Everyone in MMA, Including Dana White and the UFC, Lost When Fedor Emelianenko Tapped Out to Fabricio Werdum
by Nate Wilcox on Jun 27, 2010 4:06 AM EDT
in MMA News
Email
Print
Strikeforce's Scott Coker was a big loser tonight. He lost his best and possibly only chance to mount a lucrative Strikeforce PPV. Steve Cofield explains:
What's next for Fedor? He appeared to be on a collision course with Strikeforce heavyweight champ Alistair Overeem. That had the making of the biggest non-UFC fight in the history of the sport from a viewership standpoint. Now Overeem would have to get Werdum next, leaving Fedor with no one intriguing left to fight with just one bout left on his Strikeforce contract. Emelianenko told Showtime play-by-play voice Gus Johnson that he had every intent of returning to America to fight again for Strikeforce.
Werdum (14-4-1) made some interesting comments during the postfight itnerview in the cage, saying he wanted to fight Fedor again and would wait for his chance to fight the champ Overeem.
This reinforces my conviction that there is no win in trying to build up mega-fights in MMA. Strikeforce should have booked Fedor vs Overeem at their earliest possible opportunity. Fabricio Werdum may be dangerous enough to tap out any heavyweight in MMA on any given night, but he'll never be a major star. If Alistair Overeem had beaten Fedor, Strikeforce would have a hot property on their hands instead of a bunch of damaged goods.
Dana White may be gloating, but his UFC lost big tonight too. Dana lost the chance to promote the really big one, the Fedor vs UFC champ Brock Lesnar fight that has been teasing fans as a possibility since UFC 100. Dana will have plenty of nice pay days in his near future, but nothing remotely as big as Fedor vs Brock would have been.
Dave Meltzer lays it out:
The stunning upset alters the short-, medium- and long-term future at the top of the heavyweight division.
Emelianenko has one fight left on his Strikeforce contract. While one loss does not kill his marketability to UFC or Strikeforce down the line, it greatly diminishes the leverage of his promotional company, M-1 Global, when it is time to negotiate his next contract.
Had Emelianenko finished his contract unscathed, he would have been able to walk in and face whomever held the UFC heavyweight championship, and it would have been the biggest fight in the history of the sport.
The Russian's loss leaves next Saturday's UFC heavyweight title fight between Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin as the match to determine the world's No. 1 heavyweight.
Fedor's management team M-1 Global played a miserable hand coming into this fight. Rather than locking in a chance to follow up Fedor's hit debut on CBS last fall with an April CBS follow up, they elected to hold out over some rather vague co-promotional stuff and Fedor lost on Showtime instead of on CBS. It's like the classic "if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around, does it make a sound" riddle. If MMA's greatest fighter loses in the biggest upset in the sport's history and it's on Showtime does the media notice?
Jim Murphy of Savage Science has the answer:
This sure doesn't say much for MMA being anything close to a ‘mainstream sport' yet. In the wake of one of the more shocking upsets in the sport's history the mainstream media doesn't notice. At 9:44 Pacific ESPN doesn't mention it at all, CBS Sportsline picks up a Bleacher Report story. Dana White is no doubt chortling over Fedor's loss, but the mainstream media apathy just underscores that MMA is still a niche sport-a fact that impacts the UFC as much as every other promotion.
You might be thinking that it's actually good for Fedor and M-1 that they lost on Showtime and not in a more high profile venue. Nope. Had Fedor lost in a mega fight on CBS, there would be healthy interest in a rematch. As it is, Fedor, Strikeforce and especially M-1 are in limbo. The rematch is probably their best bet, as Josh Gross has tweeted. But it's so much less than could have been.
And as for the triumphalists, I'll let Subo speak:
There will never be a #1 ranked fighter outside of Zuffa's umbrella ever again. The consistent arguments for co-promotion - dispersed talent, ambiguity as to who was really the best - are now nullified. As of July 3rd, the #1 heavyweight (Lesnar/Carwin), light heavyweight (Shogun), middleweight (Silva), welterweight (GSP) and lightweight (Edgar/Penn/Florian/Maynard) in the world will be in the UFC. The #1 135er and 145ers will be in the WEC, though I'd like to see Warren and Fernandes there, among others. There will never be another debate over who is #1 at a weight class - it will be whomever holds Zuffa's belt.
That's huge. It's never been that way in a combat sport, let alone mixed martial arts. We're going to get superfights, relevant divisional stylistically appealing match-ups, fighters are going to make more money and be more popular, and the mainstream media will find it easier to follow one league instead of many.
I don't think my good buddy is old enough to remember when American thinkers proclaimed the end of history with the fall of the USSR. If he was, he'd probably temper his Zuffa triumphalism. If Shane Carwin KTFO's Brock Lesnar next Saturday, they're out their charismatic and dominant heavyweight champ. With Cain Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos waiting in the wings for the winner, they may be entering a period of revolving heavyweight champs as well. That's never good for business.
The more likely scenario is that the UFC will continue to soldier along and consolidate their growth for the next decade or so while working to ensure that Dana White remains the only household name in the sport. This will entail working to prevent any fighter from becoming the Michael Jordan, Bruce Lee or Muhammad Ali of MMA.
But that's just one flaw in his thinking. The bigger one is this -- Zuffa is a single company run by a group of men with some very questionable business and family history. Anyone familiar with the fall of PRIDE or Station Casinos will be a little uncomfortable at the idea of all of MMA being under the sole control of any single company, much less this one.
A lot of things can go wrong and big hegemonic empires are actually quite vulnerable to sudden collapse. Just like the Last Emperor was.
HT Fightlinker
262 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
Has it been confirmed that Werdum is even still under contract with StrikeForce now? I believe his original contract was just for three fights. If he’s technically a free agent, if nothing else SF is gonna have to pay through the nose to keep him. Anyone got confirmation on that?
DOES THIS HAPPEN TO EVERY MMMA FIGHTER...yes!
WTF! is the big deal WOW he lost……by submission! its not like the guy got his ass kicked! lol its not like he got KO….his happens once or twice to evrery MMA fighter in the world. It happened to SPIDER it happened to BROCK its happened to GSP need i say more!? the guy hasnt lost a step the guy isnt weaker than usual…he just got submitted Big Effin Deal he will be back…..on the other hand i still dont think he can be UFC HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION lol
by KO INTERNET THUGS on Jun 27, 2010 9:46 AM EDT up reply actions
DOES THIS HAPPEN TO EVERY MMMA FIGHTER…yes! WTF! is the big deal WOW he lost……by submission! its not like the guy got his ass kicked! lol its not like he got KO….his happens once or twice to evrery MMA fighter in the world. It happened to SPIDER it happened to BROCK its happened to GSP need i say more!? the guy hasnt lost a step the guy isnt weaker than usual…he just got submitted Big Effin Deal he will be back…..on the other hand i still dont think he can be UFC HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION lol
Keep Firing, Assholes!
Have you accepted BROCKLESNARRRRRR!!!!!!! as your personal Heavyweight Champion?
by Ubernoober on Jun 27, 2010 9:46 AM EDT up reply actions 6 recs
I think Ubernoober really reached my heart, KO whatshisname just doesnt compare *sigh*
Fan of Tiger 'Makin It Rain' Woods
by B-A-N-A-N-A-S on Jun 27, 2010 4:09 PM EDT up reply actions
This was worse
A tapout is worse than getting KTFO.
Anyone can get caught. I could walk up to Carwin and lay him out with a lucky punch. Fedor tapped. To a barely top 10 HW.
by Paradoxx on Jun 27, 2010 11:16 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
REC'D
for truth and intelligence. I still can’t figure out how people are saying tapping is less of a loss then getting Ko’d.
how
this is retarted, as long as mma has great fighters that are willing to fight and we are willing to watch, we have not lost anything, the only person that lost was fedor and m-1
mma doesnt rest on one mans sholders, fedor doesnt carry mma, fedor was barely known by the casual mma fans which make up the 5 million that watch kimbo fight lol
by mmaff312 on Jun 27, 2010 4:05 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
somehow i doubt you read the whole post
or even very much of it.
and you shouldn’t use the term “retarded” even if by some strange chance you learn to spell it correctly. It’s a slur.
Follow me on Twitter @KidNate
by Nate Wilcox on Jun 27, 2010 4:08 AM EDT up reply actions 5 recs
no i read the whole post and people can make typo’s its not english class, all im saying is now that fedor lost every one loses, no! wrong! just fedor and m1, i read alot of the posts bloodyelbow posts and it leaves me thinking WTH! are they really posting this, but i read cause im a huge mma fan….but this one bugged me cause its so many things said in this post that degrades the heavyweight division because fedor lost now, when theres still overeem, werdum, fedor, brock, carwin, dos santos, and the lost goes on, and even if brock loses to carwin, it does nothing bad if anything makes it more interesting to watch the hw division just like if overeem loses to werdum, we not gone lose viewers cause fedor lost, if anything it will gain to see who fedor fights next and if he comes out on top, cause i can guarantee if fedor goes to the ufc and fights brock there will be enough buys for dana white to retire upon!
one monkey dont stop no show and one loss dont end greatness!
Fedors loss isnt gonna hurt business for mma….If thats the case MMA should of shut down when Chuck Liddell lost the belt to Rampage. That’s a brash generalization of a sport based off one mans loss. That’s like saying business in basketball is gonna go down because Micheal Jordan loss.
I understand MMA is not as big as basketball but do you get the example? One persons loss doesn’t stop growth!
I'm talking about the loss of two very specific big money fights
Brock vs Fedor and Overeem vs Fedor
they’re gone
Follow me on Twitter @KidNate
Brock vs Fedor never existed. It is a myth.
There has never been a chance that that fight would happen ever since the lines were drawn over co-promotion.
If anything, Brock vs Fedor is more likely now because Fedor and Vadim don’t have the leverage they did before. They already know that they can make more in the UFC even if they are making %50 of SF’s earnings for his shows, so this loss might be the reality check they need to drop the ridiculous co-promotion nonsense and come rebuild Fedor’s legacy on the biggest MMA stage in the world.
by fozo on Jun 27, 2010 5:48 AM EDT up reply actions 6 recs
I actually believe it’s more likely now too. Unfortunately, it probably won’t be the #1 HW vs. the dominant UFC Champion match we all wanted to see. If it were to happen, sad as it seems now, it’d probably be a #1 Contender bout or something like it. If Brock drops the title and Fedor gets an unimpressive win before leaving SF, I could see it happening…just a year or two too late.
by BurtBacharach on Jun 28, 2010 11:17 AM EDT up reply actions
Overeem-Fedor was lost
Brock-Fedor was never, EVER going to happen.
by Steve4192 on Jun 27, 2010 7:47 AM EDT up reply actions 5 recs
Would Fedor have been a big money fight?
Fedor is in a real weird position. He’s the Snakes on a Plane of MMA—- if you listen to the internet he’s huge, the greatest thing ever, an invincible terminator. His big fight, on free TV, got less viewers than your normal Law and Order SVU rerun. To the casual fan, he’s that guy that gets name dropped and apparently is a bad ass. To the normal person, Fedor is the kind of hat Indiana Jones wears.
The UFC could have made any fight with Lesnar a big money fight, but it’s easy to do when Lesnar is half the equation.
The odds of Fedor getting into the UFC just went up astronomically. And their marketing machine can easily overcome a defeat with clips of him dropping Sylvia, Arlovski, or his Pride footage. This is a win for the UFC.
"an excellent example of why most MMA "journalism" is a joke. Pseudonyms like "toxic" and shitty writing like that dopey article"--- Joe Rogan.
Basketball did decline significantly when Jordan retired.
"I want to tell me what you see, let's go ahead and see by the fight what you saw, in the ring"
by crinow on Jun 27, 2010 8:20 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Ummm..
Not to nitpick here but…
Business in the NBA did go down immediately after Jordan retired from the Bulls (both times)..
Less you forget that Business as usual for the NBA didn’t quire resume until the Lakers were hitting the run for their 2nd title and of all things Jordan announces his return to basketball with the Wizards..
8-29-09
Keith Jardine is now known as "The Dean of Antihistamine" because he is always sleeping early in fights..
Sorry bro
But your insights into fights are much better than your insights into the business of fighting. You are way too biased towards non-Zuffa business.
Sorry your hero lost, but you are way off base on the business impact of this loss.
Going ad hominem on the Zuffa owners; trying to tie their legal, though perhaps objectionable, business practices in the same sentence as a vague reference to the stories of what Lorenzo and Frank’s Grandfather and father were accused and never even charged of doing is irresponsible reporting. Further proclaiming the death of Station Casinos is flatly incorrect as well.
Sorry man, poor article. Don’t write when you are angry.
by pwrcartel on Jun 27, 2010 9:14 AM EDT up reply actions 7 recs
angry?
man BE hit the lotto last night.
Follow me on Twitter @KidNate
by Nate Wilcox on Jun 27, 2010 12:44 PM EDT up reply actions
Having a revolving champion is bad for business? Only a few posts ago we were just reading how the UFC was getting stale, having champions that were seemingly unbeatable. Having evenly matches fights make for more drama and suspense. Yeah you get a lot more bandwagon jumping when you have a dominant star but there is just as much buzz or more when you have upsets. The history of MMA is littered with upsets in very key match ups and it hasn’t slowed anything down.
And maybe the overly sensitive authors here could restrain from going with “you didn’t read the whole article” comeback everytime they are disagreed with.
Intelligent, literate commentators are here, please refrain from bashing us.
by pwrcartel on Jun 27, 2010 8:40 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions 6 recs
In the author’s defense, I thought the same thing when I read the response.
It may be unfair to judge content by its packaging, but it looks like some twelve year old wrote that thing. It didn’t help that the content of the post sounded like a knee jerk reaction to the article title either, written just a few moments after it was posted.
when the first comment
comes up with seconds of posting and is marked with spelling errors and insulting remarks, I generally try to be charitable and assume they didn’t give the post a thoughtful reading.
If you got the hate mail I got from people who clearly only scan headlines, you’d be a little more understanding.
Sorry if I painted the whole community with a broad brush.
Follow me on Twitter @KidNate
No
you didn’t paint the entire community, you insulted one particular commentator. And that was my point. I have had at least three authors here initially respond to my comment of disagreement with “you didn’t read the article” or :“your reading comprehension skills aren’t so good” etc.
It just gets old that our opinions are looked so far down upon that we are deemed to not have even able to read and comprehend was what written. The following discussion was excellent, just objecting to the ad hominem attack as a first gambit in the argument.
point taken
we are working to control ourselves better, but we are also something of lion tamers in the cage here in the comments.
Follow me on Twitter @KidNate
Fair enough
As always, I’m just trying to raise the level of discussion, less name calling more debate always a good thing.
Those ‘casual’ MMA fans are not casual MMA fans at all… They’re more like, “hey lets watch the big black guy from the internet fight”.
If you don’t know Fedor, then you’re not a real fan of MMA.
The non-real fan’s money is just as green as yours or mine.
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are in a confederacy against him. - Jonathan Swift
Fightlinker.com
by Derek Suboticki on Jun 27, 2010 4:19 AM EDT up reply actions
And the ratio of “real fans” to “casual fans” is shifting everyday. Face it hardcore fanboy keyboard warriors, your voice isn’t the loudest anymore. You are out numbered by less knowledgable fans who you needed for your sport to grow.
by pwrcartel on Jun 27, 2010 8:45 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions 3 recs
If you started watching in the last 5 years
is there any reason you would know who Fedor is? What has he done since 2006? I’m not being sarcastic. I started watching about 2 years ago, and since I don’t have Showtime, I’ve seen Fedor fight one time, against Brett Rogers. The casual fan who follows UFC since it’s easy to find, may not have seen Fedor fight, ever.
"If you go up there clueless, you're going to come back [to the dugout] clueless. It's that simple." - Nick Markakis
Dana was talking about him... a lot.
That brings many eyes, including casuals. A quick Youtube search brings up tons of Fedor fights, with ever promotional team yelling at you that he is the greatest fighter who ever lived and the baddest man on the planet.
by E_liminatorjr on Jun 27, 2010 11:27 AM EDT up reply actions
Casual fans won't bother
that’s why they are casual fans. If you don’t know Fedor you’re a casual fan.
by Electro Boy on Jun 27, 2010 11:29 AM EDT up reply actions
and there's a lot of us
and a significant number of those casuals who’ve started watching in the last few years don’t know who Fedor is and haven’t seen him fight. (I have, but that’s beside the point.)
Promoting a PPV with Fedor outside UFC would have been and will continue to be a hard sell to get casuals to notice and order.
"If you go up there clueless, you're going to come back [to the dugout] clueless. It's that simple." - Nick Markakis
I'd say...
if you’re a casual fan that hasn’t bothered to at least google one Fedor fight, then casual=UFC fan. Unless you mean watching him fight on a live broadcast, which is a whole other thing.
by E_liminatorjr on Jun 27, 2010 1:50 PM EDT up reply actions
i think it was a good thing for fedor
im sure hes not happy about it, but im also sure he will learn from it
i would bet 9 times out of 10 what happened last night wouldn’t happen, no offense to werdum im glad he won. but i bet it wouldnt happen again.
by Brennan Linn on Jun 27, 2010 2:28 PM EDT up reply actions
I believe Scott won tonight, bigtime.. My guess is that M-1 would have demanded far, far more money to do the Overeem fight, and Fedor’s history on PPV is one of destroying promotions. Instead of being potentially extorted and forced into a money-losing situation, the leverage situation has been completely reversed.
by Michael Rome on Jun 27, 2010 4:07 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
The mistake in my view is believing that they MUST do a PPV, or that they must compete with the UFC. The best route to Strikeforce is to be steady—they have a nice Showtime deal, they can put on entertaining shows and run a nice solid promotion.
They weren’t fighting over a pie before. M-1 has ended up bankrupting every company they’ve worked with, or getting into litigation with them. With Fedor losing, Strikeforce will avoid that fate. They are back in control of their destiny.
by Michael Rome on Jun 27, 2010 4:10 AM EDT up reply actions 8 recs
I should also add that I don’t think Fedor-Overeem would have made money on PPV. Evan Dunham has more name recognition in the United States than Alistair Overeem.
by Michael Rome on Jun 27, 2010 4:11 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Agree. Would have been a disaster. Last time it was mentioned I posted a picture of burning money.
"The best book on the real history of MMA that I've seen," Dave Meltzer
by Jonathan Snowden on Jun 27, 2010 4:18 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
I think the implications of that PPV would have been dire. Let’s spell out a worst case scenario:
1. Fedor’s team threatens to leave and not fight unless he gets twice as much money as he’s currently getting
2. Overeem wants more money to fight Fedor
3. Fedor wins the title from Overeem, is a free agent, and leaves with their title
4. They use all of their big names for this show to get a buyrate, leaving them without names to carry a potential Fall CBS show
5. The show does 90k on PPV.
by Michael Rome on Jun 27, 2010 4:22 AM EDT up reply actions 7 recs
not enough of u around here,
but when u stop by, you always contribute some good insight, without being vague, or playing sides. rec
GreenHouse
Well put. Not only is the impact on Fedor vs Brock and Fedor vs Overeem negoble because neither was going to happen or be a success and thus drastically reduces M-1’s inluence on the business of MMA and that is a very positive development.
by pwrcartel on Jun 27, 2010 8:53 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Well put. Not only is the impact on Fedor vs Brock and Fedor vs Overeem negligible because neither was going to happen or be a success and thus drastically reduces M-1’s inluence on the business of MMA and that is a very positive development.
by pwrcartel on Jun 27, 2010 8:53 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Jeez...
it’s only one loss…you make it sound like MMA is forever destroyed. I think UFC also won big. Now Fedor, hopefully will want to prove himself against the best and the big money will still be in the UFC if he fights for them. He just won’t have the leverage he once had…but still…one loss…the world is not over.
BJ Penn
ESPN carried Penn losing, and while were on the the subject they also mentioned Fedor’s loss on ESPN. Of coarse Penn’s loss had more coverage, the UFC is the sport to the average fan.
by Hatertorade on Jun 27, 2010 4:13 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Fedor-Brock would have been great for the sport. I actually think Fedor-Randy in 2007 would have potentially been even bigger. Either way, it’s M-1 who really made sure these fights didn’t happen.
by Michael Rome on Jun 27, 2010 4:15 AM EDT reply actions 14 recs
I’m with ya on M-1 scuttling a potential Fedor-Brock matchup, but they weren’t responsible for Fedor-Couture. Randy was never really available. His ‘retirement’ gambit failed miserably and he eventually realized that he didn’t have a prayer versus Zuffa in court, so he did the smart thing and took a fat sack of Zuffa cash to return to the UFC.
Steve4192
I think Rome is referring to the first time M-1 put up the same crazy demands before signing with Affliction or (M-1: the Monty Cox Edition).
Basically he made a direct correlation between both failed attempts on the UFC’s part to sign Fedor over the crazy demands that Fedor’s camp came with that ultimately prevented the bout materializing..
8-29-09
Keith Jardine is now known as "The Dean of Antihistamine" because he is always sleeping early in fights..
Couple of quick things
1) Fedor could have been huge in the UFC. I can’t believe how many casuals I met today – who weren’t watching the fight or don’t even watch UFC events – kind of knew who Fedor was, he was the “European guy who could beat Brock” or “the guy who was the best at Ultimate Fighting”. Their really seemed to be a meme for him. At least as much as a niche sport would allow.
2) The UFC must be breathing a sigh of relief in the fact that their is no big money fight to entice Brock away from the UFC. If Fedor went undefeated (especially on CBS) there was always the risk that Brock could leave the UFC at the end of his contract for a one-time affair with Fedor, Think it isn’t possible? Brock reportedly made $5 mil for UFC 100. A Fedor/Brock fight in the UFC would have drawn close to 2 million buys. If they could get half that, Brock and Fedor could be looking at $10-15 million paydays. That risk is now gone.
See: championship clause.
This was never too big of a risk. And nobody outside the UFC would do even close to a million buys, the most they could hope for even with Fedor-Brock is like 300k.
by Michael Rome on Jun 27, 2010 4:17 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
It’s amazing on one hand everyone claims that if fighters get to frustrated that competition will always spring up and then come back and say it is impossible for competition.
A Brock-Fedor fight would of course be dependent on Fedor really catching on. If he did, Strikeforce/Showtime could have been contracted to present the fight. The fear of Zuffa is obviously that people are going to start becoming aware of other fighters, even if they are unaware that they are not the UFC, And that they are willing to start watching and paying to see these fighters. If a Fedor vs Overeem fight did any numbers that would let fighters (like Brock) know the floodgates are open. So he for a huge payday sitting out for 6 months to a year to contest the championshop clause might not be that big of deal.
But you might be right, the WWE/UFC fan-view is pretty entrenched so maybe no one pays for anything non-UFC based.
I will say the biggest obstacle to competition is the championship clause. If Mark Cuban or any other billionaire that wanted to do this could have taken Chuck, GSP, Lesnar, or Randy without any legal issues, the game would have busted wide open. As it is, the hottest fighters in the sport are the UFC’s champions, and they can’t be signed when their contracts end.
by Michael Rome on Jun 27, 2010 4:31 AM EDT up reply actions
the championship clause also helps to keep payouts down. If a champ wants to take advantage of his belt he has to sit out for a year or more during the prime of his money making days. I would think the Ali act would strike this down if anyone ever really wanted to challenge it. But, of course, who can afford to do that?
I don’t think it would ever get struck down in its entirety. I think the recurring nature of it is unenforceable, but the 1 year extension has plenty of analogues that have been upheld.
by Michael Rome on Jun 27, 2010 4:35 AM EDT up reply actions
It seems that the fear of perpetual renewal or a lengthy courtroom trial would be enough to entice a lot of fighters to resign.
Well, that and the obscene amounts of money that UFC champions make.
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are in a confederacy against him. - Jonathan Swift
Fightlinker.com
by Derek Suboticki on Jun 27, 2010 4:41 AM EDT up reply actions
And yet, very few if them seem happy
As we discussed in the shit-storm that followed your article, a fighter like Rampage should be happy making $2 million for a fight. But should he be happy knowing that fans are tuning in to watch him fight and the bulk of the $30 million in revenue is going to the promotion, If this was any other sport, or even Hollywood for that matter, the discrepancy wouldn’t be nearly that great, And if you think Rampage is getting more than enough, that’s fine. But why I are we paying so much to watch? Would you rather the fighters get the money or do you like seeing rich men get obscenely richer?
Rampage isn't a champ
Nobody heard him bitching between beating Chuck and losing to Forrest.
GSP, Frankie, Shogun, Brock – THRILLED to be where they are. Thankful, even.
I refuse to feel sorry for people that make enough money where the income tax is a serious concern of theirs. Come on, fellow Commie – we ought to be together on this. My unemployment is frozen because of 41 assholes in the Senate and I, as a fan, am supposed to worry about what percentage of $30 million Rampage Jackson the actor gets for a maximum of 15 minutes of work that I can appreciate. C’mon.
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are in a confederacy against him. - Jonathan Swift
Fightlinker.com
by Derek Suboticki on Jun 27, 2010 4:49 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Good point.
Rampage started his whining after losing to Forrest. Never heard anything from him when he was champion. So what current champions have voiced their unhappiness with the amount of money they are making?
only reason rampage said anything because he felt he won the fight along with alot of other people, he wasnt complaining about money till dana talked shit about him for making the a-team movie
cause if you recall when rampage went on his rampage, dana was the one who bailed him out and got him out of the trouble he was in
you said rampage started whining after he lost to forest and im giving a response
are you okay? are you really that upset fedor lost?
then what about your fellow fans that are dishing out $600 a year to watch all the fights because the business plan calls for vast profits? And if there is nothing we can do about this, is it is better that this money goes to the wealthy bosses than the people actually doing the fighting? I believe my fellow traveller is blinded by a man-crush on a certain foul-mouthed promoter.
See, I don’t think you’re consumed by some irrational hatred of the man (though it’s possible) – I think you just have a different idea regarding the ideal situation for MMA. We disagree on that. Why attribute to me some kind of bullshit motive that doesn’t make any sense?
I want fighters to get a bigger chunk, but first the chunk has to get bigger. It’s going into expanding the business and getting the sport legalized/established worldwide, not to the Yakuza, and it will come back one day in spades. Until then, pay rates are shooting up and show no sign of plateauing.
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are in a confederacy against him. - Jonathan Swift
Fightlinker.com
by Derek Suboticki on Jun 27, 2010 4:57 AM EDT up reply actions
Actually I like and respect Dana. Have said it time and time again that I am impressed how he went from being a boxercise instructor to president of a $1 bil company. But I don’t care for the character he’s created. As Kurt Vonnegut said ‘You are what you pretend to be" (and I definitely think he’s pretending),
As for the man-crush comment that was a rift on something you said earlier. Not meant to be an actual slur. My apologies if taken as such,
Again, we can agree to disagree, but from my vantage point every step the UFC has taken lately has been one towards a monopsony (that’s right, not monopoly). If that is the case why would they feel the need to start re-slicing the pie up, Out of he goodness of their heart? I can’t remember the last time a company did that. Maybe you have more faith in unmitigated capitalism, but not me. I am too much a cynic. And again, if the money is not going to the fighters why are we so adamant that it has to go to the Fertittas, Dana, and some members of the Abu Dhabi royal family? Because they’ve earned a perpetual tax on the sport? Because the UFC is what we are actually watching and no the fighters fighting within? If everyone was happy with the bulk of the fighters pay you would think that the many fans would be up in arms for having to pay for payperviews so the Zuffa owners could buy ranches in Montana to park their extra Ferraris in.
by John Nash on Jun 27, 2010 5:09 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Due to possible government intervention...
the UFC will have to either try to actively avoid being a monopoly or possibly set up a fighter’s Union. I don’t see them getting away with neither.
Dude. It's Anderson Silva.
If he gives a damn he will end Sonnen’s night by either sub or KO.
-SSreporters
By Monday morning Chael Sonnen will be pissing out of his neck.
-Also SSreporters
Why not ??
The WWE paymodel is identical to the UFC’s.. It’s private..
No unions or government regulation..
Granted it’s “sports entertainment” but it’s still a flourishing business absent of both government regulation and unionization..
8-29-09
Keith Jardine is now known as "The Dean of Antihistamine" because he is always sleeping early in fights..
Yep the WWE is a publically traded company, you can go look at their financial information any time you want. It’s a similar model but it’s in no way identical. Heck the very fundamental way they pay guys is different (the WWE pays guys a yearly contract and the UFC pays guys on a per fight basis). Both do use a independant contractor format for employment as do many of the big oil companies and large industial/commercial contracting firms.
It’s also not really fair to say that there is no government regulation because everyone’s paycheck that is working legally is under government regulation it’s just that there is no specific industry regulation. They still have to be legal independant contractor agreements according to goverment regulation.
In the end, as a fan, all I really care about is seeing the best fight the best, and seeing the top fights happen. Zuffa having all of the top fighters is the most realistic way to make that happen – in fact, we’re practically there now.
Sure it’d be nice if the fighters get paid more, but if that comes at the risk of fighters trying to go their own way and this becoming a boxing clusterfuck, screw it – as a fan, I’m selfish, and would rather see Zuffa rake it in if it helps guarantee these fights. I think fighter pay will continue to rise with Zuffa at the helm though… and if someone finds a way to help fighters get an even bigger cut without screwing it all up, sign me up.
Let's get serious.
What the fuck do you think Dana and Lorenzo are doing? Just laying around naked in bed on top of millions of dollars? How the hell do they find the time to expand globally? How do they have the currency to make that happen? How do they go about trying to get MMA sanctioned in areas that it’s banned?
Lets use logic here. For fuck sake this shit is tiring. UFC promotes fighters. They make their money off being marketed by the UFC and performing well when they fight. Its a two way street. I think its ridiculous at the amount of money some professional athletes make.
i agree in regard to the costs of expansion
and their growing business. I think in most instances people disregard those expenses as if they don’t exist.
GreenHouse
how does expansion help the fighters? None of the ppv bonuses are linked to foreign sales. The pay doesn’t seem to correspondingly jump because of expansion. What you are doing is asking the current fighters to subsidize expansion so that the owners and maybe future generation of fighters can enjoy the fruits of their labor
Yes. That’s exactly what we are doing. We want those fighters to make that sacrifice and subsidize expansion while simultaneously making more money than they’ve ever made before and more every year.
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are in a confederacy against him. - Jonathan Swift
Fightlinker.com
by Derek Suboticki on Jun 27, 2010 5:20 AM EDT up reply actions
Again, a 60% pay raise sounds great except when you realize someone is making 20 times as much and not the ones the fans are paying to see, And sure it is better than what it was before or better than what it would be with someone else but that doesn’t mean it isn’t an imperfect economic system. One were you have no way (or little ability) to challenge the monopsonistic power.
I know for most fans it doesn’t matter. In fact, it is preferred that they be forced to compete in the UFC even if a counterbalancing promotion would give them the leverage to ask for more, But that would get in the way of the real life WWE that they’ve built.
Again, a 60% pay raise sounds great except when you realize someone is making 20 times as much and not the ones the fans are paying to see
Look at the big ball sports in the US, guys are making huge percentages of the overall take and still bitching about the money and for the most part guys making millions of dollars and bitching because they want millions more just doesn’t resonate with fans. Having someone else getting rich off your hard work isn’t something special that only MMA fighters have happen to them it’s something that most of the workers in the world have faced for hundreds of years now only the guys who actually work for a living don’t get to live in mansions and drive Italian sports cars.
It’s sort of odd than MMA fans care so much about what the millionaires in the sport make and whether they should be making even more millions when average household income in the US is only around $50k a year. I do worry about the little guys in the sport getting paid better because the little guys being able to live off the money is what makes for the next generation but honestly concern over whether a top guy makes 2 million or 4 million just boggles my mind.
I think there’s more shock over the lower tier fighters who live paycheck-to-paycheck and who maybe don’t even make $50K while shortening their lives for our entertainment. Fans are aware that a fighter making $50K can’t do that forever.
Use all ten points.
Actually... why not ??
The national median average is less than that for Americans…
50K annually is a respectable living these days for single income.
Not to mention, they’re doing something they enjoy or love to do, so it’s that much more rewarding..
It’s like the principle of getting into sports or entertainment. You should never do it under the premise of trying to strike it rich. You do it because you love it. Very few ever get rich in either sport or entertainment..
There is a place for everyone in either if they’re willing to do it because they love doing it. low budget films need actors too, commercials need actors too, etc..
Sports needs guys coming off the bench, walk-ons, and low level athletes to contrast how good the great ones really are, etc..
The music industry needs artists and musicians that aren’t getting grammy’s every year to make soundtracks for things like Video games, movie, theater, and the indie circuit..
50K is better than the average single income in America..
8-29-09
Keith Jardine is now known as "The Dean of Antihistamine" because he is always sleeping early in fights..
by MMAuthority on Jun 27, 2010 10:30 AM EDT up reply actions
That $50,000 is gross pay
Taxes, camp fees, training fees and other costs mean that fighter is seeing most likely less than $20,000 by the time taxes and fees are paid.
"If you go up there clueless, you're going to come back [to the dugout] clueless. It's that simple." - Nick Markakis
30ish is what I was told.
And you forgot endorsements and perks. Perks are HUGE for fighters, cars, phones, food, clothes etc etc etc.
It’s gross pay for everyone not just MMA fighters. The $50k a year number is household income not personal income too. In most cases you are talking about two people generating a income not just one and if you are on the the lower side of that half the households in the US then you probably aren’t chocking up much to career satisfaction either. I’m willing to bet that being a MMA fighter is a heck of a lot more rewarding of a career than being a janitor or a mall worker.
Yes training cost are expensive as is representation but in general sponsorships double a fighter’s take home pay from a UFC event so a guy making $50k in the UFC is actually making closer to $100k overall. Unfortuantly Tap Out won’t pay my wife $20,000 to wear one of their shirts to work so we don’t have that extra income stream available to us that MMA fighters do.
Naturally it's based off gross
The median averages aren’t net figures.. They’re the gross earnings across the board, averaged out..
And as mentioned, the perks outweigh the taxable shortcomings..
We have to pay taxes, it’s just a part of life in America..
8-29-09
Keith Jardine is now known as "The Dean of Antihistamine" because he is always sleeping early in fights..
by MMAuthority on Jun 27, 2010 12:42 PM EDT up reply actions
The median purse for a UFC fighter in 2009 was $16,500. If he fights 3 times a year that is $49,500. Now we’ll double it for sponsors, even though everyone who really knows how much fighters make on sponsors (such as Brookehouse, Snowden, and pdl) say that this number is inflated. So the median fighter makes $99,000.
Minus his agent and manager’s cut.
Minus his training camp
so he’s got $60,000 left. Big money to risk serious injury to fight for what? 4 years max without insurance, without a 401K. And for the biggest promotion in the world where the owners are paying themselves $75 million in dividends every year.
The difference between the fighters and everyone else is we are paying big money to watch them, we aren’t doing that for your average household. After meeting several men trying to make a go of it in the sport, I know I want my money to go to them. But apparently the interest of the many fans is that mma have it’s own WWF. Otherwise how do we reconcile the fact that fans can say that the bulk of fighters getting $50 k is good money while celebrating every million selling ppv and the extra $10 million dollars the owner pocketed?
My advice for them then would be that they should of went to college and got a better career then. You can triple the median purse heck quadurple it and for a 4 year career compared to the 45 to 50 year career the rest of us have to work your just not going to have much of a comparison. Only a select few will ever make “career” money in MMA, heck even in the NFL guys end up having to find work after their playing careers are over because they didn’t make enought to retire on. MMA isn’t a normal career it’s something you are lucky to be involved with for a while before you get too old to fight anymore. Would it be great if MMA fighters could make what NFL players make, sure it would and maybe when their sport is 90 years old too they will. In a world where people who actually do something worthwhile like teachers(median for a high school teacher is $50k) and firefighters(median $40k) only make what they make your going to have a hard time convincing me that what is really important is for me to worry about what cage fighters earn. I hope they all make a mint but I’m not losing any sleep over it, if they are putting $60k in their pocket at the end of the year then they are living ok in the here and now and it’s better than having a real job for them.
As far as who people pay to see and who gets the money, that’s pretty simple, people want to see the stars and the stars make millions of dollars. No one paid to see the A-team movie to see Terry Chen. What you are talking about there is the owners who put up the money and own the business compared to the stars of the shows they put on not the other guys they fill the cards with. If Rampage gets a bigger check then that doesn’t really help those guys making $50k a year now does it?
Ken Pavia on sponsorship money:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R4ajQOysvM
by who me on Jun 27, 2010 3:10 PM EDT up reply actions 3 recs
Rec'd
Well said and on point…
8-29-09
Keith Jardine is now known as "The Dean of Antihistamine" because he is always sleeping early in fights..
don't you want fighting to be a viable career option?
so we get the best and brightest and not just the most desperate?
Follow me on Twitter @KidNate
MMA is still paying athletes better than the Olympic wrestling program
as long as that remains the case upper echelon wrestlers such as Ben Askren, Johnny Hendricks, and Cole Konrad will always be transitioning to MMA after college.
"It’s going to be like sex with a grizzly bear, you know, a lot of scratching and growling on both sides." - Don Frye
RIP Sherdog (6/26/10)
I do want the best and the brightest and we are getting a lot of them now. MMA is a viable career option but that doesn’t mean that it needs to turn into what the big ball sports have become with this. It doesn’t matter how much they pay there will always be someone who is unhappy and thinks they should make more. When it comes to MMA pay my concern is for the guys who are making $4,000 a fight not the one’s making $40,000 a fight and it’s definately not for guys who are clearing a million a fight or more. The money is getting better (all you have to do is go back and look at the payouts from three years ago to see that)and it will continue to get better over time it’s just that my concern for guys who have to settle for a Porsche instead of a Ferarri just isn’t there.
At the top end of this the money issue it’s all a crap shoot anyway and more money doesn’t neccessarily mean a better future for MMA fighters. Just look at the huge pay from ball sports and compare that to how guys end up after their playing days are over.
Almost 80 percent of National Football League players are flirting with bankruptcy two years after they retire, according to Sports Illustrated. NBA players aren’t faring much better. 60 percent of former National Basketball Association players end up broke within five years of retirement.
http://sports.yahoo.com/top/news?slug=ys-investopediamoneyloss031010
How did I miss this? I don’t know if you meant it this way but it seems as if you’re saying that while you want them to fight for our enjoyment they’re dumb for becoming fighters. mma fighter is the new pornstar.
by John Nash on Jun 27, 2010 8:36 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Not at all, see those guys don’t bitch about the money as much as the people on these sites do (actually mma has a significant portion of it’s fighters with college educations). They aren’t dumb for becoming fighters but the people who constantly go on and on and on about how every single one of them isn’t a millionaire are pushing that though. Most make decent money doing something they love to do and if they are good enough they can end up making millions of dollars a year doing it but not every fighters is going to become a millionaire.
Those guys that got into the sport did it for a reason so why do people keep assuming that they are too stupid to not know what the pay will be? Do you think so little of these guys that you think they can’t help but get suckered by Zuffa? A number of these guys actually quit decent jobs to do this because it’s what they want to do, it’s not like the only job they could find is cage fighter and Zuffa is pulling a Wal Mart on them.
Ali Act applies to boxing.This isn’t boxing,obviously.
Check out my MMA highlight videos!
http://www.dailymotion.com/WheelchairBandit
Don't tell Don King that.
Dude. It's Anderson Silva.
If he gives a damn he will end Sonnen’s night by either sub or KO.
-SSreporters
By Monday morning Chael Sonnen will be pissing out of his neck.
-Also SSreporters
Ugh…I really wanted to see that fight.
From all reports she (Cyborg) pretty much only spars men, and has been known to put some out during training. - Rudinho479
by Kaleb Kelchner on Jun 27, 2010 4:44 AM EDT up reply actions
If the game could have been busted wide open Zuffa wouldnt be investing hundreds of millions into this sport. The reason this sport exists and continues to grow is because it cant be busted open.
If it could nobody would invest in it. It would just be one big incestuous orgy until it died.
by mmalogic on Jun 27, 2010 4:39 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I agree in general.
Executives in other sports look at the UFC in awe of how they stopped free agency from driving costs through the roof.
But I truly believe the championship clause is the key to the puzzle, more than anything else.
If Cuban could have taken Chuck for 10 million a fight in a free agent market in early 2007, and a few others, we’d be looking at a different world.
by Michael Rome on Jun 27, 2010 4:42 AM EDT up reply actions
championship clause was key up til now… but the future and more concrete key will be global distribution.
Insightful analysis from the both of you
If Zuffa really is doing their math, and making sure they pay their top stars more than any other organization can reasonably pay, as you suggested in another post… they’ll continue reaping huge margins. Taking in revenue form a massive distribution network, while only having to out-pay the salaries possible from ambitious but limited upstarts.
not really more than what another entity would pay per se… but more than what a fighter can produce without Zuffa,
Right now GSP can sell out a venue in Canada and just fight there. Zuffa is making sure he’s making more than that so it would make no sense for him to do that.
As the sport grows fighters will be able to sell more tickets and ppv’s on their own and Zuffa will always have pay be slightly ahead of that.
Right now if Rampage went out on his own (he’s a huge star now with a record ppv under his belt) at best he’d make about half… this would be after putting up all the costs, managing, organizing, etc…
Now would there be someone dumb enough to come in and give him alot more than what he’s worth… sure bodog did it… but that doesnt mean he’ll produce the numbers they’ll need to sustain that.
And that’s the magic number. Zuffa will always be inline with this magic number…. Where it would make no sense for a fighter to leave or where a competitor could compete.
by mmalogic on Jun 27, 2010 5:48 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
If a Fedor vs Overeem fight did any numbers that would let fighters (like Brock) know the floodgates are open. So he for a huge payday sitting out for 6 months to a year to contest the championshop clause might not be that big of deal.
One thing here that I think you are really overlooking is that it might not be the evil of Zuffa or the championship clause keeping guys from taking that route but the Tim Sylvia effect. Tim had a UFC contract and was in pretty good shape going into his next set of negotiations after nearly knocking of Big Nog in a exciting fight but he went for the big money and asked for his UFC release. So instead of being a contender at the top of the sport and a steady UFC paycheck now Tim Sylvia is talking about his new career as a policeman because he left the UFC for a huge payday with Fedor. The lure of the big payday is very real but so is the lure of the consistant payday and no one outside of Zuffa has been able to offer true consistancy in this sport for guys at this level. There are no guarantees in this sport, heck Tim Sylvia could be in the same boat even if he stayed but you have to know that top guys fighting for Zuffa are very aware of how quickly he fell outside of the UFC. Yea some guys bitch about pay but then honestly doesn’t darn near everyone in the world gripe about what they make from time to time? Not making what you think you should be making is pretty common but so is being afraid of not making as much as you are making if you take the wrong career path.
by who me on Jun 27, 2010 9:00 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Tim Sylvia made $100,000 in a loss to Big Nog. He made $800,000 fighting Fedor. Do you think the UFC would have kept him around at even $100,000 after three straight losses? He was $600,000 up at that point. Long or short term he did better fighting Fedor. Now, as for his saving plan, that’s a different matter…
by John Nash on Jun 27, 2010 3:08 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Tim Sylvia was making $100k/$100k ($200,000 for a win), yes I think he would of at least got a equivalent contract from the UFC if not more and where did you get that he had three straight losses in the UFC? He had just beat Brandon Vera before the Nog fight and the loss to Randy before that had been his first loss in 2 years. Heck after how well he did against Nog his value was as high as it had been for years.
Lets say Tim fights 3 times a year in the UFC and only makes the same as what his old 2005 contract was ($200k for a win). In the UFC that would of been two more fights in 2008, three in 2009 and three this year. That’s 1.6 million if he won out, lets say he won half, that’s $800k right there. So yes in the short term he took the money but in the long term does he even have a serious MMA career now? He’s only 34 and he’s still healthy but does anyone really think he will get back into the big money fights?
Like the guy or not we know if he was still in the UFC he would still be in the mix for the world title. Beyond the quick money you know as competitive as these guys are that also registers for them, they don’t just want to be fighting for the money they want to be fighting to prove they are the best in the world and outside the UFC that just doesn’t happen very often.
He lost to Fedor and he lost to Mercer after losing to Big Nog. If he had done that in the UFC he would have either had to take a huge paycut or would have been cut. I don’t think the UFC has the habit of paying fighters on 3-fight losing streaks big bucks. And this plan for making more is dependent on two uncontrollable outcomes: 1) keep winning 2) don’t get cut by the UFC or injured in the extra 5 or 6 fights you’d have to take. 2 losses at $850,000>2 losses at $200,000 and the chance for the possibility for more money..
by John Nash on Jun 27, 2010 3:36 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
If he had stayed in the UFC then he would of never lost to either of those two guys because he would of never fought them so that’s completely irrelevant. Well except for the fact that you have to wonder if the Fedor lost broke the guy mentally at the time. Oh and how is keeping winning an uncontrollable outcome? It’s not like these guys are going in there and randomly flipping quarters for the wins.
We also don’t know what kind of contract he would of signed, he was still fighting on a 2005/2006 contract and making $200k, odds are he would of got a better deal(and he damn sure would of made a crap load more sponsorship money in the last two years).
Who me, are you saying it would be smart for a fighter to plan on having to fight 4, 5, or 6 times over 2 or 3 years to make more than he would on one payday? That a long term plan in a sport where contracts aren’t guaranteed and injuries are common is better than money now? If that’s the case I think we’ll have to agree to disagree, because I wouldn’t recommend that plan to any fighter over 30.
by John Nash on Jun 27, 2010 3:53 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
No I am saying that what happened to Tim Sylvia’s career has to be something that other stars in the UFC look at and cringe. He took the quick money but the cost was that he just isn’t relevant to the sport anymore nor does he have a position in the UFC. If Tim Sylvia had beat Fedor then this would of worked out great but he didn’t and it backfired on him. If at the age of 34 someone said they would offer you two and a half years worth of wages but your career would never be the same and your future earning potential for the rest of your life would be shot to hell would you take it? For fighters who are concerned about things besides just making money this would be a big deal to them, Tim Sylvia’s took the quick money and now his career is shot. Sure something could of happened in the UFC and his career of been shot anyway but he also could of fought 6 to 8 more times and if he was winning be in a position to sign yet another better contract for the next two or three years too, we don’t know what would of happened if he had stayed.
You might not recommend it to any fighter over thirty but then you seem to be hung up on the money issue where they may be focused more on UFC title fights and what their legacy as a fighter will be and how many fights they could lose out on having. If they are just in the sport for the money then yea take the quick money but if they are in MMA because they want to be in MMA and want to be consistantly fighting to prove they are the best in the world then leaving the UFC isn’t really a choice. It all depends on the individual’s mindset and you would have to imagine that most of these top guys wouldn’t of got this far in the sport if they were only doing it for the money.
I'm fine for them being in the sport to prove something
But the sport is big money so I could see why they would want a big cut of the pie that is being made from them. But apparently when you do something you love (which I do) that should be enough and someone else should make all the money.
Fortunately I am in a profession that when my agent and manager don’t think what I am being offered is at market price there are options.
No to #1
Casuals don’t know who Fedor is. CBS has definitely helped bring in viewers and have made Fedor more popular but it’s not enough. I work with a russian guy who watches the UFC. He didn’t even know who Fedor was yet he watches almost every UFC fight card. Basically casual fans that haven’t watched CBS don’t surf MMA websites and will never discover Fedor. Even so do you think someone that tuned into CBS to watch Fedor fight Rogers in turn got a subscription to Showtime? Hell no.
On top of that I took lunch with a guy on my shift and we watched the Aoki/Melendez card. He watches UFC every now and then. He kept complaining about how the fights were no good and a bunch of other bullshit. If there had been a UFC logo in the bottom right corner he wouldn’t have said anything.
Casuals will never know Fedor unless he is in the UFC. I think Carwin/Brock would sell more than Fedor/Brock. Casuals know Carwin.
Thanks for quoting me (again).
I do wonder what CBS is now thinking.
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are in a confederacy against him. - Jonathan Swift
Fightlinker.com
by Derek Suboticki on Jun 27, 2010 4:18 AM EDT reply actions
And Pride was the USSR. There are no state actors in MMA now other than Zuffa, and Bin Laden doesn’t sell PPV’s.
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are in a confederacy against him. - Jonathan Swift
Fightlinker.com
by Derek Suboticki on Jun 27, 2010 4:19 AM EDT up reply actions
And Station Casinos, as far as I know, are still open.
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are in a confederacy against him. - Jonathan Swift
Fightlinker.com
by Derek Suboticki on Jun 27, 2010 4:25 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Had Emelianenko finished his contract unscathed, he would have been able to walk in and face whomever held the UFC heavyweight championship, and it would have been the biggest fight in the history of the sport.
I’m a huge Metlzer fan but he’s dead wrong on this Fedor isn’t a draw that’s been made clear by his ppv buyrates. The idea that Fedor vs. Brock would outdraw many of their other fights like Brock vs. Carwin/Cain/JDS is laughable and not based in facts.
"they mad at me, I keep going hard reppin/
cause what's your Rampage to Rashad Evans/"
-Joe Budden (Something To Ride To)
http://www.zshare.net/audio/76866807deabe3c1/
by Nightwhistler on Jun 27, 2010 4:19 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Fedor's never been on a well marketed PPV in the states
his numbers on CBS were damn impressive
Follow me on Twitter @KidNate
not really since they came in the overrun so we couldn’t get a clear picture of what the real ratings were, he simply doesn’t have the name recognition with the mainstream fans to draw as big as other fights Brock would have.
"they mad at me, I keep going hard reppin/
cause what's your Rampage to Rashad Evans/"
-Joe Budden (Something To Ride To)
http://www.zshare.net/audio/76866807deabe3c1/
by Nightwhistler on Jun 27, 2010 4:24 AM EDT up reply actions
Everyone in the cable industry thinks this would be the record. It would be a fucking monster in the UFC, but either way, it’s all hypothetical now.
by Michael Rome on Jun 27, 2010 4:25 AM EDT up reply actions
People at the highest levels at Zuffa
Disagree.
"The best book on the real history of MMA that I've seen," Dave Meltzer
by Jonathan Snowden on Jun 27, 2010 10:57 AM EDT up reply actions
That fight would be a major draw...
with the UFC promoting it. Otherwise, not so much.
Dude. It's Anderson Silva.
If he gives a damn he will end Sonnen’s night by either sub or KO.
-SSreporters
By Monday morning Chael Sonnen will be pissing out of his neck.
-Also SSreporters
by Razreshat on Jun 27, 2010 4:25 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
(Blank)‘s a draw if Zuffa’s promoting him.
I just don’t… I don’t see the counterargument here. I don’t want to go back to the Wild West. I like plumbing.
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are in a confederacy against him. - Jonathan Swift
Fightlinker.com
by Derek Suboticki on Jun 27, 2010 4:41 AM EDT up reply actions
Well obviously certain fighters are bigger draws then others. Rampage-Rashad does a million while Tito-Griffin does 300,000. GSP does 770,000 while Big Nog-Cain does 215,000.Brock does a million a pop now. If it was only the UFC banner than the range wouldn’t be so great. The fighters are also the stars. At least I hope they are.
And I also think people are sleeping on not only how big Brock is but the impact he’s had across the board on the UFC ppv sales.
Big Nog-Cain was in Australia. Brock did 1.6 million his last time out and we’ll see about next time. If you want to know how any of these people – Brock included – would do without the UFC behind them, move the decimal over one place to the left.
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are in a confederacy against him. - Jonathan Swift
Fightlinker.com
by Derek Suboticki on Jun 27, 2010 4:53 AM EDT up reply actions
There can really be no question as to the marketing muscle the UFC has.
When they want to push a fight they go all out and it really shows with how many buys they get with it. The Nog-Cain fight was barely promoted at all and did poorly. Rashad and Rampage got a shit load of promotion and did over a million on a fairly nameless card.
That's because they spend the most money in marketing and advertisement..
A very overlooked portion of overhead that is never added to any equation when trying to calculate revenue vs. profit for either fighter or promotion..
The UFC’s advertising budget has to be somewhere in the ball park over a million an event on the low side. Not to mention all the other advertisement costs for the TUF/Unleashed/PrimeTime/Countdown shows, etc..
They have video game expansion (majority of cost out of their own pockets)/
International expansion (majority of events net them in the red) but it’s the cost of expansion process none the less..
Etc..
8-29-09
Keith Jardine is now known as "The Dean of Antihistamine" because he is always sleeping early in fights..
by MMAuthority on Jun 27, 2010 9:17 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I haven’t been able to post since the fight so I guess I’ll do it here. I’ll start by saying I’ve never been a big fan of Fedor and I never though Id care if he lost. Everyone has to lose at some point but this was just such a blindside. Diving into a BJJ black belts gaurd, especially while not sweaty is the last way I saw his first loss coming. I don’t even know what I’m trying to say here actually. I just know that when Werdum hooked that foot behind his knee, my heart sank to a level that only girlfriends have made me feel before. I may not have been a big Fedor fan before but the way he handled himself tonight in defeat turned me into one now. Cheers to the greatest ever, Fedor.
Be a man, not a child-Phil Anselmo
by ANance on Jun 27, 2010 4:20 AM EDT via mobile reply actions
Robots show no emotion.
Dude. It's Anderson Silva.
If he gives a damn he will end Sonnen’s night by either sub or KO.
-SSreporters
By Monday morning Chael Sonnen will be pissing out of his neck.
-Also SSreporters
meh. to try to spin this as if it’s a loss for the UFC is a stretch. fedor does draw viewers, but any match with brock in it is huge, so while the fight itself would be epic I don’t think it would draw a larger amount of viewers by far. Aside from that, the UFC would never have struck a deal with M1 and fedor anyways. Not to get all dramatic, but its posts like this that kinda give me an anti ufc vibe, turning something that is clearly and simply a loss for strikeforce, into something that would be a loss for the UFC as well. Just doesnt add up.
It’s a typical sentiment to a kid nate article
"I want to tell me what you see, let's go ahead and see by the fight what you saw, in the ring"
by crinow on Jun 27, 2010 8:34 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions 1 recs
Plenty of good points made here.
My brother and I endlessly debate MMA and he more than anyone I’ve ever seen post here on Bloody Elbow wanted Fedor to lose. But after it happened even he said that it’s kind of sad. All the possibilities that are gone now because of this. And this has a really big impact on things.
Before tonight Fedor was the Michael Jordan of MMA. He was the widely considered, whether you agree with it or not, the best in the division that gets the most attention, Heavyweight. That is gone now. And it is not gone in a spectacular pay per view blowout fight with Brock Lesnar or Junior Dos Santos or Cain Velasquez. Had it been done that way it would have been a veritable passing of the torch. Instead it was wasted on a Showtime event that a lot of people didn’t even know was happening. We did sure but like many have said this isn’t getting a whole lot of mainstream coverage. If it was in the UFC it would have been gigantic.
The other issue this leaves us with is that Fedor has a lot less value then he did before. They mystique is gone now. He won’t draw nearly as big with the UFC if he ever does decide to go there. Who even knows how he feels now after his first legitimate loss? We don’t know where his head is at. There are so many unknowns now.
Uncertainty abounds as well regarding a true king of the Heavyweight division. Like it or not it was comforting to have someone like Fedor to point to and say, “He is king.” Right now the idea is that the winner of Lesnar and Carwin will be the best Heavyweight but is that really what we want? If it’s Lesnar now and he loses just a week after the top guy ever lost then what does that mean for the division? Shane Carwin the best Heavyweight in the world? Really?
Alistair Overeem would have been much better to be the man to beat Fedor. He could then make his way to the UFC and they could market him in the way they know how and make him a huge star. They cannot do that with Werdum. UFC fans remember him for one thing and it’s not a good memory.
Tonight was an amazing night of fights and it was really great to get to see such a huge upset and witness history. But the fact is, in the long run, Fedor isn’t the only one to lose tonight. We all did.
by Geno Mrosko on Jun 27, 2010 4:29 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
"Before tonight Fedor was the Michael Jordan of MMA."
not agreeing with or against your post because honestly i got to this and wanted to reply
even jordan had an off night every so often
even jordan lost
fedor is still the michael jordan of mma
the fact that ONE loss brings forth such debates to me only cements the truth which is that fedor is the greatest mixed martial artist ever and his dominance in not debatable
by Johnathan Willis on Jun 27, 2010 4:37 AM EDT up reply actions
*is* debatable not *in* debatable
i suck
typing>me
by Johnathan Willis on Jun 27, 2010 4:39 AM EDT up reply actions
I agree with you he is still the Jordan of MMA.
But it is different on a lot of levels. Jordan built his career on being so much better than everyone else and breaking records and winning titles. But he played in a sport in which losing 20 games in a year is still considered a very good year.
Fedor built himself to Jordan like proportions by never losing. He was never the best technically, someone always had better submissions and better striking and better this or better that but the one thing that he had that no one else did was the fact that he never lost. He always won, no matter the situation.
We can’t say that now. How do you market him now? His whole career that’s been his claim to fame. Now what is it?
Yeah, we know he is still one of, if not the best of all time. But does that really matter as much now?
you market him on the things he’s done
sure he’s lost some of his mystique but he’s still accomplished what he’s accomplished
you market him the same way they marketed cro cop or nog
dana tells the casual fan he is a legend
dana has recognizable ufc fighters say he is a legend
and the casual fan will take the bait hook line and sinker
however with all three of them it’s true
they are legends but none more so than fedor
i must say though for the record i agree with what you said in this post about the difference between jordan and fedor in regards to dominance
by Johnathan Willis on Jun 27, 2010 4:59 AM EDT up reply actions
Yeah, that would be probably the only way to market him.
The issue regarding tonight was how much we lost because of him losing. And your examples of Nog and Cro Cop really help illustrate it. Fedor would have sold like nuts had he come in and still been undefeated. Cro Cop and Nog haven’t done so well on Pay-Per-View. Being a legend works but not as a selling point to casual fans. If all you know of a guy is that he is a legend then you can almost dismiss it because the term gets thrown around so much but if a guy comes in and you market him as the best ever and that he has never lost? That guy will sell to anybody. That’s what we lost tonight. He can still sell but nothing close to what he could have.
i can agree with that
whether or not fedor would make big sales in the ufc would depend heavily on his first fight or two inside the ufc.
he’s got one of those mysterious ways about him that people love to love him
people also love to hate him
both of these things equal out to ppv sells
but if he comes in like cro cop and loses dramatically his stock is then truly diminished likely beyond repair because he can’t be marketed to those casual fans the way he could have been if he had dominated in his first ufc fight.
i must say though
the likelihood of him signing with the ufc seems slim even though m1 has lost some of their bargaining chips.
by Johnathan Willis on Jun 27, 2010 5:11 AM EDT up reply actions
Totally agree on the love him or hate him idea.
He is like the Donovan McNabb of the MMA world, as long as we are using other sports references. A lot of people really love him and a lot of people really hate him and most feel very strongly about it. Not a lot of in the middle.
We’ve established that a lot of the selling points are greatly diminished but going forward, you are right. It all depends on what happens now. This next fight of his is crucial.
If he comes out and looks bad but manages to win I think it would be the same as a loss, from a marketing perspective.
I think he needs to blow away his next opponent to regain some of his drawing power. If he then went to the UFC they could do the rest with their unbelievable marketing skills. If he loses even once in the UFC I’m not sure there would be any coming back from it.
i can absolutely agree with that
and that’s how rational people have a discussion from different view points without slanders insults
appreciate the courtesy and the discussion
by Johnathan Willis on Jun 27, 2010 5:25 AM EDT up reply actions
Thank you, sir.
You as well. Been good talking to you and I’m sure we’ll talk again. I post on BE more and more these days.
someone told me they read that zuffa is 500 million dollars in debt still to this very day.
it does scare me to have the entirety of mma under the umbrella of one company
especially considering the business tactics they use
the station casino pride xcience non sense
and their 500 million dollar debt scares me
what if the ufc does eventually fold?
what will mma fans do then
people view ufc as some god like organization that could never fall
but history would tell us otherwise…..history shows us that no corporation privately or publicly owned is too powerful to avoid the waxing and waning of the market and the economy. history shows us that no corporation privately or publicly owned is so great that it cannot be taken down by bad business decisions from those on high within the organization.
one day the ufc will fall
one day the mafia business tactics they’ve used thus far will no longer work
what will happen to mixed martial arts then?
i think it’s important to have more than one major organization for this fact alone
by Johnathan Willis on Jun 27, 2010 4:29 AM EDT reply actions
You shouldn’t believe everything people tell you, the debt issue has been explained here many times. Their companies debt is not like you or mine’s, Zuffa is a 2 billion dollar company that is making more hand over fist there is nothing to worry about unless Dana and Frank drop dead then all bets are off.
"they mad at me, I keep going hard reppin/
cause what's your Rampage to Rashad Evans/"
-Joe Budden (Something To Ride To)
http://www.zshare.net/audio/76866807deabe3c1/
by Nightwhistler on Jun 27, 2010 4:35 AM EDT up reply actions
no corporation is immune
if the past two years haven’t taught you that multi billion dollar organization can fold then you haven’t watched the news
the banks that loan this kind of money to the ufc can fold
so can the ufc
by Johnathan Willis on Jun 27, 2010 4:43 AM EDT up reply actions
Anything can happen but the reality is will it and you know who’s been growing over the past 2 years while the economy and the banks have gone to crap? i’ll give you a hint…Zuffa.
"they mad at me, I keep going hard reppin/
cause what's your Rampage to Rashad Evans/"
-Joe Budden (Something To Ride To)
http://www.zshare.net/audio/76866807deabe3c1/
by Nightwhistler on Jun 27, 2010 5:07 AM EDT up reply actions
i won't argue
there’s truly no point in arguing about hypotheticals
and that’s exactly what i presented a hypothetical
but to deny it could happen is silly
and if it did happen then what would happen to a mixed martial arts that is consolidated under one umbrella?
by Johnathan Willis on Jun 27, 2010 5:16 AM EDT up reply actions
Stop
All big corporations carry some form of debt. It’s not the end of the world.
Zuffa carries $450 million in debt, including a $25 million credit facility due in 2012 and a $425 million loan due in 2015, according to a November report issued by Moody’s Investors Service. Moody’s, however, said Zuffa’s income, which comes largely from events and pay-per-view receipts, should be sufficent to make its debt payments.
Moody’s said Zuffa’s financial outlook is stable with good growth prospects.
"(Mixed-martial arts) is among the fastest growing sports today and is well positioned for advertisers that seek to reach males in the 18 to 34 age demographic," Moody’s analyst Neil Begley said in a Nov. 10 investors’ note. "As a result, revenue growth is expected to remain strong for the intermediate term."
That is from Jan 2010.
correct me if i'm wrong
but didn’t zuffa only secure that loan because they falsified information in regards to the financial state of xcience which they used as collateral? and then after they secured the load they filed bankruptcy on xcience?
and wasn’t that 500 million dollar load used to buy pride how many years ago
and haven’t they also been using money from ufc to keep station casino’s afloat?
once again i could be wrong but i’m pretty sure these are all at least close to correct
by Johnathan Willis on Jun 27, 2010 5:19 AM EDT up reply actions
loan not load
once again i suck
typing>me
by Johnathan Willis on Jun 27, 2010 5:20 AM EDT up reply actions
If they had got the loan due to falsified information then they wouldn’t still be rated so highly in their financial outlook by investor services and they wouldn’t have the revolving loan options they have today. Heck if they had actually got the loan due to “falsified information” then chances are they would be being investigated by the government at this point, falsifying information is a crime and particularly the way things stand now the government is taking things like that very seriously. Besides Xcience has been known to be worthless for several years now, I doubt a bank would offer up half a billion dollars for that. As far as using that or any other money to buy Pride, even the high rumored cost of Pride was only $60 million in 2007. Not sure where the money to buy Pride came from matters at this point?
As far as using UFC money to keep Station Casios afloat, no they are two separate companies and they were set up that way for that very reason. You can’t just take money from one company and give it to a unrelated company for no reason like that, these may be private companies but they are still completely separate entities. Zuffa isn’t the Fertitta’s private bank account, even though they own the company those funds still belong to the company not the individual shareholders. Could the Fertitta’s be using their own private wealth that they earned from Zuffa to prop up Station Casinos(and remember the Fertitta family only owns 25% of Station) but they can’t just take Zuffa money to do that.
That's the point
Your mind=blown
Inhale deep, like the words of my breath—I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death
by Anthony Pace on Jun 27, 2010 4:53 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Being in debt does not equal being broke
and Zuffa is far from being broke. Even if they were i’m pretty sure the portion of the UFC that they sold to the Shiek is enough to cover that debt and if it wasn’t I bet the Shiek will front the money cause 500 mill is like nothing to him lol.
Moody's isn't exactly the best source of info these days.
http://updatednews.ca/?p=25356
Moody’s Corp. (NYSE: MCO) may have the name with the largest negative brand equity in the US. Scandals about the company’s rating of mortgage-backed securities and allegations that the firm compromised it ratings process to get business have ruined the company’s image. Moody’s is more than 100 years old, but the reputation it built over those years is irretrievably lost. There is a chance Moody’s could be ruined by civil actions, four of which are pending, and by charges brought by the US government. Overseas authorities may bring a number of actions against the company as well. Moody’s activities are almost certainly to be more regulated, which will squeeze margins and hurt sales.
"If you go up there clueless, you're going to come back [to the dugout] clueless. It's that simple." - Nick Markakis
Having debt is a normal part of doing business.
For example, McDonald’s is carrying over $10 billion worth of long term debt.
Fuck dollar sodas
just get a water cup. I want my dollar mcnuggets back
I disagree...
to an extent that the UFC was a loser tonight and lost out on the chance to promote “the big one”. If anything, I think Overeem is more promotable than Fedor and UFC fans would clamor over a 250 odd pound monster, rather than a 220 something ice cream junkie. Yes that is stating it to the extreme, but I think AO would be far more appealing to teh average UFC guy, than Fedor.
Actually.. the "big one".. is being promoted and is due to take place 6 days from today..
Zuffa didn’t really lose anything, IMO..
I can see how some might say that, but let me explain.
Zuffa has flourished without ever having Fedor under the unbrella. The same can’t be said for Fedor’s ventures with M-1 or any other promotion. The key thing that people have been overlooking isn’t the “championship clause,” the money payouts, or the like.. The real secret ingredient in Zuffa’s ability to flourish is they “create their own stars”.. They have the very first “breeder system” in TUF. For as much as people overlook TUF as a viable outlet, it really is such a vehicle..
Zuffa take their current top guys and they spend tens of millions of dollars telling people “exactly why” these people are the best until the media types it up as such. Zuffa creates it’s own stars and the brand is bigger than the individual because of it.. Like it was posted earlier.. Zuffa’s business model is really a spectale of hybrid economics. It has even the intellectual of business scholar and university boards in complete awe.. They actually talk about Zuffa’s business model in places like Harvard Business, Princeton, etc..
Zuffa has somehow managed to take the best parts of various business models from other sporting businesses and fuse them into what you see today. They are doing what the NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL are doing without free agency looming and driving up the cost. They’re the first primary ownership to reach the level of expansion without a “team of owners” to foot the bill..
They took boxing’s best ability to make money and they re-grew it into an entirely new model on it’s own.
Zuffa has never lost anything, only the fans perception was at a loss.. Zuffa has been growing while the rest of the American economic system has faltered or bee n in decline. Why you ask ? Because they have an a solid knack for building it’s own stars and getting their target demographic to follow the process from start to finish..
Zuffa didn’t lose anything.. They actually saved themselves a few bucks after last nights outcome. Brock is the sports biggest draw, bar none.. End of debate.. For all the talk of Fedor and international recognition, it means little by way cross over or materialization to where it matters most. Brock is the “buying publics” numero uno.. The UFC has it’s biggest star.. It’s a simple method of building up someone to go with Brock is their only task.. They’ve managed thus far, so I don’t see how that changes after last nights outcome…
8-29-09
Keith Jardine is now known as "The Dean of Antihistamine" because he is always sleeping early in fights..
by MMAuthority on Jun 27, 2010 9:36 AM EDT up reply actions 2 recs
Dana has done a good job
in this case of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Would it have been perfect to get Fedor to fight Brock under the UFC brand? Sure. But not at what it would have cost the company with co-promotion and the precedent that would set.
"If you go up there clueless, you're going to come back [to the dugout] clueless. It's that simple." - Nick Markakis
Some nice points in there, and TUF certainly has its role.
You underestimate the importance of the championship clause though for reasons you bring up later on in the same post. Without the clause in place, their champs can walk at the peak of their marketability and promotional value, and take the next big fight to another promotion. Not only that, but it’d drive up the costs of the biggest stars as upstarts offer to give them bigger and bigger cuts as they try to get into the business.
Think Randy vs. Fedor, and how much Zuffa fought to make sure that never happened. The clause isn’t something they want to rely on, it’s in their best interests that their champs remain happy and loyal, but it’s serves as a deterrent and a nice insurance just in case.
No.,.
I didn’t mean to undermine the championship clause.. I was merely taking the focus and putting it more into the main reason Zuffa has sustainability, over everything else..
I completely agree with your view on the championship clause and I couldn’t have said it better myself.
But that’s not the sticking point for sustainability. They don’t want to be in dispute every time a new champion arises. It’s in more than just Zuffa’s best interest. It’s in everybody’s best interest involved that things remain smooth. Randy was sort of the anomaly case, IMO.. It had never been pushed and Randy figured what the hell. Let’s see what I can and can’t get away with. It was never about the Fedor fight, although that was a good angle to apply. He was merely posturing for his own financial benefit because he wanted equal to Chuck in financial terms because he considers himself on equal grounds as helping Zuffa grow and was at the time the current HW champ.
That last part is more my own opinion on the situation. Disregard it as fact.
8-29-09
Keith Jardine is now known as "The Dean of Antihistamine" because he is always sleeping early in fights..
Zuffa never actually used the championship clause against Randy to keep him from fighting Fedor, Randy tried to quit the UFC with a fight still on his contract and while also signed to a exclusive on air talent contract because Randy wanted to be a fight commentator too. He had two current UFC contracts that they used to box him in, the championship clause wasn’t a factor in that situation at all because Randy still had a fight left in his contract(I think it actually was the exclusive on air talent contract that Zuffa used to block Randy from doing anything else).
And
It’s Finkle-Stein!!!
sorry, just needed to get that out of my system!
by BJJDenver on Jun 27, 2010 4:41 AM EDT reply actions 4 recs
I think in all this debating we've lost sight of something
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are in a confederacy against him. - Jonathan Swift
Fightlinker.com
by Derek Suboticki on Jun 27, 2010 4:45 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
So...That really happened
It feels weird seeing the man that had almost no emotions during fights like a robot tap and look human. I feel like as a fan I lost something too.
