UFC fighter Jeremy Stephens has a homophobic message for Floyd Mayweather; Update: TUF contestant Jamie Yager says someone used fake Twitter account to make homophobic slurs to Tito Ortiz
By Zach Arnold | June 3, 2010
MMA Torch reports that Stephens would later go on to allegedly use the n-word in asking Dana White to set up a fight with him and Mayweather.
Related: Rampage Jackson deserves scorn for homophobic comments and Rampage acting out
For the sake of keeping my sanity, I’ve turned comments off for this post (for now) because I don’t have time to moderate a flame war.
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Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 5 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Talk Radio: What financial responsibility does Zuffa have to take care of former stars who helped build the company?
By Zach Arnold | June 3, 2010
From Sherdog radio yesterday, the background to set this up is simple. Jens Pulver still wants to fight, Zuffa doesn’t want him to, so instead of giving him a commentating job he’s gone. Pulver keeps saying he wants to fight despite retirement proclamations several times repeated on house microphones.
The discussion here takes a turn from Pulver to Stephan Bonnar, who looks incredibly awkward on MMA Live and TV appearances. It transitions into why Bonnar still has a job while other veterans who helped Zuffa out may not be getting paid gigs like Bonnar is.
LOTFI SARIAHMED: “There isn’t an obligation. [The UFC is] under no obligation to give each one of their former stars a nice landing spot. I mean, they want to, sure it’d be nice, but they’re under no obligation to do it.”
TJ DE SANTIS: “If you’re going to do it for one guy and not the other, you’re going to have discussion from the media, from the fans of why one person gets the treatment and another one doesn’t. You know, I mean… I know what Stephan Bonnar has done for Mixed Martial Arts, I know Stephan Bonnar and Forrest Griffin have done with their fight but really, I mean…”
LOTFI SARIAHMED: “Is that a fair comparison to make, though?”
TJ DE SANTIS: “Yeah, it is the comparison to make because Stephan Bonnar, athletically, has no place in the UFC right now. No place whatsoever.”
LOTFI SARIAHMED: “No, in other words though, I don’t think Bonnar has gotten any more than maybe a couple gigs, I mean a couple spots. I think (Kenny) Florian’s the guy who has been front and center a bunch more times compared to anybody else I think because of his success before on a couple of UFC PPVs, because of what he does on MMA Live, they just kind of want to go with what works.”
JACK ENCARNACAO: “Yeah, the man has a communications degree, you know, he’s got the background. He can point to studies you know as opposed to just you know being a decent sound bite. I mean Stephan Bonnar got assigned to the Dana White look-alike contest this past Saturday, I mean you know it’s not like they’re going to make him the next Mike Goldberg.”
TJ DE SANTIS: “That’s true, but I’m just saying, you know, I don’t know. I just think there are better guys for that, you know, here have some free money because we like you job than Stephan Bonnar.”
JACK ENCARNACAO: “To Lotfi’s point, totally correct. Of course you know they’re not obligated although it would be nice to create a landing pad, but around certain fighters that conversation develops. You know if you didn’t want to give the impression that was something you’re interested in, you don’t give Jens Pulver a chance to do commentary or you don’t bring it up in a lot of interviews you know that, look his days are over as a fighter but we’d love to keep him around. That’s the thing. With particular fighters like Jens Pulver, that was the discussion. That was a direction that was being proposed by the promotion. It wasn’t one that being imposed on the promotion by fans or media. It was one the promotion was saying they were prepared to do. Something they were prepared, an accommodation they were prepared to make and then when it just doesn’t happen as soon as they announce that it would, there’s more to it. Period.”
TJ DE SANTIS: “You’re right, Jack, I think maybe there’s more to this story and we’ll see what happens with Jens going forward but as now he did get his walking papers from the WEC, which I mean… in a way, not that shocking. Sort of shocked that he’s not in the booth, right away.”
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, WEC, Zach Arnold | 48 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Josh Koscheck on GSP playing it safe: “That’s kind of bad, he’s going to lose a lot of fans like that” and “he has no punching power”
By Zach Arnold | June 2, 2010
In the Paul Daley fight, you stuck to the game plan and played it safe.
“As (Georges) St. Pierre would say, he fights safely. That’s pretty much how I fought. I stuck to the coach’s game plan as hard-headed as I am, I finally listened and I stuck to the game plan and came up with a very conservative, easy win and you know I had a lot riding on this fight so I had to obviously listen to my coaches you know because obviously we had the TUF 12 coach and fighting St. Pierre for the title so you know I fought a conservative fight.”
What do you think about GSP playing it safe in fights?
“You know, that’s kind of bad, you know. He’s going to lose a lot of fans like that. I go out there to finish fights and win, you know, knock guys out and that’s what I’m going to try to do to St. Pierre. Actually not what I’m going to try, that’s what I’m going to do to St. Pierre. I’m going to force him to stand toe-to-toe when we fight and he better be working on his punching power because he has no punching power. When’s the last time you saw Georges St. Pierre knock somebody out in the UFC? It’s been a long time and you know after Matt Serra knocked him out, you saw Georges St. Pierre you know start his ‘safe’ fight you know, he’s been fighting safe for a long time putting on good game plans but I can guarantee you that I’m going to force Georges St. Pierre into standing toe-to-toe with me and I’m going to knock him out.”
Continue reading this article here…
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Talk Radio: How to make UFC Live, er MMA Live a better show on ESPN
By Zach Arnold | June 2, 2010
A last note from Jordan Breen, touching on something that I’ve been meaning to write on for a while but I haven’t gotten around to it (until now).
As many of you know, MMA Live is now airing before and after UFC PPV events on ESPN2. The network also airs a weekly show at 1 AM EST every Thursday. The crew that produces MMA Live is desperately trying to keep the show going on ESPN2 and they recently got an extension to do so. So, from that standpoint, I completely understand why they are on the UFC bandwagon — it’s all about survival mode for them right now.
However, the audience size is largely made up of about 100,000 semi-hardcore and hardcore fans. The format for the show fits more or less for casual fans than it does for the hardcore fans. I think this is a problem that the producers are going to have to address shortly — do we go full-bore and service the show for the hardcores and get them excited to watch us or do we try to broaden the viewership and make it ‘lighter’ in content?
One of the major problems with the show deals with the politics of UFC and the fighters. Kenny Florian, Randy Couture, and other fighters who appear on the show are actively employed by Zuffa. Therefore, you’re not going to get many critical comments from these guys towards other fighters. They don’t need the headaches. So, you eliminate one of the big hooks that might draw in more viewers to watch the show. On top of that, a lot of fighters are simply basket cases and anything they perceive as a slight, no matter if it is a slight or not, is blown up into a big heated discussion.
As you will read in this paragraph below, Michael Bisping got into it with Randy Couture on the post-fight edition of MMA Live. For the life of me, when I heard that this incident happened, I was dumbfounded because nothing Randy said with Bisping on set was heavy on the critical side.
“I think the thing with MMA Live is [that] reaction is always easier than prognostication. Everyone with hindsight being 20/20 can sort of divine why something happening. I do think the biggest with MMA at this point in time is there aren’t enough retired analysts who are kind of divorced from the game while still being interested in it. And that’s the worst thing about Kenny Florian. We said this a lot in relation to color commentary, Kenny Florian’s brilliant in the booth but his biggest issue is that he never wants to criticize anyone for fear of maybe engendering maybe another Josh Barnett situation where he goes ape and sort of antagonizes Kenny Florian over even a mild criticism. And more than that, you kind of see why perhaps these guys are guarded because it makes for awkward situations. That post-fight show where Randy Couture makes very helpful and honestly not just noy only were they honest and sincere, but frankly the stuff he was saying again was pretty lukewarm for Michael Bisping. He wasn’t judging him as a person but yet Bisping loses it and he can be seen mouthing profanities at Randy Couture. These guys are incredibly thin-skinned. To say that the MMA population in terms of fighters and trainers are a bit hyper-sensitive would be the understatement of the century.”
Go to full-page mode and you can read suggestions on how to improve the format of the show along with deal with some of the primadonna fighters in the business who appear as guests on the program.
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Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 14 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
A big month of fan interest in May, but will fatigue for MMA and UFC set in for the long haul?
By Zach Arnold | June 2, 2010
I was originally going to write a post about our big month on the site, which broke all-time traffic records in the four-plus year of our existence. We’ve covered a lot of scandals and have touched upon a lot of stories over the years, but May was a magical month for us in terms of reader activity, active links on other sites, and just getting the buzz out there in general.
A heavy reason for that was due in part to the buzz surrounding the UFC 114 main event. I’ll have Jordan Breen set you up here on why he thinks Mixed Martial Arts is in it’s best period ever and afterwards, I’ll give you a taste of the reaction I’ve gotten from long-time site readers, old friends, and casual fans about their mood on Mixed Martial Arts currently.
“MMA now is more exciting than it’s ever been. I know that there’s some of kind of visceral reaction because for whatever reason people expected this wild, crazy exchanging slug-fest between Quinton Jackson and Rashad Evans despite the fact that not only was it not in Rashad Evans’ interest to fight that way, he almost never fights that way anyway. So, to have expected a toe-to-toe battle… I just can’t fathom why anyone would have anticipated such a thing. So there’s a bit of misgiving about the way that main event played out, especially in terms of the action that people seemed to expect but I don’t think there was any real deficiency with how much action’s going on in Mixed Martial Arts on the whole.
Finishing bonuses, like I said, they basically already exist and I don’t think just offering money for every fight to finish is really necessarily in the best interest at all. And we already know that there’s a bit of an issue when guys, especially mid-level guys who are supposed to be filling a role, go out and start fighting in pursuit of bonuses. Do we really want to see Chris Lytle having like tit-for-tat with Kevin Burns because he doesn’t want to box properly or doesn’t want to grapple, he just wants to go and throw haymakers? Is that really what we want?”
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Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 10 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Have the balls to name names, Dana White.
By Zach Arnold | June 1, 2010
So, the UFC President says that the rankings lists online that you see from various web sites are influenced by payoffs. And he made this accusation while appearing on Bill Simmons’ ESPN podcast:
“Most of these goofy MMA sites, what you have to understand is, these guys are in it for the money,” said White. “They get paid from all the smaller promotions. They get paid a lot of money from the smaller promotions. So they feel like they have to put some of their guys. That’s the way it works. It’s sick and drives me crazy.”
Josh Gross counters back:
Hey @DanaWhite, which MMA media are taking payoffs for rankings? I’d really love to know. Sincerely. They should be shunned. Proof, please.
No response, yet.
Here’s the deal — I get it. It’s a media tweak, Rush Limbaugh-style, from the most powerful man in MMA. He gets his jollies by doing this all the time. However, the accusation made is a very loaded one and is as annoying as listening to a media personality interviewing a subject with the dreaded “well some people say [insert loaded allegation here]…” without actually naming anyone specificly.
So, Mr. White, name some names. Don’t waste my time if you don’t have the goods. And if the rankings online are as meaningless as you think they are, why are you wasting any time caring about them? Stop being a mark for rankings if you think they’re corrupt.
Here’s a constructive idea for you — if you think all these ‘mark MMA web sites’ are corrupt and are producing corrupt rankings lists, why doesn’t UFC produce their own rankings lists on their web site?
(One answer to that question is because it would give fighters an idea of how the promotion views their slotting in the company, thus providing some leverage at the bargaining table. Remember, I recently transcribed an interview with Eddie Alvarez where he said that rankings lists only primarily matter in the sense that it gives his manager an idea of what to ask for money-wise. Seriously.)
For the record (and to my knowledge), no one associated with the Independent World MMA Rankings has taken a payoff. I have never taken a payoff from a promoter or a fighter in my entire career, which has spanned a very long time.
The new Independent World MMA Rankings list comes out on Friday.
Hit full-page mode for the best commentary yet on this topic.
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Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 17 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Truths and consequences for Showtime, GSP, Tito Ortiz. and Rampage Jackson
By Zach Arnold | June 1, 2010
According to this intriguing Sherdog interview, Showtime boss Ken Hershman wants you to believe that he thinks Dana White is irrelevant (his words) and that Scott Coker is doing a wonderful job. What’s funny is reading Ken trying to minimize the impact Showtime has had in running the show so far and to try to hype up Strikeforce’s involvement so far. After all, they’re dream partners!
The consequence of Georges St. Pierre playing it safe and fighting to win on points and not get hurt seems to be eroding fan support for him… but just a little bit. He is certainly starting to hear some boos, though. When I heard the news that his title fight versus Josh Koscheck might happen in Koscheck’s old stomping grounds of Pittsburgh, my immediate reaction was… even in Pittsburgh, Josh Koscheck is going to get booed very loudly.
Jenna Jameson manages to say something goofy on Twitter all the time, including bashing Tito Ortiz “for partying in Las Vegas” and leaving her behind. Of course, she ended up in Las Vegas mugging the paparazzi cameras with Tito in ridiculous fashion.
A few days ago on the web site, I said that either the UFC or the Nevada State Athletic Commission should stop Tito Ortiz from fighting again — despite what he’s saying right now. MMA Junkie’s doctor won’t come out and directly say it, but you get the feeling he wouldn’t recommend Tito fighting again nor should he. Tito is saying the exact same things coming off of this surgery that he said after he had the back surgery from NuVasive. He may only be 35 years old, but the consequences of him fighting in the cage against high-level competition at this point could put him in a wheelchair in his 40s or 50s.
Jake Rossen says that Rampage believed that fighters could have an off-season and he found out the consequences of this last Saturday, though Dana White thought that Rampage looked good.
Fighting as a part-time investment, both physically and emotionally, is a recipe for disaster, and nowhere is that on more grueling display than in the UFC. There are no “warm-up” fights to coddle fighters coming off a layoff, injury-induced or not. Virtually every fighter in the organization is a stone-cold mercenary who would rip your head off if it meant more sponsorship deals and a title shot. Clocking in for half-days could work in Japan, where you can alternate legitimate fights with circus tours; in the States, it’s suicide.
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, UFC, Zach Arnold | 15 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Anderson Silva: “Sometimes the fans don’t understand exactly what’s going on inside the Octagon” and “I’m a very humble person”
By Zach Arnold | June 1, 2010
Click on the picture to watch one of the goofiest MMA interviews
Half of the interview with Anderson speaking in English, half of it in Portuguese with Ed Soares talking. I encourage you to watch the interview just to get a feel for Anderson’s mood, plus he dances at the end of the video.
Full-page mode for the quotes, but let’s just say that he’s starting to warm up more to the media spotlight.
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Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 10 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Tito Ortiz: I’m at 40% right now after surgery but when I heal I will train at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado
By Zach Arnold | June 1, 2010
The training facility he’s alluding to is in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
I would encourage you to read the transcribed quotes (full-page mode) to get a sense at just how much punishment, pardon the pun, Tito has put his body through and he’s only 35 years old. The way he’s talking about the surgeries he had is scary. You get a sense during the interview that he knows he’s in for some trouble as he gets older but that he’s got that determination to keep pushing through no matter what the cost is. I hope he doesn’t end up like Kurt Angle…
“I want to thank all of fans for supporting me. Thanks for the fans for supporting me and all the haters, you guys can suck it.”
And on that note, let’s get to some of the quotes.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 10 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Talk Radio: Could Strikeforce draw 150,000 or more PPV buys with a Fedor vs. Alistair Overeem match?
By Zach Arnold | June 1, 2010
From a late Monday night Observer radio show.
Before we get to the quotes on how a Fedor Emelianenko/Alistair Overeem PPV would do business-wise, let’s present another topic here to chew on — what do you think about the idea of having five judges scoring an MMA fight instead of three? After all, since we’re on the theme of going from three to five for rounds per fight for big fights…
BRYAN ALVAREZ: “Do you think three judges are enough in an MMA fight in an Octagon or cage? Given the shape and size of the area, are judges able to see enough of the action if it’s on the other side to be accurately judge the action? The action is on the ground and up against the cage, I’d imagine it might be difficult to see exactly what is going on. Maybe five might be the answer.”
DAVE MELTZER: “I’m not against the idea. I think three comes from boxing, just like everything that they do is fricking comes from boxing as opposed to like coming up with something that’s more conducive to the sport. So… Five judges is probably better than three. But they have three because boxing has three. It’s going to (be) real, like, it is so hard to get anything changed, even if it’s like for the good, it’s just so hard. And it’s why you know like… it’s, you know, things are just going to stay the way they are. I mean it’s so hard to get rule changes. I mean even things that are like logical. To me, in every state in this country that you know they should drug test and if you fail a drug test, you should forfeit your match. I mean, to me that’s just like logic and there’s places where that just doesn’t occur and there’s places where the referees are not allowed to use instant replay to overturn a decision. It’s ludicrous. This is like a real sport, it’s not like fricking professional wrestling you know where you need that stupid gimmick to like you know let heels win, you know, to have an excuse for heels to win.”
Now, onto the debate about how well a Fedor Emelianenko vs. Alistair Overeem PPV promoted by Strikeforce and Showtime would do…
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: M-1, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 15 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
About that “heart-ripping Cage Fighter story”…
By Zach Arnold | May 31, 2010
The alleged incident took place in Del Norte County (the most Northwestern county in the state of California).
Klamath is a beach area about a hour or so north of Eureka, which is the one ‘major’ town in the county south of Del Norte County, in Humboldt County. Humboldt County is part of ‘The Emerald Triangle’ along with Mendocino County (south) and Trinity County (east). Recently, The Daily Beast named Eureka as the most stoned city in America. I’m sure the locals are so proud of that accomplishment. In other words, the drug climate in the Emerald Triangle and up north is very active. With medical marijuana permits being allowed in the state, The Emerald Triangle and surrounding areas have seen kind of a boom in terms of their own version of horticulture.
Jarrod Wyatt, the man accused in the case, is in Del Norte County. Del Norte County is home to Pelican Bay supermax prison, which is one of the worst places in the world that you want to be. Riots happen all the time at that place. You do not want to be in that facility.
If you want to read a catalog of stories about this case over the past two months, click here and read Google’s listings from The Times-Standard, which is Eureka’s newspaper.
The case is currently being tried in Del Norte County in Crescent City. Crescent City, the one ‘main’ city (if you want to call it that), is about 90-100 minutes driving north of Eureka. Don’t expect Crescent City to have the media, outside of their small newspaper The Triplicate, to be able to do a lot of in-depth coverage on the court proceedings. Crescent City’s media market pulls mostly from Southern Oregon (think: Medford). Perhaps the Medford media will take a look and cover the case. Crescent City is right next to Brookings, which is a small town on the Oregon side of the border where people go during the Summer.
The story of the ‘heart-ripping Cage Fighter’ drew national attention after The Daily Mail, one of London’s yellow papers, gave the case sensational attention. It was soon picked up by Drudge, New York Daily News, and other media outlets. The reason why you didn’t hear about this story sooner is because in the top third portion of California (the part that most Southern Californians consider to be more or less part of Oregon), everything is really spread out and there isn’t much media concentration at all. The distance between towns like Crescent City, Eureka, Redding, Chico, and Ukiah is long.
Topics: Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 9 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Talk Radio: Did anything you see in the UFC 114 main event influence your opinion on what the result of Rashad Evans vs. Mauricio Shogun will be?
By Zach Arnold | May 31, 2010
A two-parter here from Jordan Breen’s conversation on Saturday night with Marc Laimon. First, a discussion about the level of wrestling we saw from Rashad Evans against Rampage Jackson in the UFC 114 main event. The second part deals with the contrasting styles of Rashad Evans and Mauricio Shogun and whose flaws will get exposed more in that upcoming UFC Light Heavyweight title fight.
First, the passage on the wrestling skill displayed in the UFC 114 main event:
JORDAN BREEN: “I thought the most impressive thing to me was the wrestling thing because in the past, like we saw in the Michael Bisping fight and the Thiago Silva fight, even the Tito Ortiz fight though he came on late, Rashad Evans pushes these guys into the fence and it seems he always tires himself out more than his opponent. This time around, it actually seemed to have the intended consequence that he always hope that it will have. He actually tired out Quinton Jackson more than himself. And then on top of that, Rashad frankly because he’s a good wrestler, because he has hand speed, he always you know it’s this assumption ‘oh he’s athletic, he’s explosive’ and this time around, this was the first time we saw Rashad Evans you know finish power double-legs away from the fence. He just changed levels and exploded a couple of times. I thought this was the most impressive implementation of his wrestling that we have ever seen from Rashad Evans. Do you think that’s a fair statement to make?
MARC LAIMON: “I agree, yeah. He put on a you know very good display and Rampage is not an easy guy to take down and he did it, I don’t have the exact stats, but he did it a few times and he played it well against the cage. I thought it was very impressive wrestling by Rashad against a guy who a lot of good wrestlers have looked bad against, you know Matt Lindland, Dan Henderson, Kevin Randleman have all… you know lost to Rampage and those are some high-caliber wrestlers there.”
Now, the passage about the upcoming UFC Light Heavyweight title fight and what kind of a chance Rashad Evans has in beating Mauricio Shogun.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 27 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Talk Radio: Number one contender fights and top eliminator bouts in UFC should be 25 minutes long
By Zach Arnold | May 31, 2010
From this past Saturday night’s Sherdog radio show. Jordan Breen has been leading the bandwagon for five round fights in non-title bouts. So has Josh Gross of Sports Illustrated.
JORDAN BREEN: “I think most people are content with Evans winning because Rampage looked so blasé but I thought to me it was another of those fight that reflected, I mean… if Evans was the better man, I think he probably would have won those next rounds and if Rampage did have the ability to knock him out, I want to see it. It just seems like another one of those fights that reinforces, these are guys that should be fighting five rounds in total especially where one of the narratives going into the fight is, ‘Oh, Rashad’s breaking down Rampage.” Well if he’s going to break him down, I want to see him break down. Give me rounds four and five. It seems a bit weird to have a fight this big… Dana White made it explicit that the winner, now Rashad Evans, is going to fight Mauricio Shogun Rua later this year. It seems just wrong to have this be three rounds. It seems anti-climatic and all too entirely short for a fight of this magnitude.”
MARC LAIMON: “Yeah, I agree. I mean, I kept making the mistake thinking this was a five round fight and I was like, oh man they’re getting close on time. And I was like, it was only three rounds and I was like, oh man. Yeah, I did feel kind of gyped. You know like I kept thinking this was a five round fight, five round fight, and I was like, oh no, it’s only 15 minutes. It’s… I really would have liked to seen what would have transpired those last two rounds.”
JORDAN BREEN: “Yeah, and obviously there then comes the issue and this is the thing that I brought up with Keith Kizer basically said, well when we go back and look at changing things in Nevada we’re going to sort of allow these promotions to petition us and say we would like this to be a five-round fight and then we know that there’s always going to be an issue of what fights become five round fights and you know where do you draw the line. And again with Zuffa, this is a card where the main event on a UFC card is still normally a title fight and this ended you know basically five minutes before you know five to seven minutes before they would have gone off on PPV. So, I mean there are time considerations for PPVs but it seems like absolutely, a title eliminator that Dana White explicitly says the winner’s of this fight is going to be fighting a title, surely that has to be the most appropriate step down from an actual title fight. I mean, it’s the natural step below it, surely if anything that’s the kind of fight that we can get behind for 25 minutes.”
Do you think that eliminators or number one contender bouts should go five rounds?
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 12 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |