More Videos
- Yankees Reduce Prices: How Did They Get Here?
- Yankees Repricing Premium Seats
- Under Armour Now Officially A Shoe Company
- Swine Flu Overshadows Olympic Buzz
- How Much Do Undrafted Free Agents Get?
- Andre Smith’s Agent On Remarkable Story
- MLB Attendance Holding Up In Tough Economy
- French Open Goes Secondary Ticketing Route
- The Sports World's First Twinterview
- NFL Draft: Who Made, Who Lost Money?
RSS FEED
- Buy Hawaii For $9.99
- Plunge in GDP: Where Economy is Shrinking Most
- S&P 500 Earnings Leaderboard: Biggest Surprises Season to Date
- Yankees Reduce Prices: How Did They Get Here?
- Yoshikami: Can Your Portfolio Handle a Case of the Flu?
- Mad Mail: Biz Cycle Driving Chip Stocks
- Lightning Round: Honeywell, Union Pacific, Buffalo Wild Wings and More
- Lightning Round OT: Kroger, Cooper Tire and More
- Yum! Brands: Tasty or Terrible?
- Mexican Baby Dies of Swine Flu in US
- Mortgage Applications Drop to Mid-March Low
- Chrysler Makes Progress in Fiat Alliance Talks: Nardelli
- Citigroup Seeks Permission to Pay Bonuses: Report
- Time Warner Profit Flat, Revenue Beats Expectations
- BofA's Lewis To Come Under Fire at Meeting
- Feeling More Secure, Some Banks Want to Be Left Alone
- AIG Recalls Exec to Fend Off Default: Report
- Swine Flu Myths: Wash Your Hands, Eat the Bacon
Text Size 
 |
AP Donald Trump Jr. |
] with the clothing company Affliction and the mixed martial arts organization of the same name. Trump talked about the brand's finances and fired back at UFC president Dana White, who said he thought this would Affliction's last fight card. Trump talked about the brand's finances and fired back at UFC president Dana White, who said he thought this would Affliction's last fight card.
Darren: Explain to me why mixed martial arts really seems to work?
Trump Jr.: It's just the evolution of boxing. People love to watch fights. I've gone to fights my entire life. I went to some of the original UFC events we held in Atlantic City. I hated the politics of boxing. He with the biggest promoter wins. I saw these great fights. I'm sitting there with seven professional boxers in the front row, all of whom scored the fight one way and it goes the other. And I'm thinking it's just not right. MMA didn't seem to have a lot of politics, it's just a very cool sport with a combination of all these different martial arts.
Darren: Your next fight is tomorrow in Anaheim. You are selling pay-per-view to the fight for $44.99. How much of a challenge is it dealing with the economy we're in right now?
Trump Jr.: It's a huge challenge. That's why we're only putting on a few select shows. If we're going to give someone something, just like our mantra in real estate, we're going to give them the best. We're going to put on a great show, not put on 20 shows and say, 'Well, maybe they won't tune in, we'll flood them with volume' like a lot of our competition. We want to get a great card and have people feel like they got a value out of it after watching the show.
Darren: Some people say that mixed martial arts is not a business. That it's UFC and everything else. Maybe like wrestling and WWE [WWE
Loading...
()
] and everything else. Dana White, the president of the UFC, said this in today's USA Today about Affliction, "This show will be the end of it. If not, these guys are willing to lose a lot more money than I ever realized." What's your reaction to that, especially given the fact that we've had two mixed martial arts organizations in the IFL and Elite XC recently go down?
Trump Jr.: I have two responses to that. Dana White sounds like a mini-version of someone I know. That's nonsense. But that's what he does. He spouts off and says all sorts of things. Especially given their position with their bonds and everything that has come due, I don't know if they're in any real position to talk about these kinds of things. Going to what I said earlier, rather than putting on 20 shows, of which very few people are going to tune into because there's just not that many people in the world, you can put on a great show 20 times a year. They flood it, do the old quote make it up in volume. We're trying to put on a great card. We have the best fighter in the world and we're going to put on a great show.
Darren: How about characters? There was this Kimbo Slice guy that was on YouTube knocking everyone out and this league behind it, Elite XC. Everyone loves this Kimbo Slice guy and then he can't win. You can't really fix a mixed martial arts fight. You have this Russian guy (Fedor Emalianenko). How do you get the characters? Some of these guys get knocked out in 15 seconds and then your business plan is in trouble?
Trump Jr.: Fedor is the best in the world. He's got a record no one has touched before. He crushes people. He has one loss due to a cut. The fight was stopped, but he probably would have won -- 31 wins in a row. One of the best Sambo champions ever. The guy is legit, and in terms of building up characters, we do have people like that. We have Josh Barnett, who made his career over in Japan with Pride doing almost a mix of the martial arts and kind of a WWF-type format. Good-looking guy, big, strong fighter with an incredible personality. So there are ways to do that, but there guys have to be real. You can't fake this because no one is going to lose. You saw Kimbo. He beat the hell out of people in a backyard. I wouldn't want to fight him, but he got in the ring with someone who trains for this and it was over pretty quickly.
Questions? Comments?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes