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Some initial thoughts on The Ultimate Fighter: Kimbo Slice series debut
By Zach Arnold | September 17, 2009
Nate Quarry, former TUF contestant, gets the win in Oklahoma City against Tim Credeur (image courtesy UFC.com video)
As I’m finishing up a recap of gathering quotes from the winners of last night’s Oklahoma City show for a new article…
The Very Good
The interaction between Rashad Evans and Rampage Jackson is tremendous. It has the potential for A-grade level television in terms of creating hype for their upcoming fight. The differences between the two men make the time fly by when watching the show, which is a feat considering how many times I’ve watched The Ultimate Fighter and absolutely dreaded doing so.
The Good
It’s clear that Kimbo Slice and Roy Nelson will end up being the two ‘legitimate’ fighters in the eyes of fans after this show. The first 30 minutes was all about rehabilitating Slice’s image as someone who is legitimate and Jackson did a great job in the promos to try to erase the memories of Seth Petruzelli out of the brains of fans. It is kind of amusing to see UFC in the first 30 minutes make Slice out to be this incredibly dangerous monster despite the fact that Slice was entirely exposed on CBS. It’s a real stretch what they’re doing here, but it’s also the only promotional move they could do. The right course in terms of marketing. As for Nelson, it was interesting to see that Nelson got picked ‘in the middle’ of the team selection process and that the storyline for him on the show is that Rashad Evans and Greg Jackson are going to get on Nelson for not ‘being serious enough’ and too much of a jokester. Will the public buy into it? Who knows.
The Bad
Watching The Very Good and realizing that after making the commitment for the Memphis fight that Jackson decided to do the A-Team movie instead. I realize that Dana White & Lorenzo Fertitta play good cop, bad cop all the time with talent, but White has every right to be pissed off about Jackson — especially seeing the dynamic between Jackson and Evans on this show last night. White is entirely right in saying that the Memphis fight would have drawn huge money for Jackson and instead he went to the movies. Irritating.
The Ugly
The roster of heavyweights. Outside of Kimbo Slice (the superstar) and Roy Nelson (the professional), it feels like Spike TV decided to take a page out of the WWE talent playbook and recruit people who look like fighters (but really aren’t) instead of actually bringing in raw talent for the show. Outside of the excessive blood on display by Abe Wagner in the opening fight, it seems pretty obvious that Rampage picked the bigger fighters but Evans recruited the better fighters. That doesn’t exactly predicate good fights to come, but we’ll see. The first fight was not a good harbinger of things to come.
Sidenote: Season 9 of TUF just launched on WOWOW in Japan.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 61 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I guess I’m the only one not amused by Rampage’s schtick. He’s clearly unbalanced and he’s just not funny. In my opinion
My thoughts going into this season, oft repeated, is that it was a freakshow with a bunch of Johnny Mortons, Kimbo, and Wes Sims that would be entertaining in the house but provide little in the way of actual talent. Right now, that’s the way its looking. Which is fine. I’ll watch, and maybe someone will surprise me here and there.
Last night, we had Head Engineer Daniel Ghita vs. Carmelo Marrero Mk.2, and it looked like the kind of fight you’d expect back in 1995; tons of blood and guys who only know how to do one thing at a time. Surprise! The wrestler won. Well, he looked good enough to probably romp through half these dudes en route to the semis before he ends up with Roy Nelson or someone like that across the ring.
Each season produces 3 to 5 good contenders. That is all this show has to do.
Kimbo Slice, Roy Nelson, and 1 to 3 of those other guys needs to make a name for themselves, and the show has done it’s job. I’m sure somebody will rise to the top.
It’s not like the Heavyweight Division is very good to begin with….
Oh, and i didn’t mean to say Kimbo is a legit contender. He is a name and a gimmick really. But he will bring in fans.
There are also rumors that the UFC might be bringing back Seth. Kimbo vs. Slice 2 on TUF Finale perhaps?
I know what you mean.
The UFC is going to make big money off of having Kimbo on the roster, unless something is upcoming on TUF that catches fans by surprise, like Kimbo gets beaten badly and then poops himself in the cage.
Kimbo is sticking around no matter what. He’s definitely fighting on the finale and I guarantee you they have longer term plans too.
The show was good. So good I don’t get why people are still whining about A-Team. Are you that cynical about the attention spans of Spike TV viewers that they’re going to forget the season in a month? Like a weekend marathon or running highlights of the face-to-face moments. Most of us remember the highlights from season one and three and that was four years ago. We remember the Koscheck-Leben showdown from 2005 and Ken getting the only win he ever got over Tito by working him in the pool game, among other great TUF moments. A month is a memory eraser?
Actually, the UFC could work this to their advantage: have Rashad cut a promo about “Mr. Hollywood” hiding behind playing some moronic 80s TV character rather than being a man and fighting him. Instant added heat. And Dana can just say he’ll let the movie role go, but Rampage will fight at the next available UFC show regardless if he gets a full training session in or not.
You’re being sarcastic, right? What happened to all the endless blowjobs you’d give the BIG WRESTLERS~! who were going to kill off small heavyweights like Couture, Nogueira and Fedor?
“…have Rashad cut a promo about “Mr. Hollywood” hiding behind playing some moronic 80s TV character rather than being a man and fighting him. Instant added heat.”
I’m not picking at you, but that smells badly of WWE tactics.
When you say, “have Rashad cut a promo about,” that sounds to me like you’re suggesting that the promotion script a fighter’s comments. Maybe I’m out of touch, but that just doesn’t seem like a good thing.
Clearly, what the UFC needs to do is have guys uncomfortably recite lines given to them, because that’s a formula that’s worked to great effect elsewhere, amirite?
I don’t get it. How can you rate all these guys, after watching just two of them. Neither Wagner, nor Madsen was the favourite to win the show. I suggest that you wait for Wren, Schaub & Schoonover before you call all these guys a bunch freaks.
It’s not like that there are dozens of young HWs in US who weren’t recruited for the show.
I don’t get it. How can you rate all these guys, after watching just two of them. Neither Wagner, nor Madsen was the favourite to win the show. I suggest that you wait for Wren, Schaub & Schoonover before you call all these guys a bunch freaks.
Schoonver is undersized and has already been labelled the “guy with titties”. That’s generally not a positive sign about him being a high end heavyweight. Maybe Schaub or Wren breaks out. But its not like anyone’s really watching for that.
I don’t mean cut a scripted promo, I meant it as a figure of speech meaning a rant to sell fights, what countless MMA fighters do. Dana has done probably 9 of these already about Rampage to anybody who will listen, why shouldn’t the guy actually getting in the Octagon with him do one?
Todd Duffee is already in the UFC. They can’t send all of their best options through TUF – only one can win, and they do have more important things going on than TUF (PPVs).
One strange thing is that Big Country has to do TUF instead of someone like Tuscherer (kicked in the groin by Gabe). I guess they see him as an “insurance policy” as in – he provides a legitimate TUF 10 champ if nobody else is able to step up.
“Kimbo is sticking around no matter what. He’s definitely fighting on the finale and I guarantee you they have longer term plans too.”
Well thats good news to hear! I didn’t believe it any of the times dana said it in those multiple interviews, but now that you guarantee it I can rest easy. Thanks man.
It was a good night. I got tired of the “these guys played in the NFL~!” stuff
Fedor vs. Rogers on November 7th on CBS. According to Sherdog and MMA Weekly.
I am surprised CBS actually did this.
Strikeforce is putting all their eggs in one basket, so mine as well try and make this as big of an event as possible.
Got to wonder how this will draw without Gina or Kimbo. That’s not a positive or negative comment. I really have no clue to be honest. They have about 7 weeks to sell tickets and promote this thing…..
Damn, 45 beat me to it!
Notice how they Strikeforce and Showtime always have their announcements a day or two before a UFC PPV. The Fedor vs. Rogers news was right before UFC 102. And now this before UFC 103.
I don’t think the UFC will counterprogram anything on CBS. At least not with a live show. They never did with EliteXC. And it is very simple. They risk having a smaller audience on SpikeTV, and that would create major PR issues…..
I still don’t see Fedor being a huge draw in the states. My guess is that the rating will be slightly higher then the 2nd EliteXC card that featured Robbie Lawler in the main event. But that is a pure guess….
Sorry for another post and I will stop posting after this one. The press release says:
“SHOWTIME Sports® will produce the four-fight event with host Gus Johnson calling the action and MMA legend Frank Shamrock and Mauro Ranallo serving as color analysts.”
