Elsalvajeloco

Listen, plenty of people have said they will not support UFC (or TKO or Zuffa prior to the purchase) anymore over the last 15 or so years and even further back. I've never had a problem with that so take you stand whenever. Some have come back in the interim. Fine with me. Usually, they don't buttress with some sort of statement of saying, "one injustice and I'm out" especially when they've been following the sport for two decades. Yeah, you're probably going to get ridiculed for that. Also, speaking of good faith, if you had actually admitted, "you know what...I did tolerate a lot of this over the years prior to this...my bad" I would have never said anything to begin with. You cannot lie (or omit key details, choose either one) at the beginning and then start telling the truth in the end and then be upset someone called you to the carpet. This especially applies if you go to the extreme of the n word. Someone white LITERALLY used the n word, nothing happened, and you kept watching. Sidenote: Maybe that's like a trigger for me cause I am black and performative social justice bugs me, but goddamn, pick something else.

He was at the Knicks game the other night, and it looked like he was superimposed into the image. Maybe that's what made Tracy Morgan fall ill and not food poisoning.

That's fitting for a company who had a person die during their show, and they went for another 2 1/2 hours like it didn't happen. I mean one death don't stop no show, am I right?

Here is where I don't think WWE "going the way of the UFC" or w/e is something that can be accomplished: first off, the reason why UFC is in the place it's at is largely unintentionally. At least, from the beginning it definitely wasn't intentional. UFC, just like WWE, could do things for years and it just fly under the radar cause it's that silly cagefighting stuff just like what people thought of pro wrestling. A lot of things had to coalesce for it to happen where UFC can be this vessel or trojan horse for right wing politics. Something happened in sports where the white male demo of a certain age was funneled into UFC. I am guessing a lot of it has to do with sports no longer being the picture of the all-American white guy who would quarterback a cornerstone collegiate program or NFL franchise. I know in boxing that there hasn't been a major white American contender of any consequence in a minute, especially not in the heavyweight division. The only one that comes to mind in any division is Caleb Plant, and he just happens to be married to a black woman, keeps to himself, and doesn't really cater to the bro-ish fanbase that UFC has adopted. All the rest are from the former Soviet Union or the UK/Ireland. So if a white guy from the U.S. is gonna to have a career in a gladiatorial endeavor, it's either MMA or bust really. And to be fair, judging by some of the crowds at past UFC shows, it seems like some of that has branched off into a Hispanic American crowd who may have conservative leanings as well cause the UFC wouldn't largely survive just off of money from one group. The audience is more diverse than one would think. Either way, the UFC has a fanbase that dedicated enough to stick with it during the worst of times and the best of times. That's the closest similarity between the UFC and WWE audiences. What happened with the UFC is the right mix of problematic people (either owning, promoting, or fighting for the UFC or slightly adjacent) along with Dana marching on stage at the RNC in 2016 to stump for him the FIRST time. Dana might not have known it then, but he forever changed how the UFC was viewed. And I know that wasn't his intention especially judging his comments after this past presidential election. He wants to be political, but somehow defer the responsibilities that being political brings. He cannot have it both ways and especially since he's not qualified to be in that role of speaking toward political interests. He doesn't get that "supporting a friend" brings a totally different cache of unintended consequences (both good and bad). He didn't understand he just made the UFC a refuge for nutjobs. This goes against some of the progress and steps they made over the last 10-15 years, whether it be giving more opportunities to minorities or openly supporting gay and lesbian fighters who are open about their sexuality. Granted, they still have issues largely revolving around pay and other rights for fighters. However, they had made progress in the other areas. In that way, you undo a lot of that progress because you're hiding under the facade of "free speech". The problem WWE would have is trying to be "everything to everyone" just like the UFC when clearly that's not feasible in today's world where politics are even more divisive and you ultimately have no real way or interest in promoting equality. There will be a time where WWE is tested, and the question is whether they will fail in some of the same ways that not just UFC but the NFL and other leagues (who are for profit) have done over the years.

Things build over time? So what Dana said about Loretta Hunt and Cris Cyborg respectively wasn't enough? That was fine. Rogan joking about Cyborg cutting off her penis didn't strike you as offensive? Jeremy Stephens literally saying the N word on twitter (and subsequently keeping his job), wasn't enough? Dana saying he won't punish Ronda over calling Cris Cyborg an "it", that wasn't enough? The various Conor McGregor things when he was actually fighting wasn't enough. The whole Chael Sonnen's bigoted disrespect for the Brazil, no? Years later, when Chael Jr. aka Colby Covington came around and his various antics didn't draw your ire? Holly Holm's weird connection to the unsubstantiated right wing conspiracy theory of kids being used for mysterious human trafficking and potentially alluding to kids in drag shows (to be fair to Holly, it seems like she didn't want to delve too much into the latter). I am literally combing over stuff from the last 15 years, and it's just too many things to bring up. Sidenote: Apparently, the comedian guy was involved in some of the Cris Cyborg stuff, so the WWE found a gem of a human being for their roast. But you're the person, if you go to the bar and whatever venue you're patronizing and someone calls a person the N-word once, that's enough for you? Really? Ok, then. It was potentially Jon Jones vs. either Francis Ngannou or Alex Pereira. Ngannou obviously no longer fights for the UFC. Ngannou is basically kinda semi retired from MMA cause the company he did sign with a couple years ago, he has only fought once and they seem to be financially not very stable based on buying Bellator and then subsequently falling out with most of those fighters after failing to meet contractual obligations. He also tragically lost a child right after the debacle with Anthony Joshua prior to returning to that one MMA fight. I cannot really fault him for fighting whenever he wants to. If he chose to never fight again for any promotion, I wouldn't blame him. Pereira fought a couple weekends ago and lost in a competitive fight, but didn't look all that impressive. So basically it's Jones vs. Tom Aspinall, who has been pleading to fight Jon for the last year plus. IMO, they don't really have this one big fight beyond that. They have a few compelling fights between former or current champions, but that's pretty much it.

I think it may be a little tougher to get a read on the fanbases given they're not exactly cult status. The UFC fanbase at your average show (at least stateside cause a country like Brazil is a goddamn tossup) is paying crazy ticket prices compared to your average sports fan. So yeah, when Trump and various acolytes roll in, those dopes are going to go crazy. However, at the same time, I remember Bill Burr and his wife Nia who are both huge UFC fans trending for the entire night on Twitter/X a couple MSG shows ago cause in the background of Trump walking in, you can clearly see Nia flipping him off. So you got several hundred people who don't even watch UFC saying on social media, "you need to control your bitch, man/you cuck!". However, a lot of the UFC fans who actually watch the product don't really give a shit cause most of them a very much apolitical or they love a certain group of people flipping their shit over nothing. I don't think you can necessarily judge WWE's fans off of Vince getting cheered and Hogan getting booed. You're going to get the best and worst of both worlds.

No worries. I haven't heard him directly associated with WWE but if the Saudi shows are also his doing, that would make him the most powerful figure in combat sports (real and choreographed). Now that said, he hasn't been able to wrangle Tank Davis and Canelo yet but that won't stop him from trying. Both have told him pretty much, "Fuck you", which is refreshing. Edit - One minor correction: Canelo did recently relent last month and signed a deal with Riyadh Season. It totally slipped my mind cause the first fight of deal set for 5/3 is sort of a teaser and not all that significant relative to some of his recent fights. So that leaves Tank as the lone holdout of the few box office draws in boxing.

So if they can do that, why not do that for Comedian man? Or is he shooting, brotha? Also, why have a roast in the first place? Then, it'd just be called Raw.

That reminds me now that he is trying to start up the boxing league with Dana and already has did shows with UFC, how much of the Saudi shows for WWE does he have a hand in, if any? Or is that someone else?

