PRIDE’s Las Vegas backer
By Zach Arnold | September 2, 2006
By Zach Arnold
According to Kami no Puroresu (a PRIDE-oriened media magazine), one of the main Las Vegas backers of PRIDE in the city is Ed Fishman. Here’s a profile of Fishman. Here’s more on Fishman:
Ed Fishman, Board of Directors/Marketing – Mr. Fishman is an international entrepreneur, television and film producer with forty years experience in the entertainment industry. Mr. Fishman was the writer and producer of “Dealer’s Choice.” He founded and was Chairman of Players International with Telly Savalas of Kojak as his company spokesperson. Players was a publicly traded company with his partners including Merv Griffin and was eventually sold to Harrah’s for $425 million. Mr. Fishman organized the world’s first blackjack tournament as well as the first casino credit card cash advance machines. He is partners with Chuck Norris In the Beverly Hills Casino Entertainment Complex in Moscow and has been involved in many successful marketing projects and productions
It will be interesting to see what role Fishman plays in the US production of the PRIDE 10/21 Las Vegas PPV and what the role of Jerry Millen (who has been the producer of the PRIDE US PPVs) will be.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: All Topics, Media, PRIDE, Zach Arnold | 3 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Dana White talks about PRIDE
By Zach Arnold | September 1, 2006
In an interview with FoxSports.com:
“They talk a lot of s– but never back it up. I’m here I’m ready, Chuck’s here, he’s ready. It’s not that Wanderlei doesn’t want the fight, he’s a fighter. No disrespect to him. You know who I’m talking about. I’ve been trying to do this for five years. I sent (Liddell) over to Japan and he fought three or four times over there. They like to yap but they don’t like to back it up.
… (cont’d)
They suck. They talk too much. They don’t back it up. They like to talk. They’re in trouble over there and they’re trying to make a splash over here. They’re trying to talk s– with me to get it. I think they’re going to have a tough run over here. Anyone who can rub two nickels together is trying to get into the MMA business right now. It’s not an easy business to be in. It took us six years to figure this out. It’s going to be tough for them. It’s a different market. It would be like me trying to do a show in Japan tomorrow. I wouldn’t know what to do. I think they’re going to burn through a lot of cash and I don’t think they’re going to make any money.
Here’s some more discussion on UFC’s business practices.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: All Topics, Media, MMA, PRIDE, UFC, Zach Arnold | 5 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Friday Night Fights
By Zach Arnold | September 1, 2006
By Zach Arnold
Results and show recap.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: All Topics, Boxing, Zach Arnold | 3 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Kurt Angle’s future
By Zach Arnold | September 1, 2006
By Zach Arnold
Update: Dave Meltzer notes that Kurt Angle is now being buried by the WWE. Either this is a strange angle or else they are really concerned that he is going to work in fact for TNA.
In response to a Dave Ditch article about the former Olympian’s future in the fight game, I wanted to touch upon one specific quote that Ditch wrote.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: All Topics, HERO's, Japan, Pro-Wrestling, TNA, WWE, Zach Arnold | 11 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
First the Zuffa myth, now the Fuji TV myth
By Zach Arnold | August 31, 2006
By Zach Arnold
There is a story by Fred Varcoe (writer’s apparent background here and here) that basically is a pro-PRIDE article about their upcoming shows in Saitama and Las Vegas. It reads exactly like what a PRIDE fan would write.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: All Topics, Japan, Media, MMA, PRIDE, Yakuza, Zach Arnold | 15 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
The Ultimate Fighter Season 4, Episode 3
By Erin | August 31, 2006
Edwin should definitely never go pink with the hair, not a good color on him.
Serra talks about how happy team MoJo is to have won two in a row as the camera pans the octagon mat, which looks, unsurprisingly, like the floor of a slaughter house. Yum.
We get the Montage of Shonie Weirdness, including One Man Chess, pool katas, Master of Bling and his incredible lack of pants.
Team No Love seems to be a bit discouraged by their losses. Jackson, Burnett and Spratt all think that may be the one picked.
The guys get to watch UFC 60, specifically Hughes dismantling Gracie. Serra is disappointed in the outcome as he has trained with the Gracies for a long time.
Serra is not a fan of Mark Laimon, claiming that as Laimon is not an MMA fighter, he shouldn’t be a trainer.
Clementi is annoyed by Shonie’s randomness and decides to play a joke by pretending to screw up Shonie’s artwork. Shonie is understandably a touch annoyed by this. Shonie admits it was a pretty good joke when they bring out his original drawing.
Jackson is shown training his ass off in preparation of being picked. Randy is pretty impressed. We get a recap of Jackson’s fight against Diaz, which seemed to go pretty well for Jackson until Diaz snagged an arm bar.
Team MoJo picks Spratt to fight Lytle. Jackson is a bit disappointed as he wanted to fight Lytle.
We get recaps of Lytle’s previous UFC fights including his war against Robbie Lawler and wins against Gosher and Jhun. His last fight in the UFC was against Riggs where he got a nasty cut.
Crank Commercial. Severing of hands, bad 70’s disco music and of course, Hotty Statham. I’m sooo there.
I never would have guessed that Spratt was older than Shonie. Recaps of Spratt’s fights against Light, Newton, Lawler (who was undefeated at that time), and Koscheck.
Fight day, Lytle is looking for a knockout and Spratt thinks team MoJo is underestimating him.
Round 1. Lytle pushes Spratt back into the fence fairly quickly where they stay for a bit while Serra calls for foot stomps. The fight hits the ground, Spratt moves to full mount with a guillotine choke and Spratt taps. Spratt is very disappointed with himself after the fight.
Next episode, a really gross bumpy looking disease makes the rounds through the house and Dana gets in his first profanity laced speech of the season.
Topics: All Topics, Erin Bucknell, MMA, UFC | 3 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Kawamata loses in court
By Zach Arnold | August 31, 2006
By Zach Arnold
For reference to the whole yakuza scandal and 3-way 2003 MMA wars in Japan, use this link.
Seiya Kawamata, who had filed a lawsuit in Tokyo District Court against Nippon TV for improper annulment of payment from the Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye TV contract in 2003, has apparently lost his court case. The court threw out the legal claims from both sides (N-TV & Kawamata), meaning a big loss.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: All Topics, Japan, Media, PRIDE, Yakuza, Zach Arnold | No Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Sakuraba will fight in October
By Zach Arnold | August 31, 2006
By Zach Arnold
The HERO’s promotion announced that Kazushi Sakuraba has been cleared to fight on the promotion’s 10/9 Yokohama Arena show. This was the show that was rumored to feature the debut of Brock Lesnar, but no mention of Lesnar fighting so far. Akebono & Kazuyuki Miyata were announced as participants for the 10/9 show.
The two Middleweight tournament fights announced are Kaoru Uno vs. Ivan Menjivar and J.Z. Calvan vs. Rani Yahya.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: All Topics, HERO's, Japan, MMA, Zach Arnold | 5 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Worldwide media notes
By Zach Arnold | August 31, 2006
By Zach Arnold
I find interesting news items, and you comment on them. Updated at 12:45 PM EST.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: All Topics, Boxing, IFL, Japan, Media, PRIDE, Zach Arnold | 2 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
White defends UFC’s pay structure
By Stephan | August 30, 2006
I guess Dana is tired of hearing the charades about UFCs low wages, check what he has to say here.
“I’ve made more millionaires in this business than anybody else has,” White added.
It’s nice to hear his side of the story, finally. I have also been critical of the UFC wages, I dont buy the argument that if the fighters dont like it, they just dont need to accept the terms. The reality, is they will always find people willing to fight for 2 and 2 for the UFC, the question is will they be of good talent? Not really. Frankly, this last UFC looked more like a KOTC + Babalu vs Liddell show. Dont believe me? Look at the rankings of the best fighters in the world on mmaweekly. Those rankings are not perfect, thats for another discussion, but they are pretty close.
You get my point, the UFC should strive to have the best MMA athletes in the world, this is clearly not the case. Another point to prove how shallow the quality of the talent pool in the UFC. Take a look at this next matchup. Anderson Silva vs Rich Franklin. Dont get me wrong I really like Anderson Silva and it should be a good fight, but how does he get a title fight after only one fight in the organization? And not even on an official UFC per say, but on an Ultimate Fight Night! That’s for the Middleweight Division, what about the Light-Heavywieght division? Who can give Liddell a decent fight? Babalu has destroyed pretty much everyone in the division, and couldnt survive more that 95 seconds with Liddell. Maybe Vera?! And the Heavyweight division is pathetic right now…Arlovsky has lost his confidence and Tim Sylvia the champion could hang with half the Pride fighters at that level.
The UFC is finally making decent money; with Pride on the verge of self-imploding; it is time to spend money and actually get the best fighters in the world. Pride has had that distinction clearly, but UFC has a great opportunity to raise its product quality. Spend and get Cro-cop, Overeem, Fedor, Wanderlei, etc!
This is fightopinion.com and this is my opinion!
Topics: All Topics, MMA, PRIDE, Stephan Marceau, UFC | 12 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Media quote of the day
By Zach Arnold | August 30, 2006
From boxing promoter Bob Arum:
The reason Arum feels the UFC has not hurt boxing is simply, the audience makeup is different. He feels that the UFC audience is made up of mostly white males, while boxing caters to Hispanics, African-Americans and “a few whites.”
“We have a totally different audience. The demographic of UFC are young white males. To cater to that audience, you basically only see white men who fight. Our audience for boxing is Hispanic, African-American and maybe a few whites.”
The last two UFC events (UFC Fight Night and UFC 62) featured Diego Sanchez and Renato Babalu in the main events. The two shows also featured Jorge Santiago, Nick Diaz, and Hermes Franca.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: All Topics, Boxing, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 6 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Updated K-1 9/30 Osaka GP card
By Zach Arnold | August 30, 2006
Here is the newest card line-up:
- Ray Sefo vs. Stefan “Blitz” Leko
- Ruslan Karaev vs. Badr Hari
- Glaube Feitosa vs. Paul Slowinski
- Jerome Le Banner vs. Choi Hong-Man
- Peter Aerts vs. Remy Bonjasky
- Semmy Schilt vs. Bjorn Bregy
- Ernesto Hoost vs. Yusuke Fujimoto
- Musashi vs. Chalid “Die Faust” Arrab
Topics: All Topics, Japan, K-1, Media, Zach Arnold | 1 Comment » | Permalink | Trackback |
UFC’s low payroll attracts media focus
By Zach Arnold | August 29, 2006
By Zach Arnold
Neil Davidson, the main MMA writer for CP (Canadian Press), calls out UFC today in a news wire article (companion article link here) for the low pay that undercard fighters in the promotion receive. Davidson’s article has hard numbers of what each fighter got paid, including the shocking $21,000 USD amount for Renato Babalu (while Liddell received $250,000 USD base pay).
Davidson was the reporter who first broke the story that talks between UFC & PRIDE fell through on booking the Liddell vs. Silva fight. He has been a very reliable MMA writer in the mainstream press.
Here is a list of the medical suspensions coming out of the UFC 62 event.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: All Topics, Canada, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 16 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |