(Yep, that’s Matt Phinney, a.k.a Michael “Fedor on Zeus’s shoulders” Bisping, featured in the one and only episode of “The Fighters.” Photo via Discovery.)

One of the smaller takeaways from Dana White’s near-meltdown at a press luncheon last week was the unfortunate news that his boxing-focused reality show, The Fighters, pulled in “fucking horrendous” numbers for its premiere episode (Ed note: Yeah, seems to be a lot of that going around). And indeed, when a show pulls in just 385,000 viewers on a channel that regularly gets over a million people to watch Amish Mafia, it’s safe to say that it is failing to find its target audience.

To be cancelled after one episode, though? That’s harsh, son. But that is also the reality of The Fighters, as boxing coach Peter Welsh and producer Craig Piligian confirmed yesterday that the show is dunzo via Twitter, stating, “Sorry to say it has. Such a great show, we hope to get it on an audience appropriate network.”

Wait, you mean to tell me that sasquatch-hunting aficionados can’t *also* appreciate a gritty show centered around the lives of struggling, Boston-based fighters? Or is the Bigfoot show the History channel’s doing? All I know is that reality television is a bottomless pit of despair and so are the people who choose to watch it. Except for Bar Rescue, obviously.Jon Taffer is cleaning up this cesspool of a country one speakeasy at a time and deserves our praise for it.

The Fighters now joins the ranks of such one-hit wonders as Heil Honey I’m Home, Co-Ed Fever, and Public Morals to never reach a second episode. Honestly, all of those other shows sound far more interesting than The Fighters, but I’m also a sucker for comedies about Hitler. 

(Photo via Getty.)

By Thomas Anderson

“We also do cut-glass sherry decanters complete with six glasses on a silver-plated tray that your butler can serve you drinks on, all for £4.95. People say, ‘How can you sell this for such a low price?’ I say, ‘Because it’s total crap!’”

These were the famous words of business mogul Gerald Ratner at a 1991 institute of directors meeting. At the time he was the self-made owner of one of the world’s richest jewellery companies. By 1992 he had been deposed by his board of directors and the firm had all but collapsed.

Branding and image are everything in business; the quality of the product is second to the perception of that product. Ratner knew this only too well; he had built his entire business model on observations he had made as a boy in London’s street markets. It wasn’t the stall owners with the juiciest fruit and the freshest fish that dominated the sales; it was the ones with the loudest voices and the most tempting offers, the charming patter and the natural rapport. Yet in his folly he insulted not only his own products but the people who bought them. He laughed in the faces of those who made him rich and expected them to carry on filling his pockets. He thought he could play them for fools forever, but the man in the street is not so easily mocked and very soon Ratner was doomed.

Dana White’s words after UFC 169 and after a number of recent events brought this cautionary tale clearly to mind. Alistair Overeem’s clinical and ruthless domination of former champion Frank Mir led to a lopsided and well deserved decision win. He out struck Mir 139-5 in total strikes and 67-3 in significant strikes. When asked his opinion at the post-fight scrum White described the performance as ‘crappy.’ Not quite ‘total crap’ but well on the way.

(Just another day in the life of boring, gunshy Jose Aldo. Photo via Getty)

By Jared Jones

I know the title of this article has likely already branded me as a “UFC hater” in many of your eyes and invalidated whatever points of merit I may make, but if the MMA media is so insistent on clinging to Dana White’s every word, there needs to be a system of checks and balances in order here.

Following last weekend’s lackluster-at-best UFC 169, the UFC President was understandably frustrated. With a “10-decision, record-breaking catastrophe” of a card topped off by a controversial title fight in the books, it would be hard to fault White for dismissing a few questions that night in the fear of saying something stupid or potentially damaging about one of his employees, especially given how poorly his burial of Georges St. Pierre following UFC 167 was received.

If only White had the impulse control.

Because rather than hang back and let some of the fighters themselves explain why the fights were so underwhelming, White decided to shame two of the fighters on the card LEAST deserving of criticism: Alistair Overeem and Jose Aldo.

First, he told FS1 that Overeem had “a crappy performance” in what was “not a great night for Alistair.” Alistair Overeem, who had just outworked, outgrappled, and outstruck a former UFC champion 139 to 5, had a “crappy performance.” One-hundred thirty-nine to five.

Of course Overeem’s callout of Brock Lesnar was stupid and pointless. Of course it was. But White’s criticism of Overeem’s damn near flawless victory was far more unwarranted than some harmless little threat. It was lunacy.

(Dana White called UFC 169 a “10-decision, record-breaking catastrophe.” / Photo via Getty)

By Matt Saccaro

To say the UFC had an off night with UFC 169 would be an understatement. True, the card was record-breaking, but in the worst way possible. It featured more fights ending in a decision than any other fight card in UFC history. So many fights going to the judges isn’t a result of just bad luck. There are a few factors at play when a fight goes to a decision.

First, the fighters could be so evenly matched they either complement or negate one another. The former can result in a match like Dan Henderson vs. Shogun Rua or, to delve further into MMA’s past, Tyson Griffin vs. Clay Guida. The latter kind a fight—one between negating styles of equally matched fighters—results in any dime-a-dozen decision that features long bouts of stalling against the cage or ineffective, listless striking. The kind of fights the UFC presented to us in spades last night, and have been peddling on prelims (and even main cards) for a while now.

(Chris Weidman cheers on NSAC officials as they deliberate. / Photo via Getty)

Chris Weidman‘s first middleweight title defense against someone not named Anderson Silva will take place at UFC 173 on May 24th. Weidman will be facing the young dinosaur Vitor Belfort, who is on a three-fight winning streak and most recently became the first man to knock out Dan Henderson at UFC Fight Night 32.

Of note: The fight is taking place in Las Vegas. Belfort’s last three fights were located in Brazil. Conspiratorially minded individuals suspected this clever booking had something to do with Belfort’s much-maligned TRT use. When venerable MMA journalist Kevin Iole tried to separate himself from Dana White’s cheerleaders (aka the MMA media) and call attention to the issue, he was reprimanded.

The TRT issue will, in some ways, overshadow the combatants and the other narratives present in the fight—Weidman coming into his own as champion after definitely proving his superiority over Silva, Belfort’s resurgence as a top contender, etc. The Nevada State Athletic Commission is unsure of whether they’ll award Belfort a therapeutic use exemption, while Dana White has switched stances on the TRT issue. He’s now hoping the commission denies Belfort’s TUE request and TRT gets banned from MMA. Go figure.

It’s going to be an interesting spring.

You’ve probably heard by now of the near meltdown Dana White suffered while hosting a media luncheon the other day. In case you didn’t, MMAWeekly’s Erik Fontanez was on hand and live-tweeted the entire thing. Although we are still waiting on the full audio of the luncheon, a brief video has recently surfaced showing one of White’s more heated moments.

What started off as a typical scrum of sorts with select members of the MMA media quickly turned into an f-bomb filled back-and-forth between White and a reporter (later identified as TJ Simers of the OC Register) who called bullshit on The Baldfather’s claims that the UFC would be bigger than the NFL and was already bigger than the NBA. The Rock could not be reached for comment but offered this rebuttal.

From there it was all downhill. However, White was able to restrain from his usual mix of faux-threats and strawmen arguments for the most part, especially when the topic of boxing — more specifically, White’s new boxing-centric reality show, The Fighters – came up.

Apparently not a fan of boxing, MMA, or the concept of someone punching someone else in general, Simers relentlessly needled White over key issues both sports are currently facing. Issues like “Would you let your kid be a boxer?” and “Fighting is not in our DNA.”

Eesh. You *sure* you don’t have anything to add, The Rock?

Check out the video above, then sound off in the comments section.

-J. Jones

(Fan-made poster by graphzilla)

See, this is exactly why we put a ban on asking Dana White’s opinion about every little goddamned thing. The last time we saw the UFC’s hyperbolic carnival barker, he was making the absurd claim that bantamweight champion Renan Barao would probably become the #1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world if he stops Urijah Faber — a dude who Barao already beat before.

That win would represent Barao’s first defense of his brand-new unified title. Meanwhile, Jon Jones has defended his light-heavyweight belt six times so far, a tally that includes wins against four former LHW champs. But for the purposes of desperately hyping up a mid-level pay-per-view that could end up competing with the Super Bowl, we’ll just pretend that Jones doesn’t exist.

One week later, Dana White is pulling the same transparent bullshit for a different fight altogether:

“[If Weidman beats Belfort] he’s the best. He’s No. 1. How is he not No. 1 pound-for-pound in the world if he beats Vitor Belfort?” White exclaimed. “It’s impossible not to call him the No. 1 pound-for-pound guy.”

You hear that? IMPOSSIBLE! Don’t even try it, ya dummy! When a reporter pointed out that White recently made the same proclamation about Renan Barao, White made a very cogent argument in support of his new stance. Just kidding:

(Saffiedine! Lim! Eleven fighters we’re so confident you won’t know that we aren’t even going to bother showing you their faces! Props to Michael Sempervive for the image.)

By Seth Falvo

With all of the coverage that UFC Fight Pass has been receiving, it’s hard to believe that it has only been two weeks since the launch of the network. So far, opinions have ranged from “pathetic cash grab” to “everything a fight fan could possibly want.” In an effort to evaluate Fight Pass up to this point, here are ten ways of looking at the network, arranged in no particular order.

1.) Should You Buy Fight Pass? Well, Should You Buy Netflix?

“Netflix for Fight Fans” is how Lorenzo Fertitta summed up the service, and honestly, that sounds about right. Fight Pass offers exclusive content in the form of international events and preliminary fights – just like how Netflix offers Orange is the New Black – but its selling point is its archives. If you already own all of your favorite fight cards on DVD and are only interested in watching the UFC’s pay-per-views, then Fight Pass has nothing to offer you. For the rest of us, it’s a matter of whether archives and international cards are worth $9.99 per month.

2.) It Isn’t Nearly the Bargain that Supporters Claim It Is.

The Netflix analogy doesn’t quite hold up though. I use my Netflix account every day, and regardless of who I’m watching it with, I can find something on there that everyone will enjoy. I’m not about to sit down and watch old fights on a daily basis, and unless the original documentaries that the UFC is promising us are downright spectacular, I doubt that my non-fight fan friends are going to want to watch Fight Pass with me. This doesn’t mean that Fight Pass is a waste of money, but let’s not pretend that paying $119.88 per year to watch old fights and Facebook preliminaries is the best thing to ever happen to MMA fans, either.

3.) It Isn’t Nearly the Insult That Detractors Claim It Is.

(Photo via Getty)

By Matt Saccaro

One of Dana White’s greatest talents is burying fighters. When old, broke war dogs speak out against the UFC, White cuts them down with assertions that he “makes millionaires” and labels detractors as “goofs” and “dummies.”

But can White do that to Georges St-Pierre, who recently called out the UFC for their drug testing policies. Well, we’ve already had a small taste of White’s verbal stylings. He questioned GSP’s manhood, implying that GSP airing his grievances with the media was somehow cowardly. He also said GSP’s actions were “kooky,” and that his claims were ridiculous.

That was just the opening salvo. What’ll Dana White say about his former meal ticket six months from now, a year from now, two years from now, when GSP’s relevance fades and insulting him carries less risk?

(White, seen here wearing the pound-for-pound best t-shirt from the pound-for-pound best Rocky film of all time. Pound-for-pound.)

I know, I know, we already agreed to stop letting this man do our thinking for us, but check this out.

During the Fight Night 35 post-fight media scrum, the topic of discussion quickly shifted from the event itself and to the recently booked bantamweight title fight between Renan Barao and Urijah Faber. Specifically, Dana White was asked what would be next for both fighters should Barao come out victorious (again). White’s response:

If Barao goes out and stops Faber, he’s probably the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

Well that was fast.

Barao, who is currently ranked #6 pound-for-pound on the UFC’s much-maligned rankings system, will catapult himself past the likes of Chris Weidman, Jon Jones, and Cain Velasquez should he defeat a guy he’s already beaten before. In what will officially be considered his first title win at 135 lbs. That’s the takeaway here.