Issue 063
June 2010
When did MMA transition into becoming a team sport? It didn’t. Pals Rashad Evans and Keith Jardine, the American Kickboxing Academy training triumvirate Josh Koscheck, Jon Fitch and Mike Swick, Nottingham Rough House teammates Dan Hardy and Paul Daley, all need to face the facts.
Dana White, president of the UFC, is now on the warpath against fighters who insist they cannot put a fist to the face of a friend in the Octagon. Good move – and the right time to shake it up. It irks fans, and something needs to be done about it. Some will complain that White is just concerned merely with making money – but why should the organization that employs the fighters kowtow to this?
Take the five welterweights just mentioned. The five 170lb’ers mentioned above would make it into the UFC’s top ten, and arguably into the top seven or eight rankings among the welters.
White has offered musings on this for a while, but made his feelings abundantly clear in the post-fight news conference at UFC 111 in Newark. After Jon Fitch had fiddled his way through a tedious (yet effective) shutout of Ben Saunders over three rounds, the fighter suggested he would turn down an eliminator for the title with Koscheck. Fitch was angling for a rematch with UFC welterweight champion St Pierre. White had other ideas – he had in mind Fitch vs Koscheck. Why should fighters hold the organization to ransom?
White intimated that Fitch was “in the mix”, but not yet number-one contender. White believes Fitch’s AKA teammate would be a good option. Fitch disagreed. “Well then, he doesn’t want the title shot that bad,” was White’s retort. “If that fight had to happen, it’d happen at our gym with the doors closed,” Fitch said, bizarrely. “That would make a lot of money,” White replied as a sarcastic aside.
Whichever way you look at it, the UFC president is right. These men are individual, professional fighters. They are not teams.
New York legalization battle tempered by German rejection
Marc Ratner, the vice-president of regulatory affairs for the UFC, has predicted that, if all goes according to plan, the first regulated MMA show in New York – at Madison Square Garden – could be held sometime before March next year.
At present, MMA could come under the regulatory control of the New York State Athletic Commission, proposed in the budget laid out by Governor Paterson and members of the Senate. Of the 48 US States with athletic commissions, only Alabama, Connecticut, New York, Vermont and West Virginia remain unsanctioned. In August the UFC will go to Boston for the first time.
Yet a bittersweet taste remains after Bavarian broadcasters chose to terminate the scheduling of UFC events on terrestrial television in Germany. Myopic German censors and local politicians playing their hand at outlawing through ignorance have seen Zuffa enter into what will be a protracted and expensive legal battle. With there being precedence with the same having occurred over WWE, they should win the legal war by ground ‘n pound.
Referees too slow to end fights
Is it my imagination, or are certain referees failing to move in quickly enough at the end of fights? A flurry of violent uppercuts from Shane Carwin put Frank Mir on the mat at UFC 111. What was Dan Miragliotta thinking? Mir was clearly defenseless, his head pinned to the mat, the 265lb+ Carwin still throwing. Five days earlier in Denver, referee Tom Johnson also seemed slow to react when John Howard knocked Daniel Roberts out cold from a single shot on UFC on Versus. I’d like to know Marc Goddard’s take on this.
Is GSP becoming the Floyd Mayweather of MMA?
Dana White often criticizes the style of Floyd Mayweather – dull, he claims. MMA is a sport, but the UFC is in the entertainment business. While GSP is certainly at a great level, his stock as an entertainer is falling. Until he fought Forrest Griffin, Anderson Silva was viewed by spectators as not taking enough chances. As Silva proved, it only takes one exciting win to get back on the fans’ good side. Dominant, smothering victories by wrestlers are nothing new in the sport, but the demands and expectations of ticket holders calls for more entertainment.
Carwin – a hulk in the Octagon; a dormouse out of it
Shane Carwin needs help. In the Octagon he has the thrashing power of The Hulk; outside the Octagon he has the timidity of a dormouse. If Brock Lesnar vs Shane Carwin is to be a real seller, could Carwin benefit from a Paul Heyman-like figure to bring him out a little?
...and finally
Growing mainstream acceptance for mixed martial arts remains a high priority. ESPN’s weekly ‘MMA Live’ show moves to ESPN2 in May and could be the litmus test for whether the sport will appeal to the casual sports fan. Scheduling on ESPN2 means the show will reach 99 million homes. It could be the beginning of something huge...
Gareth A Davies is boxing and MMA correspondent for The London Telegraph.
