but it was so hardcore!

Underboss MMAfia

Head of the West Coast Family
ULTIMATE CHALLENGE CHAMPION UFC 83

Or is Dana the Don King of the MMA world and has a two-handed, white-knuckled, strangle hold on all of the best fighters and available promotions?

Or maybe Dana is not the Don King but simply the King and will use his strangle hold on all the best fighters to provide the fans with all the best matchups because they are all fighting under the same promotional umbrella...thereby providing the fans with the best MMA events in the world, allowing the best fighters to make good money doing what they wanna do and make a money for himself which allows the business to continue to operate and grow. These other guys like to do their best to overpay for top talent only to realize they aren't making enough money to pay them. I don't know about you but if your working for a company that is financially sound and pays you your dollar every time, isn't that better then going somewhere else that promises you two dollars but goes out of business before you get 50 cents.

Then why would he let Tim Silvia and AA go to another promotion when the majority of the 10 best HWs are not even in the UFC...

Honestly, I haven't been that excited about heavyweight when AA and Sylvia were there. Timmy was ridiculously boring and AA has looked lackluster lately.

-The Captain

Here's the thing. You can't duplicate in a year or a few months the time and energy that Dana White has put into making the UFC what it is for the past 7 years.

There's a reason why people think MMA=UFC, because for a long time in this country it pretty much was.

Now other promotions see the opportunity (where it didn't really exist back in 2001) and they're trying to get in on the action. Business is not that simple. You can't substitute for grassroots work. These promotions have not done the grassroots work that the UFC has done.

And, in fact, the UFC is really the only promotion actively working on sanctioning the sport in all the states. But, guess who benefits from that? All the promotions.

I'll call out the UFC when they make a bad move (for example Mir and Nogueira as TUF 8 coaches) but they get mad love from me for what they've done for this sport.

Which fights did AA look lackluster? I thought he looked fantastic in his last fight . The Werdum fight before that was boring... but not every fight can be barn-burner - not to mention he clearly won the fight... and it was more Werdum who didnt engage AA rather than the other way around (and it was scored appropriately). The fight before that was great against Cruz (who defeated Mir before that fight) ended in AA KOing him in the 1st round. AA has 18 total fights... 16 of those 18 have ended in finishes (win or lose), most in the first round with only 2 going to decision (one win, one loss).

Compare that with Big Nog that has 4 of his last 5 fights go to decision (including a decision to Werdum).

Instead of AA he keeps guys like Heath Herring (28-13, last 4 fights were decisions with 11 overall being decisions), Congo (11-4, last four fights all ended in decision), Brandon Vera (8-1, lost his last fight in a convincing lopsided decision to Silvia in which he could do nothing), O'Brien (10-1, but was KO'd by AA in his last fight, won his two prior to that by decision) and probably the next best possible contender besides Mir... Werdum (10-3, 2 of his last 4 are decision losses to both Big Nog and AA). But I guess all is not lost... we still have Brock Lesnar and Mark Coleman (who hasn't won a fight in over 2 years) to look forward to... (hopefully Cain Velasquez will be all that Big Mac predicts).

I hope Dana finds a way to keep AA. He truly was/is one of the few HW's worth watching...the majority of them bore the Heck out of me. The Brock Lesnar/Mark Coleman joke of a headliner aside what is there to honestly get excited about in this weight class. This is the one weight class that has truly been ruined by the "too many leagues" scenerio. Ok boys all the best fighters are fighting in diffrent leagues. Fedor is either afraid to fight in the UFC or too greedy. Randy is trying to pull some power trip with one fight left on his deal (I wish he would just finish his contract and then walk or sign a better one rather then dragging this thing out for years). If he had just taken the next fight offered to him in the UFC it would have been over months ago and the Fedor/Randy fight would be coming up in June. Makes me wonder if Randy really wants to fight Fedor either.

Randy was acting while the contract dispute was going on. He also has ties with AA, so we'll see what happens there. They'll probably both go and fight with Affliction or something. But after some of Dana's comments about "owning" them or whatever can you blame people for leaving? I think AA is a great HW and the UFC needs him in a lackluster division.
Wardog
Legion of Doom