13 Questions for WSOF Vice President Ali Abdel-Aziz
By the time Saturday night is over, World Series of Fighting will have held 22 events since its inception in November 2012. That the upstart promotion has made it this far is a victory in itself, but it doesn’t appear that the Las Vegas-based organization has any intention of slowing down.
WSOF Executive Vice President and matchmaker Ali Abdel-Aziz recently spoke to Sherdog.com about a number of topics concerning the promotion, including his thoughts on international expansion, going head-to-head with the UFC and Bellator, his philosophy on signing talent and more. WSOF 22 takes place at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas on Saturday; the main card airs on NBC Sports Network and features a welterweight title clash between Rousimar Palhares and Jake Shields.
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Ali Abel-Aziz: The UFC is the biggest promotion on the planet, and they have 50 shows a year. It’s very difficult -- they almost have one every weekend. NBC gave us this window at the beginning of the year. Sometimes we can move around it, but it’s very hard to move when the UFC has 50 shows. We are on free television and the UFC is on pay-per-view. They have a great fight card, Ronda Rousey is gonna fight. The fight is probably gonna last five, 10, 15 seconds, and everybody can watch World Series of Fighting or they can watch the highlight. Because very much Ronda’s fight is going to be a highlight.
Sherdog.com: How confident are you that WSOF 22 will be
successful going head to head against a Ronda
Rousey-headlined card?
Abdel-Aziz: I’m a little [worried], but the whole thing is...I don’t want to go head to head with the UFC. I don’t want to hurt their business, and I’m sure they don’t want to hurt our business. They’re great guys and they always support us, to be honest with you. I have a business relations with these guys. It’s just one of those days. We don’t like it, but we’re going to have to deal with it. Sept. 19, we were supposed to have a fight, but then you have Bellator and the UFC. We have been able to move it to [Sept. 18]; now we’re on the 18th, not the 19th. At the end of the day, we have to run a business with obstacles. We have to go around it.
Sherdog.com: What is WSOF’s place among MMA promotions right now? How does it stack up, against say, Bellator MMA?
Abdel-Aziz: Bellator is different. They’re focused on interesting matches like Kimbo [Slice] and [Ken] Shamrock. We’re focused on rebuilding divisions. We built this company from the ground up. They put on shows; we put on fights and building talent. They’re doing their thing; I wish them the best. We’re doing our thing. At the end of the day, they have their own business to run and we have our own business to run. We compete. We are gonna compete with them; they are gonna compete with us. At the end of the day we are martial artists; I believe they are martial artists too. It’s a clean competition. We have no problems with anybody out there. We compete with ourselves to be the No. 1 promotion on the planet because we built from the ground up. We built our own champions from the bottom, Marlon Moraes, Lance Palmer, Justin Gaethje. All those guys were built from the bottom, and I think it’s very, very hard to do that.
Sherdog.com: In the past, you challenged Bellator MMA to a cross-promotional event. Legacy FC and Resurrection Fighting Alliance made the concept work on a regional level. Do you have any plans to try and make that work again in the future, and if so, what do you have in mind?
Abdel-Aziz: The challenge is here is if Bellator wants to do it. Why not? I think we have our 135 pound [champ] us is one of the best in the world; Lance Palmer is improving every time; Justin Gaethje I think is one of the best in the world. You see Melvin Guillard, he’s going to Bellator and he’s headlining a show. You see what happened when he fought Justin Gaethje. He punished him for a whole three rounds. The judges gave him split decision, but I don’t know what they were doing. We have the talent. David Branch I believe can hold his own against anybody in the world. I think we could win; I believe we can win. We are always up for a challenge. It’d have to make sense and it’d have to be equal. It’d be fun. It’s about having fun. I know those guys like to have fun. Maybe one day they’ll be like hey, let’s do a super fight. And we can do a fight and everybody will make money.
Sherdog.com: How serious of a player is/was WSOF in the Fedor Emelianenko negotiations?
Abdel-Aziz: Like I said, we’ve got the money. We can afford Fedor, 100 percent. But every decision has to make sense. Fedor moves the needle. With somebody [like that] I’m willing to pay the price. I have reached out; we talked to a few people. All they have to do right now is reach out to me and say Ali, let’s make this happen. At the end of the day it’s gonna be up to Fedor and Fedor’s people.
Sherdog.com: How satisfied has NBC been with the relationship with WSOF, and vice-versa?
Abdel-Aziz: It’s like a marriage. At the beginning of the marriage, everything is kind of hard. But right now, after three years, you cannot find a better partner than NBC and NBC Sports. They are great partners and have long-term vision. They’re doing more and more every time, and they’re in it for the long haul. I respect these guys a lot.
Sherdog.com: What are you most proud of in WSOF brief history?
Abdel-Aziz: I’m most proud that we have 22 shows. And everybody doubted us, that we’re not going to have three shows. We have 22. We have [some] of the best fighters in the world, Marlon Moraes, Lance Palmer, Justin Gaethje, David Branch, Tyrone Spong -- many,many other guys. We’ve put on great events on one of the biggest networks on television. We have great commentators like Bas Rutten, Renzo Gracie and Todd Harris. We’re just having fun. I’m proud every time we have an event. After that event I’m very proud. This is what I want to do for a long time. This is what I love doing. I’m blessed to do what I do.
Sherdog.com: What do you wish you could have done differently?
Abdel-Aziz: We made a lot of mistakes in the beginning, but we learned from our mistakes just like everybody else. Everybody makes mistakes and everybody has to learn from the mistakes they make. That’s how they mature. You become the best in the world by maturing. We are maturing every day. We’re building a bigger show, we’re bringing a lot of smart people on board.
Sherdog.com: What is WSOF’s approach to signing talent? Is the focus more on developing new prospects or finding big-name stars that didn’t pan out in other organizations?
Abdel-Aziz: One of the things I’m so proud of and I love doing is developing talent. I want to develop the Marlon Moraes, the Justin Gaethjes, the Lance Palmers. At the end of the day, you want to have your own champions. But also, when I signed Jake Shields or Palhares or [Jon] Fitch or [Yushin] Okami, these are some of the biggest names in the sport. I really like to develop talent. I want everybody to have an equal opportunity to compete.
Sherdog.com: What up-and-coming talent on the WSOF roster are you most excited about and why?
Abdel-Aziz: Timur Valiev. He’s a 135-pounder on a nine-fight winning streak. I think this guy is the future of World Series of Fighting. He has so much talent. He’s still young. I feel like Lance Palmer is still a prospect. Every time he fights he develops more and more and more. He’s one guy I love talking to, I love dealing with. He’s such a professional and it’s a pleasure to work with someone like Lance Palmer for sure.
Sherdog.com: With the UFC/Reebok deal in place, have you sensed more overall interest from free agents?
Abdel-Aziz: I think the Reebok deal is the best thing to happen to the sport. I think the Reebok deal elevates the sport. When you have the Reebok deal, it’s going to elevate the sport. This is a professional sport and it’s sponsored by Reebok -- that’s how people should look at it. Guys might lose a little bit of money here and there, but sponsors in MMA wasn’t even great. I heard people say my phone rang because of the Reebok deal. My phone has not rang because of the Reebok deal. [Saying] that the UFC guys want to come to World Series of Fighting because of the Reebok deal, that is completely bulls--t. I think the Reebok deal is a good deal for the sport in the long run.
Sherdog.com: How do you address complaints from fighters in the organization that say that WSOF doesn’t keep them active enough?
Abdel-Aziz: For example, you’ve got Marlon Moraes, Lance Palmer, Justin Gaethje, David Branch. All those guys contracts were up about two months ago and they all re-signed with the WSOF. Those are the champions. They didn’t think about going off with somebody else. We just give them security and they’re making a good living. They choose to sign with us. If [those] champions re-signed with us, we must be doing something right.
Sherdog.com: What plans, if any, does WSOF have as far as international expansion?
Abdel-Aziz: Right now we’re focusing on America. The next year the focus is on America. There’s a lot of other countries we want to go to: Brazil, we went to Canada already, we want to go to Mexico, we want to go to Asia. At this point right now, our lone focus is on the United States.
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