[quote]forkknifespoon wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Don’t kid yourself, it is all about money. There is nothing noble about two men beating the shit out of each other for no apparent reason.
Wow…
I cant even begin to try and refute that. With that sort of disposition I’d be spinning my wheels. For some reason I thought more guys trained MMA here. It may be hard for someone on the outside looking in, but there really is a lot to the sport; psychologically, philosophically, and sociologically.
Is it really all about the money? So last summer when I quit my decent paying job so I could train more and start making plans to move overseas to train in Brazil or Thailand, even though it left me approaching poverty and donating plasma and living in my jeep, that was for the money? I had no plans of making a career out of it. Saying MMA is “all about the money” and “just to men beating the shit out of each other for no apparent reason” is as ignorant and naive as saying that anyone who lifts weights seriously is just a dumb meathead in it for the money.
What money? Is there that much money in amateur bodybuilding contests? Is there money in amateur and even pro fighting? I can tell you first hand there isn’t. Besides that, you aren’t even addressing the actual subject we’ve been discussing. You’re at best employing a ‘straw man fallacy’.
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Mixed Martial Arts is a sport formed so that promoters can make money. It is that simple. The act of fighting does not have to be governed by any set of rules or occur in an octagon with a referee or any of that garbage. The Gracies did the noble fighting thing for years. Then Bob Meirowitz convinced them that they could make a shit load of money from it without beating people up on beaches. Now look where they are.
[quote]forkknifespoon wrote:
LiveFromThe781 wrote:
dude are the training camps really that bad where youre from? lol how are you going to train in thailand if you dont speak thai, how are you going to train in brazil if you dont speak portuges
…how are you going to work there how are you going ot continue to pay? donating blood? wtf?
For a lot of different reasons I’m not in that position now. There was nothing wrong with my gym, actually I’d say the opposite, I probably went to one of the best in the states. I mostly wanted to travel for the experience. Brazil and Thailand are beautiful, and I’d love to see their culture. Eastern Iowa isn’t exactly gorgeous, and I’ve been here for a while and got bored. English speakers get along pretty well in foreign countries, plus I’d probably be living in or around the gyms I’d be training at, and there would be other English speakers there.
I wouldn’t work in Brazil or Thailand, other then fights. I had saved up a good amount of money for travel and living, especially Thailand, things are pretty cheap there. I donated plasma because I can make about 260$ a month, and when I’m living in my jeep I’m saving a lot of money. Most of my stuff I moved to my parent’s house in Ohio. It was a good life for a while, but now I’m in my second year at a local University. Things aren’t always within your control I guess.[/quote]
[quote]Donut62 wrote:
forkknifespoon wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Don’t kid yourself, it is all about money. There is nothing noble about two men beating the shit out of each other for no apparent reason.
Wow…
I cant even begin to try and refute that. With that sort of disposition I’d be spinning my wheels. For some reason I thought more guys trained MMA here. It may be hard for someone on the outside looking in, but there really is a lot to the sport; psychologically, philosophically, and sociologically.
Is it really all about the money? So last summer when I quit my decent paying job so I could train more and start making plans to move overseas to train in Brazil or Thailand, even though it left me approaching poverty and donating plasma and living in my jeep, that was for the money? I had no plans of making a career out of it. Saying MMA is “all about the money” and “just to men beating the shit out of each other for no apparent reason” is as ignorant and naive as saying that anyone who lifts weights seriously is just a dumb meathead in it for the money.
What money? Is there that much money in amateur bodybuilding contests? Is there money in amateur and even pro fighting? I can tell you first hand there isn’t. Besides that, you aren’t even addressing the actual subject we’ve been discussing. You’re at best employing a ‘straw man fallacy’.
Mixed Martial Arts is a sport formed so that promoters can make money. It is that simple. The act of fighting does not have to be governed by any set of rules or occur in an octagon with a referee or any of that garbage. The Gracies did the noble fighting thing for years. Then Bob Meirowitz convinced them that they could make a shit load of money from it without beating people up on beaches. Now look where they are.[/quote]
Exactly. I have no problem at all with people that dedicate themselves to martial arts for personal improvement.
This fight has nothing to do with that. This fight is about two fairly well known men beating the crap out of each other as a money making venture.
There may be better and more dedicated fighters that are not getting the same opportunity but that is because the promoters don’t think that unknown fighters will draw much money.
A Kimbo vs Tank fight is better for everyone involved on the card than a Kimbo vs unknown fighter.
The expectation that promoters need to put up unknown fighters as the main event just because they may work harder is incredibly naive.
If I were to look at it as purely a money making venture, I still think you have a few things backwards. It may pay off in the short run, but when fighting leagues are screwing over their fighters to make a buck and holding fights that are obvious shams, then they start to alienate their solid fan base as opposed to the group of people that want to see “two men beat the shit out of each other for no reason”.
MMA has been pretty unique in the fact that a large faction of their fans care about the sport because they actually seriously compete in it themselves. We don’t want to see it devolve into “two men beat the shit out of each other for no reason”. At my old gym people used to get pretty upset about this stuff. Fighters were even quitting the sport because they were getting taken advantage of. If the leagues want to attract an uneducated and fairly uninterested crowd by holding these cheese fights, let them, but it’s unhealthy for the sport, and that means it’s unhealthy for them, and that means they lose money.
I don’t really know what to say about this, i’m clearly not preaching to the choir, and I think that’s on the part of having seen and been where I have and other people not even being involved in the sport. Some leagues are going the right direction, the IFL is a prime example. They take extremely good care of their fighters and put on a great show. I guess I’ll have to agree to disagree with you guys.
MMA has been pretty unique in the fact that a large faction of their fans care about the sport because they actually seriously compete in it themselves.
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I’d have to disagree with you there.
I think FAR more football/baseball/basketball/soccer/hockey fans grew up playing those sports than MMA fans who grew up wrestling/boxing/grappling.
Your statement might have been true in the pre-TUF era when the UFC was struggling to pull in 50,000 PPV buys, but in the post TUF era of 500,000-1,000,000 PPV buys and 3,000,000+ household views for events like Tito-Shammy III and Rampage-Hendo, it is no longer the case. Once the sport went quasi-mainstream, the percentage of fans who actually participate in the sport became negligible.
yeah but theres still a lot more people who have gottein involved in MMA themselves during the explosion of MMA popularity. theres training camps everywhere now and theyre packed.
I think FAR more football/baseball/basketball/soccer/hockey fans grew up playing those sports than MMA fans who grew up wrestling/boxing/grappling.
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They surely did GROW UP playing those sports, but I remain impressed with the amount of fans that watch fights on a saturday night while training at a legitimate fighting gym during the week, and even competing themselves. I think if you look at proportions, more legitimate fans of fighting, also train and compete, then say fans of the NFL.
How many people who watch football during the week can claim to be training and competing in football still. Once you’re age demographic gets out of high school it significantly dwindles, and once out of college age it really plummets.
That’s all hearsay, but that’s just kind of what I assumed. I know i always enjoyed going to a local fight and seeing guys I’d trained with or fought or had buddies fight in the crowd. Again, I’m partial though.
I’m not attacking you or your opinion, but I feel you are out of touch with the reality of where the money comes from in MMA right now. I feel the opposite way - more than any other sport going, more people act like they know everything about MMA without actually having trained in some facet of combat sports.
I see tons of douche bags in Affliction t-shirts walking around night clubs with ILS, and the thousands of boos that shower every major MMA fight card surely aren’t coming from all the hard core fans packing the arena.
Pride FC was the hard core fans league, with extremely loose rules and world wide representation of fighters. They did maybe 50,000-75,000 PPV buys in America per card. The UFC is averaging around 500,000-750,000, and those extra buys aren’t coming from more hard core fans.
I like Kimbo a lot. There’ nothin’ unclassy about him to me. The white dude turned his back on him and got his shit wrecked in the process. He’s a fighter, and he fights hard but he ain’t dirty. I’ve never seen anything dirty from him. You could call him a thug or a goon or whatever else but he’s a big black dude from south Florida, it happens.
He might’ve done some not so classy shit along the way that none of us have seen (because his videos show a sportsman to me) but he’s on his way up, is very popular and is goin’ about it fairly now. I don’t see how people don’t like him. Seems like a cool ass dude from interviews and shit.
The guy started as a brawler on the street crippling people.
I would state totally different. In fact, I am amazed you would post something like that.
You can find Kimbo’s fucking videos everywhere.
When he hits a man and knocks him down, even sans ref, instead of trying to kill him when he is down like Tank does, even in a sanctioned fight after it has been called, Kimbo stands back, gives quarter, and there are even clips of him basically shouting encouragement.
To me that is remarkable. I like Kimbo and hope he fucks Tank up.
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I agree with all of this.
We’ve all done a bit of bareknuckle boxing after a couple drinks and what not, but there’s a line to walk, and Kimbo does it well.
i think Kimbo’s image of being a huge ass ghetto black dude with a beard makes your first impression of him to be an ignorant thug-ass goon but as you see him more and more you start to realize “wow, hes actually a pretty decent guy”. he seemed pretty encouraging to Bill Goldberg during that training session.
and you know what, half the shit is marketing. people WANT to see a big goon fucking dudes up left and right, it may not be “noble” but its what people want to see and its what puts food on the table for a lot of these guys -whether theyre “noble” or not. i also think inside and outside the ring of the sport is very different. it may be all hype and b.s. outside of the ring but once you get in there its the same shit and its still about 2 warriors facing off not the facade you see on TV.
Well, i guess this is gonna take place on the feet because I don’t think Kimbo has a wrestling pedigree and Tank has fairly good wrestling. So, in that sense Tank has every chance of victory cos he hits like a mule. I doubt he’ll be in shape and will probably get fucked up tho.
[quote]LiveFromThe781 wrote:
i think Kimbo’s image of being a huge ass ghetto black dude with a beard makes your first impression of him to be an ignorant thug-ass goon but as you see him more and more you start to realize “wow, hes actually a pretty decent guy”. he seemed pretty encouraging to Bill Goldberg during that training session.
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He’s not a guy you’d want on your bad side, but I’d imagine he’s pretty nice if you just meet him. For some reason he strikes me as the “Big on God” type… I don’t know why.
Kimbo’s day job is working security for a Miami pornographer, and there are plenty of pics of him hanging out in bars and groping the talent.
Not a bad gig if you can get it, but certainly not the type of job that a religious fundamentalist type would pursue.[/quote]
That’s fuggin hilarious.
Although, and I haven’t heard Kimbo speak enough to say this on his behalf, but often times the ones who spend the most time professing their faith are the ones who don’t come close to living in a ‘Christlike’ manner.
Like when I see an ad in the yellow pages with a Jesus fish. That just means they fuck you over with a smile on their face and a friendly, “come again.”
[quote]Donut62 wrote:
I’m not attacking you or your opinion, but I feel you are out of touch with the reality of where the money comes from in MMA right now… [/quote]
Well you’re absolutely right about where the money is coming from, but that’s on a temporal level. I think the money that they are pulling in is unstable and not going to last.
[quote]Donut62 wrote:
I see tons of douche bags in Affliction t-shirts walking around night clubs with ILS, and the thousands of boos that shower every major MMA fight card surely aren’t coming from all the hard core fans packing the arena. [/quote]
That’s why it’s not going to last, these people don’t have anything invested in MMA, it’s more or less just one type of fashion. It’s becoming a fad at an alarming rate, and with any fads it will come to pass. Then the organizations will be left with only the serious fans, a large section training and competing. These are the same fans they alienated and screwed over when they tried competing.
[quote]Donut62 wrote:
Pride FC was the hard core fans league, with extremely loose rules and world wide representation of fighters. They did maybe 50,000-75,000 PPV buys in America per card. The UFC is averaging around 500,000-750,000, and those extra buys aren’t coming from more hard core fans.[/quote]
That’s exactly why I’m attacking the UFC, because they are propagating all this idiocy and it’s making them good money and giving them the buying power to destroy upright leagues.
EDIT: I just caught the “Igor Vovchanchyn Hangs Them Up” thread and check out what Igor has to say at the end of the short interview. Seems like me and the Russian agree.