What Henry Ford did for the automobile, Ronda Rousey has done for women’s MMA (WMMA), popularizing the sport for mass audiences. Furthermore, Rousey was ranked #29 on the Maxim Hot 100—something Henry Ford never achieved. And Rousey’s stock may be on the upswing with a superfight on the horizon against Gina Carano.
UFC president Dana White continues to affirm that the UFC is negotiating for the services of the original “face of women’s MMA,” Strikeforce and EliteXC veteran Gina Carano:
Between 2006 to 2009, Carano racked up a 7-1 record in MMA, losing only to Cristiane Justino (formerly known as Cris Cyborg). Former Strikeforce featherweight champion Justino poses a much more credible threat to Rousey than Carano ever will. However, it’s Carano’s appeal as a pin-up girl rather than her acumen as a fighter that has the UFC scrambling to reach a deal with Gina Carano’s lawyers.
As Dana White tells it, Carano’s representation is playing hardball. “This guy is a Hollywood lawyer and these guys are always a pain in the ass to deal with,” White said. “The shit that he calls back and says everyday is literally comical.”
Even though Carano is coming off a loss and has been inactive for five years, if a deal with the UFC is reached, she’ll be expected to challenge for the bantamweight strap in her very first UFC fight. That might seem counterintuitive, but Carano is perishable goods likely to have her value spoiled by a loss to a lesser-known fighter.
(It’s the “Betty and Veronica” matchup that fight-fans have wanted for centuries.)
What Henry Ford did for the automobile, Ronda Rousey has done for women’s MMA (WMMA), popularizing the sport for mass audiences. Furthermore, Rousey was ranked #29 on the Maxim Hot 100—something Henry Ford never achieved. And Rousey’s stock may be on the upswing with a superfight on the horizon against Gina Carano.
UFC president Dana White continues to affirm that the UFC is negotiating for the services of the original “face of women’s MMA,” Strikeforce and EliteXC veteran Gina Carano:
Between 2006 to 2009, Carano racked up a 7-1 record in MMA, losing only to Cristiane Justino (formerly known as Cris Cyborg). Former Strikeforce featherweight champion Justino poses a much more credible threat to Rousey than Carano ever will. However, it’s Carano’s appeal as a pin-up girl rather than her acumen as a fighter that has the UFC scrambling to reach a deal with Gina Carano’s lawyers.
As Dana White tells it, Carano’s representation is playing hardball. “This guy is a Hollywood lawyer and these guys are always a pain in the ass to deal with,” White said. “The shit that he calls back and says everyday is literally comical.”
Even though Carano is coming off a loss and has been inactive for five years, if a deal with the UFC is reached, she’ll be expected to challenge for the bantamweight strap in her very first UFC fight. That might seem counterintuitive, but Carano is perishable goods likely to have her value spoiled by a loss to a lesser-known fighter.
The UFC has never been a promotion that shied away from obvious mismatches designed more for spectacle than sport. At UFC 118 in August 2010, boxer James Toney was matched up with veteran Randy Couture in Toney’s MMA debut. The match played out like a lamb being led to the slaughter with Couture submitting Toney via arm-triangle choke in the first round. Toney never set foot in the cage again.
UFC pioneer Royce Gracie was 1-1-2 in his last four bouts when he was signed to face reigning UFC welterweight champion Matt Hughes at UFC 60. Royce’s jiu-jitsu pedigree was no match for farmboy wrasslin’, as Hughes stopped Royce in the first round.
Perhaps most notable of all among overhyped and underprepared fighters is Kimbo Slice. Although Slice was exposed by Seth Petruzelli, being knocked out in just 14 seconds at a 2008 EliteXC show, he was picked up by the UFC (where he went 1-1) and rumor has it Slice is now headed for Bellator.
To put all this in perspective, Carano has spent her time away from the sport starring in B-level action movies like Haywire, Fast & Furious 6 and In the Blood. Even if Carano had spent the last five years training at a top camp and taking on top-ranked opposition, the odds would be stacked against her escaping the first round in a fight with Rousey.
Gina Carano’s best chance at UFC gold is the hope that a congenital heart defect fells Rousey.
Despite all this, there is a method to the madness of allowing a Carano-Rousey spectacle to unfold in the hallowed UFC Octagon. Every few years, the UFC product becomes stale, and needs a shot in the arm. Gina Carano would bring media attention, fans, and profit that could benefit both the UFC and all other women in the sport.
Ronda Rousey has worked hard to reach the pinnacle of the sport. She’s never ducked a challenger, and has done more than her share of promotion for the UFC including a miserable stint on The Ultimate Fighter and being on the cover of ESPN: The Magazine’s 2012 Body Issue. Facing easy opposition for the good of the sport puts her in the unenviable position of many great champions before her.
For example, former PRIDE heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko established himself with two dominant performances over Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira and he cemented his legacy with his 2005 win over Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic. But a slew of circus matches and easy fights with unheralded or undersize opponents like Zuluzinho, Hong-man Choi and Matt Lindland tarnished his luster by giving ammunition to Fedor’s critics.
We shouldn’t criticize UFC management for attempting this farcical match-up in order to drum up interest in the sport. But while Rousey vs. Carano may put some cash in Rousey’s bank account, it will add nothing to her resume. To be a great champion, one must face the best available competition, and there are two active fighters currently unsigned by the UFC who fit that description—Holly Holm and Cristiane Justino.
It’s up to Rousey and the UFC brass to decide what direction they want to go in. If the UFC signs the trio of Carano, Holm, and Justino as Rousey’s next three opponents, they might be able to have their cake and eat it, too.
Tapout is one of the most prominent apparel brands in MMA, worn mainly by the sport’s in-crowd consisting of loyal, uber-cool and educated fans, many of whom who have either trained or competed in martial arts themselves.
In 2012, news broke of a major scandal involving the Tapout brand and Hitman Gear founder Dan Diaz. Diaz had sold Hitman to Tapout in 2007 in exchange for 1.25 million shares in the new company, a five-year employment contract and the promise of radical expansion of the Hitman brand.
What Diaz ended up getting was a raw deal, with Hitman being sold for zero dollars when Tapout was sold to Authentic Brands Group (ABG) in September 2010, thus making his shares worthless. His employment contract was also terminated with the sale to ABG, leaving him high and dry.
Rather than settling for chump change, Diaz opted to take his case to the courts. He’s not just suing for damages—Diaz wants the moral victory of exposing the corruption that robbed him of the personal pride he put into his company.
The trial between Dan Diaz and Tapout/Authentic Brands Group has been set for July 7 of this year. Beyond the damages Diaz is seeking, there are allegations that many MMA fighters who licensed their names for Tapout signature shirts like Chuck Liddell, Kenny Florian and Keith Jardine, have been defrauded of royalties.
(Diaz hanging with the Tapout crew, before it all fell apart. Photo via Dan Diaz/OC Weekly)
Tapout is one of the most prominent apparel brands in MMA, worn mainly by the sport’s in-crowd consisting of loyal, uber-cool and educated fans, many of whom who have either trained or competed in martial arts themselves.
In 2012, news broke of a major scandal involving the Tapout brand and Hitman Gear founder Dan Diaz. Diaz had sold Hitman to Tapout in 2007 in exchange for 1.25 million shares in the new company, a five-year employment contract and the promise of radical expansion of the Hitman brand.
What Diaz ended up getting was a raw deal, with Hitman being sold for zero dollars when Tapout was sold to Authentic Brands Group (ABG) in September 2010, thus making his shares worthless. His employment contract was also terminated with the sale to ABG, leaving him high and dry.
Rather than settling for chump change, Diaz opted to take his case to the courts. He’s not just suing for damages—Diaz wants the moral victory of exposing the corruption that robbed him of the personal pride he put into his company.
The trial between Dan Diaz and Tapout/Authentic Brands Group has been set for July 7 of this year. Beyond the damages Diaz is seeking, there are allegations that many MMA fighters who licensed their names for Tapout signature shirts like Chuck Liddell, Kenny Florian and Keith Jardine, have been defrauded of royalties.
Despite the implications of this news, outside of some mentions on smaller websites like FightOpinion and MMAPayout, larger MMA media outlets have been muted on the trial between Dan Diaz and Tapout. The last time MMA reporters showed this much disinterest in a scandal was in 2009 during the Xyience debacle between Rich Bergeron and Zuffa when Xyience went bankrupt, creditors were stiffed and Zuffa took over the assets.
Unfortunately for Rich Bergeron, the details of how Xyience went bust went over the heads of most people, especially those without the skills to decipher legal jargon. The Dan Diaz lawsuit poses similar problems, as it’s a story about how apparel manufacturers allegedly overcharged for their goods in exchange for various financial kickbacks—a messy, complicated series of underhanded maneuvers occurring in the shadows and crevices of accounting ledgers.
There might be more to the Dan Diaz/Tapout situation than meets the eye: Diaz alleged that UFC owners Lorenzo Fertitta, Frank Fertitta and Dana White were minority of Tapout prior to the company’s sale to Authentic Brands Group.
“There’s no direct proof, but that is what Dan Caldwell (also known as “Punkass”) told me on at least three different occasions,” Diaz told CagePotato. “During one of the depositions, an Authentic Brands Group rep did say [Lorenzo Fertitta, Frank Fertitta and Dana White] were still owners in the new Authentic Brands Group Tapout as well.”
Despite this, Diaz says that the Ferttita brothers and Dana White were non-managing members who had no knowledge of Tapout’s day-to-day operations. If that’s the case, then the owners of the UFC can hardly be held accountable for the charges leveled against Tapout.
The question of why MMA fighters who have had signature shirts made through Tapout would not seek legal action is also a prickly pear. Managers with multiple fighters under contract are not going to be eager to kick up a shitstorm with a company like Tapout that might sponsor other fighters they manage. Other fighters might simply not want to deal with the hassle of dealing with the legal system. Without any action from the fighters, however, it’s a license to steal from them—basically par for the course in the MMA game.
It will be interesting to see what the fallout of the trial is—if Dan Diaz is successful, it may inspire other MMA fighters to seek damages, generating further negative publicity for Tapout in the future.
Being a woman in combat sports presents unique challenges when it comes to audience perception. For Ronda Rousey, the fairy tale-esque origin story of her being an American Olympian with tragedy in her childhood catapulted her into the spotlight as a mainstream media darling. But as quickly as she was built up as the newest UFC star, her coaching position on The Ultimate Fighter has torn her down from the pedestal of adulation.
This all raises the question — who is the real Ronda Rousey? Is she a spoiled brat who overruns boundaries because she feels entitled to preferential treatment? Or was she manipulated into losing her cool on the Ultimate Fighter set, with the results being slickly edited to paint her in the worst light possible?
