UFC 127 (Acer Arena in Sydney, Australia): Penn & Fitch go to a draw
By Zach Arnold | February 26, 2011
February 26th in the States (10 PM EST/7 PM PST), February 27th in Sydney
Dark matches
- Featherweights: Tie Quan Zhang defeated Jason Reinhardt in R1 in 48 seconds by submission.
- Light Heavyweights: Anthony Perosh defeated Tom Blackledge in R1 in 2’45 with a choke sleeper hold.
- Lightweights: Maciej Jewtuszko defeated Curt Warburton by unanimous decision after 3R.
- Heavyweights: Mark Hunt defeated Chris Tuchscherer in R2 in 1’41 by KO.
- Middleweights: Nick Ring defeated Riki Fukuda by unanimous decision after 3R.
- Light Heavyweights: Alexander Gustafsson defeated James Te Huna in R1 in 4’27 with a choke sleeper hold.
- Lightweights: Ross Pearson defeated Spencer Fisher by unanimous decision after 3R.
Main card
- Middleweights: Kyle Noke defeated Chris Camozzi in R1 in 1’35 by submission.
- Welterweights: Brian Ebersole defeated Chris Lytle by unanimous decision after 3R.
- Lightweights: Dennis Siver defeated George Sotiropoulos by unanimous decision after 3R.
- Middleweights: Michael Bisping defeated Jorge Rivera in R2 in 1’54 by TKO from punches. Bisping called Rivera a loser after the fight.
- Welterweights: BJ Penn and Jon Fitch went to a majority draw after 3R.
Headlines after the show
- MMA Fighting: Re-match between Fitch and Penn seems likely
- Steve Cofield: Jon Fitch and ‘frustrating’ go hand-in-hand
- Steve Cofield: Michael Bisping and ‘poor sportsmanship’ go hand-in-hand
- The Canadian Press: Judges ripped as Nick Ring wins UFC 127 decision over Riki Fukuda
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 75 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Dana White: Why would Fedor fight in the UFC when he can lose for millions in Strikeforce?
By Zach Arnold | February 26, 2011
Video courtesy MMA Fighting and Ariel Helwani
ARIEL HELWANI: “It’s been a few weeks since we’ve talked to you. We’ve never got your thoughts on your friend Fedor Emelianenko’s loss. So, I just was wondering what you thought about his performance a couple of weeks ago in New Jersey.”
DANA WHITE: “Yeah, you know… I, uh… heh heh… I’ve been saying it for a long time. You know, I’ve had all these goofy reporters arguing with me and everything else about where this guy stands in the pound-for-pound … *laughs*… in the pound-for-pound list and… his fans just need to deal with it. Deal with the fact that he’s not one of the best in the world, he’s not. It’s over, and as great as this guy was, it’s what I was saying, you know, all that was back in 2005. It’s not 2005 any more. The guy’s inactive, hasn’t fought anybody good in a long time, and… he looks old and it’s over. It is what it is.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “He’s lost two fights in a row. If they came to you right now and said, forget about all the co-promotion stuff, we just want to have a fight in the UFC. Do you even do it at this point?”
DANA WHITE: “The biggest problem is that, what all of you can’t seem to understand and I don’t know what it is, if I acted like these idiots act, Vadim and these guys, you can’t do business with these people. You just can’t do business with them. And they’ve made it very clear, even before he got beat up twice, that they don’t want to fight the guys in the UFC. They don’t want to. Why would you want to come in here? You saw what happened to him the last two fights. Why would you want to come in here and fight these heavyweights when you can go over there and make, you know, you can make a couple million bucks getting beat up by guys (Fabricio Werdum & Antonio ‘Bigfoot’ Silva) that aren’t good.”
While he was hedging his bets in the video interview, Dana White did indicate that Jon Fitch would become the #1 contender at Welterweight if he beats Penn at UFC 127. As for Yushin Okami, he indicated that Okami would have to win one more fight and then he probably would get a Middleweight title shot against Anderson Silva.
Michael David Smith isn’t happy with Michael Bisping’s language these days.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 50 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Tito Ortiz angling for a UFC trilogy fight with Forrest Griffin
By Zach Arnold | February 26, 2011
Tito was asked about how he suffered an injury during training, an injury which forced him to cancel his appearance against Antonio Rogerio Nogueira for the Seattle show coming up.
RON KRUCK: “Tito, tell us what happened.”
TITO ORTIZ: “Well actually, I did it about three and a half months into training, I was at Rafael Cordeiro’s training doing my Muay Thai, I was about I think we went into the 10th round about 10 seconds left in the 10th round and one of my training partners went to go throw a right hand (and) he was southpaw, I was orthodox, I was throwing a right hand at the same time. His head was a little lower than mine and it caught me right above the bridge of my eyebrow and went straight to the bone in my skull and gave me 22 stitches.”
He went on to say that he was out of sorts and went black, but that he recovered even though he was diagnosed by “a UFC doctor” as having a mild concussion and that it was the cause for him vomiting for a week and having bad side effects.
His goal is to fight in May or June and he would like to fight Forrest Griffin. If he can’t get Forrest in a trilogy fight and can’t fight Chuck Liddell, he would like to fight Randy Couture.
Speaking of concussions, there was a segment on Inside MMA with Dr. Ayman Salem, a neurosurgeon at the LA Brain & Spine Institute. Check out some of the notes from their interview.
KENNY RICE: “But doctor, let me ask you right off. It may seem like an obvious question but I’m sure that there are some that ask this question. If you’re knocked out, is that an automatic that you have suffered a concussion?”
DR. AYMAN SALEM: “Absolutely. A brain concussion is defined as alteration of mental status due to trauma to the brain and that alteration of mental status can be from seeing stars all the way to being knocked out completely.”
BAS RUTTEN: “Scary.”
KENNY RICE: “It is scary. Bas, as you know, compared to football and boxing, MMA is still a baby out there in the sports world. It’s been around for a couple of decades now. So, doctor, with that you don’t have the research I would imagine that you do have with the depth of the football history and the boxing history to see how the brain is working with some of these MMA fighters who have been around for six, eight years and maybe have suffered like Arlovski’s case, you know, seven knockouts already in their career.”
DR. AYMAN SALEM: “We don’t but we know certain statistics from boxing. We know a boxer can hit with the force of 52 G’s. If somebody is hit on the head from a boxer that would be as if you’re hit with a 13 pound bowling ball with the speed of 20 mph, which is significant force to the head.”
(later on in the interview…)
“When you’re hit on the head the force is transmitted through the skin, the bone, and then through the brain fluid to the brain and if you imagine that you drop a stone or a pebble on a lake on the surface of the lake and you have all that ripple effect, but imagine inside the skull the ripple effect is contained within the skull. So, you have extensive force that goes back and forth that can cause some brain shearing and that shearing happens at the cellular level and it could be functional, where you can just see stars or possibly feel that something is not right or it can be dramatic where you have structural shearing where you can have hemorrhages, bruises, contusions, all the way up to brain swelling and possibly death.”
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 4 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Measuring interest in UFC 127
By Zach Arnold | February 25, 2011
If there’s one thing about Michael Bisping that we’ve learned it’s the fact that he’s horribly insecure and easy to agitate despite putting on a front that trash talking doesn’t bother him. It does. That, and you should be prepared to really give him a lot of compliments after he a wins a fight or he might not be in the best of moods on shows like MMA Live.
I’m truly amazed that some goofy Youtube videos have legitimately irritated him, but hey, I guess it sells a fight? It was fascinating to watch how much time UFC devoted on their 127 Countdown show to Jorge Rivera versus everyone else on the card, including the main eventers Fitch & Penn. Bisping’s going around saying that he’ll finish Rivera and prove that the guy is out of his league, while out of the other side of his mouth allegedly claiming that he would fight Dan Henderson ‘for free’ if he could get a rematch. Don’t hold your breath on that one. So, how are the Aussie fans treating him? They’re calling him a wanker.
Video courtesy of Yahoo Sports/Cagewriter.com
It’s interesting that while Penn vs. Fitch is labeled as the main event, the Bisping/Rivera and Sotiropoulos/Siver fights are the ones getting the most international attention. When Fitch, Penn, Sotiropoulos, and Kyle Noke did PR last November for this Sydney show, all of them were treated as huge stars. Dana White has been impressed by the reaction from the fans there and it’s clear that Australia will be a lot more successful than some of their other international forays. Check out the pictures of the fighters meeting the Sydney Roosters.
For Jon Fitch, this is a make-or-break fight. I remember Dave Meltzer making the case that if Fitch loses the fight and does so in boring fashion that he might end up joining Mark Coleman as the only Zuffa-era high-profile UFC PPV main eventers cut after a loss. Before his last fight, Jon was stressing how important it was to pick his game up and be more exciting and fan-friendly. In the end, it didn’t happen. His new stance publicly? Everyone loves a winner no matter how ugly it is. I read an article where Fitch was quoted as saying that he didn’t want to become MMA’s version of Dan Marino, an athlete that never won a title. Kenny Florian says that Fitch’s new vegan diet has eliminated any sort of size advantage that he would normally have against Penn in this upcoming fight. Despite the trial balloons about wanting to go back to Lightweight (155 pounds), Penn said on the Countdown show that he likes fighting at Welterweight (170 pounds) because he doesn’t have to cut any weight.
With Spike TV now seemingly airing UFC PPV prelims mainly for shows in the States, UFC is taking another plunge onto the ION platform. ION, the over-the-air station in the States, will air three prelim fights from the UFC 127 card starting at 9 PM EST/6 PM PST (including an intriguing fight between Nick Ring and Riki Fukuda). Facebook will also have a prelim fight or two starting at 8 PM EST/5 PM EST. Then the PPV telecast starts at 10 PM EST/7 PM PST. Here’s a list of ION affiliates in the States. The last time UFC aired prelims on ION, it was last January for the PPV headlined by Frankie Edgar vs. Gray Maynard II.
There’s been plenty of local press for the show, but not a lot of Stateside writers (outside of Ariel Helwani and Dan Herbertson who returned home from Japan). I heard that a few writers will make the trip but it will be a get-in, get-out type of deal which is unfortunate. Although, I reckon that Jordan Breen’s trip last year to watch the Impact FC MMA shows didn’t do any favors when he railed against how expensive and how awful internet access is in the country. *shrugs*
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 13 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Now is not the time for unforced errors by Strikeforce
By Zach Arnold | February 23, 2011
The more the story progresses about what the hell is happening for the promotion’s Heavyweight GP tournament, the less seemingly anyone knows. I often wonder if the reason for that is because the power brokers & decision makers themselves don’t know what’s going on. Which, in essence, is kind of the bizarre prism that has been created fairly or unfairly in the media that Strikeforce has some success despite of its own actions.
There are many chaotic things that promoters have to deal with that are completely out of their control. Take, for instance, Miesha Tate injuring her knee and now having to pull out of the 135-pound women’s title fight with Marloes Coenen. Robert Sargent:
I’m told that Strikeforce has been aware of Miesha Tate’s injury for at least a few days.
Credit to Strikeforce for putting together a solid replacement title fight on short notice, however. Coenen vs (Liz) Carmouche is a good matchup.
Injuries are a part of the game and there’s really no reason to attack the promotion for taking their time and delaying the announcement so that they can find a replacement fighter. That’s fine. What wasn’t fine, however, was today’s… unique… conference call to promote the upcoming March 5th show at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio. The event has been entirely overshadowed by the HW GP ‘tournament’ despite having Dan Henderson in the main event slot. I expect the show to be really good, but the question is does it have the buzz amongst the fans? On today’s conference call, Scott Coker wasn’t around due to illness and questions regarding the April 9th date for the rest of round one of the tournament were not answered/allowed.
Which brings me to my continued amazement at how things work for a promotion that has the backing of a legitimate television outlet like Showtime. As Dave Meltzer accurately put it last week, Strikeforce is in a war with UFC whether they want it or not. UFC is treating it as a war, so it is a war. Now what are you going to do about it? You can be content with being #2 and successful but you also have to protect your business interests and cut down on the amount of errors you make. In the case of Strikeforce, it feels like the majority of media coverage about them is what they do outside of the cage as opposed to what is going on inside the cage. Sure, there’s plenty of outside-the-cage coverage for UFC, but ultimately when the fights happen everyone talks about the fights. In Strikeforce, you’ll see some coverage of the fights themselves but there’s an increasing amount of coverage about what happens outside-the-cage with this promotion. The drama that Showtime & Strikeforce creates for themselves is completely unneeded.
When the promotion decided to book a year-long ‘tournament’ as the main theme for 2011, they had to realize that everything needed to set up for the year. That means the arena bookings, the matches, and everything logistical. Even PRIDE, of all organizations, had a slate of dates booked for Saitama Super Arena or buildings like Yokohama Arena. (They had to, since most buildings in Japan require a 4-6 month advance booking date, if not longer.) The fact that Strikeforce still doesn’t reportedly have a venue booked for April 9th for the rest of the first round is absurd. The idea that Sherdog’s report on this has not been disputed yet by the promotion is curious. All of this chaos is also completely unfair to fighters who have training camps and are trying to peak at the right time. How would you like to be Alistair Overeem right now? You thought you were going to become the ‘ace’ of K-1, you won all your fights last December at Ariake Colosseum, and then you end up claiming that they didn’t pay you? He had big plans for Japan, so much so that he signed with talent agency Yoshimoto. Now, he fully commits to Strikeforce, and what happens? He’s like the rest of us in not knowing what is going on — and he’s supposed to fight a major opponent in Fabricio Werdum!
All of this chaos started with the dumb notion of wanting to run events in Japan. Yes, I predicted that the promotion would try to run there, but I never thought it made any financial sense. With all the chaos going on there now, why make things harder for yourself? Seemingly, that seems to be the theme of this operation right now. Once the landscape in Japan fell apart, the promotion should have already had everything ready to go to promote an event on April 9th. After all, that’s the date the promotion pushed on Showtime for the next event. You have all those eyeballs watching Fedor’s fight and you tell fans that a certain date will be used for the rest of the first round and now you are hedging on that. Why? None of this uncertainly should have happened in the first place.
I’ve yet to confirm the delay, let alone cause. Strikeforce, Showtime won’t comment one way or the other. Smells funny though.
Think what you want about Strikeforce, but three years ago today, they headlined a show with Jan Nortje-Bob Sapp. We’ve come a long way.
Maybe, but they need to step up their game big now. Amateur hour is over. Even Bellator is making some moves, like signing Marlon Sandro. Time to get some steely resolve.
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Latest on Strikeforce in April: Nobody knows anything about anything
By Zach Arnold | February 22, 2011
In other words, nothing’s really changed from yesterday except that there’s more discussion about communication chaos. So, now we’re in a process of elimination here to figure out what’s going on.
Tim Lueckenhoff, exec. dir. Missouri office of Athletics, just emailed that Strikeforce hasn’t approached him re: promoting there in April.
And George Dodd, CSAC exec. officer, just emailed saying he has not been approached by Strikeforce either.
So, by that measure, California and Missouri off the table. Right?
Robert Sargent (the man who first reported that SF’s plans for Japan in April fell apart):
Note regarding the planned Strikeforce event in California on April 9th: Both the HP Pavilion and Staples Center are reportedly booked.
It sounds like the Honda Center in Anaheim or the Oracle Arena in Oakland would therefore be the most likely possibilities for venue.
So now we’re back to Sherdog’s report about a California show happening on 4/9 with Nick Diaz/Paul Daley and Gilbert Melendez/Crusher Kawajiri.
Heard the Oracle in Oakland is most likely.
So, now it’s Oakland. But wait, there’s more. MMA Junkie:
Just got off phone with Coker, who said he’ll have an answer for me on this April switch in short time. Doesn’t know where rumors started.
He’s dealing with all this and a nasty sinus infection/cold.
To top it all off, as noted in our comments section today, there’s discussion of Strikeforce wanting to get a big HW GP show on CBS.
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 31 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
So it begins: Sherdog says Strikeforce HW GP bouts not set for 4/9 event
By Zach Arnold | February 21, 2011
When the Strikeforce Challengers show happened last Friday in Austin, Texas, I was surprised by the fact that the promotion did not mention where their April 9th event would be. After all, 4/9 suddenly became a big date because Scott Coker floated plans of wanting to run in Japan. With that more than likely off the table (unless he wants to lose his ass financially), it left the promotion scrambling to find an arena likely in the States or perhaps Canada. Even then, you’re talking about working on short notice. I’m not here to say that Strikeforce can’t draw a crowd on short notice, but logistically they have made things hard on themselves here. Based on how business was for the February event at the Izod Center, you would think that the promotion would do OK given how strong the initial ratings and attendance figures have been. When Mike Chiappetta confirmed to me that no venue had been booked yet, I was legitimately surprised.
Which is why this Sherdog report about Strikeforce delaying the remaining first round HW GP bouts and not having them happen in April was quite the eye-opener. Should the report turn out to be valid and accurate, it just proves all along that the ‘tournament’ was nothing more than a tournament-in-name and that guys aren’t necessarily locked into fights for set dates. Even PRIDE, given their historically chaotic booking standards, managed to get that aspect of promoting right. Note that the Sherdog report claims that the promotion’s April event will happen in California, which means there’s no way in hell that Josh Barnett will be fighting on this card. That’s the downside to having the former UFC champion in your ‘tournament.’ He can’t fight in a lot of states. He certainly has the credentials to be in the tournament, but his baggage is off-the-charts.
The California card will reportedly have Tatsuya Kawajiri vs. Gilbert Melendez and Nick Diaz in the main event slot. He would supposedly face Paul Daley, but Daley has to win his upcoming fight against Yuya Shirai and not get hurt. If that happens, then Diaz will get a crack at the man who sucker-punched Josh Koscheck. Great fight, unquestionably.
Throwing his two cents on the matter, Josh Gross:
Sherdog cites unnamed sources that Strikeforce’s 2nd leg of HW GP not on April 9 card. Counters what I heard today re: St. Louis or Houston.
I’m not sure what to believe. Coker won’t get back to me. People on his staff say they have no idea what he has planned.
If Sherdog’s report is not accurate, at the very least Strikeforce & Showtime are guilty of making things logistically much harder on themselves than it should be. It also indicates horrible communication issues for the office. If Sherdog’s report is accurate, it’s a short-term momentum staller for the ‘tournament’ and it starts to raise questions in the minds of fans who were starting to get into the ‘tournament’ after Fedor’s loss and were willing to show some faith in the concept. I also think that it’s going to create some doubt in the minds of fighters involved in the tournament about what’s going on.
As I’ve said before about Strikeforce, all the fans want to see from the promotion is consistency and competency. Not either or, but both at the same time.
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 60 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
What’s old is new again in Japanese MMA
By Zach Arnold | February 21, 2011
Over the weekend, I was interviewed by a writer about my career and about the history of the Japanese fight scene in the last three decades. (The transcript will be available in a couple of weeks.) A lot of memories came back to the surface, but one thing I often find myself doing in these kinds of interview situations is throwing out thoughts about the way Japan works and having the person on the other end of the line go, “Oh, so that’s how (such and such) works…” Whether I intend to or not, usually the interviewer’s (proverbial) light bulb turns on and they start connecting the dots.
From the collapse of the pro-wrestling industry there to the collapse of mainstream MMA organizations, there’s a lot of history to cover and a lot of big names who seemingly never want to go away and leave.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 14 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Ariel Helwani: Off-the-record, a few people in Strikeforce were smiling after Fedor lost
By Zach Arnold | February 18, 2011
A good interview on Press Row this week for Sherdog between Jordan Breen and Ariel Helwani. Worth your time to listen to. The discussion was Strikeforce-centric and gave a good feeling about what it’s like to be at an SF event, to cover it, and how the operation works.
I got three passages for you from the radio interview here that I want to focus on. The first passage deals with internal Strikeforce reaction to Fedor losing last Saturday night.
JORDAN BREEN: “Ben (Fowlkes) offered the idea that maybe it’s actually better if Alistair Overeem wins. He’s a bit younger, a bit more dedicated to the cause of fighting and fighting actively, he’s certainly got an appeal, an aesthetic and cosmetic appeal that’s very easy to sell as if you see Alistair Overeem his physique screams, ‘yeah, of course, this guy’s the best heavyweight fighter in the world, just look at him!’ It seems so apparently and so self-referential that maybe’s the guy that they should be putting concentrated efforts behind. Naturally, he needs to beat Fabricio Werdum in April for that to happen. But, do you think there’s a real sense of joy and relief from Scott Coker and company that maybe they can go full-speed ahead on Alistair Overeem and maybe put the nightmarish dealings with M-1 behind them?”