Even though the aura of invincibility is gone, I still see him as that chubby dude who amazed everyone with his fighting ability.
Zuffa didnt lose because Fedor was never going to fight in the UFC. They had no intentions of it. Fedor losing tonight was about the best thing that could have happened for the UFC.
for Strikeforce this was like tough love… short term it destoys any ambition or dream they had of competing with the UFC but in the long run it will be good for them. I dont have to call them shitfarce anymore. Zuffa doesnt have to sign overeem, werdum, or shields. Zuffa will still try but the war is over.
Strikeforce will still be on showtime and after that they’ll probably find their permanent home (likely HD net)
The war is over brothers. Zuffa has faced every business model out their and this final “boxing” version of it was it’s last. It overcame it, it has become stronger as a result of it and the future is magnificent. There will be an impact fc, strikeforce, sengoku, art of war, etc… in every market but there will be only one major leagues. The game is over.
I thought it was entertaining but strikeforce doesnt have that “event” feel. Zuffa has created this “event” feel… you get more fights, etc… It’s like watching a thirty minute sitcom versus a 2 hour movie. Strikeforce will continue to be entertaining and strikeforce will be around. Bless their heart for their efforts.
by mmalogic on Jun 27, 2010 5:03 AM EDT up reply actions 5 recs
Defitely agree on the “event feel” part, the SF show I went to (Shields-Lawler last year in StL) didn’t have nearly the same vibe as the UFC shows I’ve been to.
by ufc4 on Jun 27, 2010 9:41 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Jesus Fucking Christ, that is not the name of the song
WHY DOES NO ONE KNOW THIS????1
Inhale deep, like the words of my breath—I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death
by Anthony Pace on Jun 27, 2010 4:54 PM EDT up reply actions
Name shmame, I called it something and people recognize it.
Quit yer bitchin’ and just watch!
Guillotine.
More fights create an "event" feel
Tell that to the people dressed like empty chairs until about an hour before the main event.
I think it is cute that people think you actually watch the fights.
"The best book on the real history of MMA that I've seen," Dave Meltzer
by Jonathan Snowden on Jun 27, 2010 11:00 AM EDT up reply actions
I’d really like to see regional promotions having fights for spots on upcoming UFC cards instead of trinket belts. Write a memo to blah blah blah and we’ll have lunch over drinks on Thursday when I get back from Taiwan.
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are in a confederacy against him. - Jonathan Swift
Fightlinker.com
by Derek Suboticki on Jun 27, 2010 4:58 AM EDT up reply actions
I'm confused - I remember somebody promising me that Fedor would fight in the UFC. :-)
Don't believe a word I say, I don't train BJJ.
I blog at TangleBones - you should follow me on Twitter here.
If you like it, you should put a rec on it.
No.....
Try again!
Don't believe a word I say, I don't train BJJ.
I blog at TangleBones - you should follow me on Twitter here.
If you like it, you should put a rec on it.
Dana White may be gloating, but his UFC lost big tonight too. Dana lost the chance to promote the really big one, the Fedor vs UFC champ Brock Lesnar fight that has been teasing fans as a possibility since UFC 100.
I don’t think this was a possibility. Okay, maybe possible, but really really small. Maybe I am being too cynical, but I stopped believing Fedor would be in the UFC ever (at least while he was undefeated). So considering this was not something that was probably ever going to happen so long as Fedor was undefeated, Dana wasn’t missing out on anything he couldn’t get in the first place.
by pud333 on Jun 27, 2010 4:57 AM EDT reply actions 6 recs
Have to say it
I’ve never played the secondary leagues on mmaplayground before, but I put 1000 on Werdum. I feel good. (it’s the little things)
Not to mention I was rooting heavily for Fabricio.
one thing i would like to know
is the amount of posts in these comments sections after this fight compared to posts in these comments after high profile ufc fights
because to me these message boards seem to be on fire way more so than they normally are after a ufc fight
by Johnathan Willis on Jun 27, 2010 5:03 AM EDT reply actions
yeah i know
but it truly has been crazy on every message board i’ve been to tonight
just an absolute madhouse
by Johnathan Willis on Jun 27, 2010 5:25 AM EDT up reply actions
I think life would have gone on for the UFC.
I was pretty resigned to the fact that no deal could be made. They would have missed out on sharing half the revenue for a big PPV and having their show called M-1 UFC challenge in parts of the world that care M-1 cards.
this post holds alot of truth
but the very last part stands out to me
fedor would and still could provide the ufc with legitimacy in parts of the world they are trying to break into. markets like japan china russia etc.
in all of these countries fedor is put on high like a chubby child faced god
worldwide a ufc fight with fedor would still destroy any other ufc events worldwide viewership
by Johnathan Willis on Jun 27, 2010 5:41 AM EDT up reply actions
Maybe but maybe not, Fedor isn’t even that well known in his home country (M-1 said that themselves) and I think they could do better with Yoshihiro Akiyama or Norifumi Yamamoto in Japan than they could with Fedor. Does anyone even know who Fedor is in China? His international appeal is greater than his US appeal but even overseas he’s not all that because in most places the sport in general is non-existant for all practical purposes.
in russia he’s a national hero
sambo is their national sport
and he’s a sambo god
by Johnathan Willis on Jun 27, 2010 1:15 PM EDT up reply actions
Emelianenko will fight Saturday night at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., in Affliction’s Day of Reckoning, a pay-per-view event sponsored by the Affliction clothing company and Donald Trump. Yet, in Emelianenko’s native Russia, a country that honors athletic heroes almost as highly as its greatest wartime generals, few will probably be watching.
"Emelianenko is a huge star, on par with Sharapova and Ovechkin," said Pavel Lysenkov, a journalist with Sovietsky Sport, Russia’s premier sports newspaper, referring to the tennis star Maria Sharapova and the N.H.L. star Alexander Ovechkin. (Comparisons with Mike Tyson of the 1980s also abound.)
"But I’m very surprised that in Russia very few people know him."
Lysenkov and others said that this was probably because television coverage of mixed martial arts is practically nonexistent in Russia and that the sport, which came to St. Petersburg in the mid-1990s, remains largely confined to Russia’s northern capital.
That the sport is not showcased in the Olympics also could detract from its legitimacy in the eyes of many Russians.
And much of Emelianenko’s popularity problems at home may have to do with the fighter himself: he is nonchalant when it comes to self-promotion, and he lives a cloistered life out of the ring in Stary Oskol, his hometown, which is nearly 300 miles south of Moscow.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/sports/othersports/21fight.html?_r=2&ref=sports
Forgot this one, from the same article
"He’s just a simple, charming guy, who doesn’t even look like an athlete," said Vadim Finkelshtein, Emelianenko’s manager. "It would just be nice if ordinary people knew more about him. It is somewhat insulting, because he is nevertheless a national hero."
National Hero or not when you get right down to it he’s just not that well known in Russia and very few people there ever watch his fights. He’s better known in South Korea than in his own country.
The UFC didn't really lose
but the fans did. Just to make that the Fedor-Lesnar fight happen the ufc would have to spend a lot of money and time to promote it. Sure the hardcore fans would probably pay double to watch the fight but the ignorant casual fan would probably be thinking, who’s this fat guy that wants to fight Lesnar. The ufc missed an opportunity of practically free promoting by not showing any of Fedor’s fights on the Best of Pride.
As a fan
this has been a great night. Feels like a win to me. It looks like I have hanger stuck in my mouth, I can’t stop smiling.
The UFC Lost?
1) They lost out on a payday…. when? In maybe 1 year at best….. and with M-1 involved in negotiations, probably more likley in a couple of years. By, then Brock, Shane, Cain and Jr will have beaten the crap out of each other on multiple occassions . This is a flawed argument from an anti-UFC lifer. The anti-UFC’ers are the one’s who lost. Now their only hope will be claiming that some Japanese lightweight or Gilbert Melendez is better than any of the UFC Top 5 (no way!).
The world today saw Dana’s smile… he was vindicated on his firm negotiating stance and in EVERY negotiation moving forard, the UFC does better… much better. Let the next Hendo move on, to what? greener pastures? There is now only 1 belt that matters, the Kings and Arums (and Cubans and Cokers) won’t ever get in. Coker will be doing regionals and recycling his 4 UFC rejects per division. This is great for MMA fans who want to see the best ALWAYS fight the best and not the umpteenth Pac/May type fiascos of fighters that are in the same wieght class but will not meet.
2) To the casual fan (and the casual fan DOES matter) Dana is now 100% accurate about Fedor (beaten by a UFC cast-off) and therefore all that he says about lack of value for non-UFC fighters nd the perceivd value of his fighters is solidfied.
3) If you could see whether UFC stock would rise or fall based on Fedor’s result you would likely see th UFC market value rise. (tough to do with a private company)
4) M1 is D…U….N…. Done… That alone is a massive thronin Dana’s side… Those other world markets will now eventually be the UFC’s for sure!
some good points were made but Kid Nate is so staunchly anti-UFC he’s always looking for a spot of mold on the UFC cookie. Too bad, those UFC cookies are gonna be much harderto swallow for guys like Kid now..
by Stevefiji on Jun 27, 2010 6:46 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Much of the commentary in the quoted article is based on the faulty premise...
…that Fedor is any kind of draw, let alone a PPV draw. For a Brock vs. Fedor fight to be big, Dana still would have had to to tremendous lengths to sell Fedor to the fans, and without a warm-up fight, and its potential for Fedor to lose,that would be extremely difficult.
And if Brock were to smash Fedor, what would all that promotion have done for the UFC except reduce the trust the fans have in the UFC matchmaking? If Dana spent 6 months playing up how great this short, chubby, be-sweater-ed guy that looks like your plumber after a bender is, the guy had damn well win or nobody is going to believe him ever again.
In my mind, the big losers are Fedor and M-1 who have been trading on Fedor’s aura of invincibility instead of the strength of competition he’s been facing. Strikeforce has lost less since as a mid-tier promotion they have less to lose and still have marketable – if irrelevant – fighters like Cung Le (meanwhile, they’ve tainted Lawler, Smith, Mousasi and Hendo with losses and King Mo has neither drawing power nor an exciting style and Babalu wants to drop down and waste time pulling an Irvin at middleweight while Shamrock is retired — those guys are really fucked too!).
The UFC on the other hand just saved themselves a bundle on not having to promote Fedor and finance M-1 in his twilight years. That’s pure win to me.
Don't believe a word I say, I don't train BJJ.
I blog at TangleBones - you should follow me on Twitter here.
If you like it, you should put a rec on it.
Wow - my iPad typing skills are really terrible...
Article/articles, to to/ go to… Crap. Sorry.
Don't believe a word I say, I don't train BJJ.
I blog at TangleBones - you should follow me on Twitter here.
If you like it, you should put a rec on it.
I do agree that Fedor would have needed a boost from the UFC to fulfill on the promise behind this megafight
This is hardly empirical, I know, but I had a recent incident cement this belief for me: I flew out to my company’s New York office this week, and discovered that a previously unintroduced coworker there was a dead ringer for none other than The Last Emperor himself.
In addition to my immediate sense of terror/respect/arousal, I found myself puzzled by HOW exactly I was going to explain this amazing resemblance to anyone. It culminated in me wading around a corporate happy hour with a nice big photo of Fedor pulled up on my phone, repeating the same practiced explanation of how _________ looks exactly like this Russian guy Fedor, the best fighter in MMA.
The result was always the same: people asked me if he was in the UFC, they sometimes said they knew who Chuck or “the guy with the mohawk” or one other household UFC personality was, and they thought it was funny how much my coworker looked like some shirtless dude in five ounce gloves.
I wanted nothing more than to pull Joe Rogan out of my pocket to explain that “Fedor Emelianenko is a scary, scary dude” on my behalf.
