MMA was this close

Over the weekend, quite a big of sports happened. The NBA finials are going to be LA v Boston, the Rangers got over .500 and then dropped back down to it, and the WWE had one of my favorite PPV's of the year. All those great things were put on the back burner for me because Mixed Martial Arts was taking a giant step, and premiering on network TV for the first time, on CBS, Saturday night.

This wasn't a 2AM special, or a noon start on a Thursday; this was 8:00 pm, sat night, live from Jersey.

I've been a strong to quite strong MMA fan since the days of Hoyce Gracie and Tank Abbot, and have been following it since. I'm not a die hard like some of my friends, but over the past 5 years I've seen the sport go from a side show like mentality to a legit sporting contest, with the rise of the UFC. Stars like Ken Shamrock, Tito Ortiz, Chuck Lidell, and George Saint-Perrier have brought the sport a long from its "freak show" start.

The next step in the evolution is the expose it to as many people as possible. UFC did a fine job of this with the move to Spike TV, and the advent to the Ultimate fighter, a program that features up and coming MMA guys trying to break into the UFC.

The UFC has also done a good job at staying away from the "freak show" like competitors that would for sure garner a quick PPV sale, but in the aspect of legitimizing the sport, take them back a few years.

There were rumblings around the MMA fan sites that a major network was thinking about putting MMA on a prime time slot and seeing what would happen. Everybody thought this would be a fantastic idea as long as it was the UFC, far and away the best promotion in MMA, but more than likely due to the owner of UFC being a money hungry a hole, CBS went with Elite XC, a fighting promotion I knew little about other than they have shows on Showtime.

The next step for MMA and CBS to have a good showing was to get a Star in MMA to headline the first show. The problem is, if you are a star in MMA, your already in the UFC. Enter Kimbo Slice. A 34 year old former homeless person, who is a youtube superstar for his backyard brawls, and body guard for the porn site bangbrothers(i think). In the MMA world this guy is not highly thought of. He has lead hands, sure, but MMA is much much more than heavy hands and a solid jaw.

Non the less Kimbo was perfect for this Match. He was a name that people knew, and he would get the non MMA fan to watch because you never knew when this guy would pop off and kill a guy with his fists. So you get your star to go against a guy he should be able to beat(thompson) and hope Kimbo knocks his head off early.

Step 2 for the night is put a fight right before the Kimbo Slice match that would be a true MMA fight, between 2 good performers, and have it be one hell of a match. That's where the Lawler vs Smith match comes in. Lawler was made famous a few years ago as a hard hitting star of UFC. He is now a little older but still one hell of a fighter.

Lastly, you want to put on the card some matches that will either A)set up future bouts(Rodgers vs. Murphy) B) separate yourself from UFC(the girl fight Carano vs Young) or C)pray from knockouts.

EliteXC was this close to having all those thing work out on Saturday.

The first 3 matches went perfectly. Rodgers opened the show with a knockout and stayed undefeated, and will set up for a nice Rodgers vs Kimbo fight in the near future.

Fight 2 saw another early knock out that was exciting, and the third fight was the chick fight. The hot chick and face of women MMA won and did so in style with the first round of trading blows and then getting the stoppage when Carono hit Young so damn hard in the left eye it swole shut.

Fight 3 was the Lawler(son of Jerry the King) vs. Smith. Now this fight needed to be good. This was the traditional MMA fight between two legit MMA guys. No gimmicks, just good MMA. And it was

For 2 1/2 rounds. Then Smith got poked in the eye inadvertently. And the fight was stopped. What was a war between these two guys, and it was exciting and explosive, and fun to watch, as all the action took place standing up, was over with the blink or should i say poke, of an eye. Neither fighter wanted to stop. The crowd wanted to see a winner. I was yelling at the screen, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria.

Not good for EliteXc, not good for MMA. Stopping a GREAT fight like that. For shame.

So now it was time for Kimbo to kill someone. Only he didn't. He got taken to the ground early and often. Thompson tryed to turn this into a MMA fight. Who does he think he is? Didn't he know that he was supposed to lose to Kimbo in like 30 seconds? Don't take him to ground where you can probably beat him.

But that's what Thompson did, and to Kimbo's credit, he held his own. He did just enough to stay alive and in the third round we all got what we wanted, when one of Kimbos tree trunk like fist's literally exploded thompson's ear. While not the knockout they needed, a knockout none the less.

So the night was a good one, but not really what they hoped for. They were this close to really showing what MMA was all about, but then came up just short. If the Lawler Smith fight would have been finished, and Kimbo not looked so beatable, this thing would have taken off.

But today, most sports guys are saying how they just don't get it. And its sad. MMA was this close. Maybe next time.