Quick thoughts on The Ultimate Fighter Finale

• I learned my lesson from previous TUF finales. I DVR'd this show, and started watching it about 60 minutes in. By the time the main event was over, I had caught up to the live broadcast. So I watched a 3-hour show in 2 hours. That made it bearable.
• I was happy that Amir won the TUF title, but it looked more like CB's hand slipped onto Amir's leg and not a tap. It was very interesting that during the post-fight interviews, there was not a single mention of the controversial (non)tap despite the fact that CB was obviously upset about it.
• Amir's got a ton of charisma and he's funny as heck. Let's now see what he does against real competition. Remember, he's now just 1-0 in MMA.
• OK, the judge who scored the main event 29-28 in favor of Evan Tanner should never be allowed to judge again. Particularly when the other two judges had Tanner losing one round 10-8.
• All in all, a thumbs in the middle show. Nothing terribly exciting but nothing awful. I'm not sure if I would have felt the same way, though, had I watched it live without being able to fast-forward through all the commercials, interviews, etc.
  

The UFC's big announcement is ...

... kinda underwhelming.

Ah, well, I await listening to Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez's audio update from earlier this afternoon to explain it all to me.

Is this UFC's big announcement tomorrow?

MMAPayout.com: The Business of MMA: Update on UFC's Major Announcement

MMAPayout.com has learned that Bertelsmann Media, a German based international entertainment company, is rumored to have had advanced discussions about acquiring a controlling interest in Zuffa.

Hmmm ... if this is it, I have decidedly mixed feelings about it. The plus side would be Bertelsmann would likely have way more leverage to get UFC a major TV deal. But as we've seen in pro-wrestling (Hello, Ted Turner's WCW!) just having a big corporate media owner doesn't necessarily guarantee huge success.

Sorry, no witty Star Wars related headline

But go figure ...

Trivia: George Lucas’s Daughter is an MMA Fighter | /Film

One more thought on Elite XC's debut last night

Did no one at CBS or Elite XC have a run-time sheet for the event?

It was scheduled for a two hour block. It went 2 hours and 50 minutes. That's a BIG overtime run.

There were, what, five fights on the show?

One was a title fight - so it had the potential to go 25 minutes, plus at least 10 minutes ancillary time for interviews, intros, round breaks, etc. Let's be extra generous and say 40 minutes for the title fight in total.

There were 3 other matches that had the potential to go 15 minutes each. That's another 45 minutes, plus a minimum of 15 minutes of ancillary time.

Already, we're up to ONE HOUR AND FORTY MINUTES OF A TWO HOUR SHOW!

And THEN there's the women's fight: a maximum of 9 minutes, plus minimum 5 minutes ancillary time for ring intros, etc., so that's FOURTEEN MINUTES.

In other words, if every fight went the distance and Elite XC did NO backstage interviews, NO introduction of new fans to MMA, no highlight packages, personality profiles or ANYTHING ELSE, last night's card could have featured ONE HOUR AND FIFTY FOUR MINUTES of fight time with intros and round breaks - NOT COUNTING COMMERCIALS!

I ask again: DID ANYONE AT CBS OR ELITE XC PUT THE CARD TO A RUN-TIME? Or did they DELIBERATELY schedule the show for 2 hours knowing full well it was going to go 3?

Sure, this was the debut of Mixed Martial Arts in network primetime. But in this regard, CBS and Elite XC showed just how not-ready-for-primetime they were.

EDIT, 6:37 p.m.: Mauro Ranallo (one of the announcers on last night's show) just said on Wrestling Observer Live that the show went so long that his DVR cut out before the Kimbo Slice main event. So, yeah, really lousy time management on the part of Elite XC and CBS.

This just screams "pro-wrestling angle"

Kimbo Slice and Brett Rogers in altercation at EliteXC press conference | MMAjunkie.com

Elite XC debut on CBS

Thumbs in the middle.
Best fight: Gina Carano's fight
Worst fight: Kimbo's fight

Well, after the Gina Carano fight was done, I thought the Elite XC show was going to be a big thumbs up. Unfortunately, by the time it ended, it was a thumbs in the middle show due to the no-contest between Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith and then Kimbo being totally exposed as a bad fighter (yes, we're all shocked ... ) in the main event. And there's no excuse for such terrible time management on such an important show. Running almost an hour overtime is inexcusable, particularly given that this was the kind of show a lot of MMA fans would just set on the DVR and watch later tonight or tomorrow.

In the end, this really did remind me of the old late 1980s AWA or early 1990s WCW trying to run a big show pretending they were major league when they so obviously were not. The announcers (Mauro, particularly) constantly referring to Pride and UFC didn't help matters any. It was entertaining (mostly) but in the end, it's not going to change anything in the MMA world.

Legends of Fighting Double KO

More wacky!


http://view.break.com/505060 - Watch more free videos

King of the Cage Double KO

Wacky!


http://view.break.com/509146 - Watch more free videos

There are no words

MICHAEL JACKSON LOVES THE UFC

Where to watch UFC shows in Edmonton

There's a UFC pay-per-view tonight, so time for my monthly post on where to find a bar to watch UFC in Edmonton.

We stand on guard for thee!

UFC® : Ultimate Fighting Championship®

The link above is to a UFC news release on its new closed-circuit PPV agreement with Canadastar to broadcast UFC PPVs in Canadian bars and restaurants.

The announcement is notable for the following quote right at the bottom:

Canadastar has been established as a household name to sports oriented bars, restaurants and casinos throughout the dominion.

I have to admire any news release that for whatever reason, references Canada as a Dominion.

A Hex on the IFL

Because the six-sided ring worked so well for the popularity of TNA Wrestling, didn't it?

Ultimate Fight Night - Ultimate Fighter

UFC has a three-hour Ultimate Fight Night tonight, followed by the premier of the new Ultimate Fighter series featuring Rampage Jackson and Forrest Griffin as the two coaches, which should rule the Earth.

But that's FOUR HOURS of UFC programming tonight!

FOUR HOURS!

Seriously ... who has time on a Wednesday evening, the middle of the work week, to watch FOUR HOURS of MMA.

Sure, Wrestlemania was four hours long. But it was Sunday afternoon. And it was WRESTLEMANIA!

This is no Wrestlemania.

Pride Fighting Championships returns to DVD

This is the best news I've read all day.

Admittedly, it is only 8:25 a.m.

Seriously, though, my brother Dean has been getting me old Pride FC sets for Christmas for a few years now, and they're great. I'm looking forward to the "new" stuff coming out.

UFC 82: I'm wrong again

I predicted Henderson over Silva. Oops.

NEW! Shared items

The keen-eyed among you will have noticed that I now have a "shared items" applet along the right-hand side of the page. I have several dozen blog feeds in my Google Reader (an amazing application), and from time to time, I'll be marking items there that I think my readership (all 4 of you) might be interested in reading as well. Or not.

The items can be clicked one at a time, or you can click the "read more" link to read all the items in my list.

Currently, there's some MMA news, a good article on the death of Christian rock pioneer Larry Norman, and and older link to the day I got cut from the Edmonton Sun.

This could be HUGE for MMA

There's talk today that EliteXC, probably the closest thing the UFC has to a rival in North America as far as MMA promotions go, is going to get a TV deal with CBS.

If this happens, this is huge for the sport of mixed martial arts. It's obviously great for EliteXC, which would go from being the distant second-place promotion in the U.S., to being a legitimate threat to the UFC overight.

It will be good for fighters, too, as a rising EliteXC is going to be trying to lure talent from UFC, and bidding wars are going to erupt for top talent.

It could even be good news for Dana White, the combative UFC president who has been acting more and more like Vince McMahon recently than ever before (and that's not a compliment). Dana has tried to get on HBO ... and failed. He tried to get on CBS ... and apparently failed.

Sure, Spike TV probably saved UFC from bankruptcy, but UFC needs to take the next step in growth, and Dana's reported insistence on maintaining total control over his product (including how it is broadcasted) has hindered that growth and kept him from signing those deals with HBO and CBS.


Maybe this will be the kick in the pants that Dana White needs to realize he's not the only game in town and that it's time to loosen up on the controls in order to take his company to the next level.

EDIT: More info on the pending deal here.

Thanks to Jason Genegabus, a columnist with the Honolulu Star-Bulletin for the use of the great photo of the Elite XC title belt!