UFC Ongoing Thread - Page 43

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Andres, you've got it right it is a gimmick to sell more tickets and PPV orders.

The only problem is that it always fails. Always, always, always, always. The only time it doesn't come off as a complete waste is when the band is brought in to perform someone's walk-in music live.

Put it this way, if there were any kind of link between music and MMA, why don't you see bands line up fights to take place at their concerts on tour? Why, because that'd be really dumb.

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More on Affliction

Some interesting stuff there and when I read the thing earlier about an announcement that would change everything even the UFC...all I thought of was how similar that sounds to a tease that world championship wrestling once made headed in to a Pay-per-view.

On a related note, WCW isn't in business anymore.

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Jon Koppenhaver out of the UFC

This could be a case study for how to commit career suicide.

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Seth Petruzelli TKOs Kimbo Slice.

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Man the way he took down Kimbo was unbelievable. What less than 30 seconds? Wow.

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I'd like to provide some insightful commentary, but I think I'll have to think about what I witnessed more. One thing I know for sure is Kimbo isn't washed up. He will get more fights, but hopefully he will earn his reputation now instead of having it foisted upon him.

What I need more time to digest is why he crumbled. Sure he got hit, but it didn't look like that solid of a blow (a solid blow can take out anyone, I don't care who you are). And with his background, it's not like he hasn't been hit before. I saw the replays, but I still didn't see it. I'm going to have to watch my recording.

The MMA world needs to leave Ken Shamrock alone. Put him out to pasture.

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Well, I really don't need much more time to digest what happened on Saturday.

1. Credit to both Slice and Petruzelli for agreeing to fight one another. Neither was in a real good position having trained for very different oponents before agreeing to the fight in literally maybe an hour before the show started. They both deserve credit for stepping up and keeping one of the show's main attractions, Kimbo, on the air tonight.

2. I knew Slice was screwed the second the fight was announced. Petruzelli and Shamrock couldn't be anymore different not just in terms of reputation and recognition but in terms of threat. I'm guessing Kimbo's camp focused more on submissions, leglocks and stuff because that's Shamrock's deal and it isn't a knock on the camp because that's standard practice for many camps when preparing someone for a fight. Work less on your own strengths and more on the strengths of the oponent.

3. Seth Petruzelli is not Rocky Balboa for what he did to Kimbo. Slice was shown vulnerable against James Thompson in his previous fight and when a fight is put together on almost 0 notice anything can happen. Petruzelli's win isn't the MMA version of the miracle on ice no matter how bad the announcers wanted to tell us that it was.

4. Things aren't looking good for EliteXC. They're some $60 million in the whole (they ran their first show in Feb. 2007 BTW so that's even worse than it sounds) Showtime is considering a purchase of the company outright and this show needed to do a good rating for the CBS partnership to continue. Showtime's desire to purchase the company may relate to the CBS deal continuing, no deal, less likely of a purchase.
The show may do a rating just because of Kimbo but the fact that they didn't deliver the advertised main event is pretty much the worst disaster possible with the cherry on top being the myth of Kimbo being shattered for a lot of people.

Sure, the expectations on the guy were unrealistically high to start, this is only his 4th professional bout if you'll recall, not many 3-0 fighters headline on TV in front of millions of people. But deserved or not there was a mystique around him and it may have very well been shattered tonight.

Add to that the fact that Petruzelli did a radio interview about 2 weeks ago and essentially said that if he were to pick up a couple of wins the UFC said they'd bring him back and well...

The whole future of EliteXC was riding on tonight and I'm not going to say that Kimbo getting clobbered doomed the company (they may have been doomed regardless) but if the end does come and they're not saved by a Showtime then tonight will be one of the key points when the obituary is ruined.

It was make or break on Saturday and right now it looks like break.

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One other note. Dave Meltzer, who was in attendance at the show, reported that Petruzelli wasn't the only possibility for a replacement.

The other man who was willing to step in if Kimbo had agreed to it and had the commission allowed it?

