Gary Shaw Reacts to Kimbo Slice's Inclusion on "The Ultimate Fighter" 10
by Luke Thomas on Jun 2, 2009 11:37 AM EDT
in MMA News
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Michael David Smith of AOL FanHouse gets the first crack at him and most notably (and he's probably on to something), Shaw thinks Slice is likely being handsomely compensated:
Michael David Smith: What's your reaction to Kimbo going on The Ultimate Fighter?
Gary Shaw: It shocked me when I heard, especially after Dana dissing him for two years and saying the nastiest things about him. So it surprised me, knowing who Kimbo is, that he would succumb to working with Dana. It shows that whatever comes out of Dana's mouth is not always the truth.
Are you disappointed on a personal level? You put a lot into promoting and marketing Kimbo.
Sure. I just don't think it's a big enough platform for him. I think it's a step back. I think he's bigger than that.
...
Are you angry with him?
No. No. Not at all. Not at all. Whatever Kimbo wants to do, I'm happy for him. I don't know what they paid Kimbo -- maybe they paid him a boatload of money -- and in that case he's doing the right thing. Kimbo is one of those people that comes along every once in ages who has what I call the "it factor" as a promoter. I have a lot of fighters who come to me and are great talents but don't have the it factor. And then you have someone who comes along and has the it factor. Manny Pacquiao has the it factor. He's a star. He reeks of stardom. People gravitate to him. Kimbo is that way. When he walks into a room, he lights up the room. People yell "Kimbo! Kimbo!" It doesn't have anything to do with how he did in his last fight. It has to do with the it factor. When Tyson walks into an arena, everyone stands up. He's Mike Tyson, of course, but he's got that it factor. When you're at a basketball game and they show Jack Nicholson on the big screen, the place erupts. He has that it factor. And then they might show someone else who's also a great actor, but he'll just get a little hand. It's that special it factor that people have, even if they're not the greatest athletes in their sport.
So if Kimbo has that it factor, wasn't it smart of Dana White to sign him for The Ultimate Fighter?
For sure. I give Dana credit. I'm not anti-Dana or anti-UFC or anti-MMA. I give him credit. He did the right thing. I would have done it a little differently: I would have said, early on, "Kimbo is an asset and I'd love to have Kimbo." I don't see that as a sign of weakness. I would say that in boxing, if you ask me what I think of Manny Pacquaio, I'd say, "I hope some day he'll fight for me."
Are you disappointed that Kimbo won't be boxing?
Yes. Because I really believe that I could make him the heavyweight champ.
White and Shaw likely share similar views regarding the level and fervor of Slice's popularity, but differ in their willingness to make him justify it with legitimate athletic accomplishment. And that's a critical, critical difference.
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How, exactly, has Dana been dishonest in relation to Kimbo?
Dana said that the only way Kimbo could get into the UFC was through TUF and now Kimbo is trying to get into the UFC through TUF?
Shaw needs to look up what the truth means.
No legit accomplishments here
I wouldn’t necessarily call being invited to a reality show “legitimate athletic accomplishment.” Especially when you don’t have to fight to enter the house.
Dana needs eyeballs for TUF and he’s using the Kimbo hype to feed it. Shaw had elite XC, Dana has TUF. It’s essentially the same role Kimbo’s filling, just with a different cheerleader.
“I wouldn’t necessarily call being invited to a reality show "legitimate athletic accomplishment." Especially when you don’t have to fight to enter the house.”
Right, NO ONE would call that athletic accomplishment because categorically it doesn’t apply. We’re not talking about the invitation, we’re talking about winning fights. Being asked to compete against professional heavyweight prospects before joining the ranks of the UFC roster is a clear and significant difference in fighter management philosophy between White and Shaw, which is precisely why Shaw thinks its a step back.
by Luke Thomas on Jun 2, 2009 11:23 AM EDT up reply actions 2 recs
Professional heavyweight prospects are fighters with probably the same level of experience as Kimbo (Usually less than 10 fights). For all his hype, Kimbo is still a newbie and was being built up by fighting opponents suited to his ability.
For Kimbo, fighting on TUF would be the same thing as Elit XC in terms of going up against similarly experienced and able opposition. Dana is doing the same thing as Shaw, except on his reality show and he’s benefitting from the publicity and attention Kimbo will bring.
