They Fight On.

Back in June I wrote about advertising for a local mixed martial arts promotion, Modern Fighting Championship  Today's flyer delivery once again featured advertising for MFC.  Modern Fighting Championship IV will be held November 29 at the Manhattan Ballroom.  Besides MMA this show will also feature 6 amateur boxing matches, and a Brazilian jiu jutsu "superfight" between Eric Wilson and Myke Lee.  The main event will be a lightweight bout between current MFC champ Jesse Boldt from Saskatoon against Winnipeg's Travis Gervais.

Compared to MFCIII the MFCIV card has several fighters with winning records.  And only one fighter will be making his MMA debut.  On the other hand one of the fighters, Josh Ladouceur, has a kind of disturbing 2-6 record.  That unfortunately sounds like a fighter who may be already in the "professional punching bag" category.  Interestingly 3 of the fighters come all the way from London, Ontario.  That's quite the trip to take to fight for a small promotion.

It would seem that the previous event did pretty well given that there's a sequel.  Good luck to the fighters. 

"Fight!"

Wednesday is flyer day in Saskatoon, when the Star Phoenix sends out large flyer packages.  Today's "wraparound" flyer, which holds the other flyers together, was a bit of a surprise.  It's an advertisement for Friday's Modern Fighting Championship III, to be held in the Nutana Curling Club, and the local Modern Martial Arts Center.

One thing that stood out to me when I looked at the MFC III section is that none of the fighters have winning records.  That includes the headliners, Saskatoon's Jesse Boldt, and Lethbridge's Randy Mahon, who have records of 2-2 and 4-4 respectively.  4 of the fighters are making their pro debuts. (Yes, there is such a thing as amateur MMA.)  The guys with the most experience are Jose Rodriguez, at 7-7, Drayton Angus, at 7-8, and Justin Schmidt, at 4-9. 

One thing you can be sure of, none of these guys signed up for the money.  I have no idea what a tiny local promotion like this pays, but you can be sure it's not much.  Some these guys are doing it simply because they like it.  Others no doubt have the hope that this is a stepping stone to something bigger, even if they know it's a longshot.  But it's a long way from what is the equivalent of an A baseball team, and the big spotlight of the UFC and Bellator.

The promoters might not be making that much either.  There are a lot of expenses involved, including renting the Nutana Curling Club, paying for advertising, refs and other support staff, and whatever prize money and expenses the fighters might get.  For them it may be as much of a labour of love as it is for some of the fighters.  At least they have the advantage that several of the fighters are from Saskatoon, or within easy driving distance.  Tickets are 65 dollars for general admission, and 85 dollars for ringside seats.

Hopefully none of the fighters will be seriously injured Friday.

Do They Want Someone To Die?

I watch both boxing and MMA, but at times it's hard to do so without wondering about the ethics of doing so.  Fighting can be dangerous, and sometimes it can be lethal.  Former UFC competitor Tim Hague died after a Friday boxing match.  Hague, 33, fought Adam Braidwood in Edmonton, and was knocked down several times during the fight before being knocked out.  Although he left the ring under his own power he subsequently collapsed, and passed away.  His last boxing match was in April, where he lost by TKO, bringing up the obvious question of whether he should have been allowed to fight by the Edmonton Combative Sports Commission.

This tragedy came only a short time after another Canadian boxer, David Whittom, was severely injured during a May 27th match in Fredericton with Saskatoon boxer Gary Kopas.  He was placed in a medically induced coma after being taken to hospital.  Whittom is another fighter who it could be argued should not have been allowed to fight.  Despite some early success he had racked up a career record of 12-24-1, including losing 18 of his last 20 bouts.  In other words he'd become a human punching bag, hired to be an opponent even though he obviously had no chance of winning.

And what did I find out this morning?  That UFC Hall of Famer Chuck Liddell is talking about fighting again, this time for Bellator.  Liddell last fought in 2010 at UFC 115, when he was KOed by Rich Franklin.  His last three fights were all losses by KO.  He's 47.

Unfortunately I would be entirely unsurprised if he does fight for Bellator.  I've criticised them in the past for signing over the hill fighters, the most notorious example being MMA pioneer Ken Shamrock.  Shamrock was 51 when he fought the late Kimbo Slice in 2015.  He would later fight Royce Gracie, who hadn't fought in years and was really too old to be fighting as well.  Then there's Kimbo Slice.  Slice died in June of 2016 of heart failure, shortly after a mass was found on his liver.  Yet somehow Bellator managed to get him cleared to fight in February of that year.  Keep signing these kind of fighters and you're just increasing the chance of someone sustaining a severe injury, or even dying in the cage.

Waiting For Mr. Bigmouth.

Last night I watched Bellator.  Tonight I've been watching the UFC.  With all that's been going on in US politics the thought came to mind of what fighter might open his big mouth about these issues after a fight.  I'm pretty sure Tito Ortiz had a "Make America Great Again" logo on his shirt last week, but he didn't actually say anything.  It's a reasonable guess the powers that be at both promotions have told their fighters not to bring this stuff up.  But there's always going to be people who don't listen.  And both Bellator and the UFC have fighters on roster who aren't Americans, and who might be worried about being effected by things like changed immigration rules. 

Two Years.

That's how long I'll wait before I'm convinced Tito Ortiz fought his last fight tonight.  Too many fighters don't seem to know when to quit, and I wouldn't be surprised if Ortiz is one of them.  Meanwhile an obvious question is whether Chael Sonnen will fight again.  His fight tonight was his first in three years, and it was a loss.  On the other hand the fact he lost might keep him in the game, as having your last fight be a loss is a hard result to take. 

Hey, Bellator!

Do not let Mike Tyson do colour commentary, or whatever the hell it was he did tonight, ever again.  It was awful. 

Do not have a Kimbo Slice-Dada 5000 rematch.  That fight was awful, a complete and utter joke.  I probably could have won against them simply by getting them to chase me around the ring for a couple of minutes.

Do not have a Royce Gracie-Ken Shamrock rematch.  Shamrock looked bad tonight, even if he probably got hosed by the ref missing Gracie's knee to the groin.  Your "Night of the Living Dead" fight strategy just makes you look desperate for content.

Breakfast With Fedor, Who's Watching?

Sitting here watching this I can't help but wonder what the ratings will actually be.  How many Spike viewers aren't working today?  I suspect this is going to be heavily DVRed.

Bellator Strikes Again.

But not in a good way.  If you saw Bellator 145 tonight you no doubt caught their "big announcement" that Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock will fight at Bellator 149 in Houston in February.  Shamrock will turn 52 a bit before the fight.  Gracie hasn't fought since June of 2007.  In other words Bellator will be continuing its apparent strategy of trying to promote a geezer division.  I wonder what other old and past it fighters we can expect to see in the future.  And you can bet that Dana White is shaking his head and/or laughing at the idea.

Good Show, Joe Lauzon.

Lauzon just beat Takanori Gomi at UFC Fight Night: Dillishaw vs. Barao 2.  Lauzon actually stopped the fight with Gomi by himself after knocking Gomi out.  Referee Herb Dean took another 20 seconds or so to agree with Lauzon.  It's good to see a fighter aware enough to know when to stop a fight without intervention.

The Geezering Continues.

Once again I find myself questioning Bellator's promotional strategy.  Yesterday they signed Josh Koscheck.  Yes, some people will no doubt argue at 37 I shouldn't be calling him a geezer, but chronological age is a bit more complicated in the fight game.  Koscheck has been fighting regularly, his last bout being on March 15th of this year, but he's lost five in a row, his last win coming February 4, 2012.  So it's not hard to see why the UFC decided not to renew his contract.  His new Bellator contract has been described as multiyear, but it's hard not to think this is wishful thinking, unless he gets some soft opponents.  Is nostalgia really something you want to hang your ratings hopes on?

Ken Shamrock Versus Kimbo Slice.

Come on.

Seriously, Bellator, what the hell were you guys thinking?  Shamrock is too old, and Slice never lived up to the hype once he hit the MMA circuit.  And the fight was pretty awful, as I'd expected  Please, rethink your strategy.

So, Tito Ortiz Versus Stephan Bonnar...

Spike probably should have just ended the broadcast with Brooks beating Chandler, weird as that fight ended.  It would have saved the Joe Rogan/Mike Goldberg stand ins having to pretend it was a good fight.  Bonnar looked like an old man, and Ortiz like a guy who couldn't beat an old man.  If Bellator's promotion strategy is hyping guys who are past it, they may want to rethink that strategy.  I also have to wonder about them scheduling it at the same time as UFC 180.  They did have the advantage of it being free on Spike, but their audience numbers no doubt weren't as good as they might have been in the normal Friday Bellator slot.

What The Hell?

Does anyone have a clue what B.J. Penn thought he was doing in his fight tonight against Frankie Edgar?  Whatever he was trying to do by laying on the ground waiting for Edgar to attack didn't work, and you'd think any fighter with his experience would quickly change tactics.  Towards the end I found myself wondering if he was deliberately trying to throw the fight for some reason.  I suspect we'll soon have Dana White saying Penn won't be fighting in the UFC again.

Brutal.

There's no better word to describe tonight's UFC fight in Australia between Mark Hunt and Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva.  I can't remember seeing a more bloody slugfest in the UFC cards I've watched.  I found myself worrying about both fighters at times in the later stages.  Can they really take that kind of punishment without ongoing health problems?  As for the decision itself I wasn't all that surprised.  I really couldn't decide who won the fight, so a majority draw makes sense. 

I suspect we'll see a rematch eventually.  But it might be a good while given the damage both men must have taken tonight.

Bad Crunch Combo.

I was watching Chopped tonight.  One of the chef contestants was also a mixed martial arts practitioner.  Seems to me that's not the best hobby to have as a chef.  Have a bad sparring session and you might break a finger or two, which can't be a good thing if your day gig involves cutting food and other fine motor skills.  I would imagine having a leg in a cast wouldn't make working in a typical restaurant kitchen easy either.

Hard Money.

The current issue of The Atlantic has a profile on UFC fighter Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, which you can read here. The article details Jackson's activities in the runup to his July 2008 fight with Forrest Griffin, and his subsequent July 15th arrest after an evening of vehicular mayhem. One of the issues mentioned in the article is that of money, with UFC frontman Dana White stating that something like half of the UFC's stable of fighters make 100 grand or more a year. Of course this also means that the other half don't make that kind of money. This made me curious, so I decided to look for UFC salary information online. Although there is some dispute how much certain fighters get paid the range of salaries is interesting, and rather disturbing on the low end. At the bottom you have fighters who are making 3 thousand dollars for fighting on a UFC undercard, while at the top end you have someone like Chuck Liddell who has made as much as 500 thousand dollars in base salary for his fights. Given the money involved in things like gym time and so on some of the lower end salaries probably barely cover expenses, if at all. But some say even someone like Liddell may be being short changed given how much revenue UFC pay per view events draw in. Still, such salaries do explain some of the luxuries Liddell was shown with in a profile I saw a while back, like several expensive vehicles.

As with some of the boxers I see on TV I really have to wonder why some of the older UFC fighters keep at it. They must realise by now they're never going to make it to the pay level of a Liddell or Canadian fighter Georges St. Pierre, who is making in the 100 grand plus range these days. Do they really want to fight for chicken feed when there's always the risk of a permanent injury? Because of the variety of styles and tactics involved there's probably a lower chance of the kind of debilitating brain injuries that can result from boxing, but having wrecked knees or a damaged shoulder isn't great either.

As for Jackson hopefully he's handled his money well. If he is convicted for what happened in July he could spend up to 3 years in jail, and I can't help but wonder if he might not have trouble getting back into the UFC with a criminal record.

I just watched G.I. Joe: The Movie on YTV. Pure cheese, including wrestler Sgt. Slaughter as himself. Wonder what ever happened to him? And its interesting how in shows like that no one ever gets permanently hurt, leading to lots of shooting without anyone actually getting shot. Can't traumatise the kiddies.

In the last 6 months or so I've been watching boxing on the sports channels for some reason. In a way its surprising that they play as much as they do, as boxing is arguably still continuing its long slow decline. Generally I find fights in the lower weight classes more entertaining than the heavyweight stuff. The lighter guys tend to be better at actual boxing, while the heavyweights tend to sort of club at each other. One thing I can't say much good about is the froufrouy trunks some of the boxers wear these days. Some of them look like almost like skirts, others have silly fringes and so forth. Looks more like what a professional wrestler would be wearing than what a boxer should be wearing.

I've also been watching the UFC stuff that gets played up here. These are all old fights, not the current matches which are generally pay per view. Some of the fights get into a rut where you end up looking at two guys on the ground who look like they're humping each other. Its obvious from watching these things that they don't have the same kind of money to devote to the actual filming of them as boxing, as the production values tend to be a bit less. One match I saw had real mix problems, because you could barely hear the announcers over the crowd noise. And watching boxing, UFC, and things like Thai kickboxing sure makes wrestling look even phonier than I already saw it as being.