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Josh Gross criticizes Michael Schiavello’s commentary of Overeem/Hari K-1 fight
By Zach Arnold | December 9, 2009
“He seems like a perfectly nice, extremely passionate guy. But Schiavello’s effort during Overeem-Hari was sad.”
If you want to read the background on why the fans treated Overeem as a heel at Yokohama Arena, read my article from today about how Overeem’s comments about K-1 and MMA were played up into a classic “outsider” angle despite Alistair’s kickboxing background. Schiavello, being a natural fanatic for everything fight-game related (including pro-wrestling), played up every aspect of the fight (the fact that Hari was seeking revenge for losing to Overeem last year on NYE.)
Consider Jordan Breen a fan of Schiavello’s call of the fight:
“Who said objective commentary was a good thing? I wish Lampley and Merchant celebrated like that.”
Schiavello responds to general criticism here:
“LOL. The fan in me came out. AO talked a LOT of smack on K-1, BH lived up 2 his promise. If that didnt excite u, u have no pulse.”
Topics: Japan, K-1, Media, Zach Arnold | 37 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
It was not objective or unbiased commentary, but it was as entertaining as hell. Classic stuff from Schiavello. And that dance he was doing in his seat was a nice touch.
I don’t hate Schiavello’s commentary, if for no other reason he A) knows what he’s talking about B) doesn’t lie if a fight sucks C) doesn’t constantly talk about what the fighter should be doing. And he doesn’t have a ridiculous fake radio voice either. With that said, I generally do prefer my color commentators not be cheerleaders.
As for Merchant needing to be more emotional, someone play Jordan Breen his commentary from, well, any Hopkins or Gatti fight just to see how far he’ll go in either direction. Merchant is known for being all too willing to speak his mind.
” we don’t need no water let the Badi hari burn”
classic.
I wish MMA could pick up a play by play like him. He’s quick, funny, stays with the action, and knows what he talking about.
COME ON.
Schiavello made ONE pro-Hari comment during the ENTIRE FIGHT. This comment during the last minute of R1. “Go Badr! Go you crazy bastard!”
His celebration afterwards was purely part of the K-1 storyline for the evening – if you see it as anything else you’re a mark.
Overeem was making anti-K-1 comments to a) make himself a heel, or b) because he’s legitimately a dick. Either way, the celebration afterwards was justified (and very entertaining!!).
Schiavello is the man! best in the business.
I had the misfortune of initially watching the K-1 World GP with mediocre Swedish commentary this year and I really, really missed the Voice. As much as I think Schiavello overdoes the catchphrases his enthusiasm and knowledge about the sports he’s covering is a good thing. Even when he’s openly partial to the outcome he was still giving Overeem a fair assessment.
I’m much more concerned for commentator bias in the UFC where Joe Rogan on several occasions I’ve seen has called the action for one fighter and just shut up when the other fighter was on the offense. That kind of crap, intentional or not, hurts the sport. Mike Schiavello shouting out his love and enthusiasm for a fighter, on the other hand, helps the sport.
Great commentary. It made a mildly exciting fight seem like the bigggest fight of all time. It really ratcheted up my excitement.
If Josh Gross wants to talk about bias or incompetence he should talk about himself. His hatred of UFC and laugh out loud over support for competing promotions and fighters not in UFC is ridiculous.
Every time I see Gross acb like an expert I remeber back to Atlantic City in 2003 I think. I was talking to Dana White and Gross walked up and asked if he could borrow a tripod because he’d forgotten to bring one to shoot video of the press conference. Dans said he didn’t. Have one and Gross left. Dana had this look like ‘why the F would he ask that’. I turned to Dana and asked “do you think anyone ever asks Bud Selig for a tripod?”
LOL @ the “Joe Rogan is biased” comments.
This whole Rogan line is a bumper sticker that people repeat over and over in the hope of trying to sound like they vaguely know what they’re talking about.
It’s funny when a theory that has no basis in reality gets circulated on the interwebs, and it spreads like wildfire.
Wildfire with down syndrome.
I’m a huge Voice fan but that celebration was low rent. Oh well…I still think he’s the best in the business right now. It just sucks that he’s matched with Mezger for the Dream shows, who is probably the worst.
I thought the announcing was brilliant!!
