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There is a lot to discuss about this first broadcast of an EliteXC event on network television courtesy of CBS. I will discuss the fights, the fans and the sport in general.

The first fight was between Brett “The Grim” Rogers and Jon Murphy. This fight took only 61 seconds before Murphy was caught with a haymaker and the fight was stopped. Rogers is on a knockout win streak and seems poised for a shot at Kimbo Slice.

Smokin Joe Villasenor managed to dismantle Phil Baroni about a minute and a half into the fight. Baroni, who is know for his ripped physique and entertaining ring entrances and trash talking, is now at 10-10 and clearly very disappointed with the outcome of the fight. Baroni was very emotional at the post fight press conference when speaking about the unswerving support of legend Mark ‘The Hammer” Coleman. It is unclear what will happen with Baroni from here.

In the only women’s fight of the night, Gina Carano managed to outlast Kaitlyn Young to earn a victory. It was pretty clear as the fight grew longer that Carano was too powerful for Young. Carano weighed in at 144.5 lbs for this fight which was more than the 140 lb limit. This is something that is commonplace for Carano as she has been over the weight limit for her last 4 fights. This means that either Carano has not learned how to cut enough weight yet or perhaps that there needs to be some leeway with weight classes for women. Perhaps upping the current weight class to 150 lbs or perhaps creating a different division would be a good idea. Like men, not all women are meant to be in the same weight category and forcing them to do so can result in unhealthy and unfit fighters as they would be so dehydrated from cutting weight that it would affect their performance in the right and their health. Also, if the women really want to be taken seriously, they need to fight full 5 minute rounds. Otherwise, it will be the classic argument of not playing on the same field.

In my opinion the best fight of the night was between Scott “Hands of Steel” Smith and “Ruthless” Robbie Lawler. There was some drama with this fight as at times fans were heard booing the action which probably irritated any true fans as the action was fast paced and both competitors clearly came to put on a good show. To the casual fans – these are professional athletes that train full time, you will not see them swinging wildly 100% of the time. There is a lot of technique that goes into the performance. The excitement lies in the  impending result, not in the actual one haymaker that may flatten an opponent. The eagerness is in knowing that these guys have the capacity and talent to make this happen.
This fight ended part way through the third round when Smith was accidentally poked in the eye by Lawler. Lawler immediately acknowledged it and apologized. The rules state that Smith gets up to 5 minutes to recover. During this time, a doctor came into examine Smith upon which she was told by Smith on two occasions that he could not see out of the affected eye. If Smith wanted the fight to continue, this was a huge mistake. This is where the rules perhaps some adjustment or clarifying. Smith felt that although he could not see properly, he would have the full 5 minutes and then make a determination at that point. Smith clearly did not expect the fight to be stopped. One of two things needs to happen to make this situation right in the future: 1) Smith needs to keep his mouth shut when talking to the Dr. who is bound by the rules to make a decision on the fight should Smith give any self-diagnosis that would result in the fight being stopped, or 2) The Dr. needs to consider anything mentioned by the fighter initially as a tentative assessment and offer re-evaluation after the full 5 minutes unless the fighter clearly states that he cannot continue. As disappointing this result was to many fans (including myself at the time), a rematch is almost a guarantee. Overall, I am glad with the outcome because I have seen way too many fights where someone gets poked in the eye and then does not fight the same afterwards and loses. The fans generally consider this result as gospel, however; I always wonder if things would have been different if the eye poke never took place. A rematch gives fans the opportunity to see truly who the better fighter will be. So, while I do believe that the rules need to be amended, it will end up better overall for the sport in the end.
A side note for this fight is that I believed that it should have been the main event. It was a title fight and both competitors are at the top of their game and proven fighters.

Lastly the main event was between Kimbo Slice and James “The Colossus” Thompson. I don’t have much to say about this one. Kimbo ended up winning due to referee stoppage in the third round. I do believe that it was a very even fight overall until then. As per MMA rules, the fight should have been stopped at the end of the second round due to Thompson delivering numerous unanswered and undefended elbows and punches while on top of Kimbo. This scene lasted for well over a minute with no referee intervention.
Ironically, the fight did end with Kimbo punching Thompson’s massive cauliflower ear resulting in blood squirting and followed up by further haymakers causing the referee to call the fight over. Thompson was so disgusted with the decision to stop the fight that he put his hand in the face of the referee in frustration. Mauro Ranallo, one of the announcers, mentioned Thompson’s cauliflower ear on numerous occasions while commentating the fight. This will definitely go down in controversy but EliteXC still has the Kimbo hype intact so they should be happy about that.

Overall, it was a good showing. The main points were that the fans require further education, the women’s division needs some adjustments and more events to come will help dictate whether CBS will consider this a good investment.

This is a quick reminder to any MMA fans – Saturday May 31 at 9PM Eastern, make sure you tune to CBS for the EliteXC event. This is the first televised (free) mixed martial arts event on national TV. It should be the first of many more and will garner a ton of viewers.

On another note, I was disappointed to see that Gina Carono did not make weight for this event. She was fined 12.5% of her purse which will go to Kaitlin Young who will allow the fight to go ahead anyway.

Kimbo Slice vs James “Colossus” Thompson will be the main event although I believe the real fight to watch will be Robbie Lawler vs Scott Smith. Both throw very heavy hands and are veterans of the game. Lawler is champion right now so that adds to the intensity of the fight.

The first thing I need to say is that, yes, I am a fan of Tito Ortiz as a disclaimer.

Initially, I will discuss the Tito Ortiz fight with Lyoto Machida in some detail and then make some comments on Tito and his past, present and future. Yes, I have watched the Ortiz / Lyoto fight a few times.

A lot of MMA fans feel that Tito Ortiz is not the fighter he once was. I am not sure I agree with that. Apart from injuries, I believe that Tito Ortiz is not far at all from being the quality of fighter he was when he was champion. The difference we are seeing is that his competition is much better well rounded. Tito surely has trained submissions (as we saw during the Lyoto fight) but I am not sure I have seen much of anything else in terms of refining his skills. I haven’t seen any improvement in his standup over the years. The other thing one has to wonder is whether Tito training himself with his usual cohorts is a good idea or not. The best fighters tend to move from one camp to another over the years to refine their skills in myriad categories. I can’t recall Tito ever doing such a thing.

Was Lyoto elusive or did he run? There seems to be a stark contrast between fans who differ on this topic. Fans are really passionate and are staunch in their opinions on whether Lyoto found intelligently or whether he ran away from Ortiz. For what it’s worth, it was a bit of both. There is merit to Lyoto avoiding Tito’s aggression in the cage as an intelligent strategy. After all, counter punching is the very thing that wins fights for Chuck Liddell. Having said that, the problem with Machida doing this is that he doesn’t have that impending doom factor of a Liddell or Anderson Silva where we are anticipating the unavoidable dismantling by the elusive counter puncher. Tito Ortiz came into this game as an alternate originally and was able to ride the wave through being a champion for several years and one of the most recognizable faces in all of MMA. Ortiz knows how to hype his fights and he draws fans to pay per views and events.  Let me put it this way: I bought this PPV in HD and it cost me $54.99. If Tito Ortiz wasn’t fighting on the card, I probably wouldn’t have splurged. As much as I can respect Machida, I would not be too excited to see him fight again. I think he has great potential, but he needs to add a lot of aggression to his game. He needs to be elusive when necessary, but most importantly, aggressive as well whenever possible.

What happens to Tito now? In the post fight interview, Ortiz did say that he hasn’t decided on what he is doing after the fight. I do not think Ortiz will be back with the UFC and while I am a fan of Ortiz and believe he can bring in a lot of fans and money to the box office, I do not believe the UFC is a good venue for him anymore. Likewise, I do not believe that the UFC would be smart to continue to invest in Ortiz. Ortiz has not done anything spectacular in terms of wins over the past fews years with the exception of the Shamrock rivalry. I believe Ortiz would be much more successful fighting in another company where he would be able to showcase his showmanship and fighting skills against opponents that he would be more likely to dominate. The UFC has become a lot about who wins the fight regardless of style or entertainment value and while there is nothing wrong with that and I don’t say that as a criticism although it does result in some boring fights sometimes, it is not a good place for Ortiz to be.

Ortiz has a lot of stuff on his plate. He is doing a book tour and continues the Punishment clothing line as well as mentioned getting back into training with a group of people. Ortiz may mourn his legacy in the UFC but he eventually will be too busy to think about due to other exciting future ventures.

Good luck Tito. Thanks for all of those years you gave the fans and I personally look forward to seeing more of the Huntington Beach Bad boy!

This event is highly anticipated as you can see from the ad campaign to the left. Sean Sherk and BJ Penn have one of the most talked about rivalries in the UFC in history. Sherk tested positive for taking steroids but has always proclaimed his innocence and after a long battle, the CSAC shortened his suspension to 6 months. Penn calls Sherk a cheater and actually said “Sean Sherk – you’re dead!” after one of his fights.

And on to the fights…

First up on the televised event was Thiago Silva vs Antonio Mendes. I had picked Silva and I was rather concerned when he was caught with a high kick and was rocked but he kept his composure and ended up catching Mendes with enough strikes and ended the fight with some ground and pound causing Mendes to tap. I picked Silva to win putting me at 1-0.

Surprisingly the next fight was Tito Ortiz vs Lyoto Machida. This seemed more like it would be played out later in the night considering the popularity of Ortiz (whether you love him or hate him). Unfortunately this ended up a boring fight. Can’t really blame Ortiz for that as he did try to engage with Machida but Machida was extremely evasive and avoided most of Ortiz’ punishment. Surely Ortiz wasn’t happy with being decisioned by Lyoto. Probably the most exciting part of the fight was within the last minute of the third round when Ortiz had Machida in a triangle and then transitioned to an arm bar. It seemed that Ortiz had it hooked in, but somehow Machida slipped out perhaps using the sweat to slip out. Tito was given the mic after the fight and called his interactions with Dana White ‘bullshit’ but was sure to thank the Fertittas for their support. Ortiz was very gracious to the fans. Strangely enough when Joe Rogan asked whether this was really Ortiz’ last fight in the UFC, Tito said he wasn’t sure and would decide over the next couple of weeks. A quick funny sidenote in the fight was when Yves Lavigne slipped and fell on his ass. I had picked Ortiz with my heart and not my head so this led me to 1-1.

The next fight was Wilson Gouveia vs Goran Reljic. Reljic came in undefeated for his UFC debut. Goran trains with Mirko Cro Cop and this showed with his hard kicks to Gouveia’s head all on the right side. Soon enough Wilson’s right arm was bruised. This fight went back and forth with Relic seeming to have the upper hand for the first while until Wilson took over and looked dominant until getting caught with a punch to his temple putting him on the ground and eventually losing via stoppage. I picked Gouveia so this loss lowered my tally to 1-2.

Keith Jardine indicated that he was surprised to see that we was an underdog for this fight against Wanderlei Silva. Wanderlei has had 3 fights in the UFC and has lost them all. In his defense, these were all against top notch opponents. Dana White has openly expressed his admiration for Wanderlei’s fighting style in that he fights to put on a good show, win or lose. With that said, Wanderlei really needed this win as his back was against the wall with these 3 prior losses. Jardine also claimed that his standup was better than Silva’s. The fight opened very aggressively with the two exchanging punches. Silva looked dominant again like his days in Pride catching Jardine with a punch that knocked him down and then Silva lived up to his “Axe Murderer” moniker by swarming on Jardine resulting in a referee stoppage just 36 seconds into the first round. Jardine was down for quite some time before being able to walk out of the Octagon under his own power. Silva was extremely gracious in his victory complimenting Jardine and thanking the UFC for the opportunity to fight as well as the crowd in attendance for their support of such a great sport. I picked Silva. Back to even at 2-2.

In the main event, Sean Sherk entered the octagon first with a record of 35-2-1 with his only losses to Matt Hughes and Georges St. Pierre at 170 lbs. Upon entering the octagon, Sherk looked ripped as usual. Throughout the course of the first 3 rounds Penn took advantage of his reach and hit Sherk with numerous jabs and Sherk ended up coming up short on the striking yet continued with the same gameplan.  At the end of the third round Sherk made the same mistake he made against Franca by ducking his head when his opponent came at him and BJ caught him with a knee to the head that stunned Sherk and then Penn followed it up with a series of blows as the bell sounded ending the round. It was determined that Sherk couldn’t continue and BJ was crowned the undisputed lightweight champion. BJ had nothing but respectful words for Sherk after the fight. Sherk, who was disappointed, did say that he would continue fighting and made a point of thanking his loyal fans that stuck by him over the past 10 months.

Overall, it was a decent PPV. I was personally disappointed with some of the results, but I have to admit that I was not surprised at all.

I actually ordered this PPV as it was shown FINALLY in HD by Rogers. Of course, the HD channel was $10 more expensive. Even though some may view this as unreasonable, the HD version is a great deal clearer than the regular version so I went for it. Plus, it was Ortiz’ last UFC fight.

M1-Global was an ill fated attempted at merging Russian and North American promotions.  As with any businesses, the result from failing can create something much more successful and promising than the intention of the original endeavor. Enter Affliction.

The major complaint of certain fighters in the UFC lately have been that they are underpaid, under promoted and too restricted by their contracts. Affliction may be trying to revolutionize the sport by avoiding all of these problems. Tim Sylvia has expressed that he appreciates freedom in his contract so that he may fight in other organizations. He does make a good point in that if he fights and he does incur any injuries that require lengthy healing, he may be able to fight again shortly thereafter and consequently make more money in a short amount of time and have the opportunity to either continue momentum after a win or recover following a loss.

What gives Affliction a lot of promise is putting together a great card full of competitors that were either ousted by the UFC or estranged from there:

MAIN CARD (PAY PER VIEW)

• Fedor Emelianenko vs. Tim Sylvia
• Josh Barnett vs. Pedro Rizzo
• Ben Rothwell vs. TBA
• Paul Buentello vs. Aleksander Emelianenko
• Matt Lindland vs. Fabio Nascimento
• Renato “Babalu” Sobral vs. Mike Whitehead

PRELIMINARY CARD

• Ray Lazama vs. Justin Levens
• Mark Hominick vs. Savant Young
• J.J. Ambrose vs. Patrick Speight
• Brett Cooper vs. Mike Pyle

This card gives everyone the opportunity to see whether the hype behind Fedor is deserved or not as he is fighting a former UFC champion who has proven himself as one of the best heavyweights over the past several years (despite the Tim haters opinions).

I am really excited to see Babalu fighting again. He was supposed to fight Vernon Tiger White not too long ago but that show was cancelled due to financial reasons on behalf of the company. I will very interested to see how he does against Mike Whitehead who is a talented opponent.

The matchup of Paul Buentello vs Alexsander Emelianenko could be a real war as well. It’s great to see Mark Hominick back in action again also.

The MMA world is getting bigger and Affliction is just one way of realizing the growth of the sport.

Affliction Banned will be available to watch on July 19th on Pay Per View. There could be connections with HDNet in the future as well for airing events.

Check out the event trailer