We're cool, then. BTW, yeah Kane has jobbed to a lot of people, but they've all jobbed to him too. Kane is a fair man.
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MMA |OT3| When you lose you're a can, when you win you're unstoppable.
- Thread starter Heel
- Start date
Cain is gonna body JDS in the rematch. We all know my longstanding history of correctly picking main event underdogs. His fate is sealed.
dream
Member
By the way, I wrote a couple of essays for you guys, if you don't mind me sharing them with you.
Frank Mir this past week was revealed as the latest fighter approved by the Nevada State Athletic Commission for a therapeutic use exemption for testosterone.
Mir, 33, claimed he started using the therapy in January, and informed the commission on 3/27. That was the day of the surprise test of six heavyweights at a UFC press conference that led to Alistair Overeem failing a test and being pulled out of his main event heavyweight title fight with Junior Dos Santos. Mir, who didnt fail his test, ironically, got the spot, but lost via second round stoppage.
The Mir situation is the most perplexing to date. Mirs massive weight gain in 2009 after his loss to Brock Lesnar (he gained 40 pounds in a short period of time, not all of that was muscle, but a lot of it was in going on a powerlifting and strength regime after feeling it was not having the power to deal with Lesnar that led to his loss) would seem to belie any idea that he was suffering from low testosterone. Gaining appreciable muscle by a mature hard training athlete would seem to be nearly impossible from someone suffering from low testosterone, and not be all that easy for a mature athlete in such a cardio-based sport without performance enhancing drugs to begin with. In the case of Mir, he never failed a steroid test.
Unlike Shane Roller, Dan Henderson and Chael Sonnen, who are three of the other four athletes approved for TRT in Nevada in the history of MMA in the state, Mir has not been cutting weight for two or more decades. The other three, since childhood, were high level youth wrestlers, who went up the ladder staying in the sport through high school, college, international and then MMA competition. Mir has competed as a heavyweight his entire career and was even a heavyweight in his high school wrestling days.
But he took numerous tests during the period applying and must have shown low natural testosterone, and when supplemented, his level fell into normal range. Kizer noted that even though a testosterone/epitestosterone urine test may not be relevant for someone on a TUE, that Mir came up normal in both blood and urine tests taken 5/26 and 5/27. Mir also took a handful of serum testosterone blood tests leading into the fight. Mir was bigger, at 261 pounds, than he had fought at in most of his fights, but he had cut to make 265 against Cheick Kongo in 2009. Whatever help the therapy provided, he was too slow to compete with Dos Santos.
Even though testosterone supplementation has gotten a lot of news this year with the issues with Sonnen and Quinton Jackson (who was approved for use by the UFC for his losing fight with Ryan Bader in February in a UFC-regulated show in Japan), Kizer noted that the expected floodgates have not opened.
Kizer noted that Mir and Sonnen have been the only athletes approved for TUEs this year. Several others have been turned down in recent years for a variety of reasons, including in different cases, fighters whose testosterone levels may have been low, but were not abnormally low, a fighter who used the therapy and his testosterone levels while on therapy were well above maximum, and in at least one case, an athlete whose doctors did not cooperate or come across as credible. The idea is the supplemented level of testosterone is supposed to take you from dangerously low levels to normal levels, and not low levels to above average or to the top limit allowable.
Sonnens approval was conditional upon passing all his tests leading into and out of the 7/7 fight with Anderson Silva. He said that nobody else had applied. Kizer still maintains that nobody will get approval for a TUE if they have damaged their own production due to usage of steroids, but its currently impossible to determine what is the cause of low testosterone and why it seems so prevalent with MMA fighters. Sonnen claimed under oath that he had never taken steroids other than the testosterone in conjunction with his TUE dating back to 2008.
Dr. Timothy Trainor, the sports medicine doctor the Nevada commission used in the Sonnen case, is attempting to do research with endocrinologists to determine if years of weight cutting and/or head blows leads to do low testosterone production. Both have been theorized, the former for years, but nothing has been proven. Still, NFL players take blows to the head and get repeated concussions, and the NFL has allowed less than ten testosterone TUEs in the last 22 seasons.
But Kizer does expect the number of requests to increase based on things that happened this year, notably that more fighters are aware of the procedure and he expects more will have their levels tested.
But the issue of fighters needing it has become even more complex. The idea of needing testosterone supplementation is because you have endocrine damage that doesnt allow you to naturally produce the hormone. However, Roller, Nate Marquardt and Sean McCorkle have all publicly admitted usage, and have stopped using because of the hassle of dealing with commission requirements. Roller and Marquardt stated it was simply too much of a hassle to comply with what the commission needed. Roller said that he didnt feel any different on it. Marquardt, who got fired because he abused the therapy and was not allowed to fight in a television main event, was insistent he needed it when the walls came crashing down. But now hes fighting Tyron Woodley on 7/14 and not using. McCorkle claimed in a message board post some time back that he stopped using when he came to UFC.
The already destroyed Japanese MMA scene had two more victims this past week, as Dream was reported to be ceasing operations and Pancrase, the oldest continually active MMA company of its kind, was sold.
Dream being no more is more of a confirmation of the obvious. After being unable to get a Japanese network television outlet for its New Years Eve show even with a Fedor Emelianenko vs. Satoshi Ishii fight, and not announcing any shows since, the writing was on the wall.
Virtually all of the front office staff was gone. There had been rumors of late of a July date, but nothing came of it. Reports were that the Saitama Super Arena made it clear without some sort of a deal that they were open to renting New Years Eve to another promotion. But the tradition of New Years Eve MMA on television had already ended with the December 31, 2010, show doing a 9.18 rating, with the main segment down 41% from the prior year. This past year TBS instead ran a boxing show, which did an even more disastrous 4.2 rating on what is considered the most important night of the year for the Japanese networks.
Dream was the MMA brand under the K-1 umbrella, formed in 2008 to replace the Heroes brand. It ran 20 events. If youre keeping score of how many major groups have gone down based on thinking paying Emelianenko millions was somehow good business sense, the answer is five or six, depending on how you would categorize things. Although realistically in this case, Emelianenko being the main event of the final show was coincidental, since the dye was cast long ago for both K-1 and Dream as you simply cant spend millions more than you take in forever with promotions rapidly declining in interest, and have it end well.
Its another example of the historical patterns of what we now call MMA, in that it seems to work when you have "first generation" superstar fighters that the public gets behind, but keeping it going is more difficult for a number of factors, particularly in Japan given its fad culture.
The Japanese MMA scene derived from the popularity of 80s and 90s pro wrestling, and started with worked matches with Japanese superstar fighters like Akira Maeda and Nobuhiko Takada who were huge pro wrestling draws. The Pancrase side, which was more real at first, didnt have the popularity because while Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki were pro wrestling stars, they were not mainstream names with huge drawing power like Maeda and Takada.
The Pride boom was, in hindsight, a combination of luck and strong promotion, as when Takada was exposed as not being a real fighter, Kazushi Sakuraba beat the mythical Gracies and became a national hero. The sport has now evolved past this Gracie family myth. Hidehiko Yoshida as a judo gold medalist and former national hero, who came in and won some early matches also became a big star. Masato had the movie star looks to women, as did Kid Yamamoto, who also was a star because he was part of Japans royal family of wrestling.
And you had a slew of first generation foreign stars, like Wanderlei Silva and Mirko Cro Cop doing the "monster foreigner" with the long storyline of Japan trying to find guys to beat them, and you had all the celebrity fighters like Bob Sapp, Akebono, Ken Kaneko, Bobby Ologun, Choi Hong-man and the likes which worked as an early sport but eventually the real fighters beat them enough that their novelty was gone. In hindsight, when you look at the various names that carried Japanese MMA in the heyday, there was good promotion, and there was manipulation of matches in many ways, but there was also a ton of lucky things that simply fell into place that couldnt be repeated and wouldnt sustain when the fighters ran their course.
The problem was, Silva and Cro Cop lost to foreigners, not Japanese fighters, and even if they had, the reality is those stars were all going to get old. Japan never created new stars, not out of a lack of trying, but Shinya Aoki and people like that no matter how cool some of their finishes were, they werent making national headlines. Plus, the reality is, and there are exceptions but the heyday was carried by the bigger weight classes, particularly for Japanese television where the visual to get the average non sports fan to watch was so important.
Essentially, this all added up to declining ratings and ticket sales, while the cost to get the fighters didnt decline, and actually increased due to more international competition. Then, with the rise of UFC on PPV in 2006, it was something Japan couldnt compete with since so few homes in Japan have PPV capability, and culturally they were always used to getting the big fights and wrestling matches on free television, so they werent able to produce the kind of revenue UFC could.
To keep going while under financial duress, the promotions didnt pay a lot of the fighters, or paid them late, or paid them when they needed them to come back and those discarded along the way and owed money ended up never getting paid while they struggled to continue running shows. With no athletic commissions or outside regulation, they were able to get away with it until there was no more money. Thats where weve been since the failure to get a television deal that at least would have given then a glimmer of hope and an ability to at least find more investors.
There were a slew of foreigners owed hundreds of thousands when FEG declared bankruptcy a few weeks ago. While run as sister companies, Dream was run by Real Entertainment, which laid off all its staff and has ceased day-to-day operations.
There is no telling how much the Japanese, who because of the nature of the culture, would likely never publicly complain about it, were owed.
Pancrase was a completely different animal. The company started running on September 21, 1993, at Tokyo Bay NK Hall, about seven weeks before UFC debuted in the U.S., was considered the premiere MMA league in the world in its first few years built around stars like Wayne (Ken) Shamrock, Masakatsu Funaki, Bas Rutten, Frank Shamrock, Minoru Suzuki, Guy Mezger and others. However, it didnt have large capital behind them, and couldnt match UFCs revenue stream from PPV when UFC got strong in 1994. The company was conservative, and during the real boom period in the early 2000s, became a secondary group, running mostly smaller arenas and using lesser known stars. At best, theyve been a feeder system for years, really dating back to when Pride was formed in 1997, and RINGS went from being quasi-real to mostly-real. Still, they continually ran shows in small buildings and drew what was mostly the "family and friends of fighters" audience. Still, they had run 252 shows in their existence, more than any MMA promotion in existence.
It was announced that Don Quijote, a retail outlet in Japan had sold the company on 6/1 to Smash Promotions, a pro wrestling organization that no longer runs shows after a falling out between CEO Masakazu Sakai and top star Yoshihiro Tajiri, who left and took all the talent in forming a new promotion, Wrestling New Classic.
Sakais background also included promoting the now-defunct Hustle Pro Wrestling organization. When Smash went down, Sakai was considering either reviving Sengoku, another dead MMA promotion, or buying Pancrase. The promotions new goals include sending its fighters to other organizations, such as UFC, as well as running shows with international rules this year, including at least three cage shows next year.
The 15th season of The Ultimate Fighter ended on 6/1 in Las Vegas with what would have been, had it been any other season, a superstar-making performance.
Michael Chiesa, 24, of Spokane, along with best friend and teammate Sam Sicilia, were two of 32 hopefuls in the elimination process to get into the house for the first mostly live season of the show, and its debut on FX. After Chiesa defeated Johnavan Vistante on 3/9 to get into the house, it was only two days later he got the word that his father had passed away due to leukemia. Chiesa knew his fathers illness was terminal. His father, who ran a Mercedes and Jaguar dealership in Spokane had told him to never lose sight of his goals, and how a day off from your goals costs you a day. He impressed upon Chiesa before he left that no matter what happened, he was not to leave the house.
Chiesa, while somewhat of a visual standout with his long curly hair and beard, although he also resembled another wrestler in the cast, Mike Rio, came into the house with a 7-0 record. In the second episode of the season, Chiesa became a sentimental favorite, as he cried on his best friends shoulder as they talked about the story about how his father hung on just long enough to see his son fight and win on national television. Chiesa went back to Spokane for the funeral and returned two days later. With so-so standup at best, and decent but not overwhelming wrestling, he was far from a favorite. Out of the 16 winning fighters, Chiesa was hardly one of the favorites, picked 10th overall by coach Urijah Faber.
After beating Jeremy Larsen in his first fight, his run was expected to end in facing Dustin Lawrence on 5/11, the first fighter picked in the show by Dominick Cruz and who looked like the seasons breakout star. The fight early went as expected with Lawrence doing a number on him, but Chiesa came back in the second round and sent the fight into overtime. Things werent looking good for Chiesa until he suddenly got on top in the third round and started firing punch after punch until the fight was stopped.
Things went similarly on 5/25, with Chiesa taking a beating, with his face lumping up, against Vick, a tall lightweight who by that point was considered the co-favorite with Al Iaquinta to go all the way. But after taking a beating in the first round, he got Vick to the ground and pounded him out.
Seven days later, with his face not even coming close to have healed up, a bruised up Chiesa faced an untouched looking Iaquinta, the shows second pick by Faber. Iaquinta was by this point considered the best fighter on the cast, solid in every aspect of the game, but it took Chiesa only 2:47 to choke him out. Chiesas stepmother, who raised him after his father got him away from his alcoholic biological mother, and his sister, were shown meeting with him for the first time since the funeral after the win over Vick when the fighters were finally allowed to leave the house. And they had the ultimate happy ending.
If this had happened in any other season, Chiesa would have come out of the show as one of the most popular fighters in the promotion. The guys on season three, Michael Bisping, Kendall Grove and Matt Hamill, came off the show like superstars from day one. Forrest Griffin, Chris Leben and Stephan Bonnar were among the most popular fighters off season one, Diego Sanchez was an instant star, and Josh Koscheck to this day remains one of the top black hats in the company.
But things have changed a lot. The last Ultimate Fighter winners to really amount to anything in UFC competition were Roy Nelson, who as a former IFL champion was actually a ringer when he was put in the 2009 heavyweight season, and Ryan Bader, an All-American wrestler from Arizona State a year earlier. The rest have either struggled, or in some cases, arent even in UFC anymore.
But in the Spike days, Ultimate Fighter on Wednesday nights would hover between 1.2 million and 1.6 million viewers per week first run, and then get nearly 1 million more for a couple of replays.
On Friday night, the live season on FX opened with 1.28 million viewers, a disappointment to be sure, but explained that it would take a few weeks before people would all catch on to the new night and network. But instead, the season lost all its momentum and the final few shows were barely above 800,000 viewers, falling as low as an 0.6 rating. And the only replays were on Fuel, which does almost no viewers most of the time.
Had this been a taped season, and they knew when editing it together that Chiesa would have at least reached the finals, his story could have been played up more. But this season only proved what hardcores want and what works to the masses are entirely different animals.
For years, hardcore fans complained that Ultimate Fighter was too much fake drama, too much reality show, and not enough time spent showing the actual training, and they complained it was taped months ago. So in going live, you had minimal stuff at the house, very little drama and personality development, and mostly build up and training over the previous days leading to the two competitors in a live fight. This concept steadily lost viewers, and the story of Chiesa, who should have been the star as he kept coming back to win fights he was supposed to lose while always talking about how much he loved his (step) mother, didnt make any difference in the ratings. Plus, Chiesa shaved his trademark beard after winning the show and now looks like a completely different person. He said he needs time off after five fights in 13 weeks.
Its expected that the show will be revamped in some form for the fall season. There have been complaints of the sameness dating back to late 2006, but the reality has been the show remained a steady performer until this past season. With the coaching dynamics of GSP vs. Josh Koscheck and Michael Bisping vs. Jason Miller as late as 2010 and 2011, the show was still doing very well.
The show did a 0.8 rating and 1.02 million viewers for the main card on FX, numbers that would have been considered really bad three months ago, but compared with what the last few episodes did, you would almost breathe a sigh of relief given the combination of Smackdown and the NBA playoffs as opposition. The prelims on Fuel did a 0.4 rating and 165,000 viewers, which were the highest rated and most viewed prelims for a main card thus far on Fuel. It was the fourth most watched show in the history of the network, trailing the three live Fuel-only shows so far this year, peaking at 241,000 viewers for Chris Ticke vs. Darion Cruickshank. But its clear our readership interest for at least this level of a UFC show is at the lowest level ever. We may have gotten a record low number of responses for a live UFC show, and the number was at the same level of a below average TNA PPV show.
Preliminary numbers for the 5/26 show were estimated at between 560,000 and 580,000 buys, which shows that the big shows are still holding up even with ratings down. For comparisons with numbers weve had in the past, this is a worldwide figure and we usually have North American figures. That was very slightly ahead of most expectations going in. The good thing is one would expect the show built a main event (Velasquez vs. Dos Santos II) that should significantly beat that number. I like the idea of an annual all-heavyweight main card as a once-a-year selling point. It was suggested to Dana White after the show, and he wasnt all gung-ho on the idea, because of the difficulty of getting ten solid heavyweights all ready on a certain date and also having 3-4 more in reserve because of the guaranteed injuries. I think that was the selling point of the show, and the show delivered exactly as most buyers would have hoped for, with explosive action and great finishes. But that also means withholding name heavyweights from shows a few months prior and after, and with the schedule they run, doing stuff like that is very difficult to pull off. Of the five main card fights originally planned, all five had to be changed due to Alistair Overeems suspension and injuries to Gabriel Gonzaga and Mark Hunt. But luckily Lavar Johnson took no punishment in his win three weeks earlier to save the show, but Johnson lost his momentum with a quick submission loss. The show as originally set one would expect to have done even better. The top markets look to have been Las Vegas (home site, Mirs home market), Los Angeles (heavy Hispanic population, strong Velasquez market), Phoenix (ditto), San Antonio (ditto), Seattle (traditionally strong market these days), Houston (ditto), San Diego (ditto), San Francisco (Velasquez home metro area) and Minneapolis along with the usual Canadian markets of Edmonton, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Calgary and Toronto. Canada appeared down from usual big shows but the U.S. was strong, although both markets were down from UFC 145 with Jon Jones vs. Rashad Evans.
Frank Mir this past week was revealed as the latest fighter approved by the Nevada State Athletic Commission for a therapeutic use exemption for testosterone.
Mir, 33, claimed he started using the therapy in January, and informed the commission on 3/27. That was the day of the surprise test of six heavyweights at a UFC press conference that led to Alistair Overeem failing a test and being pulled out of his main event heavyweight title fight with Junior Dos Santos. Mir, who didnt fail his test, ironically, got the spot, but lost via second round stoppage.
The Mir situation is the most perplexing to date. Mirs massive weight gain in 2009 after his loss to Brock Lesnar (he gained 40 pounds in a short period of time, not all of that was muscle, but a lot of it was in going on a powerlifting and strength regime after feeling it was not having the power to deal with Lesnar that led to his loss) would seem to belie any idea that he was suffering from low testosterone. Gaining appreciable muscle by a mature hard training athlete would seem to be nearly impossible from someone suffering from low testosterone, and not be all that easy for a mature athlete in such a cardio-based sport without performance enhancing drugs to begin with. In the case of Mir, he never failed a steroid test.
Unlike Shane Roller, Dan Henderson and Chael Sonnen, who are three of the other four athletes approved for TRT in Nevada in the history of MMA in the state, Mir has not been cutting weight for two or more decades. The other three, since childhood, were high level youth wrestlers, who went up the ladder staying in the sport through high school, college, international and then MMA competition. Mir has competed as a heavyweight his entire career and was even a heavyweight in his high school wrestling days.
But he took numerous tests during the period applying and must have shown low natural testosterone, and when supplemented, his level fell into normal range. Kizer noted that even though a testosterone/epitestosterone urine test may not be relevant for someone on a TUE, that Mir came up normal in both blood and urine tests taken 5/26 and 5/27. Mir also took a handful of serum testosterone blood tests leading into the fight. Mir was bigger, at 261 pounds, than he had fought at in most of his fights, but he had cut to make 265 against Cheick Kongo in 2009. Whatever help the therapy provided, he was too slow to compete with Dos Santos.
Even though testosterone supplementation has gotten a lot of news this year with the issues with Sonnen and Quinton Jackson (who was approved for use by the UFC for his losing fight with Ryan Bader in February in a UFC-regulated show in Japan), Kizer noted that the expected floodgates have not opened.
Kizer noted that Mir and Sonnen have been the only athletes approved for TUEs this year. Several others have been turned down in recent years for a variety of reasons, including in different cases, fighters whose testosterone levels may have been low, but were not abnormally low, a fighter who used the therapy and his testosterone levels while on therapy were well above maximum, and in at least one case, an athlete whose doctors did not cooperate or come across as credible. The idea is the supplemented level of testosterone is supposed to take you from dangerously low levels to normal levels, and not low levels to above average or to the top limit allowable.
Sonnens approval was conditional upon passing all his tests leading into and out of the 7/7 fight with Anderson Silva. He said that nobody else had applied. Kizer still maintains that nobody will get approval for a TUE if they have damaged their own production due to usage of steroids, but its currently impossible to determine what is the cause of low testosterone and why it seems so prevalent with MMA fighters. Sonnen claimed under oath that he had never taken steroids other than the testosterone in conjunction with his TUE dating back to 2008.
Dr. Timothy Trainor, the sports medicine doctor the Nevada commission used in the Sonnen case, is attempting to do research with endocrinologists to determine if years of weight cutting and/or head blows leads to do low testosterone production. Both have been theorized, the former for years, but nothing has been proven. Still, NFL players take blows to the head and get repeated concussions, and the NFL has allowed less than ten testosterone TUEs in the last 22 seasons.
But Kizer does expect the number of requests to increase based on things that happened this year, notably that more fighters are aware of the procedure and he expects more will have their levels tested.
But the issue of fighters needing it has become even more complex. The idea of needing testosterone supplementation is because you have endocrine damage that doesnt allow you to naturally produce the hormone. However, Roller, Nate Marquardt and Sean McCorkle have all publicly admitted usage, and have stopped using because of the hassle of dealing with commission requirements. Roller and Marquardt stated it was simply too much of a hassle to comply with what the commission needed. Roller said that he didnt feel any different on it. Marquardt, who got fired because he abused the therapy and was not allowed to fight in a television main event, was insistent he needed it when the walls came crashing down. But now hes fighting Tyron Woodley on 7/14 and not using. McCorkle claimed in a message board post some time back that he stopped using when he came to UFC.
The already destroyed Japanese MMA scene had two more victims this past week, as Dream was reported to be ceasing operations and Pancrase, the oldest continually active MMA company of its kind, was sold.
Dream being no more is more of a confirmation of the obvious. After being unable to get a Japanese network television outlet for its New Years Eve show even with a Fedor Emelianenko vs. Satoshi Ishii fight, and not announcing any shows since, the writing was on the wall.
Virtually all of the front office staff was gone. There had been rumors of late of a July date, but nothing came of it. Reports were that the Saitama Super Arena made it clear without some sort of a deal that they were open to renting New Years Eve to another promotion. But the tradition of New Years Eve MMA on television had already ended with the December 31, 2010, show doing a 9.18 rating, with the main segment down 41% from the prior year. This past year TBS instead ran a boxing show, which did an even more disastrous 4.2 rating on what is considered the most important night of the year for the Japanese networks.
Dream was the MMA brand under the K-1 umbrella, formed in 2008 to replace the Heroes brand. It ran 20 events. If youre keeping score of how many major groups have gone down based on thinking paying Emelianenko millions was somehow good business sense, the answer is five or six, depending on how you would categorize things. Although realistically in this case, Emelianenko being the main event of the final show was coincidental, since the dye was cast long ago for both K-1 and Dream as you simply cant spend millions more than you take in forever with promotions rapidly declining in interest, and have it end well.
Its another example of the historical patterns of what we now call MMA, in that it seems to work when you have "first generation" superstar fighters that the public gets behind, but keeping it going is more difficult for a number of factors, particularly in Japan given its fad culture.
The Japanese MMA scene derived from the popularity of 80s and 90s pro wrestling, and started with worked matches with Japanese superstar fighters like Akira Maeda and Nobuhiko Takada who were huge pro wrestling draws. The Pancrase side, which was more real at first, didnt have the popularity because while Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki were pro wrestling stars, they were not mainstream names with huge drawing power like Maeda and Takada.
The Pride boom was, in hindsight, a combination of luck and strong promotion, as when Takada was exposed as not being a real fighter, Kazushi Sakuraba beat the mythical Gracies and became a national hero. The sport has now evolved past this Gracie family myth. Hidehiko Yoshida as a judo gold medalist and former national hero, who came in and won some early matches also became a big star. Masato had the movie star looks to women, as did Kid Yamamoto, who also was a star because he was part of Japans royal family of wrestling.
And you had a slew of first generation foreign stars, like Wanderlei Silva and Mirko Cro Cop doing the "monster foreigner" with the long storyline of Japan trying to find guys to beat them, and you had all the celebrity fighters like Bob Sapp, Akebono, Ken Kaneko, Bobby Ologun, Choi Hong-man and the likes which worked as an early sport but eventually the real fighters beat them enough that their novelty was gone. In hindsight, when you look at the various names that carried Japanese MMA in the heyday, there was good promotion, and there was manipulation of matches in many ways, but there was also a ton of lucky things that simply fell into place that couldnt be repeated and wouldnt sustain when the fighters ran their course.
The problem was, Silva and Cro Cop lost to foreigners, not Japanese fighters, and even if they had, the reality is those stars were all going to get old. Japan never created new stars, not out of a lack of trying, but Shinya Aoki and people like that no matter how cool some of their finishes were, they werent making national headlines. Plus, the reality is, and there are exceptions but the heyday was carried by the bigger weight classes, particularly for Japanese television where the visual to get the average non sports fan to watch was so important.
Essentially, this all added up to declining ratings and ticket sales, while the cost to get the fighters didnt decline, and actually increased due to more international competition. Then, with the rise of UFC on PPV in 2006, it was something Japan couldnt compete with since so few homes in Japan have PPV capability, and culturally they were always used to getting the big fights and wrestling matches on free television, so they werent able to produce the kind of revenue UFC could.
To keep going while under financial duress, the promotions didnt pay a lot of the fighters, or paid them late, or paid them when they needed them to come back and those discarded along the way and owed money ended up never getting paid while they struggled to continue running shows. With no athletic commissions or outside regulation, they were able to get away with it until there was no more money. Thats where weve been since the failure to get a television deal that at least would have given then a glimmer of hope and an ability to at least find more investors.
There were a slew of foreigners owed hundreds of thousands when FEG declared bankruptcy a few weeks ago. While run as sister companies, Dream was run by Real Entertainment, which laid off all its staff and has ceased day-to-day operations.
There is no telling how much the Japanese, who because of the nature of the culture, would likely never publicly complain about it, were owed.
Pancrase was a completely different animal. The company started running on September 21, 1993, at Tokyo Bay NK Hall, about seven weeks before UFC debuted in the U.S., was considered the premiere MMA league in the world in its first few years built around stars like Wayne (Ken) Shamrock, Masakatsu Funaki, Bas Rutten, Frank Shamrock, Minoru Suzuki, Guy Mezger and others. However, it didnt have large capital behind them, and couldnt match UFCs revenue stream from PPV when UFC got strong in 1994. The company was conservative, and during the real boom period in the early 2000s, became a secondary group, running mostly smaller arenas and using lesser known stars. At best, theyve been a feeder system for years, really dating back to when Pride was formed in 1997, and RINGS went from being quasi-real to mostly-real. Still, they continually ran shows in small buildings and drew what was mostly the "family and friends of fighters" audience. Still, they had run 252 shows in their existence, more than any MMA promotion in existence.
It was announced that Don Quijote, a retail outlet in Japan had sold the company on 6/1 to Smash Promotions, a pro wrestling organization that no longer runs shows after a falling out between CEO Masakazu Sakai and top star Yoshihiro Tajiri, who left and took all the talent in forming a new promotion, Wrestling New Classic.
Sakais background also included promoting the now-defunct Hustle Pro Wrestling organization. When Smash went down, Sakai was considering either reviving Sengoku, another dead MMA promotion, or buying Pancrase. The promotions new goals include sending its fighters to other organizations, such as UFC, as well as running shows with international rules this year, including at least three cage shows next year.
The 15th season of The Ultimate Fighter ended on 6/1 in Las Vegas with what would have been, had it been any other season, a superstar-making performance.
Michael Chiesa, 24, of Spokane, along with best friend and teammate Sam Sicilia, were two of 32 hopefuls in the elimination process to get into the house for the first mostly live season of the show, and its debut on FX. After Chiesa defeated Johnavan Vistante on 3/9 to get into the house, it was only two days later he got the word that his father had passed away due to leukemia. Chiesa knew his fathers illness was terminal. His father, who ran a Mercedes and Jaguar dealership in Spokane had told him to never lose sight of his goals, and how a day off from your goals costs you a day. He impressed upon Chiesa before he left that no matter what happened, he was not to leave the house.
Chiesa, while somewhat of a visual standout with his long curly hair and beard, although he also resembled another wrestler in the cast, Mike Rio, came into the house with a 7-0 record. In the second episode of the season, Chiesa became a sentimental favorite, as he cried on his best friends shoulder as they talked about the story about how his father hung on just long enough to see his son fight and win on national television. Chiesa went back to Spokane for the funeral and returned two days later. With so-so standup at best, and decent but not overwhelming wrestling, he was far from a favorite. Out of the 16 winning fighters, Chiesa was hardly one of the favorites, picked 10th overall by coach Urijah Faber.
After beating Jeremy Larsen in his first fight, his run was expected to end in facing Dustin Lawrence on 5/11, the first fighter picked in the show by Dominick Cruz and who looked like the seasons breakout star. The fight early went as expected with Lawrence doing a number on him, but Chiesa came back in the second round and sent the fight into overtime. Things werent looking good for Chiesa until he suddenly got on top in the third round and started firing punch after punch until the fight was stopped.
Things went similarly on 5/25, with Chiesa taking a beating, with his face lumping up, against Vick, a tall lightweight who by that point was considered the co-favorite with Al Iaquinta to go all the way. But after taking a beating in the first round, he got Vick to the ground and pounded him out.
Seven days later, with his face not even coming close to have healed up, a bruised up Chiesa faced an untouched looking Iaquinta, the shows second pick by Faber. Iaquinta was by this point considered the best fighter on the cast, solid in every aspect of the game, but it took Chiesa only 2:47 to choke him out. Chiesas stepmother, who raised him after his father got him away from his alcoholic biological mother, and his sister, were shown meeting with him for the first time since the funeral after the win over Vick when the fighters were finally allowed to leave the house. And they had the ultimate happy ending.
If this had happened in any other season, Chiesa would have come out of the show as one of the most popular fighters in the promotion. The guys on season three, Michael Bisping, Kendall Grove and Matt Hamill, came off the show like superstars from day one. Forrest Griffin, Chris Leben and Stephan Bonnar were among the most popular fighters off season one, Diego Sanchez was an instant star, and Josh Koscheck to this day remains one of the top black hats in the company.
But things have changed a lot. The last Ultimate Fighter winners to really amount to anything in UFC competition were Roy Nelson, who as a former IFL champion was actually a ringer when he was put in the 2009 heavyweight season, and Ryan Bader, an All-American wrestler from Arizona State a year earlier. The rest have either struggled, or in some cases, arent even in UFC anymore.
But in the Spike days, Ultimate Fighter on Wednesday nights would hover between 1.2 million and 1.6 million viewers per week first run, and then get nearly 1 million more for a couple of replays.
On Friday night, the live season on FX opened with 1.28 million viewers, a disappointment to be sure, but explained that it would take a few weeks before people would all catch on to the new night and network. But instead, the season lost all its momentum and the final few shows were barely above 800,000 viewers, falling as low as an 0.6 rating. And the only replays were on Fuel, which does almost no viewers most of the time.
Had this been a taped season, and they knew when editing it together that Chiesa would have at least reached the finals, his story could have been played up more. But this season only proved what hardcores want and what works to the masses are entirely different animals.
For years, hardcore fans complained that Ultimate Fighter was too much fake drama, too much reality show, and not enough time spent showing the actual training, and they complained it was taped months ago. So in going live, you had minimal stuff at the house, very little drama and personality development, and mostly build up and training over the previous days leading to the two competitors in a live fight. This concept steadily lost viewers, and the story of Chiesa, who should have been the star as he kept coming back to win fights he was supposed to lose while always talking about how much he loved his (step) mother, didnt make any difference in the ratings. Plus, Chiesa shaved his trademark beard after winning the show and now looks like a completely different person. He said he needs time off after five fights in 13 weeks.
Its expected that the show will be revamped in some form for the fall season. There have been complaints of the sameness dating back to late 2006, but the reality has been the show remained a steady performer until this past season. With the coaching dynamics of GSP vs. Josh Koscheck and Michael Bisping vs. Jason Miller as late as 2010 and 2011, the show was still doing very well.
The show did a 0.8 rating and 1.02 million viewers for the main card on FX, numbers that would have been considered really bad three months ago, but compared with what the last few episodes did, you would almost breathe a sigh of relief given the combination of Smackdown and the NBA playoffs as opposition. The prelims on Fuel did a 0.4 rating and 165,000 viewers, which were the highest rated and most viewed prelims for a main card thus far on Fuel. It was the fourth most watched show in the history of the network, trailing the three live Fuel-only shows so far this year, peaking at 241,000 viewers for Chris Ticke vs. Darion Cruickshank. But its clear our readership interest for at least this level of a UFC show is at the lowest level ever. We may have gotten a record low number of responses for a live UFC show, and the number was at the same level of a below average TNA PPV show.
Preliminary numbers for the 5/26 show were estimated at between 560,000 and 580,000 buys, which shows that the big shows are still holding up even with ratings down. For comparisons with numbers weve had in the past, this is a worldwide figure and we usually have North American figures. That was very slightly ahead of most expectations going in. The good thing is one would expect the show built a main event (Velasquez vs. Dos Santos II) that should significantly beat that number. I like the idea of an annual all-heavyweight main card as a once-a-year selling point. It was suggested to Dana White after the show, and he wasnt all gung-ho on the idea, because of the difficulty of getting ten solid heavyweights all ready on a certain date and also having 3-4 more in reserve because of the guaranteed injuries. I think that was the selling point of the show, and the show delivered exactly as most buyers would have hoped for, with explosive action and great finishes. But that also means withholding name heavyweights from shows a few months prior and after, and with the schedule they run, doing stuff like that is very difficult to pull off. Of the five main card fights originally planned, all five had to be changed due to Alistair Overeems suspension and injuries to Gabriel Gonzaga and Mark Hunt. But luckily Lavar Johnson took no punishment in his win three weeks earlier to save the show, but Johnson lost his momentum with a quick submission loss. The show as originally set one would expect to have done even better. The top markets look to have been Las Vegas (home site, Mirs home market), Los Angeles (heavy Hispanic population, strong Velasquez market), Phoenix (ditto), San Antonio (ditto), Seattle (traditionally strong market these days), Houston (ditto), San Diego (ditto), San Francisco (Velasquez home metro area) and Minneapolis along with the usual Canadian markets of Edmonton, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Calgary and Toronto. Canada appeared down from usual big shows but the U.S. was strong, although both markets were down from UFC 145 with Jon Jones vs. Rashad Evans.
dream
Member
Names were released of the two women in the car with Jon Jones when he had crashed into a telephone poll on 5/19 at 5:02 a.m. They were Cara Johnson, 25, who was in the passenger seat, who was a woman he went to high school with and was a basketball player; and Michelle Vojisek, also 25. Both were taken to the hospital. Johnson received a shoulder injury and a bloody nose. Vojisek suffered cuts and bruises on the right side of her face. Jones isnt married, but is engaged, and has been living with the mother of his children dating back many years. Jones P.R. people are going to have to work regarding his image. Its not going to hurt his drawing power, but they were all pushing him to have this clean image, the famous sports family, religious, etc. hoping to be the first MMA fighter with the Nike deal. I dont know how sponsors will react, but without repeated incidents, if he remains a dominant star and champion, in a year this wont matter in the sponsorship world. However, hes not going to be able to do the religious interviews because people will turn on him bad for that. One of the things people didnt know regarding the Jones vs. Evans build is that Evans hinted at all this, saying Jones was a phony and he was headed for a crash, but Evans wouldnt cross the line in talking because it wasnt good for the fight. But it made Jones scared to say much personal about Evans, which is why Jones has the attitude the last few weeks before the fight of not wanting to talk.
This is not going to be a bad year for PPV. As far as the idea its a dying industry, something I read at least once a week, and I get the logical reasons why (a generation used to getting things for free and ease of streaming), this year is going to be up from last year. Aside from Pacquiao and Mayweather numbers slightly going up (although I dont have a strong feel for Pacquiao vs. Bradley coming so soon after Mayweather vs. Cotto and a loaded show), UFC will be way up this year on PPV compared to last year. Granted, last year was a huge drop and this year wont come close to 2010 levels. WWE will be up on PPV for the second straight year this year due to bringing back Rock and Brock Lesnar at a high price. Last year UFC did an estimated just under 5 million. Going into the UFC 146, you figure 1.6 to 1.7 million so far this year, which doesnt sound great. But for the summer (5/26 to 9/1), Id figure youre getting 2.4 million to 2.5 million, give or take some, barring a key injury (and we know that happens more often than not). So thats 4.2 million as of 9/1, with probably four shows left. Those would include a GSP return and a Junior Dos Santos vs. Cain Velasquez which by themselves are easily topping 1 million and should be closer to 1.5, so with that alone, UFC is easily beating last years number. Granted, last year was a fluke on the low side because of all the injuries, but this year has had injuries and two major suspensions (Alistair Overeem and Nick Diaz) which cost the company a lot. The 2010 numbers (9 million range) were the biggest number for any sports organization on PPV in history. But that year was a fluke based on two Brock Lesnar fights and nobody has been able to draw at his level. And even with all three entities likely being up significantly on PPV from 2011, In am not arguing that shows PPV is a growing industry. Its ups and downs in boxing and MMA are based far more on what is available and who is over and how many injuries or suspensions key guys get. In boxing, losing one or both of the big guys will be beyond devastating. In MMA, one or two guys make a difference but not to the same level. WWEs increase is not based as much on being stronger on PPV but that Mania was so big and Mania carries the year now. But for those saying PPV is a dying industry, they may be right in time, and there are plenty of reasons (a generation that grows up with free streaming and so much free content available) as to why, but right now there are no indications of it. Right now the indications are the highs are getting higher, but the lows are getting lower. If youve got the fight people want to see, youll do well. But just putting on a PPV show to fill three hours, people will skip it more often than ever before.
There is a lot to why Lesnar has not been mentioned on television the past two weeks, nothing has been done on his angle and no clips have been shown, no follow up has been on the Heyman and Lesnar storyline lawsuit nor has Heyman been on the show nor any "messages sent by Lesnar" been part of any TV. According to several sources, there is nuclear heat on Lesnar right now, a lot of which stems from his going to the UFC show and their knowledge that he met with Dana White. As noted last week, not only was Vince McMahon not behind it, but he wasnt aware of it until it happened. But there were problems even before that point, which may have been why Lesnar decided to go to Las Vegas and feelers were sent. Those close to the situation say that Lesnar vs. HHH is still planned as the main event for SummerSlam and because its HHHs angle, even with this heat, that match is almost surely going to happen. There have been problems since day one in the sense Lesnar got this sweetheart contract and has been difficult or impossible, depending on who you talk with, to deal with from almost the start. Lesnar was super high maintenance in his 2002-2004 run and Vince found him difficult then with his constant demands and wanting things changed, but now Lesnar is a tons bigger star and is said to be a completely different animal to deal with, plus hes coming off his UFC success and money and even though he probably isnt Dana Whites favorite person this week either, he can always make a deal to go back and make the same if not more money than hes making here. As we stated from day one of the deal, this is a completely different person than Vince has ever had to deal with. Even though The Rock and Steve Austin and others have no financial worries and plenty to do, at the end of the day, they both love wrestling, and WWE is wrestling because they arent about to be doing TNA. Whatever ups and downs Vince may have or they may have, the relationship is always going to stay cordial at the end of the day. With Lesnar, there are trust issues dating back almost a decade and Lesnar also doesnt love wrestling, its just something he does really well. Right now the company is trying to send a message to him by giving Show the push as the "Im not an entertainer, Im a badass in real life" position that was Lesnars line. The line about Show being far tougher than a fake UFC fighter was meant as a shot at Lesnar. The funny thing is, Lesnar was likely not watching the show and probably wouldnt care. Because they are still going on with Lesnar vs. HHH, at some point, probably soon, theyll contact him, try and work things out, and start talking about the storyline on television. The belief is now that instead of keeping it going weekly with Heyman or clips, to just forget about it and bring it back in a few weeks when its time to bring it back. But it was the UFC thing that was the straw that broke the camels back. In addition, the attitude when the buy rate came in was almost exactly as many had predicted would happen in the sense when Vince was in the mode that he was going to sign UFCs biggest star and at the time, particularly since he couldnt get what he wanted at the 2011 Mania, that whatever it took to make the deal, hed make it. But when the first buy rate came in for a "B" show, even with knowledge of what happened when Rock was on Survivor Series and with the Punk angle, that Vince would start thinking he made a bad major deal similar to Bret Hart in 1996 and Bill Goldberg in 2003. Another person noted that Lesnar signed for even fewer dates than most think and they blew through too many of them at once. Right now, hes scheduled for SummerSlam, but theres nothing in the fall including Survivor Series. It may be SummerSlam and Mania, or SummerSlam, Rumble and Mania, and thats it. Another thing we were told was a message although again its one of those messages that nobody actually picked up on, was when HHH was on Raw doing a 1,000th episode plug, he was not selling the arm (he wore a suit jacket so if there was supposed to be a brace, wink, wink, you wouldnt see it allowing fans to believe what they want) and moving both arms freely while discussing the night he came back to Madison Square Garden after tearing his quad in 2002. Lesnar can always go back to UFC for a comeback fight, but long-term, being away from MMA and not training, combined with his being 34 and likely losing his speed at that age in what is a speed sport, for money and longevity, pro wrestling at this point is the better fit.
This is not going to be a bad year for PPV. As far as the idea its a dying industry, something I read at least once a week, and I get the logical reasons why (a generation used to getting things for free and ease of streaming), this year is going to be up from last year. Aside from Pacquiao and Mayweather numbers slightly going up (although I dont have a strong feel for Pacquiao vs. Bradley coming so soon after Mayweather vs. Cotto and a loaded show), UFC will be way up this year on PPV compared to last year. Granted, last year was a huge drop and this year wont come close to 2010 levels. WWE will be up on PPV for the second straight year this year due to bringing back Rock and Brock Lesnar at a high price. Last year UFC did an estimated just under 5 million. Going into the UFC 146, you figure 1.6 to 1.7 million so far this year, which doesnt sound great. But for the summer (5/26 to 9/1), Id figure youre getting 2.4 million to 2.5 million, give or take some, barring a key injury (and we know that happens more often than not). So thats 4.2 million as of 9/1, with probably four shows left. Those would include a GSP return and a Junior Dos Santos vs. Cain Velasquez which by themselves are easily topping 1 million and should be closer to 1.5, so with that alone, UFC is easily beating last years number. Granted, last year was a fluke on the low side because of all the injuries, but this year has had injuries and two major suspensions (Alistair Overeem and Nick Diaz) which cost the company a lot. The 2010 numbers (9 million range) were the biggest number for any sports organization on PPV in history. But that year was a fluke based on two Brock Lesnar fights and nobody has been able to draw at his level. And even with all three entities likely being up significantly on PPV from 2011, In am not arguing that shows PPV is a growing industry. Its ups and downs in boxing and MMA are based far more on what is available and who is over and how many injuries or suspensions key guys get. In boxing, losing one or both of the big guys will be beyond devastating. In MMA, one or two guys make a difference but not to the same level. WWEs increase is not based as much on being stronger on PPV but that Mania was so big and Mania carries the year now. But for those saying PPV is a dying industry, they may be right in time, and there are plenty of reasons (a generation that grows up with free streaming and so much free content available) as to why, but right now there are no indications of it. Right now the indications are the highs are getting higher, but the lows are getting lower. If youve got the fight people want to see, youll do well. But just putting on a PPV show to fill three hours, people will skip it more often than ever before.
There is a lot to why Lesnar has not been mentioned on television the past two weeks, nothing has been done on his angle and no clips have been shown, no follow up has been on the Heyman and Lesnar storyline lawsuit nor has Heyman been on the show nor any "messages sent by Lesnar" been part of any TV. According to several sources, there is nuclear heat on Lesnar right now, a lot of which stems from his going to the UFC show and their knowledge that he met with Dana White. As noted last week, not only was Vince McMahon not behind it, but he wasnt aware of it until it happened. But there were problems even before that point, which may have been why Lesnar decided to go to Las Vegas and feelers were sent. Those close to the situation say that Lesnar vs. HHH is still planned as the main event for SummerSlam and because its HHHs angle, even with this heat, that match is almost surely going to happen. There have been problems since day one in the sense Lesnar got this sweetheart contract and has been difficult or impossible, depending on who you talk with, to deal with from almost the start. Lesnar was super high maintenance in his 2002-2004 run and Vince found him difficult then with his constant demands and wanting things changed, but now Lesnar is a tons bigger star and is said to be a completely different animal to deal with, plus hes coming off his UFC success and money and even though he probably isnt Dana Whites favorite person this week either, he can always make a deal to go back and make the same if not more money than hes making here. As we stated from day one of the deal, this is a completely different person than Vince has ever had to deal with. Even though The Rock and Steve Austin and others have no financial worries and plenty to do, at the end of the day, they both love wrestling, and WWE is wrestling because they arent about to be doing TNA. Whatever ups and downs Vince may have or they may have, the relationship is always going to stay cordial at the end of the day. With Lesnar, there are trust issues dating back almost a decade and Lesnar also doesnt love wrestling, its just something he does really well. Right now the company is trying to send a message to him by giving Show the push as the "Im not an entertainer, Im a badass in real life" position that was Lesnars line. The line about Show being far tougher than a fake UFC fighter was meant as a shot at Lesnar. The funny thing is, Lesnar was likely not watching the show and probably wouldnt care. Because they are still going on with Lesnar vs. HHH, at some point, probably soon, theyll contact him, try and work things out, and start talking about the storyline on television. The belief is now that instead of keeping it going weekly with Heyman or clips, to just forget about it and bring it back in a few weeks when its time to bring it back. But it was the UFC thing that was the straw that broke the camels back. In addition, the attitude when the buy rate came in was almost exactly as many had predicted would happen in the sense when Vince was in the mode that he was going to sign UFCs biggest star and at the time, particularly since he couldnt get what he wanted at the 2011 Mania, that whatever it took to make the deal, hed make it. But when the first buy rate came in for a "B" show, even with knowledge of what happened when Rock was on Survivor Series and with the Punk angle, that Vince would start thinking he made a bad major deal similar to Bret Hart in 1996 and Bill Goldberg in 2003. Another person noted that Lesnar signed for even fewer dates than most think and they blew through too many of them at once. Right now, hes scheduled for SummerSlam, but theres nothing in the fall including Survivor Series. It may be SummerSlam and Mania, or SummerSlam, Rumble and Mania, and thats it. Another thing we were told was a message although again its one of those messages that nobody actually picked up on, was when HHH was on Raw doing a 1,000th episode plug, he was not selling the arm (he wore a suit jacket so if there was supposed to be a brace, wink, wink, you wouldnt see it allowing fans to believe what they want) and moving both arms freely while discussing the night he came back to Madison Square Garden after tearing his quad in 2002. Lesnar can always go back to UFC for a comeback fight, but long-term, being away from MMA and not training, combined with his being 34 and likely losing his speed at that age in what is a speed sport, for money and longevity, pro wrestling at this point is the better fit.
Body him by being picked apart until he inevitably gets KO'd again.
Chamber have you abandoned the Cain Train yes or not
We're talking about a former #1 Heavyweight of All Time here.
The Cain train was about Velasquez being a top 3 heavyweight. I still think JDS is just a bad style match-up for him. He's not going to take him down and his stand-up isn't good enough.
Cain would get rolled by Overeem too in my opinion.
TheNatural
My Member!
Meltzer basically exposing Japanese MMA as it's always been, scripted sports entertainment, with Fedor as the Eric Bischoff bringing companies down.
Denzel, Cheadle and Goodman.
Game over son.
Overeem will roll them all in the end, friend. No use arguing when the end game is clear as crystal.
Game over son.
Overeem will roll them all in the end, friend. No use arguing when the end game is clear as crystal.
DKehoe
Member
Like the Observ- I mean dream's essay said, Brock has always been hard to deal with. Also Brock's return match at WWE did a disapointing buyrate. He is using the possibility of returning to UFC as leverage in WWE.
Maklershed
Member
Looking forward to seeing Erick Silva fight on Friday. That kid is such an animal.
Maybe he means together?
Like, GSP's next fight will do 750k buys, and JDS/Cain will do 750k buys, totalling 1.5 million for two cards?
Maklershed
Member
Haha by hurting Silva's hands with his face?
TheNatural
My Member!
Not when he returns looking like a deflated Hulk Hogan off the juice, WCW esque debut.
Same here. I hope he wins and they rebook the fight vs. Bahadurzada (that guy who did not earn a fight vs. Paulo Thiago for those keeping score).
sazabirules
Unconfirmed Member
Ahahahahahahaha
Shogun vs. Vera is the main event for UFC on Fox 4. Losing to Vera would be as bad as losing to Glover career wise.
Shogun vs. Vera is the main event for UFC on Fox 4. Losing to Vera would be as bad as losing to Glover career wise.
ItAintEasyBeinCheesy
it's 4th of July in my asshole
Vera?
Ha.
Ha.
parrotbeak
Member
Vera earned his shot by jobbing to JBJ and Thiago.
TheNatural
My Member!
Don't sleep on Vera, he's coming off a big time win against Elliot Marshall and for the first time in his career is healthy. This is a big time fight for a big time night on FOX.
sazabirules
Unconfirmed Member
I really hate when the UFC cuts guys who clearly won but the judges robbed them. Amir should have lost his last fight and the UFC cut his opponent. I thought Marshall won against Vera as well.
Who ya crappin'?
parrotbeak
Member
I have no memory of this Vera Marshall fight. What happened?
The next 7 main events in the Ultimate:
Demetrious Johnson vs Ian McCall
Lay Praynard vs Lay Guida
Wandy vs Rich Franklin
Andy vs Chael
Mark Muñoz vs. Chris Weidman
José Aldo vs Erik Koch
Shogun vs Vera
Dana White am cry.
sazabirules
Unconfirmed Member
He looked horrible against Marshall and If I remember correctly, he got dropped in the last round.
Is this real life?
Unidentified
Member
That list isn't too bad. They're almost all great match ups. The only poor headliners are Silva vs. Franklin (which was supposed to be Silva vs Sonnen) and of course, Shogun vs. Vera which is a horrible match up. The issue with the light heavyweight division is that there isn't nearly enough match ups between the more known guys and up and comers. Shgoun vs. Vera doesn't really do anything.
Almost got his arm broken also, which is one is one of the reasons he's been out for a while. He didn't look great early on the fight, then there was a 10-8 type round for Marshall.
I couldnt muster the energy to laugh derisively.
TheNatural
My Member!
The next 7 main events in the Ultimate:
Demetrious Johnson vs Ian McCall
Lay Praynard vs Lay Guida
Wandy vs Rich Franklin
Andy vs Chael
Mark Muñoz vs. Chris Weidman
José Aldo vs Erik Koch
Shogun vs Vera
You act like that's a bad thing?
Best lineup I've seen in a long time.
Whether or not you're being sarcastic, I can't stop laughing.
This announcement is so bad.
What if I told you that was 7 main events and not 1 main card, friend?
This should all be on one card and be pretty good.
pretty much
Main Card
Andy vs Chael
José Aldo vs Erik Koch
Shogun vs Vera
Wandy vs Rich Franklin
Demetrious Johnson vs Ian McCall
Prelims
Lay Praynard vs Lay Guida
Mark Muñoz vs. Chris Weidman
looks about right
You'll know who Chris Weidman is when he's Middleweight champ.
The next 7 main events in the Ultimate:
Demetrious Johnson vs Ian McCall
Lay Praynard vs Lay Guida
Wandy vs Rich Franklin
Andy vs Chael
Mark Muñoz vs. Chris Weidman
José Aldo vs Erik Koch
Shogun vs Vera
I still can't believe that Wandy vs Ace is the Main Event of a PPV in 2012, the UFC better advertise the shit out of Sonnen vs Silva.
dream
Member
To be honest, I don't even know who the current 115 or 125 lb champs are.
TheNatural
My Member!
Sorry Dana isn't pandering to you casuals, only hardcore like myself know what a great lineup of main events these are. Maybe in the future Dana will make Tank Abbott vs. Herschal Walker so you can watch some guys you saw on TV that one time to make you happy.
Real fans like myself know what kind of talent are at all divisions and are pumped about this lineup of top fighters in the world.
But can you name every WWE belt holder?
dream
Member
That is low and no I cannot.
BigJonsson
Member
Brandon Vera is going to get his head knocked off..........that might be good for FOX
I'm worried about UFC 152 in Toronto..........there may be no championship fight unless they put the flyweights on there
Bahahahaha
http://www.ufc.com/news/ufc-149-fight-card-updates?bi
Bisping is injured and Lombard is taking his place at UFC 149
I'm worried about UFC 152 in Toronto..........there may be no championship fight unless they put the flyweights on there
Bahahahaha
http://www.ufc.com/news/ufc-149-fight-card-updates?bi
Bisping is injured and Lombard is taking his place at UFC 149
dream, friend, would you consider yourself a fan of the Mixed Martials at this point? I can't help but notice you rarely extend yourself beyond "Who the fuck is ____?" and Wrassle GAF inspired doom and gloom. What's the deal? I think we're all well aware of your unhappiness with the sport at this point.
Also, Whale Trail...most embarrassing soundscape I've ever experienced. My God.
nevermind fuck this sport.
Also, Whale Trail...most embarrassing soundscape I've ever experienced. My God.
nevermind fuck this sport.
TheNatural
My Member!
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