Also, I have yet to see a roast with just one roaster. This would mean OTHER wrestlers are going to be roasting each other. So yeah, I would be less fearful of the actual comedian and more worried about the people who have to see each other on a semi regular basis and aren't versed on writing material. Moreover, I don't remember a bunch of confrontations happening because of roasts. There has been a whole lot of sitting there looking silly while you get verbally abused for minutes on end. A whole bunch of that.

Wasn't the Tom Brady roast on Netflix? I feel like if anyone is involved in roast, you probably should have a feeling about what's coming. They've been happening for the better part of 60 or 70 years. Just don't show up. Call in sick. Do whatever to not be there.

UFC doesn't really work on the traditional PPV model anymore. So as of the ESPN deal that was signed several years ago, UFC gets paid a flat rate whether the shows do 100,000 buys or 1 million buys. I forgot the breakdown, but they (UFC) get a decent fee for every number show they run regardless of how many buys. I am guessing it was based on the average PPV buys prior to signing the deal. Because it's on ESPN+, the numbers are mainly internal. I stopped tracking PPV buyrates like pre-pandemic cause no one is really reporting them. I think the boxing may be the only entity that still uses the PPV points model of numbers given by PPV distributors, which are very few and far between compared to the 1990s and 2000s. Even with boxing, some of the bigger fights recently are being shown on multiple platforms from Netflix to DAZN or ESPN+ PPV due to co-promotion. So that pie would be divided a bunch of ways if that model was still being utilized. Now that Turki Alalshikh has a big hand in boxing, the PPV numbers are basically irrelevant as it's funded the same way even if the shows aren't purchased in significant numbers. In the documents from the class action lawsuit that just got settled, all the stars IIRC got paid well. Even then, based on sort of the legacy some of those fights left in terms of historical significance, they might have been underpaid in hindsight. UFC is largely living off the legacy of a bunch of big fights from 2006-2018ish just like WWE's value now can be largely attributed to a bunch of stuff between 1997-2012.

Wait....so you been watching the last 20 years (TUF season 1 was early 2005) but the last 2-3 years was the final straw? Wouldn't that be the equivalent of hearing some guy say a racial epithet like few hundred times and then deciding not to support that particular business? Otherwise, that metaphor doesn't work.

I dunno if the UFC is fully politic as much as just adjacent to some unsavory things. UFC is also the we support the LGBTQIA+ community, the latinx community, black history, women, etc. I mean you get Bryce Mitchell saying wild shit every other week, but you get Jean Silva at the UFC 314 press conference bringing out a globe to show his dumbass that, "no, Bryce, the world isn't flat". Yeah, Belal Muhammad still cannot use the Palestinian flag even though he's a UFC champion but they don't exactly censor people in the post fight interviews. So if you want to go on some tangent, feel free. UFC is just an amalgamation of random shit just cause you're getting a bunch of people under one roof (most of them from wildly conservative places not just in the U.S. but around the world, mind you) and the ownership group is made up of billionaires whose political interest run conservative but they're not going to turn down a dollar from anywhere. 90 percent is unintentional. The Kid Rock, Elon, Trump, etc. appearances are the other 10%.

I could have sworn for the last year, according to Dana, they were going to be scaled back to eventually none. Anyway, Renato Moicano is in full agreement.

Here is the template for this week: BONUS EVENT #1 Matchroom Boxing USA on DAZN: Williams vs. Volny (03/15/2025) - Orlando, FL (Caribe Royale) Austin Williams vs. Patrice Volny - Williams, DEC Edgar Berlanga vs. Jonathan Gonzalez-Ortiz - Berlanga, TKO, R1 Omari Jones vs. Alessio Mastronunzio - Jones, DEC Jamaine Ortiz vs. Yomar Alamo - Ortiz, DEC Pablo Valdez vs. Mauro Godoy - Valdez, TKO, R6 Carlos De Leon vs. Carl Rogers - De Leon, DEC EVENT #9 UFC Fight Night on ESPN+ 112: Vettori vs. Dolidze II (03/15/2025) - Las Vegas, NV (UFC Apex) Marvin Vettori vs. Roman Dolidze - Vettori, DEC Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos vs. Chidi Njokuani - Zaleski dos Santos, DEC Alexander Hernandez vs. Kurt Holobaugh - Hernandez, DEC Damon Blackshear vs. Cody Gibson - Blackshear, SUB, R2 Diyar Nurgozhay vs. Brendson Ribeiro - Nurgozhay, TKO, R2 Kevin Vallejos vs. Seung Woo Choi - Vallejos, TKO, R1 Waldo Cortes-Acosta vs. Ryan Spann - Cortes-Acosta, DEC Su Young You vs. AJ Cunningham - You, DEC Josias Musasa vs. Carlos Vera - Musasa, TKO, R2 Sam Hughes vs. Stephanie Luciano - Luciano, DEC André Lima vs. Daniel Barez - Lima, DEC Josiane Nunes vs. Priscila Cachoeira - Cachoeira, DEC Yuneisy Duben vs. Carli Judice - Duden, TKO, R3 The Saturday events deadline is March 15, 5:15 p.m. CT

UFC Fight Night on ESPN+ 112: Vettori vs. Dolidze II March 15, 2025 Las Vegas, NV (UFC Apex) Marvin Vettori (186) vs. Roman Dolidze (186) - Dolidze, DEC (unanimous) Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos (171) vs. Chidi Njokuani (172.25)** - Njokuani, TKO (strikes), R2 (2:19) Alexander Hernandez (156) vs. Kurt Holobaugh (155.5) - Hernandez, DEC (unanimous) Damon Blackshear (136) vs. Cody Gibson (136) - Blackshear, SUB (kimura), R2 (4:09) Diyar Nurgozhay (210.5)* vs. Brendson Ribeiro (205.5) - Ribeiro, SUB (kimura), R2 (1:28) Kevin Vallejos (145.5) vs. Seung Woo Choi (146) - Vallejos, TKO (punches), R1 (3:09) ESPN+ Preliminary Card: Waldo Cortes-Acosta (261.5) vs. Ryan Spann (249) - Cortes-Acosta, TKO (punches), R2 (4:48) Su Young You (136) vs. AJ Cunningham (136) - Josias Musasa (136) vs. Carlos Vera (136) - Vera, SUB (rear naked choke), R1 (3:16) Sam Hughes (116) vs. Stephanie Luciano (116) - Hughes, DEC (split) André Lima (126) vs. Daniel Barez (126) - Lima, SUB (rear naked choke), R3 (3:05) Josiane Nunes (136) vs. Priscila Cachoeira (135) - Cachoeira, KO (punch), R1 (2:46) Yuneisy Duben (125.5) vs. Carli Judice (125) - Judice, TKO (strikes), R1 (1:40) *Forfeits 20% of purse for missing weight **Forfeits 25% of purse for missing weight Event Bonuses ($50,000) Performance of the Night: Carli Judice Performance of the Night: Priscila Cachoeira Performance of the Night: André Lima Performance of the Night: Carlos Vera

It would pretty notable if Tomoko Watanabe in her 50s was wrestling for Stardom. Also, I am pretty sure Momo was in a tag team match in a pre show before a PPV not too long ago.

