Dear Interested Parties:

Re: Association of Boxing Commissions Professional and Amateur MMA Rules
Committee

The deadline to submit your comments to the committee is FAST
APPROACHING. Only one month is left to submit your comments for
consideration by the Committee. The deadline to submit comments for
consideration is September 17, 2008.

Items that will be discussed by the ABC Committee and sub-committees
include, but are not limited to, smothering, standing foot stomps, knees
to the head, striking to the back of the head, weight classes, downward
pointed elbows and amateurs.

We are interested in any comments from any promoters, matchmakers,
managers, seconds, trainers, fighters, officials, media, fans or other
interested parties.
All comments will be passed on to the Committee for their consideration.
Please feel free to submit your comments in writing by September 17,
2008 to:

Nicholas Lembo
State Athletic Control Board
Hughes Justice Complex
PO Box 180
Trenton, NJ 08625

The Association of Boxing Commissions, through its President, Tim
Lueckenhoff, has formed a nine member committee to conduct a thorough
study of the current rule set for professional mixed martial arts to
determine what, if any, justification may exist for amendment to the
Uniform Rules of Mixed Martial Arts. This committee will also recommend
rules for amateur mixed martial arts.

The intent of the ABC and President Lueckenhoff is to find uniformity
and unification so that the rules of MMA are the same in each
jurisdiction in which this growing sport is authorized.

President Lueckenhoff has announced a committee of:

Chairman Nick Lembo, New Jersey
Jim Erickson, North Dakota
Andy Foster, Georgia
Dale Kilparchuk, River Cree
Keith Kizer, Nevada
Armando Garcia, California
Josef Mason, Colorado
Mike Mazzulli, Mohegan Sun
Bernie Profato, Ohio

The Committee members are strongly encouraged to receive input from
their own licensed judges, referees and physicians.

I believe that it is crucial to get input from the fighters. The fighter
sub-committee can assist us in our decisions and findings.Therefore, I
am announcing a fighter committee consisting of:

Ricardo Almeida
Renzo Gracie
Steven Haigh
Jeremy Horn
Matt Hughes
Tara LaRosa
Pat Miletich
BJ Penn

I am also announcing an industry sub-committee consisting of:

Monte Cox
John McCarthy
Lou Neglia
JD Penn
Joe Silva
Marc Ratner
Jared Shaw

The medical sub-committee will be Chaired by Dr. Sherry Wulkan who will
be asked to receive input from other Committee state physicians and Drs.
Mark Belafsky and Michael Kelly of NJ. Dr. Stephen Shogun of Colorado
and Dr. Johnny Benjamin of Florida have already kindly agreed to
participate.

Several members of the mixed martial media arts media have already been
contacted, or will be contacted via this e-mail, and have been
encouraged to provide me with their thoughts and comments to present to
me to share with the Committee. Over 300 others in the industry have
been directly contacted and asked to submit comments. All committee
Commission members have been freely encouraged to get whomever they wish
involved in the process.

Many thanks to these groups for agreeing to assist us.

Upon receipt of the comments, the Committee will then see what we can
separate into areas of total agreement, majority agreement, and locate
areas of concern or strong differing opinions and attempt to form
resolutions.

Thank you for your participation and cooperation in this important task.

P.S. invitations to comment have been sent to:

Dr. Domenic Colletta, NJ
Miguel Iturrate, matchmaker, PA
Cam McHargue, referee, Georgia
Kipp Kollar, promoter-referee, CT
Karo Pariysan, fighter, California
Mike Reilly, cornerman,Minnesota
Nelson Hamilton, official, California
Mike Constantino, trainer, New Jersey
Donnie Carolei, referee, NY
Kirik Jenness, mma.tv
Melvina Lathan, commissioner,New York
Tom Molloy, commissioner, Florida
Chad Kurle, North Dakota
David Isaacs, promoter, New York
Bob Meyrowitz, promoter, New York
Jeff Meszsaros, media, California
Carmine Zocchi, trainer, New York
David Ross, trainer, New York
Joel Gold, FCF
Tom DeFazio, FCF
Ivan Trembow, mmaweekly
Jordan Breen, sherdog
Josh Gross, sports illustrated
TJ DeSanctis, sherdog
Travis Lutter, fighter, Texas
Kim Winslow, referee, Nevada
Carlos Arias, OC Register, California
Carl Mascarenhas, promoter, NJ
Scott Morgan, promoter, NJ
Chris McCabe, promoter, Virginia
Kevin Garvey, media, NY
Mike Lynch, WAMMA, Florida
Ron Kruck, HDNET
Ryan Ciotoli, trainer, New York
Mike Varner, fighter-promoter, Massachusetts
Chad Dubin, trainer, Pennsylvania
Conan Silveira, trainer, ATT, Florida
Candy Schacter, Calgary commission
Kerry Schall, fighter, Iowa
mma junkie
Danny ligouri, trainer, NJ
Randy Gordon, former cmsr, New York
Joe Cuff, matchmaker, Connecticut
Joe Diamond, trainer, NJ
Dr. Robert Cantu, Massachusetts
Kurt Pellegrino, fighter, NJ
Chris Onzuka, media,Hawaii
Franklin McNeil, media
Chad Edward, media
Dave Weinberg, media
Keith Idec, media
Bernard Fernandez, media
Jatinder Dhoot, media, Canada
Dr. Smick, NJ
Brendan Barrett, fighter, NJ
Mark Negron, NY
Steve Katz, trainer, NY
Jerry Spiegel, fighter, Connecticut
Brian Wright, trainer, NJ
Tom DeBlass, trainer, NJ
Joe Lauzon, fighter, Massachusetts
Brian Crenshaw, WKA Representative, MMA,Richmond, VA
Clint Heylinger,USTMA President,New York City
Paul Rosner,USKBA President,New Jersey
Mike Popp,Fight manager,California
John Rallo,Trainer and former fighter,Maryland
Eddie Goldman, NHB news
Jim Genia, Full Contact Fighter
Keith Mills, ADCC News
Dave Meltzer, Yahoo
Loretta Hunt, Sherdog
Pramit Mohapatra, Fightticker
Sam Caplan, FiveOuncesofPain
Luke Thomas, Bloody Elbow
Zach Arnold, Fight Opinion
Danny Schulman, Tiger Schulman, New York
Gary Marino, matchmaker, Florida
Paul Domenech, matchmaker, Florida
Shu Hirata, media, New York
Andrew Correa, referee, Virginia
Kevin Mulhall, referee, New Jersey
Dan Miragliotta, referee, NJ
Doug Crosby, judge, NY
Phil Dunlap, trainer, NJ
Dan Fischer, trainer, NJ
Ray Martin, judge, NJ
Fred Fitzgerald, judge, NJ
Yves Lavigne, referee, Quebec
Jerry Mendez, matchmaker, NY
Alex Marvaez, media, Florida
Eugene Bellida, fan
Joe Cunliffe, PA
Charles Jay, media, Florida
David T. Mayeda, PhD
Dr. Vincent Guida, NJ
Dr. Robert Cantu, MA
Herb Dean, referee

