Last night's Elite XC card on CBS had its ups and downs. There were a few exciting fights including Robbie Lawler (15-4, 1 NC) and Scott Smith (15-4, 1 NC), and in a women’s bout Gina Carano (6-0) and Kaitlin Young (4-2). Carano is tough and for lack of a better word, she looked really really hot, in her victory. However, the whole event just seemed like amateur hour. To give you some perspective, Kimbo Slice’s headlining the first MMA card on national TV, would be like Skip to my Lou’s first NBADL game most people’s first introduction to pro basketball. I know, CBS wanted to jump on the MMA bandwagon, but I am afraid doing so is giving people an extremely watered down version of the sport.I am not saying Slice doesn’t have potential, but he has no idea what he is doing in there. At one point, he had Jason Thompson hurt, and he attempted to apply a guillotine choke. He got his arm around Thompson’s neck, but instead of falling down and pulling guard, (putting his legs around Thompson’s body to prevent an escape), he merely laid down and tried to use his brute strength. While this would work in the backyard against most opponents, Thompson who has some jiu jitsu ability rolled forward and out of the hold. Slice did eventually get the victory when Thompson’s cauliflower ear literally exploded, but I thought it was a bullshit stoppage. Thompson wanted to keep going. If it had been on pay per view, not national TV they would have kept it going. Instead they let Slice escape in a fight that would have been very very close on the judges cards. (In fact I thought that almost every fight was stopped to fast, with a fighter wobbling, but before the final blow.) I don’t think Elite XC has enough quality fighters or personalities to really thrive on national TV, unless UFC fighters start a mass exodus to try to get more exposure.
One last thing I wanted to mention. There is a WEC lightweight championship match on Versus Network tonight featuring Urijah Faber vs. Jens “lil evil” Pulver. Faber looks a little like Jeff Spicoli from “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” but he is explosive, exciting and quite possibly a top 5 or 10 pound for pound fighter in the world. I actually think he would give BJ Penn a better challenge for his own lightweight title than anyone in the UFC.
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