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Forceholy posted:Well, if we can nominate MMA PPVs, then I nominate this. One highlight from this story - Dana called Chael who accepted the fight, because Chael is a company man, but had previously called several other fighters who had all declined (Machida was one off the top of my head, I can't remember the others). There was however one fighter in the UFC who called Dana up by his own volition telling Dana he would fight Jones on a weeks notice. That man was the then (relatively outside of the guys on this forum) unknown Chris Weidman, current Middleweight Champion, who told Dana he didn't fear Jones at all and when he didn't get this fight (as Jones v Weidman wouldn't have sold really) he did show his complete lack of fear by dominating Anderson Silva in two different fights anyway. Chris Weidman rules.
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Sep 2, 2014 06:38
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UFC 159 is relatively infamous for it featured the aforementioned Jones v Sonnen fight that Sonnen had no right to be in and somehow would've been champion if he could have survived a round... however it is forgotten that this card was rotten to the core. In last years thread for worst fights three separate fights from this card were nominated for worst fight of the year. First was Michael Bisping v Alan Belcher, Belcher riding a wave of victories and a high after beating Rousimar Palhares on the ground (Palhares being a legitimate mentally unstable and diagnosable... well "slow" is the polite way... who knew how to take lots of steroids and break careers with lwg locks). What the fight was was relentlessly dull wall hugging interrupted by brief flashes of Bisping poking Belcher in the eyes. It should be noted Belcher was out of UFC for two years because he suddenly lost vision in an eye and had to have lots of operations. Bisping gouged nonetheless. The fight had to be stopped because in the third round Belcher couldn't continue after another eyepoke. The fight went to a technical decision which Bisping won. Second was Phil Davis v Vinny Maghaelaes which was fifteen minutes of the dullest striking the UFC had seen in years. Vinny has no striking, no takedowns, no takedown defence, insanely good BJH and a glass jaw, Phil is a strong wrestler who has no formidable striking and if he can not submit you he wont even try to beat you up. So rather than grapple they spent 15 minutes tepidly throwing arm punches at each other than fleeing like it was a fencing duel. Davis ultimately landed more and thus was deemed the winner. Third was an often overlooked fight, Ovince St Preux v Gian Gillate. This fight redefined lay and pray. OSP would shoot a takedown at the beginning of the round, get it, and lay on top until the buzzer sounded. OSP did not attempt to inflict damage and Gian seemed to be in his own world. Then round three happened. OSP had gassed himself in yhe effort of lying down and Gian saw an opening turning up the heat striking and mixing it up going for a stoppage. Then OSP poked him in the eye. Referee Kevin Mulhall asked Goan if he could see and after Gian said he couldn't he waved off the fight while Gian protested having expected time to recover. Instead OSP won a technical decision going to the judges scores. This fight sucked. The story goes further in the best fight of the night, Pat Healy v Jim Miller. This was a fight of the year contender and an awesome scrap with Pat Healy winning awards for both fight of the night and submisdion of the night. Then Healy failed a post fight drug test, the fight was ruled a no contest, and he had to return 100k in bonus money. Even earlier PSP favourite Rustam "The Human Suplex Machine" Khabilov had a match end quick into the first round where upon his first suplex the opponent broke his thumb landing leading to a TKO (thumb injury). The event had some good stuff - Big Country KOing Kongo, Leonard Garcia losing a decision to the abysmal Cody McKenzie, but this overall was one of the worst PPVs in UFC history. Terrible matchmaking, injuries, cheating, dull dull dull. gently caress that card.
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Sep 3, 2014 04:50
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Bigass Moth posted:I'm not sure it's fair to rank any of the early UFCs pre-title belts since they really had no idea what they were doing and it was presented more like a novelty than a legitimate sporting event. Every card was stocked with tomato cans with Xtreme specialties (sumo? bar brawler? cop???) since they hadn't transitioned into the punch and hug style that followed and defined the sport of MMA at that point. This is way off topic but it's known at least the very first few UFC's existed purely as a marketing tool to show off in North America how powerful BJJ was, not to be anything else really. One of the founders of the UFC was Rorian Gracie.
