Zero Posted January 24, 2014 Share Posted January 24, 2014 Pitbull is murdering Bellator on Twitter right now. What are the chances, Dana paid him off? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epwar Posted January 24, 2014 Share Posted January 24, 2014 Apparently Ariel Helwani is no longer welcome at UFC events as media. Take that for whatever you want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fat Spanish Waiter Posted January 24, 2014 Share Posted January 24, 2014 Wait who will Dana spoonfeed propaganda through now? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epwar Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 Probably some hot chick or Brian Stann. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 For anyone who is privy to a WO subscription, Helwani did have a very open interview with Meltzer and Alvarez a week or so ago where he was pretty critical of tomorrow's lineup. He thought it was pretty underwhelming and Aldo/Lamas should have been on this card instead. It was about as honest as I've heard Helwani be in a while. I don't know if this has anything to do with the rumors, but it would make some sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zero Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 It could be all the Bellator interviews as well. I don't see this sticking, if even true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epwar Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 Dana has said there is nothing to it, so it looks like another FrontRowBrian misfire gone out of control. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheVileOne Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 Despite his track spotty record epwar, you seem to be the first one ready to believe his stuff whenever it comes up. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Edwin Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 I've got TUF Aus vs Can setup to watch but was watching TUF China first. Some terrible fights so far. Especially with the yoga guy. I watched the first couple of eps. but just gave up on it. It's just so uninteresting in every aspect from the coaches to the fighters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epwar Posted January 25, 2014 Share Posted January 25, 2014 Despite his track spotty record epwar, you seem to be the first one ready to believe his stuff whenever it comes up. Well, in my defense, when I posted that I didn't know that it was FRB who started the rumor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Edwin Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 I read the PRIDE Secret Files book a little while ago, so AMA you’d like to know to you’ve heard is in it. They had some intriguing ideas before they folded. They had an upcoming LW GP which was rumored of having Gomi, Mach, Kawajiri, Ishida, Melendez, Hansen, Azeredo, Aurelio, Aoki, Kitaoka, GSP, Hughes and Sherk. PRIDE wanted to book wrestlers like Hashimoto, Choshu and Misawa in fights on the early PRIDE events. They wanted to do their own Tiger Mask fighters with Mezger and Tamura. PRIDE had their own TUF reality TV series before TUF called PRE-PRIDE and PRIDE OU or PRIDE KING. Yushin Okami won the second season of the show and wore a Batman mask to the ring for his fights. Fujita was scheduled to make his UFC debut at UFC 46. PRIDE turned the fight down because the UFC offered Fujita a fight against Wesley Correira and they wanted him to fight a higher ranked UFC heavyweight in his debut. PRIDE offered the UFC Sergei Kharitonov instead, but the UFC turned down the offer because according to the UFC no one wanted to see a no name Russian guy. The UFC then wanted Saku, but PRIDE offered Hirotaka Yokoi instead. After Liddell lost to Rampage in PRIDE, the UFC thought about sending Couture to fight in PRIDE. Couture vs. Wanderlei was a double title fight the UFC had planned for a UFC Japanese event in December 2004. PRIDE tried putting on Tamura vs. Evander Holyfield, “Sugar” Ray Leonard or Oscar de la Hoya on NYE. They also tried putting on Tamura and Kazuki Okubo vs. Saku and a partner in a tag team MMA fight. PRIDE had plans of setting up Fedor vs. Suren Balachinsky, but the fight feel through due to a Balachinsky injury. Balachinsky was considered a superior fighter to Fedor since he had already beaten him twice in Sambo. There was plans of having Big Van Vader fight in PRIDE. They tried making Gomi vs. Masamori Tokuyama in a 3 minute 4 round boxing match. GSP’s name was throw around in PRIDE before he was popular in the UFC, but since they didn’t have a WW division at the time, they didn’t book him. They tried having Kimbo Slice fight on their second Las Vegas card, but Hendo recommended Sokoudjou and they opted to have him fight on the card instead. They planned having a world tour with Mike Tyson fighting Fedor, Cro Cop and other strikers in boxing matches in China, Russia and Europe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glfpunk Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 So much good stuff there. Fujita vs. Cabbage would have been all sorts of carnival level awesome. Most of this stuff is the main thing I miss about Pride- they were not afraid of doing some silly side show shit. That LW GP would have been awesome but man I cannot imagine GSP or Hughes against someone like Aoki. Those smaller guys would have just gotten rag-dolled like crazy. And tag team MMA! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Edwin Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 This was posted on Sherdog when I posted about this. As you can see, Diego was originally scheduled to participate in it too judging by the banner. Also ZST has been doing tag team MMA for a while now. Here's a fight featuring Jeff Curran and Rich Clementi against Naoyuki Kotani and his brother Hiroki: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 Zero was kinda right. Turns out it had something to do with Ariel covering a Bellator press conference. According to Meltzer, everything has been settled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epwar Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 So a MMA journalist is no longer allowed to cover MMA? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keith_h Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 So a MMA journalist is no longer allowed to cover MMA? Isn't he an employee of Fox now? They probably didn't like him covering something that had to do with a competitor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epwar Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 Yeah, but he was covering it under the guise of his day gig at MMAFighting.com. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glfpunk Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 The worst part of it is how Zuffa handles stuff like that. They're so quick to pull the whole "you're dead to me" scenario and take a guy like that and not invite him to media events and stop following them on twitter, etc. All because of something as small as covering another promotion as a journalist. They take the same type of attitude towards sponsors. It's unfortunate. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zero Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 Yeah, are we gonna pretend this was just Fox? Looks like Ariel rolled over dead too, pretty lame. Should rename his show "The UFC Hour" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epwar Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 The worst part of it is how Zuffa handles stuff like that. They're so quick to pull the whole "you're dead to me" scenario and take a guy like that and not invite him to media events and stop following them on twitter, etc. All because of something as small as covering another promotion as a journalist. They take the same type of attitude towards sponsors. It's unfortunate. This is a company that just had the president tell his top selling champ to "be a man" and call him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Lucia Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 Not defending what the UFC/Fox did, but MMA is still a gray area compared to the major sports, which have absolutely no competition. If there was say, actual competition for say, MLB, and someone like Ken Rosenthal wrote a column about this new league, I don't think MLB and Fox (which pays many millions for the rights to air the league) would be too pleased with him. I think Helwani needs to choose whether or not he wants to be a Fox employee/UFC interviewer/mainly UFC journalist or just an MMA journalist. All parties could have handled it better, IMO. It turned into a mess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epwar Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 To be fair, Ariel spends most of his time during Bellator live shows tweeting about how to get free UFC tickets. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glfpunk Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 Not defending what the UFC/Fox did, but MMA is still a gray area compared to the major sports, which have absolutely no competition. If there was say, actual competition for say, MLB, and someone like Ken Rosenthal wrote a column about this new league, I don't think MLB and Fox (which pays many millions for the rights to air the league) would be too pleased with him. I think Helwani needs to choose whether or not he wants to be a Fox employee/UFC interviewer/mainly UFC journalist or just an MMA journalist. All parties could have handled it better, IMO. It turned into a mess. It's a gray area sure but what you're saying doesn't translate. The UFC is a monopoly in MMA with complete control over all of the fighters/sponsors/media. They've set themselves up as the biggest show in town and gained the power to control all aspects of it by having the ability to say "if you don't do what we say, go fuck yourself and work somewhere else" when there is no other comparable place to work. MLB is comprised of one of the most powerful unions in the country. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 Ariel occupies this weird space in terms of MMA media. IMO, there is little difference between someone like Helwani and Josh Gross. If you know Zuffa's history with Gross, you know they always wanted to have someone out there to be the spokesman for people like us. It's like when WWE started to break news on their website. He is suppose to be the link between them and us to show that there is no semblance of impropriety on their part. But once you have SCHEDULED breaking news, the smokescreen is entirely gone. Both those guys can write, conduct interviews, do radio and television, and provide sufficient info when covering breaking news. The one difference between Helwani and Gross is Gross still likes to be the beat writer, outsider rebel type. The offer will still be on the table from the UFC to be THE guy as long as he is good at his job. However, Gross likes conversing with people that are on Zuffa's shitlist like Zach Arnold, Brent Brookhouse, and Loretta Hunt. There is a reason why a place like Sherdog can still have a turbulent relationship with Zuffa and get exclusive Dana White interviews. For whatever beef they have with competitor coverage and event credentials, Savage and Sherwood realize that type of content is what can maintain their revelance to MMA fans. They have bosses at Crave to satisfy and thus they know what line to draw. Gross can't do that and that is why he is freelancing right now. There is no cushy long-term gig in MMA right now like Helwani has where you can stick it to Zuffa and be the Edward R. Murrow of MMA. There just isn't one with how the sport is. When they're hot, you're hot. When their popularity levels off, your work levels off. He'll still get calls to do radio when a big PPV or Fox show happens, but that's it in terms of something outside the norm. Maybe a guest appearance on a Bellator hype show, but you can't make money off that. Helwani realizes all of that, but he's not a shit disturber. However, you cannot act like he is just some ignorant guy. When the WWE Network/CES presentation thing happened (it was that or the UFC's own presser for FightPass), he basically wanted to compliment the WWE network without outright doing it. People (fans and other MMA journalists/bloggers) jumped on that as him dumping on the WWE Network without actually reading what he wrote. People have to be able to read between the lines without jumping down someone's throat at every waking moment. Like they would be Billy Badass in the same spot and suck off Vince McMahon when there is no spot for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epwar Posted January 27, 2014 Share Posted January 27, 2014 Ariel said on the MMA Hour that he still has all of his various jobs, but won't be covering UFC 169 and 170. So basically, they sat him in a corner for being bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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