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Mike Jarsulic, Torch Columnist (7.0)
Both of the championship fights exceeded my expectations. Although the
Urijah Faber/Jens Pulver fight was a one-sided beating, it provided a
good amount of excitement and solidified Faber as the best
featherweight in the sport. Surprisingly, Faber won the standup battle
by demonstrating much improved striking ability. Pulver, in defeat,
hung in there for five rounds with a much superior fighter and should
be commended for his performance.
In the bantamweight title match, Yoshiro Maeda put on a tremendous
performance by making Miguel Torres look human in the first round. In
the second round, both fighters put on an MMA clinic that was better
than any action on the EliteXC network debut. The highlight for me was
the dueling toeholds. Torres came on in the third round and picked
Maeda apart to force a stoppage in what was the best fight of the night.
There were, however, quite a few negative aspects to the show. The
entire televised event only seemed to feature fighters from the
Sacramento area. This penalized the fans watching on television the
opportunity to see the Nogueira/Aldo and Curran/Brown fights, which
were a lot more important in the WEC Featherweight Championship
picture. Also, the pre-fight interviews with the fighters need to go.
I'm sick of hearing athletes talk in cliches, especially in MMA. I
don't need to hear nonsense about ripping an opponent's head off,
especially when an honest assessment of an opponent could provide so
much more.
Matt Pelkey, Torch Columnist (9.0)
Now this is the show that should've been shown to the
CBS audience. WEC was the big winner this weekend. The pacing was
great, the commentary was solid as always, and we got two GREAT fights.
The opener was the only thing keeping this from being a 10.0 show.
Razor Rob was clearly gun shy and it got the show off to a boring
start. Everything was great from there though. Light-heavyweight and
middleweight contenders were established in Mark Munoz and Donald
Cerrone, respectively. And then there was Maeda vs. Torres. Clearly the
fight of the year so far in my opinion, this was MMA at its best. Great
intensity, great strikes, great groundwork. Just plain great. Oh, and
this was a good stoppage. Maeda's eye was completely closed. Miles away
from the Lawler-Smith situation. The main event also delivered on the
huge hype. It was fairly one-sided, but the crowd was hot and Faber got
taken to the limit for the first time since losing to Tyson Griffin.
Speaking of which, what are the chances Griffin could be talked into
dropping ten pounds for a rematch against the California Kid? Then Jens
Pulver can get another win under his belt in the meantime, and then
we'll be ready for that rematch. Sounds like a plan to me.
Frank Hyden, MMATorch Contributor (8.5)
Tonight's show was a very good one. Miguel Torres
closing Yoshiro Maeda's right eye to force the ref stoppage and secure his first
title defense was the Fight of the Night for me. Coming in a close second was
Urijah Faber successfully defending his belt against Jen Pulver. I got to wonder
who's next for both Torres and Faber. Mark Munoz looked good in his win over
Chuck Grigsby and Donald Cerrone looked fantastic in beating Danny Castillo so
quickly.
The only major disappointments were Rob McCullough
edging Kenneth Alexander in an absolute borefest and the fact that the show went
to commercial break 3 minutes into the show. EliteXC did the same thing and it's
an incredibly dumb thing to do. There's a number of people who are
channel-surfing, trying to find something to watch at this time. They pass these
shows but they're at commercial so people keep on flipping. These companies
should start the program with a fight. Or at least not go to commercial so
quick. And how about some better time management? There was only 5 fights on a 2
hour show yet they ran over by 20 minutes or so. Those who recorded this show to
watch later will be upset if they didn't get the whole thing. All in all, 2 good fights and 2 very good fights.
WEC definitely delivered a great show.
Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief (8.0)
This was a highly exciting, enjoyable, and refreshing night of fights after the EliteXC show. This show really served to bring the excitement back to fight fans who were left with a bad taste in their mouth after MMA's first exposure to prime time. The Razor Rob fight was the only bad one on the main card, and he really just seemed to phone it in and do just enough to eke out that decision. He's going to need a couple more wins that are much more convincing if he wants to get back after the belt.
The two title fights were fantastic. Torres and Maeda put on a hell of a show. This one was stopped early, but unlike the night before, it was a necessary stoppage with how bad Maeda's eye looked. The second round of this fight was one of the most exciting rounds I've ever witnessed, with lots of drama and back and forth from both men. The third just became academic for Torres to keep landing left jabs to Maeda's right eye as it got increasingly closer to closing.
The main event lived up to the hype. Although they peaked 3/4 of the way through the third round, the fact that it even got to that point was astonishing. Jens Pulver can take a lot of punishment and survive, as evidenced by that second round. He looked out on his feet and somehow came back with a flurry of his own to force Faber to clinch and stop his barrage. Urijah Faber showed that he's a complete package in this fight, as I don't know if anyone realized how good his hands and his stand up actually were. He fought a smart fight, and a mostly exciting fight, in picking up the deserved unanimous finish.
WEC came off like a big deal on this night. I'm not sure if they've really been able to say that about themselves to this point, but this had a legit "big fight" feel to the whole night. They definitely left people wanting more and will have people excited for their next card in August.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
STAFF COLUMNISTS: Shawn Ennis - Jason Amadi
Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
Interested in joining MMATorch's writing team? Send idea for a theme to your column (for Specialist section) or area of interest (i.e. TV Reporter) along with a sample of writing to mmatorch@gmail.com.
