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WEC 37 (12/3 Las Vegas) event thoughts
By Zach Arnold | December 3, 2008
They should just rename this event the “Urijah Faber image rehabilitation” show. Between the cageside interview to hype up Pulver/Faber II to the No Fear ad spots where you can win a chance to ‘train’ with Faber, it’s almost as if Mike Brown doesn’t even exist as a champion.
Joseph Benavidez won a 30-27 unanimous decision over Danny Martinez in a pretty lackluster fight. Brian Bowles did well against Will Ribeiro in his fight, using multiple guillotine choke attempts (Bowles got the submission in R3).
So far, a pretty laid back show.
Referee Steve Mazzagatti shaved off his mustache. Ridiculous.
Poor Frank Mir. I give the guy a ton of credit for really doing his job in describing the action during the Fabiano/Tamura fight as far as technique is concerned, and then the minute Mazzagatti starts getting impatient and screaming “action! action!” at the fighters, Mir humbly says, “Well, I’m a black belt in jiu-jitsu, so I get excited…” as if he’s apologizing for actually trying to put over what the fighters are doing in the cage. ‘That is a MONSTER win for Fabiano. Tamura’s defense on bottom is excellent.’
Wow, did that crowd not react to Fabiano winning or what. That’s about as polite an MMA crowd as you can get while burying a fighter at the same time.
Unless Torres vs. Tapia has a quick finish, there’s no way that the WEC show is going to complete their event in the allocated two-hour time frame. This show will end up going head-to-head against The Ultimate Fighter on Spike TV.
I should also mention that tonight’s event featured a female referee (Kim Winslow), who seemingly was a foot taller than either fighter in the Benavidez/Martinez bout. She looked like she could chokeslam either one if she wanted to. Good to see her officiating. One other officiating note — on the four WEC TV bouts, there were four different referees (Kim Winslow, Yves Lavigne, Steve Mazzagatti, and Josh Rosenthal.)
Miguel Torres won his fight against Manny Tapia in a stand-up only fight (referee stoppage in R2). The crowd was chanting “Torres! Torres!” early in the second round. Tapia didn’t seem like much of a threat to him at all, and that keeping the fight standing up was basically his only chance of winning. It more or less felt like Tapia was delaying the inevitable by not taking the fight to the ground, which would have likely resulted in a quicker loss. That was a fat mouse underneath Tapia’s right eye.
Topics: Media, MMA, WEC, Zach Arnold | 12 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Boring show so far.
Overall, I just can’t get into Bantamweights. I enjoy the occassional fight, but they just lack the power to make for exciting fights. Miguel Torres is the exception, so hopefully he puts on a good show tonight.
Yves Lavigne stood up the Bowles fight while one fighter was in half guard. That is unusual, but warranted on this rare occurance.
In the future, these Japanese stars should have to prove themselves first before being ranked. MMAWeekly had Tamura ranked #3, yet he looked like an amateur with his striking, and didn’t do anything on the ground. I always find it funny how the guys who fight in Japan always get ranked higher.
Torres needs to rescue this show. Horrible night for the WEC so far.
Tamura is a very good young fighter. He just ran in to a stud.
I don’t know if Torres saved the show, but a very good showing. This guy should be talked about with Penn, Silva, GSP, & Fedor as the best 5 P4P fighters in the world.
The guys who fight in Japan get ranked higher, 45, because Japan (and really, Shooto exclusively) is the only place dudes that size have been fighting for the entire history of MMA. You know, like how all the PRIDE lightweights automatically had higher rankings than the UFC guys since the UFC didn’t even have a lightweight division during that period.
“Referee Steve Mazzagatti shaved off his mustache. Ridiculous.”
He shaved it a while back…I’m surprised you missed the sonic boom.
Props to Torres for doing the Harold Howard tribute flip kick.
I disagree. Guys like Faber have been fighting at 145 lbs for more then a few years in the US. So has a guy like Miguel Torres at 135 lbs. The fighters have been competing in the US. Just because they weren’t in Shooto, doesn’t mean their wins didn’t count.
Shooto is highly over rated. It has been so for years. It’s a good feeder system, nothing more, nothing less.
45…what’s your top 5 @ 125 then? Or does that division not count?
Shooto wasn’t the feeder system, it was the end of the line. Sorry, but fighting the best KOTC had to offer wasn’t the same as the huge international talent base Shooto was drawing from. Not even close. The WEC’s purchased changed the balance of power greatly and created opportunities for guys that didn’t otherwise exist, which gives you the possibility of making such insane claims as the one you have made just now. No WEC means no Pulver at 145 against Faber. Instead, he’d be a 155lb punching bag or fighting for Shooto (which he did). And Faber? Probably an also ran lightweight pissed the IFL went under.
Any and all WEC haters don’t appreciate MMA… I love their promotion!
This was a great show on paper that ended being a good show in execution. Enjoy this level of quality matchmaking while you can, because this was the last WEC event that was fully booked when Zuffa decided to replace the founders of the WEC with Joe Silva’s assistant.
What a joke… Junie Browning is still in the UFC and he has a fight on the live season finale that is actually on the main card according to UFC.com, while fighters who did not act like mentally unstable drunkards are in the untelevised prelims.
Yeah! Who is Joe Silva anyway? It’s not like he has a great track record! He’s never been able to create the kind of interest that Scott Adams seemed to generate so easily…