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Ryan Bennett (picture on the left, left side) and Micheal DiSanto (picture on the right).Commentary by
'The Predator'During my long and storied time as a
professional cagefighter, I have witnessed a number of
pathetic back-stabbing events, both in and out of the cage. However, relating to the pathetic group of functionally illiterate fanboy nerds and social rejects known as the MMA Media, two people immediately top the list. I am having a difficult time deciding who the bigger
weasel is, so I have decided to allow the thousands of followers of the
Cagefighter's Corner to vote on the issue and give the fans of this sport a chance to decide. For the biggest
weasel among the MMA Media, here is the tale of the tape:
1. The Weasel in the red trunks: Michael 'Mutual Fund' DiSanto
Michael DiSanto earned his nickname from a scam on mma.tv involving a
UFC fighter's sponsor. DiSanto took several thousand dollars from the sponsor in a mutual fund disaster based on expected
gambling winnings from the UFC and boxing. DiSanto promised that he had the inside lead on who the UFC refs had been ordered to favor in upcoming fights and which fights would be
pre-determined works.
Of course, the
money disappeared, and all of DiSanto's predictions were completely false. There is still heated debate among cagefighting fans as to whether DiSanto even actually gambled any of the money and instead just pocketed it, or if he really did place bets, but his woeful incompetence and ignorance of the fight game prevented him from ever winning any money.
Either way, DiSanto is a
weasel for either being crooked, amazingly incompetent, or both. Michael DiSanto, a trained attorney who
failed to pass the bar exam in his first three attempts, will not deny any of the charges in public, though DiSanto does place some of the blame on the sponsor providing him with several thousand dollars. At least on that issue, I would agree with
'Mutual Fund' Disanto.
While that issue was embarrassing enough for the insidefighting "journalist," the next issue managed to draw scorn from someone who had once been universally considered the biggest
weasel on the internet,
Ryan 'The Weasel' Bennett.
After
Dana White had placed an MMA Media ban on virtually the entire MMA media for daring to cover
PRIDE, including insidefighting, the MMA Media decided, after meeting in a
Star Trek chatroom, to form a battle plan in response to Dana White. They would show solidarity to one another and protest the upcoming UFC by not covering it. The entire MMA Media that is, except
Michael Disanto.
DiSanto went behind the back of his fellow "journalists" and emailed Dana White, begging
Dana 'Built Like A Fighter' White to give insidefighting press credentials. During the course of the negotiations, DiSanto promised BLAF that he would give even more positive coverage to the UFC.
Dana and DiSanto reached a deal, and within a few hours, several editorials appeared on the insidefighting website praising Zuffa's decision to ban the rest of the internet MMA media. Since then, insidefighting has become even more
sycophantic towards the UFC, an amazing task considering how overwhelming the positive coverage was prior to the
backstabbing backroom deal signed with the blood of DiSanto's MMA media brethren.
2. Weasel in the blue trunks: Ryan 'The Weasel' Bennett
Ryan Bennett, outspoken Mormon, owner of mmaweekly, and host of a state of the art MMA radio show broadcasted daily from his basement, is well documented as a
weasel. However, a number of flamboyant new fans have begun visiting the internet forums in the last few months thanks to the wild popularity among certain lifestyle groups of the
homoerotic broadcast on
Spike TV known as
'The Ultimate Fighter'. Therefore, I will review the information most fans already know about MMA's most beloved stuttering talk show host.
A few years ago, during Zuffa's quest to find the perfect combination of ass kissing and dim-witted employees, Ryan Bennett had been the post-fight interviewer for the
UFC. Bennett was quickly fired from his job for flubbing interviews. Also, Bennett first found out he would be fired from reading the
Fightsport.com news blog, and has held a grudge against
Fightsport.com ever since. While Bennett had lost his dream job, he decided that he would get it back, whatever the cost.
Eddie 'Mexican Midget' Bravo, flamboyant grappler and close friend of rumored she-male admirer
Joe Rogan, had taken over Bennett's job at the UFC. Not too much later, Bennett noticed a post of Bravo's on mma.tv discussing his love for marijuana. Bennett immediately copied and pasted the post, forwarded it to the
Fertittas and
Dana White, and demanded Bravo be fired on the basis of sending out a bad image as a
Zuffa representative.
Prior to sending the email, Bennett had even worked out a deal with
Bruce 'Frank Stallone' Buffer of maxfighting. The deal involved Buffer's support for Bennett getting his job back, in exchange for Buffer being allowed full access to Bennett's radio show on maxfighting.
After a low level Zuffa employee with access to Zuffa's website saw the e-mail, he leaked the information to
Fightsport.com. Then
Fightsport.com posted Bennett's exact email, which Bennett immediately denied and claimed was a made-up lie from
Fightsport.com. Bennett continued this charade for years, until recently when he inexplicably issued a vague
apology to Eddie Bravo on mmaweekly, also stating that their feud was now behind them.
Bennett never apologized to
Fightsport.com, however, for libeling the impeccable journalistic standards and fine reporters of the
FS 24/7 blog, even though he did basically admit in public that he had lied all along and
Fightsport.com was right.
There you have it, fellow cagefighting fans. Based on the above evidence, they are both obviously huge
weasels, but who do you think is the bigger
weasel? Let me know what you think on all of the mma forums, including
Fightsport.com, and the
FS Blog will report the results.
Frank Shamrock
Frank Shamrock recently spoke with the Sherdog website. Here's what Shamrock had to say (interview by Mike Sloan):
Interviewer: What is new with Frank Shamrock? I hear you are opening up a whole franchise of schools. Tell me more about that.
Shamrock: I am. I'm taking mixed martial arts to the masses. We're teaching children, the whole family. I'm putting all of my martial arts programs that I've been engulfing and teaching over the years under one roof and creating a home for them. My goal at the end of the day is to create a successful franchise that I can take across the United States and across the world.
Interviewer: Who is going into business with you? I don't think you can handle the workload by yourself.
Shamrock: It's myself and Kelly Dullanty, who is an old student of mine and my partner in our Wild Cats Kids program. Kelly has been with me since I'd have to say 1997, as a student, fighter and partner of mine for a very long time. Then we've raised a bunch of money with our family and friends, and our stock is maturing, so we're going to offer some stock in our company as well.
Interviewer: What is the name of the academy going to be?
Shamrock: Shamrock Martial Arts Academy.
Interviewer: What's up with Striker Sports? Is Striker Sports no longer around?
Shamrock: Striker Sports is my parent company that manages my intellectual properties and also my other martial arts-related companies.
Interviewer: So with Shamrock Martial Arts anyone who wants to get into martial arts can join. Is the school going to be more directed towards the mainstream people who just those who want to try it out, more towards beginners, or more towards people who are hardcore and really want to do it for a career?
Shamrock: Well, we have a program for everybody. We have a submission wrestling program for just about everybody and our Wild Cats Kids program is specifically targeted for children ages 4 to about 15, and we have a women's program which is women's self-defense for real. All of our submission-fighting programs are really geared towards the general public. Ninety percent of what we do is technique and 90 percent of what I do is technique and I think that's why my program has grown so rapidly. With our programs you can take them wherever you want - if you want to compete, if you want to train, if you want to fight, if you want to be a regular Joe - that's truly up to you.
Interviewer: Now aside from yourself, are there going to be any other celebrity fighters helping out with courses and what not, because over here at J-Sect and Cobra Kai, John Lewis and Marc Laimon have a lot of fighters coming in and training. What about you?
Shamrock: I don't think so. So far it's just Kelly and I. We spend a lot of time developing programs from the basis of mixed martial arts and martial arts in general. We've spent, gosh, about seven years developing the Wild Cats program and I've been developing the Shamrock Submission Fighting program for 10 years now. So we really feel like there's a format and structure that anyone could use. The principals and philosophies and concepts are very sound. So I guess the answer would be no to celebrities, but yeah, that's what we do.
Interviewer: Well I didn't mean celebrities like movie stars or musicians. I meant celebrities as popular fighters, like a Chuck Liddell, Matt Hughes. Something like that.
Shamrock: Well, but the way it would work is if they learned the program, they could be teaching it (laughs).
Interviewer: All right, that's fair enough. Is the school open right now or is it still getting built?
Shamrock: We are just now finalizing our lease and building a school itself. We've been spending the last six months working on our business systems and our business structure. With our franchise contracts we're writing all the software for every program from checking somebody in to selling merchandise, so we're really going to create a one-stop shop for teaching and training mixed martial arts.
Interviewer: Where is the initial school going to be located?
Shamrock: We're in San Jose, California, and we picked a very prominent retail location across the street from one of our biggest malls, the Oak Ridge Mall. We picked that location for the traffic and also the access to families.
Interviewer: Beautiful. That's a good move, Frank. When you guys do branch out, what are your key targets? What cities?
Shamrock: Our key targets are large metropolitan cities. We're thinking Dallas, New York, Miami, Florida... the major metropolitan cities that are interested in martial arts. But our initial goal in the next three years is to open three schools here in the South Bay, which is the San Francisco Bay Area where I live. Once we have a grasp on those three schools and we've developed and tested our product, then we're going to go nationwide.
Interviewer: Is there Web site that people right now who are interested can go visit and get more information?
Shamrock: Currently you cannot. Currently you can only find that information on FrankShamrock.com. Our website is being built right now, but we are still in the very initial stages. We haven't released a whole lot of information on what we're doing. I would like to make sure projects are fairly complete and sound before we put it out there to the public. So, if you want more information you can check it out at FrankShamrock.com. We'll be announcing our Board of Directors, Technical Advisory Board and any developments we have inside of our corporation.
Interviewer: Now, away from that and on to the questions that people also want to hear and, of course, the ones you expect. What is the latest on Cesar Gracie? That fight's been on, off, on, off. What's the latest?
Shamrock: Well it's always been on. I have an iron clad contract that he is not getting away from. It's just we can't do it in California. In California it's not legal they don't have the funding. They don't know when they'll be ready. They don't have any time lines for us. So we're currently looking for other locations. We've been in negotiations with the Arnold Schwarzenegger Classic about doing it at his event. We have a Plan B or a secondary date at the MGM Grand in the month of July 2006, in Las Vegas, which is our next target. But we really push for California. We really tried to be the first show in California and we're just hitting so many barriers. We're just going to have to go somewhere else.
Interviewer: In your opinion what's taking so long for California? Do you think its ignorance on their part because they don't know the sport or that they don't think there is enough money generated or interest? What do you think the problem is with California and mixed martial arts?
Shamrock: I think it's a twofold problem. One is they don't realize the revenue source that it can be and then, two, California has so many other political issues at this moment that scraping together $500 to $750,000 to orchestrate and govern and manage this whole thing it's just not in anybody's priority list. That's what it seems to come down to, is no one wants to stick their neck out to help raise the money or help bring the legal side of it together. I know their biggest concern, and the reason why it's not legal, is because they're not ready to accept the liability for it. They're just not structured. Nobody knows what's going on. No one knows the sport. No one knows who's what. And, if they were to govern it now, it's just that they would be looking at a tremendous amount of liability because no one knows what the hell they're doing.
Interviewer: OK, so you, being a resident of California and being such a premier fighter, that has to be the most annoying and frustrating thing to deal with.
Shamrock: It is the worst thing ever. And we've gone round and round with the commission. The commission actually approved and gave us a date previously. They said we could do it October 1. We had their blessing. We did a business deal with the arena here San Jose, which is one of the biggest arenas in California, and we were really prepared to make it one of the strongest impacts, not only to the money side of California, but also to the media side of California. And it's just been a gigantic headache. So we're sort of to the point where we're going to give up and go somewhere else.
Interviewer: Now, from a fan's perspective, and I'm personally a huge Frank Shamrock fan, it's frustrating throughout all of these months and actually years now with the Cesar Gracie thing and the California deal not coming through yet. A lot of us have been saying, "Damn, Frank is such a great fighter, but it seems as though he's wasting his talent. Why doesn't he just scrap the idea and sign on to PRIDE or King of the Cage or UFC?" Even though I know you're not a big fan of Dana White. But a lot of people have been asking, "What's up with Frank? Is he ever going to fight? Is he serious? What's going on?" Why not just fight on a more regular basis?
Shamrock: I have no desire. I didn't get into fighting for the fans. I got into it because I wanted to challenge myself in certain areas and I've exhausted the majority of those areas, but there are a few things I would like to do before I leave. But you know fighting in the Rumble on the Rock is not one of them. Kickboxing or K-1 is not something I care to do. PRIDE has the most ridiculous contracts you've ever seen. It would have nothing to do with promoting talent, creating stars. I have a very set mind as to what Frank Shamrock chooses and what Frank Shamrock the fighter is going to do with his career and I stick by my guns. It doesn't matter. I know it's weird, but I don't care. PRIDE offered me $250,000 for three years, for each time, for each fight. But they wanted me to be ready on two weeks notice and they couldn't name my opponent. That doesn't sound like a good deal. That doesn't sound like I'm going to be to hanging at my house and hang out with my friends and teach martial arts and have a good life and have children. It doesn't sound that good to me. So at the end of the day, I'm going to be the one giving permission. I get to pick and choose whatever I want to do and I don't want to do any of that crap. I'm nearing the end of my career and I don't care to kill myself everyday for someone else's financial gain. I don't care for those things. I enjoy working out. I enjoy teaching martial arts. I enjoy guiding and administering fighters and every year or so, or two years or three years now I enjoy getting in the ring and kicking someone's ass. But I like doing it on my terms. I know the inside of the business and I know the real deal and it ain't a pretty one, and I don't want those people governing my life.
Interviewer: OK, that's fair enough. It's totally fair. You mentioned that you have a couple of goals before you retire. What are those goals?
Shamrock: My goals are to fight (Kazushi) Sakuraba, to fight a Gracie, to fight on mainstream public television - which I think is ABC, NBC, CBS - and my goal is to continue to represent this sport with honor and respect like I thought we were all trying to do at the beginning, and present martial arts the way it should be presented. It doesn't matter where you're fighting or what's going on. I think all of these people with their gimmick images and their BS and all this promotion is great for the quick picking sale, but I think that I want to go out there once or twice more against the highest profile names I can and I want to present myself as a real person and a real martial artist. People can judge me and do whatever they want to do, but I want to go out and just be myself a few more times, but I don't want to do it for the UFC. I think they're idiots, in my opinion. I don't want to do it for some small time show, or I don't want to do it because I need the money. I want to do it because I want to go do it.
Interviewer: Well Sakuraba is PRIDE's baby. It's in my opinion I think he'll probably never leave PRIDE until he retires. You said that you don't like PRIDE's contracts, they're ridiculous. What would it take for you to fight Sakuraba, if that's the ultimate goal or one of your ultimate goals and he wouldn't leave PRIDE?
Shamrock: Well, first of all it would help getting his name on a contract. And I negotiated with them for over two years and they would never put his name on the contract. The closest I got was, "Sakuraba or like opponent." (Laughter) But that doesn't mean with Sakuraba. I don't know what that means.
Interviewer: Sakuraba or "like opponent"?
Shamrock: Or like opponent... I understand the other business side of that and I understand making money and all those things. But I'm there for a purpose and you know, put his name on a contract, give me the money I want. The money wasn't the issue. They wouldn't put his name on a contract, which means they don't want me to fight him or there's some other issue or whatever. They told me I wasn't popular anymore. They told me whatever, who knows. But if that's my goal and if they want to do it, then put his name on a contract. I'd be glad to fight him.
Interviewer: Have you ever spoken with Sakuraba directly?
Shamrock: No, he doesn't speak very good English.
Interviewer: True, but have you met him with an interpreter at all? Do you think any part of this has to do with Sakuraba having reservations about fighting you?
Shamrock: I don't think so. From what I know of Japanese business structure, Sakuraba doesn't make the decisions. As far as I know, Sakuraba is contracted through this company and what I know about Japanese business structure is that this is your job and you just do what you're told. I don't think he cares. I'm sure he'd love to fight me, but he gets a paycheck each month and he goes where his boss tells him to go.
Interviewer: Then keeping with Sakuraba, probably the last question about Sakuraba, he just beat up Ken (Shamrock). Some say it was a controversial stoppage. It was really quick. Did you see the fight and if you did, what are your thoughts on Ken versus Sakuraba?
Shamrock: I saw the fight and I tried to watch it from an outside point of view, which is, he's not my brother and I don't want to fight the guy. I tried to watch it that way and that it's a whole other fight, and I got this really cool TiVo thing where I can slow it all down and freeze the frame and if you're sleeping with your head through the second rope, you're in a bad way. He got clocked. He went down. According to the rules he was no longer defending himself and that's the end of the fight. Was it early? Sure it was early. But was he getting his ass kicked? Yeah. It just depends on how you want to look at it. I tried to look at it abstractly and I saw a guy sleeping with his head through the second rope. That's not good, because if I'm there, please somebody stop this.
Interviewer: That's the same way I thought of it, too. I didn't understand that outcry that it was a bad stoppage. The fight ended quickly, of course, but, in my opinion, Ken was out.
Shamrock: He was sleeping. He woke back up, great. But for that moment he was sleeping. You can look at it from two sides, should they let him keep kicking him in the head and mashing him and beating on him? Maybe. But in the art of fighting he wasn't defending himself, at least not intelligently. He's my bro and I wanted more than anything in the world for him to win. But it's like, shit, there it is. There.
Interviewer: You mentioned that in your opinion UFC are "idiots"... What are your thoughts on this ridiculous UFC media ban, that they're preventing all mixed martial arts media from attending their events?
Shamrock: In truth it's just bad management. I understand what they're trying to do and I could see their side of the story, and the truth is if you're real media you report on it anyway. It doesn't matter what it is; if you're a reporter, you report. I know that there are a lot of people that get freebies and manipulate the system and do this and do that or whatever, and there are a lot of people that honestly are there to support and report on the sport. But to flick everybody in the head and tell everyone to fuck off is not cool and that's bad management. It could have been handled a lot better. You could have gotten the same results by just saying, "Hey, you know what, sorry, here's the deal, much respect, I apologize maybe we can work something out in the future, whatever, whatever." It was just handled badly and that goes to bad management. I've seen it year after year after year and I see the leaders of that company and they don't know what the hell they're doing with an entertainment company. But when you have more money than God, well, you get away with a few things.
Interviewer: In my opinion the UFC has done something smart for the sport, at least for the short term, with the Ultimate Fighter reality series. What are your thoughts on that? Even though they're not exactly the best fighters in the world, the Ultimate Fight Nights that have been on Spike have been fantastic, especially the one last week. That was one of the best UFC events that I've seen in quite some time. When the Ultimate Fighters came out, seasons one and two, what were your thoughts at first and what are your thoughts now?
Shamrock: I thought the first season was really good. I thought the second season was a little bit weak, just from a production stand point. I look at things abstractly in that way, because I'm involved in that business. They're not the best fighters in the world, but they're great talent. I think that the UFC is doing something very, very smart in pushing and propelling the sport to that level. But I look at it from my side, are they pushing the sport and propelling it for everybody in the sport or for their own good? And the truth is, they're just in it for the money, which is great, but I'm in it for the art, so we bump heads in that way. I think it's been a tremendous asset in promoting the sport. I have profited from it. My student base has skyrocketed. Everybody is interested in the sport. It's brought a new level of interest, which it helps everybody in that way I was there from the very beginning. I know the deal, how they got the show, the whole nine yards. I followed their ridiculous media, how they talked about how they changed the rules and all this other crap. I was there when Jeff Blatnick rewrote the rules. It's all bullshit and I get it and I just laugh, because it's like they're just marketing to a new crowd who doesn't know anything. But if they're telling the truth, they put themselves over and blah, blah, blah. So that's why I don't do business with them, because I think they're idiots in my opinion. I just sit back and go, "Wait a minute I was there to when Jeff wrote the rules!" There is no doubt that it has helped the sport tremendously to be on mainstream television and it's revived a world of martial arts that's spilling over into the film industry.
Interviewer: And that for the sport is always a good thing. Well, I wouldn't say always, but usually always a good thing.
Shamrock: It's usually a good thing. But I was also there when the last UFC was banned from cable and I remember the marketing that went into that and I remember the attention that we got. The energy we rode on and that marketing that was it was cockfighting, cage fighting, somebody's going to die. I think they've got a better plan to their marketing now, but is it a similar or same concept, yeah maybe, but it sure is entertaining, I'll tell you that much.
Interviewer: Yes it is, yes it is. And now that the UFC is on such a high right now, the World Fighting Alliance is coming back and allegedly... Don King is going to help promote it. What are your thoughts on that?
Shamrock: It sounds like more people interested in money. It sounds like a good deal to me. They contacted me. It sounds like it may or may not be successful. Any new promotion, any growth in the sport is positive. At the end of the day people decide how they want themselves to be viewed. People promote their sport the way they wanted to. Some people have a different vision of what martial arts should be or what mixed martial arts should be. I think it should be done with honor and respect. You can talk shit, but you got to back it up.
Interviewer: I come from a boxing background and I've been a boxing journalist a lot longer than I've been a mixed martial arts journalist so I know the ins and outs of Don King. I know everything about the guy. In reality he's great for boxing, but on the same token he's also bad for boxing, some of the things that he's done. Given Don King's history, do you think he would ultimately be a positive aspect for mixed martial arts or a disastrous aspect?
Shamrock: That's a good question. I think that he is in the same boat as the UFC. They're both good and they're both bad. I think that his interest, his name, his brand will bring more interest and credibility to the sport as a product, as a television product and pay-per-view product. I also think that like the UFC he'll diminish the product for his own financial gain.
Interviewer: Rumors have been circulating underground that the WFA has signed Tito Ortiz and they are either trying to or they have already signed you to fight Tito in the rematch. What is your side of that, if that's even remotely true?
Shamrock: They called me and asked me quite a few times, but they offered me a deal like the UFC offered. Here's a few dollars, we own you for the rest of your life and then goodbye. I'm in a different position in my life. I have different priorities. Different things I want to do and being owned and controlled by someone else for a few dollars is not one of those things.
Interviewer: So it's safe to say that the Frank Shamrock vs. Tito Ortiz II in the WFA is not happening?
Shamrock: Not on their first show, at least. The last show (WFA 3) took me two months to get paid for my commentary job for which I cut my price in half because they were friends of mine. So from a good business standpoint I see myself probably waiting from them to get paid. Needless to say, my business experience with them hasn't been the greatest, so I'm not falling over myself to jump back in bed with them at this point. If they get a couple shows off the ground and they are doing something positive, generating some energy, there's always possibilities.
