Thoughts on MMA weekend

For hardcore MMA fans, we couldn't have been put in a better scenario (Atleast before I watched EXC Yesterday :D) One week after a monster of an event by the UFC, we were treated to two more cards in back to back days.

But the better scenario turned into one of the worst cases of "Give me a fucking break, is this shit serious?" type of impression after watching the whole Elite XC show yesterday.

I mean, I woke up early to watch an MMA show, not a fixed circus event with an internet brawling sensation who's a C-level fighter at best Kimbo Slice fighting the king of tomato cans James Thompson as the main event. Given that I didn't expect that much from the show, I was really pissed off by how this show turned out. Why?

A) Crappy camera work

There's this one point in the match where Thompson was having a standing guillotine choke on Slice and voila.. the camera turns backwards and we're stuck wondering what the hell happened on the cage. Brett Rogers said Kimbo tapped, but thanks to the crappy camera work.. we didn't even see it.

B) Crappy refereeing

If anybody here watches MMA for an ample of time, here's a question.. when was the last time you saw a ref stand the fighters up when one of them has side control and pouncing away elbows and hammer punches on his opponent? Tell me. Right, just like me, you never saw one. That's exactly what happened in last night's circus.

James Thompson, who was brought in to lose, controlled Kimbo and took side control midway through the second round. And to my surprise, referee Dan Mirgliotta stood them up while Thompson was throwing elbows and punches! Damn. (More on the Kimbo - JT match below)

C) Bullshit stoppages

So Scott Smith got poked in the eye.. and you stop the freakin' match? What the hell was that? They didn't even give Smith the mandatory 5 minute rest after getting unintentionally eye poked. They just stopped it.

Another bs stoppage occured in the Main event. Yet again, the ever pampered Kimbo Slice got a TKO while JT was still standing up. Heck, if Mirgliotta could stop the fight with Kimbo hitting three clean shots on Thompson.. why the hell didn't he stop the fight when Kimbo was receiving 30 unanswered shots to the head in the second round?

D) The fan implication

Just think about it, MMA, to the one who practices it and to all those fat ass hardcore fans who've been there for quite some years now refers to this sport as a science, a mixture of different disciplines, whether it be Boxing, Jiu Jitsu, Wrestling, Judo et al. Last night's event was the first ever live telecast of MMA in Primetive TV in the US. And thanks to the freak show that Elite XC was, especially to the commentators who made it sound like the battle of two C-level fighters were like Ali vs Frazer in Boxing.. casual fans would now think that MMA is all about blood, all about brawlers and all that stuff. Goddamn you EXC. Goddamn you Gary Shaw.

Anyway....

Atleast, one day after, WEC put up a spectacular card. One card deserving to be on Primetime TV in the US.

WEC showcased two fight of the year worthy battles, first with the Bantamweight Championship match as Miguel Angel Torres succesfully defends it against Yoshiro Maeda. And of course, the main event, the Featherweight Championship bout as the ranked P4P fighter Urijah Faber stops former UFC Lightweight Champion Jens Pulver in an up and down war.

Thank God for WEC, you just saved MMA's weekend.