What Dana White supposedly had planned for Fedor in the UFC
By Zach Arnold | July 6, 2010
Yahoo Sports MMA team talks about Dana’s ideas
You remember all the discussion last year about UFC wanting to run Cowboys Stadium in the Dallas area? Kevin Iole says that Dana White had the idea to run a show at that facility with Brock Lesnar vs. Fedor and that this was something he was pushing when UFC was negotiating with M-1 last year. Kevin felt that if it had happened, it would have broken UFC’s all-time PPV buy rate record of 1.72 million buys (UFC 100).
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 15 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Is there a “Werdum effect” happening in MMA right now?
By Zach Arnold | July 6, 2010
Ever since Fabricio Werdum submitted Fedor on June 26th, everyone in the BJJ and grappling community has treated Werdum as if he’s the Heavyweight version of Royce Gracie. Ironically, Eddie Goldman recently did a column for Fight! Magazine where he talked about Royce submitting Dan Severn at UFC 4 on December 16, 1994 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with a triangle choke. At the time, a lot of people in MMA didn’t know what that hold was and had no clue about it. Nearly 16 years later, Werdum’s choke of Fedor has everyone still buzzing.
There’s your set-up for this passage from Eddie’s radio show on Monday, discussing whether there is a “Werdum effect” happening in MMA in terms of a re-focus on submission grappling and its importance in the game.
“Obviously the jiu-jitsu community was ecstatic at this result and we are already starting to see how important this fight was, how this fight between Werdum and Fedor was not only the most significant fight this year in Mixed Martial Arts, but is one of the most important and defining fights for Mixed Martial Arts in terms of the role of grappling since Royce Gracie tapped Dan Severn almost 16 years ago at UFC 4. Because if we look at the results of UFC 116 that took place on Saturday, July 3rd, in Las Vegas, Nevada, a place where they’re not really known to like things that are artful but prefer the vulgar and the crass, the narcissistic, and the greedy. We see, and I don’t know how long this has been, the top three fights of the five main televised fights on that card all ended in submissions that are used in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, in catch wrestling, and other forms of submission wrestling. This is really unprecedented. Chris Lytle defeating Matt Brown by an armbar in the second round. Chris Leben, a guy more with a wrestling background, defeating Yoshihiro Akiyama with a triangle choke towards the end of the third round. And in the main event with what they billed as a Heavyweight championship between two former college wrestling champions, Brock Lesnar defeating Shane Carwin with an arm-triangle choke in the second round. Three submissions, including in the main event involvings heavyweights. If you also listened to the Kid Peligro interview and we’re trying to establish a narrative here, a connection, you heard that Brock Lesnar was training with Comprido, Rodrigo Medeiros, a former Mundial Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu world champion, an expert in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and it was important that Lesnar was catching up because of course he was an NCAA Division I champion at Minnesota in 2000, as a runner-up in ’99, then he went into [pro-wrestling] for several years, and he has not been known exactly as a submission machine. So, he’s catching up in this regard but he was able to do this against Shane Carwin, a former Division II NCAA wrestling champion at Heavyweight. Very interesting developments in an organization that likes to promote brawls with little technique like Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar as their top fight.”
That passage sets up a larger discussion that Eddie had about the Brock Lesnar/Shane Carwin UFC 116 fight. Eddie ties in the “Werdum effect” in regards to that fight and how a simple submission attempt got the job done for Lesnar. At the same time, it also gave future Lesnar opponents a blueprint on how to beat him, even at the submission game. The icing on the cake is Eddie discussing what would happen if Fedor, who arrogantly made a beginner’s error against Werdum, got Lesnar rocked and on the ground.
This is sure to make some people very worked-up.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, UFC, Zach Arnold | 35 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Paul Heyman lays his cards on the table about what he wants to do business-wise; Update: My new article on where this is all heading
By Zach Arnold | July 5, 2010
I won’t transcribe this 20-minute interview, but here are the highlights from it:
- He said that Josh Rosenthal went to the locker rooms of both Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin before the fight and told them that he would give each man three warnings if they were in trouble and if there wasn’t an adequate response by the third warning, the fight would be stopped.
- Heyman noted that in scouting Carwin, Brock’s team noticed that whenever Carwin tried to separate from his opponent he would plan his foot back before delivering a powerful right punch. (As in the Gonzaga fight.) When Carwin didn’t do that after the onslaught on Brock in round one, it was an indicator that he had gassed out.
- Paul wanted the choke hold to be named “the death clutch.”
