
we also have plenty of idiots on the site who behave like that for free though, but he’s very effective at damaging zuffa’s enemies.
his slanders about mousasi were a thing of beauty if you admire the art of spin and misinformation.
sometimes he does seem to know things early. he seems to enjoy making wild claims to wind people up.
he also clearly has contempt for BE readers and is often belligerant.
i suspect he posts when drunk.
the thing i’ve noticed is that he’s most wrong when dana and company have been wrong. he was saying fedor would be fighting his next fight in the ufc around the same time someone inside zuffa leaked that to the LA Times. This was the exact same time Dana and the Ferittas were (supposedly) making their big offer to Fedor.
I do find it amusing that what goes on at BE seems to dominate the conversation around here.
Coker’s in over his head right now. He’s going to either learn to swim really fast, or he’s going to lose his company. Which would be a shame.
Why would it be a shame? Someone else will take his place in that end of the MMA world. If he can’t do it, BFD. The sun will rise the next day.
Zuffa will have run 19/20 UFC Events and 7 WEC Events. Bumping that up to 35 is not that big of a jump. With Boston opening up, potential NYC, and now British Columbia (??), the markets will be there for them to run the show.
Concerning mmalogic, Kid Nate said: “i suspect he posts when drunk.” I’ve often thought the same thing myself. It would be interesting to uncover who he really is. Some of the information he has obviously is from first hand knowledge. However, sometimes it seems like he posts things on how he wishes things were, not how they will end up happening. He is still interesting to read… But he has proven he needs to be taken with two fistfuls of salt…
As for Strikeforce… If Coker fails…. Who is going to replace him? While I think he is in over his head, at least he seems like an honest guy. I don’t get the sense that he is out to hurt the sport or do bad things. He is 100 times better then Gary Shaw.
The only thing I can see in the future that would even pose a threat to UFC’s dominance of the market is the Muhammed Ali Boxing Reform Act. If that is extended to MMA, the UFC’s contract system could possibly be deemed illegal, thus setting the fighters free and creating a system more similar to boxing.
Honestly that seems inevitable considering that the worldwide talent in MMA is set to absolutely explode in the next ten years, thus creating more talent than the UFC can handle. It will eventually overwhelm UFC and the whole sport will evolve.
I stopped taking the person who is using the “mmalogic” alias seriously when the subject turned to Brett Rogers’ marketability and he said “Black don’t sell PPV.”
Everything he says continues to be given great weight (and he continues to be defended), but it’s clear that his statements don’t deserve that weight.
Rather than rehashing old ground on a tired old story about a fraud who won’t just post under his real name, I’ll just re-post what I posted several weeks ago when the person using the “mmalogic” alias stopped just short of exposing himself as a fraud:
“If there’s one thing that’s clear about this “mmalogic” person, it’s that while he clearly does have some contacts at Zuffa, he’s also a bit of a fraud.
He claims to make $3,000 per hour, yet he spends long periods of his time posting in the comments section of an MMA blog. (Yes, I also spend long periods of time posting in the comments section of an MMA blog, but then again I’m not claiming to be making $3,000 per hour.)
He claims that his advice is worth $30,000 to $300,000 per hour, yet he just spent three hours on the comments section of a Bloody Elbow post, soliciting advice from the extremely scientific sample of “whoever happened to be on Bloody Elbow during that three-hour period,” and he acted as though their recommendations are going to have a big role in the advice that he does or doesn’t give to Zuffa. Yup, sounds to me like someone who makes $3,000 per hour and whose advice is worth $30,000 to $300,000 per hour…”
On an unrelated note (thus a separate post), Dana White reportedly said that the Penn-Sanchez fight will not be on PPV and it will not be on Spike TV. So that means it’s either going to be on another network, or it’s going to be an untelevised house show. I’m guessing that the latter is extremely unlikely, lol.
Other news from the press conference includes Dana White “all but confirming the promotion’s intention to fold World Extreme Cagefighting into the Ultimate Fighting Championship” according to MMAWeekly (http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=9463).
as well as the following comments about Quinton Jackson’s Hollywood aspirations (http://www.mmaweekly.com/blog/2009/08/white-rails-at-rampages-team-dream.asp):
“I hate it with a (expletive) passion,” he said. “You’re a fighter. You’re not a movie star. It’s so (expletive) funny because fighters want to be movie stars and movie stars want to act like they’re fighters. It’s like, get a grip. You’re a (expletive) fighter and you’re a movie star.”
“Rampage wants to be a movie star,” continued White. “I hope it’s not true (about Jackson getting the role). He’s up for it, and he talked to me, he wants to do this thing, and he’s like, ‘listen, man, this is really important to me…there’s some sentimental value here for me, me and my Dad grew up watching The A-Team together and we loved it.’
“Well, guess what, brother? I said, ‘guess what Rashad Evans is thinking about right now. He’s thinking about beating your (expletive) ass. He’s not sitting around thinking about him and his mom used to watch the (expletive) ‘Love Boat’ together, and he wants to get the role of ‘Isaac the Bartender’…you know what I mean? Get a (expletive) grip, dude. You’re going to make a lot of money. You ain’t gonna make a lot of money playing B.A. Baracus on the A-Team. Jesus Christ. (Expletive) drives me (expletive) nuts.”
“The only thing I can see in the future that would even pose a threat to UFC’s dominance of the market is the Muhammed Ali Boxing Reform Act.”
The government likely won’t extend this far. The reason the act was writen to begin with was because of the corruption in boxing. The UFC doesn’t really suffer from that stigma, and likely won’t have to face any government interference.
As for not being able to control the sport, I’m not so sure about that either. Baseball is huge across many countries, but you still have to come to America to be in the “big leagues”. With the UFC already having so many Top Tier fighters, it is hard to justify anybody being in the Top 10 without them fighting in the UFC. And who is going to outbid them? Even if they can afford 2 guys to outbid them for, once that fight is over, they aren’t left with much.
Once a company has a stranglehold on their business sector, it is extremely hard to loosen the grip.