Schiavello enhances my enjoyment of K-1 and DREAM to be perfectly honest. When watching K-1 and DREAM fights with Japanese commentary, it’s not as fun. Before HDNet carried K-1, I had to watch most of the K-1 fights with Japanese commentary and let me tell you. It’s just not the same. It really helps when you have a great commentator. And as someone who is a casual K-1 fan, it’s nice when you have a guy who is more knowledgeable about the sport and the fighters to me explaining the context behind everything. It’s so much better when you have a english commentator who knows what he’s talking about and can hype you up before, during and after the fights.
Santa, it’s not a theory. I’ve seen several fights where Joe Rogan talks up one fighter and more or less ignores what the other fighter does. It’s not a common occurance and I’m not trying to make it into some kind of conspiracy, I just think it’s bad commentating and if I had to guess why I’d say Rogan was biased in favour of one fighter.
I only brought it up because that kind of hidden bias is worse IMO than openly stating that you like a particular fighter like Schiavello does. The latter lets the audience know why a commentator might be calling the fight like he does.
Kalle: what’s the best example of this? I’d love to check it out
Fightlinker: In recent memory, I’d say Rogan’s complete dismissal and criticism of Houston’s leg kicks against Kimbo being ineffective and a pointless strategy, only for him to backtrack once Kimbo stumbled from them and say that the ONE good leg kick Houston landed is the one that did damage. Because we all know that is such a common occurrence in MMA or kickboxing, someone falling prey to a sudden leg kick as opposed to a sustained assault…
I was borderline on writing something about this, but chose not to because I think Mike is a great guy and is truly passionate about the sport.
If you look at the circumstances, the outsider who insulted the sport lost and the atmosphere for the fight was unreal. I was up all night watching the event and this fight might’ve happened at like 4am my time, I had been up for 23 hours or so, yet was completely eyes glued for that fight, on edge for every strike.
These guys are fans first and foremost and this was one of the most exciting fights in the past few years. I find it hard to try to blame them for getting excited.
Now, I *do* think Schiavello is biased at times. He has never really said anything positive about Overeem and sings the praises of Badr Hari all the time. but I don’t find this that bad of a thing, although I would like some objective views of stuff sometimes.
Like it or not, Alistair Overeem is one of the best heavyweight kickboxers in the world.
There’s a lot of “why is he calling it this way?” picks for Rogan. My favorite is Jon Fitch/George St. Pierre, where he is just going crazy for everything Fitch does, in spite of nothing landing and him getting beat the hell up.
I thought he was pretty bad in the Diego-Stevenson fight. Overreacting to ANYTHING Sanchez did and absolutely ignoring everything Joe Daddy did. Him and Goldberg were downright putrid in the Wanderlei vs. Chuck fight as well.
There’s definitely fights like that.
I give Joe a lot of slack because Goldberg does such a lousy job that Joe is left to literally do all of the fight related broadcasting. Joe seems like he has very creative and thoughtful mind that wants to ramble a little and explore different things but he also gets stuck calling play by play for the fight. If he had a partner who could competently call the action and he could expand on it, as a color commentator is supposed to I think people would be blown away by the job he’d do.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Rogan has improved immensely and I think he’s one of the best guys out there but he has his lapses from time to time and it’s just human nature.
Shogun/Machida stands out. They never talked about a damned thing Lyoto landed, but Shogun would land a shot that gets blocked and they’d mark out.
I also had in mind Shogun v Machida.
Re: Australian commentator, I think it was pretty low brow, but I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.
Interesting note of the day: I heard that Roy Jones apparently got, get this, $10 mil to fight Danny Green in Australia. Amazingly, the PPV did well enough down there that the show will probably have at least broken even or made money. No wonder the UFC is interested in that market. Plus; the fanbase there is much bigger to start with and acceptance not as hard to come by.
“And he doesn’t have a ridiculous fake radio voice either. ”
Eehhhhh….
That probably is his real voice, but I cant watch K1 or the K1-MMA show (name?) with the sound on for his telatubby on PCP like caterwauling.
I guess thats also why I cant really comment on his bias or no bias.
I haven’t listened to it.
But as they say that actually helps me focus more closely on the actual fights, so fair enough.
I find it hilarious and just a little sad that Schiavello has been criticised by Gross for his commentary work on Overheem / Hari II. His knowledge of the fight game is immense, but it is his character and unabated honest passion for combat sports which makes his commentary such a pleasure to listen to – regardless if I agree with the particulars of his fighter preferences or not (I dont).
“No wonder the UFC is interested in that market.”
Well from what I understand, MMA acceptance is not the high. We do not have a professional MMA circuit. MMA is not legal in all states (I dont think its regulated?).
