In an interview with the Vancover Sun, the UFC has vowed to take legal action against both the companies broadcasting the pay-per-view events illegally across the web as well as the individuals who knowingly are watching these broadcast to avoid paying fees associated with the event.
UFC Preparing Piracy Crackdown
Zuffa head and casino magnet Lorenzo Fertitta recently testified in front of the US House Judiciary Committee during a referendum on internet piracy of sporting events. Fertitta shared on the record that his company monitored internet activity and uncovered 271 illegal streams of UFC 106, which aired on November 21, 2009. The streams had generated over 140,000 viewers.
Sites such as these have proliferated the web. One of the more visible players in this space is Justin.TV. Most of website are hosted in foreign companies, making it difficult for broadcast to bring legal suit in countries where copyright infringement is given a pass. These companies utilize blog boards to post comments and links to their websites that will air the fight illegally.
(At BenchwarmersUnited.com, it is our policy to delete comments promoting these illegal practices and we can share that we deleted more that 150 comment post over the last 2 weeks leading up to UFC 108 promoting internet piracy)
UFC President Dana White told the Vancouver Sun, “It’s going to be a battle, man, but I’m ready to [expletive] fight. We’re gonna go after them, we’re gonna go after them hard, and we’re gonna hurt them. When people start going to jail, people will stop doing it.”
The timing of UFC announcement that they plan to crackdown on internet piracy is interesting to say the least. The organization is struggling to generate the quality fight cards it once did, its top stars are aging and the UFC has been hit heavily by the injury bug.
While UFC boasts PPV sales in the six-digit neighborhood, most industry observers believe the numbers fall quite short of these figures given that UFC refuses to allow a third-party audit their books. Following a head-to-head competition in September between the Mayweather/Marquez boxing match and UFC 103, Golden Boy Promotions President Rich Schaefer challenged UFC to an audit of PPV sales after Dana White said the UFC would outsell them that night. The UFC declined the invitation as rumors circled that sales were less than 20% of the boxing card. That night’s headliner was a “contender” fight between soon-to-be-retired Rich Franklin and previously-UFC-banished Vitor Belfort,
More concerning are the inroads being made by other organizations in obtaining television deals that offer fans MMA fights for free or at less substantial costs. Strikeforce has struck a deal with Showtime and CBS to air its events. Bellator scored a major deal with FoxSports Network, Univision and NBC. And Dream and Sengoku have deals with HDNet to air their events. Free mixed martial arts is proliferating the television cable box.
The once mighty UFC is facing strong competition like never before and it has found itself in the middle of a struggling economy where consumers will choose free MMA rather than paying $50 per event, especially when the pay-per-view cards don’t carry a title fight. The announcement of fighting piracy comes about shortly after what most industry observers deemed a lackluster event at UFC 108.
Is the timing a coincidence. We shall know more as 2010 plays out and UFC is stuck with a second-tier TV broadcasting arrangement with Spike TV.
Scott Smith (17-6) stole the show in San Jose, scoring a stunning come-from-behind knockout of former Strikeforce middleweight champions Cung Le (6-1). Smith was being dominated in all aspects of the fight before landing a short left hook that dropped Le to a knee. Smith pounced to close out the fight, scoring the knockout at 3:25 of the third round.
The fight marked the comeback of Le, the previously undefeated MMA champ and world champion kickboxer. Le had taken a 20 month hiatus from the sport since his highlight reel victory over MMA legend Frank Shamrock to win the championship. Instead of defending his title, Le set out on a movie career with a successful release of his movie “Fighter” in April 2009 and the upcoming Tekken. Strikeforce subsequently stripped Le of his belt due to inactivity.
Le’s defeat is stunning in of itself, but more shocking in that this was considered to be a tune up fight. Smith, while a solid fighter, had no victories against substantial competition, losing all the major fights of his career. Le’s resume included a 22-0 kickboxing record and a 17-0 record in Sanshoum, a form of Chinese Kung Fu. Tonight’s defeat was the first in Le’s career in any fighting style. It was a mismatch of grand proportion on paper, but that why they keep the cage locked until the final bell.
The defeat halt’s Le’s progression back to the top of the middleweight conversation at Strikeforce. Le’s inactivity, coupled with his relative MMA inexeperience does not warrant contender status in the division. While his Jackie Chan style of fighting is exciting to watch, total reliance on spinning back kicks and leg strikes leaves a fighter open to counter attacks. And that’s exactly what happened this evening when a second-tier fighter such as Scott Smith knocked him out, leaving him bloodied at the nose and with multiple hematomas on his forehead.
Le still has tremendous upside, but it will take learning how to grapple and dedicating himself to the sport.
Gilbert Melendez (17-2) shed the interim title from his Lightweight championship belt, unifying the division title with an impressive victory over Josh Thomson. With the victory, Melendez avenged a previous loss to Thomson (16-3), to whom he lost the title. In the process, they may have just earned 2009’s fight of the year. Although Melendez won the fight convincingly, earning scores of 49-47, 49-46 and 49-46, Thomson showed heart and determination by continuously coming forward.
Right from the bell, this fight was an all out brawl. Both fighters put martial arts techniques aside and turned this bout into a street fight that rarely found the canvas. Each fighter stunned the other and both had their opportunities to take the upper hand.
The difference in the fight came down to Melendez’s ability to get his punches off quicker, stay more active and unleash flurries of punches. Punch stat number showed that Melendez threw more than double the strikes of Thomson, frustrating Thomson throughout the bout due to Melendez’s speed and counter strikes. Melendez also fended off Thomson’s takedown attempts, a big difference from their first fight.
Thomson entered the cage after a 15 month layoff due to various injuries. His time away from the cage was evident, as he appeared slow and loafing from the start. Melendez took advantage, getting a clear cut victory with a dominating performance.
Despite the Melendez showcase, it was disappointing to see Strikeforce force Thomson back into the cage not only too soon, but also without a primer fight to get back into a fighting groove. Where former champ Cung Lee gets a warm-up fight as the night’s headliner, Thomson’s desire to schedule the fight in January due to his injury recovery was declined by Strikeforce executives.
Strikeforce owes Josh Thomson a re-match with Melendez soon given their actions that may have led to Thomson being unprepared for the bout. Hopefully this matchup will occur sooner than later, as it will no doubt be another entertaining affair. While Strikeforce is in a heated battle with UFC, the promotion’s success should not supercede the welfare of the fighter.
Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza (11-2) impressed in his debut, displaying his world-class Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu technique, submitting former Olympic gold medalist and MMA veteran Matt Lindland (21-7) by arm triangle choke at 4:18 of the first round. With the victory, Jacare won his debut bout with Strikeforce and ended a two-fight streak that left him winless for over a year.
Souza, the open weight World Jiu-Jitsu Champion in 2004 and 2005, brought an aggressive approach at Lindland immediately from the start. Lindland attempted to apply his wrestling skills to counter the attacking strikes and Jacare was able to defend his body lock and get a clean start. Lindland got a takedown by rolling through Jacare with a arm-pinned body lock, but Jacare was quick to get into guard as Lindland attempted to posture up.
From that point on it was all Jacare. As Lindland came back down and went for a mount, Jacare attempted a triangle choke that Lindland defended. He then got lock on an arm bar and pulled it down tight. Lindland was able to defend and break the hold, which Jacare then shifted into an gogoplata. Lindland again defended where it appeared Jacare had his arm bent in a position that may actually break Lindland’s arm. As the fighters scrambled, Jacare got into an advantage position locking in an arm triangle choke to close out the action.
Jacare’s performance this evening sends a message to the middleweight contenders at Strikeforce. He showed unmatched Jui-Jitsui skills that make him dangerous at any point in any fight, especially for LNP specialist like Strikeforce middleweight champion Jake Shields.
Bellator Fighting Championship is raining down blows on it competitors in the MMA industry. The promotion today announced the high-profile signing of welterweight star Dan Hornbuckle. The comes on the heels of Bellator’s signings last week of former Olympian Ben Askren and Jacob McClintock.
Hornbuckle (19-2), a Sengoku veteran, joins Bellator’s roster of fighters on a four match win streak. His last taste of defeat came at the hands of UFC’s Mike Pyle, a fight which Hornbuckle dominated before getting caught in a surprise triangle choke. Hornbuckle bounced back from the defeat in style, dispatching cage veterans Akihiro Gono and Nick Thompson in back-to-back fights.
“With the addition of Hornbuckle to an already steady tournament field that includes Askren and McClintock, we’ve created a great tournament field in a division that many experts said was thin when it came to available talent,” Rebney said. “What we now have is the beginning of a 170 lbs. field that has created a feeling amongst hardcore MMA fans that April can’t come soon enough.”
The signings for Bellator are coming quick and steady. The quality of fighters that are being signed are clearly beyond the expectations of most industry observers. The tournament approach and flexibility of the promoters fighter control are appealing to the top independent fighters that have chosen to pass on the UFC. Bellator’s welterweight division, perhaps its weakest in Season 1, is panning out to be the most competitive right now for Season 2.
Needless to say, Rebney stole the words right out of my mouth. I can’t wait for Season 2 to get here soon enough.
UFC 107 has come and gone, finalizing a less than exciting year for the leading mixed martial arts promotion. Racked with injuries, fighter defections, controversial results and upstart promotional competition from Strikeforce and Bellator, the year couldn’t have ended sooner for Zuffa and its President Dana White. UFC enters 2010 in a very weird position and last night’s awful mismatch between BJ Penn and Diego Sanchez personifies the problem.
The UFC, outside of its Light Heavyweight division really doesn’t have one marketable championship fight any time in the near future. Its champions BJ Penn, George St. Pierre, Anderson Silva and Brock Lesnar really don’t have any competitive fights on the horizon. These are the headline fighters of the organization and the UFC basically has nobody of quality for them to fight.
BJ Penn’s destruction of Diego Sanchez last night was the prime example. Dana White gave us the Vince McMahon sale that Diego Sanchez was the unquestioned second best lightweight fighter in the world and that Penn was going to get his first real test. Sanchez told us he was going to storm across the cage, attack Penn like nobody has before and take him down to the mat for a beating.
None of this transpired.
Instead, Penn manhandled Sanchez like a rag doll and displayed just how weak the talent level is in the UFC at lightweight. Sanchez, the former TUF 1 Champion, displayed no real martial arts skills. His fighting approach that got his the championhsip fight invite was to bullrush, takedown and pound. Last night, the talented Penn nullified these basic skills, fended off every weak takedown attempt and handed out one of the most brutal beatings ever seen in the cage. So if Sanchez really was #2 as Dana White told us, Penn is out of competitors to fight under the UFC banner.
This leads us to the problem with the UFC…its refusal to cross promote. What killed boxing were promoters that overprotected their fighters, controlled the matchups and didn’t deliver the fights people demanded to see. Multiple title holders from different organizations that were not making the fights to protect and hold their crowns. Dana White is displaying his Napoleanistic complex and is dooming the sport in front of our eyes.
Fans are calling for the UFC to sign new top lightweight fighters. The bloom is off the rose. The fans will only drink so much kool-aid. People have figured out that they are not being served shinola now.
Every forum board last night online had discussion threads discussing what fight matchups would look like for Penn with all the great lightweights that are not fighting at UFC. Even commentator Joe Rogan called for it during the broadcast, something I am sure he will get admonished for by Zuffa. The UFC can make these matchups and they don’t have to sign anybody.
Penn is in the driver seat now to help take MMA mainstream. He can push UFC to start cross-promoting to make the biggest fights for him or threaten to bolt to another promotion that will do so. He has reached the point in his career where he controls his destiny, not the UFC.
The fights that matter for Penn which hold the greatest monetary take for him reside with fighters in other organizations. The fans don’t want to see him maul another second-rate UFC fighter. They want to see him fight Dream’s Shinya Aoki, Tatsuya Kawajiri or Joachim Hansen. They want to see him square off against Bellator’s Eddie Alvarez or Jorge Masvidal. Or perhaps throw him in the cage with Sengoku’s Mizuto Hirota. These are the fights that fans want to see, not matchups against an overrated 10 loss fighter like Joe Stevenson or a wrestler with no martial arts skills like Gray Maynard.
As this year comes to end, UFC needs to make some big decisions on how it runs its business and its impact on the sport as a whole. The WWE coattails that have been ridden thus far need to be cut and the UFC needs to recognize it is a promotion, not a league or “sports entertainment”. The sooner this happens the better.
Strikeforce announced today they have signed the immensely popular former WWE superstar Bobby Lashley (4-0) to a multiple fight contract. Lashley will compete in the heavyweight division at Strikeforce, adding to a division group that includes Fedor Emelianenko, Alistair Overeem, Brett Rogers, Fabricio Werdum and former Olympian Daniel Cormier. Lashley is expected to debut on Strikeforce January 30, 2010 card.
The major signing comes on the heels of Strikeforce’s reported signing earlier this week of former UFC star Dan Henderson who will likely compete in the middleweight and light heavyweight divisions. Lashley bolsters the heavyweight division given his name recognition and solid start to his MMA career. Choosing to go with Strikeforce has the industry abuzz Strikeforce now has more talent depth than the UFC, a huge chink in the armor for the leading promotion.
Leading up to the Strikeforce signing, Lashley’s career has been more carnival than sport. In his bout under Maximum Fighting Championships, his opponent Mike Cook (7-5) donned a mask during his cage entry to mock Lashley’s former professional wrestling gig. Lashley went on to dispatch Cook in 24 seconds.
Lashley’s handlers made matters worse with his next MMA fight, pitting him against Bob Sapp under the Fight Force International promotion. Sapp is a Japanese fighting treasure due to unusually large size, but brings forward limited fighting skills. Lashley won the circus-natured fight by submission through punches at 3:17 of the first round.
Regardless of where Lashley has come from, he is a true athlete with real fighting skills. To date, he has just taken bad advisement from his management team and focused on quick money by utilizing his name recognition. In signing with Strikeforce, it shows Lashley is committed to the sport. It will be interesting to see how he fares against increasing competition and whether he can make a similar transition such as Brock Lesnar.
It has been a whirlwind week in the sport of MMA with a rash of signings of top talent. Strikeforce’s announcements of Lashley and Henderson coupled with Bellator’s announcements of former Olympian Ben Askren and Jacob McClintock have highlighted a big week of news. Interestingly, the UFC has been dropping fighters while losing out on major signings. A new day appears to be dawning and UFC’s grip on the MMA appears to be loosening.
Confirming rumors circling the MMA news boards, Bellator Fighting Championships officially announced the signing of mixed martial artist Jacob McClintock. The undefeated McClintock (6-0) recently fought under the Ultimate Warrior Challenge banner, a regional MMA promotion in the Washington D.C. area.
McClintock comes from the stable of fighters under the Arizona Combat Sports team. That outfit is home to other top MMA fighters that include WEC champion Jamie Varner, TUF 8 champion Ryan Bader, and UFC top contender Aaron Simpson. McClintock is consider by many to be the next future star coming out of that group.
“Jacob’s ability, coupled with his exciting and aggressive style, falls right in line with what we are looking for at Bellator,” said Bellator founder and CEO Bjorn Rebney. “Last season, Joe Soto and Lyman Good went from anonymity to become world champions. Jacob has the tools to do the same. With his addition, welterweight is shaping up to be a great division for our Season 2 tournament.”
McClintock is the second major signing in as many days for Bellator, having announced the signing of former Olympian Ben Askren on December 9th. McClintock and Askren will both compete in the welterweight (170lbs.) division for Bellator. The winner of the 8-man tournament receives an automatic title shot at reigning undefeated champion, Lyman Good (10-0).
Bellator appears to be off to a great start in courting top-class fighters for its upcoming Season 2. With the format of controlling your own destiny in the tournament coupled with a live national broadcast, it seems to be generating the appeal to fighters ready for a breakthrough. Not to mention that MMA fans will now longer have to pay extra to see their favorite sport.
Another UFC event has come and gone leaving a bad taste in the mouth of those shelling out $50 for the pay-per-view fights. Lets all breath a collective yawn and get ready for the next uninspiring card that will air in three weeks.
UFC 106 was viewed by many as the weakest event of the year due to the cancellation of the main event featuring Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin. Even before the original main event was cancelled, not much interest was being generated on what was expected to be a main event mismatch of grand proportions.
Dana White Is Concerned About Judging, Not Fight Quality
How did Dana White try to fix the hole in the event? Well, lets sell Ortiz/Griffin as the main event and we’ll plug in Koscheck/Johnson as co-feature even though they will have just 3 weeks of training. People will drink the koolaid, just got to mix in the sugar.
This is now five straight events that were below the standards of the normal UFC product we’ve come to know. Uninteresting main events, weak undercards and too much WWE-laden drama. While UFC 107 stands to offer an interesting set of overall fights for the first time in months, the main event will be an extreme mismatch for the lightweight championship belt.
Which brings forward the question…are there really any true contenders out there for the championship belts?
If you breakdown each weight class, outside of light heavyweight, the gap between the champions and the “#1 Contenders” is widening. Lesnar, Anderson Silva, George St. Pierre and BJ Penn are all at no immediate risk of losing their belts. There is nobody coming up the ranks to deliver a challenge, which poses a big problem for the UFC. Whose the next real contender?
Great fighting events are defined by the main feature. Nobody goes home remembering the warmup fights. In fact, people don’t start streaming into the arena until the last couple of fights. The UFC cannot expect to sustain its dominance if it cannot fix the top of its fight cards. To fix these problems, here are a few things that the UFC is going to need to address:
Reduce the number of events per year
Larger win bonuses, lower minimum purse
Begin fostering new fighter development
Start cross-promoting with other organizations
The biggest problem with the UFC right now is that they are doing too many fights. When you couple this with not increasing the number of fighters under the promotion, it decreases the quality of the events. The UFC is clearly going after cash while sacrificing product quality and hording its profits. This has to stop soon or it is going to come back to bite them. If you can’t increase the number of fighters in the stable, you cannot put on this many events.
As shown during Season 1 of Bellator, if you hang the money carrot you get better fights. While Bellator didn’t have many of the big name fighters, just ask anyone that attended an event whether they got their money’s worth on the tickets. What made for the better fights was the incentive to win and the fighters went for the kill. In the UFC, the fighters are more worried about their next payday versus their current, and this can only be recitified by lowering their guaranteed purses and making them work for the payout.
Next, please put The Ultimate Fighter out of its misery. The show has turned into Big Brother inside of a cage. Its no longer about fighter development, its about tv ratings and advertiser dollars. How else can you explain the sad sacks on display in TUF 10 or the unbelievable decision to not invite the up-and-comer Tyron Woodley for TUF 9. Its about finding “personalities”, not fighters. The UFC needs talent development. When was the last time an undercard fighter made his debut with the UFC? I can’t recall. Reliance on the smaller promotions to build fighters and stealing them is not a long-term strategy for success.
And finally, the time for Dana White to swallow his pride and acknowledge that the other organizations now have equal fighter quality has come. Nobody wants to see BJ Penn fight anyone in the UFC, they want to see him against Shinya Aoki or Eddie Alvarez. Do you want to pay $50 to watch Silva slaughter the talentless UFC foes, or would you rather see him fight Jake Shields, Hector Lombard or Gegard Mousasi. And do I even need to bring up commentary about the heavyweight division…Fedor?
The time is now for the UFC to shore up its product. No more whiny calf sniveling from Dana White about the poor judging. This issue with the UFC latest string of fights has nothing to do with judges…it has everything to do with a stale business model that is prepared to get knocked down by the competition if it cannot recognize the error in its current strategy.
Randy Couture displayed that age is not slowing him down just yet, but is catching up with him. At 46 years old, the former UFC champion Couture (17-10) was able to score a slim victory over the much younger challenger Brandon Vera (11-4) in a light heavyweight clash at UFC 105 in Manchester, England.
In an uneventful fight with a limited amount action, the two former Greco-Roman wrestlers spent the majority of the fight in the clinch along the cage wall. Couture was able to maintain control, keeping Vera pinned along the cage wall while delivering surgical blows to the head and body. The referee was active, breaking the clinches, but Couture imposed his will taking Vera back to the cage with consistency.
Action torqued up a notch midway through round two shortly after a clinch was broken. Vera was able to keep keep his distance and land a sharp leg kick to the midsection which dropped Couture to the mat. Vera attacked quickly, landed some blows, but was unable to put Couture away.
Couture moved the fight back to the cage wall in the third round, dictating the pace and focus of the fight. Couture again surgical delivered shots with Vera smiling that the blows were not phasing him. After another re-start in the last minute, Vera attacked quickly landing a shot which stunned Couture. Vera followed through with a takedown and gained a mount. Couture was able to tie him up and stop Vera from scoring any major blows, perhaps saving the fight.
Awaiting the decision in the middle of the cage, Vera’s camp looked confident they had taken the fight. As ring announcer declared all score cards in favor of Couture at 29-28, Vera seemed stunned by the loss.
Vera really has nobody to blame for this loss but himself. Couture brought very little to the cage on this evening and Vera was happy to oblige, allowing Couture to lay on him and be inactive throughout the fight. Vera showed way too much respect throughout the fight and really only put forward two offensive attacks over the fifteen minutes in the cage. His loss to Couture eliminate any future plans Vera had at a potential championship shot or even a fight against the other top contenders in the light heavyweight division.
As for Couture, it appears that it is time for him to seriously consider retirement, regardless of his newly-minted multiple fight contract with the UFC. Couture will undoubtedly be offered another championship shot at light heavyweight at the expense of more deserving fighters. On this evening, Couture displayed fading skills against a second-tier fighter in a lower weight class.
As with boxing, the greats of the sport seem to find it hard to call it quits.
