Let's get it straight. The UFC is not a sport. They are a business. I understand that. You should understand that. It's a given. That said, just because moves are made in the best interest of "business", doesn't mean that fans can't be upset with them. Going back to the booking of James Toney as a co-main eventer in the UFC to the controversial racial marketing of Cain Velasquez as a "Mexican" to the potential Lesnar/Mir III trilogy fight, there have been decisions that many questioned for various reasons that were made in the interest of business. 

When the James Toney match was made, I was a critic of the match as I felt it would hurt the legitimacy of the sport and make MMA look foolish. I was told that it would generate "great interest" and more eyeballs meant "more buys". Instead of those increased buys, we were witness to a laughingstock of a fight with an old, fat James Toney getting taken down with a shoot Stevie Wonder could've seen. Not to mention, the building wasn't 2/3 full and the buyrate was much worse than predicted. Similar with the Velasquez marketing scheme, I was against it because of the potential divisiveness it would bring in the MMA fanbase and was told that I didn't understand business and it would poach the Latino market from boxing and draw big numbers. Well with a stronger undercard than Lesnar's fight at 116 and a 3-week Primetime build, it failed to match Lesnar's UFC 116 performance. 

A couple months ago, there were whispers of a Lesnar/Mir rubber match throughout the MMA community. A number of fans were frankly disappointed with that matchup as it wasn't fresh (the two had just fought less than 17 months ago and fought 15 months before that). A Twitter campaign was started here on WKR to let Dana White know how the fans felt and White decided to rethink his decision. Of course, there were those in the media, like Dave Meltzer, who called those fans idiots who didn't understand the business. 

Now, I'm not trying to say that all the decisions that the UFC has made that prioritized business above sport have been negative or bad. That's not true. One big example is giving Brock Lesnar a title shot just 4 fights into his MMA career. I think anyone can see that worked out well for all and brought more fans into MMA making it a bigger sport. Fans understand that the UFC's first goal is making money. That doesn't mean that fans can't have dissenting opinions on UFC moves. That doesn't mean fans are devoid of realizing moves are financially motivated. So it's insulting to fans when promoters, pundits, and people in the media talk down them as if they don't understand what's going on.

Are college football fans idiots because they want a playoff? The way the bowl system is set up is to make the most money. College football is a business interested in making as much money off games as they can. A tournament would be the best thing to decide the best team, but would hurt the bowl system. People in the media have argued for tournaments for years (decades), are they morons for not understanding the business? Should they not make arguments against business decisions?  I'd say no.

You can make arguments against decisions while taking into account the business aspects of it and still come out on the other side. That doesn't make you a fool, a moron, an idiot or any other term. 

Yesterday it was announced that Brock Lesnar and Junior Dos Santos would be the coaches for the upcoming season of The Ultimate Fighter and will then meet in a Number 1 Contender's Match sometime after the conclusion of the season. This announcement comes to the chagrin of many due to several factors. One being Brock's reclusive nature and surly disposition with the media and the other being recent reports (spearheaded by Dave Meltzer) that Lesnar was looking for a way out of the fight game (and at the very least wouldn't take a fight of this nature). Other pairings were bandied about the media such as a permutation of Chael Sonnen/Wanderlei Silva/Chris Leben/Brian Stann and, more recently, Frankie Edgar vs Gray Maynard III.

There's no doubt that Brock Lesnar and Junior Dos Santos will do great business in the short term. The UFC's contract with SPIKE expires at the end of this year. Negotiations should be tense as while the UFC set PPV records last year (though avg PPV remained steady), their ratings have gone down (which is SPIKE's concern). The prelims of UFC 125 appearing on ION were a sort of "Hey SPIKE, look what we're doing" maneuver. Unfortunately, the ratings for those prelims weren't the best. It's unknown if the low ratings for the UFC on SPIKE are due to a lack of interest or the UFC's insistence on putting on lackluster cards. 

The UFC will be looking for a contract that puts them at more of a focal point on SPIKE as well as paying them well and a commitment to marketing and advertising the UFC as it should be. The UFC will also want more flexibility in terms of putting programs on other networks (cable or broadcast). Well, what is a better piece of leverage than high ratings. The UFC is banking on major ratings when Brock Lesnar makes his return to weekly episodic television since March 8th, 2004 where he drew a 3.8 rating on WWE RAW. The Ultimate Fighter Season 10 averaged around a 2.2 rating and that was the best season by far. If this season can match or eclipse that, it is a feather in the UFC's pocket in terms of negotiations. This move makes great sense in terms of trying to gain great ratings.

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New York State is one of the few states that still bars Mixed Martial Arts competition left in the United States. Over the past few years it has become a battleground between Zuffa (the UFC) and State Assemblymen Bob Reilly and Sheldon Silver. Both men are opposed to MMA (for a variety of reasons) and have worked to keep it prohibited in the state. Zuffa, on the other hand, has tried one basic strategy -- throw money at the situation. Bill King of the Sports Business Journal describes some of the aspects of their fiduciary fisticuffs

.So begins the latest installment in a push that began late in 2007, when UFC parent company Zuffa paid a well-connected upstate New York firm a $10,000 retainer to lobby on its behalf. Since then it has spent more than $1.5 million on lobbying and public relations campaigns in the state. It also has contributed $165,000 to election campaigns.

The tab for lobbying in New York last year eclipsed $500,000, based on public filings and interviews with UFC executives. Zuffa also contributed $130,000 to political campaigns, including $36,800 to incoming Gov. Andrew Cuomo, $34,000 to Democratic campaign committees, $10,000 to Republican campaign committees and $1,000 to $3,800 to a dozen different influential state senators and assembly members. Zuffa spent $530,000 lobbying in New York in 2009 and $595,000 there in 2008.

 Zuffa has been lining the pockets of various politicians as well as paying a lobbying firm to assist them. That isn't the only financial incentive they have been using. Part of their argument stems their belief that the legalization of MMA will bring extra dollars into the New York economy. It has been shown that when Zuffa comes to town, there is an increased in revenue for that city.

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An interesting little quarrel over the weekend between former UFC Welterweight Champion and current Strikeforce commentator Pat Miletich and writer Michael David Smith sparked up over the weekend. Smith wrote an article following Friday's Strikeforce Challengers card entitled "Pat Miletich Should Tone Down the Shilling on Showtime" in which he criticized Miletich for some of the comments he made during the broadcast.

Not to get into specifics of his complaints (you can read it at your own leisure), but the gist of them were that Miletich embellished and played up opinions of fighters. Mind you, the card was full of Strikeforce's prospects like Daniel Cormier, Ovince Saint Preux and Tyron Woodley who are, by and large, unknown to the general public. He also criticized Miletich for "resorting to cliches" during his call of the fight. 

Now, I am not an etymologist, but I know that Strikeforce is a promotion. The base word of that is "promote". This means Strikeforce is in the business of promoting. With that business comes exaggeration and hyperbole, even in commentating. Showtime is in a business relationship with Strikeforce to PROMOTE their brand of MMA. You can't compare MMA to other sports and I'll tell you why. Two reasons. The first is that MMA is not an established sport and has various companies trying to grab a piece of the market place. Commentators don't need to spice up the skills of the NFL players because it's understood that they are the best in the world. Strikeforce (and other MMA orgs in general) are competing to establish their brand in the greater mainstream of the US.

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As reported yesterday, Chael Sonnen pleaded guilty money laundering charges. This news broke late last night around 8ish pm EST. Once that broke, a funny thing started occurring. Threads started to be created on various MMA message boards such as the once-great (but now overrun by tenors and tro11s) Underground and the never-great Sherdog accusing Anderson Silva of several different types of cheating. 

One such thread alleged that Anderson Silva MUST be on Steroids or HGH because of pencaps syringes shown while Silva was giving a reporter a tour of his house. 

They state that when blown up, the boxes with the red arrows pointing to them are these:

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Man, this is funny. Yesterday I wrote a satire piece about John Cena going to the UFC to mock all the"journalists" that ran with the Brock Lesnar to WWE story. People took it seriously. 

Brock Lesnar couldn't train right now if he wanted to.  After being brutalized by Cain Velasquez en route to a first round TKO loss at UFC 121, Lesnar was given was was essentially a three-layer suspension:

1.  No fights for 45 days, no contact for 30 days due to TKO loss.

2.  No fights for 60 days, no contact for 60 days due to left cheek laceration.

3.  No fights for 180 days, no contact until cleared by ophthamologist due to possible eye injury.

This alone pretty much negates the Meltzer-generated "if he was really serious he'd buy Holland and fly it to the Midwest in-between blizzards" criticism of Brock's lack of training since the loss - he's not allowed to.  I can't speak to the rumored lack of communication between Lesnar and Zuffa, or Lesnar's purported desire to participate in Wrestlemania in a one-off event.  I don't know enough to refute it, but until I hear something from one of the principals, I'll regard them as what they are: rumors that, while from a reliable source, have yet to be substantiated by anyone directly involved.

However, I want to focus on the fans - and the writers that so reliably stoke their passions - for a minute here.  Let's assume for a moment that it's all true - that Brock is willing and wanting to delay his return by a few months (assuming he could return to fight by April but would instead fight mid-summer, getting a full camp in after the WWE event) in order to make a few million dollars off of his former employee with no future obligations whatsoever.  I'm against it because I think it sets a poor precedent.  It's entirely possible - hell, likely - to get injured during the preparation or execution of a pro wrestling match, and there's a very specific reason that Zuffa contracts (God love 'em) are big on exclusivity.  I don't want other fighters to start chomping at the bit whenever Vince is feeling down.

It's this line of criticism that Brock returning to the WWE for a one-off PPV means he's a quitter, not a real fighter (what's your record?), or muddying the name of MMA to associate it with pro wrestling.  Do I stay up at night thinking of MMA/pro wrestling analogies?  No.  However, for those into that sort of thing, they can bring this up:

For those of you too squeamish to hit "play", Rampage has been handcuffed to the ring by tax man villan IRS, which used to stand for the delightfully anti-Semitic name "Irwin R. Shyster".  By the way, that's awesome that you found Jonah Goldberg's fat ass saying that shyster isn't anti-Semitic.  Words are what people make them, especially when referring to lawyers and professions involved with money.

Where was the outrage here?  Six months ago, Rampage Jackson (and his fellow cast members from The A-Team remake that everyone here saw [pfft]) hosted an episode of Raw, and even performed a choke slam while there.  This was in promotion of the movie that he postponed the Rashad fight (after shooting an entire season of TUF, nonetheless) to shoot.  And don't forget Josh Barnett, the much vaunted piece of Strikeforce's heavyweight division that hasn't faced a top ten foe in four years, STILL isn't licensed in California, has tested positive for steroids on THREE SEPARATE OCCASIONS and has dabbled in pro wrestling as recently as this year.  If he's not a disgrace to the sport that you wish would leave and never come back, why is Brock?  If Ken Shamrock's return to the UFC from the WWE didn't forever damn MMA to negative comparisons, why would Brock's?  What, other than pro wrestling, Brock's actual medical suspension, the hunting season and the fact that Rampage's layoff was much longer than Brock's could potentially be, is the difference between what Rampage did and what Brock is accused of contemplating?

I'll wait.

(Part of the WKR: Year in Review) Let me get this straight. You take a broke boxer who can't get fights in his own sport. You take this boxer who is 280 pounds and old who no one wants to fight in his own sport. You take this boxer and not only do you give him a fight in the UFC (a place where most fighters only DREAM of competing in), but you put him on PPV. Not only do you put him on PPV, but you put him in the co-main event. Not only is he in the co-main event, but his "fight" is promoted twenty times more than your own championship fight. Forget what happened in the cage, James Toney won.

Google Trends of James Toney searches over the last year

Before we even go into how much James Toney got compensated, let's look at the cache James Toney's name has now. Before Dana White signed him, most people assumed the real James Toney retired in the late 90's and this fat tub that replaced him was another guy. Toney was irrelevant in the scheme of things. He only had two boxing matches in the past two years; he was clearly hurting for money. So what does he do? He starts trolling MMA and it gets his name out there. Suddenly, people want to hear from James Toney. He takes it a step further; he calls out fighters and plays to the insecurities of Dana White and Deebos him into a contract. You could count the number of times James Toney was mentioned on SportsCenter in the past 5 years on one hand. Now? He's the most talked about boxer outside of Pac and Mayweather.

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