By Zach Arnold

When the IFL repeatedly announced in 10Q SEC filings that they were losing millions of dollars, MMA fans online started turning against the company. You could even see fans on message boards rooting for the IFL to collapse and go away. After all, the company managed to lose $30 million USD in the time span of a couple of years. Gareb Shamus and Kurt Otto, simply put, failed miserably in the MMA business. Of course, they also got paid through the stock market to play around with the IFL experiment.

The failure of the IFL brought a negative light on the MMA business in terms of outsiders viewing the industry as anything other than UFC-dominated. We know Zuffa LLC is the only game in town, but the question was whether or not someone with a legitimate business background could come into the MMA game and produce a league that could turn a profit. The answer was and still is a resounding ‘no.’

On Tuesday, the news got even worse for fans looking for an alternative to UFC.

Pro Elite, the parent company of Elite XC, announced in their 10Q SEC report that the company has lost an estimated $55 million USD in the timespan of 18 months. Simply put, the financial math and bloodletting from Elite XC headquarters is unfathomable. The company claimed that they had spent $1.3 million USD on their web site alone in six months of expenditures.  At a time where MMA bloggers can’t get $500/month sponsors for a business that still has growth potential, Pro Elite is handing out the cash like chocolate at the Willy Wonka factory.

This is beyond embarrassing. It’s shameful.

How can an organization with a Showtime & CBS TV deal manage to lose money like a dot.com company? One look at the 10Q report quickly shows that the TV networks are paying little more than the price to buy stock in Pro Elite. The TV revenue for the events Elite XC has produced are miniscule. The cost to generate that TV revenue is pretty high, too.

It’s not hard to imagine a scenario now where we could see Showtime or CBS take over Pro Elite soon. Is that something that people are rooting for? Before you get your hopes up too high, remember what happened when a corporation (Time Warner) took over a fight promotion (WCW). You ended up with a former Pizza Hut executive coming up with an idea to book a tag team called The Ding Dongs.

Is this what we want in MMA?

Simply put, there’s a complete lack of accountability and financial restraint going on amongst UFC’s wannabe competitors. They are wannabes, by the way. In my last article on MMA Memories, I pointed out that the one common denominator that all of UFC’s rivals are currently lacking in the MMA business is consistency. Boy, was I ever wrong. There’s consistency all right — consistency for all of these groups to lose their financial ass and for the key players of the failed projects to walk away with a salary and money on the table.

All of this is damaging to the health of Mixed Martial Arts. In order for the sport to grow on a global basis, it’s going to have to take more than just Zuffa LLC’s money to finance the growth of the business. This business desperately needs fresh blood and cash. More importantly, the industry needs solid and respected businessman who will not try MMA as simply a play toy. In order for MMA to expand into countries like China, Brazil, and Australia, it’s going to take a lot of big businessmen to get involved to finance these types of operations. Unfortunately, I greatly fear that a backlash is about to begin in regards to investing money in MMA and that the recent failures in the business are going to drive away people who would otherwise be a good fit in the sport.

Put yourself in the shoes of a rich millionaire or billionaire. You just watched the IFL go out of business and lose over $30 million in the process. Pro Elite has admittedly lost $55 million USD in the time span of around two years. DREAM, which is the bastard child of K-1 & DSE, is one more show away from being completely finished off if it can’t pop a good TV rating. Sengoku is in horrible shape and may not last much longer given the way the company is running huge buildings with lackluster cards. Affliction, after one show, reportedly lost a lot of money and may very well lose a lot of money on October 11th in Las Vegas. At what point, as a rich person, do you sit there and go, “Look at the track record of this business. Why would I put money into it other than for a tax write-off?”

There will always be rich people who will try to get into MMA and think that they can do better than the others. “Well, I won’t make this mistake like the other guy did” or “I know how to run a business unlike these guys.” However, most of the rich people who make these statements usually end up being talkers only and don’t put their money where their mouths are. Why? Because they’re not stupid enough to blow away money in a business that is so volatile right now and has little or no upside in terms of investing serious cash.

