1. Anderson Silva’s two top dream contenders are out. Lindland has signed with a promotion to face nobody because UFC has no interest. He is a top contender they could do SOMETHING with, even if he isn’t a draw. The second is Paulo Filho, who will stay in WEC. He and Silva simply refuse to fight, as they train together and are countrymen. I don’t get this as I’d fight anyone for the right price even if I lived in the same house as them. If you’re a fighter, you fight, right? Guess not.
2. To me UFC should market GSP and Silva as unstoppable and try to get anyone and everyone like the Lindlands in to face him, get knocked out, and try to get rid of them (the Arloski booking pre-CBS deal). If that CBS deal takes off Frank Shamrock will use it to try to spotlight his last name and his mic skills. UFC should lay out a grandstand challenge to combat this.
3. Staunch MMA purist writers (like Josh Gross and TJ Desantis) are missing the boat by failing to gain perspective through constant trial and error by MMA promoting they themselves report on. This block of thinkers/fans/MMA ideologists will never REALLY be true MMA opinion setters because they’ll only appeal to those who want to feel like the intellectual snobs of the MMA fanbase. It’s not that they are dumb, they just don’t WANT to see it as business or promotion. They don’t care to believe people want to see Lesnar and Kimbo. They can’t understand why people wouldn’t care about pretend rankings from a website. They are so called “purists”, and sport and entertainment don’t traditionally mix well in their minds.
I’ve heard them talk about Frank Shamrock. They talked about his legacy and what it is and what it could be. They talk about Frank making crazy claims about being the greatest of all time now and forever. These writers and radio hosts take claims like Shamrocks’ not only at face value, but they take the idea he would say it very seriously. They talk about a fight with Anderson Silva and what it could mean to both.
The truth is that fight will not ever happen because Shamrock isn’t a mark. A mark is generally used as a derogatory term in Pro Wrestling, but it applies to MMA as well. A mark in MMA gets wrapped up in legacy, purist fantasies, and rankings. He takes less money to travel the globe and become some pretend website pound-for-pound unified champ to bask in the glory of blog writer opinions and photographer admirations.
Shamrock, on the other hand, knows he’s got a finite few years to make the most money possible putting together the most marketable fights and promoting them with his mouth. It’s irrelevant if it is the best match nup or settles anything concrete in terms of title or rank. It’s about selling compelling fighters and an intriguing match up to the most people whether they see MMA as a sport, Ultimate Fighting, or a human cock fight. He wants the most money for the least work, though he’ll work quite hard to do it. I applaud him. takes the millions and walk away with your health.
Josh Gross’ idea (I’ll unfairly single him out) of a legacy or his website’s pretend rankings only mean something to less than 100 thousand fickle people with no perspective. Those people aren’t purists. They’re fantasy puppet masters. Frank Shamrock is a businessman.
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I do still love MMA and have...
