Greedy Monopolists To Charge $10 For PPV of Past Fights

Although these types of old fight replays are usually used to fill downtime on SpikeTV between episodes of MANswers (or to, you know, promote fights), the monopolists at UFC are trying to charge for some shitty early fights of welterweight champ Georges St. Pierre.

The video, creatively titled “Rush to the Top” is one full hour for “only” ten dollars. It’s like getting half a movie for twice the price!

The most pathetic thing about this is how they’re hyping the “rarely seen” 2002 debut of Georges St. Pierre. We don’t know how something that has 20,000 views on YouTube qualifies as “rarely seen,” but we’re sort of shocked they’re charging ten bucks for it because 1. the fight is awful and 2. available for free online.

We hate to spoil the ending but St. Pierre wins by “verbal tapout” after the ref misunderstands his (completely uninjured) opponent. We don’t really feel like searching, but it’s a good guess all St. Pierre’s early fights are free because they were with organizations (possibly defunct) that lack UFC-sized legal teams to chase down everyone who posts their fights online.

This is shitty. Please do not buy this. We are huge fans of the sport and we want to see it grow, but charging ten dollars for what amounts to a glorified fight promo is borderline criminal.

Perhaps the folks at UFC think now that the government is cracking down on illegal webcasts they can sell shit sandwiches to public because they are the only game in town. This is the sort of thing that pirates use as justification for stealing.

We have no problem paying fifty bucks to watch three hours of violent combat. The fighters work hard and need to be paid. But we already paid for half of these fights once already and plan to pay for the upcoming St. Pierre fight. Charging for replays of nine-year old fights is nonsense. See below for the press release where they will try to convince you that this isn’t a total ripoff.

HOBOKEN, N.J. (March 31, 2011) – Integrated Sports Media (ISM), the undisputed distribution champion of mixed martial arts and boxing fights in North America, will present a one-hour special featuring Georges “Rush” St. Pierre’s six non-UFC fights, including his first five and rarely seen 2002 debut, starting tomorrow (Friday, April 1) and airing for the entire month of April.

“George St. Pierre: Rush To The Top” will be exclusively distributed in the United States by ISM, premiering in April for viewing on both cable and satellite pay-per-view on the following dates: DISH Network (April 1), DirecTV (Apr. 4 – CH # 120), Avail-TVN (Apr. 11) and iN DEMAND (Apr. 12), as well as via Video On Demand, for only $9.95. Check listings for replays through the entire month of April and into May.

St. Pierre, who sports an amazing 21-2-0 career record (8 KOs, 5 submissions), started learning Kyokushin karate from his father at the age of seven in order to defend himself from a school bully. He later studied Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), wrestling and boxing. Today, he holds a third-degree black belt in Kyokushin, as well as black belts in BJJ and Gaidojutsu.

GSP’s most notable victims include B.J. Penn (twice), Matt Serra, Matt Hughes, Dan Hardy, John Fitch, Thiago Alves, and Josh Koscheck. Georges is scheduled to next defend his title belt April 30 headlining UFC129 against Jake Shields in Toronto.

Fuck this shit. We deserve better.

(Editor’s note: Someone should find out if Christine Varney or any of the other top antitrust officials at the Justice Department are fight fans. – GN)