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Popularity: 3% [?]

I didn’t get many pictures at Friday night’s show before I got promoted to Timekeeper. But here are a few of them. Interview with Evan Marin is coming up soon. See all the photos here.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Dave Holland, executive director of the VDPOR (or whatever his title is, I don’t care enough to look it up), has actually managed to some how do something right. But he did it in such a complete ass backwards way, that he still screwed it up. As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, Virginia and Shine Fights were teaming up to do for MMA what Vanilla Ice did for rap.

And yes, we are talking about the same Shine Fights that completely imploded in May. This time, Shine is priming themselves for another gong show by planning an 8-man one night tournament, meaning that the two finalists will fight 3 times in one night.
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Popularity: 8% [?]

Yesterday I talked about why this October’s Bellator is different from other shows going on down here in Philly. Today I’m going to talk about the challenge in promoting this show.

As we mentioned yesterday, Eddie Alvarez will fight in Philly for the first time in October against Roger Huerta. This fight could mark the beginning of a paradigm shift on local mixed martial arts events.

The great thing about this Bellator fight is that Eddie Alvarez is worth at the very least 7,000 tickets in Philadelphia. The Liacourus Center, where Bellator 33 will be held, seats 10,000 for basketball, so I think the final seat tally will be in the ballpark of about 10,750 (don’t quote me on the number). So that leaves just short of 4,000 tickets to be sold on the strength of the other fighters on the card. A big show in Philly at The Arena, for example, sells 1,500 seats (that’s including giveaway tickets). So the local promoter will have to sell almost twice as many seats to fill the building. I know that’s some Numerology type math where 2+2=whatever the hell I want. But I hope you follow my logic.
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Popularity: 10% [?]

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the quality of fight cards in the Philly/Atlantic City game recently and for some reason I’ve had an impossible time expressing in words my thoughts. Some of that is because the path of least resistance in that sort of post would stomp on toes of promoters and matchmakers that I like and respect. Part of it is that its tough to tell the story without giving a wide open look into the business side of a sport that I may not entirely have the privledge of knowing or exposing.

Over the last ten months, I’ve been incredibly fortunate that almost to a man, every promoter in the region has welcomed me to their show, more often than not with seats at the commission table, and a very honest and trusting view of how they do business.
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Popularity: 10% [?]

This morning’s post announcing Villante vs Richards 2 made a glancing mention to Kim Couture vs Munah Holland currently listed as the show’s co-main event.

It took Jim D’ja Eat Yet? Genia to remind me just where I knew Munah Holland from. She is an incredibly accomplished fighter, despite her complete lack of any MMA record.
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Popularity: 23% [?]

Gian Villante, current Ring of Combat Heavyweight Champion, will get a rematch from this past spring’s Light Heavyweight Title fight with Demetrius Richards on October 23rd.
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Popularity: 19% [?]