the UG put a troll post on the front page?
fucking amateurs...
judom - I think people on this board are not very clear of few things.
1. In Russia, MMA is still beginning.
Correct. It's still small scale stuff.
In the long run I think M-1's biggest problem is that they only got one star: Fedor. He is their only attraction at the moment. If Fedor is not on the card, then M-1 events are just like any other mid-sized Euro event.
MMALOGIC - m1 is officially on a role...
lol
Smoogy spitting real as usual.
UG News spitting like a retarded child as usual.
smoogy -Thank you for the feedback.
So if you visit the main page of mma.tv to get your news, you've probably seen the UG News story about Fedor and UFC allegedly negotiating again, a story that is ostensibly credited to MMAMania.com.
The fanpost on MMAMania wasn't made by any of their writers, but by "Larry River", a user who signed up today and almost immediately fabricated the story with no attribution. But since UG News does no fact checking and will print absolutely anything they feel people might click on, it's now a top story on the CBS Sports UFC page (redirects to mma.tv) and incorrectly puts MMAMania as the source of the story.
This isn't the first instance of poor information regarding talks between Fedor and UFC (or lack thereof). Shortly before Fedor signed to Strikeforce, Kevin Iole and the LA Times website claimed Fedor was in the final steps of making a UFC deal that would never materialize. After that temporary coup by Strikeforce, Zuffa, in an effort to hurt Fedor's reputation, leaked information suggesting he turned down 30 million dollars (it was a half truth at best).
Now, I believe this latest rumour is probably just a hoax by some troll, but the details of the "report" try to damage Fedor's standing and leverage in a similar way, and at a very interesting time in Fedor's career. From the text:
"The terms are much different now due to the fact that he lost three in a row and is no longer as valuable as he once was, and Fedor's management knows this. As of right now, nothing has been signed, but negotiations are going smoothly."
It goes on to say that M-1 is no longer interested in any co-promotion stipulations. Both of these claims are way off, and reflect the opposite of the real situation after M-1's big Moscow Olympic Stadium card this weekend.
There are still no official, verifiable numbers to reference, but Sherdog says the event drew a capacity 22,000 crowd and based on my conservative estimate, it likely drew a gate in excess of $2 million USD. The event was broadcast live on the state sports network, with Putin and Medvedev both in attendance to personally congratulate Fedor after his win. It looked good on TV, felt like a major MMA show and the crowd was super hot for Fedor and the main event.
The success of the Fedor vs. Monson event changes things for M-1 and could potentially have a ripple effect on the rest of the MMA world. For Fedor and M-1, they now have a blueprint for moving forward with Fedor as the TV and live venue cash cow he always promised to be in Russia, but never was until now. Seemingly by accident, they've come up with a way to reverse the flow of talent out of M-1 and build a viable media platform for native Russian athletes to become TV stars much like TUF fighters in North America. And at the top of the card, there is now a monumental one-off opportunity for HWs that could come with a big purse, a useful bit of leverage for fighters who still have some degree of free agency like Barnett, Cormier, Werdum etc.
To wrap this big pile of FRAT up quickly: UG News really needs to adopt some basic standards because print-anything blogs encourage misinformation; and if you don't think Dana and Lorenzo convened in the war room about the Fedor vs. Monson event, you're crazy.
The news item in question was put up with a question mark, which is UG shorthand for "Rumor." We have very limited space for titles, so if it is just a rumor, but interesting and not entirely implausible, we run it, with a question mark. That happens a couple of times per month I guess.
Given Kogan's cryptic tweet that thing were about to get "As real as it gets" it was interesting enough to run.
If that seems unreasonable, I will tell Chris to stop putting up mindless rumors in future.
The site mma Mania. com an article that you are negotiating with the UFC about a fight against Fedor Velazquez. How can you comment on that. This is a rumor or really talks underway?
I am not a negotiation. But it's a good idea. I will turn to Dana White about this fight. I am ready to discuss the holding of several fights Fedor in the U.S. and Russia. I think that such a great fight Emelianenko Velazquez will be the arena to collect up to 45 000. We can do it.Fedor insanely popular in Russia and Europe. UFC tried repeatedly to raise the arena, but there was no more than 13 000 spectators. We can make quality and beautiful show. We have just proved it.
"Fedor insanely popular in Russia and Europe."
Only MMA fans know who Fedor is in Europe.
"And at the top of the card, there is now a monumental one-off opportunity for HWs that could come with a big purse,"
How much did Monson make?
Kirik, thanks for replying. I have no problem with any MMA blog running rumours, but they ought to be at least somewhat credible. With all due respect, "interesting and not entirely implausible" isn't good enough criteria. I recommend adopting a semi-formal style guide (there are several prominent, freely available guides online for major print publications) that encompasses all aspects of the news page. At the least, I would have the staff read the section of The Chicago Manual of Style on the publication and citation of rumours.
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Back on topic... M-1 finally made a press release today. I will break down what it means shortly
Alright, so M-1 released a staff interview with Vadim today titled "Dirty Politics", mostly discussing the big Putin "catcall" story, but also recapping the Fedor vs. Monson event in general. Vadim reiterates the 22,000+ capacity attendance for the show, which nobody seems to be disputing now that the vivid PRIDE-like event photographs have been released. Unfortunately, M-1 still hasn't released any live gate or TV ratings figures, but they appear to have claimed the all-time attendance record for an MMA event in Europe.
The quote DamnSevern posted is from the same Q&A. The google translation is rough, but I believe what Vadim is (informally) proposing is that Fedor and Cain should fight in Luzhniki Stadium, the gigantic 80,000 seat Olympic venue that will play home to the 2018 FIFA World Cup Final. In effect, he is throwing in the hat for M-1 (ostensibly with the help of state and industry sponsorship) as a possible stadium event destination along with the oft-discussed Dallas and Brazil UFC stadium plans. And it's not really far-fetched to say they could pull it off considering their state TV support and the attendance for the Moscow event. Vadim may have put The Offer on Dana a little bit, but The Cal is still holstered for now.
What M-1 (specifically their english language PR guy Evgeni Kogan) doesn't get is that the success of the Fedor-Monson event isn't well known outside of their bubble-within-a-bubble that is the east euro MMA scene. I mean, just read through this thread if you don't believe me! Outside of the usual moronic namecalling and Fedor bashing, seems like most fans are still balking at the 30 dollar ustream PPV pricetag or just trying to wrap their head around the idea of M-1 doing a major event that somehow came off without a hitch.
So M-1 is skipping over the explanation of what the event means and moving straight to challenging UFC again in an excited display of pride, or at least that's how Kogan makes it look. Kogan is a twitter-feuding turd who collates information from the russian language M-1 site, the real source of all the press material on the promotion. So when he made his cryptic "shit is about to get real" tweet, it was probably after seeing the press release and excitedly seeing he could use Vadim's flippant offer as more fodder for his campaign to alienate every MMA writer on twitter.
M-1 just needs to slow down and stop making the same mistakes. They put on a huge event that opens up many potential opportunities, but only if they can prove they can replicate the formula successfully as an ongoing MMA event series. Puffing out their chests after one big event that few realize was really that big is clearly the wrong way to go about things. I don't think that's what Vadim intended necessarily, but clearly Kogan does and M-1's woes with the global fanbase continue as a result. They should release all the relevant event stats immediately, start looking for Fedor's next opponent, make the next Moscow card bigger than the first one, and give Kogan his walking papers. If the M-1 PR man gig pays six figures and includes your choice of the M-1 ring girls, I will gladly throw my hat in for the job.
Still no stats reported... Kogan really invites all the criticism upon himself, I mean just look at this:
Actually Evgeni, that's the exact problem here. Most people DON'T know it was the most attended event ever in Europe. And even fewer UFC fans care that "in Europe we are #1". Start coming with some real measurable statistics to guage the success of the event, drop the twitter tough guy act and figure out a way to relay information on M-1 so that people actually understand the promotion and want to support it.
M-1 Global, please hire smoogy for the good of M-1 Global.... and for the good of the sport. What he says is true. Sorry, Evgeni.
They eventually saw the light with "Gerry" Millen... oh, maybe that was Evgeni who saw that light lol. Evgeni now has a lock on the M-1 Global world of English! <sigh...>
As my first order of business as M-1 USA rep, I would make a thread with pics of all the M-1 ring girls (to begin the healing process)