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The good, the bad, and the ugly: Heat-up for UFC Japan 2012

By Zach Arnold | February 23, 2012

Lots of little odds & ends happening but nothing major enough to warrant it’s own story, so here we go with some tidbits about what’s happening for this weekend’s show at Saitama Super Arena.

Check out Rampage UFC Japan poster

The Good

Live house business should be very solid. Dana White claimed today that 20,000 tickets have been sold. The original configuration by Dentsu for SSA was to set it up for 20,000. Every indication I’ve been told, both pro-UFC and anti-UFC in various circles, is that the ticket number is somewhere in the 15,000-17,000 range. At this point, it’s more or less quibbling about real paid vs. papered numbers. It’s in line to do just fine for a first-time show backed by a real entity (Dentsu).

15,000 is Yokohama Arena level and is good for image. Now, of course it helps to have media allies ready to push the image for you as opposed to remaining silent, but you can’t win every battle.

By Japanese appealing standards, UFC Japan 2012 isn’t a great card. By normal UFC metrics, it’s very solid and should produce a lot of close decisions, if not tight finishes. Hard to be negative on that front. Cheick Kongo vs. Mark Hunt could easily turn into a Fight of the Night battle and no one is even talking about that bout.

UFC 144 press conference photos

The bad

The TV situation for UFC is not great at all in Japan. This is not their fault, at least not primarily so. With Godfather Ishii still hanging around trying to wine and dine fighters who K-1 owes money to by taking them out to high-end Italian restaurants, we know that the more things change the more they stay the same. Until the bad blood is flushed out of the industry in Japan, don’t expect TV networks to want to invest any sort of major capital into a fight promotion at this point. No TV executive wants to deal with the police breathing down their throat and making them justify why they are giving cash to convicted criminals.

TV Tokyo announced that the UFC Japan show will air late Sunday night 3:15 AM JST to 4:45 AM JST. The network even admitted it was a last-minute line-up edition and will be sponsored by Don Quijote & UFC Undisputed 3. In other words, Dentsu couldn’t even manage to get a daytime or golden time pay-for-play deal on the smallest of the Japanese broadcast networks. Plus, the way the UFC Japan card is constructed, it’s not tailored for Japanese TV.

What most people don’t get about TV Tokyo is that there’s no distribution outside the Kanto region. It’s like being on the New York City version of MyNetwork TV. Sure, it’s a big market, but people in Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other media markets are not going to see the channel.

The hope by Dentsu is to try to springboard from TV Tokyo and attract a bigger platform like Fuji TV or Nippon TV to take a chance on UFC. I don’t see it happening, especially given what’s happening right now with the other players in the MMA scene in Japan.

The ugly

There’s something to be said in Japan about the natives wanting the gaijin to act like gaijin and then leaving instead of hanging around. However, there’s also something to be said about basic protocol and how much Japanese business protocol is adhered to. Dana was Dana today, as you always expect him to be, not wearing a suit or acting exactly statesmanlike. His fans love him for it but people who are on the fence or who are very anal in Japan just notch it, once again, as part of the stereotype they already have about UFC and their ‘lack of respect’ for Japan, no matter how ill-conceived it may be.

Dana had to address the issue today about whether or not he killed PRIDE. (He didn’t, and he said as much. Good for him. Sakakibara and his stooges don’t deserve a pass here.) As I’ve stated all along, Dana’s biggest problem in Japan is that he’s got to shake off the Mitt Romneyesque “Bain Capital as corporate raider” image problem in regards to how the media portrayed him as the evil gaijin outsider who raided PRIDE of its assets and then left nothing behind.

That said, Dana claiming that PRIDE was the only other MMA organization he ever respected in his life? I guess your memory can fade at an early age. He even claimed that Yushin Okami is one of his favorite fighters.

Speaking of PRIDE’s death, what’s not ugly is Spike TV’s Thursday debut of their new MMA talk show at 11 PM EST/PST. 30 minute format. Easily the biggest platform to candidly discuss what exactly happened. Five years after the fact, but nonetheless…

The media

Nikkan Sports, which is backing UFC Japan, has done a commendable job in covering the lead-up to UFC Japan. Yahoo Japan has done a fine job as well. As for the rest of the media…

There are a lot of outlets not covering the show very much. Whether they are choosing to take a pass on it because they don’t see it as a story the natives care about (quite a few) or if its a silent war declaration (a few outlets in that mode), it is what it is. And, for those outlets not wanting to be bothered by covering UFC Japan, they had quite the story fall into their laps when Kenta Kobashi was diagnosed yesterday with a broken left shin bone & right knee ligament damage after his tag match w/ Keiji Mutoh vs. Jun Akiyama & Takao Omori at the ALL TOGETHER 2 charity show in Sendai. Kobashi’s leg was hurting after the match and he couldn’t walk on the leg for a day, so he went to the hospital and the painful discovery was made. He’s out for at least two months.

Fan appeal

It’s falling more in line with what WWE did for their 2003 Yokohama Arena show — concert goers, those looking at the new shiny foreign toy for a one-off, so on and so forth. Fighters like Kid Yamamoto are admitting that they’re having to tell fans that there’s a show on Saturday.

The way the Japanese media is covering the UFC Japan show is similar to how they cover DREAM shows. Basic coverage, but not anything over-the-top or any sort of dramatic storylines/angles. The only sort of angle even remotely talked about is Yoshihiro Akiyama’s model wife, SHIHO, helping him cut down to 170 with her version of a diet.

Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 14 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

MMA Link Club: Heating up for UFC Japan 2012

By Zach Arnold | February 21, 2012

The line for the main event is as razor-thin as you can image. Frankie Edgar is a very slight -130 favorite. Ben Henderson is even money.

Member sites of the MMA Link Club

This week’s MMA Link Club featured stories

Five Ounces of Pain: Bart Palaszewski is not impressed by Hatsu Hioki’s UFC debut

“Hioki’s actually a fight we asked for,” said Palaszewski. “Before my fights, I always make up my list with my coaches and my management — guys we’re going to go after in case I lose or if I win a fight. We got to turn the winning list into the UFC last time, and Hioki was at the top of the list.”

MMA Fighting: Mauro Ranallo reminisces about the glory days of PRIDE

Fightline: Ben Henderson on a quest to become the best in the world

“I don’t think me beating Frankie at all gets me anywhere near the conversation,” Bendo went on. “I’d have to beat Frankie, then beat a couple other guys, defend the belt — what is Anderson up to? He’s up to like, twelve right now? Thirteen? After I beat Anderson’s record, whatever he stops at — fourteen times, fifteen times — after I beat that, then the conversation can begin.”

Cage Potato: 15 photos of Cage Warriors ring girl Natalie Lawrence

Chandella Powell was unavailable for comment.

MMA Mania: Undercard preview for UFC 144 and predictions

Hint: Expect a lot of undercard decisions as opposed to finishes.

5th Round: Joe Rogan responds to Rampage calling him a crap-talker & one-dimensional

“When I talk about his game it’s because I have to analyze things objectively, and I think he’s one of the toughest, most dangerous guys in the game. If I describe something that I wish he would do it’s because I think his athletic and fighting potential is immense.”

Bleacher Report: UFC 144 — The Top best Japanese fighters in MMA history

This is an interesting list because if you look at the top Japanese fighters in the UFC, most of them were not big stars back in Japan and never gained heavy mainstream appeal. Two of the most well-known Japanese fighters, Kid Yamamoto & Yoshihiro Akiyama, are looking to break out of slump mode at Saitama Super Arena.

Darth Vader and a gang of Stormtroopers accompanied Amanda Lucas at DEEP 57

It’s fair to say that she’s the biggest star that Japan has ‘created’ since the death of K-1. Look at what she did to Yumiko Hotta’s face.

Lowkick: Tim Boetsch says he’s going to smash Yushin Okami

The Fight Nerd: Damon Lau of Round 5 MMA action figures at NY Toy Fair 2012

MMA Convert: Japanese MMA scene primer – the Pancrase edition

MMA Payout: UFC hard sell for advertisers while on Versus

The Sports Business Journal reported on the drop in ratings of NBC Sports Network as it rolled out its new name and brand last month. The article also comments on the fact that NBC found it difficult finding advertisers for the UFC when it was on the network.

Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 23 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Five questions to look at heading into the UFC Japan 2012 event

By Zach Arnold | February 19, 2012

This is such an oddly intriguing show for a lot of reasons, both in-and-out of the cage. There’s so many variables at play here. I could bring up a million different angles to analyze but we’ll take five basic storylines heading into the event here and look at how everything is playing out right now.

On Sunday, I saw the first cable/satellite barker ad for the PPV event. The narrator’s voice is strangely subdued and what’s not mentioned is that the telecast will apparently be four hours long. Your guess is as good as mine.

1. Will the crowd for this show represent a floor or a ceiling for UFC & Dentsu?

I am of two thoughts here.

First, the positive take and one that UFC argues. They run a good show, they get a few backers, and then through repetition hope that some rich people who aren’t yakuza buy into what they are doing.

Second, the negative take and more realistic viewpoint. The Japanese MMA industry on a mainstream level is dead. There are no major Japanese stars being created now. Kid Yamamoto, Gomi, and the rest are a dying breed. Once they are gone, the replacements have nowhere near the same name value. That’s the great irony about UFC’s predicament here. They want to build something up in Japan but the local promoters that they weren’t friendly with basically torched the business to the ground.

If Dentsu is able to get UFC onto television, perhaps they have a shot — albeit a small shot. The UFC product is not tailored for Japanese cultural wants or needs. There aren’t major Japanese players right now in the divisions sans Hatsu Hioki and Hioki’s not a major star in his home country. The plan was to broker some time on TV Tokyo, the smallest of the over-the-air networks in Japan, and then try to parlay that onto a bigger network like Tokyo Broadcasting System or Fuji TV. The major problem with that strategy is that UFC is not a Japanese company and the TV suits have no desire to touch MMA right now because the police are on the warpath against the gangs. We know the history of black money in the Japanese fight game. It resembles Mexico in many regards.

2. Will this be a WWE/non-traditional audience for UFC Japan or will it draw traditional MMA fans?

When WWE drew 13,000 at Yokohama Arena a decade ago, the Japanese promotions freaked out. Was Vince going to steal their fans? The answer ended up being a fat ‘no.’ The fans the WWE shows in Japan attract are not the traditional wrestling fans. They’re concert-goers. They aren’t the bread-and-butter fans that used to read the weekly magazines or watch Samurai TV/GAORA to watch New Japan, NOAH, All Japan.

If UFC is to be successful long-term in Japan, they need to do something that WWE utterly failed to do when they bought the assets to WCW — win over the old MMA fans. UFC needs to win over the PRIDE fans and get them into the fold. This belief that the PRIDE fans just went away and never will come back is a misguided train of thought. Those PRIDE fans are on the sidelines. K-1 couldn’t win them over with their substandard product. UFC has the money & resources to make it work… if they want to and don’t use a Vince-like “you’re going to like what I want you to like” mentality.

3. UFC Japanese guys vs. ‘normal’ Japanese fighters who are draws

Throughout UFC’s history, both under SEG & Zuffa, there’s been a strange dichotomy in regards to the kinds of Japanese fighters UFC attracts & thinks are the right fit versus actually booking Japanese fighters that are the major draws.

Go back to when UFC got Tsuyoshi Kohsaka. Kohsaka was a middle-of-the-pack draw in RINGS. Kiyoshi Tamura & Akira Maeda were the aces, with Yoshihisa Yamamoto (of all people) just underneath. Kohsaka became a somebody in the States, then went back to Japan and promptly had a 30-minute draw with Tamura at Tokyo Bay NK Hall. After that fight, his big notch was Fedor and the stoppage. Fedor, of course, took care of business in the rematch.

Kaoru Uno still, to this day, is viewed by UFC as this major legend in Japan. There’s a difference between being a pioneer and being a legend. Uno was never a big draw in Japan but he was always treated with a lot more respect by foreign promoters than native ones on a major scale.

Yushin Okami is a no-namer back home. Nobody knows about him except when he occasionally hangs out with guys like Shinsuke Nakamura from New Japan Pro-Wrestling. He’s not considered a big star at all. He has the record to show the folks back home that he’s the real deal but since he didn’t become a star in Japan first, they don’t care. This point, ultimately, is what makes or breaks UFC Japanese fighters versus traditional Japanese draws.

Kid Yamamoto is by far the biggest Japanese draw UFC has ever booked and he’s been in a royal slump. He’s fighting to keep his career alive now. He also got damaged with the marijuana party story in Shukan Gendai, an outfit that we’ve seen be very friendly to the interests of K-1 in the past.

Yoshihiro Akiyama is the best shot they have of maintaining a high-level name as a star but they put him into a very difficult spot against Jake Shields. If Shields wins but does so in boring fashion, this will be a crowd-killer.

4. How will Japanese promoters react in the aftermath of the first show?

When I said the over/under number for the first UFC Japan show would be 10,000, I used that as a benchmark because that’s a good determination as to what the mindset will be of the locals in regards to whether or not they start panicking.

If UFC pulls in over 12,000, I guarantee you the panic will be starting. If Dentsu even papers the crowd and gets 15,000, the pressure cooker will be boiling. If the show draws in the 8,000-9,000 range as Shu Hirata says it has so far… the locals will be laughing.

You can spin 9,000 as a Ryogoku Kokugikan-level number & as a half-house at Budokan or Yokohama Arena. Remember, Japan is more about image than it is about substance when it comes to making impressions in the fight game.

You might look at the difference of a few thousand people and go, “What’s the big deal?” Again, politics is everything over there. Nikkan Sports is backing the show, so that media outlet will be secure. Yahoo Japan will give UFC a fair shake as well. However, the rest of the major media outlets are the wild card. Dentsu has plenty of sway but there will be several major media outlets that will either ignore the UFC show or go out of their way to bury Dana White hard like they did when he was portrayed as the evil gaijin corporate raider after the PRIDE sale.

A nice, big number here at UFC Japan shuts a lot of people up. A solid number changes nothing. A low number gives a chance for schadenfreude and spin.

5. With no more television support, is MMA sustainable on a large scale in the country?

It’s not. This is why Dentsu backing UFC is so critical. A multi-year deal to promote shows in the country means nothing unless Dentsu, which has plenty of juice, can convince sponsors to back them to get the events on TV. If an outlet like TV Tokyo, which historically has plenty of pay-to-play examples for buying programming time, is taking a pass on the UFC… that spells trouble. WOWOW doesn’t cut it. You need a major broadcast TV network backing you or else you are going nowhere on a big scale in Japan.

What makes the situation much more difficult for UFC long term in Japan is that there are no new major players entering the local Japanese fight scene. All the cockroaches that damaged the scene are still around, making promises left and right that they’ll make a comeback. The scene dramatically needs fresh blood in order to flush out the bad guys and right now that’s not happening. Until the current cast of characters is eliminated, the TV networks will have plenty of incentive to not give an MMA promotion a major television deal because of political & police pressure to not ‘reward’ the major gangs who often are heavily involved in the sport.

Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 45 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Dana White: The only thing consistent about the NSAC is that they’re inconsistent

By Zach Arnold | February 17, 2012

This is a rather interesting interview. For the first four minutes, Dana talks about the state of the Welterweight division and where things stand. He then gets a shot in at Aaron Simpson for having a fight that is a ‘blur’ and in Danaworld that’s a quick way to get the axe or put in the doghouse. “Don’t ever be the blur, man.” He then rips Dave Herman for wearing a pink scarf and coming out to “Macho Man.”

The UFC Japan is briefly mentioned. Dana vehemently denied that anything PRIDE-style would be done and that it would be the standard UFC production format, which he says is one of the best live sporting experiences a fan can enjoy.

“No, we’re not doing anything PRIDE.”

However, the portion of this interview that has everyone’s attention is what Dana had to say about Nick Diaz and his upcoming suspension from the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

ARIEL HELWANI: “What is the latest on [Nick Diaz] and when do you think we’ll find out how long he’ll be suspended by the commission?”

DANA WHITE: “Who knows? I mean, who knows? Let me put it to you this way… they’re very consistent at being inconsistent. So… Floyd Mayweather is allowed to, you know… first of all, not only by the Nevada State Athletic Commission but by the judge is allowed to not go to jail until his fight is over. Right? Chael Sonnen, who had paid all his dues and everything was behind him, was not allowed to coach The Ultimate Fighter. Recently, a boxer tested positive for marijuana. He’s suspended for a year and they take 40% of his purse. Floyd Mayweather walks into the Nevada State Athletic Commission and they literally kiss his ass.”

ARIEL HELWANI: “Double standard?”

DANA WHITE: “Double standard, bias, whatever you want to call it… there’s one thing that’s consistent there and consistent as hell, it’s one of the most insane things that I’ve ever seen in my life. You know, and the response would be, ‘this guy brings a lot of the money to the city of Las Vegas.” So do we! So do we.”

ARIEL HELWANI: “And considering the fact that he has that prescription to smoke medical marijuana in California, do you think he has a case here?”

DANA WHITE: “Who knows, I mean… as far as I know, marijuana is illegal, right? But here’s what I do know… the Nevada State Athletic Commission does not allow you to smoke marijuana. You cannot have traces of marijuana in your system. It’s pretty simple. There’s a list of drugs you can and you can’t do and marijuana is one of the can’t dos, you know what I mean? Whether you got a medical card or a doctor shows up and says, ‘yeah, I allow him to smoke weed.’ ‘I don’t care, we don’t.’ Heh. The Nevada State Athletic Commission does not allow you to smoke weed.”

ARIEL HELWANI: “Did Nick or his manager, Cesar Gracie, when was the last time he did smoke prior to the fight?”

DANA WHITE: “No. I mean, going into this fight, I had a talk with Nick, we sat down, I told him and you’ve guys have heard this a million times. I’m like, ‘Nick, listen, play the game this much. It’s all I need you to do.’ And playing the game that much means don’t smoke marijuana any time around any of your fights. Don’t do anything illegal, you know, show up to some press conferences. I mean, I’ve been very lenient with Nick Diaz, you know, we’ve invested a lot of money in him. He came off looking incredible after that series. People who didn’t like him then liked him, you know, it’s just one of those things. It’s very frustrating.”

ARIEL HELWANI: “Do you think we will ever see him back? Because, at the end of that fight, he did retire…”

DANA WHITE: “Yeah, I doubt he retired. I mean, we’ll see what happens. Nobody’s called me and said he wants to retire. This is what he does. He’s a fighter. Whether he likes it or doesn’t like it, you know, the whole love & hate thing… Nick Diaz was born to fight. This is what he does. This is how he makes a living. He’s an incredible athlete. He does triathlons and all these other things but nobody’s making big money, you know, run, bike, swim.”

**

The Nevada commission will have a hearing on Wednesday at 9 AM PST to discuss young Nick’s suspension.

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 33 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Image matters: UFC business & media politics

By Zach Arnold | February 14, 2012

Here’s the fight card for UFC on Fuel tomorrow night. If you’re looking for last-minute updates on odds for the card, check out Nick Kalikas and Luca Fury.

Our friend MMA Supremacy notes that last week, non-UFC programming on Fuel TV averaged around 7,000 viewers. Not 700,000 viewers, not 70,000 viewers… 7,000. So, what’s the over/under for how many viewers UFC in Omaha draws on Wednesday night for Fuel?

Kevin Iole said that numbers for UFC 143 (Condit/Diaz) were lousy. 6,727 paid, 2,288 comps, 751 tickets unsold for a gate of $2.4M USD. He claims casino bought the majority of event tickets. If you had said to me four months ago that UFC Japan would have blown the doors off of a Nick Diaz UFC main event, I would have never believed you. So much for that.

Speaking of UFC Japan, Issei Tamura of Krazy Bee will take on Tiequan Zhang. MMA Planet in Japaense has a fascinating item on why Tamura got picked over Keinosuke “Tattoo Man” Yoshinaga, the young man who made his name in Akira Maeda’s Outsider promotion. MMA Planet says that Zuffa passed over Yoshinaga because of the amount of tattoos he has on his body and how it would be a bad thing for the company’s image in attracting sponsorships to have Yoshinaga in the UFC cage.

Yes, tattoos happens to be ‘code’ in terms of image purposes in Japan for youknowwhat.

It reminds me of an old incident about a decade ago when NOAH wrestlers came to the States and had their matches taped for Nippon TV. One of the American referees working a match with the NOAH guys had to put a white cover/sleeve over his tattoo on his arm because of the image that the tattoo meant to the network suits. So, Yoshinaga getting passed up because of his tattoos is nothing new in terms of Japanese protocol.

Blow up of the week

Dana White went on Twitter in defense of why the Nick Diaz/marijuana test story wasn’t reported ‘officially’ until Keith Kizer made the declaration. Unwittingly, Dana made a remark that would piss me off if I was Ariel Helwani:

“helwani broke Diaz story but didn’t release it cause he was respectful to Diaz and comm.”

How does one ‘break’ a story by sitting on it? Remember – Ariel works for Fuel TV now, so he’s part of the Fox family of networks that has a business relationship with the UFC. Dana was trying to stick up for Ariel but he did so in a way that made Ariel look like was both ‘first’ and yet not willing to pull the trigger.

Naturally, the heat started coming towards Ariel on Twitter and he brought the hammer in response:

The reason I didn’t report it when I had the info was because Keith Kizer wouldn’t confirm the news with me and I didn’t feel comfortable reporting news of such magnitude without his confirmation. I like to have at least two sources confirm a story before reporting, and when it has to do with a drug test failure, it would be a big risk to report something without the commission’s confirmation. I’m not looking to bat .500 here. I try to get everything right every time out. Got any other journalism tips for me while we’re at it?

It was interesting to see the backlash against Front Row Brian for leaking the Diaz story and how, for a 24 hour time period, the other MMA writers that knew about it were cryptically quiet.

Of course, the fallout from this led into Tomas Rios to discuss why other writers didn’t leak the story (legal liability, sources not going on record). His points are all valid except for the fact that Dana was praising a writer for sitting on a story as being ‘responsible,’ especially when a few days later ESPN started airing UFC Undisputed 3 video game spots telling fans that if they buy the video game now that they can get the Contenders pack featuring Nick Diaz. Plus, given Ariel’s relationship with Fuel, Dana’s remark put Ariel in an unnecessarily tough spot here.

Speaking of Twitter trouble, there have been several MMA writers/reporters/pundits who have been blocked by the UFC Twitter account over the last couple of weeks. Well, at least they are consistent with the way they handle media relations, I suppose…

War declaration of the week

Dentsu is backing UFC for what is believed to be several years worth of sold/backed shows in Japan. Right around the time Bushiroad bought New Japan from Yukes, the new owner said that WWE & UFC are his rivals. Well, UFC teaming up with Dentsu is heavy artillery. WWE can also cause seasonal damage for New Japan. A perfect example of this is coming up on 8/9 & 8/10 when WWE will run Smackdown shows in Tokyo at Ryogoku Kokugikan, which is home turf for New Japan. The timing of the move also is bad news for New Japan, given that it’s right around the time they run their biggest series of the year in the G-1 tournament. It’s hard to imagine a generation ago that New Japan would be having to deal with these kinds of roadblocks but now they are.

Article of the week

No Disciplinary Sanction Warranted For Nick Diaz Under A Principled Interpretation Of NAC 467.850

Jonathan Tweedale, head honcho of the Vancouver athletic commission & a man who has clashed with me over the issue of drug usage in combat sports, has this rather fruitful defense in favor of Nick Diaz in regards to whether or not he should be suspended in Nevada for marijuana usage.

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 18 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Report: Satoshi Ishii books fight against Sokoudjou

By Zach Arnold | February 11, 2012

That’s the magic word, according to Nikkan Sports, which pegs the fight happening on March 31st for AFC (Amazon Forest Combat) in Manaus. The newspaper claims that Ishii wants to fight three or four times this year.

This news certainly conflicts with the Cyzo report that claimed that Ishii suffered a brain edema against Fedor on NYE and was facing a crisis in his MMA career. The irony here is that right after the Fedor debacle, there had been talk of fighting on the 3/31 date. Then the Cyzo report came out and nobody knew what was going on.

You’ll have better odds trying to pick the right winners in upcoming UFC fights than in trying to figure out what the hell is going on in Ishii’s career.

Here’s the latest edition of MMA Oddsbreakers with our friend Nick Kalikas of BetonFighting. He’s joined by Damon Martin of MMA Weekly and Frank Trigg to discuss these upcoming fights:

Plus, plenty of discussion about recent UFC fights on Oddsbreakers. Check it out.

Here’s Georges St. Pierre talking with Showdown Joe of Rogers Sportsnet about rehabbing his repaired ACL and the timetable for his comeback

Comment of the Day — On Nick Diaz

From Josh Campbell. A ‘what if…’ scenario:

What if Nick Diaz would have won the interim welterweight championship fight at UFC 143 and then tested positive? Right now the discussion of Nick and his inability to refrain from marijuana use is limited to fans of MMA, bloggers and writers. But where would things be if Nick had won? Nick would have been the first (interim) champion, post “The Ultimate Fighter Season 1” to test positive for prohibited substances. The situation also would be coming to a head after the UFC on FOX deal and the second big primetime show on FOX. I don’t want to delve into the morality of usage by athletes, or whether marijuana actually has performance enhancing effects. Many people have differing perspectives on this. The only thing I can say is that it is prohibited from showing up in an athlete’s urine in a pre-fight, post-fight, or random screening.

I can only imagine the press this would have received. Somehow TMZ only seems to cover the bad things or Dana White at a Snoop Dogg concert. I remember their coverage of Rampage, Tito, and a few other “scandalous” situations. I know this situation would not get a pass, as it fits right into their sensationalist style of journalism. How would ESPN address it? Given recent friction between the promotion and the network over the fighter pay piece on Outside The Lines, I would expect that it might get a little more airtime with a negative slant. Maybe Deadspin would have a headline along the vein of “UFC Champ Wins Belt at UFC 143 and loses it at 420”. Who knows how many syndicated sources would have picked up articles written by individuals with an ax to grind against the UFC or MMA in general. Educated people writing about something they are uneducated about can be a dangerous voice to the public. The same public that we all know only has a cursory knowledge of this sport. A sport striving for acceptance, and one many pundits and people in the general public still consider too brutal for mass consumption.

So, from the standpoint of bad press and a public relations fiasco, it probably would have been a nightmare situation. But from a sporting perspective, could it have had a positive result? Many times Dana White has stated that the athletic commissions are responsible for testing and enforcement and he defers that responsibility to them. Given the recent small and reactionary shift in policy to start testing newly signed fighters, would this occurrence have spurred Zuffa Inc. to start a comprehensive testing program that lives up to WADA standards? Would this have been the watershed moment that leveled the playing field for fighters that cannot afford pharmacological advisors as part of their training camp? Unfortunately we will not know the answer to this. However, given the rumored usage in the dark corners of MMA gyms that we have heard rumblings about, it is likely that the moment that many fans fear will happen is yet to come. It’s up to Zuffa how they will respond to that. They have dodged a second bullet here, after the near miss of Chael Sonnen losing to Anderson Silva. Will they bury their head in the sand and point their finger at the athletic commission, or will they step up and fund a comprehensive testing plan? Time and circumstance will tell.

If he got busted for weed while fighting in Japan for DREAM, he would have likely gotten three years probation at a minimum from authorities. Shame still means something in Japan.

In the States? Marijuana usage is practically built-in as a love/hate component for fans in regards to Nick. His fans love him because he’s the same guy whether he makes $50,000 a fight or $500,000 a fight. With that said, I wrote online a couple of days ago that a reliable insider indicated to me that UFC was strongly considering all options on the table about implementing/upgrading a drug testing program because they are losing the PR battle over PED/recreational drug usage by fighters getting popped on the Nevada IQ tests…

I suspect many more MMA fighters would fail drug tests if they had to take random, unannounced drug tests like tennis players such as Rafael Nadal have to.

Topics: Brazil, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 21 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

As the UFC turns: Nick Diaz, Eddie Alvarez, Shogun, & weed vs. TRT

By Zach Arnold | February 10, 2012

Nick Diaz

This bomb went off on Twitter earlier tonight:

@DiazBrothers209 “(Carlos) Condit accepts rematch after he was notified by @danawhite @ufc about (marijuana) test result. Never intended to rematch.”

In other words, the Diaz camps says that Condit & Malki Kawa were fronting about a rematch in order to make Nick Diaz look bad…

Side note: ESPN aired a new ad spot for the upcoming UFC Undisputed 3 video game. The pitch if you buy now?

“Receive the contender’s pack featuring Nick Diaz”

Eddie Alvarez

John Joe Regan of Fighter’s Only dropped this item about Eddie’s aspirations to head to the UFC. He’s supposed to fight Shinya Aoki and I thought we would end up seeing a rematch between Eddie and Michael Chandler… I guess it’s not meant to be?

The bigger, and more appropriate, debate tonight that broke out on Twitter in response to this story is whether or not Spike TV will pull the plug on Bellator’s tournament format, the champion’s clause, or how they will modify & codify the booking to make sure that fighters don’t revolt to UFC en masse.

It was not a good political idea to want to put Eddie Alvarez into a tournament after he lost his title to Mr. Chandler…

Shogun bluntly speaks on UFC’s policy about agents

For better or for worse, Mauricio Shogun spoke out about why he left his manager (the well-respected Eduardo Alonso) and why the top Brazilian fighters in UFC are dumping their current agents/managers. Suffice to say, UFC probably wishes he hadn’t opened his mouth because what he said to Sherdog dovetails perfectly into the narrative that ESPN’s Outside the Lines program was pushing about the supposed climate of fear UFC pushes.

Eduardo is a very competent guy, but he doesn’t like this way of operating; he prefers one person taking care of everything. Not commanding everything, but overseeing everything. I don’t agree, [I prefer] each guy in his area. I like him, I know he likes me, but there was some conflict of ideas.

There are some different people helping me with this part right now; I’m still thinking. The UFC has made it clear that we don’t need a manager; all negotiations are conducted by the athletes themselves. A manager today is not like in the PRIDE days. At that time, they had much more weight. I am in favor of a manager, that’s not the reason that I separated from Eduardo. I want to work with people nearby: Eduardo works in Sao Paulo and I’m in Curitiba. But, this is not the only reason. There are others, like I said.

The UFC’s stance about guys not needing agents is not anything new if you’ve followed what Dana White has said online for a while now. What is new is that you have several top Brazilian fighters all of a sudden abandoning their managers/agents after UFC picks up major steam in Brazil w/ the help of uber-rich Eike Batista. Amazing how fast attitudes are changing now that UFC has found their dream money man in a dream money market to attract major-league talent & run big shows at.

Everyone has a right to proper & good representation. Unfortunately, often times we see horrible representation for fighters and promoters can easily take advantage of said reps or dismiss the fighter(s) altogether. But let’s call a spade a spade here — if Shogun and other top Brazilian fighters believe that they don’t need a quality representative or agent/manager, then that’s just plain stupid. It’s also incredibly dangerous and eliminates any kind of leverage a fighter has in negotiations.

(Addendum: As noted in the comments, I should have better stated that, yes, Shogun says he has new management and isn’t going at it alone here. However, if he’s stating out in the open that UFC is telling the Brazilian fighters they don’t need representation, my opinion is that there’s going to be several fighters that take this recommendation to heart.)

People act like good agents or managers grow on trees. That’s entirely false. Good, quality representatives generally have a solid legal background or a business background with strong legal connections in order to protect the interests of their best clients. There’s not a lot of strong agents currently in the MMA field. Remember how there this grand hope that once UFC ‘exploded’ and made it big on Fox that we would see ‘real sports’ representatives start backing top fighters? Hasn’t happened, has it?

Instead of seeing an evolution of quality representation in the MMA game, we’re seeing a devolution happening right in front of our eyes. It’s quite remarkable to see just how many fighters are getting easily played. Instead of aligning with agencies like William Morris, CAA/Tom Condon, or Scott Boras, you have fighters buying the spin that they don’t need an agent or can get by fine with a relative.

Let’s take a real world comparison of a top athlete that doesn’t have an agent backing them: Ray Allen. First off, Ray Allen is an incredibly smart man. He has money. He also has the backing of the NBA union, a union that can give him legal & contract advice at any time. Yes, he can negotiate his own deals, but he’s also got a bedrock of support in case he needs it. Ray also knows what the salaries of the other players in the league are. In other words, he can always go into negotiations from a point of leverage.

Very few MMA fighters, at this point, can go into negotiations with Zuffa from a high point of leverage without quality representation. There is no union or fighter’s association. Because UFC doesn’t disclose the full picture of what they exactly pay fighters, most fighters have no idea what other top-level performers are getting paid. Going in unarmed against Zuffa is fool’s gold. However, apparently many more fighters lately (especially the Brazilians) think they can match business wits with Lorenzo Fertitta. Not going to happen.

Time for the fighters to reconsider what they are doing.

Continue reading this article here…

Topics: Bellator, Brazil, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 19 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Make the case to me why fighters shouldn’t be suspended for weed usage

By Zach Arnold | February 9, 2012

Best arguments in the comments section will be copied into this post. Renato Laranja was not available for comment, but we know his prior comments to Joe Rogan last year:

“You smoke so much weed, you have glaucoma. … They make you act like a psycho. How are you going to argue with that?”

“You want Nick Diaz and all those guys who smoke reefer and you want those guys in the UFC. You’re afraid to have a clean athlete.”

The debate about whether or not marijuana should be considered a PED is not new. In fact, it was asked when Nick Diaz got suspended in Nevada after fighting Takanori Gomi. The question’s just being asked anew after Nick got busted for weed again.

Unlike Nick’s suspension last time, this one is getting a hell of a lot more attention.

The most amazing thing about these drug test failures lately (Nick, King Mo) is that it’s Barney Fife Kizer who’s catching guys. Not California, not the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association… Keith Kizer.

Luke Thomas:

Absolutely not. It’s only tested because it’s insanely labeled a Scheduled I drug. No known P.E. effects. More importantly, urinalysis only tells you THAT someone used, not WHEN. Testing for THC doesn’t keep fighters safe or healthy. It’s insanity.

E. Casey Leydon:

For (an) actual fight, yes. You can’t fight ‘high’. During training, you should have every right to light up. Same rules as alcohol.

Josh Campbell:

If they could test & ensure it wasn’t smoked/ingested within a safe amount of time prior to a fight & the fighter declared use, I say OK.

MMA Supremacy:

Just to clarify, what Dana & Lorenzo are saying internally are NOT the words ‘beyond disappointed.’ A little more vulgar and angry.

The one winner in this story — the man who said it was coming yesterday, Brian Vincent Kennedy McMahon.

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 127 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

UFC message: Please forget the outcome of Condit/Diaz I

By Zach Arnold | February 8, 2012

You generally book rematches in the fight game based on one of two reasons: a) the first bout was so good or so close that there’s a clamor by the fans to see it again or b) you didn’t get the outcome you wanted as the promoter the first time around. I call reason b) the “Kiyoshi Tamura/Valentijn Overeem” scenario, based on a famous RINGS fight where Tamura, who had been pushed hard as the company’s ace, got destroyed in a shoot out of nowhere and the promotion went right into damage control.

With the news breaking tonight that we’re going to get Carlos Condit vs. Nick Diaz in a re-match, I think it’s fair to say that you can squarely classify this rematch as a scenario where the promotion didn’t get what they wanted for the initial outcome.

With Georges St. Pierre on the sidelines for a long time to come due to a torn ACL, the Welterweight picture is muddled as far as what to do for bookings on the calendar. If Nick Diaz had won, he would have sat out and waited for St. Pierre. With Carlos Condit winning, it seemed that there was plenty of pressure for him to fight again. Who would it be, though? Jake Ellenberger? Josh Koscheck? Neither scenario seemed to be all that enthusiastically pursued, as Condit’s agent Malki Kawa expressed disinterest in a Condit/Ellenberger fight during an interview with Mauro Ranallo on The MMA Show. So, we end up with Zuffa pushing the reset button.

Hey, maybe they’ll get the outcome they wanted the first time round. Nick Diaz, The Corporately-backed Bad Boy from the 209.

If UFC is booking this rematch because they are hopeful that Nick Diaz will win the rematch, I guess I can understand that logic (even if I don’t agree with it). However, if they are booking this rematch based on the loud criticism of the minority of Nick Diaz boosters & fighters online complaining about the outcome of the UFC 143 fight, that would be an impulsively reactive decision by Zuffa management to listen to the online bubble of MMA fans. The world map that UFC put on their web site claiming global sentiment for the outcome of Diaz/Condit was 47%/47% is just bizarre.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand why Carlos Condit wouldn’t mind a rematch with Nick Diaz — because he thinks he can beat him again. I understand why Nick Diaz wants a rematch. What I don’t see is how the rematch is going to produce a dramatically different outcome unless Condit gives up the Greg Jackson counter-strategy that we saw at UFC 143 and decides to go for broke in order for Nick to have a better chance to knock him out.

So, if you hated the outcome of the first fight and the way the judges scored it, what makes you inclined to believe that you want to see the rematch if the fans were bored with the way the fight played out the first time?

I thought Carlos Condit won the fight and that he would stay on the sidelines waiting for St. Pierre to recover. He fought a smart fight. If you look at UFC as a real sport, then Carlos Condit used a real sports strategy to win. It was as ugly as the New Jersey Devils’ infamous neutral zone trap… but it was effective. However, it is clear that the criticism from fighters and fans about the way Condit fought at UFC 143 has annoyed his camp. Just look at the comments Greg Jackson made during an interview yesterday with USA Today:

“There’s still a large contingent of people, that they just want to see these guys almost die, or the other guy almost die and come back, and sometimes fights are like that,” says Greg Jackson, one of the best-known trainers of athletes in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. “But sometimes you get technical masterpieces too, and to hate a beautiful, technical fight — you’re not really a fight fan. You’re just there to watch the car wrecks, you know what I mean?”

That’s not the kind of thing you say if you think the masses are happy with the way the fight played out at UFC 143. I suppose the UFC hype machine will make you want to see Diaz/Condit II but it’s not like the company will be able to change the impression many had after watching the outcome of the first fight. Maybe Nick Diaz’s biggest female booster, Ronda Rousey, will fill in for him on the impending Countdown show and be his spokeswoman on why Nick was yet again victimized by The Man.

Speaking of Ronda, here’s Miesha Tate saying the woman is delusional.

“I don’t really listen to much of anything Ronda says. I don’t watch her interviews. I get a little bit of that drift that comes through Twitter, you know, quoting people, ‘oh, she said this, she said that.’ And half the time I really honestly think it just makes her sound like an idiot. I mean, that’s just being brutally honest. I think she’s pretty delusional. I’ve yet to see Ronda actually fight. I’ve seen her go out and do her judo and whatnot but she hasn’t ever brought a fight and that’s what I”m going to do. I’m going to make this a fight and anything that she says is used as motivation, definitely.”

You’ll be happy to know that, on a 1-5 scale, this is how Bas Rutten sees the two ladies measuring up for their March bout:

Miesha Tate: Striking (4), Wrestling (5), Grappling (4), Speed (4), Strength (4), Endurance (5)

Ronda Rousey: Striking (3), Wrestling (4), Grappling (5), Speed (5), Strength (4), Endurance (4)

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 120 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

MMA Link Club: What to do about UFC’s empty seats problem in Las Vegas?

By Zach Arnold | February 6, 2012

There are quite a few takeaways from this past weekend’s UFC event in Las Vegas… and they’ve already been debated ad nauseam online. One topic that hasn’t been discussed much is the fact that the Las Vegas shows are becoming more and more deserted on television for UFC undercard fights.

We know the prelim fights are a great source of content for UFC programming on the Fox family of networks. However, the whole point of having a prelim show is to sell PPVs. It doesn’t look very good if most of the seats that are on camera are empty and there isn’t an energetic crowd to cheer fighters. Yes, it’s every fighter’s dream in the States to fight for Zuffa but that doesn’t mean that it feels great to have maybe a couple of thousand people at most watching you in a huge arena.

Las Vegas crowds are notorious for not showing up to see all the fights. The same is often said for Los Angeles sports crowds showing up ‘fashionably late.’ However, the problem of having empty seats for a lot of fights is a trend that is recently growing for Zuffa. Look at the San Jose show last November. If the purpose of UFC being on Fox is to reach a new audience of sports fans, guess what — a lot of those fans will look at the fights with nobody watching and, if they are on the fence about ordering a show, probably will take a pass. If you’re a baseball fan, you’re more likely to stick with a game if there are 40,000 people in the stadium as opposed to a quarter-filled Dodger Stadium game. If you watch college football bowl games, you’re more likely to stick with a B-level bowl game if there’s at least 2/3rds of a crowd as opposed to the ridiculous amount of games that have maybe 30% capacity. It’s a visual turnoff. I don’t think having all the empty seats on camera serves Zuffa well.

Today, there’s news that UFC is going to have two shows within 45 days of each other in Las Vegas (late May and early July). Vegas is proving to be a very soft market now for the company. So, the question I posted online last night was this: how can they fix the problem of all the empty seats for the undercard fights? Excluding Fox using some sort of CGI magic to fool your eyes on screen and put imaginary people in seats, I don’t know if there is a solid answer.

Someone proposed to me the idea of treating the undercard and main cards like a baseball doubleheader. You have undercard tickets, main card tickets, and then a standard full-event ticket. The idea would be that you sell full event tickets and on the day of the show whatever seats you have unsold, you can sell undercard tickets at a discount. Once the undercard fights are done, those fans go out and you can open the seating back up for the rest of the ticketholders. It’s not a likely or workable solution but I can understand where the person is coming from.

Someone else suggested that fans who pay for cheaper tickets get moved down to the floor for the undercard fights in order to create a better appearance on camera. That, to me, doesn’t sound workable because high rollers will be coming in right before the main card starts wondering why the hell someone is in their floor seat.

All I know is that the more Vegas shows UFC runs, the more empty seats they’re going to have to contend with. It doesn’t make UFC or the casinos paying the site fees look great from an image perspective.

I am completely amazed at how much acrimony there is on both sides of the coin for the outcome of the Nick Diaz/Carlos Condit fight. I’m sure UFC is not thrilled with Condit winning and they’re even less-thrilled that he did it using a point-fighting strategy. Instead of people wanting to see Condit vs. GSP and being enthusiastic about that fight, I sure don’t feel much excitement for that fight coming at the end of this year, do you?

I do agree with a few writers who pointed out on Twitter that there is an odd, quirky behavioral pattern for MMA fans who want everyone to look at UFC as a sport but yet feel the need to punish a fighter for performing like an athlete would with a smart game plan as opposed to just ‘putting on a good show.’

Question: How much did Carlos Condit decrease the amount of interest for his upcoming fight against GSP in your mind? (1-10 scale, plus give me your reasoning.)

The last takeaway from UFC 143 is that Josh Koscheck has split from American Kickboxing Academy.

(You can click on the links down below to find out more on why he left the team.)

The way UFC has booked the Welterweight division, it is a mess. Johny Hendricks blasted Jon Fitch into oblivion. Josh Koscheck didn’t look great against Mike Pierce. In fact, so much so that Dana proclaimed that Pierce won the fight. You have Jake Ellenberg vs. Diego Sanchez coming up in a week and, should Ellenberger win that fight, he is the next man up to face Carlos Condit or the Condit/GSP winner.

Who does Josh Koscheck face next? Jon Fitch? Nick Diaz?

Member sites of the MMA Link Club

This week’s MMA Link Club featured stories

Five Ounces of Pain: Ronda Rousey trashes Carlos Condit’s fight performance against Nick Diaz

She does love her some Nick Diaz and MMA’s bad boys.

MMA Fighting: No robbery here — Carlos Condit earned decision win over Nick Diaz

Judging by Nick Diaz’s reaction to his unanimous decision loss to Carlos Condit at UFC 143, you’d have thought he’d just been robbed on live TV. You’d have thought he’d returned home to find that judge Cecil Peoples had made off with all his most prized possessions, from his road bike to his Tupac CDs. You definitely wouldn’t have thought that he’d merely lost a close decision in a close fight, though that’s exactly what happened.

Cesar Gracie says judging was a ‘perfect storm of incompetence’

“I don’t think the judges like Nick,” he said. “He comes off, he talks in the ring… Carlos was running at one point, and Nick slapped him in the face said, ‘Quit running.’ We were there for a dogfight. Carlos said he’d provide for the fans a dogfight, a great fight where they were going to go at it. That was not a dogfight. It takes two to make a dogfight. One guy running away is not a dogfight.

Fightline: Josh Koscheck still being cryptic about why he dislikes Javier Mendez and left AKA

Cage Potato: Josh Koscheck says that Javier Mendez throws fighters under the bus who lose

MMA Mania: GSP is a -350 favorite to beat Carlos Condit

And I’ve got the odds of this fight going to a decision as a PICK ‘EM and the over/under for PPV buys at 600,000 because of the sour taste in the mouths of a lot of fans after UFC 143.

I don’t blame Greg Jackson & Carlos Condit for their game plan, either, but it’s about as friendly as watching the old school New Jersey Devils trap-scheme from the 90s.

5th Round: Cyborg divorces her husband

Bleacher Report: Was Carlos Condit’s run from Nick Diaz bad for the sport?

Make no mistake—Condit’s performance was masterful. Diaz is a fighting machine, an angry man who pursues you to the bitter end. At that end, he was still coming after Condit like it was the first round. Carlos matched Diaz’s cardio and passion with his own. It was amazing to behold. But it’s hard to call what Condit did “fighting.”

Middle Easy: 27 times a champion — Renato Laranja’s greatest hits

He don’t want no heefer. Only the devil does!

Low Kick: Fedor defeats his younger brother to capture Sambo championship

The Fight Nerd: War Machine heads back to the slammer

MMA Convert: Carlos Condit stands no shot of beating Georges St. Pierre and Nick Diaz is still the better fighter

MMA Payout: Rampage Jackson enters the phone app market

So, that’s what he’s up to… because ever since that loss to Jon Jones, it’s as if UFC has decided that he’s in a witness relocation program and can’t be promoted for his upcoming fight in two weeks.

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 82 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Alarm bells & panic meters are active for UFC Japan 2012

By Zach Arnold | February 3, 2012

Nine years ago, WWE ran a major event under the Total Sports Asia banner at Yokohama Arena. It was part of a two-day series at the 16,000-seat building which had hosted some pretty notable fight cards over the last generation in the Japanese wrestling & MMA world. WWE shocked the Japanese industry by drawing 13,000 for the opening show. The initial success of WWE at Yokohama Arena caused the major fight promotions (New Japan, All Japan, NOAH, PRIDE, K-1) to panic because a foreign entity was invading their home turf. Eventually, WWE came back to Japan for several shows. Each time they arrived, the attendance for said shows largely decreased. The promotion drew 4,800 at Nippon Budokan, one of the worst wrestling gates in memory. Last November, WWE drew 6,200 at Yokohama Arena. WWE’s declining attendance had little to do with what the strength of the major promoters was in Japan. The novelty wore off for the fans initially interested and rival promoters no longer paid much attention.

The strength of promotions like New Japan a decade ago as compared to today is night and day. New Japan was recently sold this week by Yukes to Bushiroad, a card game making company led by a showman of a president who is a huge old-school wrestling fan. He sponsored New Japan’s G-1 tournament last year and is a sponsor for WWE programming in Japan. When the new owner of New Japan addressed the media this week, he noted that WWE and UFC are his rivals in the fight game. K-1 was not mentioned. NOAH was not mentioned. It is important to note that New Japan’s recognition of UFC as a threat to them is how New Japan viewed WWE a decade ago.

What makes the UFC Japan 2012 odyssey so different is that there is no exceptionally strong player left in the Japanese fight game. The ownership that just bought New Japan has deep pockets and, I suppose, could cause trouble in the future for Zuffa. However, there is no Kazuyoshi Ishii. There is no PRIDE to contend with. There is no major Japanese player with heavy juice to compete. The only enemy UFC has in Japan are the gangs (yakuza) and they are taking a hit from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. Outside of TV networks, the major source of cash in the Japanese fight game is the gangs. After what happened with the collapse of PRIDE, TV networks do not want their fingerprints involved in a serious financial manner with promoters.

MMA Junkie, citing a source on background, claims that over 15,000 tickets have been sold for UFC Japan 2012 at Saitama Super Arena. If true, that is a pure success — even if the show proves to be a one-off. The disadvantage UFC has for future Japanese shows is a complete and total lack of Japanese star talent. It is an achilles heel but it is not their fault. That’s the fault of the crooked promoters and backers who destroyed the MMA landscape in Japan through bad business practices. Not having a strong feeder system in Japan is a killer. During the PRIDE boom, their feeder system was largely professional wrestling. Once pro-wrestling got damaged, PRIDE started running out of native stars to build cards around. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Last November, I commented that the UFC Japan 2012 card was a Bushido-level card. I was not talking about fight quality but rather how many fans the card would attract on the merits. In only a couple of short months, a lot of our attitudes about how good the card is have changed given some of the dreadful cards that have been booked lately by UFC.

On top of that, that start time. That’s unbelievable. Will that be a reason if the show happens to bomb? Or will it be because “the Japanese fans need to get with the program?” Of all the countries Vince McMahon has conquered with WWE, Japan is one of the very few big markets he has failed to make it work in. In a couple of days, he’s got back-to-back shows at Yokohama Arena that will be extremely telling. Little to no advertising, no Japanese-tailored matchmaking, and not a lot of promotional work. Just like UFC will be doing, WWE uses Kyodo for their ticket sales along with Lawson.

A lot has happened in the last couple of months. K-1 has effectively died. The NYE show promoted by DREAM was not a success story. Satoshi Ishii’s career is likely over due to a cerebral edema. New Japan got sold by Yukes and in the process was revealed to be a money-losing proposition for the company. New Japan was practically sold in a fire-sale fashion. The anti-yakuza measures by Tokyo Metro PD have further exacerbated social tensions in the country. NOAH got exposed in a taboo book & Cyzo for having a Bernie Madoff/New York Mets-type ‘black money’ scandal.

A lot of bad news for the natives has turned out to be good news for Zuffa.

I am not upset at Dana White for having his vanity show and planting the UFC flag on Japanese soil. I’m amused by it. I’m even mildly impressed that he was able to get a sold show deal for it. No risk, all reward for him. A fun joy ride. I believe Shu Hirata when he said that Dentsu is involved in this as a sold show. Shu is as plugged in of an insider as you can get. He’s always been an honest broker.

(More on this at the end of the article.)

I am upset, however, at the people on the ground in Japan who created this environment. This should have never happened. Fighters who thought they had good-paying jobs are now on the sidelines. Fewer athletes from other sports want to take a plunge into the Japanese fight game because the money is vanishing. The crooks who made their money are standing on the sidelines, impotently trying to figure out what to do next. The circumstances surrounding the collapse of the Japanese fight game have been well-documented by yours truly on this site since Christmas of 2005. There was a reason why I was so passionate about the scandal that finished PRIDE off. I saw it coming before most others did. It was preventable. Of course, as you learn very quickly in this industry, everyone thinks they are invincible. PRIDE was making $50M USD/year at its peak with Fuji TV. They were drawing 15-to-20M viewers for non-NYE events. All it took to destroy PRIDE was a weekly magazine’s negative campaign about who was running the show.

One of the great mistakes that Japanese promotions, largely due to yakuza connections, make is how to export their product. New Japan, during their peak period in the early 90s, had a chance through Hiro Matsuda’s Ring Warriors project, to package TV Asahi-produced NJ shows into an English-language format for Eurosport. The powers-that-be in Japan in the end pulled the plug on what could have changed the course of Japanese wrestling history. It was that kind of short-sightedness that we saw on display with K-1 & PRIDE. The names may change but the behavior is always the same.

New Japan is the only major player left in Japan and they are watching the UFC Japan 2012 circus come to Saitama Super Arena. UFC will get all the accolades for the show being successful… but the real winner here is Dentsu.

(If you believe that they are the power broker here as the middleman like Shu says, which I do. It’s hard to see anyone else with any sort of power to pull off what’s happening here.)

Dentsu is the ad agency that handled the advertising campaigns for the big K-1 & PRIDE shows when they were having serious success on Fuji TV. Don Quijote, whose chairman is a huge fight fan and has been a sponsor for all promotions big & small in Japan, is the rumored buyer of the UFC Japan sold show. Dentsu is the middleman. Drawing 15,000+ without any legitimate television deal in the current economic climate that Japan is facing is an enormous accomplishment. I cannot stress to you how much of an undertaking this is. For all the pain & damage Don Quijote suffered for the miserable Sengoku promotion, they will likely get the last laugh here with the UFC Japan show.

To put this into context, let me quote back to the November article I wrote about the show:

I still am sticking with 10,000 as the over/under for attendance to this show, but I don’t know how much will be papered and how much will be paid.

To me, 10,000 was a generous estimate at the time given how I took historical evidence into calculation. 12,000 would have been classified as ‘good.’ 15,000? That’s Yokohama Arena-level. This fight card (for people like us) is a solid card. However, I cannot state vehemently enough that this is a card that is over-performing and exceeding rational expectations. It’s not a fight card that fits the traditional Japanese booking model. I still stand by my contention that UFC would have drawn a lot more eyeballs with a PRIDE-flavored theme card. They would have. Still, everyone involved in the UFC Japan 2012 project has to be popping champagne corks over the fact that a card headlined by Frankie Edgar vs. Ben Henderson could do legitimately way more business in Japan than it ever could in the States.

15,000… that’s a number that will scare New Japan. There’s a reason why new ownership of New Japan declared UFC as a main rival. Nine years ago, New Japan declared war on WWE. NJ didn’t actually do much to stop WWE but image-wise it looked good. Almost a decade later, I fully expect to see New Japan publicly declare war on UFC. New Japan’s new owner is a huge wrestling fan and talks like someone very smart about the fight business. He has a lot of cash. However, he is not Dentsu and a declaration of war against UFC will require a lot of things to fall into place in order to be successful. If you’re into insider baseball on the Japanese front… it will be interesting to see which media outlets go all-in for UFC and which ones treat them as foreigners invading their turf. We know Nikkan Sports is backing UFC hard but there are plenty of outlets (like Tokyo Sports) where there will be a legitimate political battle taking place.

It was entertaining to see the DREAM & UFC Japan Twitter accounts follow each other this week with an exchange of pleasantries for the upcoming show. DREAM is no longer a player that can stop UFC from running occasionally in Japan. The UFC’s biggest impediment into making major in-roads in Japan is the corruption & climate that has been created by the incompetent idiots that ran everything into the ground. I still am bearish about UFC getting a substantial network TV deal in Japan because the product doesn’t have much in common with the Japanese culture. At this point, however, I don’t think Zuffa cares one bit. If they can run cards in Japan every 18-24 months with no risk (i.e. yakuza stooges crashing the show), then everything is good.

As for the Japanese bastards that have destroyed what was once a proud industry, their names will be called out soon enough and for good reason.

A different viewpoint

Eddie Goldman has an incredibly fascinating interview with Tadashi Tanaka of Miruhon.net. Tadashi says that ticket sales for the UFC Japan show aren’t super and that it isn’t a sold show, which contradicts everything we’ve heard from Shu and other sources on the UFC side.

These different viewpoints on the UFC Japan show are so wildly different, someone is going to come off looking real bad here.

Tadashi talked a lot about the demise of PRIDE and said that one big reason for the organization’s troubles is oversaturation of TV product. He says that UFC is facing the same problem right now. “Too much is too much in killing the business.”

As for why DREAM has been a failure as a major player: “Lack of TV, lack of money, simple. TBS deal no more. How to survive without TV? Without TV, you can’t continue as a major company.”

He noted that if DREAM and Sengoku had an interpromotional series of matches that the Sengoku fighters would have won because they were higher quality. Tadashi says that the reason Sengoku died is because the No. 2 man in the company “made a bad deal behind the curtain.” The arrest of a former Don Quijiote executive was mentioned in relation.

As far as the future of K-1 (according to Tadashi):

“Don’t get me wrong, MMA never dies in Japan.”

The best quote of the interview was when Eddie asked Tadashi about who exactly UFC paid to buy the PRIDE assets. (Sakakibara? The dreaded Mr. I aka Ishizaka aka Kim Dok-Soo?)

“Who knows? Who knows? On the surface, on the paper, you can say anything you want.”

That about sums up the Japanese fight landscape in one quote.

Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 38 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Dr. Margaret Goodman’s challenge to the UFC on drug testing

By Zach Arnold | February 2, 2012

Memo from VADA-testing.org site

Calling on the UFC to Step Up Drug Testing

I first met Lorenzo Fertitta in 1996 when he became a commissioner with the Nevada State Athletic Commission. To date, there has never been a commissioner more knowledgeable and concerned about the health and welfare of the fighters, other than Dr. Flip Homansky, who succeeded Fertitta in 2000. After leaving the commission, Fertitta studied every aspect of MMA. Before purchasing the organization in 2001, Homansky and I traveled to a New Orleans UFC card with Fertitta and Dana White to help them explore needed improvements. They wanted a safe UFC as much as a successful UFC.

When the NSAC licensed MMA in 2001, I was a ring physician. I lectured before the Association of Boxing Commissions, along with the UFC, to help commissions understand the sport’s new safety measures. Although different than boxing, fighters in both sports are subject to serious injury—both chronic and acute.

In 2001, Homansky convinced the NSAC to test for anabolic steroids and masking agents. The Commission initially doubted the need. It soon became clear that all weight classes were turning to PEDs and usage was greater in MMA. Like boxing, the long term and short term risks to the MMA athletes are too great to allow cheating.

Fertitta has been quoted numerous times that MMA has a PED problem. White has stated he doesn’t want cheaters in their organization. It’s an admirable first step for the UFC to test prospective fighters before they are signed. I am in favor of testing in foreign jurisdictions that have no regulatory body overseeing UFC bouts, and I am thankful they support commissions that already test.

Sadly, these measures remain inadequate. The substance panels are antiquated to catch cheaters. Employing announced testing times, organization might as well send up a flare to inform athletes when to stop their drugs.

The UFC owners, brilliant and savvy businessmen, understand this. This awareness must come with fear—the fear that a real PED testing program, recommended by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), Drug Free Sport, the Voluntary Ant-Doping Association (VADA) and others, would eliminate a portion of their roster.

When Muhammad “King Mo” Lawal recently tested positive for anabolic steroids, MMA competitor Shawn McCorkle proposed to MMAFighting.com writer Mike Chiapetta that PED testing be stopped. McCorkle noted, “What you end up with is a situation of where the guys who are beating the test, where the guys who can afford to get a doctor to prescribe whatever they want, where the guys who have access to stuff, they have an unfair advantage already… I think we’d be pretty naïve to think that every person who’s ever taken anything was caught…”

I understand McCorkle’s perspective given current athletic commission and UFC testing procedures. If they are not serious in diminishing PED usage, stopping cheating, protecting the health of the competitors and maintaining public confidence that fights are fair, then yes, stop testing.

The UFC’s success makes full scale testing feasible. This means handing it over to an independent party who can provide a WADA-approved laboratory, certified doping collectors and comprehensive testing panels. Currently, MMA athletes are never tested for blood doping, HGH, short-acting testosterone (which most cheats use these days). The testing has to be unannounced—where the fighters are given no more than one hour of notice to undergo examination of blood and urine.

VADA educates MMA competitors and boxers about PEDs. It enables athletes to demonstrate their commitment to clean sport by volunteering for testing. Respected boxers, Andre Berto and Victor Ortiz are VADA fighters. Boxing promoters Lou DiBella, Richard Schaefer and Joe DeGuardia are not afraid to see their fighters participate in a rigorous drug testing program. Floyd Mayweather Jr. remains an advocate for clean sport.

The UFC professes that MMA can hold its own against any sport. If true, then why are boxers the only professional combat sports athletes in the world willing to undergo stringent PED exams? Yes, this isn’t free; it isn’t cheap, but it is the right thing.

Margaret Goodman MD
Voluntary Anti-Doping Association President
www.VADA-testing.org

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 18 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Video: When Vegas MMA media members attack

By Zach Arnold | February 1, 2012

In short — at Roy Nelson’s open workout in Las Vegas, you have Karyn Bryant’s man (she of motorboating/Rampage Jackson fame last year) getting into a snit with Aaron “Tru” Teweles.

Layzie the Savage of Middle Easy is on the case. Start watching at the 18 minute mark. In the words of one Robert Joyner:

Yves Edwards = ThugJitsu. Wade from @MMAHeat = MotorboatJitsu #NoCanDefend #blackbelt

MMA Heat guy: “I would take you any place, any time, anywhere with 1 hand tied behind my back. MY STRONG HAND.” How’d that 1 hand get so strong?

Famous last words: “Nah, Nah… I got this… I train full contact four times a week” – that @MMAheat dude

Which prompted this response:

Very embarrassing scene for the UFC. Smart thing would be to ban MMA Heat from Zuffa events. The cuckhold MMA heat guy is bad 4 the sport.

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 27 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

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