Relegated to UFC's Second Tier, Karo Parisyan Says, 'I Want to Kill Someone Over It'

Georges St-Pierre vs. Matt Serra at UFC 83 is the mixed martial arts welterweight fight everyone is talking about. But for fans who don't want to wait until April 19, there's a pretty good welterweight fight tonight, when Karo Parisyan takes on Thiago Alves at UFC Fight Night on Spike.

At the same time, while tonight's fight is a good one, being on the card at UFC Fight Night is a far cry from headlining a pay-per-view show. And for Parisyan, no matter how well he does against Alves tonight, he won't get a shot at the St-Pierre-Serra winner. For now anyway, Parisyan is behind Jon Fitch in the UFC welterweight pecking order. And how does he feel about that? He tells the Los Angeles Times:

"It's a touchy subject for me and there's times I want to kill someone over it," Parisyan said of his placement behind Fitch in the title waiting room. "The first thing I need now is a victory. . . . OK, Fitch is now ranked higher than me. Karo's not done. Karo will be back."

Parisyan has a victory over Serra to his credit, and he went the distance in a loss to St-Pierre, so you can't blame him for thinking he deserves to be a title contender. But he's still only 25. He'll have many more chances.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

4-02-2008 @ 10:29AM

El Duke said...

Yeah, why do get the feeling this is going to result in a totally unbiased AP article about how brutal this "bare knuckle" yet somehow also thinly padded sport is

4-02-2008 @ 1:54PM

Climber said...

Karo is a great fighter. Bottom line, his wins have not been as exciting as his losses have been at a crucial time against the wrong people. Unlike other combat sports, MMA and UFC in particular seem to base a lot of their fighers rankings on excitement and timing factor. Hence, Rampage having only to fight once in the UFC prior to a title shot. Anderson Silva only twice prior to that.

4-02-2008 @ 3:10PM

willmore2000 said...

UFN regularly gets over 2 million viewers, it's a gold mine for the UFC because it allows itself to showcase its best fighters to a large audience and then put the fighters that are intriguing in a PPV and gets PPV buys from the exposure the fighters get on UFN.

This isn't the minor leagues of MMA, it's a promotional tool and some of the best UFC fighters were featured on UFN. Koscheck, Anderson Silva, Tito Ortiz, Rashad Evans, Heath Herring, Thiago Alves. They all were on UFN cards and are now draws in PPVs.

Sure, the money isn't the same for the fighters but the exposure is priceless. Karo Parisyan and Thiago Alves are pretty much fighting for the #1 contender spot and will likely fight GSP/Serra winner at UFC 87 or 88.

UFN as well as The Ultimate Fighter series have both been a gold-mine in term of publicizing the UFC to an audience who doesn't yet want to pay 50$ for a PPV it knows nothing about. Matt Serra, Liddell, Couture, Forrest Griffin, Hughes, Franklin, Bisping, Penn, Nathan Diaz all got huge publicity boosts from just appearing in those series.

For a sport in which the fighters' primary earning potential is from sponsors, this kind of publicity is priceless. It's not a relegation, it's a gold mine for the UFC and the fighters involved in Spike shows.

4-02-2008 @ 11:04PM

Check out the analysis by Whitmoor2000! Interesting perspective. But... what's UFN?

Alves is gonna have to fight Fitch now. Then that guy will fight Serra or GSP.