A funny side note about Spike TV by the way.  When the former TNN rebranded with its new name film director Spike Lee decided to sue the station for copyright infringement.  It seems he was getting phone calls from friends and business associates asking why he hadn’t told them he was starting up a TV station.  You see, in the laughable world of entertainment and the egomaniacal mind of Lee the only possible use of the word ‘Spike’ is in connection with him.  Anyway, they threw him a little money and off he went, another few bucks in his bulging bank account, suddenly sanguine about the use of ‘his’ name.  Strange how money can do that to a ‘serious artist’.

Anyway, back to April 9th.  While rumours about the line-up for the ‘Ultimate Fighter’ finals sweep MMA boards there is still, at the time of writing, little confirmed for the show, we’ll concentrate on one aspect of it.  The ‘special attraction’ fight between Ken Shamrock and Rich Franklin.  First, a few notes about why this originally seemed such a dreadful idea, why that may have changed and then a prediction for the fight itself.

The Business End and Why Zuffa Is The Most Infuriating Company In The World

Don’t you just love Zuffa?  It seems that for every truly brilliant masterstroke they pull (the rebranding of UFC, the NSAC sanctioning and cable clearances that saved the sport, the Spike TV deal) they always find a way to go and do something so wilfully boneheaded you have to wonder whether its all some kind of twisted prank.  Then something else happens to make you think they’re geniuses after all.  Let’s start with a quick trawl through a few of the negatives.

Look at the ongoing exodus of champions that have wreaked havoc on the title picture.  Not their fault you might say?  Well, considering Zuffa control who does and doesn’t get a title shot it was pretty strange of them to give the likes of Murillo Bustamante (against Matt Lindland for the vacant title) and B.J. Penn (against Matt Hughes) title shots on the last fight of their contracts.  And don’t forget the way they gave title shots to Frank Trigg and Sean Sherk without either man actually appearing in a featured fight on a UFC pay-per-view.  Sherk had at least worked for the company but only in preliminary matches.  No wonder the buy rates for UFC 42 and UFC 45 were so low when the seemingly unstoppable Matt Hughes was facing opponents much of the audience had simply never heard of.

Or what about their more ‘questionable’ signings?  How about initially signing Pedro Rizzo to a gigantic $175,000 per fight guaranteed deal?  Now, Rizzo may be a very talented fighter but he’s too cautious, has no charisma, spoke little English and had a horrible physique.  He’d also already failed to win the UFC Heavyweight title yet Zuffa somehow expected him to be the standard-bearer for the company and the sport.  Oops.  Just look at the way his UFC career ended, a torturous bore with Ricco Rodriguez in a preliminary fight at UFC 45.  For all the complaints about Zuffa handing out tiny pay checks they should point to Rizzo and say, ‘Hey we paid a guy close to $200,000 for a fight we didn’t even want to air on the pay-per-view.  How can you possibly say we underpay our fighters?’

Moreover, don’t forget the silent euthanasia of the Lightweight division.  Including UFC 52 there have been three straight shows without any fights in the division that arguably showcased some of the promotion’s most entertaining fighters.  Still, who really needs the likes of Caol Uno, Genki Sudo, Hermes Franca, Josh Thomson and Yves Edwards anyway?

A Very Bad Idea?

So, what does all this Zuffa-bashing have to do with anything?  Why, just a few weeks ago it appeared to be their stupidest move yet – the giving away of a Ken Shamrock fight, and one most observers should fully expect him to lose, for free.  Why was this so stupid?  Consider the following:

Shamrock is still the UFC’s best and most proven pay-per-view draw.  His UFC 40 main event with Tito Ortiz pulled some 150,000 buys, and, Shamrock-Kimo at UFC 48 drew a shockingly high 110,000 or so.  UFC 44 with Couture-Ortiz in a well-hyped, far more meaningful match than Shamrock-Kimo pulled around 100,000.  Shamrock is also one of the company’s highest paid stars and most recognisable mainstream name.  Even at his age, Shamrock could pull a couple more big buy rates for the company and, due to his history over there, would be an extremely useful, no make that invaluable, addition to June’s UFC show in Japan.

