Fedor vs. Rogers on CBS = Meh
Apparently, I'm in the minority, but I was hardly blown away by last night's Fedor vs. Rogers MMA card on CBS. I thought it was amateur hour in many ways, what with Frank Shamrock utterly refusing to answer Mauro's repeated requests on scoring a round, making both men look like complete goofs, the CBS crew cutting to an interview with Fedor that became an interview with a Russian through a translator telling us why we weren't getting an interview with Fedor, and a five-round lay-and-pray fight between Jason Miller and Jake Shields that had approximately 6 seconds of drama when Shields nearly got choked out but was literally saved by the bell at the end of the round.
Plus, there's no better way to look minor league than to put Big John McCarthy on the show as a referee, and he gets the biggest cheers of the night up to that point. Yeah, when the referee is a bigger star than every fighter who has appeared on the show thus far, you're in trouble.
Not to mention, if you were a new viewer, you really had no idea what you were watching. Was it name of the promotion Strikeforce M-1 Global? Was it Strikeforce M-1 Global WAMMA? And the commentators, as usual on these types of shows, kept putting over UFC and burying their own promotion, the biggest example of which was mentioning that Sokoudjou was on a great run before he went to UFC, had a terrible time in UFC and couldn't beat any of the competition there, and now he's in Strikeforce! Yay! We get to see a guy not good enough for UFC!
OK, the Fedor vs. Rogers fight was exciting, and Brett "No One Has Ever Heard Of Me Before Tonight" Rogers came pretty close to winning in the first round. (Which does explain why Fedor signed with Strikeforce - Brock Lesnar would destroy Fedor in UFC.) Jason Miller's entrance made him a gigantic star, even if the fight was kinda dull.
On the whole, though, CBS needed to do better than this.
Plus, there's no better way to look minor league than to put Big John McCarthy on the show as a referee, and he gets the biggest cheers of the night up to that point. Yeah, when the referee is a bigger star than every fighter who has appeared on the show thus far, you're in trouble.
Not to mention, if you were a new viewer, you really had no idea what you were watching. Was it name of the promotion Strikeforce M-1 Global? Was it Strikeforce M-1 Global WAMMA? And the commentators, as usual on these types of shows, kept putting over UFC and burying their own promotion, the biggest example of which was mentioning that Sokoudjou was on a great run before he went to UFC, had a terrible time in UFC and couldn't beat any of the competition there, and now he's in Strikeforce! Yay! We get to see a guy not good enough for UFC!
OK, the Fedor vs. Rogers fight was exciting, and Brett "No One Has Ever Heard Of Me Before Tonight" Rogers came pretty close to winning in the first round. (Which does explain why Fedor signed with Strikeforce - Brock Lesnar would destroy Fedor in UFC.) Jason Miller's entrance made him a gigantic star, even if the fight was kinda dull.
On the whole, though, CBS needed to do better than this.
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