your monday morning MMA

I don't know if this is going to become a staple around here, but I did catch the MMA fights this weekend, and wanted to share a bit with you.

It looks like we now have 3 promotions that are really trying to take over the MMA world. There is the big dog, the UFC, who has probably 95% of the best fighters in the sport. Big stars such as Anderson Silva, George St. Perrie, Chuck Lidell and BJ Penn are what make this promotion great. Every PPV is a much watch for the most part, and they put on free shows on Spike TV that really help keep them in the forefront of the sport. They aren't going anywhere.

Then you have the newest Affliction promotion, who is trying to go the same rout as UFC and is offering big named fighters, who are either fed up with the UFC, or not even signed by them, big contracts to fight for them. The biggest example is heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko, who is regarded as by far the best heavyweight in MMA.

Then you have the little Elite XC. These guys are the only MMA that is on prime time network TV, they have a deal with CBS to show a card once every couple of months on Saturday evening, and they have some legit fighters, Robbie Lawler and Jake Sheilds, who are among the best in Elite, but would be middle of the pack guys in UFC. What separates Elite from the other is two things; First they have Kimbo Slice, the oft talked about former homeless guy/porno strongman, as their biggest draw, and while not a pure MMA guy, and he would probably get demolished by any good fighter, he is fun to watch and worth the price of admission. Second they have the best women fighters in MMA.

The first go around on CBS a few months ago featured all of these elements on the first CBS show for Elite. We were introduced to Kimbo Slice and watched him explode an ear, we saw a great stand up MMA fight between Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith that ended in controversy, and we were introduced to the face of women MMA, Gina Carano, and were pleased.

Last Saturday was round 2 for the upstart Elite XC on CBS. This card introduced us to a few more of the promotions better fighters, and gave us the rematch of Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith.

The show started with what once was thought of as a gimmick, but now what might be the most legit thing XC has, the women's division. The last fight a smoking hot Gina Carano beat the shit of some chick, and it wasn't disgusting, like i thought it would be, and it wasn't "cat fight" esque like other thought it would be, but it was just a good fight, with two professional fighters, and it doesn't hurt at all that the hot one turned out to be the better fighter. So that brings us to this last sat, where 2 of the top women in MMA went at it, the winner to probably face Gina at the next show in October. The two fighters were Brazil's Cristiane "Cris Cyborg" Santos and American Shayna Baszler. Here's a pic of Cyborg(and yes they called her cyborg the whole night)


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an imposing beast for sure.

Her opponent was no sloth either, Shayna Baszler was 12-0 going into the fight will all 12 wins coming from submission I think. It was even mentioned that she tapped someone out using the STF. A move i thought only worked in pro wrestling.

The Fight jumped off with Baszler shooting for Cyborgs legs, almost getting her in some sort of knee lock, that must have just made Cyborg angry, as she then started to beat the shit out of Baszler. At one point, Cyborg landed a clean hit that knocked Blaszler down, the fight should have been stopped as a KO, at least so thought Cyborg who started to celebrate and even jumped up on the cage top to cheer, the ref stood there like "uhh miss Cyborg, would you like to finish the match?" She finally understood and walked over to a glass eyed Baszler and pummeled her till the ref said stop.

A fun fight to watch, and sets up nice for the Sexy, everybody favorite Carano vs the freakish, Brazilian Cyborg. That's going to be fun.

The rest of the fight card was good, we got to see the best welterweight outside of the UFC, Jake Sheilds, choke out Nick Thompson, and then Nick Diaz show the world what it ment to be a patent fighter as he just played defense and conserved energy for a whole round against his opponent, Thomas Denny , only to explode on him in the second when he was tired.

The main event was a rematch from the last shows best fight, Robbie Lawler defending his 185lbs strap vs Scott Smith. The last fight was fun because it was mostly a stand up fight, with the guys exchanging blows on a regular basis. This one was no different, but you could see that Robbie Lawler, who may be the best true fighter in EliteXC, didn't want to leave any doubt he was the better man in this one.

Lawler was cut early and the blood seamed to fuel him to start a powerful barrage on Smith's mid section that stoped the fight after a few big knees and pops to the face.

The fight was good, not as good as the first one, but with Gus Johnson calling the fight, you thought it was Ali-Frazer. I don't believe there is anyone outside of pro wrestling who gets excited like Gus. There is lots of "IF the world collided into a thousand pieces and every piece spawned great fighters, you still wouldn't see a fight like this!!!!!" You gotta love him.

All in all a nice MMA night for EliteXC. They have a long way to go to catch up to the UFC, but they are trying. And they have now put up two very entertaining shows, and I'm looking forward to October when they will be on prime time again, and this time they will bring both Carano and Kimbo, so stay tuned.

I think the QB left him out to dry

So, I swear we aren't turning into a MMA site, but our favorite MMA fighter Kimbo Slice is effing greatness. He used to be a football player ya know, here watch what he can do in pads.



In case you're wondering, MoneyTalks is a porn site. Half bangbus half Jackass. Don't ask me how I know that. Kimbo used to be/is one of their body guards.

H/T KSK

(its a fun porn site)

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.