Am I the only one who wasn't completely disappointed?

The Carano fight was good for women's MMA, and Smith/Lawler was good except for the ending. But that Kimbo fiasco overshadowed the whole night and ruined it for me.

 

I wasn't disappointed. Sucks how some fights ended but they were fine.

 

I wasn't totally disappointed. Granted, if you expected the card to live up to all the hype that built up going in then you probably would be disappointed.
I mean, what the hell were people expecting?

Most of us going in knew Kimbo wasn't much more than a one dimensional slugger, and yet the criticisms are flying today about his performance.

And sorry, but I found the Lawlor/Smith fight totally entertaining. If those guys put on that same show on an UFC card, would it get criticized? Hell no.

 

I wasnt totally dissapointed either ......The Shamrock/Cung Lee fight would have been a great 1st show

 

I loved it. Enjoyed the entire show from beginning to end.

 

The smith vs lawler fight was great until the eye poke, the carano vs young fight was good, however the kimbo vs thompson fight was a sham, kimbo looked to ahve tapped at one point, round two thompson beat him for about 2 mins. People are now saying thompson was out on his feet but kimbo was screwed even with thompsons poor gnp, he couldn't get up and had to be helped up.

 

BIGTIMEPROMOTING was at play during the Kimbo/Thompson fight for sure. Elite XC hung the success of their new series (as well as that of their entire organization) on Kimbo and they were doing their best to make sure he had his hand raised at the end of the night.

I thought Kimbo tapped whilst stuck in the guillotine as well. Then at the end of the second round - Kimbo didn't really make a concentrated effort to go to his corner. The fight could have been stopped right then with Thompson declared the winner via TKO. And lastly - the stoppage in the third round was questionable - but in all honesty - Thompson had an open wound that was spraying viscous matter - not just blood - all over the ring. It's a difficult position for the ref to be in as the wound was atypical and nowhere near obscuring his vision - but who's to say that another Kimbo right hand would not have sent the flappy remnants of Thompson's ear spinning into the third row.

The Lawler/Smith stoppage was much worse IMHO. Smith was fighting back quite well at the time of the stoppage - but he fared much worse in the previous round. Smith had a bit of the same problem afflicting Kimbo at the end of the round - and if either one had been fighting BJ Penn - BJ would have waved off the fight between rounds.

Overall it was an entertaining card. I don't miund casual fans being excited about Kimbo Slice. Smart MMA fans know that he is destined to get shutdown by the first non-journeyman that he meets. So let them build him up. As long as he keeps selling and putting butts in the seat it can only help the sport gain in popularity. The more popular the sport is - the more avenues we will be given to enjoy the sport. UFC. Elite XC. IFL. Strikeforce. DREAMS. Affliction. The more the merrier. Competition should only serve to bring out the best in the sport. Before long - these young organizations will being dropping into bankruptcy. The ones left after the fall will be stronger and better than ever. Look at how well DREAMS has fared in the wake of the disintigration of Pride.

 

Good night until the Kimbo crime. Anytime seeing Baroni destroyed makes my day. Lawler-Smith was a brutal fight I just hate the ending.

 

I wasn't that disappointed. My eyes were opened on some things.

 

I liked the show. It went about as well as could be expected. I believe mma losing its network television cherry can be blamed for some of the problems.

The negatives: Smith wasn't given 5 minutes to recover and find out if he would be able to regain his vision. Did it seem like they were pressed for time, and needed to get to the main event?

Young could have continued. If the fight were on Showtime, it probably would have. Fighters are normally not allowed to continue when swelling affects their vision. That was not the case here. There was no way that lady was getting punched on that mouse again, and it be shown on network television. I didn't want to see her get hit again myself.

Kimbo was not allowed to hit James Thompson another couple of times/Thompson was not given the opportunity to take a little punishment and come back to win a fight he was capable of winning. How you want to take the main event is up to you. I was not going to be surprised by anything in this fight. You had an unproven, hard working, athletic talent with only 3 mma fights(counting Mercer) facing a larger opponent with 22 mma fights.

The positives: I saw people go upside other people's heads, and that was fun. There were pretty ladies present as well.

The positives outweigh the negatives in my opinion.

 

The bad was so bad it sort of overshadows the good.

The Lawler - Smith fight was epic, but also the end was dissapointing.

As a huge Lawler fan, I love watching him mature from the guy who would freak out and turn into the incredible hulk when he had guys hurt, which don't get me wrong usually worked, into more of a controlled aggression that is neccesary for dealing with more dangerous guys like Trigg, Ninja, Smith.

 

Smith by TKO at the 5 round:happy

 

Not out of the question, but Smith himself wasn't real confident about it.