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Bellator FC’s big night in Boston and UFC 113 information overload
By Zach Arnold | May 6, 2010
Dan Wetzel says love or hate him, Dana White passionate about his product. He points to White caring about what fans say on his Twitter account.
Tonight is a big night for Bellator FC, as they have a show in Boston at the Wang Theatre with Eddie Alvarez fighting Josh Neer in a super fight along with Cole Konrad (training with Brock Lesnar) on the card. Check out this article from The Minnesota Daily to learn more about Cole and why he’s a big-time prospect. Brent Brookhouse has a preview of tonight’s big event. Steve Cofield says that the reputation of Japanese MMA is on the line tonight with Alvarez. The reputation of Japanese MMA was on the line with Shin’ya Aoki, not with Eddie Alvarez. Alvarez has plenty of experience in the states. Give him more credit than that. Michael David Smith gives up to tonight’s card on paper.
History in the making
30-year old Alex Chambers will be involved in Australia’s first legal female MMA cage bout.
Boxing’s culture in question
Elizabeth Merrill of Outside the Lines on ESPN has a big feature on boxing facing questions about its culture in regards to high-profile fighters dying. The sub-headline: “Four high-profile fighters — Alexis Arguello, Arturo Gatti, Vernon Forrest and Edwin Valero — have died in the past 10 months, raising issues about the sport.”
MMA labeled as “dog fights” in Israeli press
Ha’aretz, which is one of the two big traditional newspapers in Israel (the other is The Jerusalem Post), has an article on a fighter named Shimon Gosh who will fight tonight in an MMA event in Tel Aviv. The paper covers it this way:
Tonight, Gosh will enter the ring in Tel Aviv to take on a Russian opponent in a mixed martial arts event known as a dog fight. His opponent, Mikhail Malyutin, is one of the best fighters in Europe in the under-70 kilo category.
Other news & notes (important material!)
- The Las Vegas Sun: Sam Stout ready for a battle at UFC 113 against Jeremy Stephens
- The Las Vegas Sun: Johny Hendricks plans a major Welterweight title run in 2001
- Gareth A. Davies (London Telegraph): Thiago Alves lucky in more ways than one (details on just how he had the surgery to fix his vein/artery problem)
- The Visalia Times-Delta (CA): Olympic silver medalist Stephen Abas successful in MMA debut
- The Fresno Bee: Former Fresno State wrestling great Stephan Abas wins MMA debut
- The Orange County Register (Carlos Arias): Mike Guymon’s new positive outlook could help in the Octagon
- WSOC TV: Rock and Rumble MMA event in Charlotte on May 15th to benefit U.S. military
Topics: Bellator, Canada, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 21 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
“But it’s not just boxing. Dr. Margaret Goodman, former chairman of the Medical Advisory Board of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, says mixed martial arts has also seen its share of violent deaths outside the ring recently, and the common denominator appears to be the repeated blows to the head an athlete takes.
Goodman says concussions can lead to depression and other psychiatric disorders. Those problems, she says, are amplified by “super-imposed exposure to alcohol and drugs.”
“This isn’t just about boxing,” Goodman said in an e-mail to ESPN.com, “but people turning their back and not doing the right thing for someone in trouble. Valero didn’t need a fight. He needed emotional and psychiatric help and support.””
Short of outlawing the sports, what is the take-home message here?
Exactly.
The boxing article was totally unfair. Vernon Forrest was flat out murdered. It’s likely that Gatti and Arguello were homicides too but are being handled by corrupt and/or incompetent police.
Edwin Valero was a bad apple.
Football linemen die at age 56 on average. Chris Henry died during the season last year. Plus all the other off feild problems there and in the NBA. So is it just boxing?
Here’s the reality and there’s no polite way to put it:
Predominently it’s people from the hood get into boxing. Then they become famous. But they’re still related to and friends with people from the hood. Their actions are paid attention to because they’re famous. If the guy who walks into the liquor store in Any-hood, USA at ten in the morning had cameras and reporters following him around all day they’d have plenty of stuff to write about too.