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Sep 3, 2014 12:39
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Bellator 106: The Pay Per View That Wasn't This is going to be very derisive and first of all this event happened and honestly it wasn't a terrible event overall - good fights and lovely fights. But the background to the event qualifies the most for a "waste of time and money" descriptor. See this event never made it to PPV and was aired for free instead, and there is a lot of back story to go with it. See Bellator is MMA's TNA, it is desperately trying to beat the monopoly but only signs over the hill cast offs from the big show and then pushes them to the moon in spite of attempting to build their own talent, when they do get their own talent they will somehow hilariously gently caress it up, it airs on Spike at a loss, ardent defenders of it will continue to claim it is just one thing away from beating UFC to at least even to build a competitive MMA scene not really in existence since Pride (though some will argue Strikeforce). The real story of this PPV was not the main event but a fighter named Eddie Alvarez. Eddie is consistently ranked in the top five lightweights in the world and was widely considered for a long time the best lightweight not in the UFC, which is high acclaim as lightweight is widely considered the single deepest division in UFC, and he was the former lightweight champion of Bellator. A while before this event Eddie Alvarez lost the title in an amazing fight to Michael Chandler, an up and comer Bellator born and bred fighter. Now champions in Bellator had very draconian contracts, though honestly all Bellator contracts are ridiculously exclusionary, and Alvarez wanted out. After fighting two more times for Bellator he had an agreement in principle to move to UFC, as those were the last two required of him. Instead Bellator went and chucked a fit. See part of the original contract was a clause that Bellator could match any offer made by the UFC, and that it would override the UFC's offer. This got to the courts because Alvarez, being a major signing, was as part of his UFC contract, would be guaranteed pay per view points. PPV points are essentially what MMA fighters ACTUALLY want as opposed to their payment for the individual fights, in essence they not only get the fight pay but a percentage of the net income from the PPV itself which is millions more than any guaranteed fight contract would be worth (unless you are bankrolled like Affliction MMA, which I don't know anything about which is frustrating as those were PPV events and deserve their own Hall of Fame in here). Alvarez in court argued Bellator couldn't hope to match the UFC's offer as Bellator never ran pay per views in the first place therefore the contractual clause was flawed. Viacom counter argued that they may in the future run PPVs and therefore maybe if they run a PPV the offer still stands. The argument was bullshit and correctly Alvarez argued it was a hypothetical argument, not a realistic one. With all that said eventually they came to an agreement and Eddie Alvarez did in fact re-sign with Bellator where he would then fight Michael Chandler at Bellator 106 the first ever Bellator PPV! Just like Viacom said they could do! But that's not all! See there was also another fighter named King Mo. TNA fans will know King Mo. Strikeforce before they died put a lot of time into King Mo as he had charisma and was seen as someone who could make them money. Then he lost to Feijao, got busted for roids, and it all faded. Feijao himself got busted for roids in the UFC later but whatever. Anyway Bellator signed Mo and had him put in the light heavyweight tournament expecting to run through them and face Attila Veigh in a money fight for the pay per view. Then this happened.  That man throwing the backfist is Emanuel Newton, the man doing the replica of a millenia year old felled oak is Mo, and Newton went on to win the whole thing. Now Bellator had a problem - see they had only hyped King Mo and it was even to the detriment of Attila Veigh the actual champion so, and some of this is conjecture but very well supported, Bellator bribed Attila to feign an injury so instead they could book the rematch between Newton and King Mo and make it a title fight via the INTERIM light heavyweight title. So Attila took the money, and then rather confusingly kept appearing in the media loudly proclaiming that he was fine and that Bellator are being loving dickheads, and Newton/Mo 2 was set for the FIRST EVER BELLATOR PPV! And then the PPV got cancelled and it was aired for free on spike anyway as a normal card. ... ... ... ... The gently caress just happened...? ... This:  See this was the real main event, this was the headliner that Bellator had organised for their first ever pay per view. This was the masterpiece. Tito Ortiz (who in his last UFC run had won 1 of his last 9 fights) and Rampage Jackson (who had lost his last three UFC fights, including missing weight in his second last fight by SIX POUNDS). Bellator, in attempt to differentiate themself as the true future of MMA decided to make the main event of their first pay per view two former UFC LHW champions on losing streaks. Of course between the two one of them had defeated Ryan Bader so maybe it was great booking. But this is, of course, Tito Ortiz. Literally one week before the event Tito Ortiz pulled out of the fight with a neck injury and all hell broke loose. Despite the co-main being the rematch of Bellator's match of the year 2011 they had in no real way promoted it. They had absolutely no time to back track and build up just how big Chandler/Alvarez 2 was going to be so instead the PPV was cancelled and it aired for free on spike. Just like every other Bellator event. Took a while to get here didn't it?  Side notes: The event itself proceeded to gently caress over Bellator EVEN MORE - Bjorn Ribney, the man who owns Bellator and a diagnosable psychopath and rear end in a top hat (HE SHOT A PUPPY. I REPEAT. HE SHOT A PUPPY.) desperately wanted Alvarez to lose to Chandler, he had been a thorn in his side for so long and wanted Chandler to be the golden boy. And then Michael Chandler did beat Eddie Alvarez and all was well. Except this is MMA. And with MMA comes MMA judges. See most people in PSP, including me saw this as a Chandler win but the judges, God bless em, scored a split decision for EDDIE ALVAREZ. You could see in the footage Bjorn's look of disgust as he had to give the belt back to a man he despised and the only reason this fight never comes up in worst MMA robberies is the amount of schadenfreude this result caused offset displeasure at Chandler being robbed. It was the most hilarious outcome. Then a few fights later, while still champion, Alvarez got his release from Bellator and was signed to UFC. He's fighting Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone soon and if he wins he's essentially assured a titleshot at the winner of Anthony Pettis v Gilbert Melendez. Oh and Emanuel Newton dominated King Mo to a decision, so King Mo was dead in the water. Newton went on to defeat Attila Veigh too and is now champion. And what of Tito Ortiz and Rampage? Well Rampage fought King Mo at Bellator's first ever pay per view, Bellator 120 in the main event, and lost... nah it was an MMA loss so he got a gift decision where, and this is also widely believed, the judges this time must've been bribed as opposed to dumb because that was a clear win for Mo. Tito Ortiz also fought at the event and defeated the much heralded Alexander Schlemenko... when he's fighting in his own weight class as Alexander is a middleweight and Tito fought him at LHW so he had several dozen pound weight advantage. Oh and the original headliner of this PPV? Eddie Alvarez v Michael Chandler 3. Alvarez pulled out injured a week before the event. Serendipity. Bellator 120's buyrate, depending on where you check, was either 65000 total or 100000 total. Both suck but given who is spruiking the 100k number I'd guess 65k is more likely. Oh and this is Bellator this week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDIrhndo1gc Goodnight folks. Lid fucked around with this message at 10:01 on Sep 7, 2014 |
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Sep 7, 2014 09:56
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