Mixed Martial B0nes

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!

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Oops! I guess I am… I’ve looked at my stories for the last couple of months and it’s REALLY looking like I don’t spend any time on anything other than the UFC and it’s little bro the WEC. I guess it’s kind of understandable but there are other leagues and types of martial arts out there. It’s just that the UFC and the WEC keep pumping out event after event and it’s hard for a guy with a day job to keep up. Soooo, without further adieu, here are five other happenings in the world of MMA that are worth checking out:

1) The World Combat League. This is Chuck Norris’ baby. If you like standup action and can’t stand the site of two half naked guys hugging each other for 3 to 15 minutes, this is the place for you. He’s organized it into a team sport. There’s no pu$$yfooting around here. You go flat out for 3 minutes and don’t you dare back down. It’s some pretty exciting stuff in an oddly old school way.

2) The International Fight League. If you want the teams and the grappling together, then you have to go here to the IFL. They try to inject a little bit of the NFL nomenclature here so you’ll here a lot of “it’s different once you get to the playoffs” and “it is what it is.” It still *IS* MMA though. So if you need MMA with your NFL, this is the league for you.

3) Yaw Yan Ardigma Makati. Fighting from the Far East. Filipino MMA is pretty brutal stuff. We likey!

4) Elite XC. This league has been around for a while and fights could be seen on Showtime but there really hasn’t been any reason to pay up for these fights until now. Why now? 2 words: Kimbo Slice.

5) The Iron Ring on BET. BET???!!? Yes *that* BET. And again, there really isn’t any reason to waste your time watching this show except for two… no make it THREE big aaaaish words: KIMBO FREAKING SLICE!

I’ll admit it. I’ve been ducking this guy for about a year. Can you blame me? He’s a beast of a man and has an impressive street cred. Kimbo Slice has been on the Internet just pounding on any and every taker willing to go a few minutes with him in a bare knuckle fight. He even paid a guy a $100 just to see if the guy could take a clean football tackle from him. Sucker.

Anyway, he is fighting his way through the MMA world and had aligned himself with a Cage Fury Fighting Championship league then later with EliteXC. He has fought and won three actual mixed martial arts fights. Legendary MMA’er Bas Rutten is training him so you know this “freakshow” is for real. I think it’s only a matter of time before we see KIMBO in the UFC. Check him out for yourself below. If you have little ones, be careful with the sound because they like to cuss in the vid! (PS… They **REALLY** liked to cuss in that other video!  I just changed it to another video so you can watch it without getting pelted by EffBombs.  I like EffBombs in comedy, not in MMA!  Cheers.)