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Lorenzo Fertitta Breaks Down UFC’s India Strategy

(During international expansion negotiations, UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta lets his pecs and arms do the talking.)

MMA Junkie has an interesting item up on their site from UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta where the owner/executive discusses the organization’s expansion into India. If you’re anything like this writer, your initial reaction to the news that the UFC was looking to break into the sub-continent nation with The Ultimate Fighter: India was, “Yeah, that’s a huge market! What with all their people, and such. Wait, do they like MMA in India? Are there Indian MMA fighters?”

Perhaps you’re much more worldly and cultured than I (more than likely) and didn’t think that. But in the Junkie article, Fertitta admits that the UFC is starting from scratch in India. He just believes that there are cultural forces and trends that might make Indians of a certain age very receptive to MMA and the UFC.

“It’s a market we think has a lot of potential, but we are literally starting from ground zero,” Fertitta said. “People (there) really don’t know anything about this sport or the UFC.”

(During international expansion negotiations, UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta lets his pecs and arms do the talking.)

“It’s a market we think has a lot of potential, but we are literally starting from ground zero,” Fertitta said. “People (there) really don’t know anything about this sport or the UFC.”

The challenge there is obvious, but the flip side of folks not knowing about you might be that UFC may not face as many of the negative preconceived notions of MMA that they’ve have had to overcome in the states. TUF: India will be broadcast on the SONY SIX network in India, and Junkie says that the reality series will be cross-promoted on popular mainstays, including the Indian version of Who wants to be a millionaire? Fertitta said that filming of TUF: India is planned for the summer of 2013 with the show airing the following fall.

Anyone who has followed the UFC for some time knows that, despite the guts and hunches feel that their President, Dana White, often gives, they rely heavily on research data to make business decisions. Fertitta said he likes what he sees in the data on India for the UFC.

“What we’re finding through our research is they want alternative sports,” Fertitta said. “High-paced, fast action – all of those things. Well, the UFC is pretty much fits that bill. There’s nothing else out there that we think really does.

“They’re consuming a more Western/Hollywood-type product, whether it be the ‘Avatars’ of the world or different tech movies, stuff like that,” he continued.

“When you look at the trends of what’s going on in what I’ll kind of call a youth culture and the way they’re consuming entertainment, that younger generation is kind of moving away from traditional Bollywood.”

Any of you ‘taters have special insight into the Indian market for the UFC? Do you feel that MMA and the UFC will be a success there and, more importantly, how pissed will you be to have to deal with more time-delayed events?

– Elias Cepeda

UFC Inks Deal with Sony Six, ‘TUF India’ to Premiere in 2013

(Working title for the season: “TUF India — How Can They Slap?”)

At a press conference held yesterday in Mumbai, the UFC announced the signing of a strategic partnership with the sports channel Sony Six, which will bring a wide range of UFC programming to India. Most notably, the channel will host an Indian edition of The Ultimate Fighter, premiering sometime in 2013; casting details will be announced soon. From the press release:

SIX is the destination for all UFC programming in India, from live events featuring the biggest names in the sport to athlete profile shows including the seminal Countdown and Primetime. SIX will also feature the greatest fights in the UFC’s 19-year history with UFC Unleashed.

UFC Chairman and CEO Lorenzo Fertitta said: “We are very excited to partner with SIX as the UFC expands into India. We look forward to working with them to not only further expand the UFC’s fanbase here, but also to find and develop local talent and, ultimately, bring regular live events to India”…

(Working title for the season: “TUF India — How Can They Slap?”)

A cornerstone of the new partnership will be the production of an all-Indian edition of the Ultimate Fighter, the UFC’s long-running reality TV show where 16 of the most talented unsigned martial artists compete for a contract with the UFC. Previous TUF winners have gone on to win UFC world champions and become international superstars.

TUF India will be the third edition of the long-running sports reality show to take place outside the US; with TUF Brazil being a huge success earlier this year and TUF: the Smashes (Australia vs UK) to begin airing in Australia later this month…

[Fertitta] said: “SIX’s willingness to step up and commit to the Ultimate Fighter India was very important to us. TUF India will help to introduce the sport in India, to showcase the hard work, dedication, athleticism and skills needed to compete in the UFC. It will also cast a spotlight throughout the country, searching for the most talented local martial artists.

“The UFC will be successful in India even without local stars, but what we’ve seen around the world is fans really want to see one of their own get a chance to compete at the highest level. Somewhere out there in a country of 1.2 billion there is a Indian champion, someone who will capture the imagination of the fans and help take the sport to a whole new level.”

Indian MMA is still very much in its infancy. The most high-profile native promotion is Super Fight League, which has done more harm than good in terms of showcasing local talent. Mumbai’s Full Contact Championship has been promoting shows since 2009, but even their most talented prospects aren’t quite ready for prime time. Plus, there’s the question of who will coach the TUF India season, considering that the UFC hasn’t had an Indian fighter in its roster since…ever?

Kudos to the UFC for breaking into a gigantic market, but let’s temper our expectations here. Due to a combination of poor resources and a culture that values academics far over athletics, India wins less Olympic medals per capita than any other competing country. So how much success can they really expect to have in a sport that virtually doesn’t exist there yet?

Hippies Rejoice: Vermont Becomes 46th State to Regulate Mixed Martial Arts

“Whoooooaaaa…says here this thing is a ‘Rousimar Palhares’. We’re already legally dead.”

Yesterday, while you were making terrible Star Wars jokes and/or mourning the death of MCA, lawmakers in “The Green Mountain State” were busy passing a bill to regulate the sport of mixed martial arts. Vermont is now the 46th state in the United States to regulate our sport.

My initial reaction to this news was probably the same as yours: “That’s nice.” Our second reactions were probably also pretty similiar: Damn, New York. You let the state known for its organic-granola crunching, Birkenstock wearing hippies regulate MMA before you did. Get your shit together. For real this time.

Granted, everything I know about Vermont I’ve learned from pints of Ben & Jerry’s. So let’s read the press release that the UFC issued:

“Vermont’s legislation of the sport of MMA is further evidence of the continued growth and success of our sport in this country,” said UFC Chairman and CEO Lorenzo Fertitta. “We are pleased that fans in Vermont will now have the opportunity to watch a live UFC event in their own backyard, and look forward to making that happen.”

“Whoooooaaaa…says here this thing is a ‘Rousimar Palhares‘. We’re already legally dead.”

My initial reaction to this news was probably the same as yours: Vermont isn’t exactly the biggest state in the union, but it’s always great to see a state start regulating MMA. Our second reactions were probably also pretty similiar: Damn, New York. You let the state known for its organic-granola crunching, Birkenstock wearing hippies regulate MMA before you did. Get your shit together. For real this time.

Granted, everything I know about Vermont I’ve learned from pints of Ben & Jerry’s. So let’s read the press release that the UFC issued:

You have to appreciate the optimism, but where exactly will a live UFC event be held in the state of Vermont? Vermont’s most prestigious professional sports team is a Single A baseball team called the Vermont Lake Monsters. Vermont’s biggest stadium, Centennial Field, holds 5,000 people. It’s largest indoor arena, Gutterson Fieldhouse, barely holds 4,000 people. Even the smallest, least interesting UFC cards should expect more than 4,000 people.

I’m personally thinking that Bellator is far more likely to visit Vermont before the UFC does, but I’ve been wrong before.

Of the 48 states with the necessary regulatory bodies to oversee mixed martial arts (I’m not surprised, Alaska and Montana, but I am still very disappointed), only New York and Connecticut do not currently regulate MMA. You’re back on the clock, New York. Try not to screw up this time.

Oh, For F*ck’s Sake: Rashad Evans’s Camp Actually Believed Dana White Was Betting Against Him

(Nope. Not even gonna go there. / Photo via Zimbio.)

After all the unexpected drama on Tuesday, I was really hoping we could put “caption-gate” behind us. Oh, if only. Following up their first report on the UFC’s demand for retraction, USA Today did a second piece with UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta which further explains why the promotion was so furious with this website. Here are some choice quotes from Fertitta:

“These fighters are already paranoid enough. Dana had to talk to Rashad on the phone for 30 minutes to calm him down, to tell him, ‘Are you crazy? There’s no way I would ever bet on a fight or bet against you.’…You’ve got to understand, Rashad’s entire team — his entire camp — was in his ear telling him they read this online and that Dana bet half a million dollars against him.”

“[CagePotato] flatout lied. They just made up a story and lied. Somebody who doesn’t know what our policies are and what we do, they could look at it in a very negative light…These guys go out and do this reckless reporting — it’s not even reporting — make these reckless statements and they end up causing us fallout and having to deal with issues. Why should we even have to deal with this stuff? They made this up and lied and put it online.”

“It didn’t read like a joke at all. If you look at the article, when you first read that, it sounds like that they were in a room with Dana, talking to him, and he says, ‘Oh,’ and he kind of made a mistake and said something, and said ‘Don’t print that.’…if I read an article like that, I would seriously believe that that actually happened and that went down.”

(Nope. Not even gonna go there. / Photo via Zimbio.)

“We’re currently evaluating whether [the retraction was] sufficient or not. Like I said, there’s been a massive amount of fallout in the wake of them putting out something that is completely reckless in the way that they did. I don’t understand how anybody could defend what they did. It’s a very serious allegation. For them to even joke that Dana made a wager of that magnitude on one fighter versus another fighter is something that could have tremendous negative implications for the industry, for our company and a lot of different things…What if on Saturday night there’s a controversial decision that goes to Jon Jones? Which obviously is completely out of our hands. What if that happens? Can you imagine the fervor and the fallout that there would be? It would be a complete disaster.”

I feel genuinely awful that Rashad Evans had to deal with this bullshit leading up to his title fight this weekend. Still, none of this would have happened if a group of lame-brained idiots (like this one, for example) didn’t misunderstand a joke, then spread it to the UFC and Rashad’s team as if it was fact. Isn’t that reckless reporting?

Look, this wasn’t a “story we made up,” or a “lie,” or “reporting,” or even a “statement.” It was a joke in a caption that flew over the heads of a select group of morons. And we weren’t the ones responsible for spreading it as the truth. Yes, there will always be people who literally believe everything they read on the Internet, but that’s no reason to abolish satire.

And one more thing: Of all the thousands of jokes and satirical captions we’ve posted on CagePotato over the years, why did this one get interpreted and disseminated as fact? We’ve been cracking wise since 2007, and this situation has never, ever happened to us before. So why did some UFC fans — and Rashad’s entire camp, apparently — want to believe that Dana White was betting money on Jon Jones?

Part of me thinks that Rashad’s team seized on this story to fire Rashad up for his fight with Jones. As for the rest of you jackasses: What’s your excuse?

Go Figure, Nick Diaz Will Not Be Fired for His Botched UFC 143 Drug Test

(I may not know how to buy a house, but if you give me fifteen minutes I WILL make a four percolator bong out of this.)

Man, the UFC marketing department intern in charge of Lorenzo Fertitta’s Twitter account must be working overtime these past few days. Aside from announcing the Mir/Velasquez, Griffin/Ortiz, and Overeem/JDS fights last night, “Lorenzo” recently held a Twitter Q & A session to set the record straight on this whole Nick Diaz/Puff the Magic Dragon thing. And even if Diaz is planning to retire, his contract with the UFC will remain. You know, just in case he gets the sudden desire to fight B.J. Penn, Karo Parisyan, or Joe Riggs again in some small promotion somewhere.

When asked about Diaz’s Zuffa future, Fertitta was quick to respond, “[I] really like the kid [he] just needs to get it together. I’m a sap for real fighters.” We know, Lorenzo.

We don’t want you to argue about whether or not marijuana should be considered a banned substance, or illegal for that matter, because we already have. Needless to say, if anyone out there actually thinks weed enhances anything but zombie mode on Call of Duty and the enjoyment of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, then they are clearly unfamiliar with the term “enhance.” What we are interested in is what kind of punishment you think Diaz should receive for violating a rule, as silly as it may be. Three months? Six months? A year? Well, barring a successful appeal, which, come on, it’s looking like it will be a year or more before we see Diaz in the octagon, if at all.

Perhaps even more hilarious than the predicament Diaz has put himself in was how the MMA community responded to his failed drug test. Check out some of the best tweets, compiled by MMAFighting.com, after the jump.

(I may not know how to buy a house, but if you give me fifteen minutes I WILL make a four percolator bong out of this.)

When asked about Diaz’s Zuffa future, Fertitta was quick to respond, “[I] really like the kid [he] just needs to get it together. I’m a sap for real fighters.” We know, Lorenzo.

@TimKennedyMMA: Nick Diaz was the aggressor of the fight while he was high as a kite is a testament to how good he really is and how much pot he can smoke.

@malkikawa: I was positive after 143…. Very positive, condit won… Lol

@FilthyTomLawlor: Telling me that the top fighters in MMA smoke pot regularly is like saying that @ryanbader and @Kingsbu suck at beerpong: FACT

@Schindiggity: Nick Diaz tests+ for weed, so Fkn what!! He should be praised for doing so well hi! Plus he has a medical marijuana license! Wtf

@ForrestGriffin: I don’t do drugs…. I suck naturally.

@MieshaTate: “@Michael_Pugh: @mayhemmiller and @MieshaTate What are your thoughts about Diaz’s test failure?” #stupid

@mayhemmiller: They shouldn’t test for it but they do.

@DUANEBANGCOM: “@spilledbagofice: Nick should just say there was some THC in a supplement he got from GNC. #blameGNC” everyone else does. Haha

@lastcall155: @KCBanditMMA The @DiazBrothers209 R 2 of the realist doods I’ve met in this sport! Ive got nuthin but good things 2 say about em. #Realtalk

@joerogan: To make you feel slightly better after the shit news of Nick Diaz testing positive, I offer the black keys.

@JoeDuarteMMA: Tricky Nicky got caught smokin’ that sticky! # #UFC #RT

While we’re on the subject of shameless plugs, have you followed us on Twitter yet? Seriously, we need help understanding what the hell all these hashtags are supposed to mean.

-J. Jones

Jon Jones Wanted to Move to Heavyweight With 2 Wins, UFC Said No

Filed under: UFCUFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones is openly talking about a move up to heavyweight, but before he can do that he’s going to have to convince his bosses, who aren’t enthusiastic about the idea.

Jones revealed on The MMA Hour that…

Filed under: UFC

UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones is openly talking about a move up to heavyweight, but before he can do that he’s going to have to convince his bosses, who aren’t enthusiastic about the idea.

Jones revealed on The MMA Hour that he has already told UFC President Dana White and UFC co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta that he would like to move up to heavyweight if he beats the top two light heavyweight contenders, Rashad Evans and Dan Henderson. But Jones said the UFC has other ideas.

“I actually asked Dana and Lorenzo, could I take a fight for the fans at the end of 2012,” Jones said. “I figured beating Henderson and Rashad, there would be a period where we’d figure out who I’m going to fight next, and during that period, at the end of 2012, I asked to fight a heavyweight — a Top 10 heavyweight.”

Jones, however, said the UFC doesn’t like that idea.

“Dana and Lorenzo didn’t think that was the best for me to do right now,” Jones said. “They wanted me to continue at the light heavyweight division. … They said they didn’t want that for me.”

It’s not surprising that the UFC told Jones to stay focused on his own weight class: He’s still got business to attend to at 205 pounds, and the UFC has only had champions move up in weight on a handful of occasions.

Eventually, however, moving up to heavyweight may be the right move for Jones. He can still make 205 pounds comfortably, but as he moves into his mid- to late-20s, that might become more difficult. And that’s when the UFC might be ready for its light heavyweight champion to make a permanent move and contend for the heavyweight title.

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