Wednesday weekly notes: Reality TV mania
By Zach Arnold | July 11, 2007
About that Mark Burnett reality show for Elite XC… is the recruiting starting?
Luke Thomas on the UFC 73 attendance. More at Fightlinker.
Kuniyoshi Hironaka announced his blog that he will facing Thiago Alves at Ultimate Fight Night 11 on September 19th at The Pearl at the Palms in Las Vegas.
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Topics: Brazil, Canada, IFL, Media, MMA, Pro-Wrestling, UFC, Zach Arnold | 67 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Dana White can’t keep this story straight?
By Zach Arnold | July 10, 2007
By Zach Arnold
That Dana White interview on ESPN.com sure has everyone buzzing. There’s one part of it that I want to focus on because it seemed like a misstep by the UFC President.
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Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 25 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
BodogFight 7/14 Trenton card
By Zach Arnold | July 10, 2007
At the Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton, New Jersey:
- Featherweights (145 pounds): David Love vs. Eben Oroz
- Heavyweights (206-265 pounds): Mark Burch vs. Yoshiki Takahashi
- Middleweights (185 pounds pounds: Amar Suloev vs. Chael Sonnen
- Welterweights (170 pounds): Yves Edwards vs. Jorge Masvidal
- Heavyweights (206-265 pounds): Roman Zentsov vs. Branden Lee Hinkle
- Middleweights (185 pounds): Trevor Prangley vs. Yuki Kondo
- Bantamweights (135 pounds): Dan Hawley vs. Nick Cottone
- Lightweights (155 pounds): Nick Agallar vs. Binky Jones
- 135 pounds: Tara LaRosa vs. Kelly Kobald
- Welterweights (170 pounds): Eddie Alvarez vs. Matt Lee
That is the expected order of fights for the card. I have not found any odds for the fights, yet.
Topics: BoDog, Media, MMA, Pancrase, Zach Arnold | 21 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Tuesday talking points: 8,622? 8,622!
By Zach Arnold | July 9, 2007
Underground cage fighting. Plus, Xyience Training Center Grand Opening.
UFC 73 attendance, gate, and purse information. Look at the figures – 8,622 paid. They did a little under 8,000 in Ireland. This may sound like piling on here, but I’ve been saying far and wide in media outlets that once UFC gets out of the casino zones, they struggle to cultivate big crowds without the casino power and Vegas-style advantages. It puts that tremendous Columbus crowd into perspective (meaning it reflects well on the Ohio folks). What does it indicate? As boxing promoter Bob Arum put it in a recent Yahoo Sports article, once you leave Las Vegas you have to start using some elbow grease to attract larger crowds.
Kiyoshi Tamura has been booked for HERO’s on July 16th at Yokohama Arena against Kin Tai Ei. K-1 matchmaker Sadaharu Tanigawa stated to the press on Tuesday that he would like to see Tamura vs. Yoshihiro Akiyama. Akiyama is tentatively scheduled to return in September. Tanigawa is also promising a big surprise at the Yokohama Arena event.
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Topics: HERO's, IFL, Japan, K-1, Media, MMA, Pro Elite, UFC, WWE, Zach Arnold | 43 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Monday newsmakers: UFC or competitive eating?
By Zach Arnold | July 8, 2007
On Pedro Fernandez’s Ring Talk radio show on Sunday night, he played audio clips from the UFC 73 show featuring Tito Ortiz, Dana White, and Randy Couture. Ortiz stated that he liked fighting in Las Vegas much better than fighting in California (because he claimed that ‘people’ in Vegas know what they are doing). In the Dana White audio clip, he tried to downplay the yakuza accusations against the old management of PRIDE and brushed aside Pedro’s question. You can listen to the archive of this week’s Ring Talk show here.
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Topics: Canada, Japan, Media, MMA, Pancrase, UFC, Zach Arnold | 22 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
The product is growing stale
By Zach Arnold | July 8, 2007
When a friend of mine introduced me to the sport of Mixed Martial Arts at the end of the 1990s, all was still right with the world. Sakuraba had just polished off his first Gracie, opponents were scared s$%&^*! of Tom Erikson and Igor Vovchanchyn and Ricco Rodriguez was miles away from weighing as much as a breeding bull. Still up until two years ago, MMA was a young sport looking for its place between boxing, kickboxing and professional wrestling. Much has changed in the past twenty-four months and few of it is positive from a fan’s perspective.
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Topics: All Topics, Media, MMA, Tim Leidecker, UFC | 76 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Sunday media review: The aftermath from UFC 73
By Zach Arnold | July 8, 2007
The Gainesville Sun (FL) has a hell of an article on MMA in today’s newspaper. You should go read it.
Dave Meltzer has a recap of UFC 73 at Fox Sports. I was on CBS Sportsline and Fox Sports this week, DM is at The LA Times and Fox Sports (plus all the cable TV appearances). I’d say it is a good week for the professional wrestling-based combat writers.
Nobuyuki Sakakibara is claiming that BodogFight offered money to Fedor to not work in PRIDE. I find it fascinating that Sakakibara just can’t stay out of the limelight. Yuji Shimada is teasing about practicing his officiating in case PRIDE comes back. I had to laugh at one report (at Kakutolog) claiming that Sakakibara used the term “nisemono” in comparing Ed Fishman to Lorenzo Fertitta, essentially calling Fishman an imitator or wannabe.
Here is the RSS feed for Yahoo Sports’ MMA/Boxing blog site. Dave Doyle reports that Jorge Gurgel suffered a broken jaw in his fight against Diego Saraiva. The claimed attendance for UFC 73 was 14,370. Fighting words from Tito Ortiz and Rashad Evans after their fight.
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Topics: BoDog, Canada, Japan, Media, MMA, PRIDE, UFC, Zach Arnold | 30 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
UFC 73: Stacked
By Erin | July 7, 2007
Wow, Herring is working his cowboy look tonight. I think it’s partly because his Warrior Wear shirt is sporting horns, but still.
Antonio Nogueira vs. Heath Herring
I think I’m with Nogueira on the “it’s not really a rivalry” statement. He has beaten him a couple of times.
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Topics: Erin Bucknell, MMA, UFC | 19 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
UFC 73
By Zach Arnold | July 7, 2007
Results & Reviews: Sherdog | UFC Junkie | UFC Mania | MMA on Tap | The Houston Chronicle | Observer | AOL Fanhouse | F4W Online | Prophet Fighting
Audio: Any Given Saturday w/ Luke Thomas
All comments and thoughts on the event go here.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 40 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Saturday sound bites: UFC 73 in Sacramento
By Zach Arnold | July 6, 2007
I have a UFC 73 preview write-up over at Fox Sports. Check it out. Also, Brian Kenny on ESPN Radio previews this weekend’s action in combat sports.
Also, I made an appearance yesterday on Bryan Alvarez’s Figure Four Daily radio show. One of the topics we discussed was the Chris Benoit murder-suicide story and how there could be some tangential fallout in the world of MMA. After I wrote my CBS Sportsline article on the Benoit story, I was preparing to do an MMA spinoff of the story in relation to the drug culture in the industry. On Tuesday, Phil Baroni was suspended by the CSAC for a year and I could see the media ball was already rolling in regards to the issue of MMA’s drug culture. Today, both The LA Times and The Long Beach-Press Telegram have articles focusing on fighters failing drug tests. Over at Fight Report, they’re predicting which fighters might fail their drug tests at UFC 73. We’ve added a new poll to the right side of the main page about the drug culture in MMA.
Also on Bryan’s radio show, I mentioned that there is an RSS feed for the Observer site. Here it is. Our friend John Griffin made it. Hey John, an iPhone theme for WordPress? Test it out!
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Topics: Brazil, Canada, Media, MMA, Pro-Wrestling, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 25 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Latest updates on Chris Benoit story
By Zach Arnold | July 6, 2007
I’m putting all Benoit-related articles here in this post so that the MMA-only readers can bypass it easily if they want to.
Channel News Asia (Singapore) has an article titled Fans to pay tribute to wrestler Chris Benoit at S’pore show. WWE has a show scheduled at the Indoor Stadium on July 28th. Royal Burnell on spinning the WWE way.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting that Dr. Phil Astin is being probed in the death of a second wrestler. That second wrestler is Johnny Grunge, who was Chris Benoit’s friend. More information on the story at WAGA TV.
The Consumerist reports that most Chris Benoit merchandise is being pulled from stores.
The Dallas Morning News has an editorial today titled A Chokehold on Reality.
Topics: Media, Pro-Wrestling, WWE, Zach Arnold | 2 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Friday fight notes: The day before UFC 73
By Zach Arnold | July 5, 2007
Pawel Nastula says PRIDE is coming back in September.
The Oregonian is reporting that the Oregon State Boxing & Wrestling commission will now be named the Oregon State Athletic Commission.
Mauro Ranallo previews the upcoming UFC 73 card (audio). Also on the show, Armando Garcia stated that people would be alarmed by the amount of MMA fighter suspensions due to failed drug tests.
Mr. Garcia also said that he is offering WWE free drug testing for all of their events in the state of California. Speaking of wrestling, Jason Whitlock has a column today saying pro-wrestlers deserve sympathy. Bruno Sammartino was also interviewed in the Philadelphia Daily News. Eddie Goldman chimes in on what the Chris Benoit story means for MMA.
Turi Altavilla is heading to Pro Elite. Good for him. Zuffa should have hired him.
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Topics: BoDog, Boxing, Canada, Japan, Media, MMA, PRIDE, Pro Elite, StrikeForce, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 17 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
UFC 73: Where’s the hype train?
By Adam Morgan | July 5, 2007
By Adam Morgan
Does the UFC know what it’s doing? I know they’ve got a monopoly on the sport and they’re “expanding into international markets,” “breaking into the mainstream,” and every other cliché you could possibly think of for making it big.
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Topics: Adam Morgan, Media, MMA, UFC | 31 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |