Notes: Games, Dream, and pinheads
Dana White last week talked positively about the chances of making a Fedor Emelianenko-Brock Lesnar match, which could be marketed as the biggest heavyweight fight in North American history. But White also made a statement a little more quietly that, if you take his words at face value, it may kill the match forever.
White noted publicly, and the sport's leading agents were told a few weeks ago on a one-on-one basis by UFC matchmaker Joe Silva, that any fighter who appears in the upcoming EA Sports MMA video game will never fight in UFC.
When pressed last week if that includes Emelianenko or Gina Carano (who, since she has appeared in a previous EA Sports video game, is expected to be in the 2010 release that UFC sees as competition to its own recently released game on rival THQ), White said he meant anyone. He noted the only exception is Randy Couture, who made his deal with EA Sports when he was on the outs with the company and specifically kept the rights to his deal in the terms of his return.
It’s hard to believe that a company which brought back B.J. Penn after he sued them, and is negotiating to bring back Tito Ortiz and Mirko Cro Cop after White publicly talked of washing his hands of both, would use a video game to block a fight the magnitude of Emelianenko-Lesnar, but White was insistent.
White blames the hard stance on feeling insulted a few years ago when they went to EA to market a game.
"I went to EA Sports," White told reporters in a Mandalay Bay locker room prior to the UFC 100 weigh-ins. "You know what EA Sports said? ‘It’s not a sport. This isn’t a sport, we would never get involved in something like this,’ yadda, yadda, yadda. We came out with a video game and now they want to come out with a video game. [Expletive] you. There’s your answer to that."
In its second month of release, UFC Undisputed was the No. 2 selling video game in the United States, behind only Prototype. As of the end of June, it had sold 1.54 million copies in the U.S. alone, and likely more than 2 million worldwide. It is expected to top 3 million sales when all is said and done.
"All these people who want to cry and bitch, EA Sports didn’t give a [expletive] about you, and wouldn’t touch this with a 10-foot pole," said White. "We went out and made this whole thing happen. THQ basically put their entire business on the line. If this game didn’t work, THQ is in big trouble. It works, and here comes the [expletive] Johnny Come Latelys that want to come in? Are you kidding me? These guys are crying about this now? We’re the ones that are building this thing, we’re making everyone more money, we’re making everyone more famous. This is where you’re making the money, not at EA Sports."
EA Sports would not comment on the controversy, although it is known they had planned for an MMA game last year, long before UFC Undisputed became a proven success. Since the company turned White down, there has been a change in upper management, and the new regime is more friendly toward MMA.
EA Sports hasn’t released names that are included in the game, although it is well known Couture will be the headline name and Tim Sylvia has publicly said he’s accepted a deal. With a finite number of marketable fighters not in UFC, it would be obvious that top stars with either Affliction or Strikeforce were likely offered a deal. The odd men out are those with the WEC, as UFC decided against including WEC fighters in their game, and obviously, as Zuffa fighters, there was no way they could accept an offer from EA either.
Dream finish for upstart
Monday’s Dream card at the Saitama Super Arena just outside Tokyo promised what many were calling the ultimate dream ground battle, matching Japanese submission magician Shinya Aoki against Brazil’s Vitor "Shaolin" Ribeiro. But it didn’t materialize.
Aoki (21-4, 1 no-contest) decided his best winning strategy was to not give the audience what it wanted to see. He kept the fight standing, and connected with hard body kicks for most of two rounds to take a unanimous decision. Ribeiro (20-3) didn’t get the fight to the ground until midway through the second round, and never even attempted a submission, preferring ground and pound, which wasn’t enough to make up for the first 12-plus minutes of the fight. Dream does two-round fights with a 10-minute first round and a five-minute second round.
Aoki issued a challenge to Dream lightweight champion Joachin Hansen after the match. Hansen beat Aoki last year in the finals to crown the first champion.
Former WEC middleweight champion Paulo Filho (17-1), who battled drug problems almost all of last year, came back to beat Melvin Manhoef (23-6-1) with an armbar in 2:36.
Manhoef, who may be the most dangerous striker in MMA, knocked Filho down once and hurt the fighter who was considered the No. 2 middleweight in the world behind Anderson Silva before his problems surfaced last year. But the fight proved once again that for all the clamoring for UFC to sign the exciting Dutch fighter, that Manhoef is best suited for kickboxing. As soon as Filho got the fight to the ground, it was only a matter of seconds before Manhoef was caught.
A crowd of 11,970 saw the crowning of Dream’s first welterweight champion (at 167 pounds instead of the U.S. 170-pound weight limit), in an upset. Marius Zaromskis (11-2) of Lithuania knocked out Japanese favorite Hayato "Mach" Sakurai with a left high kick in 4:03 in the semifinal. He then came back in the final with a brutal knockout of American Jason High in 2:22 with a right high kick. High (8-2) made the finals with a controversial split decision win over Brazil’s Andre Galvao (3-1).
The next Dream event will be Oct. 6 at the Yokohama Arena. It features semifinals and finals to crown the company’s first featherweight champion, bracketed as Bibiano Fernandes vs. former Greco-Roman world champion Joe Warren, and Hiroyuki Takaya vs. Hideo Tokoro. It also features the semifinals and finals of the Super Hulk tournament, which saw big names Bob Sapp and Jose Canseco eliminated on the fight night.
The semifinals have 7-2½, 330-pound Choi Hong-man vs. 195-pound Minowaman, and Gegard Mousasi, a top-rated light heavyweight, against usual light heavyweight Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou.
More MMA ignorance
One of the more annoying trends to emerge as mixed martial arts has rapidly gained in interest over the past four years is the habit of people who have likely seen little if any of the sport trying to paint MMA's popularity as a broad negative reflection on modern society.
The latest example of such nonsense was provided over the weekend in the Globe & Mail, Canada’s national daily newspaper. Geoff Smith, a cultural historian and retired Queens University professor, was quoted as explaining MMA's popularity by saying, "It’s a phenomenon that allows people to take part vicariously in the type of behavior that, on the street, would get you a jail sentence."
Think about that for a second. Exactly how many sports fit into that category? Auto racing? Check. Boxing? Check. Wrestling? Check. Kickboxing? Check. Judo? Check. Karate? Check. Football? If you were to tackle someone out of nowhere on the street could you be arrested? Check. Hockey? Certainly the fighting aspect. Check.
The reasons for MMA's success are simple. It’s a combination of an exciting sport, strong television exposure, strong promotion and marketable personalities. If any of those four elements didn’t exist, none of this would happen. If all these were in place 15 years ago, or 40 years ago, the sport would have been popular then if it had been able to survive an early negative stigma that has been typical when it’s introduced in most cultures. It’s the same thing you could probably say for dozens of forms of sport and entertainment.
