I’m curious why WAMMA decided to get Johnny Najir of Masis Boxing Belts to make their title? I know they originally contacted ChampionCraft who makes the belts for EliteXC, StrikeForce and a few other companies and wanted a 100% original design in a short turn around time and couldn’t do it, but why did they go with Masis?

Johnny has a long history of being very shady, stealing copyrighted/trademarked designs from others, making replicas without paying licensing fees, bootlegging, working with known con artists, and overall just making piss poor quality belts.

There were so many other alternative beltmakers out there who could have done a better job.

The horrible title belt is the perfect symbol of the public’s thinks about WAMMA. A cheap, thrown together at the last second organization that provides no service but wants to get in a cut of the action. Sounds something out of the Shaw family playbook.

But enough of that rant. It seems obvious that UFC will not “join” WAMMA, but if WAMMA plans on awarding titles to the top fighters regardless of promotion, will UFC fighters be ranked and awarded belts even though WAMMA will not be at UFC events to award them in person?

I hate the belt, more because it suggest boxing belts than because its ugly. And thats the whole problem with WAMMA-it suggests boxing politics and ways of running the sport, and thats the last thing MMA needs.

Here’s my question:
In Bloody Elbow’s first interview with WAMMA officials, the way to avoid having a dozen alphabet-soup sanctioning bodies in MMA according to WAMMA “is that we were out first and as I’ve said before "the firstest with the mostest" that is recognized by the MMA world itself as a sanctioning body”.

How does WAMMA intend to develop a positive image within the MMA community, while evoking so many aspects of boxing sanctioning organizations that the MMA community tends to revile?

Where do you get your credibility so long as the Zuffa does not recognize you? Aside from Fedor, the top guys in each division are signed by Zuffa.

Just a couple off the top of my head…..

1) What happens IF Fedor does indeed fight on New Year’s Eve in Japan (despite what Affliction says) against some freakshow opponent, and God forbids… gets beaten? Naturally since no Japanese organization recognizes WAMMA™, this fight would not be sanctioned as an ‘official’ WAMMA™ fight, yet the top WAMMA™ fighter has lost, so will Fedor lose his belt if he drops in to second place in the WAMMA™ standings even though he lost to a non-WAMMA™fighter?

2) What happens if, like Randy Couture hopes, Fedor goes to the UFC, and he gives up the WAMMA™belt, where does that leave WAMMA™? What happens when all the top 5 fighters in the world are signed to the UFC? I mean right now according to your own rankings, maybe only 13-ish fighters out of the top 60 ranked are involved with fight organizations ‘friendly’ with WAMMA™. You can’t just keep saying about how maybe… just maybe… one day the UFC will see the light and work with us.

3) Other than the next Fedor fight, do you have any viable WAMMA™ fights planned this decade? I really hope that you guys don’t plan on any horrible ideas like Frank Shamrock vs. Tito Ortiz for the WAMMA™ light heavyweight title or Robbie Lawler vs. Matt Lindland for the WAMMA™middleweight title.

4) Why does MMA need WAMMA™ when no one asked for it? Why should fans not believe this is just a money grab? Why wasn’t this done years ago?

5) What is WAMMA™’s position on weight classes, do you want more like boxing has currently, or will classes stay the way they are? The best thing for you guys to do is create your own weight classes then you can just crown whomever you want in the new classes – Nick Diaz could fight for the new WAMMA™ Super Junior Mid-Light Heavyweight belt against Eddie Alvarez.

Thanks to WAMMA™ and Bloody Elbow for the chance to ask questions, one thing that is great about this sport is the grassroots movement behind it.

Cheers.

1) Unified rules already exist in Mixed Martial Arts and safety and welfare of the fighters is already overseen by the athletic commissions, why is a sanctioning body needed to tell promotions and commissions what has already been established?

2) Why does WAMMA seemed to be more focused on sanctioning fights, asking organizations to join, and endorsing their ranking system over other goals of WAMMA such as contributions to a fighter pension fund, insurance programs for fighters, financial education seminars, and referee and judge training? Within the past week, there have been issues with insurance claims being denied, inexperienced refereeing, and questionable judging decisions.

3) What is WAMMA doing to contribute to the growth of Mixed Martial Arts? Are there any plans to educate the public on the sport through any type of media? UFC has spent a vast amount of funds to get MMA legal in all 50 states and has plans to focus on the provinces in Canada. Is WAMMA even contributing to get MMA legal in places where it is banned?

One last question…..

Do you honestly think it is justified to ‘leap-frog’ both the WAMMA number 1 ranked Nogueira and the WAMMA number 2 ranked Barnett to have Fedor fight the WAMMA number 3 ranked Arlovski at the next Afflicition show?

Even if it was Barnett fighting Fedor, it would still be a travesty of your own ranking system.

WAMMA set out to have only the top ranked fighters (champ vs top ranked contender) fight each other and I think this match-up of your ‘champ’ and a number 3 ranked fighter completely discredits your organization.

I just want to know why Forrest/Rampage and GSP Fitch weren’t for WAMMA belts.

Even if Dana wouldn’t let them in the building with their belts (or at all) they still should have named the winner of those matches as champion. They were both #1 vs #2 in their division, and the UFC has most of the top 10 fighters in those divisions under contract. I can’t foresee a situation besides injury that will lead to GSP or Forrest not fighting a top 10 fighter in a year, and even if they do get injured, Zuffa would probably still be the only one’s that could put on anything resembling a 1 vs 2 match in those divisions.

Also, is fighting (and beating) a top 10 fighter in the division once a year the only requirement for keeping the belt? What if Fedor beats Arlovski, then somehow gets Randy in the cage and beats him, but never beats Barnett. Will there ever be a situation where you will demand a champ to fight the #2 (or the highest ranked person that he can fight contractually?)

Please give me one good reason why the UFC should embrace the WAMMA belts.

For starters, nobody’s heard of WAMMA. The brand has no value, nor do the belts. Do you expect the UFC to spend their time and money giving your startup free promotion, while at the same time helping WAMMA bring other MMA promotions, their competition, to the attention of the casual fan?

And while they’re at it, do you truly expect the UFC to let WAMMA rake in money from their own sponsorships, watering down the prominence of the UFC’s own advertisers? Why should the UFC allow WAMMA and their sponsors to co-opt the UFC brand when there is nothing of value being offered in return?

Legitimacy? The UFC already has practically all of the top WW and LHW fighters, as well as the top MW and LW champs in Silva and Penn. That right there gives the UFC belts more credibility than all of the other promotions combined.

So all WAMMA wants is for the UFC to undermine their own market dominance, while diluting their brand and giving up advertising revenue, all for something that the UFC already has? That’s a damn hard sell… so please give me one good reason why they would want to do this, because I just don’t see it happening.

How Can WAMMA work with a closed model org like the UFC?

it seems that the UFC has no incentive to join the ranks of WAMMA. what do you propose (likely or unlikely) as a dream 5 year path for WAMMA?

" WAMMA is an independent sanctioning body that takes no money out of the fighters or promoters pockets and simply ads value to a promotion and athletes that fight for it’s belts. The organizational belts that exist now can be manipulated by those organizations and are not seen as independent of curruption and greed."

…while their agreements are private/confidential it appears they are exploiting the ancillary rights of the fighters in place of charging sanctioning fees to the promoter of champions. (Although their materials suggest they will charge for those in the future… say it ain’t so.) Isn’t a big complaint of the other promotions their over reaching agreements taking too many rights from the fighters, i.e. ancillary rights provisions, the rights to name voice likeness, etc.? The exploitation of those rights do take money out of the pockets of the fighters. e.g. if those rights (let’s say Fedor’s name voice and likeness) were given to a sponsor of WAMMA, will WAMMA give all of that money to FEDOR? Doubt it. In essence we are talking merchandise and sponsorship rights. Why keep these arrangements private, with the fighters out of the loop?

Why place another middleman taking those rights between the fighters and the sponsors? So I can not see how WAMMA believes this will take no money away from fighters?

How is this a value added proposition for the fighters coming from WAMMA? The devil we know is better than the devil we don’t know… and more people know and buy the UFC. At least UFC has made some efforts to market merch where fighters will receive a royalty. This confidential WAMMA arrange reeks of potential problems, why the lack of transparency? WAMMA has no brand recognition, much like the IFL’s ill fated attempt at marketing. Remember the pooling of sponsorship money, why hand over those rights again? Less people should be between fighters and there sponsors in my opinion. What does WAMMA do to deserve this stream of revenue? How much has Gaylord brought in exploiting the name of fighters on behalf of WAMMA?