[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
UFC = WWE[/quote]
Huh? Someone needs to work on his analogical reasoning.
Do they create and hype rivalries? Sure. But the matches are not rigged. What makes professional wrestling what it is, is not just the rivalries, it’s the rigged aspect of it.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
I can’t stand Tito, and I can’t stand Dana.
[/quote]
Do you know Ortiz personally?
I don’t know Ortiz, but a good friend is very close with him. From what I’ve heard, Ortiz is gracious, loyal, and always there for people close to him.
Of course, since I’ve never met nor hung out with Ortiz, I have no opinion of the guy. (Well, he came from absolutely nothing and turned his life around, so I respect him - or anyone else - for that.) I do know that I don’t base my opinions on people based on what I see on television. I realize that even in MMA, there are fictional aspects of it.
I don’t admire Russel Crowe because he played a heroic figure on the big screen. I don’t disdain Ortiz because he plays the role of a bad guy on television.
[quote]CaliforniaLaw wrote:
Okay, it’s a kinder-gentler forum, so I’m not going to go berserk and tell you guys to stop guessing about shit that is well know; and that you should do some research before opining. I won’t say anything like that.
Still, it’s a fact that Ortiz called the fight off. This was reported on MMA Weekly and on Ortiz’s myspace blog.[/quote]
Work on your reading comprehension, assface.
I was “opining” on wether or not Tito needed White’s nod to bow out due to contractual obligation.
Not wether or not he was the one who called it off as that appeared self-evident. In other words, a toddler could have arrived at that conclusion without having to run around the internet looking for confirmation like some jackass looking to run his mouth out of context.
How’s that for kinder and gentler.
I am so pissed off at that bullshit show last night that I cannot even put it into words.
Tito should be shot for not showing up and Dana should be shot for making a fucking hour and a half show about Tito not showing up.
[quote]CaliforniaLaw wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
UFC = WWE
Huh? Someone needs to work on his analogical reasoning.
Do they create and hype rivalries? Sure. But the matches are not rigged. What makes professional wrestling what it is, is not just the rivalries, it’s the rigged aspect of it.[/quote]
Vince McMahon even shaved his head to look like Dana White.
I expect the two organizations to merge any day now.
I would take Dana over Jerry Millen ANY DAY OF THE WEEK. That guy is a disgrace and nothing could improve Pride more than getting rid of him.
[quote]Mick28 wrote:
mylesmg wrote:
If Dana says fight, Tito fights. Dana called this off. No question.
It’s tempting to say that he called it off. And I would have believed that he (Dana) did call it off had there not been a one and one half hour program with the end result being Tito calling it off.
But because of the 90 minute publicity stunt the truth would be out there faster than you can say “Big John McCarthy” if Dana ordered Tito to call it off. And if that were the actual truth the Nevada State Boxing Commission would be a bear to deal with, as they would have been in advertently part of this charade.
And if Dana lost his license to promote in Nevada that could have not only cost the UFC, but also Dana could have lost his job. Keep in mind he serves at the pleasure of the owners of the UFC.
No, what happened is Tito decided for whatever reason that he didn’t want to do this anymore. And Dana saw an opportunity to do four things at once:
1-Promote himself which he really loves to do. I think someone on this thread called him a media whore…true enough.
2-Embarrass Tito Ortiz, which is probably just as good or better than fighting him
3-Make a pile of money for the UFC with a 90 minute program.
4-Further promote the UFC.
We are now all supposed to hate Tito for not showing up. When in fact it was Dana White alone who could have pulled the plug on that 90 minute program knowing that Tito was a no show. There was no significat money spent on filming Dana moving around the Gym etc. Far more money was spent in editing trying to make a show out of that pile of crap.
I don’t like being manipulated and for that 90 minute stunt I’m not buying the next UFC fight in April. And if you feel as I do you should skip it as well!
Give that glory hog Dana White the only beat down that he’ll ever get, don’t buy the next UFC. It’s only ONE UFC, buck up and do it! Show him what the price is for his attempt at manipulation.
And for the record, Tito makes me just as sick.
One more point: Those who put me down for lamenting the loss of PRIDE have more of this self-indulgent crap to look forward to. When you have only one choice to watch the top people in the mma world this is what you get.[/quote]
Weeks ago, Keith Kizer of NSAC made public statements about the fight never happening, and a future fight “dead” in their state and elsewhere.
Just as many of you suspect that White bought off Tito, many “informed” fans went as far as suspect an NSAC official would make a statement so as to throw off would-be release of fight results. Both situations are ludicrous, but hype and misinformation are the name of the game in MMA sans quality media coverage.
I’d advise against boycotting the next UFC event, which is free on the 21st on Spike at 9pm. The card is among the best in UFC history, and is hopefully an example of future cards.
Hopefully, if enough people turn out to watch, routine cable TV cards of PPV quality will come.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
UFC = WWE[/quote]
ufc+wwe= WorkOut!
This thread was interesting. I especially enjoyed the sharing of information regarding contractual obligations – I learned a bit. This was actually a very intelligent breakdown of the story. Especially compared to what some other people are saying.
LOL.
[quote]Steve4192 wrote:
slimjim wrote:
RiPPing Time wrote:
He put that goddamned show together just to try and make Tito look bad? He’s a fucking asshole for actually portraying the whole thing as if it was going down and wasting everybodies time
SpikeTV invested time & money by having cameras follow Dana & Tito around while preparing for the fight. They wanted to get some programming content out of their investment.
Tito deserves to get punked for his no-show. He pissed off two of the UFC’s most important partners (NSAC, SpikeTV) and could have caused some real problems for the company.[/quote]
I seriously doubt it was SpikeTV’s production crew following Dana around and editing the show. It was produced by Zuffa.
Further, Tito may deserve to get punked, but do you really believe he gives a shit about Dana’s marketing ploy? The ones that really got “punked” are the viewers who tuned in.
In the end, this hurt the UFC more than helped. Now we know about the life of the UFC president? He doesn’t even fight and we get more than enough of him during TUF.
From Tito’s website:
"MIXED MARTIAL ARTS FIGHTER TITO ORTIZ SAYS HE PULLED OUT OF A GRUDGE BOXING MATCH WITH UFC PRESIDENT DANA WHITE BECAUSE HE WAS BEING ASKED TO FIGHT WITHOUT A CONTRACT
LOS ANGELES ? (March 27, 2007) ? Top mixed martial arts fighter Tito Ortiz says he pulled out of a planned boxing bout against Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) president Dana White because he was being asked to enter the risky match without a contract and for no money. He said he is still willing to box White, but only if financial terms are ironed out in advance.
Ortiz, who has held the UFC light-heavyweight championship title, had been scheduled to fight former amateur boxing champion White on March 24th in a ?grudge match? in Las Vegas. The match was a pre-condition that Ortiz had imposed before he signed a new contract with the UFC last year. Like Ortiz, White had been training for the fight and had received Nevada State Athletic commission approval for the match.
Ortiz explained in a post on his MySpace.com blog that he had already given up time and lost promotional fees to train for the fight against White, but decided against continuing after White and Spike TV declined to sign a contract agreeing to monetary and other terms, such as filming the fight for broadcast on pay-per-view television.
After canceling several paid personal appearances in order to train for the fight and undergoing routine medical tests, he received a call from Craig (Piligian, Spike TV?s Senior Vice President of Sports and Specials), who said that ?Dana (White) says that they are not going to shoot the fight (for PPV) or cover it in anyway. So this was a real lose, lose situation for me. I lost out on money for appearances. Now I was losing out on promotion and big dollars for the PPV. He didn’t want to cut me in on the deal. So as a business man I couldn’t do the fight.?
