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Friday fight notes: K-1 reacts to Royce drug test failure
By Zach Arnold | June 15, 2007
The reports of Royce Gracie failing a drug test officially hit Japan, as K-1 matchmaker Sadaharu Tanigawa was asked by the Japanese media for a response to the story. Tanigawa said that he was ‘perplexed’ by the reports. He further stated that K-1 would investigate the matter. Tanigawa originally had a press conference today to promote a July 16th Middleweight tournament show at Yokohama Arena, announcing Kaoru Uno vs. Katsuhiko Nagata.
Royce Gracie failing a drug test is now news on the AP wire. In the AP report, notorious pontificator Mike Kogan (Royce Gracie and K-1 employee – you’ll remember his name) is saying that it is not ‘a clear case yet.’
The Royce Gracie story is also all over the major US sports blogs, so this is going to be a major story for weeks to come.
Things are tenuous for the IFL. Take a look at the latest IFL public filing:
The Letter of Intent contains provisions requiring good faith negotiation of definitive agreements and exclusive negotiation by the company. These terms originally expired on March 15, 2007 and have been extended several times, most recently through May 31, 2007, but has not been extended beyond that date. Accordingly, the parties are no longer obligated to negotiate definitive documents, nor is the company bound by the exclusive negotiation terms contained in the Letter of Intent. Notwithstanding this expiration, the company and the Fox Entities are continuing to negotiate definitive agreements and are continuing to telecast IFL programs.
The Fightworks Podcast has now set-up a new web site — MMAPredictions.com.
Kimbo Slice/Ray Mercer conference call notes.
Adam Morgan appeared on 1530 AM HOMER: The Sports Animal today.
The feud you’ve all waited for, Shawn Tompkins vs. Joe Rogan. Fightlinker weighs in.
It’s a car-crash movie. It’s what I call “honest wrestling,” as opposed to staged wrestling, for normal-sized white guys. They have very good hype and marketing. We’ll see whether it’s the next evolution of hand-to-hand combat or whether it’s a fad that will go.
UFC’s Fight Night 10 show drew a 1.2 cable rating. Steve Sievert further comments.
Onto today’s headlines.
- Doghouse Boxing: Dana Whitewash likes to play his favorites (an article about how UFC continues to push Liddell and not Rampage after UFC 71)
- Radio: MMA Smackdown #27 – IFL preview w/ Stephen Quadros
- Radio: Eddie Goldman interviews Dr. Margaret Goodman
- Mike Coughlin: UFC 72 event preview
- MSNBC: Steroid woes plaguing MMA
- Yahoo Sports: Rich Franklin – Hungry for more
- Covers: UFC 72 preview and picks
- The Boca Raton News: Sam Stout, Spencer Fisher put on a brutal show at UFC Fight Night
- The Boston Herald (Joe Lauzon): TUF Week 11 – A lesson learned
- On the Mat: Interview with Rani Yahya
- TMZ: Another celebrity feud for Joe Rogan
- Gracie Mag: Nogueiras on Brazilian TV
- Jordan Breen: His latest bag of tricks news from Japan
- UFC Mania: UFC 72 official weigh-in results
- The Cecil Whig: Erik Williams preps for MMA fight
- The Republican (MA): Fighting returns to Hippodrome
- The Canadian Press: Canadian UFC fighter looks to get back on winning track
- Savannah Now (GA): MMA returns to Savannah
- The Canadian Press: Rich Franklin looks to move step closer to regaining UFC title with win in Belfast
- Yahoo Sports: Irish eyes – Colin Robinson
- The Antioch Press: Gracie turns family history into success
Topics: Brazil, Canada, HERO's, IFL, Japan, K-1, Media, MMA, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 17 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Wait….Anderson Silva, Din Thomas and Rampage are white?
Why link to a Merchant interview? The guy’s opinions have long since become irrelevant.
I like Merchant as a commentator, but his comments on MMA are ignorant.
Strangely, this is the second time in a week that a prominent old man from boxing has dismissed MMA as “something for white people” (Bob Arum was the other). Seems strange that they would say this.
Why is everyone so down on Merchant all the time? For christ’s sake, that isn’t even a negatvie comment. He’s saying that MMA is riding a wave of hype, but that the landscape of the sport as a whole is extremely chaotic, and time will tell if it sticks around in the public conciousness or fades into the background. Is he wrong? As hardcore fans, we’re confident in the product and its staying power, but not everyone is looking at the sport from the inside out.
Regarding the “Normal-sized white guys” comment, he saying that fighters look regular in appearance, compared with jacked up pro wrestlers on HGH. IS he wrong here?
I am so sick of mma fans who have lost the ability to think critically. Merchant was trying to take an honest, unbiased look that the sport, and you clowns are just dying to find something inflammatory in his statement, merely because he works for the “boxing establishment.”
If you have to tell yourself a hundred times a day that “MMA is on top and here to stay,” you’re probably just trying to convince yourself.
White has sent Liddell on a media tour through various talk shows and appearances since his loss
I’m postive that the media Liddell is doing now was booked before the fight. Chuck ALWAYS does this media blitz in between bouts. At this point I don’t think the UFC has to set him up either, he still the face of ‘Ultimate fighting’ for a lot of people.
The rest of that article is just horse sh*t – The reason Liddell vs. Jackson II happened so quickly is because Wanderlei lost, that was supposed to be the fight for UFC 71. White didn’t start singing a new tune until Silva lost, even the day after UFC 67 (Jackson v. Eastman II) the plan was still to get Rampage more fights, when Silva lost there was basically no one else & they were hellbent on having Chuck fighting on the 26th. That’s the main reason why they did that fight.
He also simplified the whole PRIDE situation with more conspiracy theroy nonsense. The only thing he’s right about is that Dana has HUGE hardon for Liddell & Hughes.
Absulotely agree with Dru – to take that quote from Merchant as something NEGATIVE is about as paranoid as one can possibly get. It’s an honest and quite acurate observation about MMA of today, and when I first read it I honestly thought it was posted by Zach to show that Merchant, as a boxing guy, isn’t as dumbfounded as some of his colleagues.
agree with Dru, well said.
You guys are right … calling MMA a car crash is quite accurate.
Well, he did say ‘Car Crash Movie’ and not ‘a Car Crash’. It’s possible that Merchant means lots of flash by that comment (which is kind of backed up by the rest of the quote) and not that it’s a clusterfuck. But maybe I’m giving him too much respect with the quote…
But maybe I’m giving him too much respect with the quote…
I think you are. I don’t have problem with the rest of the quote, it was typical Merchant.
“You guys are right … calling MMA a car crash is quite accurate.”
Please point out where he called it a car crash. Car Crash = brutal, bloody, devastating, sad – you have to be sadistic to like it. Car crash MOVIE = (publicly accepted)ACTION ACTION ACTION ACTION, which is exactly how MMA markets ITSELF when comparing ITSELF to, oh let’s see… BOXING. The man openly admits it could very well be the next thing in hand-to-hand combact(as in – MMA could overtake boxing, SAYS LARRY FREAKING MERCHANT), and somehow he’s a bad guy. I don’t get it.
Well, MMA as a whole IS a clusterfuck.
The fly-by-night promotions are out in serious force, and some of the serious promotions are hardly even recognizable as sport rather than spectacle.
Creepy as it seems, UFC might well be the last man left standing at this rate. The rest of the industry seems hell bent on destroying itself. It’s not hard to understand why ZuffaCo is taking things slowly on the expense side of the ledger. Any day now the million PPV buys gravy train could grind to a halt in a storm of drugs, bankruptcy, and corruption, even if just by association.
Maybe the best result would be if UFC and UFC’s wholly owned “competitors” were the only promotions left standing. At least then, the fighters would probably realize that they need to unionize.
I agree that the rest of the industry (besides the UFC) is destroying itself. The only company who seems to have their act together is Strikeforce, but they are still a small time player.
ESPN.com is covering the UFC PPV. Obviously, they are ONLY covering UFC PPV’s with anything beyond an article.
I just read the AP article.
Ultimate fighter fails drug test after LA fight
I’m sure the UFC loves that title.
[Since the commission’s current drug testing program began on March 31, about 20 fighters have tested positive for banned drugs, Garcia said…
“Probably 90 percent” of the positive tests involved mixed martial arts contestants, Garcia said.]
Backlash brewing?
The UFC is probably going to be forced into implementing a drug testing policy.
They will have to do a few things, and work with the athletic commissions to get it done.
1. Have every fighter tested for every card.
2. Increase the time period of suspensions. Probably looking at a full year for testing positive for steroids.
3. Increase the percentage of pay that is taken away from a fighter. More like 25%+. Not to mention that if a main eventer with PPV Revenues, should also get those dollars deducted 25%+.
Beyond that, there isn’t much they can do. Fighters in general (outside the normal ones like Couture & Fitch) are the type of people who are willing to stick needles in their butt in order to build a career.
From The Fight Network.
[“He did, in fact, test positive on his A sample and B sample for the reported substance, which was Nandrolone Metabolite,” Douglas said.
Douglas also addressed the possibility that Gracie’s positive test could have resulted from natural causes, like a high protein diet, or Creatine usage.
“That’s exactly why we do the A sample and the B sample,” Douglas said. “When an A sample comes back, and it reads positive, it’s never an automatic positive violation for us. Should a B sample come back negative, obviously you’ve got a false positive reading and it would absolutely be considered a negative test – no doubt. In this case a positive A and a positive B both came back.”]
False postive is out the window, he’s going to have to prove the Nandrolone Metabolite in his system was natural.
I’d be interested to know how far above the 2 ng/ml threshold Royce was.