I could not find the 'S' button for spoilers but Elite XC put on a great show tonight. Baroni got KO'd. Robbie Lawler & Scott Smith had a war going on but it was a disappointing 'no-contest'. Smith got thumbed in the eye in the 3rd. Because they did not complete 3 rounds (of 5) it was declared a 'no-contest'. So they have to do it again. It was a good, close fight. Kimbo Slice TKO'd James Thompson in the 3rd - it was a banger. Good competition for the UFC. Thanks, Tom
uhh did you see the thing pop in James Thompson's ear?? *shiver* THAT was nasty. and you forgot that Carano tko'd kaitlin young
Tom- The spoiler tags got a little messed up in the latest transition. Info on how to create tags can be found here: http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1434296&postcount=4 That said, I've had problems with spoiler tags in another thread, so I'm just going to say that having "SPOILER" in the title is good enough for right now. First fight: big guys slugging it out. Brett Rogers, preceeded to the ring by Busta Rhymes, took on Jon "Man of Faith" Murphy, who is apparently devoutly religious. 'Cause fighting is what Jesus would do. Turn the other cheek just to grab another can of beat-down.* Anyway, this was about who could land the first clean punch. It was Rogers, who sends Murphy to his knees. The ref steps in for what may have been a slightly early stoppage. The second fight was Phil Baroni vs. Joey Villasenor. Baroni comes out all larger than life, including wearing a robe and classes and having two hot chicks take off his attire. As the match begins, Baroni catches a Villasenor high kick and puts the other man of the canvas. He throws a couple of hard right hands before backing up. On the feet, Villasenor uses some nice boxing combinations to back Baroni up. Baroni gets caught in a standing guillotine for a bit, which Villasenor uses to throw knees and punches to the head. As they break apart, another comby by Villasenor sits Baroni down. The ref steps in for the stoppage. Villasenor gives respect to Baroni in his post-fight interview. Carano vs. Young: I was very impressed by Young. Nice leg kicks. Carano seemed to have heavier hands and was really landing the teep, though. At one point during the first, Young took Carano down, and the latter tried for a gogoplata that didn't look too bad, but Young was able to escape and pass. Carano rocked Young in the second with some hard punches, and almost locked a RNC on at the end of the round. Between rounds, the ringside doctor stepped in, inspected Young's bloody nose and the mouse under her left eye, and called the fight. Not sure I agree with that. When she was informed of the stoppage, I thought I saw Young mouth, "Why?" I was upset at Carano for coming in over four pounds overweight and for maybe getting a gimme stoppage, but she was very classing and winning in her post-fight interview, saying that Young is an "awesome girl" and giving credit to God, her corner, and her family. The middleweight title was up for grabs next. Lawler and Smith started off kinda slow and methodical, but with several nice exchanges. It looked to me like Smith was looking for one big shot, either a right cross or a right head kick. Lawler had some success with some body kicks that really hurt Smith. In the second round Smith came back, landing some inside leg kicks that Lawler had no answer for, and using knees and elbows inside the clinch. One elbow opened up a cut high on Lawler's head, causing some bleeding. The third round saw Smith opening up a bit more before Lawler accidentally grazed his eyes while blocking a punch. The ringside doctor was called in again, and called the fight. Smith was visibly pleading, I mean with his hands together, for the doctor not to stop the fight, and Lawler even looked down in the mouth over the whole thing. Due to the NJSAC rules, the fight was ruled a no-contest. Smith explained post-fight that he'd asked for his five minutes to recover, but the New Jersey rep said that he had twice told the doctor he couldn't see. Gary Shaw promised to give both fighters a winner's purse, and Lawler said, "Let's run it again". So a rematch is hopefully in the future, and the ringside doc earns my wrath for the second bad stoppage in a row. The main event: wow. Thompson surprised me with his ability to weather Kimbo's punches, but also with his gameplan. He kept the fight in close, not giving Kimbo the room he needed to throw punches, took him down repeatedly, and layed in some ground-and-pound. The first two rounds clearly went to Thompson. At the end of the second he even had Kimbo in a kind of crucifix possition against the cage, dropping elbows; I thought they were going to stop the fight right there. In the third, Kimbo, who'd looked exhausted since the second round, landed a few punches that, among other things, burst Thompson's caulliflower ear. The ref stepped in for what, to me, was yet another bad stoppage. The announcers made the case that Thompson had recieved four unanswered punches, but he'd taken similar flurries in the second and had gone on to win the round. My oppinion is that there was an obvious Kimbo bias. Post-fight, Kimbo looked like he was about to die. Thumbs down for not having the cardio to go three rounds, but thumbs up for pushing past what seems to have been agonizing exhaustion. Kimbo showed that he's not bad at getting to guard and being defensive from there, but has no answer for side control. Thompson, again, showed uncharacteristic forethought and strategy. While far from the most technical fight I've ever seen, it was not the minute-long sluggfest I thought it would be, and even though the ground action looked like a pair of geriatric walruses fighting over a fish, at least both fighters showed that they could do more than just brawl. Apparently there were some weird moments on the undercard. Nick Serra, Matt's brother, ended up loosing his fight after he pulled guard from five feet away and refused to get back to his feet. There also appeared to be some mismatches, and the first fight of the evening started off with two guys who have a combined record of 1-5. Overall, it was OK. I'm very disappointed at some of the stoppages. Almost all of them seemed just a bit early at least, and some were just outright wrong. They spent a lot of money on a show that only got about 8K people in the arena, and their big centerpiece, Kimbo, got dominated before a controversial finish. The first two matches included a ring walk that lasted longer than the fight. It could be my cynisism, but there was a lingering feeling that EXC was trying to protect their big names. The guys on Sherdog are screaming "FIX!", and given how poor the main event stoppage was it's kind of hard to argue that. On the other hand, we got to see a competitive Women's match, a title fight that had really gotten interesting before the stoppage, and some surprising skill shown by the main event heavyweights. I even liked the really short Baroni-Villasenor match. The down side is that the crowd booed (boo'd?) a LOT, and it'll be a week or so before we get the combined media reports and ratings to see how it faired. I loved to see MMA on network TV, but this was not the ideal event for it. *Slightly modified joke curtousy of Maria Bamford.
OK, for those that missed this it looked like Thompson had a couple of mismatched ears. One appeared fairly normal and the other was just waiting to explode. He did get hit with a couple of solid punches at the end besides the ear shot. The refs were quick to stop all the fights but it's national television so that was not surprising. Being primarily a UFC viewer, this was the first female MMA fight I've seen and I have to say it was very good. Both displayed solid skills and that's the one fight I would have liked to have seen go on longer. As for the over all production, it was a bit different, a bit too trying to be slick. I'm OK with scantily clad women dancing as much as the next guy but felt it was out of place here. Maybe I'm too much of a traditionalist. The whole entry music thing seemed geared towards promoting some music site and there was nothing I have ever heard before. I mainly watch the UFC though so maybe these things are more common than I know. It was nice not having to shell out PPV money to watch an event (had to switch channels frequently to check on the Red Wings) and I'll probably watch the next one.
Will be interested to see the TV audience figures and if CBS are willing to give it another go. They really didn't make the best of the opportunity they were given. From watching the pre-fight press conference very few people came accross as anything but gormless - Scott Smith and Kaitlen Young presented themselves well...but Robbie Lawlor, Kimbo and Phil Baroni should never be asked to speak in front of a TV camera.....they were embarrassing at times. James Thompson represented himself pretty well except for an incredible lack of cardio which I can't understand - he's experienced enough and it's not like he was fighting a dynamo. Also who's brilliant idea was it to NOT syringe that ear??? It was begging to pop! The referees were awful...it was brutally clear where the bias lay at times. Standing fighters up too early and stopping bouts too early - Scott Smith was not given the allocated time to recover from the eye-poke. Not to mention NOT stopping the fight when Kimbo was not intelligently defending himself at the end of R2. Add to this Nick Serra disgracing himself, Carano refusing to make weight and you've got a generally unprofessional act on prime time TV Generally imo there were very few positives to take away from this whole thing. I can only hope at least the interest of a lot more people was piqued and the unprofessionalism went unnoticed in at least some cases. Maybe I'm being unfair here but it's not like we're back in 1993 and this is total virgin territory....the people organising this event were in the fortunate position to be able to learn from the UFC's early mistakes and they didn't. I hope they get another chance and really sort their act out next time. But I'm guessing it won't have been enough of a success to keep CBS interested and they're not really in the business of long term growth at the expense of short term ratings n- you need to grasp the opportunities when they come and EliteXC blatently failed to do that.
Uhm, I'm gonna disagree here, this was *not* a good show and looked exactly like it is... a bush-league organization with no clue how to run a televised pro fight card. I barely remember the first fight except that it ended in a TKO. I can't even remember the names of the fighters it was over so damn fast. Baroni made some lousy decisions in his fight and when he had the chance to take it to the ground and stood back up I almost put my foot through the telly. That decision cost him the fight. Maybe he needs to take Frank Shamrock's advise to Gina Carano and stop worrying less about being a celebrity and more on being a fighter. I know he is better than last night! Carano/Young was probably the best fight of the night. For those who missed it, Young ended up with a mouse the size of Rhode Island under her eye, hence the stoppage. Now was was CBS gonna let a woman go through a third round beating looking like that. Carano did exactly what I expected, and I really appreciate the front kicks, one of the most underutilized tools in the sport. And at least this one went to the ground a couple of times. And hey, a gogoplata attempt! What most impressed me, however, was Carano's interview where she acknowledged that her fight was sloppy. It was. Hopefully NBC won't interfere with her fight schedule next year; with the way American Gladiators is filmed, they can accommodate. And oh yeah, CAN YOU PLEASE MAKE WEIGHT NEXT TIME! And for that Canadian idiot, she was NOT out-of-shape! Lawler/Smith gets second best fight of the night because of the questionable stoppage. Then again, one should never say "I can't see" to a fight doctor. Yet another example of the conservative reffing we saw last night, again a result of this being on Network TV. Don't even get me started on Kimbo Slice's fight. What a trainwreck. He has been working, and certainly did not look like the brawler the media was making him out to be. I think he has a lot of potential... ONCE HE LEARNS SOME BASIC FREAKING JIUJITSU! Why in the bloody hell hasn't Bas Rutten taught this guy a basic hip escape? Basic half guard?!? Come on! It was embarrassing, and I'm gonna say the only reason Kimbo eked out a TKO was because his opponent's ring guys didn't do such a great job of taking care of that ear. Was it a horrible fight? No, I'd say #3 of the night. But nowhere near the caliber of what I expect from the "main event". So... I give Elite a "C" overall, and that was based on the strength of the Lawler/Smith fight and the Carano/Young fight. They really need a better pool of fighters if they want to make it; too much striking and not enough ground. I didn't see a lot of depth in those fights. They need to be a less "ref stoppage" and "medical stoppage" happy. And I am concerned that they seem to expect Kimbo Slice and Gina Carano to carry the league; Gina has the skills to back it up but needs to find a balance between celebrity and her MMA career, and Kimbo ain't no Rampage or Griffin or Bonnar, no matter what that moron calling the fight had to say. Maybe in a few years he'll be a good caliber fighter, but not right now.
Personally most people that I know thought it was a terrible show. Way to much trying to be slick and stopping fights way to early. The last three fights (the main ones) were all stopped early and should not have been. Many people are questioning whether they were fixed.
What was with the dancing girls everytime the male fighters came out? Where were the male dancers for the women fighters?? It sure had the makings of Professional Wrestling...I mean look at how ridiculous Baroni looked coming out and having the eye candies rip off his t-shirt. Glad he got beat! I will say that the knockouts were cool, but that was the extent of it. Carano's fight was good, as was Lawler's. The Kimbo fight...well the ref could have stopped it in the second round when Kimbo failed to "intelligently" defend himself....although Thompson wasn't really dropping any serious power bombs on his noggin. However, if it were any other fight league, it would have probably been stopped. In the third round, I think they may have stopped it prematurely once again...I mean Thompson took some of Kimbo's good shots, but kept his feet and eventually was able to pay him back...what's to say that wouldn't have happened again in the third?? Plus Kimbo was gassed....I think he should fight Mir or Lesner next!!
I don't know if it was "fixed" as much as it was "shoot, we're on primetime TV and maybe it wouldn't be a good idea to have fighters laying on the ground bloody as all get go, especially a female fighter". Let's face it, many of us sat through Sherk/Florian and saw five rounds of Kenny Florian covered in Sherk's blood. I imagine that the powers that be at CBS wouldn't tolerate that, so the fights got stopped early. Even the owner looked ****ed when he decided to give the win bonuses to Smith and Lawler. The NJSAC is better than what we saw last night; we've seen worse in the UFC, WEC, IFL, and even the WCL. I think CBS had a hand in telling Elite when to stop and what they would accept, especially since CBS got bitchsmacked for Nipplegate (Janet Jackson's breast at the Superbowl a few years back). I think that this may not be such a good idea, tbh. I'll watch the next one in a few months, but I am not sure that MMA belongs on primetime TV if this is how it's gonna be handled.
Clearly, that was the case. There may have been a bit of favoratism involved. Kimbo can't do much of anything at the end of the second round but get hit with elbows and the fight continues. I'm still a bit surprised Thompson went into the fight with that one ear in the first place. I think a lesson for any fighter in this league is you better not bleed. Hopefully this was a learning experience for everyone involved and things will improve in the future. If it doesn't improve, it was on free TV in the first place.....
