As much popularity as the UFC seems to be gaining recently, as far as I can tell, the WFA and more specifically their CEO Jeremy Lappen are drawing just as much attention in the past week. Much of the attention Jeremy Lappen is drawing can be attributed directly to the UFC and how they forced Lappen out of the UFC 61 event this past weekend.
Many different websites have reported this story, including Whaledog.com, MMAWeekly.com, and MMAonTap.com. In case you haven’t heard about this story yet, Lappen was removed from the Mandalay Bay Event Center during the start of UFC 61 even though he held a paid ticket given to him by fighter Ken Shamrock.
“I had just sat down in the front row seats given to me by Ken Shamrock and security told me I had to leave,” Lappen told me. “I showed them my ticket and asked why I was being kicked out. They said it was because I did not have a credential. I told them that nobody in that section had a credential, but a UFC official and 3 security guards escorted me out of the venue, out of the casino and into the cab line. They put me in a cab and made me leave the casino.”
According to my personal website stats, and some public stats available online, “Jeremy Lappen” is my second highest searched for term only slightly behind “UFC 61 live feed.” (Apparently quite a few people who purchased the UFC 61 On-Demand live feed saw slightly more than a photo slideshow instead of live streaming media of the event.) It appears that by removing Mr. Lappen from the arena, the UFC has only given more publicity to a rival promotion in the WFA. However, I wonder how big this story really is?
I know it seems to be the current hot topic among the online MMA media sites, but does anyone else really care? Do many people even know who Jeremy Lappen or the WFA are? Maybe not, but don’t forget the UFC was held afloat for quite a while strictly with the grassroots support of the online MMA community. That same community is now clearly behind the WFA and the great card they have lined up for July 22 in Los Angeles.
While it does make no sense for UFC officials to remove Mr. Lappen from the UFC 61 event, I’m sure the UFC reserves the rights that any other public sporting event does. At any time you can be asked to leave the premesis for any reason. That is the UFC’s prerogative and what they chose to do.
On a side-note, does anyone have the WFA Showtime preview show recorded that they could send me? Or is the video posted anywhere online that I can view it? I have digital cable service, but don’t subscribe to the Showtime package. I’d love to see the preview show though. Leave a comment and/or link if you know where I can find it.
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The WFA Special can be found here…
http://forums.mmanews.com/showthread.php?t=855
The file is somewhere around 290 MB but it is worth it I must say!
Excellent. Thanks for the link Scott.
“While it does make no sense for UFC officials to remove Mr. Lappen from the UFC 61 event, I’m sure the UFC reserves the rights that any other public sporting event does”
They got the power, what else we can do…..
holy this is from a while back eh? its funny looking back and reading about the possibility of WFA becoming somewhat popular and then not much more then a half a year later Zuffa buys them up. im wondering if the days of Zuffa buying there competition is over, with orgs. like Pro Elite out there with EliteXC, Strikeforce, and Icon its more likely we see Zuffa hoping for there demise as opposed to trying to buy them out.