(Anthony Johnson, back in his “How in the actual f*ck does that guy make 170??” days.)
After going 3-0 as light-heavyweight last year — with no weigh-in mishaps whatsoever — ever-expanding slugger Anthony Johnson is making his next jump up the scale. As first reported by MMA Junkie, the former UFC welterweight contender is slated to face former UFC champ Andrei Arlovski at heavyweight in the main event of World Series of Fighting 2, which goes down Saturday, March 23rd, at Revel Resorts & Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Both men scored easy first-round knockouts at WSOF’s debut event in November, so hell, why not make ’em fight each other? Though “Rumble” won’t have a size-advantage to rely on this time, his powerful fists could spell doom for Arlovski’s fuzzy chin.
But that’s not even the biggest WSOF-related news we have to share. According to a press release distributed today, WSOF 2 will mark the first live event in a new three-year broadcast partnership with NBC Sports Network, which previously aired the promotion’s first card. Here’s the important stuff:
The agreement calls for a minimum of six live events annually on the national television platform that reaches over 80 million homes. Additionally, later this year, NBCSports.com will live stream World Series of Fighting events via TV Everywhere.
(Anthony Johnson, back in his “How in the actual f*ck does that guy make 170??” days.)
After going 3-0 as light-heavyweight last year — with no weigh-in mishaps whatsoever — ever-expanding slugger Anthony Johnson is making his next jump up the scale. As first reported by MMA Junkie, the former UFC welterweight contender is slated to face former UFC champ Andrei Arlovski at heavyweight in the main event of World Series of Fighting 2, which goes down Saturday, March 23rd, at Revel Resorts & Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Both men scored easy first-round knockouts at WSOF’s debut event in November, so hell, why not make ‘em fight each other? Though “Rumble” won’t have a size-advantage to rely on this time, his powerful fists could spell doom for Arlovski’s fuzzy chin.
But that’s not even the biggest WSOF-related news we have to share. According to a press release distributed today, WSOF 2 will mark the first live event in a new three-year broadcast partnership with NBC Sports Network, which previously aired the promotion’s first card. Here’s the important stuff:
The agreement calls for a minimum of six live events annually on the national television platform that reaches over 80 million homes. Additionally, later this year, NBCSports.com will live stream World Series of Fighting events via TV Everywhere.
“We are thrilled to call NBC Sports Network the home of World Series of Fighting,” said World Series of Fighting President and six-time world kickboxing champion, Ray Sefo. “This partnership will allow us to build the World Series of Fighting brand of world-class MMA competition before a dedicated national audience of passionate sports fans and place our athletes on the big stage that they deserve.”
Six events a year on cable TV? Just like that, World Series of Fighting has already become the #3 MMA promotion in the U.S. Their primary challenge now is to build up their roster so that not every main event is a moneyweight freak-show. (Not that we’re complaining.) To that end, WSOF has been busy behind the scenes in recent months, signing guys like Paulo Filho and Dany Lauzon. Can they make a dent in an already crowded market?
Fight fans have been asking for it, well at least the ones from Canada anyway, the full Tyson Steele vs. Gregor Gracie fight video from the inaugural World Series of Fighting event from Nov. 3rd. The bout was part of the preliminary card with many fans expecting to see it on the live web stream at Sherdog.com. The bout did not air as NBC Sports execs wanted to have a couple of extra taped bouts for the live television broadcast if things ran short. In the end the only people who got to see the match was anyone in the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. Steele would go on to defeat Gracie via first round TKO at 4:52.
Fight fans have been asking for it, well at least the ones from Canada anyway, the full Tyson Steele vs. Gregor Gracie fight video from the inaugural World Series of Fighting event from Nov. 3rd. The bout was part of the preliminary card with many fans expecting to see it on the live web stream at Sherdog.com. The bout did not air as NBC Sports execs wanted to have a couple of extra taped bouts for the live television broadcast if things ran short. In the end the only people who got to see the match was anyone in the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. Steele would go on to defeat Gracie via first round TKO at 4:52.
Former UFC light heavyweight champion ‘Suga’ Rashad Evans was backstage for last weekends World Series of Fighting 1 event, supporting his fellow Blackzilian teammates. Evans offers some thoughts on the transition of Tyrone Spong from kickboxer to mixed martial artist, sticking at light heavyweight instead of making a move to 185-lbs, the matching of Chael Sonnen versus Jon Jones, plus more comments on some of the other big matchups including title bouts between Benson Henderson vs. Nate Diaz and Junior dos Santos vs. Cain Velasquez.
HT: Spencer Lazara from MMAInterviews.tv
Former UFC light heavyweight champion ‘Suga’ Rashad Evans was backstage for last weekends World Series of Fighting 1 event, supporting his fellow Blackzilian teammates. Evans offers some thoughts on the transition of Tyrone Spong from kickboxer to mixed martial artist, sticking at light heavyweight instead of making a move to 185-lbs, the matching of Chael Sonnen versus Jon Jones, plus more comments on some of the other big matchups including title bouts between Benson Henderson vs. Nate Diaz and Junior dos Santos vs. Cain Velasquez.
The gate totals for the World Series of Fighting’s inaugural event were released today (Friday 9 Nov. 12) by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. A total of 1,499 tickets were sold for the Nov. 3rd event bringing in a gate total of $82,608.22 into the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino venue in Las Vegas, Nevada. […]
The gate totals for the World Series of Fighting’s inaugural event were released today (Friday 9 Nov. 12) by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
A total of 1,499 tickets were sold for the Nov. 3rd event bringing in a gate total of $82,608.22 into the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino venue in Las Vegas, Nevada. The promotion also offered up 4,076 free tickets to the event.
The main card of the event aired live on the NBC Sports Network, while part of the prelim streamed live on the web at Sherdog.com.
The event, which saw heavyweight headliner Andrei Arlovski finish opponent Devin Cole by TKO in the first round, drew an average of 198,000 viewers for the main card.
Numbers were originally reported by MMAWeekly.com earlier today.
We’ve got a special treat for you today, Taters – not one but two dope short video documentaries that take us behind the scenes of some of the biggest recent MMA events. UFC President Dana White has released his latest vlog (above) to promote this Saturday’s event in Macao.
The vlog has footage from last month’s UFC in Minneapolis as well as the UFC in Rio and has some compelling stuff, showing Yves Edwards waiting painstakingly backstage to hear if he would get to fight the incarcerated Jeremy Stephens or not. It also shows him getting the bad news broken to him by White personally.
The footage from the Rio event shows Anderson Silva warming up by doing crazy spinning kicks back stage as well as Stephan Bonnar during intense moments of contemplation as he warmed up for perhaps the last time of his roided storied career.
We’ve got a special treat for you today, Taters – not one but two dope short video documentaries that take us behind the scenes of some of the biggest recent MMA events. UFC President Dana White has released his latest vlog (above) to promote this Saturday’s event in Macao.
The vlog has footage from last month’s UFC in Minneapolis as well as the UFC in Rio and has some compelling stuff, showing Yves Edwards waiting painstakingly backstage to hear if he would get to fight the incarcerated Jeremy Stephens or not. It also shows him getting the bad news broken to him by White personally.
The footage from the Rio event shows Anderson Silva warming up by doing crazy spinning kicks back stage as well as Stephan Bonnar during intense moments of contemplation as he warmed up for perhaps the last time of his roided storied career.
“My management paid HOW MANY Pitbull bucks for this song?! Paulo Filho won’t be impressed.”
The Nevada State Athletic Commission has released fighter salaries for the inaugural World Series of Fighting event, held last Saturday night in Las Vegas. Former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski made the most money that evening, bringing home $60,000 for crushing Devin Cole in the main event. While we’re all glad to see Arlovski get paid, hopefully he spends some money on better entrance music; having some rapper bark your name is something that an amateur on the undercard of a local show would do to get people to notice him (assuming none of his friends knew how to shave stars into his hair, of course), not something a former UFC champion should do to keep people interested in his career. Just saying, it was pretty cheesy.
Taking home the second-largest purse of the evening was Anthony “Rumble” Johnson, who earned $55,000 for his highlight reel knockout against D.J. Linderman. Since moving up to a weight class that he should reasonably be fighting at, Anthony Johnson has looked pretty impressive. It’s a shame that he sacrificed so much of his career – not to even mention his health – cutting to welterweight, but at twenty-eight years old it’s by no means over for the UFC veteran.
Keep in mind that none of these salaries include any undisclosed bonuses or end of the night bonuses that World Series of Fighting may have given out. Also, even though this promotion is riding a lot of hype and had recognizable talent throughout the card, keep in mind that WSoF is a brand new promotion that just put on its first event. Basically, no one made Anderson Silva money, is what I’m trying to say:
“My management paid HOW MANY Pitbull bucks for this song?! Paulo Filho won’t be impressed.”
The Nevada State Athletic Commission has released fighter salaries for the inaugural World Series of Fighting event, held last Saturday night in Las Vegas. Former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski made the most money that evening, bringing home $60,000 for crushing Devin Cole in the main event. While we’re all glad to see Arlovski get paid, hopefully he spends some money on better entrance music; having some rapper bark your name is something that an amateur on the undercard of a local show would do to get people to notice him (assuming none of his friends knew how to shave stars into his hair, of course), not something a former UFC champion should do to keep people interested in his career. Just saying, it was pretty cheesy.
Taking home the second-largest purse of the evening was Anthony “Rumble” Johnson, who earned $55,000 for his highlight reel knockout against D.J. Linderman. Since moving up to a weight class that he should reasonably be fighting at, Anthony Johnson has looked pretty impressive. It’s a shame that he sacrificed so much of his career – not to even mention his health – cutting to welterweight, but at twenty-eight years old it’s by no means over for the UFC veteran.
Keep in mind that none of these salaries include any undisclosed bonuses or end of the night bonuses that World Series of Fighting may have given out. Also, even though this promotion is riding a lot of hype and had recognizable talent throughout the card, keep in mind that WSoF is a brand new promotion that just put on its first event. Basically, no one made Anderson Silva money, is what I’m trying to say:
World Series of Fighting 1
Nov 3, 2012
Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada.
Overpaid: In the spirit of the upcoming US presidential election, we’ll start off with the safest answer possible: It’s hard to call anyone anyone on this card overpaid. Now, in the spirit of CagePotato: Twenty-five grand (more than Miguel Torres made, mind you) for a 7-2 fighter who holds no notable victories, has never fought in a major North American promotion and, by the way, fought on the undercard? Damn it must feel good to be a Gracie.
Underpaid: If you ever wondered why guys like Ed Soares get paid as much as they do, it’s because good management is at a premium in this sport. Case in point, Devin Cole fought a former UFC champion in the main event of a nationally televised show on a weekend when there was absolutely no competition. I’m no agent, but if I could only negotiate a fighter in Cole’s position the same amount of show money that Ramico Blackmon’s management earned for him, let’s just say I wouldn’t be drinking coffee for a while.
Likewise, I already had respect for Travis Bartlett for stepping up to fight Tyrone Spong when no one else – including Houston Alexander – was willing to. Then again, perhaps the measly four grand Bartlett made for that beating he took explains why no one wanted the fight. Major props to Travis for being tough enough to fight such a dangerous kickboxer for such a small paycheck, but buddy, your brain damage is worth more than that.
