Dave Meltzer at The Wrestling Observer pointed out something about the recent comments by Montgomery Burns…errr….CBS Executive Chairman Sumner Redstone condemning MMA on his network. If you’ll recall the post we had on the story you may remember a quote from Fox Sports President Ed Goren that went a little something like this:

But Ed Goren, president of Fox Sports, was more direct, telling an audience of 200 that he didn’t pursue a relationship with ultimate fighting because, “We don’t need money that badly.�

PRIDE on FSN

This is what we call a sanctimonious statement. It’s also what we can charitably call “duplicity” and less charitably call an out and out lie. As Meltzer noted and I *should* have remembered, FoxSports has aired a great deal of MMA in the past including the PRIDE highlight show hosted by Jay Glazer and Frank Trigg/Bas Rutten. They still air the IFL, and here in the Northwest there’s an IFL program on their schedule tonight. Here’s a link to the PRIDE website which features a schedule of the highlight show’s broadcasts on FoxSportsNet:

PRIDE on FSN schedule

And they have no problem featuring MMA extensively on the FoxSports website:

MMA at Fox Sports.com

They hide it amongst the boxing coverage, but there’s no shortage of UFC fighters featured. Not that they do a particularly good job covering MMA as we reported earlier this week–they posted a story reporting on Nick Diaz fighting on the DREAM card *after* he’d been removed from the event. It stayed up for 24 hours until it was quietly replaced with a story that he’d been pulled from the event. That story is still up, despite the fact that Diaz is now back *on* the event. FoxSports still hasn’t reported that Diaz will be on the DREAM card this Sunday. That’s why its called “news”–it changes and you have to stay on top of it. I know they’re just jumping on the MMA bandwagon because its popular (not that they need money that bad or anything) but if FoxSports wants to cover the sport at least do it properly. Or better yet leave it to those of us who know what we’re doing. You don’t see me trying to ape FoxNews by repurposing press releases from the White House as “fair and balanced” news–the MMA world will live without FoxSports covering it and if they’re not going to do it seriously they shouldn’t even bother. It’s their credibility at stake, not mine nor the sport’s.

My comment on FoxSports.com story

BTW, I just posted a comment on the story pointing out its inaccuracy and suggesting essentially what I did above–that if they’re not going to take MMA seriously to not bother covering it. We’ll see if they leave it up….for those of you who haven’t been following my work for the past decade or so my ID is “da1prophet”….

Jim’s comment on Fox Sports web story on Diaz fighting in DREAM

The point isn’t that they should have an issue with covering MMA among the wide variety of other sports they cover–from rodeo to poker to college football and back again; the point is that their President shouldn’t be making a completely erroneous statement and particularly one where he gets so sanctimonious about it. My guess is that his lips were affixed so firmly to Sumner Redstone’s backside that he wasn’t able to quickly peruse their website or check the TV Guide….if I wasn’t so amazed at his duplicity in the “we don’t need money that badly” statement I’d throw up a “Mr. Burns and Smithers” graphic to illustrate my point…