Just wanted to drop a line as an addendum to the Extreme Rules rant and say that the show I chose to watch instead last night was the WEC show on TSN2 and it completely blew away the WWE PPV. I’d call it the best MMA show I’ve seen since the UFC with Lesnar v. Couture, in fact. Jose Aldo’s running knee will be haunting my nightmares now, and Brown v. Faber was a major star-making fight for both guys. If Faber was bigger, he could be a major pro wrestling star because he’s got personality and the looks. Anyway, just great fights up and down the card and a no-nonsense job of producing it for TV by WEC as well. If EliteXC could have produced this kind of quality show, they might not have disappeared so fast.
I agree Aldo’s flying knee was sweeeeeet. This card was better than the Strikeforce card overall. Faber-Brown was great and the card was more entertaining.
I usually dont watch MMA but WEC is on Versus in the US (the NHL channel) so I checked out. Good stuff…much better than most of the UFC stuff that Ive actually seen. And obviously like a million times better than Elite XC. If that card Sunday night was on CBS, instead of the Kimbo freakshow, MMA would have a much different outlook from the mainstream media.
I’m not sold on UFC/MMA. I think with MMA you are not guaranteed the best entertainment possible. With WWE/TNA being scripted the chances are better then not that it will be entertainment.
MMA since it is a sport is about winning. It is not even close as good/accepted as other sports like both Footballs, Baseball, Basketball, Tennis and Golf.
As for Mainstream media, the sport may be too violent to be accepted by main stream outlets. Even Boxing is not seen that much (or at all) on national broadcast television. Though at times Boxing is just as fixed as pro wrestling lol.
Maybe somebody should create a Sports-Entertainment MMA company. Or maybe not.
I know there was at least one Japanese company that tried to integrate worked MMA matches, and it’s just too hard to do properly. The fans never seem to buy it and it’s impossible to call “on the fly”. It’s been tried, but it just doesn’t work. Bam Bam Bigelow’s one “MMA match” was a work (at least on his end; he claimed to have been paid handsomely to take a dive), and it was awful.
To me it’s apples and oranges, although it may be more like tangerines and oranges. Ultimately (no pun intended), it’s the unpredictablility of MMA that appeals to me, while I love the colorful characters of wrestling as well as all the aspects of “working” the marks. I’d say I’m almost an equal fan, with both filling respective niches. MMA gives more white-knuckle moments, but they still have yet to have any character as entertaining as, say, Chris Jericho (debatable I know). Wrestling can be just as good when it goes wrong, and in MMA there isn’t any really “wrong” (save for the ridiculously quick stoppage in Serra-GSP II).
I do agree with you, in that as big as MMA is, it’s violence will keep it from ever elevating to the strata of the 4 majors. That being said, ESPN did have extensive coverage of Couture-Lesnar, though that may have been a fluke, as they have not even come close to covering subsequent PPV’s as heavily.
Ridiculously quick stoppage of GSP/Serra? When GSP has Serra turtled and hits him with 5-6 huge knees to the ribs, I’d say it’s a fair stoppage. Keep in mind that Serra wasn’t moving, wasn’t trying to scramble out, wasn’t even trying to block them. In MMA, you have to be intelligently defending yourself. “Rope a dope” strategy doesn’t work because it becomes much to dangerous to allow the fight to continue.
Bottom line, Matt Serra is an average fighter that got lucky in one fight to stay relevant in the mainstream. He’s not even in the top tier lightweights, let alone a contender to GSP’s throne.
/why, yes, I am a GSP nuthugger. In case you were wondering.
agreed, sort of. I think that being it was so close to the end of the round, that maybe Chuck Liddell would’ve gotten the benefit of the doubt, while Serra didn’t. His losing was probably inevitable, I just wish it could’ve gone to the next round. Really, I was just being cheeky; I love messing with you GSP fans.
I’m Italian and from Long Island, so please forgive the bias.