It happened twice!... (w/update)

For those that need the "cut to the chase", both of my MMA events were cut off at the end this weekend!

For the details, keep reading.

If you've been keeping up on my blog, you know that there were two MMA events this past weekend that I was planning to watch. If you haven't been keeping up on my blog, first of all, why not?, and second, the two events were EliteXC's network debut on CBS, and the WEC on the Versus channel. EliteXC was Saturday night, and WEC Sunday night. I wanted to make sure I didn't miss them, so I set the TiVo to record them.

Saturday night, Jason and Kristi were over and spending the night before they headed home to Bullhead City, Arizona. They are MMA fans too, so we started watching from the beginning. The event had already started, but because of the TiVo, we can start watching from the beginning. There were some pretty good fights. Gina Carano's fight was really good. That was my first time seeing her fight MMA. I've seen her fight Muy Thai before, and if you search "muy thai" in Google image, the second image is of Gina as "Crush" from American Gladiators.

Gina Carano

Another fight I was interested in was Scott Smith challenging for the middleweight belt against the champ Robbie Lawler. Both of these guys have previously fought in the UFC. It was an ok fight. Neither guy looked that great. It ended with a poke in the eye of Scott Smith. He said he couldn't see out of that eye, but wanted to keep fighting. The ringside doctor stopped the fight. Turns out, telling the Doc. you can't see is a bad idea if you want to keep fighting. Oops. After that fight, was the main event featuring Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson, a street fighter turned pro MMA fighter. I was looking forward to seeing him fight, just to see how long his opponent would last.

Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson

But guess what happened?... the show was scheduled for 2 hours, so the TiVo records for that 2 hours, but the show is running late and the last fight didn't record! GGGGGRRRRR!!! You can set your TiVo to record past the end time, but why would I think to do that? It was on a national network channel! Don't they keep a tight show schedule? Man, I was so ticked. I haven't done so yet, but I'll have to try and find it on youtube so I can see it. Poopy.





Well, at least I'll have the WEC fights to make it all better Sunday night!...





There's no point in trying to watch fights when the kids are awake. Not so much because they'll see it (they don't really care if it's not one of their shows), but because they'll make too much noise, and need too much help with whatever, that I can't just sit and enjoy the fights. So it's usually best to wait till they're in bed. The two fights I was looking forward to the most were the two Championship fights. One for the Bantamweights (135 lbs.), and the other at Featherweight (145 lbs.). There was a pretty good Light heavyweight (205 lbs.) fight that saw a 6' 6" guy get knocked out during some ground and pound by a shorter guy. The bantamweight championship fight was really good. Both fighters had great stand up, and the majority of the fight was on the feet. There were times when the fight went to the ground, and the Champ, Miguel Torres, like an "octopus in quicksand" (his words), on the ground, so his opponent didn't want to be there long. The fight ended after the 3rd round due to the challengers right eye swelling shut. It was decided that he couldn't continue. I agree. He wasn't going to win that fight anyway, and it's better to stop while one eye can still see.

WEC Bantamweight champ- Miguel Torres

That meant the next fight was the Featherweight Championship featuring the Champ, Urijah Faber vs. MMA veteran Jens Pulver.







But guess what?... It cuts off!!! Just after Jens enters the cage, and before Urijah makes his way to the cage, it stops. NO WAY!! Not Again! I can't even begin to tell you how bummed I was. Luckily, Versus channel was re airing the fights immediately afterward, so I set the TiVo to record those fights too, and set the stop at 30 minutes after the fights were scheduled to end. A championship fight is five, 5 minute rounds, with 60 seconds between rounds, so hopefully, if it went the distance, it still records it all.



I hope that happens less from now on.

**fight spoilers in this update**

I went to watch the second WEC recording I set to record, and it too was cut off at the end! The first show going over made the second show run even longer over it's sheduled time!

Luckily for me, there are people that put stuff on youtube really fast. I was able to find the Kimbo Slice fight. Looks like if you can survive the first round with Kimbo, you might have a chance if you protect your chin. Kimbo had his first taste of the receiving end of some ground and pound, and it wore him out pretty quickly. Luckily for Kimbo, the ref stopped the fight either due to a cut on his opponents ear or the ref thought his opponent was not defending himself. My only thing about that is, that was the third time the fighter was taking that kind of damage, and he was able to continue fighting the other times, why stop it this time? There was also a time in the fight that Kimbo was pinned down in the second round, and he was not able to defend himself, and took dozens of blows, and the ref allowed it to continue. It felt a whole lot like EliteXC wanted to make sure their money maker won that fight. whether that's true or not, that's what it felt like to me.

The WEC fights were up on youtube as well. It took a little longer to find, but I found it. One of the things about a list of videos you're scanning, is you see more than you want. I was looking for the fight, but also saw that there were 5 rounds of fight listed. That meant that I knew before watching the first round, the fight has at least 5 rounds. It makes it a little less exciting. The 5th round was the most exciting because even though it's the last round, you have no idea if it goes the distance or finished by one of the fighters. It did go the distance, and Urijah was able to do more damage in each round, so he won by unanimous decision. It was actually a pretty action packed fight all though out. Good stuff.