Joe Stevenson and Chael Sonnen open up eyes with their post-fight comments
By Zach Arnold | October 25, 2009
I’ve written about 8,000 words over various articles on the UFC 104 event for other sites, but a few things stuck out at me that I thought were very interesting.
- Chael Sonnen absolutely buried Yushin Okami in several post-fight interviews. He said that Okami should change his nickname from “Thunder” to “Anchor” because all the guy ever does is drag people down to the undercards on their fight bookings. He said that Okami doesn’t know how to promote a fight. Sonnen also ripped into Rich Franklin and said that he would like to fight Franklin at 195 pounds. If he didn’t get that, he said that he would step in for Dan Henderson against Nathan Marquardt on January 2nd in Las Vegas in the #1 contender’s match for Anderson Silva’s 185-pound Middleweight belt.
- Joe Stevenson all but accused Spencer Fisher of being a greaser. He claimed that Fisher was all oiled up and that he struggled to get a takedown in the initial stage of their fight because of this. Stevenson back-tracked only a little and said that perhaps if Fisher didn’t use skin cream that maybe he ate a lot of garlic. (I’m serious.) Stevenson also said that he would love to fight Shin’ya Aoki next.
Now, here are the comments transcribed. First, Chael Sonnen:
“We got men and women at war right now, they got real problems so me complaining about where I come out on the card is would be very arrogant but WITH THAT SAID, there was guys that I’m opening the show for that would never fight after me had that not been my dance partner so, you know they call him Yushin “Thunder” Okami, I call him Yushin “Anchor” Okami, he pulls people down whereas if you get a fight with me, if you get me on the docket, I’m going to pull you up, I’m going to get exposure and attention and people cared about the fight and he’s got the anchor, Okami’s got the opposite effect so it was it was annoying, yes.”
“If you’re not to fight a guy, don’t and I’m not going to fight him again so I’ll be a little more humble to him but there is some truth uh to the statement you know he kind of pulls you down a little bit. He has a very hard time of promoting a fight and it’s not just a fight, this is the fight business and if you can’t hype a fight uh you’re going to get relished to the undercard and that’s where we were so you know I stand by the statement and I would encourage Yushin Okami, who’s still a Top 10 fighter, you know to be able to maybe hype a fight a little bit and bring some more fan interest.”
“Um, I executed a lot of things right but I felt like I couldn’t get the takedown, I was making the excuses like I was like man he feels slippery, he feels oiled up, and I felt like he was but why even say anything like that? It’s my fault for even taking it there.”
“Oh yeah, definitely he put some like lotion on this morning or last night took a bath, something was different about him, maybe he had a lot of garlic though, that can make you slippery as well.”
“Never, never complained about it either, he was just, he felt a little slippery to me, it could just be in my head and that’s why I need to improve myself.”
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 34 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
UFC 10/24 Staples Center (Los Angeles)
By Zach Arnold | October 24, 2009
Event reports: Observer | OC Register | USA Today | Sherdog | MMA Torch | Bloody Elbow | Yahoo Sports | MMA Junkie
Dark matches
Heavyweights: Stefan Struve vs. Chase Gormley
Light Heavyweights: Kyle Kingsbury vs. Razak Al-Hassan
Light Heavyweights: Ryan Bader vs. Eric Schafer
Middleweights: Jorge Rivera vs. Rob Kimmons
Middleweights: Yushin Okami vs. Chael Sonnen
Heavyweights: Antoni Hardonk vs. Pat Barry
Main card
Welterweights: Anthony “Rumble” Johnson vs. Yoshiyuki Yoshida
Lightweights: Joe “Daddy” Stevenson vs. Spencer Fisher
Lightweights: Gleison Tibau vs. Josh Neer
Heavyweights: Cain Velasquez vs. Ben Rothwell
UFC Light Heavyweight Championship: Lyoto Machida vs. Mauricio Shogun
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 148 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Dana White would consider signing Brett Rogers if he knocks out Fedor
By Zach Arnold | October 23, 2009
“You know, again Fedor’s not fighting the top competition. You guys love to rank him high in the polls and say he’s the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world, you guys are fucking nuts. He’s fighting Brett Rogers, you know what I mean? What do you guys think about it? I mean what do you guys think of Brett Rogers? You know what scares me about the Brett Rogers fight? Brett Rogers might knock him out! You know… I just think it’s terrible, I think that uh Fedor should be fighting Brock (Lesnar), that’s what I think. That’s the fight that should be happening. If the media and fans and anybody, anybody has the perception that this guy’s the best fighter in the world, he should be fighting the other best fighter in the world. Let me tell you what, when two guys get in there and fight, uh, he isn’t getting any younger, he hasn’t really been that active, he’s not the most physically fit guy you’ll ever see, and this guy Brett Rogers could end up clipping him, and then what does that mean? Is Brett Rogers the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world then? That’s probably where you guys would put him at! If he’s not in the UFC, Brett Rogers is #1! He’s the best Heavyweight in the world! That’s what I’m expecting if he knocks out Fedor.”