It’s not like boxing makes people bad. Quite the opposite actually. For all of its faults, boxing has saved a ton of lives. In many cases it saves people who never made it to the big show. But they learned discipline and responsibilty in boxing programs as kids. That’s what pisses me off about that article the most.
Well said.
Very well said.
Just got a mass email from the UFC for MMA Live on ESPN for the UFC 113 pre show. That has to help out that shows ratings big time!!
I wouldn’t say the reputation of Japanese MMA is on the line tonight, but Alvarez losing to Neer will certainly be the final nail in the coffin. Of course we would see some websites rank Neer in the Top 5 to justify for their higher then reality rankings of fights in Japan.
Unless you have somebody like Frank Mir who came back from a huge accident and then finally hit his stride…. A guy like Neer, we already know his limitations. We have seen them time and time again in the UFC, against their middle level talent. So if he beats Alvarez…. I don’t think you can put Neer in the Top 10…. I think it just basically eliminates anybody in Japan from the Top 5, and lets maybe 2 or 3 tops of them into the bottom half of the Top 10.
I don’t think Neer is going to win, but Alvarez has such a wide open style that he is always vulnerable for a loss. He would look weak and average against the conservative styles of the UFC Lightweights (and Melendez).
45 Huddle,
Do you have anything positive to say about anything in this world that is not the UFC?
Serious question. Can you not find things that you enjoy other promotions and other fighters that fight in our sport?
I say negative things about the UFC as well. Look at the UFC 113 comments I made on that thread….
I support the sport. Been to 3 Bellator’s, which is probably more then most people have been to. I enjoy solid fights. But this is not a discussion about the quality of the fights. My comment was pertaining to Japanese MMA, which I have thought was highly overrated, even during the Pride days. Every year, fights that happen in that country become less relevent, yet the internet fanboys still act like things mean something when a fighter is a DREAM or Sengoku Champion or had a victory on one of their cards.
I wouldn’t consider myself negative…. As much as trying to tell people how their fanboy views are not based on reality anymore. If that comes off as negative to some people, then so be it.
Way to dodge his question and just reiterate his point. Your answer basically amounted to “sometimes I criticize the UFC, too, so it’s okay.”
You never have anything good to say about any other promotion. Well, you did about Strikeforce back when they weren’t “messing with the UFC” and it was in line with Dana White’s soundbytes that Strikeforce was a good example of how an MMA promotion could be (i.e. not trying to compete with the UFC). Strikeforce was like Eastasia to Affliction’s Eurasia. Now that Affliction isn’t promoting MMA and back in the UFC fold, all is forgiven, but Big Brother now has a problem with Coker, so just like a yipple little lapdog, you go on the “attack”.
Do you even have a favorite fighter or style? Or is it ALL about Lord Dana/buyrates/bizbizbiz with you? I’m thinking the latter, given in your post about Mayweather-Mosley, you readily admit how boring technique is to you. Technique and skill don’t generate buyrates, slobber-knockers like Garcia vs. Jung do! Kimbo – went from villain to undeniable pop culture sensation! Vitor – washed up UFC reject to triumphantly returning hero!
Pathetic.
But 45, you are always critical of everything that is non-UFC and sometimes, I will grant you, of the UFc itself.
And I’m not going to discuss Pride with you because we all now that the UFC won…which I am sure you loved.
But can you not just sit back and watch the fights in every promotion and stop with the negativity?
In the end, do you want there to be no other MMA promotion in the world other than the UFC? Yes or no?
I think we all need to not compare Bellator to UFC.
Bellator is to MMA what the Goosen-Tudor and CSI boxing shows on FOX Sports or the Lou Dibella shows are. A lot of times they can be fun to watch if you’re home in the afternoon or at odd hours and they’re on. They’re mostly one sided affairs with up and comers.
I talked about this back in 2003-2004. Back then boxing was on about 10 hours per week in many places. You had the ESPN Shows, the shows on FOX Sports I mentioned above, TV Azteca had great fights on Friday Nights and then there were other Spanish-language and regional cable shows.
I said MMA can get to that point one day. And it’s starting to now.
Part of the problem though, and maybe I didn’t fully realize it back then, is that lower level MMA is less exciting to watch than lower level boxing. At least to me. I think that will change as a better caliber of athlete enters MMA. Maybe in a few years when you have 2-3 Ben Askrens in each weight class who are in the 1-0 to 7-0 range working their way up.
I myself got burned watching the first Bellator show this year. It was terrible. I’ve been waiting to hear that there’s a great Bellator fight I missed and I”ll go watch it online.
Ultimately the thing with Bellator and Strikeforce too is that you just need to watch and enjoy them. Or don’t pay attention because in the grand scheme of things they don’t matter that much if you’re only concerned about pound-for-pound or the tops of divisions.
PS. Is TV Azteca still on the air? I live in Washington State now and it’s not on Comcast up here. They had the best fights on Friday nights. I love me some Mexican boxing.
I know that Telefutura is back in the boxing business.
(Fun fact: I fought – and won – on Telefutura once.)
Wait … it was Telefutura that had the Tecate Friday Night fights. And Azteca had the Saturday afternoon fights.
Telefutura is the good one. I don’t get that either. Univision and Mun2 are the only Spanish language channels I get. I practically live in Canada though. So maybe that’s why.
Nice job kicking butt on TV, Fluyid.
There’s actually more on now than before. Telefutura is back in the boxing business, Azteca America is still in it (though with bad fights), Telemundo is still running monthly cards, and Bob Arum is buying time on FSN En Espanol.
Telefutura came back and now again has friday shows, Azteca America still shows boxing on some saturday’s even after the Top Rank contract finished.
There is more boxing on TV this year then in a long time. 50 Top Rank shows on FSN, Golden Boy club shows on FSN, 50 Golden Boy shows on Telefutura, ESPN FNF + Azteca America, Telemundo, random regional sports channels and obviously Showtime and HBO on premium cable.
This is going to be live and free on the internet this Saturday night:
“Toprank.com Livestream Bouts
10 Rds., Featherweights
Mikey Garcia, 21-0, 18 KOs, Oxnard, CA
Vs. Pedro Navarrete, 24-7-3, 13 KOs, Mexico
8 Rds., Featherweights
Michael Farenas, 26-2-3, 23 KOs, Philippines
Vs. Marlon Aguilar, 23-9-1, 17 KOs, Nicaragua
4 Rds., Super Lightweights
Jose Benavidez, 4-0, 4 KOs, Phoenix, AZ
Vs. Arnaldo Pacheco, 2-3, 0 KOs, Mexico”
The Fight Night Club show I saw on ustream a few weeks ago was fun too.
Check your gmail acct, Roadblock. Might have some info for you that could be of help.
I’m shocked the judges gave that fight to Curran. I had Curran winning 29-28, but I didn’t think he would get the nod.
Huerta looked so flat and unmotivated. Fighting every month is tough and he didn’t even look like he wanted to be there.
Bellator has to be mad that their golden boy lost and looked so average. If Imada wins the tournament, there really isn’t much interest in him fighting Alvarez in a rematch….
I think Huerta is guilty of reading his own press clippings. He figured he would steamroll Curran and came to the fight flat while Curran brought his A game. Congrats to Curran on a HUGE win.
That was a pretty good Bellator show. Curran/Huerta was a damn close fight, but yeah I was shocked Curran got the nod. And I don’t think Cole Konrad will be a top heavyweight prospect anytime soon. And I also have to say that Bellator’s commentary is MUCH better than Strikeforce’s overall. They don’t nuthug quite like the Strikeforce guys do (especially Gus Johnson. God damn he sucks!).