The latest of Nick Diaz missing a CSAC drug test
By Zach Arnold | August 10, 2009
When we last spoke about this issue, we wrote about Jay Hieron must really be hating life right now. When Hieron’s fight against Paul “Semtex” Daley was canceled after the Affliction 3 card collapsed, Hieron’s camp started talking about wanting a fight with Diaz. Well, buyer beware and be careful what you wish for because you just might get it. Given Diaz’s past history, you know the risks and rewards of taking a fight booking with him involved.
Now, the latest update. Here’s a transcription of what Dave Meltzer had to say on Sunday:
“The commission has um contacted you know Diaz’s people and Strikeforce to find out what time and as of a couple of hours ago, and they made all these you know they contacted everyone yesterday like it was Saturday, maybe Saturday evening or Saturday afternoon, trying to get what time Diaz was come tomorrow because you know because Strikeforce was going to fly him to Los Angeles, who’s going to take the test, they’re going to rush it to the UCLA lab and the deal was is that if the results come in before weigh-ins on Friday and he’s clean, then he can weigh-in and if the results don’t come in, um, by weigh-ins, then he’s off the card. And they haven’t heard back, they may have by now, but they have not back as of a couple of hours ago. But it was, I mean it was 24 hours after everybody had been contacted multiple times trying to get answers where they still had not heard from anyone, so I was wondering if they, you know, my impression is that they’d already thrown in the towel in the sense of saying that whatever reason I don’t want to speculate, but if he doesn’t take the test obviously you know they have thrown in the towel but they should have arranged a time at some point today you would think.”
(Like Josh Barnett, Nick Diaz’s license in California currently is expired. This is becoming the loophole that fighters are discovering if they know they might fail a drug test.) “If he knows he’s going to fail the best thing to do is to no-show the testing and get clean and fight on the next show.”
“Well, hey listen, listen, I don’t have any sympathy for the guy because he went, you know, he went in the LA Times and he bragged that he could beat a test at any time and that he was still doing it and he’s the same guy who went before the Nevada State Athletic Commission on the Gomi fight you know when he didn’t want to be suspended and told them that he would never do it again, it was a mistake and then you know he’s bragging you know that’s like I will grant you that I don’t think that smoking pot is that of a big deal, I really don’t. Now as far as it being illegal to be on pot while you are fighting, I can certainly understand why that is and that’s the rules, but the whole point is that everyone knows what the rules are, you know what I mean? It’s like, if you can want to change the rules you can fight to change the rules and if the rules change, you know, that’s fine. But these are the rules that you go by and what a lot of people don’t seem to realize is that fighting is not a right, fighting is a privilege and being licensed to fight is a privilege, you know, it’s not something that anyone can do because most people shouldn’t be allowed to do it, I mean because it’s dangerous and you know granted he certainly has the skill to do it but you know I mean you know there’s a reason that they have these rules and um I know that you know their claim was that they were told that they would never be tested out of competition. Um, but the law changed. You know like, even if Armando Garcia said that and I just don’t I don’t believe that he did because I just know Armando Garcia was such a hardass, I mean he was more of a hardass about drug testing than anyone, I think, so I don’t believe he said it but let’s just say he did, the fact is is when he did say that they didn’t legally have the right to test off-season anyway. Now they do, the law changed.”
“And that’s right, and Garcia hasn’t been there for months anyways. So what he said you know I mean I sense people like really grasping at straws for excuses and they’re not very good excuses.”
“Oh, yeah, well when the law changed they told everyone. It was not a secret when that law changed. So, you know and you know of all people, I mean to me you know I mean Diaz is already you know missed one fight over it, he’s been suspended once over it, which was a different situation, you would think if anyone would be careful or would have learned something it’d have been Nick Diaz, so if you know I mean I have no sympathy for him at all right now, I mean I have less than no sympathy for him because he no-showed the thing on Friday and you know if he doesn’t you know, I don’t know, I guess we’ll see tomorrow what happens but what can you say? I mean a guy who’s like you know was going to get a chance you know especially it’s a championship match.”
“This is the second time you know, I mean one of the things with him is because he’s so charismatic, you know I mean Elite XC created a title for him except KJ Noons beat him in a match so, um, which is another one, heh heh.”
Keep in mind that Diaz was scheduled for today’s conference call with the media that Strikeforce had scheduled to hype up the Gina Carano vs. Cris Cyborg fight. If you thought the media last week was preoccupied with the bizarre conference call featuring Fedor, dogs, and sirens, then today’s conference call should be some entertainment if Diaz is on it. (Hopefully I can get audio of it because I’m still not on the Showtime/Strikeforce media list for conference call/PR information.)
Someone used our post transcription without a link back to us. You stay classy.
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 50 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
ESPN’s dreamy WEC news headline
By Zach Arnold | August 9, 2009
They’re running on their channel crawler that Miguel Torres defeated Brian Bowles to keep the WEC Bantamweight title. They even made Bowles’ record 7-1.
Topics: Media, MMA, WEC, Zach Arnold | 9 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
WEC 8/9 Las Vegas
By Zach Arnold | August 9, 2009
Event Results: Fanhouse | MMA Junkie | Bloody Elbow | Sherdog | MMA Frenzy
Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Dark matches
- Featherweights: Diego Nunes vs. Rafael Dias
- Bantamweights: Rani Yahya vs. Kenji Osawa
- Lightweights: Ed Ratcliff vs. Phil Cardella
- Lightweights: Marcus Hicks vs. Shane Roller
- Featherweights: Fredson Paixao vs. Cole Province
- Featherweights: Leonard Garcia vs. Jameel Massouh
Main card
- Bantamweights: Takeya Mizugaki vs. Jeff Curran
- Lightweights: Ricardo Lamas vs. Danny Castillo
- Bantamweights: Joseph Benavidez vs. Dominick Cruz
- WEC Bantamweight Title match: Miguel Torres vs. Brian Bowles
The show is facing tough sports competition on TV (Buffalo vs. Tennessee NFL game on NBC, Sox/Yankees on ESPN).
Topics: Media, MMA, WEC, Zach Arnold | 33 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Josh Barnett: Hey, I always wanted to fight Fedor in Japan anyways
By Zach Arnold | August 9, 2009
So sayeth the man today when he arrived at Narita Airport in Chiba en route to his booking for IGF on Sunday in Tokyo at Ariake Colosseum. He still wants the fight to happen and thinks it could given that Strikeforce is working with DREAM. Barnett said it didn’t matter if the destination was Europe or Brazil, he would fight Fedor.
Update (8/9): The IGF show happened today at Ariake Colosseum with a claimed crowd of 6,523 (half-full — and that might be generous). As for the main event, Josh Barnett & Naoya Ogawa defeated Yoshihiro Takayama & Bob Sapp in 10’30 when Barnett used a choke sleeper hold on Sapp (picture here). Afterwards, the focus was on building up a singles program between Takayama & Ogawa. Full photo gallery here. They did a deal where Bob Sapp slammed Antonio Inoki. Evil.
Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, Pro-Wrestling, Zach Arnold | 37 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
UFC 101: Just asking…
By Zach Arnold | August 9, 2009
…why my server got log-jammed for this show but was able to withstand the volume of hits for UFC 100?
Second look at 1 million PPV buys for UFC 101?
Suffice to say, our tech will no doubt be taking a look at what went wrong. (The server being overwhelmed has screwed up the headlines from being updated.)
As I’m busy transcribing quotes from the UFC 101 press conference and various interviews, I noticed something funny in Alessio Sakara’s post-fight interview on UFC.com:
Wonder what he’s signing? Maybe the termination papers for Thales Leites in UFC…
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 31 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
UFC 101 8/8 Philadelphia
By Zach Arnold | August 8, 2009
Event results: Observer | USA Today | Fanhouse | Jake Rossen | MMA Weekly | Sherdog | MMA Torch | Bloody Elbow | MMA Junkie
Wachovia Center
As the card currently stands:
Dark matches
- Welterweights: Jesse Lennox vs. Danillo Villefort
- Lightweights: George Sotiropoulos vs. Rob Emerson
- Welterweights: Matt Riddle vs. Dan Cramer
- Middleweights: Thales Leites vs. Alessio Sakara
- Welterweights: Tamdan McCrory vs. John Howard
- Lightweights: Shane Nelson vs. Aaron Riley
Main card
- Lightweights: Josh Neer vs. Kurt Pellegrino
- Middleweights: Kendall Grove vs. Ricardo Almeida
- Welterweights: Amir Sadollah vs. Johny Hendricks
- Light Heavyweights: Anderson Silva vs. Forrest Griffin
- UFC Lightweight Title match: BJ Penn vs. Kenny Florian
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 43 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Jay Hieron really must hate life right now
By Zach Arnold | August 7, 2009
So, Nick Diaz doesn’t show up for a drug test and his fight with Jay Hieron may be called off for the Strikeforce show next weekend.
Forget about Diaz, since he never seems to be in the right frame of mind on various levels. Focus on poor Jay Hieron, who has taken it on the chin from his days in the IFL and then the canceled fight against Paul “Semtex” Daley that was set for Affliction 3 on 8/1 and now this. It’s hard enough for a lot of MMA fighters to make a living, but when you continue to get screwed by your opponents or promoters you work for time after time, it may be time to find another profession.
It’s times like this where you really start to value the security that UFC can bring in terms of honoring their contracts and making sure fighters get taken care of (either by finding good opponents to fill-in or by paying the owed fight salary).
