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Future of Semiphore's UFC lies on shoulders of Severn, Shamrock, and future stars
By Wade Keller, Torch editor
Can the Ultimate Fight Championships survive without the most intriguing player in its mix? The concept of UFC, rather than the drawing power of Royce Gracie, will have to stand alone on future events because last week the undefeated Royce Gracie pulled out of all future UFC events, citing disagreements with the rule changes.
Gracie's severance with UFC was only the latest in several week's worth of ownership changes, rule changes, and controversy among various related personalities. The next UFC event out of Casper, Wy. on July 14 did not have Gracie on the card (he will be away on his honeymoon), so that card will not be affected. The long-term future of UFC will be, though, unless Gracie is able to eventually come to terms with the group. As it stands now, it doesn't appear the two sides will be able to reach an amicable agreement. UFC has a two-year no-compete clause with Gracie.
Gracie wrote in his monthly, full-page, often self-congratulatory Black Belt magazine column that Ken Wayne Shamrock took the low road in their draw at the last UFC pay-per-view, claiming Shamrock was satisfied with a draw.
Shamrock has responded publicly by saying Gracie's trash comments "showed his insecurities." He said that Gracie is critical of others whose strategy includes holding out for an opening, but that is the style that Gracie himself usually employs. So Gracie may claim that such a strategy is "settling for a draw," when in reality it is waiting for an opening to win the match.
Meanwhile, W.O.W. Promotions run by Art Davie sold out to Semiphore Entertainment, who were 50 percent partners in the UFC events from the start and ran the pay-per-view end of the operation. With W.O.W. Promotions and Davie gone, Semiphore made some rule changes and format changes to address some of the controversy surrounding the event.
It is clear at this point that those atop Semiphore are more worried about the public and media perception of UFC than Davie was. In his "Torch Talk" a few months ago Davie shrugged off criticism of the UFC's wide open rules as "good publicity" and considered the criticism otherwise without merit. Semiphore management have taken a different approach, and in the process, at least according to Gracie, have sacrificed the purity of the fighting event.
The rule change that most affects Gracie is that they will be separating fighters at certain intervals during the bouts, perhaps once every 15 minutes. Gracie's style is strongest when it is in a true street fight situation in that once he gets a lock on his opponent, he goes into a defensive position to prevent his relatively small frame from taking any more blows from his usually larger opponent. If he is forced to break up a stalemate against his opponent, it gives his opponent one extra chance to get in a strong knockout blow on Gracie before Gracie inevitably takes him to the mat. Such was the case when after the initial time-limit ran out on his match against Shamrock at the last event, both men stood up and faced off again. Even though both ended up on the mat again, it could have led to a knockout blow by Shamrock on Gracie to end the fight in what Gracie would classify as an impure circumstance.
Other, less significant rule changes include 20 minute time-limits on prelim matches. When a match goes to a draw, both men are eliminated and an alternate takes his place. This rule, while not expected to have to be encountered all that often (in the first five events, no prelim match went 20 minutes), it was the best of several bad alternatives (other alternatives would be a coin flip to decide a winner or a no-time-limit situation that could lead to a 30-minute plus stalemate draining all satellite time before the finals).
Shamrock, meanwhile, has been having verbal sparring matches of his own. Besides a lengthy interview on Mike Lano's "Canvas Cavity" cable program in which he talked about his match with Gracie, Shamrock talked about a past incident with The Nasty Boys. WCW V.P. Eric Bischoff brought up the incident on a recent WCW 900 line conference, saying that Jerry Sags cleaned Shamrock's clock in the past as proof that UFC and Shamrock are not as tough as their reputation would say.
Shamrock says that after questioning the Nastys about their conduct toward a woman in a bar, they continued to act poorly. He confronted the Nastys later in a hotel and was attacked two on one by them and hospitalized after the incident.
In response to the Nastys using that incident as evidence that they are tougher than Shamrock, he offered to face the Nastys in a two-on-one match with tag rules at a future UFC event. Shamrock made the challenge at the UFC press conference earlier this month and on the Internet.
Shamrock will be facing UFC5 winner Dan Severn in the UFC6 SuperFight on pay-per-view on July 14 which also features a tournament including co-favorite Oleg Taktarov and Dave Beneteau. Newcomer Tank Abbott is also being talked about as a first-timer with a chance.
The question being asked now is whether over the long run the UFC officials will have any credibility in saying their champion is truly the "ultimate fighter" since Gracie left the group without ever losing a match.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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