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A few news items from a painfully slow early July news cycle
By Zach Arnold | July 12, 2010
If you haven’t seen this interview already, it’s Karyn Bryant interviewing Rashad Evans and Rashad telling her that he won’t fight until March (if he has to wait that long) for Shogun. He’s not giving up that title shot and is not interested in an interim title match. Can’t say I blame him.
Jordan Breen filed a report from Brisbane on the first Impact FC event and from the sounds of it, well, not much to speak about there.
More on Strikeforce booking changes — Erin Toughill, who was supposed to get a ‘warm-up fight’ in September in order to set up a future fight against Cris Cyborg, will now be put in a #1 contender’s fight against Shana Olsen on 8/21 in Houston.
Neil Davidson of the Canadian Press reports that Demian Maia will face Alan Belcher on September 15th in Austin, Texas. That card also will feature Mac Danzig vs. Matt Wiman, Ross Pearson vs. Cole Miller, and Jim Miller vs. Gleison Tibau.
Nagoya Sumo tournament begins on a rocky road
No trophies and prizes at Nagoya Sumo tournament this year. Hakuho got some heat for criticizing the fact that there would be no cup presentation at the event.
The day before the tournament started on Sunday, all the big names involved in Sumo did a public apology at Aichi Prefectural Gym in Nagoya. As for attendance on the first day of the event, the show drew a near-sellout of 7,200 paid. That was to be expected given the curiosity factor of seeing what would happen on the first show of the series.
Tokyo Metropolitan Police went into the home of Kotomitsuki to gather evidence that could be used in setting up criminal proceedings against the admitted gambler.
As for the future of Sumo on NHK, it is shaky right now.
It’s been a brutal last five years for the whole fight business in Japan. Yesterday was the 5th anniversary of the death of Shin’ya Hashimoto and we are about 13 months removed from the in-ring death of Mitsuharu Misawa. (NOAH struggled with their event this weekend in Tokyo at Ariake Colosseum, drawing a half-house. DREAM struggled with their show.) A few years ago, we saw PRIDE collapse after losing their Fuji TV deal. Now, we have NHK backing away from supporting Sumo. Permanent damage to pro-wrestling, MMA, and Sumo in Japan… for someone who spent a lot of his life covering that scene, it is really sad to watch corruption just gut all of those sectors.
Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, UFC, Zach Arnold | 13 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
If Toughill wants that title shot, I’d advise her to lose that #1 Contender bout. Seems like that is the only way to get a title shot in Strikeforce.
Of course Rashad will wait for Shogun. If he fought Machida again he’d just take another nap and the same result is quite possible against any number of quality LHWs.
People have been betting against Evans for years. He is like 9-1-1 in UFC or something like that. He has a proven track record.
He would beat Machida is they fought for an interim belt right now. Evans is on a high and Machida on a low. Plus, Evans would have a better gameplan this time around.
In what sense was D.15 a “struggle”? Because my friend who was there at the show said the arena was totally packed, and there was a real big fight atmosphere around Aoki-Kawajiri.
Ed. — So packed that initially no attendance number was given a.k.a “the Sengoku treatment.” You can make Saitama packed with 13,000 based on configuration of the arena. Nikkan Sports claimed 13,028.
So it was configured for about 13-15k attendance, and they attracted that many people to pack the place. How is that a “struggle”? It sounds like they budgeted for a certain level of attendance and achieved it. Is there some unwritten rule that they have to try and fill the 20k or 37k configuration each time out?
Just like the SF Middleweight Tournament was oozing with talent, right smoogy?
If they aren’t releasing information on attendance, it can’t be that good. You can’t build an entire promotion around Aoki. And they don’t have any other “stars”. I’m still surprised both DREAM and Sengoku are around. But neither did anything of real importance in 2010 so far.
Aasuming attendance was bad because they didn’t immediately release attendance figures is a bit silly. I don’t know how many seats if any were papered, but use your eyeballs. That place was packed.
Not sure what the SF tournament has to do with any of this. If that is your smarmy fanboy way of trying to brag, uh, good for you.
[…] is now expected to fight on the Houston card, however he doesn’t have an opponent yet. Also, Erin Toughill is rumored to be fighting Shana Olsen for the opportunity to challenge Cyborg Santos for her title. Read more […]
I know it is off-topic, but Karyn Bryant is HOT in that interview. Am I the only one that feels that way?
Nope, definately thought the same thing…
Finally, Edub and I see eye-to-eye on something 😉
NEVER AGAIN!!!!
She has always been hot.