Total-MMA.com

Your round-tablers today:
Lee Casebolt (LC)
Dave Walsh (DW)
Alan Conceicao (AC)
Iain Liddle (IL)

Topics being discussed:
- Affliction planning future shows already - brave or foolhardy?
- Nick Diaz vs. Thomas Denny booked for CBS - the correct decision?
- Have you been able to watch the Kim Couture fight?
- Will you miss Ivan Salaverry?

Affliction are to promote one of the most talked-about shows of the year on July 19th, headlined by one of the most important heavywweight fights ever in Fedor Emelianenko against Tim Sylvia. MMA Weekly is reporting that they are already planning future shows.

LC: Affliction planning future shows already is awfully optimistic for a company running an expensive debut, featuring no proven draw, with limited exposure and advertising. Sure, they’re tapped into The Donald, and it’s a fair bet Trump knows more than I do about making boatloads of cash, but it doesn’t look promising from here. I guess it’s a matter of how much money they’re willing (and able) to lose making inroads into the public consciousness before turning a profit.

DW: In a way I am glad that Affliction is planning ahead already. It shows that they are committed to actually running some solid MMA shows as opposed to one or two mega shows and then cutting and running. Any chance at more competition for UFC is a very good thing. Depending on how the first show goes, we can gauge what the future has in store for Affliction completely.

AC: Not really a news flash. The people who are imagining they will go bankrupt tommorrow off a single show will simply point out that it wouldn’t be the first show in history to get cancelled.

IL: I admire their optimism. It’s no secret that I hope this show is a huge success and so good luck to them. Putting on the best possible fights + paying fighters good salaries = a thumbs up from me. It’s certainly much more appealing than Brandon Vera being held down against Reese Andy.

Nick Diaz will take on Thomas ‘Wildman’ Denny on the next Elite XC show to be shown on CBS. It has caused a ‘Mach’ Sakurai bout to be cancelled. Are Elite XC correct to matchmake in this way given the hype surrounding a potential Noons rematch?

LC: Diaz/Denny is a showcase bout for Diaz, nothing more. It’s a nice attempt by EliteXC to see if they can turn Diaz into a local draw in the Stockton area, which is a smart move on their part. GSP in Montreal, Penn and Noons in Honolulu, Franklin in Cincinnati (sort of), Faber in Sacramento, Shamrock and Le in San Jose, now this - MMA is finally starting to build regional stars at the major-company level. Local affiliation is what drives virtually every major sport in the world, financially. People are more apt to come and spend money to see “one of their own” than they are Random Talented Performer. It works for team sports, it works for boxing, it worked for pro wrestling for almost a century. It’ll work for MMA.

DW: Diaz vs. Noons is the money fight, but this show was rushed to TV, even EliteXC wasn’t comfortable putting it on so soon. Without a chance to really push the confontation between Diaz and Noons it might be a good idea to hold off. But on the other hand, even with a few month’s to promote the show, it isn’t like EliteXC is known for their huge advertising campaigns.

AC: Let’s be real: Its a pretty horrible fight. Denny can provide some crowd support if its gonna be in California, I suppose. I don’t know of anyone clamoring for this, but its an introduction to those watching the CBS shows to Nick Diaz. I really want to see how the UFC deals with the TUF 5 winner showing up in his corner.

IL: Ultimately I think Diaz will win and it won’t scupper the momentum of the Noons rematch. Personally I’d rather have seen the Sakurai fight and it wouldn’t have mattered if he had lost as so few people would have seen it. It’s a small risk that Diaz will lose and derail the Noons rematch that looks to have caught the attention of so many, but it’s a risk they don’t need to take.

Kim Couture, wife of Randy, made her professional MMA debut on Friday night in a free show at the Thomas & Mack building in Vegas. She took a horrific beating against someone with no experience and suffered substantial facial damage. The internet seems to be taking a sick pleasure in this news on the whole, but have you been able to bring yourself to watch the fight?

LC: I haven’t seen the Kim Couture fight, and if reports of it are even vaguely accurate, I have no desire to. I barely have time to keep up with all the good fights I want to see. Why would I waste time watching two inexperienced, rather inept fighters, just to see one of them take a horrific beating? I got all that out of my system in the mid 90s.

DW: Poor girl. Poor, poor girl. I haven’t seen it, and I don’t want to see it. Seeing the sequential photos from the fight was bad enough, I don’t watch MMA to see brutal, scary beatings between a pro and an
amateur, so there is no reason to see this.

AC: I, like most people on earth, don’t necessarily drag myself out to purposely watch women’s fighting for the sake of watching women’s fighting. Particularly when it involves nobodies of the women’s MMA world.

IL: I find it hard enough to look at the pictures let alone actually watch the video. No thank you. Not for me.

Ivan Salaverry has retired. How will you remember him?

LC: Will I miss him? Not particularly. I mean, I’ve never seen a bad Salaverry fight, but I’ve never seen one I had to rush out and show to all my friends, either. He was a journeyman fighter. Now he’s a retired journeyman fighter. No disrespect to Salaverry - the sport’s built on journeyman fighters - but the retirement of someone of his caliber simply isn’t all that significant.

DW: Salaverry is a talented and exciting fighter to watch, as well as a good guy. I will miss having him around, and feel like he is one of those guys, even if he doesn’t win every fight he is in, he is still a
joy to watch and a good fighter to have around.

AC: I will best remember him for forcing a tap out on Tony Fryklund with nothing more than a body triangle. Like so many others, he just showed up about 7 years too early.