Archive for July, 2009

If you were a sucker, like me, you would have just called in to Fedor’s conference call this afternoon in an attempt to hear what the big news was going to be from Fedor and his camp. Instead, we were treated to the delight of Jerry Millen, Vadim the Fink and a woman translating for Fedor ducking any and all questions of substance. MMAHQ has a pretty intensive list of what went down, which is more than I could tolerate.

The only real news that came out of this call could have easily been gathered if you are an avid Twitter follower and have the EA SPORTS MMA account on your follow list. This post summed everything you’d need to know up;

First three fighters announced for EA SPORTS MMA are Fedor Emelianenko, Gegard Mousasi and Babalu Sobral

Boom. Right there is all you need to know. There is talk of Fedor being on the cover, but until you see a mock-up, like everything else having to do with Mr. Emelianenko, don’t buy it. Other things to note is that Vadim and Co. are still not saying anything all that positive about a possible offer with the UFC. Vadim went on to say that the offer extended to them yesterday might of sold them two years ago, which of course is evasive. It does not answer the question of if Vadim will allow Fedor to fight in the UFC.

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The Internet is abuzz with what unbelievable news is in store for Friday coming from a bunch of random sources, some of whom no one’s really heard of. Reminds me a bit of last year when the same thing happened. Did you forget about that? You know, the big announcement that was Floyd Mayweather, a network deal, Fedor, or something like that…and ended up being delayed a week and was Lorenzo Fertitta moving from the contracting casino market to the UFC full time. Well, I expect something similar this time around too. Probably an ESPN UK deal and maybe the official return of Tito. Big enough news to merit a conference call, I suppose. Not big enough for the dreamers. I’ll be happy to be wrong.

There’s been a lot of nonsense out there on the internet about this in the last few days coming from all angles, and I think it should probably be addressed in a fashion becoming of adults rather than petulant man-children:

-Affliction’s death by no means guarantees the end of competition to the UFC just as DREAM’s potential any-day-its-gonna-happen demise would prove the end of Japanese MMA. Last I checked, Sengoku and Strikeforce are still around, and there’s always talk of new money entering the sport.

-The sudden death of Affliction and cancellation is good for the sport only if the talent migrates to the UFC, where it would obviously be best used and tested. Since that likely isn’t going to happen given the nonexclusive nature of the contracts (as I said last week and Meltzer reviewed again yesterday), we’re no better off as fans. Long term, Affliction was going anyways. We just didn’t get to see the fights.

-I keep hearing that one of Affliction’s problems was “booking for the internet fans.” Its an interesting argument, I suppose until you realize no one can define what that means. Would Affliction have been better off taking the cancelled Vernon White/Babalu fight and using it for themselves? I suppose its possible. Would have been cheaper than Whitehead or Sokoudjou. Then again, what do I care? I’d prefer to see good fights. Those were good fights on paper. Tiger White/Babalu isn’t.  If Affliction decided to spend money on a bunch of lousy squashes, they’d have been panned even harder than they were for running what they did, and I see no reason they would have necessarily been successful doing it, or why I should cheer for more economical but crappy fights. If that’s a side effect of being into the “biz” first, I’d argue you don’t actually care about the sport of MMA.

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So, today, Affliction as an MMA promoter died. It went out in about the most shameful fashion possible: On its knees. After the loss of Barnett and Showtime’s disapproval of any replacements, the show was doomed into cancellation, leaving guys without big paydays who may not have necessarily deserved them. Ignoring that for a moment, I have my own personal feelings about them:

-The key mistake was to never poach a guy who mattered. Tito teased them but they spent millions on Arlovski. When guys like GSP started to come up for contract renewals, they weren’t around talking money. That could have brought them the attention they needed. They paid a lot for other guys though.

-Their two shows were great. Some of the better PPVs over the last couple of years, stacked with all sorts of wild matchups. The third was that way…until this week. But you know what? I didn’t spend a dime on that. The others I got my money’s worth on. Most of us complaining or cheering their demise didn’t spend a dime either. Don’t lie.

-Someone needed money fast. Business deals can often wait a weekend. For Affliction to give up immediately because some guy was at a hotel that probably has a fax machine couldn’t help them tells me something was up on their end.

-Its for the best for MMA fans assuming that the guys in the company that people want to see show up in the UFC. Gomi won’t. Babalu probably won’t. Mousasi probably won’t. Jorge Santiago probably won’t. I don’t predict what will happen with Fedor, but history ain’t looking good. Right now, you’re looking at maybe Vitor Belfort coming in. That’s nice and all, but he probably wouldn’t have beaten Santiago this weekend (yes, I’m serious) and he’s in really tough with almost anyone in the UFC’s middleweight division. Honestly, he might lose to Alan Belcher. I’d actively pick Akiyama over him. From the perspective of seeing good fighters against one another, we might actually lose out. I will hope, however, that we don’t.

The classy veteran discusses UFC & Pride, jiu-jitsu & catch-as-catch-can wrestling, and MMA & cockfighting (!)

Click here for part one of our interview, where Salaverry describes his roots in MMA, the glory days of Pacific Northwest MMA, and what is still to come.

Pictured: Salaverry instructs a wrestling class at his academy

In addition to losing some of the region’s top names, some believe that the death of the PRIDE organization may have had a particularly negative effect on the Pacific Northwest. A PRIDE amatuer circuit was being established in Washington, with the aid of AMC co-founder Matt Hume, when PRIDE was bought out by the UFC.

“It’s very tragic,” Salaverry laments when asked about PRIDE’s demise. “It has affected the Northwest for sure; there’s plenty of fighters that would have benefited tremendously from having PRIDE continue.”

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It was a night of surprises over in the Land of the Rising Sun. Mario Zaromskis shocked everyone by landing two head kicks, one against heavy favorite Hayato Sakurai and again against equally unexpected finalist Jason High. Zaromskis was a fairly obscure fighter based in the UK and noted for funny kicks prior to this stunning change of status. Its still enormously difficult to accept Zaromskis as anywhere near a top 10 welterweight, but certainly the discussion will begin. As exciting as his win was, the performance of the favorites, particularly Andre Galvao, left much to be desired. Galvao showed no capability to defend or throw strikes whatsoever in his embarassing loss to Jason High.

The main card also saw a less than epic encounter between Vitor Ribeiro and Shinya Aoki that stunningly turned into an amateur kickboxing match for all but perhaps the last 2:30. Ribeiro finally succeeded at forcing Aoki to the mat, but did nothing with it, earning a unanimous decision loss. Melvin Manhoef succeeded in providing the most entertaining fight of the card against favorite Paulo Filho, but failed to win. Filho, after being dropped and stunned with numerous strikes in the first, was able to take down Manhoef and, once there, surprise no one at all with Manhoef’s distinct lack of ground game, submitting him by armbar.

The classy veteran recalls the Pacific Northwest’s MMA glory days, and what is still to come

Pictured: Ivan Salaverry, left, guides his students in a boxing class

Ivan Salaverry, Seattle’s own classy veteran of UFC, Shooto, and K-1 competition, is holding court at his South Lake Union academy.

The ex US Marine sounds every bit the part as he barks out instruction, yet he’s still never far from a joke or a smile either. No surprise there; this is the man whose image is mainly etched in MMA fans’ minds for his cart wheeling and blowing kisses to the crowd after recording big wins in UFC, Shooto, and K-1. These were also familiar scenes from the “glory days” of Pacific Northwest MMA from the late 90’s to early 2000’s, when Salaverry and many other fighters based out of the region were at or near the top of the MMA world.

With his competition days over, Salaverry is now preparing his own students for MMA and grappling. His grappling students are in fact days away from submission wrestling competition at Liberty Events’ Revolution tournament in Bonney Lake, WA; where they will compete as a part of a unified team which will include students of Salavarry’s former instructor Marcelo Alonso. While better known for his days at AMC Pankration, Salaverry smiles when he recalls his earlier training:

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From the office of the Independent World MMA Rankings

July 17, 2009: The July 2009 Independent World MMA Rankings have been released. These rankings are independent of any single MMA media outlet or sanctioning body, and are published on multiple web sites. Some of the best and most knowledgeable MMA writers from across the MMA media landscape have come together to form one independent voting panel.

These voting panel members are, in alphabetical order: Zach Arnold (FightOpinion); Nicholas Bailey (MMA Ratings); Jared Barnes (Houston Chronicle); Jordan Breen (Sherdog); Jim Genia (Full Contact Fighter, MMA Memories, and MMA Journalist Blog); Jesse Holland (MMA Mania); Robert Joyner (MMA Payout); Todd Martin (CBS Sportsline); Zac Robinson (Sports by the Numbers MMA); Leland Roling (Bloody Elbow); Michael David Smith (AOL Fanhouse); Jonathan Snowden (Author of “Total MMA: Inside Ultimate Fighting”); Joshua Stein (MMA Opinion), Ivan Trembow (Freelance); and Dave Walsh (Total MMA).

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Oh, K-1. Always putting MMA guys in kickboxing bouts. Not the best results today though. Jae Hee Cheon beat DREAM’s public face in 1:20 of the first round and Tatsuya Kawajiri took a hellified beating from Masato leading to the towel getting tossed in. Commence the internet rage!

It’s no great surprise that we’re back again to discuss why or why not George St. Pierre should or should not move up in weight. After all, he’s done an impressive job largely cleaning out his division, and the fans will have a tough time buying into him being challenged by anyone at welterweight. I am here to tell you that George St. Pierre should not, under any circumstances, consider the move up to middleweight. Period. Its a no win situation for him up there against much bigger guys, very few of whom are big draws. The ones who are generally are so large, George is going to probably run into a brick wall. Here in is the case against it:

1) IF IT AINT ANDERSON OR HENDERSON, IT DOESNT MAKE SENSE

One of the more comical takes on this is, well, at Bloody Elbow, where Mike Rome argues the merit of a megafight costarring Nate Marqhardt. First of all, let’s review something that perhaps we as fans have forgotten: Nathan Marqhardt is not a “megafight” fighter. He is several wins away from being a headliner. He offers literally nothing to GSP financially that Mike Swick doesn’t. In fact, he’s probably less of a star than the TUF 1 veteran. The same is almost undeniably true about Demian Maia, Thales Leites, Michael Bisping (who will not draw now outside the UK…maybe), Yushin Okami, or frankly anyone in the division not named Dan Henderson or Anderson Silva. Seriously, if Okami/GSP would be a superfight, then Okami would have gotten his title fight already against Anderson Silva. Positioning GSP against a giant version of Jon Fitch who can’t speak English will not sell. Its foolish to assume it would. And for GSP to move up to middleweight, he has to have financial incentive to do so in order to give up the dominance he has at welterweight. That list of names provides no such thing.

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