Danny Green is the ‘Aussie boxing legend’ – we have a few bigger boxing stars but I don’t know how that carries down onto smaller fights, and cant be sure how it’ll reflect on MMA acceptance.
Schiavello is a God-send for MMA. Having him on HDNet this year has been a breathe of fresh air and other PbP commentators who continually put us to sleep with their ultra-conservative style should take a leaf from his book. His commentary of Overeem/Hari was OTT and rightly so. The man knows how to call the action and put over a tremendous amount of drama. I was watching at 4am and hadnt slept all day and he had me and my brother literally JUMPING out of our seats.
God Bless Schiavello. MMA’s greatest revelation of 2009.
Mike Schiavello is the best fight commentator going round. Nobody even comes close to matching his passion and his knowledge. Gross is a pleb who is trying to make a headline off of Schiavello’s popularity. War Schiavello FTW.
Well from what I understand, MMA acceptance is not the high. We do not have a professional MMA circuit. MMA is not legal in all states (I dont think its regulated?).
Well, there have been a number of events and MMA and kickboxing have been televised in the country for a long time. It was always a better fit to me than Germany.
The commentary was part of the show. The Overeen/Hari fight had a story. The story was a part of show. It all worked, it made it special. It gave the viewer to care b/c they were seeing something special. I don’t seeing it any different when an announcer gets excited or bonkers when someone makes a 100-yard touchdown on a kickoff return to win a game in the playoffs. The excitement makes it special and gives the viewer to care. Gross needs to start covering golf or something, and even golf announcers go nuts when something amazing like a hole in one happens. Or maybe he should start covering politics instead (which is even more like pro wrestling if you think about it).
The drama Schiavello created was incredible & he knows how to stir emotions in viewers like any good TV show. His knowledge is second to none. Back in your depressive little hole Gross.
Alan – yeah we have the UFC… I think we get some/most K1 events but they’re fairly obscured. I’m certain we don’t get any Strikeforce/Showtime MMA cards – and I’ve been hanging out for Japanese MMA events for a long time.
I think the community is there – especially at a grass roots combat sports level – but it hasnt reached that stage of maturity yet. Hopefully this UFC show in Sydney can kick it all off.
I was in Australia at the time of UFC 100 and we could not find a bar that was playing it for the life of us…nowhere. And this was in Brisbane, so not like it was some small beach town either.
The Voice Schiavello > all other commentators. Nobody better IMHO.
Michael Schiavello said: “If that didnt excite u, u have no pulse.”
Wow, talk about missing the point.
Regarding Joe Rogan, he favors certain fighters in commentary all the time. If you listen to his commentary in the Dan Hardy vs. Akihiro Gono fight, that’s one example. Machida vs. Shogun is another. Most B.J. Penn fights fall into the same category, whether it’s Rogan overstating Penn’s ability in any specific area (which isn’t necessary because Penn is already a great fighter without having it grossly overstated), or Rogan saying, “B.J. needs to do this” or “B.J. needs to do that,” almost like a fan at home yelling at his TV screen. It was funny in the Penn-Florian fight because it went both ways, as Rogan was constantly talking about what his friend B.J. Penn should be doing in the fight, and Mike Goldberg was constantly talking about what his friend Kenny Florian should be doing in the fight.
Schiavello gives more to each and every commentary than any other announcer does. He is a cut above the rest and K-1 and MMA would be boring without him.
“The drama Schiavello created was incredible & he knows how to stir emotions in viewers like any good TV show. His knowledge is second to none. Back in your depressive little hole Gross.”
The best was Sakuraba’s entrance at the Dream show where they used the cage when he was doing the Diego “YES!!! YES!!! YES!!!” That was so f’n awesome.
Ivan…when are we going to get your quarter hour breakdowns for the TUF Finale? I really enjoyed the one for the Fedor/Rogers card.
The best thing HDNet Fights ever did was bring Schiavello on board. He leaves every other announcer in his trail. 2009 has been punctuated with classic Schiavello calls, who can forget Nickels at MFC or Minowa at Dream 11 or Zaromskis at Dream 10 and 12 or Alexander/Pendergarst at Adrenaline or Saku at Dream 12 or Hornbuckle at Sengoku 9 and now Overeem/Hari at K-1. Just time and time again Schiavello raises the bar to the next level and shows how it should be done. And he is researched and passionate about every single fight in ever single show making even the boring fights a joy to watch.
Thank you Mark Cuban and HDNet Fights for giving us The Voice! Josh Gross massive fail as always.
^^
Lol @ the voices mom on AOL.