El creacionismo sí tiene que ver con las MMA

Jajaja hombre visto asi, si xd

Esta noche es Bellator 91, que no se le olvide a quien este interesado:
http://www.sherdog.com/events/Bellat...lator-91-27391

Buena pelea de Rickles y nefasto su bailecito antes de la decision, entre este y el que dejo Ko a Mo que racha llevan ejejje. No sé que hacía el rival de Saad Awad agarrándose a las piernas de este mientras recibía todos esos golpes, ¿cuál era su estrategia?.
Bonito KO de Ed West, antes de que cayerá su rival le dio tiempo de conectar dos o tres manos más y el ME aún no lo he podido ver.

Che Mills firma exclusividad con Cage Warriors

Días antes de ser despedido y retirarse, Aleksander Emelianenko tuvo un altercado en un avión, hizo la de Melendi, y es acusado de ser un hooligan:
http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2013/3/4/...ation-airplane

Jajajjajaja
Jajajjajaja
Jajajjajaja

ja, ja, ja, ja, aja. Que cabronazo desalmado, todo menos llamar melendi, ¿acaso se puede reaccionar de otro modo? ja, ja, ja, ja

Entonces al final no le persigue la mafia, le persigue la policía...

y Melendi jajajaja

La final de Bellator entre Douglas Lima y Ben Saunders se retrasa hasta el verano porque Lima se rompió la mano en su último combate.
http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2013/3/5/...y-ben-saunders

Ricco Rodriguez detenido por conducir borracho o drogado:
http://www.mmaweekly.com/former-ufc-...spicion-of-dui

Eso ya es menos problema...

Una entrevista al antiguo manager de Mirko Crocop, Miro Mijatovic. Es bastante larga, pero me ha parecido muy muy interesante. Suelta bastante mierda de K-1 y PRIDE y algunas cosas interesantes de Mirko.

BD: You were an international lawyer working in Japan, how did you get into the fight game?

MM: I had always been into sports, although a basketball and soccer player myself; and when I set up my company in Japan, one of the businesses I got into was sports management and athlete representation; initially through representing iconic Australian Olympic champion swimmer Ian Thorpe in Japan. Ian was a major star in Japan leading up to the Sydney Olympics, with contracts with TV Asahi and sponsors like Coca Cola, Adidas and Konami.

Sports management and athlete representation was an embryonic industry in Japan back in around 2000/2001 as Japan has a more “corporate” approach to sports compared to more developed sports markets in the US and Europe. By that I mean that professional athletes in Japan were often “employees” of big corporations who own sports teams as opposed to independent contractors with independent expert advisors which is more of the case overseas.

I then expanded into managing professional soccer, rugby and basketball players. It was through one of the soccer players I took care of, a Croatian national team soccer player who was friendly with Mirko Cro Cop, who then introduced me to him in the early part of 2002.

BD: Cro Cop had some problems when his team came to you for help with sponsorship and marketing?

MM: Yes, Mirko Crocop had a whole number of problems. His manager at the time, Zvonimir Lucic, asked me to look after their “commercial opportunities.” They were dissatisfied, like all fighters, with the lack of income outside their fight money. Specifically, Mirko was not happy that he didn’t receive any money for T-shirt sales (there were major stalls at all K-1 events selling fighter T-shirts) and also that he hadn’t received any money for his appearance on the K-1 game produced by Konami which had then recently been released. Fighters always notice the obvious places they are being ripped off.

Originally I wasn't involved in the fight money negotiations or the matchmaking; but later events would change that.

BD: How was K-1 run during this time in 2002?

MM: For what on the outside looked like a real company, it was an absolute basket case. Kazuyoshi Ishii was the founder and emperor of K-1. Around Ishii were a loosely organized structure of sycophants and fixers who all sought Ishii’s favors. Ishii’s English was limited, and so each fighter and their managers had different people to work with. When Ishii later was convicted for tax fraud, before he went to jail, all these sycophants engaged in a power and favor war with Ishii to be appointed as the head of K-1. The major guys were Sadaharu Tanikawa, who as an ex pro wrestling magazine editor who was mainly in charge of fight media liaison for K-1; Ken Imai who handled foreign promoters and some foreign fighters and Seiya Kawamata who handled K-1’s relations with the yakuza [Editor’s Note: Mijatovic only found this information about Kawamata out in 2003 when it was too late].

All of these guys had one aspect of the business that they looked after. For example, Ken Imai, who had reasonable English skills, styled himself as the expert and point of contact for K-1’s foreign promoters. Despite being described as “K-1 Managing Director,” Ken Imai didn’t get paid by K-1, so he found other ways to make money, like owning half of the foreign promotions like in the US (with Scott Coker) and also in other markets where K-1 would hold events (although not in Europe where he was not liked). Ken Imai also set up the Konami game deal for K-1.

In regards to the fighter T-shirts and other merchandise—this business was actually “run” by Ishii’s younger brother.

Ishii saw all these sort of ancillary activities as crumbs from his table and didn’t care about any of this “minor” stuff. Ishii only cared about his Japanese TV deals, which accounted for more than 95 percent of K-1’s income. Even the foreign K-1 events were underwritten by Japanese broadcast deals. Ironically, it was the “crumbs” from the table which didn’t come down to the fighters which irritated them the most; but funnily enough, it was in the main business of being underpaid for fights or being ripped off by middle men where the fighters were losing the most money.

When Mirko appointed me in May 2002 as his commercial manager, I made various investigations into what was going on and also the opportunities available for fighters. Over the middle of 2002, I contacted all of the major advertising agencies, such as Dentsu and Hakuhodo and other potential sponsors, and found, while K-1 was a household name, whose fighters were instantly recognizable by Japanese people, the foreign fighters did not seem to be of any interest to any sponsors.

As this was happening, relations between Mirko and K-1 fell apart.

BD: How did this occur?

Mirko was always difficult to negotiate with. Not only were negotiations always fraught, Mirko never signed anything and you could never be sure what Mirko was going to do. He refused to do media and basically just didn’t care about anything except his fight; you could never be sure Mirko would turn up to a fight until he was actually in the ring.

At Shockwave, the K-1/PRIDE co-promotion held on August 28, 2002, Mirko took it one step too far.

Obviously, the fight against Kazushi Sakuraba was only Mirko’s second real MMA bout after his surprising and somewhat fortunate victory over Fujita at Inoki Bom Ba Ye 2001. Mirko was a rising star in K-1 and was demanding bigger fight money and Ishii wanted to cut him down to size. So, Ken Imai, who was in charge of contact with PRIDE on the K-1 side for Shockwave, lined up a fight for Mirko on the Shockwave card against Sakuraba.

In Mirko’s first fight against Kazuyuki Fujita (held on August 19, 2001), everybody, including Mirko and Fujita knew how the fight was going to unfold. Mirko’s trainer at the time believed that Mirko had one chance, which was to hit Fujita with a knee as he came shooting in. Once it was on the ground, it was accepted that Mirko would lose the fight. So, that’s all they practiced for the first Fujita fight. Whether you call it luck or good strategy, it worked like a charm, and Mirko opened Fujita’s head like a watermelon with a perfect knee as Fujita came shooting in. Of course, Mirko saw his win as his chance to increase his fight money, and with his other wins in 2002, Mirko became a problem for K-1 with his contact demands. It was understood in these days that Mirko’s K-1 fights would earn him $10,000 to $30,000 US, while his early mixed martial arts bouts would earn him two to three times what his K-1 bouts were paying. You have to remember, K-1 wanted Mirko to lose so they could go back to screwing him over financially.

At Shockwave, lightening struck twice and Mirko opened up Sakuraba with his upkick [fracturing Sakuraba’s orbital bone in the second round] and won that fight as well. Although it wasn’t the fight that was the problem, it was what Mirko did before the fight

Mirko had agreed his best ever purse of $150,000 US for the Sakuraba fight. This was a huge amount in those days. But when Mirko stepped into Yoyogi Stadium and saw 80,000 people, Mirko’s entourage started to get into his ear. At the stadium, as the event was unfolding, Mirko told K-1 that unless they doubled his money, he wouldn’t be walking out into the ring. You can imagine the shitfight this caused; and finally, Mirko was paid his $300,000; but with it, came Ishii’s banishment back into the wilderness. After the event, Ishii publicly pronounced that Mirko, due to his conduct at Shockwave, would be out of the K-1 Grand Prix that year and it was unclear that he would ever be coming back to K-1.

