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Dave Meltzer criticizes HDNet being allowed to discuss UFC on the Strikeforce prelims show
By Zach Arnold | February 14, 2011
I’m not sure what to make of this, so make of this radio show commentary what you will.
“It was a fantastic show, I thought, you know, as far as compared to previous Strikeforce shows. I mean they… they built up the next round of the tournament, they made the tournament out to be a big deal. They had the video packages. You know, they promoted Gina Carano’s return. I just thought overall and, you know of course, they had very good fights so I mean that, you know, that’s something different but from a production standpoint a lot of the weaknesses that, you know, Strikeforce has had, you know not so much Strikeforce has had, that Showtime’s had because Showtime’s the one that does this. It seems as they kind of like learned and it was just a really fast-paced I thought very entertaining show.
“It really felt like, it felt like a major league show. You know, it didn’t feel like they were the secondary group other than some very strange things that they did during this show but that’s, you know… they have the mentality that they are a sport and their main competitor has the mentality that they are a business and I see that, you know, it’s just a different, you know, different thing. I mean it just amazed me when, you know, again, it’s HDNet covering it as a sport and, you know, Greg Jackson’s there and they interview Greg Jackson and ask him about, you know, how Rashad Evans is doing and how Jonny Jones is doing and, you know, its your competitor and your competitor who’s running in a month, you know, in the same market basically and it was just weird to see. I mean I understand that they’re saying ‘well, we’re just covering it like it’s a sport,’ but you know UFC wouldn’t do that, you know, and… you know they have to realize that they are in a war and the guy who’s on top in the war absolutely knows he’s in a war and behaves like he’s in a war, and you know as their television goes if they’re going to say, ‘well, we’re not in a war,’ they’re probably going to lose a war when you pretend you’re not in it and the other guy who’s more powerful than you knows he’s in it and is pounding on you, so… It’ll take, you know, I don’t know, it was just really, really interesting to see that they… they have the mentality that they’re not in a war.”
Later on in the radio show…
“An easy thing to watch and they did the Greg Jackson interview which was just… interesting. I mean, I get it from their standpoint because because from an HDNet standpoint you watch Inside MMA… in their minds, they are people who are covering the sport of MMA. Okay? But they were, you know, covering a promotion by, you know, then going out there and acting like that the promotion’s rival is actually the more important promotion and that’s kind of weird when you’re watching, you know, a Strikeforce event and they’re basically telling you, ‘yo, you know like, you know there’s Jon Jones and Rashad Evans and all this, this is like the important stuff.’ “
Let me also mention (before I forget) some comments Alistair Overeem made last week to Josh Gross & Jon Anik at ESPN.
JOSH GROSS: “The belt’s not on the line, we know that. But do you still feel, as champion, that every fight you’re in is a championship fight, essentially you’re defending the title the way people perceive you to be?”
ALISTAIR OVEREEM: “I don’t know. I don’t know. I mean, the belt is not on the line so that means the belt is not on the line. I am a champion, yes I am a K-1 champion, yes I am the DREAM Heavyweight champion, yes, but does everything, am I representing these organizations? I think I’m representing myself.”
(Later on…)
INTERVIEWER: “You’ve basically been huge in Japan for a long time now. Do you feel that it’s time that you got over here and fought on North American soil a little more to get your name built up? It seems a lot of people know the name but they don’t see a lot of fights.”
ALISTAIR OVEREEM: “Yeah, I definitely do think that. I’ve been wanting to fight in Strikeforce for a while but, yeah, the problem Fedor didn’t want to fight me, Werdum was injured after that fight, there were no interesting fights for me and for me the challenge was to do the K-1. That was my goal and I won that tournament, but now it’s time for me to come to the States. Yeah, I’m going to do the fight(s) and show the American fans some great stuff. The time is here now and I believe this is going to be it.”
Interesting times ahead in the Strikeforce portion of the MMA world. I like the idea of HDNet covering the preliminary fights and airing them. Showtime should be doing this, but we know the reported reason they don’t (‘airing undercard fights is a UFC thing’). Some TV coverage is better than none at all.
