This is just as far as fights go, not the announcing or the production value as a whole. Affliction had a HD stream which provided better picture quality, but the UFC still has a better overall production value. Megadeth wasn’t too bad for Affliction as they didn’t go overboard with live music and allowed the fights to continue at a reasonable pace. I was expecting them to open with Symphony of Destruction, which they did.

Best
Andrei Arlovski showing his power against Ben Rothwell throughout three rounds of fighting. Even though Arlovski unloaded on Rothwell on multiple occasions, Big Ben didn’t give up until he collapsed.

Cain Valesquez didn’t let Jake O’Brien do anything in their short and one-sided UFC fight. Valesquez was quick to put on a crucifix and wail away at O’Brien until the fight was stopped in the first round. Valesquez is being hailed as the next big thing in the UFC heavyweight division and this fight only helped.

Josh Barnett dropped Pedro Rizzo lifeless with a shot that rocked the canvas and a lot of televisions. Barnett went on to land a hammerfist for good measure immediately following Rizzo’s fall as Herb Dean darted to halt the action. Barnett got the crowd going and said a few things to hype himself up. You can tell he wants to be on the next Affliction PPV and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s fighting someone bigger and better.

Props to C.B. Dollaway and his first round Peruvian necktie submission over Jesse Taylor! Also, who could forget Fedor Emelianenko’s lightening fast annihilation of Tim Sylvia. I expect to see video or since the fight was only 36 seconds long, an animated GIF of the entire fight.

Worst
Brandon Vera. Another boring fight and at light heavyweight against Reese Andy? The guy has potential, but he can’t seem to finish any fights…or provide much action inside the cage.

Two insanely fast main events. Not that we can blame Anderson Silva and Fedor Emelianenko for demolishing the competition at a furious pace, but I’m sure many fans wanted to see a little more of James Irvin and Tim Sylvia. The combined time for both main events? One minute and 37 seconds.

But overall, who can complain about more than a dozen MMA fights in one night? Sure, it’s tedious to swtich back and forth even with a DVR/TiVo, but as long as the UFC has competition, they’ll step up to provide more fights. And more fights mean more chances for the sport to hit the headlines on ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and many other big publications.

Now we wait for next weekend to see if CBS can step up to provide another exciting night of MMA fighting.

The UFC heavyweight division is falling apart.

At best, it’s a nag with two broken legs trying to race against a field of less known, but far more aggressive and focussed competition. I wrote in a piece in January saying that if the UFC heavyweight division didn’t get an injection of talent, it wouldn’t recover on its own, and since the only serious pickup the division has made in the last few months is Shane Carwin, who was impressive at UFC 84, it’s impossible to say that the division has done any real work to recover.

They haven’t invested their money in a single top ten heavyweight since signing Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, they’ve failed to put UFC champion Randy Couture back in the Octagon and they’ve turned Nogueira into their paper champion by matching him up with the incredibly undeserving Frank Mir, hoping that having both fighters coach a season of the Ultimate Fighter series will give them time to develop a serious contender.

In the meantime, Affliction has put together a single card consisting of four former world champions (three from the UFC and one from Pride), ressurected the career of legend Pedro “The Rock” Rizzo (a three time UFC top contender) and speckled the roster with more top ten big men than the UFC has on their entire roster.

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Anyone who is paying attention to modern MMA can see that the biggest names in the business are not consistently offering a top shelf product. Elite XC put together a card that pits their champions against mediocre fighters and will make for a less than entertaining night aimed at getting attention, not at putting out a high quality product.

The UFC put on one of their best events ever, which had three interesting light heavyweight matchups, the debut of a man many consider a future phenom (Shane Carwin, just so we’re clear) and the biggest matchup that they can offer at 155 pounds.

Still, as I scroll down the cards of upcoming events, I found something bizarre.

The UFC is promising to put out shows that are far from interesting, namely it’s utterly uncreative UFC 85 card which consists of two interesting matchups on the entire evening (Davis vs. Swick and Vera vs. Werdum) and it’s unpromising TUF finale card which is headed by two fighters hardly at the top of their game, while the only two interesting matchups it has to offer (McFedries vs. Eastman and Lister vs. Horn) will remain in the middle of the card and will probably not be broadcast but for the grace of God.

So I am damned to look for incredible fights on the outskirts of the MMA world, but what I found is that I don’t actually have to look, because everybody else seems to actually care about putting out top notch fight cards.

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