There were two MMA shows last weekend. Both shows featured men who could lay claims for being the best pound for pound fighter in the world. One show was on PPV while the other was on cable television. One had a huge main event, that if it was marketed by the UFC, would’ve done big business. The other had two guys fighting at 155 pounds in the top position on the card with nicknames like “The Cowboy” and “C-4″ (well, Varner has a few nicknames). The FGB brothers have their thoughts on both cards.

Affliction: Day Of Reckoning

Big D

Show overall rating: Thumbs In The Middle

Best Fight: Josh Barnett vs. Gilbert Yvel
Worst Fight: None

I’m not sure if anybody really bought this any more than any big TNA show, but entertainment-wise, Affliction: Day of Reckoning really wasn’t a bad show. The big story coming out of the show was the near-fatal knockout of one Matt Lindland by Vitor Belfort. A lot of people are saying “the old Vitor is back” and I disagree. The supposed “old Vitor” comes back every couple of months, then he ends up reverting to the hit or miss status that we’re accustomed to.

Barnett vs. Yvel, while it wasn’t the most technical of the two fights, really was entertaining. Barnett had some troubles finishing Yvel. I completely underestimated the toughness of Yvel. Barnett kept at it and actually looked *gulp* in shape.

The main event was quite the spectacle. Arlovski entered the ring like he was about to yell “SPARTAAAAA” and Fedor, as usual, was cold and lifeless. Arlovski’s new boxing techniques and handspeed were working quite well for him to start. I could clearly see he wasn’t really afraid of Fedor and was actually winning the fight on points. Then he gets Fedor to a corner and goes for a flying knee (which according to big Dave Meltzer, his corner told him not to do, but he didn’t listen) and gets caught with the shortest right hand in the history of God’s green Earth. The shortest right hand may have also been the most powerful, as it dropped Andrei out cold. This was the most unbelievable thing I had seen in quite some time. Fedor waited for Andrei to make a mistake, he made it, and capitalized. It may be damn-near impossible to find a fighter THIS good at Heavyweight perhaps ever.

Overall, if you ordered the show, you got something good, if you didn’t… eh… you didn’t miss enough to make you go “dammit… I wish I’d seen that”.

Alan

Show overall rating: Thumbs Up

Best Fight: Andrei Arlovski vs. Fedor Emelianenko
Worst Fight: Paul Buentello vs. Kiril Sidelnikov

Eh, it was alright. No BAD fights, but nothing exceptional. There’s just something so slimey about that company that I can’t get into their shows.

Duan

Show overall rating: Thumbs In The Middle (leaning down)

Best Fight: Andrei Arlovski vs. Fedor Emelianenko
Worst Fight: Josh Barnett vs. Gilbert Yvel

Considering the amount of money Affliction blew on this show, it really should have been a hell of a lot better than it was. Their presentation of the product is horrible. It just comes across as such a minor league promotion. The new commentary team was no better than the old one, and the interview segments were awful. The quality of fights was passable, but you would see just as good (if not better) action from any of the smaller MMA promotions.

This event aired for free on the Bravo network here. It was perfectly fine in that context, but i would have been very disappointed if i had bought this on pay per view.

Cactus Jim

Show overall rating: Thumbs In The Middle

Best Fight: Renato “Babalu” Sobral vs. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou
Worst Fight: Dan Lauzon vs. Josh Green

Decent fights, but horrible production and the announcing and interviewing teams have got to go. Chuck Zito? Really? I thought it (Babalu vs. Sokoudjou) was a competitive fight and had some good moments. A sloppy fight all around (Lauzon vs. Green). Green had balls taking the fight on less than 2 days notice, but it was clear the guy who claims to have over 100 street fights didn’t have much beyond his street fighting skills. Charles Bennett made a bit of a career out of it. Maybe this guy can too.

WEC 38

Alan

Show overall rating: Thumbs Up

Best Fight: Jose Aldo vs. Rolando Perez
Worst Fight: None

Fun fun show. First two fights had some crazy action and the main
event was a war of a trition. Jose Aldo is a STAR!

Cactus Jim

Show overall rating: Thumbs Up

Best Fight: Donald Cerrone vs. Jamie Varner
Worst Fight: Jens Pulver vs. Urijah Faber

Free! And the fights were well matched. Good back and forth battle (Cerrone vs. Varner) with both guys showing good skills on their feet and on the ground. The pace of this fight never slowed. The way the fight ended was anti-climatic, but up to that point it was very exciting. This was a very one sided fight (Pulver vs. Faber) that probably was a career killer for Jens. I think that makes 5 losses in 6 fights for him, if I’m not mistaken, having beaten only Cub Swanson in his WEC debut. The fight itself was fast paced, but so was everything else on the Versus televised card and those fights seemed to be more even match-ups than this one.

GG

Show overall rating: Thumbs Up

Best Fight: Donald Cerrone vs. Jamie Varner
Worst Fight: None

This was one of those shows that went by really quickly and you didn’t feel as you wasted any time watching it. I really enjoy the two hour MMA time block. I can spend two hours watching a fast paced show. With some of the longer UFC Fight Night shows, you enjoy yourself, but they’re just so long that you almost wish you could pause it in the middle, do something, and come back and watch the rest. You need a break.

Varner vs. Cerrone was very good. Both of those guys were just going without stopping. Cerrone looked like a beaten man because of the cut over his eye, but at no point did I really think he was going to be finished. Varner was just ahead of him by a slim margin in every round and I’m not sure Cerrone won more than one round (at least as far as I was scoring). But still, it was a very good fight. Jose Aldo looks like he’s going to be a star for the promotion. The only thing I truly didn’t like was watching Jens Pulver fight when it didn’t seem like his mind was completely there. Justin Eilers was one of his best friends and you could tell that Pulver wished they could’ve delayed the fight. Fighting only one month after the loss of his friend was probably really tough. But at least Faber looked like a monster again. Kudos to WEC for another solid show.

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