So what did they do?  In their obsession with pulling a strong TV rating (something they would likely do anyway since the ‘Ultimate Fighter’ has been such a success, they booked Shamrock in a fight at the ‘compact’ 2,500 to 3,000 seater Cox Pavilion at the University of Las Vegas.  They not only threw away 10,000 seats worth of live gate money and healthy pay-per-view revenue, they actually put Shamrock in a position where he’s likely to lose against someone who’s an unknown to the mainstream.  Given Shamrock’s wages (not to mention Franklin and the ‘Ultimate Fighter’ contestants pay) and the cost of putting on a live event this could easily be the first live UFC event to actually lose money for years.

Surely a better use of Shamrock, and Franklin if Zuffa wanted to make him a star by having him run through their biggest name, would be to use their hour long TV special to show the ‘Ultimate Fighter’ finals and use a couple of segments to announce and hype a Franklin-Shamrock match for the June pay-per-view. It’s easily done – Shamrock and Franklin highlight videos, an interview each and appearances in front of the live crowd for a formal challenge.  That would allow them to make some extra money from the live gate in Japan and draw a bumper buy rate in North America.  Clearly, this fight, when originally announced was not a good idea.  It entailed throwing away a large sum of guaranteed revenue in the hope, and only the hope of pulling a TV rating big enough to set Spike TV executives’ hearts aflutter.  However, things may well be a little different now.

A Very Good Idea?

Amazing how much difference a few weeks can make isn’t it?  Suddenly, the Shamrock-Franklin fight might well be one of those Zuffa masterstrokes they simply don’t get enough credit for.  We’re no longer looking at a one hour TV special on a Saturday night from a company Spike TV are quietly happy and somewhat surprised about.  Spike TV are extremely and vocally happy with ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ and have given UFC two and a half hours, with a monstrous 12 hour lead in provided by a repeat showing of the entire series and some heavy re-run action over the following couple of days.  Hopefully the extra time will allow them to push the Couture-Liddell rematch at UFC 52 as well.  Throw in the recent ratings good news (a 2.0 as the show has recovered strongly after the 3-week slump that kicked in after the Leben-Kosheck borefest) and developments concerning Spike TV’s deal with WWE and Zuffa must be getting very excited.  Not as excited as Dana White a couple of weeks back when he predicted a barking mad 6.0 rating for the live special.  Yes really.  Well, he does seem to have calmed down a bit now and is talking about a far more realistic 2.5.

But surely, an extra 90 minutes and a full day of promotion can’t erase the shortsightedness and profligacy of giving away a Ken Shamrock fight for free can it?  Perhaps it can.  Spike TV’s announcement they wouldn’t be renewing their contract with WWE for Monday Night Raw has been taken by many as a bitter blow for pro wrestling and a triumph for MMA.  Absolute drivel.  Vince McMahon will simply take his show back to the USA network and Spike TV will embark on their new mission – showing endless repeats of the seemingly endless procession of CSI (Crime Scene Investigations) franchises.  That’s right, Spike TV are no longer ‘the network for men’ they’re ‘the network based on re-runs of a tiresome cop show’.  They’ve already signed up CSI, CSI: New York and CSI: Miami.  How long before they bring us CSI: Hendersonville, Tennessee and CSI: Battle Creek, Michigan?  Seriously, this nonsense could go on forever.

So if Spike TV aren’t about to come begging Zuffa to take over the Monday night 9-11pm slot (and they aren’t) why is this suddenly great news for Zuffa?  Simply put, because of the opportunity they now have to really impress their new friends with a higher than expected rating.  Even with all the CSI shows Spike TV will have some holes to fill in their schedules and a fairly cheap, already successful brand could be in a good position to barge their way in.  And that’s where Ken Shamrock comes in.  Reality shows usually get a ratings boost for the finale and Shamrock’s presence should pull in more than a few viewers on top of that.  If this happens, and its still a gamble remember, then the pay-per-view and live gate money Zuffa are foregoing here could well be a price worth paying.  Negotiations are already well advanced for a second season of the ‘Ultimate Fighter’ but a regular show based around fights and fighters rather than a house full of nutters charging around getting drunk and competing in ever-sillier physical challenges would be a prize of almost unimaginable value for Zuffa, the UFC and MMA in general.  Can they pull it off?  I’m still not convinced but Zuffa are certainly looking much smarter than they were a month ago.  So while nothing is guaranteed, a big success on April 9th could bring them within touching distance of that elusive TV show and a genuine shot at the mainstream.

