ESPN Launches 30-Minute Broadband Mixed Martial Arts Show
By John Ourand, Staff Writer
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ESPN.com Launches Weekly 30-Minute
Studio Show Devoted To Mixed Martial Arts |
ESPN will not put mixed martial arts on its TV schedule, at least not yet, but last week it launched a 30-minute studio show on ESPN.com devoted to the sport, dubbed "MMA Live." The show looks like a "Baseball Tonight" for MMA and featured three 30-second spots for Toyota Tundra. New episodes will be available on ESPN.com every Thursday at 6:00pm ET. An ESPN spokesperson said, "We've already dipped our toe in the water with MMA. This represents dipping all of our toes." Jon Anik hosts the show, while UFC fighter Kenny Florian and Newark Star-Ledger reporter Franklin McNeil provide analysis. The show is broken into segments. The debut show's first section was called "The Weigh-In," which analyzed an upcoming fight card. The second is called "The Spotlight" and featured an in-depth look at fighter Tito Ortiz's decision to leave UFC after this weekend's fight against Lyoto Machida. The most interesting segment was "MMA for Dummies," in which Florian demonstrated the "rear naked choke" hold. The closing segment, called "Tap Out," had the analysts offer opinions on various MMA issues, like whether women should participate in MMA fights. That prompted McNeil to say, "I don't like the idea of women punching each other too much. ... You get a woman like Gina [Carano], and she's attractive and all, and everyone has this image of the woman bleeding and bloodied, and I just think it turns some people off." Other segments on the debut episode included "MMA 411" (news updates), "MMA Nation" (Florian responds to e-mails) and "Hardcore" (news from lesser MMA leagues).
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