Weekly MMA News Report- 7/26/09
This last week has been especially eventful in the mixed martial arts world, and Fightmania is here to provide you with the rundown of what has happened. Of course, my own take on each item will also be presented so as to inspire debate, disagreements, or even (occasionally) approval from you, dear reader. Continue on for all of the biggest stories from the last week or so!
–Undoubtedly the biggest story of the week is the rapid disintegration of Affliction’s mixed martial arts promotion. It all started at midweek with news of main event fighter Josh Barnett being ruled out due to a failed drug test. Then, a couple of days later, it was announced that Affliction would forego their “Trilogy” event altogether! Finally, just a day after that, Affliction announced that they would not continue to promote MMA events, and furthermore, that they would go back to sponsoring fighters in the UFC, of all places.
My Take: Wow. Another one bites the dust, right? I won’t take too much credit for calling Affliction a dead promotion walking after Barnett’s failed test and the show’s cancellation, though. After all, anyone could see that things weren’t looking good, but I at least thought that Affliction’s MMA promotion would make it out of the week alive!
So now, the UFC can hang the severed head of yet another would-be competitor outside of their offices as a warning to all thee who may consider starting an MMA promotion. Right now, the only real competition in North America to the UFC is Strikeforce. Meanwhile, we’ll go back to seeing tons and tons of Affliction shirts on UFC fighters, just like back in the day. What will happen to all of the contracted Affliction fighters? It’s likely that at least a handful of them, including Vitor Belfort and possibly Ben Rothwell will be in the UFC before long. However, the one everyone wants to know about is…
–Fedor Emelianenko’s manager spoke this weekend about how he and Fedor are open to negotiations with the UFC. However, once again Vadim Finklestein repeated his demand that M-1 Global be a co-promoter of any of Fedor’s fights, which will likely be the biggest sticking point (and one that could keep Fedor out of the octagon). He said Fedor’s appearances will be “only within the framework of co-promotional efforts with M-1 Global.” He said that they have “many” meetings set up with “all the major promotions” (which would be…who, exactly?) and that they hope to know who Fedor will be fighting for in the next few days.
My Take: It would be extremely exciting and great for everyone involved, especially the fans, if Fedor was to land in the UFC. However, since the UFC has said in the past that they absolutely will not co-promote with other promotions, it doesn’t seem like this can really happen unless Finklestein budges. Since that has not happened in the past, things look pretty bleak. We’ll see in the next few days if anything happens, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.
–Of course, it’s hard to say that Dana White is not a flexible person, because in all fairness, he’s shown repeatedly that he can not only verbally attack with the best of them, but also forgive and forget with the best of them. He’s done so again by apparently making up with Tito Ortiz, which was announced on White’s twitter account. White said that he had buried the hatchet with Tito, and a few days later posted a rather interesting message welcoming Tito back. However, later in the day he said that nothing had been worked out at that time to get Tito back in the octagon.
My Take: Color me confused. Of course, Ortiz will definitely be back in the octagon, and I’m not sure if there was ever all that much doubt. We’ve seen this before, and Ortiz ended up back in the organization with a jump start via a coaching stint on “The Ultimate Fighter”. Now, the Dan Henderson-Rich Franklin rematch for UFC 103 is apparently being scrapped, with rumors circulating that Tito Ortiz himself may welcome Franklin back to light heavyweight, instead. I have to admit, I’d much rather see an Ortiz-Franklin fight than a rematch of Henderson-Franklin at this juncture. If the fight is cancelled and we see Henderson get his much deserved title shot instead, I would be pretty pleased.
–It was much ado about nothing in relation to Mirko “Cro Cop Filipovic apparently back-stabbing Dana White and re-signing with Dream. Instead, it’s been announced that Cro Cop has signed a three-fight deal with the UFC, which will supposedly see him stepping back in to face Junior dos Santos in September.
My Take: Well, apparently I got fired up over nothing when I criticized Cro Cop for sacrificing his own legacy in the interest of fighting much easier opponents in Dream. Of course, I don’t feel as badly since not only was I under the wrong impression, but so was Dana White and pretty much all of the world’s MMA media. It’s good to see that Cro Cop is going to embrace the challenge of fighting in the UFC, and who knows? His participation in the American-based promotion may help convince Fedor to sign there, as well.
–While Fedor-Barnett was the high-profile cancellation this week, news of another huge fight being scrapped spread last week, as Joe “Diesel” Riggs will be unable to fight Nick Diaz at the upcoming Strikeforce show. The bout was to be for the newly-awarded welterweight title of the promotion, which will go on with the show as planned on August 15th. Rumors of a replacement for Joe Riggs have included Xtreme Couture fighter Jay Hieron, who was to fight in the now-cancelled Affliction show.
My Take: This is too bad. It’s always good to see a rematch of an old-fashioned grudge match, and it’s pretty easy for Diaz to get involved in such grudge matches, with his rather interesting outlook on the sport. This really would have been the third fight between the two, although not many really know who won their second fight, as it took place in the hospital the night of their UFC 57 fight. It would be good to see someone like Hieron get a shot, though, especially since he could make up some of that lost income from the cancelled Affliction show.
–Finally, former WEC featherweight champion Urijah Faber has spoken out as to his unhappiness with his current contract. While Faber has gone out of his way to be diplomatic and has chosen his words rather carefully, he has made it quite clear that he feels he is underpaid, and that he is not necessarily pleased with the direction of the WEC in general. He would like to see the company expand to pay-per-views and to get more of a promotional push, similar to what UFC events and shows get.
My Take: It’s hard to argue with Faber wanting more money. Even with Mike Brown as the champion of the featherweight division, Faber is really the poster boy of the division and the WEC itself. Of course, I could not disagree more with Faber’s idea that WEC pay-per-views are a good idea. It may be good for the fighters like Faber who could probably get bonuses based on PPV buys, but I don’t know that there is enough interest to make WEC PPVs successful, especially with the ever-increasing regularity of UFC pay-per-views. It’s hard to expect fans to buy a WEC pay-per-view two weeks after one UFC show and a few weeks before yet another one. Ask Affliction how trying to get a share of MMA fans’ limited pay-per-view budgets went.
Next week, we’ll be back with my take on more of the newest stories in MMA. Until then, keep coming back to Fightmania.com for news and editorials on all the happenings in the world of MMA.
by Jon Hartley for Fightmania.com
Tags: Dan Henderson, Dana White, DREAM, Fedor Emelianenko, Josh Barnett, Junior Dos Santos, Mike Brown, Nick Diaz, Rich Franklin, Strikeforce, Tito Ortiz, UFC, Vitor Belfort, WEC
