Issue 122
December 2014
World Series of Fighting is seeking to give amateur mixed martial artists “a distinct path” to becoming professionals as it launches World Series of Fighting Amateurs in 2015.
Winners of the World Series of Fighting US National Amateur Division will receive a contract with WSOF and make their pro debuts live on US television.
“For the first time in history,” says WSOF president Ray Sefo, “amateur fighters who have the desire and the drive to turn professional and make a career for themselves in MMA, will be given a distinct path that will allow them to attain their goals of becoming future superstars in the professional ranks of our incredible sport.”
This isn’t the first time a leading promotion has held amateur fights under its banner. Toward the end of Strikeforce’s lifespan its preliminary cards often featured amateur bouts.
Xyience sold off, no longer UFC sponsor
Xyience is no longer the “official energy drink of the UFC” after it was sold to a Texas soda drinks company which is planning on softening the brand and taking it in another direction.
Big Red Ltd – an independent drinks company based out of Austin, Texas, famed for its Big Red and Big Blue beverages in the States – purchased Xyience, one of the US’s top-10 energy drinks, in August.
Xyience has been a prominent advertiser inside the Octagon and on the shorts of the UFC’s leading stars since 2006, and was indeed purchased by Zuffa LLC offshoot company Zyen LLC in 2008.
However, Big Red CEO Gary Smith has confirmed that his company will be targeting CrossFit and endurance athletes rather than specifically fighters and MMA fans heading into 2015.
“Big Red’s resources and selling system could create significant growth opportunities for Xyience,” Smith said in an interview with BevNet.com. “And even though the brand will end its time as the self-proclaimed ‘official energy drink of the UFC’, Xyience won’t forget these consumers.”
Rather, Smith wants the brand to also reach other healthy people, such as endurance athletes, marathoners, cross-country runners and Olympians. “I’m just gonna soften it up a little bit,” Smith added. “Make it a little less hardcore than the image that it’s got today.”
Xyience, which sponsored leading fighters like Dan Hardy and women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey among others, had sales upward of $45 million in 2013-14.
$1.69m
UFC heavyweight champ Cain Velasquez recently put his California estate up for sale for a huge $1.69m.
8
All 21,000 tickets for the UFC’s debut November event in Mexico sold out in eight hours.
ONE FC planning Japanese event?
Leading Asian promotion One FC may be looking to continue where Pride FC left off in 2007 as it appears the promotion may be laying the foundations for an event in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Organization CEO Victor Cui recently posted pictures online of a visit to Japan, where he met with Shigeru Saeki, the founder and president of 13-year-old Japanese MMA promotion Deep and a former executive at Pride.
Pride FC was the premier mixed martial arts promotion during the sport’s boom in Japan between the late ‘90s and the mid-2000s. It was closed by UFC parent company Zuffa in 2007, just months after the brand had been purchased, as the sport’s popularity in the country diminished following a scandal linking Pride with organized crime.
Rallying/Crashed: The MMA business can be cruel and kind
Rallying: Dude Wipes
If there was one positive for the UFC’s Tyron Woodley in his decision loss to Rory MacDonald in June it was the sudden upswing in interest among fans regarding the sponsor printed on the rear of his shorts: Dude Wipes – which produces packs of handy, single-sachet wet wipes aimed at men.
Crashed: CondomDepot.com
From 2007 to 2009 you could barely watch a UFC event without seeing a fighter’s shorts sporting the logo for CondomDepot.com. Fighters such as Andrei Arlovksi and Clay Guida had been sponsored by them until the UFC nixed the use of the branding in the Octagon in late 2009. Speculation at the time was that the UFC were on the verge of a mainstream TV deal.
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