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Thread: CBS to aire MMA fights

  1. #16
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    Bah! I'll sleep when I'm dead!

    For whoso comes amongst many shall one day find that no one man is by so far the mightiest of all.

  2. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lucas View Post
    Bah! I'll sleep when I'm dead!

    Death, natures way of telling you to slow down.
    Psalms 144:1
    Praise be my Lord my Rock,
    He trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle !

  3. #18
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    I wanted to get a good idea if Kimbo's ground game was any good....

    I've seen his stand up and I know he can brawl.
    Cordially yours,
    冠木侍 (KS)
    _____________________________________________


    "Jiu mo gwai gwaai faai dei zau" (妖魔鬼怪快哋走) -- The venerable Uncle Chan

    "A fool with a sword is more dangerous than any weapon..."

    “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”--John Quincy Adams

    "If you have an unconquerable calmness, you can overcome the enemy without force" -Bushi Matsumura

  4. #19
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    missed it.
    Kung Fu is good for you.

  5. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by 冠木侍 View Post
    I wanted to get a good idea if Kimbo's ground game was any good.....
    The answer was obvious, wasn't it?
    When given the choice between big business and big government, choose big business. Big business never threw millions of people into gas chambers, but big government did.

    "It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men" -Samuel Adams

  6. #21
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    Saw it. Some things I liked some didn't.

    First off I didn't like all the theatrics. If I wanted to see that I'd watch WWE. It was comical when that one joker was dancing all the way to the cage only to lose the fight.

    Second, I don't know why but the ring announcer's voice just really annoyed me. I like the other guy...."Leeeettt's Get Ready to RUUUMMMMBBBLLLEEE!"

    Third, yeah the doc sucked. Give the guy his 5 minutes.

    Now I did like certain things.

    Granted the fighters might not have been the caliber as those in UFC. But really the match-ups did make in general for a more entertaining card. I like a good fight. Its not entertaining to see one guy get dominated every time.

    I enjoyed the Lawler/Smith fight. Wish it didn't end the way it did. It was looking like Smith was gaining momentum too.

    Not impressed with Kimbo. But I never expected much. He hits hard, but he's a one trick pony. He doesn't have the skills needed to compete with the upper class of competition and he's too old now really I would think to get his game together. Unfortunately he seems to be their money ticket at the moment.

    I am glad they got some chicks doing MMA. I think it will be great for the advancement of the sport. I train with a couple in BJJ and they can roll. It's good to see that avenue open up for women. That and the fight was very entertaining. They banged more than a lot of guys do in the cage. That and Gina Carano will be my third wife. After I divorce Joss Stone and annul Megan Fox. I like a girl that likes it rough.

  7. #22
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    This is not MMA

    What is the difference between MMA and circus?

    Is Kimbo Helping MMA?
    June 03, 2008 1:58 PM
    by Denis Cummings

    Kimbo Slice was expected to take mixed martial arts into the mainstream, but after his unconvincing win in MMA’s network television debut, many are wondering if he'll do more harm than good.

    Kimbo Slice, a street fighting Internet star, headlined Saturday’s five-fight EliteXC: Primetime, the first MMA event to be broadcast on network television.

    Matched against James Thompson—a tomato can with a cauliflower ear—Kimbo was expected to score a quick knockout. However, he spent much of the fight on his back and needed a controversial third round TKO —called when Thompson’s ear ruptured—to win.

    The show was a ratings success for CBS, attracting the coveted 18–34 male demographic. CBS will likely air another MMA event in the late summer.

    MMA has developed a devoted following, primarily due to the Ultimate Fighting Championship competition. Important UFC fights, however, are available only on pay-per-view and the sport has some difficulty attracting new fans.

    Many MMA fans and insiders hoped that EliteXC would expose MMA to a larger audience and bring the one-time underground sport into the mainstream. Instead, they saw an over-the-top, WWE-type spectacle with poor-quality fights.

    “This is not MMA,” writes Brian Argabright of the Del Rio News-Herald. “This is a circus and Kimbo is the main event.”

    Others are more optimistic about the event, arguing that the large audience exposure will help the sport grow. “As frustrating as this was for many who love the sport, I don’t buy the argument that the card was a big negative for MMA,” writes Yahoo’s Dan Wenzel. “Yes its credibility was hurt with old media and some skeptics, but many potential fans were exposed to it for the first time.”
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  8. #23
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    Is Kimbo the "face" of MMA that you want people to know ??
    Psalms 144:1
    Praise be my Lord my Rock,
    He trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle !

  9. #24
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    Kimbo Slice:

    Holy ****.

    Talk about a work, that was like WWE.

    They might has well have been jumping off the cage poles like they were ropes.

    I mean, ****.

  10. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by sanjuro_ronin View Post
    Is Kimbo the "face" of MMA that you want people to know ??
    No.

    And alot of MMA forums are having this discussion as well.
    When given the choice between big business and big government, choose big business. Big business never threw millions of people into gas chambers, but big government did.

    "It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men" -Samuel Adams

  11. #26
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    It's certainly getting a lot of press

    There's a ton of articles on the newsfeeds. Here are two I found that were amusing.

    Much ado about prime-time MMA
    By Jeff Haney
    Thu, Jun 5, 2008 (2 a.m.)

    Mixed martial arts made its prime-time network TV debut without the Ultimate Fighting Championship, but with plenty of bluster and ballyhoo.

    The CBS broadcast of a fight card from Newark, N.J., led off with an iconic image of the Statue of Liberty(!) followed in the opening moments by one reference apiece to the “warriors” and the “new breed of gladiator” who would be fighting in the cage that evening.

    The announcers were just getting warmed up.

    They also informed viewers that CBS was yanking mixed martial arts “out of the shadows” with Saturday night’s broadcast and placing the sport in its rightful spot under “the bright lights of prime time.”

    They emphasized that “this is real,” and each competitor is not just a fighter but also a “real, live true warrior.”

    The program featuring a series of bouts promoted by the EliteXC fighting organization, a UFC rival, was not only a “milestone moment” in sports history, but it also marked the “dawn of a new era.”

    They invoked the spirit of Bruce Lee, suggesting that like a prophetic seer, Lee “predicted” the coming of this momentous occasion more than three decades ago.

    And this all occurred within the first five minutes of the broadcast. Yikes.

    Then there were the repeated shots of a bevy of scantily clad dancing girls outside the fighting cage. Yes, this was CBS, but perhaps not what you would expect from William S. Paley’s erstwhile Tiffany Network — unless Tiffany was the stage name of one of the go-go girls.

    It’s impossible to blame the EliteXC guys for playing their hand aggressively, though. Throughout the broadcast, the announcing team of Gus Johnson, Mauro Ranallo and Frank Shamrock hammered on a series of keywords — “MMA!” “CBS!” “Prime time!” — as if to announce the organization’s arrival on the big time. They were simultaneously appealing to casual fans who might not seek out the UFC, which presents itself as the industry’s leader, on cable or on pay-per-view.

    Certainly mixed martial arts is riding a wave of mainstream popularity, thanks to the prime-time slot as well as the Hollywood movie “Redbelt,” which has garnered good reviews despite the counterintuitive pairing of MMA and Mamet. (“Coffee’s for submission experts only.”)

    The best part of the CBS broadcast was probably an explanatory segment in which Shamrock demonstrated various MMA moves, rules and regulations. Despite a simplistic-sounding summary of “ground and pound” — get your opponent to the ground and pound him out! — it was a good introduction to viewers stumbling across the sport for the first time.

    Unfortunately, the hyperbole returned quickly as we were instructed to stay tuned for the “network premiere of the Street Fighter 4 trailer,” which to me looked a lot like a commercial for a video game.

    A bout pitting Brett Rogers against Jon Murphy wasn’t just a heavyweight fight, but “an opportunity for Rogers to seize the American dream.”

    Before Rogers could seize it properly, he had to get past Murphy, who is known as “The Man of Faith” and is not only “superintelligent,” but also “super faithful.” OK.

    In other highlights from the card, Phil Baroni lost to Joey Villasenor despite Baroni’s prefight vow, duly shown on the broadcast, that he would be “separating his (rear end) from consciousness,” and Gina Carano beat Kaitlin Young in a crowd-pleasing women’s fight.

    Of course, this “historic broadcast” ushering in a “new era” of American sports led up to the main event won by Kimbo Slice, the “street-fighting star of the Internet” who has been the “focus of a media avalanche.”

    At one point, Kimbo was compared favorably to Oscar De La Hoya and Tiger Woods. Unless I missed some sort of cue, this was not the parody portion of the program.

    A few days later CBS officials hyped the show as a ratings success, reporting that the audience peaked at 6.51 million viewers during Slice’s victory against James Thompson in the headliner, and that the network cleaned up in the demographics of men and young viewers.

    So it appears we’re likely to see more of EliteXC. In prime time. On CBS. And why not? After all, the Kimbo Slice phenomenon “has touched a raw nerve in America and around the world!” And, undoubtedly, throughout the known universe.
    Mixed Martial Arts drawing some blood in ratings fight
    By Bob Molinaro / The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.
    Thursday, June 5, 2008 - Added 6h ago

    The prime-time debut of Mixed Martial Arts last weekend was billed as "CBS EliteXC Saturday Night Fights," but buried beneath the tame, antiseptic title was a subliminal promise that read, "There Will Be Blood."

    There was.

    In the featured match, a well-muscled curiosity with the pseudonym of Kimbo Slice was declared the winner after he landed a hard right to the head of a tomato can from England by the name of John Thompson, bursting Thompson’s cauliflower ear in a crimson explosion.

    This was preceded by a bout between a couple of young women, in which the losing combatant’s face was quickly turned into raw hamburger, as she suffered at least two deep facial cuts and a mouse under one eye the size of a meatball.

    Slice - real name Kevin Ferguson - is a manufactured niche celebrity, a 34-year-old former homeless man from Miami who was discovered when his backyard fights appeared on YouTube. It turns out that he’s not really that good at cage fighting and that, in general, CBS’ production consisted of strictly minor league MMA talent.

    Who knew? I didn’t. Do I look like a guy who belongs to an ultimate fighting fantasy league?

    But MMA, which incorporates elements of boxing, wrestling, kick boxing and street brawling (it allows choke holds, but draws the line at eye and ear gouging) is not nearly as unfamiliar to the 18-to-34 male demographic that discovered it on cable outlets such as Versus and Spike - the TV equivalent of off-shore barges. Recently, ESPN.com jumped on the bandwagon by introducing a 30-minute show, "MMA Live."

    Saturday’s CBS broadcast was dead on arrival in my television room, but I’m the first to admit that I don’t represent the audience MMA is after. The fights pulled in a 2.7 rating compared with a 2.6 for Saturday night’s Game 4 of the Stanley Cup finals on NBC.

    Memo to the NHL: see how well Kimbo Slice moves on a pair of skates.

    The ratings are an indication that cage fighting fans aren’t waiting for a newspaper columnist to lecture them on the barbarism of this sport - and I use the term loosely. Even if they bothered to read the newspaper. Which they don’t.

    It’s a different world out there, one that doesn’t always make sense to those of us who drive Buicks and believe that the only blood sport that belongs on TV is the presidential campaign.

    CBS will air three more Saturday night fights later this year, which has people wondering if the exposure can create greater mainstream acceptance for MMA.

    I’d say no, but I remember too well how ridiculous it once seemed to me that anyone would watch people play poker.

    It’s still ridiculous, yet poker is a TV mainstay.

    As for Kimbo Slice, I predict that he’s not in the MMA racket for long. I think he’s gone as soon as he can parlay his fame into a spot on "Dancing With the Stars."

    Finally, a piece of advice for CBS: For the next installment of the MMA series, do a better job of appealing to a wider, more mature demographic. Start by having Regis Philbin host the fights.
    follow the link on this one to read the rest...
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  12. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by 1bad65 View Post
    The answer was obvious, wasn't it?
    Yeah, I guess even though I missed, I should have just used simple logic.

    But I don't feel like searching right now...is there any footage online that anyone can link us to? Thanks.
    Cordially yours,
    冠木侍 (KS)
    _____________________________________________


    "Jiu mo gwai gwaai faai dei zau" (妖魔鬼怪快哋走) -- The venerable Uncle Chan

    "A fool with a sword is more dangerous than any weapon..."

    “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”--John Quincy Adams

    "If you have an unconquerable calmness, you can overcome the enemy without force" -Bushi Matsumura

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