(G'night Folks!)

In the immortal words of Jim Morrison, "this is the end my friend."

Thanks for all your support!

Yes, you read the title right. The big bosses are closing a couple factories and it looks like a couple MMA sites are out of luck (WKR, Boxing Bulletin). It has been a great run, some laughs. To the WKR community, thanks for reading. I guess that's it, I'm not one for sentiments. 

So where will the writers here be headed off to. If you haven't noticed already, I'll let you know.

Kaleb K. - The straight man of the site especially compared to myself. Kalib Kevin Kelchner whose in-depth show reviews were well appreciated will now be writing for CagesideSeats. As you can probably see, he already started and abandoned me long ago. I kid. 

Derek Subotecki - I know you're probably saying to yourself "Who?" He's also known as 'sub0". I bet you're still saying "who?" Either way, Sub0 is also at Cageside Seats, as well as his original spot Fightlinker.. 

Me - That's an interesting question. The plan is to go to CageSide Seats and write there (and that might still happen). I might just go back to BE and fanpost it up, might even bring back the OG name just to keep it thorough. I mean, that's how I got started, so it's not a thing to me. I've also got a couple other interesting proposals that I haven't said yes or no to. A few people told me I should start my own thing. I dunno, I'm kinda lazy. I did have a blog a looooong time ago (I'm talking Kimbo/EliteXC days that had maybe 3 posts and then I got bored [Shout out to the one cute reader reading this that knows what I'm talking bout]). Somebody even suggested that I go write for Bleacher Report (which if you don't know, is the direct competitor to SBNation). Wouldn't that be some sh*t? I dunno. Plus it's tax season, so I'm a little busy and will be on a semi-hiatus, so things are in the air. A restricted free-agent, if you will. Your best bet (if you care) is to follow my Twitter. I'll for sure be commenting over at BloodyElbow and Cageside. 

Again, thanks to all the readers. 

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Let's get it straight. The UFC is not a sport. They are a business. I understand that. You should understand that. It's a given. That said, just because moves are made in the best interest of "business", doesn't mean that fans can't be upset with them. Going back to the booking of James Toney as a co-main eventer in the UFC to the controversial racial marketing of Cain Velasquez as a "Mexican" to the potential Lesnar/Mir III trilogy fight, there have been decisions that many questioned for various reasons that were made in the interest of business. 

When the James Toney match was made, I was a critic of the match as I felt it would hurt the legitimacy of the sport and make MMA look foolish. I was told that it would generate "great interest" and more eyeballs meant "more buys". Instead of those increased buys, we were witness to a laughingstock of a fight with an old, fat James Toney getting taken down with a shoot Stevie Wonder could've seen. Not to mention, the building wasn't 2/3 full and the buyrate was much worse than predicted. Similar with the Velasquez marketing scheme, I was against it because of the potential divisiveness it would bring in the MMA fanbase and was told that I didn't understand business and it would poach the Latino market from boxing and draw big numbers. Well with a stronger undercard than Lesnar's fight at 116 and a 3-week Primetime build, it failed to match Lesnar's UFC 116 performance. 

A couple months ago, there were whispers of a Lesnar/Mir rubber match throughout the MMA community. A number of fans were frankly disappointed with that matchup as it wasn't fresh (the two had just fought less than 17 months ago and fought 15 months before that). A Twitter campaign was started here on WKR to let Dana White know how the fans felt and White decided to rethink his decision. Of course, there were those in the media, like Dave Meltzer, who called those fans idiots who didn't understand the business. 

Now, I'm not trying to say that all the decisions that the UFC has made that prioritized business above sport have been negative or bad. That's not true. One big example is giving Brock Lesnar a title shot just 4 fights into his MMA career. I think anyone can see that worked out well for all and brought more fans into MMA making it a bigger sport. Fans understand that the UFC's first goal is making money. That doesn't mean that fans can't have dissenting opinions on UFC moves. That doesn't mean fans are devoid of realizing moves are financially motivated. So it's insulting to fans when promoters, pundits, and people in the media talk down them as if they don't understand what's going on.

Are college football fans idiots because they want a playoff? The way the bowl system is set up is to make the most money. College football is a business interested in making as much money off games as they can. A tournament would be the best thing to decide the best team, but would hurt the bowl system. People in the media have argued for tournaments for years (decades), are they morons for not understanding the business? Should they not make arguments against business decisions?  I'd say no.

You can make arguments against decisions while taking into account the business aspects of it and still come out on the other side. That doesn't make you a fool, a moron, an idiot or any other term. 

Yesterday it was announced that Brock Lesnar and Junior Dos Santos would be the coaches for the upcoming season of The Ultimate Fighter and will then meet in a Number 1 Contender's Match sometime after the conclusion of the season. This announcement comes to the chagrin of many due to several factors. One being Brock's reclusive nature and surly disposition with the media and the other being recent reports (spearheaded by Dave Meltzer) that Lesnar was looking for a way out of the fight game (and at the very least wouldn't take a fight of this nature). Other pairings were bandied about the media such as a permutation of Chael Sonnen/Wanderlei Silva/Chris Leben/Brian Stann and, more recently, Frankie Edgar vs Gray Maynard III.

There's no doubt that Brock Lesnar and Junior Dos Santos will do great business in the short term. The UFC's contract with SPIKE expires at the end of this year. Negotiations should be tense as while the UFC set PPV records last year (though avg PPV remained steady), their ratings have gone down (which is SPIKE's concern). The prelims of UFC 125 appearing on ION were a sort of "Hey SPIKE, look what we're doing" maneuver. Unfortunately, the ratings for those prelims weren't the best. It's unknown if the low ratings for the UFC on SPIKE are due to a lack of interest or the UFC's insistence on putting on lackluster cards. 

The UFC will be looking for a contract that puts them at more of a focal point on SPIKE as well as paying them well and a commitment to marketing and advertising the UFC as it should be. The UFC will also want more flexibility in terms of putting programs on other networks (cable or broadcast). Well, what is a better piece of leverage than high ratings. The UFC is banking on major ratings when Brock Lesnar makes his return to weekly episodic television since March 8th, 2004 where he drew a 3.8 rating on WWE RAW. The Ultimate Fighter Season 10 averaged around a 2.2 rating and that was the best season by far. If this season can match or eclipse that, it is a feather in the UFC's pocket in terms of negotiations. This move makes great sense in terms of trying to gain great ratings.

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I dunno how happy Dana White will be with this appearance by Jacob Volkmann. Volkmann talks about pay, amount of fights and his chiropractor business. I mean not to get into politics, but he didn't give one reason why he doesn't like "Obamacare" (which if you use that term, you're stupid) other than he has to "make calls" and "fill out paperwork". 

New York State is one of the few states that still bars Mixed Martial Arts competition left in the United States. Over the past few years it has become a battleground between Zuffa (the UFC) and State Assemblymen Bob Reilly and Sheldon Silver. Both men are opposed to MMA (for a variety of reasons) and have worked to keep it prohibited in the state. Zuffa, on the other hand, has tried one basic strategy -- throw money at the situation. Bill King of the Sports Business Journal describes some of the aspects of their fiduciary fisticuffs

.So begins the latest installment in a push that began late in 2007, when UFC parent company Zuffa paid a well-connected upstate New York firm a $10,000 retainer to lobby on its behalf. Since then it has spent more than $1.5 million on lobbying and public relations campaigns in the state. It also has contributed $165,000 to election campaigns.

The tab for lobbying in New York last year eclipsed $500,000, based on public filings and interviews with UFC executives. Zuffa also contributed $130,000 to political campaigns, including $36,800 to incoming Gov. Andrew Cuomo, $34,000 to Democratic campaign committees, $10,000 to Republican campaign committees and $1,000 to $3,800 to a dozen different influential state senators and assembly members. Zuffa spent $530,000 lobbying in New York in 2009 and $595,000 there in 2008.

 Zuffa has been lining the pockets of various politicians as well as paying a lobbying firm to assist them. That isn't the only financial incentive they have been using. Part of their argument stems their belief that the legalization of MMA will bring extra dollars into the New York economy. It has been shown that when Zuffa comes to town, there is an increased in revenue for that city.

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An interesting little quarrel over the weekend between former UFC Welterweight Champion and current Strikeforce commentator Pat Miletich and writer Michael David Smith sparked up over the weekend. Smith wrote an article following Friday's Strikeforce Challengers card entitled "Pat Miletich Should Tone Down the Shilling on Showtime" in which he criticized Miletich for some of the comments he made during the broadcast.

Not to get into specifics of his complaints (you can read it at your own leisure), but the gist of them were that Miletich embellished and played up opinions of fighters. Mind you, the card was full of Strikeforce's prospects like Daniel Cormier, Ovince Saint Preux and Tyron Woodley who are, by and large, unknown to the general public. He also criticized Miletich for "resorting to cliches" during his call of the fight. 

Now, I am not an etymologist, but I know that Strikeforce is a promotion. The base word of that is "promote". This means Strikeforce is in the business of promoting. With that business comes exaggeration and hyperbole, even in commentating. Showtime is in a business relationship with Strikeforce to PROMOTE their brand of MMA. You can't compare MMA to other sports and I'll tell you why. Two reasons. The first is that MMA is not an established sport and has various companies trying to grab a piece of the market place. Commentators don't need to spice up the skills of the NFL players because it's understood that they are the best in the world. Strikeforce (and other MMA orgs in general) are competing to establish their brand in the greater mainstream of the US.

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