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, UFC, Zach Arnold | 50 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I would rather promotions talk about other fighters than their own (as even Joe Rogan does on occasion) than the promotions lie to me. If anything, Showtime’s crew isn’t transparent enough and has been a disappointment to me in that respect. This idea that they should separate themselves like they were in different worlds is obviously a pro wrestling ideal and not one I am terribly fond of.
Also, good for Overeem. He gets that he’s his own star/brand. More guys should take that attitude.
Agreed on all.
“Hey everybody, it’s Gina Carano! Remember, the hot girl! Here she is next to another hot girl! She’s gonna fight again in May or June, maybe! Against who? Who cares?!”
They don’t talk Formula 1 during NASCAR. They shouldn’t talk UFC during Strikeforce.
They are different leagues. Fighters will ne’er fight each other unless they switch leagues. If it was an open promoter system like boxing it would make sense to talk about the UFC. But with the structure of the sport, it makes no sense. And it’s not hiding things like Alan is saying. They should only be talking about fighters within that league who are in te pool of fighters to actually fight each other.
Comparing NASCAR to F1 is like comparing Speedway to Moto GP. No crossover whatsoever. Whereas Strikeforce and UFC are both showcasing MMA and have that crossover ability.
NASCAR doesn’t sit around pretending that Jacques Villeneuve, Juan Pablo Montoya, and Nelson Piquet Jr. just materialized out of thin air, you know.
Neither does the UFC. Rogan and White both talked up Shields victory over Henderson in Strikeforce.
Rogan also brings up guys like Fedor Emelianenko and Nick Diaz in spite of them being outside the UFC. There’s nothing wrong with that. I prefer they not completely ignore each other and insult my intelligence. If you think that it’s better for you as a fan to have them do that, that’s your call.
It’s not about being better or worse. It’s about being irrelevant.
Talking about Shields/Henderson makes sense because Shields is now in the UFc.
Talking about Fedor is useless because none of the UFC Heavyweights will fight him unless try leave the “league”. So why do the fan care about a fighter who is 0% in the mix? I don’t.
If I care to hear about him, I will watch the league he fights in.
But they’ve mentioned him by name anyways. Hell, how many times did Wanderlei show up to announce a fight that never happened? At least twice.
Basically, you want this to be like pro wrestling. OK then.
Nothing to do with PW.
MLB doesn’t use their TV time to discuss at length a player from the Japanese leagues.
NBA doesn’t with a player from the European leagues.
They might mention them in passing but don’t get into real discussions until that player is headed over to their leagues.
That is how the UFC operates. They mention some fighters but that’s about it. If they are going to disuse them more, they need to be under contract.
See, that’s American Sports. Not Pro Wrestling.
Of course the NBA does. You don’t think Ricky Rubio comes up in conversation or in NBA coverage ever? He’s probably referenced daily on whatever the Minneapolis Fox Sports/Comcast Sports affiliate is. Allen Iverson still gets occasional coverage in spite of playing in Turkey.
I don’t think you really watch actual sports.
BTW, you do know that the NBA plays preseason exhibition games between NBA squads and Euroleague squads, right? And that the NHL effectively does the same thing too, right?
Obviously ESPN doesn’t give the Euroleague the same level of coverage as it does the NBA. No one is saying they do. In general color commentators aren’t going to compare players to European players they haven’t seen, much less fans at home. Which is fine. In the case of MMA, why ignore that Anderson Silva has done something? Probably everyone watching Strikeforce has seen him throw that front kick by now. It would be silly for them to pretend that the UFC doesn’t exist.
Yes. They come up. Just like Fedor comes up in conversations with Rogan.
But they don’t talk about them much at all really. They are brought up in passing. Just like the UFC does. Which is my point. The UFC does exactly what the other sports leagues is which is 99.9% of the time concentrate on their own players.
They aren’t going to typically interview a manager from another league unless it’s college which is their feeder system.
Your point is that the UFC is like PW. Which it’s not. White discusses SF in interviews. Brings it up himself. He talks about them on his twitter account. He discusses competing leagues far more then any established sports league does. And yet you still want to compare it to PW.
But in terms of relevancy…. It makes no sense to cover one legit and then talk about another during one of their events. Its stupid on a business level. It’s useless on a competition level.
It’s weird how some fans keep confusing a fight promoter for a league. They’re not the same thing, and they’re not really comparable.
How are they not a league? A fight promoter can start his own league. That’s the entire structure of MMA…..
Hmm. What do you understand “league” to mean?
A league is 5.556 kilometers>
I missed the HDNET prelims, so I can’t speak on what Dave was talking about with full confidence. Except to say that he’s not entirely wrong in that no network covering the UFC would be allowed to go up to Dan Henderson in the crowd and ask him about his forthcoming fight with Feijao. He’ll get called nasty names for saying such a thing, but he’s not completely off the mark with that criticism.
The one place I will say he’s off the mark on is saying it came off as a major-league show. I think the production went beyond having a few awkward moments. It was straight up terrible, from the incredibly awkward interviews to the broadcast teams terrible performance and their amateur segues in-between fights where they’d ramble in order to fill time. Sure, the fights themselves looked clean, the camera work was good, and Jimmy Lennon Jr. is my favorite ring announcer. But other than that, someone needs to step up their goddamn game. There’s a lot of money being spent; far too much for Gus Johnson to be mixing metaphors and losing his train of thought in mid-sentence.
Showtime should be doing this, but we know the reported reason they don’t (‘airing undercard fights is a UFC thing’).
Idiotic.
I don’t want this promotion to fail, but Showtime’s sports division is clearly full of their own s*** and Strikeforce doesn’t help matters much with where they put their emphasis. Unless some of the smarter folks involved on both sides start speaking up, this whole venture his doomed.
It is no problem to talk UFC on a Strikeforce card. Let’s be realistic. UFC is “The Man”, no need to downplay that. If anything it only increases Strikeforce’s cred by implying they are on the same playing field as UFC.
Naturally UFC doesn’t need to do that and it would be stupid of them to do so.
It would be like the CFL trying to pretend the NFL didn’t exist.
And I don’t think Strikeforce comes across as a sport half as much as the UFC does. Their Grand Prix stuff looked far too Pro Wrestling like. Mauro sounds like a character out of the WWE. Their matchmaking is to book squash fights ringer the fans excited.
The UFC with their simple boxing entrances, stronger matchmaking with more equally matched fighters…. Is far more sports like. And Rogan mentions athletes from other leagues far more then a NBA announcer does or a MLB announcer.
Don’t get me wrong. The UFC can and should make improvements with their telecast. Having somebody score each round…. Having professional translators for in between rounds and stuff like this would go a long way.
But to say that Showtime treats MMA more like a sport is laughable.
Half as much really?? Are you sure you are watching UFC? What about the corny Gladiator intro/music they have been running for years. Their use of VT music in genernal is pretty terrible. Rogan and Goldy are a great team but they need a third person in there to add a more professional take on the action (think along the lines of Pat Miletich). Alot of the visual graphics are pretty dated and in my opinion are orientated more towards a pro wrestling style. They could do alot to making their overall production more sporting/professional.
Actually you are right. The UFC provides a ridiculous product. I mean, it’s the best but they are not better than Strikeforce/Showtime in terms of presentation, not dramatically better in matchmaking and are equal at best in terms of analysis. Of course they have a better roster of fighters.
The gladiator stuff is just plain horrific and has been since day one. Can’t imagine why they don’t change this.
The analysis is ok, Mauro is an assclown but is no worse than Goldy. Rogan is great but Strikeforce guys are generally good.
Fight wise, the top 3 fights per card in general is quite equal, deeper into the card the UFC is far better due to their depth of talent. Look at UCF 127 Fitch vs BJ as the headliner, Sotoropolous vs Siver as the co-main??? Don’t get me wrong, UFC will generate 400K buys so god bless them (whatever that means), that’s real money so go for it.
Really Strikeforce provides a great alternative to the UFC. Not nearly as good over all but still fantastic to the hard cores because they do have a lot of top talent and to the non-hard cores, it’s the same as UFC.
Honestly there is no one that can say whether Strikeforce can stick around long term. The $30M revenue story tells us nothing, what is their expense level. They have a great product and I wouldn’t miss a card. The only down side is the best don’t fight the best. But if they did, UFC would have an even greater monopoly and that isn’t ideal either.
You really think the top 3 fights on each card are equal?
Arlovski/Sergei…. Is equal to Griffin/Franklin?
Fedor/Big Foot….. Is equal to Silva/Belfort?
Del Rosario/Johnson is equal to Jones/Bader?
The UFC has better quality main events. The UFC has better quality co-main events (outside the occasional 124). There isn’t even a debate about the rest of the cards. Not even close.
If what ou think you are watching is really on equal footing then that’s just downright amazing.
Cyborg and Lawler fought for titles in the year 2011. One wouldn’t even make it out of the prelims and the other would be a low level gatekeeper in the UFC.
Comparing Strikeforce to one of the best cards of the year is obviously going to go poorly. On the other hand, is it comparable to UFC 127? Sure.
So it’s not okay to compare it to a good ufc ppv? But it’s okay to compare it to the worst?
128,129, 130 all on paper are better then anything SF has done in 2010 or 2011.
They don’t charge less for the bad ones. Besides, for the price of a couple bad UFCs on PPV in HD, you can basically get a year of Showtime.
UFC 126 was a great card but since you asked (45). Indeed Fedor vs. Bigfoot is comparable to Anderson vs. Belfort. Andrei (despite his history of KO’s) vs. Kharitonov (despite his inactivity) is a great match up for hard cores (obviously less so for casual fans) and is comparable to Griffin (who cares) vs. Franklin (who cares). Deeper, of course Jones vs Bader is far beyond Del Rosario vs Big.
In general the UFC events are better than Strikeforce events, especially when you look at them over the full 11 fight card. But UFC puts on just as many stinkers as Strikeforce. We could go back and look at (going of the top of my head here) 25% of the past 30 UFC cards and they have been bashed for their lack of importance just as Strikeforce cards have been.
Also please don’t just compare to a great card as reference just to try to prove your point. Additionally referencing poorer cards in fairness is more meaningful.
I can count one two hands the number of important fights SF has had since the beginning of 2010. The UFC has about 40+ of them a year.
And your analysis on the strength of that card is way off.
Silva/Belfort was #1 vs. Top 10 quality. Fedor/Bigfoot was Top vs. Non-top 10. Would you like me to continue in order to embarrass you some more?
You seem compelled to compare Strikeforce to every show but the aforementioned UFC 127. Which is understandable, as it doesn’t meet the same quality as the other events the UFC is holding. But its still $55 in HD. Another $55 card of that sorta quality and you’re talking about the rough cost for a year of Showtime and all the fights aired there-in. There’s very likely going to be another.
Really, comparing which organization puts on the better unaired prelims is stupid anyhow. They aren’t advertised and there is no guarantee they’ll ever make TV. Why bother arguing that they are better? What dummy buys a PPV for fights that might not or probably will not air?
Bigfoot was in most top tens. Oh, wait. I forgot. Anyone who doesn’t agree with the 45 Huddle version of rankings hates the UFC. I should have learned from the last thread.
127 is the worst PPV the UFC will probably have this year. Let’s compare it to the worst championship SF card.
All I am doing really is comparing the best UFC card of the month to the best SF card of the month. And in that case, it’s not even close. You want to use their 2nd biggest show of the month and compare it to the SF card. That’s apples and oranges.
Who did Big Foot beat to get in the Top 10 before the Fedor fight? I don’t see any wins on his record that would indicate Top 10 status. Please inform me.
” not dramatically better in matchmaking”
Dude, I hate to sound so dismissive, but do you even watch Strikeforce?
Cost analysis is that the worst UFC card equates to roughly what 4 Strikeforce and 4 Strikeforce Challengers cost to the viewer. UFC 127 isn’t worth to me what 4 middling Strikeforce shows likely will be.
StrikeForce really does need to have a different feel, if they’re going to come off as something more than just UFC-lite with an unquestionably inferior roster (outside of the HW division being semi-competitive). Thus, I’m all for theatricality. PRIDE was way over the top in that respect and I think they were a lot better off for it. If it’s anathema who want to see a purist sports presentation, those people are going to naturally be more drawn to the UFC anyway.
It’s also not like Boxing has never had over the top entrances. No one remembers Prince Naseem floating to the ring on a flying carpet? Or Nikolai Valuev being accompanied by an entire orchestra? If they can successfully do stuff like that in Boxing, there’s room for both approaches in MMA.
Agreed. They can’t try to mimic the UFC. In sports, that always spells the death knell of a promotion, in that they come across like they’re trying desperately to play catch-up and failing.
All the more reason why they SHOULDN’T have any qualms about not talking shop about the UFC.
It’s one thing to mention the UFC and its fighters. It’s another thing to have somebody go in during a Strikeforce show and talk to Greg Jackson about UFC news and an forthcoming UFC fight. That’s promoting the other brand, pure and simple.
Did they fail to notice that the Showtime announcing team had shoutouts to Vitor and Anderson as well? Mauro described a front kick as “taking a page out of Anderson Silva’s book” – which I think is taking a page out of Mike Goldberg’s book – and said that Vitor was in attendance and anxious to get back into the cage after his loss.
From my comment above, there’s a big big big difference between commentators mentioning UFC fighters and someone going in during a Strikeforce show and talking to Greg Jackson about UFC news and an forthcoming UFC fight. That’s promoting the other brand, pure and simple.
This whole idea that HDNet is going to do whatever they want beyond Strikeforce’s wishes baffles me. Again, folks, do you really think that Spike TV would be allowed to get away with doing the same thing to/with the UFC?
The thing that Dave is missing is that HDNet has no dog in this hunt. They cover everybody. The UFC, Strikeforce, Bellator, DREAM, Sengoku, and every other MMA organization under the sun. They don’t have a vested interest in one promotion like Showtime does or like Spike does. It should come as no surprise that they are willing to talk across organizations. That is their specialty and what makes their broadcasts unique.
Good point. Its one of the reasons I like Schiavello’s commentary in spite of the fact that he’s YELLING ALL THE TIME.
Heaven forbid they cover the sport like…a sport?
Does Meltzer want a veil of silence? If Alistair signs with UFC, should he show up as the “real world champion” (like Ric Flair in WWF 1991) with a blurred out tag belt?
Did they blur his belt out? I do not remember that happening. I remember him coming out with that “big gold belt” and I thought it was his belt, much like Ted Dibiase’s “Million Dollar Belt”
They started out with him coming out with the real NWA belt, and then the NWA was able to stop it or something so they came up with the clever idea of giving him a WWF belt and blurring it out as part of the story line. Brilliant.
Did they blur it out on television, or physically mar the belt up? I am going to assume it was on television, though that must have been weird back in 1992.
I know all about the $10,000 insurance clause on the “big gold belt” that the NWA made their champions put down, and I know Flair got that back plus interest when he finally did return the “big gold belt”
They blurred it on TV. I don’t know what the substitute belt looked like, and that was what was so clever about what Titan did.
Yeah, they had Flair come out with the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. WCW filed a lawsuit, and as a result they had Flair go out with one of the tag team belts instead…but when it got to television, they would blur the belt to give the impression to viewers that he was still walking around with the NWA World Heavyweight Championship belt.
I’m usually a fan of Meltzer’s work, but his criticism of HDNet regarding this all is just silly. Silly as hell.
“NBA doesn’t with a player from the European leagues.”
LOL 45 you should really avoid topics like mainstream sports if you don’t know the first thing about them. Euroleague teams are invited by the NBA to PLAY their teams in the preseason. And if you really need an example of a talked-about player, Arvydas Sabonis was a legendary figure in the NBA before he even played a single game in the league.
And the icing on the cake? Euroleague is available here on one channel… NBA TV. OMG don’t they know how it hurts their brand to acknowledge and support the existence of multiple leagues within the same sport???
all i know is watching the Showtime card, not the HDnet card, the showtime card it felt like a minor league org, man the commentary was awful.
The production was
shit, the presentation as a whole was terrible.As for the HDnet when your the top org you dont have to talk about hte little guys, but when your the little org I dont see how you can pretend the big org doesnt exist, which SF does sometimes, Pat M does it, he pretends the UFC and their fighters dont exist, I dont get that.
But HDnet is smart they know whats up, they just got on the good side with the UFC I’m sure to them that is more valuable having creds with them then airing a few prelim fights for SF.
Your talking to Jackson, he is the trainer to some of the best, they ask about them, Idont see that as a big deal.