411Mania Exclusive Interviews: Frank Trigg, Mauro Ranallo, and Mitchell Maxwell

Posted by Damian Sarcuni on 10.23.2007

Exclusive interviews from our coverage of the new M-1 promotion!

In addition to breaking some incredible news at their inaugural press conference, M-1 Global promotions also allotted 411Mania time to chat with some of the biggest names in mixed martial arts media and production. These included Frank Trigg, middleweight champion and popular commentator, Mauro Ranallo, one of the great voices of mixed martial arts, and Mitchell Maxwell, the chairman of M-1 whose grace and goodwill toward fans has made these interviews and this promotion possible. As always we would like to thank the promotional teams involved that helped us bring you the best MMA coverage possible.

Please note these interviews took place both before and after the actual M-1 press conference.

Frank Trigg



Frank Trigg is a former MMA middleweight champion as well as a noted color commentator for the recently disbanded Pride Fighting Championships. He is also a co-host for TAGG radio, an online radio show dedicated to the mixed martial arts sport.

411Mania.com: We're here with Frank Trigg at Marc Ecko Enterprises. Frank, we've seen you at these events as a fighter and a commentator, as well as overall supporting the sport. Spoil it for us buddy, what are you doing here?

Frank Trigg: Today I'm here because I'm trying to figure out what portions of the rumors we broke on TAGG radio were really true, and how much my source actually gave me was correct information. There's so much that got leaked to the media by us. We started and there's so much that we think is true but we're really not sure and we're here to find out tonight, did Fedor really get ten million dollars? Did the American investor really put in two hundred million American dollars? Did Fedor really get 10% of that? Is he really getting two million dollars up front? Is the first fight for M-1 going to be in February, in Chicago? Are they really going to have champions VS champions, with guys like Fedor facing Randy Couture from the UFC, and what's going to happen? Is Fedor doing this under duress? Is he really happy about signing this?

There's rumors about Fedor coming out of Russia, saying he's an old style athlete, where they sign you to an agent contract and they own everything he does and just pay him every month. They could broker his services for two million a fight, so every fight he could get two million, but then they pay for his food, his bills, and expenses. But what do they really get out of it and what does he get out of it? There are a lot of questions out there that we need to find out. Who is the American investor, and what have they done? Why are they doing it? Is it Live Nation, the people who have done all the party planning and concert planning? Or is it somebody else out there trying to make this stuff happened?

411Mania: Well it's a little early to say, but we do see the names up there right now: we got Monte Cox, Mitchell and Victoria Maxwell of Sibling Promotions, does that mean anything to you?

Trigg: Sibling Promotions has done all this great stuff on Broadway, 29 Broadway plays and they are part of the Live Nation group so we're going to see how this all pans out. The names are up there, but what's their capacity? Are they here for face, or are they here to do something new? These people have done great party planning and great concert planning, getting butts in the seats and getting people to watch it on TV, but no one has ever done MMA in this fashion so whatever is going to happen is a different beast.

I was walking around here with my buddy Eric Samson who is here with Ecko and we were kind of touring through the building and looking at some different stuff. I realized to go from being a wholesaler to a retailer is a huge step, and to go from throwing events and concerts to throwing a sporting event is totally different. Even if you done sporting events or even boxing events, or any other kind of event. So you could do the Super Bowl every year for the last 20 years, but you try to do an MMA event and you fail miserably because it's a different beast. It's completely different, a different demographic, different mindset. These questions are going to be partially answered today and then the rumor is in February in Chicago will be the first fight we'll find stuff out and how close we are to it when they make the actual move and how well it'll work.

411Mania: When you hear that concert promoters and people who are really in production are going to be involved, how does that make you feel? Does it make you reminisce a little bit about the Pride FC days? Do you think we'll see a bit more flash in the sport coming to the States and internationally?

Trigg: This is the problem we were discussing just this last weekend. You know, Anderson Silva and Rich Franklin were both very respectful and were almost having a love affair before the fight! At some point you have to say "Look man, you have to sell the fight." Now, those two guys? A Franklin and Anderson Silva fight is going to sell itself. But at some point you need to kind of hype the fight up. Look at the signing of Brock Lesnar to the UFC, you start thinking "Hey, maybe we'll bring a little bit of WWE style to it."

That's one of the things that Pride FC did very well was when they had a guy like Fedor who doesn't talk much; he's very respectful, he just happens to be around. He's the Pillsbury dough boy: his hair is barely combed; he looks like he just woke up from a winter's nap. He goes "Hey I'm gonna rip this guy's arm off" and he rips the guy's arm off, beats him to death with it and goes back and drinks some more honey and you're like "What the hell just happened?!" A guy like that is perfect because he's completely the opposite of what you expect but he's so vicious in the ring.

A lot of these guys have to start doing that old Pride style. There has to be some hype, some ring entrance stuff, some marketing and media savvy behind it that makes you get into it. If you don't know what Pride is, and you catch a commercial, it's like a concert thing and then all of a sudden a fight breaks out. That was one of the things about Pride was that you had a circus and a fight broke out in the middle of it, it was great. There were opening numbers, closing numbers, you should see what's-his-nuts in the damn diaper every New Year's. Stuff like that is incredible! But a lot of it has died off and there's only been one game plan that works in America, the UFC and the major leagues. Everybody else is the minor leagues and without the UFC making all that stuff happen you can't really follow the game. Their model for business is how it works and if you don't follow that model, you've got nothing.

411Mania: You've obviously been checking out the business quite a bit and keeping your eye on the pulse of the whole thing. Let's delve in a little bit: talk to me about your division, the middleweight division. What are your thoughts right now, after the Silva/Franklin rematch that went as most expected, where do see things going from here?

Trigg: It's a little rough because you expect Rich Franklin to do a lot better, and he did, he got into the second round. Rich's boxing style and athletic style is very difficult and the guy that beats Anderson Silva is going be like a Frank Trigg, Dan Henderson, Matt Lindland, a guy that knows how to wrestle and dirty box, in great cardio shape and doesn't mind being inside, just tough hard nosed guys. A lot of the fighters in today's market, and I think Rich Franklin is one of the guys that falls into it, they don't really like to fight. They want to perform. So after looking at Oscar De La Hoya who likes to perform, he's a sweet science boxing guy, but a Mayweather, Winky Wright, Hatton, these guys go in there and some point go "I'm kind of getting his a little bit and I'm getting beat up a little bit, so I'm going to put my head down, shrug my shoulders, and I'm going to go in there and start banging guys up, try and turn this thing into a fight." You have to do that. You have to get a little bit mean, a little bit tight, and that's what Henderson and Trigg bring to the table is that we're kind of mean.

At some point you beat me up I'm going to turn it into a fight and I'm just going to start swinging for the fences and try to take a guy's eyes out of his socket. A lot of fighters don't do that, so the dynamic of it, is that Silva's untouchable. Well, he's untouchable because you don't have Lindland or Trigg in the UFC, and Henderson doesn't want to drop down to 185. There's really no one else in the division, I think Nathan Marquardt had the best shot because hand wise he had the ability but then again he doesn't because he got run over. On paper he did, but he really didn't. There are other guys on paper that fit that mold very well of course I'm nowhere prepared to go in there and do that. I need like 2 or 3 different fights and you've also got a situation where no one has competed at that level for a couple fights and the fans don't know us. We're not in the UFC and haven't been on pay per views in awhile, you would have to get us in there and build up our reputation a little bit.

The middleweight division is not as in shambles as the 205 division, where Chuck Liddell was number one and the question was "who is number two?" Now anybody in the top ten could be number one next week! It's really opened up middleweight is pretty solid with Anderson Silva but no one is unbeatable, everyone loses at some point and I watched Silva in Pride get submitted and knocked out. Then he came back and ran the gambit in the UFC. It's amazing what happens in a couple years.

411Mania: Talk to me a little bit about your status specifically, with the ICON purchase by Pro Elite/Strikeforce. Just recently your name was getting out there, you had commented that ICON was just right for you because it wasn't a full time effort in that promotion. ICON was bought out, do you have a status with them and if so what is your future looking like?

Note: Mauro Ranallo walked in as Frank answered this question.

Trigg: I have no stance with anyone right now as Mauro Ranallo walks in and looks to punch me in the head…he's a big gay douche bag! *laughs* It's one of those situations where I'm standing with anybody, I'm not doing anything at all I'm just standing around trying to find a new job broadcast wise and a new job fighting wise. Right now I have neither one and there are a couple of offers on the table, we turned a couple down and we're trying to filter our way through it. With the ICON purchase I kind of got left in the dust and then with the purchase of Pride it cut my broadcasting career down as well because Zuffa decided not to continue broadcast wise.

411Mania: Would you consider talking to the people from M-1? Obviously they're going to need a middleweight division; you're very charismatic and somebody they could really build it around. Are you willing to offer your services?

Trigg: Yeah I'm talking to everybody. Anybody that's willing to talk to us, we're willing to talk to about fighting/broadcasting. I know Monte Cox, I've known him for a long time and we'll see what they've got to offer but no one knows until they make the offer and we see if we can entertain it or not.

411Mania: Well, in any capacity we love seeing you and it was a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much Frank.

Trigg: Thank you.


Mauro Ranallo



Mauro Ranallo is one of the most well known sportscasters in the mixed martial arts world. He has done play by play commentary for Pride Fighting Championships, Showtime, and the Art of War promotions. He is currently affiliated with the fight network cable channel in Canada.

411Mania.com: We're here with one of the voices of mixed martial arts, Mauro Ranallo. Sir, the big M-1 mystery has been revealed. Tell us what are your thoughts so far? You've seen the names, and we've seen you here ant it isn't surprising at all. Are you here as media or are you here to join up with the promotion? I have to ask.

Mauro Ranallo: Well, contrary to a lot of misconceptions, I actually DON'T announce all mixed martial arts events even though I've been doing all the shows it seems except for the UFC, but I'm here on behalf of the fight network. We're covering this press conference and we're very intrigued like everyone is especially taking place here in New York City, where as we all know MMA is outlawed, but M-1 Global the latest entity in what is rapidly becoming a cluttered mixed martial arts landscape has indeed fired a major salvo at the competition with the announcement that's being made official here that Fedor Emelianenko, the Pride heavyweight champion has signed up. So I'm as intrigued as everyone else as to who is behind M-1 Global and what their plans are for the future.

411Mania: You've been involved in so much and as you said you've been calling almost every event, you're so involved in the scene. Was this really kept so secret in that even the top tier people really had no idea what was going on? Nobody saw this coming?

Mauro: Well, to give one of our peers at the fight network a little bit of an ego massage, Loretta Hunt has worked diligently on this story and in fact was the journalist who broke the fact that Fedor Emelianenko was signing with M-1 Global. We've already heard rumblings as to who else might be involved, hearing Monte Cox will be introduced as the CEO and President of the company. There were rumors that Mark Cuban might be financially involved, even some outrageous rumors that Vince McMahon of the WWE might be involved. I kind of have a feeling as to where its going only because of my communication with Loretta and I have a feeling that being in New York City will make sense in a matter of moments when they do make the announcement because from what I understand the entity that is the major financial backer is located right here in New York City.

411Mania: Talk to me for a second about the fight network and the things going on there. It has been such an eventful week for mixed martial arts. We've heard rumblings out of not only Marc Ecko Enterprises but also Randy Couture making his announcements, now Fedor as well, what is it like over there at the fight network? It's gotta be absolute chaos! I have visions of a press room just on a Sunday morning after a president has been shot or something.

Mauro: Yeah and its funny that you use that analogy because that's exactly what we kind of thought when again another story was broken by the fight network which makes sense since we're North America's only 24 hour combat sports channel. Randy Couture suddenly resigning (NOT retiring as Mr. Dana White wants to spin it) from the UFC although he does have 2 fights left on his contract. Yeah it was very eventful in the last couple of weeks on the fight network. Of course, we cover not only mixed martial arts but boxing and professional wrestling and there's lots going on in all three of those combat sports. It truly is a dream job, I've just celebrated my one year anniversary with the network in Toronto.

411Mania: Congratulations!

Mauro: Thank you. I'm really looking forward to seeing it grow and spread to the United States hopefully sooner than later

411Mania: Watching a promo for Virtua Fighter 5 before, you had mentioned your roots in pro-wrestling as it were. Now that MMA has had its explosion in America, with the fall of Pride (and as a side note, it seems like all MMA events seem to be building on the ashes of Pride now) now we're seeing pro-wrestlers coming back into MMA, Brock Lesnar being signed, and we're seeing Broadway producers looking to put on shows in MMA. You've been in Japan and you've been here, are we seeing a pattern? With M-1 being announced, is this frankly, the new Pride? Is this a new force to be reckoned with against the UFC?

Mauro: As you know I work with Showtime in the Pro Elite and Elite XC promotions. I think people would be nuts not to try and follow what Pride did in terms of their production values in Japan and the amount of talent that they were able to assemble. Do I think that anything will ever equal Pride Fighting Championships in terms of the overall production value and the fact that they were able to deliver such high quality talent? I don't know.

I think the organizations now are such that you're going to see so many fragmented rosters we even see now with the UFC. They have certain divisions that are on fire like the lightweight division but now the sudden resignation of Randy Couture and the adding of Brock Lesnar as you mentioned, their heavyweight division is still kind of come si come sa. The middleweight division: who's next for Anderson Silva? It seems the star fighters are going where the money is as they should. It still the sport in its embryonic stage for the most part and the money isn't what boxing is or maybe other professional sports but we're starting to see at the higher tier that fighters are beginning to earn seven figures per fight.

I think M-1 Global is a very intriguing entity but I do believe their work may be cut out for them only because they're coming to the party this late and as we've seen before with the IFL and even with Elite XC it takes millions just to get started. You don't necessarily see the dividends right away. We saw Bodog Fight and look how many millions of dollars Calvin Ayre has spent. He had Fedor Emelianenko on a pay per view main event out of Russia against Matt Lindland that did very poor in terms of Pay Per View buys, and he was advertising on subway stations! You couldn't escape the Bodog Fight advertising campaign! It's going to be interesting to see what M-1 Global has as its vision. I think signing Fedor Emelianenko is definitely a step in the right direction, but if you look at it right now I think the Brock Lesnar signing by the UFC is almost better in terms of marketability because Brock Lesnar does have the WWE background, and is an American fighter. Fedor could walk down any street in the United States I think and not be recognized.

411Mania: Well, maybe not this one. Talk to me briefly about your commentating now, just to dial back a bit. You started off coming off the heels of Stephen Quadros leaving Pride and then moving alongside Bas Rutten. You were one of the "lesser liked" commentators as it were. Now, after Pride, seeing Elite XC and Strikeforce and all of these promotions, its almost as if people are just begging to see you not only in the UFC but they can't get enough of Mauro Ranallo. They're basically banging at the gates for your presence in every promotion. You're all over the place and it's STILL not enough for the fans. What has that been like and how did you win them over?

Mauro: You know to be honest with you I totally expected there would be some kind of a backlash because Stephen Quadros and Bas Rutten were such a great team for so long and they had a unique chemistry as the original voices of Pride Fighting Championships. You could've put in anyone, whether it was Jim Lampley, Al Michaels, Vince Gully, and I think there would've been some kind of a backlash to whoever replaced Stephen Quadros with Pride. I weathered the storm and in fact I am one of those people that I actually appreciate constructive criticism more than just simple vacuous plaudits if you will. It's nice to have people support and have fans that think you do a good job, but I'm always trying to better myself and I knew when I first came on the scene that it was going to take awhile for people to get used to my presence with Pride Fighting Championships.

I'm never going to be everyone's cup of tea. I like to bring the drama and the energy to the broadcast. I like to convey what I'm feeling in each broadcast. I'm definitely a guy that's not laid back by any stretch of the imagination but I also am there to put the fighters over and put the product over. Everyone calls me 24/7, you'll never find a guy that does more preparation for a fight card than I do. I am just living a very blessed life and like you say I think my resume speaks for itself from Pride Fighting Championships to King of the Cage Canada, to Elite XC, Show XC, Art of War, it's a laundry list of promotions and I just look forward to being a part of this rocket ship that is mixed martial arts!

411Mania: Well, as much as I do have several other questions to ask you, I'm seeing men in suits at the door and it looks like a mob crowding around a single person so just to speculate I think I'm going to have to end it early, but thank you so much Mauro, it was a pleasure.

Mauro: Hey, thank you so much and keep up the great work with 411mania.com. We always appreciate guys who respect the sport and cover it the way it should be.


Mitchell Maxwell



Mitchell Maxwell is the CEO of the Sibling Entertainment Group, which has produced several Broadway shows and built five entertainment companies as well as several theatres and restaurants across the country. He is now serving as the chairman of M-1 Global promotions.

411Mania.com: First of all, let me welcome you to the mixed martial arts business.

Mitchell Maxwell:Thanks.

411Mania: You had mentioned earlier that you had wanted to put together a proper announcement and really get things together and clearly looking around we can see you did that. But specifically, in terms of announcements, your name was probably the least known thing up until just a few short hours ago. There have been rumors flying around about who could be behind the globalization of M-1, was it Vince McMahon, Donald Trump, Mark Cuban. Tell me first of all, where did you interest in mixed martial arts come from, and how much of the sport have you seen prior to speaking with Vadim Finkelchtein?

Maxwell: I never saw an MMA fight until 10 weeks ago. I was aware of the UFC, I was aware of Spike television, I was aware of the outlets but I never saw an actual fight. I'm not actually a big boxing fan to begin with, though I was interested in Sugar Ray Leonard and Mohammed Ali and those guys, I just never really followed fighting on the B level. As I said earlier, the thing that attracted me about this was that Vadim is a brilliant man. He's a visionary. My partner who introduced me to him, one of my associates in Russia, is a brilliant man and these are good people. I'm 55 years old. I've been producing shows since I was 20, and I've come to learn that a contract is only as good as the person who signed it.

These are really quality partners and I felt that it was an opportunity to present the best in the world. I've said that a lot and I know it sounds redundant but when you can present the best in the world, if you have a personality like mine, you do it. We want to make money, we want to make the sport more mainstream and more fan friendly and we want to do all those things, but first and foremost the reason everybody is here is because we have the best fighter in the world, and that's exciting.

411Mania: Absolutely. Talk to me a little bit about that fan friendliness now. No doubt you've seen the UFC and really one of the things that many people feel has held the sport of mixed martial arts back is that even though there is a unified rule set, the violence and the controversy has been toned down, there are still a lot of people who are having trouble getting rid of the old stigmas and it is still considered human cockfighting by some. It is marketed as being bloody, inside of a cage. What are we going to see from M-1 in terms of promotion and how do you plan to really make it along the sports side of things as opposed to the violent gladiator spectacle?

Maxwell: Well, it would be naïve and foolish to say that much of the appeal of mixed martial arts is the contact and brutality. Just like somebody says people only watch the NFL for the X's and O's, people watch the NFL because it's a violent sport. When somebody gets clocked, they think it's cool. People watch hockey and people like to watch fights in hockey. When you watch the highlights of a hockey game on ESPN, what do you watch? You watch a fight, you don't watch anything else. When there's a baseball brawl, it's on the news every single day. That is part of our culture, good, bad, or indifferent.

I think one of our big challenges is that the public thinks that UFC is MMA. UFC is a BRAND in MMA. It's not all there is. There are muscle cars out there and there are luxury cars. So we have to brand MMA as more than what the UFC is, which is a brutal approach to marketing that product. Now, they've created a tremendous foundation for us, but we are not going to fight in the cage, because to me a cage implies that these are animals. I mean it reminds me of that line in Spartacus when they send Jean Simmons down to his cell and all the men are watching him try to make love to Jean Simmons and he looks up and says "I am not an animal." Well, fighting in the cage to me implies these men are animals. They are brilliant, brilliant athletes, and if we can begin to convey to the public that not only is this yes, a brutal sport, but also it's performed by athletes of tremendous skill, tremendous training, tremendous technique, and tremendous strategy.

I sort of equate it to baseball. If you go to a baseball game and you don't know anything about baseball you say "boy, this is boring." But if you go to baseball game and you know about the nuance of pitching and hit and run and bunting and taking a pitch to make sure that you hit that same pitch in the 5th inning, you'll love baseball. Now if we can begin to acquaint the public particularly or even the mixed martial arts fans with the nuance of the sport, then I think its going to grow exponentially. In terms of the fan friendly nature, basically what is presented to the MMA fan right now is a ring or a cage, which is basically like going to Gleason's gym and watching a fight. There's no elegance to the experience, no additional entertainment value to the experience, and there's no theatricality to the experience. We do that very well in my business, and we will be bringing a tremendous amount of theatricality to the evening. So if you wanted to bring your girlfriend, she'll have something to watch. I'm not saying it's going to be Chippendale's, but she'll have something that is in addition to the experience of watching a fight.

411Mania: Having researched on Fedor and mixed martial arts in general, you have no doubt heard the term Pride Fighting Championships. You know what it was and how much of a show it brought, followed by the purchase by Zuffa Inc. and where the promotion went from there. But anyone who has been a long time mixed martial arts fan can tell you just how much that promotion meant as far as the spectacle of it and now we have you have throwing your hat in the ring coming from Broadway and those productions. How are the two related? If you did see Pride, what do you feel it was that packed those houses in and really made it more than just about the fights? Also, where does Broadway come into that? Are we dealing with a similar production team, similar values?

Maxwell: Well my company owns a company in Las Vegas. It's one of the largest production companies in Las Vegas.

411Mania: For Harrah's casinos I believe?

Gracie: Yes, we work with Harrah's. We have a partnership with them on one of our shows. But we own a very successful and talented production company in Vegas, and they will probably be designing the theatrical part of this. I think to answer your question about Pride and why people were so taken with that pomp and circumstance, is sort of like how a woman is sexier in her underwear than she is naked. It's sort of the thrill of the chase, a sort of foreplay. It sort of gets you lathered up. It's not like "Ok let's go into the ring and beat each other's brains out and then have another fight and beat each other's brains out." It's an elaborate dance and when you offer that to the public and they get caught up in that I think it makes the fight that much better.

Using the analogy of the girl in her underwear…which is probably totally incorrect and inappropriate…

411Mania: I cannot say you are wrong!

Maxwell: *laughs* Well that's good…If she walks into your room without anything on that's great, but if she walks into your room with some fabulous lingerie and she slowly takes it off that might be even better.

411Mania: So we have M-1 here, it's a new global organization. MMA is still considered by some to be a territorial concept. The UFC and Strikeforce and those sort of promotions really dominate the west coast, whereas here in the East we have the IFL who are more open to working with other promotions but also are focused on their team concept. Where does a global organization start? M-1 has its roots in Europe, now you're bringing it to America. Where in America?

Maxwell: Well we start by presenting to America the greatest fighter in the industry, the greatest fighter ever, in this arena. That's a pretty good calling card. We start with that. We start by introducing him and making him the superstar that he deserves to be. We start by having him fight in this country, having him here in this country, having endorsements in this country. Using baseball analogy again, you can't win the game in the first inning. You've got to play the first inning and the second inning, and in the second inning you might have some strategies that you didn't have in the first inning. So what we plan to do between now and our first fight is to play the first inning. And when the first inning is over, when the first half is over, we'll powwow in the locker room and say "Ok, how do we make adjustments to get to the next level?"

I think that's most honest and the least comforting answer I can give you because I don't know where this is going to go. I don't know what decisions we're going to have to make. I do know this: I know the people that do what I do for a living, my partners who supported me in this and the people we've brought to the table, we're entrepreneurs. I can't say that we're visionaries because that's too complimentary, but the wheel is being invented all the time. There is only one story in the world. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl. That movie has been made a hundred times. When it's made well, it's a hit. When it's made badly, it's not. We're entering an arena, we're going to do the best we can, and we hope that's going to attract public favor because it's better than what they've seen, or different than what they've seen. We have every confidence that we can do that. And as we move forward, we'll learn more, we'll adapt, and we'll figure out how to get the ball rolling.

411Mania: Well let me tell you sir, you have managed in just a few short hours to shock the MMA world. From the announcements here my jaw dropped more than one time, and it's going to be an honor and a privilege to see where this goes. Thank you for your time.

Maxwell: You're a gentleman. Thank you for your kind words..