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Fox Sports: "Zach Arnold's Fight Opinion site is one of the best spots on the Web for thought-provoking MMA pieces."

Video: Anthony Johnson’s ‘Wanna get away?’ moment on the scale

By Zach Arnold | January 13, 2012

He used to fight at 170 pounds and was the bane of Dan Hardy’s existence. Trouble making Welterweight, Anthony Johnson was set to make the move to Middleweight on Saturday to face Vitor Belfort. When it came time for weigh-in… he was 12 pounds over the established weight for the fight. Medical reasons or not, one thing is for certain — Anthony’s future in MMA is at Light Heavyweight or Heavyweight. Middleweight doesn’t look to be sustainable for him.

He weighed in at 197 pounds for a Middleweight fight… and he was cutting to make Welterweight a year ago. How did his body survive that massive weight cut? The penalty for not making weight? 20% purse reduction.

If Rumble is over 205 pounds on Saturday, the fight will be canceled… live. In front of fans who told him and Chad Mendes that they will die on Saturday night. That’s a hospitable atmosphere…

Topics: Brazil, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 10 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

MMA Link Club: Fan logic – Cyborg = bad woman, Sonnen = good guy

By Zach Arnold | January 9, 2012

Josh Gross: Zuffa needs to step up and stomp out cheats

Many will ask: Should it be on Zuffa to do this when the sport it promotes is regulated by state governments, and when it is but one of many promoters?

I’d argue the answer is yes, and for the same reason UFC recently and rightly awarded Duane Ludwig the distinction of owning the 19-year-old organization’s fastest knockout, even though the Nevada Athletic Commission refused to correct an error that “officially” said it wasn’t. Zuffa is more important than any regulator, and has a vested interest in making sure the sport continues forward, which also means that among young fighters it’s considered the place to be. Why do they see it that way now? The spoils. Money, prestige and fame of it all.

Member sites of the MMA Link Club

This week’s MMA Link Club featured stories

Five Ounces of Pain: Dana White guarantees MMA will be sanctioned in New York this year

As long as Sheldon Silver is in power, no legislation will pass the state House.

And I have serious reservations about the lawsuit going forward.

MMA Fighting: Cyborg positive steroid test not surprising, but not all bad, either

White loves to brag that he never gave in to the siren’s song of freak show fights, even when his company was struggling. And while matching Santos up against one undersized opponent after another isn’t exactly a freak show, neither is it indicative of a genuine interest in women’s MMA. It’s a sideshow. It’s the scary lady with the muscles against whichever brave soul would take the fight. Now that that option has been eliminated, at least for the time being, White and his crew would be smart to move the spotlight further down the scale, where there’s an actual division taking shape.

So, everyone on Friday had a good laugh at Cyborg’s misfortune of failing an IQ test (aka a California drug test). There were the prerequisite ‘she has balls’ jokes and even Kevin Iole got into the swing of things by saying Cyborg failing a drug test is as unsurprising as Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao not happening.

I get it. People got bored with her and some fans are still upset that she knocked around Gina Carano, The Prettiest Girl In The Gym. Congratulations. But, once again, what does it say about MMA fans (who claim to be very serious about the integrity of drug testing and of the sport) that there is only selective outrage or glee when someone tests positive? So, Convict Chael Sonnen gets rewarded with a big push and a rinky dink TV segment on Fuel (the likes of which we haven’t seen since Andy Kaufman appeared on The Jerry Lawler Show on WMC-TV). He also then gets a continual pass from sycophantic supporters who merely say that he’s a good liar and, hey, this is a business first and sport second so the critics should therefore shut up. And, yet, when some outrageously outrageous clean cut person fails a drug test, time to unload the bombs and commence with the ball-cutting.

If you’re duplicitous about the drug testing issue in MMA, here’s some advice: keep quiet. I get the fact that this is the fight game and that trying to argue stringent drug testing protocols in MMA is a losing battle because fans don’t want to spend any sort of time thinking about serious issues outside of watching two people beat each other up. And if you are argue for better drug testing based on health & safety reasons, people roll their eyes when some pencil-pusher tries to make the case using standard boilerplate e-mail lawyer-approved lingo. The spin’s not going to work.

So, how do you make the case that fans should treat the drug testing issue with equal weight for each fighter? Easy. The same way those fans throw the issue back at your face in the first place. It’s two men or women punching each other or breaking bones with ruthless aggression. Many fighters struggle to control themselves from being consumed by destructive behavior. That’s why referees exist. It’s why fighters get licensed. So, if you agree that those elements need to exist in the first place, why do you slack on fighters getting tested for substances that can physically alter the impact of a fight and lead to serious head trauma or serious damage to the fighter’s own body?

I give the ‘let’s legalize all drugs’ crowd in MMA, as much of a minority as they are, some credit. Sure, it’s like a 20% segment of the fan base and they often come across as enthusiastic, energized, and loud as Ron Paul supporters. I respect that. At least they are willing to stand up to their convictions, say what they mean and mean what they say. I don’t agree with their take, but I respect it. At least there’s clarity to the conviction.

Fair-weather fight fans who laugh at Cyborg, give a pass to Sonnen, and ignore Royce Gracie testing positive? You’re as popular as Jim Rome’s new CBS Sports Network show is going to be. Welcome to the Jungle of irrelevancy.

This is why grown-ups like Dr. Margaret Goodman with the Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency should be commended for their efforts to clean up the fight game because there’s too many people who lack the sack to go on the attack against doping.

Memo to the fair-weather, duplicitous fans: When it comes to doping in MMA, you’re entitled to your opinion but don’t expect to have the God given right to turn around and ask why the media in other parts of the sports world don’t take your opinion seriously. Throwing a party and yucking it up when one fighter gets caught doping while you switch into your F. Lee Bailey mode when your favorite fighter gets caught cheating doesn’t make you a winner, it makes you a loser.

Fight Line: Dana White says women’s 145 pound division may be done, Scott Coker says not so fast

Oh, and by the way, if you’re still listening to Scott Coker and think that he has any sort of power over Dana White’s decision making, that makes you a professional loser as well.

Cage Potato: Is Cyborg’s demise good for women’s MMA?

It was with Carano’s departure from the sport that we saw one of the main problems facing women’s MMA, that of our need for a Xena-like champion who is as dominant as she is beautiful. Despite the fact that Cyborg displayed a supremacy unmatched by any female figure in the sport, not one website, magazine, or other publication mentioned her when discussing this whole “face of women’s MMA” nonsense. Even in a sport in which the competitors put their physical appearance on the line with every fight, we simply didn’t want to accept the fact that someone as…let’s say, homely, as Cyborg would be its representative.

What would be good for women’s MMA is if Dana White was serious about actually promoting it the way he promotes male fighters. He doesn’t have a legal responsibility to do so, but women’s MMA right now faces the chicken & egg dilemma. Dana can let the current crop of female fighters wither in the wind and if female fighters go extinct, he couldn’t care less. So, there’s that issue.

The other issue is that Gina Carano decided to take the ‘out’ and get out of the business once she reached a point of no return. That’s her choice and it’s a sound business decision… for her. For women’s MMA? The impact of her leaving women’s MMA on a mainstream level is on par with just how dependent Japanese promoters were on Satoshi Ishii becoming successful and becoming their native hero & savior to take the place of Hidehiko Yoshida for the Japanese MMA scene.

I have great respect and admiration for women’s MMA. However, I’m not the kind of person in the target audience that the sport needs to attract. They need casual MMA fans (the kind that jack up Twitter when Gina is dancing) and only one promoter is left in the business who can bring those fans… and that promoter is not a fan of women’s MMA.

MMA Mania: Card line-up for UFC on Fuel show from Omaha

5th Round: King Mo says Rampage Jackson is done like dinner

I think Mo’s probably annoyed at Zuffa for taking away his ring entrances. I hate UFC’s lack of creativity in this department.

Bleacher Report: Chad Mendes talks Jose Aldo, Urijah Faber, and Kenny Florian

However, with all that big fight experience combined with his up-close knowledge of Mendes, Faber believes his training partner will do well in the fight.

“I think Chad’s unstoppable wrestling is going to really translate in the fight,” Faber said to Bleacher Report’s Gary Herman.

UFC, in their PPV barker ads, is pushing Vitor Belfort/Anthony Johnson for top billing.

Middle Easy: Ronda Rousey says she has no problem fighting Miesha Tate and her boyfriend

I see “Judo” Gene LeBell has taught Ronda some wisdom in marketing. I expect her to fight a bear next.

Low Kick: Jose Aldo training with Marlon Sandro and Gray Maynard in preparation for UFC 142

Those are two excellent training partners to have. Let’s see if Chad can take a punch from such a fast striker like Aldo. If he can, he’ll wear Aldo out relatively quickly and get the decision.

The Fight Nerd: ‘Shaolin’ movie review

Andy Lau does a wonderful job as Hou Jie, undergoing a great character arc and transformation as the film progresses. His wife, played by Bingbing Fan, does not do too much, but when she does appear, she is just as good. While being credited in big letters on the DVD, Jackie Chan does not appear too much in the film and is a supporting role rather than a lead. Nicholas Tse, on the other hand, hams it up a bit too much, perhaps relishing his villainous role more than he should. It doesn’t help matters that when he turns heel, he grows a Van Dyke beard and styles his hair like today’s youth (which makes perfect sense for a turn-of-the-century period piece).

MMA Convert: Alistair Overeem passes NSAC test, Jon Fitch doesn’t take post-fight one because Keith Kizer says ‘he lost’

Mr. Kizer isn’t even trying any more at this point, is he?

Eddie Goldman raised an interesting point about Dr. Goodman’s VADA project. If a fighter subjects themselves to VADA testing and they fail a test, say a blood test… why would anyone think that Keith Kizer is going to care or accept such a test result? He’s going to give the standard boilerplate ‘it wasn’t our test, therefore it doesn’t matter’ response.

MMA Payout: Golden Glory goes for the jugular against Alistair Overeem in Nevada court

Now, this… this is quite the read.

Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, UFC, Zach Arnold | 65 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Is the pro-wrestling influence in UFC unattractive to female sports fans?

By Zach Arnold | January 6, 2012

An introduction, courtesy of our friend Beau Dure on the general theme at hand:

MMA — like all sports — has to watch its image. The challenges in MMA are unique in the sense that we still have grumpy old sports editors and corporate sponsors who don’t want to deal with the sport. But they’re not unique in the sense that any sport can be stereotyped. Browse any sports site and read the comments about people who think the NBA is populated by “thugs.” Look at the damage control baseball has had to do in the wake of its drug scandals and labor strife.

MMA has unique ties to pro wrestling, particularly in Japan but also in the USA with crossovers such as Brock Lesnar and Bobby Lashley. But MMA and wrestling are a volatile mix. Handle with care.

Here’s the needed background information on this video clip so you can get a summary as to what the context of the discussion is. Hint: The firestarter for this discussion is CM Punk and Convict Chael Sonnen being bestest buddiess in Chicago.

Here’s our summary of some of what was said in the video clip.

“For me, it’s like I’m constantly, it’s like to borrow the words of Bill Hicks, it’s like fucking gnats on a camping trip. I just can’t get rid of it. We can debate about whether it’s got merits or not. I think that’s sort of a fruitless debate. I personally think it’s gutter theatre mixed with, you know, steroid-infused acrobatics. That’s me. But others obviously have a different take. If you like it, it’s not a matter of whether you like it. It’s a question about having ownership over it. People are like, you know, there are reporters out there who like MMA and who like pro-wrestling and they don’t get the influence… ‘what’s wrong with pro-wrestling?’ Here’s a little litmus test — if you were dating a chick who was totally out of your league or even in your league but you really coveted her and she asked you what your interests are, are you really going to say ‘pro-wrestling’? Like, ‘my interests are… uh… pro-wrestling! I’m super interested in pro-wrestling.’ You’ll never get laid! You’d never get laid. And, you know, it’s a stupid litmus test but it’s explanatory on a level of cultural acceptance…

“The pro-wrestling fans who are MMA fans (as well), they never ask themselves ‘is this appropriate?’ Because you have to admit, at some level, some measure of equivocation between MMA and pro-wrestling would be unhealthy for either parties and it seems to me that there is never any moment where when there’s crossover they pause to question whether that’s appropriate… ever. You never see them ever say to themselves, ‘well, hang on a second… do we really want this? OK, it’s OK this time.’ Now, obviously again, we’re talking about a situation that pretty much on its face is… um… not that big a deal. But have you ever seen that impulse, that trigger mechanism where pro-wrestling fans among themselves ever ask if there’s a healthy infuse… and the answer is no because if you view both things as virtuous and if you view both things as unproblematic, you’re not in a position to question whether or not this is appropriate for audiences unlike yourself. And I can tell you, I can tell you… you have to ask yourself, partly it’s MMA’s violence that mainstream sponsors haven’t come along but I can tell you sports fans are not stupid. They’re not stupid. They recognize and they like pro-wrestling, too. It’s not about liking pro-wrestling. It’s about the context in which they enjoy it and I don’t think they like it in the context in which they enjoy sports. And this whole part about moving to Fox, this whole part about growing the UFC to the next level… you can’t do that on the backs of pro-wrestling fans. They’ve got them already, they’re not going anywhere. Now, you can spike them here and there for like a Brock Lesnar event or, you know, for Chael Sonnen, you can spike them. But you pretty much got the ones you’re pretty much going to get. The next level, and frankly the more lucrative level in terms of sponsors and in terms of the right kinds of demos, are sports fans. Now, will the CM Punk thing help attract them? Maybe there’s an argument to be made that it could. I tend to think it won’t effect it either way. But, you know, if you’re never asking yourself and not just any kind of influence here, you know, not just pro-wrestling influence, any kind of influence, is this the appropriate kind of influence that we want? I think those are important questions, especially for a sport that is still peaking (or) some phase of transition.

“Now, I will say again, it’s not that big a deal in and of itself. But, you know, one thing to know is that the UFC insulated themselves. In the main event and co-main event, you have four guys (Rashad Evans, Phil Davis, Chael Sonnen, Mark Munoz) who all wrestled Division I college. You have three of them who are All-Americans and two who are national champions. What do you think I want to talk about when I do radio interviews at sports stations? You think I’m going to mention CM Punk? And more to the point, do you think that guys at 710 ESPN care about CM Punk walking to the ring with Chael Sonnen? They don’t. They want to know what they’re watching is respectable enough to cover. That is the reality. Is this enterprise, despite the fact… ask yourself, with record audiences, with records on PPV, maybe even with a year of decline, some sense of record TV ratings… why is there still so much hesitation? Is it just violence? I don’t think it’s just violence. I think it’s a huge component of it. I think they wonder, is this activity (Mixed Martial Arts), is this worthy enough as an activity despite it’s financial successes to be covered legitimately? And even if you disagree with, you know, mainstream media’s hesitation to get on board, sure would be nice if The New York Times had an MMA blog. Sure would be nice if it wasn’t just The LA Times on the West Coast giving big coverage. Sure would be nice to get a bunch of audiences we don’t really get right now. That’s kind of my point. Every time you see a pro-wrestling influence directly on MMA and you never ask yourself, ‘well, hold on, are we going too far or not?’ In this case we’re not, I don’t think, but if you’re not even having those kinds of questions then you’re not in a proper position to weigh whether or not audiences are being effected in the right way.

“I can take a girl to a Redskins game. Can I take a girl to an MMA match if she thinks this is basically pro-wrestling? Really? I mean… you know, look at the ads the NFL rolls out with now women in jerseys greeting each other at the door with these different kinds of handshakes… they’re making a concerted effort to reach across to get families, women, to get older people, younger people, they want all the demos, they want to be it to be a full affair. if UFC ever wants to share anything like that and, you know, realistically they probably never will but if they want to approach that is making this ‘real pro-wrestling’ the way to do it? I would humbly submit to you that it’s not.

“Don’t like pro-wrestling and you’re a boxing fan? It doesn’t really effect you. But if you’re an MMA fan and you’re like me and you don’t even, you came into this sport not even conceiving of it this way and not enjoying it on those terms and frankly find it distracting… perfect example, this whole Donald Cerrone/Nate Diaz fight. This was a perfectly good fight between top contenders that was ruined for me going into it, I couldn’t even enjoy it properly, because the whole time we had to manufacture some sort of significance around two donks not liking each other at a staged workout. Really? How old are we? And this is reported on in the media ad nauseam! The tones of language devoted to an act of nothingness promoted by each competitor over an act of nothingness completely distracted from what you were going to get any way! If they had never even seen each other before, never even interacted before and just had to face one another, you’d probably would have gotten the exact same fight. You would have gotten the exact same fight and you wouldn’t have had to swallow, ‘he knocked off my cowboy hat! this guy! you don’t have to be from Stockton to be tough!’ Word? Word? You don’t have to be from Stockton to be tough? I didn’t know you could be tough and be from Quezon City.

“There are pretty clear cases to me where we are… it’s a crutch to keep audiences you already have and we don’t really expand the scope of MMA promotion to get audiences that we don’t (have).

“If you’re an MMA fan, you need to ask yourself what it is about the sport that you love, OK? There’s probably a combination of things that you love for anybody. For me, it’s a certain balance of goods. For you, it’s a different one. But you need to have an honest evaluation about what it is where you derive enjoyment. Maybe you derive enjoyment through the entire fight process. Maybe you’re a little more, I don’t know, less sanguine…

“I get labeled incorrectly, I feel like. ‘Oh, you don’t like pre-fight build-up!’ I do like pre-fight build-up. I don’t like pre-fight build-up that is hamfistedly put in front of my face. When Wanderlei (Silva) was fighting Michael Bisping, remember this, and Wanderlei was like, ‘I hate Michael Bisping!” And someone’s like, “Why do you hate Michael Bisping?’ and he goes, ‘I don’t know! I just hate him!’

“I mean, what are we doing? What are we doing?”

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, WWE, Zach Arnold | 67 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Five big items of fallout from the two NYE shows

By Zach Arnold | January 1, 2012

Very sad & discouraging to hear the news about 30-year old DEEP fighter Tomoya Miyashita dying on New Year’s Eve. He had fought one round of cancer (seminoma) and then was diagnosed with leukemia and lost the battle. He had a personal blog online at Ameba where he commented on his struggles and also posted pictures of those in the fight community who came to visit with him.

Steve Cofield & Cagewriter.com/Yahoo Sports team discuss Brock’s UFC retirement

1. Expect a legal war between UFC & WWE over Brock Lesnar

Dave Meltzer claims that the Brock ‘retirement’ rumors were floating around all week long. If that’s the case, I find it kind of odd that Dana White wouldn’t know it was coming. Nevertheless, I’m sure UFC had an inkling in their back of their minds that this was a possibility.

WWE right now is desperate to bring back an old name and Brock fits the bill. The problem? He’s not going to generate the same kind of buzz that The Rock did and if Rock can’t heavily move the PPV needle for WWE, Brock won’t either. Which means we could easily see Vince McMahon overvalue Brock and pay him more than he’s worth. It also means that UFC, not wanting to lose any of their PPV customer base, will fight tooth and nail in court to prevent Brock from going back to WWE.

From UFC’s perspective, it’s totally understandable why they don’t want Brock heading back to Vinceworld. If Brock averages 1M PPV buys at $55USD versus Jon Jones drawing 400,000 buys at $55USD, that gap is $33 million dollars. Even if UFC only gets half of that after distributors take their cut, that’s $16.5M USD. That money pays some real bills.

Ask yourself this — if UFC goes to Vince and asks for, say, $10M or $15M in order to allow him to go back to WWE, is Brock worth it? The idea, of course, is that Brock would be a Wrestlemania headliner. If WWE goes ahead and puts their ‘PPV big shows’ on their WWE network in 2012, then the move does not make much financial sense. At that point, it’s likely that we would see Brock and WWE go to court to try to get out of the UFC deal.

What makes the situation so ironic is that WWE is now likely going to be Brock’s legal tag team partner. Brock was able to pry loose away from WWE because he wanted to wrestle in a different country. He doesn’t have that legal out this time around. It helps to have WWE legal on your side but UFC is quite a strong court opponent as well.

2. Alistair Overeem is on his way to becoming the biggest global MMA star

He is, by far, the biggest non-Japanese name UFC has on their roster that they could draw a substantial house with in Japan given his K-1 background. In Europe, Overeem is also well-known. With a win over Brock Lesnar, the US mainstream media tried their best to ignore him after his win over Brock and instead focus on Brock retiring. That will work for a couple more days, at best.

Overeem is the perfect guy to be an ace for UFC in a lot of ways. If he can beat Junior dos Santos (a challenge indeed), Zuffa will hand someone as their ace a fighter who is experienced, confident, extremely talented, and very articulate when doing the media rounds. It’s unfortunate that K-1 is dead because I would have loved to have seen him continue his kickboxing career on a high level. Nonetheless, I’m pleased to see him faring well in MMA and silencing his critics.

3. Fedor is as beloved in Japan in 2012 as he was in 2005

The most remarkable, yet predictable development this week between the UFC & Inoki NYE shows was the revival of Fedor’s star power. On a fight card that was literally promoted as a one-match show, it ended up becoming a one-man show and that man was Fedor. I’m not just talking about his fight performance against Satoshi Ishii, either. In the press and amongst the fans, the Inoki NYE show was all about Fedor’s return to Japan. He got an incredibly positive reaction from the fans who still romanticize about the PRIDE days. While nostalgia acts tend to fade quickly, Fedor has a few advantages in his favor that will allow him to be a headliner in Japan for as long as he wants to be one.

Japanese matchmaking usually breaks down into three categories: native vs. foreigner (always been most successful formula), native vs. native, and foreigner vs. foreigner. Because the purses in Japan have gotten smaller, much of the top flight foreign talent is with the UFC. Native vs. native fights tend to have a high burnout ratio and they can be more damaging for promoters in Japan than other formulas. Foreigner vs. foreigner is the worst scenario.

What made Fedor/Ishii so intriguing is that the fans treated it for what it was — foreigner vs. foreigner. However, they decided to consider Fedor as a native hero coming back home, so it became native vs. foreigner with Ishii being the outsider (and rightfully so). I didn’t see numbers for the gate released on the newspaper sites, but I know on TV the number 25,000 was claimed. Yeah, OK. Nonetheless, the Inoki 2011 NYE show will go down as the show where Fedor made his triumphant return back home to where he made his bones. Good for him for finding the perfect landing place for the end of his career.

M-1 is quoted as saying that Fedor will fight in Russia either in March or April and then have a fight in Monaco.

Read the comments section where I address criticism towards Fedor for the Inoki show not drawing well.

4. Satoshi Ishii’s career prospects as a high-level MMA fighter have been neutered

Satoshi Ishii says that his fight with Fedor yesterday was his last match in Japan and that he will aim his sights to emigrating to the States in order to fight in the UFC. Delusional.

Ishii got promptly hammered in the daily newspapers for his showing against Fedor. Words like ‘humiliating,’ ‘crushing,’ and ‘rock bottom’ were used. I wouldn’t say it was bad as the beating he took last year in the press when he got booed loud by the fans against Jerome Le Banner… but it’s close. If Inoki wanted to protect Ishii, the press would have held back some of their fire. For the second year in the row, they haven’t held anything back.

The Japanese MMA game desperately needed someone to fill the void as the ace that the country could rely upon to enter the real world of MMA. Ishii’s career failure has consequences far beyond just his own financial situation. Fairly or unfairly, his demise impacts a lot of people.

5. Antonio Inoki’s shadow war on NYE and the results it produced

On Christmas Eve, I talked about Inoki’s shadow war on NYE and the annual 1/4 Tokyo Dome show that New Japan has produced for many years. While DREAM did not get Tokyo Broadcasting Support for the Saitama Super Arena event, you would have to classify the show as a win for Inoki’s vision of blending MMA & wrestling fights together.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying that I approve of the vision. I’d be just fine separating the MMA & wrestling fights from each other. However, I’m not offended by the mixture of the bouts on a single card, either. The anger & frustration from both foreign MMA fans online & the hardcore Japanese DREAM fans was brutally palpable, almost borderline hysterical. I get it. MMA is a sport, pro-wrestling is not. Newsflash: in 2012, pro-wrestling is still covered as a sport in the sports section of media outlets in Japan. The fans may know what’s up in regards to the differences between MMA & pro-wrestling but it’s still all a ‘fantasy fight’ to them just like it always has been to Antonio Inoki. Plus, the numbers are against the hardcore fans. For casual Japanese fight fans, hardcore/casual pro-wrestling fans, and a decent portion of Japanese MMA fans… they didn’t mind the mixed matchmaking concept at all.

In many ways, Inoki won the NYE battle in terms of the creative direction that the Japanese fight industry is headed towards. None of the DREAM guys (Aoki, Kawajiri, Takaya) got any serious media play in the newspapers or on TV. They simply don’t draw heavy fan support and that’s not because they’re MMA fighters, it’s because they just don’t appeal to the masses. The wrestling bouts on the NYE card drew solid headlines in the press. A smiling Sakuraba and an excellent Josh Barnett showing drew way more attention than Aoki got for making his friend Satoru Kitaoka gurgle on his own blood.

Aoki is a very interesting character for a lot pf reasons. No matter how violent he gets on New Year’s Eve, the masses in Japan largely ignore him. He can break someone’s arm in a disgusting manner, he can make his friend taste his own blood… and nobody cares. Aoki was teamed with Inoki for the last two weeks to do the media rounds to promote the NYE show… and Inoki got all the attention. Fedor got all the attention. Aoki? Largely meaningless to the public. In many regards, Aoki is viewed with much more respect by the world MMA community than he is in Japan. It’s quite a remarkable situation. Only a few Japanese fighters have experienced that. The one that comes to mind is Tsuyoshi Kohsaka. He was in RINGS early, he went to UFC, he came back to RINGS and still was second dog to Kiyoshi Tamura.

Back to Inoki for a second… The fans yesterday popped as much for the wrestling fights as they did for the MMA bouts and the wrestling matches Inoki often books are nowhere near the same in quality as NOAH or New Japan matches are. In many ways, I felt like the fans cheering for Sakuraba in a tag match and Josh Barnett pulling off what he did to Hideki Suzuki was a sentimental tribute to the days of UWF. I’m not ready to predict that the Japanese MMA scene will transform back to the days of the UWF in the 1980s but there’s a strong possibility that we could end up seeing Inoki pushing a UWF-style product to come on a large scale to fill that void between traditional Japanese pro-wrestling and pure MMA. In that sense, he may have very well gotten the last laugh yesterday.

As for Inoki celebrating himself yearly on the big NYE stage…

I totally understand the mass confusion he creates. A lot of times, nobody else in Japan knows what he’s doing either. I remember several years ago when Brock Lesnar headlined the worst-drawing Tokyo Dome event for a wrestling card (October 2003), Antonio Inoki had someone come out during his ring introduction as a character from the Edo period with a basket on their head. Inoki loves to celebrate history, he loves obscure references, and he loves to talk about history that revolves around his whole life & career. HDNet should be embarrassed that they called Tiger Jeet Singh a terrorist but… it is what it is. Jeet Singh and his son were brought in for the Inoki segment because Tiger was Inoki’s top gaijin rival and Tiger’s tag partner, the late Umanosuke Ueda, died last week at the age of 71. Ueda’s photo was the one they focused on during the interview. Ueda brought ‘weapons’ into the fold in Japanese wrestling with the sword and the bamboo stick. So, when all this crazy talk starts happening during an Inoki skit, I sympathize with the legions of people who have zero clue what the hell he is talking about. Maybe 20 people on the planet could watch that skit and put 2 + 2 together. Scarily, I’m one of those people and it makes feel really, really old as a human being… even when I’m not. Inoki talks about his past days in the Showa era as if it yesterday and not, say, 40 or 50 years ago.

Inoki is Inoki, Japan is Japan, and the prospects of a pure MMA product working again on a consistent basis in the post-PRIDE era without any sort of network TV support is dead on arrival.

Topics: DREAM, Japan, M-1, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 33 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Inoki 2011 NYE at SSA: Fedor obliterates Ishii, Aoki makes Kitaoka gurgle his own blood

By Zach Arnold | December 31, 2011


Yahoo Japan had Brock’s retirement front page & they gave Ishii’s KO loss the same deal

  1. DREAM Bantamweight tournament reserve match: Yusup Saadulaev defeated Hideo Tokoro in R1 in 42 seconds and sent Tokoro to the hospital.
  2. DREAM Bantamweight tournament semi-finals: Antonio Banuelos defeated Masakazu Imanari after 2R by split decision.
  3. DREAM Bantamweight tournament semi-finals: Bibiano Fernandes defeated Rodolfo Marquez Diniz after 2R by unanimous decision.
  4. Kickboxing match: Masaaki Noiri defeated Kengo Sonoda.
  5. Kickboxing match: Yuta Kubo defeated Nils Widlund in R3 by KO.
  6. DREAM Welterweight match: Hayato “Mach” Sakurai defeated Ryo Chonan after 3R by unanimous decision.
  7. DREAM Featherweight match: Tatsuya Kawajiri defeated Kazuyuki Miyata in R2 in 4’54 with a choke.
  8. Women’s MMA fight: Megumi Fujii defeated Karla Benitez in R1 in 75 seconds with an arm-bar.
  9. IGF rules match: Josh Barnett defeated Hideki Suzuki in 11’47 after a Northern Lights Bomb.
  10. Mixed rules fight (1R 3 minutes kickboxing, 2R 5 mins DREAM rules): Katsunori Kikuno defeated Yuichiro Nagashima in R2 in 2’34 by TKO.
  11. DREAM Bantamweight tournament finals: Bibiano Fernandes defeated Antonio Banuelos in R1 in 1’11 by TKO.
  12. IGF rules match: Jerome Le Banner defeated Tim Sylvia in 2’57.
  13. IGF rules match: Kazuyuki Fujita defeated Peter Aerts in 3’36.
  14. IGF rules match: Kazushi Sakuraba & Katsuyori Shibata defeated Atsushi Sawada & Wakakirin when Sakuraba used a face lock on Sawada..
  15. DREAM Feathereweight title match: Hiroyuki Takaya defeated Lion Takeshi after 5R by unanimous decision.
  16. DREAM Lightweight title match: Shinya Aoki defeated Satoru Kitaoka after 5R by unanimous decision.
  17. DREAM Heavyweight match: Fedor Emelianenko defeated Satoshi Ishii in R1 in 2’34 by KO.

** Antonio Inoki had Tiger Jeet Singh & Jr. for an interview segment. Singh was in Japan because his late tag team partner, Umanosuke Ueda, died last week at the age of 71. Ueda & Singh were Inoki’s top rivals during the Showa era of New Japan. Russian media claims Fedor was paid $500,000USD for the Ishii fight but one Japanese report claims Fedor/M-1 got 25 million yen. Katsuyori Shibata may have dislocated his arm on a bad landing doing a dropkick in the tag match against Wakakirin’s team. The bout went as you would expect with Wakakirin involved. Josh Barnett got very high marks for his bout against Hideki Suzuki.

As for the answer to the question I posed earlier in the week about who would retire first (Fedor or Lesnar), we now have our answer. Before his fight with Satoshi Ishii, Fedor indicated that he will be fighting for a few more years.

As for debating what kind of future Satoshi Ishii has in MMA, it’s likely that you can close the book on that debate at this point barring a miracle. 18 months ago, Jordan Breen and I had a debate online about Ishii’s career path in MMA. He celebrated Ishii not following the traditional Japanese promotional path and I said that Ishii could have been a human lottery ticket. Look at his predicament now. He’s not good enough to be a Zuffa-level fighter, which is what he wanted in the first place. His value in Japan is no longer TV-level and Ishii never was a strong live house draw. He’s run out of any capital to make any serious money in MMA.

What was tragic (but understandable) about Ishii is that Inoki & DREAM promoters did not feel comfortable at all putting him out in front of the press & the spotlight to do heavy PR for the NYE show. Ishii has negative charisma and doesn’t really stand for the traditional qualities that you can build upon for a Japanese native hero in the fight game. Regrettable.

Given the downward trajectory of the Japanese fight industry and the war that police are waging on the yakuza, you could honestly make the case that Satoshi Ishii was Japan’s last, best hope of developing a native hero that could have competed on a global stage. With the Ishii experiment basically kaput, it’s hard to see who’s next in the Japanese pipeline.

Topics: DREAM, Japan, Media, MMA, Pro-Wrestling, Zach Arnold | 40 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Alistair Overeem retires Brock Lesnar at UFC 141 in Las Vegas; Yahoo Japan gives it headline status

By Zach Arnold | December 30, 2011


Lesnar’s retirement a top headline on Yahoo Japan, first time ever UFC gets news headline on site (you can thank Alistair Overeem for this due to his K-1 history)

UFC 141 (Friday 12/30 Las Vegas, Nevada at MGM Grand Garden Arena)
TV: PPV

Dark matches

Main card

The betting public took a bath with heavy money poured on both Brock & Cerrone. Jon Fitch also proved to be a parlay buster.

Continue reading this article here…

Topics: Canada, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 158 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Did Jon Fitch get a fair shake for his MMA/pro-wrestling comments?

By Zach Arnold | December 30, 2011

Jon Fitch has taken a PR beating for the comments he said to Ariel Helwani about where he wants the direction of the sport of MMA to be heading in the near future. Most people briefly listened to the interview or read commentary about it elsewhere.

However, is the blowback he’s receiving for his interview comments fair?

Let’s take a look at what was actually said during the interview. Jon discussed how UFC took very good care of him after he needed surgery. He had fought BJ Penn to a controversial draw, then got hurt, and now is fighting tonight for the first time after a long layoff. For about three minutes at the beginning of the interview, Jon Fitch was being nice guy Jon Fitch. Then he was asked about how the media and fans are largely ignoring his comeback fight tonight and instead focusing on Nate Diaz/Donald Cerrone & Brock Lesnar/Alistair Overeem.

JON FITCH: “We have a good relationship. I love he UFC, I love being here… I just, I advocate speaking out how I think the sport should go. Whether they agree with me or not or I agree with them, it doesn’t really matter. I mean, you know, you can have disagreements in a family and still be a family. But for me it’s, you know, I want to make sure we stay true to the sport and I don’t want to see us become pro-wrestling because I hate pro-wrestling. I was betrayed by pro-wrestling when I was a child and I don’t want to be doing that to some other kid now who’s watching fights, UFC fights and watching me and other guys and thinking that it’s real. I want to make sure that it’s real.”

ARIEL HELWANI: “How were you betrayed by pro-wrestling?”

JON FITCH: “Well, when I went to my first wrestling practice in the 4th grade I found out that pro-wrestling was fake and that was the worst, ultimate betrayal that I could have ever encountered in my life at that time.”

ARIEL HELWANI: “And since then, cold turkey, shut them off…”

JON FITCH: “Shut it off, threw all my wrestling stuff away like that day. I was just over it.”

ARIEL HELWANI: “Now, why do you think that MMA could be becoming pro-wrestling or at least perceived that way?”

JON FITCH: “Because I want to make sure that it stays a sport and sports are about who wins, who’s the best at what they do and this is about fighting and who’s the best at the fight, you know, UFC 1 was about the Gracies demonstrating that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was the best style for fighting. When everybody learned that and they learned a lot of other styles and now it’s about games and individuals, games in the fight game and not so much just one style. Like Bruce Lee said, you know, there’s no one best martial art. It’s got to be mixed all together. So, now you have guys who’ve mixed it all together and now it’s all about games, each individual’s game and how they can put their game forward and use their game and their skill sets to win the fights and I want to make sure that it stays true to that because that’s real to me. Just setting up, you know, two random guys off the street because it’s an exciting, because they punch each other a lot… it doesn’t make sense to me, it’s not a real fight to me. I want to see the best guys, the best games up against each other.”

ARIEL HELWANI: “You’re not the first to bring this up, that you’re afraid of the trash talking and all that sort of, you know, gets more attention than someone who just goes out there and wins. But do you feel as though it’s all sort of falling on deaf ears because, at the end of the day, those guys are going to get more attention and, you know, let’s say something like yourself who just goes out there, puts on his hard hat, you know, blue collar type of guy wins but maybe not garnering the same kind of the attention at the end of the day there aren’t enough of you out there to really change the way things are going…”

JON FITCH: “You know, I think with a long-enough timeline there will be enough of us. There’s enough fighters now who are developing those skills to win and keep winning and do well and I think the focus will shift because I think, you know, the expansion of the sport is kind of powerful right now and a lot of that trash talking and a lot of the outside stuff is involved with the expansion of the sport. But once that sport’s expanded I think it’s going to fall back on, you know, the base of the sport. Does the sports have legs? And I think guys like me and there’s plenty of other guys like me who fight the way I do or fight with their skill set, regardless of what their skill set is, that’s going to support this sport and is going to carry it forward.”

Later on in the interview, he was asked about whether or not he should be getting a title shot soon due to his great win-loss record.

ARIEL HELWANI: “Do you sometimes sit back and think that in other sports, most sports, team sports, basketball, baseball, football, you’re not judged really based on how you perform. At the end of the day if you win, you keep winning, you get the championship, other than say MMA, boxing, maybe figure skating and gymnastics, those are the only ones where performance really goes into whether or not you become a champion. Does that bug you?”

JON FITCH: “I mean, a little bit. I think it’s a little obscene because it’s a fight, you know, and a fight is a fight. If you win the fight, you win. If you lose, you lose. You know, I think style points, you know… they (only) go so far but it shouldn’t rule the whole day. To me, a loser, a beautiful loser is a still a loser. You know, you got beat up. If you lost, you got beat up. When I fought GSP (in Minneapolis) and I lost, I got beat up. Like, it doesn’t matter how much people love watching you get beat up. If you lost, you got beat up. That’s the end of the story and that’s as far as it goes. So, I mean, I don’t really understand the whole… you know, loving guys who get beat up well.”

ARIEL HELWANI: “That said, though, do you need a finish on Friday night in order to cement yourself…”

JON FITCH: “For myself, I Need one. I’m very frustrated with myself in the way that I’ve been, my performances have gone and I’ve been working a lot with Dave Camarillo and my striking coach and tweaking a lot of things and we’ve had a lot of time to kind of sit back and refocus and kind of re-do some things.”

(later on)

ARIEL HELWANI: “It also seems that, I just read a great feature on you in Fight Magazine, that you stopped caring about what people think of you…”

JON FITCH: “I never really cared but I vocally put it out there. Now I’m saying that I don’t care so people know that I don’t care.”

ARIEL HELWANI: “Why all of a sudden do you feel the need to tell us this?”

JON FITCH: “You know, I think, you know, before you had to be on eggshells because you want to be fan-friendly or whatever. I mean, when it comes down to it, I know who my fans are and they love me and I love them and I always put out extra effort to make sure that my fans are taken care of. I’m the one whose signing autographs at the fan expos when the doors are closed and security are throwing people out, I’m still there an hour after. So like I don’t care if you’re just some loser on the Internet who I’ve never met, who doesn’t have a real name, who doesn’t come to any of the shows or probably doesn’t even pay for any of the PPVs. So, I don’t really care to cater to you.”

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 8 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Dana White on Torres rehire: “Your opinions don’t mean [expletive] to me”

By Zach Arnold | December 29, 2011


Watch ‘Dear Leader’ lay down his doctrine on who he hires & fires in this 18-minute interview at MMAFighting.com with Ariel Helwani (click on the picture)

Now, this… this turned out to be quite the interview for a lot of reasons if you study the psychology of this man. He declined to comment on the Alistair Overeem/NSAC steroid test situation. He claims that Brock Lesnar is ‘nearly a 2-to-1 underdog’ to Alistair Overeem (Overeem is only a -140 favorite, 7 to 5).

That wasn’t the only whopper. Sergio Non (@usatmma) recounted this quip from Dana yesterday:

“When I lie to you — I’m honest when I have to lie to you.”

The real meat of this interview is at the beginning when he’s asked to address why he fired-and-rehired Miguel Torres for his ‘rape tweet’ when Forrest Griffin got a pass for his Twitter antics (on the night Joe Paterno got the axe from Penn State) and Rashad Evans, despite getting eviscerated by Jim Rome on ESPN for his Jerry Sandusky crack towards Phil Davis (UFC Fox 2 Chicago presser), didn’t get the hammer dropped on him.

In short: Vince McMahon logic applies here. “Screw you, I’ll do whatever I want.” OK, here’s the long version:

ARIEL HELWANI: “We talked in Toronto. You said pretty definitively he’s not coming back. No way, no how. Why did you change your mind?”

DANA WHITE: “Well… I don’t know if I said he’s not coming back no way, no how. What I said, yeah, he’s been cut from the UFC. You know, he went out… and talked about something that you shouldn’t talk about on Twitter, it makes absolutely no sense whether you’re joking, whether it’s from a TV show, whatever it is… It makes no sense. So, when I was away on vacation, his manager texted me and said, ‘can we come in next week and meet with you?’ And I said yes and I set it up through my secretary. So, they did. They came in here (yesterday) and Miguel Torres sat on that court right there (yesterday) and, first of all, I haven’t talked to Miguel Torres since this whole incident, I haven’t talked to him at all. Umm… on his own, he went out and met with five rape crisis centers in Chicago, he donated money to all of them, he’s been taking rape sensitivity classes, and this whole thing has been a pretty traumatic experience for him and the things that he’s gone through the last, umm, the last several weeks.

“I am one of those people that ‘everybody f***s up, everybody makes mistakes.’ I do, you do, believe it or not, everyone who’s watching does. We all make mistakes and we will make more. What I judge a person on is how they handle themselves after they make those mistakes. You know… never once did Miguel Torres flip out and say, ‘oh, this or that’ or point the fingers at anybody else. He went out and handled his business like a man. There’s so many guys that I’ve seen in this sport that get busted for something and deny it and say that it’s not true and, you know, think that there’s conspiracies against them and all kinds of bull****. The way that Miguel Torres went out and handled this, I have nothing but respect for him and I truly and honestly know that he learned something from this situation and hopefully everybody else did, too. Because I’ll be honest with you — when I sat with him here today, it’s not like I haven’t through this. I’ve been through this same [expletive]. I know what it’s like, I know what happens. And everything that he said to me (yesterday) was from the heart, he means it, and I get it and I have nothing but respect for Miguel.”

ARIEL HELWANI: “Are you at all concerned that now people will say, all right, Dana says something…”

DANA WHITE: “People say all kinds of [expletive]. I was criticized for cutting him. Now I’m going to be criticized for bringing him back. I don’t give a [expletive] what anybody thinks. I don’t care what the fans have to say about it. I don’t care what the reporters are going to say or write about it. You know, you can all have your opinions. Your opinions don’t mean [expletive] to me. I’m going to run this thing the way that I want to and I’m going to do things the way that I think it should be done. I know when I cut Miguel Torres that I did the right thing and I know I did the right thing (yesterday) by bringing him back.”

ARIEL HELWANI: “Does he return to the UFC in the same spot that he was in before this incident or does he have to sort of work his way back up?”

DANA WHITE: “No, he’s the same guy, the same fighter. He’s in the same position he was. I mean, him coming back has nothing to do with where he sits in this company or, you know, as far as a fighter or whatever. You know, I’ve had a little bit of interaction with Miguel Torres over the last several years. Nothing big, nothing great. My interaction with Miguel Torres (yesterday morning)… I really, really respect and like this guy a lot. First of all, like I said, nobody told him to do this. It wasn’t ‘go do this and maybe we’ll bring you back in the UFC.’ Never. We didn’t talk to him at all. … That’s the way I handle things. Everything is on a case-by-case basis and we’ll deal with, you know, stuff as it comes.”

*****

Later on in the interview, Dana was asked to comment about Jon Fitch’s concerns that MMA is devolving into pro-wrestling. The reply was exactly what you would expect from Dana White in return.

“Heh heh. I would say that… First of all, I’m sure if he’s saying that guys who talk a lot a stuff, talking about a Chael Sonnen… Chael came back… Say what you want about Chael Sonnen, he backs that [expletive] up. Nobody’s ever in the history of the UFC fought Anderson Silva the way that Chael Sonnen did. Nobody. You know, he goes out, he puts on exciting fights, and he backs up everything that he says. Is the guy nutty? He’s nutty as hell, but he backs up everything that he says.

(Ed. — And he did it while admittedly using testosterone. Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.)

“People can think pro-wrestling or whatever… The problem with Jon Fitch is, you know, you hear this same thing from everybody about Jon Fitch. ‘If I want to fall asleep and I can’t get to sleep at night, I’ll put in a Jon Fitch fight.’ You know, and… whatever you think, Jon Fitch is one of the best 170 pounders in the world and, yes, he’s in the hunt for the title again. But everybody, I mean, find one person that will tell you that they love a Jon Fitch fight, it’s the most exciting thing they’ve ever seen and they just get so excited for it. So, when you say that you have a fight like (Donald) Cerrone and (Nate) Diaz on the card and a guy with a record like [Fitch’s] is on and people aren’t jumping out of their seats for that fight, you know, I think Jon needs to have a little bit of a, you know, he’s got to be a little honest with himself and have a little bit of a reality check when he talks about stuff like that.”

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

MMA Link Club: The 2011 non-UFC story of the year is…

By Zach Arnold | December 27, 2011

…surprisingly not Viacom purchasing Bellator. In the years to come, this will be a story that has impact.

For 2011, the non-UFC story of the year is the end of K-1 and Kazuyoshi Ishii’s reign as emperor of the Japanese fight game.

You must understand how much this has got to be eating at him right now. I said that last year’s NYE event at Saitama Super Arena felt like a public execution and it turned out to be so. The conventional wisdom in Japanese insider circles is the following — the reason K-1 didn’t get sold to Golden Glory or other parties is because of Barbizon, a real estate company that makes its money largely in Tokyo. One person claimed that Barbizon loaned money to Mr. Ishii and that due to company debts, the trademarks and IP went to Barbizon.

It reminds me of what happened with Gen’ichiro Tenryu’s WAR promotion in the early 90s when the shell company had some problems (resulting in abandonment) and a new company was created with different IP/trademarks. When former FMW President Shoichi Arai committed suicide, he left behind a note saying his death would activate an insurance policy to financially take care of his family. Teikoku Databank, a large financial analytical firm in Japan, didn’t show the name of the creditor listed in records on television even though the debt was allegedly in the $3M USD range. The FMW logo and IP went to the creditor.

Five years ago, the foundation of PRIDE was on shaky ground due to Shukan Gendai’s negative campaign that was largely aided by admitted K-1 yakuza fixer Seiya Kawamata. The golden plan post-PRIDE was for K-1 to control the network television pipeline. If you wanted on network TV, you had to go through Ishii. The plan was simple in theory — you promote a show and assume the liabilities on that front, you get TV access but share the TV revenue with him. However, there were many flaws with the plan.

K-1 had been a strong live house promotion for kickboxing in the 90s and early part of last decade. They knew how to promote mega-kickboxing events. Kickboxing, after all, is not hard for a casual fan to understand in terms of rules. K-1 was never intended to be an MMA play and they tried to capture those PRIDE fans when the promotion collapsed in 2007. Unfortunately for K-1, they failed miserably at attracting the old PRIDE supporters. HERO’s was what it was. Then DREAM came along and it’s backed by former PRIDE employees/supporters. DREAM never pulled in substantial ratings for their broadcasting TV shows, which in turn meant that K-1’s access on network television was tenuous at best. Once K-1 started losing leverage with the TV networks (Nippon TV & Fuji TV), the game was up. A combination of not being good at promoting house shows combined with a lack of new native star power resulted in the outcome that we have today.

It was never supposed to end this way. Sure, Godfather Ishii will come back in one way or another with a new venture… but K-1 was his meal ticket into the world of Japanese celebrity. He loves the limelight and being a socialite extraordinaire. Within the time span of a decade, he’s gone from having Norika Fujiwara & Kyoko Hasegawa hosting his shows on Fuji TV to not even being in the ball game today. He thought the death of PRIDE would permanently solidify his status as King of Japan. Instead, he went from the penthouse to the outhouse.

The larger question in regards to the Japanese scene is whether or not a network television station will ever make a serious commitment to an MMA, kickboxing, or pro-wrestling league ever again. With heavy pressure being exerted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police department, I have some serious doubts about the future role of Japan in the global fight scene (outside of boxing).

Member sites of the MMA Link Club

This week’s MMA Link Club featured stories

Five Ounces of Pain: Cameras go behind the scenes with Wanderlei Silva during TUF Brazil announcement

I’m very happy to see that he and his brethren from the PRIDE days are doing well still. I can’t imagine, even five years ago, that those guys would have believed that what’s happening today in Brazil was going to happen. However, that’s what happens when you have a lot of cash to spend and you are backed by the country’s wealthiest man.

With Japan all but finished as a major player, Brazil is the main international playground for the sport.

MMA Fighting: Paul Sass, Eddie Windeland both injured, removed from UFC Chicago Fox card

This is what happens when you run too many damn cards and don’t have enough guys to fill the slots. I’m happy that some of the lower-level Strikeforce guys are getting a paycheck but you can’t ignore what the realities are right now in terms of matchmaking.

Fightline: Nick Diaz says he’s a better fighter in all areas than Carlos Condit

The bettors agree, so far, because Nick’s a -140 favorite (7 to 5).

Cage Potato: MMA’s Chain Gang, a depressing review of 2011’s criminal activities

Most ‘crimes’ in MMA take the form of inept judging and flagrant rule breaking, but this past year many professional fighters were caught up in activities that landed them inside of a very different sort of cage. Get ready for a trip down memory lane in our most depressing “booking roundup” of the year. Here’s your run down of 2011’s biggest arrests, convictions, acquittals, and sentencings.

Junie Browning had quite the Christmas in Phuket, Thailand as well.

MMA Mania: Brock Lesnar vs. Alistair Overeem fight video simulation for UFC 141

25 runs… 13 in favor of Alistair, 12 in favor of Brock. That sounds about right.

5th Round: Chael Sonnen calls out Jon Jones, ‘Bones’ willing and waiting

I’m glad that the mortgage man figured out the numbers and calculated that Jones is the next guy up behind Brock in terms of drawing PPV buys now with GSP on the sidelines. I’d thoroughly enjoy watching Jones thrashing another victim.

Bleacher Report: Duane Ludwig talks UFC KO record — ‘it separates me from every other human being’

“The record is very cool to have, because it separates me from every other human being past, present and very possibly future,” said Ludwig, who will someday explain the importance of his record to his children with pride. “That’s some pretty cool stuff. Each athlete wants to stand out and this is a very big way to do so.”

Middle Easy: A lesson in street MMA — Christmas day brawsl between Occupy protestors is a necessity

You should have seen the mob mentality in Indianapolis for the Jordan sneakers. It’s almost as bad as a riot at a Sports Authority store for a Tim Tebow jersey in Denver.

LowKick: Satoshi Ishii says Fedor is a legend but that he will be beaten on NYE

That is fine that people consider Fedor the favorite. And it does not bother me at all that everyone thinks that I am the underdog. Less pressure for me. He is the one who has the most to lose going 1-3 in his last 4 fights.

Trust me, he has as much to lose in this fight as Fedor does. I said this fight would be his golden ticket if he accepted it and he did, so that was at least the right move. However, he has to win. If he doesn’t win and he gets booed out of the building or laughed at, his career in Japan is over. It should have never come to this predicament.

He says his goal is to make it into the UFC and become a champion. OK.

Having the Japanese fans support means everything to me. They are the ones who supported me throughout my career in Judo from the beginning all the way through me winning the Gold Medal in the 2008 Olympics. As a Japanese fighter I still want to make my Japanese fans proud along with the rest of my fans around the world.

One year ago, you were booed out of your own country. The fans cheered for Jerome Le Banner fiercely. They saw him as more indicative of Japanese fighting spirit and honor than you… and he’s a gaijin. For the fans that show up this year at Saitama Super Arena, it’s basically in support of Fedor and not in support of Ishii.

His prediction that he will be win by decision is both refreshingly honest and excruciating stupid. He wants to win the fans over and if he wins by decision, people will be pissed at him.

The Fight Nerd: Epic illustration of Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Don Frye is… epic

If you’re looking for newer photos of one Mr. Takayama, click here. He’s got photos of him with one John Stanley Hansen. Plus he has photos of his new restaurant opening called ‘Stomach Hold.’ Yes, it’s in English, and Minoru Suzuki heartily recommends you pay a visit.

MMA Convert: Eddie Alvarez vs. Michael Chandler from Bellator 58 is Slobberknocker of the Year

On the same night as Shogun and Dan Henderson… November 19th will go down as one of the best dates ever for guts and hearts in the sport.

MMA Payout: Fuel TV planning UFC marathon on New Year’s, Spike eager to monetize UFC library

The decision by Spike to sabotage Bellator on MTV2 by airing old UFC footage on Friday nights opposite Ultimate Fighter on FX is one of the most headscratching moves ever. It’s silly. The only kind of logic you could manufacture for justifying the decision is rather tortured logic in saying that MTV2 attracts teenie boppers while Spike draws from 18-34 year olds, therefore meaning there are different MMA audiences at play. It makes little sense.

As for Fuel and Fox trying to get clearance for the station by making it Zuffa programming all the time… good luck.

Topics: Japan, K-1, M-1, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 19 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

NYE storylines: Who retires first after a loss, Fedor or Lesnar?

By Zach Arnold | December 27, 2011

So, our friends at FightHub.tv posted this video with one fighter saying that Alistair Overeem will get exposed like Bob Sapp did. I remember the moment Sapp got ‘exposed’ and that was in March of 2003 at Saitama Super Arena. Sapp had been pushed to the moon by Kazuyoshi Ishii as his big pet project — so much so that Ishii himself was a special guest referee for one of Sapp’s fights. Mirko Cro Cop was the man who shattered the image of Bob Sapp and shattered his eye socket, too. People made fun of Sapp for turtling up and screaming but I don’t blame him. Mirko 2003 was something fierce and soon we would end up seeing Mirko vs. Fedor, a program that will always age well because of just how great that fight was promoted.

Will Alistair fold up like Bob Sapp did? Who knows. Fabricio Werdum was able to tag him pretty well and Brock Lesnar’s got a powerful punch. He’s also got terrible striking defense and Alistair is great at what he does. We know what the stakes are for this fight — winner gets Junior dos Santos. But what about the loser? If Alistair loses, he’ll still be fighting because that’s what does and it is in his DNA. If Brock wins, he has the table set up to make a ton of cash in easy fashion. Cash is king and so is not having to slave labor to make it. He loves to train all the times anyways, so getting paid millions of dollars to keep training is great if you can get it.

Overeem is a -140 favorite heading into the fight. For a prop bet, you can get +400 odds if you think Alistair will win by submission.

But what if Brock loses? Sure, there are some sporadic fights left for him (against Nogueira, against Mir… again). However, will he have any desire left to hit the comeback trail? Brock often likes to move onto different challenges when he thinks he’s plateaued or has just gotten plain old bored. He did that with WWE, he did that when he tried out for the Minnesota Vikings, and he pulled that routine as well when he was given everything on a silver platter by Antonio Inoki and New Japan. He won the IWGP belt in a 3-way match over Masa Chono & Kazuyuki Fujita in maybe the worst-ever attended Tokyo Dome show (a feat that may be eclipsed by the upcoming 1/4 Tokyo Dome show headlined by Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Minoru Suzuki), was given what he wanted in terms of last-second travel itinery, booked in the same formulaic title matches, and then… he just quit. He didn’t even bother losing the title belt.

So, yeah, Brock has a proclivity of shutting down when he decides enough is a enough, no matter how logical or illogical it is. Given that he is currently UFC’s #1 PPV drawing attraction by a country mile, losing him would be a big blow for Zuffa. The company still relies on PPV sales so heavily to finance everything else. With Georges St. Pierre on the sidelines, Lesnar’s value over everyone else is exponentially important. Jon Jones is starting to develop a following but it’s only maybe half of what a typical Lesnar fight can bring in at the box office.

The other big NYE fight is Fedor vs. Satoshi Ishii. The Inoki card at Saitama Super Arena has tons of fights on it (both wrestling and MMA), but for all intents & purposes this is a one-fight card in terms of how it has been promoted. Most of the value goes to Fedor, believe it or not, as Ishii has really been kept away from the press sans a couple of interviews with outfits like Nikkan Sports newspaper. Shinya Aoki has been doing the media rounds with Antonio Inoki, which has been quite the visual to see. In his Nikkan Sports interview, Ishii said that he views himself in ‘desperation mode’ right now and that he’s come to accept him as a Mixed Martial Artist… although very few people are sure of what he really wants in life mainly because he has no clue himself. He’s been training at Reign (Mark Munoz’s gym) with Ed Buckley, the Muay Thai coach of Team Quest. Everyone who has ever been in the gym with Ishii (like our friend the Hawaiian princess) will tell you that he’s always in beast mode and yet when it comes to fight time he’s OK but not overly dominating.

If Ishii beats Fedor on NYE, I’m not sure where it leads him as far as his career. His career is still managed by Inoki forces and yet he has wanted to fight in UFC. I’m still doubtful we will ever see him with Zuffa given how much Inoki wants to maintain his power. I suppose Ishii will continue getting booked on DREAM cards or maybe even a spot on a One FC card in Singapore. If Ishii loses to Fedor, few people will be shocked and the experiment will probably combust if the fan reaction gets pretty ugly fast. At that point, Ishii’s only hope to salvage his career would be to make a U-turn into pro-wrestling.

If Fedor loses to Ishii, is this the end for him? The fight scene in Japan is not getting any healthier. Sooner or later, M-1 is going to run out of money marks to pay them to book Fedor. Where do you go then? Would Fedor even care about fighting if he lost to Ishii? If he beats Ishii, at least he can plausibly continue to fight on and just hang around for a few more paychecks. But if he loses, it’s entirely possible that he could announce his retirement after the fight.

So, which fighter in your estimation is more likely to retire after a loss this weekend, Fedor or Brock?

Topics: DREAM, Japan, M-1, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 23 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Antonio Inoki’s shadow war on NYE

By Zach Arnold | December 24, 2011

Kazushi Sakuraba & Katsuyori Shibata talk about their upcoming tag team match

If the impending 2011 Inoki MMA/IGF card at Saitama Super Arena looks like a familiar friend to you, that’s because it is. The booking is reminiscent to the card produced by Inoki and promoted by PRIDE in 2000 at the Osaka Dome, where you had a mixture of MMA blending in with a pro-wrestling atmosphere. MMA fighters want to be pro-wrestlers just like the wrestlers want to be MMA fighters (if they could do so). The Osaka Dome show would launch the kakutougi boom in Japan, a dream period that Antonio Inoki had imagined was coming for decades. Lost in all the talk about UFC on Fox is that PRIDE’s deal with Fuji TV still remains, by far, the largest and most successful MMA/network partnership in the history of the business. Ari Emanuel may have brokered a sweeter cash deal for Zuffa with Fox paying out $90-$100M USD/year but Fuji TV brought a hell of a lot more to the table for PRIDE. We’re not just talking credibility with sponsorships but flat out world-class production values that blows away what we’re seeing right now with the standard UFC-produced show. Oh, and Fuji TV paid PRIDE an estimated $50M USD a year, helped Dream Stage amass top-level corporate sponsorship, and PRIDE in return brought in 15-25 million viewers per telecast. UFC has a long ways to go in that department and it’s doubtful they will ever reach that kind of consistent level of audience on broadcast television in the States.

The difference between 2000 and 2011 is the health of the overall fight industry in Japan. In 2000, Antonio Inoki was desperately trying to transition New Japan into a company where he could take the wrestlers and book them on high-level K-1 & PRIDE events. He saw a dying wrestling industry due to lack of television support. The days of being on network TV like New Japan was in the 1980s was over. When you’re on network TV at 2 AM in the morning, it’s an ‘image down’ and it’s a lot harder to make new stars. Americans use DVR/PVR and are mostly cable/satellite customers. In Japan, most people still rely on network TV and do not pay for television services. Given the trajectory of the wrestling business, Inoki tried his damnedest to make Naoya Ogawa & the late Shinya Hashimoto into cornerstone pieces for New Japan blurring the lines with MMA. When PRIDE was launched, it was based on former yakuza boss Hiromichi Momose backing Nobuhiko Takada and the old UWF crew. UWF died after Takada & Yoji Anjoh inter-promoted with New Japan.

What no one knew at the time was that matchmaker Riki Choshu killing off UWF and giving Takada a golden financial parachute would open the door for Momose and henchmen (Nobuyuki Sakakibara, an executive from Tokai TV — the Nagoya affiliate of Fuji TV, and Naoto Morishita) to kill off Japanese wrestling. PRIDE did just that — they started poaching the biggest names from the Japanese wrestling business. Inoki saw what was happening and decided that he would get his boys involved in the action by putting them on the cards that were getting on network TV. It led to a bizarre mixture of guys succeeding and failing. He wanted guys like Yuji Nagata to make it. Instead, they got high-kicked into oblivion while guys like Kazuyuki Fujita & ‘Hollywood’ Tadao Yasuda, who failed to get over as pro-wrestlers, suddenly got pushed to the moon because they beat guys in the MMA ring.

The MMA boom in Japan left pro-wrestling in a perilous position. Inoki made such a mess of New Japan that he did the unthinkable and sold the assets to Yukes. If he hadn’t sold New Japan, the company would have died. I said that ad nauseam at the time and no one believed me. When Yukes got the assets, they found out how many skeletons were in the closing and the process of cleaning up the mess left behind by Inoki took a while. Inoki got a sweetheart deal in that his likeness and he, himself, could be booked for a fee to promote anything and everything. Call it the George Foreman golden parachute, if you will. If there’s one thing Antonio Inoki always has known how to pull off it’s the concept of getting paid first to be a front man while letting everyone else do the work.

(This, ironically, is how we got the mess that was Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye on NYE 2003 at Kobe Wing Stadium. Inoki was simply the front man for admitted K-1 yakuza fixer Seiya Kawamata, who had plans of running his own promotion after things fell apart between K-1 & PRIDE. Inoki got his wrestlers booked and paid by Nippon TV on the show. Kawamata ended up walking away after the show when his yakuza stooges allegedly turned on him in support of PRIDE. The show turned out to be a ratings disaster. The event and the days thereafter became the centerpiece of what would result in the implosion of PRIDE and the Japanese MMA industry in general.)

As 2011 closes out, the Inoki MMA show finds itself going back to its 2000 roots but under totally different circumstances. The wrestling business in Japan is producing solid matches but no solid draws. Without a robust pro-wrestling industry to rely upon, the MMA business in Japan does not have stars to generate to run big shows. The symbiotic relationship between the health of wrestling and the health of MMA is as relevant now as it was in 2000. That link will never die, which is why all the talk about DREAM and other MMA promoters needing to bring Japan into the 21st Century is largely a worthless exercise.

Sting vs. Hiroshi Hase (1/4/1993 Tokyo Dome)

Hiroshi Hase & Keiji Mutoh vs. The Steiner Brothers (1/4/1994 Tokyo Dome)

Japan is all about history and tradition. In the 1990s, the biggest yearly show on the calendar was New Japan’s annual 1/4 Tokyo Dome event. The show drew 50,000+ year after year and it’s drawing power couldn’t get killed off even though New Japan got greedy and started running more than one Dome show a year later in the decade. When Inoki pulled off the PRIDE-backed Osaka Dome NYE show in 2000, the NYE date supplanted the 1/4 Tokyo Dome date as the biggest show of the year.

With network TV currently not as enthusiastic to support the NYE MMA shows, Inoki is doing everything he can to keep the show relevant. He’s going back to what he knows, which is blurring the lines between wrestling and MMA. When we look at the 2011 NYE card, this is Inoki’s attempt to not only save MMA on broadcast television but also to try to save the image of pro-wrestling as still being relevant. There is a New Japan event at the Tokyo Dome on 1/4 but it’s got horribly weak drawing power and little momentum headed into the show. The main event is Minoru Suzuki vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi. New Japan is desperately trying to push Tanahashi like he’s the Japanese version of Hulk Hogan with better workrate by not having him lose in title matches (similar to the run that Hashimoto had in the 90s that was largely boring). For as solid of cards as New Japan is booking, there is a big difference between solid wrestling and solid star-power. The company does not have star power right now. There’s a very good chance that the show will bomb at the Tokyo Dome and that it will no longer be feasible for the company to run the building.

In many respects, Antonio Inoki is not only trying to keep NYE relevant for MMA & wrestling on broadcast TV, he’s also dealing with a shadow war of the annual 1/4 Tokyo Dome show and just how far that deal has fallen.

There will never be another Antonio Inoki in a lot of respects. At age 68, he’s witnessed many of his contemporaries die. I can imagine it’s getting very tiresome for him to get asked by the media for comment on when another one of his old running mates in the business dies. This week alone was living proof of how Inoki has managed to blend the worlds of both his enemies and friends while getting everything he ever wanted in life. Umanosuke Ueda, his chief Japanese rival (who teamed with Tiger Jeet Singh) in the Showa Era, died at the age of 71. Inoki had a very famous nail board death match with Ueda that was anything but conventional. And before Ueda’s death, we had the death of Kim Jong Il (the North Korean dictator). Inoki has always had close ties to the North Korean scene, having relationships with both Kim Jong Il and his father. Inoki was in discussions to have a tribute show to the father next year (similar to the two-day 1995 Pyongyang Stadium shows).

In Japan, being associated with North Korea right now is a hot button topic (see: Zainichi.) Rikidozan, the Godfather of Japanese pro-wrestling during the Reconstruction period, was born in North Korea. Rikidozan’s family still maintains political ties to the current dictatorship in North Korea. Inoki, one way or another, has been able to use this as his angle to go back and forth between Japan and Pyongyang. Anyone else in Japan trying to pull this off would face intense media scrutiny. Inoki goes back and forth between the two countries… and few people mutter a word. In fact, Inoki was one of the first men in the world that the media rushed to for comment after Kim Jong Il’s death was announced on North Korean state television.

Inoki’s fascination with the world’s strongmen is quite a tribute to his own psychological profile. No one has been a bigger cult of personality in the modern Japanese fight game like Antonio Inoki. We are entering 2012 and Inoki is still able to comfortably get paid to be a front man for major events. When you’ve lived a life based on promoting yourself as a virtue & value in and out of the ring, you tend to sympathize with those who act or behave the same even if they are violent in nature. From politicians in Pakistan and the Philippines, to Idi Amin the Ugandan savage, to Saddam Hussein who Inoki ‘negotiated’ with over hostages and got swords plus Iraqi pro-wrestling shows in return for his efforts, to Kim Jong Il & family, to his current fondness of Vladimir Putin (and overall romanticization of Russian Communist politics which he based his late 1980s program around involving Salman Hashimikov), nobody knows how to talk & deal with political strongmen like the Cult of Personality himself, Mr. Inoki. It’s his best asset, his main asset, and the one asset he has in play that he thinks he can use to try to save a dying industry on New Year’s Eve in Japan.

Topics: DREAM, Japan, Media, MMA, PRIDE, Pro-Wrestling, Zach Arnold | 29 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Randy Couture: Yeah, Title IX has really crippled wrestling programs badly

By Zach Arnold | December 22, 2011


Click the book cover to find out more information on a great catch wrestling resource

There are two groups of people who would like to see some very different visions for the future of fighting. One is hoping for a renaissance of Catch-as-Catch-Can… and the other has a more futuristic view of where the fight business should be heading.

First, the fine group of humans who are interested in catch wrestling. As you can see up above, I highly recommend Jake Shannon’s book on Scientific Wrestling. He and many others are doing their best to emphasize the importance of Catch on the sport of MMA. Randy Couture did an interview with Eddie Goldman last Friday talking about this very issue in relation to his new book called The Last Round w/ Sara Levin (who worked for USA Wrestling). Book ordering/background information can be found on Amazon & Facebook.

In the book, he says the following: “I will always be a wrestler.” Here’s his explanation for why he said that remark:

“I think wrestling is just one of those sports that, once it grabs you, once it bites you, I mean you’re… you’re (hooked) forever, it never changes. I have a wrestler’s mind, I look through wrestler’s eyes, a wrestler’s mentality, and I transfer all those things and used all those things to become a Mixed Martial Artist and in MMA it’s the foundation for my fighting style and I think that, you know, those things will never go away. They become part of my character and part of who I am, so I think for that reason I’ll always be a wrestler.”

Now that he is retired from Mixed Martial Arts, Randy was asked about the state of amateur wrestling and what role Mixed Martial Arts can play in helping bring more attention to the sport.

“I think, unfortunately, Title IX has been pretty hard on our sport over the years and I’ve done some fundraising and been involved in kind of raising some awareness about that and some of the college problems that have been put on the chopping block in recent years like Fullerton and University of Oregon’s program and others and hopefully, you know, through Mixed Martial Arts I think we can turn the tide. I think, again, it’s about the constituencies and what they want and I think wrestling is getting a better nod and being considered more of a martial art now than it ever was in the past because of our exposure in Mixed Martial Arts. In a lot of ways, MMA has become the professional outlet for amateur wrestlers and collegiate and now Olympic-style wrestlers alike and I think all those things are good but… you know, I don’t know what else we can do other than continue to educate people and turn them on to this sport of wrestling. It’s the oldest combative sport around for a reason.”

A big avenue he sees in promoting knowledge about wrestling techniques in Mixed Martial Arts is through education about the Catch style.

“I have my black belt from Neil Melanson and I’ve kind of, him and I worked very hard together in kind of developing techniques that comes from the wrestling world and implementing it into the Catch style. Obviously as a wrestler, you know, that’s where collegiate wrestling came from, from Catch as Catch Can, so it’s something I feel strongly about and I also see that as a big positive thing for collegiate-style wrestling and ultimately Olympic wrestling is kind of resurrecting the Catch style as the submission style for MMA. I think it’s widely used and grounded people just don’t the terms, they don’t know that’s the things they’re doing, we’ve gotten so caught in the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu style that we failed to overlook that the original combative sport in the Olympic games was boxing and wrestling and Catch wrestling, Pankration, all those things have a ton of merit. It’s just putting on the right glasses to look through the Catch wrestling in wrestling glasses instead of the Jiu Jitsu glasses and I think in a lot of ways I’m an example of the style and it’s success.

“I would like to see Neil develop either a book or some instructional tapes and help him kind of come up with an outline that, again, further educates on the style, how the style works, how it’s implemented into Mixed Martial Arts and the fight game as a whole.

“With Neil, we’ve had our first tournament at Xtreme Couture under the kind of Catch wrestling rules. Neil kind of came up with some rules and a scoring system that he thinks kind of epitomized what Catch is all about and I think we want to continue to build on that and make it a bigger, more annual type of event and just continue to, again, educate and foster this style.”

The other, more colorful vision of where fighting is going

Japanese engineers and minds of great intellect are involved, of course. Get ready for ‘this is robot entertainment.’

There’s a futuristic world of pro-wrestling & MMA out there involving robot battles and suplex machines ready to rip limbs off and eat metal carcasses. On Christmas day at Buddhist Hall in Tokyo, that vision comes to life. It’s only a matter of time before we get some performance-enhancing cheating scandals.

Background information here on how we’ve gone from robot dancing contests to now having Bantamweight & Flyweight robot wrestling & MMA tournaments. Try measuring up to that, Dana.

On Christmas, we get the ultra-deluxe bombastic edition of robot pro-wrestling & MMA that will make Antonio Inoki completely envious and jealous. Four-legged & five-legged robots unite. You can follow all the action & inside information on this new world of wrestling & MMA on Twitter @IKETOMU.

What the epic Christmas fight card looks like: The main event is for the Kanto Robot Heavyweight championship as Saaga the Suplex Machine takes on Monster. Other fights on the card include a Last Man Standing (Texas Death rules) match, a battle royal match under Royal Rumble rules, a retirement match, and … an Extermination death match (winner must completely physical destroy their opponent). There are also MMA fights on the card and they are under youknowwhat rules (10 minute round).

