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Without Overeem, Lesnar, Nogueira & other top names, who can draw big for UFC Japan?

By Zach Arnold | September 8, 2011

I wanted to get to this radio discussion about UFC’s return to Japan. On the majority of MMA radio programs I’ve listened to in the last couple of days, I would say that the majority of them spent five minutes or less talking about UFC’s booking of Saitama Super Arena. UFC, purposely or inadvertently, ended up pushing that story to the backburner by announcing Brock Lesnar vs. Alistair Overeem for December 30th. What’s interesting about that fight is not only the timing but also the location. Will that fight happen in Abu Dhabi? I’m sure Brock would love that travel plan! More importantly, it basically ices out two guys who UFC could have used for the 2/26 Saitama event.

On Wednesday, all hell broke loose with Nick Diaz going AWOL. If UFC wants to keep Diaz around, he would be an interesting fit for the Saitama show because he is known by the DREAM fans. The promotion also announced Frank Mir vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira for their next Toronto show coming up in December. That eliminates Nogueira from fighting on the Japanese card, something that he said he had wanted to do. However, he also wanted to fight Mir again.

With Lesnar, Mir, Nogueira, and Overeem not available for Saitama, it puts UFC in a difficult position in regards to who they can book from their roster to pop a big house at SSA. Here is Jordan Breen’s take on how the show may play out:

“I don’t think it’s going to be any kind of major success. We had Zach Arnold from Fight Opinion on Press Row a few weeks back and we discussed this idea… it’s an interesting move but the way Zach Arnold and I painted it was largely a vanity show. This is about the neuroses of Dana White, Lorenzo Fertitta, and everyone else really wanting to stick it to this idea that they couldn’t make it in Japan, that it’s sort of this alien world that they’re just not welcome in. They want to colonize it in a way that they’d colonized everything with the UFC. So, we’ll see if they can fill up Saitama Super Arena. I wouldn’t be shocked if they actually changed venues to some extent. Obviously they have to be in the Kanto region around Tokyo & Yokohama to really cash in on the volume of people and the MMA heartland there. However, filling up 20,000 seats is tough and unless they want to flip to the Saitama Super Arena community hall which is like a couple of thousands people which would be an ignominious and sad show for them, I don’t know how well it’s going to go.

“And the other thing I mentioned is Japan, like any other place, has hardcore MMA fans. I mean, they’re going to be able to sell some tickets but the question is what kind of larger impact is it going to have? Because I would say, in a way, this could be like the anti-UFC Rio in as much as even if it sold well and even if it did a decent gate, I don’t know how much the impact is as, again, for reasons that Zach Arnold and I really poured over in that Press Row segment. There’s a lot of things with the UFC product that doesn’t lend itself well to Japan. Obviously, they want this to be a Trojan horse type effort but I just don’t know how well it’s going to go. I mean, you even look at the most basic set-ups. They do this press conference in Shinjuku to announce this and Zuffa’s Asian foremost guy is still Mark Fischer. Japanese people don’t see this as a Japanese company. A Japanese figurehead for this role might even be a good way to do that and that’s something they haven’t even been able to do. So, I’m skeptical about the actual success of the card on the whole.

“But, as far as actual card quality, I imagine it will look similar to the Australian & European cards, very similar to the Australian card. Obviously, there will be more Japanese guys. I don’t know if you’ll get a Japanese guy in every fight similar to the dynamic you had at UFC Rio, but I do think you’ll get a bit more of that. I do think you’ll end up in a place where, you know, you might even get at UFC Rio where there are some late replacements or they’re trying to sign new talent. You might even get some underwhelming Japanese guys in there to try to just bump up the card. On top of that, consider that you look at local cards in Japan or some of Sengoku’s more richly attended cards, a lot of cards in Japan are driven by individual fighters who might be able to sell 500, 600, 700, maybe a couple of thousand tickets themselves and you’d think it would be stars but it’s often not. There’s often popular local guys who, through their gym, through their community efforts, [sell tickets.]”

Mike Tyson at the Tokyo Dome vs. UFC at Saitama Super Arena

At that point in the discussion, it led to Jordan bringing up the ridiculous 10 AM start time for the show. I’ve called it an insulting gesture towards the Japanese fans and I wholeheartedly stand by that comment. Jordan noted that the Mike Tyson/Buster Douglas fight from the Tokyo Dome started at 9 AM Japanese time so that it could air in the States on a Saturday night. His assertion is accurate. However, the comparison of Mike Tyson’s fight at the Tokyo Dome compared to UFC’s run at Saitama Super Arena is like comparing apples to oranges.

For starters, Mike Tyson was the biggest fight attraction to come to Japan since Muhammad Ali fought Antonio Inoki in 1976 at Nippon Budokan. Tyson was the scariest man on the planet and Nintendo had him in their Punchout game. Nobody on UFC’s roster is remotely close to having the star power of Mike Tyson and nobody in MMA currently is on Tyson’s 1990 popularity level.

For all the talk about what a success the Tyson fight with Buster Douglas was, keep in mind that the Tokyo Dome was about half-filled for the bout. This, despite the fact that the fight industry was blistering hot at the time for business and the Tokyo Dome was still a relatively new building to promote big events in. Starting in ’89, New Japan and All Japan had some heavy shows there. Hulk Hogan vs. Gen’ichiro Tenryu in December of 1991 at the Tokyo Dome drew a huge crowd (even if Megane Super had comped a bunch through tickets given in eyeglass packages). Hogan was nowhere near Tyson’s level of popularity in Japan and yet outdrew him at the Dome.

Furthermore, the strength of the Japanese media in 1990-1991 versus today is like night and day. The magazine industry was booming along with the newspapers and Tyson’s fight aired live on Japanese TV. UFC heads into a market in 2012 where the fight magazine industry is holding on by a thread while the newspaper industry is still doing well but has cooled off in covering MMA on a significant level after PRIDE’s demise and the contraction of K-1.

Matchmaking options

Which leads us to the question of what UFC will do in terms of booking for the Saitama event. If UFC treats this event like they have for UK & Australia events, they’re going to be in for a rude awakening on a large scale. This is the kind of show where they need multiple fights on the level of Kazushi Sakuraba vs. BJ Penn in order to grab the attention of the public.

Jordan hinted on his radio show that if the UFC Japan show isn’t going to draw well in the first place, then it’s better favor fight quality over booking former PRIDE legends in the top spots.

“As for Hatsu Hioki, him challenging for the (UFC Featherweight) title is not beyond the scope of comparison. Obviously, the Mark Hominick example is a good one. And Chad Mendes, even though he’s kind of, you know, Johnny-on-the-spot waiting for his title shot, UFC didn’t come away particularly impressed with what he did against Rani Yahya. If Hatsu Hioki was really able to blow away George Roop, I wouldn’t be shocked to see them go forward with a headliner similar to that.

“It it ends up being something like Jose Aldo/Hioki, it would be a good thing for like a Fox card or even the FX kind of range because basically what you’re doing is you’re taking a developing star, a guy who has real chops to be a legitimate MMA superstar based on his appeal, his charisma, his incredible fighting style and despite the fact that he doesn’t really draw quite yet. Aldo is still having to be anchored to larger champions and people that draw eyeballs anyway. It’s going to be a process and that’s process isn’t going to be over by February, so I think that might be a nice note to hit and obviously Hatsu Hioki/Jose Aldo, if they were able to build to it, I think would represent the most interesting and significant Featherweight fight that you’d probably have in MMA so far. Very, very exciting thing to look forward to and if you’re a Japanese MMA fan or someone who would make the trip for that card, you should be crossing your fingers and hoping for it because, otherwise, whatever main event you end up with might be Nogueira/Cro Cop, something nostalgic but not something of the highest relevance of necessarily the highest excitement. Whereas something like Hioki/Aldo could actually maybe provide that.”

Scarily, Mirko is the biggest drawing card they have left (outside of Josh Barnett) for the Saitama show the way things stand pending the matchmaking on other UFC cards. DREAM & K-1 often booked guys like Katsuyori Shibata to fill up the cards against the Satoshi Ishiis of the world to try to generate some buzz. Jordan’s not too optimistic on this as a good matchmaking idea.

“I don’t think people realize like how big the divide is at times between just like, like a dude like (Katsuyori) Shibata who can come in and throw some [haymakers] and even get offense going sometimes in fights, against dudes that can actually fight. Like, for instance, if I asked you like who was going to win, James Head or Katsuyori Shibata, you’d probably say James Head and you’d be right, by the way. And then, think about like how James Head got beat within an inch of his life by Nick Ring, a guy that is kind of seen like a pacifist cuddly grappler at 185 pounds. Nick Ring like beat this dude within an inch of his life and humiliated him in the Octagon. Like what would happen to a guy like Shibata against someone who could actually fight in the UFC? It would be open season in the most of brutal ways if he didn’t go unconscious within 30 seconds.

“And I do expect to see some Japan-on-Japan fights because I think they will be mindful of not wanting to architect a card where just every Japanese dude gets wiped out. So, I do think there will be… I don’t think it will be like top-to-bottom just like wipeouts or anything like that, but I do think you’ll see a decent amount of Japan-on-Japan and guys getting slightly favorable match-ups. I think they will be mindful of what would happen if just Japanese dudes went like 0-10 on the card or something like that.”

Our friend Dan Herbertson was floating names like Eiji Mitsuoka out today for the UFC Japan show. That would be disastrous on a business level if they filled up fights with guys like him because that’s Pancrase-level business right there waiting to happen. I made an appearance on Mauro Ranallo’s radio show on Tuesday afternoon to quickly give my thoughts on how things may play out for this event.

Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 34 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Josh Barnett: “Professional wrestling is the reason for the fight industry in Brazil.”

By Zach Arnold | September 6, 2011

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

During the Summer, I received a few different MMA books to check out and one of them is Jake Shannon’s new book, Say Uncle! It’s as great as you would imagine it to be. Big text, clean layout, good interview snippets & profiles of characters such as Karl Gotch & Billy Robinson… it’s a breeze to read and appeals to a wide swath of fight fans. I cannot say enough good things about Jake’s book and I would strongly encourage you to check it out.

I was reminded of Jake’s book while listening to an interview Josh Barnett did with Mauro Ranallo last Thursday for Mauro’s distinguished & popular MMA radio show.

There was the usual promo cutting for Josh’s upcoming fight against Sergei Kharitonov:

“I know you just jumped out of this plane, Sergei, you’re floating your way down to what you think is going to be the epitome of an MMA career, sitting on the top with a crown of head. As you float through that sky and you look at all these wonderful things and you see all the stuff that you’re going to conquer, I’m going to come over right alongside you & cut all the strings on your parachute and watch you plummet to the ground. Just wait. There’s no room for two at the top.”

However, the most interesting part of the interview had to do with how Josh got into catch wrestling and why he chose it over other fighting disciplines/backgrounds.

JOSH BARNETT: “Well, when I first started in learning about Mixed Martial Arts and getting involved, you know, at first I thought Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was judo, basically. I didn’t really know the difference and I had a little bit of judo experience but not a lot. But at my roots I’m a wrestler and so finding something that really worked with that and I never felt that wrestling should be discarded at all. I always felt it was necessary to be capable from all angles but not to ever discard my wrestling. That was one of the strongest things that you can have in the ring and watching professional wrestling and being a huge fan of American & Canadian & Japanese professional wrestling for so long and seeing the techniques out there and knowing the lineage about it. Catch wrestling has a very deep lineage and the gym that I started working with came from people that had wrestling & catch wrestling backgrounds so it just made sense and it was so much more aggressive & violent than jiu-jitsu and I’ll be honest — at the time jiu-jitsu was very arrogant especially towards anyone that did not have a jiu-jitsu background or to an extent at the time just because you were not Brazilian. Times have changed a lot with a large influx of jiu-jitsu instructors and whatnot coming from Brazil or just being homegrown here in the United States, but back in 1995… 1994, you know, you tell somebody, ‘well, I wrestle, I do submissions’ or whatever.

‘What’s your belt? Who’s your sensei?”

And I’m like, uh… you know, so-and-so. “Well, I don’t have a belt.”

“Well, whatever,” like they discard you, like whatever you’re doing is all wrong.”

MAURO RANALLO: “Is there similarities then to Luta Livre & catch wrestling in many ways? Luta Livre is submission without the gi and what are the differences between the two?”

JOSH BARNETT: “Yes. Well, you know, the thing is Luta Livre was more inspired by catch wrestling and professional wrestling… whereas Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is actually more so inspired by the judokas that transplanted there, one of them being Mitsuyo Maeda who himself did catch wrestling and was a professional wrestler. So, in either way, professional wrestling is the reason for the fight industry within Brazil. These guys would do their tours of the world, going out there and making it happen and from that… they developed into full-fledged fighting systems.”

As for Josh’s goals of wrestling & fighting again in Japan, he said that his avenue with Mr. Inoki is largely finished as long as he’s under contract to Zuffa/Forza. He didn’t exactly label Strikeforce as a dying cancer patient, however. Perhaps he will see a booking in his near future in February for UFC’s Japanese show.

Topics: Brazil, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 122 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

UFC’s return to Japan: They are who we thought they were, but we’re not letting them off the hook

By Zach Arnold | September 5, 2011

If you have not yesterday’s item about UFC’s return to Japan that I posted on the web site, read it first before you continue reading.

Today, UFC Asian marketing director Mark Fischer held a presser in a Japanese theatre to announced what Gong Kakutougi had spilled the beans on. UFC will return to Japan on Sunday, February 26th. The show will air live on US PPV on the 25th. So, what’s the kicker? The Japanese show will start live at 10 AM JST.

Notes from Dan Herbertson & Tony Loiseleur:

Interesting tidbit from the UFC Japan presser: the plan is to make a Japan show an annual event on top of other Asia-based shows. According to Mark Fischer, the plan is to configure the SSA for 20,000 seats. The show is slated to start at 10 AM on Sunday, allowing it to line up in the usual time slot in North America. KID, Fukuda, Gomi, Okami, Akiyama, Omigawa, Hioki, Mizugaki are all possibilities for UFC Japan but are not yet officially on the card. Fischer said it would basically be a Japanese version of UFC Rio. Lots of local fighters and local media events.

Where do we begin with these developments?

First, the comparison of UFC using the same marketing model that they did in Rio and expecting it to work in Japan is asinine. As Lorenzo Fertitta told Ariel Helwani a couple of weeks ago, UFC was able to prime the Brazilian market by having an over-the-air television deal in place.

“In addition to that, we’ve really only been on free-to-air TV here for about two years. Before that, we were on a subscription channel that didn’t have that many subscribers but now we’re kind of reaching the masses. The fight on Saturday night between Anderson (Silva) and Yushin (Okami), we’re expecting between 20-to-30 million people to watch it on free TV so it’s a big event.”

Put the pieces of the puzzle together here. UFC had a great TV deal in Brazil, ran a show in Rio featuring Brazilian fighters at the top of their game (Shogun, Anderson), and they drew big business. UFC has no network TV deal in Japan, is running a show at PRIDE’s old house, and is not booking Japanese talent that anyone can consider championship-level right now. Got it.

Tweet of the Days in response to this news and my reaction to it from Kyle Canella and Ken Foss:

@FightOpinion Also a pretty big admission that the UFC can’t make money from a Japanese tv deal.

If you’re holding an event in Japan and your catering to anything but the Japanese audience, you’ve already failed.

Think about how insulting it is to the Japanese fans to tell them that this show is going to start at 10 AM in the morning. The kind of people willing to show up for an event like that for that time frame are really hardcore fans. UFC does not have a substantial hardcore MMA fan base to work with in Japan and the hardcore MMA fans remaining in Japan have a very mixed opinion about UFC as a product.

Let me frame it to you this way — imagine if DREAM held a press conference in Los Angeles and announced that they were going to book the Staples Center, have no network/cable television deal to speak of, and that the card will start at 3 AM in the morning so that the Japanese fans could watch it live on network TV back home at 8 PM. American fans would either laugh their asses off or be horribly & rightfully insulted at the fact that the promoters are treating them as an afterthought.

Have promoters ran Noon or 12:30 starts at Korakuen Hall for Sunday shows? Yes, occasionally, in the past when business as doing better. However, Korakuen Hall is not SSA.

(A possible fix to this issue would be for UFC to push back the PPV start an hour, maybe two hours in the States and give the Japanese fans a break with a true afternoon start for a main card. It would be a productive move on their part.)

Michael Ford brought up the analogy of NFL football games airing on TV at 10 AM. The problem with the analogy is that NFL games on the West Coast live (49ers, Cardinals, Seahawks, etc.) start at 1 PM. Apples and oranges for a comparison.

UFC cannot, with a straight face, look at the Japanese fans in the eye and tell them that the Saitama Super Arena show is all about them when you’re starting the damn event at 10 AM in the morning so Americans can watch it on PPV live. Even Vince McMahon had the foresight to run a RAW taping at SSA a few years ago on delay. It reminds me of a story Dave Meltzer once told on one of his radio shows about Vince where he pissed off the Japanese in the early 90s by showing up late to a press conference for a co-promotional WWE/All Japan show at the Tokyo Dome. McMahon showing up late turned off a lot of people in Japan.

Which reminds me of today’s UFC presser in which a VTR (video tape recording) of Dana White was played to the media. So, why wasn’t he at the Japanese press conference? Because he’s getting ready to do press in Las Vegas for the upcoming Georges St. Pierre/Nick Diaz fight in late October. In our opinion, Dana White sent the message to the Japanese fans that he wouldn’t even show up in Japan to do the presser for his own vanity show.

As for UFC proclaiming that they will return annually to Japan? OK, good luck on that one. Hope you can do a better job keeping that promise unlike the “Super Bowl” promise you made to the Japanese fans after you bought out the PRIDE assets from Nobuyuki Sakakibara. Maybe you can tell the public why Jamie Pollack got the hell out of Japan in rapid fashion after you sent him over there to try to run an office in Japan. I’m sure running live shows at 10 AM in the morning with no network television support is really going to win over some important people.

My takeaway from today’s presser in Japan: I knew it was a vanity show all along and, yet, I was not surprised by the online reaction criticizing me for stating the obvious. So, what am I surprised about? I’m surprised at just how nakedly transparent UFC is in regards to not even making standard concessions to the beleaguered Japanese MMA audience in regards to the production of this vanity show. We’re going to get the standard cookie-cutter UFC production with a 10 AM start time.

If UFC is truly living in a bubble and thinks that what they are planning for this Japanese show will work like it does everywhere else, then they are even more clueless than I thought they were. But you know what? I don’t believe that. Their front office reads this site and has read this site since it first started. They are not dumb. What they are, however, is egregiously arrogant and flippant. As I stated before, UFC has money to burn on a Japanese joy ride and what Dana wants, Dana gets. This is going to be his grand ‘ol party to say screw you to the ghost of PRIDE in PRIDE’s old home arena. This is his message to the Japanese MMA fans that what promoters served them was inherently wrong and that he’s going to show the fans ‘the right way’ to produce an MMA show.

I’m not here to cheerlead for the current MMA landscape in Japan. I’ve made my thoughts very clear about what’s wrong in Japan and what needs to change. However, I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit here and watch a bunch of MMA media outlets shake the proverbial poms poms and tell you that what UFC is doing in Japan is 100% right. It’s not. Not only is this a vanity show, it’s a pretty lazy attempt at one as well — both from a business standpoint and an intellectual one as well. You’re not going to build a foothold in the Japanese marketplace without a major broadcast over-the-air network in Japan pushing the product. UFC is not a Japanese company and they do not allow outsiders to control their matchmaking, two aspects which are mandatory in getting a network television deal with an outlet like Fuji TV. And that’s if a major Japanese TV network is even interested, which they are not right now because of what a dirty cesspool the fight game has truly become in the country.

Unless circumstances change over the months to come, I don’t know how one can classify the current behavior of the UFC’s return to Japan as a serious long-term business proposition. Before today’s press conference, I was on the fence about the show. I know it’s a vanity show but at least I was willing to give UFC the benefit of the doubt in figuring out how to even do a couple of little things right. Instead, that’s all been thrown out the window with a Vince McMahon-style approach to nuance. However, even Vince was smarter about what not to do in Japan when he made his attempt last decade to get a foothold in the marketplace.

Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 31 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

About UFC running a show at Saitama Super Arena…

By Zach Arnold | September 5, 2011

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira let the cat out of the bag last week in at UFC Rio when he said that he was preparing to fight for UFC’s return to Japan in February. Today, Gong Kakutougi says that UFC Asia marketing director Mark Fischer will have a presser to make the announcement. A VTR (video) of Dana White making the announcement will be played.

This news comes on the same day that a Swedish media outlet is claiming that Alistair Overeem went to Las Vegas and signed an exclusive UFC contract that will have him focus 100% on MMA and no more kickboxing.

(Mr. Overeem denies the accuracy of the report.)

Back to the UFC/Japan story. According to GK, the list of Japanese names for the UFC Japan show: Yoshihiro Akiyama, Yushin Okami, Michihiro Omigawa, Takanori Gomi, Hatsu Hioki, Riki Fukuda, Takeya Mizugaki, and Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto.

MMA Weekly claims that the show will happen on February 26th at… Saitama Super Arena. Gee, who could have ever seen that coming?

Take note of this one item from the MMA Weekly report:

Sources have indicated that Fischer is in contact with several Japanese promoters who have put on shows there before to help smooth the way for a UFC produced card.

While it’s unclear at this time whether or not Zuffa will actually work with a promoter to put on the show or not, Fischer has been in contact with at least a few as this process begins to bear fruit.

Well, look at who would fit that criteria. Guys like Akira Sakata (who promoted the last UFC Japan show at Tokyo Bay NK Hall in the late 90s) or the Sengoku crew which fabulously bombed every time out at SSA.

Unless UFC works out a deal with Total Sports Asia (the promotional company that worked with WWE in 2003), you’re talking about UFC having to deal with someone like Real Entertainment (which is involved in DREAM). Veterans like Miro Mijatovic might be a wild card, but I think it’s extremely doubtful you would see someone like him involved.

In other words, none of this appears to be what I call heavy-hitting on the surface.

Now, more than ever, is the time for you to listen to the interview I did with Jordan Breen a few months ago about this subject. Jordan appropriately labeled UFC running a show in Japan as a ‘vanity show’ and I agreed wholeheartedly with him. There are many reasons as to why it can be called as such, but you can listen to the interview for further details on that.

As for the roster GK says will be used for the Saitama Super Arena show… frankly, it looks no better than what DREAM has been able to come up with and is horribly lackluster. Akiyama is probably the best attraction of the group, with Kid slightly behind him. However, they are not major names any longer in the Japanese landscape. Okami is a no-namer there, Omigawa got crushed by Chad Mendes, Hioki fought Marlon Sandro in front of a couple of thousand fans last NYE weekend, Fukuda & Mizugaki are totally unknown in Japan, and Gomi was never a draw when he headlined Bushido events in the country.

I am not foolish. I remember what happened when WWE had the backing of Fuji TV and Total Sports Asia when they had their initial events at Yokohama Arena. There was widespread panic from the natives in Japan that WWE would soon take over the wrestling business. Despite backing from the biggest TV network there, WWE ended up fizzling. Their business has fizzled so much in Japan that their delayed PPV broadcasts draw very small numbers (this according to Dave Meltzer). UFC does not have a major promotional arm backing them in Japan and WOWOW is such a minor TV player in the grand scheme of things in the country. Unless someone like Nippon TV is willing to back the show in a big way, it’s really hard to see how this show in Japan will be a major success.

Can it be a moderate success? Perhaps 12,000-13,000 fans, which by today’s Japanese landscape would be a success for a one-off show. WWE claimed 19,000 for a RAW taping several years ago there, albeit with lower ticket prices. This is a perspective from just looking at UFC trying to run a show straight up with their cookie-cutter formula and not booking the show in a manner the Japanese are normally accustomed to. The only other potential factor in their favor right now is how strong the yen is compared to the dollar at the moment, so Zuffa may be able to wring out more cash than they normally would. With that said, I wouldn’t go to war at all in Japan with the roster that is being floated for this proposed Japanese event. Guys like Nogueira aren’t going to move the needle all that much any more over there. It would be fool’s gold to try to emulate what Zuffa did with UFC Rio and see if it works in Japan. The answer? It won’t.

UFC does not have a strong television deal in Japan, so to say that they’re going into a damaged market ‘cold’ would be an understatement. They also go into a place infamous for its foreigner tax on fighters (ask PRIDE fighters about that one). There’s going to be a lot of enemies on the ground looking to sabotage this show one way or another and these enemies aren’t cupcakes, either. A lot of dangerous, seedy hanger-ons will try to glom onto the event if they can’t sabotage it. If Zuffa didn’t learn that already from the brief Jamie Pollack era when they took over PRIDE, perhaps they need a refresher course while they’re at it.

A reminder for Zuffa — you know who used to pay for most of those infamous 100,000Y VIP seats at the PRIDE shows? I’ll give you a hint — first letter starts with y and last letter is a. Fill in the blank characters. This isn’t America where a bunch of marks or whales are going to pony up $1,200 for a front row ticket. The kind of people who will pony up that kind of cash in Japan aren’t necessarily going to be the kind of people you want seen at your show, especially by the police.

Our friend Dan Herbertson, last February, wrote about UFC’s interest in running in Japan. Take note of what he said about Akiyama, Gomi, and Kid Yamamoto. Apply what you know about their current status today and compare it to what he said seven months ago.

The one drawing card Zuffa has to use (on the non-Japanese side) is Georges St. Pierre. If he’s willing to fight four months after his bout with Nick Diaz, it would help bolster the show more than anything they will accomplish with their weak native roster. Rampage? That’s a dicier proposition. Alistair and Barnett? They’re nice compliments, but they aren’t ‘aces’ in terms of draws there. Perhaps if you paired them against each other, you would do some business. That would be a hell of an indictment and admission, though, on a vanity show to run a top of a card with that fight.

Bottom line — as I stated months ago, UFC desperately wanted to run a show at Saitama Super Arena in Japan and not all of those reasons had to do with business. This show, more than any other show Zuffa runs, is personal for the people involved. Whether it makes some money or loses some money, UFC wants to be able to run a show in the marketplace that used to house their main competitor on the world stage. If they get SSA, they’ll be delighted. If they settle for Yokohama Arena, I don’t think they’ll shed a tear either (since that’s where the first major UFC Japan show took place).

As for whether or not UFC’s return to Japan will appeal to hardcore Japanese MMA fans, I think the answer is going to be a very mixed one for Zuffa. A lot of the hardcore PRIDE fans are gone, finished, vanished. Much like when WWE put WCW out of business, those WCW fans didn’t transfer over to support to WWE. They simply stayed put on the sidelines or went away for good. UFC better realize that the kind of fan they will attract for thie show is more or less going to be a casual fan mixed in with a few hardcores but not the same mixture of fans that attended the major MMA events for all those years during the Japanese boom period.

The one thing I know for certain is that for the next six months, I’m going to have a lot of heartburn from UFC fans trying to explain to me why their roster of Japanese fighters are going to draw big in the country and how UFC’s standard formula is an automatic draw in Japan. Zuffa running a show in Japan is going to be more or less a joyride for Dana & company to try to stick it as much as possible to the ghost of PRIDE’s past. All about ego and less about business, more pleasure and personal than professional. Whether it draws as well as WWE did at Yokohama Arena on March 1st, 2003 or tanks like WWE did at Yokohama Arena in 1994 when they worked with Tenryu, it won’t matter to UFC in the big picture.

Let the spin begin.

Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 44 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Brett Rogers’ wife on their marriage: “We just enjoy being around each other”

By Zach Arnold | September 4, 2011

RON KRUCK: “In 2009, Brett Rogers knocked out Andrei Arlovski in only 22 seconds, improving his record to 10-0 and starting his meteoric rise in the sport. However, it was also the beginning from his fall from grace.”

RON KRUCK: “You exploded on the scene. Suddenly, you’re 10-0. Did you feel invincible at that point?”

BRETT ROGERS: “To tell you the truth, I did. I did. I felt that I couldn’t be touched.”

MURAD MOHAMMAD (ATTORNEY): “A true rags-to-riches story. A tire changer at Sam’s Club makes it to the top of the fighting world.”

RON KRUCK: “Rogers took a giant step up in competition, facing Fedor Emelianenko, Alistair Overeem, and Josh Barnett in three of his next four bouts. He lost all three fights.”

BRETT ROGERS: “It took me a fight or two to kind of, you know, lay back and realize, OK, I think I’m moving a little too fast.”

GREG NELSON: “He comes into the local shows, he was king of killing a lot of people, knocking them out left and right. He went from that all the way to the cream of the crop.”

BRETT ROGERS: “A loss breaks you up. I kind of just starting looking at what was the problems, what was the holes in my game…”

RON KRUCK: “Rogers’ losses were just the beginning of his problems. On June 29th, he was arrested and charged with 3rd degree assault on his wife and two other felonies. His contract with Strikeforce was terminated.”

MURAD MOHAMMAD (ATTORNEY): “He’s facing a 3rd degree assault charge. He’s facing a terroristic threats charge, as well as a harassment and stalking charge. These allegations are serious allegations and we take them very seriously but we’re looking forward to addressing them in court.”

BRETT ROGERS: “I was told not to go into details.”

TIUANA ROGERS: “We’d just rather move forward and be positive.”

BRETT ROGERS: “The situation that occurred, it happened and it was more of a misunderstanding when I look at it. The papers can write whatever but we still going through the legal process.”

RON KRUCK: “Has there ever been a violence between you two?”

BRETT ROGERS: “Never. Our records are clean.”

RON KRUCK: “After six years of marriage and three children together, Brett & Tiuana are committed to working together through their problems.”

MMA Weekly: Brett Rogers and family issued restraining order from neighbor
Rick Chandler: Brett Rogers hit with restraining order for menacing neighbors

BRETT ROGERS: “I’m confident that things are going to dropped, squared away and then we can move forward like we said. We’re a married couple, we have our ups and down just like everyone else.”

TIUANA ROGERS: “He’s a family man and a lot of people don’t see that with MMA fighters. They’re so quick to judge.”

MURAD MOHAMMAD (ATTORNEY): “The State is going to have some significant proof issues. The alleged victim is Brett’s wife and this is a family that’s been together for a long time, they love each other, and Miss Rogers at this point appears not willing to testify against Brett.”

RON KRUCK: “Although a jury trial is set for September 13th, Rogers is concentrating on his MMA comeback.”

BRETT ROGERS: “I signed with Titan Fighting Championships and the bout is going to be on September 24th against Eddie Sanchez, former UFC veteran. It would be a mistake if he stands and trades with me but at the same time I’m hoping that he do because that’s what the fans like to see.”

RON KRUCK: “Looking to put their legal issues behind them, the Rogers are focusing on the future.”

BRETT ROGERS: “I want to get back in there and fight and move forward from all the BS that’s been going on in my life.”

TIUANA ROGERS: “We just enjoy being around each other and we just going to continue loving each other, loving our family, and just focus on moving forward and being positive.”

BRETT ROGERS: “You know, it’s just a lesson learned. Life is a roller coaster and it’s definitely a lesson learned.”

Perhaps a more inspiring comeback is the one that Rulon Gardner is embarking on.

KENNY RICE: “Now, as I had spitted out at the beginning of this, Rulon, you’re coming back. Are you teasing us? I mean, Aleskandr Karelin, that victory to win the gold in 2000 in Sydney, one of the biggest upsets in wrestling history in the Olympics. 12 years later, you’re going to be in London. Do you think you can be in London?”

RULON GARDNER: “Well, I think it ultimately comes down to my body. I just turned 40 two weeks ago, my body talking to me and if it’s physically in a position to where I can compete, yeah, I’m going to come back. Because I think so much of it, getting on The Biggest Loser and gaining the weight, I think it’s kind of like America nowadays — you know, taking accountability. I gained a bunch of weight, I lost control, and getting my health back, getting my life back, the best way I can do it is to go back to something that gave me the foundation for my life and that was wrestling. For me, you know, I’ve been back to Colorado Springs, I just got done with a two week training camp out there. I’m 40 years old… and I’m a bad dude. Honestly, it’s crazy walking back in there and just seeing all the same guys, you know, Dremiel Byers, he’s actually going to the Worlds and seeing him every day walking in there, it’s like, you got to bring your A-game, you know, you can’t just sit on the sidelines and talk about how good you used to be, you got to prove it again.”

(Discussion of Joe Warren attempting a run at the Olympics.)

RULON GARDNER: “I saw him this Summer and, you know, give100% courage. I think Couture, I think Lindland, you know, it’s the mind of the fighter, it’s the mind of an athlete who has the opportunity just to show that grit and I think that’s the one thing about combat sports is, you know what, just because you’re down and out, it doesn’t matter what your age is, you can still compete and that’s what mastery of one’s self comes in.”

KENNY RICE: “October, then, will be the official return to action for Rulon?”

RULON GARDNER: “I hope so. As long as my body holds out and, you know, in the process I got back off The Biggest Loser, my shoulder’s a little bit beat up and I’ve been strength training every day on the show, they teach you to lean down and get rid of your muscle mass. Since the show, I’ve been bulking up. I put up 350 the other day on bench and slowly but surely coming back. The squat quite isn’t where it was, I squatted 500 before…”

KENNY RICE: “Don’t we all do that?”

RULON GARDNER: “There’s certain areas that aren’t quite there but I was out of the sport for seven years.”

KENNY RICE: “This will be one of the great comebacks. You already pulled off one of the great upsets. This, seriously, to go 12 years apart in wrestling… this will be one of the great comebacks. Good luck, I hope you do it.”

RULON GARDNER: “Thank you.”

BAS RUTTEN: “We’ll be rooting for you. Rutten… for you.”

Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | No Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Lorenzo Fertitta on UFC fighter salaries: “All these keyboard warriors have no idea what they’re talking about”

By Zach Arnold | September 4, 2011

DAVE FARRA: “Take us back to the beginning, you and Dana White. How did that relationship start?”

LORENZO FERTITTA: “You know, I met Dana when we both started as 9th graders at Bishop Gorman High School here in Las Vegas, so me and Dana White go way back to the time when we were like 14, 15 years old, knew each other through high school. After high school, we kind of parted, went our own ways. I went off to college, he went off and did what he did in Boston and we hadn’t seen each other in about 6 or 7 years until we met up again at a common friend’s wedding and it was just like a nice reunion. Hey, what are you doing, where you’ve been. He informed me that he had been training some boxers and at the time I was on the Nevada State Athletic Commission, so we obviously had some common interests and he said, ‘you know, you should come train with me, I’ve been training some executives, I just don’t deal with boxers,’ and I said, you know what, that’s a good idea, I haven’t been anything since I got out of high school so it’s time to get back in shape and I met up with him at the gym and I think I’ve talked to him every day since then.”

DAVE FARRA: “You and Dana are clearly very close friends but now that you’re a decade into this business relationship, has there ever been any moments where Dana White has said something that hasn’t been politically correct that’s made you go, oh man, don’t say that?”

LORENZO FERTITTA: “You know, that’s the beauty of what Dana is. He has no filter and I think that the fans really appreciate that because we live in a day and age where, you know, you talk to a commissioner of a sports league whether it be NFL or NBA or whatever and they get asked the hard questions and a lot of times you feel like you’re getting a politically correct answer. You know, Dana is all about being, saying exactly what’s on his mind, being truthful. I mean, when’s the last time you saw a fight promoter sit at the podium in the press conference after the fight and say, you know what, that fight tonight sucked, I’m sorry, you didn’t get your money’s worth, we’ll make it up to you next time? You know, if it was Don Kong or Bob Arum, they’d be feeding you something that you know just isn’t right. They’d be expounding upon the fact of what a great fight it was and this and that. Dana doesn’t do that. He calls it like it is and that’s what I think makes him so successful.”

DAVE FARRA: “Could the UFC be where it is today without Dana White?”

LORENZO FERTITTA: “Certainly not with the persona that it has. Dana has become the face of the UFC. he is a great promoter. He’s obviously a great interview. I think at the end of the day, the product is the product. I mean, people like to see two guys fight using Mixed Martial Arts rules. So, do I think the sport would be here? Of course it’d be here without me, without Dana. I think the fact that we put our heads together, we put our money up to build this sport, you know, he promoted it. I think those combinations obviously accelerated the growth and here we are today.”

DAVE FARRA: “Do you agree with Dana that MMA one day will be the biggest sport in the whole world?”

LORENZO FERTITTA: “I do, I really do and I know that sounds crazy, you know, people talk about how you’ll never be bigger than the NFL. I mean, I would say we’re getting… if you take the whole world and wrap that around, I’d say we’re actually getting close with our worldwide reach. We do have a special thing in that this is truly the only sport that you take to any corner of the Earth, any country, any language, you show them, you put two guys in the Octagon and let them use any martial art to compete, everybody gets it. Everybody watches it. It appeals to everybody. Whereas sports that have more structured rules, it’s hard to understand, whether it’s cricket of the NFL or baseball, it just doesn’t translate if you don’t grow up in that culture.”

DAVE FARRA: “Sports fans compare UFC athletes to NFL stars or NBA stars and a lot of keyboard warriors say that UFC fighters are just underpaid considering how much that Zuffa makes. How do you respond to those critics?”

LORENZO FERTITTA: “You know, the reality is they don’t know. They don’t know what the reality is. I mean, the fact of the matter is that when we bought this company, yes, guys were getting paid very, very little. But as our company has continued to grow and revenues have grown, guys are now making a lot more money, too. I can tell you that there is a number of guys that make well into the millions every single years, there’s guys that make into the $10 million (range) every year, in that category. That doesn’t include sponsors or anything like that, so all these keyboard warriors have no idea what they’re talking about. If you take a look at our average undercard payroll relative to say a boxing PPV undercard, we’re paying out upwards of eight times more money for our undercard versus the PPV boxing undercard. So, it’s a complete misnomer and the people say, well, why don’t you guys publish what the guys make? Guys don’t want people to know what they make. Do you want everybody to know what you make? Put your salary in the paper?”

DAVE FARRA: “$19,000.”

LORENZO FERTITTA: “I mean, that’s just the reality, there’s confidentialities built into the contracts and, you know, that’s the way we run our business. Sure, are there fighters that want to get paid more? Of course, there’s always people that are unhappy, but at the end of the day if you go out there and you perform and you become a fan favorite, somebody that can drive ticket sales and PPV, you’re going to get paid.”

(Discussion about culinary union starts. We’ll clip that out for now. We covered the standard boilerplate answer on this issue from Lorenzo in this past ‘interview’ with Joe Rogan.)

DAVE FARRA: “You mentioned your love for boxing, how that is what brought you and Dana White back together after many years. Would Lorenzo Fertitta & Dana White & the Zuffa family ever consider getting into the boxing world to help fix that broken model?”

LORENZO FERTITTA: “You know, I don’t think so. I mean, certainly, you never say never, but it’s not what we do. Boxing is a different animal. It’s very fragmented and I just don’t know if it can ever really be put together or ever be fixed and one of the things that is concerning to me is, for instance, I have two teenage boys and they’ve got their friends over at the house and I talk to kids and everything else. There’s a great deal of these kids that have never even seen a boxing match. They don’t even know what boxing is. You know, I took my son to give him boxing lessons, had him start boxing lessons, and it kind of hit me because he was having kind of a hard time getting the rhythm of what was going on. It hit me, he’s never watched it. So, we have a whole generation that is missing that sport, that doesn’t even understand what boxing really is. Yeah, they might see that their dad’s watching a Mayweather PPV once a year or something like that but it’s not like they’re into the sport, not like they’re into the UFC where they can sit there and rattle off, you know, 20 guys names in the UFC and they know what submission are and fighting styles and all these other things. So, I think boxing, you know, needs to do something to promote their sport to the younger base.”

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

Sneak peak of ‘Warrior’ movie in the States this Sunday

By Zach Arnold | September 2, 2011

Click the poster graphic to find out ticket information

When: Sunday, 9/4, 7PM

Warrior overview: In WARRIOR, Tom Hardy (Inception, Dark Knight Rises) and Joel Edgerton (Animal Kingdom, Great Gatsby) command the screen as two estranged brothers facing the fight of a lifetime. In fact, the Hollywood Reporter calls WARRIOR “A emotionally raw family drama well disguised as a brutal fight film”. You can read the entire article at (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/warrior-film-review-220959).

