Hardcore Canadian
By Zach Arnold | September 16, 2007
Keith Crawford is preparing for his October 19th, Hardcore Championship Fighting show at the Stampede Corral in Calgary. Alberta. Crawford has a wealth of promoting experience with King of the Cage, but the HCF endeavor has taken Canadian MMA promoting to the next level.
The signings of superstars Aleksander Emilianenko and Gegard Mousasi to fight for the fledgling promotions 2nd event has sent shockwaves throughout the Canadian MMA scene.
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Topics: Canada, Media, MMA | 1 Comment » | Permalink | Trackback |
Sunday news review: Half-full or half-empty?
By Zach Arnold | September 16, 2007
Dayton Morinaga of The Honolulu Advertiser reported that the crowd size for the Elite XC show in Hawaii on Saturday was around 5,000 at Blaisdell Arena, or around half-full.
The mystery MMA show that took place at the Target Center in Minneapolis on Saturday night had a shooting incident take place in the building. More details here. Before the show took place, Scott LeDoux commented on MMA regulation in Minnesota. Roger Huerta was in attendance at the Minneapolis show on Saturday and announced that he would be fighting at the UFC’s 12/29 Las Vegas event.
Tito Ortiz and UFC — no divorce proceedings in the near future.
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Topics: Boxing, HDNet, Media, MMA, Pro Elite, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 8 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
HERO’s 9/16 Yokohama Arena presser
By Zach Arnold | September 16, 2007
First interesting item is that Shaolin failed making weight the first time around, being 1.3 kg over the weight limit for his fight against JZ Calvan.
The promotion announced that Rickson Gracie will appear at the 9/17 Yokohama Arena event.
The official match-order for tomorrow’s show:
- Middleweight Tournament reserve fight: Kazuyuki Miyata vs. Harvey Harra
- Middleweight Tournament: Kaoru Uno vs. Andre Dida
- Middleweight Tournament: JZ Calvan vs. Vitor “Shaolin” Ribeiro
- Minowaman vs. Kevin Casey
- Yoon Dong-Sik vs. Zelg “Little Mirko” Galesic
- Melvin Manhoef vs. Fabio Silva
- Sergey Kharitonov vs. Alistair Overeem
- Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Katsuyori Shibata
- Norifumi “KID” Yamamoto vs. Bibiano Fernandes
- Middleweight tournament finals
Topics: HERO's, Japan, K-1, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 17 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Elite XC 9/15 Hawaii
By Zach Arnold | September 15, 2007
Event reports: MMA Weekly | Sherdog | MMA Madness | Observer | (here and here) | Fox Sports | Fight Report | CBS Sportsline | F4W Online | Honolulu Star-Bulletin | Honolulu Advertiser
Dave Doyle:
Diaz took scores of 30-27 and 29-28, while Aina won by a count of 29-28 on one judge’s scorecard. Y! Sports scored the fight 29-28 Aina. The judge who scored the match 30-27 Diaz was spotted chatting on his cell phone at one point during the fight and spent a chunk of round 1 with his back turned to the fight, engaging a woman sitting at the press table in a conversation.
Between the Gina Carano weigh-in shenanigans and this incident, not a good reflection upon enforcement of regulation in Hawaii. Plus, a ridiculous amount of fights at catch weights and Gary Shaw’s desire to add more weight classes – enough already.
Topics: Media, MMA, Pro Elite, Zach Arnold | 26 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Saturday house call: AMA joins BMA in angst about MMA
By Zach Arnold | September 14, 2007
Blowback to the BMA’s call for banning MMA. You can now count the Australian Medical Association expressing concern about MMA. An AMA spokesman says he doesn’t ‘condone’ MMA, which is nice and flowery to say. 🙂
Dave Meltzer has an article at Fox Sports profiling Gina Carano. One of the things about her that writers such as Jordan Breen have been commenting on regarding Carano is her trouble making weight for fights. Well, Sherdog has a report from the Elite XC weigh-ins that sounds absurd regarding Carano having trouble making 140 pounds for her fight against Tonya Evinger.
MMA Predictions reports that Gilbert Melendez still does not have an opponent for the Strikeforce 9/29 Playboy Mansion show. We are only two weeks away from the event.
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Topics: Boxing, HERO's, IFL, Japan, K-1, Media, MMA, Pro Elite, StrikeForce, UFC, Zach Arnold | 23 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Update on negotiations between Fedor & UFC
By Zach Arnold | September 14, 2007
By Zach Arnold
M-1, the promotion operated by Vadim Finkelstein (Fedor’s backer), has announced some news regarding their contract negotiations (on behalf of Fedor) with UFC.
According to the M-1 office, Finkelstein and UFC negotiated terms of a contract that would allow the PRIDE Heavyweight champion to fight in the Octagon. M-1 claims that the negotiations were a success and that the parties agreed to what the terms of the UFC contract would be. However, M-1 claims that when UFC sent the contract to their office, the terms of the deal were ‘absolutely different’ than what had been negotiated and that management did not agree on what was stated in the contract. This is why, according to M-1, Fedor has not signed a contract with UFC.
Topics: Media, MMA, PRIDE, UFC, Zach Arnold | 42 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Friday news & notes: Nick Diaz and dirty urine samples
By Zach Arnold | September 13, 2007
Mark Cuban said he would have a surprise name for his ‘Inside MMA’ HDNet debut show (hosted by Bas Rutten & Kenny Rice w/ Kevin James). The surprise name is Chuck Liddell.
Quietly, the IFL stock is remaining under $0.50/share. Both the IFL and Pro Elite have new SEC filings. Anything of note from the filings?
CBC News in Canada is reporting that Vancouver is about to make a determination as to whether or not they should continue to sanction MMA. Vancouver is also Canadian headquarters for BodogFight, which ran TV tapings in late August in the area. More on the story here and here.
Alabama attorney general Troy King is about to determine if ‘cage fighting’ is legal or illegal.
The Fightlinker special – MMA and sex offenders.
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Topics: BoDog, Canada, HDNet, IFL, K-1, Media, MMA, PRIDE, Pro Elite, UFC, Zach Arnold | 26 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Charges of fabrication made against Fox Sports
By Zach Arnold | September 13, 2007
By Zach Arnold
Score one for the commenters of the Fight Opinion web site.
On Thursday morning, I linked to a Fox Sports article by Ben Cohen titled Bisping’s blow-up bad for UFC. The article made claims about Michael Bisping’s beligerent behavior at the UFC 75 post-fight press conference.
However, a funny thing happened. Both Hywel Teague (of Fighters Only Magazine) and James Denton (of Fighting Spirit Magazine) supposedly caught Cohen twisting some quotes and facts around the circumstances of the Bisping media session. Read the comments by Hywel and James here and here.
Denton flat out accused Cohen of fabricating some of the quotes attributed to Bisping in the Fox Sports article.
So how did Ben Cohen and Fox Sports react to the allegations levied against them? They updated their article at 6:26 PM PST on Thursday and changed the content in their article. This was simply not a case of making slight edits for grammar or punctuation — the article was actually changed and altered without any sort of correction notice listed in italics.
Cohen was responsible for the coverage (submitting articles) of the UFC 75 event on the Fox Sports web site.
Update: Here is the audio from the UFC 75 post-fight press conference from Oliver Copp.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 18 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Thursday trash talk: Like your MMA in 3D?
By Zach Arnold | September 12, 2007
Another failed drug test in MMA.
Over at Fox Sports, a new article titled Bisping’s blow-up bad for UFC. I also have an article on this topic over at Boxing Scene. Gregg Doyel at CBS Sportsline says Friends of MMA, unite against that awful stench.
A debate about who the casual American MMA fan is.
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Topics: Canada, HDNet, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, UFC, UK, WEC, Zach Arnold | 47 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
HDNet Fights conference call
By Zach Arnold | September 12, 2007
Announced their first card which will be shown as part of their Friday Night Fights program.
HDNet Fights October 13, 2007 in Dallas, Texas at the American Airlines Center:
Eric Paulson vs. Jeff Ford
Justin Eilers vs Justin Howard
Freddie Espiricueta vs Jason House
Sean Salmon vs. Leopoldo Serao
Anthony Lapsley vs TJ Walberger
Pete Spratt vs Sammy Morgan
Ivan Jorge vs Liam McCarty
Sunia Filikitonga vs. Joel Traves
Dave Morris vs. Jason Jones
Ishmael Gonzales vs. Chris Bowles
Mark Cuban, Guy Mezger, Eric Paulson, Jeff Ford, Justin Eilers, Freddie Espiricueta, and Jason House all participated in the call.
Plans call for HDNet’s Friday Night Fights series is to air new taped weekly fight cards between their own promotion and partners like Steele Cage Promotions, Art of War and Ring of Fire.
HDNet hopes to offer live fight cards in the future.
Friday, September 14th will see the debut of the weekly Inside MMA show on HDNet.
“Inside MMA is your opportunity to step inside the world of mixed martial arts and find out what it takes to be a champion. Hosts Bas Rutten and Kenny Rice provide all the latest news and highlights, along with features, analysis, and rankings.”
The most interesting talk came when Cuban mentioned that he was in talks with both the IFL and WWE. It sounded like he would like to see the IFL on HDNet and is talking with the WWE’s McMahons about them maybe consulting with HDNet for potential future MMA PPV offerings.
HDNet Fights launched a new website: at hdnetfights.com
Topics: HDNet, Jeff Comstock, Media, MMA | 31 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Wednesday war room: Does the MMA media kill negative stories?
By Zach Arnold | September 11, 2007
The Chicago Sun Times is reporting this morning that Illinois Governor Blagojevich has signed state legislation to sanction MMA starting in 2008. More on the story here.
Here’s a report claiming that Michael Bisping’s father was attacked in the 02 Arena car park. Michael himself also has some comments to add to the discussion.
UFC VP Marc Ratner fires back over criticism surrounding UFC 75 (very dismissive of the Internet reaction) and more media (over)reaction. Also, Frank Trigg on how reporters hold back stories on UFC and how Fox Sports handles IFL coverage.
Blowback at Sports Illustrated.
Mark Cuban is generating press attention for his move into MMA, starting with The Dallas Morning News.
MMA Junkie notes that Marcus Davis, Paul Taylor, and Houston Alexander are getting bonuses for their fights at the UFC 75 event. The dilemma? Ivan Trembow clues you in.
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Topics: Boxing, IFL, Japan, Media, MMA, Pro Elite, UFC, Zach Arnold | 23 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
UFC 75 draws huge numbers
By Zach Arnold | September 11, 2007
UFC’s home page says it all – UFC 75 on Spike TV is the most-watched UFC event in history. The event drew a 3.1 rating. It’s an excellent rating for the show overall. Even better for UFC is that the ratings numbers grew for each fight on the show incrementally, meaning people did not turn off the TV even though the show went past Midnight.
Historically speaking, it’s interesting to compare the ratings UFC is drawing on cable versus the ratings that the major Japanese promotions draw on free-to-air Japanese TV. In Japan, cable and satellite is not strong in terms of ratings for any sort of fight-related programming. When K-1 draws a 10.0 or so for a rating on TBS or Fuji TV, that’s considered ‘poor’ – yet if that rating was on cable, it would be an amazing number.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 35 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Tuesday turmoil: More on UFC 75 and Bisping/Hamill
By Zach Arnold | September 10, 2007
Real live MMA and fighting happening in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. Surely, Jordan Breen is on the case.
K-1 announced Sergey Kharitonov vs. Alistair Overeem and Fabio Silva vs. Melvin Manhoef for their 9/17 Yokohama Arena event. Kharitonov was promoted in Japan today as being associated with Volk Han.
Sports Illustrated has an article claiming that one of the things they learned from UFC 75 is that PRIDE was overrated.
Steroid Nation (a great site) has suggestions about what baseball should do to clean up its doping problems. Any ideas from that post that could apply to the way current drug testing is done in MMA?
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Topics: HERO's, IFL, Japan, K-1, Media, MMA, PRIDE, Pro-Wrestling, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 92 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |