Saturday news slate: More fighter unrest in PRIDE
By Zach Arnold | March 16, 2007
Click on full-page view to see how fellow Fight Opinion writer and Bear Pit Japan member Tetsuya Sano did in his amateur shootboxing tournament today in Tokyo.
Notes from a Sherdog video clip with IFL co-owner Kurt Otto: He says Bas Rutten will “make a special announcement” at the LA Forum show on Saturday (and so will the IFL owners). Otto says a key marketing strategy for the IFL at live events is to piggyback onto the Wizard World weekends, where you have 50,000-80,000 people coming in over a three-day time period. Otto compared it to how UFC piggybacked on The Arnold Classic. Otto stated that the appeal of IFL fighters to the Wizard World crowd is that they are real-life superheroes and that in that demographic, there are some former pro-wrestling fans who (as they get older) want to see action but want the real deal.
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Topics: All Topics, Brazil, IFL, Japan, Media, MMA, PRIDE, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 33 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Friday funhouse: No Josh Barnett for you at PRIDE
By Zach Arnold | March 15, 2007
Bas Rutten has more to say about PRIDE, Josh Barnett likely won’t be fighting in Japan any time soon, Tim Sylvia speaks out, Art of War says they made more than the IFL, and video links to Forrest Griffin’s staph infection shown on camera.
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Topics: All Topics, BoDog, Boxing, IFL, Media, MMA, PRIDE, UK, Zach Arnold | 15 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
PRIDE 4/8 Saitama card
By Zach Arnold | March 15, 2007
Today, DSE announced three fights for their 4/8 Saitama Super Arena event — Shin’ya Aoki vs. Brian Lo-A-Njoe, Makoto Takimoto vs. Zelg Galesic, and Ricardo Arona vs. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou. Nobuyuki Sakakibara stated that the PRIDE 35 event (4/28 Las Vegas) was cancelled and that they would reschedule it for either early June in Japan or the end of June in California. Furthermore, Sakakibara denied that there were any problems between he and Ed Fishman.
Also on the PRIDE HP, Sakakibara discusses PRIDE’s attempt to get back on free-to-air TV. Plus, he says that he would like to run 3-4 US shows in Las Vegas or New Jersey.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: All Topics, Japan, Media, MMA, PRIDE, Zach Arnold | 18 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Thursday tabloid: Kiyoshi Tamura heading to HERO’s
By Zach Arnold | March 14, 2007
I’ve decided to use Feedburner for the RSS feeds. I will add these links and recommend you use them as opposed to the raw WP feeds on our site now, and hopefully the FeedBurner podcasting feed works out fine. Here are the links to use:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/fightopinion – RSS for posts
http://feeds.feedburner.com/fightopinion/qHJU – RSS for comments
I’m using SmartCast on FeedBurner for the radio shows, but I’m not sure if it’s active or working. If anyone out there is smart on this issue, leave a comment here and let me know what links or steps I need to take to make sure everyone can start using it.
Also, I want to change the skin here for WordPress. Contribute some suggestions to a WP skin that you would like to see implemented here, and I shall do it.
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Topics: All Topics, Fight Opinion Radio, HERO's, IFL, Japan, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 15 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Report: Names will be named in HGH probe
By Zach Arnold | March 14, 2007
TJ Quinn in the New York Daily News is reporting on Wednesday that Albany (New York) district attorney David Soares will give names of athletes involved in buying drugs from two online pharmacies to the leagues that those athletes compete in. Furthermore, those named athletes may be asked to testify in court.
The big question is will we see high-profile names from the UFC, IFL, and Elite XC get named in the investigation. If so, how will these leagues respond to the revelations? Will it be kept completely hush-hush or will the various state athletic commissions get involved in this and suspend the accused fighters (or try to make life difficult for the accused)?
Topics: All Topics, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 6 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Wednesday fight notes – don’t make Bas Rutten angry
By Zach Arnold | March 14, 2007
I want to give special thanks to all of our readers in Singapore. If you are reading this and/or have any regional MMA-related news items, send me an e-mail.
Congratulations to Aaron Crossen for becoming Editor-in-Chief of The Valley Vanguard newspaper. Now add more fight game coverage to the publication.
Jeff Monson wrote on his personal blog that he is going to be facing Kazuyuki Fujita at PRIDE 34 on 4/8 at Saitama Super Arena. This is interesting on a lot of levels. First, Fujita is expected to work in the semi-main event or main event slot on the card. Second, it fits into the PRIDE Japanese management mentality of “UFC vs. PRIDE.” Once this fight is officially announced in Japan, I expect Monson to receive the exact same coverage and spin job in the Japanese media that Nick Diaz got for his fight against Takanori Gomi (i.e. “UFC top class vs. PRIDE”). Third, Monson’s fight salary is not very high (if my memory serves me right, he fought Tim Sylvia for little money – $13,000 USD? – at the UFC November ’06 Sacramento event).
Just asking: An acquaintance of mine in the ‘MMA media’ was flabbergasted about Sherdog’s main site not having any articles detailing the IFL’s MyNetwork TV show this past Monday. The only thing I saw IFL-related was this press release issued this morning.
- China Combat: The Ultimate Kung Fu Fighter (someone put this show up on YouTube or Daily Motion soon)
- Sam Caplan: Bas Rutten and Mauro Ranallo fire back at Jerry Millen (more from Bas here including a claim that Jerry Millen is a kayfabe name — and making this even funnier is that Sherdog moderators put this in their ‘wasteland’ category)
- Fight Report: Larry Merchant gone by June?
- Mad Squabbles: Jake Rossen has lots of friends
- The Canadian Press (via CBC Sports): Lend me your ear — UFC fighter Frankie Edgar never gives up
- UFC Junkie: Sean Salmon discusses training, Las Vegas, and UFC 71
- Sports Navigator (Japanese): Katsuyori Shibata and Kazushi Sakuraba booked for HERO’s Light Heavyweight tournament in July
- The American Chronicle: Sneaking up on Vince — is UFC the next big thing in PPV?
- MMA California: CSAC upcoming training
- BTT HP: Dana White interested in The Nogueira Brothers
- The Utica Observer-Dispatch: Breaking the sound barrier (article about Matt Hamill)
- The Albuquerque Tribune: Johnny Tapia’s brother-in-law dies
- Boxing Scene: The sport of boxing & instant replay (this is about New Jersey’s athletic control board adopting the use of instant replay for both boxing & MMA)
- The Verde Independent: World-wide Fighting Championship – Desert Storm
- Bradford Publishing: Knockout Factory cage fighters make good showing at national event
- Jordan Breen: Akiyama’s slippery scandal spawns HERO’s rule reform
Topics: All Topics, Boxing, HERO's, IFL, Japan, Media, MMA, PRIDE, UFC, Zach Arnold | 26 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Tuesday MMA notes – Wanderlei Silva returns
By Zach Arnold | March 13, 2007
A note to all F.O. Radio listeners.
Boxer Johnny Tapia overdoses on cocaine.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: All Topics, BoDog, Boxing, HERO's, IFL, Japan, Media, MMA, PRIDE, UFC, Zach Arnold | 27 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
IFL on MyNetwork TV
By Zach Arnold | March 12, 2007
Post your feedback to this week’s show here. And I’ve also added a poll on the right side of the page.
I want nothing more than to see a second promotion cement itself as a successful MMA operation in the United States. I have friends who work in the IFL. However, there comes a time where you have to call a spade a spade.
Update: Pramit Mohapatra of the Baltimore Sun almost disagrees with my opinion on the IFL show entirely.
The IFL did a 0.8 rating for their debut show on MyNetwork TV. Take a look at some reader feedback.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: All Topics, IFL, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 30 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Gilbert Aldana dead at age 29
By Zach Arnold | March 12, 2007
A very sad story reported in The Arizona Republic notes that a 29-year old man (later identified as UFC fighter Gilbert Aldana) drowned in a waterskiing accident. News broke about this on various MMA message boards, but there was no confirmation until Monday morning about Aldana’s death.
More coverage here, here, here, and here.
Topics: All Topics, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 1 Comment » | Permalink | Trackback |
Monday Torture Rack: Why you like ultimate fighting
By Zach Arnold | March 12, 2007
Andy Kaufman talked about Memphis pro-wrestling fans the same way American media outlets talk about MMA fans today
Another article about MMA’s increasing popularity… Public Torture — Preparing the Audience:
We also have the rise in popularity of Ultimate Fighting in the past few years. People will always pay to see two people beating on each other, but now the public has ruled the Marquis of Queensbury rules are quaint, much as Alberto Gonzalez wants us to think the same of the Geneva Conventions.
Let’s move onto today’s headlines (including results from today’s HERO’s show).
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: All Topics, HERO's, IFL, Japan, Media, MMA, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 26 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Meet Joe Schoenmann
By Zach Arnold | March 11, 2007
By Zach Arnold
On Sunday, Las Vegas Sun writer Joe Schoenmann wrote what easily could be the most detestable article about MMA in the mainstream media for the year 2007. Schoenmann’s article, titled Evolution or Devolution?, featured as many baseless and/or conspiracy-laden arguments against the popularity of MMA in America as you could possibly read from a lazy mainstream media writer.
In addition to presenting an editorial viewpoint in an article nonetheless, Schoenmann not once quotes anyone inside the MMA industry itself (outside of the state athletic commissioners). No quotes from fighters, managers, promoters, or reporters. Reporters, including Las Vegas Sun staff writers like the respectable Jeff Haney that would have likely laughed at Schoenmann for what he was about to write for publication.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: All Topics, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 16 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Building A Fighter
By Luke | March 11, 2007
Rashad Evans beat Sean Salmon via brutal KO on January 25th at the Seminole Hard Rock in Florida. The show ended up drawing a 1.7 cable rating on Spike TV. It was a showcase fight for Rashad, who had been brought along slowly by Dana White and Joe Silva to eventually be a contender to Chuck Liddell’s LHW title. After delivering a beautiful head kick to Sean Salmon to score the highlight reel KO victory, it was apparent that Rashad was ready to challenge some of the bigger names in the UFC LHW division.
UFC is criticized constantly for not employing the best fighters in the world, and for building up guys who – in the eyes of knowledgeable hardcore fans – don’t deserve the spot they’re given. Forrest Griffin, Stephan Bonnar, Chris Leben, among others come to mind. Griffin just recently suffered a bad loss to Keith Jardine at UFC 66. Bonnar suffered a painful defeat to Forrest Griffin at UFC 62. Neither of these competitors have been seen or heard from much since their respective losses. Chris Leben has now suffered a number of high profile losses recently. Most recently to Anderson Silva and Jason MacDonald. It can be argued that none of these fighters are truly top tier fighters in their respective divisions, and the same can be said for Rashad Evans. Rashad’s victim list is far from a who’s who of top fighters. Sam Hoger, Stephan Bonnar, Jason Lambert, and Sean Salmon aren’t exactly top ten material. Of the four that are listed, Lambert probably comes the closest to cracking the top 10 in the LHW division, and Rashad dominated him, and pulled out an impressive KO win using his wrestling skill to mount Lambert, and then pounding him out.
The win over Jason Lambert was probably the key win in Rashad’s young UFC career so far. Lambert was considered a formidable opponent for him, and Rashad had yet to finish a fight in UFC. He took Sam Hoger and Stephan Bonnar to decisions prior to that fight. Had Rashad lost to Lambert, or gone to another boring decision, it probably would’ve hurt his image among the fans, and with Dana White and Joe Silva, who are desperate right now for fresh challengers for Chuck Liddell. Rashad came through though, finishing Lambert in impressive fashion, and setting himself up for his main event spot on UFC Fight Night in January.
His opponent on January 25th wasn’t another step up from Lambert; in fact it was definitely a couple steps below Lambert. Sean Salmon was an unknown fighter, but he was a very strong wrestler, who UFC thought could really challenge Rashad on the ground, and force Rashad to either fight standing up, or step up his wrestling in order to win. When Rashad realized he was facing his equal on the ground, he decided to stand with Salmon, and eventually scored a brutal KO via nasty head kick that hospitalized Sean Salmon and led to intense criticism of UFC for their handling of the injury on national television. Nonetheless, it established Rashad Evans a legit contender in the eyes of fans who tuned in that night.
When I look back at how Rashad has progressed in UFC, it really does say a lot for Dana White’s ability to groom young fighters to a level where the fans believe they have a legit shot to compete with the elite guys in their weight class. And, if you want to sell fights on PPV, you need people to believe that both guys can win, especially if both guys aren’t huge superstars as was the case with UFC 61, or UFC 66, where Tito Ortiz/Ken Shamrock, or Tito Ortiz/Chuck Liddell were both well established names in the eyes of casual fans.
Looking forward, its rumored that Rashad’s next opponent will be Tito Ortiz on May 26th, possibly underneath a Chuck Liddell/Quinton Jackson main event. Rashad Evans is a bad style match for Tito Ortiz, which makes Tito a great opponent for him. Tito doesn’t like to get hit, and isn’t a strong stand up fighter. His strength is similar to Rashad’s, in that he loves to get the takedown and work his ground and pound to finish guys using elbows, or punches. Rashad has a very good chance at defeating Tito Ortiz, which would be an extremely high profile win for him, and give him even more credibility as someone who can challenge Chuck Liddell down the road.
Once again, hardcore fans aren’t big fans of this type of booking, but the main objective in MMA is drawing money, and UFC has done a masterful job of building up Rashad Evans to a level where he can potentially be a money-drawing fighter with Tito Ortiz, and maybe even Chuck Liddell down the road. Obviously a lot of fans would prefer if UFC could sign Mauricio Rua, or Rogerio Noguiera, or someone of that ilk to come in and challenge Chuck Liddell, but both of those fighters are still under contract to PRIDE, and aren’t available to UFC, so this is the next best option, in my opinion. Even if the two previously mentioned fighters were available to UFC, I think building them up in a similar fashion to Rashad Evans would be beneficial. Give them a couple tune-up fights, and let fans see what kind of monsters they can be, before going ahead with the big matches with Liddell, or Tito, or whomever the top UFC LHWs of the day might be.
While keeping in mind that MMA is a sport, and that you want the best to the fight the best, it is a business as well, and you want to build interest for fights between the best so that you maximize the number of buys you do on PPV, which is why I’m a big fan UFC’s booking philosophy. They’re currently doing this with Mirko CroCop and it accidently paid off because instead of CroCop fighting Tim Sylvia in his first fight in UFC, he fought a much lesser opponent who he could run through easily, and look impressive doing so. This allowed for Tim Sylvia to have his fateful encounter with Randy Couture, and now, one week after UFC 68, fans are already clamouring for a dream match of sorts between Couture and CroCop, which if built correctly will top the 1 million buys that Liddell and Ortiz did in December.
Topics: All Topics, Luke Nicholson, MMA, UFC | 5 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Sunday headlines – TUF 5 fighters displayed
By Zach Arnold | March 10, 2007
Sadaharu Tanigawa announced at a press conference today that an announcement would be made at the end of March in regards to HERO’s running an event in California later this year. The rumor is that the first event will happen in the middle of June.
If there is anyone out here reading this that keeps in close contact with Hammer House, please send me a message. Thanks.
- Jeff Hamlin: IFL TV report featuring the great Don Frye
- AM New York: Underground rumbles – kicking and punching keeps fans coming back to top-secret venues (read the bottom paragraphs of this story)
- Sherdog: Megumi Fujii wins again
- EMediaWire: King of the Cage coming to Northern Wisconsin
- The Associated Press: Wladimir Klitschko gives Ray Austin a few stone cold punches
- Boxing Scene: Klitschko says Ray Austin was ‘much slower than my sparring partners’
- UFC Mania: Interview with Matt Serra
- The Orange County Register: Dumb duo on display in Waikiki (a great find by Mikeinformer, which is an article talking about Lord James Blears being a great surfer)
- Insider Racing News: Mike Swick and Josh Koscheck appear in pit stall at NASCAR event in Las Vegas
- The Boston Herald: A new form of boss bashing (Dana vs. Tito)
- Fightstalker: The cast for The Ultimate Fighter: Season 5 (names listed here)
Topics: All Topics, Boxing, HERO's, IFL, Japan, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 16 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |