Dana White complained about Pride matching Wanderlei with Henderson, thereby destroying the possibliity of a hugely marketable Silva-Liddell fight. Now who is Pride supposed to give a titleshot if not a serious contender like Hendo? And most people considered Hendo actually a lesser risk to Silva then some other Pride lightheavies anyway.
Dana himself, on the other hand, gives Mirko a huge contract, and then has him fight guys who are relatively new to the game, hard to evaluate, and improving constantly. Now he's stuck with paying Mirko big bucks for midcard fights. He should have played it safe, given Mirko opponents who would make him look impressive like Eilers or Cabbage, and then right on to a titleshot.
look brainiac, what I'm suggesting is simply that it would have been smarter for the UFC to have him fight one or two manageable opponents in order to introduce him to the UFC fans and market him properly for a titlefight. He would have had to fight the top guys from then on anyway. As is, this was a lousy business move for them.
tomato cans as in having him beat up Japanese middleweights like Pride used to do? No. Read my first post.
and as for the fans perspective, yes, I must admit that Mirko vs. Randy would have interested me a bit more then Gonzaga vs. Randy. That said, full credit to Gonzaga, he got a great opportunity and made the most of it.
jensk dude don't pay attention to what that redux dude is saying he obviously doesn't know what you are talking about, he's probably crying because crocop got k.t.f.o.....literally.
crocop's adquisition was a ufc great opportunity and great investment and if you been following the ufc you should know dana white is known for protecting his favorites, such as chuck lidell, tito back in the day etc etc.
not even in a million years dana was expecting this outcome, are you f-ing kidding me, all he's been saying about crocop is that he's is the most incredible striker in the world, that he's a living and walking highlight reel bs bs bs, he obviously didn't give much thought to signing gonzaga.
now he's thinking "i totally fucked this up dude".
or in his own words......i totally ruined crocops "mistique".
and i don't know if crocop will be able to recover from this loss very soon and be the same agressive confident dude, crocop not only got battered phisycally but i think the bigger damage is more emotional. crocop was still is a state of shock when joe was trying to interview him. if you saw the figh you know what i'm talking about.
funny, dana is right, crocop is a highlight reel, one way or the other.
the simple solution to their current dilema with crocop is to put him in with sylvia. bill it as two top contenders trying to climb back up to title shots after both being upset by underdogs. if crocop beats the shit out of tim he will instantly be back in title contention. if tim wins then the ufc has some serious evidence that the heavyweight division was always equal to prides.
I think the KO helped the UFC on free TV! Mirko can fight Arlovski for a title elimination in the future, and if he gets by Arlovski, he is back in the game.
From a Dana's point of view, upsets and KO's of that nature are good for the UFC - especially on Spike. That is why they paid the big bucks for Mirko and put him on free TV in the first place – they wanted devastated KO's - he still delivered!
The division has a lot of possibilities now that the Pride fighters are in the picture.
1flick10ko's: I enjoyed watching ANOTHER new Top 10 hw emerge...no tears shed on my part.
I just think it is the height of irony and the death of MMA that fans should be calling for the protecting of Top 5 fighters.
MMA IS DEAD
P.S. The idea that CroCop needs to "earn" his contract is idiotic. In boxing top fighters fight for belts even though they have only fought for other promoters. And don't give me the "official rankings" bullshit...boxing's "official rankings" make MMAWeekly's rankings look like the Word of God himself.
"what I'm suggesting is simply that it would have been smarter for the UFC to have him fight one or two manageable opponents in order to introduce him to the UFC fans and market him properly for a titlefight"
Were you one to worry about Gonzagas superior skills before this upset?
How many of us, Dana & co included, saw this comming? It is not like the guy had not beaten anyone of CCs caliber before.
look, Haulport Redux, you can repeat your idiotic and melodramatic "MMA IS DEAD" bullshit a hundred more times, but the fact is, you're way too stupid to even read my posts properly. Nobody is speaking of "protecting" the guy, his next fight would have been against the champ anyway, and if he would have won he would have fought the top contender after that. I'm just saying that Mirko would have been better used in a title fight.
and CDarwin, yes, I thought there was at least a good possibility for an upset, and I've said so before.
I love jumping off my couch screaming my ass off, waking up my wife and kids, because something totally unexpected just occured. This aint WWE, it's a fucking fight Dawg.
I think I'm seeing something differently than I thought before. The situation was a win win for Dana, the UFC, and the sport. If Cro Cop wins, then every one wins because an established fighter goes against Coture. If Gonzaga wins, he gets instant credibility as one of the top two heavyweights and it establishes the UFC talent as being as good as Pride's was. Plus, Gonzaga has a long career ahead than Cro Cop probably does. Finally, with all the post fight talk among the fans there's a lot of word of mouth advertising - none of us are going to miss Couture/Gonzaga.
One thing I like about MMA that a lot of people are frustrated with in boxing is that MMA arranges far fewer sure-thing fights for it's top people. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, it's just less often. The sport is taking chances (and I like it as long as they aren't padding cards with too many TUF fighters). This kind of credibility, and the fact that outcomes can't be determined, is what will bring other fans to the shows.