The Fight

But, enough of the business.  What about the fight?  You may have guessed by now that I expect Franklin to win, and win in style.  The Ohio math teacher has been fighting professionally for a little over five years, putting together an impressive 16-1 record.  Tall, good looking, strong and well rounded, Franklin is almost the prototype of a modern UFC fighter.  Wins over quality strikers like Curtis Stout, Jorge Rivera, Antony Rea and Marvin Eastman suggest he should be able to handle Shamrock standing.  Franklin has wrestling skills too, as well as good submission defence.  He also holds a rare victory, and a total blitzing at that, of current UFC Middleweight king Evan Tanner, in the fight that prompted Tanner to drop a weight class.  In fact, Franklin’s only loss was a bit of a shocker, to Antonio Inoki’s newest protégé, Ryoto Machida some 16 months ago.  To be honest, Franklin looked awful that night as he was controlled and then KO’ed by the inexperienced young Brazilian/Japanese Karate/BJJ/Sumo prodigy.  If Franklin performs like he did against Machida then Shamrock has a very good chance at pulling off an improbable win.  But this is Franklin’s big opportunity.  He’s facing the promotion’s biggest name, on it’s biggest showcase event in history.  I just don’t see him blowing it. 

He’ll most likely want to keep the fight standing and pick off Shamrock with leg kicks and jabs, before clinching and grappling against the fence, draining Shamrock’s strength and setting a hard pace to see if the older man can keep up.  In addition, Franklin will be competing in or around his natural weight class.  At UFC 50, weighing 185 pounds, he looked gaunt and sickly, but still managed to maintain a hard pace with Rivera before pulling off a submission win very late in the third round.  He seems more comfortable at 205, a weight that Shamrock himself has admitted he isn’t really suited to.  One more interesting thing to note is that Franklin has never won a fight by decision.  He’s finished off the majority of his opponents with strikes, and Shamrock has never been genuinely KO’ed or TKO’ed.  Can Franklin be the first?

Ken Shamrock (26-8-2) may be the ‘World’s Most Dangerous Middle Aged Man’ (and remember what middle-aged actually means, the mid-way point in your life and as life expectancy in the rich world is late 70s/early 80s he’s right up there so there’s no disrespect intended) but he has his hands full here.  In the time Shamrock has taken to amass his last three fights (against Don Frye, Tito Ortiz and Kimo) Franklin has fought 10 times, going 9-1, while Shamrock is 1-2.  Shamrock is a legendary, pioneering figure in the sport and a thoroughly deserved UFC Hall of Famer (despite Dan Severn’s childish hissy fit) but serious injuries to his knee and rotator cuff have severely hampered him in the past couple of years.  After all his years of fighting and pro wrestling, you have to wonder if his body can really cope with this anymore. 

He looked good in his brief tussle with Kimo, ending that one with an emphatic knee to the chin, but that has to be kept in perspective.  Kimo was never an elite fighter and, aside from his win over the useless Tank Abbott, doesn’t seem to have aged well either.  Shamrock’s fight with Don Frye was, for the most part, a thriller and he showed flashes of the old Ken Shamrock but again, that was against another aged, injury-riddled legend.  A more realistic barometer of his chances, results wise if not stylistically, is probably the Ortiz fight, and Shamrock got mashed in that one.  Aside from briefly dropping his nemesis with a short hook and making a couple of improbable escapes from the bottom, Shamrock offered little more than boundless courage and an uncomfortable ability to absorb punishment.  Still, Shamrock’s considerable submission, and underrated wrestling skills can’t be discounted.  He’s beaten the likes of Masakatsu Funaki, Matt Hume, Bas Rutten, Maurice Smith, Manabu Yamada, Dan Severn, and has fought draws, which if there had been judges he’d have won, with Royce Gracie and Oleg Taktarov.  If Franklin takes Shamrock too lightly he could be in for a shocking surprise but everything points to a win for Franklin.  I expect Shamrock to have his moments and given the amount of punishment he took against Ortiz I don’t think Franklin can knock him out, nor would I expect him to tap-out a man with so much submission experience.  This should be a good, entertaining fight but I don’t expect it to have a happy ending for Shamrock or his fans.

PREDICTION: Franklin by unanimous decision.  And an overall 2.4 rating for the live special.