[Centraal] MMA topic #16 Mainstream MMA

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Just three days after defeating Sam Stout at this past Saturday's UFC 83 event in Montreal, veteran fighter and rising lightweight contender Rich Clementi (31-12-1 MMA, 4-3 UFC) has agreed to fill in for an injured Rob Emerson to fight Terry Etim (10-1 MMA, 1-1 UFC) at UFC 84.

The UFC today announced the change for the May 24 card, which takes place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. The organization did not disclose the injury that forced Emerson to pull out of the preliminary-card fight.

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Just prior to March's UFC 82 event, the UFC announced a major deal with Anheuser-Busch, the largest brewing company in the U.S. and the world's biggest spender of sports-marketing dollars.

Today, Tito Ortiz, a UFC light heavyweight who has a well-documented feud with UFC president Dana White, will announce a major sponsorship with Mickey's, which is part of Miller Brewing Company -- and Anheuser-Busch's biggest rival.

MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) was told of the signing by Mickey's executives on Tuesday.

Ortiz has just one fight remaining on his current UFC deal and is expected to leave the organization after a UFC 84 bout with Lyoto Machida.

As part of his deal with Mickey's, the company will develop promotions, events and packaging featuring Ortiz. Mickey's will also work alongside Ortiz's Team Punishment clothing brand for cross-promotional opportunities.

Mickey's had been a longtime sponsor of the UFC, but the partnership ended due to the UFC's deal with Anheuser-Busch and the Bud Light brand. The "Fine Malt Liquor" company had sponsored many UFC fighters and presented a handful of UFC events.

Ortiz, 15-5-1, held the UFC light heavyweight title from April 2000 to September 2003. He remains one of pay per view's top draws and is one of only a few MMA stars to find mainstream success. The 33-year-old, who is currently dating Jenna Jameson, recently appeared on the NBC hit "The Celebrity Apprentice."

A formal announcement of the Ortiz-Mickey's signing is expected later this morning

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In a less-than-dreamy scenario, Fight Entertainment Group's Dream MMA brand has been ousted from primetime television on the Tokyo Broadcasting System.

The change comes after the debut edition of Dream garnered lackluster ratings in a make-or-break scenario for FEG and TBS.

The event grabbed only an 8.9 percent rating average on TBS in primetime, according to Japan's Video Research Ltd. The telecast's peak was a 12.7 for the Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic bout against Tatsuya Mizuno (Pictures), which was edited into the main event slot due to the no-contest debacle in the Shinya Aoki (Pictures)-Gesias Calvancante (Pictures) fight -- the show's true main event. TBS was fifth out of the six major Japanese networks during the time slot, besting only the perennial sixth-place finisher, TV Tokyo.

The ratings were crucial for the primetime continuation of FEG's MMA product. Rumors within the Japanese MMA community surfaced late last year suggesting that TBS could take FEG's Hero's promotion out of primetime due to sagging, lackluster ratings.

Although FEG's restructuring of its MMA program and the invention of Dream were celebrated by hardcore MMA fans, the move was not an altruistic one. Rather, it was an attempt to revitalize FEG's MMA product and ignite interest on television.

TBS is now scheduled to air the forthcoming April 29 Dream card on a week's tape delay in heavily edited one-hour installments. The broadcasts will air both in afternoon and after-midnight timeslots. However, future Dream events will air live on SkyPerfecTV pay-per-view.

The announcement is in no way a death knell for the revamped promotion. Pay-per-view is not a lucrative medium in Japan, though, as it is in North America. Being forced out of primetime does heavily slash advertising revenues for FEG, which will limit the ability for the promotion's growth in the foreseeable future.

For the time being, FEG continues to have television success with its central kickboxing brands, K-1 and K-1 Max. The April 9 K-1 Max telecast on TBS garnered a 12.4 percent rating average in primetime on TBS, and the April 13 K-1 telecast in primetime on Fuji Television scored a 12.8 percent. The only sports programming to score higher thus far in April was the April 5 Nippon Professional Baseball game between the Yomiuri Giants and Hanshin Tigers, which notched a 13.8 rating on NHK.

Despite the disappointing news, there is some measure of a silver lining for hardcore fans. With the shift to pay-per-view, Dream's future events will air unedited, in their entirety. This will resolve the usual griping regarding the heavily edited product created to air in a two-hour primetime television slot, which often leaves many fights unaired or shown only in highlight form. The April 29 Dream pay-per-view telecast is scheduled for roughly six hours of pay-per-view time, broadcasting live from 4:00 p.m. to 9:55 p.m. Tokyo time.

Also, with the shift out of primetime on TBS, the Dream pay-per-view telecast will feature the return of Daisuke Sato, the influential video director who was responsible for the much-celebrated pre-fight promo packages for Pride.

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Op vrijdag 25 april 2008 21:14 schreef roepdeman het volgende:
Vraagje: Stel je voor, je keek weleens naar K-1 en er liep een kerel rond die Jerome LeBanner heette. De finalist van 1995. Toevalligerwijs kwam ene Mirko Filipovic een jaar daarna daar ook eens rondkijken en versloeg de finalist van het jaar daarvoor gewoon in zijn eerste gevecht! de vraag nu luidt: Zou je ze nog eens tegen elkaar willen zien vechten?

Want kennelijk vechten Cro Cop en LeBanner tijdens DREAM 4 tegen elkaar, ja je leest het goed DREAM = MMA rules!