Sunday, October 31, 2010

Is Cross-Promotion the Dirtiest Word in MMA?!?

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In the race for mixed martial arts gold no one is going to catch the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Zuffa has built an unstoppable juggernaut, this is a fact. Barring any freak occurrences or some severe out of the blue legal scenario that causes the company to implode, the UFC will remain the kings of mixed martial arts promotions for as long as they choose to. The market share lead they currently enjoy is humongous and insurmountable by the competition. The "dirtiest" word in Zuffa's language is cross-promotion. Remember the M-1/Fedor negotiation fiasco? That very word could and should become prevalent in the vocabularies of both Strikeforce, the industry's #2 promotion, and Bellator Fighting Championship, arguably the industry's #3. With proper implementation of cross-promoting, both companies can increase their own exposure and bottom lines.
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There been talk for some time about setting up a superfight between Gilbert Melendez and Eddie Alvarez, respectively, the Strikeforce and Bellator lightweight champions. That's undoubtedly an incredible match-up of two Top 5 fighters that's as or more compelling than any UFC lightweight fight. It appears that Bellator's boss, Bjorn Rebney, is more willing to make it happen, but Strikeforce's top dog, Scott Coker, should come around if it makes sense from a business standpoint. Since Strikeforce is the bigger promotion of the two, Coker is pretty much holding all the cards here. Understandably, Coker doesn't want Bellator to piggyback on Strikeforce to advance their brand. The question is, what does Rebney bring to the table here? Other than some quality fighters and some potentially good match-ups, not a whole lot. Ultimately, Rebney wants to partner up with Coker, combine rosters for a show, and put together a compelling enough card to stage as a PPV. I don't think that's the route they should take unless they are able to do so at a relatively inexpensive price, something in the $20 range. Many more casual MMA fans would consider buying a non-UFC PPV for $20, than would for double that. If exposure is of prime importance, doesn't it make more sense to have 100,000 buys at $20, than 50,000 buys at $40? As history has shown for non-UFC pay-per-views, even those numbers are lofty goals to achieve.
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Coker seems somewhat willing to pursue the possibility of a cross-promotion with Rebney but isn't happy with the Bellator boss' approach in trying to make that happen. Rebney has been planting a lot of stories and blurbs in the media as opposed to coming directly to him and chopping it up. Coker has been quoted as saying, "The thing is, if Bjorn is serious about doing this, then there has to be a business component that has to be worked out. Unfortunately, that hasn't started yet. It's just been a bunch of stuff in the media. He's chosen the media to use as a platform to try to push this thing along, but I think it's maybe a PR move." In other words, if Rebney is really serious about attempting this he needs to pick up a phone(which he claims he has) or get on a plane and begin serious discussions. Very recently, Bellator's PR firm released credible proof of four text messages from Rebney to Coker attempting to initiate talks regarding the two companies working together. To Rebney's credit, he is making an honest stab at this, but publicly proving that he texted Coker isn't very smart. He's basically saying, "see everyone, I'm trying here but Scott isn't responding." This isn't going to make this already bumpy, pothole plagued road any smoother. If Coker was already reluctant to get in bed with Rebney, he might be dead set against it now.
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The potential cross-promotion match-ups go beyond that lightweight superfight. After defending his belt at Bellator 34, middleweight champion, Hector Lombard, called out jiu-jitsu ace and Strikeforce champ, Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza. It seems like there is a concerted effort by Bellator's fighters to put the cross-promotion concept into the public consciousness. In a recent radio interview on the Savage Dog Show, Melendez continued to push for the superfight with Alvarez, saying, "I think we're getting warmer. You guys are talking about it. Everyone's talking about it. Someone's going to get backed into a corner. We're going to figure out why it's not happening eventually, and that person's probably going to be cornered in and they're probably going to have to give in. Because everyone seems like they're up for it. Bjorn, Scott, Eddie and I. So there's something going on where we can't come to an agreement. I think eventually it's going to come out, and with media and everyone talking about it, I think we're getting a lot closer and a lot warmer." He further elaborated, stating, "Obviously Strikeforce is the bigger promotion than Bellator. That could be it. That does seem like it. I'm not sure if it's Coker or what, but I know Scott has co-promoted before. I think if things make sense, it can work out."
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Gilbert is definitely passionate about making this fight happen. If Coker wants to keep one of his top fighters happy and in the fold, he has to make this fight happen. He doesn't want Gil to be the next Jake Shields and fly the coop. Melendez further expounded on how important this fight is to him and how tough a fight it would be, saying, "It would mean the world to me, that's my ultimate goal, to be number one in the world at 155. If I get there, I'll be very happy. I've been working hard and I want to beat all these big names. Eddie Alvarez is one of them. I'm technically ranked above him in the rankings and I still want to fight the guy because I know he's a tougher match-up. I'm not going to heel hook him in one minute like Shinya Aoki. I know that's not what's going to happen. It's going to be a battle, it's going to be a war. I'm not OK with just having the journalists put me number two. I really want to prove it myself. I want to beat the one through 10 on my own. I really want to beat them all. If I'm still with Strikeforce, I think that fight does need to happen." Melendez continued, "The only other way is if I move on and somehow I'm in the UFC(words that must give Coker nightmares) fighting out there. If I beat Josh Thomson again, if I beat Shinya again, it's not really going to do nothing for my status or to make my spot go up. That's why I want this fight."
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Beyond that lightweight showdown there are other solid Strikeforce/Bellator match-ups that make sense including:


Josh "Punk" Thompson Vs Roger Huerta
Lyman Good Vs Scott Williams
Ben Askren Vs Nick Diaz


If you throw the big boys into the picture, I could see Bellator's top two heavyweights, Cole Conrad and Neil Grove in interesting fights with some of Strikeforce's heavies. Newly signed Josh Barnett matching up with Conrad is stylistically intriguing. Its a big step up in competition for Cole but his world class wrestling makes it interesting. Josh needs to get his competitive blood flowing again and this could be a perfect fight to do that with. Solid prospect Shane Del Rosario against Grove would be a barnburner. Someone's getting KTFO in that one.


There are undoubtedly possibilities worth pursuing here, but it looks less and less likely to happen due to Rebney's questionable PR tactics. Since Bellator has less to offer you would think Rebney would try and show a bit more tact here. Publicly calling out Coker as being unresponsive is absolutely the wrong way to approach this. On the other hand, maybe this will light a fire under Coker's ass and these guys can start throwing tangible ideas around about the best way to make this happen. Neither company has done a very good job of promoting and marketing their own shows so maybe between the two of them, they can double the effort and effectively market a cross-promotion. The fighters and fights are definitely there to do a very solid card together but the preliminary work has to begin. A phone conversation is a good place to start.


Let's go already, fellas!

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Brocktober FINALLY Reveals the Truth!

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I hope we have all come back down to earth regarding the Zuffa PR machine produced myth that is Brock Lesnar. I say "we" because for some reason, in the last week or two, I started thinking that I must be wrong about the new "baddest man on the planet" since no one else seemed to agree with my sentiment that he was highly overrated. I actually slightly started buying into the nonsensical crapola that permeated the MMA community. As they say, trust your original instinct. You can't tell me that a dude with SIX pro fights is the best fighter on the globe, but plenty of you tried to and even more of you had him ranked as the #1 heavyweight in the world. As we all saw last night, that was/is a huge steaming pile of stinky BULLSHIT. Penn & Teller need to do an episode on this!


Major props have to be given to Cain Velasquez for slaying the proverbial dragon in the spectacular fashion that he did. The beatdown Cain put on Brock was absolutely phenomenal and incredibly entertaining. As good as his performance was, it fortified serious deficiencies in Brock's very young, inexperienced, highly limited MMA skillset.
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It is now blindingly obvious that Brock HATES getting hit. If you so much as tap the guy in the face he cowers like a little bitch into the fetal position. As my brother described it right after the stoppage, it looked like how someone reacts when getting attacked by a vicious dog. Brock's attempt at defense was to curl up in a ball and protect his vitals. For a 280 pound, muscle bound "professional fighter", he's the biggest pussy on the planet. Is that the reaction we expect from the UFC HW champion of the world? What does that say about the value of that belt? Just to remind you, big, tough Brock Lesnar did the same exact pussy shit in his prior fight with Shane Carwin. Do you fail to see the pattern here? If it only happened once it might be able to be overlooked, but for him to react the exact same way in two consecutive fights, and in over 30% of his total fights is very telling. Obviously, he doesn't spar hard in training. He might move around with training partners and pseudo-spar but no one is going full blast at him trying to punch and kick his head off. No one in his camp is anywhere near a world class striker, and no offense to Cain, but neither is he. Big, bad Brock obviously never gets hit when he spars. Ask Wanderlei Silva if he takes hard shots to the face when he trains. He'll laugh at you, just like most people with a brain were laughing at Mr. Lesnar after last night.

Brock's stand-up striking skills are abysmal! Sure, if a dude as big and strong as he is lands something clean, it will hurt you, but that doesn't mean he has any real striking skills to speak of. There is no technique in his punches, they're all arms and incorporate absolutely no hip movement. He doesn't bother throwing any kicks, because he can't. The only decent striking technique he has is knees. In a word, fail! As bad as all that is, his footwork is even worse. His idea of footwork is bumrushing his opponent. That's the skill level of one of the best heavyweight mixed martial artists in the world?!?
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Brock's chin and his ability to take shots also has to be questioned after these last two fights. He drops after any minimal contact to his face. Even his huge, heavily muscled torso crumbled from a single knee from Cain. It was actually a knee that dropped him right before Cain GnP'd his big fat head back into reality. That reality is that Brock is just not that good and has HUMONGOUS problems in his game, some that are not easily remedied. In fact, some of his problems are almost impossible to fix. Its either you "have it or you don't" kind of stuff. Brock doesn't have it! Its tough to teach someone to enjoy getting punched in the face, especially someone like Brock who has such a seemingly innate aversion to it.

Brock's cardio? Suspect as well. He was stumbling around the cage like a drunken fool from what appeared to be exhaustion. Once he was on his back he stopped moving. His hips were completely immobile. He made no attempt to improve his defense or position. As the ever so eloquent Joe Rogan stated THREE minutes into the fight, "Brock is exhausted!" Yes, you read it correctly, 3 minutes! Is that what we should expect from world class fighters and athletes, complete exhaustion after 3 minutes of competition? I hope Shane Carwin is reading this because he too is in the same "no cardio" boat that Brock is floating around in. Hmmm, do you think these guys are carrying too much muscle? Cain must have been bugging out on how easy it was to cut Brock up and pound his face in. The guy was virtually motionless on his back. Only two things cause that to happen; either complete exhaustion or freezing up in a state of panic. Pick your poison because neither is good for a professional fighter. I happen to think the latter is worse and much harder to fix. The point is, Brock has major issues to deal with. What is blatantly apparent is that he's not a true fighter, he's an athlete who is attempting to fight. There's a huge difference between the two!
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I seriously hope these last two fights put the reality of Brock Lesnar into proper perspective. Its outlandish to consider him one of the best heavyweight fighters in the world. If you are in the FIGHT game and you crumble like he did after getting hit, two fights in a row now, you have serious problems. You have to wonder why he chose fighting as a profession in the first place. We all know Brock is a huge, athletic, fast, strong human being. That can only take him so far. Thankfully, Cain has killed the Lesnar hype and his aura of invincibility as well. And it took him only a Mir, I mean, mere four minutes to do so. No one will fear Brock anymore and why would they knowing that if you touch him with anything significant he will crawl into the fetal position. I've seen teenage girls react better to getting punched in the face. I found it extremely humorous watching the post-fight episode of MMA Live on ESPN, where Kenny Florian, Randy Couture and the "big boss" Dana White were all saying that Brock needs to vastly improve his striking and somehow get used to getting hit. That's a first, a world class fighter who is supposedly one of the best on the planet, being spoken about in such a manner. It was hysterical, like they were evaluating some prospect who they just went to see train at a gym somewhere in the woods of Minnesota. Given Brock's lack of real fighting experience, they pretty much were!

Hey Brock, if you can find any headgear big enough to fit your fat head, put it on and let people punch and kick you, you big pussy!

I'm just sayin'.............



Monday, October 4, 2010

"The Answer" is YES!


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If "The Answer" is, YES, then what's the question? Well, there are actually two.

Is the BJ Penn era of lightweight dominance over?
Is Frankie Edgar a Top 5 pound-for pound fighter?

As a longtime fan of BJ Penn it was both somewhat depressing and very surprising to see him lose two fights in a row. Especially since they were at LW! Even more surprising was that it was to the same fighter. No doubt, Frankie Edgar is BJ's kryptonite, but is the story deeper than that?
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BJ is not an old fighter, but he has fought a lot over his storied career. Has 10 years of pro MMA training and fighting taken their toll on him? If so, it seems to be more mentally than physically. The Prodigy is only 32 years old and realistically should be entering the prime of his fighting career. Everyone has their own motivations. For BJ, money has never been one of them. He comes from a very successful family and doesn't need to make money from fighting. His drive always seemed to be to prove that he is the very best fighter in the world. Arguably, he did that at different times in his career. That's why seeing his rather mundane performance in the Edgar rematch was so shocking and disheartening.
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Is the fire gone?

At the start of the second fight, BJ looked very focused and determined. Once he saw that Frankie wasn't just going to go away easily, his whole demeanor changed. I'm not taking anything away from Frankie Edgar. He put on two phenomenal, back to back performances against a fighter not many people expected him to beat. No one gave Frankie a legit chance to win that first fight. Meanwhile, it was that first win that gave life to the second one, the same way the first loss for BJ seemed to plant seeds of doubt in his sometimes fragile psyche. The power of the mind can't be overlooked here. Besides his physical gifts, Frankie has shown he is very strong mentally. Unlike most fighters, he never showed the slightest bit of doubt or fear in the cage with BJ. In the process, he has undoubtedly proven to be the best lightweight MMA fighter on the planet. There's a couple of fighters outside the UFC that might disagree with that assessment, but right now, Frankie is the best.
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While BJ has dominated the majority of his LW opponents, Frankie was never in any trouble in 10 rounds and 50 minutes of fighting him. He ran the table on BJ in his first defense, pitching a shutout and winning all 5 rounds on all the judges' scorecards. Frankie isn't a big LW either, walking around at only a bit heavier than his fighting weight of 155. That makes his control of BJ even more impressive. We've seen GSP dominate BJ, but Georges is a much bigger fighter than Frankie is. No lightweight has shown that level of wrestling and almost effortless takedowns against BJ like Frankie has. He's not just a fantastic wrestler either. His striking is very proficient and getting better at a rapid pace, especially defensively. Frankie's footwork is second to none. His feet are constantly moving and working angles for strikes and TD set-ups. His head movement is also top notch. That's what seemed to frustrate BJ so much. All that movement prevented him from landing anything clean and significant. The longer both fights wore on, the more BJ's frustration grew. In this age of excessive weight cutting, what Frankie has done and accomplished is nothing short of amazing.
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As far as the rest of the UFC LW division goes, Frankie is clearly in a very good position. His next defense is a rematch with Gray Maynard, who happens to be the only fighter to beat him in 14 fights. Gray pulled out a decision victory at UFC Fight Night 13 in April of 2008. Things have definitively changed in the last 17 months and will be decidedly different the next time around. The Bully will try to bully the champ but in order for that to happen, he has to actually get close to him. That's not going to happen. Frankie's vastly superior speed will be the determining factor in the fight. Beyond Gray, no one in the division seems to have the skillset to really threaten the champ's reign, but there's a couple of fighters lingering outside the UFC who could make things interesting. Bellator's current LW champion, Eddie Alvarez, and Strikeforce's LW champion, Gilbert Hernandez, are two fighters that I'd love to see Edgar fight. We can wish, can't we?!?

Lots of new questions surround Baby Jay:

Will this second loss to Edgar send him into career purgatory?
Will he have the desire to continue fighting without immediate title implications being involved?
Is there a chance of him going back to WW?
Will he eventually leave the UFC for another promotion?
Will he hang up the gloves completely?

We'll get some of these questions answered in the coming days, weeks and months. It was recently announced that BJ will be fighting a rubber match with welterweight legend, Matt Hughes. He soundly beat Hughes in their first fight and was beating him again in the second until suffering a debilitating rib injury. This third fight should be very interesting and its outcome will play a huge role in the direction of BJ's career thereafter.

One thing we do know is, BJ Penn is a warrior who fights for the love of fighting. The question is, does he still love it as much as he ever did and enough to still do what is required to compete at the most elite level? Time will tell, but at anything less than 100%, both mentally and physically, he will lose to the seemingly rejuvinated Hughes.
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The other thing we do know is this; Frankie Edgar is the best lightweight fighter in the world right now, and looks like he will be for the forseeable future.

Hail the new king!

Edit: This was written the day after UFC 118 in the car on the ride back to NYC from Boston. In the whirlwind that is my life, I completely forgot about it. I found it today in the memo app on my phone. Don't ask!


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