Would you invest money into MMA in this business climate? (Audio show included)
By Zach Arnold | March 16, 2011
Put yourself in the situation of a money mark being recruited by people in the MMA business to put up some cash, either for a new start-up or for a ‘turn-key’ operation. Other than murmurs about something happening with Pro Elite, the entire industry is owned by Zuffa on a large scale. Bellator is on the outside-looking-in on MTV2, somehow hoping beyond hope that they catch a few breaks and that UFC breaks away from Spike TV. Showtime is stuck, for better or for worse (depending on your point of view), in a shotgun marriage with a new business partner that has been trashing them for the past several years. Outside of Zuffa & PRIDE & K-1 (in the past), nobody has a proven long-term track record of making money in MMA. Are you willing to pony up big cash to get into the sport?
BTW, as Josh Gross pointed out on Wednesday: Rough day for ProElite, Inc. stockholders out there. Shares fell $0.10 & lost over half their value. Volume still high, just under 700k.
Dana White says that Zuffa doesn’t have a monopoly in the business — all it takes is someone with guts and big money. Of course, it’s easy to say that when you have over 300+ fighters under contracts and none of them are classified as employees with benefits. 10 years ago, Turner ditched World Championship Wrestling and sold the assets to WWE. The wrestling business has never been the same since then. TNA has tried and utterly spent millions upon millions of dollars going nowhere. WWE has declined as well and has been saved by international expansion, but things aren’t looking terribly great domestically for them on PPV.
UFC is in the PPV business and a heavy portion of their viewer demographics crosses over from the pro-wrestling field. They know what the formula is to make money. For an outsider wanting to get in, the barriers are now extremely high. A lot of money, a lot of resources, and a need for office talent that understands the business. It’s not something you learn in a textbook. And yet, in many situations when new money marks come into the fold, it’s always the sleazy retreads who should never have gainful employment who somehow attract the marks in order to draw a few paychecks before the next failure happens.
- Jonathan Snowden: Combating the UFC monopoly — tennis as a model for organizing fighters
- Jose Mendoza: Searching for a viable competitor, is it worth the risk?
And that’s just the climate in the States. Try Japan. Sumo’s falling apart. The wrestling scene has limited power now. K-1 has had financial difficulties. The yakuza problems still exist. Now, the big Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear problems. Want to be a promoter in Japan and spend a lot of money only to have to cancel a show? Several promoters have had to deal with that fate this week, including Dragon Gate which announced a cancellation of their big March 20th event in Tokyo at Ryogoku Kokugikan. All Japan has a show scheduled for the 21st at the same building. Their show may get postponed as well. Between the politics, resources, and crime, how will the Japanese scene look in the future?
As a reader, give me a scenario in which you can see an outsider coming into the MMA landscape and being successful. Forget about competing with UFC, I want a scenario in which you can see someone making money for a sustained period of time and having somewhat of an impact. How do you do it? Who do you need to align with? Is the entry into MMA as poisonous at this point as the entry is into professional wrestling? How do you convince television executives who believe that only Zuffa knows how to promote the business and no one else?
To add further context to this discussion, check out our audio conference call on this subject with myself and Jeff Thaler. Issues addressed include: Has MMA jumped the shark? Will there be any anti-trust issues down the road? Who will want to invest money in the sport? Will Zuffa cash out in the near future?
Get a head start and listen to our discussion (it’s 20 minutes long), as I’ll try to transcribe parts of it this weekend. It’s worthy of your time to download the conference call and check out the discussion. I’d like to get your responses to what was discussed on the audio.
Topics: All Topics, Fight Opinion Radio, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, UFC, Zach Arnold | 43 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Showtime contract with Strikeforce/Zuffa until 2014?
By Zach Arnold | March 14, 2011
That’s my big takeaway from today’s presser regarding Zuffa’s purchase of Strikeforce and keeping the leagues separate. This is by far the biggest middle finger that one can do business-wise by UFC to Showtime, an entity they really have hated. Showtime is totally stuck here if it’s true — they have to either breach the contract and pay off Zuffa, which would mean Zuffa in the end would have paid little out of pocket for Strikeforce, or they fulfill the length of the contract and they finance UFC’s expansion operations which in turn will mean tens of millions of USD for many years to come. It’s a genius move by UFC on so many levels. No wonder they did it so fast.
However, it is fair to ask what Showtime’s motivations will really be to produce these MMA shows until 2014. Will they just pay off UFC to get it over with and never come back into MMA? Will they pay off UFC and call up Gary Shaw to screw around with Zuffa? Options are limited and none of them look great for the network. You could say that Showtime will benefit from UFC’s ownership of Strikeforce, but it’s not as if UFC really values Showtime as a media platform for doing business on. It would be only for an ‘in’ with CBS at this point. A lot more questions than answers raised here with Showtime.
One thing is for certain — SVSE had their goals and Scott Coker had his and the deal with Showtime sped up the finality of the promotion’s existence.