I hope they mean the telecast is only 4 fights. If the entire card is 4 fights….. YIKES!! Welcome to boxing…
What struck me as funny about TUF 10 is that it looks like Dana stocked the show with a bunch of tomato cans for Kimbo to get some wins. Problem is Rampage picked Kimbo AND all the tomato cans.
I don’t know if anyone on Rampage’s team is going to get any wins.
I’m actually real surprised how it went down. I thought for sure they’d try to put Kimbo with a couple stiffs then set up Kimbo vs Wes Sims and have the winner face Roy Nelson in the live finals.
Roy should walk through the show. Kimbo is actually a real hard worker and a very good athlete. It’s too bad he didn’t end up with Rashad/Greg Jackson.
Kimbo will have a fight on the TUF finale whether he’s in the finals or not, and he’ll have future UFC fights after that unless he loses badly enough (or draws ratings badly enough) that the UFC decides to release him, which is unlikely. The whole notion that Kimbo would have to win TUF to get a spot in the UFC is more of a “farce” than Kimbo himself ever was.
True. Kimbo won’t learn anything with Rampage, Zack Light, Hector Ramirez and Tiki. Rashad team has Jackson, Whitman and McSweeney.
… waiting to hear all about how network TV deals are company-killers…
Not sure what your point is, Ivan. Mine is that I think it would be in UFC’s best interest if Kimbo won 2-3 fights on the show. If he gets beat his first fight out it takes him away as a ratings draw for the rest of the season.
Obviously he has a place in the UFC if he draws interest and puts on good fights. That’s how it should be. You like to tout this line about loving guys with good records no matter how crummy their fights are. Where as I don’t mine guys like Chris Leben, Nate Quarry, the Irish Hand Grenade guy, Chris Lytle and those types coming back and putting on exciting fights even though the’re not championship material.
The problem with the network deals we’ve seen IFL and Elite XC get don’t pay much. Therefore those companies needed to draw off sponsorships and at the gate. Neither was able to do so.
Strikeforce has 7 weeks to find a building and promote a show. They better pick someplace good and sell it out to pay for Fedor. Anaheim might be a good idea. Fedor was able to draw down there for Affliction.
Not sure the financials on the CBS/Strikeforce deal. Can’t imagine them getting more money than Elite.
Hopefully they put Diaz/Jay Hieron on this card.
Not company killers. Just not money makers. It doesn’t allow Strikeforce to compete with the UFC when trying to sign fighters for the most pay.
Got this from a guy on The Underground, and it goes right in line with Zach Arnold’s post a few days ago:
Prudent center — Newark, NJ –> BOOKED — Miley Cyrus
Izod center — East Rutherford, NJ –> BOOKED — NJ Nets
Xcel Energy center — St. Paul, MN –> BOOKED — Minnesota Wild
Target Center — Minneapolis, MN —> BOOKED — KISS
HP Pavilion — San Jose, CA —> BOOKED — San Jose Sharks
He then says: “Toyota center in Houston is booked for minor league hockey… American Airlines center in Dallas is booked for the Mavs …. and AT+T Center San Antonio is booked for something called Walking with Dinosaurs”
Where are they going to hold this event? Russia? United Center in Chicago, Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio, & Staples Center in LA, Cali are all booked as well….. What other options do they have for a bigger arena that is good market for MMA?
Honda Center in Anaheim is booked too. The majority of stuff is booked up with basketball and hockey games.
“Target Center — Minneapolis, MN —> BOOKED — KISS”
Can you say Kiss/Fedor double-header?
The perfect storm is brewing…
They could hold it in Seattle or Vancouver. Maybe Mohegan Sun in Connecticut.
Maybe they’ll just hold the event on a barge in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and then Strikeforce will kindly go out of business, and then no other company will ever dare to “mess with the UFC,” and then the UFC’s model will be just like the NFL, except for the minor details of not having a players’ union, not having an anti-trust exemption, and not having 32 teams bidding against each other for the services of its athletes…
Careful up there on the high horse, Ivan. Those things can get skittish. Don’t want to see you end up like Christopher Reeve.
Making jokes about Christopher Reeve = classy
Sorry. That was tasteless.
Mohegan Sun has never been a big draw for combat sports. The idea is that somehow the NY crowd will drive over, but it never happens. They always have a harder time filling up boxing and MMA cards. Even the UFC hasn’t touched it in a while. Besides, Rob Thomas is there on that date.
