CBS Saturday Night Fights Delivers
By Brandt DeLorenzo on May 31, 2008
Let me first say that CBS and EliteXC provided a superb MMA show for everyone tonight. Although some aspects, like the fights themselves, were out of the hands of both CBS and EliteXC, both parties did a good job of providing a good mix of fights and entertainment for the live fans and the viewers at home.
The opening was clean (aside from the dancing women) and John Philapavage was correct when he expected to see Mauro Ranallo on CBS tonight. It was also good to see Frank Shamrock’s smiling mug after the highlight reel of him and Cung Le brawling during Strikeforce.
CBS and EliteXC made a very good decision to have Frank Shamrock talk about MMA rules and some basic fight styles. Hopefully all of the 18-35 year old non-fans listened carefully. Nobody wants to hear someone scream about spine kicks and punches to the back of the head. But what’s even more important is that the older non-fans paid attention. My parents were actually watching the first part of the show with me and they asked me about some of the styles and submissions as Shamrock demonstrated with a dummy.
They didn’t mess around when it came to the entertainment aspect. We saw Busta Rhymes, Christopher Boykin from Rob & Big, a dancing Brett Rodgers, Phil Baroni’s red NY robe, and of course, Kimbo. It was also cool, from a MMA nerd standpoint, to see Mark Coleman by Baroni’s side and in his corner.
As for the announcing, no complaints here. There was a lack of technical jargon, but I can imagine that everyone was told to tone it down for the large virgin viewing audience at home watching their first MMA event. Gus Johnson did a good job of providing interview questions, even going as far to ask Gina Carano why she couldn’t make weight for the fight. MMA fans and enthusiasts who are geeky enough to listen to podcasts were probably happy to see Ranallo once in a while as well. I didn’t mind seeing and hearing Shamrock’s take on things, especially what he had to say about Kimbo Slice.
I wasn’t surprised to see Brett Rodgers tear Jon Murphy apart, but I didn’t expect it to happen so soon. The crowd seemed happy enough so it’s time to move on.
Phil Baroni, fighting at home, had the backing of the crowd, but like Murphy, he didn’t last long in the cage with Joe Villasenor. The same guy who lost to Robbie Lawler in Pride 32 was able to destroy Baroni in the first round in an attempt to take another crack at the champ if he is able to defend against the heavy handed Scott Smith.
To all those who though Gina Carano couldn’t do it. She did it and she did it in dominating fashion over Kaitlyn Young. Before you start the whole weight argument, you know that 3.5 lbs over (140 + 1) will not win a fight. It’s bad for her and it’s bad for EliteXC when she fails to make the weight, but it’s not as newsworthy as most of the bloggers are making it. For someone who walked around much heavier for American Gladitors, she made the attempt to drop the weight. Now if Carano can finally get rid of American Gladiators or make weight for the future events, she’ll be able to take on some of the other big names in women’s MMA. Everyone seems to want to see her fight someone better and that fight should be coming soon.
As for Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith. Wow. This was a battle between two guys with a lot of heart. Smith, beaten by Lawler at the end of the very first round, was able to come back in Round 2 and deliver a beating to the middleweight champ. The crowd was booing at times, but this fight was a great battle between two very talented standup guys. Even as a Jiu-Jitsu guy who really enjoyed Carano’s gogoplato attempt on Kaitlyn Young, I could certainly appreciate the dedication of both Scott and Lawler as they went back and forth. The ending was terribly anti-climatic as a no-contest was called due to an accidental eye gouge by Lawler in the third round. Rematch? And did you see Matt Hughes? Or was that his twin brother, Mark, who is making his return to MMA? EliteXC was hoping to gain the understanding of the fans and the viewers to have the commissioner explain the No Contest. Also, Gary Shaw agreed to pay both fighters the win bonus – another good move there. For the post-fight interview, Smith said he rather would have gotten knocked out instead of taking the No Content. Kalib Starnes, are you listening?
The main event was impressive. I know, I know. It makes me sound like an idiot when I say that a fight between Kimbo Slice and James Thompson is impressive, but I had to watch three back to back TKO’s and I wanted to see some more action on the ground. Whoever would have thought that Kimbo Slice could sweep anything? Granted Thompson isn’t a force on the ground, but he’s a big strong heavy dude and Kimbo looked decent on the ground for someone who punched people his entire life. Thompson did a nice job of neutralizing Kimbo’s heavy hands for the most part. And yeah the ground game is bad when people want a TKO, but they got plenty of action between Kimbo’s heavy hands and Thompson’s takedowns. Whoever says Thompson has a glass chin may have to re-evaluate after watching the British fighter get hit over and over in the second round. It was even better to watch him slap Dan Miragliotta after the fight was stopped in the third, but hey, that fight might have been just as easily stopped in the second if Thompson could have spent more time advancing his position and less time trying to land 40 blows in a very difficult position. But, this is MMA and there’s always too many if’s, and’s, or buts at the end of any controversial fight.
Overall, I give the first CBS Saturday Night Fights show a 9/10. The action was there, the standup and knockouts were there, the Jiu-Jitsu was there, and I didn’t really have anything overly negative to say about the production overall. If CBS and EliteXC can produce three more of these, we could see MMA on television permanently.
Now it’s time for us to wait for those ratings numbers.
What are you smoking? 3 out of 5 fights were stopped way too fast and the Dr. called the other one when the guy had 5 mintues to recover from the eye gouge. EliteXC is a joke!!! The only fight that was good was the women’s one. 3 of the 5 (inculding Kimbo’s) would not have been stopped in the UFC. They would have at least allowed the guys to defend after the big hits they took. In Kimbo’s fight, they guy was bloody but was still defending himself. I give the fighters 10/10 but the EliteXC was a 2/10 with the way they stopped the fights way too early and the Dr. stopping the fight 1 minute into a maximum 5 minute break. Horrible!!!!!!
So you’re telling me that EliteXC has control over the NJ State Athletic Control board now? I think you might be smoking the good stuff, Jeremy.
You need eight years of schooling before you can become a doctor. While I respect your opinion, it means nothing when its up to the doctor to decide when to end fights.
So maybe you should re-evaluated who to blame.
CBS has hurt their image tonight. This fight(so called) card was a joke. The whole thing was a circus. Mma is not the same as wwf as cbs portraied it tonight. Who produced this–disney. It was bad from the announcers all the way to the ring girls who looked like a bad jr. High cheerleader squad.
And bless his heart the star kimbo,limbo, dumbo or who ever he is should think about another profession. He will not last long in a real mma setting. Cbs(disney?) Watch spike or vrs if you need to know how to put on mma fights.
So what was so bad about the announcing?
brandt. i have been going over almost all the big mma sites over the last hour or so and can tell you with conviction that you are in about the .00001% minority that this was even close to being even good. this was garbage. and you dont have to tell me that if i dont like it, dont watch it. i wont! im seriously wondering if i should ever come to this site again.
The fights delivered. If you disagree so much that you don’t want to visit this site again, you won’t be missed. Sorry to be so harsh, but it’s true.
Allow me to let you in on a little secret. Most MMA bloggers are pretty bored people and they’re going to come up with some ridiculous theories about EVERYTHING. If the favored fighter wins, it’s because the fight was fixed…or that Dan Miragliotti was paid by Gary Shaw to make sure that Kimbo won. These bloggers don’t fight and don’t see the weak little punches and elbows that James Thompson was trying to use to end his fight. Guess what, I’ve seen the same thing in *gasp* the UFC!
Don’t pretend you didn’t see this all coming. Don’t try to cry now and say EliteXC ruined “your sport” when you knew this was going to happen. They took a sport that hasn’t hit mainstream TV and made it mainstream. I was expecting a lot worse.
goodbye then. good luck on paying the bills with your 7 posts, 3 of them being your own.lol!
Good luck assuming that I use this site to make any money at all.
The whole production seemed too WWE/scummish to me. I don’t know, wished those two horrendous stoppages wouldn’t haved occured.
Let me say another thing though, this show wasn’t “garbage” and all of you who are complaining (including myself to a degree) will be watching the next EliteXC/CBS event.
Now for Faber v. Pulver…
[...] MMA OpinionCBS Saturday Night Fights Delivers [...]
I kind of question how heavy Kimbo’s hands are since they landed a dozen times on James and didn’t KO him. That pretty much defines not having heavy hands.
9/10? Really? If you really can’t see any of the blatantly awful things going on, at least talk about how awful the matchmaking was or something. Your whole post was pretty ridiculous though, so whatever.
“you know that 3.5 lbs over (140 + 1) will not win a fight. ”
excuse me? y really think like that? u think most of fand got pissed only for “3.5lbs”?
http://fadedproductions.com/gfight3/?p=64
Brandt – I have to agree with you (as I believe I was doing over at BE). Compared to all other MMA events in the brief history of the sport, this event was pathetic. Compared to all other MMA events airing on primetime network television, this event was the best ever (get it?). People need to take a step back and look at the context in which this event was taking place and, as such, what was required of it.
EliteXC completely surprised me with the product they put forward. This situation required delicacy and fineness. As soon as I heard they were airing a women’s fight on the televised card (I know, I know – another conversation), I assumed they were going to handle it like a bull in a china shop and just try to make their money. However, Gary Shaw/CBS actually framed it in a good way. Make no mistake about it – the Kimbo fight is a controversy that is not going anywhere anytime soon. But overall, they did a good job emphasizing every aspect of MMA that is not revolting to everyone that is going to be in church bright and early tomorrow morning. If you were expecting a blood bath like the Penn/Stevenson fight – this was not the event for you to tune in to. In fact, I wouldn’t bother checking out the next couple of events on CBS.
Just remember when you’re complaining about how the UFC could have done such a better job – the UFC had almost every major network climbing over each other to ink a deal with them but ended up turning them all down. Regardless of the reasons or logic behind the UFC’s decisions, this was an opportunity squandered.
[...] Opinion CBS Saturday Night Fights DeliversCBS.com Shows Serious Buy-InHelp, Time Warp (Or “Kimbo Can’t Come Over to Play”)The Fall Guy [...]
I’ll be honest, Brandt. I think that you’re wrong on this one, but my problems with the card are all in my piece.
What really bugs me is that no one is going to call Gina out on this fight, and people really should. I might go ahead and do it later, if she decides that she only needs a three week training camp for her next fight. (that whole thing is a load of crap)
trevor: He rocked Thompson often as they both stood. Thompson was smart to take the fight to the ground and recover. I’d say his hands are still pretty heavy even without that clear TKO at the end. Thompson’s eyes didn’t look like they saw much as Miragliotti stopped the fight in the 3rd.
DWG: You need to be more specific. Your comment could mean anything. Which fights were poorly matched and why?
koolpaw: Nobody has any idea what you are talking about. Did the scale lie? Are we all missing something you know? Your argument that Gina weighed more than Kaitlyn Youn a day after the weigh-in and that is why she won the fight is null. It doesn’t matter what she weighed during the fight, she just needed to make the weight for the weigh-ins. You need a better argument about why Kaitlyn Young lost.
Josh: Carano needs to get her priorities in order if she wants to consider returning to MMA full time. She can’t be walking around at 160 for American Gladiators and then suddenly drop 16 pounds for a fight in three weeks. Maybe she needs to be convinced to move up in weight and face some of the bigger women. She showed that she knows how to fight with those kicks and that gogoplata. It’s up to her to reclaim her integrity.
Brandt, just came across your post. I’m shocked that you found this even the least bit entertaining. You don’t find it suspicious that the fight wasn’t stopped when Kimbo found himself on this back, one arm pinned down, eating punches/elbows and for over a minute and the ref doesn’t stop the fight, but does stop it because their was blood and Thompson appeared to be rocked. It was a joke…and embarrassing. You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but in this case, you opinion certainly doesn’t give you any credibility.
I had no problem with the Kimbo/Thompson finish. It was not very entertaining to watch thought except in the first round. Kimbo needs to be patient with himself and try and build a wrestling game or something of a gas tank to be able to fight for over 2 round’s. It would be a mistake to give Brett Rogers to Kimbo Slice at this time because Kimbo has to many questions about his overall fight game. The only problem is your paying him 6 figures for a rookie to fight better competition. very sad.
Loved the women’s match and I’m a turned on fan of Women’s MMA. Also thought the Robbie Lawler/Scott Smith fight was awesome. Would watch Lawler/Smith 2 on CBS again in a heart beat aslong as they add Gina Carano/Shanya Baszler.
Hated the Ramp. Gus Johnson is awesome at what he does. But way to many mismatch’s in my opinion to make this card a good one.
I hope WEC will make my weekand better.
Yannis: I was approaching this event as a casual MMA fan. I saw some bad calls, but you see bad ref’ing and judging everywhere. At least Cecil Peoples wasn’t there.
If there was a conspiracy, its not going to save Kimbo forever. There was a questionable decision when Nate Diaz was getting pounded by Kurt Pellegrino for an extended time at UFN 13, but nobody cried foul and accused Dana of protecting one of his TUF fighters to this extent. Making accusations as truths right now is a little premature. I’ll wait to hear more from a creidble source like Meltzer.
Trevor – Kimbo could hardly breathe after the 1st, so any shots he did land had nothing on them. I can’t stand Kimbo, but one thing he does have is “heavy hands.”
People seem to fault Elite XC or the fighters for the stoppages. Honestly, I was entertained, my understanding was the refs work for the athletic commission and not the promotion. Comments like the first one that it would not have been stopped in the UFC are outrageous and uninformed. This is on network television, Scott made a mistake and told the doctor he could not see twice, and the Dr had no choice but to stop it or risk being sued later if he did develop an issue with his eye. Imagine this in court, “So the fighter told you TWICE he could not see and you in your professional opinion still allowed the fight to go on?” My only beef was to let Kimbo get one or two more shots on JT before calling it, he looked like he was about to fall over with that dazed look in his eye. It wasnt the best referee job but nothing was worse than earlier this year them not warning brock after he was destroying Mir and standing them up giving Mir a chance to recover and deducting one point and giving Brock no warning.
Ugh. This was a sad showcase of third-tier talent that did nothing to highlight the world-class athleticism and the breadth and depth of skills of quality MMA fighters. Anyone viewing MMA for the first time would be unimpressed, to say the least. The choice of Kimbo Slice, who, while arguably a fierce brawler, is hardly a skilled MMA fighter, negates any argument that CBS handled this with class– they chose pure publicity and the lowest common denominator over any considerations of style and skill. Also, the ringside commentary in each fight was disconnected from the reality in the ring, and consistently slanted toward the favored fighter, regardless of the actuality of the fight (Frank Shamrock excluded- he was fine). Imagine any one of the featured fighters in any of the CBS fights going up against any of the quality Pride/UFC fighters– not to mention the title-holders. Can you imagine Kimbo versus Randy Couture? That would be a sad, short spectacle for Kimbo… Or Lawlor (who admittedly has good standup) against Anderson Silva? Frankly, Couture could probably beat Kimbo and Thompson back-to-back on the same night, then go for a training session. All in all, for better or worse, not a step forward for MMA in the eyes of the wider public.
DeLorenzo,
Your assessment is so far of base that onl two reasons could exist for it:
1) you are on the payroll of CBS or looking for sponsorship from them; or
2) you are playing a joke on your readers to see how many call you out on it.
I hope it’s the latter, because if you are serious (and its not because you’re on the take) you must be writing from inside an insane asylum and you have never seen anything produced by UFC or WEC (or even a good high school wrestling meet) or have ever competed in anything related to MMA. The spectacle we had this misfortune of enduring on Sat night could not have been written to be so pathetically comical unless Will Ferrell or Ben Stiller had written and starred in it.
The commentators were straight out of Dodgeball. What place does the phrase “calvacade of” anything have in martial arts or any televised sport except perhaps synchronized swimming. Gus Johnson should be given a pass, as he was out of his element, and sent back to college BBall where he belongs (and is very good).
The skanky dancers and the ridiculous walks to the ring have nothing to do with the sport. This was a combination of the worst that both the XFL and WWF have (had) to offer. And what made it worse was how cheaply it was executed, Busta included. Remember how well the XFL is doing these days.
Now with regards to the fights. Shamrock got it wrong. With the exception of the women’s bout and Lawler, NONE of the participants would be classified as world class or professional when compared to WEC or UFC fighters, let alone Olympic-level wrestlers, judo and tae kwan do players. With the exception of Lawler and the women fighters, not one of the people who stepped in the ring displayed any level of skill in any martial art or wrestling and the required conditioning to be considered competitive, forget world-class. Kimbo is a circus sideshow freak, not an athlete even though he can punch through a wall.
I hope CBS reconsiders and cancels the next 3 events. If it continues in a similar format not only will it sully the reputation and reality of what has become a spectacular sport, but also open the door for the “human cockfighting” debate to begin again on Capitol Hill.
I hope you next post is on a real event like tonight’s WEC live event. It was the “superb MMA show for everyone” as you like to put it.
real roddy: 3) It’s an opinion article written towards the general MMA audience, not a MMA elitist like yourself. Until I see you in a a ring/cage, I don’t care if you think someone is or isn’t a “fighter”.
The ratings were great, the fights were exciting enough, and there was enough controversy (we already discussed this on the comments about 3 times – just read up) to keep the show alive.
If you liked it, great. If you didn’t, that’s fine. I don’t work for CBS because my opinion is *gasp* different than someone (you) who wishes to remain anonymous on the internet and belittle other writers/readers.
1st, let’s state that this is kimbo’s 2nd MMA fight! He will get better as time goes on. And NO ONE person, right now, in any other orginization will fight this guy standing up!!!!! The fight card was nice and I also give it a 9/10! BTW, both guys were awarded the winnig bonus, when the fight was stopped!
P.S. The reason the other fighters talk so much noise about kimbo, is so they can get a big pay day by fighting him!!
Canudigit,
Hey man thanks for the arguing thoughts and differance of opinion but man you have to get your facts straight..
This was Kimbo’s third fight not second. In those three fights only one of his opponents have had an MMA record over .500, and in the CBS fight he showed that he is far from a the superior athlete/fighter the organiation says. He is going to draw viewers… He will sell shows… but he will never beat a top 10 MMA fighter.
Also, I don’t think the guys are talking smack so they will get paid more… How much is Dana White getting? How about Yahoo Sports, CNNSI?
Trust me, we will never see a Kimbo Slice vs. Chuck Liddell… and those two have went back and forth a few times…