ARIEL HELWANI: “Like I said, I don’t think that they will admit this to us on the record at least but, trust me, I’m not going to call anyone out but I spoke to a few people in Strikeforce who, when I said ‘what does this mean?’, a smile instantly appeared on their face. I mean, I’m not saying that they’re rooting for Fedor, obviously not, but let’s be honest, I mean, everyone knows that it’s very hard to deal with M-1. So, now, April 9th it’s not an M-1 Global & Strikeforce event. That’s just a Strikeforce event. This one had to be an M-1 Global event because Fedor was on the card. April 9th isn’t. … So, just think of that. Whatever their deal is with M-1 Global and, you know, they have to share part of the profits and all that stuff. They don’t have to do that any more. And now, fine, you know, Fedor’s going to come back and he’s going to fight, but I just think it opens up a lot of, imagine if they are going to do PPV for the second round. Well, now, Fedor’s not part of the PPV show. He still might be on the card, you know, that could switch things up, but I think it just opens a lot of things up for Strikeforce. They can deal with their own brand, they can make the decisions that they want, they can promote it how they want, they don’t have to deal with any politics behind the scenes, and we all know that it’s been hard to deal with M-1 Global. Everyone from Dana White to Scott Coker and anyone else will tell you that. Now they’re in the clear and they can do whatever they want.”
Perhaps some in Strikeforce were happy, but listening to Scott Coker’s answers this week on various media platforms indicates to me that he may not exactly be in that camp. Plus, M-1 now has a TV deal with Showtime.
The second passage is a transition from the first (talking about Fedor losing). With Fedor’s loss, how does it alter the company’s plans to go onto PPV?
JORDAN BREEN: “So at this point in time, do you think that, like, how far do you see them away from being on a PPV? What do you think would be an appropriate timeline and setup for them to get on PPV? Is the return of Gina Carano good enough or interesting enough to make it without a Fedor/Overeem fight on the immediate horizon? Is there something they can make do with to break into PPV?”
ARIEL HELWANI: “I thought, you know, Scott Coker said on Bloomberg last week that by Fall 2011 they hope to be in the PPV business and obviously that was before Saturday night. I think what happened on Saturday night definitely delays things. I was going to say kind of delays things, it definitely does. I definitely think that, as you mentioned, Overeem vs. Fedor that’s a PPV main event. Would they get 500,000 buys? I don’t think so. Would they get 200,000? Maybe, and I think that would be a success. I mean, let’s not forget, the UFC name on its own, in my opinion, gets around 200,000-250,000 buys. You know, even their worse show will get that much just because people think, ‘oh, it’s a UFC show, we know what we’re getting.’ Strikeforce isn’t a known PPV brand just yet. So, that kind of delays things for them. So, now you have to see how the tournament plays out. If things where it’s a match that everyone wants to see, you know, I don’t know if Overeem vs. Barnett is really a PPV fight that people will actually pay $30 or $40 for but if things play out and you can sell the tournament and its been some epic fights along the way, I think you can do that.
“As for Gina, I actually thought that the return of Gina Carano could definitely help. I mean, I was trying to think of what their first PPV could be. And I was like, OK, Fedor vs. Overeem and then, you know, let’s say Barnett vs. Kharitonov or Arlovski, the return of Gina vs. fighter X, doesn’t have to be Cyborg, and you throw in like Herschel Walker versus Kimbo Slice or Batista and I know hardcore MMA fans would hate that but I think you would get a lot of mainstream attention for that stuff. I think that’s a PPV card they could probably sell. Now, things changed a little bit. Plus, I thought the reaction to Gina Carano was very mediocre. I mean, the fans they kind of met it with indifference and I think part of was because of her interview on Showtime. She almost seemed like she didn’t really want to be there. I thought they dropped the ball on that greatly because they needed her to come out and be like ‘I’m back, I’m ready to prove that I’m the best, blah blah blah’ and then they needed to bring out her opponent and I think it should probably be Julia Budd if you look at their history and their 145 pound division is kind of weak and then she says, “I beat you once, I’ll beat you again,’ etc. etc. I think they dropped the ball. So, now I think you need to have her win on Showtime, build her up, and then maybe build towards the Cyborg rematch because Cyborg doesn’t even have any, you know, real contenders lined up for her now. I mean, Amanda Nunes, I don’t think she’s really just yet. So, I definitely think that now things have been delayed and maybe 2011 isn’t the time to go into PPV.”
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: M-1, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 74 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Is Fedor’s growing popularity in the States boxing him into a corner on retirement?
By Zach Arnold | February 17, 2011
I promise that this article won’t focus singularly on that question. There’s a lot of points to go through here, but let’s start with the situation as it currently stands. Strikeforce did really well for ratings on Showtime last Saturday night and the parties involved in that event all have been… encouraging… Fedor to stay active for the promotion.
That’s your starting point for this passage from yesterday’s Sherdog radio show:
JACK ENCARNACAO: “Isn’t Fedor more interesting now that he’s lost twice than he was when he was beating everyone he faced? I mean, there’s a drama in seeing when someone’s going to beat Fedor but isn’t it a little bit more interesting to see what he does after he loses? Don’t you want to watch him more in a way?”
TJ DE SANTIS: “In a lot of ways, yeah, because it’s a fresh storyline. I mean, when Fedor was dominant, it was, oh, look at this ice cold Russian who just comes out and lamps people and then smiles and says, you know, three or four word answers in the post-fight. Now, it’s like, this guy might be retire. Like he was the man for so many years and he has fallen, he has stumbled, and he didn’t get back up in his first fight out like everyone thought he would and, you know, I mean any time Fedor Emelianenko fights, I’m going to be, you know, compelled and intrigued and want to watch. But now I’m way more interested in what the man has to say.”
JACK ENCARNACAO: “Yeah, absolutely, because he’s… especially with this kind of tension that seems to be going on between what he really wants to do with his career and what, you know, Strikeforce and M-1 want him to do.”
TJ DE SANTIS: “Coker and Vadim Finkelchtein, yeah, I mean those guys are like, ‘oh, he’ll fight again, oh he’ll fight again.’ Uh, yeah did you not just see what he said in the cage?”
JACK ENCARNACAO: “Not up to him.”
TJ DE SANTIS: “Yeah. And, you know, I talked to him Wednesday and there was the pre-fight interview up at Sherdog.com … but you know in the interview, he brought up age and that was before obviously he lost to Antonio Silva. But retirement I don’t think is necessarily on his mind because he’s lost his last two fights. I think it’s something that was there to begin with. I mean, this is something that I mean, let’s be honest, Fedor is not the guy that needs to fight. He’s not a competitive person that, you know, is not going to feel good about himself at the end of the day if he doesn’t compete. This is something he does, he happens to be incredibly good at it, and when it’s all over we’re not going to see a Brett Favre situation where he’s going to waver back-and-forth and make a return. I fully believe that when Fedor Emelianenko takes off his gloves for the last time and he says it’s for the last time, it’s probably going to be the last time.”
JACK ENCARNACAO: “I don’t know what to make of it. I mean, now he’s totally backpedaled. … There have been interviews out of Russia that have been translated to say that, you know, I spoke too soon, I’m coming back, and you know they’re saying not only could he be an alternate if someone gets hurt in the tournament but Scott Coker has gone ahead and said it would be interesting to see the loser of Werdum/Overeem face Fedor next. I mean they want to satisfy this contract, they want to take a guy who drew these kinds of numbers…”
TJ DE SANTIS: “That’s pressure. That’s him being pressured, I think, personally.”
JACK ENCARNACAO: “It could be. I mean, he certainly wouldn’t be the first prize fighter, you know, to have the kind of reputation and stature that he has to be pressured into fighting longer than maybe he wants to. It’s just a reality of the game and with these numbers now, let me tell you right now, I mean if anyone’s going to point to one guy that’s drawing these numbers, it’s going to be Fedor. He’s at his hottest right now, okay, from a public interesting standpoint. It’s tough for people to process that because they think an unbeatable fighter is endlessly appealing to the public when really it’s maybe too one-dimensional, there’s not enough there, there’s not enough subtlety, there’s not enough context, there’s not enough complexity, there’s less storylines, there’s less emotions involved, there’s less kind of universal human things you can say about a guy who just kills everybody. So, yeah, he’s not going anywhere. In fact, these numbers guarantee not only that he’s coming back to Strikeforce but that he’ll be main-eventing for Strikeforce his next fights. I guarantee they’ll find a way to do it.”
The next step in the discussion: what was the specific point where Fedor’s popularity started to grow? Was it after he lost to Werdum? The jump in viewers between last June’s fight and the fight last week is healthy. Will Fedor be able to keep those new fans in his corner if he faces the loser of Werdum/Overeem in the Summer?
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: DREAM, Japan, K-1, M-1, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 5 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Jorge Rivera: Michael Bisping is ‘misunderstood’ in the same way that Hitler, Pol Pot, Mussolini, and Stalin are
By Zach Arnold | February 17, 2011
It has come to this. Plan A: I posted the card line-up for UFC 127 and it went over like a turd in a punch bowl.
Plan B would have involved me discussing the upcoming Jon Fitch/BJ Penn fight, but then murmurs came out last night that BJ wants to eventually go back to Lightweight (155 pounds) after fighting Fitch at 170 pounds in a fight being billed as crowning a new challenger for the winner of the Georges St. Pierre/Jake Shields fight. I’m sure Dana’s thrilled to hear BJ is yo-yo-ing again on weight classes. Kind of defeats the purpose if Penn is going back to Lightweight after the Australia fight, doesn’t it?
Which leaves us with Plan C: finding the dumbest, lowest-common-denominator thing possible to talk about in relation to this card in Australia — a card that will do big business there but looks shaky internationally in terms of PPV demand from the fans. I tried. I really tried. It’s fundraising week, after all.
I think we have a winner.
Continue reading this article here…
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 5 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Comparing Fedor to Sakuraba and why Fedor is MMA’s all-time most divisive fighter
By Zach Arnold | February 16, 2011
Jordan Breen made the comparison on his radio show yesterday and here’s what he had to say.
“I think Fedor’s one of the most interesting guys, possibly the most interesting guy to talk about from a historical perspective in MMA because he polarizes people in a way that NOBODY else does. Now, take someone like (Kazushi) Sakuraba for instance. Sakuraba’s always been an interesting guy to me because he’s more important than (what) he has achieved. You can’t even attempt to tell the tale of what MMA looks like and how it developed without Sakuraba. His feud with the Gracies (is), apart from maybe Jiu-Jitsu against Luta Livre, the most important rivalry in MMA history and you can’t possibly synthesize the tale of MMA without it. And he was great. And he’s one of those guys that if he trained today and fought at 170 pounds earlier in his career, who knows how good Sakuraba would be?
“The point is, in terms of actually beating really good fighters, I mean… (Guy) Mezger and Renzo (Gracie) and like (Kevin) Randleman, like those are like his big wins. Because his wins were more symbolic than they were accomplishment, if that makes sense. He’s someone who … his best wins came in an era in Mixed Martial Arts where it wasn’t about weight classes and every three months, you know, you’re the champion every three months and you face a great challenger or anything like that. It was still kind of a style vs. style thing, still something more large and nebulous and hard-to-figure-out but the shows of brilliance that he had even against guys like Anthony Macias were so spellbinding that they helped move us and shift us in a way towards learning more true essential facts in MMA like, maybe, jiu-jitsu isn’t the be-all, end-all or the feud with the Gracie family really helped give us a sense of what MMA was really about. But we know his actual wins don’t stack up to someone like Anderson Silva or Georges St. Pierre. So, he’s always been kind of curious.
“And now I think Fedor’s occupied a space like that for a different reason. He competed in an era with weight classes and with that idea of facing good competition. But, his post-PRIDE career, because of the way it was handled, because of the M-1 situation, because of not going to the UFC, he’s divided people in a way in which people are nothing short of radicalized. People either believe that Fedor is the greatest fighter and that any thing that can be considered besmirching his good name is worth going psychotic over or, conversely, people act as though this guy was all smoke-and-mirrors, he never actually beat anyone good, and partake in some kind of bizarre revisionist history where apparently there has never been a meaningful Heavyweight fight in the history of Mixed Martial Arts. Both of them are patently absurd.
“What I would say for Fedor is people, some people, will always feel that, ‘oh, he’s the greatest Heavyweight ever and in his prime no one cold ever beat him,’ but I think most people will have a fairly regulated view that ‘this guy’s the best Heavyweight we’ve seen but maybe his résumé isn’t beyond reproach.’ And this is something that I’ll talk about in a minute, you know, vis-à-vis another e-mail in a moment, but something that was brought up … broaching the idea that, hey, let’s say Cain (Velasquez) reigned for three years as UFC champion. What it means to be UFC champion, the cycle of challengers put in front of you, you don’t get time for a Matt Lindland or a Mark Hunt or Zuluzinho, so would it stand to reason if someone like Cain or Junior dos Santos won the title, if they reigned three or four years, wouldn’t their résumé that they pile up would be better than Fedor Emelianenko’s? And possibly, that’s something that we’d have to cross the bridge when we come to it. But there’s no getting away from the fact that, yeah, Nogueira may not great now, but those two wins at the time were against the best Heavyweight in the world and then the second best Heavyweight in the world. When (Fedor) fought Mirko Cro Cop, Mirko Cro Cop was considered, at worst, the third best Heavyweight in the world by most people and it was the most anticipated fight MMA had ever seen to that point in time. Arlovski & Sylvia, yeah they’re not great but they’re both considered Top 10 guys when he beat them. Fedor still beat a very, very hearty cross-section of most relevant Heavyweights of his era and has done it more successfully than other Heavyweights.
“Was he perfect? No, absolutely not. Would have been great to see him fight a (Josh) Barnett or had he beaten (Fabricio) Werdum, there are certainly ways his résumé could have been improved upon. No question. But… he’s still better than the contemporaries that he was put shoulder-to-shoulder with in that same era and that’s all we do, we compare other Heavyweights. For now, he’s the best. Now, there will always be people who vehemently believe he is THE BEST fighter in the history of time, just like there are people who probably believe, I don’t know, uh… Gale Sayers is the best football player in the history of time or something like that. There are certain people who excite certain kinds of fanaticism that don’t die, but I do suspect that most people, not all, but most will have a fairly moderate and thoughtful view of Fedor Emelianenko’s career when its all said and done, if it has been all said-and-done at this point in time.”
Personally, I think it’s an apples-and-oranges comparison. Fedor’s whole career was built on destroying everyone. Wins and losses mattered a lot to him. Kazushi Sakuraba’s career was built largely on symbolism. He was treat as a midcarder when he was in UWF-International while the bookers (Yoji Anjoh & Nobuhiko Takada) were busy putting themselves over. Sakuraba was treated as a talented job guy during the UWF/New Japan interpromotional feud. Remember, the beginnings of the Sakuraba/Gracie feud involved the infamous Los Angeles incident where Yoji Anjoh, who had no business challenging real fighters, went to Rickson Gracie’s gym and had Japanese photographers (like Jimmy Suzuki) with him to shoot an angle to make Anjoh look tough by calling out Rickson. Of course, we all know what happened there. Once Anjoh got his ass kicked, the premise of PRIDE was built with Takada answering the calls back home to step up and defend the UWF family against Rickson. Takada lost twice and that created the opening for Naoki Sano, Kazushi Sakuraba, and others.