Ivan,
Instead of just making fun of everybody else, how about you add something to the discussion? Perhaps a suggestion of a location?
I have two comments:
1) Any market worthy of a bigger crowd most likely has a sporting event or concert already booked 7 weeks out.
2) They could always try Vegas, but that could be suicide. Even the UNLV Center is booked for that date.
“It is kind of amusing to see UFC in the first 30 minutes make Slice out to be this incredibly dangerous monster despite the fact that Slice was entirely exposed on CBS.”
You know I watched TUF last night but I missed this part, if anything they made it clear that Kimbo has alot to prove and might get embarrased again if he doesnt take being an mma fighter seriously.
Good luck to CBS with mma 2.0, they passed on a name fight with Gina and Cyborg for a guy with no name value yeah that’s going to work.
What are potential states? California, Florida, Colorado?
Canada is out of the question. Not only will the press not follow them enough, but too many issues could arise on short notice.
KeyArena (Seattle) has Elton John & Billy Joel. Florida is more of a secondary market for MMA. And the economy is so bad down there right now, it is risky to put on a show. Mellon Arena in Pittsburg is booked up.
Ironicly, the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, PA has the date open. Only problem is that the UFC was just there and those tickets were expensive. That is risky to do a show there on shorter notice on a market that was just hit….
Quicken Loans Arena…. Columbus, OH…. Where the Cavaliers play. That is my guess on where they will have it.
How about Atlantic City? Tough to really draw there. But could be worth a shot. Plus Trump has some history with Fedor.
I shouldn’t have made fun of you, Ivan. But you don’t add much to a lot of these debates. You say smarky things and then run away.
How about this for MMA? All the top guys run away and hide from each other and defend meaningless belts. Then when they have to take a risky fight they retire or go record a rap album or mysteriously break a hand. Then MMA can be just like boxing. Boxing also has no players union or 32 competing owners.
Whether you like UFC or not, it’s the best thing going for MMA today. They do an awesome job of putting on the fights fans want to see and making guys take hard, competitive fights. They even do a better job of this now than PRIDE did at its peak. And the guys who’ve been on this board since the beginning know that is a huge complement from me.
According to Ivan best should fight the best if they’re named Okami, they don’t need to if they’re named Emelianenko.
No need to pile on Ivan. That’s not likely to get everyone on board with a discussion of the fight game and the fight game only.
Sherdog is reporting that it is likely going to be in Chicago. Sears Centre Arena, which holds a little over almost 12,000.
mmalogic is back at it again at BE. He has posted a lot of things… but to me the most important are:
1) “This is probably the best move they can make short of what I think they should do… you cant counter program CBS with anything on spike other than a replay. A live show on spike will only hurt Zuffa at this point.”
2) “If the numbers are great then that only gives Zuffa more leverage with its network. If the numbers suck – the entire upside is deflated.”
3) “If you make any headway with a network Zuffa will have a deal gift wrapped that pays even better making your inroads a wash or worse.”
I think point #2 is the most important item that won’t be discussed that much. Strikeforce is basically giving away their event for little money (just like EliteXC did). They are the experiment. If they do bad, they are likely off CBS as EliteXC almost was after their 2nd show. If they do good, the UFC will just sign with one of the other 3 networks, and have the star power to make even bigger ratings.
Overall post is: http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2009/9/17/1035276/strikeforce-fedor-emelianenko-vs
TUF 10 did 4.1 Million viewers. TUF is officially back. Will Strikeforce get 4.1 Million on their CBS debut?
I think people discount the fact that while Fedor wasn’t a big draw or known name to the North American casuals, Affliction went out of business being a pretty good introduction and ad/hype for Fedor (iirc -they did very good live gates and had far higher than expected ppv buys (125-200k) depending on who you believe). The whole UFC/SF free agent circus certainly brought him to the forefront as well as even the most disinterested fan would have to wonder who this guy was that the UFC was offering the largest contract ever.
I think Fedor’s drawing ability today is a lot better than people would like to let on. I guess we’ll see – and we’ll have to see who else they put on the show. I’m sure Mayhem, Lawler, Gina/Cyborg would be there to spike ratings as well.
Dana should let Anderson Silva demolish Rampage after Rashad gets through with him.
4.1? Holy…
The 1st Affliction card had them buying their own tickets to over inflate their gate. It was rumored that ticket sales for their last event (that got cancelled) were selling badly.