Here’s audio/video from today’s presser by Steve Cofield of Yahoo Sports/Cagewriter.com:
Addendum: I completely forgot about Showtime’s deal with M-1. It was interesting how Scott Coker was his usual hedging-self on the status of Fedor’s contract. Our friend the Fight Lawyer says: “Extends to 2014″ does not necessarily mean that the original term does not end in 2012-Showtime may just have option to extend for 2yr term.”
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 46 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
The weekend that changed everything for UFC & MMA
By Zach Arnold | March 12, 2011
Don Quijote backs away from Sengoku, effectively destroying the promotion on a large scale. Enterbrain, the publisher behind kamipro, pulls the plug on a print edition. And now, UFC has purchased Strikeforce. In effect, Showtime is going to paying for a TV contract to finance the building up of fighters for UFC when a merger eventually takes place.
It’s consolidation, for sure. A lot of people in the end will lose their jobs. Showtime will be a big loser initially, but a person who I think could end up a winner here is Gary Shaw. Once UFC takes what they want from Strikeforce, there will be leftovers (think: female fighters). UFC does not have an appetite to promote women’s MMA. It is entirely conceivable that Showtime will go to Shaw and make a deal to try to cause some problems for UFC down the road. I’m almost certain that will happen. Unless, of course, part of the deal is a non-compete for Showtime in the MMA ‘space’…
As for UFC picking the best fighters from Strikeforce and letting the rest go, the company already has a major problem with a bloated roster. Sure, Showtime will be able to finance contracts for some UFC fighters, but in the long run I don’t see many fighters benefitting at all from such a deal. Bellator is not in any position whatsoever to pick up refugees from Strikeforce.
Scott Coker cashed out. How would you like to be a fighter for Strikeforce now? Fedor doesn’t want any part of Zuffa. Alistair Overeem wants to be able to kickbox as well as fight and that goes against Zuffa code. Josh Barnett doesn’t want to deal with the UFC politics. What does it say about Coker and his belief in his Heavyweight GP that he would cash out before even completing one round of said tournament? If he really believed in his company and believed in the trajectory it was going in, he wouldn’t have sold the company. Remember all those glowing reports from a couple of weeks ago about how the company was doing so well? Will the ‘tournament’ even progress further?
Outside of roster issues, UFC accomplishes a lot here with the purchase of Strikeforce. They eliminate their main rival and ensure complete and total control of the industry. They also have enough VTR (video) to run a media channel. Other than Shaw and Showtime, there is no one left to give Zuffa a headache. And, if you’re DREAM or K-1 or Sakakibara, you just saw the one willing business partner in the States sell his company out to an organization (UFC) that had a bitter taste left in its mouth in the asset sale deal for PRIDE.
The UFC/Strikeforce split is all about contracts. Once they’re fulfilled with Showtime, I’m told a WEC type merger is planned.
Big, big picture here, Viacom owns MMA.
Bet we don’t see as many UFC shows on Versus in the future. Versus demographics didn’t prove to be good for UFC events.
Here’s another weird situation: what does this mean for EA and THQ and the UFC? THQ has licensing rights for 7 years. Can that be amended?
The boxing equivalent of today’s UFC + Strikeforce deal is not Top Rank buying Golden Boy. This is TR + GB + Gary Shaw + Goossen + DiBella.
Does this mean Fedor gets his Tapout shirt back?
UFC is the sport now officially.
Update: Josh Gross says negotiations have been ongoing for ‘months’. MMA Junkie says the ghost of Pro Elite was looking to buy as well. Reported price tag? $40M USD.
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, UFC, Zach Arnold | 77 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Don Quijote ends relationship with Sengoku; Enterbrain ends publication of kamipro
By Zach Arnold | March 10, 2011
A note on the official Sengoku web site labeled as an urgent report claims that the promotion is at a serious crossroads and that the organization is distressed. The note says that Don Quijote has pulled all of their financial support from the company. Don Quijote was backing the company fully, including office headquarters. The note says that a lot of money was lost and that rather than stay in the ball game, Don Quijote left and that the ‘heartless mass media’ comments made about them didn’t help matters.
- February 1st – Sengoku goes to war with Gong Kakutougi’s Manabu Takashima
Sengoku’s note claims that Don Quijote will continue sponsoring other MMA organizations but that everything is under further review.
The company’s note, bizarre in nature, says that if they cannot find a sponsor to replace Don Quijote’s absence, then the fans must prepare for the company to collapse.
Here are the thoughts of Tony Loiseleur on the health of Japanese MMA:
As many of you have noticed, my story on the troubles & changes in the Japan Shooto Assoc went up recently on Sherdog: http://bit.ly/eKiffT
There are things I’d like to editorialize a bit on that I couldn’t fit in or just wrote poorly about, though. First, despite the petition and allegations, Taro Wakabayashi has not been wholly detrimental to Shooto. He has done many great things there. Shooto’s success is in raising guys frm amateur ranks to pro. Wakabayashi developed & ran the world’s most comprehensive am system in Shooto. Thus, he’s partly responsible for many of today’s JMMA stars. It was a job he took so seriously, he overworked his way to a stroke last October.
Second, despite the lack of good news from JMMA recently, I didn’t intend my piece to be a “more reasons why JMMA is doomed”-type work. Mostly due to poor writing, I meant to report a recent event (the petition) & its effects (vast structural change), which I found intriguing. Third, re: the changes, what I personally found intriguing was the idea of bringing the Unified Rules of MMA and a cage to Shooto.
Third, re: the changes, what I personally found intriguing was the idea of bringing the Unified Rules of MMA and a cage to Shooto. Some reaction to that has been negative in that bringing either would be a loss of identity by UFC-ifying Shooto. I couldn’t disagree more. While I feel a cage at Korakuen Hall may be a stretch, the abolition of Shooto gloves, 5-rd title bouts, & unif. rules weight divs are great. Thus, Shooto is reshaping its physical pedagogy in a way that future fighters will be ready for entry into promotions like the UFC. This will hopefully lead to advances in training, weight-cutting, & gameplanning often commented on.
To sum up: Wakabayashi helped make & ran the most comprehensive amateur system in the world. It’s why Shooto has produced so many great fighters. That amateur system, together with the intro of unified rules, can only help prep future JMMA fighters for top level international competition. Thus, I think Shooto & JMMA are far from finished. We’ll have much to look forward to as fans in what I think will be a bright future ahead.
Sports Navigator (Yahoo Japan) reports that Enterbrain will end publication of kamipro magazine.
Thoughts and best wishes to all those in Japan and in areas where earthquake/tsunami damage has occurred.
Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, Sengoku, Zach Arnold | 60 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
MMA’s chattering class
By Zach Arnold | March 10, 2011
Quiet on most fronts, but everyone is waiting for the UFC PPV show on 3/19 in Newark with Bones Jones vs. Shogun.
Bruce Buffer invited Dan Henderson to stop on by for the show since Dan will be in Philadelphia the next day for the NCAA wrestling tournament. Dan said, “I don’t know if they’ll let me in the door.” He noted that he wears his Clinch Gear shirts. “They still might not let me in the door.” Steve Cofield had a discussion on his Las Vegas radio show about whether or not UFC blew it by not keeping Dan Henderson around. Who won the better end of the Henderson/Shields trade, UFC or Strikeforce?
Speaking of Mr. 180, Bruce Buffer announced that he has a book deal coming out from Random House in Christmas 2012 or March 2013 where he’ll talk about many behind-the-scene stories not told online.
Four matches announced for the Strikeforce April 9th San Diego card:
- Shinya Aoki vs. Lyle “Fancy Pants” Beerbohm
- Welterweight title: Nick Diaz vs. Paul Daley
- Lightweight title: Gilbert Melendez vs. Crusher Kawajiri
- Light Heavyweight eliminator: Gegard Mousasi vs. Mike Kyle
One sponsor you won’t see on Strikeforce shows any more is Tapout and Tapout has been going through a lot of reorganization these days, as noted in this recent interview Jonathan Snowden did with Tapout’s new management. The more you read that article, the more it reminds me of when Yukes (the famous Japanese video game company) bought New Japan Pro-Wrestling from Antonio Inoki and didn’t realize just what a mess they had on their hands until they started going through all the skeletons in the closet. The process took a long time to clean out but in the end the new subsidiary company was tightly structured and ready to go. Will Tapout come out of the reorganization on the positive or negative end?
To close this post out, I want to bring up a recent radio interview that Luke Thomas did with Jordan Breen about the future of the MMA media landscape. To set the stage for the three graphs that I transcribed from the interview, let me bring in some discussion context. There’s been a lot of talk about the amount of money, internally and externally, that has been pulled away from some of the bigger MMA sites and the end result is people trying to do the same amount of writing but on the cheap. (Luke brings up the fact that it costs too much to travel and go to all the live events because there’s not enough money to be made on it and he brings up Yahoo scaling back sending all of their writers to live events.) There’s also discussion about speed and volume, which brings up Bleacher Report. Luke says that Bleacher Report is going to make huge strides in 2011, ‘but I don’t think their mission is going to work’ because they made their name as a volume play rather than a quality play initially.
