MMAPayout’s Philpott Talks MMA Legalization On The Showdown Radio Show

MMAPayout.com contributor Kelsey Philpott recently sat down with Joe Ferraro on The Showdown Radio to discuss the issues surrounding MMA’s current battle to be legalized in key areas of the world, including Ontario and New York. Check out a podcast of the discussion here.

UFC 100 To Air On Televisa in Mexico

Jaime Martinez with The NHB Show has news on the UFC finding a broadcaster for UFC 100 in Mexico. The show will air live on Televisa. Televisa is one of the two big networks in Mexico, the other being TV Azteca, so this should provide for an excellent clearance for UFC programming. The TV deal looks to be a prelude to an event in Mexico in the future, judging from comments UFC President Dana White made to Mexican paper El Universal:

Of course, our prime objective is to bring a live UFC event to Mexico in the next year. We always knew that Mexico is a market we wanted to be in. UFC 100 is a great event with great fights, three of which will be featured on our live fight card. It’s a great opportunity to introduce the UFC to Mexico.

[Mexico] is just like the U.S. in that professional wrestling is very big; but we know that there are fans who love real fights. We know that we had to construct a solid foundation in the U.S. We are now the largest pay-per-view event in the world. We beat out boxing and the WWE. Now, Mexico is a priority for us.

This deal joins the WEC deal that was done recently with the WEC airing on Cadena Tres in Mexico. Zuffa also provide a wealth of Spanish language programming through their deals with “El Octágono del UFC” on Galavision and Fox Sports Espanol’s carriage of the WEC.

One knockout led to two divergent careers for Mir and Sims

At UFC 46, Frank Mir and Wes Sims faced off in a rematch of their bout at UFC 43 that ended in disqualification when Sims stomped Mir on the head. This fight, a Yahoo! Sports KO of the Week, has Mir -- already sick from the flu -- looking woozy in the second round. However, he put together a series of knees and punches that finished Sims off. 

After this fight, Sims and Mir's careers took a very different path. Mir went onto win the UFC heavyweight championship in his very next fight, snapping Tim Sylvia's arm in the process. He then was in a motorcycle accident that kept him from fighting for nearly two years, and when he returned, lost to Brandon Vera and Marcio Cruz. Things were looking grim for Mir until he put together a string of three wins over Antoni Hardonk, Brock Lesnar and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. Mir has found success not just in fighting, but as an announcer for World Extreme Cagefighting.

Sims, too, has faced adversity. He fought Mike Kyle at UFC 47, and was knocked out in the first round. In total, he is 16-9 since fighting Mir, losing to some of the very same fighters that Mir beat, like Hardonk and Sylvia.

Now, the two are again at a turning point in their career. Mir, currently the UFC interim heavyweight champion, is fighting in the main event at the UFC's biggest event to date, UFC 100. Sims, on the other hand, is on the outside looking in, clawing his way back to the Octagon as a cast member of "The Ultimate Fighter," season 10. Now living in the TUF house, Sims must look at Mir and wonder, "How did I get here?"

UFC 101: Penn vs. Florian Hype [Video]

Lashley content with the slow road

Bobby Lashley is in an interesting spot. Because of a name developed in pro wrestling and a scary looking physique, the 255-pound MMA heavyweight prospect is getting pressure to jump into the big leagues immediately. He just smashed out a big name in Bob Sapp but he remains very grounded. Lashley is sticking to the gameplan of training hard, adding to his game and building his resume with wins over different types of opponents. If he keeps winning the rest of this year, his stock will only rise with organizations like Strikeforce and the UFC:

"When I go over there I want to be a top, top level guy," Lashley told ProMMARadio. "I want talks of me fighting the champ when I get over there. I want them to say this guy's really good."

But Lashley is 32 years old and faces a bit of a time crunch:

"I see the GSPs, the Anderson Silvas, Lyoto Machida ... wow these guys are incredible. These guys are 15-20 matches into it. because they had the opportunity before."

Lashley points to someone like Nate Marquardt,who he wrestled with Marquardt years ago. Lashley said Marquardt's improvement over several years is clear. Lashley is hoping for another fight in August or September and would like to face someone who is a standup fighter, willing to bang it out.

Lashley shows a growing knowledge of the sport when he speaks early in the interview about where to position himself on top of Sapp. He chose not to go to side control or mount Sapp because he felt working out of half guard was a less risky way of controlling the 322-pound giant. 

Lashley also addresses The Ultimate Fighter 10 rumors (6:25 mark). He was asked about Kimbo Slice and said it's a pretty risky move. When asked about how he would do against Kimbo, Lashley said he crush him anyway he wanted in the first round via TKO.

Pepe turned to Lashley's pro wrestling career later in the interview. It sounds like Lashley is a virtual lock to sign with TNA wrestling. He mentioned that he'll only have to put in four days a month for TNA and make enough money to bankroll his developing MMA career. Listen here for the entire interview.

GSP camp talks strategy in battling ‘one-dimensional’ Alves

The Georges St. Pierre-Thiago Alves fight is a bit overshadowed right now by Brock Lesnar-Frank Mir in the lead up to UFC 100. It was bound to happen. The trash talk between the two Americans is hard to compete with and there's a lure about 250-260 beasts going at it. But the GSP-Alves UFC welterweight title fight will probably turn out to be a better, more technical fight. Fox Fight Game's Mike Straka does a great job, in videos with both GSP trainers Greg Jackson and Firas Zahabi, of getting the juices flowing with some strategy breakdown.

Casual and non-MMA fights should watch these conversations to get a little more knowledge of how technical the sport can be. Jackson is the master of the gameplan but he says that you can't enter the Octagon with an inflexible blue print (2:16 mark):

"We have a structure. These are things you want to do, these are the things you don't want to do. Within that structure the artist has to work."

Artist? Isn't this human cockfighting? Artists don't barroom brawl.

Jackson used the B.J. Penn fight at UFC 94 as an example where the gameplan was to fire away at what the Hawaiian thought was his advantage, his kickboxing. Jackson said when Penn realized he couldn't win the fight with any style, he mentally broke.

Jackson calls it finding and attacking the opponent's safety zone. What does Alves fall back on when things are starting to crack? Jackson turned down the chance to pinpoint Alves' safety zone, but he did say GSP and company think that Alves' left hook and left knee are the biggest things to stay away from. Those are his fight changers.

Zahabi, who anchors the training in Montreal at Tristar Gym, is not one who lacks for confidence. He talked a lot of trash before the Penn fight during the UFC 94 Countdown mini-series. In the second video, it sounds like Zahabi is questioning the acumen of the opposing gameplanners, American Top Team.

He says Alves only presents one challenge and that's on the feet with his kickboxing. GSP comes at you with several attacks (1:30 mark):

"That's our strength that we do everything. I always tell George, the day a guy can predict what we're going to do is the day we're going to lose. He's gotta be like that ball on the roulette table, no one knows where it's going to land."

Alves may be the most powerfully built 170-pounder in the world, so St. Pierre is going to let the Brazilian use his bulk against himself (2:40 mark):

"There are ways to fight strong, explosive guys. If we take him down, we're going to allow gravity to do the work. We're not going to go force to force. We're going to allow our body weight to drain Thiago's energy. Any good jiu-jitsu guy is not going to use force to force. We're going to be laying on him, forcing him to use lots of energy to get up. Once he realizes he can't get up it's going to break his will."

Zahabi says Josh Koscheck and Matt Hughes never saw the Alves' kick and knee game coming and that they didn't train against enough muay thai specialists.

Don’t be misled by early odds for UFC 100

Las Vegas is going to be on fire next week for UFC 100 when it comes to betting the fights. In the past, most sportsbooks have shied away from booking MMA events. It's still viewed as a risky proposition by most Sin City sportsbooks, especially when it comes to accepting bets on fights four-through-10 on any given card. The limits are also very low.

UFC 100 may change that with so much money on hand in two weeks. If people are willing to pay $400-$500 for the worst seats at the Mandalay Bay Events Center, it's likely those same people will want to pluck down a few bucks on the fights.

But they're also the same people who make it easier for the astute sports bettor to make a few bucks. It's similar to what happens in the major sports. Every sport has its public teams. Those are the squads that public will pound in spite of the fact that the value in the odds disappears at a certain point. In the NFL, it's the Patriot. The Yankees are still the team in baseball. Bettors love the Lakers in the NBA and schools like USC, Oklahoma and Florida are slammed regardless of the number in college football.

At UFC 100, Brock Lesnar and Georges St. Pierre represent the hack's chalk plays. If you look at the odds for the top three fights at UFC 100, it appears the card actually sucks. It's built around three blowout fights with the smallest favorite being St. Pierre 2-to-1. Dan Henderson is 3-to-1 and Lesnar is 2 1/2-to-1. But don't fooled, there could be value in all three underdogs. The sportsbooks' job isn't to predict a winner, it's to predict where the betting dollars will land and try to make sure an equal amount of money is bet on both sides. Right now, all three of these fights might be 20 or 30 cents too high on the favorite.

Early odds for UFC 100 (Venetian Resort Hotel Casino):

Brock Lesnar (-250) v. Frank Mir (+200)
Georges St. Pierre (-200) v. Thiago Alves (+170)
Dan Henderson (-300) v. Michael Bisping (+220)
Jon Jones (-400) v. Jake O'Brien (+300)  

Sportsbooks are also getting more aggressive with prop bets. Frank Mir by five round decision is 10-to-1. You can also bet round-by-round on the two title fights. We've also never seen a prop like this:

UFC Fighter with the fastest win at UFC 100:

Brock Lesnar 3-to-1
Frank Mir 5-1
Jon Jones 9-2
Georges St. Pierre 8-1
Stephan Bonnar 8-1
Jon Fitch 10-1
Thiago Alves 12-1
Dan Henderson 12-1
Michael Bisping 12-1
Yoshihiro Akiyama 12-1
Alan Belcher 15-1
Jim Miller 15-1
Mac Danzig 20-1
Paulo Thiago 35-1
Mark Coleman 25-1
FIELD (all fighters not listed) 9-2