CagePotato’s Elias Cepeda attributed Ronda’s athletic success to her crazy attitude, writing “Ronda Rousey hasn’t met anyone meaner or madder and that’s a big reason why she’s the champ.” However, the truth can’t be so simple when nice guys like Lennox Lewis and Georges St-Pierre have utterly dominated their competition throughout their respective eras.
Doing media in the lead-up to her rematch with Miesha Tate at UFC 168, Rousey was in fine form recently, riffing lines to FightHubTV that could be penned by whoever writes Chael Sonnen’s politically incorrect jokes.
Talking to AnnMaria De Mars, Ronda’s mother, I thought I’d uncover some hidden clues to unlocking or understanding Ronda’s personality. The idiom of the apple not falling far from the tree has been used to compare the 1984 world judo champion to her daughter who placed second at the 2007 world championships and earned a bronze at the 2008 Olympic games.
“People are sometimes offended by Ronda because she does not fit how they think she should act,” wrote AnnMaria on her blog about Ronda’s stint on TUF. “At Ronda’s age, given the same degree of provocation, I would have punched out a few people, hit someone with a chair, told everyone to fuck off and walked out.”
(TUF has made the public hate Ronda Rousey. But she is who she is. / Photo via Getty)
Being a woman in combat sports presents unique challenges when it comes to audience perception. For Ronda Rousey, the fairy tale-esque origin story of her being an American Olympian with tragedy in her childhood catapulted her into the spotlight as a mainstream media darling. But as quickly as she was built up as the newest UFC star, her coaching position on The Ultimate Fighter has torn her down from the pedestal of adulation.
This all raises the question — who is the real Ronda Rousey? Is she a spoiled brat who overruns boundaries because she feels entitled to preferential treatment? Or was she manipulated into losing her cool on the Ultimate Fighter set, with the results being slickly edited to paint her in the worst light possible?
CagePotato’s Elias Cepeda attributed Ronda’s athletic success to her crazy attitude, writing “Ronda Rousey hasn’t met anyone meaner or madder and that’s a big reason why she’s the champ.” However, the truth can’t be so simple when nice guys like Lennox Lewis and Georges St-Pierre have utterly dominated their competition throughout their respective eras.
Doing media in the lead-up to her rematch with Miesha Tate at UFC 168, Rousey was in fine form recently, riffing lines to FightHubTV that could be penned by whoever writes Chael Sonnen’s politically incorrect jokes.
Talking to AnnMaria De Mars, Ronda’s mother, I thought I’d uncover some hidden clues to unlocking or understanding Ronda’s personality. The idiom of the apple not falling far from the tree has been used to compare the 1984 world judo champion to her daughter who placed second at the 2007 world championships and earned a bronze at the 2008 Olympic games.
“People are sometimes offended by Ronda because she does not fit how they think she should act,” wrote AnnMaria on her blog about Ronda’s stint on TUF. “At Ronda’s age, given the same degree of provocation, I would have punched out a few people, hit someone with a chair, told everyone to fuck off and walked out.”
Far from the out-of-control attitude one might perceive from her writing, AnnMaria De Mars comes across as a sensitive, polite and hyper-intelligent woman. She’s an overachiever across the board who has earned a PhD, runs a group of technology companies and co-authored a book (Winning On the Ground). If she has a flaw that’s rubbed off onto Ronda, it’s her hypercompetitive attitude and an overbearing sense of right and wrong that splintered Ronda into a rebellious spirit.
In a blog that appeared on The Telegraph, Ronda recalled breaking three bones in her foot jumping a 12-foot fence while cutting class at the age of 15. AnnMaria was out of town at the time, but she sent her daughter to Northern California to compete in a fierce rival’s tournament without a coach.
“You hurt yourself skipping class, you don’t get any sympathy from me,” says AnnMaria, who learned of the extent of her daughter’s injuries after the fact.
The pressure from AnnMaria might have made Ronda angry at the time, but in the long run, AnnMaria rationalized that it made her a stronger competitor because it would help her deal with the hostile environments that athletes so often find themselves in on the international judo circuit.
“I see so many people in life who are held back because they don’t believe they can do something,” says AnnMaria. “You learn not to give yourself excuses.”
There’s still no telling what kind of emotional impact AnnMaria’s authoritative parenting style had on Ronda. Demanding oneself to do things better and better with each successive attempt has a way of cultivating insecurities side-by-side with confidence.
There are only superficial parallels to sports dads who pushed their sons too hard, like Marv Marinovich and his troubled son Todd Marinovich or Roy Jones Sr. and his ultra-talented son Roy Jones Jr. In those two cases, Marv and Roy Sr. expected their sons to fulfill what they couldn’t by making it to the big time of the NFL and professional boxing, respectively.
“I was against judo, I was against MMA, so I’m batting zero on this,” says AnnMaria.
After the Olympics, Ronda had a free ride to attend any of the top 500 private universities in the US thanks to her mother’s job at the University of Southern California. Her decision to make a foray into professional fighting had her mother scratching her head, to say the least.
“I told her ‘That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. There’s no money in it.’”
Ronda proved her mother wrong, first by winning the Strikeforce bantamweight title and then by becoming the first women’s champion in the UFC. Beyond her skills in the Octagon, Ronda has an even more impressive record of giving back to the community: giving judo clinics for charity, being an advocate of a positive body image for women, and even helping facilitate the donation of rice for the World Food Program.