There really is no difference between the two as far as Kimbo goes. At the end of the day, they’re both promoters for their brand.
Openly promoting a guy who has one or two professional fights as having “world class striking” in main events on CBS and the face of a company is COMPLETELY different than taking a fighter with a few professional fights under his belt and putting him through the developmental process to gauge his talents. Yes, both are harnessing his power of popularity, but the vetting process and the more incremental build while Slice achieves quality wins by demonstrating actual ability against the next stage of opposition is an entirely, entirely different animal.
If you want to keep equating the two, be my guest, but you’ll be on a lonely island. They are similar only in the most basic general way of observation. They are not the same.
by Luke Thomas on Jun 2, 2009 11:53 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Kimbo is OLD
he does have a lot of fights under his belt, but not MMA fights. He dosent have enough career left for seasoning. If a Kick boxing champ came into MMA with a reputation as a great striker, but no MMA fights, no one would have a problem with it.
TUF is not an exercise in fighter promotion. It is first and foremost a reality show. As "noble" as it may seem to have Kimbo fight through the ranks to get to the UFC, the sole reason Dana wants Kimbo on TUF is because of the publicity and possible ratings boost to a show with stagnant ratings. Shaw used the same hype machine to bring the eyes of the casual fan to Elite XC. There lies the equivalence. It should be noted, Shaw can still hold the viewership record over Dana.
Why couldn’t Kimbo have fought in smaller shows and work his way up like Lashley and have a TUF spot go to another amateur heavyweight? Your answer is above.
Plus, it’s not like Dana hasn’t hyped things in the past. Where is the "next Anderson Silva" we were promised from TUF last year? At the feet of Kyle Bradley?
It’s all part of the game.
Are you disappointed that Kimbo won’t be boxing?
Yes. Because I really believe that I could make him the heavyweight champ.
Come the fuck on. The guy got KO’d by Seth Freaking Petruzelli and you are going to make him a champion? What a moron.
More of a comment on the sad state of the heavyweight division in boxing, I reckon.
...Behold, a pale horse. The man that sat upon it was Wieters, and hell followed with him.
"BJ on the BE" - Kierkegaard
Kimbo is used to fight in main event so yes, it looks like a step back. What I fear is his first fight, he might not even get in the house.
Everyone makes the house
It’s in the Yahoo! article
"I’m going to go out and buy pizzas for everybody, and we’re going to have a pajama party out there waiting for Wieters..." - Dave Trembley
A number of the rumored guys for season 10 are something else. It looks like Kimbo may be in there with serious competition.
It probably overthinks it, but it almost seems like, with some of the names rumored for TUF 10 and their abilities, maybe Dana got Kimbo involved and has set it up for him to be destroyed. Sort of “validation” for his saying that Kimbo was overhyped, etc., all along and spite for Kimbo getting the spotlight on CBS, etc.
Probably not .. but maybe.
Looking at the list of rumored guys for the show I wondered the same thing. Whether it was their intention or not it really looks to be a very competitive season of TUF with quite a few serious prospects(something TUV has been missing for a while now). Kimbo may be in there with a bunch of hungry and talented guys not to mention that he’s sort of small for the division to start with.
It’s win-win – either your competitor’s star is a star in YOUR organization now, or he is, was and will always be a bum.
by Derek Suboticki on Jun 3, 2009 5:23 AM EDT up reply actions
Gary’s just upset because Dana stole his bread.
by Phildo on Jun 2, 2009 11:39 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
I’m not anti-Dana or anti-UFC or anti-MMA.
Whatever, Shaw. MMA is anti-Shaw, so it would be appreciated if you stay the fuck away, buddy.
I love me some Sexyama!
by pud333 on Jun 2, 2009 12:06 PM EDT reply actions 3 recs
“maybe they paid him a boatload of money — and in that case he’s doing the right thing. "
That line in interview stuck out for me.
It seems to me like he is saying it does not matter what kind of athletic accomplishments or how seriously he is taking the sport as long as he is getting paid big money to compete at any level, he is doing the right thing.
Hopefully this is the last time we see/hear from Gary Shaw in MMA related news.
The money is always important but at some point you have to at least pretend it’s about the sport or there will be no future money to be made off it. Shaw (like most boxing promoters) is about getting paid now instead of building up for the long haul. Shaw doesn’t want to create anything that last he just wants to fill his bank account today and that is a real difference here.
The old probverb about teaching a man to fish, well Shaw would sell the fish and the fishing equipment, put the money in his pocket and go on to hustle someone else.
its about the money,,, but there are many ways to make the money.
If you’re long term thinker then you’ll realize long term wealth only comes when delivering value.
Short term thinkers only want to make a buck today and thats what shaw was trying to do with kimbo – and we all saw it was to his detriment.
You are right. The best short term scenerio for the UFC would be Brock vs Kimbo. I bet that fight would break all sorts of records even though Kimbo would get absolutely destroyed. But it would also destroy any legitimacy as a sport that the UFC has tried so hard to create.
Having Kimbo fight lesser talent off the main event will still bring tons of supplemental buys from casual viewers who might not otherwise buy UFC events. Could Kimbo actually be the fighter to bring true mainstream exposure to the UFC?
You know, I was never against shaw. He didn’t have anyone with ratings power on his side with the exception of Kimbo, so he used him until he could no longer do that. I’d imagine he was only putting bums to fight him so he’d have time to build some of his other fighters up so he’d not have to rely only on Kimbo, but unfortunately that did not happen. We all knew kimbo would go down sooner or later (and in this case sooner), but he was trying to milk that cow as much as he could. I don’t blame him. Kimbo on the other hand was doing the same thing, trying to milk EXC of all the money as much as he could. I got nothing against that. In the end of the day they did the wrong thing by not postponing the kimbo/shamrock fight and instead putting a 205er against him. Had they kept feeding bums for kimbo to feed off of, they would probably still be around, and maybe we’d have seen some fighters build up by now and a serious competition to the UFC. Well, maybe strikeforce can do it…
On a second note, UFC is all about the money too, but because they have been so successful, people can’t see that (and I got nothing against the UFC for being all about the money either). Just the fact that the new tuf season will be coached by rashad and rampage instead of machida and rampage already says a lot, it’s all about the money.
By the end Gary Shaw had already walked from ProElite(although he was still getting paid by them as a consultant). They didn’t use Kimbo to help build up other legitimate fighters they used Kimbo to get themselves on TV so they could try and build up a Kimbo ppv and sell the company to CBS. We all knew that EliteXC was done when Kimbo lost, heck at the time they signed Kimbo they were already is bad shape, they were desperate by that point.
Saying that people can’t see that the UFC is about the money is silly. Of course everyone knows the point is to make money, that’s the point of all professional sports but the UFC is building something that will last and investing large sums of money into their future too. That is where the big difference lies, if they were just in it for the money they could of sold the UFC off already and rolled in the money but they are building something that will last (and make money) long after they are gone. Zuffa isn’t about cashing in on the trend they are about building something that last. It’s a completly different “about the money” than what went on at EliteXC or in boxing.
lol
making future investments is all about the money too damn it, just being smart about it! sorry, I know DW is your God, I’m a blasphemer. It’s really silly of me, I know :P
EVERYBODY who owns a sports team or is a promoter, whoever it is, no matter who it is, is in it for the damn money. forget all that "I do it for the sport" crap, it’s all about the damn money. Is it really so hard to see that? If shaw was the president of the UFC and DW didn’t have any rich friends and was not able to persuade them to buy an MMA promotion in the late 90’s, you’d probably be cussing out DW and praising shaw. They are all greedy bastards, but because one is successful some ppl such as yourself is blinded by that, and yes, I acknowledge that I’m silly :P, I mean, I used a smiley face twice in this comment lol.
I’m not defending White here at all, although I think it’s hilarious that your default setting is to accuse people of being UFC fanboys when they disagree with you. People can readily see that Zuffa is out to make money, that is no an issue at all. The thing is that they can also see that Zuffa is trying to make money by taking MMA mainstream and building a powerful brand instead of trying to make a quick buck off a fad. Perhaps if you took off your “I hate Dana White googles” and looked at things unbiasedly you could see things like that.
Here is the real deal, we don’t have to devolve into any “what if” scenerio’s here because we already know what kind of promoter Gary Shaw is, we have years of boxing promotion to look at. We know exactly what kind of fight promoter Shaw would be because he has plenty of history to look at. If Shaw and White had changed places and Shaw had bought the UFC in 2001 then there would be no UFC today because he would of killed it and stuck with boxing, he didn’t have any interest at all in MMA until after it hit the big time and started making money and he damn sure wasn’t going to pump any of his own money into trying to make it work back when it was unpopular. Dana White and the Fertitta’s invested tens of millions of dollars and years of their lives to build what they have today and they continue to pump money into the future of that company too, Gary Shaw is trying to earn a buck off the top of stuff that is already there. Yes they are both after the money but if you can’t see the glaring difference between building something that makes money and taking advantage of a sport to fill your pockets then that is sort of sad.
I’m not being biased here, and I don’t google for these information, otherwise I would have gotten the year Zuffa bought the UFC right. Shaw did try to take EXC mainstream, whatahell was the CBS thing all about? UFC would not be where it is today if it wasn’t for the TUF show, it’s something that DW didn’t come up with but was LUCKY it happened during his watch. That’s all I have to say about that.
BTW
I love the UFC and anything MMA related. but I sure don’t see much difference on who are running each promotion.
you dont see a difference between Kimbo main eventing a primetime cbs show; being called the “best” and Kimbo being a contestant on TUF?
I don't see a difference with Kimbo as a main event and...
royce vs hughes
tito vs shamrock III (with the last two being within a couple of months dif.)
many others that I can’t think of at the moment :P
yeah, I'm sad
royce freakin’ gracie is the reason I watch MMA today, but he’s one dimensional fighter that was fighting away from his ‘era’ and had no business going against hughes. I know that and everybody else knows that. It’s sad you don’t see that.
He was a legend in the sport and it that fight was bridge between the past and the future of the sport, what was Kimbo vs Thompson as a main event?
For that matter there is a difference between Shamrock 2006 and Shamrock 2008 although it’s pretty obvious that there wouldn’t of been a third fight if casual fans hadn’t wanted one and Ken was out of the UFC on his ass after that.
Who Me? was a top secret sulfurous stench weapon developed by the American Office of Strategic Services during World War II to be used by the French Resistance against German officers. Who Me? smelled strongly of fecal matter, and was issued in pocket atomizers intended to be unobtrusively sprayed on a German officer, humiliating him and, by extension, demoralizing the occupying German forces.
Gary Shaw didn’t run ProElite he was an employee in over EliteXC, hell shortly after they got on CBS they pushed him out(even though he managed to still get them to pay him after he was gone). He was one of many guys making decisions in ProElite and he and his son were there for the paycheck. Them getting on CBS wasn’t them trying to grow a company it was them trying to save the overbloated company and make CBS a partner(that’s why they took such a shitty deal to be on CBS). Strikeforce is an example of a promotion trying to grow as a company long term. ProElite is an example of a promotion eating up a lot of investors money trying to take advantage of the MMA fad and faling, a lot of that can be laid at the feet of poor leadership from the guys that were hired to make the decisions, like Shaw.
DW wasn’t just lucky TUF happened during his watch, just like every single thing that happens in Zuffa he was the guy making the decisions and the guy who made deals happen. Without White pushing it through and getting the Fertitta’s to pay for the first season(Spike wouldn’t even pay production cost at that point) then TUF would of never happened. Dana is a grade A jack ass but it is also his drive that has got his company to where it is today, he’s dragged the whole thing along by force of will for years and years now.
ok :?
I think you’re failing to understand where I’m coming from. my main argument is that DW is just a scumbag as is gary shaw. since we’re both in agreement when it comes to that, why don’t we leave it at that?
got a warning
my apologies to bloody elbow and ‘who me’, just bored today and wasn’t really trying to troll but I can see it came out that way. I’m surprised yall didn’t erase the ‘stink’ comment I left as well…
I don’t know what they paid Kimbo — maybe they paid him a boatload of money — and in that case he’s doing the right thing.
this is what initially thought when i heard about the signing.. he walked away from what kimbo’s manager said, an offer from strikeforce with a paycut…
but not a significant paycut from the 500k he was getting in elite.
i bet he had a big signing bonus here, maybe from spike, or dana, but it had to be pretty motivating for him to decline fighting for strikeforce.
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