The Opening:
WEC continues to deliver with their opening segment. I love the theme song, I love the intro, I
love the music. Great stuff. Todd Harris and Frank Mir quickly run down
the fight card, showing graphics for each fight. That’s how you open a show, ladies and
gentlemen. If CBS had done that last
night after the Frank Shamrock segment, they’d have started off well.
The First Fight:
Rob McCullough vs. Kenneth Alexander (Lightweight)
Mir and Harris give a quick background on each fighter
before they kick it to the pre-fight vignettes.
That’s followed by the entrances, and even with last night’s show being
the network debut for MMA, this feels like a much bigger show. Something I didn’t realize about last night’s
show until now is that it just didn’t feel like a big MMA event. Arco looks a lot fuller than Prudential
did. That’s probably because it is, but
the lighting also helps show that the crowd is there and excited. Alexander holds a career win over the former
champ, but I’ve got McCullough here by 2nd round TKO. Another comparison note (there will probably
be a bunch tonight): I know Jimmy Lennon
Jr. has the credentials, but give me Joe Martinez any day over Lennon.
Round One:
Mir and Harris are really talking a lot about how McCullough
looks better than he did when he lost to Varner, and that’s before he’s even
thrown a punch. I don’t know if that’s
the best idea, seeing as how it undercuts Varner as a legitimate champion and
it also makes McCullough and Varner both look worse if Alexander wins here.
This round is pretty tentative throughout, with neither
fighter establishing much of anything. I’d
probably give it to Alexander if anything, as he was simply more active. Nothing was effective by either man, but
Alexander just did more. McCullough
started to pick up steam toward the end, though, so he may come out a little
bit more active at the beginning of the second.
Round Two:
The announcers are clearly trying to save face for
McCullough here, but neither fighter is still doing anything. McCullough is landing some leg kicks, but
that’s about it. It almost seems like
Alexander is in his head with the prior victory, even though that might as well
have been on another planet. That’s the
only way I can reason that McCullough would be so tentative against someone on
Alexander’s level. Round two goes to
McCullough by a little.
Round Three:
It’s more of the same for most of the round until McCullough
nails Alexander with a knee to the marbles.
Mir says “I don’t have any guy right now winning this fight.” He’s right…it’s pretty much anyone’s fight
with a minute left. McCullough makes
some halfhearted attempts at striking toward the end, but doesn’t really
connect with anything. He’ll probably
take the round and the fight due to the inactivity by Alexander, but he
certainly didn’t acquit himself very well after the barnburner he lost against
Varner. McCullough is a much better
fighter than this.
Post-Fight:
McCullough wins by split decision, and the scores indicate
how goofy it was to score this fight (30-27, 28-29, 30-27). They’ve got a new post-fight interviewer,
which is a great idea since Frank Mir made the lighter guys look tiny. His name is Craig Hummer, and I really prefer
the idea of having the interviewer not be a part of the broadcast booth. It really hurt the broadcast last night when
Gus Johnson left the booth to let the other two talk about ramifications, since
the two of them are company guys. It
also helps with continuity to have the guys stay in the booth who are calling
the fight. That fight gets a (*) from
me. Pretty disappointing.
Between Fights:
We get shots of Chuck Liddell, Anderson Silva, and Stephan
Bonnar in the crowd. I enjoy seeing
those guys in the WEC events as much as I like seeing the WEC guys at UFC
events. Both of these lend WEC
credibility.
Craig Hummer interviews Lightweight Champion Jamie Varner in
the crowd. They talk about his next
opponent in August, Marcus Hicks. That
should be a good fight, as Hicks lives up to his “Wrecking Ball” nickname.
They go directly from the interview into the pre-fight hype
for the next bout.
The Second Fight:
Mark Munoz vs. Chuck Grigsby (Light Heavyweight)
I don’t know much about either of these guys, other than the
fact that Grigsby is 6’6” and he’s got Rage Against the Machine as his entrance
music. So I’m taking him by TKO in the
second by virtue of those things.
Round One:
Todd Harris astutely points out that both guys seem a little
out of their element. This is
understandable for Munoz, in his fourth pro fight, but Grigsby looks like a
rookie and this is his 19th.
Maybe it’s jitters from being on a bigger stage. Munoz seems to find his legs about halfway
through the round as he gets Grigsby on the mat. He basically postures up time after time and
brings down huge lunging punches. He
catches Grigsby with a big left, and on the next lunge, Grigsby goes for a
kneebar. This seals his fate as he
leaves his head open and Munoz knocks him cold at
4:15
Post-Fight:
Munoz gets lots of love from the hometown crowd, and he says
he’s dropped out of school to pursue MMA full-time. I’d give that fight a solid (**). Not the prettiest thing, but Munoz shows some
promise. I wasn’t very impressed with
Grigsby. We go right to the next fight
from here. The pacing of this show is
immaculate so far. I hope someone at CBS
is watching and writing down questions to ask Gary Shaw about why his show was
so awful last night in ways that had nothing to do with the fights.
The Third Fight:
Danny Castillo vs. Donald Cerrone (Prelim)
We get some quick pre-fight vignettes, short and sweet, and
they don’t show the entrances. That’s
how you show a prelim. I like how we get
a staredown for each fight in WEC. I
wonder why the UFC doesn’t do that. I’ve
got Cerrone here by virtue of training with Greg Jackson, since I only know
that about him (in addition to having seen him on the first season of Tapout,
which is an unwatchable show, by the way.)
Round One:
Cerrone transitions in and out of about three submissions,
and Frank Mir calls it really well. And
just as Castillo seems to have escaped, Cerrone locks in an armbar, causing a
verbal submission. The crowd is a bit
deflated as the hometown boy loses, but they’re not very polite as they give Cerrone
no reaction for winning.
Post-Fight:
Not much to it. It
was over in less than a minute, and Cerrone will be an interesting prospect to
watch in the WEC as he’s won all his fights by submission, including a win over
Kenneth Alexander that was overturned due to Cerrone testing positive for a
diuretic. I’d give that fight a (*+).
Between Fights:
We get a quick interview with Welterweight Champ Carlos Condit,
who will fight Hiromitsu Miura in August.
Miura has won two straight since dropping a decision to Jason Miller in May
of last year.
The Fourth Fight: Miguel
Torres vs. Yoshiro Maedes (Bantamweight Title)
We get the regular pre-fight hype, and we’re in for a treat
here. Torres is a beast, and he can go
as many rounds as he needs to. I don’t
know a lot about Maeda, other than he’s got a bunch of TKO victories and he’s
spent a lot of time fighting in
Japan. He’s fought in Pancrase, DEEP, and Pride
among others.
Round One:
Great staredown between these two. Torres looks intense. That intensity carries into a great round one
by both fighters. Maeda seems to have an
edge in brute strength, but Torres clearly has an advantage on the ground. Both of these guys are looking to stop this
fight, jumping on opportunities to get in offense. Torres seems angry. He takes round one.
Round Two:
There are some serious head games going on here as Maeda
unleashes a torrent of kicks on to the legs of Torres on the ground, and Torres
mocks him, leading Maeda to smile and drop his hands, followed by a swift kick
to the head by Torres. This is followed
by a great exchange from the clinch and a double toehold. Torres almost ends the fight with a rear
naked choke and then by inflicting punishment from the mount, and then by choke
again. The round ends and Torres takes
it. This is shaping up to be a classic.
Round Three:
It seems about halfway through the round that Maeda is
getting tired. Hard to blame him with
the punishment he’s taken. Torres takes
a slower but still solid round three, and as we come back from the commercial
break we see that the fight has been stopped before the fourth round due to
Maeda’s eye being swollen shut. That’s
one aspect of production that EliteXC got right yesterday. Not having commercials between rounds was
very nice. Of course you’ve got to put
them somewhere, right?
Post-Fight:
You’re not going to see a better round than the second in
this fight. That was absolutely
spectacular. The first started out with
a feeling-out period and some fireworks, then the classic second round, and
Torres just hit his stride in the third and put Maeda away. I’m giving it (****+). I need to watch Hansen-Alvarez from Dream 3
again, but this fight and that one are neck-and-neck for Fight of the Year for
me.
The Fifth Fight:
Jens Pulver vs. Urijah Faber (Featherweight Title)
Mir and Harris talk about the main event. Mir points out that Pulver is undefeated at
145, which adds a certain level of intrigue to the already very intriguing
fight. Pulver decimated Cub Swanson, who
is hardly a tomato can. The pre-fight
vignette is pretty cool. The great thing
about Pulver is that he doesn’t have to talk trash in order to sound like he’s
talking trash. I’m taking Faber here by
fourth round TKO. Pulver enters to “Thunderstruck”,
which is good entrance music. The crowd
shows some respect for Pulver, which is nice.
Faber enters to “California Love”, which is awesome in a different
way. I’m an East Coast guy, but that
song is great.
Round One:
Faber is working the strikes here, and Pulver seems
rattled. He’s not hurt, but he seems to
be surprised by what’s happening. Faber
slips and Pulver follows quickly, which speaks to the fact that he does not
like getting hit by Faber. There’s an
accidental poke to the eye, and the fight is not stopped (another advantage of
this show over last night’s.) Round one
ends, and Faber will take it. Pulver
will look to get his feet under him in round two, as he seemed a little
surprised about what happened in the first five minutes.
Round Two:
Faber wobbled Pulver seriously with a shot, and then he
attacked Pulver with some huge flurries.
Pulver unbelievably weathered and went on the attack himself. Faber seemed surprised that the fight was
still going on at that point and he came close to getting caught in a
choke. Faber continues to pour on the
punishment, and Pulver just smiles at him.
He’s feeling it though, as he checks the clock multiple times and then
takes a knee at the end of the round.
Second frame goes to Faber. Great fight.
Round Three:
Faber continues to punish Pulver in this round, and Pulver
looks tired. Faber wins the round again.
Round Four:
Pulver is able to minimize the damage here, but it’s another
round for Faber. It looks like he may
have caught Pulver in the throat with some elbows from the guard. Ouch.
Round Five:
Faber makes it a clean sweep over an extremely game and
tough Jens Pulver.
Post-Fight:
I give this one a (****-)
There was a lot of action here, and some great back-and-forth. The rating gets an extra kicker for living up
to such a huge hype. What we really need
now is a fight between Urijah Faber and “Kid” Yamamoto. That would be a battle for the ages with the
striking that Faber showed tonight. I
wonder a bit if Pulver’s chin is that good or if Faber’s striking just wasn’t
enough to put him away. Of course, all
those years of fighting bigger guys probably didn’t do a disservice to Pulver’s
chin. Faber looked excellent going five
rounds for the first time.
Overall Thoughts:
I’m working early tomorrow, so I won’t be able to get in on
the audio show tonight, but my initial reaction is that WEC delivers again. These guys have been putting on high-quality
shows since being purchased by Zuffa, and their production values, commentary,
pacing, and complete package have been second to none. If you’re not watching WEC right now, you are
missing out. This is what EliteXC
should have emulated last night. You can’t
always help fight quality, but you can help everything else.
