My Take On MMA 10.06.08: Final CBS/EliteXC Saturday Night Fights III – HEAT (10.04.08) Thoughts

Posted by Larry Csonka on 10.06.2008

Frank shoots on Ken, The Death of EliteXC, Dana White Wins, Kimbo Exposed; you take your pick.



WELCOME~!:
Again I welcome you to yet another edition of My Take on MMA! I am back to break down another MMA card, this time it is the CBS/EliteXC Saturday Night Fights III – HEAT event. Many have stated that this was a do or die event for the company as they needed to deliver a strong show with a good rating in hopes of staying alive in some form, likely a CBS/Viacom buy out of the promotion that is bleeding money so bad that TNA thinks they are a bad business. But with the show closing in on its start, things took a bad turn as it was announced that the commission doctor ruled Ken Shamrock unable to compete in the event's main event. Shamrock had a previous cut opened over his eye when training last night with Dan Freeman, who accidentally head butted him. They opened the show with an explanation and we saw the cut and stitches. Kimbo Slice's people were presented with Seth Petruzelli as a replacement, and there was a chance that Frank Shamrock could take Ken's place. There were the issues that he is not licensed to fight in Florida, the weight difference and also the fact Frank has not trained for the fight. In the end we got Seth Petruzelli, and what we saw was possibly the death of EliteXC. Let's get to work!



Final CBS/EliteXC Saturday Night Fights III – HEAT (10.04.08) Thoughts

The Fight: Middleweight Bout - Murilo "Ninja" Rua (16-8-1dr) vs. Benji Radach (18-4)
The Result: Benji Radach via RD2 (2:31) TKO
Final Thoughts: The night kicked off with a middleweight battle, and an important one at that. Rua was the former Middleweight Champion, and was looking to earn a victory here and get another shot at that title. With Lawler facing Villasenor on November 8th, a Rua victory would have all but guaranteed the title shot for Rua. Unfortunately no one informed Benji Radach that he was supposed to just let Rua steamroll over him. The first round was excellent and Radach took control early, dropped Rua and stayed on him. Rua recovered well and had some submission attempts, but it wasn't enough to stop Radach. I had Radach up after the first round, but it didn't matter because there would be no decision here. Radach caught Rua with a right, Rua slipped and went down and then Radach punched THROUGH his face as Rua was down on the mat and after a couple more rights, it was all over. Rua gets derailed in his attempt for a title shot here, while Radach looked extremely impressive. He takes the win on TV in front of a much larger audience than what would have been watching on Showtime, and I would go with him getting the winner of Lawler vs. Villasenor. Make fights when you can.
Larry's Enjoyment Index: 9.0

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The Fight: Women's 140-Pound Bout - Gina Carano (6-0) vs. Kelly Kobold (16-2-1)
The Result: Gina Carano via Unanimous Decision (29-28, 30-27, 30-27)
Final Thoughts: Our second match of the evening was Gina Carano vs. Kelly Kobold. Kobold had good experience, but had faltered recently against stronger competition. Gina barely made weight this time, and mentioned that she could move to 145. I think that would be just fine for Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos, who fought on this card at a 148-catch weight. We ended up with a decision victory here for Carano, who had the much better striking game and was able to mostly keep it on the feet. Kobold was expending a ton of energy trying to get Carano down, but as they stayed against the cage Carano was able to keep her weight on her, and that tired Kobold out. The second round I will say was close, and one judge did score it for Kobold, but for the most part she was no threat to Carano. With Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos winning as well they need to make this fight as soon as possible, because it is the only real money fight I feel that they have. Make fights when you can. And one last thing, PLEASE change it so that the ladies get 5-minuet rounds. All too often the round is just getting good when the 3-minutes are up. There is no reason that the ladies should not be fighting 5-minute rounds. Make it happen.
Larry's Enjoyment Index: 7.5

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The Fight: Heavyweight Bout - Andrei Arlovski (14-5) vs. Roy "Big Country" Nelson (13-2)
The Result: Andrei Arlovski via RD2 (3:14) TKO
Final Thoughts: 7.5
Larry's Enjoyment Index: Next up was a special attraction heavyweight bout, featuring a former UFC Champion facing a former IFL Champion, both fighting for Affliction, on an EliteXC show. Got all of that? Good. This was a fight with a guy that looks like an MMA fighter, Arlovski, and a guy that looks like, well, a guy in Nelson. Nelson has shown that he has good striking and that he can work the ground game, but he was taking a big step up in competition as he faced off with the former UFC Champion Arlovski. The live crowd hated the first round; but I liked it. Nelson had a good game plan and executed it well and he got Arlovski to the ground. Unfortunately for him there wasn't quite enough work and they got stood up. I did NOT like that standup because Nelson was working the whole time, and Arlovski was working from the bottom. This was poor officiating in my opinion. Arlovski's superior boxing skills were on display here. In the end a very close round, you could make an argument for either guy to take it. I thought Arlovski did more and had him taking round one. While round one went to plan for Nelson, he was out of gas in round two. Arlovski just obliterated him with a huge right hand and nelson face planted, and that was it. Nelson complained about the stoppage, but it was the right call in my opinion. As for Arlovski, he is now the IFL killer with wins over Rothwell and Nelson. Some have said that Arlovski isn't a top heavyweight anymore, but so many touted the skills of Rothwell and Nelson in the IFL, but at the end of the day Arlovski proved to be the superior fighter. Affliction needs to make Arlovski vs. Fedor and make it now. Make fights when you can.

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The Fight: EliteXC Welterweight Title Bout - Jake Shields © (21-4-1) vs. Paul Daley (18-6-2drs)
The Result: Jake Shields via RD2 (3:47) Submission
Final Thoughts: We moved onto out title fight for the evening with Jake Shields facing Paul Daley. Round one, with the exception of about 40-seconds felt like a clinic from Shields. After a very short feeling out process, took it to the ground and dominated. He had mount and was landing numerous shots to Daley, but nothing very damaging. Shields would look for the arm bar, but bad positioning near the cage stopped that. Daley came back at the end of the round, but Shields looked dominating here. The second round was not good to Shields in some ways, he looked tired and Daley was able to do some damage. Shields, after some failed attempts got Daley down, took mount, worked some ground and pound and then after some beautiful positioning Shields was finally able to take the arm bar for the win. Shields took the win here and continues his great run, but I will say that he looked far from "great." He did dominate at times, but his stand up did not look good, he appeared to have no power with his ground shots and looked very tired in round two. I know it has been a while since he was taken outside of the first round, but damn son, you still have to train for 5-rounds. As far as what is next for Shields, he wants the Middleweight Title that Lawler has. Lawler is facing Villasenor on the 8th of November, and if he wins that is another possible big fight they could do. Benji Radach did a lot to earn himself a title shot though, and while I think he deserves it, Elite needs to make money and put on big fights, and Lawler vs. Shields fits that bill. Make fights when you can.
Larry's Enjoyment Index: 7.0

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The Fight: Heavyweight Bout - Kimbo Slice (3-0) vs. Seth Petruzelli (10-4)
The Result: Seth Petruzelli via RD1 (0:14) TKO
Final Thoughts: Let's recap. It was announced that the commission doctor ruled Ken Shamrock unable to compete in the event's main event. Shamrock had a previous cut opened over his eye when training last night with Dan Freeman, who accidentally head butted him. They opened the show with an explanation and we saw the cut and stitches. Kimbo Slice's people were presented with Seth Petruzelli as a replacement, and there was a chance that Frank Shamrock could take Ken's place. There were the issues that he is not licensed to fight in Florida, the weight difference and also the fact Frank has not trained for the fight. In the end we got Seth Petruzelli, and that was the end of Kimbo Slice as Petruzelli got the TKO victory in 14-seconds.

Now…

Elite shouldn't have tried to replace the main event: I feel that Elite made a big mistake in trying to replace the Kimbo vs. Shamrock fight. I fully understand that they were the draw of the show, but with the Welterweight Title match on the show they could have switched that to the main event and then added the Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos match to the shoe, since they are building to her vs. Carano.

Kimbo's people should have taken the fight: I feel that the people surrounding Kimbo, Bas and Kimbo included made a poor decision in taking the replacement bout. While I can appreciate both guys stepping up to deliver a fight, it was just too dangerous. Kimbo may be a "fighter," but with his inexperience, it was an ill-advised decision in my eyes.

The announce team embarrassed themselves: I felt that the announce team completely embarrassed themselves after the fight was over. They went from stating that "Kimbo can fight anyone, anytime, anywhere under any circumstances" to "Kimbo wasn't mentally prepared, and deserves a mulligan." Mauro Ranallo in particular came off as a complete shill here, and I mean that in a bad way.

There is no positive here: While one could have argued that a Ken Shamrock victory had positives to it (an I was one of those people) I cannot think of a positive here. They can play this up as a huge upset all they want, but the fact is that Kimbo, their meal ticket (and he is, you don't have to be the best to be the draw, see Hogan, Hulk) got beat by a guy that wasn't even on the main card. With all of Elite's money issues, the last thing they needed was Kimbo losing.

When reached for comment, Dana White had this to say:

Dana White: I win…fuckers.

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The Overall:
Best Fight(s): Middleweight Bout - Murilo "Ninja" Rua (16-8-1dr) vs. Benji Radach (18-4) 9.0
Worst Fight: Nothing Bad
Final Thoughts: While the main event is possibly very damaging for the company, overall this was a good night of fights. I felt that everything delivered in the cage and I have no real complaints, I was entertained. But where does Elite go from here? Who knows how much longer they will be in operation, but as of now they have two possible fights that they need to make. They have to make Carano vs. Cyborg. They have people interested, they both have the exposure and they should make the fight as soon as possible and for the Women's Elite Title. The second is further down the line, again if they are still around and if they do sign Ortiz, and that is Tito vs. Frank Shamrock. Those two guys could sell anything to anyone, and the war of words would be worth it alone. And while it will likely never happen, I would love to see Elite and Affliction work together. The Arlovski/Nelson fight was a nice addition to the card, and I could watch FEDOR own TIMMAH all night long. Unfortunately I doubt that the logistics would work out for these two companies to work together, which is a shame.

Show Score: 8.0