Some guy named Frank Shamrock. You may have heard of him from some place.

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OK, I rewatched it in slo-mo, and...

Casey, you're not surprised Kimbo essentially crumbled from one punch from an opponent much lighter than he, who was going backwards, had one foot in the air, and was standing on his toes with a bent (going backwards) knee on the other leg at the time of the punch?

Maybe it's me, but if there were a gameshow that showed events up to a single point and it stopped at the moment of contact with Kimbo, then asked me (for a million dollars) if I predicted he'd fall to the ground or keep coming, I'd have lost the million dollars. Not because I buy into any of the Kimbo hype or anything (I'm on record in this thread as preferring "real" MMA fighters). It's because I've seen some of his internet/youtube fights, and as a street brawler, he's certainly seemed able to take a punch in the past.

I mean, it happened, so the proof's in the pudding, but color me surprised about how he lost.

In other news, mmajunkie has a headline ""EliteXC: Heat" draws 9,414 spectators for $826,000 gate". They made that sound really good, but I'm surprised live attendance for a network-televised MMA event is so little. I've never really paid attention to gate numbers, but certainly the PRIDE and DREAM events have had many more people in the seats. Of course a case can be made that when things are televised, there is less incentive for people to go (hence the local blackout rules for major sports), but I'd think in this case, many folks would want to attend the event. 9,000 people just isn't very many at all, IMO. Maybe they should have done it in California if Florida couldn't come up with any more support than that.

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Mikah, I was not surprised that Kimbo got beat. As far as the how, hey, I think anything can happen in a fight so when anything happens, I'm not surprised.

Also, 9,000 people isn't necessarily a bad crowd. I would want to know things like how many people the venue is scaled to hold for an event like that. Plus, the prospect of going to see a show that is going to be network televised isn't really going to draw that many people. Also, the last show they ran for CBS, in Stockton California, didn't do all that well at the gate either so going to California isn't a cure all.

The size of the crowd and amount of money at the gate is more a reflection of the company than a commentary on MMA or network TV. Remember, EliteXC has network TV but at best they're a distant second to the UFC in terms of recognition. That's why the Pride and Dream comparisons don't work because for a very long time, Pride was the #1 MMA organization on the entire planet (and Pride's going out of business had nothing to do with it not being popular anymore) and Dream is the most recognizable MMA organization in Japan and is of a considerably higher profile in that country than even the UFC.

Dream may not seem like a big deal to you but Dream is the biggest MMA company in Japan and that's not even remotely comparable to EliteXC in the States. The big crowds you may see at Dream shows or on Pride highlights/DVDs or whatever aren't U.S. crowds they're Japanese crowds and the audiences couldn't be any different. It seems less of a big deal here in the states because it isn't on a big network and doesn't feature big name American fighters.

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That brings up a question for me you may be the guy to ask... How does that compare to wrestling crowds? What about UFC?

Given 9,000 is an "acceptable" or even "good" gate for top tier MMA event at this point, I'd say the sport has a lot of room to grow.

And just to clarify, I'm not surprised Kimbo got beat, but I guess I'm not as jaded as I thought I was because I'm completely surprised about the how. Even in my apparently previous believe that anything can happen, my reaction tells me anything wasn't anything, because I certainly wouldn't have envisioned that.

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UFC sells between 12-13K seats per event. Kimbo is not as great as they hype him up to be, but that punch just hit him in the right place at the right time. Stranger things have happened. People act like you have to have the perfect punch to the face to work, so wrong. My friends were saying that even when Kimbo went down Seth wasn't landing good hits. If you are taking hit after hit to the head, it works, it doesn't have to be like in the movies a square hit to the face. Even glancing blows off the back of your head work.

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Sorry I've been quiet as of late, been busy.

EliteXC is dead

I'll comment more on EliteXC's death later when my head clears of a headache not related to the news.

As for the questions, the WWE would consider EliteXC's attendance on Oct 4 to be poor for most shows but it does depend on the market they run, they can sell 70,000 tickets for WrestleMania with no trouble and most shows due 10,000 or better but it depends on arena size and such.

The thing is there that the WWE can sell 70,000 tickets for WrestleMania but the prices are lower than for UFC. For instance, WrestleMania 22 (held in 2006) was in the same building as UFC 90 this weekend but UFC 90 holds the gate record even though they've not sold it out because they charge more for ticket.

TNA would be thrilled to sell 9,000 tickets for a given show it would be a record for the company but again they typically don't run 9,000+ seat buildings and when they do they don't make that many tickets available anyway.

UFC does, as Steve mentioned, in the 12,000 range. But again, they'd take 9,000 for a fight night in Denver with no complaints I hink. The shows at the Palms Casino don't do well because the building seats maybe 1,000 or a little more so it is easy to sell out. The UFC has never run a stadium show, they'd like to, so we don't know how many could be sold if they chose to do so. The GSP fight in Montreal holds the record for most tickets sold for a UFC fight at over 20,000.


One other thing to consider when looking at this, Affliction bought a lot of the tickets for their first show themselves and then gave them away. It had the effect of inflating the gate quite a bit but they also had to pay the tax on the tickets they purchased plus the purchase price. It isn't an uncommon practice for some companies to buy their own tickets for give aways and such to produce a sellout, it even happens in the NFL.

So, the bottom line is that everything from building size, ticket price and frequency of appearance in the given market is a factor in how well tickets sell. Interesting, the Couture-Lesnar fight has not sold out yet.

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Andres, here is Seth Petruzelli's actual quote.


Now, later Petruzelli would back track and claim that EliteXC offered him a knockout bonus in the fight with Kimbo, but that's not what the initial quote suggested. Offering a fighter a knockout bonus isn't illegal and is common practice, even submission bonuses are offered to guys.

However, what Petruzelli was saying is that they paid him not to take Kimbo Slice down. Many see that as an attempt for EliteXC to alter the outcome of a fight by trying to pay someone not to use a fascit of their MMA gameplan.
You could argue that by offering Seth Petruzelli money in exchange for not taking Kimbo down they were in effect offering him money to put his opponent at an advantage in the fight.

That would be very close to if not exactly fit the definition of trying to fix a fight for a certain outcome. The state athletic commissions aren't going to be down with that kind of thing.

So Petruzelli makes those comments (on the radio mind you) and then backtracks. But that gets people interested and wondering about the legitimacy of the fight. So the Florida State Athletic Commission decides to launch an investigation in to what happens and what this money was for that was given to Petruzelli.


CBS, who wasn't pleased with the events the day of the show that left Ken Shamrock out and Seth Petruzelli in wants no part of a scandal like that and they pull out of a deal that was pretty much done for them to buy the company. Thus in a round-about kind of way, Ken Shamrock killed EliteXC.

However, even though the Oct. 4 chain of events from Shamrock's cut to Petruzelli's win and then his interview set in motion the end of the group the promotion had provided plenty of reasons for its own death long before that night.

I'm going to be doing an audio update later today examining the whole thing, from all of the things that killed this company from the very start, to what may be next for some of the top fighters in the company and what CBS/Showtime will do in the future.


It is ironic because many people thought the promotion would be doomed when Kimbo Slice was beaten and that's essentially what happened. Only the doom didn't so much come from the Kimbo loss so much as from the guy who beat him. One quote from Seth Petruzelli and a subsequent investigation later and CBS decides to wash their hands of the whole thing.

MMA is just like any other sport, a slave to the television industry.

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If you watch the replay you can see the CEO of EliteXC in the background screaming at Kimbo to get up, and when Kimbo gets KO'd he just held his hand over his face.

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Andres, the argument for Ken Shamrock killing the promotion is that if he doesn't get cut the day of the fight, then Petruzelli doesn't need to be his replacement and isn't going to be able to make those comments 2 days later on the radio. Also, the reason Shamrock got cut is that he was doing some rolling in the hours before the fight. Why was he doing this? It seems that Shamrock was none to happy when he found out just exactly how much more Kimbo was going to make for the fight than he was and tried on both Friday and Saturday to get more money. Failing at this, to relieve stress, he decided to do some rolling to get ready for the fight and that's when he got cut.

After that whole thing both CBS and ProElite officials were very cold when Shamrock's name was brought up. So again while Petruzelli's comments may have been the final of many, many, many nails to be driven in to that coffin he wouldn't have gotten the chance if not for Shamrock's screw up.

As for the incident described by Steve, it wasn't actually the company's CEO that was doing the jumping around and such but it was a high ranking executive. It was Jared Shaw, the son of well-known boxing promoter Gary Shaw. In several interviews with consultant to EliteXC and the former owner of Icon Sport T.J. Thompson, Thompson described Shaw's behavior that night as disgusting and an embarrassment.

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There are a lot of people happy to see EliteXC die. I'm not one of them. I'm also not a person who feels a loss should be the end of the world for a MMA fighter. UFC has a lot of people on the roster (and that roster has undergone trimming), but there are lots of other MMA fighters out there who deserve showcasing. Fighting in a small venue somewhere with no TV play isn't showcasing. For that reason, I've been a fan of Affliction and EliteXC -- especially Affliction since I'm more comfortable with the way they're set up (they dont' "own" fighters -- they promote fights... fighters are also able to take fights in other promotions). Anyway, I'm not happy about EliteXC's death, even though I'm not a fan of some of the people involved.

But on to more pressing matters. Some way, some how, MMA fans deserve to see the Gina Carano/Cyborg fight. Maybe Affliction can step in, though I liked EliteXC's production values more.

And speaking of other promotions, when the heck is Cung Le going to fight again?

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Cung Le will not be fighting until maybe early 2009.

He's been involved in some film projects and he is reported to have only 1 fight left on his Strikeforce fight contract.

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Watching UFC 90 last night, I came to understand completely why Anderson Silva would consider retiring at the age of 35 or after he sees 5 more fights.

Even before the injury to Cote, he was posing no serious threat to Silva. Sure, it was the first time in Silva's UFC career that the fight went to the third round but that was more of Silva's doing than anything else. I mean there wasn't any instance before that point where I thought, Patrick Cote can win this fight.

Silva's in a bad position financially because the division he fights in is the weakest in terms of big-name talent. Dan Henderson and Rich Franklin are 2 big stars at Middleweight but he's already vanquished both of them in convincing fashion. Guys like Cote and Yushin Okami aren't going to set the PPV box office on fire and if you're Silva and you've got a PPV bonus in your contract you want matchups that will get the public's attention. Michael Bisping could be a guy with whom Silva could make some decent money if they fought in the U.K. but Bisping doesn't mean a whole lot to U.S. fans so how well would a show that he headlined do on PPV? Other than that, the division doesn't really have anybody and Silva's shown he'so much beyond the league of everyone he's fought (maybe Henderson is closest in terms of ability). It has to be boring to have no real competition in your class.

He could go to light heavyweight and that would give him more competition and it would result in bigger pay-days but is he really comfortable at that weight? Yes, I saw what he did to James Irvin but that's James Irvin who is not Wanderlei Silva, Chuck Liddell or Quinton Jackson.

So maybe after he finishes up his 5 remaining fights on his contract he will walk away, be free to do the Boxing match with Roy Jones Jr. and make more money off that one fight than maybe his entire UFC run combined.

The worst UFC show I've seen on PPV is still UFC 61 (light years are between that show and the next worst) but if you didn't see last night's, it is perfectly ok to not go out of your way to see it.

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I did see it, and I was disappointed in Anderson Silva. I may learn things in the future that alter my perception, but watching that fight, I was disappointed. I couldn't be disappointed in Cote because he was doing all he could. Silva, on the other hand, almost appeared to be saying, "I appreciate that you took this fight because you're a fighter -- let's see if we can get you out of here without too much damage."

I mean, I know he sizes people up, but he basically walked around the ring for the whole first round. Exactly what's the goal? Whatever it was, I'm sure many in the audience didn't get it because not even Joe got it based on what he said while announcing.

Just really disappointing all around. If you're that much better, you go in, take care of business, and get out. There's really no excuse for phoning it in. Basically what that fight said is, "There's nothing left for me competition wise, so I'm just showing up for the money." That's not the Anderson Silva I'd come to know. I'm really hopeful Dana White will do something about the situation.

On the other hand, I wasn't disappointed in the whole card because I saw an interesting fight between Thiago Alves and Josh Koscheck, and even more so, the fight between Sean Sherk and Tyson Griffin. Sherk/Griffin specifically I thought was a close fight, even though it was unanimous and the winner won just about every round on all the judges scorecards.

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Silva's apology for UFC 90 anitcs was appropriate



UFC offers "Kimbo Slice" spot on "The Ultimate Fighter"

Dana's really just blowing smoke, but I'm linking to it anyway. Bas and Kimbo will have to decide what Kimbo does next, but it sure won't be for $500k paychecks.

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A TUF season based around Kimbo Slice would probably do the best ratings for the show since season 1 when the show benefitted from being on right after WWE Monday Night Raw. A TUF season based around women and featuring Gina Carano would also do big numbers and would probably inject some life in to a stale show. Although, Junie Browning has been a ratings power house this season much to the dismay of MMA purists and those of us like me who aren't really fans of drunken stupidity in any walk of life.


Kimbo's best move IMO would be to head over to Japan and be a mega star. Kimbo Slice would be gold in Japan because they're more appreciative of the kinds of things we in the States would call freak shows. Bob Sapp was rediculously popular in Japan for many years and I can't see any reason why Kimbo couldn't be on or slightly below that level especially if they gave him tomato can opponents at first like they did when Cro Cop returned to Japan after his run in the UFC.

There has been talk of Kimbo going to pro wrestling but the problem there is that while Kimbo looks like a superstar and he has a superstar ora about him, his ability to cut promos leads a lot to be desired and that's a must especially in the WWE. Although his name was mentioned to Vince McMahon by someone in creative according to this week's Wrestling Observer Newsletter. It didn't get a strong reaction either way.

Thiago Alves will face the GSP/Penn winner for the belt, mark it down. I give him a great chance to beat either one of those men BTW. If GSP can't take him down then that's bad news because I think Alves is a better striker. Credit to Koscheck for taking the fight on two week's notice.

Remember the argument a few months back about whether or not UFC was doing too much and over-exposing their product.

Imagine if the UK show hadn't existed and they had done Chicago on Oct. 18 and then the Couture/Lesnar show on Nov. 15.

So now UFC 89 could have had Silva/Cote on top, Bisping/Leben next, Alves/Koscheck third, Dos Santos/Werdum forth and Sherk/Griffin to open.

Then on Nov. 15 you would've gotten: Couture/Lesnar, Vera/Jardine, Stevenson/Florian, Chris Lytle Vs. Paul Taylor and Sokoudjou Vs. Luiz Cane.

Then you take guys like Shane Carwin and Gabriel Gonzaga and put them in fights on the Dec. 10 show so that they get TV exposure. UFC wasn't thrilled that Shane Carwin's UFC 89 fight didn't make TV here in the States because they want to make him in to a star.

So see, taking out one show that really didn't need to happen and you improve your cards the rest of the year and not just in terms of what is televised but also in quality of prelims.


One more thing, UFC did an absolutely terrible job at UFC 90 of promoting the Couture/Lesnar fight. They needed to interview one or both of them for next month but talked to neither and they had time because the show went off the air early. How the company didn't do something so basic to hype up the next fight is beyond me.

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WEC 36 weigh-in results

The biggest news is that Middleweight champion Paulo Filho failed to make weight for his title defense and when I say he failed to make weight, he really failed.