Even though it’s not the main event, one of the top fights on the card would make Atsushi Onita orgasmic — a Japanese no-rope electrical exploding barbed wire time bomb death match.

When asked for comment, Shinya Aoki was still trying to figure out how to wear the right shoes with his suit in public at Shibuya 109. Over to you, Blake Northcott.

Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 11 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

What’s not said about drug testing in combat sports

By Zach Arnold | December 20, 2011

After all the hullabaloo that the Nevada State Athletic Commission put Alistair Overeem through in regards to taking a urine drug test, he’s touting how he’s been drug tested the most out of anyone in the sport. It makes for a media-friendly tag line heading into his fight against Brock Lesnar on Friday, December 30th at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

On this site, we’ve focused on the issue of doping in MMA and what kind of tests athletic commissions could implement if they really wanted to catch more guys in the act of doping. Suffice to say, we don’t buy what Keith Kizer is selling in regards to the claim that urine drug testing is more effective than blood testing. It may be effective for catching idiots who are using horse drugs like boldenone which have a long half-life, but you’re not going to catch any sort of substantive/sophisticated testosterone usage unless you use a Carbon Isotope Ratio test.

Dr. Margaret Goodman appeared on the Sherdog Rewind show this past weekend and did an interview with the inimitable Jack Encarnacao on this very topic. She is launching a new organization called VADA (Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency) which will allow fighters in the combat sports to be able to be independently drug tested at a higher standard than what the current athletic commissions are using. You can find out more details about VADA on Twitter and Facebook.

If you’re looking for a perfect example of how VADA can be utilized, Jack brought up the example of Josh Koscheck when he said he wanted to have more stringent drug testing for his fight against Georges St. Pierre. Instead of being lauded for the request, Dana White told him to be quiet and that the commissions are the ones who handle drug testing protocols.

As for why VADA has been established, Dr. Goodman says that the current testing standards simply aren’t modified to test for standards that are important in boxing & MMA.

“The way commissions order tests now, the prices might have changed, but for example to do the regular drug screens that a commission would order, let’s say that they do the complete panel that goes through Quest labs. It could be somewhere in the neighborhood of 125 items, most of which are either drugs of abuse and a lot of other things that maybe aren’t even applicable to combat sports that’s included in the panel and then you’ve got the large amount of numbers of things that are done in the anabolic screening panel and diuretics and masking agents. That may only cost $300 but unfortunately the problem becomes is that you’re missing all these other items. You’re missing EPO, you’re missing checking the blood count which can only maybe cost you $8. But you’re missing all those other things and that’s why the process needs to be advanced and done the right way or not done at all.

“That’s another thing that we really want to do with VADA is we want to educate the athlete on these aspects. When I started working as a ring doctor (and I always go back to this silly story), but when I first started as a ring doctor and I would sit with the fighters and one of the ways you examine a fighter is by hearing them talk and seeing how they respond to questions. You kind of know if somebody’s brain is working well by just doing something simple like that and I would ask them what they were taking. We had a sheet where they had to write down any medications they were on and attest that that’s the only things they were taking. But a lot of fighters would write down that they were taking aspiring and I would say to them, ‘Don’t you know the risks of taking aspirin right before a fight?” and they had no clue and the fighters that had been taking a lot of aspirin you’d often see in a fight those are the guys not just with the nosebleeds but those were the guys that had faces that ended up looking like Elephant Man after five or six rounds. And so to me it was all about education and at first I remember when I would talk to fighters about these things at the weigh-in, you don’t have a lot of time when you’re doing your exam but the trainer would come up and say, ‘don’t, don’t, you’re going to scare them! You’re going to tell them all these things.’ But you know what? I think fighters are different, especially we know with a lot of the UFC fighters they’ve had other jobs in life, some of them are very medically trained. They need to understand all of these different issues so that they know what they’re putting into their bodies (and what) could be detrimental and life-threatening to them.”

Dr. Goodman also think that focusing on anabolic steroid use as opposed to focusing on blood doping is not a good idea given the kinds of health risks involved in that kind of drug usage.

“[Blood doping] is extremely dangerous and it’s probably one of the most dangerous things that an athlete can do and I don’t think that really any commission, at this point in time and for whatever reason, takes this problem as seriously as they should and whether it’s EPO, whether it’s somebody infusing their own blood to bring up their blood count, I mean the risks are just so devastating that it really has to be looked into… I mentioned to you, to do a simple blood count, I just negotiated this with a lab that will be doing it for VADA, I mean it’s going to cost $8 and when you look at the expense of all these other things that are coming up in these drug panels that commissions are often doing that are really of no pertinent value to the safety of the fighter because you order a panel and it’s got a bunch of stuff in it that you didn’t really ask for but it’s just the way the lab has their panel, you know a simple hematocrit, installing that (in a panel) is really going to tell if they’re at a place where they shouldn’t be training and I don’t know the exact rules in Cycling but I do know that they follow the 50% rule and if an athlete’s higher than that, you know they’re not being suspended because someone thinks that they’re blood doping they’re also being suspended because it’s unsafe for them to train when you have too many blood cells that have no room, no place to go, they’re going to get clogged in your arteries and your brain and in your heart and next thing you know you got athletes keeling over for no necessary reason.

“You know what happens? It’s just the same way in other sports is people say, ‘well I’m going to just do it for a short period of time and when the fight’s over or when my competition’s over I’ll go off of this stuff and I’ll just be fine,’ and that’s probably true 90% or maybe even 99% of the time but there’s those risks there and then you put it together with what kind of family history do these athletes have, do they have a family history of heart attack and stroke, what are any other medical issues that they may have that are undisclosed or undiscovered… you know it’s all about education and I think that not only MMA athletes but I think boxers are smart enough to understand this but somebody has to take the time to explain it to them. It shouldn’t just be that we’re testing athletes to catch them, that we’re trying to prove a point or we’re trying to prove that our system is good enough that obviously they’re not using because we don’t catch them…

“Unfortunately, I can tell you some personal experience in my regulatory days is that if a fighter dies, everyone gets all upset because there’s all this (negative) press and obviously everyone’s concerned about the poor individual that passed away but nobody sits down and looks at why, nobody wants to deal with these issues and you really have to … not be afraid to hear the answers. And so after it’s out of the media, these things fade away and that was one of the reasons why I left as a ring physician, it was just so frustrating to me that these issues weren’t taken seriously enough and weren’t acted upon enough.”

As for the great debate about urine vs. blood testing to catch doping, Dr. Goodman agrees with Keith Kizer’s premise… only on one condition, a condition that we’ve brought up before in numerous articles on this site.

“I do agree that urine is better for certain things but, once again, you want to test for everything that’s important and by not testing with blood in addition you’re missing a lot of things. You’re missing every possible instance of blood doping and that can really be lethal to an individual even more so in a lot of respects than someone taking anabolic steroids. The other thing that we’re missing here is, yes, something will stay in someone’s system longer but unfortunately if you don’t do certain kinds of testing, there’s a test (Carbon Isotope Ratio) called CIR. Bottom line is if you don’t do the right test to look for synthetic testosterone, you may miss it any way! The main thing that’s important is this is a growing body of knowledge. Things are changing all the time. Panels that are tested for are changing and if you talk to people now it’s not so much that fighters are using these anabolic steroids that stay in somebody’s system for a long time, they’re too smart for that. Those aren’t the most effective ones out there. They can use creams and gels and things that they can take that are out of their system in just a few hours. Sticking with some kind of urine test so you’re going to catch something that someone took months ago, those aren’t the drugs that these guys are using and we were talking about Carbon Isotope Ratio testing which is a way to make sure whether or not somebody could be using some kind of exogenous testosterone and you might not pick it up in the urine when you’re testing for anabolic steroids specifically but this specific test can often tell you in a much shorter period of time within maybe several hours to days to really pick up and find out whether or not somebody’s been using.”

One of the unique aspects of the drug testing debate is that those who believes the commissions are doing enough or shouldn’t be doing any testing at all say that doping really doesn’t help MMA fighters win fights (based on how many fighters have gotten caught and what their win % is in those fights where they got busted). So, if there’s no winning benefit to doping, then why are so many fighters involved in the practice? Dr. Goodman believes, like you and I do, that there are short-term benefits (that come with higher health risks) when it comes to doping.

“Of course (there are) benefits. The one thing it may not help and I can tell you from years ago when Fernando Vargas lost a fight and then tested positive for Winstrol and he was one of the first major fighters to ever test positive in boxing for anabolic steroids… it certainly didn’t help his chin. So, yeah, there are certain things it won’t help but will it help you train more? Will you be able to train for frequently? Will you then get the benefits of that? Of course you will! And, of course, it can make your stronger and make you faster and maybe it helps on the takedowns. I mean, there’s a whole bunch of different things. Of course it’s valuable but the other side of the coin is that the dangers of it aren’t really appreciated and understood and that’s what makes it so wrong. I just think that the knowledge is partially there not enough and commissions tend to not do as good of a job as maybe they would like to or maybe they even care to.

“I was talking to someone about this that was very much on the inside, not with the commission, but someone very involved in boxing and they said, ‘don’t you understand that this is hell for us? Nobody wants to see fights not take place.’ And so every time, for example, when we started doing MRI testing on fighters nobody was really concerned about the MRI itself but they were concerned about what was going to happen if we found an abnormal result. I mean, I can tell you that there was a very well-respected promoter in boxing (this was before we started having MMA) and the promoter was like, ‘well, do you understand, what (a famous fighter) if he has an abnormal scan?’ And I just looked at him like… well, that’s the point! Isn’t that the point? If someone has an aneurysm or a hemorrhage in their head and he was looking at it from the perspective of the promotional side that ‘that fight won’t take place!’ And, so, that’s another problem with doing drug testing and I sure understand that and I can see why an organization like VADA or even trying to enlist other organizations like WADA or USADA involved in combat sports are not going to be welcomed because no one wants to have anything that can stop a fight and they don’t like to look at the repercussions that it could save somebody’s life, that somebody wasn’t using some substance or some dangerous (agent) to make their performance better.”

Speaking of MRIs, here’s a report that Ron Kruck filed for Inside MMA in which he reviews the study being done at the Cleveland Clinic (in Las Vegas) to give 150 fighters quarterly MRI scans & brain tests to see what kind, if any, damage fighters are suffering in terms of head trauma in their respective sports. The study will be conducted over the next four years.

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