Saitamma - Super MMA!

Wednesday 13 February 2008

New in Japan

Following Zuffa's acquisition of Pride FC last April, the UFC would have expected to have become the premier global MMA brand. With its forays into the UK market (UFCs 70,72, 75 and 80) and Canada (UFC83), the UFC certainly does have the largest global presence of all the MMA players, consistently producing profitable events and expanding its business. But what it lacks is a significant presence in the Japanese and East Asian markets. The acquisition of Pride looked to be a step in that direction as it appeared to give Zuffa access to Pride's fighters, administrators and highlight-reel-rich back catalogue. Any business school student could probably tell you that when one company acquires another, securing the services of the acquired firm's talent is vital for long-term success. While it's understandable that Zuffa was unable to secure the services of many of Pride's fighters because they had non-exclusive contracts, it's remarkable that they (apparently) didn't acquire the services of many of the former staffers of Pride or its parent group, Dream Stage Entertainment.

Instead, many of those staffers went on to produce Yarennoka!, a New Year's Eve show in collaboration with Fight Entertainment Group (FEG), DEEP and M-1 Global (more info here on Wikipedia). Hailed as a parting thank you from DSE executives, it provided more questions than answers. Now many of those questions have been answered, as we now know that two rival MMA organisations have been created - World Victory Road (WVR) and Dream. While WVR is a solo venture, Dream appears to be the heir to Yarennoka! as it sees collaboration between many former Pride staff and K-1 parent company, FEG. Each has announced that it's first events will be March - WVR's Sengoku on March 5th and Dream's as-yet-unnamed event on March 15th. The Sengoku card is coming together nicely so far, combining a number of tried-and-tested former Pride fighters with some newish faces (incl Josh Barnett vs Hidehiko Yoshida, Takanori Gomi vs Duane Ludwig, Kazuo Misaki vs Siyar Bahadurzada). Meanwhile, Dream has announced that the Dream 1 card will include the Shinya Aoki - JZ Calvancanti fight that was originally slated for Yarennoka! (but postponed when JZ suffered an injury), along with the return to Japan of Mirko Cro Cop. While Dream is basically a rebranding of K-1 Heroes, the addition of further heavyweight talent such as Cro Cop to its roster is a welcome addition to the depth it's had in the lower weight classes.

The emergence of WVR and Dream is certainly good news for fight fans. How this pans out for the two new organisations may well depend on whether they work together or not. While their focus is definitely on the Japanese (and to a lesser extent, Korean) market, the standard of the fighters on display will be of interest to a global audience. Whether they attempt to establish a global presence remains to be seen. What is clear is that in missing the opportunity to push the UFC brand into Japan or continue to promote Pride shows, Zuffa appears to have made a strategic mistake in allowing these two new ventures to gain a foothold in the Japanese market.

Monday 11 February 2008

The Big Comeback

Continuing on with the previous statistical analysis of fighters from TUF, I turn my attention to the fighters from Season 4: The Comeback. As we previously saw, fighters from this season have the worst win-loss record of those in all of the seasons (in aggregate). Here we compare the UFC fortunes of fighters both before and after the show aired. The table below summarises their record, first overall, then pre-TUF4, then Post-TUF4 and then with results from the season finale removed (when 14 of the fighters fought each other). For quick identification, table elements are colour-coded to highlight the perfect records (1.000=dark green), winning records (better than 0.500=green), neutral records (0.500=yellow), losing records (less than 0.500=orange) and complete losses (0.0=dark red).

Fighter

UFC Record

Pre-TUF

Post-TUF

Minus Season Finale

Age

Edwin DeWees

0.00 (3)

0.00 (2)

0.00 (1)

(0)

25

Pete Sell

0.20 (5)

0.50 (2)

0.00 (3)

0.00 (2)

25

Jeremy Jackson

0.00 (2)

0.00 (1)

0.00 (1)

(0)

27

Charles McCarthy

0.50 (2)

0.00 (1)

1.00 (1)

(0)

27

Patrick Côté

0.43 (7)

0.00 (3)

0.75 (4)

1.00 (3)

27

Scott Smith

0.25 (4)

0.00 (1)

0.33 (3)

0.00 (2)

28

Rich Clementi

0.50 (6)

0.00 (1)

0.60 (5)

0.75 (4)

30

Din Thomas

0.63 (8)

0.50 (4)

0.75 (4)

0.67 (3)

31

Chris Lytle

0.36 (11)

0.33 (6)

0.40 (5)

0.50 (4)

33

Matt Serra

0.60 (10)

0.50 (8)

1.00 (2)

1.00 (1)

33

Mikey Burnett

0.67 (3)

0.67 (3)

(0)

(0)

33

Gideon Ray

0.00 (3)

0.00 (2)

0.00 (1)

(0)

34

Travis Lutter

0.40 (5)

0.33 (3)

0.50 (2)

0.00 (1)

34

Shonie Carter

0.50 (6)

0.60 (5)

0.00 (1)

0.00 (1)

35

Jorge Rivera

0.50 (8)

0.40 (5)

0.67 (3)

0.50 (2)

35

Pete Spratt

0.43 (7)

0.50 (4)

0.33 (3)

0.00 (2)

37

Overall

0.42 (90)

0.37 (51)

0.49 (39)

0.48 (25)


who have a better As expected, given that this season has such an overall low winning percentage, there are few fighters with better than 0.500 records. Overall, only Din Thomas, Matt Serra and Mikey Burnett fall into this category. Of these three, Mikey Burnett didn't fight after TUF4 (where his performance didn't suggest that he'd do well), but both Thomas and Serra improved from even records to be positive. It is only these two fighters, along with Rich Clementi and Patrick Côtéthan evens record since the TUF4 season finale (though Serra has only had one fight, what a fight it was to win!). It appears that these four fighters have best taken the opportunity that appearing on TUF4 provided, to improve their competitiveness, while Chris Lytle and Jorge Rivera are also doing but to a much more marginal degree - they've improved to evens records at present.

What is really interesting though is the ages of the fighters that have been more successful. It's the fighters who are now aged 27-33 who are performing best - those younger have fallen by the wayside, has have those who are older (with the exception of Rivera). This suggests that the currently successful fighters have (1) the necessary mental, physical and emotional maturity that some of the younger fighters may not have, (2) the drive and ambition that some of the older fighters lack, and (3) the ability to add new dimensions to their game that the older, more one-dimensional fighters lack. It's on that basis that I think Charles McCarthy in his return to the Octagon at UFC83 against Michael Bisping might do much better than most predict.

やれんのか!大晦日!2007 Supported by M-1 GLOBAL