bigg jay

Anthony Allen

Cornish

Sometimes people just want to take a swing at an athlete. Hell I remember hearing stories in Brandon about people trying to take a swing at the tough guys on the Wheat Kings just to try and prove a point. Kane has a reputation as a tough hockey player, maybe this guy figured he either gets to brag about how he took a swing at Kane and Kane pussed out, or he gets his ass kicked and he sues this prick of a hockey player for assault. Yes thats possible but thats actually pretty rare. Plus, this guy was identified as an employee. The fact they knew each other to at least a minor extent raises the suspicion level in my mind. I dont get the "ring of truth" from Kane's story. It could just be that this guy saw an opportunity to make some cash. Maybe he sees Kane in the bar a few times flashing cash and being the d-bag that he was rumored to be while in clubs here, and decides to provoke a confrontation (outside the bar where there are no cameras of course). It then becomes his word against Kane's (which could be why the cops didn't press charges) in a civil suit where he gets to use Kane's reputation against him. His worst case scenario is he takes a couple lumps and the best case scenario is that he wins his court case (or gets an out-of-court settlement) and cashes in. How's that for motivation?

They updated the website. practice is from 9:30-11:30 tomorrow

Do you think part of the drop in numbers is tied to the drop in popularity of the WWE since the Attitude Era? I always felt the local wrestling scene has always had too many people who would rather be a big fish in a small pond. They could be a mid-card guy on a good show or be a "champion" in front of 30 ten year olds at a community club.

If you're looking to make a living (either as a fighter or promoter) from mma, it's next to impossible. I know of very few fighters (and even less promoters) who are outside the ufc/bellator and are able to do it. Winnipeg has the lowest cost in the country (at least as far as commission fees go) and promotions still struggle here.

Thanks for that... good reading! I'm familiar enough with the local wrestling scene ( I have a few different ties to it) that I remember Severn being brought in... and Ernie putting himself over if I remember correctly! That gong show is a whole different story though! The local commission back then was a mess too so I'm not suprised there were issues. When Condello was running shows a few years ago, he ran into issues when he started intermingling wrestling angles during the events (having masked guys "arm wrestling" which ends with one guy going through a table comes to mind). It would have been interesting to see if it would have worked. There's certainly a need for a local promotion nowadays. The last promotion to do it regularly was CFC and their promoter seems to have called it quits.

I'd love to hear more about what you had in mind. One of the problems that existed for a nation-wide promotion (and still does to an extent) in the past was that MMA was not legal across Canada. The Criminal Code of Canada left prize fighting to be a provinicial matter but the wording technically only allowed for boxing. It was a grey area that was updated with a new bill last year but still left it up to the individual provinces to regulate it. Previous to that, some provinces (ie Saskatchewan) would not even touch it until the Feds addressed it 1st. Other provinces came on board recently after extensive lobbying from the UFC (ie Ontario in 2011). The commissions themselves are another story altogether. Some places (Ontario & BC) are so expensive that unless you are the UFC or Bellator, it's next to impossible to make a profit (even a small one). Other commissions like Quebec & Edmonton (Alberta has left it up to the individual municipalities to form their own commissions) are notorious for either not following their own rules or creating new ones on the fly. Saskatchewan is currently setting up their commission so there still hasn't been pro mma there yet. I don't know much about the maritimes other than it's not legal in some places (like PEI) and other places (New Brunswick) are also in the process of creating a provincial commission. A mma version of the CFL would be great, and I'm sure other promoters have considered it... I'm just curious as to how you would have gone about it.

It was sarcasm (hence the ). Puder definitely took advantage of the situation and I don't blame Angle for not tapping since it was not a straight up fight. That being said, being too stubborn to tap isn't something new and usually doesn't end well for the guy who refuses to tap. Most guys like that end up admitting they should have tapped and would do things differently if they could do it over again. But like I said, in that case, I don't blame him. I would have been furious if that were me and I doubt I'd be thinking rationally. Also there's no guaranteed that the outcome would have been different . There have been gold medal wrestlers who have been submitted (and quickly!) before.

Angle would have been great in UFC. Just as good (if not better) a ground wrestler than Lesnar but a lot smarter and he would have learned to avoid and/or deflect strikes - something Lesnar couldn't do. Kurt would probably have countered submissions better but thats just speculation. Daniel Puder would disagree!

Kimbo was a no-lose situation for the UFC. Dana didn't expect much from him other than a pop in the ratings (which is what he got) but if he actually succeeded then they had themselves a new star who already had some fame to him. When he lost, Dana was able to say that he was just a an internet sensation who didn't have the overall skills needed to hang in MMA. It's the same reason why they signed James Toney... if he beat Couture, then they have a famous multiple time world boxing champ to boost ratings but when he lost (specifically with how he lost) they said it proved what they were saying about mma vs boxing since day 1.

Here's a good list of MMA ppv numbers since 2006. If you can find a cycle in there I'd love to know where. At a quick glance, it looks fairly steady except for a few spikes when they have a big main event (ie Lesnar vs Couture). http://mmapayout.com/blue-book/pay-per-view/

The UFC is 21 years old... not my definition of a long long time by any stretch of the imagination. The reason why it seemed to peak a few years ago was because prior to Dana White & the Fertita brothers spending years and about 40 million to start changing perceptions about the sport, it was banned by most states and most ppv providers. They called it the "dark ages" of mma for a reason. It was next to impossible for most fans to watch the sport back then. Lumping Kimbo (UFC debut in late 2009) in with the Shamrock/Gracie era (both debuted at UFC 1 in 1993) is laughable.

It's not a shot at Lesnar, just a fact that his striking game was not at the level needed to compete with guys like that. Considering the age he started at and how long he trained for, he did very well. He's a legit freak of nature, athletically speaking, he just got into the game too late.

This! Apparently, when he was training MMA, he'd never let his sparring partners use strikes to the head (he would tee off on them though) and it showed in his fights. A lot of pro wrestlers would have gone the MMA route (at least initially) if that had been an option when they started out. The Undertaker has said he would definitely tried his hand at it.

I dont think Brock will go back. But you can't under-estimate his desire. He's driven by two things: money and pride. And he will sacrifice one for the other. He hates how his UFC career ended and was very sick and unable to train the way he wanted. He's much better now and I think thats what drives him a bit. But theres little upside. He makes a lot of money now to work very limited dates with virtually no injury risk. I don't think Brock will come back either. As much as he didn't like the way his last UFC run finished, I don't see him doing much better if there is a next time. A rubber match with Frank Mir would be his best fight. You can only protect a guy so long in that sport, even they gave him a couple easier fights, eventually he'd get put in with a top guy like Cain Velasquez and it wouldn't be pretty. Rousey has already started to go Hollywood but she loves to fight so who knows how long she'll stick around. Jones isn't going anywhere, he makes a ton of coin in the UFC (last year he made more than both his NFL playing brothers combined). He might get some Randy Couture type films (The Expendables) as a part time guy but he'll never be a main attraction.

There were rumors that the WWE was a possible buyer for the UFC when Zuffa was looking at selling. The rumors also said that Zuffa wasn't keen on that because they wanted to avoid the Bellator/TNA situation with the cross-over stuff. The last thing they wanted after dumping 40 million into legitimizing MMA, is to have them doing worked fights. Their definitely have been more MMA-orientated submissions that you did not see prior to the UFC (triangle chokes, gogoplatas, etc). Part of the reason they don't translate well is because they can't be properly applied in the WWE without potentially doing real damage or actually choking someone out.

The WWE promoting the UFC certainly helped but I don`t see it being a major factor in their success either. It was mutually beneficial for both sides to be friendly with each other (and it still is). Like BVD said, free fights on TV was huge for them. They took a gamble with The Ultimate Fighter (they paid Spike to air their show the 1st season rather than the network paying them like Fox does now) and it paid off big time.

If it was on Spike, then it was Bellator (they're owned by Spike's parent company Viacom). They are the biggest MMA company after the UFC but aren't really competition for them. They have some decent fighters but haven't been able to really create any big stars. Their most well-known fighters are washed-up UFC guys (Tito Ortiz & Rampage Jackson). If Viacom ever wanted to pull a page out of Ted Turner's playbook & poach some top UFC guys, they might be able to really give the UFC a run for their money.

There are so many problems with the UFC right now that it would take for ever to go through them. I agree that they are getting to the point of over-saturation. As an example, between May 10th and June 28th, there are 8 events, with them having 2 events on the same day twice. How they expect people to watch/follow that is beyond me. With roughly 500 fighters under contract, you can barely keep up with who's who. When they did 5-6 events a year they had time to properly build up the event and the fighters. It was "must watch tv" for a lot of fans & you could plan around ppv's. Now, there's no way you could do that, unless your life involves only your couch & tv.

Buff is apparently doing well as a male escort these days. A little easier on the body I guess (depending on the size of the client!).

There have been a number of legitimate broadcasters/media people involved in the business. Some examples off the top of my head would be: Ed Whalen - He was just the voice of Stampede Wrestling to me when I was growing up, I had no idea until much later on that he also worked for the Flames for years. Joe Aiello - his radio career took off here in Winnipeg after doing TV for Tony Condello. Jeff Marek, formerly of Hockey Night in Canada, started out by creating an Live Audio Wrestling (an internet radio program).

Given the recent loss Matt Stajan suffered with his newborn, I can't see how anyone could blame Ladd for wanting to be there.

Tacklewasher & KBF were the ones talking about Carl's Jr so I'm guessing they were referring to Kelowna not Winnipeg... but if I'm wrong, somebody please correct me so I can go check it out!

That was Papa George's on Osborne. It just closed down recently. My favourite pizza is from Dal's in Transcona.