To sum- in my experience terms people recognize:
UFC
“he fights UFC”
Chuck Liddell
guy with mohawk
Terms people don’t recognize:
Strikeforce
Fedor
Dominant run in Pride
(I have to admit though, I really don’t have any analytical backbone behind my feelings with regard to the CBS Fedor numbers— CBS is such a difficult thing to weigh against PPV, or even Spike TV for that matter. The barrier-to-entry is so low being on a major network, and the novelty factor itself feels like it would almost certainly erode on subsequent trips back to the same well…)
Well here's the thing
The most watched MMA event of all time – by a large margin – was the episode of iCarly where she climbed into a cage. After that it’s Kimbos all the way down. Sigh.
Calling anyone in MMA a star is a little silly, since:
- Chuck is still “That guy from Entourage? I thought he was an actor.”
- Tito is “That annoying guy from Celebrity Apprentice. Didn’t he hit his wife or something?”
- Rampage is “The funny guy from the A-Team that’s not as good as Mr. T, why didn’t they bring back Mr. T?”
- Fedor is who?
Maybe Fedor would be bankable because of the all of the hardcore fans, but Johnny Tapout-shirt doesn’t know who he is. (Ahem.)
Don't believe a word I say, I don't train BJJ.
I blog at TangleBones - you should follow me on Twitter here.
If you like it, you should put a rec on it.
Yep the ICarly episode did 7.9 million viewers on basic cable, Kimbo vs James Thompson did 7.2 million on network tv(Fedor vs Rogers did 5.4 million).
And if you count the re-airings...
Carly is the most well-known MMA fighter in the world.
Don't believe a word I say, I don't train BJJ.
I blog at TangleBones - you should follow me on Twitter here.
If you like it, you should put a rec on it.
“Dana lost the chance to promote the really big one, the Fedor vs UFC champ Brock Lesnar fight that has been teasing fans as a possibility since UFC 100. "
He only lost that chance if there was any chance of that ever happening, and because of M1 and Fedor, I dont think there ever was, so the UFC really only won on this one.
by metaldome on Jun 27, 2010 7:47 AM EDT reply actions 2 recs
This
Strikeforce is reeling. This brutalized them. UFC is going to gain huge from this.
"Daydreams of a 'fair' world which would treat him according to his 'real worth' are the refuge of all those plagued by a lack of self-knowledge." -- Ludwig von Mises.
Yep, I don’t think Dana lost that chance here I think it’s been a pipe dream from the very start. Fedor wasn’t going to go to the UFC because M-1 Global has more to gain from working with other promotions than they ever would get out of Zuffa. He isn’t just a fighter he is a package deal with another promotion who holds his long term contract and that is what keeps him out of the UFC.
I disagree...
Mainly because Fedor was never that much of a draw to begin with. So Dana and the UFC haven’t really lost that much. Not to mention that since the UFC was likely never going to give in to M-1’s demands for co-promotion, Fedor fighting Brock was never a huge possibility. The UFC will survive never having had Fedor in its ranks.
Strikeforce, M-1 and Fedor are the real losers from this. At the end of the day, Strikeforce could always say they had the best HW in MMA, and, arguably, the best pound for pound fighter today. Now they can’t. The mystique of Fedor is slightly diminished after getting defeated by someone who was knocked out and cut by the UFC. And M-1’s biggest bargaining chip was the unbeatable undefeated Fedor. Except now he is.
Dana teasing?
Dana lost the chance to promote the really big one, the Fedor vs UFC champ Brock Lesnar fight that has been teasing fans as a possibility since UFC 100.
If you still believe Dana is actively teasing Fedor vs. Brock or even the idea of Fedor in the UFC you either A) haven’t been paying attention or B) hate Dana so much you warp everything he says/does into something negative. In multiple recent interviews he has said basically said the same thing: he has done his best to get Fedor to the UFC but it just isn’t going to happen.
Furthermore, you are WAY overrating the “drawability” of a Brock-Fedor super fight. The difference between an 800,000 PPV and a 1.9 million PPV is the casual fan that doesn’t normally buy PPVs, not the superfan who buys any decent card the UFC throws together. The people who know who Fedor is, and care about seeing him fight Brock fall much closer to the superfan category, what are they going to do… buy the PPV at 3 houses to show their enthusiasm? In reality Brock-Fedor ratings would only be marginally better than Brock vs. a well groomed HW that has grown in the sport with the aid of the UFC marketing machine (read Cain, JDS, Jon Jones).
So you see the UFC and Dana White take a minor hit, one which they had already accepted and moved on from and you count that as a loss despite the fact that it may be a fatal blow to their 1 and only North American competitor? 1 step backwards and a country mile sprint forward = Win not Loss.
this whole article is a moot point fedor was never going to sign with the ufc
m-1 global will forever call for co-promotion and ufc shouldnt do that and wont
by Richard Doughty on Jun 27, 2010 9:22 AM EDT reply actions
People claiming that Fedor/brock wouldn’t do insane numbers are nuts. The UFC could put a hype job on that fight. to end all hype jobs and definitely beat UFC 100 with a little bit of effort. yes, he hasn’t been a draw before, but no one has had the material (tape) to market him properly in the US, and no one is as good at marketing as the UFC. How many PPV buys did Dynamite USA sell? now compare that to what Brock’s fights for Zuffa did.
That said, this does not make the UFC a big loser. They would have made some money by having some big cards, but they all wouldn’t be that big, and you can question if those big cards would be worth the headaches that would come with them.
It will be very interesting to see how this all plays out now
Carwin vs. Lesnar stands to rack up next to UFC 100
So it’s a moot point..
Woulda, shoulda, coulda, sort of thing..
Carwin is undefeated never leaving the first round in 12 fights.. That’s a huge promotion angle to push.. I suspect the UFC will ramp up it’s advertising this week and really push this fight to the general media..
They may even mention about how this matchup is now for the #1 HW fighter in the world instead of just “champion”..
8-29-09
Keith Jardine is now known as "The Dean of Antihistamine" because he is always sleeping early in fights..
Yeah, I don’t see why people are so willing to accept that Fedor/Lesnar would have been huge. All the UFC has to do is tell ESPN, etc. “Hey, this is going to be the biggest fight in MMA history. Here’s some tape.” Ballgame, over.
Twitter: @Mike_Fagan_13
http://www.sackmikegoldberg.com
Nothing is forever.
Right now the UFC overshadows every other player in the MMA promotional landscape, but no one knows what will happen years down the road. I don’t worry about the potential nightmare scenarios resulting from a single dominant company. If people like MMA enough to pay for it, it will continue under some banner or another.
As far as in-cage stuff goes, there is no such thing as “unbeatable” in competitive athletics. The sooner some MMA fans realize this the better. Though the business models are very similar, MMA is not professional wrestling. The outcome is not set from above. These are all top athletes. Small mistakes and/or amazing moves can lead to a man, thought to be infallible, losing. This is sport.
Luckily, there’s no czar dictating the promotional make-up or matchmaking in MMA. The unpredictability yielded from unscripted, fairly officiated fights is what MMA needs. Fedor put the whole thing in perspective much better than most of the vocal fans have.
those belts...
are fucking hideous.
Bitch.
by timetosaygoodbye on Jun 27, 2010 11:26 AM EDT up reply actions
Ha, ha.
Nice examples of the unbeaten. But unbeatable?
by Cannon Jacques on Jun 27, 2010 2:39 PM EDT up reply actions
Fucking Mercury Morris
biggest doucebag in all of football besides Lane Kiffin
Inhale deep, like the words of my breath—I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death
by Anthony Pace on Jun 27, 2010 4:57 PM EDT up reply actions
Oh man.
I would give anything to make him get into a cage with Lesnar. Just watching him piss his shorts would make up for all the stupid shit that has come out of his mouth for all these years.
Actually, highlights of the fighter were on the Sportscenter last night
the main one they do from LA
Inhale deep, like the words of my breath—I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death
I don’t think my good buddy is old enough to remember when American thinkers proclaimed the end of history with the fall of the USSR. If he was, he’d probably temper his Zuffa triumphalism. If Shane Carwin KTFO’s Brock Lesnar next Saturday, they’re out their charismatic and dominant heavyweight champ. With Cain Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos waiting in the wings for the winner, they may be entering a period of revolving heavyweight champs as well. That’s never good for business.
The more likely scenario is that the UFC will continue to soldier along and consolidate their growth for the next decade or so while working to ensure that Dana White remains the only household name in the sport. This will entail working to prevent any fighter from becoming the Michael Jordan, Bruce Lee or Muhammad Ali of MMA.
But that’s just one flaw in his thinking. The bigger one is this — Zuffa is a single company run by a group of men with some very questionable business and family history. Anyone familiar with the fall of PRIDE or Station Casinos will be a little uncomfortable at the idea of all of MMA being under the sole control of any single company, much less this one.
A lot of things can go wrong and big hegemonic empires are actually quite vulnerable to sudden collapse. Just like the Last Emperor was.
to give you some constructive criticism… you sound like a butt hurt fedor fan. Although Dana takes the spotlight, it works for them. If you GSP gets crushed…. they got a whole crapload of fighters ready to go for the next ppv. The Zuffa system works because they dont rely on one or a few fighters and they’re constantly trying to seek out talent. Everytime a main guy in strikeforce loses ie. Dan Henderson, Fedor…. the whole company is in question…its crazy… thats not the way to run business.
by yin hsiung on Jun 27, 2010 10:48 AM EDT reply actions 2 recs
You are making Fedor vs. Brock out to be a bigger draw than it is.
Fedor is not a name like any UFC champion, or even former champion. Casual fans who don’t watch Showtime don’t know who Fedor is.
Brock vs. Couture II would sadly sell more than Brock vs. Fedor. From the skill standpoint, it would be THE fight of the year and the dream event. From a selling standpoint, it doesn’t come close to GSP-Penn or even Brock vs Mir III.
Sad but true.
THREE MUSKATEERS BAR P4P BEST HALLOWEEN CANDY
by BloodbathAndBeyond on Jun 27, 2010 12:56 PM EDT reply actions
From the skill standpoint, FEDOR V BROCK***
THREE MUSKATEERS BAR P4P BEST HALLOWEEN CANDY
by BloodbathAndBeyond on Jun 27, 2010 12:57 PM EDT up reply actions
just posting this for comparison sake
great capture by esther.
by woooburn on Jun 27, 2010 1:04 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Good thing for Strikeforce??
Am I the only one who thinks this could be a good thing for Strikeforce (if they can sign Fedor to a 3-fight extension)? Instead of having Fedor beat Werdum, then beat Overeem and leave Strikeforce if not MMA, now you have a scenario where he fights a ‘come back’ match like Antonio Silva, then the winner of Overeem/Werdum. The loser of Overeem/Werdum fights some come back match on the same card as Fedor/winner of Overeem-Werdum, then Fedor fights that guy. I figure one last fight after that and then Fedor retires. In the meantime, while Strikeforce milks these Fedor/Werdum/Overeem fights, Strikeforce could build Lavar, Del Rosaio, Lashley and some other younger heavyweights.
I can't see anyway in which Dana White has lost in this.
He would have to give Fedor half the money from any fight with Brock. Pretty sure 100% of the profit from a SHane/Brock fight will be more than 50% of the profit from a Fedor/Brock fight.
Dana White and everyone that hates people pretending to like PRIDE because it gives them “blog cred” wins.
Fedor would be top 5 in the UFC, not top 1.
"Right Leg Hospital, Left Leg Cemetery " ~ Cro Cop.
"One time my wrist watch stopped from fear". ~ Cro Cop.
The dude lost once, he’s not dead. I mean, it only took three or four fights after losing to Serra for GSP to regain “invincible” status in the eyes of the fans. Fedor can definitely become a marketable fighter again.
And yes, Fedor vs. Werdum was the fight that should have been made. The fact that Werdum one should prove beyond doubt that he was the right opponent, not Overeem. Promoters will always tend towards the bigger-drawing fights instead of the more competitive ones, and fans should try to counteract this tendency, not encourage it. Besides which, has Overeem ever been proven to be a significant draw in America?
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
Related FanPosts on Bloody Elbow
Related FanShots on Bloody Elbow
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recommended FanPosts
Recent FanPosts
MMA Rankings
