Upon finishing my viewing of the inaugural EliteXC on CBS last night, I couldn’t decide which I felt worst about:
1) Wasting over 2 hours of my time on that pathetic show
2) The fact that a lot of people had their first MMA viewing experience last night watching a “production” that embarrassed, humiliated, misrepresented and called the integrity of the Mixed Martial Arts world into question. Those people now have an image of what MMA is about, and it doesn’t even resemble what it should have been.
Before getting into my long laundry list of complaints about the show, let me first play “positive Pete” and mention the one thing I did enjoy about the evening… the girl fight.
Look, I’ll tell you right up front I’ve only ever seen 1 female MMA fight before and I didn’t care for it at all. I’ve never given watching a female fight event another chance. After watching Gina Carano and Kaitlin Young go at it last night, I just may have to re-evaluate my position on that. It was (sadly) the best and most entertaining fight of the night. These girls BROUGHT IT. Tons of heart, tons of skill and it made for a solid and surprisingly entertaining fight. Too bad the fight was stopped after the second round… but I’ll get to that in a moment.
So for now, here is my bitching list about that embarassment to the MMA sport they called EliteXC on CBS:
a) I’m curious if they purposefully tried to get announcers who sounded like WWE commentators or if that just happened by accident? I swear I half expected Mean Gene’s face to appear on the screen each time the put the camera on the commentators. At least it’s given me a whole new appreciation for amazing job Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg do on UFC events.
b) Dancing girls? Are you fucking kidding me? I don’t want to drag out the pro wrestling comparisons, but I thought I was supposed to be watching MMA, not Monday Night Nitro or the defunct XFL. I remember when the show just started and the camera went to the dancing girls I said: “Dear lord, this whole show is in trouble”. Prophetic words.
c) BUSTA RHYMES coming out with Brett Rogers was a pure disgrace.
Ok… so so far not a single punch had been thrown in the event, and already we had WWE announcers, dancing girls, and Busta Rhymes coming out with the fighter. It was a 3 ring circus and the fights hadn’t even started yet. On we go….
d) Brett Rogers vs Jon Murphy looked like two clumsy walruses flailing around like drunk sailors. Ugly ugly fight. For a lot of people watching the show, it was the first pro MMA fight they’d ever seen… and now they all probably think MMA is just a couple of brutes slowly and awkwardly throwing wild punches at random. Bad, ugly fight.
e) Phil Baroni vs Joey Villasenor. Another bad fight. At least these two guys looked like they had some skills… but Baroni’s entrance just added to the side show freak exhibit feel of the whole broadcast and neither looked like they really knew what they were doing in the ring. I’m not saying they’re bad fighters… but they LOOKED like bad fighters.
f) Robbie Lawler vs Scott Smith stoppage. This fight was not bad at all… a title fight. So Smith takes an inadvertent finger in the eye and needs a few moments to re-compose himself. No problems right? WELL THEY STOP THE FIGHT! Smith looked fine… he even said he was totally good to go. This was a title fight and the stop the fight and call no contest over a simple thing like a finger in the eye that the guy looked totally fine afterwards and said he was fine. EMBARRASSMENT! I understand the safety of the fighters being the first priority… and I agree with that philosophy… but this was not warranted whatsoever. The first decent fight of the night and it ends that way. Pathetic.
g) Gina Carano and Kaitlin Young stoppage. This was a great fight and I was quite impressed. But Young had a big mouse under her eye. SO WHAT? The eye itself wasn’t swollen shut at all… she wasn’t bleeding, and even if she had been bleeding the injury was under her eye so blood wasn’t going to effect her vision at all. Yeah Young looked a bit battered, but she also looked totally fine to continue fighting. Make no mistake, Carano was going to win that fight if it had continued… but Young battled so hard she deserved the chance to take that next round. Poor decision in my opinion.
h) What the hell was James Thompson doing in the main event when an undefeated Brett Rogers just beat him recently? Oh that’s right, because EliteXC is just padding their poster boy Kimbo. This organization has no credibility.
i) The biggest embarassment was easily the Kimbo vs Thompson fight. You all know what happened… Kimbo got his ass handed to him for 2 rounds… some say he even tapped at one point… and then once he was totally exhausted and has almost no gas left in the tank he mounted an offensive in the third round and the ref stopped the fight?!?!?!?! Thompson at that point was still on his feet, still not looking all that hurt… maybe Kimbo would have finished him if the fight had been allowed to continue, but I don’t think he had the gas to do it. I’m no conspiracy theorist at all, but Kimbo was about to lose that fight… the poster boy… and it looks to me like EliteXC wasn’t about to let that happen by hook or by crook.
As an MMA fan I was totally embarrassed that this sport I love so much was represented in such a freak show, humiliating and pathetic way for its debut on network TV. So many people out there now have the wrong idea of what MMA is all about, and that is a damn shame.
EliteXC was supposed to be a great landmark in the growth of MMA. Turns out it hurt the sport far more than we could have possibly imagined. What a joke that entire night was.
We may all have to re-evaluate what we think of Dana White and the job he does with the UFC. Maybe the man and his crew deserve a lot more respect that we give him.
EliteXC Editorial, EliteXC, Kimbo
Recent Comments