Yushin Okami Yes, TUF Quarterfinalists No

[ethanfranklin]

Sergio wasn't booked because he didn't draw for shit on HBO or houses anywhere in North America and he was the champion. You think they were not telling him how to fight? because he was boring while he was champion. They made sure to get the title to Chavez instead who is a popular brawler.

Imagine the UFC getting rid of a champion that people didn't like and replacing him with a B level brawler. That is real sport to you? It's what the WBC did. You called them a division in a real sport and they openly dethroned an unpopular champion for a lower fighter that was more popular.

Just this year, HBO told the press that they were not going to work with Guillermo Rigondeaux, thus limiting his opponents and making him sit out healthy for months. Listen to what someone who works there said:

"I congratulate them. Rigondeaux is a beautiful boxer but this is prize fighting and prize fighting is entertainment. If you can't make the people want to come back and see you, it's just like going to a restaurant; they don't feed you well, you don't come back. They feed you well, you come back. And he's got to know this is a professional game and it's not an amateur game."

- Larry Merchant.

Without TV contracts these guys are not getting world title fights and as happened with Sergio, they find a way to get it off of you if they can. So yeah, you do get stripped if you are not popular in boxing. It happens in all combat sports.

Larry merchant is an old man talking out his ass.

No one told martinez how to fight, and if they did, then fuck em too.

The fact is martinez chose to drop the belt, so its a red herring.

 

[GuardGame]

Sergio wasn't booked because he didn't draw for shit on HBO or houses anywhere in North America and he was the champion. You think they were not telling him how to fight? because he was boring while he was champion. They made sure to get the title to Chavez instead who is a popular brawler.

Imagine the UFC getting rid of a champion that people didn't like and replacing him with a B level brawler. That is real sport to you? It's what the WBC did. You called them a division in a real sport and they openly dethroned an unpopular champion for a lower fighter that was more popular. That is real too you? That is pure sport?

Just this year, HBO told the press that they were not going to work with Guillermo Rigondeaux, thus limiting his opponents and making him sit out healthy for months. Listen to what someone who works there said:

"I congratulate them. Rigondeaux is a beautiful boxer but this is prize fighting and prize fighting is entertainment. If you can't make the people want to come back and see you, it's just like going to a restaurant; they don't feed you well, you don't come back. They feed you well, you come back. And he's got to know this is a professional game and it's not an amateur game."

- Larry Merchant.

Without TV contracts these guys are not getting world title fights and as happened with Sergio, they find a way to get it off of you if they can. So yeah, you do get stripped if you are not popular in boxing. It happens in all combat sports. Watch timothy bradley vs ruslan provodnikov and tell me that is not a promoter telling a fighter how to fight. And now Top Rank booked Bradley in a big fight again because he fought like a brawler.

Edit. What a tool.

 

[Mikedh]

Promotion is a red herring. UFC transparently mimics a sports league, and you are barking up the wrong tree pretending it doesnt. It mimics boxing in fact.

Calling it a promotion is great rhetoric, but you are denying its primary function, which is to promote a sport, it has now discredited.

I didn't say it was like a sports league. Once again you fall back comparing it to real sports. You said you liked fighting. Where can I watch combat sports presented to me like you talk about? In boxing where they strip boring champions apparently. That is what you call real sport.

Larry merchant is an old man talking out his ass.

No one told martinez how to fight, and if they did, then fuck em too.

The fact is martinez chose to drop the belt, so its a red herring.

He didn't choose to not fight the belt. HBO would not book him and thus he had to vacate because there was a mandatory challenger that was impossible to book. You would be laughed off a boxing forum for saying that.

 

[ethanfranklin]

wrestling doesn't get you fired.

boring wrestling with a boring personality with not being able to speak English and having 600 twitter followers gets you fired.

obviously okami was putting all sorts of asses in seats.....all 600 of his fans flew to every one of his fights.

And who makes that decision.

Wrestling isnt boring, Dana is a disgrace to MMA.

Not being able to speak english gets you fired from a fighting league.

What a joke.

 

[Emjay]

Its actually not subjective. UFC can be objectively proven to call themselves a real sport and to promote themselves to this end. Likewise they can be proven to have claimed a lineage to real fighting.

Show me

And yes, they crapped on both those legacies, when they released a fighter for being too good.

That got KOd in his last UFC fight

 

[ethanfranklin]

I didn't say it was like a sports league. Once again you fall back comparing it to real sports.

Well if its not a real sport, then we have no argument.

Its been calling itself a real sport for the last 20 years, and Martinez vacated the belt, he wasnt fired. So you are talking doo doo.

Show me



That got KOd in his last UFC fight

Theres no need to show you Dana calling UFC MMA a real sport. Everyone knows he has already.

And so what if Okami got KOd. Its meant to be a combat sport, shit happens.

He was ranked 6th in the division, so its immaterial what you think of him.

---

I got shit to do, but continue to parade your delusions without me.

 

[Emjay]

And who makes that decision..

None of us know

 

[Mikedh]

Well if its not a real sport, then we have no argument.

Its been calling itself a real sport for the last 20 years, and Martinez vacated the belt, he wasnt fired. So you are talking doo doo.

]

He was stripped of a world title because he didn't have fans like JCCjr who was the son a legend and a brawler. It's so painfully obvious you don't follow boxing.

No shit it calls itself a real sport. So does boxing. Combat sports are run different and you can't think of a single example of where to watch combat sports like you are talking about.

 

[Emjay]

Theres no need to show you Dana calling UFC MMA a real sport. Everyone knows he has already.

And so what if Okami got KOd. Its meant to be a combat sport, shit happens.

He was ranked 6th in the division, so its immaterial what you think of him.

I like how you selectively acknowledge Dana White saying one thing but not another.

Rankings don't matter. Dana White said this when the official rankings were introduced. Yet you're trying to make a point off of Okami being ranked 6th like it means something.

 

[phatron]

I like how you selectively acknowledge Dana White saying one thing but not another.

Rankings don't matter. Dana White said this when the official rankings were introduced. Yet you're trying to make a point off of Okami being ranked 6th like it means something.

I really don't get how people don't understand this.

Prize fighting is in large part a popularity contest.

If you attract an audience, then you have an easy time keeping your job.....even if you're boring.

If you keep winning, even though you're boring, you usually keep your job.

If you're boring, and you lose, your job is on the line.

Its pretty easy to understand. I don't see how any of this degrades the sport.....the fans wallets are what the UFC bases their decisions on.

If brad pitt wanted to fight.....I guarantee he would have the most ppv buys ever. It has nothing to do with is fighting skill, merely his popularity. The celebrity boxing shows have had 5-10x more views than any mma event in history.

 

[Mikedh]

That is what it is. Though it isn't necessarily about boring. It is about people wanting to see you fight. Having a fan friendly style can help like Mickey Ward (a B level boxer who is now in the boxing hall of fame and had seven figure paydays) or there can be the chance they don't connect with an audience while being exciting like Sergio Martinez who could not get big fights until his career was nearly over sadly limiting what we have seen from him and the fights we could have watched.

Just like there are fighters who are objectively boring who still have huge fan bases, they still get the big fights, quicker roads to titles. It's not that they are boring, but they find a way to get people to watch them. If you want me to use a UFC example, Randy Couture was objectively boring and had a boring personality but people still liked him for whatever reason and he always got everything. I won't say he was as boring as Okami but the fact that people cared about him added a lot to his fights.

 

[Emjay]

I got shit to do, but continue to parade your delusions without me.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand he taps out

 

[phatron]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand he taps out

more entertaining than any okami fight

 

[The_Renaissance]

Stop crying.

TUF 1/4 finalists earn a pittance and are ideal for sticking on Facebook to open cards. Okami was earning a lot more and they can't justify putting a guy earning that much money, at the bottom of a card.

I can't believe fans still can't wrap their heads around this. If it was up to some fans, the UFC would've gone bankrupt years ago through paying Facebook fighters $20k/$20k and never cutting anybody.

 

[oswald1]

How about no to both? Enough with the Okami support. The guy has never produced a single entertaining fight ever except when he got destroyed by Anderson

 

[Mau]

Another cry baby. Marvellous. Give your salary to him if you're that upset.

 

[Raff01**]

I'm OK with Yushin Okami being cut for the reasons we heard, which is to renew the UFC roster, but then Wanderlei should have already been cut a while ago.
If you cut Okami then you should also cut :
Wanderlei
Shogun
Franklin
BJ
Big Nog
Mir
Kampmann
And several more...

 

[Enigma87]

Stop crying.

TUF 1/4 finalists earn a pittance and are ideal for sticking on Facebook to open cards. Okami was earning a lot more and they can't justify putting a guy earning that much money, at the bottom of a card.

I can't believe fans still can't wrap their heads around this. If it was up to some fans, the UFC would've gone bankrupt years ago through paying Facebook fighters $20k/$20k and never cutting anybody.

This is exactly it. Not only does Okami not entice ppl to buy cards, he is actually a big deterrent if on the main card. If UFC was established as other sports that have been around for a century, they could probably afford to take a hit on a couple boring fighters if they have winning records in the organization.

However Okami has now shown that he will almost never be championship material again, he will stifle exciting up and comers who present new challenges to the champion, and does not bring in revenue (or loses revenue, even) for the UFC.

 

[Loops]

ethan....why are you in the ufc section constantly posting if you seem to have so much disdain for it?

the ufc is a business. it tries to get and sell the "best fighters in the world"....but if you don't sell, then why should they keep you? if you're an employee and you don't have any value, then why should the employer keep you around?

okami will go to the minors and probably win a bunch of decisions against no name fighters that wont get him back into the ufc.....and no one will care. well, maybe his 600 twitter followers will. or if he makes it thru the bellator tourney and beats shlemenko he might be back. but if he hasn't garnered fans in the ufc in 7 years, then its almost a certainty he's not gonna go to the minors and become some huge star.

get over it

You answered your own question because they sell the "best fighters" in the world and yushin was one of them.

Zomg ufc is pro wrestling now wtf... It really does look like it now though, if Dana wanted it to be a legitimate sport he isn't doing a good job, but whatever's good for business is good for business I suppose. He knows what he's going , even he isn't the most likeable character.