Monday, October 15, 2007

What I think's goin down

With Randy's split, and now Dan Henderson coming out and saying "WTF is up with you guys paying us jack" I think some of the major camps may be in a spot where they're willing to try something big and splashy. Couture's departure may have been the first salvo, or perhaps the captain charging over the ramparts to get the others to follow. Between Henderson and Couture, for example, they have a huge number of fighters in their respective camps, Team Quest and Extreme Couture (always sounded more like a fashion designer for snowboarders to me). So a mass move by both could be devastating for whoever they opted to give the finger to. Obviously fighters have to make a living, but how long would UFC last with no decent fighters? What if Forrest Griffin, Karo Parisyan, Dan Henderson, etc, all said "No thanks, we'll put on our own show, Team Quest vs. Extreme Couture"? I'd watch that shit, baby. I'd pay a PPV for it.
Forrest vs. Sokoudjou? Whee!
There's other influential teams out there, and if the UFC's been stepping on feet trying to cover for their fuckups (Ireland, paying shit-tons of cash for a piece of crap Pride organization, overpaying failures Cro Cop, Rua, Werdum, anyone else from Pride, failing to get Fedor, etc) by nickle-and-diming fighters, they could all just walk. You think Ed Fishman wouldn't help? He'd probably do it for free to spit in Dana White's big mug.
Some possible teams that could fuck off:
Xtreme Couture
Team Punishment (Tho Tito may love the opportunity to stay in the UFC with weaker opposition)
Jackson Submission
Team Quest
Miletich Fighting Systems

Those are off the top of my head. What I'm getting at is we could be looking at a major labor upset within MMA. Since the camps are the incubators of talent, not the leagues, they will in effect play the role of a union local in a lot of cases. I'm interested in how this all shakes out, I predict a rapidly shifting landscape for a while as big money interests start asserting themselves. Right now the relative shallow talent pool is going to play into it, making fight camps more influential, along with agents.
Ah, what a crazy world. Don't be surprised if the UFC goes out of business for a while, or Dana White and the Fertittas get ousted/lose control.

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