All of the current financial turmoil in MMA is good for UFC in the short-term but terrible for that organization in the long run. UFC can’t be in the position of being MMA’s version of Mother Theresa — they can’t pay for every fighter in the business. Pro Elite’s attempt at building up a successful farm system of B-level promotions has failed.

What’s next for an MMA industry where the only certainty these days seems to be uncertainty?

By Zach Arnold

Have you noticed the compete lack of heat going into the second Affliction show on October 11th? You’re not the only one.

The promotion will headline their second big show (this time at the Thomas & Mack Center) with a main event of Josh Barnett vs. Andrei Arlovski. On paper, it’s an excellent bout. In reality, however, it’s going to be hard to see the fight moving the needle as far as casual fan interest is concerned. Affliction spent so much energy promoting Fedor on their debut show that the theme for the second show is, “Which heavyweight will end up facing Fedor down the road?” Call it the “Kimbo Slice effect,” but Affliction’s second show could turn out in similar fashion in terms of crowd heat as Elite XC’s second show on CBS did when they didn’t have Kimbo Slice on the card as opposed to their initial showing on broadcast TV.

The great irony in Fedor not appearing for the second Affliction show is that he claims he wants to fight on New Year’s Eve for DREAM in Japan. DREAM is another promotion that is teetering on the edge of collapse and given Fedor’s track record of headlining promotions that have gone out of business, it would be a sad but fitting end to K-1 & DSE’s bastard child of an MMA project gone horribly stale.

When UFC President Dana White made an aggressive pitch to attack Affliction’s debut show on multiple levels (including a counter-show featuring Anderson Silva), everyone universally panned the move by White as giving Affliction free press coverage. After all, the storyline of Affliction vs. UFC was one that media types were certainly interested in both covering and selling to the masses. Despite the common logic that White made a mistake in going after Affliction, White actually proved a point about Affliction and other rivals to UFC by accident. A funny thing happened along the way… UFC has proven that without their momentum to bash the competition or to promote one of their own shows, your casual MMA fan in America has little interest in watching the ‘other guys.’

It’s safe to say that in North America, MMA fans are really more or less UFC fans on a general scale. You may as well call Affliction the CFL and Elite XC the Arena League at this point, given the treatment that other promotions have received in both the press and amongst casual fans.

If you accept the premise that UFC is the only game in town and that their marketing prowess is what drives the current MMA market by-in large, then how can anyone establish momentum against the 800-pound gorilla in the market? One word: consistency.

Consistency is not an attribute that we’ve seen on display at all with UFC’s rivals.

Elite XC is in complete turmoil right now. Gary Shaw and Doug DeLuca are both gone from the company, while Jeremy Lappen is now the head matchmaker. Without Shaw’s hard-edge marketing and showmanship, EXC is turning into a very bland MMA promotion with a CBS TV deal. The company is also facing a very serious lawsuit by Wallid Ismael, who claims that EXC management ripped off characteristics from his Jungle Fight promotion and basically took all of his knowledge of the MMA business without any sort of compensation. That lawsuit starts gaining steam in the courts next month.

As if a lawsuit and executive departures weren’t bad enough for Elite XC, the company is facing tremendous financial stress in regards to all of the major B-level acquisitions that it made (Cage Rage, ICON Sport, an investment in Spirit MC, King of the Cage) and hasn’t capitalized on in terms of either managing those respective brands or the fighters under contract to those organizations. The attempt at creating a farm system has massive failed and negatively impacted the business.

Affliction, heading into their second ever MMA event this October, does not seem to have the media juice or buzz like they had going into their debut event. Remember, the promotion proclaimed their first card as “the greatest heavyweight card of all time.” Was it really the Affliction brand and fighters that sold interest to MMA fans the first time around or was it the fact that Affliction was perceived to be on par with UFC and feuding with Dana White as a main reason people were curious about watching the debut show?

UFC’s media promotional machine headed to Chicago on Monday and put on a show for the media there at their press conference to announce the headline fights for their October 25th show in the market. The Chicago Sun-Times and other major media outlets are covering UFC’s entry into the marketplace on a major level, despite the fact that the IFL ran a few shows at Hoffman Estates in the area and received little or no coverage for it.

For Affliction’s sake, the promotion must hope that their October 11th event in Las Vegas draws the ire of UFC for basically running on Zuffa’s home turf. If Zuffa ignores Affliction and does not give into the temptation of giving them free media coverage, then Affliction will have a very hard time generating media interest and significant cash flow for the second show. Without someone like Tito Ortiz headlining the card, it is going to be hard to fathom how Affliction will garner major attention from fight fans, insiders, corporate sponsors, and players in the fight game for the second show. Perception is reality and right now, Affliction is a t-shirt company that is simply viewed as a glorified ATM to fighters and nothing else. Unless the company can show a track record of consistency in promoting high-quality shows and turning a profit on said shows, then it is going to be very hard for this upstart organization to gain any sort of momentum unless they can draw the ire of Dana White and stir up a hornet’s nest in the press.

The fact is that UFC right now has all the momentum and nobody else in the industry does. Without UFC’s momentum, things simply don’t get done or pushed because nobody cares about the other players in the industry right now.

CHARLES JAY
Commentary on MMA history….as it’s happening

REASONABLE PEOPLE TO ABC: TAKE YOUR RULES AND SHOVE THEM

Congratulations to Dana White for giving a simple and solid “No” to the idea of adopting the evil, execrable, atrocious, awful, odious, obnoxious, insolent, imperious, iniquitous, insidious, contemptible, detestable, deplorable, dictatorial, doctrinaire, diabolical, offensive, overbearing, putrid, perverse, nefarious, abhorrent, miscreant, repugnant, repulsive, revolting, rotten, wretched, loathsome, haughty, heinous, hideous, horrid, horrific, horrible, flagitious, foul, vile, stupid, silly, supercilious and and downright authoritarian rules that the Association of Boxing Commissions (ABC) tried to shove down the throats of mixed martial arts promoters, and mixed martial fans, in a July meeting where the members quite obviously had nothing better to do with their time.

OK - we shouldn’t get too carried away. First of all, let’s explain, for the sake of clarity, that the ABC is not a government agency, nor does it carry any of the powers that such an “authority” might be expected to have. It is a trade organization, although it is worth noting that there are a couple of things in particular that are dangerous about this crew - that it consists of a bunch of state regulators, political appointees in most cases, who listen to a few misguided people and take all those ideas back home with them, and that legislators in Washington, who just can’t keep their noses out of the affairs of a private industry, are listening to them.

And on the table was a proposal to change the weight divisions that currently exist in mixed martial arts, to include a number of “junior” and “super” weight classes, just like boxing. A total of fourteen in all.

This statement came from Nick Lembo, who was instrumental, along with Larry Hazzard, in adopting what are known as the “unified rules” of MMA that the sport is conducted under: “Major MMA jurisdictions like Nevada, California, Ohio, Florida, Quebec and New Jersey need to have an involved role when contemplating serious MMA rule changes. Unless everyone is on board, the ridiculous result would be having different weight classes in different jurisdictions for the same fighters in the same sport.”

The ABC clearly was doing some busy work here. I don’t know what they were trying to accomplish, other than engage in an attempt to tell the UFC who’s boss. It’s interesting that the states like Nevada, Florida and California, who have hosted a lot of UFC events and will continue to do so in the future, were not represented at the meeting which produced such foolishness. Can anybody say “ex parte”?

I don’t want to portray the UFC as an innocent victim here; indeed, they will play the political card when they have to. But we will call them on it when that happens.

Hey, fair is fair, on both sides of the coin.

The UFC may have taken on some of the characteristics of a monopoly, but it’s a LEGAL monopoly. It has not gotten where it is by breaking legitimate laws and engaging in acting that violate the spirit of, say, the Sherman Act. It may bend the rules, but it doesn’t necessarily break them. They run their own ship, they run it well, and they don’t necessarily need anyone’s help to make it better. Sure, it would be great if their position of having more than 80% of the marketplace (and probably even more than that, with the demise of Elite XC and the IFL), but it has to be done by someone who has earned their way into that place, not one who artificially gets there. No one needs to be “ruled” into existence or “ruled” out.

The UFC, whether you like it or not, has demonstrated itself to be a shining example of self-governance, something that boxing has failed to do. It is private regulation of a sort, for sure. And let’s not make any bones about it - what you have here, as long as they insist on calling their championships “world titles,” is a company that is, at once, both sanctioning body and promoter. If you don’t want to fight for what they’re offering, you can get stripped of your title and it’s pretty much as simple as that.

But you know what? There is recourse for fighters, if they feel they’ve been wronged that way. All they have to do is take the UFC to a civil court, and beat them. That remedy doesn’t have to be legislated into existence. They’d have to win in court anyway, and there usually isn’t a goddamn thing most athletic commissions are going to do to help a fighter in a case like that. So what does it matter?

I was once heavily involved in all the goings-on surrounding the proposed federal boxing legislation (or at least in opposing it), that in which John McCain, who happily took money from people he had regulatory domain over through his Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, sought to exercise some moral, and legislative, authority over a sport (boxing) where such an activity, even by those loose standards, would have been scandalous. What I found was that the ideas McCain was getting, and which he sought to muscle through with the aid of a series of fixed and phony hearings, came from people who had an agenda. In other words, they had a bone to pick with somebody, they thought they had been screwed somewhere and were going to get revenge, or they simply wanted power within their own circle, or a larger circle, and were going to use McCain’s proposed bill to get it.

No difference here. The rules changes and weight divisions are largely the product of the well-known referee John McCarthy, who apparently has an ax to grind now with the UFC. And what better way to upset that applecart than to make the UFC go and restructure their titles and weight divisions. In other words, to roll over and say “Yes master.”

Except that it doesn’t work that way.

The UFC’s liaison with athletic commissions in none other than Marc Ratner, who as a former president of the ABC knows full well what I’m about to tell you: that the ABC has no official standing with anybody, nor do they have the juice to snap their fingers and create weight divisions that everyone - indeed, ANYONE - has to follow. It is a trade organization, with voluntary membership, that operates as a non-profit and offers “guidelines” for rules and regulations, many of which can either be followed or ignored.

In Dana’s case, he chooses to ignore them.

“It should be that [the state athletic commissions] all follow one set of rules,” McCarthy was quoted in one internet story. “Wherever you go, it’s the same. That’s what you need to have — consistency for not only the fighters, (but also) the officials and the fans of the sport.”

The problem is that the state commissions don’t really matter in this regard. What matters is what the UFC, and the other promoters, choose to do. It is not any state’s place to mandate that a fight which takes place for a light heavyweight title should now be called a middleweight fight, as would be the case if they had their wish. The scope of their “authority” goes about as far as determining whether there is to much of a weight difference between two competitors so as to make a bout unfair (and I would even challenge that). The private company, promoting the fight, can call it anything it wants, and unless it is violating advertising laws by committing fraud, there is nothing anyone should have to say about it.

There is a post-script to this story. Lembo, who has maybe more experience in this than any regulator in the country, has now been named the head of the ABC committee that will deal with MMA. The other members of that committee are Jim Erickson of North Dakota Armando Garcia of California; Keith Kizer of Nevada; Dale Kliparchuk of The River Cree Combative Sports Commission in Canada, Joe Mason of Colorado; and Mike Mazzulli of the Mohegan Athletic United (Connecticut). I know several of these guys, and I’m sure they’ll do a good job.

As long as they know that when it comes down to it, the only effective regulation is ultimately self-regulation, and that the people who put their money up are the ones with the most at stake.

Charles Jay
Commentary on MMA history…..as it’s happening

ULTIMATELY, DOES LESNAR WANT IT ENOUGH?

Brock Lesnar really had a chance

Not to win against Heath Herring, mind you. In point of fact, Lesnar is the oddsmakers’ favorite in Saturday night’s heavyweight clash.

What I’m talking about is that he had a chance to make it to the NFL, and even more to the point, IN the NFL. In fact, he could have been preparing to compete at the Metrodome on Friday, rather than the considerably smaller Target Center, where he will mix it up with Heath Herring.

It was just going to take some work on his part.

Lesnar, who was the youngest WWE champion in history, was also an NCAA wrestling champ at the University of Minnesota. In 2004 he decided to leave the WWE to pursue a dream to play pro football. And when he decided to cut loose from Vince McMahon’s group, he set his sights on his hometown Minnesota Vikings.

I was on the phone talking with what might be commonly referred to as an “NFL insider” the other day, discussing Lesnar’s athleticism. Although this person had not analyzed Lesnar’s ability as a football player too closely, being something of a wrestling fan, he had spoken with some people who had.

“I talked to a scout that said he was pretty good but he was green as grass,” said the exec, who we’ll call Insider X. “They thought he was really pretty good. But he really had no background. He was strong. He was quick. He had a lot of things going for him. But he didn’t know how to play, and that’s not something I say to demean him. What they wanted him to do was play in NFL Europe.”

Ah yes. They wanted him to play in NFL Europe. When Lesnar was in camp with the Vikings, he showed some flashes of ability but was out of control at times. During one scrimmage with the Kansas City Chiefs, he let loose with a violent sack of Chiefs’ quarterback Damon Huard, almost literally body-slamming him to the turf.

The enthusiasm was nice, but as far as decorum, it was kind of a no-no.

Though he had potential to play, in the words of many, he needed to be fine-tuned. “He needed practical experience,” said Insider X. “That means learning how to read blocks, get off blocks, getting through cut blocks and rushing the passer. It’s about recognition, feeling pressure. He had to learn how to fight through a double team, when that situation arose. That’s the kind of thing you can’t do just on natural ability.”

But it was the natural ability that piqued the interest of the Minnesota coaching staff. Lesnar allegedly skipped some practices because of injuries that may or may not have reached the kind of NFL standards that would justify an absence, at least for someone who was not a high-priced side of beef. So there may have been an “attitude” issue of sorts. Perhaps it was all part of the indoctrination.

When Vikings management cut Lesnar, they didn’t wish to get rid of him entirely. In fact, they were optimistic that they could put him on the practice squad, which enables a player to practice with the team and be put onto the active roster at a moment’s notice. Head coach Mike Tice was quoted as saying, “I can’t promise that he’ll be back before Dallas (Sept. 12), but I think at some point this season you’ll see Brock Lesnar back as a Viking.” Then, to hasten his progress, they asked him to play in NFL Europe. Of course, none of this involved rejecting him out of hand. If they were doing that they would have given him a one-way fare home, and wished him luck. But when an NFL team asked you to go to Europe (the league has since folded), that meant they had some hope for you, and that you just needed development time. “Development” is not a bad thing, in NFL parlance. It’s a GOOD thing. Being “on the street” is a bad thing.

And chances are, if Lesnar had put in enough effort to have any impact at all, he would have found himself eventually in a Vikings uniform, playing in September and October, in addition to July and August. That’s the way the market works when you’re a heck of an athlete.

“It is SO hard to find defensive linemen,” said Insider X. “There is such a premium on those guys. Lesnar seemed to have great balance and leverage. And the NFL really takes a long look at a guy who has those things and is as strong as him (Lesnar). It’s just a matter of developing quickness with the snap of the ball, learning how to use the hands. These are the things a defensive lineman has to do.”

My source made reference to Carlton Haselrig, an NCAA wrestling champion on both the Division I and Division II level who didn’t play college football, but made the Pro Bowl in just his third season as a Pittsburgh Steelers offensive lineman. “Like Haselrig, this guy may have been able to use some of that wrestling experience to his advantage, especially as it comes to grappling in a stand-up position against the big linemen they have in the NFL, on either side of the ball.” Ironically, Insider X was not even aware that Haselrig, too, has made a conversion to the mixed martial arts world.

What’s a shame is that Lesnar did not have to fall into the category of a guy doing this on a lark. He was still young and spry enough to pull it off, even with a hitch overseas. My guy actually feels he may have been in a better position than many players coming out of college.

“Look, the guy was 28 years old, but he wasn’t beat up. He didn’t have any knee reconstruction, at least none that I know of. He was sound physically. There was nothing wrong with his age. He could have played six or seven years in the league at least.”

But Lesnar refused to go to Europe. He also declined an offer from the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League. Most people are still kind of unclear on the reason, although there may have been an obvious one - vanity, if that’s what the fling with the NFL was all about.

“Well, considering this guy had an opportunity, I would say that if he didn’t want to go to Europe and be coached up a little, I would absolutely question his desire to play,” says Insider X. “It’s like that old Joe Louis line, ‘Everybody wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die.’

Maybe that’s the kind of guy Louis was referring to.”

Yeah, maybe.

And I wonder what that might ultimately say about his future in MMA, whether he wins or loses on Saturday.

CHARLES JAY
Commentary on MMA history….as it’s happening

Reportedly, the ratings on CBS’ second telecast of Elite XC were down 43% from its May 31 debut. While that number itself may be deceiving, since it was measured against a fight with Kimbo Slice that kicked off the series, it does tell you some things, one of which is that the sport opf mixed martial arts, as a generic entity, isn’t enough to pull in fans, at least in this current context. When the names weren’t there, the viewers weren’t either.

I am not so sure that bodes well for the future growth of MMA. As one person from inside the industry told me, “A lot of people thought you could get uinto this industry and make money almost by accident. And if that were true, there wasn’t any better time to do it than just recently. But it may just be that this audience, the real audience that can be depended upon to watch the sport itself, for the sake of the sport, is very limited. Maybe it’s just a nice-sized cult.”

If those words are true, perhaps the sport winds up losing ground, as evidenced by what is happening with this CBS “experiment.”

There is a winner here, and that winner is the UFC, which is proving that its product is somewhat impervious to that kind of elasticity brought on by “name” performer versus “no name” performer. Not that a fight with Anderson Silva in the main event won’t draw considerably more than a fight featuring Michael Bisping in terms of the pay-per-view audience, but the popularity of the fighters like Anderson Silva can be built over time because the UFC brand is that which conquers all. Could that have been more prominently on display than on that July 26 date when Elite XC could only score 341,000 viewers in the key 18-34 demographic for its live championship event, while the UFC, airing a replay of the last Sean Sherk-B.J. Penn fight on Spike TV outdrew it by over 90,000 viewers in that group, in addition to garnering a higher rating in the expanded Men’s 18-49 category?

And as attractive as the Afflcition: Banned card was aesthetically, it is not likely that it topped the 100,000 pay-per-view buys the group’s VP, Tom Atenciop, says it attained, or surpassed it by much. Meanwhile, UFC, which aired the Anderson Silva-James Irvin fight on Spike TV at the same time, got an audience of 3.8 million viewers., and effectively cut into the Affliction subscriptions - which needed to be 250K to break even - according to Atencio, even though the UFC card was inferior overall.

The UFC can keep doing this ad infinitim, and unless Affliction can put Fedor on every show, and Elite XC can do the same with Kimbo, they are going to have a harder time developing a regular audience that will watch it for the sake of its own event, rather than the idea of watching a specific star in action.

I know this is a departure from what I wrote in the past, as I was projecting that the performer was going to be the future, rather than the organization. That is going to hold true in many cases, but maybe for promotions that are more or less “one-off” venturs. The fact is that the UFC brand is giving every indication of holding up. Inasmuch as the UFC, by this time, can play “spoiler” by placing programming opposite signature events by its competitors, and simply put it down as a loss leader, they stand a good chance of prompting these competitors to bleed themselves of the money it’s going to take to stay afloat for the long haul.

By Scoop Malinowski

Former 1976 Olympic gold medalist Howard Davis Jr. will be Brian Kenny’s in-studio guest on ESPN2s Friday Night Fights on August 15. Davis, one of the most decorated and successful amateurs in American boxing history is not very excited about the current American team because he doesn’t know much about them. Davis says exposure of U.S. amateur boxing has been inadequate.

“It’s sort of a sorry state for amateur boxing now. It’s not on TV. The more exposure you have, the more people show up, the more people will try boxing. If you’re not exposed to it, you don’t know what’s out there. When I was a kid, boxing was on every week on one of the major networks like CBS, NBC and ABC. I was inspired by that,” said Davis from the gym in Florida where he trains boxers and MMA fighters.

Davis says he caught an amateur fight on cable - just by chance. “I saw a little bit of the Olympic Trials a few weeks ago. I saw the heavyweights in the Trials but I wasn’t real impressed. The Olympic Trials used to be on ABCs Wide World of Sports. Now it’s on MSNBC, if you have cable. If you don’t have cable there’s very little coverage of it. What the hell happened? Boxing was always popular with the networks.”

Of the two American amateur heavyweights Davis watched, he was not particularly dazzled. “I wasn’t impressed at all. Not at all. I’m thinking, Wow. These are our heavyweights? We have these guys representing us?”

Davis says the boxing styles he saw lacked science. “It seems to be about who is in the best condition to throw the most punches. I don’t see thinking in there, jabbing, feinting, setting up an opponent, no real science, just a lot of punches.”

Amateur fights now are scored by having five judges push a button when they see a punch land. When all five push the button for the same punch, it scores as one point for the boxer who landed it. Back in Davis’s day, the international amateur boxing scene was dominated by Cuba, American and Russia. Now, Davis says, “it’s more conducive to Europeans winning.”

In the last Olympics, even a boxer from Thailand (Light welter Manus Boonjumnong) was able to win an Olympic gold medal. “When you’re seeing a country like Thailand winning an Olympic championship, something’s wrong.”

More exposure and publicity for the American amateur boxers would be a start, says Davis, about turning the dire situation around.

When I mention that the USA has one amateur world champ at 152 pounds named Demetrius Andrade from Providence, Rhode Island, last year, Davis had not heard of him.

Unfortunately, neither have most boxing fans.

By Scoop Malinowski

Concerns are growing that Mixed Martial Arts fighting is on the way to surpassing professional boxing in popularity (if it hasn’t already) with Elite XC on network TV CBS, The Ultimate Fighter series on Spike, etc. etc. Add Winky Wright to the list to those lauding the UFC’s business plan and questioning the decision-makers in boxing.

In a wide-ranging interview with Danny Flexen in the July 25th Boxing News weekly magazine of London (State Of The Game with Danny Flexen), Wright voiced plenty of logical sentiments which the boxing powers-that-be had better begin to heed, and fast. Among them told by Wright to Flexen:

“When I was coming up, more top fighters fought each other. They all wanted to prove they were the best in their weight class, not in the WBA, the IBF, but the best, period. But now the promoters and the networks get in the way and we’re losing a lot of fans because of it. The promoters milk the prospects, they don’t match them against top fighters. The networks allow too many easy fights.”

“I would definitely say (boxing is) declining as the best are not fighting the best. In the NBA they don’t just cancel the playoffs and have the Lakers against some sorry team. No one would watch. That’s why the UFC is gaining so much in popularity. The best fight the best and the fans love to see it.”

Clearly, Wright is expressing frustration at Floyd Mayweather who has made a habit for the last two or three years, while completely enabled by his friends at HBO and his management team led by Al Haymon, of handpicking second rate competition while ducking and dodging a logical Welterweight unification tournament, which boxing fans have been calling for several years in the heavyweight division. And not coincidentally, during that time period the UFC has exploded in popularity and cultural significance.

Wright continued, placing the blame on…

“The networks and the promoters but mainly the networks. A promoter can say no (to an opponent) but the networks could come back and say, well if he doesn’t fight this guy, then he’s not on the network. The networks aren’t standing up. They give one promoter the easy ride but not the other.”

“I would destroy the executives at all the TV networks. They have their own agenda and if they continue to run boxing the way they run it, it’ll continue to decline…We need some young execs who want to make a name for boxing, not themselves.”

“HBO gives a lot of dates to certain managers and you wonder why The fighters in the last few months are all managed by one guy who’s good friends with one of the big guys at HBO.”

Wright was probably implying Haymon as the manager/advisor (or whatever you want to call it) with the hefty influence at HBO. Haymon has HBO dates this year for Librado Andrade, Andre Berto, Vernon Forrest, Paul Williams, Arreola, Taylor, etc. Haymon is a curious and mysterious figure in boxing because he apparently does not speak to the media on the record. Which is puzzling because all managers and promoters tend to, by nature, gravitate towards a chance to speak to the media so they can publicize their plans and their fighters. Why Haymon would make it his rule to keep a private and secretive figure is kind of intriguing for its unusualness.

But the bottom line for boxing is, like Winky Wright has articulated, that if the powers that be want to keep it as business as usual in giving fans ‘the best versus not the best’ (although Margarito vs. Cotto is a recent exception to the rule), boxing will continue to lose ground, lose fans, lose money and lose popularity to MMA and the UFC.

And the boxing powers-that-be will only be able to blame themselves.

Source: Boxing News weekly magazine, www.boxingnewsonline.net

By Zach Arnold

“Bottom line, somehow, someway it all involves money.”

That quote, courtesy of Josh Gross in Sports Illustrated quoting an anonymous friend of Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, has stirred up a hornet’s rest in regards to speculation about why the business relationship between Jackson and boxing trainer Juanito Ibarra has ended.

Jackson, who is scheduled to be in court on August 15th based on his traffic escapades last month in Southern California, has a lot of personal issues to deal with. After losing to Forrest Griffin on July 5th in Las Vegas, Rampage reportedly fired his manager and trainer (Ibarra). Ironically, Ibarra was so confident about Jackson beating Griffin in their July 5th fight that he went on national television, claiming that he would retire for good if Rampage lost.

Being fired and unemployed is apparently as close to retirement as Ibarra will get.

What makes the allegations about Jackson having money problems with Ibarra interesting is that this story should come as a surprise to no one. There were advance warnings about potential financial problems that Jackson was facing, primarily in the form of a $10 million USD lawsuit filed in New York state court. The lawsuit, filed by White Chocolate Management (a Florida corporation), claimed that Ibarra was stepping in the way of WCM being able to secure business deals for Jackson. WCM, according to the lawsuit, was one of many corporations that Jackson agreed to work with as a non-exclusive business partner in order to obtain sponsorships and other business deals. In exchange for any business deals brought to the table by WCM, the company would receive a 20% cut of the earnings. The lawsuit by WCM alleges that Ibarra rejected several deals brought to the table by WCM, which in effect ’sabotaged’ the contractual arrangement between the two parties.

Althought WCM has business deals with several fighters in MMA, the company’s relatively low public profile and more behind-the-scenes-oriented structure created a situation where this $10 million USD lawsuit went under the radar. The lawsuit was filed in late 2007, a little over seven months ago. With the alleged break-up between Jackson and Ibarra having occurred, it will be interesting to see how WCM’s lawsuit against Jackson proceeds. Is a settlement worked out in which the parties then target Ibarra, or will Rampage owe both Ibarra and WCM money?

When reading the text of the lawsuit document filed by WCM’s legal team, some of the deals that WCM supposedly brought to the table for Jackson sound pretty big. Some of the business deals listed in the lawsuit involved a t-shirt deal with Walmart and a book deal with a $20,000 USD advance,

The break-up between Jackson and Ibarra is now the second high-profile split that Rampage has had with a trainer in his career (the first was with Colin Oyama, who was Jackson’s trainer during his PRIDE days). Unlike Oyama, Ibarra was not only a trainer but also a spiritual leader and manager for Rampage. Jeremy Lappen, former WFA boss and current Elite XC boss, represented Rampage during his days at Triumph Entertainment. With obvious money and legal woes impacting the way Jackson is currently behaving, the big question on everyone’s mind is how will UFC President Dana White will handle the situation.

When Jackson was arrested for his traffic incident last month, White immediately put up the money to get Rampage out of jail. According to Josh Gross of SI, it seems as if Mr. White had several things to discuss with the former UFC Light Heavyweight champion. One of those supposed talking points involved setting up a match between Jackson & Wanderlei Silva for this November. There is a great and twisted irony to the idea of booking Jackson/Silva III. Silva annhilated and pummeled Rampage so bad in their PRIDE encounters that Jackson took time off after the second KO loss and ended up finding God. (I should know — I was part of the radio interview team in which Rampage broke this news to the world.) Even though Jackson/Silva III will happen in a cage instead of a ring, you would have to make Silva a favorite going into the fight given the past history between the two men. A third loss to Silva could send Jackson’s UFC career spiraling out of control, much like it did after the second loss sent Rampage’s career in PRIDE spiraling out of control as well.

By Zach Arnold

After Affliction’s debut event on July 19th at the Honda Center in Anaheim, the discussion revolved around who would become the next challenger to Fedor Emelianenko, the PRIDE Heavyweight champion. Would it be Josh Barnett, the toughest opponent available that Fedor hasn’t fought yet? What about Randy Couture? It would draw big numbers at the box office, but Couture’s stuck in court against Zuffa LLC in both Nevada and Texas.

Without Barnett and Couture, the only viable challenge for Affliction to book against Fedor for their October event in Las Vegas is Andrei Arlovski. Arlovski is charismatic, well-known in the States, a credible heavyweight, and can help at the box office. A win over Arlovski means something to your casual MMA fan in America, just like Fedor’s dominating win over Tim Sylvia carried significant weight in the eyes of many.

Sure, if you are in Andrei Arlovski’s camp right now, you have second thoughts about whether or not you should accept an October booking against Fedor. After all, the likely outcome of such a fight is that Arlovski will get destroyed. However, give him some more training time with Freddie Roach to work on his striking ability and he might develop a puncher’s chance against the Russian.

Money talks and bull$&*! walks, which is why we’re about to see a babyface Russian monster against a babyface Belarussian caveman fight in the main event of Affliction’s second show.

In terms of fighting styles, we know that Fedor will push the pace very quickly against Arlovski. His only chance is to knock the Russian out and that simply hasn’t happened yet. If the idea of booking Fedor vs. Arlovski is to attract sharks to come to Las Vegas to bet money on the fight, forget about it. The odds/lines will be astronomically in favor of the Russian winning the fight. If you are booking a fight for Las Vegas to attract high-stakes gamblers, then the fight you want to book is Fedor vs. Barnett because it will be a competitive bout. What would the lines be for Arlovski as an underdog against Fedor? You would have to think that the lines would start out at +550 or greater. Additionally, you have to consider how much action you think anyone would put on Arlovski to pull off the upset win. Not much.

So, what would be the key to marketing a match between Fedor and Arlovski to the general public? It would be yet another PRIDE Heavyweight champion vs. ex-UFC Heavyweight champion match. Arlovski has a highlight reel of knockouts, but that footage is unfortunately owned by Zuffa. Certainly, the beating that Arlovski gave to Ben Rothwell is good enough video tape to make a few ads out of. The real test as to whether or not Affliction can get MMA fans to believe that Arlovski has a chance of winning the fight will involve boxing trainer Freddie Roach.

Yes, that Freddie Roach. The man who thought that Arlovski’s boxing skills made all the difference in the world against Rothwell and didn’t care all that much about the ground game. If Roach can teach Arlovski some new boxing tricks quickly and make his student’s striking game dangerous enough that people might give Arlovski a puncher’s chance of beating Fedor, then perhaps your casual MMA fan will take Arlovski seriously going into the fight.

The dual-edged sword that Affliction is now working with revolves around Fedor. When you have the greatest fighter in the world, you have to work diligently to build challengers that the public is willing to accept as challengers that might actually knock off the champion. Fedor is such a dominant heavyweight fighter that the mystique and aura surrounding him is a key component of drawing money with him on top. The downside is that if nobody believes he can be stopped, then suddenly there’s no point in having him as your ‘ace’ because fans can’t suspend reality and belief that someone like an Andrei Arlovski can beat him. Given the predicament that Affliction is in right now to build their MMA promotion from the ground-up, Fedor vs. Arlovski is the best main event they can market right now. The likely outcome would involve yet another ex-UFC Heavyweight champion going down in flames on Dana White’s home turf of Las Vegas.

This, of course, would make Bob Arum very happy. Mr. Arum is no fan of Dana White. Recently, the venerable boxing promoter was quoted by the inimitable Steve Cofield of Yahoo Sports as saying, “Affliction is on the warpath. One of the things they’ve been successful at, UFC spends a lot on promotion because they don’t pay their athletes. Their contracts will be running out and Affliction is going to get all the better fighters. If it’s a bet between UFC and Affliction, I’m betting on Affliction…How do you like that Dana!”

Given that UFC has so many enemies right now in the fight business, would some of these enemies be willing to work together to pool their resources to make a push against Zuffa? The answer is, most definitely, yes. Would Top Rank Promotions be willing to work with Affliction to help out with the production for an MMA show in Las Vegas? Would Mark Cuban and other promotions such as Elite XC be interested in working something out with Affliction? You would certainly think so.

The bankroll of Affliction, combined with the many free agents and enemies of UFC in the MMA marketplace, has created a situation where fights like Fedor vs. Arlovski are suddenly marketable in the States. Admit it – you’re excited to see Affliction put on big shows in the future with fighters that you will never see compete in UFC’s cage again. The t-shirt guy is banking on your support and so far, his calculation may very well be on target.