So, that’s the set-up for these three graphs. The first graph deals with what readers will expect from writers in the near future and what kind of role it will take to be successful:
“There will always be a market for the, uh, insider, for the guy who’s giving context to things, the guy who’s giving you his digest of things and providing opinion & analysis. That will never go away. But I think that the guy who, um, live tweets during an event and then, you know, goes and takes notes at the press conference and then files a column at the end of it the next day, I think that guy is going away. I definitely think that guy is going away. I don’t know when he’s going to go away, maybe not in 2012, maybe not even 2013, but I bet you by 2015 that person will go away. That is not where news is going and where it actually is going is a place where people who have a decent level of skill and a widely dispersed network can pick up the slack and cover news in a way that fulfills the sort of essential appetite of newsreaders. Again, on top of that, you’re going to have to have a guy who somewhat fills the guy, the role of the column writer where you’re knowledgeable, you’ve been doing it for a while, you can digest…”
The second graph deals with blog sites versus different styles of content platforms:
“The distance between media and fighters is almost non-existent and the readers’ general attitude is, listen, if you can call up somebody and get an interview, get an interview, you know I don’t really care, I mean they do care about opinion, there’s certainly a huge market for that, but it’s not nearly as big as the market for just calling up, I don’t know, Gilbert Melendez, getting him to be on your Blog Talk Radio show and then finding a way to re-purpose that in another way and that is why I think pure blogging has basically, it’s almost basically gone in MMA. It’s almost basically gone. I mean the two biggest ones or at least one of the biggest ones was Bloody Elbow and you see less and less of that now. In some ways, maybe that’s a good thing because most of the guys who are doing blogging kind of sucked including I was, I look at my old writing and I was embarrassed. I do think that’s a little bit regrettable. My goal one day is when I’m done doing interviews and I’m done doing all this other stuff I would love to be able to just have a pure blog and not have to worry about interviews or people’s feelings and be able to sort of hit from an honest position, I sort of think that’s really the beauty of blogging. But I can say that I think there’s still a market for it. You know, in Shakespeare who was the guy who was the most honest person before the King or some of the ruling body, it’s the fool, you know, but the fool is the guy who is able to be perfectly candid, who in his charming, disarming way is able to say the King has a lisp or that he’s ugly or fat or his subjects don’t respect him and I think that there is, I think we’re losing that. I hope one day when the sport matures that we can, I personally think that that should be something that we should have.”
The last graph deals with the drawback in money from top MMA sites and with smaller sites consolidating to try to compete on a bigger scale, both on traditional & mobile web:
“In the long run it’s good. In the shot run, there are some drawbacks. So, in the short run, what’s going to happen is that I think everyone is going to be trying to do the same thing. Everyone is going to be trying to, you know, a slight variation but everyone is going to be trying to do real-time coverage the best they can of events. They are going to be trying to do as many fighter interviews as possible, they’re going to be trying to be doing video stuff, they’re going to be try and do photography, they’re going to be trying hitting all these things that in aggregate will be making coverage more comprehensive but more homogeneous but I think that over time that will develop into expertise. People will get really, really, really good at it and you’ll begin to see some hierarchy in how that develops. So, as guys get better they begin to expand their repertoire of the kind of things that they can expand into and I think that … the real big winner in the next five years in MMA and it’s going to change the current dynamic of the competitors of the top sites completely is whoever figures out mobile the best. Because I think mobile and I don’t mean to disparage anybody’s apps … I don’t think any of the mobile apps are pretty good and I don’t mean just MMA, I mean generally like Mashable who covers social media and who covers media generally, their app sucks. So, it’s not even that. The next wave is going to change all that completely and when it does we’re going to have this debate and discussion all over again. But, as everything, long story short, as everyone vies for the same piece and becomes homogeneous eventually it will settle itself out and create an hierarchy. But if you’re an MMA fan, you’re going to get a ton of news. You’re just going to have to figure out which one is worth your time.”
On the mobile side, I would give a tip of the cap to MMA Torch and how they have been ahead of the curve on the mobile side of things.
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 36 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Cases of good judgment & bad judgment in MMA
By Zach Arnold | March 8, 2011
There are a few stories brewing that should be highlighted or at least observed. Whether it’s good or bad judgment is up to you.
JUICY SUITS: Ultimate Fighter Matt ‘The Law’ Lindland sued for alleged stolen marijuana
Read the story. I laughed at the fact that someone filing such a lawsuit was ‘civil’ (pardon the pun). However, it does bring into question the whole mess right now with Team Quest and all the turmoil surrounding what’s left in Oregon. We know the situation with “Mr. Hypogonadism” Chael “Mortgage Fraud” Sonnen. Based on the fan reaction he is currently receiving, it doesn’t look he will be all that punished in the end for his transgressions. Sadly predictable. Which reminds me of this Cageside Seats article talking about the media tying themselves up in pretzels to justify a booking of Sonnen vs. Michael Bisping. Professionally, I know the fight will draw big numbers. Personally, I have no desire for it nor do I have any more desire to withstand the behavior of either man in and out of the cage. Just don’t expect me to have any sympathy for Sonnen when no one has any for Josh Barnett. Both men, of course, have licensing issues.
“UFC 129: St-Pierre vs. Shields,” future pay-per-views, to start one hour earlier
This is the big story today and so far the public reaction has been unanimous in supporting the decision. Logistically, it will help out the company in getting show production done faster after events and it gives the media some extra time to meet deadlines. For fans on the East Coast, it will be a pleasant surprise (especially compared to late state times for boxing PPV events). The only drawback, if you want to call it that, will be for UFC live events in Vegas or on the West Coast where the start times will be even earlier than usual. The flip-side is that people can just have a late dinner after the show. All in all, this sounds like a good decision.
Except if you’re working for Bellator, of course, and find yourself running against either Strikeforce or UFC all the time.
