Tuesday, November 20, 2007

WAMMA Lama Ding Dong

For information about WAMMA. Check out the MMA Analyst article.

For those who need a summery: A bunch of people who have no understanding ranging from a former pro Football coach to a bumbling FBI agent to Roy Jones Jr. former management has formed the first MMA "sanctioning body". What will this sanction body do for the sport of MMA? Nothing that isn't done before by the commissions. Other then selling ad space on the weight belts they will be carrying, they're are basically another money mark organization trying to hide itself under the words "sanctioning body"

Matter of fact, I have more respect for the JMM in Japan then I have for WAMMA here. The reasons why are obvious to the naked eye. First of all, Japan need some sort of structure for MMA, ok. A sanctioning body like the JMM can bring that structure and possibly get Japanese MMA out of the funk it's in now. Second of all, if you look at who will be running WAMMA and who's running the JMM, the JMM has WAMMA beaten in the legitimacy area ten fold. JMM has more people who've actually have experience in combat sports then JAMMA has. Shoot, the JMM has a better disgraced public official in a ranking spot then WAMMA does.

I think the biggest joke in this comedy of errors is the ad belts. I'm pretty much willing to bet that was last minute and half assed by them. To show how foolish this concept is, I'll present two scenarios.

1. Coca-Cola finally chips in and funds the WAMMA Heavyweight Championship. To celebrate this, WAMMA has one of it's affiliated leagues throw a huge bash a day before UFC's Arnold card with the headline fight being (off the top of my head) Brad Imes vs. Jeff Monson for the title. Jeff wins. Before the weekend's out, Jeff throws the title in the trash and joins M-1. The reason the Heavyweight title's in the trash? It's owned by Coca-Cola.

2.Let's use the same scenario but replace Coca-Cola with, say Domino's Pizza and make the title the welterweight title. Let's say that...Diego Sanchez and JZ Cavalcanti fight for the title. Diego wins the title. Say a week later, Domino's pulls sponsorship because Diego does yoga which is against the religious convictions of their CEO. What does WAMMA do now? Not only do they lose a big sponsor, their welterweight belt have no purpose.

In the end, I think MMA is doing great with what we got going so far working with state athletic commissions. There is no need to pay extra money to a non existent organizations just to work in states and organizations that are already assessable and to waste the same amount of money to get proper sponsors when all it takes is a little explanation and a bit more elbow grease.
 
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