2020 Non-Event General MMA Talk Thread

[John E. Dynamite]

1 hour ago, Tarheel Moneghetti said:

Man, the UFC postponement is hitting me hard.  Not that I really cared one way or the other.  Aside from the empty arena card ESPN rain a few weeks back, I've only seen a couple MMA matches in my life.  But my nerves are shot and I need someone - anyone - to take a babystep towards normalcy.  And noone is f***ing doing it.

I assume my breaking point is going to be some random thing I care nothing about, like RuPaul announcing on social media that she's out of bread, that will send me out on the ledge.

 

Normalcy kills. Chill a minute.

[The Natural]

11 hours ago, hammerva said:

Well we now know one person who isn't performing.  Although in her case it is because she has had a sad history for the virus

 

Oh man, condolences go out to Rose Namajunas at this difficult of times xxx.

[The Natural]

8 hours ago, keith_h said:

I would love to see Dana's face when the Disney/ESPN CEO told him to "cut this super villain horseshit out and cancel the event" or whatever they said 

Followed with a verbiage of fucks ;).

Glad UFC 249 is off as it should be.

[The Natural]

3 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

If that happens, you'll at least have company on that ledge cause @Dolfan in NYC will be there too.

Welcome to the MMA club!

[RIPPA]

I don't think this was directly brought up yet

So at least in regards to the first part - yeah Dana being so public is what put the bullseye on them. (And as Elsa mentioned, the irony of ESPN basically sabotaging themselves by giving Dana the forum to be so public)

[Elsalvajeloco]

Re: Dana being Dana and being public about it.

The real quandary here is no one steps in when people run self regulated shows. The UFC has done it (been a minute though since they had a true self regulated show) and Bellator has done recently. But (and a big but) is what happens when there are regulatory bodies there to oversee an event that isn't technically a state commission (i.e. a tribal commission) and whomever chooses not to use THAT commission OR is allowed to not use that commission. I mean the UFC, if they weren't bound by the ESPN deal, could still run the show if they wanted to. In the past, they did self regulated shows because there wasn't an active MMA commission at the time or the commission was in its infancy stage. There was a real reason why they did it even though people had problems about that then. In this case, you have the Tachi Palace allowing them to run without even the tribal commission. If Disney told Newsom, "Unfortunately, we can't do much about it since this is an agreement the UFC set up with a tribal organization.", was he going to ask for the National Guard to come in? Now we're entering into some quasi Waco siege type shit that probably breaks a bunch of laws on both sides.

[hammerva]

I find it funny seeing the "MMA media" getting shit on for being too negative about this situation.   Maybe it is just me but with very very few exceptions I have found the "MMA media" to be a bunch of kiss asses who wanted to be in Dana's inner circle.   The only difference in most cases is Luke Thomas who just loves being devil advocate on almost everything and Ariel Helwani and even that seems to be depend on what he can fall back on.  Now that the media is looking at how bat shit crazy this seems and being frank about it, fans and fighters don't know how to handle it

 

[Elsalvajeloco]

Don't worry...if things don't get back to normal pretty soon, a good portion of the MMA media won't even exist anymore.

With UFC no longer actively trying to do anything, it's going to be a rough period for people trying to keep their jobs. The only thing that has happened over the last month is stuff related to the UFC preparing to do cards and the Jon Jones news which only bought them a few days. 

If this manages to run into the summer, it's going to be a disaster on the media side.

[Tarheel Moneghetti]

14 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Don't worry...if things don't get back to normal pretty soon, a good portion of the MMA media won't even exist anymore.

They can stand in line with the other 90% of the economy.

[hammerva]

On 4/10/2020 at 8:49 AM, Elsalvajeloco said:

Don't worry...if things don't get back to normal pretty soon, a good portion of the MMA media won't even exist anymore.

With UFC no longer actively trying to do anything, it's going to be a rough period for people trying to keep their jobs. The only thing that has happened over the last month is stuff related to the UFC preparing to do cards and the Jon Jones news which only bought them a few days. 

If this manages to run into the summer, it's going to be a disaster on the media side.

Probably a decent number of MMA media wish they took pro wresting more seriously now.  Not saying that pro wrestling is that busy but at least they are running something.

Edited April 11, 2020 by hammerva

[TheVileOne]

Dana White shouldn't have been so defiant and bullish about this. He was being belligerent and started being combative about this for no reason. He can't act like this was a victory and he was "ready to go" when his broadcast partners shut him down. He should simply acknowledge this is a messed up situation and they are doing the best they can and they will try to start putting on events when they are able.

The fight island stuff is now just starting to sound like a cry for attention.

[Elsalvajeloco]

1 minute ago, TheVileOne said:

 he was "ready to go" when his broadcast partners shut him down.

The fight island stuff is now just starting to sound like a cry for attention.

But that's essentially what it was.

Once doing the London card fell through and they took the rest of March off, ESPN could have easily said, "Oh, don't worry about putting on shows for right now. We will just continue showing old games and combat sports events."

Guess what? They didn't.

What I would dock ESPN for is they likely told Dana, "If you can find a way to get this going...we'll be right here." Look at the NBA. There is no reason for there to be a HORSE competition in the middle of all this. I don't care if it is for charity and players are doing this from their home court. There is still the "need" to provide content because that's what ESPN pays people to provide. The big problem is Dana White is wrong person to tell this to. He will find a way to do that whether it jives with your corporate friendly image or not. Now ESPN is finding that out. Come May 9 when it comes time to do UFC 250, I'm not going to be shocked when ESPN lets Dana do a show from an island cause that's where it's heading. ESPN is going to let him mad scientist his way into doing that.

[Elsalvajeloco]

 

[Elsalvajeloco]

 

[supremebve]

On 4/11/2020 at 8:37 PM, Elsalvajeloco said:

But that's essentially what it was.

Once doing the London card fell through and they took the rest of March off, ESPN could have easily said, "Oh, don't worry about putting on shows for right now. We will just continue showing old games and combat sports events."

Guess what? They didn't.

What I would dock ESPN for is they likely told Dana, "If you can find a way to get this going...we'll be right here." Look at the NBA. There is no reason for there to be a HORSE competition in the middle of all this. I don't care if it is for charity and players are doing this from their home court. There is still the "need" to provide content because that's what ESPN pays people to provide. The big problem is Dana White is wrong person to tell this to. He will find a way to do that whether it jives with your corporate friendly image or not. Now ESPN is finding that out. Come May 9 when it comes time to do UFC 250, I'm not going to be shocked when ESPN lets Dana do a show from an island cause that's where it's heading. ESPN is going to let him mad scientist his way into doing that.

Everyone is looking at this the wrong way.

ESPN doesn't "need" content, they "want" content.  If there aren't any games for a couple months, they'll still be on 24 hours a day selling advertising.  They are owned by Disney who puts out billion dollar movies every few months.  They may lose money, but they won't have to worry about whether the lights stay on.  The NBA and NFL are in the same boat, except if they lose too much money the salary cap will go down, which is pretty much their worse case scenario as a league.  There may be teams that have to be sold, but they will stay in business.  Baseball has an issue where small market teams need to play to make money.  With football and basketball, the salary cap helps costs down, but baseball doesn't have a salary cap.  There could be teams already struggling, and it won't be long before most of the league is struggling.  Seriously, a lot of these teams would struggle without revenue sharing, and there is no revenue.  The reason the UFC is fighting so hard to put on fights, is because without fights there is no money.  They are owned by a company that has 8 live event business, that they borrowed money to buy, in a world where they can't put on any live events.  They are living paycheck to paycheck as a billion dollar corporation.  Dana White will put on a show in his garage if he can charge people money to watch it.   Buying something for $4 billion is fine and dandy if you keep making massive amounts of money...but they didn't pay in cash and those payments have to be a bitch.  They are a business that makes a lot of money, but doesn't actually have any money.  Endeavour pretty much financed everything they ever bought, and if they don't have a steady stream of income, they can't afford to pay all of those debts.  

[Elsalvajeloco]

1 hour ago, supremebve said:

Everyone is looking at this the wrong way.

I can only speak for myself, but I doubt that.

Quote

ESPN doesn't "need" content, they "want" content.  If there aren't any games for a couple months, they'll still be on 24 hours a day selling advertising.

I put the quotation mark around "need" simply because ESPN can play old games and events until the end of time. Getting stuff on the air the inconsequential. However, with ad revenue being all the way down now, they are risking tanking the market past this current shutdown. Keep in mind, ESPN had to pay people back because the college bowl season underperformed in the ratings in 2016. This was back everything was kept going up and up. Now? They're about to lose potentially over half a billion or more in ad revenue alone. So what are you exactly selling advertising for? People expect some sort of ROI. You're not going get it from random panel show #190 over analyzing the NFL draft from 25 different directions. That bubble is bursting something fierce.

Quote

The reason the UFC is fighting so hard to put on fights, is because without fights there is no money.  They are owned by a company that has 8 live event business, that they borrowed money to buy, in a world where they can't put on any live events.  They are living paycheck to paycheck as a billion dollar corporation.  Dana White will put on a show in his garage if he can charge people money to watch it.   Buying something for $4 billion is fine and dandy if you keep making massive amounts of money...but they didn't pay in cash and those payments have to be a bitch.  They are a business that makes a lot of money, but doesn't actually have any money.  Endeavour pretty much financed everything they ever bought, and if they don't have a steady stream of income, they can't afford to pay all of those debts.  

Here is the thing: With the way Endeavor is going, no amount of steady income is going to pay those debts unless the UFC legit rivals the NFL in terms of popularity. Second, Endeavor owns 51% of the UFC. If they lose majority interest, they lose control of the only thing that's making money. Third, Dana is going to do what he is told.  Having just paid out their dividend, yes, they were cash strapped. However, the reason why Dana was so boastful about the whole 249 thing is because he had ESPN's support in doing this. Not only did they just show UFC Brasilia live but they blocked out the entire day with UFC content like it was a big time fight and not just Charles Do Bronx vs. Kevin Lee in a title eliminator to be the #5 or #6 contender. So on ESPN's part, if you're paying UFC this much money, you're going to get some utility out of them. If this was "well, we at ESPN are doing fine and we handle things as they come" and not some mutual engagement, ESPN would have told everyone from the top and bottom that they will only resume live events when things are up and running. Yet, we see them asking people to take pay cuts. You don't do that unless you got to do that. With the NBA (where most of that lost ad revenue money is coming from) and MLB not being able to go right now, they are looking towards combat sports that they have. Top Rank can't go because being Vegas based, they can't run even live local shows in Nevada right now. They also don't have their own standalone facility to do a show from. Thus, you get them asking UFC or WWE to use one of their facilities. ESPN doesn't have a current long term deal with WWE, so who does that leave? Bingo. You guessed it: the same people who they are paying billions of dollars too. And it's not like ESPN would not compensate UFC simply because they were the ones who blocked UFC from running shows. You can't enforce a contract that you yourself violated by not allowing someone to fulfill it. 

Edited April 15, 2020 by Elsalvajeloco

[Elsalvajeloco]

In the immortal words of the great Anderson Silva, "I Back".

 

[The Natural]

9 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

 

Battle of the WEC Alumni. C'mon Cowboy.

[The Natural]

Man, World Extreme Cagefighting was great.

[The Natural]

During the lockdown, I watched Liddell/Silva from UFC 79 (December 2007) for the first time in say, eight years. Two legends going at it and it didn't disappoint, both were swinging. Actually there were two disappointments. Mike Goldberg as the fight ended said "Chuck The Iceman Liddell is back"...and he was for one night only. What followed was the saddest decline of an MMA fighter I've seen...or BJ Penn. The second disappointment I refer to? It wasn't a five round fight. All Non title main events were turned into five rounds in 2011. I'd have liked Big Nog/Couture, UFC 102 (August 2009) as a five rounder also. Ditto for Griffin/Bonnar I on TUF I Finale (April 2005)

[The Natural]

 

[Elsalvajeloco]

 

[supremebve]

20 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

I put the quotation mark around "need" simply because ESPN can play old games and events until the end of time. Getting stuff on the air the inconsequential. However, with ad revenue being all the way down now, they are risking tanking the market past this current shutdown. Keep in mind, ESPN had to pay people back because the college bowl season underperformed in the ratings in 2016. This was back everything was kept going up and up. Now? They're about to lose potentially over half a billion or more in ad revenue alone. So what are you exactly selling advertising for? People expect some sort of ROI. You're not going get it from random panel show #190 over analyzing the NFL draft from 25 different directions. That bubble is bursting something fierce.

 

As a follow-up to this conversations from last night, apparently Disney is losing something like $30 million a day.  One of their biggest money losers is the fact that they own a fleet of cruise ships that aren't running.  I work in the maritime industry, and one of the biggest focuses of our company is to make sure ships don't get detained, because owning a ship that is not sailing is extremely expensive.  Not only that, they had three more vessels being built and due to launch in the next 3 years.  Disney asked a lot of ESPN employees to take paycuts, and furloughed 43,000 employees.  So, I may have been a little off when I said that Disney does not "need" money.

[Elsalvajeloco]

31 minutes ago, supremebve said:

 

As a follow-up to this conversations from last night, apparently Disney is losing something like $30 million a day.  One of their biggest money losers is the fact that they own a fleet of cruise ships that aren't running.  I work in the maritime industry, and one of the biggest focuses of our company is to make sure ships don't get detained, because owning a ship that is not sailing is extremely expensive.  Not only that, they had three more vessels being built and due to launch in the next 3 years.  Disney asked a lot of ESPN employees to take paycuts, and furloughed 43,000 employees.  So, I may have been a little off when I said that Disney does not "need" money.

This may be an oversimplification on my part, but who would be most likely adversely affected by this type of catastrophic event? Disney spends so much money and has their hands in nearly everything with most of it requiring social interaction. For whatever business Disney+ is possibly gaining off of this, they are losing so much money elsewhere. They don't have that money constantly being pumped in that they need.

[supremebve]

8 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

This may be an oversimplification on my part, but who would be most likely adversely affected by this type of catastrophic event? Disney spends so much money and has their hands in nearly everything with most of it requiring social interaction. For whatever business Disney+ is possibly gaining off of this, they are losing so much money elsewhere. They don't have that money constantly being pumped in that they need.

Seriously, I don't know how much of their money comes from theme parks, cruise ships, and other things that require massive amounts of people to be profitable. ESPN is still probably doing fine, they still have the highest subscriber fees (ESPN is historically their most profitable division), but no movie theaters, no theme parks, and no cruise ships means that Disney has spent billions of dollars making movies, building and maintaining theme parks, and building and maintaining cruise ships that are not making any money at all right now.  As a company, Disney may loose a billion dollars a month.  Late-stage capitalism, when very few people own everything, they also own all the liabilities.