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Lawler and Smith was a great fight. Brett Rogers has a bright future. Kimbo looked like crap imo. did you see how gased he was? Antonio Silva would destroy Kimbo. If Thompson knew a lick of jits he could have finished him.
Well I will be curious to see the ratings.
I wish the IFL had made it onto CBS instead of EliteXC. Their show is so tight and they have so many talented young fighters.
Lawler and Smith was a great fight. Brett Rogers has a bright future. Kimbo looked like crap imo. did you see how gased he was? Antonio Silva would destroy Kimbo. If Thompson knew a lick of jits he could have finished him.
but this wasnt a good first primetime card for elitexc. strippers, rappers? whaaa...? they will be dead in a year. they should followed Hdnets way. maybe watch the wec card tommorow and learn a thing or too. i cant believe i watched this. i shouldve watched Ultimate Iceman on e tonight.
oh and Baroni lost! i love joey. although i loved baroni's interview that i think evan posted a while back.
Not a good example of mixed martial arts tonight. and i agree on the WWE point. I was at a friends watching it and i couldnt help but laugh at half of the stuff. Check out the WEC fight card on VS channel tommorow or a UFC card. or just tune into hdnet.
Kimbo sucked. Gina couldn't make weight. There were two very controversial stopagges. Dana White had to be laughing his ass off at this whole spectacle, especially Kimbo's opponent with the elephant ear (who should be renamed "Dumbo" because it rhymes with "Kimbo.")
Who noticed Matt Hughes in Lawler's corner in the ring after his fight was stopped? I think someone just got fired...
Last edited by tsb2000; 06-01-2008 at 01:05 AM.
wow just watched the prelims online. Justin Robbins vs. Wilson Reis was awesome.
wow James Jones vs. Calvin Kattar was great too!
They couldn't throw just one jits guy in there? The MMA 101 lesson was useless because the whole thing was destined to look like a bunch of sloppy kickboxing matches.
I wish I had watched that...
Having two fights in the first hour that only lasted about 2 minutes is abysmal. There is no reason why that card should have gone 45 minutes over.
This was better than Yamma...but not much.
Tonight was garbage MMA. I have seen and defended EliteXC from show one when they had that godforsaken smoking dragon but tonight was a sporting abortion. Its horrible that EliteXC will probably outlive the IFL which is an awesome show.
But I can't blame you for feeling like this and I am sure this turned off countless other people.
If you want to give MMA a second chance tune into Versus tomorrow night for the WEC.
Last edited by Evan; 06-01-2008 at 02:05 AM.
If only tomorrow's event would be the one on broadcast tv.
This event reminded of how high the level of talent currently is in the UFC. These guys aren't even close.
My wife wanted to watch it, which really cracked me up. She turned away when that guys ear was squirting all over. Funny . That Kimbo looked pretty tired after that fight, though,
Well, maybe Kimbo saved his best for later. Check this out. Brett Rogers versus Kimbo would be a good slugfest IMO.
NEWARK, N.J. – The closest Kimbo Slice came to providing the type of street beatdown that marked his rise to YouTube infamy came during Saturday nights’s Elite XC post-fight press conference.
The hyped heavyweight street king from Miami struggled with James “Colossus” Thompson before putting him away in the third round of the main event of the first prime-time network mixed martial arts card.
And fellow fighter Brett Rogers wasn’t impressed. “I gotta be real,” said the unbeaten heavyweight. “I thought you tapped.”
Kimbo shot up out of his seat and said “that sounds like a challenge,” giving Rogers his trademark glare. A couple dozen people got in between the two fighters before the two could brawl backyard style.
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Slice’s posse spent the next several minutes staring at Rogers, but Rogers wasn’t the only person raising questions after Slice took some time to beat his British opponent, who came into the night a loser in five of his seven previous fights.
In the end, Kimbo gave the announced crowd of 8,033 at the Prudential Center what it came to see, delivering an early third-round TKO that would have been a knockout had it gone on another 20 seconds.
“It was a tough-ass fight,” said Slice. “I never underesimtated James. He used his weight well, had a good little minute it on the ground. He had a good little ground and pound.”
But how did it look to the viewers at home? Kimbo’s buzz had largely been fueled by the clips of his YouTube fights, where he had mainly crushed unsuspecting rubes in a matter of seconds. Saturday night’s promotion heavily leaned on Slice, leading viewers to believe another quick KO was on the way.
“We’ve put a tremendous burden on Kimbo Slice,” said Elite XC promoter Gary Shaw. “We’ve set the bar so high that anything other than a tremendous performance is going to seem like a letdown.”
The hardcore mixed martial arts fan might be able to appreciate some noticeable improvements in Slice’s game. He demonstrated the basics of ground defense, such as the time he kicked Thompson off in order to scramble to his feet in the first round. And he also took the feet to the ground and went for a guillotine submission.
Near the end of the second round, Thompson got Slice in trouble on the ground. The Manchester, England native pinned Slice on the ground, isolated his arms, and began raining down elbows, with Kimbo getting saved by the end of the round. But Rogers, and several readers chiming in on our MMA experts blog, felt Kimbo tapped, something he vigorously denied after the fact.
“Not one time did I tap,” said Slice. “I didn’t make any gesture of tapping. If he got me into a submission, he would have had to break something, because tapping isn’t in my repertoire.”
The judges weren’t sure how to take the fight, as one scored the second round 10-8 Thompson while another scored it 10-9 Slice.
If experts can’t figure out what to make of what they’re seeing, then the casual fan at home must have been wondering what the fuss was about.
“It’s not about me,” said Slice. “I can take a little ground and pounding, I won’t be tapping out from that. I’m still a baby at the game, I’ve got a lot of room to grow. I won’t be smoking as much, because I’ve got a lot of training to do.”
The Kimbo show was the main event of a mixed bag of action in the network prime-time debut, which included Gina Carano’s fantastic win over Kaitlin Young in the fight of the night.
But the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board, which oversaw the event, had a lightning-quick trigger finger on fight stoppages, apparently not wanting to let unpalatable scenes play out on network TV.
Both Rogers’ win over Jon Murphy and Joe Villasenor’s TKO of Phil Baroni were stopped as soon as the fight hit the ground. Robbie Lawler’s no contest against Scott Smith in the middleweight le fight was stopped right at the moment a methodical match was beginning to turn into a dramatic struggle.
“For TV, we had a bit of everything, we had blood, we had intrigue, we had some controversy,” said Shaw. “We had a little bit of everything. … I never wanted this fight to end.”
The pacing of the show suggest the promotion needs to work out the kinks before their second broadcast. CBS viewers got less than nine minutes of action over the first hour and a half of the broadcast. The show also ran more than 45 minutes over its allotted time, no doubt sending network station affiliate general managers into apoplectic fits as they waited to cut to their local news. Such an overage would be unheard of on an Ultimate Fighting Championship telecast.
The broadcast was well into overtime when Kimbo kicked his game up another gear. He clobbered Thompson with a big right hand in his first strike of the final round, opening a gusher on the Brit’s right ear. Kimbo went in for the kill and rocked Thompson with his big fists. The referee stopped it before things got out of hand.
“I’m disappointed,” said the affable Thompson (14-9). “I thought I had a great chance. I thought I deserved it. I don’t blame people for asking why I was in here getting this fight. I just want to entertain, I’m an MMA fighter.”
Was it entertaining enough for the casual viewer to turn in a second time? “That is up to the fans to answer,” Slice said. “I think I did alright. They saw me go for a few things and succeed. They saw a good fight, that’s what its about.”
His promoter, however, didn’t wait for the fans to answer. “Kimbo pulled it out,” said Shaw. “He did what he had to do, I still believe he’s a superstar, I haven’t changed my opinion one bit.”
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That commercial for Street Fighter 4 kicked some serious ass!
Agreed.
A bit off topic, but it dosent deserve its own thread. Has anyone seen this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqGsZzwPD94
I really tried to give it a chance and my MMA experience level is about yours or so. Too much color and pageantry - to the point where it overtook the actual fighting - and not enough action. Oh, and for the amount of bouts this thing went way too long. I was going to blog about it but I didn't make it past 10 PM.
The WWE analogy is great. I felt like it was an old XFL game on NBC - trying to focus on secondary bull because the product was subpar in the first place. My wife had a good point - if a mainstream network is going to air MMA, it should have been Fox (with their edgy rep and savvy marketing machine) and not CBS.
One thing I did get out of this - I think the casual fans of MMA are dwarfed by the hardcore types. I probably won't watch this stuff on Showtime or HDNet but I'm not going to hate on those of you that do. I didn't know until I read this thread that there are different organizations (and the CBS one is actually inferior) and the fighters can't cross over, another thing that smacks of pro wrestling. Somebody better figure out how to fix this or it will remain a niche sport.
One more thing - this is the perfect Youtube sport. Savage, brutal, and short. Watching a two-plus hour production consisting of 4 or 5 fights reminds me why I don't watch boxing much anymore.
Thank God I tivoed the event instead of watching it real time.
This event was ing pathetic. It set back MMA 10 years. And to think there are still morons out there who still buy into to the Kimbo hype. Great job Elite XC!
That was terrible. I'm more of a casual MMA fan, and watching that reminds me why. Terrible fights, terrible show, terrible product. Thank god for Wreckage tonight.
yeah there was also one recently in king of the cage that was probably better.
MMA’s network debut mocks true sport
http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news;_yl...yhoo&type=lgns
It sounded like such a good idea when the news broke a few months ago that CBS would broadcast a series of mixed martial arts cards in prime time.
But after watching its effort on Saturday’s Elite XC show from the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., the good news might be if CBS opts not to do another show.
These were supposed to be the professionals who would show the amateurs at the Ultimate Fighting Championship, who do their own production, how it’s supposed to be done.
And while neophyte play-by-play man Gus Johnson acquitted himself well and analysts Mauro Ranallo and Frank Shamrock didn’t embarrass themselves, the broadcast dragged on interminably.
There was more chatting than “The Tonight Show.” Fighters were introduced as they made long, slow walks to the cage, then were introduced again once they hit the cage. Given that the show went 45 minutes over its allotted time, what do you want to bet the ring walks will be eliminated if there is another show on CBS?
For some reason, particularly early in the broadcast, CBS chose to use its overhead camera to repeatedly show Elite XC’s skanky-looking cheerleaders doing nothing more than shaking their butts.
This wouldn’t have been so bad had there actually been a fight on the air every now and then. But after the show had been on the air for 32 minutes, there had been 61 seconds of actual fighting. When it was 70 minutes into the show, there had been just 2:12 of fighting.
The whole show was built around Kimbo Slice, the Internet-generated star whose street fights made him into something of a mythical figure in the sport before he’d ever faced a serious opponent.
Slice’s name and face was everywhere in the days and weeks leading up to the bout. Considering the way this dragged on, though, you have to wonder how many folks were still awake when the bell rang to begin Slice’s bout with James Thompson at 11:27 p.m. ET, nearly a full half-hour after the show was supposed to have been over.
While it was mostly C-level talent on display, the fighters by and large held up their end of the bargain. Brett Rogers delivered a one-punch knockout of one-time Syracuse linebacker Jon Murphy in just 1:01 in the first fight of the night.
After glorifying loutish middleweight Phil Baroni as some sort of star – ignoring the fact he’d lost three of his last four and was just a decidedly mediocre 10-9 coming in – CBS looked bad when he was knocked out in 1:11 by Joe Villasenor.
The next two bouts were sensational. Gina Carano outslugged Kaitlin Young after two rounds and middleweights Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith went at it fiercely until Smith was inadvertently poked in the eye in the third, forcing a premature end to their middleweight le bout.
The main event showcased two mediocre fighters in mediocre condition, though after listening to Johnson, Ranallo and Shamrock, you’d have thought we were watching the MMA equivalent of Ali-Frazier.
Have no doubt about this: Slice would be destroyed by any legitimate mixed martial artist. Had Slice faced ex-WWE champion Brock Lesnar, the current UFC rookie hopeful, he’d have been beaten in less than two minutes.
As it was, Slice struggled his way to a sloppy third-round knockout of a complete tomato can.
You can’t blame Slice, because he had no business being in a main event of a mixed martial arts bout at this stage of his progression. It takes years of training and sacrifice to reach the main event in MMA and Slice was only there because of the notoriety he’d gained in his YouTube street brawls.
It was kind of ironic that at the show’s opening, Shamrock said with a straight face, “You won’t find them fighting in a bar and you won’t find them fighting in the street.”
Really?
Well, this card featured a guy (Baroni) who fights in bars and another who made his name by fighting in the streets.
CBS should have known better.
The fans deserved better.
The sport deserved better.
The CBS folks ought to take a look at the WEC card on the cable network Versus on Sunday to see how an MMA show is supposed to be put together. They’ll learn from watching that show how to introduce the viewers to the fighters but not drag the show on like a book that goes on 200 pages too long.
They’ll see quality fights between trained and compe ive MMA fighters.
Hopefully, CBS didn’t manage to turn off a large segment to the country to what is a classic and compelling sport.
There’s no question, though, that CBS didn’t do MMA any favors Saturday.
You mean you actually want to watch Kimbo fight again?
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