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MMA Link Club: Don’t have the UFC boss humbled on national TV

By Zach Arnold | December 10, 2011

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This week’s MMA Link Club featured stories

Five Ounces of Pain: Dana White’s Extreme Confusion

He has mood swings. We all know this. The reason he fired Miguel Torres is simple. a) Torres is not considered by management to be a big drawing card, b) he has a history of saying stupid things on Twitter, and c) Dana White got blindsided by Michael Landsberg (a gem of a guy) on national TV in Canada with the ‘rape’ tweet. Put that together and you end up with the decision that was made.

Does that justify the ridiculous & arbitrary process Zuffa has implemented for certain fighters not getting punished and others getting whacked? No. That’s what happens when you open up Pandora’s box and apply different standards to different people. Dana White may have thought Rashad Evans’ remark about Jerry Sandusky was stupid but he was smiling at the podium during the Evans/Phil Davis trash talk.

MMA Fighting: Miguel Torres apologizes for offensive tweets that cost him his job

A perfunctory note to sound and I’m certain he’ll be back in Zuffa. He’s a prime example of why having so many athletes embrace Twitter & implementing a social networking policy is a stupid idea. This is why the Public Relations profession exists.

That said, I’m thoroughly enjoying the u-turn online this week in which the Danabots have gone from being 100% he-can-do-no-wrong to this-guy-is-a-rotten-bastard-who-has-changed.

Fightline: Dana White says Strikeforce is saying, books Lorenzo Larkin vs. King Mo

So, Strikeforce will essentially be his Zombie promotion to try to compete with Bellator. The difference this time around is that Showtime reportedly is not paying what they were on the original deal and Spike is the money mark for Bellator.

Cage Potato: Digital sensei — Steven Seagal will disclose secrets to victory to Lyoto Machida via Skype

He needs all the help he can get as a 9-to-2 dog to Jon Jones.

MMA Mania: Last-minute crash guide with videos & links to everything you need to know about UFC 140 in Toronto

Don’t forget that the prelims are airing on Ion this time around and that it’s a 2-hour block (7 PM EST/4 PM PST).

5th Round: Pro Elite 1/21 Hawaii event features Kendall Grove vs. Minowaman

I guess it’s an interesting fight?

Bleacher Report: Dana White firing Miguel Torres because of his tweet and why it smacks of hypocrisy

Middle Easy: Cro Cop returns to K-1 in March

A fascinating story on a lot of levels. K-1 running in Europe was the specialty of Ken Imai, Mirko’s Japan agent for many years and former right-hand man of Kazuyoshi Ishii before Imai turned on Ishii and jumped to Sakakibara & PRIDE. Wonder if Mirko is having a reunion with Imai these days?

Lowkick: In UFC Undisputed 3 game simulation, Jon Jones beats Machida 18 out of 25 times

So, in other words, the video game is a tad more generous than the oddsmakers towards Machida.

The Fight Nerd: ‘Joe Palook’ joins with UFC fighter Dan Miller in fight against PKD (polycystic kidney disease)

MMA Convert: Dan Miller gets much-needed financial help from UFC executives for son’s kidney transplant

MMA Payout: Spike TV counters UFC on Fox 2

The Fox card is interesting because UFC is upping the ante by putting a lot of PPV-level guys on TV. Spike TV is going to make sure that 2012 is a year of revenge for eating the Zuffa TV rights to prevent Bellator from airing on the channel until 2013.

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 7 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

7 Responses to “MMA Link Club: Don’t have the UFC boss humbled on national TV”

  1. Megatherium says:

    I have to say the the Torres sacking worked to perfection. A mob was forming and nothing less than human sacrifice was going to sate it’s appetite. So the low man on the totem pole was offered up and now everyone has moved on.

    And now presto, were are all back to talking about the fights.

  2. I’m not certain that Zuffa’s decision to fire Torres is hypocritical.

    Having fighters saying stupid and ridiculous things to tens of thousands of people is a relatively new experience for UFC and well, any employer really.

    There’s no precedent for this sort of thing and everything sort of came to a head with Forrest. He apologized, donated money to a charity and people moved on. Rashad made the joke during the press conference and he got a talking to.

    By that point, Torres should have known better than to post what he did. It should also be noted that his entire timeline was filled with equally awful and disturbing attempts at humor.

    All that being said, Zuffa needs to implement a policy on paper to deal with this sort of thing.

    • 45 Huddle says:

      Personally, I think what Torres said and did was much worse then what Evans or Griffin did.

      With that said, you can switch around what Torres and Griffin did…. And Torres is still getting fired. He was the expendible one.

      But I agree. A better policy needs to be put in place. Not just for this, but also drug use. Suspending Chris Leben for 1 year was the right call. But they need something in place like a 3 strikes rule.

  3. 45 Huddle says:

    1) Torres made stupid tweets. That’s what some people seem to forget. He was not in a position of power to keep his job from those obnoxious comments.

    2) Showtime will definitely be competition for Bellator. They will be competing for the same talent pool of fighters. Even if Showtime is paying out half the money they did before, it’s still enough money for Zuffa to sign another 30+ prospects a year that could have gone to Bellator. Viacom had to have known Zuffa wasn’t going to sit around and just let Bellator pick talent up without a money war. Plus as a fighter, if the money is the same for Strikeforce and Bellator, it makes more sense to sign with Strikeforce because there is always the chance of the UFC money at the end of the rainbow. That is not an option with Bellator’s contracts.

    I would love to see Strikeforce consist of Grand Prix’s in each weight division…. And then normal matchmaking for the females. And get 3 female divisions and really make a serious push for it. I still don’t think the talent is there, but nobody (even Coker) has ever really even tried to flesh it out enough.

    3) White and Fertitta are great guys for helping out Dan Miller and his son. That’s just awesome.

    4) So the Velasquez vs. Dos Santos gimick by SpikeTV only drew slightly over 700,000 viewers. And they want to try it again? They must really have nothing else if they are going to continue to use a company that they don’t have for 7 years as their ratings grabber in 2012.

    I wouldn’t call it “revenge”. I would call it sad. And it’s only going to get worse as the viewers slowly transition to FX and FOX and just stop even checking out SpikeTV.

    SpikeTV had 6 years to use the UFC to build one other TV property. They completely failed. It just comes across as immature and sour grapes now.

  4. EJ says:

    All I gotta say is thank you Frank Mir you just made my year by tapping Nog and shutting up his haters and doubters. That just not only made my day, but my week, month and year i’ve had it with the crying and excuses and Mir put an end to all of that in the most vicious way possible I love it.

  5. Phil says:

    I still think people make too big of a deal over the “counterprogramming.” The UFC is some of the best rated stuff they have to air. UFC reruns will probably do better than 1000 ways to die, star wars, or whatever other crappy movies they usually show on Saturdays.

    Spike needs to try and keep an mma fan audience on the channel to transition to bellator in 2013. A good way to do that is to air some of their best rated shows on a day when mma fans are going to stay home and watch TV. If you want to counterprogram to hurt someone, you need to do it on a bigger network, Fox is the big boy, spike is a blip on the radar.

  6. RST says:

    “Don’t have the UFC boss humbled on national TV”

    ^^

    I think that had the most to do with it.

    That and Torres was easier to make an example of then other guys.

    He didn’t fire slider on the spot for making a fool of him on PPV.

    Dana’s inner bully flared up.

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