The MMA Thread

[Johnny Blaze]

UFC 84>>>>>>UFC 82. 82's card looks real good, but it's nothing compared to 84. Let's look at the cards:

82
MAIN CARD

* Champ Anderson Silva vs. Dan Henderson (for middleweight title)
* Heath Herring vs. Cheick Kongo
* Chris Leben vs. Alessio Sakara
* Yushin Okami vs. Evan Tanner
* Jon Fitch vs. Chris Wilson

PRELIMINARY CARD

* Andrei Arlovski vs. Jake O’Brien
* Luke Cummo vs. Luigi Fioravanti
* Dustin Hazelett vs. Josh Koscheck
* David Bielkheden vs. Diego Sanchez
* Jorge Gurgel vs. John Halverson


84
* Champ B.J. Penn vs. Sean Sherk (for lightweight title)
* Keith Jardine vs. Wanderlei Silva
* Lyoto Machida vs. Tito Ortiz
* Rashad Evans vs. Thiago Silva
* Terry Etim vs. Jeremy Stephens
* John Koppenhaver vs. TBA
* Wilson Gouveia vs. Goran Reljic
* Rousimar Palhares vs. Ivan Salaverry
* Dong-Hyun Kim vs. Jason Tan


84 has five great fights and four of them are going to go a long way to clear up who's the real deal in the weight classes. 82 has some big names, but generally, they're fighting cans. Fitch, Sanchez, Arlovski, and Koscheck won't improve their stocks with wins against their opponents because their skill levels are way above.

I really hope Hendo pulls it off. I love his fighting style and personality, and I believe he has the skills to pull it off. I really hope Silva doesn't win, because there's really no other competition for him in the division if he wins.

Unless Wand moves down, like he's talked about doing if Henderson wins (he wants a rematch with Dan). Then the 185 division, which was at one point looking weak, would actually start looking good.

Shame that Dana still has a stick up his ass and refused to sign Lindland.

 

[WeeZiTe]

Indeed. Whatever, I'll tune into DREAM to see some awesome MW action.

 

[jaguarr]

For every great thing that Dana does, he does three more that are idiotic. The guy is his own worst enemy.

jag

 

[WeeZiTe]

I think it's mostly the unprofessional way he presents himself. He acts like an idiotic high school kid most of the time. Calling Randy Couture gay and saying Fedor is a farce? Seriously, how childish are you?

 

[jaguarr]

Letting the Couture/Fedor fight slip through his fingers was R-E-T-A-R-D-E-D. That's the MMA equivalent to Ali vs. Foreman, man! Come on! And now he doesn't even have Captain America on his roster at all because of it. But the fact that he's badmouthed Randy over the whole thing is childish and just bad business. Never burn bridges in business. You never know when you'll need to cross one again.

jag

 

[WeeZiTe]

Especially with so many up and coming fighters fighting out of Xtreme Couture, too. Fedor had way too many demands for the UFC and I can see why his contract didn't come through, but come on.. At least sign him to a one fight deal so he can fight Randy. That's all he had to do. If Fedor won, you can then resign him to a new deal and let him lead your HW division. If Randy won, you've cemented the UFC as the best org ever. It was a win-win and would've kept everyone happy.

 

[jaguarr]

Especially with so many up and coming fighters fighting out of Xtreme Couture, too. Fedor had way too many demands for the UFC and I can see why his contract didn't come through, but come on.. At least sign him to a one fight deal so he can fight Randy. That's all he had to do. If Fedor won, you can then resign him to a new deal and let him lead your HW division. If Randy won, you've cemented the UFC as the best org ever. It was a win-win and would've kept everyone happy.

Exactly. From what I've read, Dana didn't even really try to negotiate with Fedor's camp, either. He just said "no" to everything. It's a very basic negotiation strategy to ask for more than what you really want so you have something to "give up" over the course of a negotiation, and I'm sure that was part of Fedor's manager's strategy.

jag

 

[WeeZiTe]

Exactly. From what I've read, Dana didn't even really try to negotiate with Fedor's camp, either. He just said "no" to everything. It's a very basic negotiation strategy to ask for more than what you really want so you have something to "give up" over the course of a negotiation, and I'm sure that was part of Fedor's manager's strategy.

jag

Dana gave into a few things. Apparantly, Fedor wanted a lot of Red Devil fighters to be given contracts, too, and Dana was fine with that. He also offered Fedor a ****load of money. But what they got caught up on was the fact that Fedor couldn't fight for any other orgs and couldn't fight in Sambo tournaments. Apparantly, this was nonnegotiable between the two.. Fedor HAD to compete and Sambo and there was no way that Dana would've let that happen. To be fair, it's kind of understandable if you're making a multimillion dollar contract with someone that you don't want them to get hurt somewhere else, but at the same time, Fedor is a beast and in most Sambo competitions, he finished people off in a minute or they simply refused to fight him because he was too good/hit to hard. But then Dana was ****ing ******ed and called Fedor's management "a bunch of crazy Russian's" WHILE negotiations were still going on.. So yeah, he sullies a lot of things. If he truly cared about MMA and its fans, he would've found a way to get that fight done no matter what, even if it just meant a 1 fight contract.