- During the week leading up to the fight, Brock showed amazing speed during his training camp but had never been tagged like he was by Shane Carwin.
- There was a long discussion about how Heyman and Lesnar became friends. The story is that they were together on a plane ride to England, Heyman asked him what his goals were in life, and Lesnar said that he wanted to make enough money to buy out his parent’s farm and have them closer to his kids. The two men had kids born at around the same time.
- When Brock was cleared to start training on January 5th, the expectation was that he would take a year to recover. Brock told everyone, “July.” He grunted, “I’ll be fine.” He went into heavier training when his wife told him that she was pregnant. As for his recovery, “his answer was to bully his way through it.”
- When the book comes out (Heyman is writing it with Brock), it will be in the 265-295 page. “It ain’t going to be 1,000 pages” and “not a Bret Hart book.”
- “I think the wrestling business is in a severe decline. I think a lot of it has to do with the momentum of the UFC. UFC is now definitely part of the culture. Wrestling is not cool any more” and “MMA is not cool, UFC is cool. MMA’s not part of the culture, UFC is part of the culture.” Heyman said a big part of what’s happened is that the new stars being made in wrestling are guys only the core audience cares about. He said that Randy Orton has become a big wrestling star but the general public doesn’t know who he is. “They have themselves to blame for this. They don’t know what’s cool.” and “I’m 44, I consider myself very old.” Vince is doing grandpa things right now. TNA has no clue how to make a star and they don’t know how to do good television and they don’t know how to market a television show. You have to give a great product and then have the platform to brag about the product. It’s not about bringing in a new writer to turn things around. McMahon has 90-95% market share of the business, TNA has 5-10% max. TNA has to take their company and within 3-5 years take away 10% of the market share away from Vince when he’s 74. If you can take 10% away from Vince, you can create a $100 million dollar company and if you do an IPO for it, it becomes a $275-300 million dollar company. If you have “a Dana White deal” and you own 10% of that, you own $25-30 million dollars. If it’s that kind of a deal and you get the right people and right outside groups involved to turn the company around, then it’s interesting enough to give some real serious consideration. Anything less than that and he won’t consider it and won’t take time away from his kids. His attitude is “take it or leave it.”
- He said that he didn’t call TNA about a job. He said that if he wanted a 6-figure job in wrestling, he’d call up WWE and ask to write TV reports and send them to WWE.
Now that you’ve seen the video or read the bullet points, READ MY ARTICLE ON WHAT THIS ALL MEANS. And I don’t mean just 30 of you. More like 3,000 of you. Check it out.
Topics: Media, MMA, Pro-Wrestling, TNA, UFC, WWE, Zach Arnold | 19 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Takeru Kobayashi is the “Fedor” of hot dog eating
By Zach Arnold | July 4, 2010
Kobayashi has been famous for being the hot dog eating champion of the world. The event producer is Major League Eating, which is the UFC of competitive eating. Each of the competitors, if you want to call them that, must sign a deal with MLE to compete at their events. Every year at Coney Island (the Las Vegas of competitive eating), the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest takes place and the winner gets the mustard belt. The contest airs yearly on ESPN and ESPN pays MLE a rights fee to broadcast it.
(Strangely enough, there was a bidding war a year or so ago between ESPN and Spike TV for the rights to broadcast the event.)
For many years, the mysterious aura of one man dominated the competition and his name is Takeru Kobayashi. However, in the last couple of years, a new #1 surfaced and that’s Joey Chestnut from the Bay Area.
Continue reading this article here…
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Brock Lesnar’s mouthpiece, Paul Heyman, explains what motivates the UFC Heavyweight champion to be the very best
By Zach Arnold | July 4, 2010
If Paul Heyman is positioning himself as MMA’s first pro-wrestling style manager, then he did a damn good job of it this week in the media. I’ve seen several media interviews that he has done and he has been absolutely electric in each one. The way he works the media over and the way he gets his point across without trashing Brock’s opponents but rather by building them up is the kind of thing you don’t often see done so well from top MMA personalities.
The transcript is a must read.
One of the interesting items that Dave Meltzer relayed on his show late last night was how the perception of the UFC fans towards Brock Lesnar is changing. The idea that he was viewed as the outsider that was invading the company and making a mockery of the sport to now being the champion who is a legitimate, terrorizing monster, therefore being not as disliked as he was in the past.
