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WEC 6/20 Rexall Place (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)
By Zach Arnold | June 20, 2010
Dark matches
- Bantamweights: Renan Barao vs. Anthony Leone
- Bantamweights: Rafael Rebello vs. Chris Cariaso
- Featherweights: Raphael Assuncao vs. Diego Nunes
- Featherweights: Erik Koch vs. Bendy Casimir
- Bantamweights: Wagnney Fabiano vs. Frank Gomez
- Lightweights: Karen Darabedyan vs. Will Kerr
Television matches
- Bantamweights: Eddie Wineland vs. Will Campuzano
- Lightweights: Chris Horodecki vs. Ed Ratcliff
- Featherweights: Josh Grispi vs. LC Davis
- Featherweights: Mark Hominick vs. Yves Jabouin
- Lightweights: Jamie Varner vs. Kamal Shalorus
Topics: Canada, MMA, Media, Zach Arnold | 9 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
Maybe the matches will be good, and I can’t complain about free MMA, but my lord, this is a weak card by Zuffa standards. If Shalorus wins, he _might_ earn a shot at what is Zuffa’s least meaningful championship by a country mile, and the winner of LC Davis vs. Josh Grispi will be “in the mix” at FW. Nothing else has title implications. This is where a fourth weight class might come in handy. When Flyweights start having matches, people will be curious. When the WEC decides to crown a champion, or better yet do a four-man tournament for it, WEC fans won’t wanna miss it. When the Flyweight division gets established and starts producing some stars, then hopefully cards that are this irrelevant will be very few and far between for the WEC.
LC Davis vs. Josh Grispi is the only fight on this card I care about. This is what happens when they load up the PPV. They don’t have enough talent for the next few months. This is probably the worst WEC card on paper in a long time.
At least the next WEC event is much much better. I could easily miss this card and not care.
i worry that because the mma community in canada is so rabid, we’re creating the precedent that if even the shittiest card can sell out so why bother bringing good fights to canada?
Few thoughts on this card….
1) Even a bad WEC show on paper ends up turning into a quality show. The WEC has the magic touch.
2) No way Varner lost that fight. He won 2 rounds. The judge that had him losing all 3 rounds should never judge again.
3) Grispi vs. Aldo would be a really good fight.
The WEC always delivers nobody puts on better shows than they do, the fact that people still haven’t caught on to that exposes alot of so called hardcore imo.
Grispi is a star since the first time I saw the kid, you could tell that he was going to be special. They need to book him versus Aldo asap that would be a great fight between 2 ultra talented phenoms.
As far as the ME goes, I agree with the draw the point deduction basically cost Shalorus the fight but Jamie as always did some nice acting to bait the ref so he got what he deserved.
Grispi is a load and obviously talented. I’d like to see him get a bit of fine tuning before Aldo though – particularly to his standup game.
It seemed as though he was just bulldozing Davis with single powerful kicks, and was effective mostly because he’s a gigantic 145er. He didn’t put together tight combinations or show particular speed/accuracy with his punches. Nothing he threw was unavoidable by a careful fighter. Davis actually had solid openings to land on an exposed chin, as was pointed out by the commentary.
As it stands, Aldo would chop his legs out repeatedly and rarely be in range for Grispi to hit. His speed and reflexes will provide no openings for someone with an undeveloped striking game and only moderate control of range.
I would give the fight to Gamburyan now. And as for Grispi, he might be in a Jon Jones situation where his success will bring him to the top of the class before he is fully developed. But it’s even more exaggerated since there are even fewer top quality FWs in the way than LHWs, and the WEC fighters fight more often than top UFC fighters.
So the repeated kicks to the cup had him acting?
Anybocy who had that fight anything else than a Varner win is an idiot. No other explanation.
Anyone who’s followed Jamie’s career know’s he’s worse than Kos when it comes to faking being injured. The only shot I saw that landed low was the one in the third round the first 2 were iffy at best. Also what Zach said about low kicks has to be how alot of mma fans see it because this clear win for Varner that some are claiming is ridiculous.
Well you’re entitled to your opinion. I’ll leave it at that. Arguing probably isn’t gonna go anywhere.