June 16th, 2008
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Sherdog is
reporting that the UFC is putting together a live card to counter Affliction's PPV debut on July 19th.
However, the real threat to Affliction's PPV is that according to the article, the UFC would like to air the card on SpikeTV, which would cost viewers about $45 less than the Affliction PPV.
This is not the first time the UFC has
counter programmed its competition. During the EliteXC broadcast on CBS the UFC debuted a new biographical show about Chuck Liddell and then re-aired parts of UFC 79.
Thus far Affliction is the only MMA organization that has built its top talent from a pool of former UFC stars like Tim Sylvia and Andre Arlovski.
The fact that the UFC is trying to pull together an entire night of fights on just 5 weeks notices goes to show how seriously they are taking the threat from Affliction.
Rumored to be on the UFC card is Wanderlei Silva and/ or Bradon Vera.
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HOFFMAN ESTATES, ILL. – Despite receiving some flack for its less-than-stellar main event (which became even less after Jeff Monson pulled out due to injury) and a lackluster card overall, there were a few fine points to walk away from the Adrenaline MMA debut with.
There were approximately 3,000 people in attendance at the Sears Centre, [...]
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I don’t believe in telling fighters they should retire. Not really. When fans and writers insist that a legend of the sport should give it up it always seems so hollow. What do we know about what someone like that should do with their lives?
But even I have to admit that Kazushi Sakuraba’s beating at the hands of Melvin Manhoef in Dream.4 this weekend was difficult to watch. I’ve always had a soft spot for Sakuraba. He embodied so many of the best fighter attributes. He was tough and resilient, and at the same time he was also crafty and dangerous. He always seemed like he was having fun, even on his worst nights.
That’s why it’s so hard to see him continue past his prime. He’s obviously not having fun these days. His efforts are joyless and perfunctory, like a man waiting on his pension. And yet, for some reason, he can’t seem to walk away.
I used to wonder what it was that made pro athletes hold on too long. Almost everyone does it. The difference is that a baseball player who’s too old and too slow gets sent to the minors. A basketball player who can’t keep up gets cut.
But with fighters it’s a different story. They either step down significantly in competition, or they start taking some bad beatings. Sakuraba has done both. The former may harm his legacy somewhat, but it’s nothing compared to what the latter will do to you.
Once I got the chance to interview Ken Shamrock and I asked him why it was so difficult to retire from pro fighting. He had recently lost yet another fight to Tito Ortiz, and though neither of us knew it at the time he had still worse moments left in him.
What he said made a lot of sense to me. He said that in order to be a high-level fighter in the first place you have to be the kind of guy who can keep pushing though anything. You have to be able to break your hand in the middle of a fight and still keep punching. You have to believe that you can walk through fire.
The problem, he said, is that as you get older your physical gifts atrophy much faster than the mental ones. You’re still as tough and determined, but not as quick or as strong. You get hurt and you think it’s just another injury, like the ones you’ve overcome before, only it never heals quite right. That’s when the fighter’s mind — once among his greatest assets — becomes a detriment. His virtues are also his faults.
This is exactly what’s happening to Sakuraba. A normal man would have retired by now. But a normal man never could have taken those knees from Ricardo Arona. Sakuraba is not a normal man. This much is clear. Quitting is such a foreign concept to him. How can a guy like that retire?
But if he doesn’t retire you have to wonder where this path will lead him. The beatings he takes now could stay with him the rest of his life. Much like Larry Holmes said he hated having to pound Muhammad Ali, who had been his idol, Manhoef also expressed regret for what he did to Sakuraba. There may be no sadder scenario in the world of professional fighting than that one.
Sakuraba’s future is his decision. If he’s earned anything in his illustrious career, it’s the right to go on too long if that’s what he wants. I just hope he knows that he doesn’t have to.
(-Ben Fowlkes)
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Yahoo! Sports’ Dave Meltzer reports the following preliminary details for EliteXC’s second CBS live event, scheduled for July 26:
- The company is trying to put together a dual broadcast with three or four fights on Showtime at 7:30/8:00 PM EST leading into the live CBS broadcast from 9-11PM EST.
- No venue has been selected, but the Savvis Center in St. Louis is under consideration.
- Robbie Lawler v. Scott Smith II will headline the CBS show. Jake Shields in a match to create a Welterweight Champion and Antonio Silva, potentially in a match to create a Heavyweight Champion, as well as a women’s bout featuring Shayna Baszler are also in the plans.
St. Louis seems like a nice short notice location given its proximity to Robbie Lawler’s training base at the HIT Squad in Granite City, Illinois. The Scottrade Center, formerly known as the Savvis Center, can seat 22,000 for basketball. Three five round title fights in one two hour broadcast looks like a recipe for disaster for a promotion that missed its window by almost one hour the first time out. Eating up the local affiliates valuable Saturday night newscast time is not the best way to make friends and could conceivably eventually lead some stations to drop coverage.
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FiveOuncesOfPain.com has spoken with a well-placed source speaking on the condition of anonymity who has confirmed that plans for a July 19 UFC special on Spike TV are “heating up.”
Sherdog.com first reported earlier in the day the possibility that the UFC and Spike TV would counter-program Affliction’s inaugural event on pay-per-view. According to the Sherdog [...]
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(Someone’s excited by Rashad’s performance, and someone else is just very bored.)
The UFC has officially announced the previously-rumored Chuck Liddell-Rashad Evans bout for UFC 88 in Atlanta, Ga. on September 8. In an email blast sent out today they played up the fact that it will be the UFC’s first foray into Atlanta, which will no doubt be referred to as “Hot-lanta” by Mike Goldberg at least twice during the live broadcast of the event.
Call me crazy, but this main event sounds better and better. “The Iceman” may have slowed a step or two, but one thing he can still do is avoid a takedown and get right back up if you do manage to put him down.
If Evans can get Liddell to the mat and beat him there, it will be hard to ignore him in the light heavyweight picture. If he decides to stand and bang with Liddell and somehow manages to win that way, well, then either Liddell will have proven that he’s ready for retirement or the world as we know it will have changed forever. There’s a good chance to laws of gravity might even fail if that happens, so you might want to tie down some your valuables, just in case.
- In other UFC news, Evan Tanner tells Thomas Gerbasi from UFC.com that he’s a poet or artist or something:
“I always thought of myself as the poet, the writer, or the philosopher – I never thought of myself as a fighter,” he chuckles. “But here I am. I always had an idea of the flow of my life, but not exactly what I would be doing day to day. And fighting definitely wasn’t something I thought I’d be doing.”
…
“It sounds contradictory because I’m a free spirit and I’ve kinda bounced around, but I always had an overall plan or idea of the flow of my life,” he said. “Let’s say your life’s a work of art, a great picture; everything I’ve done has been a brush stroke on what will hopefully be a great work of art. Even the bad times, the crazy times, I don’t regret a thing. – it’s all absolutely necessary to create this masterpiece.”
Behold, the Tao of Tanner. It’s great to compare your life to a brilliant work of art, but what about the people whose lives are obviously horrible? Are they just like really bad pieces of art that no one enjoys, even the artist?
Actually, I guess that makes sense. There are way more terrible works of art than there are great ones, and there are probably more people who hate their lives than love them. I guess what I’m saying here is that Tanner’s art-life analogy holds up. I’m as shocked as you are.
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FiveOuncesOfPain.com has learned from multiple sources speaking on the condition of anonymity that this Saturday’s “Godz of War†event that scheduled to take place at the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, Carolina has been postponed.
Ticketmaster.com is no longer accepting ticket orders for the event and indicates that the event has been postponed. There is [...]
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The UFC officially announced Monday afternoon that UFC 88 is scheduled to take place on Saturday, September 6 at the Phillips Arena in Atlanta, Georgia.
The promotion has also announced that a light heavyweight bout between Chuck Liddell and Rashad Evans will headline the event. The two had been scheduled to fight on June 7 in [...]
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You know what you probably shouldn’t do when your opponent has you off your feet and headed for the mat? This.
Zelg Galesic broke Taiei Kin’s arm when he attempted to stop this takedown during their bout at Dream.4 this weekend. It’s one of the most embarrassing but still not uncommon injuries in all of MMA, sort of like breaking your wrist Rollerblading.
Something about these kinds of injuries makes me feel at once a little sick and also like I want to see it again and again. This one is especially ugly. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to recall a worse injury from someone trying to break their fall during a takedown.
Oh, right. Now I remember…
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(Evan Tanner endorses Sprawl shorts, Bud Light, and shirtless prospecting all in one magical afternoon.)
MMA Mania has a look at what is the most current fight card for this weekend’s Ultimate Fighter Finale, and it’s interesting to note that it doesn’t include too many familiar faces from this season of TUF. If their report is correct, the event should look something like this:
Evan Tanner (32-7) vs. Kendall Grove (8-5)
TUF 7 Finalist #1 vs. TUF 7 Finalist #2
Diego Sanchez (18-2) vs. Luigi Fioravanti (12-3)
Josh Burkman (9-5) vs. Dustin Hazelett (10-4)
Spencer Fisher (20-4) vs. Jeremy Stephens (13-2)
Marvin Eastman (15-7-1) vs. Drew McFedries (6-3)
Dean Lister (10-5) vs. Jeremy Horn (79-17-5)
Matt Brown vs. Matt Arroyo
Dante Rivera vs. Matthew Riddle
Rob Yundt (6-1) vs. Rob Kimmons (20-3)
This isn’t necessarily the final fight card, and we should expect to see at least one more addition from the pool of TUF 7 fighters following Wednesday night’s completely insane shocking twist episode. But it still seems odd for the UFC to bring in so many of their regulars for a TUF Finale show.
Maybe some of the guys drank their way out of consideration after being eliminated, as Mike Dolce pointed out. Or maybe the UFC figured out that signing more fighters just because they were on a reality show isn’t conducive to their strategy of slimming down their overall roster.
Either way, a card like this — headlined by two guys who are as equally in need of a victory as Evan Tanner and Kendall Grove — might give the UFC plenty of opportunity to make more cuts once it’s over.
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