Punch Drunk: 10 Promotional Disasters
More Mishaps
5. Rules Made to be Broken (Strikebox, 2009)
The premise is ridiculous: a stand-up only sport with four-ounce gloves. Takedowns are allowed, but the fighters must stand up afterward.
Welcome to Strikebox, which is no longer called Strikebox but Titans Fighting due to copyright issues -- but may not be called anything at all as it seems inconceivable a second event will ever materialize.
The grappling-adverse rules were presumably intended to avoid the boredom some spectators experience at groundfighting, which is at this point more hypothetical than fact. (Crowds are now cheering at mount escapes and submission attempts during UFC events.) Since Canada couldn’t recognize such a dopey conceit, fighters were allowed “gentleman’s agreements” not to grapple, and … well, you see how quickly this devolves into complete idiocy.
In brief: Main event athlete James Thompson, for reasons known only to a brain sandwiched between two cauliflower ears, decided to forego silly handshake agreements and immediately took opponent Steve Bosse to the mat with no intention of letting him get up.
The ensuing near-riot has put Montreal athletic officials on alert, and now a legitimately organized promotion -- the UFC -- is in danger of having to move or cancel a big event on account of the fallout.
Yet another reason why promotions run by sock puppets run into frequent snags.
4. The Warning Track of Death (Yamma Pit Fighting, 2008)
There are many reasons to respect the efforts of Bob Meyrowitz. The Yamma is not one of them.
While not exactly an early innovator of the UFC, as some would have you believe -- Meyrowitz didn’t even attend the first show -- he did make valiant, expensive efforts to save the sport when it was nearly politically assassinated in the 1990s.
It was with great goodwill that I sat down for Meyrowitz’s latest venture, a fighting surface with raised edges that allowed fighters to -- well, God only knows what the hell that thing was supposed to do. But whatever it was, it didn’t do it. Yamma’s fighting pit played host to a bore of an eight-man tournament, and its idea of a “superfight” was Butterbean vs. Pat Smith.
(All of my thoughts were collected during that weekend’s Minute by Minute, available both here and in my therapist’s files.)
A second show has yet to materialize: Meyrowitz’s petitions for bungee cords, broadswords and Tina Turner appear to have hit some commission snags.
3. A Bloody Mess (IFL Battleground, 2007)
The International Fight League’s move to “network” television -- technically true, albeit on the Z-list My Network TV -- was supposed to be a coup for the new promotion, which had an inexplicable insistence on a “team” presentation for the world’s loneliest sport.
Points for originality, but the repackaged first broadcast was little more than a two-hour barker show directed at people for whom “Felony Fights” is too intellectually challenging a product. All evening long, viewers were teased with the promise that “someone would leave on a stretcher”; graphics consisted of a heart monitor flat-lining. Subtle.
The IFL later acknowledged its error. So did fans: They stopped watching.
2. Mob Mentality (IFC 1, 1996)
Despite the theoretically unlimited space afforded by the Web, there’s really not enough room to go into detail on the International Fighting Championship’s movie-worthy foray into Kiev, Ukraine, which consisted in equal parts of the following: the Russian mob, seized videotapes, Bas Rutten slapping men armed with automatic weapons, promoters forbidden to exit the country, and, perhaps most horrifying of all, Igor Vovchanchyn sharing a protective cup with other Russian athletes.
Details abound in Clyde Gentry’s excellent “No Holds Barred: Evolution,” still on sale here. The purchase price is worth that chapter alone. Promise.
1. KimboGate (EliteXC, 2008)
It is difficult to imagine so perfect a storm of bad choices, bad luck and bad management colluding in the fashion it did on Oct. 4, when the semi-promising EliteXC brand performed the anatomically impossible feat of nailing its own coffin.
The specifics are well recorded: Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson, forced to fight a legitimate threat after opponent Ken Shamrock performed the neat trick of beginning to bleed before the fight, was knocked back to obscurity by replacement Seth Petruzelli. Petruzelli then claimed he was financially motivated to keep the fight with Slice standing.
Not only did their prize steer lose, but Elite officials were forced to stave off allegations they were running an ethically bankrupt organization. What followed was the sport’s highest-profile implosion, a Popsicle-stick collapse of Elite’s infrastructure and unwelcome sabbaticals for quality athletes.
Further proof that the majority of damage in MMA happens outside of the ring.
For comments, e-mail jrossen@sherdog.com
The premise is ridiculous: a stand-up only sport with four-ounce gloves. Takedowns are allowed, but the fighters must stand up afterward.
Welcome to Strikebox, which is no longer called Strikebox but Titans Fighting due to copyright issues -- but may not be called anything at all as it seems inconceivable a second event will ever materialize.
The grappling-adverse rules were presumably intended to avoid the boredom some spectators experience at groundfighting, which is at this point more hypothetical than fact. (Crowds are now cheering at mount escapes and submission attempts during UFC events.) Since Canada couldn’t recognize such a dopey conceit, fighters were allowed “gentleman’s agreements” not to grapple, and … well, you see how quickly this devolves into complete idiocy.
In brief: Main event athlete James Thompson, for reasons known only to a brain sandwiched between two cauliflower ears, decided to forego silly handshake agreements and immediately took opponent Steve Bosse to the mat with no intention of letting him get up.
The ensuing near-riot has put Montreal athletic officials on alert, and now a legitimately organized promotion -- the UFC -- is in danger of having to move or cancel a big event on account of the fallout.
Yet another reason why promotions run by sock puppets run into frequent snags.
4. The Warning Track of Death (Yamma Pit Fighting, 2008)
There are many reasons to respect the efforts of Bob Meyrowitz. The Yamma is not one of them.
While not exactly an early innovator of the UFC, as some would have you believe -- Meyrowitz didn’t even attend the first show -- he did make valiant, expensive efforts to save the sport when it was nearly politically assassinated in the 1990s.
It was with great goodwill that I sat down for Meyrowitz’s latest venture, a fighting surface with raised edges that allowed fighters to -- well, God only knows what the hell that thing was supposed to do. But whatever it was, it didn’t do it. Yamma’s fighting pit played host to a bore of an eight-man tournament, and its idea of a “superfight” was Butterbean vs. Pat Smith.
(All of my thoughts were collected during that weekend’s Minute by Minute, available both here and in my therapist’s files.)
A second show has yet to materialize: Meyrowitz’s petitions for bungee cords, broadswords and Tina Turner appear to have hit some commission snags.
3. A Bloody Mess (IFL Battleground, 2007)
The International Fight League’s move to “network” television -- technically true, albeit on the Z-list My Network TV -- was supposed to be a coup for the new promotion, which had an inexplicable insistence on a “team” presentation for the world’s loneliest sport.
Points for originality, but the repackaged first broadcast was little more than a two-hour barker show directed at people for whom “Felony Fights” is too intellectually challenging a product. All evening long, viewers were teased with the promise that “someone would leave on a stretcher”; graphics consisted of a heart monitor flat-lining. Subtle.
The IFL later acknowledged its error. So did fans: They stopped watching.
2. Mob Mentality (IFC 1, 1996)
Despite the theoretically unlimited space afforded by the Web, there’s really not enough room to go into detail on the International Fighting Championship’s movie-worthy foray into Kiev, Ukraine, which consisted in equal parts of the following: the Russian mob, seized videotapes, Bas Rutten slapping men armed with automatic weapons, promoters forbidden to exit the country, and, perhaps most horrifying of all, Igor Vovchanchyn sharing a protective cup with other Russian athletes.
Details abound in Clyde Gentry’s excellent “No Holds Barred: Evolution,” still on sale here. The purchase price is worth that chapter alone. Promise.
1. KimboGate (EliteXC, 2008)
It is difficult to imagine so perfect a storm of bad choices, bad luck and bad management colluding in the fashion it did on Oct. 4, when the semi-promising EliteXC brand performed the anatomically impossible feat of nailing its own coffin.
The specifics are well recorded: Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson, forced to fight a legitimate threat after opponent Ken Shamrock performed the neat trick of beginning to bleed before the fight, was knocked back to obscurity by replacement Seth Petruzelli. Petruzelli then claimed he was financially motivated to keep the fight with Slice standing.
Not only did their prize steer lose, but Elite officials were forced to stave off allegations they were running an ethically bankrupt organization. What followed was the sport’s highest-profile implosion, a Popsicle-stick collapse of Elite’s infrastructure and unwelcome sabbaticals for quality athletes.
Further proof that the majority of damage in MMA happens outside of the ring.
For comments, e-mail jrossen@sherdog.com