Continue reading this article here…
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The pro-wrestling fraternity celebrates Brock Lesnar’s win in the UFC
By Zach Arnold | July 4, 2010
ARIEL HELWANI: “What did you think about what happened just there? Brock Lesnar defeating Shane Carwin via submission.”
JIM ROSS: “Well, I tell ya, I was worried in the first round but I know Brock’s got great guts and determination. He’s got a renewed spirit about his life and we saw that. I don’t know of any other heavyweight in MMA that would have endured the first round against a great fighter like Shane Carwin other than Brock Lesnar. So, I’m really proud of Brock.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “How about everything he had to go through this past year, to see him go out there so happy and humble. How does that make you feel?”
JIM ROSS: “Well, he’s a changed man. He’s still the baddest S.O.B. on the planet. He’s right about that until somebody changes it, but he’s got a different outlook and it’s a healthier outlook for him. And now that everything is on the same page, he’s quite the specimen.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “Can anyone stop him?”
JIM ROSS: “No one’s unbeatable and he realizes that. And that’s why he’ll continue to train. No one is unbeatable, especially in the UFC Heavyweight division. But Brock Lesnar is an animal and he is a rare breed, I’ll tell you.”
If you get a chance, watch the entire video. Watching the respect that Steve Austin and Bill Goldberg pay Brock Lesnar here is surreal, especially if you remember the match the three men were involved at MSG for Wrestlemania. Jim Ross was fired up. All of these guys were fired up, especially Paul Heyman.
I thought the message Paul Heyman had at the end of the video for the people currently running the ship in the American pro-wrestling scene was a message that a lot of fans would love to say to someone like Vince McMahon. (Heyman also buried Steve Mazzagatti during the interview.)
What’s fascinating to watch is just how into UFC and MMA in general these guys are. You see that passion and it’s not a feeling you see in pro-wrestling any more.
On a side note, I wonder who will give Jim Ross a chance to do play-by-play for an MMA show…
Topics: Media, MMA, Pro-Wrestling, UFC, Zach Arnold | 8 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Dana White wants to book Cain Velasquez vs. Brock Lesnar as soon as possible
By Zach Arnold | July 4, 2010
TRANSCRIPT OF VIDEO INTERVIEW FROM MMAFIGHTING.COM
ARIEL HELWANI: “If UFC 112 was one of the lowest moments of your career, was this perhaps one of the highlights of your career?”
DANA WHITE: “This is literally the best night of my career, ever. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this way about fights. It was a great night. Every fight I thought was dynamite. These guys came out and gave 110% and again you know I always feel like a goof when I say this about grown men, but I’m proud of all these guys tonight and they delivered. It was a great night for me.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “The trials and tribulation of Brock Lesnar. It’s an amazing story over this past year. It’s been almost a year since he sat here and you know everything that happened after UFC 100. When you saw him submit Shane Carwin, what were the thoughts that went through your mind?”
DANA WHITE: “I couldn’t believe it. You know, and sometimes in the press conference you know you guys are asking questions and I actually wanted to ask a question and say something but I hold back and don’t do it. What he did tonight, he had the mount and to jump off and go for that submission was dangerous. I mean, that was a very risky move. You saw it happen earlier on in the Chris Lytle fight when Matt Brown had that submission and had it forever and it looked like he was going to get it but didn’t. It’s a dangerous submission against a guy like Shane Carwin. He went for it and he pulled it off, you know, you really got to give him the credit and the respect for doing it.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “You said at the press conference that you bad-mouthed Josh Rosenthal before he even did anything. And then you gave him props. Ultimately, the right call? I thought it was, but I’m curious for your take.”
DANA WHITE: “Yeah, you know, I just get so nervous, man, with the reffing and judging. Coming out of that Akiyama/Leben fight, I wanted to see what the judges’ scorecards said. I wanted to see who they had winning that fight and that was a tough one to score, I mean that fight could have gone either way and possibly even for Akiyama, you know what I mean? I think he did a lot of damage, have Leben hurt many times, but Chris… and to hurt Chris Leben is no easy task, so… I think, even in losing tonight, Akiyama gained a lot of respect. Back to the question you asked me about the reffing and yeah, I saw him in there and listen, I have my moments with all the refs when you know how I am with those guys… He did a great job tonight. I think that… you know the fight was close to being stopped. You know, there could have been a couple of guys who jumped in but like Brock said in the press conference, he kept moving and stayed busy and looked like he wasn’t hurt or out of it and I think Josh did a great job.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “We’ll get to Akiyama in a second, but I’m just curious about the first round once again. Do you think critics will look to that first round and say, you know what, Brock might not be as tough as we thought we was?”
DANA WHITE: “No, he’s tougher than we thought he was. He’s definitely tougher than we thought he was but you know the guy continues to grow as a Mixed Martial Artist, you know. He doesn’t have the greatest stand-up you’ll ever see, you know, he pulled off his first submission tonight. You know, he’s a wrestler who’s evolving and learning all these things. That’s why when I talked about the ring rust with him… you know, listen, he’s in great shape. They said he had an awesome camp, he’s in the best shape he’s ever been in, you know he’s healed up 100% from his illness that he had. Now it’s a matter of growing. Every fight that he has, every training camp that he has, he’s going to learn more and more. If you look at how he lost by submission to Frank Mir in that first fight and how he dominated Mir in the second fight when Mir was going the for the same submissions. It’s pretty incredible.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “Very special moment, Chris Leben and Stephan Bonnar, two guys who are part of The Ultimate Fighter 1 win Fight of the Night here in 2010 and they’ve had to endure a lot, right? I mean Chris Leben we know the story. Stephan Bonnar the same. Talk about what they did tonight.”
DANA WHITE: “Yeah, those two have been through a lot again, I don’t like to say that I’m proud of grown men, but listen I’m proud of those two tonight. They’ve been through a lot of stuff and I was actually starting to wonder myself if Stephan, you know, if Stephan still had the desire and the fire to fight and he looked tonight like he looked in the Finale of Season 1 of The Ultimate Fighter, man. He just kept coming forward. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a guy run more times in a fight than I did in that fight tonight. It was a dog-fight, it was an absolute war and a fun fight to watch.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “You said that Cain Velasquez is next for Brock Lesnar. When do you think we’ll see that fight?”
DANA WHITE: “I need to talk to Brock about it and I’m a big believer in let’s get these guys right back in as soon as we possibly can. You know, farming sounds fun but… that’s not what really pays the bills.”
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 25 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Fedor would have long odds to overcome to beat Brock Lesnar
By Zach Arnold | July 3, 2010
Say what you will about Antonio Inoki, but at least he did have the right idea when he tried to recruit Brock Lesnar and make him into his monster IWGP champion. Of course, you can’t control a wild boar, which is what Brock is. A living, breathing, humanized wild boar who has such amazing power. What human do you know in his kind of physical condition that can withstand the punishment he took initially and then just spring right back up and finish off an opponent like that?
- Jonathan Snowden: Best in the world? Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin fail to impress at UFC 116
- Jamie Penick: Brock Lesnar proved his doubters wrong
- Steve Cofield: Lesnar shows off new impressive elements in each fight he is in
- Fightlinker: A major main event that lived up to the hype
It’s easy to overreact, but I don’t see how someone like Cain Velasquez or Fedor could beat the guy. Velasquez would need to outbox him to make it work. Fedor would need to use speed to do it. However, the odds of either man beating Lesnar would be long. Perhaps Cain could stop more takedown attempts than Shane, but it’s hard to see how you do that with someone that massively strong and big.
What I’m most intrigued by is what happens when Brock starts running through the other heavyweights in UFC. Junior dos Santos poses a threat. If Lesnar beats him, then really Fedor would be the one guy on the outside-looking-in who people would want to see him take on Brock. I feel after tonight’s performance from Brock that Fedor in the UFC against this guy would be the most amazing spectacle we’ve ever seen.
A guy that size who gets better as a fight goes longer? Holy %&$*. Even when you throw everything at Brock early on and he takes a 10-8 round, he just comes back and laughs in your face.
The discussion about who’s the #1 Heavyweight in the world ended tonight, thankfully.
Addendum: The anger about Brock winning is amazing. Give the guy credit for what he did. And for those angry that I mentioned Fedor, I mentioned him in the context of seeing a guy who was #1 last week loss and seeing the new #1 and how they would match up. Relax. How about giving Brock some credit for what he did?
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 73 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
YOUR REACTION: UFC 116 – 7/3 MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas: Who is the #1 Heavyweight in MMA?
By Zach Arnold | July 3, 2010
Dark matches
- Heavyweights: Jon Madsen vs. Karlos Vemola
- Welterweights: Daniel Roberts vs. Forrest Petz
- Middleweights: Gerald Harris vs. Dave Branch
- Middleweights: Kendall Grove vs. Goran Reljic
Spike TV matches
- Light Heavyweights: Seth Petruzelli vs. Ricardo Romero
- Heavyweights: Brendan Schaub vs. Chris Tuchscherer
Main PPV card
- Lightweights: George Sotiropoulos vs. Kurt Pellegrino
- Light Heavyweights: Krzysztof Soszynski vs. Stephan Bonnar
- Welterweights: Chris Lytle vs. Matt Brown
- Middleweights: Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Chris Leben
- UFC Heavyweight Title match: Brock Lesnar vs. Shane Carwin
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 41 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
A phrase to describe the current direction of Strikeforce matchmaking…
By Zach Arnold | July 3, 2010
“What the hell is going on out here?” — Vince Lombardi
If you have not listened to Scott Coker’s interview with Sherdog radio, you should really listen to it.
(Starts about 16 minutes into the show.)
I didn’t transcribe it because it was 30 minutes long, but it’s an interview you have to listen to in order to get the vibe of complete scatterbrainedness about what’s coming up next for the promotion.
The Heavyweight picture
When asked about setting up a rematch between Fabricio Werdum and Fedor, the promoter said about M-1/Fedor and getting a new contract, “Maybe it’s time to renegotiate, huh?” Mr. Coker noted that there is nothing solid with M-1 yet for fight talks but that “they want Fabricio Werdum right away.”
“But when I think about, you know, M-1 and Fedor and Fabricio, there’s dialogue but you know it might go slow, it might go fast, but by no means is there a guaranteed rematch in October in Russia. That has not been talked about, so far as I’m concerned that fight is not happening.”
Regarding where the rematch would take place as far as television platforms are concerned, “It’s a fight that I think we can promote on PPV.”
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 8 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Odds and ends heading into UFC 116
By Zach Arnold | July 3, 2010
Listening to the Observer show on Friday night, a few things stood out to me:
It’s going to be a pro-wrestling circus there at the event with Jim Ross, Steve Austin, Batista, Rock, Bill Goldberg, Paul Heyman, and others from the wrestling world in attendance.
The winner of the UFC 116 main event will face Cain Velasquez next. If Brock Lesnar loses, he will face Frank Mir. If Shane Carwin loses, nobody knows what’s next for him.
After Fedor lost to Fabricio Werdum last weekend, a lot of bettors put their money on Shane Carwin as an underdog to beat Brock Lesnar.
Dave Meltzer claims that Fedor is a bigger name than Shane Carwin or Cain Velasquez.
A lot of discussion focused on how the UFC 116 event has good, but not great heat in Vegas. About 4,000 showed up for the weigh-ins. Almost all of the blame, if you want to call it that, is on Carwin (according to Dave) for not doing the proper PR to heat it up. It was noted that all the leading indicators heading into this show are less than what Rashad Evans vs. Quinton Jackson did a little over a month ago. The Countdown show didn’t draw nearly the ratings expected, the weigh-ins didn’t attract a heavy crowd, and largely the only media focus about the event is on Brock Lesnar and that’s it. As Jordan Breen noted, Brock is the only thing people care about in the media both in Canada and the States.
There is talk of people hedging their bets about the PPV buy rate being around a million buys. Some discussion of 800,000 buys.
Dana White wanted to book Quinton “Rampage” Jackson vs. Lyoto Machida but Rampage turned the fight down because he was afraid it would be a boring fight. So, he wants a fight with Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. Rashad Evans doesn’t want to fight until he gets his title shot against Shogun, which could be in March. UFC would like Rashad to fight someone like Rogerio but Rashad’s not interested. Instead, Rampage will likely end up fighting Rogerio. Lost in all of this mayhem is the name Jason Brilz.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 12 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
The chances of Frank Shamrock beating Kazushi Sakuraba in the 1990s
By Zach Arnold | July 2, 2010
Jordan Breen picked Sakuraba to win such a dream match:
“As far as a Kazushi Sakuraba/Frank Shamrock fight goes, I would have taken Sakuraba over him. People forget how positively dreadful Frank Shamrock’s wrestling was. I don’t know if it’s because he was in Pancrase and think that, OH, THEY COULD WRESTLE THERE, because I mean they couldn’t. So… No. Kazushi Sakuraba might have the best single-leg takedown down in MMA history. He would have taken Shamrock repeatedly and be able to get positions on him. Would have been fun to watch but I don’t think a lot of the kind of advantages that people like to overstate about Frank Shamrock’s career would have been hugely present there. Everyone’s, OH, FRANK SHAMROCK WAS SO WELL-ROUNDED. Well, he couldn’t wrestle. His striking wasn’t that great and, you know, that doesn’t leave you with a whole lot of stuff. He was really well-versed on the ground, was great in scrambles, could fight out of positions and had good cardio. Fortunately, Sakuraba was, I don’t want to say better at all of those things, but you know, it was not like he had cardio issues despite even being a chain smoker and I think was the far-superior grappler especially with respect to positions. If they’d fought in their respetive primes anywhere from 1997 up to 2000, I would have definitely taken Kazushi Sakuraba. After all, I mean, Frank Shamrock had to go you know tooth-and-nail with a completely inexperienced, nearly teenage Jeremy Horn with a $4 hair cut. I would have definitely have taken Sakuraba over Frank Shamrock in their respective primes, although for whatever reason Shamrock remains one of those guys that people really see as, I think it’s perhaps fair to see him as a forerunner to the well-rounded Mixed Martial Artist. But I do think that people overestimate how truly well-rounded he was because he wasn’t this kind of Georges St. Pierre-type in the year 1998, 1999. There were definite massive gaps in his game at that point in time that could have been exploited, but for whatever reason people tend to overlook en masse.”
Thinking about this topic makes me feel really old (when I’m not). I remember watching a very young Ken Shamrock in Japan in the early 90s and Frank as well in the middle part of the decade. The one match that stands out the most to me from Frank was actually an exhibition match he had with Kiyoshi Tamura in RINGS. It was at Osaka Prefectural Gym and RINGS was more or less making the transition from more worked fights to shoot fights. Their exhibition match was a work, but it was an excellent bout to watch. When Maeda made the decision to change the direction of the promotion more towards a real product, Frank Shamrock’s entrance into the company was considered kind of a big deal by insiders at the time in Japan. However, while the match itself was terrific (the ace of RINGS vs. the former ace of Pancrase), it didn’t draw that strong of a house in Osaka. The building was a little over half-full.
You have to remember at the time what MMA was like in the 1990s. In Japan, you had UWF-International and Takada was the God. Yoji Anjoh was inexplicably the booker and he ended up getting sent as a ‘hitman’ to fight Rickson Gracie in Los Angeles. (Lots of stories to tell about that ordeal.) At that time, Anjoh had put himself over a lot of the guys on that UWF-Inter roster, including Sakuraba. The cover of Weekly Pro said, “Hitman, knocked out.”
Then, in America, you had “The Alliance” with Kohsaka, Maurice Smith, and Frank Shamrock. Remember, at that time, it was viewed like a super-team. The idea of training camps floating around like Greg Jackson’s squad does just didn’t happen. So, The Alliance was viewed at as a big deal at the time.
Meanwhile, WWE and WCW couldn’t quite figure out what to make of MMA. WWE ended up having Ken Shamrock and “The Lethal Weapon” Steve Blackman.
(Steve is actually promoting MMA events in Pennsylvania now.)
WCW had Glacier (a ridiculous character), Sgt. Buddy Lee Parker, and Sgt. Craig “Pitbull” Pittman.
So, yeah, about that dream match-up… Jordan’s right in that Sakuraba would have won. A lot of the Japanese wrestlers are/were chain smokers and still maintained amazing cardio. I wish the fight between Sakuraba and Frank would have happened. It reminds me of just how much the business has changed in a decade.
Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 15 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Improving the quality of commission regulation at MMA events
By Zach Arnold | July 2, 2010
How do cash-strapped, smaller athletic commissions improve safety standards to protect MMA fighters?
That’s the first question that comes to mind after this discussion by Jordan Breen on the topic of Michael Kirkham’s death in South Carolina.
(Text of passage at the end of this post.)
We’ve seen the issues and controversies involving California and Nevada. We know that Larry Hazzard was forced out in New Jersey.
The big issue is money. In Nevada, we know that it’s casino money that flows. In California, there’s a heavy fan base to financially support regulation. In New Jersey, it’s more or less a local grassroots level supporting the business as opposed to the casinos. But what do you do about a state like South Carolina that is poor? Heck, we have cities across the States cancelling 4th of July fireworks celebrations. I realize to the rest of the world that comes off as “whatever,” but when cities are considering all sorts of cutbacks of $25,000 here, $10,000 there, how can states that are insolvent justify the costs of doing the right kind of job for regulating events?
One part to the equation is whether or not the people regulating the events actually care about their job, are actually paying attention to what’s going on, and are willing to take the time to go over all the details.
Now, onto the radio show passage about this topic…
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 4 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |