MMA Uncensored Premieres Thursday on Spike TV

Nate Quarry Makes the Transition From Fighter to Broadcaster

By Michael David Smith - Lead Blogger

Former UFC fighter Nate Quarry is now the co-host of MMA Uncensored Live on Spike TV.

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Feb 21, 2012 - When Spike TV first got into the mixed martial arts game, Nate Quarry was a part of it, as a contestant on the first season of The Ultimate Fighter. Seven years and a 10-fight UFC career later, Quarry is back on Spike this week as one of the hosts of MMA Uncensored Live, Spike's new studio show, which premieres on Thursday at 11 p.m.

Quarry said it never even crossed his mind when he started fighting in a cage that he could actually become a professional broadcaster, and he said making any kind of a living at all "is beyond a dream come true." What Quarry says viewers will see from him is as simple as one former fighter discussing his passion for MMA.

"It's something I enjoy doing," Quarry said. "I had a small show on the West Coast, American Cage Fighter, on Comcast Sports Net, and I enjoyed doing that, sitting around with other fighters and talking about the game."

As a new and still relatively small sport, MMA hasn't had many opportunities for former athletes to make a living in broadcasting the way former players in the NFL or NBA or Major League Baseball can. But Quarry thinks he can be a trailblazer on that front, and he also thinks his background is going to make him a strong interviewer who isn't afraid to ask tough questions.

"Most journalists are coming from a position of being fans and having watched the sport, but I'm coming from a position of being a fighter and I know what it's like," Quarry said. "I can ask Anthony Johnson why he can't make weight and it's not disrespectful because I've made weight every time I've fought."

Quarry didn't go to school to learn to become a broadcaster, but he says he learned public speaking in a surprising way: His upbringing as a Jehova's Witness. Quarry left the religion as an adult but the emphasis the Jehova's Witnesses place on every member being a preacher helps Quarry to this day.
"My formal training has been that I was raised as a Jehova's Witness as a child, from birth until about 20 years of age or so," Quarry said. "They have kids who do Bible readings or little talks at the church. From the age of 7 I was doing a Bible reading, taking a chapter of the Bible and reading a few verses of it and then talking about it, and then when you're done you're critiqued on it and told how well you spoke. So from a very young age I worked on this."

Spike TV had a long and mutually beneficial relationship with the UFC, but that relationship has come to an end, and the network and the UFC have butted heads more recently. Quarry said he isn't sure whether the UFC will allow MMA Uncensored Live to show highlights, or whether the UFC will encourage its fighters to appear on the show, but Quarry himself makes clear that he remains a UFC fan.

"I hope the UFC will see what a great show MMA Uncensored Live is and they're going to want to work with us, give us their footage, send their fighters to talk to us because it's good exposure and we're doing a phenomenal job of getting the word out there and getting people interested in the fighters, so it benefits everyone," Quarry said. "I don't know the relationship with Spike, but I know we at MMA Uncensored aren't battling anybody, we're not counter-programming any of the shows. The UFC is the biggest game in town and we'll be talking about the UFC."

Quarry describes the show as an unscripted conversation, "as if you're hanging out with three of your buddies talking about the upcoming card and who you think is going to win." Spike is joining a crowded space, alongside HDNet's Inside MMA, ESPN2's MMA Live and FUEL's UFC Tonight and UFC Ultimate Insider, but Quarry said he thinks there's room for everyone.

"I think HDNet with Bas Rutten has always been the gold standard because Bas has been around fighting forever and he's a great personality, and I like other fighters I've seen doing jobs like this like Kenny Florian," Quarry said. "If we get good ratings that doesn't mean Bas Rutten is going to be homeless because nobody is tuning into his show. I think there's room for all these shows to be successful."

http://www.mmafighting.com/2012/2/21/2813818/nate-quarry-makes-the-transition-from-fighter-to-broadcaster

One of the guys hosting this show is Craig Carten from WFAN, a local NY morning sports radio station. Him and Boomer Esiason do the show in the mornings. Im actually curious to hear how much he knows about mma. I remember him advertising on the radion the Pacquiao vs. Cotto fight, in which he pronounced their names Packawee and Catto lol. Hopefully its good.

Anyone watch this last night? They had Nick Diaz and Dan Henderson on the show. Talked about the demise of Pride FC.

http://www.spike.com/shows/mma-uncensored-live/live

jimbojones1950 wrote:

One of the guys hosting this show is Craig Carten from WFAN, a local NY morning sports radio station. Him and Boomer Esiason do the show in the mornings. Im actually curious to hear how much he knows about mma. I remember him advertising on the radion the Pacquiao vs. Cotto fight, in which he pronounced their names Packawee and Catto lol. Hopefully its good.

