Planet Tapout 12.11.07: Mayweather, Hatton and Huerta Oh My!

Posted by Lotfi Sariahmed on 12.11.2007

After a big weekend of fights, 411Mania's Lotfi Sariahmed is back with another edition of Planet Tapout! With the TUF 6 Finale going up against Mayweather v. Hatton it was boxing v. MMA again. Lotfi Sariahmed tells you why the boxing still has the upper hand. All that plus Miscellaneous Musings and This Week in Fight Picks all the in latest edition!

Welcome to the MMA column that still wonders how Michael Vick could have really been that dumb. It's Planet Tapout everybody and you know me. I'm Lotfi Sariahmed. No mailbag this week as we're all still clearly doing our Christmas shopping. But let me say once again that there's nothing to be afraid of. Come on in, the water's fine. The email address remains the same. It's [e-mail] . Now lets tango.


So did you see the big fight this weekend? What a fight it was. There was great action throughout the entire bout and what a finish to the fight too. Everyone was on their feet yelling and screaming because the fight was just that exciting. Now, since this is an MMA column and most of you reading this are MMA fans (or at least I'd assume you'd be), you probably think I'm talking about the fight between Clay Guida and this man.



But what about this other bout from the combat sports world featuring two undefeated fighters?




Maybe its Jim Lampley who got this whole thing started but ever since MMA started taking off, there's always been this competition between the two sports. In a sense you could understand why. Very rarely in our society is everyone just ok with the way things are. There always has to be something or someone that's always to be better than something or someone else. So that's why for every Lampley rant about how bad MMA is, you have the Sherdog forum army up in arms sending angry letters. Boxing and MMA both took advantage of this competition earlier in the year prior to Floyd Mayweather's bout against Oscar De La Hoya. Mayweather tried to hype up his bout even more saying any good boxer could knock out a UFC fighter. Dana White and the UFC's lightweight champ at the time, Sean Sherk, fired back challenging Mayweather to a bout. Of course that fight never materialized but it was all for hype on both sides anyway. Heck I'm actually in the works of putting together a year-end column featuring 411's head honchos in boxing and MMA (Ramon Aranda and Caleb Newby) to debate who had the better year. So I'm just as guilty of playing this battle up. And of course, lets not forget this gem on Sportscenter not too far back.



So everyone's always trying to decide who's the best. Of course the right answer is there is no best and comparing the two sports to try and figure out the "superior" combat sport is a bit silly. But the fights on Saturday night showed MMA fans why the sport is as popular as it is and why it could get even bigger.

Take this for what it's worth, but I decided to watch the Mayweather v. Hatton fight live and catch the replay of The Ultimate Fighter Finale card. Mind you I did this knowing I had that option to fall back on, but you see my point. The Huerta v. Guida bout screamed of great action. These are two fast-paced lightweights whom would have the platform to show off their talents. Lets not forget we weren't only getting a great lightweight bout. While the other televised bouts left something to be desired when it came to star power, there were some great bouts. Only one bout went to a decision with Ben Saunders beating Dan Barrera again. Six out of the nine bouts on the card ended in the first round and two of the bouts that didn't, just so happened to be the best bouts on the card. I already told you about the main event, but there was also Jared Rollins v. John Koppenhaver which was a great bout as well that ended in the third round. Both the main event and J-Roc v. War Machine were great bouts that told different stories. J-Roc v. War Machine was a back and forth brawl and Koppenhaver pulls it out in the end with a switch of all things and some ground ‘n' pound. The Huerta v. Guida main event was a great comeback story. Guida dominated those first two rounds and it seemed like Huerta had no answer for whatever "The Carpenter" tried to do. Then came that third round. All of a sudden Guida's take downs weren't working and a rear naked choke later we're looking at a top 10 lightweight in Huerta with a load of momentum behind him. Was this the best card in MMA this year? Absolutely not. This might not have been the best TV card this year. But it was a card that showed exactly what MMA is at this point. MMA sells itself on the fights. Its product is second to none and keeps the fans coming back because on any card you could be treated to a fight of the year candidate or a back and forth war, or in this case both.

But for as popular as MMA has become, I still would have seen Mayweather v. Hatton over the TUF 6 Finale even if there weren't a replay. Here's why. Nothing matches the ambiance for a big title fight. Nothing. At least not yet. Mayweather v. Hatton was already a big enough fight from a boxing perspective. Here you had two undefeated highly entertaining fighters that would go at in Las Vegas. The skill of the fighters involved should have been reason enough to get even the casual boxing fan to throw in a few bucks with buddies or at a sports bar to watch this PPV. But then you throw in the patriotism in this fight and you have a must-see. Hatton seemingly brought all of Manchester and its surrounding areas to Las Vegas with him for this bout. Word was there were more than 10,000 Englishmen in Vegas to see "The Hitman." In seemingly every interview or press conference or really anything that was hyping the fight, it seemed like you could hear the song from the Hitman faithful.

There's only one Ricky Hatton!
There's only one Ricky Hatton!
Walking along
Singing a song
Walking in a Hatton Wonderland!

That's why Mayweather came out of "retirement" to fight Hatton. Mayweather's always a draw and he was just looking for another one. He got that in Hatton and that's how the fans got this fight. It's the big fight atmosphere that keeps boxing as strong as it is. You just don't have the same bells and whistles to an MMA bout yet. If you watched the PPV, you can't tell me there's been an MMA bout that's had the same sort of buzz in the arena. And that doesn't really fall on anyone. It wasn't so long ago that everyone wanted to say that boxing was dead and it was only a matter of time before MMA took over as the sport. For as entertaining as both cards were, boxing still has that one thing that MMA won't have for a while. Nothing gets fans to the TV more than a big boxing bout. Could MMA get to that point? Just as long as Dana White or anyone else doesn't run it into the ground absolutely. But this weekend should prove that any coronation of MMA as the #1 combat sport was a bit foolish and ill timed.


Miscellaneous Musings!
●Roger Huerta v. Clay Guida is without question the Fight of the Year in the UFC. Is it MMA's Fight of the Year? Well it depends on how you look at the Diaz v. Gomi bout. I'm still with Huerta v. Guida because I think it had a bigger impact on both fighters and if you want to get REALLY nitpicky, Diaz never beat Gomi.

●And all of a sudden Mark Cuban has thrown his weight around in MMA. HDNet Fights: Reckless Abandon, IFL's Grand Prix Finals and Yarennoka will all be on HDNet coming up. Now all Cuban needs to do is figure out a way to get HDNet to more televisions across the country and Dana White's top spot could be in trouble.

●Speaking of Cuban, could Floyd Mayweather get no one else to be in his entourage? For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, Cuban came out to the ring behind Mayweather holding two of his title belts. I understand Cuban was on Dancing with the Stars with Mayweather but it looked a bit ridiculous.

●Forrest Griffin and Quinton "Rampage" Jackson are coaches for The Ultimate Fighter 7…I don't care.

●To be fair, it'll be an interesting title bout when Rampage finally fights Forrest in 2012.

●Sean Sherk was stripped of his lightweight belt by the UFC after a ruling FINALLY came down from the CSAC. Sure, it might not mean anything because Sherk's next bout will probably be for the title against either Penn or Stevenson in April or May. But at least the move was made. This is just another situation where the UFC can't win. If the UFC did not strip Sherk people would have been up in arms screaming and now people are indifferent.

●Travis Lutter v. Rich Franklin. How the mighty have fallen. This could have been for the middleweight title back at UFC 67.

●As for MMA coming up, there will be an upset on the WEC card on Wednesday. I just can't help but shake this idea that Jens Pulver is over the hill and really serving as a launchpad for Cub Swanson.

This Week in Fight Picks!

WEC 31: Faber v. Curran!
Brian Bowles over Marcos Galvao
Ian McCall over Charlie Valencia
Alex Karalexis over Ed Ratcliff
Eric Schambari over Bryan Baker
John Alessio over Todd Moore

Light Heavyweight Title Fight
Doug Marshall over Ariel Gandulla

Middleweight Title Fight
Paulo Filho over Chael Sonnen

Cub Swanson over Jens Pulver

Featherweight Title Fight
Urijah Faber over Jeff Curran


HDNet Fights: Reckless Abandon!
Lee King over Marcus Lanier
Jason House over Liam McCarty
Patrick Castillo over Jay White
Chris Bowles over Cory Mahon
Krzysztof Soszynski over Robert Villegas
Freddie Espiricueta over Nissen Osterneck
Tristan Yunker over Pete Spratt
Yves Edwards over Alonzo Martinez
Frank Trigg over Edwin Dewees
Jason Miller over Tim Kennedy

That's it for this week on Planet Tapout! Make sure you don't forget about the mailbag. Send me your thoughts and fight predictions or otherwise. The email address is [e-mail] .

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Make sure you come back next Tuesday for another edition of Planet Tapout! This week in MMA gives us a few interesting fight cards to look out for. There's another Rio Heroes card scheduled for today (Tuesday depending on when you're reading this). Of course on Wednesday we have WEC 31. On the card Urijah Faber takes on Jeff Curran as the main event for the featherweight belt. Doug Marshall takes on Ariel Gandulla for Marshall's light heavyweight belt and Paulo Filho's back for his first middleweight title defense against Chael Sonnen. Also on the card we have Jens Pulver taking on Cub Swanson. But that's not all this week. There's a TKO card on Friday featuring Mark Hominick and Stephane Vigneault. ICON Sport's card took a bit of a hit with Robbie Lawler off the card but they still have one on Saturday. Then the week wraps up with the HDNet Fights card featuring Frank Trigg and Jason "Mayhem" Miller. Is that enough for you? Enjoy the fights everybody.