Mirko was shocked, as he was coming off what was maybe his biggest victory to date, and had the momentum going into the K-1 GP. It looked like his Japanese fight career was over.

BD: This wasn’t the first time K-1 had frozen him out, either, was it?

MM: Mirko was originally brought into K-1 by Branko Cikatic, “The Croatian Tiger,” best remembered by Pride fans for his “unique” MMA fight style. However, Mirko and Branko fell out over money and Branko asked Ishii to blackball Mirko, which he did and Mirko was out of K-1 for a couple of years [Mirko’s K-1 record reflects this inactivity from 1996 to 1999]. So Mirko knew what being blackballed from K-1 meant and he knew it was a reality.

BD: So how did Mirko get back into the Japanese fight game?

MM: Mirko asked me to intervene in September 2002 and see what I could do with K-1. I had a simple strategy: I found out that K-1 had no written contracts with Mirko, which meant that Mirko had not licensed his image onto the K-1 official T-shirts. Even more interesting, Mirko and other prominent K-1 fighters had not licensed their image rights to Konami for the K-1 video game.

I informed K-1 that unless we could open negotiations for Mirko’s return to the fight game, I was going to launch two lawsuits against them (1) for recovery of amounts due from illegal sale of T-shirts, and (2) suing K-1 and Konami for using Mirko’s image on the Konami game. I also sent an independent Japanese sports reporter to Croatia to get Mirko back into the Japanese media; mainly to show that we had the ability to get our story out into the Japanese media if necessary.

K-1, and more importantly, their TV partners, Fuji TV, TBS and NTV, and their sponsors, were very adverse to any negative publicity. At this time, K-1 founder Ishii was also under investigation for tax fraud resulting from a fake contract to bring Mike Tyson to K-1. Not that Tyson knew anything about this fake contract…

The strategy worked, and K-1 Managing Director Ken Imai was in my office the next day. During some difficult negotiations, while Ishii would not budge on Mirko’s exclusion from the K-1 GP in 2002, as a “compromise,” Ishii did accept to rematch Mirko with Fujita for K-1 promoted event Inoki-Bom-Ba-Ye 2002. Of course, K-1 thought that this time heavyweight Fujita would be able to nail Mirko, or at least avoid his knee and with that expected beating, blow Mirko back into the Croatian wilderness to be forgotten.

Mirko had another strategy – he had been working hard on what became his famous sprawl. IBBY 2002 Fujita II went according to his team’s game plan with Mirko grabbing Fujita’s head when Fujita shot in and delivering knees from North-South. It was painful to watch, but also amazing to see how Fujita could not adjust his game plan. Fujita’s head was brutalized again, and much to K-1’s shock, a star was born.

That night, we were invited to party with Ishii in his room at the Shinjuku Park Hyatt (Tokyo’s swankiest hotel at the time) and Ishii and his top guys and I spoke at length about the opportunities in 2003 while Ken Imai and Tanikawa circled like hungry puppy dogs.

It was the last time I would speak to Ishii before he went to jail for tax fraud.

BD: What was Mirko’s personality like? Any special things with his diet?

MM: Mirko is a very serious guy when it comes to training and fighting. His dedication and focus and love of training is unique amongst all of the fighters I’ve worked with.

He doesn’t drink or smoke or party. Food wise, his diet is basically meat and potatoes or pasta. He does not eat vegetables or salad at all. His favorite place to eat in Tokyo was the chain restaurant, “TGIF” where he could get American style fast food. He took “off the shelf” multi-vitamin supplements, buts that about it. His nutritional regime can be best described as primitive.

On a more personal level, he is the most stressful person to be around that I’ve ever experienced (and as a lawyer, I’ve dealt with some pretty stressed out people in my time!). Before fights, he was unbearable—one minute happy and clowning around, the next minute taking offense at the smallest thing and abusing his entourage and everybody else misfortunate enough to be around him at the time. He certainly didn’t like anyone around him who wasn’t an absolute yes-man. In regard to his “sense of humor” and “practical jokes,” while he could dish it out, he certainly couldn’t take it. This was a feature of his fighting style as well.

BD: How much did being in a K-1 World Grand Prix mean to Mirko? Was he upset when K-1 refused him entry in 2002?

MM: This was his major goal in life. Mirko had never been a champion of anything, so his whole purpose in life was to become K-1 GP champion. When Mirko eventually won his first belt—the PRIDE 2006 heavyweight Grand Prix title—his emotional reaction was a reflection of this goal.

On the other hand, Mirko’s a professional fighter, and got over his disappointment really quickly when we arranged the second Fujita fight. I think it was a blessing in disguise, because he was able to train for three months for Fujita. This allowed him to perfect his sprawl and his strategy against Fujita rather than training for K-1.

BD: Why did Mirko transition to MMA in 2003?

MM: The main reason was money. MMA fights were paid much more than K-1 fights. K-1 had developed a system of keeping their fighters paid peanuts despite the fact that K-1 shows were on prime time Japanese national TV. Mirko had become a K-1 star which made known amongst the general viewing public. PRIDE was the poor hick cousin to K-1, with no TV exposure and not known outside its fan base. Mirko was very attractive to PRIDE because they knew that signing Mirko would help PRIDE land a national broadcasting deal with Fuji TV (which it did). Hence, we could negotiate an outstanding deal for Mirko for his transition.

What is less known is also that Mirko believed that MMA would extend his career. During his training for Fujita, he found it easier on his body compared to the constant striking involved in kickboxing. That made it an easy decision. It’s weird that after his time in MMA, he now has returned to kickboxing in last part of his career.

By the time Mirko transitioned to PRIDE, it wasn’t clear that K-1 would survive Ishii’s incarceration or that K-1 could put any events on in 2003. But Kunio Kiyohara, fight producer at Fuji TV, was able to stage the K-1 GP in 2003, although his and Fuji TV’s concentration had already shifter to PRIDE as their main fighting promotion. As an aside, despite K-1 staying on TV, Tanikawa’s pro wrestling-inspired matchmaking had already started the fatal business decline of K-1 from a serious fight promotion to a freak show.

BD: What kind of paydays did he earn in PRIDE versus his K-1 salaries?

MM: I negotiated a purse of $150,000 for Mirko to take on commercial phenomenon Bob Sapp, but prior to working with me, Mirko was generally fighting in K-1 for $10,000 to $30,000. When he went to PRIDE, I basically put a zero on his K-1 money

BD: Wasn’t K-1 angry Mirko left their organization? What repercussions resulted?

MM: Yes, they were shocked. This just wasn’t done in Japan. The promoter was seen to be an emperor and the fighters were “his samurai” there to the promoter’s bidding, bow their heads and behave with “bushido”—hence all the bullshit in Japan where foreign fighters are always bowing to some boss in the crowd to demonstrate their loyalty and allegiance.

But Ishii was in jail and Tanikawa was a lightweight. K-1 was angry and put out a lot of press questioning Mirko’s morals, but it was nothing but noise from a failing promotion.

Things were, of course, very different little than a year later when I moved Fedor from PRIDE to my own promotion [IBBY 2003].

BD: Mirko was favored by PRIDE in many ways, yes?

MM: Yes, indeed! Mirko saw himself as a star and demanded star treatment. While the other PRIDE fighters stayed at the normal rooms in the dilapidated three-star Shinagawa Prince Hotel, Mirko stayed at the five-star Sakura Tower, which was part of the same complex. Mirko didn’t want to mix with the other fighters, so he didn’t catch the bus with them. I arranged for private transport for him.

PRIDE favored Mirko in matchmaking. We could handpick opponents, and PRIDE assisted us to ensure the opponents didn’t know that they were fighting Mirko until the last minute. Heath Herring and Igor Vovchanchyn were handpicked by us to set up victories on the road to a title fight with Fedor Emelianenko (who in the meantime had battered Nogueira to take the PRIDE heavyweight title). We all thought Mirko matched up better against Fedor than he would against Nogueira.

Most importantly, because PRIDE needed to protect their investment in their most marketable star, Mirko had the favor of the PRIDE referees—particularly Shimada. Shimada worked for PRIDE parent company Dream Stage Entertainment (DSE), including in its pro wrestling promotion and was close to top DSE management. Shimada knew what Sakakibara wanted and how to referee Mirko’s fights: quick stand-ups, repositions when things weren’t too good…watch the fights. These are little things, but they are helpful in a fight.

