Strikeforce, the mixed martial arts promotion that’s the focus of the upcoming EA Sports MMA video game, has an event tonight headlined by Fedor Emelianenko vs. Fabricio Werdum. Normally I wouldn’t mention that here on CG, but there’s a fairly neat tech angle that’s worth mentioning. Not only is there an Internet pay-per-view option at $24.95 (the event otherwise airs on Showtime here in the U.S.), which, in and of itself isn’t exactly breaking news (WWE, the world’s most technophobic company, has been running Internet pay-per-views for some time now, and even smaller promotions like Ring of Honor have jumped aboard the iPPV bandwagon), but there’s a clever “choose you own camera angle” gimmick that may interest you.
Throughout the event, iPPV viewers will able to choose the camera angle from which to view the action. There’s the standard camera angle that viewers on Showtime see, as chosen by the fancy-pants director in the production studio, but there’s also camera angles from each fighter’s corner, an overhead camera, a roaming camera, and something called CageCam. I believe that’s the referee-mounted camera: what he sees you see. Very much reminds me of PRIDE FC… those were the days.
How nice it is to see major sports promotions (if you’ll allow me to call Strikeforce a major sports promotion) actually embrace the Internet, rather than fighting it like Grim Death. Give people the option to view something like a Fedor fight, which are increasingly rare these days, nice and legally, and maybe they’ll bite—though my gut tells me that the $24.95 asking price is about $10 too high for what amounts to a one-fight (well, two-fight, if you include the Cyborg bout) show.
And if you’re feeling bold, bookmaker.com has Fabricio Werdum at +400 tonight, which means if you bet the maximum amount ($2,000) and Werdum wins you’ll have won yourself a hell of a vacation—plus, think of all the Steam games you could buy!
Then again, you could be out two-large, so whatever.
UPDATE~! Well, Fedor lost. Hope you took advantage of that +400 while you had the chance!