MMAPredictions

In an interview with The FightWorks Podcast to be released on Sunday, Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt and MMA fighter Wilson Reis stated that he recently learned he will be fighting on the upcoming CBS EliteXC Saturday Night Fights to air live on July 26th.

Reis stated that his opponent has not been finalized but will likely be either Bao Quach or Mark Oshiro.

Reis was raised in Sao Paulo, Brazil but has resided in Philadelphia in recent years and trains at BJJ United. He obtained his black belt under Roberto Godoi.

A rematch between Scott Smith and Robbie Lawler has been officially announced by EliteXC for this event. In their first encounter, Lawler garnered 88% of predictors’ confidence here on MMAPredictions.com. However that encounter ended in a No Contest due to an accidental thumb to Smith’s eye, which ended the fight.

- Caleb

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This is the third in a new series of MMA commentary here on MMAPredictions called TKO: Tall Kid’s Opinion. Our commentator Eric Davidson is way too tall and way too brainy. Readers are encouraged to agree or disagree with his comments in our MMA Forum. - Caleb

Recent Events Begin to Paint Contrasting Colors

Recently, after EliteXC’s Return of the King, Nick Diaz appeared on the stage (and I emphasize stage) and blasted the recent victor, K.J. Noons, and his family in an apparent effort to promote their upcoming fight. What ensued made my stomach churn; Diaz’s provocations caused an uproar between the two families that exploded into a physical altercation that I was half expecting Jimmy from the Jerry Springer show to break up. Watching Noons’ father grabbing Diaz by the hair and conduct his own form of fighting was sickening.

Nick Diaz has come out saying that none of it was staged, that he was merely asked by producers to go out to the ring and promote their future fight. If you believe that then I have some cage-side seats to sell you for the Kimbo Slice/Jerry Lawler fight in August. This is the same group who use fireworks and dancing girls (see previous T.K.O.) to demonstrate the extreme nature that is their fighting atmosphere. Maybe Nick Diaz was right, maybe he really had no idea that he was walking into a Hatfield-McCoy type situation. In my mind’s eye, I can see an executive from CBS entertainment sitting in a large plush chair overlooking the events, stroking his long haired cat and slyly grinning to himself as a poster of Vince McMahon looms in the background. Okay, so maybe that’s a little dramatic, but it isn’t too far off from what the EliteXC is looking to become. I’m sure it was hard for Goldberg not to try and bounce off the cage and clothesline someone as they were running across the ring.

In the UFC, more specifically, The Ultimate Fighter, we see for the first time, a contestant kicked off the program after the show was over. Jesse Taylor, a fighter who looked promising going into the finals, was booted from broadcast following a drunken parade of poor behavior that is unbecoming of a professional fighter. In the video taken from what looks to be a hotel security camera, Taylor kicks out one of the windows of a limousine before running inside of the casino, wresting about with some of the other contestants, and hitting a slot machine. Forrest Griffin said it best after watching the video, “Alcohol is bad!” Dana White, who had a talk with the finalists before setting them loose in Las Vegas about proper conduct, kicked Mr. Taylor off of the show shortly after showing the video to the coaches.

I’ve been reading on the forums that some people have found this to be a case of punishment not fitting the crime. I couldn’t disagree more. Dana White is constantly fighting an uphill battle to keep a positive image (which has been discussed in this column more than once).

With groups like the EliteXC making a show of the sport, and the upcoming Affliction: Banned, which despite a decent fight card is having Megadeth perform at their event, the question becomes “what is the true face of Mixed Martial Arts on television right now?” (I, unlike my superior, and I use that term loosely, am not a huge Megadeth fan, sorry Caleb.) So, at the moment, I will continue to give my backing to the UFC and the WEC, despite the recent toy line…Mr. White. Winner by T.K.O.: the UFC and its subsidiaries.

- Eric

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This is the second in a new series of MMA commentary here on MMAPredictions called TKO: Tall Kid’s Opinion. Our commentator Eric Davidson is way too tall and way too brainy. Readers are encouraged to agree or disagree with his comments in our MMA Forum. - Caleb

I like to think that there are two kinds of MMA fans out there: The ones who enjoy an EliteXC event, and those who try everything not to go into a catatonic coma in between the actual Elite XC fights. What I am referring to is the showy, hammed up, urban themed, hip-hop, flashily lit, drawn-out, WWE styled walk outs that CBS Entertainment somehow deems crucial to a fighting arena.

For the MMA purist, this is torture. For anyone who has had any kind of fighting background (a serious fighting background, not just some bar brawls over who-spilled-whose Red Bull and vodka), watching these athletes come out dancing to the latest rap song or heavy metal tune is almost a slap in the face to martial arts. Yes, a good entrance is an entertaining way of introducing a fighter to the arena; something that sets the tone for who the fighter is, or just something to get him pumped up as he enters the arena. However, CBS Entertainment must think that the MMA crowd has the mind of a five-year old; enticing our minds with bright lights, fireworks, and loud music.

Kimbo Slice lays it on James Thompson at CBS EliteXC Saturday Night Fights. Photo courtesy EliteXC and Tom Casino.

Let’s take a look at what a well trained fight is. Having two competitors who’ve trained for months for a (max of) twenty five minutes in the ring together, both utilizing their preferred styles of combat, is a special happening that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Combat is one of, if not the oldest forms of interaction between mankind. Now that we’ve become civilized fighting is a sport, a way for two people to compete doing something they love. If it was a Spartan-sport there would be no cameras, just two men, a floor, and a cage.

However, since there are pockets to be filled one must appease the crowds and mass audiences that hold the means to fill these pockets. The UFC and the WEC do a very good job of balancing the two. The walk out is just the fighters taking the path from the back to the front, much like an NBA team does before a game. This pumps up the crowd and gets the fans eager to support their chosen player. The same goes for MMA. Then we move on to the dancing girls. Oh the dancing girls. If you are sitting at home or in the stands and watching the girls bump and shake every wiggly part of their body, and thinking to yourself “This is why I love this sport,” stop watching. Or, if you must continue to watch, please don’t go out and tell people that you’re a huge MMA fan. This is embarrassing for those of us who have a great love for the ideal of martial arts, not just a way to watch two guys pummel each other for 3-5 rounds. It seems as if the EliteXC panders to the latter crowd exclusively.

Those of you who watched the most recent EliteXC broadcast, you may have noticed that the championship bout was not the main event. Instead, EliteXC held their ratings trump card (a.k.a. – Kimbo Slice) until the end of the night. Was it worth the wait? Not even close. Watching Slice and James Thompson duke it out was not a far cry from Kimbo’s street fighting days. I don’t like reviewing the EliteXC for a reason, it would take too long for me to get anything out of the muck that goes around the actual fights. Therefore, I won’t get into why the fight was bad. Youtube it if you must.

All of these things seem to come down to one major point, one thing that puts the EliteXC at the bottom wrung of the MMA broadcasters: lack of respect for the sport. Instead of realizing what makes this sport stand alone from others, and using this to build a concrete arena for the viewers and practitioners, their mentality seems to be just make everything, bigger, louder, and more “extreme.” Winner by T.K.O.: all the other MMA broadcasters.

- Eric

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Well well well. The debut of mixed martial arts on network television. What did you think? Did that live up to the hype?

It’s hard to say. There are multiple angles we should examine the event from. Here are a few things that first come to my mind:

• Kimbo Slice actually was in a fight that lasted more than a handful of seconds. James Thompson did eventually provide a Kimbo win, much to EliteXC’s delight, but at least we saw Kimbo pushed a little harder than before.
• The dancers and Busta Rhymes were terrible. Is this what happens when CBS Entertainment puts on an event instead of CBS Sports?
• Announcing crew: Gus Johnson gets two big thumbs up. Great work with Frank Shamrock’s introduction to MMA at the beginning of the event. Mauro Ranallo was Mauro Ranallo and that’s okay.

Here is a snapshot of how our predictors performed here on MMAPredictions.com for the event overall, which you can see by going to the card’s detailed results page.

• 509 MMAPredictions users predicted on the card. That’s a pretty strong number, and in the range of those we see for most UFC events.
• The average of all our users’ prediction accuracies for the card’s 5 fights on MMAPredictions was 75.9% making these fights way more predictable than most MMA events. On average we can expect about half of a fight card to be correctly predicted by our users on this site, and rarely do they get more than 65% of a card’s fights correct. More on that below.

Most easily-predicted fight outcome: Ninety-four percent of MMAPredictions users knew that Brett Rogers would beat up Jon Murphy. Looking at Murphy before the fight began, he certainly didn’t seem to possess much confidence. I don’t know what soldiers’ faces looked like as they rushed the beach on Normandy knowing what lay before them, but I imagine many of them had the same look Murphy did: resigned.

Most surprising fight outcome: Well this is a first… we don’t have a most surprising fight of the night. In all four of the fights with a real outcome (the Lawler vs. Smith ending can’t really be included), the majority of our users correctly picked the winner of the fight. No upsets to see here folks, move along.

Here’s the trick: the event had five fights on the main card, which is not that many. Fewer fights means it’s easier to predict the card.

Then, the fight between Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith was ruled a no contest when a doctor ruled that Smith could not continue after receiving a thumb in the eye. So now we’re down to just four fights that were all correctly predicted by the majority of users. So we’re left with what seems to be a very predictable set of fights.

But is that what this card was about? Normally I hold promoters to a very high standard in that I believe fights should not be predictable. (Call me a purist but I feel MMA fights should include two evenly matched combatants.)

But tonight was about playing it safe, and having a successful debut. Or rather, a debut where nothing went wrong and the promoters could expect to return with another event. In that regard, EliteXC deserves a pat on the back for its first MMA event on network television.

Next up on MMAPredictions.com is the WEC Pulver vs. Faber in just a few hours. Get your picks in on this eleven-fight card!

- Caleb

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Gina Carano, Gary Shaw, and Kaitlin Young at the weigh-ins on Friday. Photo courtesy EliteXC.

EliteXC on CBS takes place Saturday on the CBS Television Network (9 p.m.-11 p.m. ET/PT)! Get your predictions in here for the five main event fights in what some claim will make MMA history.

Gina Carano and Kaitlin Young, pictured above, will be the first female MMA fight that most people will ever have seen. (I’m not talking about you, hard core fans!). EliteXC is hoping that they can differentiate themselves by having a female division that fans talk about. What do you think? Will female MMA catch on?

The main event of the night is street fighting sensation Kimbo Slice, of YouTube fame. He will face James Thompson, of the United Kingdom. The question is, what if Kimbo loses? What does EliteXC do then? Is Thompson legitimate competition for Kimbo or is he more cannon fodder?

Remember, you can get a text message of the fight outcomes sent to you if you have predicted on the fights just for being a member of MMAPredictions. You can set that up in your user profile, found by clicking on your username in the upper right hand side of the site when you are logged in.

Also remember to always predict all the fights on the card or you run the risk of your predictions not counting!

Lastly, don’t forget we have a great set of fights on Sunday at WEC Faber vs Pulver. Might as well get your predictions made here on MMAPredictions all at once!

- Caleb

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CBS EliteXC Saturday Night Fights is only a matter of days away now. While Kimbo Slice’s fight with James Thompson and Gina Carano’s against Kaitlin Young will likely take center stage on May 31st, Phil Baroni and Joey Villasenor have been doing their part to keep their share of the card entertaining as well.

The match up between Baroni and Villasenor contributes to the overall tenor of the card, which is not expected to showcase much ground fighting. Both are sluggers: almost two-thirds of Baroni’s wins come by TKO, and Villasenor’s win column has not seen a submission victory since 2005.

Here are some of the barbs exchanged between the two on a recent conference call leading up to this Saturday:

Question: Joey, do you think you have the advantage in overall technique?

Villasenor: I think my overall game is improving daily. I have power with movement. It’s about executing. Overall, we all know that Baroni has stand‑up power, but I’m going to try to expose him with my movement. So, it’s just all about executing.

Baroni: Basically to sum it up, Villasenor is going to run. He basically just said that he (will) bring his track shoes and chase me. He’s going to run. It doesn’t matter because in the cage you can run, but you can’t hide. I’m going to find you, I’m going to hit and everyone’s going to think about you.

Villasenor: You’re going to make me pay for your last two losses, right, Phil?

Baroni: Uh‑huh.

Question: Can you comment on the fact that Baroni said he is going to ice you?

Villasenor: (Laughing) That’s a good one. He’s going to ice me. I don’t care what Baroni says. We know him. He said he’s going to do this and that all the time. But he’s got to come through. I didn’t say I’m going to do this or that. I’m going go out there and perform my best and we’ll see what happens in the end.

Baroni: You are going to get knocked out, kid. Your best isn’t going to be big enough. The bottom line is this is my coming home party, and you’re the victim.

Villasenor: Your coming out party, Phil? You’ve been out for a while. You’ve been exposed for a while. I’ll just have to show everybody on national television and expose you, expose you at home, expose you in front of everybody. I’m excited to get the opportunity.

I respect you, man. I respect the power you’ve got. But it’s coming. It’s coming. You know it’s coming. I don’t need to talk trash. You know what’s coming. That’s all there is to it.

Baroni: I ain’t talking trash. I’m stating the facts, dude. I’m going to smash you and you’ll get hurt real bad. Be ready. Try your best. Your best is not going to be good enough, and we’ll send you back to Nashville.

Villasenor: You’re getting me even more excited for this. I’m pumped. This is just what I needed. I needed somebody to talk trash to me. This is the first time in 30 fights that I’ve had somebody treat me this way. Hey, thanks for the motivation.

Baroni: You’re welcome, buddy.

Make sure you get your picks in here on MMAPredictions! I probably do not have to tell you to keep an eye on CBS this Saturday, May 31 (9-11 p.m. ET/PT)!

- Caleb

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Is Kimbo Slice Good for the Sport?

by Eric Davidson

As most of you are aware (unless you’ve been watching scrambled clips of MMA bouts from a cave) one of the newest faces to hit the sports arena is the infamous Kimbo Slice, who will take on James Thompson in CBS EliteXC Saturday Night Fights on May 31st on CBS free television.

The famously brutal street fighter made a name for himself in the underground world fighting consensual conflicts in urban environments which were later posted online. Perhaps one of the more famous engagements ended with him knocking a man’s eye out of his socket; which still didn’t end the fight for unknown reasons. His recent entry into the mixed martial arts territory caused mixed emotions from die-hard fans. Many were thrilled to see Kimbo enter a more professional fighting arena, whether to say “I’ve been following this guy since he was a street fighter,” with some added pride, or just to watch him pummel “professional” fighters who’ve been training for years.

Others saw it as a gimmick, a publicity stunt by the EliteXC to bring a virally famous face into their MMA atmosphere. Especially when he began by fighting former champions a little past their prime, (i.e. a visibly older Tank Abbott) perhaps just to fatten his fighting record before throwing him up against some more notable competitors. Some have already showed some disdain for EliteXC’s flashy entrances with dancing girls, hinting that instead of being viewed as a sport it is considered as just another form of mindless entertainment. Even MMA legend Chuck Liddell has taken a stand against the Kimbo Slice craze, suggesting that Kimbo isn’t nearly as good as he’s being hyped up to be. Liddell even states:

“All I said is fight to someone real. The only guy he lost to in his street-fight things came into the UFC and lost. Fight a guy that is real and fight a guy… who has a few wins in MMA, and then talk about it.”

Regardless of the hype or anti-hype, you can’t deny his strength. Watching him pound into Tank Abbott and Bo Cantrell makes any viewer realize the authority behind his fists.

Born Kevin Ferguson in Miami, Florida, Kimbo was a star defensive football player before ending a year and a half stint at the University of Miami (where he surprisingly didn’t play football). Afterwards he worked as a body-guard for RK Netmedia, a Miami-based pornography company who even feature’s Kimbo as an escort in a select group of videos (or so I’m told). It wasn’t until a match between former Boston Police Officer Sean Gannon that they were both propelled into the MMA arena. Gannon, as stated by Liddell, lost to Brandon Lee Hinkle in a brutally bloody match fromwhich Gannon has yet to return.

For the MMA purists watching an internet famous street brawler may not be what you’re looking for in a sport that is constantly gaining a respectable reputation; especially with such sportsman-like displays from people such as Matt Serra, George St. Pierre, and even Gina Carano, who had a quick “no” response to a question involving her posing in Playboy. No matter what the sport, its degree of class is always defined by its participants, so the question is:

Is Kimbo Slice, the self-made street fighter/pornography body-guard/father of six from Miami going to be good for a sport that is still struggling to keep a reputable image?

Gina Carano and Kaitlin Young joined EliteXC president Gary Shaw to address reporters today in anticipation of thei May 31st event, CBS EliteXC Saturday Night Fights.

Both women were very positive in their comments about their upcoming fight. Carano, who just finished her obligations with American Gladiators a week ago, is now back at Randy Couture’s Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas. She told reporters that she is now weighing 155 and by fight time will be in the range of 5 or 6 pounds of the 140 pound weight limit for the fight, and will cut weight prior to come in under 140. Carano stated:

“Extremely honored to fight on the CBS card. I think it’s one of the best matchups I’ve ever had. I’m excited to be getting back to what my passion is, which is fighting.”

Gina Carano’s opponent Kaitlin Young is a kinesiology major at the University of Minnesota and told a curious reporter that she has a 3.0 GPA. She stated that after this semester ends she will be going to school just part time so she will be able to concentrate on her MMA career. Young had this to say in her opening comments.

“Like Gina, I am honored to be fighting on this CBS card. It’s going to be a great stylistic matchup. Training’s been going very well. I had a lot of notice so I’ve had a lot of time to prepare.”

Gary Shaw had many comments on the call regarding women’s mixed martial arts. When asked why Elite XC has been so interested in women’s MMA, Gary Shaw commented, “If women can fight in wars and die for their country, there’s no reason they cannot fight MMA”. When asked what plans EliteXC has in the coming year, Shaw responded that they are considering an all women’s show and a women’s title.

The fight between Gina Carano and Kaitlin Young will be the third fight televised on of the night on May 31st.

- Caleb

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This installment of MMAPredictions Radio features a conversation with Kaitlin Young, the Minnesotan fighter who will face Gina Carano on May 31 in New Jersey at the CBS Saturday Night Fights. Young is currently a kinesiology major at the University of Minnesota and this will be her sixth professional mixed martial arts fight.

Kaitlin Young trains her submission skills in preparation for her fight with Gina Carano. Photo courtesy Rick Noyes.

Kaitlin’s response when asked how her family and friends felt when she began fighting MMA:

Almost everybody’s cool with it now. My friends have always been super cool, as well as my siblings and cousins, but my aunts and my mom still sometimes give me the, “Why do you want to do this?” thing, although lately there hasn’t been much resistance about it!

Click here to listen to the 12 minute mp3!

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- Caleb

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SHOWTIME’s broadcast of EliteXC: Kimbo vs. Tank did not disappoint those who expected the fight between Kimbo Slice and Tank Abbott to be a quick one. The fight lasted just forty-three seconds, in which the cinderblocks attached to the end of Kimbo’s arms made quick work of Tank Abbott, the fighter from a bygone era of mixed martial arts.

Kimbo Slice connects a punch on Tank Abbott’s chin. Image courtesy EliteXC.

In other action:

• Yves Edwards defeated Edson Berto by flying knee at 4:56 of the first round.
• Kyle Noke was on the receiving end of Scott Smith’s right handed scud missile and was knocked out seven seconds into the second round.
• Antonio Silva defeated Ricco Rodriguez by unanimous judges’ decision after three rounds.
• Brett Rogers knocked out the lights of Englishman James Thompson at 2:24 of round one.

Here is how our predictors performed here on MMAPredictions for tonight’s event, which you can see by going to the card’s detailed results page.

• 347 MMAPredictions users predicted on tonight’s card.
• As is the case on cards that do not have many fights like this one, many users predicted every fight on the card correctly.
• The average of all our users’ prediction accuracies for the card’s ten fights on MMAPredictions was 61.9%, which is more predictable than our site’s overall accuracy of 53.3%.

Most easily-predicted fight outcome: Yves Edwards’ win over Edson Berto. Ninety percent of our users picked this fight outcome correctly.

Most surprising fight outcome: Brett Rogers’ defeat of James Thompson. Sixty-five percent of our users thought Thompson would win, but they were wrong. Interestingly, this is the only fight on the card that the majority of predictors guessed incorrectly.

Next up on MMAPredictions is Strikeforce at the Dome, which takes place on February 23rd!

- Caleb

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