RavishingRickRudo

The second Belfort vs. Couture didn't even sell out, and that was with the matchup of Matt Hughes vs. Penn on the card. The reason the gate was so great for the rubber match was because of the controversy involved in the second fight. I think the gate for Unfinished Business was due to Couture and Liddell being on the same card. Las Vegas loves them. Hughes vs. Penn was not a draw, and Matt Hughes isn't a draw. Zuffas White Boy Challenge against Hughes doesn't exactly build interest for the guy because there is nothing interesting about him, and there was nothing interesting about his opponents because Zuffa didn't promote them. Now, a Penn/Hughes rematch might do some respectable money if they do it right. "Didn't even sell out" gives the wrong impression, it did excellent business nevertheless. You are downplaying the success. I won't downplay Tito's _past_ success, he is the biggest draw in the past 10 years for the UFC, my point is about _the future_. You talk about RVD but Ortiz is much closer to a Hulk Hogan, and Hogan was both beneficial and damaging to WCW and the WWF. Ortiz has sold out the last 5 shows that he has ME'd. Plus his buy rates are always better than everyone not named Shamrock. I do agree with you that the UFC should put more into promoting other fighters. But to use another wrestling term if the WWE wants to really stasrt to push the Lightheavyweight division on Smackdown that would be great, but they would be crazy to not put a money match like JBL vs. Cena to do it. The UFC does, what, 5, 6 shows a year? Couture and Liddell would be on 2 shows, Tito 1 if they're lucky. Personally, I don't think the investment is worth it. He's damaged goods, he's not an exciting fighter when he's up against top talent, and he's a hassel to deal with. They can get good numbers out of Couture and Liddell, the _sport_ is on the rise, now is the time to focus on new blood. And if the Lightheavyweights never get pushed I wouldn't complain that JBL and Cena should be let go come contract time just to make the WWE create new stars. I would just suggest that they get their heads out of their asses and promote all aspects for the good of the show. I won't even get into the fact that the only divisions that have ever been able to draw good ppv numbers as the main event for the UFC have been the Lightheavyweights and the Heavyweights. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. "No one else draws but Lightheavyweights and Heavyweights, so let's put all out time in marketing them." That ensures no one from the lower weight classes gets popular. Yves Edwards has gotten some great responses and what do they do? They cut the division. BJ Penn would have made for a much better champion than Hughes, and what do they do? They don't resign him and put the title back on Hughes. The Middleweight division was non-existent. How can these other divisions do something if they aren't given the chance? Getting rid of Tito would open some doors, plus for his paycheck you could get 3 good fighters. As far as Pride goes one of the main reasons they haven't come to the U.S. is the lack of a big name star who could draw outside of the hardcore demographic. Ortiz is one of the few guys in all of North American MMA that can consistently be a big draw so I definately could see that as a reason to keep him. PRIDE had Shamrock and Frye at one point and they still didn't come to America. It won't happen; they are doing well in Japan so why would they change now?

I won't. I love me some Benoit, but he has been sloppy when it comes to applying his submissions.

At this point Ortiz is pretty well established. I don't think you throw all of your marketing muscle behind him, but you atleast keep him around because he is easily your most over heel. Lemme use the last PPV as an example. There were 2 title fights, one including Andrei Arlovski who is a much more exciting fighter than Tito. He lacks the language skills, but it would be better to not have him talk and have Frank Mir do all the talking for their feud. Why didn't they spend more time focusing on him? He could be a heavyweight star and his match with Mir could be a prospective draw if they put the time in it. But they won't and they didn't. The time was continually put into Ortiz and Belfort, both of whom aren't on the same level respectively in their division as Arlovski is. How about the Middleweight title match? Why wasn't Rich Franklin invovled? He beat Tanner, who is the new champ. Frankin is an exciting fighter, why aren't they putting time in him? Build towards the future, not rely on the past. This is a pro wrestling concept that can apply to MMA. They have to build new stars constantly, but instead they put their efforts in promoting Ortiz who has proven to be unreliable. In Ortiz the UFC actually has an RVD who consistently draws their biggest crowds and 2nd largest ppv buys when they are strugling to pull 60,000 buys for incredible cards like UFC 49. UFC 49 drew in the top 5 gates in the company's history. And even then, the two guys on top were both around in the early UFC years. They have to divide their time better, I understand the use of "draws", but if they aren't building stars with those draws, and rather, are spending more time focusing on the great celebs who are in attendence rather than hyping some key fighters. Realistically, with about 20 shows in Zuffa history, how many stars have they created? You have to admit it makes sense to keep him especially with Pride talking about moving into the U.S. and any Pride card in the U.S. that is headlined by Tito Ortiz versus Silva, Rampage, Randelman, or Mirko just to give a few examples would be a definate sellout. PRIDE has been talking about getting in the US for too long now. They've been talking about it for what, 5 years?

No, I mean 500k. That's 500,000 buys. UFC on it's best day couldn't get half of that. And as for Tito not fighting the "UFC style" right now, his style is pretty much the same as Randy's. Takedown, GNP, elbows, punches, etc. I actually find Randy a bit less exciting than Tito. Couture has much better stand up and takedowns. His match vs. Liddell was one of the best of the year. His fight against Vitor (I) and Rizzo were great as well. I'd rank any of those matches above any of Tito's.

I liked this better than Toronto. There was more of a fight and struggle to it. Especially the struggle at the end which I loved. The only thing I didn't like about the TO match was the shit finish. That had more struggle in the mat work than this. THe mat work was great which I also preffered to Toronto except for around the time Jericho nailed the half adominal stretch and they did that sequence where Jericho went for an attempted STF - went into the 1 legged Boston Crab and Benoit tried a counter with the sharpshooter. I thought they might've been going for the struggling root but I think something might've happened there. What, I don't know. Maybe Jericho was dazed from the headbutts? Dude, you are high. That mat work was horrible and useless. It was like 2 switches and then they stood up, and it looked very rehearsed. In Toronto they kept close and tight and it flowed so much better. Not the greatest mat work I've ever seen, and it wasn't the best mat work I saw _that week_ (http://fedor.bel.ru/video/yanagisawa/Emel_03_1.avi), but it was by far the best mat wrestling the WWE has done in the entire year. Yeah, the tired bit which I'm definitely not a fan of can be annoying in the shorter matches trying to be longer matches but I really didn't think it was too bad here at all. They looked dead 5 minutes in. It was bad. The crossface is supposed to be like that now. Just another WWE style adjustment. I don't thnk you're allowed to pull back on the head anymore. The way Benoit had the crossface on at the very end I really liked though as it emphasized the wicked struggle they were going through at the end. I love me some Benoit, but if it were intentional the King wouldn't have said it looked like a choke. Benoit should have won with an omoplata, that would have ruled.

Yeah, I love the music they use for it and like I said, Couture is a badass. The calm concern in his voice is great.

I thought the first round was good, and I was more impressed with Vitors sprawl than anything in the entire match. He already got destroyed by Chuck, and he already destroyed Shamrock. I don't get why there would be rematches as there was no questions left open and Tito (or Ken) hasn't improved enough to warrant "that was then, this is now". My point is that they shouldn't spend the time in promoting him any more, but rather, use that time to build someone else. Someone new. Someone that could have legs and won't make you worry about hijacking the division.

I agree. Meltzer is retarded on this issue. The man has such an insecurity about wrestling.

I thought it was pretty shit. Their mat wrestling was bad (they did much better work in TO) by almost any standard. There was constant poor execution of moves, from two guys who are supposed to be 'technicians'. They both got winded 4 or 5 minutes in. Are you trying to tell me, Chris Benoit, a guy who went 60+ minutes in the Royal Rumble, who went 60 minutes in an Ironman match against HHH, gets tired after 5 minutes? The WWE was trying to pack a 20 minute match and that big match formula in a 10 minute match, and it doesn't work (and it's not just this match either). Either give the match time where it makes sense for them to be tired, or have them go balls out right away to establish a reason for them to get tired, or don't do it. There is no reason to believe those guys are done after 5 minutes. It's also a pointless feud at this juncture, which is something I fear for both guys because no one is going to get over if they aren't fighting for a reason... or "they want to test each others skills"? *groan* How do the fans get behind that? Especially since their skills aren't very skillful. Bust out lots of new shit, evolve, and show how skilled they are and maybe it could work. Tiring out after 5 minutes is not reflective of any of that.

You said "ANY promotion". If you want to clearify and say ANY pro wrestling promotion, go ahead. The WON awards considers UFC and PRIDE as pro wrestling, which is why Randy Couture, Wanderlei Silva, and Chuck Liddell get voted on in pro wrestling categories. In the context of this thread, which is someone writing in to Dave Meltzer in regards to his year end awards, I'd say it qualifies. I think it was absolute bullshit that Gabe got best booker over Joe Silva, considering that Silva turned out some amazing cards in 05, as-well-as having to deal with constant last minute pull-outs and also having to deal with the egos involved. Silva had way more shit to deal with and turned it into something positive, which is the true showing of a great booker. Meanwhile UFC gets 5x's less votes than ROH in best promotion, and Silva gets 20x's less votes than Gabe. That's absolutely ridiculous. Dana White gets 10x's less votes than Gabe in best promoter, yet draws 10x's more fans. It's a case of WON voters being complete fucking idiots when it comes to understanding what they're voting for. I love Samoa Joe, and I am not disputing anything in regards to him, but I agree with the sentiment of ROH getting knee-jerk votes because they get hyped beyond what's really there. The reality is their best draw is the WWE's and UFC's worst shows, worst draw, on the worst day of the year. Yet their promoter is better? Their promotion is better? And not only better 5x's, 10x's and 20x's better?

You mean 50,000. I question Tito's drawing power right now. I think with every loss and boring fight his stock goes down. I don't get why people assume Ortiz/Sham will make the same numbers as it did before. Meanwhile, I love me the commentary team of Couture, Goldberg and Rogan. Couture is hilarious.

Watching Ortiz/Belfort, Belfort took round 1 and 2, don't care what happens in round 3, under the UFC scoring he should have won. Looks like the Iceman may be sniffin a lil snow, man.

he now has loss vs HHH as clean as you get Didn't Batista spinebuster him after a ref bump? What I don't get about this storyline is that Bischoff -notorious for spending money on big contracts- can't afford Batista? They never really established how much money each brand gets.

Saw that finish coming from the second he took him down and was in the guard.

"I'm just glad I don't have to hear his dirty mouth every night" C'mon. C'MON.

Leben is god. Throwing the challenge and facing their best guy? AWESOME. That's balls.

Randy Couture is the most badass motherfucker. Legit badass.

I can't wait for Leben to fight.

Tito knows that PRIDE would set him up to lose in the first round. He'd just use PRIDE as leverage to get a bigger contract in the UFC. Zuffa should ignore him, IMO. They invested so much in hyping him up in the early days and he really fucked em over. He doesn't fight the style that Zuffa is trying to promote, and he lost a lot of credibility after losing 2 straight. Invest that time in someone else.

UFC. Joe Silva is a better booker than Gabe. Look at what happened with the UFC 50 card and tell me he isn't.

Lesnar vs. Fedor. Do it.

Yeah, I don't use the words "Beat the shit out of him", but Tanner BEAT THE SHIT out of Terrell. My god that was some pretty pretty. Godammit, if they cut all the c-level celeb oogling they would have been able to show another match. We have 2 problems in PPV right now. PRIDE cuts way too much out, and UFC leaves way too much in. The "too much", of course, is fluff.

I luv Lesnar. Let him go WWE. Let him go. ... Let him go to PRIDE.

You call what Christy has a "personality"? I guess you could say that since she has the personality of chatter-teeth, but really...

I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. Good stuff.