Should the UFC sign the reidenator?

so Alex Reid won celebrity big brother.




http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5igvHJdw17dNgBiXOa6iWDpn7aWgw









(letting that sink in)










i didnt watch the series but i watched the finale and apparently he came across really well on the show and won with a landslide of the public vote.

Would it be a good idea for the UFC to sign him?

like it or not, he is the most popular mma fighter in britain by far.

he isnt a very good fighter. he isnt that bad though. yes i know he has lost his last 6 fights...
and his best result was a draw with 10-18 Daijro Matsui!

but UFC recently picked up Elvis Sinosic and Kimbo ffs!

he has such a huge exposure, i think this would help boost the popularity of mma in the uk if handled well.

thoughts?

Immediate reaction is no.

Having thought about it i'd say no.


But Dana will probably look to make him an offer for the next UK event.

I heard that he was telling them in the house that he'd been a champion and that he'd won his last 3 fights and that he had 3 fights left on his contract which was big money!

Now, he's lost his last 6 in a row. Lost to every decent fighter he's ever faced and NEVER been anything resembling a champion. Also, his last 6 or 7 fights were for Cage Rage and last i checked they were out of business! If i was a couple of years younger and a couple of hips healthier i would fight him!

Apparently he did come across really well on the show and fair play to him for that. I did hear that Stephen Baldwin told him he could be the next James Bond! I'm tattooed, scarred and i walk with a bit of a limp and i have more chance of being the next bond!

well i saw him win in cage-kickboxing on sky sports a couple of months ago. so maby he was talking about that?

anyway considering the number of people that tuned into the first night of big brother was 4x the number of people that watched Kimbo fight big country.

and considering he will be on the front page of all the tabloids tomorrow.

and considering if UFC signed him they would be on the front page of all the tabloids.

and considering he is just as well known in the uk right now as everything else to do with mma combined.

i'd say it would be a smart signing.



edit:


also, having a k1 rules fight in a cage purposely designed for mma, when everyone knows the ring is where kickboxing happens. why?

The people that watched him in Big Brother are celeb gossip fans. Most of them tuned in to see what "celebs" were going to be on the show. Only Vinnie Jones is a real legit and worthwhile celeb in 2010. Those people will not watch MMA, especially since 90% are teenage girls who "just think he's so cute and that Jordan is a cow!".

Cage-Kickboxing?? Any links?

They absolutely shouldn't, but knowing them, they'll probably give him a one fight contract for a British event, draw in the crowds!

Problem is, I reckon even the worst in the UFC would beat him.

My misses is a big fan of Big Brother and turns out she is now a Big fan of Alex Reid, I think hes turned the generl public around to liking him, with his easy going attitude. Never seen him fight but I too heard that he won his last fight.

Would only be a good thing for the UFC and you might see him get smashed aswell??

Terrible fighter, I hope not. Even if they were to sign him who would he face? He is a WW I think but even the worst fighters there could beat him. Sinosic was a terrible and pointless signing and in the case of Kimbo, if they didn't sign him someone else would and make the money of him. Besides Kimbo is quite a lot better than Reid.

Who's currently the worst WW in the UFC? Baroni? Blackburn? Wilks? All would beat the Reidenater in 1 round and probably hurt him as well.

I wouldn't mind seeing Reid vs GSP.

is Kevin "the fire" Burns still with the UFC?

some one like that could be competitive and fun i guess.



was watching this on sky sports last year thinking "why the fuck are they wearing boxing gloves?"

it was a lucky decisiion if i recall.

of course it goes without saying that he was completely outshined by the performance of Neil Grove on the undercard.

No he was released after losing to TJ Grant.

I still think guys like Kevin Burns and Pete Sell, who both got released, would beat him easily.

Reid is more famous in the UK then Lesnar, Kimbo, and Gina Carrano are combined here.

Public opinion has done a 180 on him.

He'll be front page of most of the tabloids today.

Perception of him is positive.

UFC can't buy that publicity.

UFC would be stupid not to have him on shows in the UK as it may attract at network tv live event (eg ITV, CH4 or FIVE).

Yeah, he'll never be a world beater, but then neither is Kimbo, and Kimbo got famous for having a gangsta thug person and beating up bums in his backyard and video being posted on the internet.

But surely even UFC can recognize that he won't win any fights? Which makes him useless as a marketing tool because all the BB fans who think he's some talented fighter will see him get pasted. Hardly going to get the UK going for MMA is it?

UFC should be pushing talented fighters the UK can get behind, like Hardy, Daley and Etim. Its a sad affair when a big brother win gets you a contract with UFC

so what if he gets pasted?

tonnes of people would tune in to the card if he is on it.

and hopefully they would like what they saw of mma.



anyway Reid is fighting against Tom "Kong" Watson in may before anything else.

he will probably lose.

manschesthair_utd wrote:so what if he gets pasted?

tonnes of people would tune in to the card if he is on it.

and hopefully they would like what they saw of mma.



anyway Reid is fighting against Tom "Kong" Watson in may before anything else.

he will probably lose.

Exactly. Reid can be a loss leader. Bring people in who wouldn't otherwise see the sport and they get to see other fights that are a great representation of the sport.

If Reid can be used to get more publicity and a live network tv show in the UK, it doesn't matter if he loses.

simple answer - no

agree with chesty and kjgould. he may not be a great fighter, but he did win fights in 2009 albeit kickboxing bouts.

Having watched the Big brother series (seriously? no one else saw Stephen Baldwin trying to start a cult?) Mr Reid was a credit to the sport of MMA, and will have done tonnes to change the perception of MMA fighters as brutes with bad tattoos participating in glorified carpark fights, which some of the media and therefore public still hold. He was an absolute gentleman throughout and came across as arguably the most pleasant person on the show. If the UFC give him a fight in the UK it will only help them, whether he wins or loses.

As i said above, people watching him on BB and thinking he's a nice fella won't affect UFC ratings all that much.

Scrapping a decision in a kickboxing match against a bum means nothing in MMA terms.

I think it would help the profile of the sport in the UK lol

It'd be a cheap marketing ploy but so is Kimbo. Give him a one fight deal and put him in against Paul Daley. Let the general public see a decent British MMA fighter and a good KO.

Kimbo can at least win some fights.

As much shit as Kimbo gets atleast he trains with world class fighters in one of the top camps in the world and takes his training seriously. Don't know if you can say the same for Reid.

Can anyone name a fighter that Reid can actually beat or even last a round in. Surely Daley going in and taking Reids head off would be a bad thing because all the fans in the UK would hate Daley. Besides Daley isn't that far away from a title shot now, If he beats Kos, he isn't about to ditch GSP and fight Reid!

If Reid picks up a few wins and has more wins than losses then maybe its worthy gamble for the UFC, if he really is bigger than Lesnar in the UK. Thing is he has losses to fighters who have failed miserably in the UFC and in MMA in general, DrX, Frykland, Jason Tan

Not good.

Reid has trained at London shootfighters in the past. Now though, he trains at a "gym" known as Reidernator Vale Tudo where the head instructor and possibly the only student is Alex Reid.

He's actually an MW, not a WW.

He made it into the 2nd round with Mark Weir. Before getting stopped.

He made it to the final bell against Dave Menne but lost a one-sided UD.

The biggest name on his record is Ninja Rua who beat him very easily and stopped him in the first round.

The best result of his career was a no-contest against Jean Silva. A fight that lasted until the 3rd round before being stopped due to a problem with the cage door. It's worth noting that Reid was losing the fight, and that Silva is a LW.


Apparently he was a world champion kickboxer but i can't find anything to validate that.

Oh , I assumed he was a WW because he appeared on the TUF 9 try out show as a WW but his opponents have been MWs so your right.

Is that 19-16 Mark Weir?

Menne is shit nowadays.

Jean Silva sucks as well and a LW so that is terrible from Reid. Add losses to Jason Tan, Frykland and DR X and thats not a very good record.

He might be a kickboxing champion but its probably worthless. Remember Pudwanskiz opponent? He was a polish kickboxing champion and Big Baby probably has better stand-up. Remember Kit Cope? He was a Muay Thai champion and he was utter shit

To be fair to Cope he was a BAREKNUCKLE muay Thai champ so he must be very hard. Shit MMA fighter though, your right

OK, I've watched some of his fights in the past including a live Cage Rage show a few years back, so I have more to go on then just fight finder.

1) Jean Silva does not suck, he's a very good Lightweight / Featherweight, but he's not world class.

2) Reid's loss to Ninja was incredibly unfortunate. Reid split his shin open checking a kick if I remember rightly, and it wouldn't stop bleeding so the ref stopped it. A bleeding shin, of all things, but it goes down as a TKO.

3) At one point Mark Weir was a top British prospect, he had one of the fastes Knock Outs in his UFC debut at UFC 38, but guys like Weir and Reid (and Zikic, if you remember him) came from a time where training in the UK was scarce in quality and wrestling as usual was the achilles heel.

Often these guys records reflects the lack of necessary training available which guys like Bisping onwards have had a luxury in having since the UFC explosion a few years ago.

Still Reid's never going to be a world beater, but I think UK fighters from this generation don't deserve as much flack as they're getting because they did the best with what they had at the time.

"Should the UFC sign the reidenator?"

No!