Concerning Wamma Interview

It was very generous for the COO of WAMMA, Michael Lynch, to take his time and answer some questions about his organization.  Overall, I found the interview to very intriguing and it did indeed answer a couple of the questions that everyone has about WAMMA in general.  Consider this to be my rebuttal to some of the answers which ended up just making WAMMA seem more complicated than watching half a season of “Lost”.

In the first question, MMACHUMP.com asks “What is WAMMA?” and the generalized answer from Lynch is that they are an independent organization.  Later in the interview they go to say that Affliction was a great partner for their first WAMMA Championship bout.  Does this sound like a play on words to anyone else except for me?  If they proclaim to be an independent organization then they shouldn’t have to latch onto other organizations that most likely does not have both the #1 and #2 of a weight class within its rankings.  This inevitably leads to my next argument.

Everyone wanted to see Fedor fight.  There isn’t a single fan in the world that didn’t wanted to see him back in action after a long vacancy from the sport.  The first WAMMA Championship Bout, as all know, was Fedor Emelianenko vs Tim Sylvia.  Lynch goes to say in the interview that  

“WAMMA will always be very selective of matches that warrant a WAMMA Championship. It all comes down to our rankings, and are goal will always be to do our best to see #1 fight #2.” 

Their goal is to see the #1 and #2 fight but to put Fedor, who is #1 on practically every heavyweight ranking that I’ve seen in the past 2 years, against a mediocre fighter like Tim Sylvia is OBSURD.  This reminds me of something recent…perhaps the controversy concerning EliteXC putting their “top” fighters against people they were guaranteed to pummel to boost ratings on their first primetime show.

For an organization wanting to cement themselves into the MMA industry, WAMMA isn’t stepping up their game.  Lynch says in the interview that they were established in November 2007 and plan to have the rest of the WAMMA World Championship belts for all of the weight classes established within a year’s time.  Let’s do a little math really quick.  Belts expected in all weight classes 8/09 – WAMMA formed 11/07.  If you habitually round up like I do, that’s 2 years.  What’s taking so long for them to crown a champ in each weightclass?  It’s rather chump’ish (no pun intended given the site name) that an organization that wants to cement their place within a very popular, rather ‘virgin’ sport, should light a little fire up under their own behinds if they want to gain, or even maintain any of the respect that people have for them already. 

The last really big problem that I have with Lynch’s answers were concerning the newly expanded “Ranking Committee” of over 23 personnel.  WAMMA will be eating their own words here shortly if they consider “incredible fighters like Lindland, Lawler, Shields, Gomi, Yamamoto, Hansen and Alvarez, ” to be the #1 or even the #2 in their respective weight classes.  Even backtracking a little bit, I laugh to think Tim Sylvia was the best they could find to fight Fedor for the heavyweight belt.  Not giving any credit whatsoever to Kimbo Slice since I truly believe he’s “THE Chump of Chumps”, but I think that would have even have been a better fight then Sylvia’s washed-up ass in the ring.  Affliction shouldn’t compare themselves to a Superbowl halftime show with people who used to be superstars, that can’t make ends meet anymore so they go back to what they used to be loved for.  Without the UFC, WAMMA means nothing, and Lynch personally said that the UFC has the world’s best in numerous weightclasses.  If they can’t somehow break a deal here in the near future WAMMA will continue to be a joke in everyone’s mind and will not be considered legit except for the fact that the best heavyweight in the world is Fedor, hands down. 

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