Topics: Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 5 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

MMA Link Club: UFC books Cain Velasquez vs. JDS for 11/12 Fox Anaheim show

By Zach Arnold | September 2, 2011

So, you’ve now seen the letter by Culinary Union 226 to the FTC about an investigation into the UFC. A couple of days ago at Boxing Insider, Bryanna Fissori posted a new item titled UFC’s new legal team gets ready for Battle with the FTC. Here’s a look at the upcoming battle:

“Tortuous interference” is a likely a cause of action given the nature of the company’s contractual and/or business relationships. In order to succeed on a claim of such, the FTC would have to prove that the UFC convinced a party to breach a contract or prevented them from fulfilling their contractual obligations. Zuffa must have also had knowledge the party’s existing contract. The interference with business relationships claim is only available when the tortfeasor (Zuffa) does something to prevent parties from establishing or maintaining business relationships.

One general example where this may be evidenced by Zuffa is in their business strategy involving sponsorship which prohibits sponsors from sponsoring any other MMA event. The UFC is known to ban sponsors for virtually any reason including sponsoring others in the industry regardless of if they already have a known contractual obligation to that company or fighter. The FTC would have to prove that Zuffa had knowledge and intent in this situation to find tortuous interference and the extent of the interference would be taken into consideration. Given the public nature of the company’s relationships with sponsors it is unlikely that there actions would constitute unlawful dealings as for the most part, the cards are all on the table.

Member sites of the MMA Link Club

Five Ounces of Pain – http://fiveouncesofpain.com/feed/rss
MMA Fighting – http://www.mmafighting.com/rss.xml
NBC Sports – http://www.nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/42363531/device/rss/rss.xml
Cage Potato – http://www.cagepotato.com/feed
MMA Mania – http://feeds.feedburner.com/sportsblogs/mmamania.xml
5thRound – http://www.5thround.com/feed
Bleacher Report – http://bleacherreport.com/articles/feed?tag_id=3007
MiddleEasy – http://middleeasy.com/index.php?format=feed&type=rss
LowKick – http://www.lowkick.com/newrss
The Fight Nerd – http://www.thefightnerd.com/feed
MMA Convert – http://feeds.feedburner.com/mmaconvert
Fight Opinion – http://feeds.feedburner.com/fightopinion
MMA Payout – http://feeds.feedburner.com/Payout

This week’s MMA Link Club featured stories

Five Ounces of Pain: Strikeforce GP conference call highlights

MMA Fighting: Josh Barnett says he must win – and finish

“Titles are spoils of war,” Barnett said Tuesday during a media call for the semifinals of the
tournament, which takes place Sept. 10. “You have to go out there and win battles before you can raid the dead of all their belongings.”

NBC Sports: Dana White still open to signing Alistair Overeem

How open? Rumors floated yesterday that Overeem is preparing a relocation to Las Vegas and could be on the Fox November show, something Kevin Iole is not impressed by because Overeem isn’t known to the masses. Mr. Iole stated that UFC wanted to book Brock Lesnar vs. frank Mir for the Fox main event. He doesn’t think it will happen and guesses that Dan Henderson vs. Vitor Belfort is an option open to book.

Cage Potato: Video of ‘Proving Ground’ winner Nick Newell is rising above the challenges

MMA Mania: Rampage Jackson says Jon Jones can watch him train but still won’t be able to stop what’s coming

5th Round: Official poster for UFC 137 event headlined by Georges St. Pierre vs. Nick Diaz

Bleacher Report: Exclusive interview with cult MMA documentarist Genghis Con

What is so striking about Genghis Con is how real his depictions prove. You can’t help but feel that you are watching something eminently authentic, created by someone congruently genuine.

Bleacher Report: Very in-depth interview with Brian Stann about Chael Sonnen the person & Chael Sonnen the fighter

He was always excited and happy to see me succeed, which is very kind of him, but when I was told by the UFC that we are scheduled to fight, my initial reaction wasn’t to question that on the basis of our relationship outside of the cage. It’s not out of lack of respect towards Chael, but I train with a lot of middleweights in my gym with whom I may have to use that “friend card” in the future.

Middle Easy: One FC – the day of the weigh-ins (you try flying 24 hours to a country for an MMA show)

I managed to find a 24-hour wonton hut in the alley of the Orchard City Centre. Two older ladies were behind the counter, hooking it up with a giant pot of some steaming brew. I knew I could bust out some Mandarin Chinese, so I did. I pointed to something on the menu and asked what it was in Mandarin. One of the cooks flipped out, the other looked at me in disbelief. ‘American?’ she asked. ‘Dui’ I responded with (which is ‘Yes’ in Mandarin). Now what happened next isn’t fabricated at all. Not in anyway. They put down their kitchen utensils and started chanted ‘Obama, Obama! Obama is good!’ and danced behind the counter.

MMA-Japan.com (Mike Hackler): Checking in from One FC

Events are already scheduled for the organization, of which have yet to be announced, but will be right after the show. Let me tell you Asia, you guys are going to get a heavy dosage of MMA in the months and years to come.

Low Kick: Former Strikeforce official says co-promotion may have led to the company’s decline

For a related article on this topic, check out David Williams’ piece on Fedor and what his relative worth was to Strikeforce.

The Fight Nerd: Top 10 worked shoot fights in Japanese pro-wrestling

The choice they made for #1 was an interesting bout. It took place at Tokyo Bay NK Hall, did a half-house, and was Tsuyoshi Kohsaka coming off a UFC run. Tamura was still viewed as the ‘ace’ of RINGS in Japan and Kohsaka never got real traction as a star when he came back. He was taken more seriously, but he didn’t become a bigger star.

I’m very surprised that the 20-minute draw between Frank Shamrock & Kiyoshi Tamura from Osaka Prefectural Gym (RINGS) didn’t make the list.

Also at The Fight Nerd, photos from fight rehearsals on “Warrior” film.

MMA Convert: King Mo loves MMA, but not the culture

Is there anything he likes about MMA fans? If he keeps this up, he’ll have the same kind of fan club Chael Sonnen has in Brazil.

MMA Payout: Film review of “Warrior”

The movie does a great job in explaining the sport of MMA without hitting the audience in the face with it. Although Warrior embellishes the rules of MMA, the fight scenes are fairly true. Not only do the action sequences feature stand-up game but also show jiu jitsu. Warrior will play well with non-MMA fans as it does not try to shove the sport down the audience’s throat.

Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, UFC, Zach Arnold | 24 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Full text of Culinary Union 226 UFC investigation letter to FTC

By Zach Arnold | September 1, 2011

Download the original letter, with sourcing, here

CULINARY WORKERS UNION, LOCAL 226
(Affiliated with UNITE HERE INTERNATIONAL UNION)

August 31, 2011

Richard Feinstein
Director, Bureau of Competition
Federal Trade Commission
600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20580

Dear Mr. Feinstein:

We writer to respectfully request the Federal Trade Commission launch a formal investigation into whether business practices by Zuffa LLC, the corporate owner of the Ultimate Fighting Champion (UFC), the world’s largest promoter of professional mixed martial arts, violate U.S. antitrust laws.

Zuffa has achieved a dominant position in the market for professional mixed martial arts. Since purchasing the UFC in 2001, Zuffa has acquired four of its key rivals, including PRIDE Fighting Championship, World Extreme Cagefighting, the World Fighting Alliance and Strikeforce. In 2008, an independent equities research firm estimated that the UFC controlled 80 to 90 percent of the mixed martial arts market.

Zuffa has preserved and strengthened this dominant market position through exclusionary conduct by refusing to co-promote events, as well as anticompetitive contractual restraints that severely limit a professional athlete’s freedom of movement. These contractual restraints include the following:

a) “Automatic renewal” contract provisions such as the ‘champion’s clause,’ which extends the contract of an athlete who becomes a champion. Such clauses effectively prevent some athletes who sign contracts with Zuffa from becoming free agents and negotiating for higher pay.

b) Exclusive negotiation and ‘right to match’ clauses that lock athletes into negotiating with Zuffa for a period after their contracts have expired. These clauses diminish the ability and incentive of smaller promoters to bid for top mixed martial arts athletes.

c) Merchandise and ancillary rights agreements that require athletes to forfeit their image and likeness rights ‘in perpetuity,’ or forever. These far-reaching agreements deprive athletes of the freedom to make money from their own success and further bind them to Zuffa indefinitely.

In addition, Zuffa has consistently refused to co-promote professional mixed martial arts events with smaller promoters, which may have enable the firm to consolidate its already dominant market position.

Artificial Restraints on Athlete Movement Depress Pay and Stifle Competition

As a result of Zuffa’s contractual restraints, athletes who compete in the UFC are denied the freedom of movement available to athletes in other professional sports. These restraints artificially prevent athletes from offering their services in a competitive market and from receiving a competitive market value for their services.

These contractual restraints can have the effect of forcing some athletes under contract with the UFC to negotiate with one buyer, depriving them of any real bargaining power and depressing pay below competitive levels. The Mixed Martial Arts Fighters Association estimates that professional mixed martial athletes received just 5.7 percent of total gate and pay-per-view revenues at five UFC events in 2009, while athletes who compete in other pro sports organizations receive 50 percent or more of revenues.

In addition to impeding athlete mobility, these restraints have the potential to harm consumers by reducing the quality and supply of professional mixed martial arts events. Indeed, Zuffa’s practice of requiring athletes to sign contracts that may automatically renew, or that allow Zuffa to match offers made by competing promoters once they expire, diminishes the incentive for other firms to enter the market and bid for professional athletes. As a result, the market for mixed martial arts is artificially reduced, to the detriment of consumers and athletes.

Courts Deem Restraints on Athlete Movement as Anti-competitive

In some cases, courts have regard collaboration and agreement on contest rules, such as scoring methods, as essential in order to play professional games. However, courts have ‘typically deemed off-field horizontal restraints on competition — such as player movement restrictions, entry drafts and analogus devices designed to maintain on-field competitive balance — as predominantly anticompetitive.’

For instance, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California held that several National Football League rules, including the so-called “Rozelle rule,” were unreasonable restraints of trade and violated U.S. antitrust law. Under the Rozelle rule, a team signing a free agent had to compensate the player’s previous team. The court held that this rule, by “imposing restraint virtually unlimited in time and extent,” was a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

Professional sports leagues have sought to justify restraints on athlete mobility by arguing that such restraints are necessary to maintain a competitive balance amongt teams, and thereby maintain spectator interest. In some cases, courts have agreed. In American Needle v. the National Football League, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that competitive balance is ‘unquestionably an interest that may well justify a variety of collective decisions made by the teams.’

However, Zuffa does not operate as a professional league, and thuse cannot justify its restrictive behavior as being necessary to preserve a competitive balance in mixed martial arts. Zuffa is a private limited liability partnership that promotes and produces mixed martial arts events for the benefit of its owners. The anticompetitive restrictions it imposes on athlete mobility serve no legitimate business justification beyond stifling competition and increasing Zuffa’s already dominant position in the market.

In addition to these contractual practices, Zuffa has refused to promote mixed martial arts events with rival promotional firms. After Zuffa acquired Strikeforce, UFC president Dana White said the two companies would continue operating as separate entities. “Even when we own them, we don’t co-promote,” White said, In 2009, Zuffa’s negotiations with Russian heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko collapsed, in part, because of Zuffa’s refusal to co-promote an event with another firm, M-1 Global.

Zuffa’s refusal to co-promote events with smaller firms appears to have no justification except to stifle competition, and may amount to a violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act, which prohibits monopolization or attempts to monopolize in restraint of trade.

FTC Has the Authority to Conduct an Investigation

The FTC has broad powers to protect consumers from harmfully anti-competition business practices. The agency enforces antitrust laws under the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTC Act), which prohibits “unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce.” The U.S. Supreme Court has also said that all violations of the federal Sherman Antitrust Act also violate the FTC Act. Thus, the FTC can bring cases under the FTC Act under the same kinds of activities that violate the Sherman Antitrust Act, which prohibits “every contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade.”

Under this authority, the FTC may “gather and compile information concerning, and to investigate from time to time the organization, business, conduct, practices ,and management of any personal, partnership, or corporation engaged in or whose business affects commerce, excepting banks, savings and loan institutions, Federal trade unions and common carriers.”

We strongly encourage the FTC to use its statutory power to investigate the anticompetitive practices outlined above. The contracts between promoters and athletes are generally confidential, which means it may require a government investigation to determine whether the terms of these contracts unreasonably restrain trade and violate U.S. antitrust laws.

If we can provide further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact Chris Serres at 702-386-5231 or [email protected].

We appreciate your interest in this matter.

Sincerely,

Ken Liu, Research Director

1630 South Commercial Street
Las Vegas, Nevada 89102-2705

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 6 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Mike Goldberg: 98% of the fans who listen to me on a regular basis appreciate my professionalism

By Zach Arnold | August 31, 2011

If your name is Mike Goldberg, working for UFC means you watch a ton of fights, get paid to call the action, and travel all over the world. No, I mean, you really travel all over the globe at a dizzying pace.

What happens when you get hurt or sick and you feel the pressure to show up for what you view to be your dream job? Ask Mike Goldberg, who was interviewed by Bruce Buffer yesterday and explained some recently painful scenarios he’s had to work under while doing his job for Zuffa.

Mr. Buffer recently underwent ACL surgery. The horror, especially when it comes to doing The Buffer 180 degree turn for fighter introductions. Here’s hoping his recovery & rehab goes smoothly. Mike Goldberg recently underwent surgery as well that was just as painful — a ‘full disc replacement’ surgery for his back. He stated that the surgery was done two weeks before the UFC Rio event and that he had to make it through a 16-hour plane flight to Brazil to work the event with Kenny Florian. As Mike put it in regards to the Rio after show party, he had two Vicodins with some drinks and ‘was a puddle of mud’ that needed to be taken away by his wife.

No one takes more heat in the MMA announcing world for their job performance like Mike Goldberg does.

“I just always prided myself on being the best that I can be. I don’t compare myself with others, I don’t compare myself to be better than others or not as good as others or do this better. What I want to do is challenge myself to be the best in the world and that’s what I’ve always tried to do. What we do is very subjective, you know, it’s ketchup and mustard. Somebody wants ketchup on their burger, somebody wants mustard on their burger, and for some people you put mustard on a burger and they won’t eat it and I’m fine with that, that’s always going to exist in our line of business. That said, though, I mean, I do everything I can to be prepared, I do everything I can to be perfect every night and, you know, it makes me chuckles, sometimes, you know, the way the fans are. But, for the most part, 98% of the people who listen to what you and I do on a very regular basis appreciate our professionalism, appreciate our energy, our enthusiasm, and like our work and feel like we’re an integral part of what UFC is all about, that we make it even more special than the fighters do themselves.

“Everybody’s replaceable, you know, the sport is what it is really all about and I know that and that’s why I believe that I’ve been able to keep my edge for so many years is that I realize that, you know, as much success as we’ve all had that we’re all very replaceable and we’re all very blessed to be in the position that we are. So, I just want to keep on the ride, do some shows on Fox, continue to go to great places. I had a full disc replacement two weeks ago today and six days after disc replacement I had my pain killers and my seat on the long flight and I was in a lot of pain but there’s no way I would miss a UFC, especially not a historic event like we’ve just experienced in Brazil.”

Mr. Goldberg says that he does read the criticism on the message boards about his performance and cares about what others say about the job he does on the Zuffa telecasts.

“There’ve been things that people have said over the years, you know, I actually take everything to heart. I also realize the source of much of it but there’s certain things that somebody might have blogged this or that and I kind of went, you know, I didn’t really realize I was doing that. I’ll go back and I’ll listen to the tape and I’ll go, that was actually a good suggestion or great catch, I’d forgot about that Brazilian fighter who had won a title and stuff and I think people forget that, you know, we’re human beings.

“I mean, everybody wanted to get all over me when you look at the tape of Sean Sherk & Evan Dunham, it looks like Sherk tapped on the way down, it absolutely 100% looks like he tapped and I say ‘it’s all over!’ prematurely one time in 2,000 fights and everybody wants to have a big hey day about it but, yet, when I was very patient and watched very closely Herb Dean not stopping the fight with Rousimar Pahlares, not saying ‘it’s all over,’ nobody wants to say anything. And, again, I’m not the kind of guy who lives by the edge of that sword, if you did we would have found a mountain to jump off of a long time ago, you’d have to keep all sharp objects away from us. It is what it is but I greatly appreciate it but my point more so is a positive one is that I appreciate the feedback and I appreciate when people catch things that can help me be better because, at the end of the day, we’re servants for the fans and we want to be able to keep the masses happy. You’re never going to keep everybody happy but you want to keep as many people happy and as entertained as possible and I take a lot of pride in that (whether) it’s the UFC, if it’s the NFL, the NHL, college football studio on Fox, whatever it is, it’s kind of always been my philosophy.

As for working on the job under illness and pain, he said that having disc replacement surgery isn’t the only time he’s had to work while not having full mobility.

“I’ve been worse before. I mean, I had biceps tendon surgery on a Wednesday and called BJ Penn/Sean Sherk years ago with a cast from my wrist all the way up to my shoulder on a Saturday and I was really hurting during that show and we had a tailor actually take the inside of my suit out and then put like elastic in it so that my suit coat could go over so on the air you couldn’t really tell other than it looked like I was flexing my arm the whole time, but when I was talking to Joe (Rogan) you couldn’t event tell but I had a full cast four days after biceps tendon surgery, so it shows what it’s about and I wouldn’t miss one… you’d have to keep me down pretty good if I’m ever going to miss (a UFC).”

Being a witness to all of Anderson Silva’s history-making UFC fight performances

“One of the greatest fighters, not only Mixed Martial Artists, but one of the greatest fighters period. Muhammad Ali and you know Joe Frazier and you go back to Sugar Ray Robinson and go back to the era of the greatest wrestlers & Olympians who scored gold medals and world class kick boxers and K-1 champions and, you know, great martial artists like Bruce Lee who competed in a different fashion but still we always looked at Bruce Lee as The Master and the true first ever king of Mixed Martial Arts because that’s really what Bruce Lee was about was about using everything you had in an advantage to defeat your opponent, to win the competition, to win the fight.

“[Anderson’s] magical. He’s magical. I think those couple of performances that were uninspiring, I wouldn’t even say sub par, but they were just uninspiring. Some of that I blame on this opponents, some of that he was just bored, but man has he silenced the critics since then with the kick to the face of Vitor to just toying with Yushin (Okami), to even allowing Yushin to get him up against the cage a little bit and grind on him and once he threw that one knee and he caught him, Yushin didn’t even want to do that any more and you could almost see and Yushin Okami, he’s a great gladiator, he’s a wonderful competitor, but yet after he got tagged a couple of times he didn’t want to be there any more. I mean, you could see in his eyes just kind of like, ‘oh, man, really? this is how it’s going to go?’ Because you feel as an opponent you truly feel helpless, you feel like you’re in a war with not one single weapon when you go against Anderson. He is something very, very, very special and we’re very blessed to be part of this.

“I mean, you and I have called every single one of his fights, from the knockout of Leben to the finish of Yushin Okami, 14 straight, and we’ve called every single one of them. What a magical time and what a magical fighter who truly is on a different level. I mean, he really is, he’s out of The Matrix and, man, it’s fun to watch. … I still, in the back of mind, think Vitor’s a threat if the fight goes a little bit longer but, I don’t know, maybe he’s just good for The Phenom as well.”

As for the great debate as to whether or not there should be a ‘dream fight’ between Anderson Silva & Georges St. Pierre, Mike thinks that GSP is too small to take the fight and that the real dream match-up, pending the outcome of the upcoming Denver card, should involve Anderson Silva fighting Jon Jones.

For a contrarian viewpoint on Anderson Silva…

Nate Wilcox: Anderson Silva’s only had one good rival, no career narrative, and sinks to the level of his opposition

Topics: Brazil, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 24 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Dana White on insensitive comments & gay slurs said by fighters: “This is the fight business, man.”

By Zach Arnold | August 30, 2011

Wasting no time in stirring the pot on the new & improved version of his MMA radio show, Mauro Ranallo got the ball rolling on Monday with two interviews he had with Frank Shamrock & Dana White.

The subject of two MMA legends, Kazushi Sakuraba & Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, popped up during the radio discussion. Sakuraba is scheduled to fight on September 24th at Saitama Super Arena under the DREAM banner.

(And here you thought I was joking when I told Jordan Breen that the highest-profile biggest-drawing match UFC could book for a Japanese show was Sakuraba vs. Fedor. Scarily, I’m not lying.)

MAURO RANALLO: “This guy is literally going to die in the ring and, yet, here we are six years later and the 42-year old is still fighting. I wanted to get your thoughts on why what was considered one of the big fights and one that both Bas Rutten & I were both looking forward to calling never materialized, that being Frank Shamrock vs. Kazushi Sakuraba under the PRIDE banner. Why didn’t it happen?”

FRANK SHAMROCK: “Well, it never happened because we just could never come to terms with it and at the time, you’re right, Sakuraba was the biggest thing in Mixed Martial Arts and honestly my brand was on the decline and… you know, I was a tough fight, him and I were the exact same style, our teacher’s teachers were the same teachers, so it seemed like we were destined to fight each other but, you know, that was a time when I was going down and he was going up and he was, you know, superstardom ahead of me.

“But when you talk about continuing to fight past your ability to represent your own brand, you know, the Japanese culture believes differently. To them, dying in the ring, that’s a big honor and, you know, I hate to say it but it looks like Sakuraba’s going to go out that way.”

MAURO RANALLO: “You’re joking?”

FRANK SHAMROCK: “No! I mean, when I was in Japan… I would have loved to have died in the ring fighting.”

MAURO RANALLO: “Why?”

FRANK SHAMROCK: “Because that’s what I love to do, that’s the essence to of putting everything on the line and risking your life and your heart and your soul, your spirit, and putting everything out in front of the people. What better way to do if you’re a warrior?”

In a pre-taped interview last Friday, Dana White chimed in on Sakuraba’s legacy in MMA

DANA WHITE: “I’m a huge Sakuraba fan. The problem with the Sakuraba story is, Sakuraba should have fought at 170 pounds instead of doing all these Japanese freak show fights where they got him destroyed by guys who were two weight classes heavier than him. So, it goes unanswered whether Kazushi Sakuraba could have been the greatest fighter to ever come out of Japan. The Japanese ruined him!

“It’s just like any other sport that starts out in the beginning. Guys that were great that you try to compare ’em to different eras and, you know, like I told you — (I’m a) huge Sakuraba fan and it’s unfortunate that his career wasn’t handled in the right way where we could have found out if this guy was possibly the best fighter ever in Japanese history and I don’t disagree with you at all that he was a huge superstar and definitely put, you know, it on the map, not only in Japan but in the rest of the world.”

It is humorous that he thinks he can be the arbiter of determining the history of the Japanese fight business.

This led to a discussion about another PRIDE legend, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. Nogueira saved his career in the UFC by beating Brendan Schaub last Saturday night in Rio. Nogueira has a chance to exit MMA gracefully but appears to be wanting to continue and claiming that he will fight for UFC in Japan this February. Unfortunately, he made headlines last week for the following:

Nogueira would not train with gay students

Continue reading this article here…

Topics: Brazil, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 42 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Will One FC shift Asian MMA away from being Japanese-centric?

By Zach Arnold | August 30, 2011

On Saturday night, One FC will make its highly-publicized debut as a promotion at Singapore’s Indoor Stadium. Our friend Mike Hackler will be in attendance at the show. When I asked Mike about the amount of money that the promotion has for backing, he bluntly put it this way: “they’re well-capitalized.”

Dan Herbertson: Victor Cui says One FC will be king of MMA in Asia

In many ways, this promotion has the table set to make a run on the level of PRIDE. ESPN STAR is a major player. Victor Cui, the CEO of One FC, is well-connected in the media, business, and promotional worlds. With operations starting out primarily in Singapore, Mr. Cui has positioned the organization to not only receive substantial media attention but also receive some major inquiries for sponsorships.

What makes One FC an immediate player in Asia is that they’re everything that isn’t Japanese about the MMA scene. A decade ago, everyone in Asia was envious about what was going on in Japan. Japan was viewed as the gold standard and the trend-setter. What happened in Japan dominated the trends and tastes for other Asian countries. A decade later, Japan is collapsing on many fronts.

Organized crime may have taken a financial beating in certain areas, but they are surging in other sectors leading to the kind of corruption that eats at the core of long-term business practices.
The recovery from the bad earthquakes and tsunami that damaged Tohoku is going to take many years to recover from. Fukushima as an area is now known as a ‘dead zone’ the same way people talk about Chernobyl.
Sumo match fixing scandals have cast a pall on the entire combat sports sector in the eyes of many Japanese mainstream sports fans. Fans who used to go to wrestling, boxing, MMA, and Sumo fights were never looked down upon. However, they are now. Fans are looked upon as naive & dumb in a similar fashion to how the American public has long looked at wrestling fans as lower-class troglodytes.

Combine all of the factors noted up above with the previous societal problems Japan has been facing:

The rise of China as the global economic power that it is today
A lack of good MMA training gyms to produce talent. Japan’s MMA boom period was heavily reliant on the use of pro-wrestlers. Old-school pro-wrestling gyms featured guys doing all kinds of ‘shoot’ drills with the doors closed. That atmosphere is gone.
A substantial population drop-off coming due to lack of children being born (raising the ugly issue of immigration in the country
Soil-over-everything preferences when it comes to who is favored and who isn’t in the market place (call this the Yushin Okami principle, as he became a ‘star’ outside of Japan and therefore is viewed as unimportant by most Japanese fans)
Television networks that do not want to get involved in the fight game because of the amount of yakuza involvement (plus the PRIDE scandal)

What you end up with is a massively toxic stew for any sort of long-term major-stage MMA success in the one Asian country that had been such a strong anchor for the sport for an extended period of time.

Want to know a perfect example to illustrate the state of Japanese affairs in 2011? Antonio Inoki is trumpeting up a plan for a show in North Korea next year to celebrate Kim Il-Sung, the father of Kim Jong-Il.

Singapore & Hong Kong are well-positioned to be home bases for the strongest future MMA plays in Asia. Legend FC, a group that a former News Corp. COO is involved with, is trying to make a run at things in HK. One FC is based in Singapore, which makes more sense because the promotion can make in-roads into Australia, Malaysia, and Thailand.

UFC has positioned itself, very similarly to WWE, as a ‘cookie-cutter export’ operation to new markets. What you see in America is what you get when they bring the traveling circus to your area. In Asia, however, that approach may not be as successful. For sure, Australia has proven to be a winner for UFC, but don’t expect Japan or mainland China to immediately embrace a product that isn’t centered around their cultural demands.

Can One FC galvanize support from current & former hardcore MMA fans?

With the growth of UFC as a major international player, I thought the interview Jack Encarnacao did with Fox Sports boss Eric Shanks for Sherdog was depressingly illuminating. Mr. Shanks admitted that Ari Emanuel pitched him the idea of Fox signing a TV rights deal with the UFC and he also parroted the Zuffa Myth about how Dana White & Lorenzo Fertitta saved the sport of MMA from ‘going into a black hole.’ It was depressing to listen to because clearly he buys into the story hook, line, and sinker. He talked about how UFC used to host shows in states with no athletic commissions and now… “they only fight in states that have strong athletic commissions.”

Mr. Shanks alluded to an idea for a show on Fuel TV which would be a UFC ‘fantasy booking’ kind of show featuring MMA fighters, writers, and perhaps fans basically bringing a message board-style conversation to life in a roundtable television format.

Other things said during the Sherdog interview:

“If you look at the past decade, there’s no sport that could be more mainstream than the UFC.”
“They’re the experts in matchmaking.”
On why Fox agreed to let UFC produce their shows — “I’m a fan that happens to be in business with them on the non-PPV side.”

Now, I bring up this Sherdog interview with the Fox Sports boss for one reason in relation to One FC. Over the past month, I’ve been playing catch-up with some old friends and contacts that I used to talk to all the time 5-10 years ago in the MMA world. The majority of them are not active in MMA any longer and when I asked them why they washed their hands of MMA, the majority of them said that they felt like the sport was taken away from them and had become something that they didn’t want to envision it as in their minds: a UFC-dominated one-production-flavor corporate landscape.

Which leads me to the build-up for One FC this weekend. There’s a palpable buzz amongst the hardcore fans that what we’re about to witness here is a promotion that could fill the void of PRIDE and could bring back old hardcore MMA fans to the table that are disgruntled by the current Zuffa-dominated landscape. I realize that there’s a significant amount of projection by fans in terms of what their expectations are going to be for One FC, but clearly there is a hunger & desire to see a major non-American MMA player in the industry. That’s where One FC is currently positioning themselves.

Here’s a look at the fight card Saturday’s One FC debut event at Singapore Indoor Stadium:

Dark matches

125 pounds: Radeem Rahman (Evolve MMA) vs. Susovan Ghosh (karate)
Bantamweights: Soo Chul Kim vs. Leandro Issa (Evolve MMA)
Lightweights: Vuyisile Colossa (muay thai) vs. Ma Xing Yu (sanda)
Bantamweights: Daniel Mashamaite vs. Yodsanan Sityodtong (Evolve MMA/WBA boxing champion)
160 pounds: Eddie Ng (Evolve MMA) vs. Yuan Chun Bo (sanda)

Main card

Lightweights: A Sol Kwon (Heat FC) vs. Eduard Folayang (MC FC)
Welterweights: Phil Baroni vs. Yoshiyuki Yoshida
Featherweights: Mitch Chilson (Evolve MMA) vs. Eric Kelly (URCC)
Welterweights: Gregor Gracie vs. Seok Mo Kim
Lightweights: Andy Wang (Grappling Unlimited) vs. Zorobabel Moreira (Evolve MMA)

As you probably can guess, a lot of the core fighters on this card are from the Evolve MMA gym in Singapore. This is a gym that Zeus from Middle Easy toured and was blown away by.

One FC’s unique rules structure

Matt Hume is being brought in by One FC to oversee the officiating & judging process for the promotion. He will oversee the rules meeting and work with Yuji Shimada. The rules One FC are using for their debut show is a combination of the Unified Rules & PRIDE rules.

Three 5-minute rounds in a cage.
Knees on the ground to a down opponent allowed.
Elbow standing and on the ground allowed.
Stomping to the body allowed but not stomping to the head.
Icon/Superbrawl Hawaii rules in regards to soccer kicks. If you knock someone down and they aren’t defending themselves, no soccer ball kick. If you knock someone to the ground and they are defending themselves, you can use a soccer ball kick as soon as the referee says you can do so.

Matt recently did a lengthy interview with Eddie Goldman and talked about why the blending of the Unified & PRIDE rules will make for an exciting sports product. When asked if allowing soccer ball kicks would be too dangerous, Matt simply replied: “crossing the street is dangerous, too.”

“The danger is not that a soccer kick is allowed. The danger is when you mismatch two people or when you allow something to occur in a fight that a person is not prepared for.

“Those fighters should be versed in all aspects of fighting. If they’re not, then there’s a problem with the people that you’re putting in.”

The interview featured a discussion about the way athletic commissions are currently performing in terms of regulating MMA in the States. Mr. Hume said that there’s both good & bad aspects with the commissions but that the commissions are proving to be incompetent and ill-equipped to train judges & referees. One FC is bringing in the commissioner of a local amateur boxing organization and that other officials, including those who will oversee medical testing, are being brought in from different areas.

“One FC, so far, has been very responsible.”

Why One FC could do well in certain Asian markets when PRIDE couldn’t

In regards to what kind of business plans One FC has in store for the Asian marketplace, Mr. Hume says that the promotion will be aggressive in producing events in countries such as Thailand.

“Victor, he’s got lofty, lofty goals and, you know, right now UFC’s got a stronghold in the United States but that’s not One FC’s goal, their goal is not to compete with the UFC. Their goal is just to be the best that they can be and they’re focused on Asia right now. They’ve got ESPN in Asia there, they’ve got a lot of viewers looking at these events, a lot of potential viewers looking at these events now. The only event I see right now that could really fill the shoes of PRIDE is One FC and so, you know, it’s yet to be seen as to whether that will occur but I think they have the most potential to do that and certainly with the people that they have involved right now they’re on the path to doing that.

“They’re not going to try to do it in one event. They’ve got lots of events planned all over Asia and there’s a lot of stars that in Asia that didn’t fight in PRIDE and they’re not going to just go to Japan and try to get big in Japan. They’ve got plans for other countries and these are probably things that Victor can tell you a lot more about. They’ve got Thai boxers fighting on these cards, they got champions from the Philippines, they’ve got lots of potential stars in a lot of places in Asia that have huge followings in their own countries…

“We could potentially see an even bigger market for these One FC events that there ever was for PRIDE.”

The Japanese market right now is crippled on many fronts. Plus, the yakuza has a terrible track record of promoting fight events in other countries on their own accord (without help) because they tend to do things ‘the Japanese way’ and won’t adapt to the business practices of other countries.

In other parts of Asia, there’s plenty of space to develop and produce successful events if you have a clue and you have the money to pull it off. That’s where Matt thinks One FC is going to be successful as a promotion.

“Worldwide, there’s certainly room to develop an organization. In the United States, Zuffa’s got it locked down very well. Obviously, the Strikeforces and companies like they now own, the companies that had a chance to move up there but who knows whether those companies would have or not. Zuffa’s the one that is doing right, they’re the ones that are making the numbers. But worldwide, certainly there is room.

“Obviously, there was PRIDE. PRIDE was doing well and K-1 was doing well in the past and there’s a lot of reasons currently why they’re not. Those people, those Asian MMA fans are still there and with the right promotion, you know, there’s a huge base all throughout Asia that could even be a bigger base than there is in the United States. Zuffa definitely could move into those areas but, you know, there’s still an open market for other people as well.

“All the fans are still there and, you know, it’s not… there’s a lot of issues, you know, the tsunami but there were more issues with just things going on in business that kind of put a damper on things. Japan’s a very conservative place and the things that went on business-wise over there, some of the scandals and things like that, alongside of the sale of PRIDE and alongside of the tsunami & earthquakes and all those things, people just have other things on their mind that are more important right now. But those fans are still there and those fans will come back. They just have to be given the right reasons to do it and certainly any time that DREAM or an organization over there that has the backing of the broadcasters and comes forward in a responsible manner that the fans want to get behind, those fans will all be back. So, I think, you know, it’s a cycle right now, it’s a down cycle and like I said there’s more important things on their mind right now over in Japan. But those fans will be back as soon as an organization steps up and gives them a reason to be.”

Obviously, Matt’s bread is often buttered in Japan, so I wouldn’t expect him to say anything different about the Japanese MMA landscape there. However, as recently demonstrated on multiple levels, the days of Japan being automatically crowned as the leader of Asian MMA are in serious question. When I did a radio interview with Jordan Breen a couple of months ago to discuss the future of Japanese MMA, one of the big points raised is how everyone assumes that Japan is always going to be the leader in Asia for producing high-level MMA events. Jordan & I both agreed that this is a misleading notion and that promotions like One FC are the future for the Asian MMA landscape.

Saturday night is a chance for a major non-Japanese MMA player to develop and see how much growth there truly is throughout Asia for Mixed Martial Arts.

Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 15 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Ben Grossman of B & C on how UFC’s new 7-year TV deal with Fox materialized

By Zach Arnold | August 29, 2011

Ben Grossman is the Editor-in-chief of Broadcasting & Cable (bio here). You won’t hear the name Ari Emanuel mentioned as the ‘fixer’, the go-between, whatever you want to call him. However, UFC is one of his clients and he gets results in Hollywood.

KENNY RICE: “Ben, how did this all come to place? Because one of the biggest things has always been that Zuffa controlled, and this is amazing that they’ve been able to do that, that’s why they said no to Showtime & CBS & HBO and everybody over the years, they control what they show. And the NFL is about the only other outfit that even comes close to saying, ‘we still have the rights to what’s on your air.’ How did Fox agree to that?”

BEN GROSSMAN: “Yeah, it was a big deal. I remember it was last October after Brock got knocked out in Anaheim, I was talking to Dana and Dana said ‘we’re getting a broadcast deal next year,’ and I said, yeah, OK, and he’s got a broadcast deal! What happened was he went around to everybody and he was talking to NBC, he was talking to Turner, he was talking to all the big TV networks & studios and said I’d love to make the deal but here’s the two things that have to happen — it’s got to be on broadcast TV and I need to control all the production. We all thought that they were going to be with HBO a bunch of years ago but HBO refused to give up production, Dana will not bend on that and it’s pretty impressive. So, what happens is he’s got this deal with Fox where for the fights themselves, that one hour window on those four Saturday nights on Fox, Dana gets to produce it. The stuff around it and The Ultimate Fighter, that’s the stuff that Fox gets to produce so that’s going to be the new look for the TV stuff.”

KENNY RICE: “So that was the compromise then, sort of, in the middle?”

BEN GROSSMAN: “I mean, he’s saying, look, Fox knows what they’re doing, they’ve worked with them before, and now it’s a chance for Fox who’s got a lot of great production values to bring some of that, especially to The Ultimate Fighter. The guys who run FX are really, really good. There’s a guy [named] John Landgraf who’s the President of FX, the guy really gets television. So, I’m pretty excited to see what he’s going to do with The Ultimate Fighter.”

BAS RUTTEN: “What if the fights get longer because we see that happen, that was the problem with the IFL all the way back with FSN, suddenly you’re watching the show and in the middle of the fight, boom, time was up, next show must come on, they just cut it off. But that’s not going to happen here, I assume?”

BEN GROSSMAN: “So, let’s take the first Saturday night November 12th on Fox. It’s live, so what they’re doing is one hour, it’s a one-hour window, you’re going to have an hour pre-game show on Fuel on cable from 8-9 PM and from 9-10 PM you’ve got the live event on Fox and then a post-game show on Fuel. But for that one hour on Fox apparently they’re going to only show two fights and two three-round fights at that, so apparently no championship fights, right? So, two three-round fights within that hour and they’re going to see how that goes. If it’s two quick knockouts, they’ll show something from the prelims. They’re going to have that down to as science, this is that chance to make a first impression that night so that the two fights have got to be great and the production values have to be through the roof because everybody’s going to be watching this to see if Fox messes this up, frankly.”

BAS RUTTEN: “They’re putting a five-second delay on Joe Rogan?”

BEN GROSSMAN: “Exactly, but at least Joe Rogan doesn’t spit at people.”

(laughter)

MICHAEL BISPING: “Excuse me! Outside!”

Kenny Rice asks Michael Bisping if getting booked on The Ultimate Fighter opposite Mayhem Miller is UFC’s form of punishment for what happened with the spitting incident with Jorge Rivera.

KENNY RICE: “So this is not punishment for spitting at Jorge Rivera’s corner?”

MICHAEL BISPING: “Well, I’d just like to clarify right now that I never spat at Jorge Rivera’s corner men. I spat on the floor to show the contempt that I felt for him and his team and the antics they pulled before the fight and during the fight. You know, there’s a lot of things that went on leading up to the fight that you don’t know, like calling my hotel room at 4 in the morning, calling the gym where I’m training and doing prank calls, talking all kinds of things about my family and stuff like that. Every morning we’d go out for breakfast and they would shout out things. In all the years I’ve been a professional fighter, I’ve never encountered a team like this. So, when I beat that guy, it felt good and I spat on the floor to show the contempt that I felt to say, screw you guys, you know. They can say whatever they want.

“Is it punishment, to answer your question? Sorry I went off on a tangent there!”

KENNY RICE: “We need to get this cleared up because we talked about it and I said I can’t believe you’d spit at a guy and I meet you and I got to tell you as I’m sure some people do, you’re not what I expected. I expected some guy coming in here and you know we have a cape here in case you spit at us and this is going to get crazy this year, but a nice, well-mannered young man, you know, that’s what I’ve said.”

MICHAEL BISPING: “Thank you very much, I appreciate that. Listen, people have a problem, a perception of me, you know, and I’m not like that at all. I’m always very courteous to people, I’m fan-friendly, but really at the end of the day as long as my friends, my family, and my team are happy with me, I couldn’t really care less about what some nerds on the Internet think. When I meet people, no one’s ever had a bad thing to say about me. I treat people with respect and they treat me with respect and that’s the way it goes.”

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 6 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

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