Craig Carten - already not digging this guy after 5 minutes.

[flash]

SPIKE
Diaz, Hendo, and The Fall of Pride - Episode 101
www.spike.com
Spike Full Episodes Spike Video Clips Spike on Facebook

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Keeps saying video down for now, hopefully it's back up later.

This sucks, I really wanted to watch the Mira Mijatovic interview. As should anyone else who actually wants to know about how Pride really fell and the BS of Seiya Kawamata and Appy Echteld.

Seems kinda weird that the show was taken down also. If I had to guess I would say UFC lawyers, but maybe even some Japanese or Russian lawyers. If anyone knows the thick details of Prides final years it is Miro.

Hmmm interesting...

Maybe they should get rid of the "Uncensored" part of their name.

Back in business.




These plus this form Boon = very interesting to me.

Bas Boon wrote:

The problems started for me as a manager when Semmy Schilt and Stefan Leko were not participating (while qualified at the final elimination) the reason I did not wanted to sign a contract before the fight with k-1. This was a business deal gone bad and there was no yakuza involved, we choose to be a free agent.

However Pride also caused problems, they did not gave the fights which we agreed by contract to some fighters and the robe holding with the Sergey and Semmy match caused a lot of problems for Golden Glory.

Bas Boon came in contact with Miro Mijatovic the manager at that time from Mirko Cro Cop, together they would do the matchmaking for NTV’s Bom Baye 2003. Our bad luck was that Pride started Shokewave and K-1 started Dynamite all on NYE 2003.

This would al not be so bad as Mirko Cro Cop became injured (see story fight opinion) the rumor was that Ken Imai went their with the alleged $300.000 in order from Pride the screw the main event at the Inoki’s show and pay Mirko for an injury (read well rumor).

I got a phone call from Miro, he said that Pride was screwing with him and that Mirko came two weeks before the event with an injury, to screw up the main event! He ask me if I could guarantee to bring the fighters from Golden Glory as his partner promoter Kawamata wanted to cancel the show (he worked together with him promoting the show).

Pride starting making threads, first by phone later by lawyer, if I would have Semmy fight in their show, then this and that. Funny is that Pride did not gave Semmy the amount of fights they promised that year and had some small letters in the contract stating that they would own him for the next 10 years!

I told Miro I could do better and invited him to come with Inoki to St Petersburg Russia to an M-1 event were I was the co-producer. I had worked a long time with all promoters in Holland and other parts of Europe in producing their shows for TV or as a promoter or co-producer.

This way I was the person who held the first Cage Fight in April 1996 in Emmen Holland. Later Appy Echteld and Bas Boon teamed up for making these fights in St Petersburg with Vadim Finkelstein who had a meat business and did not know nothing about fighting.

Appy Echteld with his partners and Bas Boon and partners organized the biggest MMA promotion Europe had ever seen Too Hot To Handle, in the Ahoy Arena in Holland. Many times now they were working together and both Appy and partner Mark de Weerd sometimes were invited to come with Golden Glory to Japan, this was all paid and orginized by Golden Glory.

I spoke a long time ago with Monty Cox, when Monty was still fighting with his team by Rings Japan and we both agreed that Fedor was the biggest talent out there. Boon heared rumors already that Fedor had some problems with his Russian top team. Once again Appy came with Golden Glory to Japan he gave a business card of Vadim to Fedor at one of the trips he came as a guest from Golden Glory as both Appy and Boon did not speak Russian.

The result was that Fedor (who looked at some of the red devil shows being broadcasted on Russian TV) called Vadim. Vadim called me and Appy and he told me that Fedor did not want to leave The Russian to Team without some guarantees. Two things happened then which were vital for the fighting industry for today. First we found out that all fighters were getting a 50K bonus if they would fight for the title. As Fedor was the champ he would have had the same amount of money as all the other top fightes who fought for the Pride belt. This was asked by an e-mail by me to Yukino from pride, who confirmed that all fighters were getting the same 50K bonus. That e-mail was send to Russia were Vadim had the mail translated. It turned out Fedor did not even got a tenth of that amount, according Vadim.

I then smelled a huge opportunity, I knew what Fedor was making with Pride and that he was heavenly underpaid, so I set up a meeting in ST Petersburg with Miro Mijatovic and Mr Ito from Inoki’s office. Vadim would promise that Fedor would be there and so we went to St Petersburg. I must give props to Fedor who was really smart in not accepting the first offer (even if it was twice the amount he was making at Pride that time).

The following was agreed, Fedor would fight four times a year for a period of one year with evt.an extension of another two years, the amount would be almost 4 times as much as he was making at Pride, plus we negotiated that other red devil fighter would get an opportunity to fight. I did not slept for three days and had the puss coming out of my eyes from staring hours at my lap top typing contracts. Finally we all agree and we came to the agreement that Vadim me and Appy would share 20% of the management fee. However I still had Heath Herring with Pride and other GG fighters, so officially I did not want to be mentioned in the contract with Fedor as this could cause problems for GG. My part of the money in the agreement would go to Miro Mijatovic who would then pay me my share, so far so good.

I had Miro bring t-shirts of the Inoki event to St petersburg and pictures were made in the Cage with Fedor wearing the shirt, Kawasaki was there in Russia with two Japanese fighters and the news was quick widely spread in Japan. It hit like a bomb, my telephone was non stop ringing, my fax machine spit out threads from the lawyers of Pride and I was suddenly offered to not fight with Semmy against Barnett, but in Pride against a nobody for more money. Miro called me many times with Kawamata standing next to him, he started to explain me that yakuza got involved and that they were thinking in cancelling the event. I told him that this was impossible after all the work I had done and put my ass on the line. My only option was to make the new fight show a success series, I had no other options!

They were so nervous nobody would show up, I paid for all the flights myself and had Semmy Schilt, Alistair Overeem, Stefan Leko, all the Russians (Fedor , Amar, Aleksander) come to Japan. Pride tried everything but the damage was done, we came to Kobe. I will not get into details how the yakuza came to us and how tense the atmosphere was in Kobe, but it felt like a bad second hand movie were Miro and me were the main actors. Finally it was agreed that Fedor could fight (Sakakibara was waving contracts of Pride and Fedor at press conferences before we came to an agreement etc) in Inoki’s show from Kawamata, but Kawamata the promotor should pay 1 million for the use of Pride’s yakuza and another million to Pride for using Fedor. I guess Fedor’s price just went up another ten times at that night. In all the confusion, I had the idea Fedor never really knew what happened behind the scene and what Miro and I had done for him.

After the show the real headache came, the Russians were all paid in cash (Pride style), but as I was used to wire transfers (K-1 use to pay cash as well but Mr.Isshi run into some tax problems) and did not want to carry around with huge amounts of cash with me, I waited for the transfer. I waited very long for the transfer as the money never came, till today.

I then took a flight back to Japan at the end of January 2004 and had many meetings with Mijatovic. Finally we agreed that he would come up with a part of the money as the contracts were signed on one of his companies. In return Mijatovic would keep 50% of the Fedor money after the money was paid back for the Inoki loss. I paid all the fighters out of my own pocket and till today I am still $200.000 short. Mijatovic however told me that he would keep the contracts valid. I signed some contracts for 4 fights per years for a three year period and that only then he would pay the first part of my loss. We finally agreed!

Pride was getting nervous and Kawamata left the country without paying many people under the motto, the yakuza threatened him and he took 6 million from NTV and did a runner. Now Miro Mijatovic was only left with the contracts including the one from Fedor, but the promoter and TV station backing us up vanished. Pride got in contact with me and wanted to sign Fedor again, finally it was agreed that Fedor would fight for the same money as he received on new years evening, as long as the old pride contract original was till October 2004, this contract was signed in my office in Holland in the beginning of 2004 with at present Fedor, Appy, Vadim me and Shinoda from Pride ( I informed Miro by sending him the signed copy and by phone , he still had the original managment contract for Fedor/red Devil that time) . Pride hated the situation and I met de big boss behind the scene in person together with Miro (who always stood with me, props for that), Miro was told that he could not be in the dressing room with Fedor and that Fedor could not wear any red devil t-shirts till the contract ended in October 2004 (some childish moves to not show face loss and a sign the yakuza was in control). All this because Mijatovic found himself in a briljant position, they screwed him out of the management of Mirko Crop Cop who became Pride biggest star. Miro was always getting a percentage from Mirko and he agreed that they would pay him this (till his contract with Cro Cop stopped or till the contract with Fedodr stopped, it did not matter negotiated extra money with pride becuase they screwed him with Mikro). He would write them invoices with a certain amount of money for work he did, such as tv promotions, news paper articles, internet services, flight cost etc. Pride acted unbeliebable stupid as Mijatovic was reaaly an asset, he spoke the Japanese language even read the language had an office in Tokyo and had managed a deal for golden medalist swimmer Ian Thorpe (he also was born Croation and lived in Australia, a man of the world). He did great marketing for Pride and Fedor in newspapers and other magazines for example and hired his own Russian Japanese translator. All went well till NYE 2005. Miro was paying me my share of the money from Fedor and was the official booker for him in Japan, Appy and Vadim were just at the right time and right place and were thrown into a bed of roses!

The downfall of Pride!

At new years evening 2004 Fedor won again and two months of negotiations after his contract expired in October led to no agreement between Miro and me the Russians and Pride. Mijatovic had build up Mirko to huge amount of money per fight and Bas Boon also knew the market. Pride knew they needed a long term deal and did the following: They contacted Appy with a few days before the New Years evening 2005 and told them Mijatovic was getting extra money of Fedor. They came with all the transfer sheets each time there was an event (by coincidence Mirko Cro Cop also fought on all those events). Appy had already ask a few time to Mijatovic and Sakakibara, if Mijatovic was getting extra money and in the eyes of Mijatovic he was just dealing with an old case (Mirko Cro Cop) and did nothing wrong. Yes, Miro would have used his new management with Fedor as leverage over Sakakibara, I did not see any problem in that. That case was of no bussines to Appy or me. By then Sakakibara smelled an opportunity one the would cost him, his Pride!

Mijatovic showed me two e-mail’s were Pride offered him a 2 year contract with a minimum guarantee of 4 fights per year. An amount was mentioned but (the email came from Shinoda from Pride) it also said that he could divide this amount to Fedor however he would like, smelled like a huge bribe (for example we pay you 200.000 per fight and you can give 120.000 to Fedor and keep 80.000 yourself) and Mijatovic never replied to their proposals. Instead Miro negotiated with me and I did with Appy and Vadim we all agreed that Fedor would not sign any long term deal and would take fight by fight. A similar situation learned by Miro when he managed Cro Cop, they all agreed. Sakakibara was vurious and in many cases in those circumstances he made a vital mistake. He knew Appy ask him already a few times if no extra money was paid (he knew Appy was weak), so Sakakibara produced all the private invoices of money wired to the account of Mijatovic, it did not say it was for Fedor on these invoices, but they made a nice story about it. Appy could smell himself being a bigshot and took the bate, now he and Vadim would finally have their own thing without paying Mijatovic. The funny thing is that they forgot about me, I had nothing to do with all those things, worked my ass of, used my experience and knowledge, arranged the meetings and the contracts for Fedor, got him more money, got fighters from Red Devil to fight and my reward was that my fighters were not paid at the Inoki event and that I took a huge risk by bringing all these fighters to that New years evening show on my expenses!

I went to the room of Appy at that new years evening in 2005 show and ask him what happened, he gave me a story that Miro did this and that, I told him man calm down this is just Pride because we do not want to sign long contract deals (I believe that the offer from Pride made to Mijatovic would have been excepted by Vadim and Appy, they did not have a clue what they had in their hands) . Appy and Vadim had seen himself Pride falsed a document regarding contractual obligations with Fedor before the Inoki show in 2003, which Fedor claimed he never signed. Appy knew this and told me what basterds pride were at that time, how can they do this. I told him we should stay together things are going well, don’t do this. Later I heared he accused me to be in that plot (his imagination) with Miro as well, but the only person still having a huge money shortest a year later from Inoki 2003 show was me. Appy told me that all the money would go to Vadim now and he would decide, but the decision was already made (Appy and Vadim who only made money with the work from me and Miro and never invested one dollar in the whole case), they had dollar signs in their eyes and took the opportunity to cut me out of the deal.

Appy started to put himself on the mountain but did not have a clue of what happened behind the scenes at Pride.

Mijatovic was not sitting still, both me and Miro ask Sakakibara to not continue the bullshit, but is was too late, there was so much hate and emotions took over business sence. We even offered the following, we will not start a court case but pay us the money we lost at NYE 2003 and we will go along! Court cases cost money and aggrevation, we told him that the whole situation occurred because of the yakuza send by Pride and that it was better these things did not get into the newspaper. Miro told him what money he still needed to receive from Kawamata , so did I, which money was still outstanding. We told Sakakibara if he would pay the amount we would back of, well we all knew the story, nothing happened and Miro started the court case. Kawamata played a victim but more and more dirt was coming out in news papers, scandal magazines and the internet, exactly how we predicted it would happen.

Appy ws organizing in Holland two big events with the so called support of Pride (the old 2h2h which were done together with Golden Glory in the beginning), but without Golden Glory support, the events became a finacial disaster. Now Appy started doing the same thing were he convicted Mijatovic for, he used Fedor as leverage over Pride. He would not come with Fedor to Pride he told Pride, if Pride would not help him with the losses of his two shows he promoted or bring fighters at no cost he would stay at home and Fedor to. I do not think Fedor know anything of this, maybe he did.

Then K-1 would make an offer in July 2006 for Pride through Bas and I tried again to convince Appy (business over ego) that Pride was dying and that this would be the best move. More strange is that the offer (it was a good offer from k-1) was refused and that Fedor fought two months later for $150.000 less money then k-1 offered him, Fedor fought against Zulu in Pride????????????????????????????? Makes you wonder if Dana White speaks the truth about those crazy Russians or maybe managers??????

Appy would tell everybody he was the biggest promoter and that he (almost never mention his partner Vadim) and Pride would start doing these huge promotions through Europe. Not realizing that Pride was taking one last breath and lobbying around trying to sell a lost cause. Bas Boon was already telling everybody in Holland that Pride was going down. He knew the court case was getting a lot of negative publicity in the News papers in Japan. All that could have been prevented if Sakakibara just made a normal business deal with Miro and Bas, Appy and Vadim and Fedor or he just should have paid the lost money to Miro and Boon from that disaster NYE show in 2003, he did not.If Mirko not would have been injured it would not even have happened. Result Miro won his court case over Kawamata but got no money. Lost lawyer expenses, bad press in the newspapers, yakuza boss had to flee the country to Korea and finally Fuji Tv pulled the plug all because of ego!
The final result came as forseen, Fuji TV pulled the plug (more and more yakuza stories came in the big press and even on TV in Japan) Pride was devastated (maybe got lucky) sold their library and some of their fighters to the UFC after Pride promoted at the back yard in Las Vegas with Ed Fishman, who maybe seen by Zuffa as a real competition.

Fedor lost value in Japan, by not fighting for over one year. Appy and Vadim found after one year searching a new investor (props by the way for finding this investor) the profile on the M-1 site of Appy Echteld is a joke(worked as partner with Pride hahahaha he was the one pressing pride to his wishes, leverage with Fedor), hopefully M-1 will still succeed in becoming a real MMA force as we need a professional good MMA organisation! Fedor is not to blame and Vadim is a good business man (but ingnored who really made the deal and did the owrk), Fedor is a machine who performed as a real champion. It’s a shame that because of a language problem, he maybe understand 10% of what happened to him.

Mijatovic tried to Fedor him with a Russian translator on the way home to the airport after that famous 2004 New Years evening when Sakakibara decided to throw with dirt. One thing Fedor picked up very fast as Miro told him, do not sign a multiple deal fight contract, as we now all know, he did not! When Fedor arrived in Russia after his victory on the 2004 NYE show, he was an easy target for Vadim and Appy, it was all the fault of Miro and Bas,blablabla!

Kawamata is now a rumour that he is again involved in a NYE show or managing fighters for the people who do not know, this man still needs to pay a lot of people. Me and Mijatovic still need to get about $600.000 from him. I hope I will run into him and I hope he is a man of honor and not runs away like he did last time and pays his debt! It’s a small world!

A lot of interesting information.

Watched this last night.

It was pretty cool. A nice roundtable...all of them seem to know what they are talking about although the host is obviously gonna try to be one of those "not afraid to go there" kind of guys.

Does anybody watch this?

I've caught a few of them since the premiere and it's pretty cool. I like it the best of all the MMA talk shows.

I thought i was gonna hate the host more and more, but i respect that his in your face attitude does not disappear when he actually has to talk to the fighters. Pretty ballsy with Jon Jones, Chael Sonnen, Ubereem, etc. while at the same time keeping it fun and lighthearted. Strata and Quarry are very good as well, though Quarry's retired look creeps me out...hella looks like the gay guy eyeing you from across the bar.

They ask the good questions too. The panel and the Inside the NFL feel of the show is very good. If anything, they need a bigger time slot.

It helps that UFC fighters are always on the show. When the show started i heard that UFC fighters would be banned from the show, but they have had pretty much every high profile UFC fighter in studio for good interviews.

Thumbs up. I thought this show was gonna bust, but it's been pretty successful with it's content and ratings.