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 27 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
BJ Penn: “I just read the Yahoo article from today”
By Zach Arnold | August 6, 2009
From his greatest hits collection: BJ Penn found himself on the defensive after he told Kevin Iole that he thought Georges St. Pierre was a steroids user. Now, Penn is firing back (or tried to) on YouTube:
“I just read Yahoo’s interview with me today and during the interview Kevin Iole asked me “Do I have to have bad blood with all of my opponents?” and I said no, uh that’s just that’s just what it looks like to the new fans. The only reason why I had the bad blood, bad blood with Sherk & GSP is because it was my opinion that they were doing steroids and I never thought it would, uh Kevin Iole would do such a big investigation to call Greg Jackson, to call Sheri Spencer and all these people and every little, (I didn’t) like how article came out. You know I’m fighting Kenny Florian and there shouldn’t have been an article out with one-third of the article talking about me saying GSP does steroids, so you know I did want to apologize to all parties involved.”
Penn can be hard to transcribe sometimes, but this is the transcription of his comments on YouTube.
Quick thoughts: The video had a weird vibe to it. It was bizarrely like viewing a partial legal statement and partial hostage tape with the person looking off camera and back on camera several times. Penn’s response was a beauty because anyone worth their salt in the media, j-school or not, knows that when someone you are interview makes an explosive charge (like Penn did against GSP), you immediately try to contact the person or a representative of the person being accused of something in order to get a response. That’s not just covering one’s ass legally, but also standard protocol for journalism.
The more Penn speaks, the worse he comes off.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 12 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Ken Shamrock getting paid to do pro-wrestling by Juggalos
By Zach Arnold | August 6, 2009
Press release
Juggalo Championship Wrestling Returns this Saturday with “BLOODYMANIA 3!” featuring Ken Shamrock, Terry Funk, Insane Clown Posse, Scott Hall, Big Daddy V, Sabu, Raven, Corporal Robinson, Butterbean, and so much more!
The 4-day Gathering of the Juggalos event in Cave In Rock, Illinois delivers over 100 bands and the independent wrestling event of the year as part of the 10th annual celebration!
Saturday night, August 8th, 2009
Official Showtime at 11:55pm
(Card Subject to Change)
1. Heidenreich vs Mad Man Pondo
2. Mystery Referee Match! The Ref is masked until the match has ended!
“The Most Dangerous Man in the World” Ken Shamrock vs “The Emo Warrior” Jimmy Jacobs w/ Scott D’Amore in his corner
3. The J.C.W. Tag Team Championship
The Champions: Vito & Paulie, the Thomaselli Brothers vs The Weedman and Billy Bong
4. Toughman Brawl: Butterbean vs Bull Pain
5. Abdullah The Butcher vs The Rude Boy
6. Raven w/ Sexy Slim Goody in his corner vs Sabu w/ Tommy Rich in his corner
7. Loser Leaves Town Match! Viscera aka Big Daddy V w/ Scott D’Amore in his corner vs 2 Tuff Tony with special guest referee: Terry Funk!
8. The Main Event 10 Man Tag Team Match
The Outsiders Scott Hall & Kevin Nash, JCW World Champion Corporal Robinson and the ICP Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope vs “Holy” Trent Acid and his 4 Young Altar Boys: Tom, Todd, Tim, and Ted
Plus many surprise appearances!!!!
Senior Official Kevin Gill will oversee the in-ring action, along the JCW Referee Squad.
Musical Performances by Insane Clown Posse, Twiztid, Ice Cube, Tech N9ne, Vanilla Ice, Blaze Ya Dead Homie, Gwar, Dark Lotus, Scarface, Coolio, Axe Murder Boyz, Boondox, Bizarre of D-12, Esham, Kottonmouth Kings, ABK, MC Chris and many more.
The Gathering of The Juggalos takes place August 6th through the 9th at IL-1 & Lamb Road, Cave In Rock, IL 62919
For more information on Bloodymania 3! and the Gathering Of The Juggalos, please visit:
Ticket Information at: www.juggalogathering.com
Topics: Media, Pro-Wrestling, Zach Arnold | 6 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
The oxygen has been completely sucked away from Carano vs. Cyborg
By Zach Arnold | August 6, 2009
That’s by far the most telling thing to come out of the last two weeks of Fedor negotiations with Strikeforce. I remember two months ago when people were swearing up and down to me that Carano vs. Cyborg would change women’s MMA forever and make women a big deal in the sport. Instead, Coker and crew have basically gone for broke by signing Fedor and sucking whatever oxygen there was for the 8/15 Showtime promotion show.
Then again, Showtime hasn’t exactly helped out matters. On previous Strikeforce events on the channel, instead of promoting the Carano/Cyborg fight the network was promoting the Affliction 3 show… which, of course, never happened.
You can do a conference call for the media to hype up Gina’s fight, but realistically there is little-to-no buzz for what was supposed to be a ‘money fight’ and a fight that most people agreed earlier in the year would have done well on a stronger television platform. Now, the fight desperately needs oxygen and the event promoter is wrapped up instead building the focus of his operation around one fighter from Russia who has fought in six promotions that have gone bankrupt.
But, hey, we’ll get to see Fedor in HD. That’s all that matters, right?
Dana White is now taking the gloves off on Scott Coker. And a message for M-1 if they think nobody knew who Brock Lesnar was before he came to UFC.
Topics: M-1, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 29 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Dan Wetzel at Yahoo Sports: UFC 101 will do 1 million PPV buys
By Zach Arnold | August 6, 2009
Just where exactly did he get that figure? If that is what Dana White is predicting…
One all-out battle begets another. This is the core of the UFC business model, how the promotion, in the middle of a recession, gets so many people to shell out $44.95 month after month. UFC 101 is expected to do more than a million pay-per-view buys. Griffin-Silva could’ve headlined its own show. Instead it’s adding depth to a card, helping maintain momentum from the momentous UFC 100.
Now that Wetzel has publicly stated the 1 million PPV buy claim, I fully expect it to be parroted and used by various mainstream writers *after* the show takes place, no matter what the real buyrate ends up being.
Pre-UFC 101 media coverage
- The Canadian Press: Playful Anderson Silva says someone’s going to fall in UFC 101 showdown
- The Philadelphia Daily News: Shane Victorino, Phillies teammates are fans of MMA
- The Las Vegas Sun: Anderson Silva already putting on a show — in workouts
- The Las Vegas Sun: BJ Penn makes sacrifices to come back on top after loss
- The Philadelphia Inquirer: UFC comes to Philadelphia – and the impact it’s had on boxing back East
- The Philadelphia Daily News: MMA is an imperfect battlefield and has less throwaway fights than boxing
- Sportsnet (Canada): Notes from Wednesday UFC fighter workouts
On a side note, here’s an update on Andrei Arlovski.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 62 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
BJ Penn’s greatest hits: Claims Georges St. Pierre is a steroid user
By Zach Arnold | August 5, 2009
After his performance a week or so ago on a UFC media conference call trashing the media for the way they handled the ‘greasing scandal’ involving Georges St. Pierre, BJ Penn still can’t get Georges St. Pierre off his mind. Over to you, Kevin Iole:
Penn said he believes St. Pierre uses steroids, though he concedes he has no proof. St. Pierre is arguably the sport’s most popular fighter and Penn knows that making such allegations isn’t going to win him any friends.
Penn, though, isn’t the type to be shy about offering his opinion though it may be unpopular.
“It’s just my opinion that he uses steroids,” Penn said. “That’s it.
My opinion. I do believe it. I can’t hand you any proof, but that’s my opinion.”
In an earlier conversation on the topic, Penn said, “In my opinion, he doesn’t play by the rules when it comes to steroids and growth hormones and that stuff. Look at him. He’s the worst. He looks like that every day. That’s cheating. There is a reason why there are rules against using steroids. The rest of us, we get fat, then we train and get skinny and the cycle goes over and over again. He looks the same way all the time. Come on.”
One of our commenters (Alan) brought up that there was great irony to what BJ said given who he is training with (Marv Marinovich) and how most MMA fans online must not be sports fans. Oh, I know the irony of Penn training with Marinovich, given what his background is and everything that happened with his son Todd, who used to play football in the NFL but had significant drug problems.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 20 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
MMA all-time fight salaries
By Zach Arnold | August 5, 2009
In this week’s edition of The Observer, Dave Meltzer wrote the following:
There was no “$30 million” offer, although if he won the championship, the sport continued to draw and he was a major draw, he could have earned more than that. UFC wanted a six fight deal, but offered three fights, figuring it would be an easier deal to conclude since Emelianenko’s side would see it as him being locked up for less time. They offered on 7/28, about a $2 million guarantee, plus a sliding percentage based on PPV buys. The first fight offered was with Brock Lesnar for the championship. If the show did 800,000 buys, a huge disappointment considering Lesnar’s status right now, Emelianenko would still come out of it with well over $3 million. If it did 1.5 million buys, he’d get more than $5 million, the biggest one-night payoff in the sport’s history.
In regards to the magical $5 million USD figure, both Hidehiko Yoshida and Naoya Ogawa were supposedly paid that much money for their Man Festival fight a few years ago in the PRIDE ring. Lesnar, no doubt, made a dollar figure similar to that amount for UFC 100 given the estimated 1.7 million PPV buys and how much per buy he got along with his base salary.
Topics: M-1, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 7 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |