MMA & Boxing 17: And NEW

[Davrum]

Bummer for Nate if it doesn't happen, but I'm sure he'd take it in stride.

[Gears of the Beast]

I'm starting to think this Conor McGregor guy might be a promotional genius. 

[Castel]

17 hours ago, dooog said:

Hope this is just hardballing, McGregor is ridiculously entertaining and pretty much the only mma fighter with the pull to bring MMA into the main stream.

 

Have read several things on it but what strikes me is that we've only heard Dana White's story, and he's notorious for being selective with the truth and generally being full of shit. Apart from a couple of puzzling tweets, Conor's side haven't said anything so it's all just speculation flying around that the moment.

Only thing I know for certain is both sides will lose out on a crap tonne load of money if they don't resolve it, so i'd be very surprised if he doesn't fight before year end.

McGregor has put out his story and it's exactly as Dana said. 

 

And you know what? For someone who has used promotion to put his career forward, for someone who has blatantly used his promotional power to force absurd matches like an interim belt when he's totally healthy...the least he can do is promote his fights.

 

So I'm still interested to see both parties take their brinksmanship to the ultimate conclusion. Nuclear annihilation. Crash the card, with no survivors!

[dbunting]

And there it is. McGregor not retiring, just focusing on training and not promoting the fight

[Gears of the Beast]

7 hours ago, Castel said:

McGregor has put out his story and it's exactly as Dana said. 

And you know what? For someone who has used promotion to put his career forward, for someone who has blatantly used his promotional power to force absurd matches like an interim belt when he's totally healthy...the least he can do is promote his fights.

I don't believe Dana's version of events at all. It's kinda funny that the story is that he was pulled from the card for not promoting the fight but Conor has used this situation to the promote the absolute fuck out of that fight. And now he's like 'okay, I've just tripled what you could have done with that 10 million with one tweet, now let's put on a fucking fight'. This is such an intriguing clash because their interests remain aligned throughout all of this. 

[Castel]

2 hours ago, Gears of the Beast said:

I don't believe Dana's version of events at all. It's kinda funny that the story is that he was pulled from the card for not promoting the fight but Conor has used this situation to the promote the absolute fuck out of that fight. And now he's like 'okay, I've just tripled what you could have done with that 10 million with one tweet, now let's put on a fucking fight'. This is such an intriguing clash because their interests remain aligned throughout all of this. 

Nothing Conor has said has in any way contradicted what Dana said? 

Dana specifically said that Conor refused to fly out to do a(apparently seven-figure promo). Conor has not denied that, he affirmed it.

Whether or not his effort at playing hardball has brought publicity is kind of irrelevant to that fact.

I mean, Dana can be a scumbag and you can side with Conor but it's kind of odd to say you don't believe him when you don't seem to have a problem with any of the details he gave.

 

[Gears of the Beast]

56 minutes ago, Castel said:

Nothing Conor has said has in any way contradicted what Dana said? 

As I said their interests remain aligned, it's not in Conor's interests to go full Randy Couture on the UFC. Conor not denying Dana's story doesn't make it any less unbelievable. I'm not really taking sides because I don't know the details, and I actually like Dana a lot. None of this is about Dana being a scumbag - quite simply the UFC clashed with Conor and is winning so far. Which is why Conor's singing the UFC's tune and not the other way around. There is no way they pulled him from the mainevent slot in one of their biggest events because he didn't want to show up to a press conference 3 months out. I'm sure it's true he refused to go, he doesn't have much to deny in that sense but it's not why they pulled him from the card and it's not why he pretended to retire. 

[Calibandar]

So with Conor's new statements, all that needs to be done now is for the UFC to put it back on the map.

He's said he's willing to come a press conference in New Yorl. Let's all not be assholes now and say "ok, you come to New York and that is sufficient, and the fight at UFC 200 goes on as scheduled".

[Castel]

11 hours ago, Gears of the Beast said:

As I said their interests remain aligned, it's not in Conor's interests to go full Randy Couture on the UFC. Conor not denying Dana's story doesn't make it any less unbelievable. I'm not really taking sides because I don't know the details, and I actually like Dana a lot. None of this is about Dana being a scumbag - quite simply the UFC clashed with Conor and is winning so far. There is no way they pulled him from the mainevent slot in one of their biggest events because he didn't want to show up to a press conference 3 months out. I'm sure it's true he refused to go, he doesn't have much to deny in that sense but it's not why they pulled him from the card and it's not why he pretended to retire. 

Well Gears, we have Conor's statements, and Dana's statements which both line up (why would Conor consider offering going to New York later to be an olive branch if the bone of contention wasn't promotion? Why would he say that Dana could spend the promotion money on someone else since he was a free promo?), and an explanation from another fighter of why the retirement clause may be the only way to avoid breaching contract.

And then we have...the admittedly sound common sense idea that Dana wouldn't fuck his main event (though he did it to Diaz-GSP).

I'm just not sure what we do with that. 

 

 

[Gears of the Beast]

25 minutes ago, Castel said:

Well Gears, we have Conor's statements, and Dana's statements which both line up (why would Conor consider offering going to New York later to be an olive branch if the bone of contention wasn't promotion?

Why wouldn't he? I already covered this, he's not looking to try to fuck the UFC, he's simply trying to leverage his position to get whatever it is that he was trying to get. If you've ever listened to him talking about money it makes perfect sense, he thinks he is the company - that the UFC needs him badly. He didn't think they would pull him from UFC 200 and he sure as fuck didn't think that they wouldn't bulge after the threat of retirement but they stood strong and he had nowhere left to go. Dana's story kinda works because there's a shade of truth to it, I'm not sure what you think Conor gets out of denying Dana's story and either countering with his own fiction or telling the truth. Your position seems to be 'how could people with overlapping interests stick to a story if it wasn't the truth?'. 

 Why would he say that Dana could spend the promotion money on someone else since he was a free promo?), and an explanation from another fighter of why the retirement clause may be the only way to avoid breaching contract.

Because he lost! Suddenly he's down a massive payday, his focus now is to cut his losses and get back on UFC 200. Best way to do that is pretty much exactly what he did, go along with the UFC's story --don't piss them off-- but throw the ball back in their court, put pressure on them. I don't see what's no unbelievable about this, it's at least as likely to be true as Dana's ridiculous story... Problem with the retirement clause explanation is that he never retired, he sent a tweet. If he actually did retire then sure, but this would all be moot. As it stands the retirement tweet is much more consistent with my explanation. 

 And then we have...the admittedly sound common sense idea that Dana wouldn't fuck his main event (

though he did it to Diaz-GSP).

I don't really remember this very well but I don't think it's very analogous at all. For one Nick certainly wasn't the UFC's golden boy/star, out of the two of them that would be GSP. Secondly Nick still fought in the mainevent, he just didn't fight GSP. Can you imagine Dana saying 'and your punishment for missing your media obligations is that you can no longer fight Nate Diaz in the mainevent, we've got a new opponent'. No? Not analogous.

 

[TheNorth's1stKnight]

I think the real reason Conor said he wouldn't attend the promos is because he lost. Now that he can't talk trash to Diaz what's he going to say? If he would have beat Diaz we all know he would fly out in a heartbeat and promote this like crazy. In my opinion he's being selfish and a diva. You have an obligation as a fighter to promote your fight that's the bottom line and he's making himself bigger than the sport thinking he should be exempt from all of this because he brought in tons of revenue. I've lost a lot of respect for him after all this and I was a big fan of his. 

[Gears of the Beast]

1 minute ago, TheNorth's1stKnight said:

I think the real reason Conor said he wouldn't attend the promos is because he lost. Now that he can't talk trash to Diaz what's he going to say? If he would have beat Diaz we all know he would fly out in a heartbeat and promote this like crazy. In my opinion he's being selfish and a diva. You have an obligation as a fighter to promote your fight that's the bottom line and he's making himself bigger than the sport thinking he should be exempt from all of this because he brought in tons of revenue. I've lost a lot of respect for him after all this and I was a big fan of his. 

This is a dumb comment. It was his decision to rematch Nate, no-one else wanted his next fight to be a Nate Diaz rematch. He pushed for it and he got it. If he thought losing would hinder his ability to promote the fight to the point that extent (which is not believable in and of itself). Then he would have simply gone with a different fight. 

