Mixed Martial B0nes

WEC 34: Faber vs. Pulver sneaked up on me so fast I didn’t know what hit me. Kind of like the way all of the fighters in this league operate. This was one heck of an action packed event. The main fight between Jens Pulver and Uriah Faber was great in its own right but there were a couple of other fights that deserve some props. Here’s how the last of the Troubles (they come in threes, remember?) went.

Kenneth Alexander vs. Rob McCullough This was one of the slowest moving fights. They mostly did the stick and move, stick and move deal. Good for boxing but not so good for MMA. We want action and blood. If these guys expect to get bigger paychecks, they’d better review the tape and study how *not* to fight in the WEC. Oh yeah, Razer Rob won the match on a split decision. Next time don’t leave it to the judges Alexander.

Chuck Grigsby Vs. Mark Munoz Now we’re talking. These guys went straight to grappling and grinding after a bit of the stick and move. The difference here though was the action. Munoz just dominated his much more experienced opponent. At nearly the end of the 1st, Munoz rained punch after punch and that was that. Mark wins out over Grigsby.

Donald Cerrone Vs. Danny Castillo This match was decided pretty quickly. That being said, the match still was plenty good. The action moved from the stand up to ground and pound. Of course, Castillo didn’t appreciate the action as he was submitted by armlock early in the first. Sorry Danny, maybe you don’t offer up your arm for your opponent next time. Or, if you work it out right, you can get an XBox360 like one of the Ultimate Fighter 7’s losers did!

Yoshiro Maeda Vs. Miguel Angel Torres This was easily the best match of the night. I know that Pulver and Faber was the headliner but these two really laid it out on the line. Their match was pretty cleanly fought i.e. not so many shots to the gonads as in a LOT of these fights! They moved from solid standup action complete with plenty of kicking to the head and sharp, sharp jabs square in each of their noses. When they got tired of beating the hell out of each other, it was ground game time. At one point they were both locking in a foot/leg bar? Since I’m still a newbie I don’t know the move’s name. Nevertheless, it looked like it hurt! The match was like a Rocky movie because both fighters were giving each other the business, talking and gesturing to each other. Finally, Torres popped Maeda in the face a few times… like ten! The ref saw that Yoshiro had had enough and stopped it. Torres retained the belt and Maeda showed a heckofa lot of heart. The rematch should be already in the works unless the WEC is as stupid as the UFC with the way they schedule fights. Let’s hope we see these two in action again.

Uriah Faber Vs. Jens Pulver This headlining match of the night turned out to be the longest drawn out fight as well. Luckily, it was Little Evil and California kid for 25 minutes instead of some shlubs that couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag… that’s to *you* Kalib Starns! Still, this is the case where the two fighters showed almost too much respect for each other. They were about as evenly matched as you can get and if not for a few mistakes on Pulver, it would have finished with Lil Evil on top. They did a lot of standup sticking and moving but not much in the way of brawling. You have to respect the punching and elbowing power of Uriah though. Standing up right next to him is a recipe for disaster. Of course, getting in his guard or letting him ground and pound you isn’t much of a better alternative. That Jens could make it through all 25 minutes of this fight shows that he is for real win or lose. I worry for Jens’ next opponent. He won’t give Little Evil nearly the amount of fight that Uriah Faber did. With this win, Uriah needs to find an even bigger fish to fight. He may not find it at this weight class. What would happen to him at 155? He could try his luck in the crowded division in the UFC. I think the fighters there had better prepare for the California Kid. He looks ready to jump out of the little pond and into the huge ocean that is the lightweight division in the UFC.

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This past week has come over me like a storm and I’ve been amiss in commenting on the MMA action from WEC and EliteXC that went down. We’ll cover just a little bit of each because I have to get my head straight for what will be another packed month of action. There were championships on the line in both the WEC 33 and EliteXC events. We got to see some action from Doug Marshall and Brian Stan on the WEC side. Cung Le and Frank Shamrock were battling on the EliteXC side. Who would stand and who would fall? Let’s find out!

Both champs underestimated their opponents. Let us begin with my favorite organization, the WEC. Doug Marshall came out swinging like a mad man and was seemingly doing ok with Stann in the standup game. This was his undoing. Stann was the bigger man with a better reach. At about a minute and a half in the first, Marshall fell like a brick. He might have had a chance in the ground game as Stann is relatively new at this but Marshall hasn’t showed a lot of submission work so far. Stann looks like the real deal and it will be difficult to come up with a fighter that can match him. There’s probably a few guys in the UFC that are fighting at the crowded light heavyweight division there that might chance it.

Other fights in the WEC 33 event were pretty great as well. Chael Sonnen gave the unbeaten Bryan Baker a clinic in submissions and takedowns. This puts him back into contention for the championship against Paulo Filho. Maybe this time he won’t get his arm caught in a weird position at the very last minute? Steve Cantwell took down and submitted Tim “The Wrecking Machine” McKenzie. Rich Crunkilton bloodied up Sergio Gomez something fierce. I thought they would stop the fight but Gomez didn’t seem to be affected by all that blood sloshing out the back of his head. Next time keep your hands up Gomez!

OK, EliteXC. I’ll be covering this more when the Saturday Night Fights come into play on CBS. For now, lets just say that a new King of San Jose was crowned on Saturday, March the 29th. King of San freakin’ Jose???!? I guess that makes me the King of South East La Mesa 7-11’s Back Alley. Frank Shamrock had no answer for Cung Le’s legwork. I wish I could have seen this in person. Finally! A MMA’r that knows how to kick! Cung kept piling on the kicks to Frank and kept him at arms length which is exactly what kicks are great for. Shamrock was able to get inside a few times and lay the wood down on Le, but it was too little too late. He complained in between rounds that his arm was killing him. He was right, there was a fracture and he couldn’t continue. Cung is KING! well… of San Jose at least.

Holy Smokes! We’ll be getting a bunch more action from both WEC and EliteXC later this month. EliteXC will get major support from CBS TV for its Saturday Night Fights. It also helps that Kimbo (Flippin’) Slice will be headlining that card. WEC 34 will feature a title match between Little Evil Jens Pulver and Uriah Faber. Wow. That will be something else. Best part of all? It’s all free as in BEER! Let’s all pop a frosty beverage and get comfortable for some good old fashioned head smashing!

The WEC is putting on a show tomorrow, Wednesday March 26th. These guys don’t mess around with hugging each other until someone gets weirded out. No, it will be a lot of fists and elbows cracking skulls and I can’t wait. Definitely a great bunch of matches to whet our appetites for UFC 83 and UFC’s Fight Night which are right around the corner! Let’s just see who is going to kick sand in who’s face tomorrow!

Hiromitsu Miura Vs. Blas Avena Hiro is the stand up guy in this one with Blas being the submission specialist. They both have pretty light experience with Hiro having the edge there with a 7-3 record. Blas has a 4-1 record though so he hasn’t felt the bad taste of losing as much as Hiro. Even though they chose the dumb nickname of “Last Samurai” for him, I’m going with the standup dude since that’s the kind of pain I like to see.

Steve Cantwell Vs. Tim McKenzie Tim the “Wrecking Machine” has been out of the game for a while and Cantwell brings a 4-1 record with him. Not much to say about these two although the Machine hasn’t worked recently so a little ring rust may be his undoing. Cantwell actually faced the headliner for this event. Unfortunately he didn’t get the best of the marine just a KO. I see Cantwell putting it together and beating McKenzie back to the couch with the rest of us.

Ed Ratcliff Vs. Marcus Hicks This is the “Well, daig nabbit! Someone’s gotta lose” special of the night. They both have 6-0 records and that they aren’t fighting for a title is a bit bewildering but in their division at 155, there is steep competition. Maybe they need to eat a bit more corn and get in to the big boys room? I’m going to play hometown favorite here and give it to another striker: Ed for the win or FTW for you Interweb Weenies!

Chael Sonnen Vs. Bryan Baker We last saw Chael lose in a weird fight with Paulo Filho. I’m pretty sure he wants another crack at him and will try to put Bryan Baker in his place. He has an extensive record of 21-8-1 and has lots of experience in WEC as well as UFC. Lately his game has been a bit dicey though with two losses in a row. He’s not getting a cream puff in Baker here. His record is 6-0 and he’ll probably try and duplicate other efforts against Sonnen and submit him. I think Sonnen’s experience will help him and get him over the hump in this one.

Doug Marshall Vs. Brian Stann Here is our championship match of the evening. We last saw Doug Marshall totally destroy Ariel Gandulla in something like 50 seconds. He then jumped into the crowd and tried to goad someone into fighting some more. Luckily no one was dumb enough to take him up on his offer. His challenger is Brian Stann, a marine fighting out of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Stann doesn’t have nearly the record that Marshall has at 4-0, but Marshall’s 7-3 record doesn’t have him flying over to Iraq to bash the skulls of terrorists with bullets and whatever else is needed. This should prove to be an interesting match. For some reason, I think the marine is going to smash Marshall and grab the Light Heavyweight belt for himself. How does it go? HooRAH!