Not to mention that Fedor/Sylvia and Fedor/Arlovski intrigued that 100,000 “I buy any MMA PPV” base on hardcore fans. After Fedor/Rogers, what is interesting? Nothing really. Fedor/Werdum is interesting to nobody and Overeem is trying to get out of his contract because SF signed a deal with M-1.
Cung Le just vacated his belt because he is doing ANOTHER movie. Carano is going to movies. They have no other stars. Mousasi is fantastic, but they have nobody to challenge him and he really lacks that Star Quality. So does Fedor. They are too shy by American Standards.
Strikeforce’s bar has now been set at 4.1 Million. If they can’t even obtain that, CBS is going to look at it as a complete failure, especially when TUF 10 can get that on SpikeTV.
Think about this….. Kimbo Slice on EliteXC’s last show did about 4.5 Million viewers for the entire show.
Fedor cannot equal that…. He just can’t.
Looks like Jake Shields vs. Jason Miller will also be happening on the CBS show, and it will be for the Strikeforce Middleweight Title that Cung Le finally vacated (two years too late). I’ll be looking forward to that fight as well, through not as much as Penn vs. Sanchez in the same month.
On a related note, what in the heck is going on with Anderson Silva? The latest word from the UFC at the pre-fight press conference today is that Silva IS having elbow surgery, even though Silva and his camp have both said that he is not having elbow surgery and that he would be available to fight in November if the UFC offered him a superfight in November (ie, a fight against Randy Couture or someone on that level of name recognition). In the meantime, he won’t take a rematch against Dan Henderson, and he won’t take a rematch against Nate Marquardt, although in Silva’s defense, he did finish both of them last time.
I wonder how much help CBS will give Strikeforce. If they hype up Fedor during football games they could make this a huge event. MMA is a strange fit on CBS though. CBS tries to be so high brow and sophisticated. Even with their sports. They don’t have NASCAR or any of the various extreme sports events. They’re very polished in the way they handle their NFL games, college sports and golf.
Right off the bat it would seem like promoting Mayhem Miller and his MTV show would make sense. But that goes against what CBS usually does.
Anderson Silva needs to toss aside the 185 belt. The only interesting fight for him at that weight is Vitor. I’m pretty sure Anderson could let Henderson and Marquardt flip a coin for who he fights first and beat them both in the same night.
I don’t know if UFC has any leeway with the UK show. But Anderson vs Couture on Spike would wreck the Fedor fight.
It doesn’t matter how much CBS hypes Fedor. It’s ultimately the public that chooses whether Fedor becomes a star, and odds are against it.
Why you ask? Simply look at Anderson Silva. The logic behind Fedor becoming a massive hit would also lead one to assume that Anderson Silva should be one of, if not the biggest star in the UFC. Great fighter, highlight reel victories, lots of high praise from media, mythos as an unbeatable monster, etc.
It doesn’t work that way though. Anderson has been promoted by the biggest MMA organization for years as the p4p best fighter in the world, and has dispatched 8 of his 10 UFC opponents (most of whom were and still are very highly ranked) in ridiculous highlight reel fashion on PPV and Spike.
Guess what? He’s still not a very big draw. How will Fedor succeed where Anderson can’t? He has no selling point that Anderson doesn’t also possess.
Getting on CBS and getting people to watch the show is half the battle. The other, more important half is to get them to like it enough that they can’t wait to watch it again. That’s going to tough, especially with the long 3-5 month layoff between CBS shows.
The Fedor experiment continues. If the past is a good indicator of the Future, Strikforce, CBS & Showtime is bound for failure. It’s already been proven in the past that Fedor is incapable of becoming a huge draw in the USA. Wasn’t the demise of PRIDE, Bodog & Affliction enough to prove this fact?
The TV viewing audience (at least in America or Canada) will pay to see fighters they can easily relate or at least resemble their demographic. Hence, a big reason why Couture, Lidell, Ortiz, St. Pierre & Lesnar have become big PPV draws.
No doubt about it. Fedor is a great fighter. We can say the same thing about Anderson Silva as well. But they’re non-American and speak little English. Their low PPV buy-rates is all the proof you really need in regards to their lack of drawing power.
It would not surpise me to see Strikeforce die within 2 years, especially with Fedor as their main draw.