Tag: MMA Media Watch

Showtime Hits With UFC-Strikeforce Purchase, Misses With In-Cage Action

Filed under: MMA Media Watch, UFC, StrikeforceSaturday night’s Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Daley card was the first major event on Showtime since the UFC purchased Strikeforce, and it was a good opportunity to see how Showtime would handle its MMA broadcasts…

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Gegard Mousasi and Keith Jardine battled to a draw at Diaz vs. Daley.Saturday night’s Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Daley card was the first major event on Showtime since the UFC purchased Strikeforce, and it was a good opportunity to see how Showtime would handle its MMA broadcasts now that the premium cable channel is in business with a promotion that had previously been a rival.

Overall, I thought Showtime did a solid job of handling the UFC’s purchase of Strikeforce. But once it was time for the fighters to step into the cage, the coverage of Saturday night’s biggest controversy — the Gegard Mousasi vs. Keith Jardine draw — left something to be desired.

Let’s start with the good: Showtime handled the UFC’s purchase of Strikeforce appropriately by tackling it at the outset. It’s a major story that deserved the upfront treatment it got.

Ultimate Fighter’s Ramsey Nijem Loses Respect for Teammate Who Quit

Filed under: MMA Media Watch, UFCThe big storyline on this week’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter was that one fighter, Keon Caldwell, quit just days after the show started. Caldwell’s teammate, Ramsey Nijem, says in his weekly interview with MMAFighti…

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Ramsey Nijem is a contestant on this season of the Ultimate Fighter.The big storyline on this week’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter was that one fighter, Keon Caldwell, quit just days after the show started. Caldwell’s teammate, Ramsey Nijem, says in his weekly interview with MMAFighting.com that it’s hard to respect a teammate who quit on the chance of a lifetime.

Nijem says he was surprised that Caldwell decided he couldn’t keep going, and although Caldwell said he quit the show to spend time with his daughter, Nijem wonders whether it wasn’t just that Caldwell realized he wasn’t good enough.

The full interview also touches on the fight in this week’s episode, in which Chris Cope of Team Lesnar beat Javier Torres of Team Dos Santos.

Shark Fights Inks Deal With Fuel TV

Filed under: Fighting, MMA Media Watch, NewsTexas-based Shark Fights announced on Friday they have signed a deal with Fuel TV, a network which is a part of the FOX Sports Media Group.

According to a press release issued by Shark Fights, the promotion …

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Texas-based Shark Fights announced on Friday they have signed a deal with Fuel TV, a network which is a part of the FOX Sports Media Group.

According to a press release issued by Shark Fights, the promotion will be a part of “Fuel TV’s Friday Fight Night” beginning on April 15 at 10 p.m. ET.

The deal is to air two one-hour highlight shows from Shark Fights 13, which aired in September on pay-per-view. Part one will air on the 15th, while part two will air on April 22.

According to sources close to the situation, negotiations are ongoing between the promotion and the network to air future Shark Fights event, but no deal has been finalized at this time.

HDNet Offers an Honest Assessment of Bobby Lashley

Filed under: MMA Media Watch, HDNet

The worst thing a TV announcer can do is lie to the audience. That’s true in any sport, but mixed martial arts has a particularly egregious history of announcers hyping up fighters at the expense of the truth: When …

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The worst thing a TV announcer can do is lie to the audience. That’s true in any sport, but mixed martial arts has a particularly egregious history of announcers hyping up fighters at the expense of the truth: When a promoter wants to make one fighter or another into its next star, there are far too many announcers willing to overstate the fighter’s abilities and mislead the viewers into thinking they’re watching a better fighter than they are.

So it was refreshing on Friday night to hear the HDNet announcing team of Michael Schiavello and Frank Trigg tell the audience the truth about Bobby Lashley, who was fighting in the main event of a Titan Fighting card: Although the easy thing to do would have been to hype up Lashley as Titan Fighting’s biggest star, Schiavello and Trigg instead offered a frank assessment of Lashley and told the audience the truth about who he is: A big, muscular former wrestler whose physique looks impressive but whose MMA skills are limited and whose cardiovascular conditioning is atrocious.

As MMA Arrives in Ontario, Anti-MMA Voices Surface

Filed under: MMA Media WatchWe’re used to it by now. Those of us who love mixed martial arts have come to accept that our sport will be subjected to ignorant, unfair commentary from people who don’t understand it and don’t care to understand it, and th…

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We’re used to it by now. Those of us who love mixed martial arts have come to accept that our sport will be subjected to ignorant, unfair commentary from people who don’t understand it and don’t care to understand it, and that the anti-MMA voices will grow particularly loud any time the sport becomes regulated in an area where it had previously been banned.

But even if we’re used to it, and it would be easier just to ignore it, sometimes it’s valuable to point out some of the over-the-top assertions about MMA that come out in the local media whenever the sport arrives in a new town.

So with MMA recently being legalized in Ontario, let’s take a look at some of the problems with this Windsor Star column by Anne Jarvis.

No TV Again for Mike Brown

Filed under: MMA Media Watch, UFCFormer featherweight champion Mike Brown will fight for the second time this month at Saturday night’s Fight for the Troops 2. And for the second time this month, you won’t see him unless you’re in the building.

The UF…

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Former featherweight champion Mike Brown will fight for the second time this month at Saturday night’s Fight for the Troops 2. And for the second time this month, you won’t see him unless you’re in the building.

The UFC has decided to put Brown’s fight with Rani Yahya on the non-televised undercard, and it won’t even be one of the fights broadcast on Facebook before the Spike TV portion of the card begins. At UFC 125, when Brown lost a split decision to Diego Nunes, it was one of only two fights on the 11-fight card that wasn’t televised, either on the pay-per-view broadcast or the Ion TV preliminary show.

For fans who know Brown both as a former No. 1 featherweight in the world, and as one of the most likable fighters in the sport, that’s disappointing. But it’s not surprising.