Quote of the Day: Mark Pavelich

by Chris Nelson on Jul 13, 2008 9:46 PM EDT in News Comment 16 comments

"I never spoke to Drew Fickett in my life. He went on a big rampage for four days in a drunken stupor, making all kinds of ridiculous comments about my organization and about Ryan Ford. And I've never spoken to him in my life. I've spoken to his manager, and that's where it all stemmed from. He took a fight four weeks prior to my fight. And this is right after, don't forget, Gary Goodridge taking a fight three weeks before in Korea thinking no one's going to find out about it. He gets knocked out face forward and now he's scratched from my card. When is it going to be time when these professional athletes ... start acting like you're professional athletes."

-- MFC owner Mark Pavelich sure can be a "doosh bag," but the man has a point here.

(Are you listening, Travis Galbraith?)

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cross promoting….has holes.

by banter on Jul 13, 2008 10:18 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Well, cross-promoting is one thing; flat-out ignoring a contract that you may have signed with a particular organization and then posting all about your business on message boards is another.

I liked when Nick Diaz was allowed to fight in DREAM but had to wear a ProElite shirt to the ring.

by Chris Nelson on Jul 13, 2008 10:29 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I liked when PRIDE sent Wand into the octagon in a PRIDE shirt to face off with Chuck and then the fight didn’t happen for another 18 months because Sakakibara never intended on sending him to the UFC.

I also liked when PRIDE was supposed to send over Fujita and Baroni to fight at UFC 65 and never did.

I also liked when they were gonna send Sakuraba back to the UFC to fight Frank Shamrock and they never.

I also liked when they sent Wand, Rampage and Fujita to appear at UFC 49 to challenge Randy and they never did.

I liked when the UFC sent over Chuck, Ricco, and Bustamante over to PRIDE. They made Chuck fight Rampage and Wand fight Yoshida (those were strategically set up), they made Busta violate his Zuffa contract and sign with them, and they screwed Ricco out of a win over their former heavyweight champion.

I also liked when the UFC traded Yves Edwards and Josh Thomson’s to PRIDE in exchange for getting not a damn thing because PRIDE went back on their word.

I liked when the UFC signed Anderson Silva to fight Carlos Newton for the title at UFC 34 and then he breached it to go fight in PRIDE for more money.

Cross promoting does not work very well.

by godzillad on Jul 14, 2008 1:10 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I agree: cross-promoting between the UFC and PRIDE didn’t work very well.

by Chris Nelson on Jul 14, 2008 1:54 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

hmmm.

Maybe if the UFC was willing to Wanderlei fight with a nonexclusive contract with them, they would have done Chuck/Liddell. But no. And maybe if they were willing to pay PRIDE’s salaries, they would have had fewer issues in getting the guys to actually fight for them. Yeah, that didn’t happen either. I mean, if Dana was really getting screwed every time, he’d be pretty stupid to keep trying to work with them, wouldn’t he?

by D.Capitated on Jul 14, 2008 7:57 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I really don’t understand what you’re trying to say, you’re message is contrived and your actual writing of it is confusing.

by godzillad on Jul 14, 2008 9:19 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Well, the UFC assumed that PRIDE, being in trouble, was going to sell Wanderlei’s contract. They didn’t. So he didn’t fight Chuck. The other guys that were going to come in could never come to terms with UFC’s lower pay, and so they (rightfully) didn’t fight. Meanwhile, King Of The Cage found themselves able to book PRIDE talent. So, yeah.

by D.Capitated on Jul 14, 2008 9:35 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

You’re saying former PRIDE fighters got upset with the UFC’s “lower pay” and signed with King of the Cage? Can you name names?

I also don’t understand where you’re thinking PRIDE was in trouble when Chuck and Wand faced off. They were only off of TV at that point but still on Pay Per View, with the meat of the Yakuza scandal yet to be uncovered. There was never any proposed buyout for Wand’s contract. I don’t even know where you would get that idea. The plan was for Wand to fight Chuck at UFC 65 where the UFC would pay him an equal purse to Liddell’s. Turns out PRIDE just wanted Goldberg and Rogan to hype Wand so that they could get exposure for their PPV in October. They had no intention of sending Wand to the UFC.

You probably haven’t been following MMA very long, at least not since summer 2006.

by godzillad on Jul 14, 2008 11:14 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I didn’t say that KOTC got major huge names, but they were able to cross promote with PRIDE. There is no question about that. Guys like Matsui and Shoji showed up on a regular basis, and Ricco bounced between the two prior to signing a UFC deal as the future of the division. Hell, KOTC got Mike Bourke out of the deal, of all people. Of course, you’re really arguing a point I never made, but whatever.

PRIDE wasn’t in trouble back then? They were “only” off TV? Yeah, dogg. The whole thought process is that Dana thought he could grab Wanderlei’s contract while PRIDE was in chaos and was sure enough about it that he put Wanderlei out there on TV. In the end, he couldn’t get full rights to him and it was off the table. I’m sure you remember Meltz talking about that, Mr. Long Time Fight Fan.

by D.Capitated on Jul 14, 2008 12:46 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I should say that PRIDE got Mike Bourke, and we got a double armbar finish for it. In any case, its funny that somehow KOTC was able to get PRIDE talent running an indian casino in the desert and UFC just kept getting screwed. I wonder what happened?

by D.Capitated on Jul 14, 2008 12:51 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs