From UFC.com:
“UFC President Dana White and heavyweight sensation Brock Lesnar will appear live on CNBC’s ‘Power Lunch’ today to announce an exciting new UFC deal. The show airs at 12:40 p.m. ET.”
This is more than likely not the “mind-blowing” announcement we’re expecting later in the week. It could have something to do with a major licensing and merchandising agreement that the promotion has been feverishly looking to ink all of its fighter to behind the scenes. That’s my guess. Yours?
June 10th, 2008
95 Comments »
anything with brock lesner in it cant be mind blowing!
Cut and paste job:
*ANNOUNCEMENT* Dana and Vince McMahon bought the UFC from Zuffa (W / SOURCE)
——————————————————————————–
A group of investors led by Dana White have agreed in principle to purchase the UFC from Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta for an undisclosed amount. Included in this investment group is WWE’s Vince McMahon who will now own a minority stake in the company. They also have plans on taking the company public by years end.
At the press conference also expect Dana to announce that with the help of McMahon, who has extensive connections in the New York State Athletic Commission, they were able to get the UFC sanctioned in New York, and plan on having a show sometime in the winter at Madison Square Garden. That is all I have right now.
EDIT:
REAL SOURCE IS PRO FIGHTER Sean McCorkle ON THE UG:
http://www.mixedmartialarts.com/?go=…3&page=1&pc=87
Also, Big John McCarthy ios leading a campaign thats trying to get Knees to a grounded opponent legalizaed!
I really hope that it happens, because I feel that MMA is incomplete with out Knees to a grounded opponent.
If they get legalized, RAMPAGE will truly become unstoppable. For those of you who have seen him in Pride, you know exactly what I am talking about!
Just how Wanderlei kneed Rampage’s face twice to KO him
Until they legalize soccer kicks as well, then Shogun will walk all over the division by stomping the opponents.
King Kong Bundy vs. BJ Penn! Give me a f’ing break. UFC doesn’t need WWE! They are making more than them in PPV’s… Bad move
Don’t forget the XFL
good looking on the info John..if true..why would Zuffa sell the UFC brand to Dana?? and his boy..
Dana must have somew strong “G”..to convince them on selling it. WWE?? I would want no affiliation of MMA to WWE.
O.o
i’m not quite sure what to think about this.
dead link
Ok scarey, mcmahon needs to stay the hell outta marketing/advertising the UFC and just let his soap opera wrestling crap stay where it’s at…
I’ve heard this before, and shane mcmhan is a huge mma fan. I’ll tell you one thing, they know how to sell a product, thats for sure
DANa said in this interview regarding a question about going public and he denied it stating that he doesn not want some GEEK on wall st. telling him how to run his co. so your FLAT WRONG
expect dana to now become an even bigger egotistical dick
Probably the first time I’m glad you’re source was wrong lol.
Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta are very successful businessmen.
Why on earth would they want to give up a business that could potentially increase their existing wealth tenfold.
Dana takes all the flack and the brothers just count the money.
Doesn’t make sense.
Taking the company public doesn’t make sense either, Dana is all about control and wouldn’t give any of it away for anything.
WWE is BAD!!!!!!!!! for MMA no matter at what level.
Posted by arielhelwani @ mmarated.com
Before we delve into the newest “Dana White HUGE announcement” rumor let’s recap our options thus far:
1. Chuck Liddell vs. Anderson Silva
2. UFC on FOX
3. Zuffa has sold the UFC to FOX
4. UFC on ESPN/ABC
5. UFC partners with Golden Boy Promotions
6. Floyd Mayweather to fight in the UFC
Well, here comes lucky number seven: There’s a new rumor that has Zuffa selling the UFC to, wait for it, World Wrestling Entertainment. That sound you hear is one million MMA “purists” choking on their lunch.
Now, let me first say that I am not in the business of reporting insane message board rumors. That would not be very journalistic of me. However, since this has become such an intriguing story, I find myself looking to confirm every single crazy rumor I hear.
So, when the WWE rumor flew into my radar, I just had to find out if it was true. So far no one is biting but then there’s this:
“WWE will be holding a special news conference at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York City on Thursday, June 12 at 12 Noon, and all WWE Fans are invited to attend this free event. Join WWE Chairman Vince McMahon and WWE Superstars as they take part in this special event.”
Um, Thursday? As in the same Thursday that Dana White is planning to make his announcement? Say it ain’t so, Zuffa.
Now, those that have followed the McMahons know that they have had some mild interest in MMA for some time. Vince McMahon’s son, Shane, is reportedly a big fan and PRIDE FC was once offered to them before eventually being sold to Zuffa.
So, is professional wrestling’s first family really about to morph into MMA’s first family too? Once again, say it ain’t so, Zuffa.
I will never discredit what Vince McMahon has done for pro wrestling but, on the flip side, he has also shown a great knack for failing in any endeavor outside of the wrestling world (the XFL and the World Bodybuilding Federation come to mind). Simply put, I fear he may not know what to do with the UFC. Sure, there’s always the possibility of keeping Dana White on board as president but, let’s be honest, it won’t be the same.
Furthermore, MMA, and more specifically the UFC, has had to work long and hard to shed the “is it fake?” label. Fighting in a cage will always lead to those kind of questions. In fact, I recently attended a wedding and was forced to defend the sport as being 100% real on two separate occasions to a group of people who wouldn’t know an armbar from a piano bar.
Now, if this rumor is in fact true, can you imagine the criticisms that will come flying in anytime some kind of controversy occurs inside the Octagon? Heck, many people believed the XFL was fixed so why wouldn’t they think the same when it comes to the UFC?
Far be it for me to tell Zuffa when to cash out; they have certainly made a nice return on their investment. But for the future and good of this sport, I hope and pray that this latest rumor will forever remain just a crazy rumor.
UPDATE #1: I just spoke to a member of the WWE’s PR department and they assured me that there is no truth to this rumor. Again, Thursday can’t come soon enough.
UPDATE #2: WWE announcer Jim Ross just announced on tonight’s edition of “Monday Night RAW” that Thursday’s press conference is about WWE’s million dollar contest giveaway. Thank heavens. It appears as though we’ve dodged that bullet…for now.
Also, apparantly Sean McCorkle is a previous troller
http://investors.jakks.com/releasedetail.cfm?sh_print=no&releaseid=315534
^^^^
lol - if thats the big announcement today it would be pretty sad
Nice Work
You gotta be kidding me.
It would make sense that this announcement would somehow be tied to Lesnar, no?
I guess they will start a collabo with the WWE to bring in more heavyweight cans (aka announce signing of someone). Either that or bring in a new major sponsor.
What weight class does Kurt Angle fight at? Maybe Kurt and Brock will fight.
His WWE weight was in the 240-pound range, so getting down to 205 would probably be a big stretch.
Angle is screwed…..
Dana White bobbleheads?
This announcement is probably not really going to concern us fans. Hopefully Thursday’s announcement will truly be “mindblowing”. hopefully its something so big that none of us even guessed.
However, after the whole Beer announcement, I am not getting my hopes up!
The announcement has to be some kind of super fight. No one really cares about sponsership deals or network TV or even a UFC channel. It is all about fights. I think Mania guessed the spider vs Chuck and I think he was on the right track. Maybe not that exact fight, but something along those lines. I can’t think of any new fighters worth a huge announcement. There is just too much competiton now for Dana to be bullsh%ting us around.
BTW, my comment is in reference to Thursday’s announcement.
me too!. im not getting excited or passing judgment until i hear the real deal. everyone should remember, if im not mistaken, that dana denied that he and zuffa were bying out pride fc like a week before the actually bought them out. so ANYTHING can happen!
New release: Steroids will be allowed, and fighters won’t have to make weight.
this would be great news for alves!!!!!!
true that.
TRUE THAT! I can’t stand that f**king roided up c**t
Just keep giving us great cards… that’s all we care about!
it is to announce that mayweather will join the ufc. brock is an example of how professionals outside of mma can make the transition. — obviously, i am kidding. just poking fun at some of the crazy guesses about the announcement.
i read an article saying that the big announcement is that Dana White is leading an investment group that is going to buy the UFC from Zuffa. Vince McMahon is supposed to be one of the investors. This might not be true, but I thought that it was worth mentioning.
That’s what I’ve been reading, too. The fact that WWE also has a press conference set up for Thursday scares me.
The last thing the UFC wants is to be tied to the WWE. Talk about losing legitimacy…
I really hope the announcement is something better. Please God. Anything else.
lol im not going to hold my breath after the anticipation of the budweiser annoucement
http://www.mixedmartialarts.com/?go=forum_framed.posts&forum=1&thread=1292633&page=1&pc=87
check it out
How about a cross over…
WWE vs UFC
I know UFC will never ever cross-promote unless it was in thier favor and this would be.
Increase fan base…
Nah thats the opposite direction they wanna go in.
It would be cool to announce that it is concidered as a demo-sport for the olympics in coming years. Wow what would that do for the sport…
YOu dont get much bigger than the olymics as far as shows and coverage!!!
Team Brazil vs Team USA, Team Canada vs Team Japan, Team UK vs Team Russia, Team France vs Team Australia ETC…
Each team would consist of 2 fighters per division. 7 Divisions. One round fight. Best of 7 matches. Single elimination & Repachage for those losing to first and second place. What a battle that would be, of course there would be the allowance for a fighter to move up one weight division. So a WW could fight MW.
That would be huge…
They just recently added Submission Grappling to the Olympics. I think MMA has a long way to go in that regard.
Can I ask a question? Why MMA have to go through wrestling and boxing commissions? Why dont they have thier own?
Like I live on PEI (Canada) and there is Boxing PEI and Judo PEI and TKD Pei and we all get our insurance through Sport PEI. Why isnt there a MMA PEI?
Just curious. I imagine its because there is no set way to become a MMA figher (Official training etc)
And its usually due to success in another sport.
Toy maker Jakks Pacific Inc. said Tuesday it has signed a four-year license agreement with the Ultimate Fighting Championship organization to develop a line of collector-focused action figures.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The new UFC product line is expected to launch next year. It will feature figures of UFC fighters Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell, Brock Lesnar, Antonio “Minotauro” Nogueira, Michael “The Count” Bisping and UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson “The Spider” Silva, among others.
The license also includes the UFC Octagon and other role-play items.
Brock vs. Kimbo!
the announcement on thursday is that dana is going to running for president!
I would vote for him.
No way he can do any worse, Dana’s political negotiating tactics could come into play “The russians are a buncha f*in idiots, I wanna beat their president to death with a f*in stick.”
actually this could be a good thing, all international feuds could be settled in the octagon….
Same here, Dana’s superior negotiating skills could really come into play with national politics ie “The russians are a buncha F@#$in idiots, I wanna beat their president to death with a F@#$in stick, and I’m gettin our troops the F*&$ outta Iraq and sending in Chuck Liddell and Anderson Silva via airborne assault to end this farse once and for all!”
It’s action figures. f@#%ing toys.
not action figures. dolls.
Starting now!
Is this announcement really about toys? Toys!?? Really?
WTF. Action figures?? This isn’t the F’n WWE. What a joke.
This sounds like a total money-making scheme. And with the addition of Vince McMahon and loss of the Fertittas, the UFC is going to become more like a circus and less like an actual legitimate sport. Dana is going to kill the UFC just as quickly as he rebuilt it.
(If the rumors are true, of course. But honestly, it’s looking like they are.)
what the fuck……. its a fuckin action figures im watching it live now… what a fucking let down
hahahah no flloyd, and no wwe, no tv deal
wow dana ure a complete hypebag…
I’m at work…was the announcement seriously about action figures? Nothing about cross promotion, Vince, etc, etc??? Details people, details.
Well, this wasn’t the “mind-blowing” announcement. So, hopefully he still announces something HUGE on Thursday. We shall see, I guess…
just fucking action figures
Hey, thats not it! Don’t forget kids you can also buy UFC apparel at JC Penny… Whoooooo!!!!
nothing more than just action figures hahah
im just glad that floyd and wwe are not gonna be part of the ufc
dolls… what a huge announcement… im glad i wasted 20 minutes of my time watching cnbc
I think the toy angle is pretty slick. Yes it will make them money but it will also get younger kids interested in the sport, which is always good for business, just ask the tobacco industry lmao!! And who better to start with than Brock sense most kids already know who he is because of the WWE.
Toys? That’s it? That wasn’t even worth turning on the TV.
I was hoping for a deal with ABC/ESPN/TNT. Looks like Dana isn’t too interested in taking that route anytime soon.
WHAts a jerk dana white is…CNBC says that the ufc controls 90 percent of the mma market !!
THAT’s a tragedy.
THen he slams all other orgaization, saying they all lost millions , YEAH so did the UFC at first, its called buisness growing pains.
He’s so arrogant but almost put in his place by the interviewers, especially since we all now know by his own admission that DANA doesn’t read!
ANd he slams wall street by not wanting some geek on wall street how to run his buisness
From a very reliable source, rumor has it that a group of investors led by Dana White have agreed in principle to purchase the UFC from Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta for an undisclosed amount. Included in this investment group is WWE’s Vince McMahon who will now own a minority stake in the company. They also have plans on taking the company public by years end.
At the press conference also expect Dana to announce that with the help of McMahon, who has extensive connections in the New York State Athletic Commission, they were able to get the UFC sanctioned in New York, and plan on having a show sometime in the winter at Madison Square Garden. That is all I have right now.
Jakks Pacific deal, big whoop
are you fuckin kidding me?
I was hoping the UFC would go public and we could all make a killing off the stock market. Oh well, we’ll just have to wait and see what thursdays announcement is.
Yea, this wasnt “the BIG” announcement, just some random crap so there is still something decent coming on thursday.
Are we sure this isn’t actually the ‘big’ announcement expected on Thursday? UFC.com has the headline ‘UFC Gets Major Boost with Industry-Shaking Merchandise Deals’ that kinda has me thinking that this ‘industry shaking news’ might be Dana’s mind blowing revelation…
Is this really a huge announcement. Kids are not really in to MMA anyway. I’m sure they will lose money trying to sell these things.
“Kids are not really in to MMA anyway.”
Not yet. I was 13 when I started to watch UFC. It’s not that big of a stretch to see young teens getting into it. It’s the best sport in the world. It’ll catch on to them soon enough.
My son is 8 and he has his favorite fighters in all of the weight classes.
I think the action figure idea is pure genius!!It gets kids excited and interested in the sport. McDonalds is one of the biggest companies in the world and the base for all of their marketing is…KIDS!
You are right Pat but when I was 13 I was done with action figures and more into sports. I’m sure if I had been exposed to the UFC at 13 I would have become a fan. I think parents that are UFC fans now may buy these for their kids hoping that their kids will take a liking to the sport. I have a two year old daughter so unless I have a son in the future then I will be buying nothing but baby dolls and barbie dolls, LOL!
Why is Brock getting an action figure?
name sells man….
I don’t know why everybody is getting their panties in a bunch over action figures. You think it will make the sport less legit? Really? All the other major sports have action figures too, you tools. Does that make them less legit?
Nobody’s forcing you to buy and play with them. Everybody bitches about fighters’ pay, but it’s things like this that make more money for the fighters. It’s just good business sense.
And LOL @ all the Pride huggers at Sherdog proclaiming doom for the UFC if Vince is a minority owner. Ummm, some of the owners of Pride were also owners of a pro wrestling promotion in Japan.
Dana better come through in spades on Thursday.
I fuking second that man!…
To all those who are obviously confused: THIS IS NOT THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT. The big one is coming on THURSDAY. Today is TUESDAY. Get a freakin’ calendar, sheesh.
LMAO GrChmayday- posted
“Hey maybe we can get some tagteam matches….chuck and dana vs gary and kimbo?”
now that’s funny.
Good thing there are other legit organizations being formed. If UFC turns into some WWE circus… I will bail in a heartbeat.
Just like Pride turned into a circus b/c it had pro wrestling owners? Get a f’n clue.
Where is pride now? You might need the clue buddy. Or should I say Girly. PAT
Pride wasn’t doing well business-wise, but their product was very good. Their owners didn’t try to make it into a pro wrestling show.
u guys should cut lesnar some slack. i mean if u saw the lesnar vs. mir fight HOLY SHIT. that guy is a wicked wrestler and can throw power punches where it seems like alot of guys can only tap the guy on the head in a clinched ground position. besides lesnar was whoopin ass before he go caught in the kneebar. he just has to work his jiu jitsu game and he’ll be great.
You got to be kidding. I doubt they are selling it, it would not make sense for them to sell now as this sport is still growing.
Maybe they are expanding the brand a little? say like a UFC Europe brand or UFC Japan brand? obviously with fighters drom those regions. meh just a random guess.
Mabey they are starting tournaments again. Iknow I’m reaching a little, but I’d like to see that happen.
Maybe they are starting tournaments again. Iknow I’m reaching a little, but I’d like to see that happen.