tigeraid

Monster success with those ratings. If Elite can hold ground or gain with their next special, then the entire dynamic in the US MMA scene changes. Considering Kimbo's hype, that was expected (though maybe not to that high a rating)... Whether or not the next few shows garner those ratings is the key.

Oh and I *will* give them props for putting together great video packages, ESPECIALLY the one at the beginning explaining MMA rules and techniques. THAT part was an excellent way to introduce MMA to the masses.

I'm perfectly fine with the women's fight stopping due to the mouse being too bad to see... (even though I've never seen a real fight doctor in the UFC stop it because of swelling under the eye)... My problem is that the broadcast made NO effort to show it (again, CBS can't have us see that violence--they only briefly showed her, ONCE, and then never put the camera back on her), and no efforts to explain to us why the fight was stopped. As far as the main event, the stoppage FOR Kimbo didn't bother me, the lack of stoppage for the OTHER guy feeding a dozen unanswered elbows TO Kimbo bothered me. It's clear they had the ref let it go to give Kimbo a chance to get out of that mess, because he WAS done.

Indeed.

Not at all. I'm critical of anything that deserves it. In fact the last EliteXC show, with Frank Shamrock/Cung Le, was awesome, and I loved it. I've also critiqued poor UFC cards in the past. This show would've just been a "half-assed, poor show" in any other situation, and I would not be "over-reacting" to it. But given that this is MMA's first "prime time exposure" and this is supposedly where "millions of people" will see MMA for the first time, it's a really, really bad example that hurts MMA way more than it helps.

Holy fuck, where to begin... that was the worst night in the history of MMA. Thank you EliteXC for setting the sport back 15 years. Dancing girls, shitty hip-hop music, "thug style" everywhere... Every single fight was a clusterfuck... the commentators lied out their ass left right and center overhyping everything... editing mistakes left right and centre... complete trash. First two fights were MASSIVE early stoppages to make TV time, clearly fixed. Even if you don't see that as fight fan, you can see it in the way Gary Shaw talked to the fighters after, and the way Phil Baroni in particular was COMPLETELY stone-faced about the stoppage. He just didn't care--why? Because he knew the fight would be stopped early anyway. Then the third fight, which was shaping up to be interesting, is ALSO stopped early due to a cut UNDER THE EYE. UNDER THE EYE. CLEARLY a call by CBS because of the potential for blood and further violence--cuz y'know, you don't want violence in mixed martial arts. Then to make matters worse, Carano makes a complete fool of herself and the sport by basically admitting "ya I just won a fight against a supposed tough opponent despite being overweight, out of shape and putting no effort into the training... oh and thank God." Then the title fight, which was shaping up to EASILY be the fight of the night and would've saved an otherwise shitty show, with Scott Smith showing a true warrior's spirit and getting the fans to rally behind him... Then he gets an unfortunate eyepoke, and that dumbass doctor who clearly isn't qualified to be a fight doctor AT ALL stops the fight, rather than giving Smith the time he needed to blink it off and keep fighting. Absolute bullshit. Then the main event, which SHOULD'VE come second to Lawler/Smith, was an even bigger clusterfuck. Had it followed the pattern of the rest of the night, the fight would've been stopped and Kimbo would've LOST, he ate a DOZEN unanswered elbows on the ground, and you could just picture that crook Gary Shaw pleading the ref not to stop the fight--absolute bullshit. Poor Mauro Renalo and Frank Shamrock... they spend the entire show pushing the "fighting spirit" and "warrior" and "gladiator" deal ("this isn't street fighting, this isn't thugs, this is the elite, the best athletes in the world"), only to have EliteXC turn around at every goddamn chance and talk about Kimbo Slice being a street fighter and a brawler... the entire show has a "thug" theme to it, with the hip hop and the stupid dancers and Kimbo and his "thug crew." Anyone tuning in who wasn't an MMA fan before probably thinks exactly what they thought when they tuned into UFC in 1995: "buncha fuckin savages and thugs."

What's this Project 161 you speak of? I haven't really been keeping up with ROH much lately. God damn, might just be better to read on the ROH boards, or in the post about here in the Indy section. Long story short it was a "viral marketing campaign" started on the ROH boards, pretending to be out of kayfabe, with blog postings and weird eerie pictures and stuff, all talking about "161" and Chicago on Sept 15th (ROH's 161st show.) And on that date (PPV taping) they revealed themselves as Jimmy Jacobs' new faction, sort of an uber-sick Raven's Flock. It's all over the video wire, with him standing under Jay Briscoe as blood rains down on him, drinking it, etc... Along with Tyler Black, Lacey and Necro Butcher, The eerie pictures are now at http://www.ageofthefall.com/ The blog is at http://projectonesixone.blogspot.com/ It was brilliant and kept everyone guessing, passing out weird half-assed underground leaflets at shows, occasionally showing up in the crowd with a megaphone to yell "project 161" and then disappear. Stuff like that.

I don't suppose anyone notices the startling similarities to ROH's recent Project 161 Storyline... I don't suppose. And as much as Jericho is the man, this won't make me watch RAW anytime soon... He'll just be jobbing to Carlito in a month anyway.

- Homicide rupturing Steve Corino's eardrum - Gran Akuma? (or whoever it was) rupturing Jimmy Rave's eardrum - Danny Inferno breaking CM Punk's nose & rupturing his eardrum in the same match - Samoa Joe concussing a Ballard twin. - Samoa Joe concussing Kurt Angle. - Samoa Joe concussing KENTA, KENTA or Joe concussing Bryan Danielson, and Danielson or KENTA rupturing Joe's eardrum, all in the same match. - Low-Ki concussing Dan Maff. - Whatever the hell Low-Ki did to Kid Sensation to make him vomit blood. - Yoshihiro Takayama accumulates numerous brain injuries leading to a cerebral thrombosis after his G-1 match with Kensuke Sasaki. - Naohiro Hoshikawa's 2nd concussion in a few minutes comes from a stiff lariat, he suffers severe brain damage and forgets most of his life. - Chris Benoit uses shoot headbutts often, suffers severe brain damage, and kills his family before taking his own life. I'm sure I'm forgetting many more. Intensifier: I did say recently, not 1990s All-Japan. As for your list Bix, the majority of those were accidents that had little to do with how hard they hit. Homicide accidentally hit Corino's ear instead of the side of his head--the strength of the strike really doesn't matter. Neither does Gran Akuma on Rave, or Low Ki concussing Dan Maff, or Joe concussing Angle, or whatever... these go in the same category as concussions from headdrops--reckless, poorly aimed accidents. Not a result of their style. Hoshikawa's is definitely a good example, as is Benoit's, as is most of Takiyama's problems--I would call those exceptions to the rule. The only way these accidents occurred was from poor aim, not from the style of wrestling. If stiff strikes were the reason this sort of thing happened, it would literally be happening EVERY night in the ring. A stiff forearm to the side of the face, or a chop or stiff kick to the back or chest is not dangerous--period. Broken noses happen ALLLLL the time in "non-stiff" wrestling too, as to busted lips, black eyes and cauliflower ears. The only way whatsoever that accidents like this can be prevented is if everyone did Hulk Hogan "hold-his-forehead-and-punch-my-hand" moves. And I'm sorry, I don't want that.

What's funny is, I can't remember a single time that working stiff caused injury in the last several years, other than this one with Dragon, which was a freak accident. And I don't count bleeding or welts on the chest or back as injury. Briscoe's SSP to the floor has nothing to do with stiff, it's just a high risk move that he fucked up. But in terms of stiff kicks and forearms, I've never seen them deal a particularly big injury. On the other hand, Botchtista tears eighteen muscles and breaks a rib (or whatever) just picking a guy up for a power bomb... Vince McMahon tears BOTH QUADS WALKING DOWN A RAMP, and HHH and Kevin Nash both bust shit up just by walking across the ring. I gotta go with stiff work over roided up catastrophes any day. EDIT: I take that back--Nigel breaking Rave's jaw with the Lariat. That's another one. Though again, the severity with which he hit wasn't so much the problem, it was the fuck up on either his part of Rave's that made the Lariat hit too high.

Agreed, easily the "Worst" Detroit show they've had. Still better than anything from TNA or WWE of course, but not up to ROH standards. Marufuji/Generico was MotN for sure, lots of fun, if a little short. The Morishima/Stevens match was also fun, even though it was a foregone conclusion what was going to happen. Evans/Romero was a fun little spotfest "Street fight." The main event was a bit slow by Briscoe standards, but I think Aries is still protecting his knee a little. Not terrible, just not their usual pace. The rest of the show was pretty meh. The first few matches were all pretty much jobbers, and Hero/Jacobs was boring as hell--but I suspect Jacobs was still going easy on the knee and making sure it was 100% before he tries any real matches. Whitmer/BJ as a team is a little weird, BJ with short blond hair looks like Steve Corino--it was an ok match vs Claudio and Nigel though. Overall, still worth the price of admission, still better than any WWE or TNA live event I've ever paid for, just sorta "eeehh" by ROH standards. The whole thing belt like the "B Show" that it was, leading up to the PPV taping tomorrow night. Hopefully their return in April will be a bit bigger.

Sure, but what makes you more qualfied than even Dr. Riviera to say when either of them are safe to wrestle?

Mark Briscoe was medically cleared to wrestle one week BEFORE he got back in the ring. Danielson was medically cleared and, more importantly, both he and Morishima will know how to protect the eye. And I'd rather have relatively healthy, clean, roid-free wrestlers in the ring with an injury that's been medically cleared than roided up freaks hobbling around working through a variety of injuries all at once.

Where'd the crushed orbital bone come from? I've heard nothing of it... And Morishima will likely protect the eye just fine. Nor do I see how a 2 hour PPV with two MOTY candidates is a "glorified infomercial." Nor is the 2nd PPV, which has what is LIKELY the MOTY for the main event. I'll be heading to Detroit in a couple hours--can't wait for Generico/Marufuji!!! Gonna try to convince my buddies to road trip to Chi-town after...

Jesus, you need to watch more of Daniels' work in the past. He's a god on the mic, sir. Watch his early Prophecy stuff in ROH.