- 6-3-07 8:00pm-9:00pm WEC highlights
- 6-3-07 9:00pm-11:00pm World Extreme Cagefighting
- 6-6-07 9:00pm-10:00pm WEC Highlights
- 6-13-07 9:00pm-10:00pm WEC Highlights
- 8-5-07 8:00pm-9:00pm WEC Highlights
- 8-5-07 9:00pm-11:00pm World Extreme Cagefighting
- 8-8-07 9:00pm-10:00pm WEC Highlights
- 8-15-07 9:00pm-10:00pm WEC Highlights
- 9-5-07 9:00pm-11:00pm World Extreme Cagefighting
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
WEC on Versus
Starting in June Versus will be airing live WEC fights and highlight shows. Here is the current schedule:
IFL Fighter Jeremy Williams has died
The IFL has confirmed that Jeremy Williams has died. This press release was issued on May 6:
NEW YORK - The International Fight League, the world's first team-based professional mixed martial arts league, is deeply saddened to announce the passing of Southern California Condors middleweight Jeremy Williams, 27, of Laguna Niguel, Calif. The Orange County, Calif., Sheriff's Department - Coroner Division confirmed that Williams died Saturday and that an autopsy will be performed to determine cause of death.
"This is a very sad day for the Williams family, Jeremy's teammates and all of the Mixed Martial Arts community," IFL Co-founder and Commissioner Kurt Otto said. "Jeremy was a tremendous competitor and teammate, as well as being a very strong person who lifted the spirits of everyone around him. Our thoughts and prayers are with Jeremy's wife, Lauren, their young daughter and the rest of his family, as well as his coaches Marco Ruas and Debi Purcell and all his teammates. Everyone at the IFL, as well as the entire MMA community, will do everything we can to support them in their hour of need."
Williams owned a professional record of 7-2 and was undefeated in his first two IFL fights, last competing at the Forum in Los Angeles on March 17, when he defeated the Tokyo Sabres' Kazuhiro Hamanaka. One of the rising stars of the first-year league, Williams was going to miss the Condors' next matchup at the Sears Centre in Chicago on May 19, due to a recent recurrence of a sternum injury.
Memorial details will be announced as they become available.
The ongoing debate: boxing vs. mixed martial arts
Sympatico MSN
by Scott Carefoot
Full Story >>
by Scott Carefoot
"Will boxing have to cede its place on the stage to other fighting forms, like mixed martial arts? Mixed martial arts is entertaining. The kind of skill level you saw in the ring tonight - there's nothing in mixed martial arts which is within light years of what Mayweather and de la Hoya are able to do with their hands."
– HBO boxing commentator Jim Lampley
Lampley gave that unsolicited opinion on mixed martial arts at the end of last Saturday's Super Welterwight boxing title fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Oscar de la Hoya, which Mayweather won by decision. For the most part, it was a 12-round snoozefest as Mayweather's admittedly superb defensive skill prevented de la Hoya from landing any significant shots, while Mayweather's lack of power meant that his punches inflicted minimal damage on The Golden Boy's mug. Looking at their faces after 36 minutes of this supposed fight, I couldn't tell if they'd been in a boxing ring or at a health spa.
Full Story >>
Liddell, White have it covered
From
BostonHerald.com
Full story >>
BostonHerald.com
By Herald staff
Tuesday, May 8, 2007 - Updated: 09:35 PM EST
The smiling face of Chuck Liddell, holding his son, Cade, beams from the cover of the upcoming ESPN The Magazine. The UFC coverboy is being profiled by writer Allison Glock in the May 21 issue.
Back in Vegas, Dana White is smiling too.
“I went to the fight that night,” said White, the UFC president, referring to last Saturday night’s Oscar de la Hoya-Floyd Mayweather match, “and I tell you this: Inside the arena, there was no energy whatsoever.
“On my way out of the arena, people were screaming at me, ‘The UFC rules!’”
The so-called “Fight to save boxing” has come and gone and it definitely scored big at the box office and in pay-per-view sales. People attended it and viewed it because of De la Hoya, Mayweather and the HBO 24/7 show that promoted their matchup so compellingly.
Full story >>
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
UFC on HBO
Apparently it's a done deal (we think). The UFC should hit HBO some time this summer.
Here's the story from ivansblog.com:
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Mixed Martial Arts--- UFC Reaches Deal with HBO, According to UFC
Originally Published on MMAWeekly
The UFC has reached a deal to air live events on HBO, according to statements made by UFC president Dana White during a teleconference prior to UFC 70.
White said that the UFC will be putting on live events for HBO and that the first UFC event on HBO will air this summer. When asked by a reporter if the HBO deal is "signed, sealed, and delivered," White said, "Yes." When asked if the deal should be reported as official, White said, "Yeah. We will be on HBO this summer."
White also spoke of struggling to sign the HBO deal in the past tense, as he said, "We would have never signed a deal if we weren't comfortable with it."
However, at a post-UFC 70 press conference, White said that a deal between the UFC and HBO has not yet been signed.
White said during the pre-UFC 70 teleconference that the UFC broadcasts on HBO will have an HBO production team and HBO announcers, so UFC announcers Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan will not be doing commentary on the UFC's HBO events. White said that he doesn't know who will be on the HBO announcing team for UFC events, but when asked if Jim Lampley would be on the team, White said, "Hell no."
White inferred that the HBO events will be higher in stature than the Spike TV events but still lower in stature than the pay-per-view events. As an example, White said that you could expect to see the winners from future seasons of The Ultimate Fighter have their first post-TUF fights on HBO after they win the TUF competition, whereas the UFC Fight Night events would be the home for all of the fighters who are on TUF and get UFC contracts even though they didn't win the TUF competition.
As another example, White said that you can expect to see Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira fight on HBO, and he added that Nogueira "will fight one of the top guys right off the bat." White said that fans can expect to see top-quality fights whether any given UFC event is on HBO, Spike TV, or pay-per-view.
White said that the UFC's June 16th event in Belfast, Northern Ireland will not be the HBO debut show, as he said that the June 16th show will be "on Spike TV or pay-per-view." The UFC web site previously said that the June 16th would be on Spike TV in the United States.
The statements made by White would seem to end a period of more than one year wherein the UFC and HBO were close to a deal but had not reached a deal. White has said consistently over the past year that the UFC would be on HBO "very soon," dating back to an April 2006 radio interview on 1140 KHTK in Sacramento, California.
Acclaimed boxing writer Thomas Hauser wrote in an article on the Seconds Out web site in January 2007 that HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg had "opposed the UFC deal as vigorously as possible" and was doing "everything in his power not to televise mixed martial arts." In the same article, former HBO Sports president Seth Abraham actually compared MMA to "naked boxing" and said that MMA would tarnish HBO's boxing heritage
In an unprecedented move, HBO Chairman and CEO Chris Albrecht veto'd HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg and insisted that HBO would air MMA programming at some point, leaving Greenburg only to negotiate the details of such a deal. According to Hauser, this move "represented a marked shift in HBO's corporate culture... in the past, an HBO chief executive officer would not have ordered sports programming over the objection of the sports department."
Left only to come to terms on the details, some of the key disagreements between Zuffa and HBO Sports were whose production crew will film the event, whose announcers will commentate on the event, and how those announcers will go about commentating on the event.
Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer recently summarized the dispute as follows: "HBO wants full control of the product, and to use its crew and its announcers and cover it like a network broadcast team would cover a major sporting event. UFC doesn't want to give up its control of the product, wants its own crew to film it, and wants to use its own announcers, who are closer to pro wrestling announcers whose role is to build up the product as opposed to providing detached, objective commentary."
With those issues resolved, there were no remaining obstacles standing in the way of a deal between the UFC and HBO.
Here's the story from ivansblog.com:
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Mixed Martial Arts--- UFC Reaches Deal with HBO, According to UFC
Originally Published on MMAWeekly
The UFC has reached a deal to air live events on HBO, according to statements made by UFC president Dana White during a teleconference prior to UFC 70.
White said that the UFC will be putting on live events for HBO and that the first UFC event on HBO will air this summer. When asked by a reporter if the HBO deal is "signed, sealed, and delivered," White said, "Yes." When asked if the deal should be reported as official, White said, "Yeah. We will be on HBO this summer."
White also spoke of struggling to sign the HBO deal in the past tense, as he said, "We would have never signed a deal if we weren't comfortable with it."
However, at a post-UFC 70 press conference, White said that a deal between the UFC and HBO has not yet been signed.
White said during the pre-UFC 70 teleconference that the UFC broadcasts on HBO will have an HBO production team and HBO announcers, so UFC announcers Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan will not be doing commentary on the UFC's HBO events. White said that he doesn't know who will be on the HBO announcing team for UFC events, but when asked if Jim Lampley would be on the team, White said, "Hell no."
White inferred that the HBO events will be higher in stature than the Spike TV events but still lower in stature than the pay-per-view events. As an example, White said that you could expect to see the winners from future seasons of The Ultimate Fighter have their first post-TUF fights on HBO after they win the TUF competition, whereas the UFC Fight Night events would be the home for all of the fighters who are on TUF and get UFC contracts even though they didn't win the TUF competition.
As another example, White said that you can expect to see Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira fight on HBO, and he added that Nogueira "will fight one of the top guys right off the bat." White said that fans can expect to see top-quality fights whether any given UFC event is on HBO, Spike TV, or pay-per-view.
White said that the UFC's June 16th event in Belfast, Northern Ireland will not be the HBO debut show, as he said that the June 16th show will be "on Spike TV or pay-per-view." The UFC web site previously said that the June 16th would be on Spike TV in the United States.
The statements made by White would seem to end a period of more than one year wherein the UFC and HBO were close to a deal but had not reached a deal. White has said consistently over the past year that the UFC would be on HBO "very soon," dating back to an April 2006 radio interview on 1140 KHTK in Sacramento, California.
Acclaimed boxing writer Thomas Hauser wrote in an article on the Seconds Out web site in January 2007 that HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg had "opposed the UFC deal as vigorously as possible" and was doing "everything in his power not to televise mixed martial arts." In the same article, former HBO Sports president Seth Abraham actually compared MMA to "naked boxing" and said that MMA would tarnish HBO's boxing heritage
In an unprecedented move, HBO Chairman and CEO Chris Albrecht veto'd HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg and insisted that HBO would air MMA programming at some point, leaving Greenburg only to negotiate the details of such a deal. According to Hauser, this move "represented a marked shift in HBO's corporate culture... in the past, an HBO chief executive officer would not have ordered sports programming over the objection of the sports department."
Left only to come to terms on the details, some of the key disagreements between Zuffa and HBO Sports were whose production crew will film the event, whose announcers will commentate on the event, and how those announcers will go about commentating on the event.
Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer recently summarized the dispute as follows: "HBO wants full control of the product, and to use its crew and its announcers and cover it like a network broadcast team would cover a major sporting event. UFC doesn't want to give up its control of the product, wants its own crew to film it, and wants to use its own announcers, who are closer to pro wrestling announcers whose role is to build up the product as opposed to providing detached, objective commentary."
With those issues resolved, there were no remaining obstacles standing in the way of a deal between the UFC and HBO.
Mixed Martial Arts Blog is Back!
After a long hiatus the MMA blog is back and will be updating regularly again. Sorry for the off time. Some good stuff is going on in the MMA world so stay tuned!
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