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This has been a great week for fight fans
By Zach Arnold | April 2, 2008
Save your arguments about pro-wrestling for another time.
If you are a pro-wrestling fan or an MMA fan, this has been a hell of a week for you.
On Monday night, the greatest television segment in the history of American professional wrestling happened on WWE TV with Ric Flair’s farewell address. There is no one who personified the greatness and excellence of being a professional wrestler more than Flair, and it didn’t matter where he wrestled (the States, Japan, Europe), he was simply the best at his craft. When he’s 80 years old and in a wheelchair at a nursing home, he will have the three hottest nurses alongside him and he will still get the loudest reaction at basketball games and any other sporting event he ever attends. That is how transcendent Flair is as both a character and as a person, which is why Monday’s segment on RAW was brilliant.
On Wednesday night, UFC’s Ultimate Fight Night show delivered in spades. Thiago Alves, one of the two underdog wildcards on the sportsbooks, delivered with a win over Karo Parisyan. Joe Lauzon had a hell of a fight with Kenny Florian, but Florian proved to be too much and won the fight decisively in round two. Anthony Johnson, on the undercard, absolutely pummeled Tommy Speer and James Irvin had the fastest knockout in modern UFC history (eight seconds). Matt Hamill also finished his fight very strong against Tim Boetsch. The one unfortunate thing about that fight is that, if I heard right on television, Joe Rogan used the term “rape choke” to describe the finish. Gray Maynard and Frankie Edgar had an absolute war. (Maynard apparently broke his hand.) Add on a new season of The Ultimate Fighter and all I can say is that I am grateful to be both a fan and a writer covering MMA. Kid Nate and Luke Thomas broke down the action tonight on their radio show.
The Japanese market may be crippled, but there is some fantastic fight action happening right now in North America. Let us also not forget Cung Le’s fight with Frank Shamrock, which was a thing of beauty.
All in all, we should be grateful for the good things currently happening in the fight scene. I know I sure am.
Topics: Media, MMA, Pro-Wrestling, StrikeForce, UFC, WWE, Zach Arnold | 22 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
you forgot to mention the triangle off a guillotine submission, the double finger in the air, the flex, and then the tap. that was the highlight of the night for me.
This is a surprisingly uplifting post. Who are you and what did you do to Zach?
You’re right though, it’s a great time to be a fan. The UFN/TUF combo was fantastic. 4 free hours of some of the best MMA action I’ve seen.
When a war like Maynard/Edgar is the worst fight, you know it was a great night.
The Fight Night show tonight was like the energizer bunny…it kep going and going and going.
When I got a chance to take a look at the fightfinder to see everyone who was on this card…it was like WOW. You had Aurelio, Guida, Sotiropoulos, Din Thomas, and Manvel…wow is all I can say.
Does anyone know if there will be a DVD release of the entire fight card?
Thanks for linking that clip on here Zach. Knowing why they wouldn’t have either of them come out on the TV portion of RAW, it was incredible to see Undertaker & Vince come out & congratulate Ric.
Wrestler’s chances of making 80 are pretty poor.
I’m impressed he’s still alive at almost 60.
There are recent rumours that the Fight Night shows may see box sets soon. Which would be great, because those are some of the very best cards in UFC history in many cases.
The early fight nights had a lot of high profile names, and the later ones are full of exciting fights with lower profile guys on the rise.
Zach, April Fool’s day was 2 days ago.
Because it happened in the WWE I halfway expected Shawn Michaels to turn heel and superkick Ric Flair at the end of the celebration. Glad Vince didn’t use the send-off as an opportunity to further and angle, and it ended with pure class.
Gray Maynard is the Tim Sylvia of 155, IMO. He’s about as boring as you can get in a division full of extremely exciting fighters. The rest of the card was greatness.
Florian was the star of the night – he blew through a very tough kid with relative ease, and should definitely get to fight BJ Penn once he submits Roidy McRoiderson.
I rewound that several times on my PVR…”Rape Choke”? I couldn’t believe my ears!
Yeah the rape choke comment was in terrible taste. On live TV no less. Rogan should be ashamed of himself.
Rogan was probably high or something. That or he was thinking of raping Carlos Mencia, Dane Cook, Robin Williams, and Dennis Leary and the term “rape choke” came out. Unfortunately I worked so I will have to check out a replay of last night’s fight night special. Stupid me I also missed the latest WEC event. I didn’t watch RAW either because I don’t watch WWE anymore (I still watch lots of pro wrestling, New Japan, NOAH, Ring Of Honor, CHIKARA, TNA, CMLL, etc.) but I did watch the EliteXC/Strikeforce event. The event itself was only okay, but man that Le/Shamrock fight was excellent!! The event itself was much better than the EliteXC/Cage Rage event where Ken Shamrock got KTFO by Razor Berry.
Gray Maynard looks like a raw 155 Josh Koscheck. Although, he hasn’t been as boring as Josh was early in his career. I would credit Frank Edgar as being impossible to finish for the semi-boring fight. Maynard, like Gamburyan is a train. The guy has heart and he’s got raw talent.
I agree with IceMuncher. I was so bewildered after I read the post I had to scroll up to the top to see who wrote it.
A poster on another site said he thinks Rogan said “rake” choke, as in trachea. Sounds like a bit of stretch but who knows what phases people come up with in training. I am hoping he is right and Rogan is not that dumb.
I kept listening to it over and over, and I couldn’t hear it being anything but ‘rape’ (the ‘P’ sounds was pretty distinct).
I’m sure in future broadcasts they’ll come up with a better name for that choke hold.
I hope.
The only disappointing thing about the Flair send off was they didn’t bring out El Gigante/Giant Gonzales so we could reminisce about that feud one last time.
Relating to last night: should the UFC finally fire Steve Mazzagatti?
His call to stand up Brock Lesnar and deduct a point was beyond absurd, and could have possibly altered the outcome of that fight.
Last night, TWICE a fighter got dropped, started to defend himself, and Steve Mazzagatti calls a TKO (Parysian did get rocked, but Alexander was sticking his arms up to defend himself). In either case it was a close call, but early nonetheless.
How much longer are they going to keep this guy around? This douchebag is quickly becoming the new Mario Yamasaki for complete incompetence.
I miss John McCarthy.
Relating to last night: should the UFC finally fire Steve Mazzagatti?
How do you go about firing someone that’s appointed by local athletic commissions?
“How do you go about firing someone that’s appointed by local athletic commissions?”
I don’t know, ask Larry Landless.
They should just have all their shows in the UK where they appoint the judges and refs.
The UFC might not be able to fire a ref, but they definitely have enough pull to stop a ref from being in their events.
As for the UFC Fight Night Box Sets… That would be nice… I would definitely purchase them. However, even as a hardcore fan who would collect every event, I think a few volumes of Best of’s would easily be sufficient.
Rape choke isn’t a term Rogan made up. It’s pretty common in gyms and I’ve heard it used before on fight cards. I remember Wes Sims saying he would win his fight by rape choke once, I think on WEC when it was on HDNET. Anyway, it was probably a poor choice of words, but he didn’t just come up with it out of nowhere.
Tanner: Too bad Diaz did nothing throughout the entire fight before being slammed with Pellegrino already in the perfect position for a triangle choke. I’m surprised he pulled off the submission considering he was pretty much done in the first round.
Ric Flair’s tribute on RAW was one of those great moments that fans will remember for a long time and I can’t see there ever being a moment like that in wrestling again in my lifetime.