I dunno about that part given that a guy like Greg Hardy, whose crimes happened while he was in the NFL and was punished while in the NFL, was only able to stay in the UFC but for so long even though he was a slightly above mediocre fighter in a mediocre division. As soon as his losses mounted, he was gone and has been a combat sports journeyman ever since getting thumped every other month in a different venue and country. Koppenhaver was in the sweet spot where Bellator as the new organization was picking up any and everyone who had recently fought in the UFC. As he was sort of a name and dating Christy Mack when they were on Spike, he got to have these fights on TV even though clearly he was not that good. And you have Jimmy Smith and whathisname (the PBP guy who I believe got replaced by either Goldberg or Mauro) ogling and making goofy weird references on commentary. The whole thing was sort of strange. However, you can see that Bellator was pretty much a fledging company trying to replace UFC as the guys MMA promotion for a certain demo. If a guy like War Machine came around now, he would wash out of the UFC just like he did and be cast down to the BKFCs of the world where he would struggle to be around .500. A guy like Mike Perry was able to get a fight with one of the Paul brothers just cause he was good enough to overstay his time in the UFC but not good enough to do anything but be a high level journeyman to meet the needs of a low level/mid tier startup promotion.

Maybe it's just cause he was running on fumes and was just a handful of weeks from being fired, but it's clear he had ran out of ideas if it wasn't apparent already and just went backwards. So not only did he want to go back to the NWO earlier that year, but he decided to be Eric Bischoff pre November 1996 only to come off super disingenuous. And he's trying. However, the die had been cast. Part of it may be he didn't really have faith in Schiavone anymore to get over the storylines and angles so he basically reinserted himself into the mix. The problem is it was so out of left field for that era of WCW and out of place. But as far as who's the best commentator? It's slightly above average versus slightly above average. TBH, because he had generic PBP voice down pat, Vince is totally fine. He was Mike Goldberg in the UFC before Mike Goldberg. Eric was okay for that brand of wrestling and time period. There were better options including the people who ended up replacing them, respectively. With Vince, anytime I rewatched something from when he's commentating, I only get a kick out of the thinly veiled inside references that I talked about just a few weeks back. That's the best part cause you probably didn't notice them in real time. That and basically the desperate attempts at humor and self congratulatory stuff. I found another one a few weeks ago during the wildly all over the place ECW fused Manhattan Center episode from February 1997. I dunno how many lines of coke were snorted before that final draft of the show was turned in, but it had to be bordering on enough to fuel the economies of Colombia and Peru for a couple years. Anyway, speaking of being desperate, WWF goes from in between PG and PG-13 on most weeks to TV-MA for that particular episode. They are trying so hard to be edgy and you can see where they would be headed later that year into next few years. Right away, before the Sunny vs. Marlena arm wrestling contest hosted by one Honkytonk Man, Marlena grabs the mic with Sunny in the ring and we get this: Marlena: First off, I wanna thank Sunny for taking a break from working 42nd Street. Jim Ross: OH MY! Vince: I thought they cleaned that place up! Besides the streetwalker talk, one of my other personal favorites from Vince is the year before during the subpar Shawn Michaels adultery storyline where Marty Jannetty is apparently a key witness for Shawn Michael's womanizing ways. Lawler is going on and on about Marty as his former tag partner knowing Shawn is a piece of crap. Vince, in the most matter of fact way possible: "Yeah, I don't think we can trust what Marty Jannetty says." No context or anything. There was no lead in as to why he would say that cause it's not like Marty had done anything to Shawn as they were not involved in any way with each other until Shawn wrestled Leif Cassidy and then wrestled Marty in Kuwait off TV. That was either a case of punching down on one of his employees (one who never did himself any favors to be fair) or basically, "Marty, you're on borrowed time". Probably both. Honestly, I think there a few things at play. WCW's structure for heavy talking segments and promos was VASTLY different than WWF/E, and it's not likely they (WCW) had one to begin with. Even though people hated the 15-20 minute opening promos for Raw or Smackdown or the ones at the top of the hour, they had a point to build up either matches coming up later that night or at the next PPV. Those segments were clearly designed with a purpose. Yeah, some missed their mark badly or were plain terrible. The fact remains that WWE had a system in place that allowed an easier setting to stay on task and get your point across without sounded like an idiot or a goof or borderline pretend indy wrestler cutting their first promo of their career. So by the time all those guys you mentioned and others came aboard, the painfully scripted and micromanaged nature of WWE at least gave people a safety net for all the flaws inherent within that system. You didn't get the genuine (*genuine for pro wrestling, obviously) nature of all the promos most people love from old school NWA/WCW and the territories, but you also didn't get the absurd, off-the-wall stuff late era WCW had with like Piper, Flair, Warrior, and others. WWF/E is slightly high ceiling but a more sustainable floor. The baseline is decent. WCW had a ceiling way in the clouds, but their floor was in the seventh circle of Hell. Even Dusty, when he shows up randomly here and there post joining the NWO and for whatever reason being against Flair's reign of terror as President and the commentary team, has a few stinkers that make you cringe just a tad bit. I know the older guys had clearly lost some speed and velocity off the fastball ESPECIALLY Piper and the younger guys like Kidman and David Flair weren't natural talkers to begin with, but WCW clearly had no defined structured for how things went and definitely had no contingency plan for when things went off the rails in any case. You just went in the ring or on the ramp, cut a promo, and it was either sink or swim. Mean Gene was good at keeping stuff on track sometimes cause he was terrific, but he certainly couldn't save everyone. With Booker and Eddie, to be fair to WCW or maybe not completely fair given what I am about to say, they weren't given a proper chance until WCW had passed its peak clearly. Eddie had been around a LONG LONG time, but besides Los Gringos Locos/La Pareja del Terror in AAA where his best heel/rudo stuff was, no one knew he had what he showed in WWE until he actually did it in WWE. When he was on his way up though after his turn in 1997, he showed some signs of progress and was starting to convert what he had done in Mexico years prior into something compelling for the American centered, English speaking audience. Then, he fell out of favor with Bischoff and then had the near fatal car accident that stopped all his momentum he gained for the last year and a half. Booker was a good talker I would argue for the longest and by 1994/1995, Harlem Heat clearly had a ton of confidence just cause they had a chance to workshop their act on Saturday Night and the syndicated TV. However, a few years after that big jump in status, they had been basically given the label of "fun midcard tag team who won't be anything beyond that cause that's what tag team wrestling is" when Booker as the better worker of the two had a ton of potential especially given he could talk. If Stevie never gets hurt, we would have never found out Booker's true potential until much much later.

Zuffa got the tape library and that's just about it. I know when the news came out, I think they were planning a Lightweight GP that everyone was jazzed about cause everyone thought it would be the best PRIDE LWs vs. the best UFC LWs. It was the same tease as when Zuffa bought Strikeforce and of all the contracts, somehow Fedor's contract wasn't transferrable. I mean if that was the case and the only reason to buy the damn thing isn't possible, you might as well save the money and just wait for the company to go under.

Not only is Dustin Rhodes one of the first people to do a pretaped cinematic match on PPV, but he did TWO a year apart. Both were pretty terrible, but what a feat. After the scaffold match at GAB 1991, where I am sure a lot of the same people from then were still around in 1995, why would you another match where the performers couldn't do jack to make it any good? Ok so you want to deliver on the match you promised. We have to hold up the sanctity of all those legendary King of the Road matches from years past? Guess what? Nobody knows what the hell a King of the Road match is anyway. Just make a BS hardcore match and move on. They had a TV crew and helicopters filming for hours and wasted money to do this. And it's not even their worst gimmick that year somehow cause the first World War 3 battle royale is just mere months later.

There are gonna be some MMA websites that will totally run a "KING BEHEADED" headline.

There has been a Flair vs. Martel match from All Japan in 1985 that's been sitting in my Watch Later queue forever. I should get around to watching it.

Oh, the most underrated aspect of this is they have to play damn near half the song before you can recognize what is being played. So they do that all the while Del Wilkes is trying to cut a white meat babyface promo in his garbled, country fried accent over top of it. This is the stuff of really awful internet efeds except it was real life.