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The Ariel Helwani Dramedy of Errors/Saga of Sympathy Thread


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Guest Edwin
23 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Bix's takes on this are the worst. Jesus. Come on dude, you're better than that.

Who?

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42 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Bix's takes on this are the worst. Jesus. Come on dude, you're better than that.

Bix blocked me on Twitter when I first got on. I am so grateful for that so I don't see that drivel.

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Just now, Elsalvajeloco said:

Bix blocked me on Twitter when I first got on. I am so grateful for that so I don't see that drivel.

Hahaha, what? So weird. It was basically Bix saying what happened isn't good, but then spouted a bunch of outrage over the "Helwani Nose" shirts and how it's lame of Helwani to make money off of his nose. When people mentioned that the money goes to charity, he dug himself deeper and said big noses is a Jewish stereotype, which prompted people to ask questions like, "so is HHH Jewish then?"

It was all very pathetic and then I unfollowed him.

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Guest Edwin
4 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

A pockfaced man who has his mommy clean his room full of wrestling merch and collectibles.

hahahaha

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2 minutes ago, TheVileOne said:

I still think Ariel Helwani's mistake was not asking the UFC first before running the Lesnar story.  Whether they denied it or not.  I think that would give him a better pedestal to sit on.

Again though, how is that a mistake? UFC wants to be considered a legitimate sports organization. Yes Naimark, I know they're an entertainment entity too, but their push is for legitimacy. In sports, reporters will comment on contract negotiations, signings, etc. The NFL would have banned Jay Glazer a hundred times over if Dana ran the NFL like he does UFC. Plus, it doesn't help that Brock was in Dana's ear and calling for physical harm to be done to Ariel.

That said, when you allow yourself to be assaulted, like Ariel was at 172 or 174, and you do nothing about it, then they're going to keep abusing you.

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4 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Again though, how is that a mistake? UFC wants to be considered a legitimate sports organization. Yes Naimark, I know they're an entertainment entity too, but their push is for legitimacy. In sports, reporters will comment on contract negotiations, signings, etc. The NFL would have banned Jay Glazer a hundred times over if Dana ran the NFL like he does UFC. Plus, it doesn't help that Brock was in Dana's ear and calling for physical harm to be done to Ariel.

The UFC doesn't have to credential him either.  It's technically not a mistake to bar him from covering events as media.  

I'm not sure what Helwani's upset about.  If he doesn't want to sit on stories and if he wants to put up hard-hitting relevant news, then he can do it.  Now he can do it without having to worry about UFC's reaction.  The only thing he can't do now is the scrums and interviews at live events.  

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I'll just say this about the stupid "HE SHOULD'VE ASKED FOR A COMMENT!" defense, which isn't a defense at all.

Okamoto apparently asked about Lesnar on Friday, and got told it wasn't happening. Helwani probably would've been told the same thing. And when you have a story like that on your doorstep, and you're confident in the sourcing behind it, you want to get the story out there. Myself and my employers have gotten burned on more than one occasion because we tried to play nice with PR, and someone else got the story before us.

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2 minutes ago, Shawn411 said:

Ariel lost his cool, basically a push over. But I hope Lorenzo let him back in before Ariel does something to himself.

Not sure if you're serious or not...

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1 minute ago, Craig H said:

Not sure if you're serious or not...

I am actually serious, at first I didn't have any sympathy towards Ariel but now I feel bad for the guy. I am actually worried about his well being.

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Particularly when this is the second time UFC's fucked Helwani this year. And Dana can't even be honest about it when acting on it.

This company will hopefully have less of this petty bullshit when it gets sold.

 

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13 minutes ago, Oyaji said:

Have you seen the media in China?

Also, there is no timeline on any sell. I am not worrying myself about it until it actually happens or they come out and say it has been sold.

Second,  a lot of companies are vehemently anti-media. Look at how a lot of the grappling promotions treat reporters. ADCC has dropped below the dashboard in terms of popularity mostly because they've driven the media out and priced out any potential consumers (some who want to cover it as writers). Metamoris is basically 24/7 damage control, which is hilarious since they don't have a fanbase to begin with.

So most likely the new ownership, especially someone outside the immediate MMA community, is going to have an infrastructure that follows the previous owners' lead. You can't solve a problem if you don't know it's a problem in the first place.

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FYI:

Ariel Helwani claimed Bellator banned him pre-Coker for the incident on the MMA Hour where Alvarez tried to call in while Rebney was on during that whole business when Alvarez was a free agent and wanted to go to the UFC.

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9 minutes ago, TheVileOne said:

FYI:

Ariel Helwani claimed Bellator banned him pre-Coker for the incident on the MMA Hour where Alvarez tried to call in while Rebney was on during that whole business when Alvarez was a free agent and wanted to go to the UFC.

Based on Zach Light's lawsuit, the culture of the company may have not changed. 

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Finished. Have at it. Recycle and also you know...keep threads tidy by exercising your best judgment. If you don't know what fits in a thread or not, either read the original post (especially in the General MMA Talk thread) to see if what you're posting belongs or read through the entire thread. If it doesn't, check other threads that might be pinned or those also on the top of the first page. Thanks!

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So if I'm reading into this correctly, Helwani admitted that he was under the ZUFFA payroll while he was at Fox.  For certain reasons his paychecks for Fox came from ZUFFA.  And I could be wrong, but that does seem a conflict of interest to me.

Look, I don't think you can be an objective journalist along with Mr. analyst for FOX Sports.  I think Helwani opened himself up to that problem by taking the FOX job.  He's going to talk about what he learned from journalism school and then turn around and do what he was taught not to do, I can't feel too bad for him.  He was under the ZUFFA payroll, so then yeah there is a case of biting the hand that feeds you.

If he wants to break all the news and be the insider, then he doesn't need UFC credentials to do that.  You guys know what credentials are at the end of the day?  They are free UFC tickets.  That's it.  Watch any of Helwani's interviews.  A lot of them are repetitious on Fight Week or stuff he already does on MMA Hour.  He already has access to all these guys on MMA Hour.  This doesn't necessarily have to ruin his career.   He doesn't need the credentials other than the adulation to watch the fights live at cage side and to chat with the fighters afterwards.  Which again, he gets them for even longer amounts of time on MMA Hour.

But yeah, you can't cash a paycheck from your boss and expect them to not be upset if you aren't towing the company line.  Not saying it's fair, but that's business.  I love Stitch, but the UFC had no reason not to fire him when he was denouncing the Reebok deal.  The president doesn't owe him a phone call either in that case.  The top brass delegate such work.  

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