Ronda’s flaw is purely a matter of perception — she’s easily disturbed and oversells what the audience needs to judge for themselves. Maybe Miesha Tate isn’t a great coach. Maybe Ronda’s team needed her to console them in defeat backstage instead of her giving an interview after the TUF 18 finale. But in MMA, fans want to see an athlete who seems grateful to appear before them, like when Georges St-Pierre got down on his knees to beg for a title shot after beating Sean Sherk at UFC 56.
Georges St-Pierre had an excellent mental game that he never got enough credit for throughout his storied career. No matter how hard BJ Penn pushed him before their rematch at UFC 94 — even going so far as saying he would kill St-Pierre — GSP was unperturbed, and responded by saying that he liked BJ Penn.
“He can say whatever he wants. A lot of people can talk – it’s easy to talk, but it’s harder to walk the walk,” St-Pierre told me.
After all, the two truest things in combat sports are that everyone loves a winner and a fighter is only as good as their last performance. On December 28th, Ronda doesn’t have to concern herself with the opinions of fans, pundits or fellow-fighters. She only has to drag Miesha Tate into deep waters and slap on her signature armbar in order to exorcise the ghosts of her Ultimate Fighter experience.
While we can say anything we want about Ronda Rousey as a person, her wins will define everything that we can say about her career as a fighter.
“Will he?” “Won’t he?” The talk since UFC 167 has been centered around the potential retirement of UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre. GSP’s face showed superficial damage following his split-decision win against Johny Hendricks, but more seriously, he absorbed the kind of blows that rattle the brain around the skull with life-altering consequences.
Even if St-Pierre returns to the octagon, the twin realities of declining motivation and the onset of age could see his legacy tarnished the same way Roy Jones Jr. forever damaged his reputation by continuing to box after appearing diminished in beating Antonio Tarver by majority decision in 2003.
Major pay-per-view draws like GSP and Anderson Silva simply cannot fight forever. When they try to continue past their prime, as BJ Penn insists on doing, it can hurt their drawing power. The UFC relies on stars who can captivate audience interest and raise the stakes, and right now the safe money for a dominant champ to rejuvenate the UFC’s fortunes is on light heavyweight champion Jon “Bones” Jones.
Jones was recently in Toronto last weekend to speak at The Gentleman’s Expo, where he was interviewed by Sportsnet’s Joe Ferraro. Jones made headlines by continuing to insist he wanted to face UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez, saying “I think that’s going to happen in the next two years, I’ll go up to heavyweight permanently…I’ve been really thinking about me and Cain Velasquez going at it, and I think it’d be huge for the sport.”
In terms of public relations, Jones has been walking a tightrope, dealing with hyper-critical fans and the venomous Zuffa brass over various incidents ranging from speaking gaffes to the cancellation of UFC 151 to incurring a DUI while wrapping his Bentley around a telephone pole. The bottom line for Zuffa is simple — Jones is an asset for consistently bringing in solid pay-per-view numbers, but he needs to play the game and allow Zuffa to dictate the strategy.
(Highlights from Jon Jones’s Q&A at the Gentlemen’s Expo in Toronto. Subscribe to CagePotato’s YouTube channel right here.)
“Will he?” “Won’t he?” The talk since UFC 167 has been centered around the potential retirement of UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre. GSP’s face showed superficial damage following his split-decision win against Johny Hendricks, but more seriously, he absorbed the kind of blows that rattle the brain around the skull with life-altering consequences.
Even if St-Pierre returns to the octagon, the twin realities of declining motivation and the onset of age could see his legacy tarnished the same way Roy Jones Jr. forever damaged his reputation by continuing to box after appearing diminished in beating Antonio Tarver by majority decision in 2003.
Major pay-per-view draws like GSP and Anderson Silva simply cannot fight forever. When they try to continue past their prime, as BJ Penn insists on doing, it can hurt their drawing power. The UFC relies on stars who can captivate audience interest and raise the stakes, and right now the safe money for a dominant champ to rejuvenate the UFC’s fortunes is on light heavyweight champion Jon “Bones” Jones.
Jones was recently in Toronto last weekend to speak at The Gentleman’s Expo, where he was interviewed by Sportsnet’s Joe Ferraro. Jones made headlines by continuing to insist he wanted to face UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez, saying “I think that’s going to happen in the next two years, I’ll go up to heavyweight permanently…I’ve been really thinking about me and Cain Velasquez going at it, and I think it’d be huge for the sport.”
In terms of public relations, Jones has been walking a tightrope, dealing with hyper-critical fans and the venomous Zuffa brass over various incidents ranging from speaking gaffes to the cancellation of UFC 151 to incurring a DUI while wrapping his Bentley around a telephone pole. The bottom line for Zuffa is simple — Jones is an asset for consistently bringing in solid pay-per-view numbers, but he needs to play the game and allow Zuffa to dictate the strategy.
To Zuffa, the fighters are pieces to be moved around on a chess board. They simply do not have the right to decide things for themselves; transgressions are swiftly checked, like when Georges St-Pierre was rebuked by the Zuffa brass for announcing he’d be taking time away from the sport in his post-fight interview at UFC 167.
At the Gentleman’s Expo, Jones gave a purposely vague answer to the question of fighter pay, saying, “I don’t think that we’re getting paid as much as some pro athletes, but at the same time, there’s a lot of sports out there that [don’t] get paid as much as a UFC fighter.”
As for his $190,000 2012 Bentley Continental GT? Jones confirmed that the car was a gift from UFC president Dana White, and that Jones had excitedly picked out the most expensive model on the floor.
Jones has many incentives and few realistic options besides playing the game in the same manner Georges St-Pierre did before him. By whitewashing his persona, St-Pierre appealed to the widest swathe of fans; careful political maneuvering with Zuffa allowed St-Pierre to have a cordial relationship with the UFC, unlike so many former UFC stars like Randy Couture, Quinton Jackson or Tito Ortiz. The smoother Jones’s relationship with fans and the Zuffa brass is, the fewer headaches he’ll have going forward with his career.
Jones plans a return to the octagon in late March 2014 where he will likely face Glover Teixeira, who Jones calls “An amazing athlete,” and “a big, scary, intimidating dude.” After three years of dominating the UFC’s light heavyweight division, a rematch with Alex Gustafsson remains to tantalize audiences; Jones believes that Gustafsson is being given an easy fight against Jimi Manuwa (who is not ranked in the top-10 UFC rankings) in order to guarantee the rematch occurs.
“I don’t want to be one of these guys that are taking fights way past their prime,” Jones recently told MMAJunkie.com, and insisted he’d retire from MMA competition by the age of 30.
He’s not the only current UFC star in their prime to talk about retirement, as UFC bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey made similar noises about having “two years left” in August.
Walking away from the fight game is easier said than done, however. When interviewed on the cusp of his rematch with Antonio Tarver in May 2004, Roy Jones Jr. appeared to understand the risks with total clarity:
“I been fighting since I was 10,” RJJ told Donald McRae of The Guardian. “That’s 25 years. It’s time to walk away. I started talking about retiring in 1997. This is a brutal game and 25 years of it ain’t good for your health.”
Now nearly ten years later, Roy Jones Jr. is still boxing, taking unnecessary punishment for a goal that is even more distant and difficult to define than it was when he reigned as a pound-for-pound god.
Georges St-Pierre’s mentor Kristof Midoux has been adamant about talking St-Pierre out of the kind of slide into mediocrity that Roy Jones Jr. has endured, telling the media that St-Pierre is hinting at vacating his UFC title and that “another life awaits.” If that’s the case, then the UFC will now have to rely more heavily on Jon Jones as the flagship attraction, which will definitely have repercussions throughout the sport.
Jon Jones will inherit the throne — and all the hidden pressure that accompanies the top pound-for-pound spot.
(“So if you win, your salary doubles from $22,000 to $44,000? And if it’s the best fight on the card, they give you a $50,000 bonus? Wow. That’s adorable, man.”)
Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s record $41.5 million guarantee for facing Canelo Alvarez in September elicited a series of reactions from the MMA community. Some fighters like Tito Ortiz made ridiculous comparisons (“What am I doing different from [Floyd Mayweather Jr.]?”). Others, like current UFC light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones knew it was more politically expedient to downplay any direct comparison between revenues in boxing and MMA (“Boxing has been around over 100 years…The foundation is set and the money is there. MMA is so new.”). But the question looms large — why is it that boxing can boast stratospheric paydays whereas MMA’s purses are deliberately obscured from public knowledge?
We could talk about the structure of modern boxing where there is competition between promoters (Bob Arum, Golden Boy, etc.) and TV networks (HBO, Showtime, etc.), which drives boxing purses up. Or we could focus on the formula for self-promoting fights that Oscar de la Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr. derived tremendous benefit from. The fact remains that with its limited 20-year history, MMA has much more in common with the monopolistic and mafia-controlled boxing of the 1950s and ‘60s than it does with modern boxing.
What the industry tends to ignore is that the passage of time is not what leads to progress. It was five years ago in 2008 that Jon Fitch was tossed overboard by the UFC for refusing to sign away his likeness rights away in perpetuity. While managers and fighters could have drawn a line in the sand, squared up with Zuffa and said “You’ve taken enough from us,” their response to the likeness rights situation was completely muted.
Thus, the precedent was set. MMA managers acting out of fear negotiated with the UFC by giving up something in exchange for nothing.
(“So if you win, your salary doubles from $22,000 to $44,000? And if it’s the best fight on the card, they give you a $50,000 bonus? Wow. That’s adorable, man.”)
Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s record $41.5 million guarantee for facing Canelo Alvarez in September elicited a series of reactions from the MMA community. Some fighters like Tito Ortiz made ridiculous comparisons (“What am I doing different from [Floyd Mayweather Jr.]?”). Others, like current UFC light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones knew it was more politically expedient to downplay any direct comparison between revenues in boxing and MMA (“Boxing has been around over 100 years…The foundation is set and the money is there. MMA is so new.”). But the question looms large — why is it that boxing can boast stratospheric paydays whereas MMA’s purses are deliberately obscured from public knowledge?
We could talk about the structure of modern boxing where there is competition between promoters (Bob Arum, Golden Boy, etc.) and TV networks (HBO, Showtime, etc.), which drives boxing purses up. Or we could focus on the formula for self-promoting fights that Oscar de la Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr. derived tremendous benefit from. The fact remains that with its limited 20-year history, MMA has much more in common with the monopolistic and mafia-controlled boxing of the 1950s and ‘60s than it does with modern boxing.
What the industry tends to ignore is that the passage of time is not what leads to progress. It was five years ago in 2008 that Jon Fitch was tossed overboard by the UFC for refusing to sign away his likeness rights away in perpetuity. While managers and fighters could have drawn a line in the sand, squared up with Zuffa and said “You’ve taken enough from us,” their response to the likeness rights situation was completely muted.
Thus, the precedent was set. MMA managers acting out of fear negotiated with the UFC by giving up something in exchange for nothing.
*****
Boxing was corrupt in the ‘50s — the mafia having gained control of the industry during the prohibition of the sport from 1830 to 1920 — and most fighters were simply objects to be used and discarded. (Of many available examples, 110% of Joe Louis’s purses were committed to other people, and the IRS still needed to be paid on top of that).
There were still people who pushed back, playing the dicey game of making certain compromises while maintaining a larger strategic aim. One such man was legendary trainer Cus D’Amato, understood to be the driving force behind world champions Floyd Patterson, Jose Torres and Mike Tyson. In Confusing the Enemy: The Cus D’Amato Story, a new biographical novel by Scott Weiss and Paige Stover, the strategy and tactics of D’Amato throughout different eras of boxing are explained — ideas that still apply to the embryonic mixed martial arts game today.
From 1949 to 1958, the International Boxing Club (IBC), led by Jim Norris, ruled the major divisions of boxing. From fixing matches to slicing and dicing up the fighter’s purses, Norris and the IBC ruled the roost with the compliance of shadowy organized crime figures in the background.
As Cus D’Amato groomed Floyd Patterson to be heavyweight champion of the world, he avoided opponents who were controlled by the IBC. Jim Norris of the IBC wanted a 50% interest in Floyd Patterson in exchange for headlining cards at Madison Square Gardens; D’Amato had no interest in serving Patterson up to the IBC on a silver platter.
Fortuitously, the New York State Athletic Commission (NYSAC) and the US Senate began putting heat on the IBC. D’Amato walked into Jim Norris’s office for a sit-down to get Floyd Patterson the big fights he deserved: “By keeping this fight out of the Garden and off of network television, we’re both leaving money on the table…How long are we gonna keep this up? Neither of us is getting where we wanna be.”
D’Amato and Norris worked out a compromise, but it was clear that the IBC was losing ground. When Rocky Marciano vacated the heavyweight title, D’Amato used the hard sell — bluffing a potential Patterson-Marciano fight with another promoter — to negotiate for Patterson to fight for the world title in November of 1956 for the staggering sum of $150,000. Eventually, the IBC was declared a monopoly by the courts and ordered dissolved.
D’Amato had earned scorn for opposing the IBC monopoly because his tactics kept both Floyd Patterson and Jose Torres inactive or facing unranked opponents. In the end, however, he prevailed, not just in that both Patterson and Torres became champions, but because in retirement, their careers extended beyond boxing: Patterson became chairman of the NYSAC and Jose Torres a respected writer and author.
*****
With the right representation at the right time, a talented MMA fighter can secure a better deal. PRIDE champion Fedor Emelianenko went from earning paltry purses of $15,000 to $20,000 under Russian Top Team manager Vladimir Pogodin to clearing $200,000 per fight plus win bonuses throughout 2004 thanks to agent Miro Mijatovic.
Fedor had been unhappy with Pogodin for quite a while, as Pogodin had been skimming money off the top. Mijatovic promoted Fedor’s fight against Yuji Nagata at Inoki-Bom-Ba-Ye 2003, giving Fedor a purse of $150,000. PRIDE was so terrified of the prospect of losing their heavyweight champion — and more importantly, the threat of competition from a new promotion — that the yakuza (organized crime) who ran PRIDE held Mijatovic hostage at gunpoint in order to extort the rights to Fedor of him.
Throughout 2004, Mijatovic was part of the management team that guided Fedor to record purses ($200,000 per fight plus win bonuses) and the PRIDE Heavyweight Grand Prix title. When the PRIDE brass attempted to bribe Mijatovic at the end of 2004 in order to control Fedor’s earnings, he refused and was dumped from Fedor’s management team by Vadim Finkelstein. The rest of this story, including PRIDE’s demise is, as we say, history.
The lesson throughout eras in combat sports is simple — when you control the consensus heavyweight champion, you can control the sport. This was not lost on Cus D’Amato, and it certainly wasn’t lost on Miro Mijatovic.
*****
Just about the only force that can reform MMA involves government intervention, the same way the US Senate investigated boxing. California attempted change in 2012 through Assembly Bill 2100, which was designed to prevent promoters from claiming unreasonable future merchandising rights, prevent unreasonable restrictions on fighters’ seeking outside sponsors and prohibit other onerous contract provisions.
While the legislation was doomed from its inception due to a variety of factors, the anti-AB2100 speakers are worth noting because of what they tell us about the current MMA landscape. Ronda Rousey adopted Zuffa’s stance and spoke out against the bill due to the simple matter of self-preservation: In 2012, she was champion in the sinking ship known as Strikeforce; in 2013, she became the champion of the newly-created women’s bantamweight division in the UFC. Matt Hughes, who spoke positively about Zuffa’s influence on the sport to the California Assembly, was rewarded for his loyalty by being hired in January 2013 as the UFC’s VP of Athlete Development & Government Relations.
The Federal Trade Commission’s investigation into Zuffa’s acquisition of Strikeforce fared no better than AB2100, with the case being closed in February 2012. It’s hard to believe that the Feds got a clear picture of the current MMA scene — limited leverage for negotiation; zero transparency into a promotion’s financials; no legit rankings for organizational titles; and no agency on the part of fighters no matter how big they are.
The irony is clear: Name brand Zuffa fighters with the most to gain from Federal intervention into MMA are conditioned from all sides to maintain a code of silence that diminishes their position.
*****
When Cus D’Amato first met 13-year old Mike Tyson, he was clear about his vision for Tyson’s future, “If you listen to me, I can make you the youngest heavyweight champion of all time.”
In an excerpt from Mike Tyson’s new autobiographyUndisputed Truth, Tyson reminisced on how D’Amato began conditioning him to overcome his fears, “Fear is the greatest obstacle to learning,” D’Amato tells him. “But fear is your best friend. Fear is like fire. If you learn to control it, you let it work for you. If you don’t learn to control it, it’ll destroy you and everything around you.”
Tyson overcame his fears to win the undisputed heavyweight title. No one knew better than Cus D’Amato that having the premier heavyweight in boxing meant that D’Amato could change the way the game was played, just as he had done before with Floyd Patterson. Tyson’s management team of Jim Jacobs and Bill Cayton helped solidify his financial status behind the scenes. But when Cus D’Amato and Jim Jacobs passed on, Tyson was rudderless in rough seas and succumbed to the vile influences of boxing, including Don King’s machinations.
Today, of course, the lessons from those bygone eras of boxing have been lost on today’s MMA fighters and managers. Instead of building up a fighter from the ground-level with emotional intelligence and a strong sense of self-worth, we see Ronda Rousey insecure to the point where she believed she’d be cut from her coaching gig on The Ultimate Fighter. We have Georges St-Pierre delicately trying to articulate his feelings about not being supported by Zuffa for attempting to get Johny Hendricks to go through with the VADA drug testing Hendricks had already agreed upon. We see Jon Jones being thrown under the bus by the Zuffa brass over the cancellation of UFC 151 in a way that diminished his market value by inciting the fans to further hate him.
Fighters and managers might win battles like getting a women’s division in the UFC or Jon Jones (supposedly) out-earning his NFL brothers, but they have lost sight of the war. In another five years, the only difference will be the influx of many new contenders to push out the current crop of Zuffa fighters, the same way Jon Fitch and Yushin Okami were kicked to the curb in 2013.
Instead of waiting for the sky to open up and the gods to bestow change upon the MMA landscape, fighters and managers have to look at ways to organize and start pushing back in a strategic manner at the right junctures. If more men like Cus D’Amato come along, they can outfox and out-hustle the dark forces of the industry, perhaps improving the sport (or forever changing it, as Miro Mijatovic did with PRIDE) for generations to come.
Ideally, the relationship between professional sports organizations like the UFC and media members should be about interdependence, where both parties rely equally upon each other. In practice, many MMA media members and outlets often exist as the clingy, powerless co-dependent partners that put the needs of the UFC before the need for factual and accurate sports journalism.
Last week, a Twitter war-of-words erupted between Yahoo! Sports reporter Kevin Iole and UFC president Dana White over whether the UFC was hiding TRT-user Vitor Belfort in Brazil to avoid the scrutiny of an American athletic commission.
It’s understandable why White feels threatened by media scrutiny; Iole certainly hasn’t pulled any punches regarding the lack of consequences for using performance enhancers in boxing and MMA. While the New York Yankees and Major League Baseball could survive for 211 games without Alex Rodriguez (or the other disgraced players) in the wake of the Biogenesis scandal, the already watered-down cards promoted by the UFC would lose even more star power if known TRT-users (Vitor Belfort, Dan Henderson, Chael Sonnen, Frank Mir — and counting) were culled from the promotion.
MMA fans on MixedMartialArts.com’s UG forum observed that Kevin Iole could be denied media credentials for his failure to toe the UFC’s company line. This is not an empty threat, as many different outlets and individuals including ESPN.com’s Josh Gross, SI.com’s Loretta Hunt, CagePotato.com and Deadspin.com are all barred from press row at UFC events.
(click screen-caps to enlarge)
The public needs to grasp the reality that being an MMA reporter isn’t just about having a nice buffet and a comped ticket at a fight card. It’s about access to prominent fighters, coaches, managers and promoters to get the inside scoop and flesh out stories not reported elsewhere. When newly-crowned UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman visited ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut, Josh Gross was denied an opportunity to interview Weidman. Banned media members may also miss out on a PR mailing list where media outlets learn about breaking UFC news, conference calls that allow media to ask questions to the headliners of major pay-per-view shows, and other events that media can be invited to.
The fear of losing those perks remains a potent sanction by the UFC in ensuring media compliance. I reference Exhibit A: an e-mail written by Bleacher Report staffer Jeremy Botter (leaked by Deadspin.com) that outlined several ways for MMA writers to avoid conflict with the UFC, including the following points:
(The Baldfather advertises yet another media outlet that won’t be lobbing any critical coverage his way. / Photo via Getty)
Ideally, the relationship between professional sports organizations like the UFC and media members should be about interdependence, where both parties rely equally upon each other. In practice, many MMA media members and outlets often exist as the clingy, powerless co-dependent partners that put the needs of the UFC before the need for factual and accurate sports journalism.
Last week, a Twitter war-of-words erupted between Yahoo! Sports reporter Kevin Iole and UFC president Dana White over whether the UFC was hiding TRT-user Vitor Belfort in Brazil to avoid the scrutiny of an American athletic commission.
It’s understandable why White feels threatened by media scrutiny; Iole certainly hasn’t pulled any punches regarding the lack of consequences for using performance enhancers in boxing and MMA. While the New York Yankees and Major League Baseball could survive for 211 games without Alex Rodriguez (or the other disgraced players) in the wake of the Biogenesis scandal, the already watered-down cards promoted by the UFC would lose even more star power if known TRT-users (Vitor Belfort, Dan Henderson, Chael Sonnen, Frank Mir — and counting) were culled from the promotion.
MMA fans on MixedMartialArts.com’s UG forum observed that Kevin Iole could be denied media credentials for his failure to toe the UFC’s company line. This is not an empty threat, as many different outlets and individuals including ESPN.com’s Josh Gross, SI.com’s Loretta Hunt, CagePotato.com and Deadspin.com are all barred from press row at UFC events.
(click screen-caps to enlarge)
The public needs to grasp the reality that being an MMA reporter isn’t just about having a nice buffet and a comped ticket at a fight card. It’s about access to prominent fighters, coaches, managers and promoters to get the inside scoop and flesh out stories not reported elsewhere. When newly-crowned UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman visited ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut, Josh Gross was denied an opportunity to interview Weidman. Banned media members may also miss out on a PR mailing list where media outlets learn about breaking UFC news, conference calls that allow media to ask questions to the headliners of major pay-per-view shows, and other events that media can be invited to.
The fear of losing those perks remains a potent sanction by the UFC in ensuring media compliance. I reference Exhibit A: an e-mail written by Bleacher Report staffer Jeremy Botter (leaked by Deadspin.com) that outlined several ways for MMA writers to avoid conflict with the UFC, including the following points:
– Don’t delve too deep into Zuffa financials.This goes for fighter pay, revenue, money donated to political campaigns. This is Dana’s biggest pet peeve…
This is a very good way to piss them off and find yourself blacklisted. Stay away from it…
– Don’t be negative just to be negative or edgy. Dana doesn’t mind being asked tough questions, but consider the circumstance when you’re doing it. If you’re at a press conference or a conference call for a UFC event, keep your questions related to that event…
…You’re always being watched. I don’t say this to scare you. I say it to let you know that you’re not an unknown commodity, and that people are paying attention. They read what you write. Mistakes you make now, when you think you’re under the radar, could end up burning you down the line…
While there are plenty of apologists pointing to the pragmatic portions of Botter’s e-mail as common-sense journalistic guidelines — guidance needed by the part-time writers at The Bleacher Report — the e-mail is just further evidence of the power the UFC has when it comes to intimidating the media into compliance.
Dana White also has an established pattern of publically lashing out at MMA reporters for various infractions of an unwritten code. Some notable examples from recent memory:
– Calling Loretta Hunt a “fucking moron,” and a “fucking dumb bitch” in 2009:
– Calling Sherdog writer Jake Rossen a “fucking douchebag” and “bullshit reporter” in 2009:
Even if Hunt, Rossen or Goldstein had behaved unprofessionally, there are much more effective ways for a promoter to command respect than by lobbing insults and threats. The tone of Dana White’s language suggests that the UFC feels entitled to favorable coverage, and often views the MMA media as an extension of its PR wing.
It’s no wonder why the UFC would see the MMA media as more of a tool than as an independent platform for news — many MMA websites and publications rely on the UFC for advertising dollars, as I wrote about for CagePotato in a February article (Shill ‘Em All: Why Ethical MMA Journalism Is So Hard to Come By). It is reported that the UFC purportedly invested $44 million under the guidance of the Fertittas to achieve the success it has today, and thus the current Zuffa ownership may see the MMA media as parasitic beneficiaries of their investment. Lost in the mix has been the distressing development of the blurred lines between advertising and editorial in ways that most readers are generally unaware of.
When contacted for comment about VICE magazine’s relationship with the UFC, Fightland editor-in-chief Josh Rosenblatt was resolute in stonewalling any questions, saying “I don’t really want to be the subject of a story…Fightland and VICE have no comment.”
A PR representative from the UFC also refused to comment for this article on the UFC partnering with Heavy.com. While I don’t fault the UFC for allegedly forging a partnership with VICE or investing in Heavy.com to promote the UFC brand, I believe the editorial independence of said publications needs to be continually questioned.
Hard-hitting investigative journalism is not every individual or outlet’s forte. But if the MMA media backpedals away from key issues like performance enhancing drugs, UFC financials or contractual clauses that amount to slavery, then the sport is much more open to corruption. It isn’t the responsibility of the media to lobby for the Muhammad Ali Act to be applied to MMA, but it is the job of journalists to explain how little transparency exists for fighters attempting to determine their value because they have no information about the profits reaped by UFC parent company Zuffa. The same goes for the cases of Ben Askren, Jon Fitch, or Matt Lindland being devalued by Bellator or the UFC for their boring grinding style of fighting: The media doesn’t have to defend said wrestlers as entertaining commodities, but there should be articles written about the need for legitimate rankings that determine title contenders instead of allowing promotions to assign title shots based on whatever is expedient at the moment.
SI.com’s Jeff Wagenheim once wrote an article on Josh Gross and Loretta Hunt being subsequently barred from Strikeforce events when the UFC assumed ownership in 2011. The piece included a quote from Roy Peter Clark, an instructor of sports journalism at the Poynter Institute that suggested a response to Zuffa’s tactics, “It would be a good thing if news organizations applied some counterpressure.”
As long as reporters — some independent, others bankrolled by the promoter — adhere strictly to scripted questions on safe topics, then sadly, the attrition on MMA journalism will continue with no end in sight.