[Castel]

16 minutes ago, Gears of the Beast said:

Why wouldn't he? I already covered this, he's not looking to try to fuck the UFC, he's simply trying to leverage his position to get whatever it is that he was trying to get. If you've ever listened to him talking about money it makes perfect sense, he thinks he is the company - that the UFC needs him badly. He didn't think they would pull him from UFC 200 and he sure as fuck didn't think that they wouldn't bulge after the threat of retirement but they stood strong and he had nowhere left to go. Dana's story kinda works because there's a shade of truth to it, I'm not sure what you think Conor gets out of denying Dana's story and either countering with his own fiction or telling the truth. Your position seems to be 'how could people with overlapping interests stick to a story if it wasn't the truth?'. 

 

No. My position is: "everyone says this, we can now speculate on why it isn't this but I'm not sure why we need to do that".

 

Everything you say about Conor overestimating his position (or even throwing the UFC an olive branch) could all just as easily be applied to the dominant narrative, without declaring that the dominant narrative is part of a plan to obscure  the real issue by both Conor and the UFC.  

that's the bone of contention here. It's not whether Conor threw the ball back into the UFC's court, it's why he would do such a thing. I'm perfectly willing to believe that, like other fighters he doesn't like doing press, and got fed up and, when this happened, made it public.

Maybe at some point we will see that the dominant narrative is a cover-up and the reason is something like what Chael claimed. For me, just not yet.

Quote

 

I don't really remember this very well but I don't think it's very analogous at all. For one Nick certainly wasn't the UFC's golden boy/star, out of the two of them that would be GSP. Secondly Nick still fought in the mainevent, he just didn't fight GSP. Can you imagine Dana saying 'and your punishment for missing your media obligations is that you can no longer fight Nate Diaz in the mainevent, we've got a new opponent'. No? Not analogous.

 

 

 

 

Nick Diaz was saved by GSP getting injured more than anything. I mean, I suppose Dana can break Nate's leg

 

 

[TheNorth's1stKnight]

4 minutes ago, Gears of the Beast said:

This is a dumb comment. It was his decision to rematch Nate, no-one else wanted his next fight to be a Nate Diaz rematch. He pushed for it and he got it. If he thought losing would hinder his ability to promote the fight to the point that extent (which is not believable in and of itself). Then he would have simply gone with a different fight. 

Well he probably thought he could take the Diaz fight and not promote because he's brought in so much money for the UFC. Conor should have never taken this fight to begin with. He made a mistake by not defending his belt. Fighting Aldo or Edgar made more sense and he woulda been  able to at least talk trash to Aldo.

[Castel]

Now Nate is saying he will only fight McGregor which Ariel seemingly obliquely attributes to a face-saving maneuver by Dana.

Either way, it's a money saving maneuver by Nate, he will probably push for more money either way.

This drama is amazing. I hope Dana doesn't crack yet so we can stretch it out between now and the next few Game of Thrones episodes cause most of the TV I watch has ended.

He probably will though.

[Gears of the Beast]

6 hours ago, Castel said:

No. My position is: "everyone says this, we can now speculate on why it isn't this but I'm not sure why we need to do that".

Well the response would be because Dana's story make so godamn sense. As I outlined, I'll admit it's a good point that if what I think is true why wouldn't Conor just show up to this press conference, the answer is I don't know. But if you watched that press conference I don't know how you think Dana's not lying, it was almost cringe inducing how obvious it was. You've got Nate Diaz still there for some reason, he directly contradicts Dana the first opportunity he gets. Ariel's just like "so......if Conor wants to fight, Nate wants the fight, everyone wants to see the fight....why isn't there a fight...?" And Dana's just like 'well that wouldn't be fair to all the fighters up here, some of them flew in from New Jersey'. Who flew in to 1 press conference 3 months away from the fight. What absurdity. Do you know how much more money and exposure each of those fighters gets with Conor on the card? You think one of them gives one single fuck about him missing a press conference? Moreover you think Dana's been gripped by a sudden need to be "fair" to all his fighters? That's not the Dana we all know and love/hate. And the the question about beaming him in via satellite lol, "Would that be fair!? How would that be fair, look at these fighters -- there's even some Brazilians!?!" You think a guy that will so readily capitulate to Conor that he'd give him this fight in the first place would pull him from the card over this? I don't know what else to say. I obviously don't know the details and could be wrong about any number of things but there is obviously a lot more going on here. 

[Calibandar]

I atcually think Dana white is not full of it here and that what he is saying is the true story.

McGregor's statement from yesterday simply confirms what the issue is. 

Which is not to say I don't understand what Connor is getting at, I have sympathy for his story and understand that he now really wants to focus on training after the loss. And indeed, offering to come to New York after all is an olive branch to White. What needs to happen now is for the UFC to say the game is back on. Which is what the UFC wants, what Connor very clearly wants, and certainly what the fans want. Anything other than that will be a massive, massive fuck up.

[-Ghost-]

I think there's either something else that caused this or its all just a publicity stunt and Conor and Nate will still fight at 200. If it was a planned thing, it worked tremendously. Conor being the only person that wanted this rematch and then all this stuff happening out of nowhere just seems really off.

[Castel]

1 hour ago, Gears of the Beast said:

Well the response would be because Dana's story make so godamn sense. As I outlined, I'll admit it's a good point that if what I think is true why wouldn't Conor just show up to this press conference, the answer is I don't know. But if you watched that press conference I don't know how you think Dana's not lying, it was almost cringe inducing how obvious it was. You've got Nate Diaz still there for some reason, he directly contradicts Dana the first opportunity he gets. Ariel's just like "so......if Conor wants to fight, Nate wants the fight, everyone wants to see the fight....why isn't there a fight...?" And Dana's just like 'well that wouldn't be fair to all the fighters up here, some of them flew in from New Jersey'. Who flew in to 1 press conference 3 months away from the fight. What absurdity. Do you know how much more money and exposure each of those fighters gets with Conor on the card? You think one of them gives one single fuck about him missing a press conference? Moreover you think Dana's been gripped by a sudden need to be "fair" to all his fighters? That's not the Dana we all know and love/hate. And the the question about beaming him in via satellite lol, "Would that be fair!? How would that be fair, look at these fighters -- there's even some Brazilians!?!" You think a guy that will so readily capitulate to Conor that he'd give him this fight in the first place would pull him from the card over this? I don't know what else to say. I obviously don't know the details and could be wrong about any number of things but there is obviously a lot more going on here. 

The Dana we know and hate is quite concerned with imposing his will, so him using fighters as a smokescreen or justification is not a surprise at all. He'd use it for whatever cause he was pushing for.

 

Not to mention that Dana stated that Conor would fight at FW and now he's at WW all of a sudden, the Dana we know and hate also snaps (losing his shit at Schaub, Stitch, cutting Fitch, threatening to cut Cain and his entire gym, sandbagging GSP for wanting a break and trying to eviscerate the Nevada State Athletic Commission for not having Hendricks beat GSP and thus perhaps keep Georges around or whatever his reasons). Maybe it was one concession to Conor too many. Maybe, in his mind, if he wants a WW fight he can damn well come over and promote it. 

But I feel like we're just going to keep going in circles. There could absolutely be more here. It's just kind of moot to me really. The major bones of contention we have anything concrete to discuss on the sidelines are the ones we've gotten from Dana and Conor. 

Until Ariel or someone drops something that goes beyond this being a pissing match I don't even know what to say on the supposed greater issue y'know?

1 hour ago, -Ghost- said:

I think there's either something else that caused this or its all just a publicity stunt and Conor and Nate will still fight at 200. If it was a planned thing, it worked tremendously. Conor being the only person that wanted this rematch and then all this stuff happening out of nowhere just seems really off.

I don't think this is a publicity stunt but that's because I hate the "all publicity is good publicity" school of thought.

You want promos, but you don't want promos that are centered around you being incompetent at either meeting the needs of your fighters or controlling them, especially since everyone in and out of your industry will watch you capitulate. It's like the old internet meme of just pretending to be mentally impaired; it doesn't matter after a certain point.

Conor may have meant it as a promo after he and Dana reached and impasse, but I don't think that Dana would sit down with him and set something like this up. The UFC does nudge things but it's a bit WWE.

[Gears of the Beast]

Welp Benson Henderson juts got utterly dominated, I've never seen Koreshkov fight before but he's fucking legit.