Ortiz also said the he has a ?very big fight with (Rashad) Evans? coming up on July 7th. ?Why would I risk my health and that fight for free?? he asked, referring to the White boxing match. ?I wasn’t going to make anything for it. I was not going to get taken advantage of as a fighter or a businessman. You tell me if I made the right decision. Hopefully this will get ironed out and will be done right the next time. Just trying to do business.?
The complete post by Ortiz on MySpace is available at
Tito Ortiz (theofficialtitoortiz) on Myspace. "
I first read this on his myspace page. Who knows what really happened, but I would side with Tito on this one. Dana comes off as a very shady kind of man.
[quote]RickyBobby wrote:
I would take Dana over Jerry Millen ANY DAY OF THE WEEK. That guy is a disgrace and nothing could improve Pride more than getting rid of him.
[/quote]
Gary Millen 
[quote]Donut62 wrote:
RickyBobby wrote:
I would take Dana over Jerry Millen ANY DAY OF THE WEEK. That guy is a disgrace and nothing could improve Pride more than getting rid of him.
Gary Millen ;)[/quote]
Maybe so, but I believe the point of the post was that when you only have one option for watching MMA (ie. a monopoly exists), you get crap like this because you don’t have another place to go.
Sure, UFC isn’t technically a monopoly because of the IFL, and some other organizations that are competing for media, but let’s face it: the competition in the IFL is not on the same level (IMO) even though the team fighting style of competition is a cool concept.
Furthermore, the other competing orgs are all but nonexistent on tv. The only exception is K-1, which is not a huge draw in the US even though they have talent. They are also not my fav. rules to watch a fight under (I like full MMA rules more). All this means that the UFC is in all practicality a monopoly–and free to trash and manipulate us, and give out WWE style drama/antics (which I also hate). Bad all the way around.
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Furthermore, the other competing orgs are all but nonexistent on tv. [/quote]
The IFL (MyNetworkTV) has a network TV deal and a basic cable deal (FSN).
Bodog Fight (Ion TV) has a basic cable TV deal.
EliteXC has a premium cable deal (Showtime).
Strikeforce, K1, and Cage Rage have all hooked up with EliteXC and will have access to Showtime’s PPV service and will be co-promoting events with Pro Elite.
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
All this means that the UFC is in all practicality a monopoly–and free to trash and manipulate us, and give out WWE style drama/antics [/quote]
Remind me again which of the big two (Pride, UFC) was owned by a pro wrestling company, regularly mined the pro wrestling circuit for talent, and often featured ‘worked’ fights during their formative years.
Bodog Fight is awful.
SWR - thanks for the post from Tito. To me that post just makes Tito look even worse. Here it is a grudge match with a world champion vs his boss and then he expects to get paid for said match. To me that is like throwing a beer in a guy’s face and then when he wants to fight you say, “sorry, I will only fight you if you pay me”. I hope Rashad destroys Tito, I have always liked Rashad.
When the fight was supposed to happen, back in February I believe, Sherdog had discussions about this. Supposedly when Tito found out that Dana was going to film it and make a show out of it, he wanted some compensation. If he was not paid outright, he wanted to promote Team Punishment, etc. Because they were not going to do that, he pulled out.
Also, it was a no win situation for Tito. If he beat the hell out of Dana, well he was supposed to do that. If Dana hung in there with him, he’d look like a chump. Of course, Tito should have thought of that before he requested it in the contract (which no one disputes was his idea).
[quote]Tim Henriques wrote:
SWR - thanks for the post from Tito. To me that post just makes Tito look even worse. Here it is a grudge match with a world champion vs his boss and then he expects to get paid for said match. To me that is like throwing a beer in a guy’s face and then when he wants to fight you say, “sorry, I will only fight you if you pay me”. I hope Rashad destroys Tito, I have always liked Rashad.[/quote]
Ditto. None of this falls on Dana.