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Frank Mir forgot a certain lesson about pro-wrestling interviews
By Zach Arnold | February 19, 2010
And that lesson is — never say you want to kill someone. You can get away with saying almost anything else, but once you invoke the “kill” switch in an interview, it’s an interview no-no.
I will be very surprised if this interview makes it online given UFC’s media relations power.
Frank Mir on WXDX radio with Mark Madden a few minutes ago:
“I want to fight Brock Lesnar. I hate who he is as a person. I want to break his neck in the ring. I want him to be the first person that dies to Octagon-related injuries.”
The interview should be up at WXDX.com on Monday.
And speaking of UFC talent gone wild, Rampage Jackson is now in the legal crosshairs of UFC for allegedly wanting to renegotiate his fight contract while filming the A-Team movie. The civil filing was done in the 8th district (Las Vegas) on 11/3 and it’s Zuffa LLC vs. Quinton Jackson & Rampage MMA Inc. The case number is A-09-602923-C.
Bonus legal question: Is the lawsuit between Zuffa/Dream Stage Holdings vs. DSE/Sakakibara really over? Seeing the term “dismissal with prejudice” raised the eyebrows.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 36 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
In other news, the UFC is suing Rampage because it turns out he was looking for money and not just doing a movie. Who could have thunk it?
Why does everything have to be about pro wrestling? Mir is a fighter, not a pro wrestler. His comments sound more like Mike Tyson than one of your wrestling heroes, and Mike Tyson is the biggest HW draw in PPV history, so Frank isn’t doing anything wrong.
Here are Tyson quotes on Lennox Lewis:
My main objective is to be professional but to kill him.”
“I want to rip out his heart and feed it to him [Lennox Lewis]. I want to kill people. I want to rip their stomachs out and eat their children.”
It was a pro-wrestling style promo by Mir to hype a fight against Lesnar (which would happen in Vegas) under the presumption that he will beat Carwin (the Carwin fight is in New Jersey, thankfully not in PA or else Greg Sirb would have licked his chops going after Mir on his comments with MMA legislation not that old in the state).
Mir just chose dumb language to do it, but the promo was fairly obvious in how over-the-top, carnival barkerish it was. Not that hard to figure out.
The golden rule about teaching promos in wrestling is not to use kill or death in it. That’s all.
Goddamn Mir…
I feel like we should tell him he’s not less of a man because of the second Lesnar fight.
Extortion is the correct word when it comes to Rampage. He tried to “quit” in order to get more money. Sadly he is an amateur at this and didn’t realize by “retiring” that he would only hurt his position even more. Anytime a fighter wants more “respect”, it’s always about the money. Couture, Henderson, Huerta, Rampage…. They never learn.
And double shame on Rampage for acting like a real b!tch here. Dana White completely took his side when all of his legal troubles came about… And this is how he repays them. Not everybody has to be a Matt Hughes type of employee…. But business is certainly give and take…. And Quinton has done nothing but take the last 2 years….
On an unrelated note…. Cindy O is claiming that Coker and M-1 are having problems… Which is why Fedor probably won’t be on the April CBS card.
“According to my M-1 contact, there is quite a bit of “in fighting” going on right now between the two entities and he shared that Scott supposedly isn’t willing to bend to whatever their current demands are– causing Fedor on the April card to essentially be a pawn. Dirty tactics from M-1, IMO, but Scott shouldn’t be too surprised. He knew they were snakes when he picked them up.”
Even if Fedor ends up fighting on the card…. A lot of weird stuff is going on with Strikeforce. Shaolin came out basically saying he can’t get a fight with them and it’s hard to contact them. Hughes talking about Hieron & Riggs not being stitched up for hours. And their CBS card is 2 months away and still no official word on a date, venue, or even one fight officially announced. And Fedor hasn’t even started training yet….
They signed the contract with Showtime a year ago, and things seem to be doing downhill instead of uphill….
“Dismissal with prejudice” = It’s ova
Hopefully Fedor will come back strong
“Mir just chose dumb language to do it, but the promo was fairly obvious in how over-the-top, carnival barkerish it was. Not that hard to figure out.
The golden rule about teaching promos in wrestling is not to use kill or death in it. That’s all.”
And I’m saying, how does that differ from a Mike Tyson promo? I just showed you a quote from Mike Tyson hyping his Lennox Lewis fight saying his objective was to kill Lennox. Someone like Mir who is a fighter and a big boxing fan is more likely to be a fan of Mike Tyson than of Brutus Beefcake or Misawa..I hear mma fighters talk about boxers they look up to but not pro rasslers. I don’t understand your need to put a pro-wrestling slant on everything.
Killing your opponent = Ok Talk
Eating your opponents babies = Over the line talk
Not hard to see really….
Didn’t Sting once say to Hogan ‘You’re a dead man’ in the NWO days? And who can forget the Road Warriors promo where they were chucking pumpkins off a forty foot scaffold saying that’s what would be happening to the Midnight Express’s heads at Starcade. Ha ha.
LOL @ David M’s comment, because Zach does relate EVERYTHING MMA related to Pro Wrestling; I don’t mind, I LOVE this website, my favorite MMA website other than Weekly.
I love Mir, his commentary for WEC is beautiful… perfect! I really like his jiu-jitsu analysis in fights. He’s great, and he’s somewhat smart, though he can be a tool and an idiot often times.
Rampage is crazy, he should be grateful he isn’t where Charles Bennett is!
Thanks Zach for the reportajj (reportage)
And double shame on Rampage for acting like a real b!tch here. Dana White completely took his side when all of his legal troubles came about… And this is how he repays them. Not everybody has to be a Matt Hughes type of employee…. But business is certainly give and take…. And Quinton has done nothing but take the last 2 years….
As I said before when this story came out, anyone who thought it wasn’t contract renegotiation was a rube, and Quinton might as well do it. That was as good an opportunity as any to try and hold out for money. Hell, no matter who wins Shogun/Machida, he’s the most interesting and valuable opponent to sell a show with.
As for Quinton being “all take”, saving the UFC’s PPV on 5 weeks notice and making them millions seems like good repayment to me. They “bailed him out” not out of some love for Quinton, but because they wanted him to fight for him, which he subsequently did twice.
I was under the impression that these kind of deals always went down. Im glad that Rampage got called out for doing it and is getting legal trouble. Zuffa is prety nasty in court man. I dont know of a case/lawsuit/whatever you wanna call it that they have lost yet.
In saying that their day will come. Karma is a bitch, and with the back end stuff they have pulled on people in the past it is only a matter of time.
What the hell are you all talking about? Mir has clearly some kind of disturbing komplex and he needs to be treated.
The comparison with Tyson doesn’t make any sence either:
“I want to rip out his heart and feed it to him [Lennox Lewis]. I want to kill people. I want to rip their stomachs out and eat their children.” – Is clearly an exaggeration, coz you know, you can’t feed dead people their own heart.
“I want to fight Brock Lesnar. I hate who he is as a person. I want to break his neck in the ring. I want him to be the first person that dies to Octagon-related injuries.” – That’s really f*cked up. He wants him to die injuries – related and his dead to be booked as the first dead octagon fighter. Maybe a crushed windpipe by holding a choke a few seconds after he tapped/passed out.
No exaggeration there, just a statement from a douche with some strong inferiority complex. Hope he gets thrown the f*ck out of the UFC.
“youtube.com/watch?v=YG1sUpZYGcs”
I would also prefer to compare things to boxing rather than pro-wrestling. It’s a far more accurate comparison. Afterall, a pro-wrestler could say they want to stab someone and we’d know it wasn’t actually going to happen – it is a 100% storyline like a soap opera.
When it is actual athletic competition, be that MMA or boxing, there may be X% show but there is also that X% of realism, however small, in that there is an actual chance of someone being killed or seriously hurt.
By the way, I think it’s more acceptable to say you want to eat someone’s children than to say you want to snap their neck. One clearly is never going to happen but one is a distinct possibility.
In certain circumstances it’s simply human restraint that prevents someone’s neck being snapped in MMA, so for someone to say they willfully want to do that, even though they obviously don’t, well, that just makes them a prick as far as I’m concerned.
Isn’t Mark Madden (the guy with whom Mir is doing this interview) a former WCW announcer?
Not sure what that means, but thought I recognized the name.
Mir was probably reading one of the Dexter books on his Kindle before the interview
Everyone does realise that this lawsuit against Rampage was filed months ago, and that according to Lorenzo Fertitta he signed a new contract at 10pm Friday night, right?
So assuming he hasn’t signed for less, looks like it turned out all right for Mr Jackson 🙂
I’m pretty sure Dana and Rampage are on good terms now, as they were being buddy buddy and taking pictures with each other at the weigh-ins last night.
It’s promo talk. He might be better off pulling it back a bit, but when you’re talking money, Mir vs Lesnar could be the rivalry of the decade if they play their cards right.
Who else has the charisma to play off Lesnar right now?
Also, beyond the acceptability or non-acceptability of what he said, I think Frank shouldn’t be looking past Carwin right now. It’s not a chump fight by any means, and it’s probably a good test for how he’s adapting his style to deal with proper wrestlers.
[…] Former heavyweight champion Frank Mir tells WXDX radio (via FightOpinion.com) about how he would like his trilogy match with current division kingpin, Brock Lesnar, to end if […]
“I dont know of a case/lawsuit/whatever you wanna call it that they have lost yet.”
BJ Penn beat Zuffa in court years ago when he wanted out of his contract (which ended but was extended because of the champion’s clause) to go to K-1.
Mike;
People can die or get seriously injured in a pro wrestling match. It may be a work but the threat of death or injury is very real. Maybe more so than in real combat sports in some areas (like guys getting dropped on their heads and necks because of certain slams and suplexes). I agree with the rest of your post though.
Fluyid;
Yup, that’s the very same Mark Madden that was in WCW. Hell of a coincidence.
From what I remember of the BJ Penn lawsuit was that it was still in the system when Penn/UFC were negotiating a return. So when Penn signed with the UFC again, the lawsuit was dropped.
Chuck – any links showing a definitive ruling?
i know mir says some shit but i cannot see him saying this especially after he wished no harm against lesnar after ufc 107. im going to stay optimistic and stay on his side until the actual interview comes out.
“Chuck – any links showing a definitive ruling?”
Naw, I can’t. I guess the lawsuit was just dropped after he re-signed with UFC. If anyone else can shed some light then it would be much appreciated.
The suit hasn’t been settled or dropped officially according to court filings, but nothing has happened since November. I’d assume they are in the process of settling or have settled as of this weekend.
Can someone link to Fertitta saying he signed a new deal?
Above I was referring to the Rampage suit.
The Pride suit is over, the parties had a settlement entered on January 11, 2010. The downside is a lot of stuff will never go public.
If you go through the date by date details of the case you can see they settled pursuant to NRS 17.245, which basically kills further litigation between the parties as far as I can tell, at least on these claims.
Mir may have just been talking smack, but bear in mind this is MMA, not pro wrestling.
People get hurt, even die in pro wrestling, by accident…in MMA, someone can get killed.
This is the kind of talk that makes a guy like Lesnar see red. It wasn’t even that Mir said he’d “kill” him…the fact he said he hated Lesnar as a person. Brock won’t forget it, and he big enough, strong enough and mean enough to may Mir pay for it.
Mir made it personal. That fight will be ugly.
i haven’t read anything on Rampage signing a new contract… just that the bout agreement was signed for UFC 114 with Rashad Evans…
From Sherdog:
http://www.sherdog.com/news/news/Its-Official-Ortiz-Shamrock-and-Penn-Return-to-UFC-3662
Penn also filed a motion to prevent the vacated title fight between Hughes and GSP at UFC 50. The courts sided with UFC on that one: http://www.sherdog.com/news/news/Court-Sides-with-Zuffa-Against-BJ-Penn-2061
Can’t find evidence of the courts siding with Penn on anything he filed.
In related news, Mir/Carwin has been changed to a debate over who hates Lesnar more. Winner gets to face Lesnar.
The missed point to Zach’s post isn’t simply a pro wrestling analogy: it’s don’t promise what you can’t deliver. If Mir (who really needs to stop watching New Jack promos it seems) threatens homicide but himself ends up getting TKOed by Brock again, will you ever take anything he says seriously again? Mike Tyson promised to eat organs and nonexistent children but ended up crying in frustration on his stool against Lewis, did anybody ever take him seriously again?
And why do I feel like I am on an eternal treadmill every time I read the posts on this site. Now Unending Story #32: “M-1 is pulling Fedor because somebody on a message board said so” is back. How did that work out the last time? Say what you want about the guy being overpaid or overrated, but he makes good on his deals unless he is injured. And why would M-1 double cross Strikeforce? It doesn’t make any sense when right now they’re the only big(ish) money alternative to UFC and M-1 is getting what they want.
And speaking of ignorantly ignoring past history, why is Rampage going to be any different than any other UFC fighter who disputed their contract and ended up getting what they wanted to close to it? BJ, Randy, Tito, ect. all held up UFC for more money and got it so it’s probably the safest bet you can make. I don’t know why you wouldn’t hold UFC up for more money, honestly.
[…] has gone too far to the point where the fight shouldn’t even happen. Me? I’m more with Zach Arnold. I think Frank has jumped the shark with this one. […]
[…] Former heavyweight champion Frank Mir tells WXDX radio (via FightOpinion.com) about how he would like his trilogy match with current division kingpin, Brock Lesnar, to end if […]
Hopefully no more off the wall comments from Mir. People will use any reason to attack MMA.