Saturday, October 31 11:40 am PT: Cracking the introverted veneer of notoriously press-shy Dana White, MMA Connected/Sportsnet.ca recently sat down with the UFC president for some conversation-slash-spin. Best bits:
On Dan Henderson: “We offered him a very good contract, that’s more than fair….nobody can pay him what we offered.” Reality Check: Almost certainly true: virtually no promoter is in the position of laying out a contract as generous. Henderson isn’t going anywhere. Meeting with other promotions is the fighter equivalent of stomping your foot: It’s usually just for effect.
With only a week left to introduce CBS viewers to Fedor Emelianenko -- viewers who consider David Caruso dangerous -- CBS and Strikeforce are taking their marketing viral.
There’s this package, which introduces Emelianenko as a fearsome heavyweight and endorsed by Frank Shamrock as the “world’s best.” (Shamrock’s opinion of himself has, understandably, dropped off after losing three of his last four.) This kind of hype has a glass ceiling, as CBS is unable to air any of Emelianenko’s past bouts: the UFC owns all of his PRIDE and Affliction-era footage. You’ll have to take them at their word that the monosyllabic Russian is that good. (Note: He’s pretty good.)
More effective is the footage of Brett Rogers, which casts the challenger as a hard-luck scrapper coming out of obscurity to get a crack at the best. The echoes to “Rocky” are intentional, but Rogers should hope for a different outcome: before that series turned into a comic book, Balboa only managed to go the distance with Apollo Creed.