Speaking of Bellator, they drew a reported 200,000 viewers on MTV2 for their debut on the network last Saturday night. Strikeforce drew a reported 412,000 viewers last Saturday for their Columbus, Ohio event headlined by Dan Henderson.
I think, all things considered, drawing 200,000 viewers on MTV2 is solid. Most people I know do not have access to MTV2 or have to pay for it and the network on certain cable providers is in Standard Definition rather than HD. On a personal level, SD or HD programming differences don’t bother me, though the reaction I saw from MMA fans about not getting their events in HD was as if they were victims of a tragedy was amusing. If not being in HD is going to piss off fans, then I would expect the numbers to drop a bit. More concerning, to me, was the slow-pacing of the show and the fights. I can’t see how anyone who is 10 or 12 years old, which is the demo that Bjorn Rebney keeps touting, is going to want to watch this long-term. Bully Beatdown is a much better produced show than what we saw with Bellator on Saturday night. Nevertheless, I was surprised they hit 200,000 viewers. I admit it.
As for the Strikeforce number, I say you should reserve judgment on the ratings number. Nick Diaz fighting on April 9th in San Diego will tell us a lot. He, other than Fedor, is the promotion’s #2 TV draw right now. (Gina Carano has been inactive, so who knows how she will draw in her return.) If the show headlined by Nick doesn’t draw well, then I think there will be legitimate concern. It really feels like that the promotion is gearing up to make June 18th in Dallas their next big ratings all-or-nothing pop. They’ll have Gina Carano on along with the rest of the first round of their HW GP ‘tournament.’ I realize how ridiculous all of this sounds with the way they’ve handled the ‘tournament’ and how it’s created a vacuum for everyone to speculate about Fedor returning, so on and so forth. For now, I would say to withhold some judgment on the Showtime rating this past weekend. What I will say is that every time you run one of these year-long gimmicks, like a ‘tournament,’ you completely suck the oxygen away from spot shows and other events because the fans are assuming that the tournament shows are the A-shows and everything else is on the B-level, no matter how good the card is.
(A perfect example of this was in PRIDE where the GP shows drew big ratings but the Bushido cards, which had some great fights, completely and totally tanked.)
Topics: Bellator, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, UFC, Zach Arnold | 27 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
From humiliating Shinya Aoki to entering professional wrestling for Yuichiro Nagashima
By Zach Arnold | March 6, 2011
How bad have things gotten for K-1? The man who humiliated Shinya Aoki on New Year’s Eve, cross-dresser Yuichiro Nagashima, has announced his next career move. He’s entering professional wrestling.
He declared himself to be a new rival for Daichi Hashimoto, the 18-year old son of the late Shinya Hashimoto. Daichi made his pro-wrestling debut today in Tokyo at Ryogoku Kokugikan for ZERO-ONE’s 10th anniversary show. Daichi took on Masa Chono, one of the Three Musketeers. Keiji Mutoh appeared at the show to do commentary. Chono won in 13’38 with the STF.
After the match, Nagashima entered the ring and spoke on the arena microphone. He declared his intention of making his pro-wrestling debut on 5/5 at Korakuen Hall. He stated that he was impressed with Daichi’s rookie debut and that he would jump into the business as a rookie as well, setting the stage down the road for a future clash.
As for where things stand in Japan, the news of Sakakibara resurfacing amuses me. He’ll put on some shows behind the scenes (reportedly), but a turd is a turd no matter how much you try to polish it. Without TV money as the sugar daddy, this will struggle.
Topics: Japan, K-1, Media, Pro-Wrestling, Zach Arnold | No Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
The obstacles ahead for Bellator on MTV2
By Zach Arnold | March 5, 2011
Tonight, they essentially ran head-on against Strikeforce’s event from Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio. ESPN ran results from the Strikeforce show on their news ticker. Bellator results? Not so much. The two shows provided a contrast for the MMA fan looking for something different than the standard set by UFC.
The Bellator show at Tachi Palace in Lemoore, California featured a crowd that was more laid back than active. That’s a promoter’s worse nightmare. The toughest job in the world for an event promoter is to keep a crowd active and involved and energized throughout a show. On too many Bellator events, the crowds are sitting back and acting like they are watching a movie as opposed to really being involved in cheering for certain fighters.
Both the Bellator & Strikeforce telecasts aired on tape delay for the West Coast. Bellator’s PR staff had already e-mailed out event results before the show started to air on MTV2 for those in the Pacific time zone. Oops. As for the fights that aired on TV, there were two that didn’t air on TV that probably would have made the fans at home happier (Spiritwolf’s gritty split-decision win and Zoila Frausto’s 125-pound bout). BTW, it appears that Zoila will no longer fight at 115 pounds and a 125 pound tournament will be developed shortly. So much for Zoila defending a 115 pound title. Doesn’t make that tournament look good in hindsight.
Back to the MTV2 telecast. It was slow-paced tonight. The fans weren’t all that into it. The one time they did get into the action was when referee Josh Rosenthal found himself in controversy. Jay Hieron had Anthony Lapsley in a choke and was doing his best to try to cover it against the cage ala Urijah Faber on Takeya Mizugaki. Rosenthal stopped the fight because Lapsley wasn’t responding to him and he thought that he was out cold. However, once Rosenthal ordered for the break and stoppage, Lapsley popped up and the fans started booing loudly. It was the one time the crowd showed some life on the telecast. Rosenthal was interviewed by Jimmy Smith after the fight for a clarification and promptly got booed. Jay Hieron, who can never seem to win even when he technically does, got booed hard by the crowd as well after he said, “I’m back.” He put over Lapsley as a dangerous fighter because he had 8 kids and needed to win fights to feed them.
As for the other fights, the less said about Rick Hawn vs. Jim Wallhead the better. The first two rounds of Brent Weedman vs. Dan Hornbuckle were fun. Round three was not, however. Lyman Good did enough to beat Chris Lozano and get the decision win to move on. It was not exactly a rocking start for the promotion’s Welterweight tournament.
Results from the TV matches:
- Brent Weedman defeated Dan Hornbuckle after 3R by unanimous decision.
- Rick Hawn defeated Jim Wallhead after 3R by unanimous decision.
- Jay Hieron defeated Anthony Lapsley in R1 in 3’39 by choke sleeper (after the referee stopped the fight).
- Lyman Good defeated Chris Lozano after 3R by unanimous decision.
If MTV2’s demographics cater to 10-to-12 years olds, I don’t think this show exactly appealed to their senses. A lot of work remains.
As for tonight’s Strikeforce event (results here), it was largely what I expected when I said the show looked good on paper. I liked what I saw. Interesting to note that if the promotion had booked Marloes Coenen vs. Liz Carmouche for a non-title three-round fight that Liz would have won the decision and a rematch would have been booked. Instead, it was a title fight and Marloes survived and won in four rounds. Dan Henderson continues being the guy that everyone cheers for and tonight it was no different. Feijao gave him everything he could but Dan’s powerful punching came through in the clutch and he battled back in excellent style to win the 205-pound title.
Quotes from the post-fight press conference.
Topics: Bellator, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 40 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
The lay of the land for UFC in Q1 2011
By Zach Arnold | March 4, 2011
The short version: More negative than positive trends.
The long version: More complicated and detailed.
Heading into Q2 and the rest of the calendar year, things look real big for the promotion. However, the Q1 has given us a glimpse into what the fans think and, so far, the fans see a lot of ‘second-tier’ fighters that they may watch on free TV or even take a pass on but would never consider paying to watch in a high-profile position. Dave Meltzer says the initial estimate for a buy rate for UFC 127 (Australia) is in the 250-300k range for Jon Fitch vs. BJ Penn. About what I expected. Plus, we know how Gray Maynard vs. Frankie Edgar drew on PPV. Throw in the military charity event on Spike and the ION time buys and what you get is that there’s some interest, but not nearly the explosive kind of numbers that you were seeing as recently as a couple of years ago.
With more content available and much of it looking the same production-wise and booking-wise, today’s breed of fans are more selective and impatient as opposed to the old school MMA fans who treated everything as a big event.
(Jeff Thaler was talking to me on the phone a few days ago about this. Jeff says ‘hi’ to everyone out there in the readership.)
Yesterday’s UFC show on Versus drew a 0.7 cable rating. Expected, but not a great number. Especially compared to TNA drawing a goofy 1.4 rating for their dreadful wrestling show on Spike TV. Irony there given that Joe Warren, of all people, was on the telecast to plug Bellator on MTV2. The Versus shows for UFC simply aren’t drawing the eyeballs like the Spike TV telecasts and even the Spike shows are stagnant right now.
I don’t think UFC has plateaued by any means in terms of live business, but the TV side may be where it’s going to stay the same or decline a little. With Australia proving its worth as a big-time foreign market and Canada proving to be golden, the question now becomes what to do internationally and on television in a landscape where a lot of fans Stateside are giving more fighters the thumbs down than the thumbs up in terms of paying to watch them or even watch them for ‘free’ on cable. I would be remiss in forgetting to note how Strikeforce did on Showtime last month as compared to some of UFC’s cable TV events.
So I’ll throw the question out there — is the MMA fan base fragmenting into anti-UFC and pro-UFC as far as viewership goes? Normally, the pattern has been that you have your UFC fans and then some of those fans will watch ‘the competition’ but treat it as secondary. Are we starting to see real polarization in choice? I’m not talking about the simple message board flame wars, but a real honest-to-goodness polarization taking place amongst MMA consumers?
What can UFC do about the general consumer placing many of the fighters in the second-tier ‘not gonna pay to watch’ category? Let’s hear your constructive thoughts. Yes, I said constructive.
Bonus question: Has bad officiating (referee work & judge scoring) chased some fans away from watching the sport?
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 36 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
UFC 3/3 Louisville: Diego Sanchez wins controversial decision over Martin Kampmann
By Zach Arnold | March 3, 2011
TV: Versus
- Light Heavyweights: Igor Pokrajac defeated Todd Brown by TKO after the end of round one.
- Middleweights: Rousimar Palhares defeated Dave Branch in R2 in 1’44 with a heel hook.
- Middleweights: Dongi Yang defeated Rob Kimmons in R2 in 4’47 by TKO.
- Bantamweights: Takeya Mizugaki defeated Reuben Duran after 3R by split decision.
- Lightweights: Shane Roller defeated Thiago Tavares in R2 in 1’28 by KO.
- Light Heavyweights: Cyrille Diabate defeated Steve Cantwell after 3R by unanimous decision. Domination.
- Lightweights: Danny Castillo defeated Joe Stevenson after 3R by unanimous decision.
- Bantamweights: Brian Bowles defeated Damacio Page in R1 in 3’30 with a choke.
- Middleweights: Chris Weidman defeated Alessio Sakara after 3R by decision.
- Middleweights: Mark Munoz defeated CB Dollaway in R1 in 54 seconds by KO.
- Welterweights: Diego Sanchez defeated Martin Kampmann after 3R by unanimous decision (29-28 three times).
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 47 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Delay in Strikeforce HW GP is an absolute joke
By Zach Arnold | March 1, 2011
It’s now official that the rest of round one in the promotion’s ‘tournament’ will happen on June 18th in Dallas at American Airlines Arena. Yes, in Texas. Who could have seen that coming? Read that Junkie report and the statement given by Scott Coker. Horrible.
First and foremost, as I stated this morning, there should absolutely be a penalty fee paid by Strikeforce & Showtime to the four fighters in the ‘tournament’ (Werdum, Barnett, Overeem, Rogers) for this ridiculous two month delay. It no doubt has impacted some of the scheduling for the fighters and their camps. No excuses, it’s time for Scott Coker to pay up.
Mike Kogan (in response to my comment about how the promotion should give fighters a penalty fee due to postponement):
life is unfair. Its in their contracts.
Second, the fact that Scott Coker really did push all of his chips to try to run the April 9th date in Japan is absurd. Yes, I predicted that Strikeforce would try to run some if not all of Barnett’s fights in Japan, but you would have to be a clueless idiot in 2011 to try to run that market — especially if you are a foreigner. What it goes to show you is what a mark Scott Coker is when it comes to Japan to ignore all the realities that were facing him and to proceed ahead as if he was running into a brick wall just for the fun of it. I’m not angry at Mr. Coker, I’m just embarrassed for him at this point.
Third, the delay in the HW GP should absolutely raise red flags in the minds of fans that this ‘tournament’ will even get completed. I’m not saying 100% that it won’t happen be finished, but it certainly has a larger chance of not getting finished within the 2011 calendar frame. The delay also makes all the advertising for April 9th on the February show with Fedor look like a joke. Yes, there will be an April 9th event and the card will be very good, but it’s not the HW GP and that’s the problem you run into when you run these gimmicks, these tournaments. They suck all the oxygen out of the all for booking because that what the fans only care about it. It’s like throwing a plate of red meat at a lion in a cage and then coming back for round two and giving the lion a platter full of broccoli & sprouts. Fans should have every right to be upset about the delay and what they may perceive as ‘false advertising’ when it’s really more or less incompetence.
I don’t know how many times I need to repeat this, but I will do so again: MMA fans want competency and consistency. Not one or the other, but both. Demonstrate that and you will win over fan trust.
Unfortunately, the story of Strikeforce on Showtime has more or less been about inconsistency or incompetency. Scott Coker rolls the dice on Fedor and ends up watching Fedor lose to both Fabricio Werdum and Bigfoot Silva. Then, instead of putting over the two guys who won, he focuses on saving Fedor’s career in interview after interview after interview. Now, he gambled on Japan (again) just like he did last year, only on a bigger scale this year, and predictably failed. You don’t have to be a millionaire or a genius to understand how toxic the landscape in Japan is right now. Stay out of the way of that place. Why risk your core business on what is becoming a secondary market due to politics and crime? There was no other reason to do so other than to live out some sort of bizarre fantasy.
Hopefully Mr. Coker won’t get his picture taken with Mr. Shinoda or his cast of characters in the future for ‘negotiations’ on business deals.
MMA writer Jon Luther writes tonight:
The delay in the Strikeforce HWGP has everything to do with Josh Barnett. They essentially wanted ACs to give him a license without testing.
Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 36 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
A lot of questions will be answered this week amongst the Top 3 US MMA promotions
By Zach Arnold | February 28, 2011
This Thursday is UFC’s third Fight Night-style show on Versus. View the card for the Louisville event. The word going into the show is that the advance is not off-the-charts. For one reason or another, the UFC shows on Versus haven’t been big ratings getters. That said, I like the card for this show and it is solid. No complaints. I’m hoping for a lot of finishes so that we can get to see a healthy amount of the undercard fights.
- Kelvin Hunt (Pro MMA Now): Five things to be on the lookout for at UFC Live 3
The show also has some weird momentum going in, given what happened on Saturday night in Australia. For a “B-show,” there’s sure been a lot of broad media discussion about it (for better or for worse). The Michael Bisping spitting incident has garnered quite a reaction, most of it negative on the sport. The problem Dana White finds himself in is that he needs to dole out punishment but he can’t come off looking like a hypocrite given his past actions. So, he has to walk that fine line and come up with a suitable punishment. Maybe he can make him watch all of Jon Fitch’s wins in the UFC. I’m joking. I say that because the other story coming out of Saturday’s show is just the level of disgust and venom that I’ve seen leveled towards Fitch is amazing. He’s hit this weird combination where the BJ Penn fans (who are very vocal) thought that Penn won the fight and then you have the Fitch critics who wish he would just get cut already. You mix it in with the fact that it was ruled a draw and it’s created this reaction amongst both casual and hardcore fans of angst and anger against Fitch. I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing for his career.
On Saturday, Strikeforce heads into The Arnold Classic weekend (my kind of holiday) that UFC/WEC used to try to play off of in Ohio’s capital. What was supposed to be a card highlighted by Dan Henderson’s big name value is now a show that has lots of questions heading into the event. Most of those questions have to do with the mystery regarding the promotion’s April event and the future of the Heavyweight GP. Plus, Paul Daley missed weight last weekend and after his win over Yuya Shirai, he was supposed to fight Nick Diaz on April 9th for a show rumored to be at Oracle Arena in Oakland. Now, it’s uncertain if Daley will take the fight with the short amount of time in-between fights. The truth is that if the rest of round one for the GP fights are delayed, then the four fighters involved (Overeem, Barnett, Rogers, and Werdum) should be paid a penalty fee from the promotion for this chaos. And that should just be a starting point.
(On a side note, here’s Dave Meltzer saying that UFC & Strikeforce should be considered two different sports.)
As for Saturday’s Showtime event. on paper it looks plenty intriguing.
March 5th (Saturday/Showtime) at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio
Dark matches (no TV)
- Heavyweights: Jason Riley vs. Jason Freeman
- Lightweights: Jorge Gurgel vs. Tyler Combs
- Lightweights: Roger Bowling vs. Josh Thornburg
Main card
- Jorge Masvidal vs. Billy Evangelista
- Tim Kennedy vs. Melvin Manhoef
- Women’s 135-pound title match: Marloes Coenen vs. Liz “Girl-rilla” Carmouche
- Light Heavyweight title match: Feijao vs. Dan Henderson
Competing against this event on Saturday (and future UFC PPVs & Spike TV events) is Bellator, which will be making its debut on MTV2. The promotion has signed some interesting names from other circuits and at least they have going for them the fact that they were able to bring Jimmy Smith back into the fold to keep a good commentating duo together.
March 5th (Saturday/MTV2) at Tachi Palace Hotel & Casino in Lemoore, California
- Spiritwolf vs. Jaime Jara
- Zoila Frausto vs. Karina Hallinan
- Welterweight tournament: Jay Hieron vs. Anthony Lapsley
- Welterweight tournament: Lyman Good vs. Chris Lozano
- Welterweight tournament: Dan Hornbuckle vs. Brent Weedman
- Welterweight tournament: Rick Hawn vs. Judo Jim Wallhead
Time will tell if enough MMA fans will watch the Bellator show, given that it’s on the MTV2 platform (a channel not everyone gets) and the fact that they are running on Saturday nights. Saturday nights are what people are accustomed to in terms of watching UFC events, but Bellator will always be an ‘option B’ in the eyes of fans. The road is long and difficult.
Topics: All Topics, Bellator, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, UFC, Zach Arnold | 28 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
What’s next for Jon Fitch in the UFC?
By Zach Arnold | February 27, 2011
A loaded question, right? But it’s a fair one to ask because that’s what everyone is asking right about now. (At least those who aren’t fixated on Michael Bisping’s escapades yesterday against Jorge Rivera.)
If you watch this video interview that Jon Fitch did with Ariel Helwani of MMA Fighting, he’s obviously frustrated and feels at this point that he doesn’t have control over what’s next as far as where things are headed for him. He was frustrated that he didn’t expect BJ Penn to come into the fight with ‘a grappling mindset.’ He was frustrated that the fight couldn’t have been a five rounder because he had the energy to do it. (Later in the interview he says that he would like his re-match with Penn be a five-rounder, whether St. Pierre vacates the title or not.) He was frustrated about judges declaring that Penn won round two, thus making his 10-8 round three ‘one-sided beating’ necessary just to not lose on points. And to top it all off, frustrated that he gets booed all the time and has to answer questions about booing with responses such as ‘I didn’t notice any boos at all, I didn’t hear any of that.’
So, what do you if you are in charge of booking in the UFC? Do you go the Evan Dunham route and pretend that the result should be ‘counted’ as a win in the course of public opinion and put Fitch in a title shot? Do you book a rematch against Penn, this time for five rounds? Does Penn even want the fight (or will he retire)? What happens if St. Pierre beats Shields in Toronto and decides to stay at 170, then what?
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 47 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |