Tuesday headlines: UFC says GSP saved Christmas
By Zach Arnold | November 27, 2007
If you use WordPress for your MMA site, read this.
Rich Franklin and Tiffany (Amber) Thiessen will be involved in the filming of a new movie called “Weapon.”
In “Weapon,” a lonely U.S. border patrol agent (Thiessen) apprehends a genetically engineered super-soldier (Franklin) and experiences the ride of her life when the soldier’s creator (Greenwood) relentlessly hunts them down.
Randy Couture will appear at this weekend’s North American MMA expo at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, CA. For more information on tickets, click here.
If you do what Georges St. Pierre did for Dana White, then you get a story on UFC.com saying you saved Christmas. Adam Morgan is giving Matt Hughes the same treatment. Matt Serra is left explaining what happened.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: Canada, IFL, Japan, Media, MMA, Pro Elite, UFC, Zach Arnold | 17 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
First WVR event scheduled
By Zach Arnold | November 26, 2007
By Zach Arnold
The first World Victory Road event (called Sengoku) has been booked for March 5th in Tokyo at Yoyogi National Stadium Gym I (which is a 10,000-12,000 seat facility). Names listed for the show include Hidehiko Yoshida, Makoto Takimoto, Sanae Kikuta, and Ryo Kawamura.
The promotion will use the following rules: 3R of 5 minutes each for non-title fights, 5R of 5 minutes each for title bouts. Elbows to the face/head and soccer ball kicks are banned. Weight classes are as follows: Heavyweights (93.1 kg or over), Light Heavyweights (93 kg), Middleweights (83 kg), Welterweights (76 kg), Lightweight (68 kg), and Featherweights (60 kg).
The company plans on running five events in 2008.
Topics: Japan, Media, MMA | 8 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
RSS feed wish list
By Zach Arnold | November 26, 2007
As I’m preparing to (finally) launch the long-awaited new site design for Fight Opinion, I am on the hunt for a few RSS feeds. If you can help contribute any suggestions in the comments area, please do so.
The wish list
Prerequisite: The sites need an RSS or ATOM feed
- Any sites covering women’s MMA
- Any promotions outside of UFC, WEC, or IFL that have a news section on their page available in a syndicated format
- Any sites featuring MMA-related radio shows that feature a syndication feed for the show (along with perhaps an iTunes feed)
- Any sites covering MMA on a regional basis (i.e. IowaMMAreport.com) with a news syndication feed
- Any sites featuring similar grappling-based content like On the Mat that have actual news feeds (On the Mat currently doesn’t have an RSS feed)
Topics: Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 11 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Fight Opinion Radio #69: Summary Edition
By Zach Arnold | November 26, 2007
We taped a lot of material over the last two weeks and decided to summarize it down to a manageable form for you to listen to. Consider it a condensed version of Fight Opinion Radio.
Some of the topics covered on this week’s show:
– Matt Hughes vs. GSP booked for 12/29 (what it means for UFC’s long-term booking and title picture)
– The ridiculous ABC News article on MMA
– The latest financial statements for both the IFL & Pro Elite
– The return of DSE to the MMA scene and trying to understand why people online are celebrating this
– Our prime turkeys of the year in MMA
The 69th edition of Fight Opinion Radio is now online and available to download. Download this week’s show here.
Or you can use the great flash player to listen to it streaming (without having to use an external program). Check it out (down below).
[audio:http://www.fightopinion.com/podcasts/foradio-11-26-2007.mp3]Podcasting: Use http://feeds.feedburner.com/fightopinionradio. This link should work for all RSS programs and podcatching programs. You’ll never miss another show again.
If you have iTunes, do the following:
- In your iTunes program, go to Advanced. Then choose the Subscribe to Podcast option.
- Type in http://feeds.feedburner.com/fightopinionradio.
- The newest edition of Fight Opinion Radio will be automatically downloaded and future editions of FOR will download for you as well, hassle-free.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: Fight Opinion Radio, IFL, Japan, Jeff Thaler, M-1, Media, MMA, podcasts, PRIDE, Pro Elite, UFC, Zach Arnold | No Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Monday media notes: MMA media’s changing landscape
By Zach Arnold | November 25, 2007
Sprawl ‘n Brawl is changing. This makes sites like MMA Opinion more important in terms of recruiting and developing writing talent. If you are ever interested in becoming an MMA writer, I strongly suggest talking to some of the mid-sized MMA blogs and see if you can get a writing spot. This way, you can have an electronic paper trail of writing work for the bigger MMA sites to look at and possibly bring you on board.
My assumption is that Brent Brookhouse doesn’t read Japanese, but if he does he should take a look at this post. A Japanese blogger translated Brent’s attempt at explaining what Hustle is to the readers of Bloody Elbow. Most of the focus is on Brent’s comments about HG and erectile dysfunction.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, Pro-Wrestling, UFC, WEC, Zach Arnold | 12 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
UFC hires Fox Sports writer alleged of fabricating quotes
By Zach Arnold | November 25, 2007
By Zach Arnold
Update: Jeremy Lynch asks a fair question.
Update II: Ben Cohen responds.
On UFC’s home page last Monday, the promotion posted an article claiming that the UFC product is ‘charming the Boxing Brits.’
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 22 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Sunday news review: Law and order
By Zach Arnold | November 25, 2007
The lead story of the day comes to us from Nikkan Sports. The newspaper claims that due to the damage inflicted on K-1’s public image from two recent incidents (Masaaki Miyamoto going to jail for possession of marijuana and Hiromi Amada facing charges for assault), the company is basically reading the riot act to both staff members and fighters. Nikkan Sports claims that there will be ‘crime prevention’ lectures soon for both Japanese fighters and gaijin fighters. The gaijin will be lectured on the importance of various Japanese laws.
Luke Thomas makes the argument in support of Dana White and interim titles. I plan on making the argument against interim titles on the next edition of Fight Opinion Radio.
The other lead story is that Mark Hunt appears to booked for both the Hustle afternoon & Yarennoka MMA evening events on 12/31 at Saitama Super Arena. That’s right – wrestling in the afternoon, MMA fighting in the evening. Look at Hunt dancing with Kintaro Kanemura (Kintaman) & Tetsuhiro Kuroda (Kurodaman), as they are doing the Brief Brothers dance.
Just remember that Hustle’s public stance is that they have no relation to DSE. Yep.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: Brazil, Canada, Japan, K-1, Media, MMA, Pro-Wrestling, UFC, Zach Arnold | 11 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Hughes vs. GSP on 12/29
By Zach Arnold | November 24, 2007
According to Matt Hughes, he and St. Pierre will be fighting for an interim title.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 28 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Saturday headlines: Does Fedor vs. Yoshida appeal to you?
By Zach Arnold | November 24, 2007
Brent Brookhouse goes shopping for MMA DVDs.
For those of you who use Blogspot and Blogger for your MMA blog, you know that Blogspot uses the ATOM format instead of the RSS format for content syndication. Follow these instructions and convert your ATOM feed to RSS. Why? Because if you make the proper conversion, I might add your blog feed to the new site that I’m going to unveil sometime next week.
MMA California notes that the California State Athletic Commission recently shut down a ‘smoker’ event.
Looks like the chances of Fedor vs. Yoshida happening on 12/31 are increasing.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: Boxing, Canada, Japan, Media, MMA, PRIDE, UFC, Zach Arnold | 20 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Black Friday: Matt Serra out of UFC 79
By Zach Arnold | November 23, 2007
Just when you thought the momentum was swinging in a negative direction comes news that Matt Serra has had to pull out of his UFC 79 fight against Matt Hughes due to a back injury. The Grinch has made an early appearance to try to ruin Christmas.
But don’t worry, Dana White says that Chuck Liddell is “by far” the most popular MMA fighter in the world. Let’s see him draw a big buyrate now on 12/29, brother.
Ranting and raving about Sherdog reporting rumors of Fedor vs. Choi Hong-Man. As I said a couple of days ago on this web site, the rumor of Fedor/Choi had been known by people like me for two weeks. This was not exactly the most earthshattering of news items, so trying to place heat on Greg Savage of Sherdog is pretty silly, especially considering that Hong-Man will face Jerome Le Banner on 12/8 at Yokohama Arena. If a so-called ‘leak’ on Sherdog (that few people in Japan knew about) really damaged a potential deal between M-1/PRIDE and Hong-Man, then there wasn’t much substance to the proposed fight in the first place.
ABC News has an article on the rise of MMA. Luke Thomas is absolutely angry about the ABC article.
Rob McCullough vs. Jamie Varner for the upcoming WEC show in February has been booked.
A profile article on Cage Rage’s upcoming 12/1 event at Wembley Arena.
Mark Hunt has been booked at the last minute for the Hustle Mania 11/25 Yokohama Arena event. Glad to see that Hustle has no ties still with PRIDE’s past. Will Hunt end up being Fedor’s opponent on 12/31?
Topics: Canada, Japan, Media, MMA, PRIDE, Pro-Wrestling, UFC, UK, WEC, Zach Arnold | 13 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Thursday trash talk: M-1 loves PRIDE
By Zach Arnold | November 22, 2007
Quote of the day from Vadim Finkelstein in Daily Sports newspaper: “I want to work with the old PRIDE staff in America & Russia. PRIDE’s team is the best quality in the world.” The more things change, the more they stay the same. In separate quotes at the press conference, Vadim said that he wants to run 2-3 US shows in 2008 and try to run a show in Japan next August. He also discussed the possibility of running an M-1 Bushido event in Russia. Furthermore, Vadim seems confident that Fedor will fight in February after the 12/31 fight in Saitama.
M-1 has an energy drink.
We do functional (and not emotional) well, so we’ll let Sam Caplan be emotional.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: Boxing, Brazil, Japan, M-1, Media, MMA, PRIDE, UFC, WEC, Zach Arnold | 48 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Report: IFL GP finals to air on HDNet
By Zach Arnold | November 21, 2007
The hard-working folks at Jarry Park are reporting that the IFL’s 12/29 Mohegan Sun Arena event will air live on HDNet (and presumably not on MyNetwork TV).
Based on this new information, it seems that the IFL’s battle plan is to air team qualifying and tournament matches on FSN & MyNetwork TV, while airing IFL GP events on HDNet (which gives the league a chance to air their product in HD with better production values and more broadcast time for the live shows). In addition, there is a natural crossover already built-in with Kenny Rice & Bas Rutten hosting the Inside MMA show on HDNet and also hosting IFL events on TV.
On a side note, apparently Bas Rutten is a brawler. Who knew?
Topics: HDNet, IFL, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 6 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
NYE MMA event in Saitama confirmed
By Zach Arnold | November 21, 2007
By Zach Arnold
Update: My post on this topic is now re-written on the M-1 site.
A press conference was held today by former PRIDE staff members to announce that there would be an MMA show on 12/31 at Saitama Super Arena. The promoters are labeling the event as being “Yarennoka! supported by M-1 Global Mixed Martial Arts.” Takada, Sasahara, Saeki, Lenny Hardt, Kei Grand, Daisuke Sato, and major names from DSE’s management past are involved in the show. Fighters announced included Fedor, Hayato “Mach” Sakurai, Shin’ya Aoki, Tatsuya Kawajiri, and Mitsuhiro Ishida. Photo mugshot of DSE management here.
Take notice of the NYE logo for Yarennoka, which uses the exact same font as the past DSE-produced Otoko Matsuri (Man Festival) shows did. Furthermore, the web page for Yarennoka is only a slightly modified format as compared to the old PRIDE web site.
By the way… As Fightlinker points out, take a look at this wallpaper image on the Yarennoka site. The image is copyrighted by DSE.
Other potential names floated include Joachim Hansen, Ricardo Arona, Gilbert Melendez, Luiz Azeredo, Kazuo Misaki, and Hidehiko Hasegawa.
The event will be broadcasted on SkyPerfecTV PPV. It will not be seen on free-to-air television.
Topics: Japan, M-1, Media, MMA, PRIDE, Zach Arnold | 38 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |