It has been a few months now since Zuffa, the parent company that owns the UFC, purchased the Strikeforce promotion. Dana White, president of the UFC, has stated numerous times that the two organizations would remain separate, with only minor cha…
It has been a few months now since Zuffa, the parent company that owns the UFC, purchased the Strikeforce promotion. Dana White, president of the UFC, has stated numerous times that the two organizations would remain separate, with only minor changes behind the scenes affecting Strikeforce.
But how long will this separation last?
As fighters and fans alike clamor for superfights between champions like Dan Henderson and Jon Jones or Gilbert Melendez and Frankie Edgar, it seems that cross promotion is already on the horizon.
But if history has taught us anything, a merger may come sooner than most people will expect.
UFC welterweight Charlie Brenneman decided to video blog from the Zuffa Fighter Summit the past couple of days to give us mortals a glimpse of what goes on behind closed doors at this yearly meeting of extraordinary gentlemen and gentlewomen.
In the clip above UFC president Dana White opines about his bitter nemeses — the much maligned “so called MMA media,” offers suggestions on how to make money after retirement and recommends that his employees embrace social media as a free tool to increase their star power.
(Video courtesy of YouTube/CharlieSpaniard)
UFC welterweight Charlie Brenneman decided to video blog from the Zuffa Fighter Summit the past couple of days to give us mortals a glimpse of what goes on behind closed doors at this yearly meeting of extraordinary gentlemen and gentlewomen.
In the clip above UFC president Dana White opines about his bitter nemeses — the much maligned “so called MMA media,” offers suggestions on how to make money after retirement and recommends that his employees embrace social media as a free tool to increase their star power.
“You can continue to make money even when it’s done. My best example is a guy like Chuck Liddell. You know, Chuck Liddell is still famous. People still pay him to come do stuff, whether it’s signings or openings of their business or whatever it is, that guy’s still making a lot of money,” White pointed out. “It’s because he used everything he could. He became big; he became famous…Use social media. You’re going to learn how to do it while you’re here. It’s incredible and it costs you nothing. It doesn’t cost you a dime. It’s free.”
In a message that may or may not have been directed at Nick Diaz, White told fighters that although it isn’t the most exciting part of the job, fulfilling media requirements and PR responsibilities is a requirement of being a UFC fighter, unless the interview is for an outlet that isn’t considered what the promotion considers as being, “real media.”
“Believe me, [doing PR] is part of the deal. You have to do the PR…When we first started this thing… You guys won’t be doing interviews with fucking Hamster Weekly any more,” White explained. “We actually have some real media and when she goes through everything with you today, hopefully you guys will realize it and get it through your head how important it is…”
Hamster Weekly is going to be pissed about this latest development. We feel your pain, HW.
At the end of the video UFC heavyweight Pat Barry shared his thoughts on the most significant news that came out of the three-day event.
“The insurance for the fighters [was the highlight of the summit]. I think that we’ve been needing that since I got into the sport, man. I know like myself, and a lot of other guys [need it]. The top guys in the sport are making top dollars, but when you’re first coming up like I’m still doing now, you’re not getting extraordinary amounts of money. When we get injured outside of the ring — which is where the majority of injuries happen is in practice — that has to come out of pocket. A lot of us don’t have insurance either, so sometimes we have to fight, make a payday and then use that payday to pay off what we had to get taken care of by the doctors, man. So that’s the highlight of the [summit] for me, man. It’s the insurance for fighters outside of fighting. That’s the greatest part of it.”
(Chael Sonnen will be skipping the 9:25 lecture to play blackjack)
An interesting tidbit to come out of this week’s UFC Fighter Summit is that former Strikeforce president and CEO Scott Coker has been quietly demoted to the role of executive vice president and general manager of the recently Zuffa-purchased promotion.
(Chael Sonnen will be skipping the 9:25 lecture to play blackjack)
An interesting tidbit to come out of this week’s UFC Fighter Summit is that former Strikeforce president and CEO Scott Coker has been quietly demoted to the role of executive vice president and general manager of the recently Zuffa-purchased promotion.
No official announcement was made about the title change and its unclear if Coker’s role with the promotion will change as a result, however the agenda for the week-long event revealed the news that managed slipped under the media radar.
The question is, will someone like former WEC GM and current UFC VP of community relations, Reed Harris be named as Coker’s successor or will UFC president Dana White’s title become “UFC and Strikeforce president?” I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
May 2, 2011 is a significant date to a lot of Americans, as this is the day Osama Bin Laden was killed. Though there has been extensive debate on the moral victory of his assassination, according to MMAWeekly’s Damon Martin, MMA fighters Br…
May 2, 2011 is a significant date to a lot of Americans, as this is the day Osama Bin Laden was killed. Though there has been extensive debate on the moral victory of his assassination, according to MMAWeekly’s Damon Martin, MMA fighters Brian Stann and Tim Kennedy reflect and share insight on the current events.
Tim Kennedy, a Strikeforce middleweight, joined the military forces when he saw the September 11th events unfold. He eventually worked his way into the Army Special Forces and was directly involved in searching for Bin Laden.
Upon hearing the news of Osama’s death, Kennedy felt sincere, unexpected emotions:
“It was a lot of really weird emotions. One of course a feeling of finality, of closure, for something that has been going on for such a long time. By no means is the war over, but in the sense of I’ve been in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Iraq, and some of those trips were specifically looking for that guy. The book has not been written, but it’s a chapter that’s seemingly been closed.”
Always a fighter, whether in the ring or representing his beloved country, Kennedy explains that he’s always ready for battle:
“It makes me want to, like right now, I just want to get on a plane and go back over there. I know that the spring forward Taliban movement and Al-Qaeda is happening, so every time it starts getting warm all the foreign fighters start coming back into Afghanistan and get really excited about fighting for their cause, and now they have even more fuel to their flame is that their leader has just been killed.”
Brian Stann, a teammate and close friend of Tim Kennedy, is a UFC 185-pounder, who was a decorated Marine Captain who fought in Iraq, and a graduate of the United States Naval Academy.
As many Americans feel the Al-Qaeda leader’s death is a moral victory, Stann doesn’t want people to lose sight of the continuing mission for freedom in the Middle East, as he explains on MMAWeekly Radio:
“It takes a lot to get me excited. It’s not like the death of Osama Bin Laden can bring any of my Marines back, or any of my friends or any of those family members from New York City that day or the Pentagon, but it’s definitely a positive thing for us.”
“There’s still troops that are deployed overseas, there’s still a battle to be won, and we still need to remain vigilant against terrorists in this country. It’s not like we can let our guard down just because Osama Bin Laden’s dead.”
“We have to remember and it’s very unfortunate, but there are people out there that their main goal is to kill Americans. It’s just a fact. They’ve just been brainwashed that it’s the right thing, and they have no problems whatsoever killing innocent people. They have no problem killing children. I’ve seen it first hand, and it’s very unfortunate.”
Though Stann feels Osama’s death is a moral victory for America, it’s also quite integral in destroying global terrorism:
“The enemy does a very good job of publicizing any little success, even if they twist the facts like they normally do, but they publicize the heck out of it via Al-Jazeera and their networks and really ignite the morale of their people and really make it look like they’re winning the war on terror. So something like this is a major blow to their information operation. This is their hero of everything.”
“Something like this can definitely boost your morale for the coming weeks and really move you forward, and keep your spirits high, while you’re really in a very demanding time of your life. I definitely see this as a morale boost. I see it as a morale boost for America and I think it’s great for us in an area that has been weak in comparison to our enemy, which is information operations.”
The American citizens have great reason to be grateful, to be represented by heroes such as Brian Stann and Tim Kennedy, as well as every single person in their military.
It’s an honor to have Stann and Kennedy fight for America, and it will truly be an honor to see them in the Octagon.
-ROLAND RISO MMAIDIOT.COM
Roland Riso is a contributing writer for Bleacher Report. All quotes were obtained from MMAWeekly.com and MMAWeekly Radio.
The UFC is holding its annual Fighter Summit this week in Las Vegas, bringing together the entire UFC and Strikeforce rosters for the purposes of education and camaraderie — pretty boring stuff, judging from Gegard Mousasi’s amazingly child-like doodles. But it did provide opportunities for old rivals to rub shoulders. Josh Barnett posted this photo yesterday evening with the note, “Pigs have now flown. Watch for Hell to freeze over next. Me and @danawhite together again.”
Barnett has publicly criticized the UFC and Dana White in the past, but when Zuffa bought Strikeforce in March, all of a sudden DW was a pretty fucking metal dude in Josh’s opinion. (That’s a compliment.) Barnett is scheduled to face Brett Rogers at Strikeforce’s “Overeem vs. Werdum” event on June 18th in Dallas. Whether he has a future in the company after that is still anybody’s guess, no matter how friendly he and Dana appear to be when somebody’s pointing a camera-phone at them.
The UFC is holding its annual Fighter Summit this week in Las Vegas, bringing together the entire UFC and Strikeforce rosters for the purposes of education and camaraderie — pretty boring stuff, judging from Gegard Mousasi’s amazingly child-like doodles. But it did provide opportunities for old rivals to rub shoulders. Josh Barnett posted this photo yesterday evening with the note, “Pigs have now flown. Watch for Hell to freeze over next. Me and @danawhite together again.”
Barnett has publicly criticized the UFC and Dana White in the past, but when Zuffa bought Strikeforce in March, all of a sudden DW was a pretty fucking metal dude in Josh’s opinion. (That’s a compliment.) Barnett is scheduled to face Brett Rogers at Strikeforce’s “Overeem vs. Werdum” event on June 18th in Dallas. Whether he has a future in the company after that is still anybody’s guess, no matter how friendly he and Dana appear to be when somebody’s pointing a camera-phone at them.
Filed under: UFC, NewsOne of the things that has always separated the UFC from sports leagues like the NFL, NBA and MLB is the lack of insurance for UFC fighters for injuries suffered outside the Octagon. But as the UFC grows, that appears to be changi…
One of the things that has always separated the UFC from sports leagues like the NFL, NBA and MLB is the lack of insurance for UFC fighters for injuries suffered outside the Octagon. But as the UFC grows, that appears to be changing.
Zuffa, the parent company of the UFC and Strikeforce, has announced that its 350 or so fighters, who are all independent contractors, will now be eligible for what it calls “customized accident insurance coverage.” The policy will cover not just accidental injuries suffered in training, but also injuries suffered in car accidents or other injuries that have nothing to do with the fighters’ MMA careers.
“As this sport continues to grow, we have been working hard to secure additional insurance coverage so that our athletes can perform at the highest levels,” UFC President Dana White said in the announcement. “We’re proud to give our athletes access to this type of insurance.”
One of the things that has always separated the UFC from sports leagues like the NFL, NBA and MLB is the lack of insurance for UFC fighters for injuries suffered outside the Octagon. But as the UFC grows, that appears to be changing.