Elite XC Review, from a 'Pancakes' prospective

This was an interesting weekend for all of us MMA fans as we had two major events take place in the span of two days.

On Saturday, the EliteXC had their event on CBS for the masses and featured the main event was Mr. Kimbo Slice.

On Sunday, the WEC was having an event on the Versus Network and it featured two title bouts, one featuring bantamweight champ Miguel Torres and the main event, a featherweight title match between champ Urijah Faber and Jens Pulver.

The event on Saturday was a mixed bag. I thought the matches were OK overall. Before the event started, I thought that the main event should have been the middleweight title match between champ Robbie Lawler and Smith, but I understood why they made Kimbo the main event.

The production value was OK and I personally could have gone without Gus Johnson but once again, I understand why CBS choose him for the play-by-play.

I know that many of you aren’t fight fans, so I’ll save the complete fight breakdowns for another forum. If you really want an in-depth analysis, just ask me.

Let’s stick with the main fights. I’m just as big of a fan of Gina Carano, aka Crush, but she should have shown up in better shape for the fight. I know that she got only a few weeks notice for the event, the one thing that you can’t do in fighting is show up overweight, that’s disrespectful to the sport, her opponent and the fans. She ended up winning the fight and the stoppage was fair. I know some may think that since it was a girl fight that CBS wasn’t going to let the girls get too beat up, but if it was a guy fight, the doctor would’ve stopped the fight anyway. A similar situation happened in the WEC event and a fight was stopped. Gina just needs to make a choice if she wants to be an elite fighter or continue with her celebrity stuff like modeling and American Gladiators. Either choice is fine, she just needs to decide. If Gina focuses on fighting, she can be the best in the world because her skill set is that good, but I can understand if she wants to go a different route.

Next was the Lawler/Smith fight, which was solid. These were two legit MMA fighters going at it and showed the positive, skilled side of fighting.

BTW, those assholes out there, I’m looking at you Michael Wilbon, Woody Page and Jemele Hill who say that there’s no skill in fighting in MMA and no strategy. Why don’t you two old fat asses and lady step into the ring and train for months on boxing, mui thai, jui jitsu, wrestling and other disciplines and tell me that there’s no strategy. I’m seriously going to stop watching ESPN if these jackasses continue with the bullshit.

Sorry about that.

Anyway, Lawler and Smith did their thing. The stoppage of this fight was weak, because they didn’t give Smith enough time to recover from the poked eye he suffered. That was kinda fishy, but when you’re dealing with Gary Shaw, nothing shocks me. He runs Elite XC and let’s just say he isn’t the cleanest guy around.

Speaking of which, we move on to the main event featuring Kimbo and Thompson, his opponent.

People are going to look at this fight and see the negatives, Kimbo didn’t knock him out, Kimbo looked tired, Kimbo is overrated.

Kimbo is overrated and he and most true MMA fans know this. Kimbo knows that he has a lot of work to do to become an elite fighter, no pun intended. He’s working with Bas and getting better. I saw some positives in his ground game, especially his guard control. It wasn’t great, but it’s improving.

Two things from the fight have me a little perturbed. Kimbo did tap in the first round, I’m sorry, he just did. This whole “I was telling the ref that he was ok” stuff is crap. The fight could’ve been stopped then. Second, the end of the second round, when Kimbo was getting elbowed and punched on the ground for a whole minute and wasn’t responding, fight should have been stopped. However, it wasn’t because they were letting everything go Kimbo’s way.

The only way that Kimbo was losing was for him to get knocked out. Heck, one judge had Kimbo winning the second round, which was pathetic. Once again, Gary Shaw has a dirty background in boxing, I’m just saying.

I’m not saying that Dana White of the UFC is an angel, but still.

So, in the end, Kimbo won with a questionable stoppage and the world now reacts to the event.

The hardcore, web-site viewing, internet radio show-listening, forum-posting, blogging fans like myself are going to see a lot of the negatives of the event like the commentary, the fighters, the judging, the entire presentation, etc.

However, fans like me need to fall back and be happy that the event was even on TV at all. I still prefer the UFC and WEC, but Elite XC is ok.

It’s just not the best MMA product out there. It’s like minor league baseball.

However, I had two co-workers, Greg and the legendary and hero to the youth Sean Sawyer come to me today and want to talk about the event, which is a good indication that people are caring.

That’s all I ask for as a fan. I just want people to watch it and give it a chance. If you watch it and don’t like it, cool. Just don’t be like these jackasses like Wilbon and Page and Hill and just dismiss it.

No strategy, my ass.

I want to put those haters in a rear naked choke and make them tap out.

BTW, this was what I was listening to while making this post. Its a collaboration between Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and John Fruciante. Good stuff as usual.