BD: What did Mirko get in exchange for not fighting on your IBBY 2003 NYE show (set to compete head-to-head with PRIDE)?

MM: Well, since Mirko had separated from me, I can’t say for certain. I do know PRIDE president Sakakibara sent Ken Imai (who had joined Sakakibara as his sycophant after Ishii had chosen Tanikawa over Ken Imai to run K-1 when he went into prison), to Zagreb, Croatia with a suitcase full of cash, which Mirko hurt his back picking up [and subsequently pulled out of his scheduled appearance at IBBY 2003]. His injury magically recovered quickly and he had two fights in February 2004.

The Japanese press alerted me to this first. They came to me saying that Ken Imai was flying to Zagreb with money from Sakakibara for Mirko to not fight on IBBY 2003. I confirmed this with people in Zagreb; apparently, Ken Imai stayed at Mirko’s house.

I know the other things he got included Ken Imai convincing Mirkos’s then-manager Zvonimir Lucic to produce an action movie (Ultimate Force) to satisfy Mirko’s desire to be an actor, like his idol Jean Claude Van Damme. I also know Ken Imai was very supportive of Mirko’s political efforts, which I had strongly opposed, as well as Mirko’s other activities like trying to play soccer, etc. Those activities were a distraction from fighting.

BD: Was this the first sign of trouble between you and Mirko?

MM: Not really. In the lead up to the Nogueira fight for the interim PRIDE heavyweight title, Mirko had been approached to become a politician. When I asked why he wanted to do this and why at this time, he told me that a politician gets a pension. I thought this was a weird thing for a guy like him to be worried about considering the money he was then earning and would continue to earn in the future.

Also, although Mirko didn't see it that way, DSE unbalanced Mirko before the Nogueira fight. Before his fights, Mirko usually just sits in his room and plays cards with whichever new members of his entourage had come from Croatia—it was always a different set of guys, as Mirko’s personal relationships usually had short time spans. But the day before the Nogueira fight, Mirko disappeared from the Sakura Tower, much to the consternation of everybody in his team. He was gone all day, returning looking pretty distressed late that evening.

We found out that he was in meetings with Sakaibara and Ken Imai. Because the Nogueira fight was the last fight of his contract, PRIDE was keen to (1) have Mirko lose to Nogueira; and (2) start contract negotiations and to ensure Mirko wouldn’t fight outside PRIDE.

At this time, I was actually discussing with K-1 president Tanikawa and Mirko about bringing him into the K-1 GP 2003 so he could fight for a title two times in 2003. Obviously, Sakakibara and Ken Imai weren’t persuasive enough at that time, so Ken needed to “show Mirko the money.” In November of 2003, Mirko pulled out of his IBBY 2003 fight. On January 4, 2004, while I was been held hostage and extorted by PRIDE’s yakuza owners, Sankei Sports, the sports newspaper which is part of the Fuji TV group, published an open letter from Mirko to me terminating his contract with me for the reason that I had signed Fedor Emelianenko. Ken Imai, who had been fired by K-1 and now worked for Sakakibara, became his manager.

BD: How did this result in the fall of PRIDE?

MM: After Sakakibara decided to take Mirko out of my hands and out of the IBBY 2003 NYE show, I decided to strike back and take Fedor Emelianenko out of his hands.

The rest is history.

BD: Any thoughts or insight on Mirko’s UFC career, or what he’s doing these days?

MM: I always wondered about Mirko going to UFC. I always thought that once he lost the little protections and privileges he was given in PRIDE, that it would all come tumbling down. That, combined with the usual loss of speed athletes experience as they get into their early 30s—this was always going to be Mirko’s issue since his strong point was the ability to avoid getting hit due to his speed and then countering. The combination of all these factors make it was no great surprise that his UFC career was a washout.

In a lot of ways, Mirko was happiest (at least it seemed to me) early in his career when he was living life in the barracks and his life was simple. He fought with bravery and courage. As he got older and more wealthy, he became more calculating and mercenary and lost of that early “bravery” in his fight style.

La verdad es q no me cuesta nada creerme todo eso de mirko.