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, UFC, Zach Arnold | 39 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
DREAM 12 (10/25 Osaka Castle Hall)
By Zach Arnold | October 23, 2009
The all cage show using different rules.
Middleweights: Zelg Galesic vs. Kazushi Sakuraba
Middleweights: Katsuyori Shibata vs. Tokimitsu Ishizawa
Welterweights: Marius Zaromskis vs. Myeon Ho Bae
Featherweights: Keisuke Fujiwara vs. Motoya Miyashita
Middleweights: Paulo Filho vs. Yoon Dong-Sik
Featherweights: Yoshiro Maeda vs. Chase Beebe
Lightweights: Eddie Alvarez vs. Katsunori Kikuno
Lightweights: Kuniyoshi Hironaka vs. “Parky” Won Sik Park (CMA Korea)
The curious thing about the ad is that Kiyoshi Tamura, Andrews Nakahara, and Murilo Ninja were being advertised for the show.
Update (10/23): DREAM announced that Paulo Filho was off the Osaka fight card because he didn’t show up in Japan on Thursday. Not only has DREAM not been able to get a hold of Filho, neither has his manager.
Topics: DREAM, Japan, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 28 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Over/under on UFC 104 PPV buy rate — 325,000?
By Zach Arnold | October 23, 2009
Dana White is on a media tear in Southern California right now, trying to get as many asses in the seats as possible at the Staples Center on Saturday night. I’ve never seen UFC in the last couple of years make as big of a push to do ticket giveaways as I have for this show. Don’t get me wrong — on the promoting side of the equation, tickets are currency… but even currency can get devalued over time (like the US dollar is now) when too much is printed and you have hyperinflation. End result? People in the local market might consider showing up if they get a freebie, but they wouldn’t consider paying for a ticket.
Tough sell on Saturday night. Cain Velasquez is being pushed hard as UFC’s next Latino sensation, but he’s not a draw yet and it will take some time.
Rich Franklin vs. Vitor Belfort at UFC 103 drew around 400,000 PPV buys but that’s because Rich Franklin is Rich Franklin. Will people pay to watch Lyoto Machida at UFC 104? Dana White valiantly tries to make the hard sell:
INTERVIEWER: “Let’s quickly talk about the main event. How difficult is it for you as the promoter to sell a fight when both of the main event fighters don’t speak English?”
DANA WHITE: “You know what? People ask me that all the time. We are having no problem at all. The reality is, you don’t show up to hear people talk, OK? When you’re a fight fan, you show up to see great fights. I don’t care if the guy is a mute, OK, I’m not there to hear him talk. If you can find a fighter who has you know he’s a good looking guy, he’s got incredible charisma, he speaks really well, and he’s one of the best fighters in the world, OK, homerun, you know you win. But reality is, people are going to tune in Saturday night to see two of arguably the best strikers in the business, you’re not going to see any wrestling, you’re not going to see any jiu-jitsu, they’re going to see punches, knees, elbows, kicks, it’s going to be a I expect fireworks between those two on Saturday night.”
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 51 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Joe Warren canceled from Vale Tudo Japan show
By Zach Arnold | October 22, 2009
Due to injury (ligament damage in his left knee suffered during training), so his replacement in the Rumina Sato fight will be Corey “Savage” Grant from Team Quest. Grant is Warren’s training partner. He was a good amateur wrestler from the University of Michigan.
VTJ card line-up here.
Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 4 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Australian media focuses in on (former yakuza) MMA promoter
By Zach Arnold | October 20, 2009
This story warms my heart, although since it’s only in audio form and video form I can’t identify what promotion the (former) yakuza Godfather is promoting. Any one got a clue?
If you’re in Australia and reading this, there will be video of this on ABC-TV1. Would be curious to find out more…
Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 9 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
What is going on with Anderson Silva’s camp?
By Zach Arnold | October 20, 2009
Quotes from Ed Soares on Sherdog today sure seem to be indicators of some waffling about whether or not they really want to do the fight against Vitor Belfort on January 2nd. I admit, the prospects of Belfort/Silva don’t excite me a great deal, but by going back and forth on this fight Anderson’s camp is acting a little scared here. I don’t understand it.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not buying into Shawn Tompkins’ comments on Fox News Fight Game last week that Vitor Belfort could be a Top 10 boxer today. With that said, what’s the hesitancy here by Silva’s camp in just taking the booking and getting what needs to get done afterwards?
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 60 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
[Pro Wrestling] Japanese veteran Ryuma Go dead at age 53
By Zach Arnold | October 20, 2009
Ryuma Go (Hiroshi Yagi) died on the 18th in a Kanagawa hospital reportedly due to septicimia (blood poisoning). He was 53 years old.
According to Yomiuri Shimbun, a relative discovered Go last week in bad condition at his home. (The relative is believed to his his oldest daughter.) The front door was reportedly locked, so the relative got into the house through a window on the second floor and rushed Go to the hospital after he was discovered in bad condition. Go had reportedly been in an bicycle accident a few days ago (on the 7th) and had fractured his right wrist, with the area getting infected and the infection spreading throughout his body.
A funeral with approximately 30 wrestlers (led by Animal Hamaguchi & Goro Tsurumi) was performed on the 19th in Atsugi city in Kanagawa. Go was put into his casket with a ‘pro-wrestling baka (fool)’ t-shirt and his wrestling shoes. Go’s eldest daughter was the chief mourner. Hamaguchi addressed and handled the press spotlight at the funeral. At the funeral, Go’s wife put together a collage of old wrestling photos featuring the veteran in various stages of his life.
The aforementioned Yomiuri article discussed that Go, who had been recently working at a restaurant in Roppongi, was going to try a full-time comeback in wrestling and had asked Hamaguchi for advice on how to make it happen. His last wrestling match was on September 3rd.
Go, who was a famous drinker, had reportedly not quit his lifestyle in his post-wrestling days. In fact, his drinking was one of the first points brought up in a lighthearted manner by wrestlers such as Riki Choshu. After retiring from wrestling in 2002, Go was arrested a year later in a purse snatching incident at the JR Shinjuku train station. Go received a lot of heat in the media and on message boards when it was discovered that he appeared in a gay porn video.
Career notes: After going for a try-out in 1970 for Kokusai (Int’l) Pro-Wrestling at the age of 14, Go would end up wrestling all over the world (in Canada, Germany, America). He ended up working with Tatsumi Fujinami and the two had a WWWF Jr. Title match at Nippon Budokan in 1978. He floated from New Japan to UWF to All Japan. He formed Pioneer wrestling in 1989 and would work various independent dates, including matches featuring space alien gimmicks. Go was known for his raw strength and power in the ring.
Topics: Japan, Media, Pro-Wrestling, Zach Arnold | 1 Comment » | Permalink | Trackback |
Will Xtreme Couture as a gym survive after losing Shawn Tompkins?
By Zach Arnold | October 19, 2009
One of the things I did over the weekend was spend some time transcribing various media interviews done by people in MMA (Shane Carwin, Shawn Tompkins), and the two interviews Shawn did with Fox News Fight Game and Raw Vegas.tv were by far the most intriguing ones to listen to. If you compared what Shawn said on FNFG and what he said with Dave Farra, it made for some interesting ‘reading between the lines’ material.
As everyone knows, Tompkins was the top trainer at Randy Couture’s gym and is now heading to Tapout, a gym with strong ties to Zuffa (UFC). Without Tompkins and without a bunch of Tompkin’s top fighters, what does it mean for the future of not only Xtreme Couture but Randy Couture himself? He seems to going through various ‘divorces’ lately.
Tompkins, as he always does, plays things safe but said some curious remarks:
“I resigned from Xtreme Couture yesterday,” Tompkins said to Farra. “Unfortunately to most people, it was on good terms. You know, Randy and I just are going in different directions and you know I have some goals set out for myself and it was just time for me to move on.”
“Real excited, I mean this week has been a huge week of transformation for me, I’m going to back to my old style and really like you said rebranding myself, Team Tompkins, starting my own team at the Tapout facility in Las Vegas and you know leaving some great experiences behind me but I’m excited about having a lot better ones.”
“Um, I think just more the fact that you know working for Randy like I said is a great thing but I’ll always be under Randy Couture, you know, I could train some fighters for 3 or 4 years and the fact that they train at Xtreme Couture, it’s always that kind of looked that they’re trained by Randy or whoever else might be there, so I want I really want to be able to respect the work that I put in to these fighters and going to Tapout is going to give me that opportunity, to become myself and you know build my own brand, and really focus on really my fighting style, my fighting system you know and being at Xtreme Couture you know they have their set and their ways and we tried to blend but it’s time for me to go out and do my own thing again.”
“I feel myself as a coach if I really want to get to those goals that I set for myself, I need to do something on my own.”
With Couture running out of time in his fighting career, along with the various divorces he’s had in his life, money is going to be a big issue for him down the road. Sure, he has his movie deals, but do they pay him a lot of money? His public feud with UFC cost him a lot and now that he’s lost Tompkins, will the Xtreme Couture brand survive and thrive?
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 19 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Sengoku 11/7 Tokyo, Ryogoku Kokugikan
By Zach Arnold | October 16, 2009
- Featherweights: Michihiro Omigawa vs. Hatsu Hioki
- Featherweights: Yuji Hoshino vs. Marlon Sandro
- Featherweights: Shigeki Osawa vs. Ronnie Ushiwaka (England/Team Trojan)
- Lightweights: Eiji Mitsuoka vs. Kazunori Yokota
- Lightweights: Satoru Kitaoka vs. Jorge Masvidal
- Heavyweights: Big Jim York vs. Dave Herman
- Middleweights: Jorge Santiago vs. Mamed Khalidov (Poland/Team KSW)
- Light Heavyweights: Kevin Randleman vs. Stanislav Nedkov (Bulgarian Bushido Federation)
Also on the card: Akihiro Gono
Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, Sengoku, Zach Arnold | 23 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Dan Henderson’s best choice long term is UFC
By Zach Arnold | October 16, 2009
So Dana White leaks to Kevin Iole that Dan Henderson wants more money than UFC is willing to offer. Henderson has shown no inclination in the past to negotiate with Strikeforce because he wanted to fight Anderson Silva. Strikeforce is likely not going to overpay for Henderson, which is ironic given that UFC has boosted Henderson’s profile into a semi-marketable American draw now (something PRIDE never could figure out how to do).
The only possibility I could see of Henderson fighting outside of UFC is for K-1 on NYE in Japan for a one-shot deal and then returning back to UFC after the situation between Nathan Marquardt and Anderson Silva is resolved. It would be a win-win situation for both Henderson and UFC at this point.
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, UFC, Zach Arnold | 40 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Independent World MMA Rankings – October 16, 2009
By Zach Arnold | October 16, 2009
From the office of the Independent World MMA Rankings
October 16, 2009: The October 2009 Independent World MMA Rankings have been released. These rankings are independent of any single MMA media outlet or sanctioning body, and are published on multiple web sites.
Some of the best and most knowledgeable MMA writers from across the MMA media landscape have come together to form one independent voting panel.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 19 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |