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!

Light Heavyweight Championship bout: Doug Marshall vs. Justin McElfresh
* Marshall defeated McElfresh via KO (punch) at 2:16 of Round 1, to retain WEC Light Heavyweight Championship.

Middleweight Bout: Jason Miller vs. Hiromitsu Miura
* Miller defeated Miura via unanimous decision(29-28, 29-28, 29-28).

Light Heavyweight Bout: CubaAriel Gandulla vs. Gary Padilla
* Gandulla defeated Padilla via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28).

Lightweight Bout: Sherron Leggett vs. Charlie Kohler
* Leggett defeated Kohler via TKO (Strikes) at 2:25 of Round 2.

Undercard

Lightweight Bout: Marcus Hicks vs. Sergio Gomez
* Hicks defeated Gomez via Submission (Guillotine Choke) at 3:20 of Round 2.

Welterweight Bout: Tom Speer vs. Sidney Silva
* Speer defeated Silva via KO (punches) at 4:33 of Round 1.

Featherweight Bout: Manny Tapia vs. Brandon Foxworth
* Tapia defeated Foxworth via TKO (strikes) at 3:17 of Round 2.

Welterweight Bout: Ed Ratcliff vs. Johnny Sampaio
* Ratcliff defeated Sampaio via TKO (Knee Injury) at 1:31 of Round 1.

Middleweight Bout: Eric Schambari vs. Art Santore
* Schambari defeated Santore via unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 30-27).

* Doug Marshall won over Jeff Terry TKO (Ref Stoppage, Strikes)

* JT Taylor won over Drew Dimanlig Submission (Armbar)

* Alex Stiebling won over Jason Guida Decision

* Wes Sims won over Joel Surprenant TKO (Ref Stoppage, Triangle Choke)

* Patrick Murphy won over Joel Thomas Decision

* Trevor Harris won over Kale Bradford Submission (Rear-naked Choke)

* JJ Mix won over Mario Rivera Submission (Rear-naked Choke)

* Glover Teixeira won over Jack Morrison Submission (Tap out to Strikes)

* Poppies Martinez won over Troy Miller Submission (Armbar)

* Casey Olson won over Alvin Cacdac TKO (Ref Stoppage, Strikes)