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News & notes leading up to tonight’s Strikeforce event in Houston
By Zach Arnold | August 21, 2010
On MMA Live this week, Bobby Lashley said he knew nothing about his upcoming opponent Chad Griggs. He couldn’t get video tape on the man. (Guess Strikeforce didn’t have video on him. In UFC, it’s standard protocol for their office to send fighters DVDs of footage if you are a fighter and make the request.) Well, here’s a profile article of Chad Griggs in the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson.
San Antonio Express-News fight writer John Whisler has a long profile article on Tim Kennedy and how he got his bronze star in Iraq.
Brent Brookhouse has written a guide for casual fans who watch tonight’s Strikeforce show on Showtime.
The one ‘big’ news item coming out of Strikeforce before their Houston show comes from Jay Hieron himself:
I finally got my release from SF… Y’all know what I’m about to do!!!!!!!
I have been threw alot of [expletive] this past year but I have trained the whole time. So all WWs take notice I’m coming for somebodys head…
The most intriguing part of this story is that Jay is linked to Ken Pavia, who just got sued by UFC. Dana said in a recent interview at the UFC Oakland show (one that I saved and transcribed) that Ken Pavia is not a good guy. Wonder how that will effect negotiations? Or is Hieron going to end up in Bellator, another promotion that has dealt with fighters publicly grumbling about not getting booked for fights? (Think: Dave Herman.)
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 17 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Strikeforce is shoddy for sure but it is the fighters responsibility to prepare their gameplan. Perhaps someone should mention to mr Lashly that his video tape player is out of date, and he might want to get a dvd player or a computer. I found 3 griggs fights on the “computer” by typing in chad griggs video.
Here you go mr Lashley…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePByqyu_RtA
Getting a fighter footage of his opponent is just another example of Strikeforce not having enough people on staff….
How is the promoter’s responsibility to find footage for a fighter and his coaches to use for their prep?
That’s the camps responsibility, full stop.
One would assume that a fight promotion has seen footage of a fighter before they sign him. Sending that footage over to a fighter should be customary. Now, they don’t need to send over every fight. But why make the camps work so hard when SF has the footage already? Not exactly nice treatment of fighters.
In Lashley’s case, it sounds like he was just an idiot who can’t do a web search. But if that footage is not available online, why wouldn’t SF send the video over?
“Hey, you are fighting John Doe and here are a few of his fights.”
Simple and done. SF just isn’t the big leagues. They show it time and time again.
It’s NOT the promoter’s responsibility.
I’ve gotten video of my guys’ opponents from the UFC and from Cage Rage (when I was either coaching or managing), but not from other promotions (including King of the Cage). UFC and Cage Rage were really good about it and it helped us immensely. Additionally, when I put on a show, which I did ONCE, I provided anyone who asked with video of the opponent.
Bottom line is that it’s not the promotion’s responsibility and I think you look amateurish if you bitch about the promotion not providing you video. If you need that kind of help from the promotion to prepare for your fight, don’t take the fight. Just my opinion.
I disagree. It IS the promoters responsibility.
MLB, NBA, & NFL make their entire libraries available to all teams so they can use it to scout with. College footage is fully available to these leagues as well.
Why should the UFC or Strikeforce be any different? Just because a fighter comes from another organization? These organizations have the footage and should hand it over to the athletes so they can get the best performances out of their athletes.
Every other sports league does it, so should MMA organizations.
It is not the promotions responsibility. Getting video is part of formulating a strategy, and just as I would not expect a promotion to give one fighter a strategy over another, I would not expect them to do the leg work on video tapes. That is the responsibility of the fighter’s camp.
And 45, your examples of major league sports does not fly here.
There’s no reason the athlete or their management/coaches can’t contact these various promotions to get footage. That’s why you have managers and trainers, to do that sort of stuff while you just worry about putting in the proper camp.
-The NBA doesn’t supply video of Euro league games to teams interested in drafting their stars. Nor do the Euro leagues themselves. And the NBA is owned by the teams.
-Prospective NFL draftees have their agents create promo tapes for them when meeting with teams at the combine. And the NFL is owned by the teams.
-College leagues do not hand over copies of games to teams outside their conference. Naturally, they would to each other inside of their league, because each individual college owns a share of the conference.
Fight promoters, as a general rule, do not produce scouting tapes for fighters that are fighting for them. If the UFC does, great. But honestly, it doesn’t exactly bother me nor change the end product if they aren’t.
Funny enough, a simple Google search of Chad Griggs turned up a bit of video. Maybe Lashley had a bad server connection.
You don’t have to guess, Strikeforce doesn’t have tape on Griggs because he has never fought for them. But the Meltzer article you published yesterday made it clear that King Mo has the same access as UFC fighters are afforded, since he was talking about going over the tape of Kyle vs. Feijao, an unaired prelim.
As for Hieron… he was already making a lot of money in Strikeforce and nobody is likely to give him a raise. Like Shields, if he wants to join the UFC he will likely have to take less money. Jay has star potential, but he has never been able to capitalize on it for one reason or another.
Why would they sign a fighter who they have never seen fight?
I wouldn’t put it past SF. But if that is their practice, that is a horrible one. Then again, after seeing former Lashley and Walker opponents…. I’m almost certain they did see footage. They had to guarantee that those guys were worse then anybody could verbally describe.
As for Hieron….
1) He is more likely to fight more often.
2) He will be able to test himself more.
3) Both #1 & #2 will happen for around the same money.
I don’t see the downside. SF treated him so poorly and lied to him. No reason for him to stick around.
This is a hilarious thing to bitch about. You don’t need to have DVD footage of someone to have seen them fight. There’s this crazy technique called scouting thats been around for a while. Even Dana White used to go down to Total Combat shows in San Diego to scout…he wasn’t asking for footage from a video library.
Strikeforce should hire someone to download youtube videos, then convert them and burn them to DVD? Maybe the fighters management should handle that. Like Smoogy said, apparently organizations are good about opening up their own libraries, but to expect them to track down footage then put it in a friendly format for someone seems kind of ridiculous.
“I have been threw alot of [expletive] this past year”
What does that mean exactly? Who threw the [expletive] at him?
Does he hang around at the the zoo alot? the gorillas there throw [expletive] alot.
WT[expletive]?
Come on, Lashley asking for tapes, but at first he choose the oponent.
I wonder what Hieron will do now. I wish him the best, and I would love for him to go to the UFC. But I think if he does, he may be gone from the UFC soon after.
Yet another thing that is bitched about, that the promotions are not providing.
If fighters act in business fashion, and organized (just as all parties act in accordance with fighters), they will take care of things on their own.
Act as an island, you will be abused. It is that simple.