The main take away I received after watching my first live MMA show is that San Jose, CA loves their MMA.

And San Jose, CA is the place where Frank Shamrock calls home. The former Pancrease/UFC veteran, who at 34 years old is not a spring chicken by any means in today’s MMA scene, backed up his words and dismantled a very game Phil Baroni in the main event of the show.

Shamrock is a great marketer and in this case, he had use all his marketing savvy because the San Jose based Strikeforce promotion doesn’t have any television to promote their events. The Judgment Day show was a combined event with Strikeforce and EliteXC, which is co-owned by Showtime, enabling it to be on Pay-Per-View. Shamrock chose to fight Baroni with the intention that Phil could talk and they could create quite the buzz for the event. Phil did his part as both men threw a barrage of threats and taunts at each other, drawing nearly 10,000 fans for the fight.

With much pomp and circumstance, Shamrock and Baroni could’ve failed inside the cage and the show would’ve still been good, but that wasn’t the case. They had a fantastic fight. Baroni entered the cage dressed like Ric Flair in a sequined robe, except Baroni’s didn’t have any sleeves, allowing his ripped arms to be seen. And he didn’t just walk down the aisle. He came out with sunglasses and danced down to the cage and while this was Frank Shamrock’s house, no one could boo a man with that kind of ring entrance. Ring announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr. called Frank Shamrock, “The Legend”. And the legend arrived in a San Jose Sharks jersey to the sounds of the late Notorious BIG’s Hypnotize. The already loud crowd went crazy and was much louder than any other loud crowd I’ve ever heard in the building. I’ve watched basketball and hockey games at the “Shark Tank” and even watched Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock in the late 90’s when wrestling was at its peak, and nothing touched Frank Shamrock’s entrance from a crowd perspective.

You can’t really say that Frank Shamrock has one certain style. Baroni is definitely a striker, but he’s also a wrestler. Shamrock is most known for his submission wrestling, but he’s also good on his feet and is sneaky defensively. But on this night, Shamrock beat Baroni at the striking game and though Baroni was able to take him down pretty much when he wanted to, it wasn’t where he wanted to be because Shamrock is so comfortable on his back, waiting for the right time to go for a submission. Early in the fight, Shamrock put his two hands together and placed them at the side of his cheek, mocking Baroni by motioning that he was going to put him to sleep. Shamrock would prove to be a prophet as he was able to sink in a rear naked choke in the second round for the victory.

It was learned after the fact that both men were walking wounded going into the fight. Shamrock supposedly destroyed his ACL going into the fight and also had a torn MCL from training. Baroni was suffering from a hernia before the fight and either tore or pulled his groin very badly in the first round. The fact that both men went in there and fought injured showed what the fight meant to them. Shamrock is the face of the Strikeforce promotion and also has a contract with EliteXC in which he receives bonuses based on how well the shows do on Pay-Per-View. For Baroni, it was the largest payday of his career. That’s not to takeaway how tough both men are for getting into the ring injured, but for both men, it was a must fight fight.

There was talk that Dana White, President of UFC was going to bring Baroni back if he were to beat Frank Shamrock. White hates Shamrock and I’m sure it’s the other way around as well. In order for Shamrock to be able to keep his aura as a legend and a star, he must continue to win the fights that he builds up so well. On this night, he did exactly just that. It was a fast and furious battle and Baroni took tremendous punishment. Shamrock didn’t really look like he was in much trouble. I thought he won the first round decisively from his heavy strikes. He was docked one point for hitting to the back of the head, but even then, I had him winning 9-8. He had Baroni in trouble throughout most of the fight but Baroni’s wrestler’s instinct would take over and he’d immediately take Frank down.

But he could do nothing from the bottom. In the second round, Baroni caught him, but he didn’t have enough to follow up. Shamrock got the best of him again and finally got the choke in. Baroni didn’t tap out and went to sleep, just like Shamrock predicted.

Cung Le is an interesting and exciting fighter. He’s a Vietnamese-American San Shou kick boxer who trains and fights out of San Jose, making him an immediate local fan favorite. He throws nasty, flashy kicks, like the real life version of every movie character Jean Claude Van Damme ever played. In San Jose, it’s a flip of the coin as to who is more of the crowd favorite between him and Shamrock. For the night, it was about even, with the crowd maybe a hair louder for Shamrock.

