My Take on MMA 8.27.07: Final SHOWXC Elite Challenger Series Vol. II Thoughts
Posted by Larry Csonka on 08.27.2007
While Randy Couture shows us everything that is right in MMA, Charles "Krazy Horse" Bennett shows us everything wrong with it.
Introduction:
Welcome back to the latest edition of My Take on MMA. As always I am your host Larry Csonka. What a night I have had. First of all I recapped the UFC 74 event live for you fine folks. Then I moved on and gave you my final thoughts on that show. I took a break from the writing for a bit, watched some Big Brother After Dark and then moved onto recap the latest SHOWXC event from 3am-5am. I decided to catch some sleep after that, but am BACK to break down that card as well. I hope that you all enjoy.
SHOWXC Vol. II– Krazy Horse vs. Boxer~!:
The Fight: MIDDLEWEIGHT BOUT - Brandon Tierney (5-0) vs. Umar Luv (5-1) The Result: Umar Luv via RD 1 submission Larry's Enjoyment Index: 5.0 Final Thoughts: Our opening bout was male model/MMA fighter Brandon Tierney vs. Umar Luv, who has a background with pro wrestling. Brandon Tierney looks solid early as he landed some combos and kicks to Luv, and in the initial minutes of the match he looked like he would dominate. Unfortunately for young Brandon Tierney, Umar Luv had much different plans. Luv would land a HUGE right and drop Tierney. Luv would dominate the top while Tierney kept trying to crawl to the cage. Luv smartly dominated the top with hammer fists and eventually got the rear naked choke for the round one submission. While not a greatly exciting bout, this was the bout that showed the best skills of the night, which I greatly appreciated. I also greatly appreciated the post match promo by Luv. Luv said, "Tierney is good, a good fighter but inexperienced. I respect him and will not be immature and bad mouth, there's no room for that after our fight, it was a hell of a try, but tonight I was the better man." A good show of class from Luv, and I now want to see more of him if he acts this way all the time.
The Fight: 195lbs CATCH WEIGHT BOUT - Hector Urbina (8-3) vs. Ray Lazama (5-4) The Result: Hector Urbina via decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28) Larry's Enjoyment Index: 1.0 Final Thoughts: When this fight was over I had told JT and posted on the forum that, "I had just seen the worst MMA fight of 2007." Upon reflection, it still is one of the worst, but not quite the worst. But let's discuss the fight. Hector Urbina looked like a young retarded man. He came out and threw wild shots, punches, kicks and knees and landed about none of them. For comparison, remember the first time you got a fighting video game and you decided you didn't need the instruction manual. So then you started to play this grappling game and began BUTTOM MASHING. You just started hitting shit and the fighter you selected on the screen looked like a retard throwing 800 things and landing 5 of them. That was Hector Urbina. Lazama would land enough to get round one, because he didn't look like a retard. The second round saw the sloppiness of Hector Urbina continue. Retarded monkey shots, flying kicks and knees and Superman punches that mostly all misses. Luckily for him Lazama decided to do jack shit and Urbina won a very sloppy round. The third round saw both men gassed beyond all belief and Urbina still fought like a retarded chimpanzee. He finally settled in the final 2-minutes and landed solid stuff. He took the fight via unanimous decision and after the fight he said, "I'm aground guy, but as you can see, my stand up was good enough to win." Good enough because you fought a slug and landed 100 shots to the guy, which you should have because you through 5,000 punches and kicks. A truly horrible bout.
The Fight: HEAVYWEIGHT BOUT - David Huckaba (5-1) vs. Jon Murphy (3-2) The Result: Jon Murphy via RD 2 (0:19) KO Larry's Enjoyment Index: 5.5 Final Thoughts: This was our only heavyweight bout of the evening, and while it was a bit sloppy it was an entertaining bout. David Huckaba is the reigning and not defending Gladiator Challenge Heavyweight Champion. I do not know why they didn't do a title match here. I mean, if you have the chance, wouldn't you WANT to have title fights on these shows? Anyway, these two came out and they went to town. Murphy landed a he suplex early and continued to do a lot of damage. They got stood up at one point, which I disagreed with as they were working, but what can you do. Murphy went for an arm bar towards the end and totally missed the arm in comical fashion, but still managed to snag it and about tore Huckaba's arm off, but he escaped and the round ended. Round two began and Murphy just knocked Huckaba the hell out with two brutal shots in devastating fashion. A fine bout here and Jon Murphy is now the UNCROWNED Gladiator Challenge Heavyweight Champion.
The Fight: MIDDLEWEIGHT BOUT - Jaime Jara (16-4) vs. Seth Kleinbeck (7-3) The Result: Seth Kleinbeck via RD 2 (4:58) TKO (Strikes) Larry's Enjoyment Index: 3.0 Final Thoughts: We saw Jaime Jara on the first SHOWXC affair as he because a dual champion for the Gladiator Challenge promotion is a rather poor bout. One month in between matches isn't that smart in my eyes, but these lower level guys do it a lot but I think it really hurt Jaime Jara here. Jara looked bad here as he did Jack and Shit the entire round, allowing Kleinbeck to dominate him. Kleinbeck looked good while Jara stood there and took shots. This went on and with 2-seconds left, Kleinbeck nailed Jara with a huge right, he dropped him and before he could charge in the ref just stopped it. Jara looked fine, and I felt this was a poor stoppage. Jara is dropping to welterweight and giving up the middleweight title, which he should just hand to Kleinbeck. Seth Kleinbeck is now the UNCROWNED Gladiator Challenge Middleweight and Welterweight Champion.
The Fight: LIGHTWEIGHT BOUT - Charles "Krazy Horse" Bennett (18-13-2) vs. Victor "Joe Boxer" Valenzuela (5-2-2) The Result: Victor "Joe Boxer" Valenzuela via RD 1 (3:23) Tap due to Strikes Larry's Enjoyment Index: 0.0 Final Thoughts: This was the "marquee" match of the evening, a match that was supposed to happen on PPV but Bennett got into legal trouble. He came out and right away was disrespectful as he laid down during introductions and they ignored the referee during the instructions. When the bout began he dropped Boxer and then tried to capitalize, but couldn't. From then on Boxer was in control. You couldn't tell at times if Bennett was faking hurt or was really hurt but he didn't look all there. Boxer eventually dropped him, got his back and as he started to land shots, Bennett tapped to strikes. He laid there as the doctor came to check on him, and then he jumped up and ran to the back, another sign of disrespect. Gary Shaw, Showtime and the XC organization should be ashamed of themselves. MMA is still fighting an uphill battle in the mainstream media, and while there are great stories like Randy Couture, and it is great and does a lot for the sport, thugs, and yes he IS a thug, thugs like Bennett really devalue the sport. Please sever all ties and never use this loser again. Charles Bennett is a piece of shit and everything MMA should NOT be.
The Overall: Best Fight: HEAVYWEIGHT BOUT - David Huckaba (5-1) vs. Jon Murphy (3-2) 5.5 Worst Fight: LIGHTWEIGHT BOUT - Charles "Krazy Horse" Bennett (18-13-2) vs. Victor "Joe Boxer" Valenzuela (5-2-2) 0.0 Show Score: 3.0 Final Thoughts: This show was a downgrade from the debut show. The video packages are still rough and cheap looking, and while I understand that this is a "low fighters league" for lack of a better term, that doesn't mean that you have to have cheap production. And that's what we had here again tonight; there is no excuse this time. I will say that I liked them using the larger ELITEXC cage, it looks much better and more "big time." As for the fights, two average fights, one bad fight, a horrible fight and an absolute abortion of a fight in total, and that is definitely enough for a big thumbs down here. There is no reason for you to catch a replay, move along, nothing to see here. Also, Charles Bennett is a piece of shit.
