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Red meat Saturday
By Zach Arnold | March 10, 2007
Fun video of the day – a young Akira Maeda vs. Giant Haystacks
I lead off today’s news update with two interesting links. First, in honor of our beloved PizzaChef, I found this just for you. Second, there is an article at Boxing Scene titled The Great Debate – Boxing vs. MMA. I want you to read and react to it.
I have a clue, but no real solid lead as to why the radio show feeds aren’t updating. The RSS links themselves are not broken.
- The Kane County Chronicle: Golden run for Patrick Villwock
- Sherdog: Art of War claims 6,722 fans in attendance for first MMA event
- Bodog Nation: Chuck Liddell – Baddest Man on the Planet?
- MMA Weekly: Bob Sapp’s Cage Rage opponent backs out of fight
- The Times and Democrat (South Carolina): The cage fighter in me
- NBC Sports: Heirs to the throne
- ADCC 2007: Josh Barnett and many big names are lined up
- Fight News Unlimited: Richard Steele and Steele Cage Promotions set for July debut at Orleans Arena
- China Combat: Training Report – Shuai Jiao
- The North County Times: Manny Rodriguez looks to be crowned King of the Cage
Topics: All Topics, Media, MMA, Pro-Wrestling, UFC, Zach Arnold | 26 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Wheeee! I feel special! And anyone finds it ironic that the guy who made the thread has a picture of Dana as his avatar? Anyways I’m off to bed, g’nite.
why are you constantly talking about red meat news stories and nuclear heat news stories? what does that even mean??????
Well, I disagree with the premise of the article, which is that boxing is more exciting than mma because more punches are thrown. If the number of punches thrown are what draws me to fighting I would watch boxing, not mma.
Sorry but there is nothing supportive of Jerry Millen’s actions in that post. It basically says the same thing that Jeff did on the show, that the name calling has gone overboard.
Jerry Millen’s comments regarding the IFL’s MyNetworkTV deal are hilarious given that MyNetworkTV is in 107 million out of the 111 million TV households in the United States:
“That’s not the kind of deal I think PRIDE should be on. I don’t think PRIDE should be on the MyNetwork whatever-channel 27 on your UHF… Where you have to have the big satellite dish from 1982 to pull it in. PRIDE needs to be somewhere where it’s gonna get exposure in households.”
I feel like I’ve read that boxing article already.
Oh, ok, last Thursday. It looks like he cleaned it up a bit, but it’s still pretty loopy.
http://www.blackathlete.net/artman/publish/article_02991.shtml
UFC 70 free on Spike TV?
“Q: What’s the latest with HBO, and will UFC 70 be televised on HBO or PPV?
DW: I don’t have the deal done yet, but UFC 70 will be on free television. It’s going to be a free TV deal for the fans here in the U.S. ”
http://cbs.sportsline.com/boxing/story/10050453
http://cbs.sportsline.com/boxing/story/10050687
Money quote from the second link:
There are certain points in that Boxing Scene article that seem to say that Boxing is the better sport…because MMA isn’t boxing. I find it interesting that journalists tend to think that more punches make a better fight.
I dont understand this:
First people are blasting PRIDE b/c they say the idiot Jerry Millen is running the show in the US. Then they turn around and start chirping b/c he has absolutely no power at all…I don’t really think you can have it both ways.
Either:PRIDE is stupid b/c they’re letting Millen run things; OR Jerry Millen is an idiot b/c he talks out his ass and has no power.
I’m a big fan of both Boxing and MMA so I didn’t think the Boxing Scene article was too far off. I do think using one EliteXC show as your primary examle is shortsighted because other than the Gina Carrano fight, I didn’t think that was a very good show.
He makes a good point about when fights go to the ground because many times guys will take it to the ground and not do too much (See: Hughes vs. Lytle on the last UFC PPV) but there are times when guys can ground and pound or work into a nice submission (like the beautiful arm triangle Kampmann had on that same show).
Because something can happen there fans of MMA are much more tolerant of guys going to the ground and slowing the pace because ultimately they believe something will come of it.
The same can not be said for all the holding in the heavyweight division of Boxing. Once a guy holds nothing comes of it and generally they’re holding because they are tired or in trouble which lessens the chance of anything happening. A lot of eople have turned away from heavyweight boxing because of it.
Not to mention there are WAY too many hands in the Boxing Cookie Jar. Too many governing bodies, too many greedy promoters who stall or halt talks of great fights to squabble over their cut, too many HBO and Showtime network heads being involved.
There’s also too many watered down champions. UFC’s belts generally mean something. It’s hard to name who holds what belt in Boxing and then it becomes about the very few larger than life personalities. Christ RING Magazine’s issued belts are considered the most important ones to most observers and they aren’t even an official governing anything in Boxing.
And that’s another thing MMA does better. It uses pro wrestling style promos and videos to build a fight. They convince their fighters to have personality. Not many boxers have that. The ones that do come off totally unlikeable (See: Floyd Mayweather).
Boxing can’t just change it’s business model because there is no one single body in control of the business.
Until somebody with serious money decides to come in and consolidate some of these alphabet soup bodies and figures out a way to contractually get many of these fighters on the same page, I doubt seriously Boxing can ever totally regain any of the ground lost to MMA.
Steele Cage… Opening up “because there are so many young fighters who don’t get to fight”. Oh for cryin’ out loud.
Boxing and MMA both kick ass. True story.
“I heartily endorse this event or product.” 😉
According to the Wrestling Observer….
Jason Lambert got paid $68,000 for his fight. That is $18,000 for the fight, $25,000 for a good fight, and $25,000 for KO of the night.
Martin Kampmann got $70,000 for his fight. That is $20,000 for the fight, $25,000 for a good fight, and $25,000 for submission of the night.
Basically, the bonuses have been increased from $10,000 to $25,000…… McFedreries and Babalu also got $25,000 extra for good fights. Meltzer made it sound like that if a fighter is getting a % of the PPV buys, he probably won’t be getting a bonus, as those are more for the lower paid fighters. Which sounds fair.
Couture, Franklin, & Hughes all got a % of the PPV buys. Sylvia might have. Couture will probably end up taking home $1.5 Million.
So much for the UFC not paying their fighters. It sounds like they are paying out very nicely.
We knew the top dogs got a nice paycheck, but some the lower level fighters only got 3k.
I don’t know, I mean, if those fight bonuses are true, then there is a very good chance that if you come in even as a rookie to a UFC show but put on an excellent fight that you will earn a nice chunk of change to take home with you. Not to mention, if you put on the kind of fight that wins those kinds of bonuses from UFC, guess what? You’ve also just seriously increased your stock with a lot of MMA fans who enjoyed your “good fight” or “KO of the night”. That is also worth a lot in what is a very fast-growing sport.
I do think that the minimum to fight for unproven fighters should be bumped up to 5K from 3K, if it hasn’t been bumped already.
That Meada – Haystacks-match was way better than this week’s Impact. Unfortunately I watched the best of the two first.
The problem with UFC pay is the lowest pay indeed. Just compare it to PRIDE.33. Also, some high midcarders do not get paid what they should.
Aaaand Klitschko just knocked out Ray Austin. No problemo.
MMA/UFC splogs are popping up like wildfire.
Jerry Millen’s comments about the IFL TV deal on MyNetworkTV are misinformed as usual.
WTF is a read meat story? Might I suggest post titles that are SEO relevant? You’ll get more hits.
Hilarious that Austin became Wlad’s mandatory by ‘virtue’ of drawing with Sultan Ibragimov (and Sultan become WBO Mandatory to Shannon Briggs in the same fight). Ah well, what can you do. So long as promoters think that they ‘need’ the sanctioning bodies to make champions, they will continue to have stupid match-ups such as Klitschko-Austin.
Off Topic a bit…
1. Did anyone catch the IFL preview show Friday? I did and was dissapointed. I posted something on Sherdog and it was deleted. MAybe they have a close relationship with the IFL. There were a few things that really annoyed me, but I would like to hear what someone else thinks.
2. I emailed Phil Mushnick about his column the other day. I disagreed that most MMA was being promoted as bloodsport. He wrote back and referred me to a Spike TV promo for the UFC which he said was pure blood sell. Since I only watch TV for MMA events, I never see Spike promos. Does anyone know what promo he is talking about?
The boxing is better because there are more punches is inane. If that were the case amongst boxing fans then Mexican boxers would get paid the most money and nobody would pay attention to the Heavyweights. The shows on Telefutura Friday Nights pitting two 130lb guys who stand toe to toe and throw 110 punches each round with no clinching would be watched by millions of people. I happen to enjoy the Mexican style of boxing and gladly watch it when it is on, but it is clear amongst boxing fans that that is in fact not where the biggest money is.
What I think boxing fans are really upset about is that their (and I am a boxing fan too) beloved sport is in terrrible shape. It has been run into the ground by scumbag promoters, managers and HBO. Boxing fans look at MMA and see real promotions that have belts that mean something. They see organization, young excited fans, packed houses and good TV ratings. It is clear as can be that MMA is in better state than boxing. Boxing fans for years have been hoping for a resurrection, for a new star to bring all of the Tyson, Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvelous Marvin fans back to the fold. But MMA came along before that did. Now all the people boxing fans hoped would come back or in the case of the younger fans the people boxing hoped would come to the sport are watching MMA. They are sad. They realize the fan base consists of Old white men, young African Americans and young Latinos and the young African American and Latinos are likely to jump to MMA soon as more people that look like them become stars in MMA.
I’m sorry, but the Dana/Millen shitfest is too funny. They should just throw down, for pete’s sake.
“Boxing fans look at MMA and see real promotions that have belts that mean something.”
Really?
…like, really?
Absolutely. While us hardcore MMA fans complain about PRIDE and UFC guys not fighting each other and which belts mean more MMA is much better off than boxing. Boxing has 4 heavyweight champs and two of them shouldn’t even be in a top 10 list. Wlad Klitschko just “defended” his belt tonight and didn’t throw a right hand. He also beat a guy who isn’t top 10 in the world. It’s a complete joke. There have been 3 serious HW boxing matches in the past 4 years. Vitali/Lewis, Wlad/Peters and I’ll throw Liakohvich/Brewster in there because it was a great fight. But it was really only a great fight because both guys aren’t that good.
There is no reason for a fan to invest time into following the boxing rankings or the sport as a whole outside of watching the few interesting matchups there are per year.
None of the boxing sanctioning bodies can compete with the UFC or PRIDE for putting on quality cards and fights that make sense. Sure Chuck Liddell has been getting protected a lot and Tim Sylvia was becomming the John Ruiz of UFC but MMA is still much, much better off. In coming months we’re going to get Cro Cop/Randy, Liddell/QJ, possibly Liddell/Cro Cop, GSP will fight Hughes or Sanchez, Anderson Silva fights Marquardt and the winner fights Franklin. Boxing has nothing on that.
Here’s an interesting question to throw out there:
Which was the more boring fight?
Tim Sylvia-Jeff Monson
or
Shannon Briggs-Sergei Liahkovich
Briggs did damn near nothing until the last minute of that fight…
I guess there can be slugs no matter the sport.
Rp