When PRIDE was created, it’s purpose was to suck the soul out of pro-wrestling by using that kind of marketing and booking. So, when Sakuraba made the transition to MMA fighter, he was representing Japanese pro-wrestling as a whole in the eyes of fans. He was the national hero representing a sport that fans viewed as being attacked by a hybrid sport that integrated techniques that they had witnessed in pro-wrestling for years.
Fedor never represented any of that. His Japanese debut was in RINGS. He won. He fought in the last RINGS match ever in Yokohama. Then he moved to PRIDE and became the ace. He didn’t ‘feud’ with fighters. Yes, he had a series with Nogueira, but it wasn’t a storyline feud like Sakuraba vs. the Gracies or other fighters in PRIDE who were given their own storylines (like Rampage Jackson being a homeless man living on a bus and talking to pigeons).
Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, PRIDE, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 62 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Scott Coker: Things could have been different if Fedor/Bigfoot Silva went to a third round
By Zach Arnold | February 16, 2011
Yesterday, the news broke that this past Saturday’s Strikeforce event from the Izod Center drew an average of 741,000 viewers on Showtime (with a peak viewership of 1.1 million viewers for Fedor vs. Bigfoot Silva). Suffice to say, Fedor’s loss to Werdum did not hurt his drawing power. In a funny way, Fedor is now a bigger star after that loss than Werdum is. However, will Fedor maintain his popularity after losing to Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva? More importantly, will Bigfoot become a bigger star after the win or will be end up not getting a big rub out of the win in terms of marketability?
On Tuesday, Mauro Ranallo had Scott Coker on his radio program to talk about Saturday’s event from New Jersey and what’s next for Fedor. Mauro did his best to play it straight and bring up the conversation or whether or not Fedor should be retired or make the move down to Light Heavyweight.
(If you listen to the interview, you’ll notice the singular answer Mr. Coker has for Fedor’s problems is that he needs a different kind of training camp.)
When it came time to address Fedor’s loss to Bigfoot Silva, the promoter took an interesting angle that I wasn’t really expecting out of him.
SCOTT COKER: “Things can happen and they did. It was an exciting night. I mean, it was an amazing entry into the New York area. The crowd was so passionate and any time Fedor fights you always have a feeling electricity in the audience and I felt it that night and, guys, he will be back. Here’s a guy that was ready to fight and it was the doctor that stopped the fight. Fedor didn’t say I want to quit or I’m done or I’m too tired or I’m hurt, it was the doctor. Fedor would have continued and I think it’s the third round that, you know, could have, would have, and should have because the last picture in my mind from that fight, Mauro, is both of those guys trying to get up at the end of the second round and honestly they were both (exhausted), Bigfoot Silva had left everything out there and just got tired of hitting Fedor and Fedor, you know, trying to survive that second round, you know, he left it all out there. And in the third round, you know, boy, it’s like what if.”
MAURO RANALLO: “Let’s bring us up to speed to what went down because you’re absolutely right but it’s also fair enough to say that we have never seen Fedor Emelianenko beaten down as badly as he was in that second round and, yes, he is known for his resiliency and those dramatic comebacks, including in another tournament as we mentioned on the broadcast as well the 2004 PRIDE Heavyweight GP when he was dropped on his head in the Monsterplex courtesy of Kevin Randleman and we’ve seen him take beatings before even against Brett Rogers and Andrei Arlovski recently, But, the point when the fight was stopped and I agree that, you know, he has the heart of a warrior, one of the most humble people I’ve ever met. But his eye was swollen shut and don’t you agree that the right decision was made to stop the fight at that time?”
SCOTT COKER: “Oh, absolutely, I mean, Mauro, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that wasn’t a good call, I’m saying that the referee made the call, the doctor made the call, and you know they stopped the fight and if I was looking at that eye up close I probably would have stopped the fight as well. I’m just saying that, you know, Fedor I believe was ready to fight, Antonio Silva was ready to fight. And I think that Fedor, you know, is always dangerous even when he’s hurt. So, in that third round it could have turned out to be something really special but, you know, it’s something that is going to go down in the history books as, you know, the ‘what if’ third round and moving on, guys, because I always said the tournament’s not about one guy. But, in saying that, we also, you know, plan to have Fedor back and plan to put on some amazing fights and this tournament’s going to continue and we will see how the best Heavyweight is come the end of the year.”
I am fascinated by the idea that Mr. Coker floated that ‘what if there was a third round’ theory. Just him saying that, alone, will turn out to be a Rorschach test for everyone reading this.
Mauro then asked Mr. Coker if Fedor’s loss hurt Strikeforce’s plans to run a PPV event.
MAURO RANALLO: “How does the loss by Fedor in the opening round impact your plans for a PPV event this year or are they still on the table?”
SCOTT COKER: “Oh, of course. I mean, you know, Fedor is not, um, you know, just because he’s out of the tournament doesn’t mean he’s not going to fight. I mean, one of the fights that I see down the line is Fedor fighting either Alistair (Overeem) or Fabricio Werdum. So, if Alistair advances, then Werdum vs. Fedor would be a great fight.”
Will the (proverbial) golden goose stay in tact?
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 37 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |