Monday musings: Zuffa & Xyience
By Zach Arnold | November 5, 2007
For the MMA insiders and hardcore fans, today’s big news item is a report that Xyience and Zuffa are supposedly linked together much more closely than apparently first thought. Luke Thomas elaborates on why this is an important story to follow. The one thing I don’t understand is that if the report is true that Zuffa has deep connections with Xyience, what does this say about UFC’s ability to attract major league, blue-chip corporate sponsors (outside of Hollywood movie ads)? Is Corporate America simply not buying into MMA right now?
Here is an interview with Jake Shields. Plus, an interview with Javier Vazquez.
Brock Lesnar vs. Andrei Arlovski coming soon to an arena near you?
The IFL channel on YouTube has all the videos from this past weekend’s IFL GP event in Chicago. Sherdog claims the Chicago event drew 4,106 paid. Fightlinker has some thoughts about the live telecast on MyNetworkTV over the weekend. MMA Opinion elaborates about the live TV experiment for the IFL.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: Boxing, Brazil, Canada, IFL, Media, MMA, Pro Elite, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 14 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Report: Old DSE staff wants to book Fedor in Japan
By Zach Arnold | November 4, 2007
By Zach Arnold
Sankei Sports is reporting that old DSE staff is preparing for a double-header on New Year’s Eve at Saitama Super Arena (with a Hustle pro-wrestling show during the afternoon and an MMA event at night). The paper claims that there is great interest in booking Fedor for the MMA event.
The news coincides with Fedor’s open letter on the M-1 site, proclaiming with great interest that he would like to fight in Japan on NYE.
Quick thoughts: Given that this type of event would have the smell of ex-DSE staffers involved, it would be unlikely that a TV network would consider airing this event. Perhaps, at best, a PPV on SkyPerfecTV (satellite PPV) or if they got extremely lucky, a small time frame on TV-Tokyo (the smallest of Japan’s five free-to-air TV networks).
Topics: Japan, M-1, Media, MMA, PRIDE, Zach Arnold | 14 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Saturday headlines: Steroids and birth defects
By Zach Arnold | November 3, 2007
The negative effects of using performance-enhancing drugs and how it effects the children of users.
The Fight Network has reached a deal with K-1 and Fuji TV to air the 12/8 World GP Yokohama Arena event live.
Luke Thomas talks about Phil Baroni’s appeal with the CSAC board.
Kevin Iole has more comments about UFC not stripping Sean Sherk of his Lightweight title.
Mike Coughlin talks about the IFL show that will be airing live on MyNetwork TV tonight.
Max Kellerman is back to working for the “Boxing After Dark” series on HBO. In Dan Rafael’s column, he claims that Ron Borges (yes, that Ron Borges) auditioned for a role on the Boxing After Dark show.
Speaking of HBO, it looks like that boxing is on pace for a record year in PPV money. However, take note of the following report from Adam Swift: Bob Arum apparently doesn’t want PPV numbers released any more. Talk about going backwards.
Predictions for the Calzaghe/Kessler fight tonight.
Fedor is preparing for the World Combat Sambo Championships in the Czech Republic.
A profile article on Ken Kupsch, the President of King of the Cage Canada.
Catching up with Jose Pele Landi-Jons.
The lawyer of Din Thomas says that his client is not guilty of the accusations against him.
Topics: Boxing, Canada, IFL, K-1, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 30 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Quote of the week
By Zach Arnold | November 2, 2007
On the next edition of Fight Opinion Radio, we discuss the masterful job of public relations that Zuffa has done in the last week in regards to their contractual dispute with Randy Couture. As I argued in my latest Bloody Elbow column, the mainstream media focus and portrayal of Randy Couture right now is of an athlete who’s money hungry and has a Terrell Owens-sized ego.
With that in mind, a quote from The Bleacher Report:
More importantly the last thing that many MMA fans want is for the fighters to turn money hungry. Every other sport, especially baseball, has seen this happen. The athletes do not participate for “love of the game” but rather for “love of the money.” That will ruin MMA for what it is. Soon enough only the fighters who do not care what they get paid will be fighting. In that case goodbye good matches, hello the end of MMA.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 26 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
UFC will not strip Sean Sherk of Lightweight title
By Zach Arnold | November 2, 2007
By Zach Arnold
Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports is reporting that Dana White will not strip Sean Sherk of his UFC Lightweight title.
Sean Sherk is going to remain the UFC’s lightweight champion, but B.J. Penn and Joe Stevenson will fight for a lightweight belt at UFC 80 in January in Newcastle, England, UFC president Dana White said Friday.
White said he’s not going to strip Sherk of his lightweight championship because he is fed up with the California Athletic Commission’s handling of Sherk’s steroids case.
White had vowed to strip Sherk of the title, but said Friday that he no longer plans to do so.
“The way this whole thing has been handled has been a mess,” White said.
There are some serious ramifications for White’s decision. The most serious ramification is that UFC, the largest MMA promotion in the world, is now publicly challenging the credibility of the California State Athletic Commission. If the CSAC appeals board rejects Sherk’s appeal and White allows Sherk to continue as Lightweight champion, there will be some major issues that will have to be addressed.
First, it will be a virtual declaration of war against the credibility of the CSAC. How will it effect business long-term as far as UFC running events in California? Second, White is taking a big public risk by defending a fighter who has been accused of taking steroids in a highly-publicized case. UFC has not offered this kind of public relations assistance with any other champion in the company’s history (to my knowledge) in regards to a failed drug test. Third, there will be an outcry for an implementation of a sanctioning body with this story being prime example A to support such a notion.
This is a gamble that Dana White is taking here, but it’s a decision he’s basing off of the power he has in the business right now. How does Hermes Franca feel right now about White’s unequivocable support of Sean Sherk?
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 30 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Friday fight news: IFL GP is tomorrow
By Zach Arnold | November 2, 2007
Jens Pulver and Frankie Edgar will be participating in a charity event in Trenton (New Jersey) on 11/7.
Rashad Evens garnering headlines in The Sun.
Tomorrow is the IFL’s live television event (MyNetworkTV). American viewers will see one hour live, while Canadian viewers will get to watch two hours of live programming. More details here. Fightlinker comments. Dave Meltzer says tomorrow’s show is critical for the IFL’s future success.
Sam Caplan asks if Randy Couture would benefit from Chuck Liddell losing to Wanderlei Silva on 12/29 in Las Vegas.
A medical update on Martin Kampmann.
MMA Analyst takes on the thankless task of trying to figure out the structure and behavior of the California State Athletic Commission. In defense of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, not all of the members of the CSAC appeals board were appointed by him. Here’s an article I wrote on this topic a few months ago.
Couture was paid the highest at more than $1.19 million according to White. They must have some awful high production and advertising costs.
If you look at boxing a fighter like Fernando Vargas who draws about 300,000 to 400,000 pay-per-view buys gets close to $3 million each fight. And he fought for HBO where they take a bigger cut.
Kevin Iole has a profile article on Houston Alexander.
Standing up for Andrei Arlovski.
Gary Shaw wants to modify weight classes and so do the promoters of DEEP and Pancrase.
ADCC News is reporting that there will be a ShoXC event in New Jersey on 12/7.
The application process is underway for season 7 of The Ultimate Fighter.
Aside from the field trips, there’s a certain spirit brought out in just about everything they do. For a recent sales presentation, management replicated the Octagon used for the Ultimate Fighting Championship and had salespeople deliver presentations in the ring. “They were in a fighting mentality,” says Stille.
Topics: Canada, IFL, Japan, Media, MMA, Pro Elite, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 14 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Thursday trash talk: Japan’s tough guys
By Zach Arnold | October 31, 2007
Todd Martin took on a big task in writing his new CBS Sports column, which is talking about the evolution of MMA in Japan. There are two points that I felt Todd missed talking about in the article:
1) The infamous ‘cement’ (cement is a term that the Japanese use for a ‘shoot’) incident between Rikidozan and Masahiko Kimura in 1954. The two were supposed to cooperate with each other in a match, but there was a ‘cement’ incident and Rikidozan established his power in the industry after it occurred in their match.
2) The role of Hiro Matsuda in helping train so many of the legendary Japanese wrestlers. One of the beliefs that Rikidozan had in the Japanese pro-wrestling business was that each wrestler should study some sort of fighting discipline or martial art (boxing, taekwondo, judo) so that there was a feeling of legitimate toughness. Matsuda was most famous for training guys like Hulk Hogan and Lex Luger in Florida, but he was also well-known inside the Japanese industry in the 1960s for some of the guys he helped train to become legitimately tough. Karl Gotch gets all the love, but Hiro Matsuda is also deserving of a lot of professional praise.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: Boxing, IFL, Japan, Media, MMA, Pro Elite, Pro-Wrestling, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 38 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Wednesday war room: UFC winning the PR battle?
By Zach Arnold | October 30, 2007
Well, we know the Couture vs. White feud has jumped the shark when Time Magazine starts covering it.
Here is the video of ESPN’s E:60 TV segment yesterday covering Miletich Fighting systems.
Trevor Prangley talks about the upcoming Strikeforce Middleweight tournament in November. Here’s an interview with Murilo ‘Ninja’ Rua.
Meet Matt Gudgeon, who is coming to Las Vegas soon.
ProElite.com will stream Fury Fight Championships’ 12/6 event on their web site.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: IFL, Media, MMA, Pro Elite, StrikeForce, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 49 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Din Thomas arrested
By Zach Arnold | October 30, 2007
By Zach Arnold
The Vero Beach Press-Journal in Florida is reporting that Din Thomas was arrested by local police on Tuesday for running ‘illegal cage fighting’ matches at his training facility. More details at MMA HQ.
Read the comments already posted on that article.
Update: Things are not looking good for Din Thomas:
Robert Vega with the Port St. Lucie Police Department said that during one of the matches, one of the men was knocked unconscious and that there was no hired medical staff at the event to aid him.
More on this story in The Palm Beach Post and at TC Palm.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 22 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
UFC press conference about Randy Couture
By Zach Arnold | October 30, 2007
This will be the open post for all discussion relating to the 1 PM PST press conference UFC is holding on this subject.
Feel free to post story links, recaps, and anything related to this story in the comments section of the post. Also, if anyone manages to capture the audio from the press conference, please let me know. Thanks.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 51 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
M-1 management team announced
By Zach Arnold | October 30, 2007
Five minutes ago, Sibling Sports issued a press release announcing who is part of M-1’s management team.
Monte Cox is the M-1 Global President and CEO. Vadim Finkelchtein is appointed to the M-1 Global Executive Committee. Bob Clark is the COO. Joost Raimond will be President of M-1 Eurasia and be appointed to the M-1 Global Executive Committee. Apy Echteld will be VP of fighter development. Brian Patton will be the Vice President of M-1 Global. SFX Media & Events VP Dennis Spencer will be on the M-1 Global Executive Committee.
Topics: M-1, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 9 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Tuesday turmoil: More war games
By Zach Arnold | October 29, 2007
Mike Sawyer & Oliver Copp have a new edition of Tough Talk radio w/ guest Brad Imes.
Kevin Iole praises Frank Warren.
There’s a brand new MMA statistical site called FightMetric.com.
Good news – Windy Tomomi is coming back.
Yet another press conference about the Randy Couture/Dana White situation, this time on the UFC side. If you haven’t listened to the latest edition of Fight Opinion Radio (covering this story), go listen.
Jerome Le Banner has a new web site and the URL is www.lebannerofficial.com.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: Boxing, IFL, M-1, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, UFC, Zach Arnold | 14 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Monday media notes: Setting the agenda
By Zach Arnold | October 28, 2007
Yahoo has officially separated it’s boxing and MMA pages. You can access their MMA home page here.
Sam Caplan means business.
BBC Sports is reporting that Joe Calzaghe will be retiring within the next 12 months.
Taking a look at upcoming fights and challenges in UFC for 2008.
Fightlinker needs your help with WordPress issues. I love WP, but it is definitely a flawed program with a lot of quirks and bugs.
An interesting note about the K-1 HERO’s show from South Korea (featuring Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Denis Kang) — the show aired on Tokyo Broadcasting System from 12:30 AM-2 AM. That’s a very late timeslot for K-1 programming. One of the challenges K-1 is facing right now is finding big enough corporate sponsorship of the HEROs events.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: BoDog, Boxing, HERO's, IFL, K-1, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, WEC, Zach Arnold | 58 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |