After watching EliteXC live on Showtime tonight, I came away with the impression that EliteXC does indeed have a chance in this UFC world of MMA. To solidify my case, I ask you this: when is the last time you watched three knockouts in a row for free? Sorry, boxing doesn’t count - not in this case at least. One of the KO’s came in the form of a knee to the head. Not until the heavyweight bout between Ricco Rodriguez and Antonio Silva did we see if the judges had any idea of how to score a bout. There were a few things that we could have done without considering this wasn’t the MTV Video Music Awards, but we’ll get to that later.
The televised production overall for a free production was seamless. The fights went on without the long UFC-like delay with the overdone trash talk between fighters and it was less than two hours from start to finish. The commentating, even with Bill Goldberg, was much better than I had expected, and there was even a short interesting clip of Goldberg attempting to train with Miami-native Slice. The judging was fair, the referees stopped the fights properly and there was much respect between everyone post-fight.
The fights themselves contained a lot of great action as three of the five televised bouts didn’t even make it out of the first round. One fight barely made it into the second round while the only other bout to make it through the full 15 minutes turned out to be a split decision. When it came to the action inside the cage, there wasn’t much more you could ask for. Brett Rogers and Scott Smith walked away with big bomb knockouts in the first and second round against James Thompson and Kyle Noke, respectively, while longtime fighter Yves Edwards took down Edson Berto with a sharp knee to the head as Berto attempted a single leg takedown. You couldn’t ask for more exciting finishes than those.
The co-main event between Ricco Rodriguez and Antonio Silva had some noticeably slow points and was almost stopped due to a cut over Rodriguez’s left eye, but the crowd eased on the boos once the fight was allowed to resume. Silva barely walked away with a 28-29,29-28,29-28 split decision win over the older, more experienced, heavier, but washed-up Rodriguez.
The main event was in a league of its own. Tank Abbott walked out to a barrage of boos while the hometown favorite, Slice, felt the Miami love from his fans as the crowd went crazy during his introduction. “Kickass Kimbo” signs were everywhere and one Abbott fan even got creative and modified his to create a “Kick Kimbo Ass” sign on his own. The fight itself was much quicker than the introductions as Slice showed that training with Bas Rutten can turn a street fighter into a lightning fast cage brawler. Abbott didn’t have much to work with and I even thought the fight had ended almost immediately, but Slice was warned for punching the back of Abbott’s head. The fight was stopped and Slice wasn’t happy to be pushed back into his corner repeated - he wanted to throw some punches. Slice landed a couple of nice hooks after trading for a few seconds and Abbott was face down and knocked out. The crowd went even crazier and Slice thanked EliteXC and Showtime for his bread.
If I could have changed three things about the EliteXC: Street Certified, it would have come down to how they ran their show. First, get rid of the cheerleaders between the rounds and the fights as the dance routines are bad and they draw too much attention away from the cage. Next, build some hype for your upcoming fights. And finally, don’t go up against a boxing pay per view. Even though your event is free, boxing fans will still pay for boxing even though it was a drawn out non-championship bout between two guys who already fought.
At least we still know that free MMA didn’t let us down. Props to EliteXC and Showtime for two hours well spent.
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I do still love MMA and have...
February 17th, 2008 at 11:27 am
I think you are right on Brandt. About the only area I think that they need to work on, is a better job hyping their next fight show. I dont mind the rapper and the dancing cheerleaders, those are points of differentiation and they are relatively short enough to not be annoying but long enough to allow time between fights to come off smoothly. Bottomline, I was very entertained and I might even pay for an Elite XC pay per view.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:15 am
Last night was a clear indication that the UFC needs to sign a deal with a HBO, CBS or NBC. Showtime really helped the production value. I agree that EliteXC needs to hype themselves better and not go against a Boxing PPV with names. The fights were cool. The Yves fight was great! Glad to see him rising again. I disagreed with the split going to Silva over Rodriguez but I haven’t watched it again, definitely a close fight. Scott Smith looks like he has found a good place to compete, can’t wait to see what he does there. Lastly, Bill Goldberg is the worst commentator to carry that last name. Yes, I believe I can do better. I know he is trying his best, but he is atrocious and ruins the chemistry of the other broadcasters. Some might claim Mike Goldberg is the worst in the business, but at least he has a broadcasters poise, something Bill does not. Anyway, rant over, EliteXC was cool last night.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:35 am
I wanted to keep my article more positive so I didn’t touch upon Goldberg as much. He did say a couple of really dumb things, but I was still expecting worse so I just let it go. He’s a big egotistical ex-pro wrestler, what should we expect? A replacement would be nice…someone who knows MMA, perhaps.