 

[jaguarr]

Ahhh, wasn't aware of the Sambo hang-up. I can kind of see Dana's perspective, though; would you want the guy that's been touted as the only unbeatable MMA fighter on the planet going up against your number one guy with a one-fight only contract? If he won and then laughed and said he'd never fight another UFC fighter again, it could be problematic for your organization. Still, insulting Fedor and his camp instead of finding a contractual solution such as if Fedor gets hurt doing Sambo fights then his contract is immediately canceled with no financial obligation owed to him and he automatically forfeits any wins or titles (if he has any) was a bad move.

jag

 

[WeeZiTe]

Ahhh, wasn't aware of the Sambo hang-up. I can kind of see Dana's perspective, though; would you want the guy that's been touted as the only unbeatable MMA fighter on the planet going up against your number one guy with a one-fight only contract? If he won and then laughed and said he'd never fight another UFC fighter again, it could be problematic for your organization. Still, insulting Fedor and his camp instead of finding a contractual solution such as if Fedor gets hurt doing Sambo fights then his contract is immediately canceled with no financial obligation owed to him and he automatically forfeits any wins or titles (if he has any) was a bad move.

jag

I can see it, but for the love of the sport sometimes you have to put money aside and just see what happens. It didn't work out for the UFC anyways because look at them now. They didn't get Fedor, who openly bad mouths Dana's professionalism, and now you lost Randy, one of your most marketable guys.

 

[jaguarr]

I can see it, but for the love of the sport sometimes you have to put money aside and just see what happens. It didn't work out for the UFC anyways because look at them now. They didn't get Fedor, who openly bad mouths Dana's professionalism, and now you lost Randy, one of your most marketable guys.

I suppose he could have written in a clause that said that if Fedor won the title then he would be required to defend it at least twice a year on PPV for as long as he had it or something to that effect.

jag

 

[Johnny Blaze]

There could've been many different minor stipulations that the UFC could have put into the contract offer to help let themselves off the hook if Fedor got hurt in Sambo. But they wanted no part of that.

I honestly believe that if Fedor would've been allowed to compete in Russia's major Sambo tourny like he does every year, that he would've signed with the UFC, being able to compete for other orgs be damned.

But, as it's been said in this thread before, Dana's unproffessional attitude got him into trouble...again. Bad mouthing people you are negotiating with, calling out fighters who you want to return to the UFC, and generally running his mouth off without thinking has given Dana White a bad image with the majority of MMA fans.

If he keeps it up, it won't be long before he starts pissing off more and more fighters and they start pulling a "Randy" on him and walking out.
I imagine the pending legal battle between the UFC and Couture will go along way for other fighters who may be sick of Dana, but are too worried to try and back out of their contract.

If Randy wins the battle, we may see the floodgates open...

 

[WeeZiTe]

There could've been many different minor stipulations that the UFC could have put into the contract offer to help let themselves off the hook if Fedor got hurt in Sambo. But they wanted no part of that.

I honestly believe that if Fedor would've been allowed to compete in Russia's major Sambo tourny like he does every year, that he would've signed with the UFC, being able to compete for other orgs be damned.

But, as it's been said in this thread before, Dana's unproffessional attitude got him into trouble...again. Bad mouthing people you are negotiating with, calling out fighters who you want to return to the UFC, and generally running his mouth off without thinking has given Dana White a bad image with the majority of MMA fans.

If he keeps it up, it won't be long before he starts pissing off more and more fighters and they start pulling a "Randy" on him and walking out.
I imagine the pending legal battle between the UFC and Couture will go along way for other fighters who may be sick of Dana, but are too worried to try and back out of their contract.

If Randy wins the battle, we may see the floodgates open...

Well, Randy is going to win the legal confrontation and fight Fedor eventually, there's no doubt about that. It's already happening with Tito, saying that he won't fight for the UFC again if Dana is President (which is fine by me, because he's past his prime anyway) and Sylvia *****ing about Brock's pay. I think the thing with fighter's contracts now is that they're still under a contract they signed 2 years ago. When Jardine fought Liddell, I think he got $16 grand to show and win, while Liddell got $500 grand. People were saying it's ridiculous but think about it. Jardine is still on his TUF contract, of course they're not going to sign someone to a huge contract, especially when they didn't even win the contest. Also, look at how much MMA has grown in the last two years.. People like Vera are now pocketing 6-figures per fight, and that was unimagineable a couple of years ago. By this time next year, when the TUF guys finally get under a new contract, I guarantee that they'll be making more money and that won't be as big of a problem anymore.

And to jag, Royce fought Hughes while Hughes was champ and it didn't matter. All they had to say was that it was a non-title match, or to avoid a technicality, set it at a catch-weight fight so it wouldn't technically be in the HW division.

 

[jaguarr]

And to jag, Royce fought Hughes while Hughes was champ and it didn't matter. All they had to say was that it was a non-title match, or to avoid a technicality, set it at a catch-weight fight so it wouldn't technically be in the HW division.

Randy is usually all about defending his title but I think he would have gone for a non-title fight just because he wants to fight Fedor so bad.

jag

 

[WeeZiTe]

Randy is usually all about defending his title but I think he would have gone for a non-title fight just because he wants to fight Fedor so bad.

jag

Oh yeah, definitely. Obviously the fight with Fedor means more then the UFC title to him because he pretty much dropped the title just to get to fight Fedor.

 

[Johnny Blaze]

Well, Randy's pretty much done everything he's wanted to do in his career. All that's left for him to do is to fight the supposed best HW in the world, which is widely considered to be Fedor.
Though I would love to see him battle Big Nog though.

The real question is if Randy did fight Fedor and Emelianenko won, would Randy retire on a down note or try to fight another match (Nogueira maybe?) to end on a high?

 

[Dr. Evil]

Kimbo Slice could soon be a household name.

ProElite Inc. and CBS are expected to announce a deal this week that will make Elite Xtreme Combat, the mixed martial arts promotional arm for ProElite, available on prime-time on major network television throughout the U.S., according to a report by MMAjunkie.com.

The deal would make EliteXC the first MMA organization to feature live events on network television.

Officials with ProElite and Showtime, which partnered in putting EliteXC cards on the premium cable television network, declined to comment to Sherdog.com regarding the reported agreement.

The CBS-EliteXC events are expected to air every other month, according to MMAjunkie.

EliteXC drew its largest audience on Showtime with its Feb. 16 event from Miami, Fla., featuring a main event between Kimbo Slice and Tank Abbott. Reports indicate over 500,000 viewers tuned in to watch Slice destroy Abbott. Online videos promoting the event totaled over two and a half million views on Sho.com, the network's Web site, a representative of Showtime told Sherdog.com.

It was widely reported that CBS had been in talks with the Ultimate Fighting Championship, yet discussions broke down over issues of production control. The pending announcement comes at a time when CBS ratings have slipped significantly among males 18-49 when compared to the network's totals this time last year; the young male demographic is largely credited as the reason for MMA's growing television profile

http://www.sherdog.com/news/news.asp?n_id=11516

EliteXC has one thing that the UFC will never ever have: Female Mixed Martial Arts. The day that the UFC has Women's MMA will be the day that hell freezes over.

Having said that, it's good for EliteXC.

 

[Johnny Blaze]

Maybe with network television esposure, they might actually start attracting fighters worth a ****.

 

[WeeZiTe]

The UFC is supposedly having a huge announcement on Saturday. It's probably a knee-jerk reaction to the EliteXC/CBS deal trying to steal some thunder.. But, and I know that there's virtually 0% chance of this happening, I'm hoping they're announcing Randy vs. Fedor. I know it's a pipe dream, but I can hope.

 

[jaguarr]

Maybe with network television esposure, they might actually start attracting fighters worth a ****.

Haha! Too true. I wonder if they won't be on Showtime anymore? SOMEONE has GOT to help them with their production values, regardless. Their show is so damn amateurish.

jag

 

[jaguarr]

The UFC is supposedly having a huge announcement on Saturday. It's probably a knee-jerk reaction to the EliteXC/CBS deal trying to steal some thunder.. But, and I know that there's virtually 0% chance of this happening, I'm hoping they're announcing Randy vs. Fedor. I know it's a pipe dream, but I can hope.

I'm expecting that it will be a letdown.

jag

 

[WeeZiTe]

I'm expecting that it will be a letdown.

jag

UFC announcements are always letdowns. I'm hoping this is different.

I hope they bring Goldberg along to CBS just so he can keep giving us material to wonder whether or not he is legally ******ed.

 

[jaguarr]

UFC announcements are always letdowns. I'm hoping this is different.

I hope they bring Goldberg along to CBS just so he can keep giving us material to wonder whether or not he is legally ******ed.

I laughed at Goldberg when they showed him working out with Kimbo. Homeslice has grown himself an pretty impressive gut.

jag

 

[WeeZiTe]

I laughed at Goldberg when they showed him working out with Kimbo. Homeslice has grown himself an pretty impressive gut.

jag

The Bill Goldbergism videos are hilarious.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=G_GHF0ff_ys
http://youtube.com/watch?v=j1YhTtGgH4A

****ing hilarious. The guy is such an idiot. Seriously, I hope one day someone hosts a "BROADCASTING BATTLE OF THE GOLDBERG'S" so we can finally put to rest who is more incompetent: Mike or Bill?

UFC just announced that Bud Light is their new sponsor, which is pretty sweet for a high profile sponsor. It's nice that we're going to see the UFC sponsored by a liquor that middle-class people drink, rather than liquor that homeless people drink (Mickey's Malt). I'm not sure if that's there big announcement for today or not, but that's still pretty big.

 

[Johnny Blaze]

Haha! Too true. I wonder if they won't be on Showtime anymore? SOMEONE has GOT to help them with their production values, regardless. Their show is so damn amateurish.

jag

For cereal. I'm embarrassed when I'm watching it by myself.