Le’s opponent was Tony Fryklund, who decided to stand up with him the entire night. Not once did he try to take Le down to test his ground skill, which is what people are waiting to see before they take Le as a serious competitor in MMA. He seems a little heavy at 180 pounds, and may have questionable power in his hands, but his feet are very skilled. He was throwing everything in the repertoire at Fryklund including reverse kicks, spinning back kicks, and side kicks right to the stomach. The match went three rounds, but it was really not much of a contest. Le landed both punches and kicks at will and in the third round, Fryklund went down with a right hand and the fight was stopped. Le thanked the crowd and they loved him back. Shamrock might’ve sold a lot of the tickets, but Le’s fans came out in droves as well.

The rest of the night was a mix of strong fights. There were six fights that weren’t shown on the Pay-Per-View broadcast, but were instead shown on ProElite’s website as an Internet broadcast. Rex Richards used to play football for the San Jose Sabercats, the local arena league football team. He fought a super heavyweight match against Ray Seraille and just devastated him. Seraille took one big punch and went down immediately as if to say that he didn’t want to get hit anymore.

Gilroy fighter Anthony Figueroa was one of the early favorites as Gilroy is about 20 miles south of San Jose, and he was fighting San Francisco fighter, Chris Cariaso. I was able to e-mail with Figueroa earlier in the week and when I asked him about his opponent, he said he was a good fighter and that they matched up very well.

Cariaso won the three round bout by unanimous decision. He won the first round by taking Figueroa down twice. Figueroa did a better job in the second round by landing elbows, though Cariaso seemed just a little bit stronger and was directing where he wanted the fight to go. And in the third round, he was just more active and won the decision. I gave Figueroa the second round, but it was definitely Cariaso’s fight.

Other results for the non-PPV bouts included Seth Kleinbeck stopping Sam Spengler in the second round, Luke Stewart beating former UFC fighter Jason Von Flue by stoppage in the third round, Mike Pyle winning a unanimous decision over Aaron Wetherspoon, and Nik Theotikos decisively knocking out an overmatched Nikk Covert in the first round. Covert had to be taken out in a stretcher.

The Pay-Per-View show opened with dancing girls. The stage was elevated, allowing the fighters to walk downward with fire blasting behind them. There were television packages for every fight and they were shown on the big screens around the arena.

The first fight was Edson Berto, who was substituting for Charles “Krazy Horse” Bennett, dominating Victor Valenzuela and winning with a heel hook in less than a minute in the first round. “Krazy Horse” missed the fight because he was arrested and didn’t get released from jail in time to make the weigh-ins the day before. Berto was ready as the substitute. It seems like they’ll go with Berto and “Krazy Horse” at one of the next shows as it looked from where I was sitting that they were talking to each other after the fight.

Former UFC fighter, Paul Buentello came out to Mariachi music which made him a hero to the San Jose fans. He was also seen as a former UFC fighter, which probably helped his reaction. He fought against Carter Williams, who was the favorite based on his striking ability. Up and coming southern rap star Rich Boy provided Williams’ entrance music live, but people saw Williams as the bad guy in this bout and he was booed. They were very much for Buentello. The first round was fast and heavy with the action. Buentello was scoring with knees to the head and controlled the clinch. Williams was also very active, but Buentello won the first round. In the first ten seconds of the second round, Buentello hit two uppercuts and Williams immediately went down holding his head and the fight was stopped. Buentello loved the San Jose audience and the crowd cheered him as he left the cage.

Murilo Ninja Rua faced Joey Villasenor for the vacant EliteXC Middleweight title. Rua gained fame is an International star fighting for the Pride organization in Japan. He was the more name fighter, but San Jose didn’t know him well. Villasenor came out early and was hitting some big shots in the first round, but Rua was going for submission attempts and hitting some strikes of his own. I scored the round even and it was a very entertaining first round. In the second, Rua scored with a big right hand and then followed it up with some strikes on the ground and it was stopped. It was a really good fight and it won the crowd over.

Josh “The Punk” Thomson was another local favorite and he fought Nick Gonzalez, who was simply over-matched. There were a lot of Thomson shirts in the crowd worn by fans who saw Thomson dominate Gonzalez by working a choke for what seemed like over a minute before Gonzalez finally slipped up and let it sink in. Thomson tried to get the crowd into him by saying he wants to be a San Jose favorite like Frank Shamrock and Cung Le. They liked him, but maybe only fourth most after Shamrock, Le, and Buentello.

The two main events were next and that left one match. The last match was Duane Ludwig vs. Paul Daley. Duane’s nickname is simply “Bang”. He was the favorite, but it wasn’t his night. Daley was able to put him down with a big punch and followed up with punches to win by TKO.

This was one of the more impressive sports events I’ve been to live. I’ve been to All-Star games, wrestling Pay-Per-View shows, and football games where over 60,000 fans were in the stadium and I can’t remember an event that beats this one in electricity, excitement, and crowd reaction. It was definitely the thing to do in San Jose on this night.

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