Well that was just weird. A controversial ending if I have ever seen one. I think it was just some questionable ref work but there's going to be plenty of people saying this thing was fixed. The controversy probably won't hurt CBS/EliteXC but I think it hurts MMA's credibility if everyone's screaming, "Fix!" Kimbo, work some frieakin cardio!
There's a few things that I see holding MMA back the most right now. This is coming from the perspective of a guy who is a pretty decent fan of boxing, just to explain where I come from on this (one quick thing-I notice a lot of people talking about how boxing has declined in American society, and how this is due to brutality. This is true. But it is not just boxing's violence that drove people away, it was also the terrible management of boxing itself. I think UFC right now is about a thousand times better-managed and run than any of the alphabet soup of boxing organizations). 1. The Bloodsport perception, largely unfairly earned, about how brutal the sport is. Witness large elements of this discussion. Kimbo Slice (3-0 now, BTW) I think actually hurts them in this regard because he is regarded as a brawler, a skilled street thug rather than a true fighter (and that perception is reinforced in a lot of MMA circles, as well). As long as Kimbo Slice continues to be the prime attraction for MMA Heavyweights (in this regard, I feel like MMA follows boxing-the Heavyweight Champeen of da Woild is considered the premiere fighter, even if there are much more talented guys in the lowerweights), MMA won't be taken seriously as a sport and not glorified barfights, which hurts the truly talented guys in lower divisions/other networks (I am aware that EliteXC is really Jay-V compared to UFC/WEC, but then again, which of them has big network TV deal?). 2. The fights. MMA fights tend to be real short, a lot of times not going out of the first round (at least from the ones I've seen). To me, this is a drawback because I'm used to the longer stretch of boxing matches, where we go up to 12 rounds, and a fight has time to build up momentum and atmosphere. Now, the shorter fights make for safer environments for the fighters, and probably make for better television, as well, but don't help the transition in the meantime. 3. The different organizations. Refer to boxing on how well it works out to have numerous groups giving away titles. And the earlier comment about perceptions especially applies here. A vicious screw up on PRIDE fighting or EliteXC hurts UFC and WEC, because no one can tell them apart. 4. Last but not least, stars. As boxing and tennis have shown, it's hard to make an individuals sport huge if you can't make people recognize the stars. Sure, there's a few in both (Floyd Mayweather and De La Hoya in Boxing, Sharapova, the Williams Sisters, and Federer in tennis), but for the most part these people are unknown to us. So it is in MMA-guys rise up and appear. The real thing that hurts this is the lack of major network television deals-UFC has tried to supplant this with cable shows, which I think has helped out a lot. Now, UFC has to try and develop some of those stars into people who can transcend the sport and become huge outside of it, to help market itself (as it's trying to do with Chuck Liddell).
The "winning" participant must kill both his opponent and at least one "fan" in the audience, then drink their blood whilst Joe Rogan throws 100 year old rotten eggs at their mother. Hear, hear!
That show took WAY too long. Not a real good debut. I think the casual MMA fan may have been left unsatisfied with what they saw, particularly the way Kimbo had been hyped. You would have thought that on the first punch that Kimbo threw, Thompson's whole familiy would have been knocked out. The stoppage was way premature, in my opinion. My wife, who isn't any kind of fan of MMA or boxing, thought that it made it look like CBS and EliteXC were just trying to protect their investment. And if that's what a curious onlooker thought, what did the rest of the audience think? I think he very well would have knocked out Thompson but if he didn't, Slice was close on a couple of occaisions to losing.
It was way too long THX, especially considering the first two fights lasted a total of two minutes. The Lawler/Smith fight was the best fight of the evening with Carano/Young in a close second. Its a shame Lawler/Smith was cut short over what sounds like a miscommunication between fighter and doctor. I think they did a good job stopping Carano/Young when they did as it appeared Young had a broken eye socket. Ouch! Slice/Thompson was a joke. MMA as a whole was probably knocked down a few notches due to the sloppy performances of the out of shape fighters AND the questionable officiating of the "main event." Also, whats up with the ear? Anyone in that locker room have a needle for pete's sake? Strictly from an entertainment perspective, however, I enjoyed the hell out of that match.
Some people believe that the fight was fixed.
"3. The CBS announcing crew's endless hyperbole reaching its pinnacle when one of them compared Kimbo to Tiger Woods. This would be applicable if Tiger had gained fame hitting trick shots in putt putt and then was invited to a second rate club championship which CBS was conned into televising. He then shot a final round 124, after which he was declared the winner anyway." This, (from YYM's link) is a pretty good summation of the fight. Slice took double-figure elbows to the head, undefended, in the second round and not only was the fight not stopped but, as also mentioned in the article, one judge even scored that round for Slice. If some of MMA's rise in popularity really does come from fans tired of boxing's shady practises, then it's probably not a good idea to look like you're copying them.
Meanwhile, the day after Slice's fight there was a good quality main event in WEC between Urijah Faber and Jens Pulver, which you can see here.
Winner due to hype, Kimbo Slice. That's what it looks like and it sucks. Slice took double-figure elbows to the head, undefended, in the second round and not only was the fight not stopped but, as also mentioned in the article, one judge even scored that round for Slice. Those were some of the weakest elbows in MMA history. I've seen the count at 39 shots and even if they are soft it's still a lot. That round could really have went either way though, at one point in the round I was absolutely sure that Thompson was going down. The scoring of that round really depends how hard you viewed those elbows Kimbo took at the end in the crucifix. I would have scored it for Thompson but it was close.
My scoring of the round depends on how many times a fighter gets hit. If the round is close then I might look at who landed the better shots, but not the other way around, otherwise how many "weak" elbows counteracts one strong punch? Three? Five? Ten? Round 2 Kimbo lands the bigger punches, but the second set of punches comes only when Thompson is stood up from side control and when Kimbo is dropped with the double-leg he's just laying there, not even moving his legs and conservatively I count at least 60 unanswered shots, be they punches, hammerfists or elbows. Weak or not, if that round gets scored for Slice then Thompson would have had to have knocked him out to get a draw.
err, that's not supposed to be read as terse as it sounds. Just that it's a sport - if someone lands 10 jabs and the other guy lands 4 crosses, then you have to give to the jabs, even if they're weak, because they're still scoring punches. If the number of punches landed is close, then I'd look at other things, like punch strength and quality, but if you lose a punch count by 80ish to 20ish, then I'm not going to care if you're hitting the guy with a chair, you still lose the round. And that's not even taking into account Kimbo being dropped twice and pinned and offering no defence and showing no technical idea of how to escape.
I'll have to watch it again(work and videos don't mix). My reaction from seeing it live was that it was a close round with both fighters nearly being knocked out and thought it would be difficult to score.
Slice definitely has Thompson in trouble - you're right - but the first time he has no answer for a groggy guy working the single-leg and then after the ref stands them up from Thompson being in side-control, (baffling), Slice rattles Thompson again, then suffers a double-leg takedown. After the double leg, Slice takes somewhere in the region of sixty unanswered strikes. You can argue that they're weak and the last few certainly are, (and I'd guess the reason is that Thompson is shattered from throwing unabated offence at Slice for such an extended period), but they still connect, so they should still count. When they cut to the wider shot you can see that Slice isn't even moving his hips - his only defence is to raise his free hand to try to obstruct the blows. I can't help the feeling that if Slice had been on top, throwing even weak and sloppy elbows, the fight would have been stopped. That a judge managed to score the round for Slice really astonished me.
I actually had Thompson ahead on my completely unofficial scorecard. Aside from landing some great shots (which Thompson recovered from), I felt that Kimbo was controlled for most of the match. Yeah, Thompson was moments from eating canvas (or whatever the material is in EliteXC's circular cage) but I don't ever recall seeing an MMA match that was stopped while the loser was still on his feet and not beat silly. I won't say "fix", but I will say that it looked a lot like someone was trying to protect the record of Kimbo Slice.
