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WEC 3/1 Corpus Christi event thoughts
By Zach Arnold | March 1, 2009
Marcus Hicks vs. Rob McCullough
-Pulver brings more excitement, Mir brings more polish and technical speaking, they should do a 3-man booth with Todd Harris
– I like the Corpus Christi crowd, but not much to cheer about right now…
– I did not like the referee breaking up Marcus Hicks and Rob McCullough in the clinch against the cage, even if ther was inactivity
R2
– After Hicks nailed Razor with a punch in R2, he went for the guillotine. If Rogan was doing color here, he would have immediately said that Rob was letting Hicks wear himself out applying the hold. Rob got out of it quickly and did some striking in the guard.
– McCullough rained down punches and kicks against Hicks, who looks like a tank in the cage at 155 pounds. Rob should be able to finish Hicks here and if he doesn’t…
– You could hear the corner say 20 seconds, then the ref say 10 seconds about 5 seconds later, and then the horn sounded within 5 seconds of after the referee said ‘time.’ What?
R3
– Wow. Neither fighter did not much throughout the fight. Hicks’ stock goes down here, while McCullough stays stuck in neutral because he couldn’t finish off an opponent who he should have. These fans have every right to be pissed off.
– These referee sucks. He’s threatening to call a no-contest to both fighters due to inactivity? We get that this was definitely a worst fight of the year candidate, but leave it at that.
– 29-29, 29-28, 30-27 in favor of Rob McCullough. What is up with that first score?
Jose Aldo vs. Chris Mickle
– Aldo’s ring/cage speed is incredible.
– Aldo is an incredible showman. He is a great asset for WEC.
– That referee stoppage was… well…
Damacio “K-1 called me Jackson” Page vs. Marcos Galvao
– Marcos has his entire name in tattoo form in katakana on his back. Didn’t realize he loved Japanese so much!
– “Angel of Death” is Page’s nickname. I think he lived up to that after that brutal 18 second KO. I’m not sure if it compares to Rashad Evans’ high-kick KO of Sean Salmon or KO of Chuck Liddell in Atlanta last September, but this was absolutely brutal.
Bart “Bartimus” Palaszewski vs. Ricardo “Not related to Lorenzo” Lamas
– Todd Harris is getting better as play-by-play man in terms of knowledge of MMA.
– Jens says that Bart is looking to use his guard to create a stalemate for the referee to stand the fighters back up.
– Lamas absolutely drilled Bart with punches on the ground. Bart’s groundwork leaves a bit to be desired.
– Pulver is getting much more comfortable on color and is starting to feel his groove in terms of bringing knowledge that a casual fan can understand.
R2
– I hope the undercard was better than the live TV matches because the live fights so far have stunk up the joint.
– Other than up-kicks and the ability to take punishment, I’m not sure what Bart has on the ground. He has a mouse underneath his left eye.
– Bart has lost both rounds and unless he scores a KO, he ain’t winning.
R3
– Lamas played a prevent defense for two minutes and then got a nice takedown. And the prevent defense continued from top position.
– 30-27 unanimous decision for Ricardo Lamas.
Leonard Garcia vs. Mike Brown
– Announcer Joe Martinez just said that the fight would be scored on a 10-point must system. Is that for title fights only? If not, someone forgot to tell that judge who scored McCullough/Hicks 29-29.
– The crowd certainly looks at Leonard Garcia as a star. Lubbock is quite a bit distance away from Corpus Christi…
– The same referee who kept seperating Hicks and McCullough is the referee for this title fight…
– Mike Brown absolutely punished Leonard Garcia with a punch and then with some brutal ground punching. He then transitioned into a choke sleeper so fluently. Garcia is already juicing with less than a minute gone.
– Garcia is a tough fighter who is getting pummeled here by the bigger Brown. Brown went for a triangle choke and choked him out with ruthless precision. This was a beautiful title defense and makes Brown look really good. A re-match with Brown and Faber, if promoted right, could do real good business.
Topics: Media, MMA, WEC, Zach Arnold | 16 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
What in the world is Hicks thinking, going for a submission after a knockdown? You’d think he had Rob where he wanted him for a beatdown.
Apparently they don’t use 10 point must in Texas. At least, that judge doesn’t.
I thought the fight should have been scored a draw, 29-29.
Aldo will be a star.
Chris Mickle looked in advance like he might have nothing to offer. Turns out he didn’t! I wonder if they’ll even bother keeping him around.
I never suspected that it was possible for a translator to speak worse English than the person he was translating for.
I actually liked the ref in the Hicks/McCullough fight. Neither was making any attempt to progress the fight. In those situations, the fight needs to be restarted.
Hicks should be gone from the WEC. Any guy who doesn’t fight during a fight like that has no business being on TV. If McCullough loses his next fight, they should cut him too. That wasn’t Quarry/Starnes bad, but way too close.
While the judges all had different scores for the fight, I thought all 3 were justified. The 29-29 just means the judge was uninformed on how most MMA fights are scored (with no 10-10 rounds), but it still was remotely justifiable.
Lamas did a good job neutralizing the journeyman/gatekeeper, even though it wasn’t necessarily in the most exciting of fashions.
Dang, these Texas refs don’t stop ANYTHING.
Sounds like the June or so card might be Brown vs. Faber with Aldo vs. Garcia underneath. I would say they could build Aldo better matching him with Pulver, but the way Pulver was on commentary with regards to Aldo and his last three fight results, I don’t feel like he’d even take that fight.
I really hope Jens can transition to a career as a broadcaster. He was good tonight. I remember his doing great at the IFC: Global Domination card years back as well.
The sweater Jens was sporting was the icing on the cake of the entire show. I thought the ref threatening to declare it a no contest was pretty awesome.
Remember the WEC where Mir was going nuts for d’arce attempts? He would have gone apeshit for the arm triangle Brown did tonight.
I thought it was a good show overall, and that Jens Pulver had a strong debut in the color commentator role, but the show was not as good as most WEC shows. Besides the McCullough-Hicks fight, there was also the fact that Aldo vs. Mickle was a complete mismatch. Watching tape on Mickle makes it clear that he often punches with his head widely exposed… and Jose Aldo has great knockout power… so what happened was very likely to happen.
Aldo could be dropping to bantamweight, especially considering his Nova Uniano mate Galvao poor perfomances. I’ve heard he was even considered as a replacement for Bowles, but it didn’t work out.
“Announcer Joe Martinez just said that the fight would be scored on a 10-point must system. Is that for title fights only? If not, someone forgot to tell that judge who scored McCullough/Hicks 29-29.”
10-10 rounds, although rare, are perfectly legit under the 10 point must system.
Checked New Jersey’s rules, and you are correct:
“(b) The 10-Point Must System will be the standard system of scoring a bout. Under the 10-Point Must Scoring System, 10 points must be awarded to the winner of the round and nine points or less must be awarded to the loser, except for a rare even round, which is scored (10-10).”
That’s not the understanding that you get from the language Zuffa uses to describe the system at the top of their televised events though.
Thanks for looking it up cause I was going to second what Steve says. As a LONG time boxing fan i’ve seen a couple 10 – 10 rounds and a couple rounds I would have rather seen scored 9-9 without any point deductions. 10 point must does not dictate somebody must receive a 9 or less