The event has ended, thankfully, and hopefully it will never return. I’m talking about YAMMA, the new MMA company run by former UFC owner Bob Meyrowitz. For those who were unable to see the event, you didn’t miss anything. YAMMA was filled with inactivity, fighters who looked like shells of their former selves, terrible commentary, and a general “cheap” feeling to the production. But that isn’t all, Meyrowitz was interviewed by Sherdog’s Greg Savage after the event and had some pretty unrealistic things to say.
“Well, I’m thrilled. I mean it was so exciting.”
Savage asked Meyrowitz for his initial feelings on the debut show, to which Meyrowitz responded, “Well, I’m thrilled. I mean, it was so exciting.” Are you kidding me? Thrilled? Exciting? He might as well have told the truth; the event was a disaster. What is there to be thrilled about, the fact that no one showed up to the weigh-ins when they were expecting 1,000 people? The fact that the new surface would eliminate lay-n-pray, but it did the exact opposite? Or was it the fact that the fights were painstakingly boring? Meyrowitz is clearly delusional. There is no way that he could be thrilled about this event; it was a disaster from start to finish.
“This was a great night of fights.”
Umm…excuse me? There wasn’t one fight in that whole bunch that I would classify as “great,” much less the group of fights that took place. The fights were boring, and the surface of YAMMA was built to eliminate the lay-n-pray tactics of wrestlers. That clearly didn’t work as 6 of the 8 fights went to a decision.
“We’re going to do another one in June.”
Please……God…..no.
“Oleg Taktarov told me before the show, it’s going to take 5 shows to see how this really works.”
Ok, Taktarov is clearly as delusional as Meyrowitz. I don’t know about the rest of the fight fans out there that watched it, but I was able to tell after this event that the YAMMA surface is a terrible idea. I really hope that Taktarov said that because he needs 5 more paydays, if not he’s just as dumb as Meyrowitz. Let’s not forget that there is no way YAMMA turned a profit on this event. I don’t know how many investors are going to stick around losing this much money.
“It was thrilling that it worked.”
This comment was made about YAMMA’s fighting surface. How can Meyrowitz think this worked? It did the exact opposite of what it was planned to do. The YAMMA surface was introduced to keep the fights standing and to eliminate the typical lay-n-pray and stalemates that takes place along the cage of “normal” surfaces. All the surface did was trip the fighters up while they were standing, and it helped the wrestlers who could push the fighters up the ramp and take them down. The surface clearly did not do what it was designed to do.
“We saw two stars created tonight.”
Uh….what? Travis Wiuff is not a star, and this event isn’t going to make him a star. Meyrowitz thinks that he’s creating stars with the YAMMA. All he’s doing is losing credibility with every statement he makes about this event. Wiuff is a decent fighter, but he doesn’t have the exciting style that makes MMA stars. He definitely didn’t do anything to up his value after this tournament.
“Since then [selling the UFC] there have been almost no stars created.”
Okay, this comment really is just ridiculous. Meyrowitz can say that he had the stars under contract when he owned the UFC, but he didn’t build them up. Outside of Tito Ortiz, Ken Shamrock, and Royce Gracie, no one knew who these fighters were. Sure they had Liddell, Couture, Barnett, BJ Penn, etc., but they didn’t build these fighters up. The Zuffa owned UFC has put the money into marketing their stars and advertising for them. Meyrowitz can try to stake claim that he had these stars, but he didn’t develop them or create them. Zuffa created these stars and made them household names.
I seriously had to stop quoting Meyrowitz, because the crap he was spewing was simply ridiculous. They aren’t looking to get on national TV; they are working to create stars and fights that people want to see. Did anyone want to see Butterbean fight Pat Smith? How about Oleg Taktarov against Mark Kerr? No way. I honestly didn’t even know that Pat Smith was still competing. Kerr hasn’t been the same since his battles with drug addiction. Taktarov wasn’t that great of a fighter in the sports infancy.
The fact of the matter is, YAMMA will fail, and it will cost some people a lot of money. The fact that they are trying to make all of their revenue on pay-per-view, and not worried about getting their fighters into the mainstream is a recipe for failure. Doesn’t this sound like the reason the Meyrowitz owned UFC was sold? YAMMA was a disaster, and I would seriously be surprised if they hold an event in June. I’m definitely interested in seeing the pay-per-view numbers and the fighter’s salaries.
I hope that YAMMA slowly fades into the dark and it becomes a distant memory of how MMA has evolved over the years. There is no room in this sport for one night tournaments. The freak show matches were boring and simply disturbing. Watching Butterbean try to get back to his feet after he was tripped by Smith reminded me of Keith Hackney and Emmanuel Yarborough, and that’s not a good thing. And please, don’t get me started on the commentating. John Peretti was absolutely awful and sounded bitter and angry most of the night.
Meyrowitz simply doesn’t understand the sport of MMA and he clearly doesn’t understand the business of it. Bringing in recognizable older stars are good, if you’re trying to build young talent, like Rich Franklin fighting Ken Shamrock. But Meyrowitz is hoping that the one-night tournaments will build stars. The problem is, it’s hard to build stars when no one is watching your show. Here’s to you Mr. Meyrowitz, you showed us all how NOT to host an MMA event.