The Heat and the Shine

FACT OR FICTION: ROH, TNA and Destination America By Ben Miller Oh, what a great time of year.  Baseball is in full swing, motion-enabled comics are packing the theaters and middling pro wrestling companies are eating up the news cycles.  What does that mean for you, loyal readers? Why, it means that it is time for another edition of Fact or Fiction (a.k.a Coors Light Cold Hard Facts [because Bud Light doesn't pay me]).   Past discussions of Facts (not actual facts) and Fictions (more predictions and speculation, really), concerned  UFC's business decline in mid-2014  (boy, was I wrong on that one),  cable & satellite providers' distaste for WWE Network  (three out of four correct; much better) and  UFC drug testing  (the verdict is still out on that one).   The gimmick of "Fact or Fiction" is that I present four  straw men  statements, and then determine/predict whether the statement is factual or not....

On March 28, 2013, UFC and Fox Sports were married.  That wasn't the day that UFC announced that it was leaving Spike TV.  It wasn't the day that Can Velasquez fought Junior Dos Santos in the first UFC fight on national, broadcast television in the United States.  It was the day that Fox Sports 1 was announced.  For better or for worse -- mostly for worse -- the two have been married ever since. Fox needed big sports properties to create Fox Sports 1.  UFC was not Fox's largest cable sports property -- that would be college football -- but UFC was essential.  UFC was young, cool -- not it's peak of cool, but close enough -- and singular.  UFC fans would follow UFC wherever it went, or so it was assumed.  (The amazing audience for Chael Sonnen's fight on Fox Sports 1's first night was evidence of that.)  UFC provided volume content -- Ultimate Fighter, live events, hype specials, fighter profiles -- which is extraordinarily valuable when la...

It was all going well for about thirty seconds.  The heavily favored champion circled the challenger.  No serious strikes were thrown, but the expectation was clear: the champion would find a way -- via submission or standing -- to outclass a man who had been beaten several times before. Then the shot hit.  One shot to the head; cleaner than it was supposed to be.  The heavily favored champion would get hit, and he would not recover.  Not on that night; not in his career. The champion was Antonio Rodrigo "Minotauro" Nogueira.  He came into his fight on December 27, 2008 as the most resilient of champions.  He left as a shot fighter who would be finished four more times in his next seven fights. The story of Minotauro has become a sad one.  Twelve years ago today (but not tomorrow, as he lost decisively to a young Fedor Emelianenko on March 16, 2003) he was one of the two most admired fighters in MMA history (with Kazushi Sakuraba being the ...

It is time for another edition of Coors Light Cold Hard Facts (because Bud Light doesn't pay me).  Past discussions of Facts (not actual facts) and Fictions (more predictions and speculation, really), concerned UFC's business decline in mid-2014  (boy, was I wrong on that one) and   cable & satellite providers' distaste for WWE Network  (three out of four correct; much better).  The discussion centers on UFC again, but this time to discuss a topic that bridges business and competition: UFC fighters failing drug tests. Fact or Fiction: UFC business is being hurt by recent drug test failures Fiction.  (At least for now.) There are two angles for looking at the effect of drug test failures on UFC business: losing fights and alienating fans.  They obviously haven't lost any fights yet.  (Though World Series of Fighting -- and has there ever been a successful sports venture besides baseball [and poker is not a sport] to use "World Series...

A void exists.  And voids don't last.  Either the void will be filled or the void will go away.  But voids don't last. The void is in the wrestling business.  The demand of fans and ex-fans for a more intelligent, grounded product has no supply to feed from.  WWE can't or won't give up scripted promos and "invisible camera" segments.  Lucha Underground is a fine product, but it's more television than wrestling.  Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG) thrills local fans in Los Angeles, but their goal has never been to go mainstream.  Surely there are other contenders, but none that have caught on.  And so the void continues. Voids cannot last because eventually the demand dries up.  People move on.  Fans become fans of something else.  How many have moved on to MMA or fantasy football or something else altogether?  But wrestling's void persists.  A hardcore fanbase and an intransigent monarch have sustained it. Nigel McG...

Have you ever been told, “you suck”?  You probably have.  Maybe recently.  It is never pleasant and it always causes conflict. When you are great at something, being told, “you suck,” usually means little.  You accept the words, consider the source and move on.  It causes a reaction.  It makes you wish ill towards the person who told you, “you suck,” if only for a moment, but it doesn’t stick.  They suck.  They can’t touch you.  You know it.  They’re not worth it. But what if you’ve never been told, “you suck”?  What if you were a child prodigy who made the state finals in his first year?  What if you won three state championships in high school?  (Think about that.)  What if you won two national championships in junior college, and were a Division I (the highest level of amateur wrestling in the United States) All-American your senior year? What if you were an Olympian? What if you competed for World Champio...

Critics of UFC's decision to sign CM Punk are in an unassailable position.  They are right.  Signing CM Punk would be similar to a Major League Baseball team signing Nelly.  Punk's signing does alienate fighters; especially those on the border of UFC and the lessor fight promotions.  The move is -- at least in part -- a publicity stunt.  There is no way to counter these arguments.  Calling Punk's ESPN "car wash" a PR win is pointless to someone who wants to watch great fights.  Supposing that Punk's first pay-per-view will draw a great buyrate matters not to someone who's had to argue whether MMA is a real sport.  UFC decision makers have hurt the public's ability to accept MMA as a sport.  The detractors have that argument won. All is not lost, however.  UFC and CM Punk can still make the best of things.  They can still make a lot of money in the short term (the short-term money argument, of course, is the argument that proponents ...