AXS TV Fights CEO jumps in the fray, calls out WSOF for cross-promotion

If Bellator MMA isn’t willing to match its fighters against those from World Series of Fighting, the MMA promotions under the AXS TV Fights banner are willing to step up.

“We would do it in a second,” AXS TV Fights CEO Andrew Simon told MMAjunkie Radio. “I have guys from Pedro Munhoz to Holly Holm to Cris ‘Cyborg’ (Justino). I am very confident our network could put five fighters against all their champions, and we would come out very well in that fight.”

Simon said he playfully pitched the idea to WSOF executives, who earlier this week announced they want to match their fighters against those from Viacom-owned Bellator MMA, ideally as part of a pay-per-view event.

It sounds like he shouldn’t hold his breath.

“They said, ‘Oooh, crap,’” Simon said. “They know it, too. It’s not something they would jump at, but we would do it in a second. Everybody likes to puff, but we’ve been doing this for more than a decade. We put more fighters into the UFC than any other organizations. We put more fighters that are in the top 5 of all the weight divisions, from Daniel Cormier to Vitor Belfort to Benson Henderson. They’ve all fought on our network.”

AXS TV currently can been seen in 42 million homes, per a recent press release. The channel’s MMA division broadcasts regional players such as Legacy FC, MFC and RFA, among others.

WSOF, meanwhile, airs on NBC Sports Network and is available in 80 million homes. The promotion holds its eighth event on Jan. 18 in Hollywood, Fla.

Of AXS TV, WSOF and Bellator MMA, the latter has the biggest broadcast footprint. The tournament-based promotion airs on Spike TV and is available in nearly 100 million homes.

Simon trumpeted AXS TV as not the biggest player in the MMA space, but the most influential as far as talent-building.

“Our network is where the stars are born,” he said. “These other guys, they take a lot of our fighters and put them over there (in WSOF), and our guys go back to the UFC.”

For instance, Simon said fighters under the AXS TV umbrella sent 19 fighters to the UFC octagon in 2013, with 11 from Legacy FC and eight from RFA. That, he said, qualifies the Mark Cuban-owned network as the premier feeder to the industry-leading UFC.

“We’re grooming the next generation of fighters on AXS TV,” he said. “All these other organizations are running around about how great they are and challenging each other. I talked to the folks from the World Series [of Fighting on Wednesday], and I told them our fighters across our board can take any of their fighters.”

Rather than put together one fight card pitting each promotion’s best against each other, Simon proposed a two-event series featuring three weight classes per show. One would be on WSOF’s broadcast home, NBC Sports Network, while the other would be on AXS TV.

“It’s very easy to do,” Simon said. “The reality is everybody likes to think that the newest promotion should get the most press and that’s the greatest thing of all time, whereas you have promotions like Legacy FC, MFC and RFA making money that are building fighters. Everybody loves a promotion that comes out with a lot of marketing glitz and spends a lot of money. But it’s not a business. You can’t run a business that loses money in perpetuity. So we have built promotions that are built to last, and they’re building the best fighters in the world.

“I was starting to take insult that every other article I read on other websites is (saying), ‘Wow, they have a new deal with this network,’ and they start writing about fighters who were on my network a month ago, and they didn’t want to write about it. Some websites focus, I believe, on who pay them to advertised on their website. That’s just my opinion.”

Simon said AXS TV fights will broadcast its 250th event this year, and the network is considering international expansion.

Whether or not he’s able to convince WSOF to square off, Simon’s aim is to make his channel impossible to ignore.

For more on the promotions’ upcoming schedules, stay tuned to the MMA Rumors section of the site.

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