Thursday, December 31, 2009
Shinya Aoki's Post-Fight Behavior After Breaking Hirota's Arm Crosses Line
When you're a professional athlete and you hear a competitor's bone snap, that should be enough to draw you out of whatever testosterone- or adrenaline-feuled action you're engaged in.
That disgusting, unmistakable sound serves as a reality check that the sport you're participating in has real-world consequences that extend far beyond the arena or stadium.
When that sound doesn't give way to the humanity in you, there's a problem.
During the Dynamite 2009 card held in Saitama, Japan, submission ace Shinya Aoki won his bout with Mizuto Hirota when he clearly broke Hirota's arm with a hammerlock. That should have been enough for him. But he was hardly done.
Instead, Aoki stood over his fallen opponent, extended his middle finger at him and taunted him. Then, he ran around the ring excitedly and flipped off the fans, jumped up to the second rope to bathe in the fans' reaction -- which incredibly was cheers -- before running back up the ramp and finally, thankfully, disappearing.
At no point did he go check on Hirota or exhibit any type of sportsmanship whatsoever.
His defenders will say, "Hey, it's the same thing Brock Lesnar did to Frank Mir after beating him at UFC 100."
First of all, Lesnar was soundly booed by the fans for his classless action after taunting Mir. Second, Mir hadn't suffered an obvious major injury in the fight. Third, Lesnar apologized in the post-fight press conference. Regardless, both Lesnar's and Aoki's actions were wrong.
What Aoki did is similar, but not the same. He knew his opponent had been badly hurt, but chose to take the lowest road possible in literally adding insult to injury.
We try to explain to people that what we're watching is a sport, that its participants are well trained, that they respect each other and can separate the personal from the professional. Sometimes, as in the case of Mir checking on Cheick Kongo after his grudge match victory earlier this month at UFC 107, we're proven right. The two had ripped each other in the media for days leading up to the fight, but after the final bell, Mir had the common decency to make sure he was OK.
And then they see things like Aoki's actions, and we look like idiots.
The arm break, I can live with, because Hirota did not tap or verbally submit. Aoki has every right to work the hold until either one of those actions happens or, as eventually occurred, a limb breaks. That's just the reality of our sport, and Hirota is just as responsible for the broken limb as Aoki, as he could have tapped out and saved himself.
But the actions afterward are all on Aoki.
Regardless of what trash talk went on before the fight, you should have enough basic human compassion to realize that the unnatural sound that just came from your opponent's arm signifies something horrific has happened. At that point, you've won. You're the Alpha male in the fight. Your opponent is literally lying in submission at your feet. What does the middle finger prove? You can't kill someone twice, you know?
People say, "It's fighting, not chess." Once the bell rings, it ceases to be fighting. Then, whether it's orchestrated for effect or an immature reaction, it's just you acting like a jerk.
Maybe that's OK with Aoki. At 23-4 and as the DREAM lightweight champion, he has spoken of wanting a higher profile in the MMA world. A 77-second win over the Sengoki champion was impressive enough, but maybe this was his way of getting it for himself. Well, he got it. Everyone's writing and talking about him now. But there's a right way and a wrong way to do it.
You want your higher profile? Here it is: talent of a mature champion, behavior of a cranky toddler. You may be a great athlete, but you're no sportsman.
mmafanhouse
Monday, December 28, 2009
Marcus Jones retires from MMA
ATO has learned through a source close to Gracie Tampa that Marcus Jones has decided to retire from MMA after his loss at The Ultimate Fighter Finale.
Jones was featured on The Ultimate Fighter season 10 and quickly became a fan favorite and also one of the favorites to win the show. He was the only fighter on Team Rampage to earn a spot in the quarter-finals after defeating UFC veteran Mike Wessel. After destroying Darrill Schoonover in the “Big Baby” was knocked out by Brendan Schaub.
Despite the loss Jones was invited to fight at The TUF 10 Finale against Matt Mitrione. Mitrione caught Jones with a big right and Jones suffered his second straight KO loss.
Jones started his MMA career very late after playing 7 years in the NFL with the Tampa Bay Bucs. He suffered several injuries while playing football that put him at a disadvantage as a fighter.
Despite retiring Jones hopes to stay involved in the sport and could go into broadcasting. Jones received a degree in communication at North Carolina.
aroundtheoctagon.com
Sunday, December 27, 2009
UFC 107: 620,000 Buys
Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer writes that UFC 107 beat just about every expectation in selling over 600,000 PPV buys on December 12th.
After four straight disappointing numbers, UFC 107 shocked pretty much everyone, affirming the value of a great pregame show as it did, based on the latest estimates, more than 620,000 buys. That will end up probably tripling Survivor Series’ North American buys that took place the next day.
mmapayout.com
What is curious is that the wide variance between UFC 106 and UFC 107 isn’t notable in looking at non-PPV numbers that you could look at regarding interest in the show, such as amount of clicks on major web site coverage of the shows, web site activity regarding the shows, which almost always directly correlate with buy rates. In looking at these numbers, 107 was ahead of 106, but there was nothing that would indicate 107 doing almost double the buys.
Historically, when looking at these types of numbers, you usually can get a good indication of where the PPV numbers are going to fall. For 106, the buys were much lower than those numbers would indicate, but for 107 they were much higher and right now I can’t come up with a reason why this would be. Within the company, the belief is B.J. Penn has become one of the top draws. In the arena at 107, the most popular fighter was Clay Guida. But Guida is your classic example of a guy who gets a great response, probably helps a little with TV ratings but I don’t see him as a PPV draw, and obviously Zuffa doesn’t see him as a big one either since Guida vs. Kenny Florian wasn’t even promoted on the Countdown show.
Payout Perspective:
Going into UFC 107 we had a pretty good idea that it was going to be the best PPV since UFC 101 in August, but I’m not sure anyone expected 620,000 based on the kind of pre-fight indicators that we were seeing. UFC 107 proved to be the first – and probably not the last – event to exceed our PPV prediction range here at MMAPayout.
What explains the result? Like anything else, the result is a combination of things:
* A believable title fight
* A solid main card
* Strong personalities: BJ Penn, Frank Mir, and to a lesser extent Diego Sanchez
* UFC 107 was the strongest card – by far – in more than 5 months
If you believe that fans have been forced to carefully pick and choose between events – for any number of reasons, but most related to time or monetary constraints – then it makes sense that UFC 107 is the card they chose to purchase more so than any other event this fall. The level of interest in the UFC hasn’t necessarily changed over the last few months, but the willingness of the UFC’s fans to purchase an event understandably fluctuates.
It all comes down to the UFC’s ability to promote and build fight cards that have the perception of being worthy to purchase. Hence, the reason why Frank Mir’s performance on the Countdown show was as effective as it was. The UFC had the attention of all these fans – it never left after UFC 101 – but the organization simply had to convince those people that this card was worthy of the purchase.
It all sounds very basic, but when you look at some of the panic we’ve seen over the last few months it’s a necessary reminder.
