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Thoughts on the Countdown to UFC 112 show
By Zach Arnold | April 7, 2010
Free UFC 112 Picks Contest
The guys over at MMAbettingblog.com are running a free picks contest for UFC 112. They teamed up with BetUS and they’re giving out prizes for the event.
You can check the contest out here – or if you’re not interested, UFC 112 Odds.
Random thoughts on the Countdown show I watched
- It was interesting to see how they would try to put over the Anderson Silva/Demian Maia fight, given that it has the main event slot on the Abu Dhabi PPV. They went mostly with the Georges St. Pierre marketing template here with Anderson, putting him over a major star and having him talk about how his goal in UFC is to retire undefeated as a fighter in the promotion. There was footage of his father shown watching Anderson and Anderson’s kids train, with his father saying how proud he is of his son. Anderson called his father a “wise owl.” BTW, watching Anderson’s kids train has to be a scary proposition for future MMA fighters. That’s one motivated clan.
- UFC was put in an essentially no-win situation in trying to put over Demian Maia, so they did the only thing they could and put him over as “the best pure BJJ fighter in the game.” Ed Soares did his best to hawk the fight by saying that whomever makes the first mistake will lose the fight. Let’s just say that the stand-up issue is a really big problem here for Maia. You’re not marketing that publicly about him.
- It should be no surprise that the best talker on the preview show was Renzo Gracie. Matt Hughes was second-best, as he did a great job of being the natural heel that he is. I love watching Renzo fight, admittedly, and he is such a great talker and such an entertaining guy that I think this fight is the one I am most fascinated to watch on Saturday. I don’t care who wins or loses, as long as Matt Hughes doesn’t make it a grindfest it should be fun to watch. (Though I fear a grindfest is coming.) On the Countdown show, Renzo Gracie was put over as a great fighter (there was a Michiyoshi Ohara sighting), but as an even better trainer (which is entirely true).
- Renzo quotes: a) “I’m 43 years old, but I don’t have one gray hair!” b) Another fighter commented on Renzo, “His game was never based on athleticism. His game is based on pure technique.” c) When asked about Matt Hughes wanting to ground ‘n pound him in their UFC 112 fight, Renzo said that many fighters have tried but … “Look at this face, I don’t have a scar!”
- The biggest loser on this show? Forrest Griffin. That poor bastard had more footage of his fight against Anderson Silva shown than I could have possibly imagined. That knockout was shown on television about 20 times. Brutal.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 10 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Wait…how did you see this already?
Ed. — Matt, UFC and WEC preview shows are airing on Comcast as well as Spike TV now. Comcast is really amping up their ads for UFC PPVs.
HA! I’m not used to looking for UFC shows on my local Comcast. I checked the listings tonight and it’s scheduled for 11pm tonight. However, it’s only listed as 1 hour.
Anybody have verizon fios on here? Im here trying to fig out what the equivalent would be.
HUGE debt for Dana White:
http://www.gamblingonlinemagazine.com/gambling-news-detail.php?articleID=2162
All you blogs who grab this be sure to credit me. I just want to see “Fluyid” in print somewhere. That’d be funny looking.
Ed. — Hey, Sports by Brooks and Norm Clarke of the LVRJ covered this yesterday. I detailed this in the news update earlier this morning on the site.
This news was actually on http://www.thedirty.com about 4-5 days ago, far before everyone else reported it.
Who knew DW was such a degenerate gambler?!?
Apparently only the person who made it up.
I’m late to the game. 🙁 Again.
LOL. I guess that goes a long ways in explaining that.
Forest deserves all the replays for his dumb gameplan.
[…] had many people ask me this week how I was able to view the Countdown to UFC 112 hype show so early (I saw it on Monday on CSN). I was simply watching the network and it appeared. Normally, […]