GetCaged.com launches it's beta April 2nd, 2009.

GetCaged.com is a pixel marketing site where the homepage of the site is for sale by the pixel. Users can register on GetCaged.com and purchase blocks of pixels for a small price and upload their PNG/GIF image, then place their image anywhere in the 1,000 by 1,000 pixel grid, add a link and roll over image and publish.

A similar site from 2006 generated 1 million dollars with pixels being sold at $1 each millions of unique visits.

GetCaged.com  is focused on Mixed Martial Arts. Promote your Gym, your favorite fighter, fight promotion or clothing brand! It's very simple and orders are taken through Paypal.

So what are you waiting for? GetCaged.com !

by: Jason Appleton - Owner/Promoter of the MMA Big Show

Let me ask you a question before I begin this article. Are you a fighter to get laid or a fighter with hopes of making a career out of your talents?

I ask you this because although the sport of Mixed Martial Arts is still fairly new in the broad scope of sports, to this day too many fighters and their managers have no idea what they are doing or how to get where they want to be. Coming from the music business myself I’ve always used the adage, ‘Be yourself but better.” In other words, take who you are as a fighter and brand yourself as a bigger version of yourself.  Mixed Martial Arts in a sport, it’s a business and it’s an entertainment business.  You as a fighter are a freelance employee who is hired to perform a task in order to help your temporary boss sell tickets to a show so that you may all profit. People buy tickets to events to see people put in a spotlight and accomplish things they can’t accomplish themselves. To be a part of something they see as bigger than themselves. Maybe they are too old and have knees that click like lawn chairs such as myself, or maybe they have families and jobs that don’t allow them time to train, or maybe they just don’t like the idea of getting hit in the face by someone trained to do it well. Regardless, these people are fans of a sport you are actively trying to pursue a career in. As such, I’m writing this article in hopes of giving you some solid advice and tips on how to better progress in your career.

#1. Publicity and promotional material:

As a fighter trying to make a career for yourself, you aren’t just trying to book one off fights in hopes of getting a win thinking that a huge winning record alone will be enough to get you into the UFC.  National promotions such as the UFC want to see winning fighters who handle themselves like professionals and are able to hit the ground running with previous levels of exposure on television. If you don’t make it through the auditions of 750+ hopefuls for an Ultimate Fighter season where new fighters are able to build a following, then you have to do it yourself. You want to get onto solid promotions that are capable of exposing you on television, even locally is a start and any promotion capable of providing this vehicle for you will want some things from you to seriously consider you.

a.       A quality publicity photo with which to market you in print advertising or on their website.

b.      A bio of where you can from, how you got to where you are, why you are here, interesting details about your life etc.

c.       Respect and desire to complete tasks as they need to be completed such as contracts, interviews, photo shoots etc.

In the music business, bands tour their tales off on the road for peanuts, often at a loss to build their names and reputations wishing for opportunities to get on television to help build their following and the good bands stop at nothing to accomplish their dreams. Bands like Nickelback or Linkon Park toured on their own dime paying their dues and building their fanbases before the record labels would even look at them seriously. You as a fighter have an opportunity in this new sport nobody has ever had and many of you, lets face it, take such opportunities for granted. Many of you managers do as well.  Luck as they say is preparation meeting opportunity. Be prepared, work hard at getting yourself out there and you will get those lucky opportunities that will boost your career.

#2. Where you fight and what for.

There are what I call “Podunk operators” popping up all over the place, putting on backyard shows with small budgets and big promises who come and go as each of them realize just how little money if any is to be made in this business prior to building something people respect. Many promoters luck out with some rich guy’s money and spend it up faster than Don King can dye his hair on a Friday night before a big event. These promoters lack foresight and respect for others. They make big promises to fighters about their futures with little to no ability to back those promises up. Many would sell their own mothers for a quick buck and often they try to build their promotions at the expense of others.  Some will offer to pay you more money for one fight than another more qualified and educated promoter will but the question you have to ask yourself is, do you fight to make a career or to get laid?

In other words, let’s say you have two choices. One promotion with a solid reputation that is televised and works hard to promote their fighters on billboards, radio, internet, in the press and on television, but due to the added expenses that come with such efforts maybe they pay you $500 less than the promoter who does nothing but buy some radio time to sell his tickets to an event and wishes you the best. Often times lying to you, using you up as best he can and really only focused on how much money he can make now instead of focusing on what he can build over time. Which event do you as a fighter most think is worth your blood, sweat and tears? If you are fighting to get laid, then the extra $500 is great! If you are fighting to make a career for yourself, pay your dues, take the exposure over the instant cash and build something with it which leads me to #3.

#3. Sponsorships

Fighting for an event that offers you things such as television, assuming you or your manager is hard at work trying to make the best out of every fight performance you have going for you, should enable you to obtain sponsorship support. Every sponsor you can cluster onto your fight shorts and t shirt adds up. Let’s say you had 5 sponsors giving you $200 each to be on your gear per fight. That’s an additional $1,000 a fight you should be making by playing it smart and leaving the Podunk promoters alone and trying to build relationships with promoters actively trying to build a brand.

#4 Backing out of fights at the last minute.

Backing out of fights is always going to happen for one reason or another. However, you aren’t doing yourselves any favors by committing to a fight prior to doing research on your opponent only to then back out of the deal with a fake injury, staph infection or sore throat once you have gotten around to looking them up. I don’t know how many times I’ve booked a fight only to have a coach or a fighter tell me the fighter has to back out because of some stupid reason or another while more or less telling me, “he isn’t ready to fight so and so”. This coming two weeks before fight night after having the fight booked for two months. This leads me to #5.

#5. Fighting too often

A lot of fighters are tough, strong, capable and talented. This is understood and expected. However, many of you are trying to fight more often than you should while not effectively capitalizing on the fights that you do have. This isn’t about just fighting as often as you can in hopes of building a great record and making into a “big show” for fame and fortune.  If all you do is fight, when do you actually train? If you are always recovering, when does your body get a chance to grow? On top of it all, how many times are you going to lose out on a great opportunity because you took some crap fight and broke a thumb or your nose and had to recover?

I’ve had the great opportunity to speak with UFC Matchmaker Joe Silva on several occasions and I’m telling you now, taking 30 crap fights for easy wins isn’t going to get you into the UFC.  Taking fewer fights against tough opponents while allowing yourself time to train and grow as a fighter with each bout while capitalizing on the exposure provided by these fights is what is going to get you into big promotions. If your manager books you a fight today and another two weeks from now, they shouldn’t be managing you. Why? Because for one, they are taking a chance on you not getting hurt at the expense of one of the promoters giving you an opportunity. If you do get hurt and it stops you from coming through on a commitment with the 2^nd promoter, your manager has just pissed someone off that could be a big help to your career. On top of that, no fighter who is serious about his/her career should be fighting twice in a matter of a few weeks. You have to give yourself time to rest, recover and train to get better. 5 wins over the course of one year against big names will get you a lot further and 30 wins against nobody’s in the same time frame and fighting bigger named guys will most likely get you the exposure and recognition you need to get the sponsors you need to help pay your bills while you are training. Make sense?

#6. Training and Loyalties

Too often I see fight gyms being ran like the Cobra Kai gym in the Karate Kid movies. Brainwashed but loyal fighters following someone with their own personal interests in mind and not the fighters. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be loyal to your team mates or even that some of these gym owners are being intentionally sneaky or selfish, just that you as a fighter need to worry the most about yourself. Your team is there to support you as a fighter to win fights. Your team mates are there to help you train, drill and practice. However, there comes a time in any serious fighter’s career where you will get the best training and growth as a fighter out of multiple gyms from several different trainers. Very rarely will you find all of the right trainers in your local MMA gym. You may need a boxing trainer in one place, a BJJ coach out of another place, a strength and conditioning trainer over here and so forth. Any gym trying to keep you from training at other places to make you a better fighter is just trying to hold you back to ensure they don’t lose you and it’s not right.

I know several UFC fighters who have a different trainer in multiple cities, some travel to other countries to get the training they feel they need and you know what, it’s smart. Your local gym is great for several things such as practicing what you’ve learned from your individual trainers, team spirit and motivation, friendship and overall team effort, but don’t get caught up in politics or high school drama. You are there to become a better fighter and chances are, if you are the fighter everyone else in your gym is jealous of due to your winning record, talent and reputation, you are probably one of the fighters that should be training with others outside of your local gym anyway.

#7. Self Promotion

I know, you are a fighter. You are also an entertainer if you plan to go anywhere in this business.  I know you just want to train and fight and you know what, that’s totally cool if you have a manager helping you with the business side of things. But whether you are a fighter without a manager or a manager, you should be always researching all of the local news, press and media outlets around where you’re next fight is so that you can build your exposure levels in that market. Don’t rely on the promoters to promote you. In MMA an average card consists of 10-15 fights which is 20 to 30 fighters for one event. What you want to do is make sure that you are doing everything you can to promote yourself as a fighter using the show as a vehicle and means to get your word out. When you book a fight, your job should just be starting. You should find out who all the local newspapers are in the area of the event and submitting press releases about your fight while telling a story about why the fight is interesting. Did you come up poor in a bad part of town and rise up through the muck to become a great fighter doing great things for your community? Were you a nerd in school who was bullied into a psych ward and came out with fist of steel ready to bang up the world? You need to tell your story to the public. This is your opportunity to build a fan base which is how the promoter justifies spending the money you want to make the next time you come to fight. And of course, everything I’ve said in the previous sections relates to this.

Less fights with bigger names and better training gives you more time to grow in your skills while also providing you the time you need to promote yourself as a fighter. By doing all of this you can justify asking for higher pay on promotions that are going to get you the exposure you need to further increase your earnings from sponsorships and all of it starts with a quality photo of yourself, a bio and the desire to work with the promoter in getting everything turned in a timely fashion. See how this all fits together?

#8. Managers with too many fighters

Often I see managers who represent 30 or more fighters. Some because they know what they are doing and have a staff that helps them run their management efforts effectively. Some happen to run a gym where all of the fighters train together. Then, there are some guys who sign everyone willing to step into the cage, throw them all to the wolves to see which of the fighters makes it through.

As a fighter, it is of higher benefit to you to be managed by a serious, honest and hard working guy with only a handful of promising up and comers than by being managed by someone who represents you and 29 other guys. You won’t get the attention you deserve as no man with 25 wives can please them all. If your manager is a smooth talking multi promise making jive turkey who always has excuses on his regular failures to deliver, it’s time to find a new manager. If your manager if pushing you to do things you know isn’t in your best interest, it’s time to find someone else. I’ll get more into this topic in a later article but for now, I hope this article has helped you get a better understanding as to what it takes to become a serious professional fighter.