Remember this isn't boxing, so you're not necessarily looking for one-punch knockout power. There's some value here with guys like Thiago (pictured knocking out Josh Koscheck at UFC 95), Belcher, Coleman and Danzig. Check out the fastest winners at the last five UFC events:

TUF 9 FINALE: Nick Osipczak over Frank Lester in 3:40 
UFC 99: Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic over Mostapha Al-Turk in 3:06 
UFC 98: Drew McFedries over Xavier Foupa-Pokam in 0:37  
UFC 97: Nate Quarry over Jason MacDonald in 2:27
Ultimate Fight Night 18: Rob Kimmons over Joe Vedepo in 1:34

Aside from Cro Cop, would any of the other guys have gone off as a favorite to finish their the fight the fastest at that particular event? They probably all would've been at least 8-to-1. So pick your fastest fight winner wisely for UFC 100.

UFC 101 Decleration

The Ultimate Fighting Championship makes its Philadelphia debut on Saturday, August 8th for UFC 101: Declaration. In the main event, the two best 155-pound fighters in the world finally meet when UFC lightweight champion BJ Penn looks to defend his crown against number one contender Kenny Florian. Penn has never lost at 155-pounds, and Florian is looking to change that stat this summer.

In the co-feature, the pound-for-pound king of mixed martial arts, middleweight champion Anderson “The Spider” Silva, tests the waters at 205 pounds once again when he battles former light heavyweight champ and Ultimate Fighter season one winner Forrest Griffin. * Lightweight Championship bout: B.J. Penn vs. Kenny Florian * Light Heavyweight bout: Anderson Silva vs. Forrest Griffin * Welterweight bout: Amir Sadollah vs. Johny Hendricks * Middleweight bout: Kendall Grove vs. Ricardo Almeida * Lightweight bout: Josh Neer vs. Kurt Pellegrino

Preliminary card * Lightweight bout: Shane Nelson vs. Aaron Riley * Welterweight bout: Tamdan McCrory vs. John Howard * Middleweight bout: Thales Leites vs. Alessio Sakara * Welterweight bout: Matt Riddle vs. Dan Cramer * Lightweight bout: George Sotiropoulos vs. Rob Emerson * Welterweight bout: Jesse Lennox vs. Danillo Villefort

What Effect Will The UFC Magazine Have on Current Print Players?

The UFC announced the release of their UFC 100 commemorative magazine, which is something of a trial balloon for a full roll out of the magazine. MMAPayout reported earlier that the UFC 100 magazine idea was more than what is was being sold as, with internal Zuffa chatter tabbing the commemorative issue as a pre-cursor to a full blown monthly magazine.

Dana White was asked on his twitter account if this was more than a one off and answered that “The first mag hits stands this week. We will see how it does then decide.” Those sentiments were echoed by the Editor in chief of the magazine, in his appearance on Fox Fight Game:

It seems to be a bit of a foregone conclusion, that the powers that be are paying lip service to the idea of holding off to decide. Pretty much everything they are touching is turning to gold. Editor Seth Kelly noted the excellent ad sales in talking with Mike Straka. The UFC magazine is being done in co-operation with the folks behind Men’s Fitness, who have done very good business at the newsstand whenever they have featured UFC fighters on the cover. With the UFC’s databases and the subscription rolls for MF, the combined efforts of the two should make for a strong start-up from a subscription basis as well.

With UFC Magazine possibly coming into the market full time, the question that arises is, Whither the MMA print media? There are multiple players in the market, including TapouT Magazine, Ultimate MMA, Real Fighter, Fighters Only, and Fight!. Fight! is the highest profile in the domestic market, while Fighters Only has an international reach with editions for the US, Canada, The UK, and Germany. I would view these two as being the main parties impacted by the UFC mag coming to market.

With the UFC entering the market, do the MMA print mags get the Sherdog treatment, with credentialing and photo usage being pulled, now that they are ostensibly competing? Or do they get MMAWeekly’d, with some degree of reasonable access being given? I’d probably lean toward the latter, as the general coverage by the big two is uncritical. With the exception of the Roger Huerta piece that appeared in Fight! that rattled a few Zuffa cages, little that appears in big two would deserve a heavy handed approach by the UFC, but to paraphrase Will Munny, deserved often has nothing to do with it. The coverage is generally pliable, and heavily leaning towards the Zuffa duo of the UFC and WEC (with Josh Barnett being being the only non-Zuffa fighter to grace the Fight! cover.) The MMA fan would be well served with these guys keeping credentials, but such a criteria often doesn’t enter the equation when bottom line decisions are being made.

UFC 100: Frank Mir Pounds the Pads.

Frank Mir spends some time at the pads during a Las Vegas workout in preparation for his bout against Brock Lesnar at UFC 100. Watch UFC 100 Live on Pay-Per-View July 11, 2009.

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