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A WEC PPV without the WEC name
By Zach Arnold | April 24, 2010
Search UFC on Twitter. People have no idea what they are watching is any different.
Talk about branding power.
You won’t find the WEC name mentioned or seen at tonight’s hot Arco Arena event in Sacramento promoted by Zuffa. (Picture here.) Josh Gross notes that DirecTV is selling this as a UFC PPV event, which matches how bars in areas across the country are marketing tonight’s event.
BTW, Nelson Hamilton getting heat as a judge for scoring the Takeya Mizugaki/Rani Yahya fight 30-27 in favor of Mizugaki.
Speaking of judges, does anyone know if the infamous Doug Crosby is working tonight’s Zuffa show or future shows for the promotion?
When Mike Goldberg did the teaser on Spike TV for Ben Henderson vs. Donald Cerrone for the WEC Lightweight title match, he said: “The Lightweight title is on the line.” He also said that “the Featherweight title is on the line” for Urijah Faber vs. Jose Aldo. On the microphone logo boxes for Goldberg & Rogan, it’s “Aldo vs. Faber.” No UFC logo, no WEC logo.
Watching Anthony Pettis beat Alex Karalexis, Pettis is sure smug… He’s undoubtedly very talented. I laughed when he did the RVD/Pete Weber thumbs-pointed-to-self pose after winning.
WOW… On the PPV teaser, Goldberg said to check your local programming guide or go to UFC.com — they aren’t even telling people to go to WEC.tv.
Joe Rogan to Kimbo Slice on preview show: “I want to congratulate you on your transformation from backyard street brawler to professional Mixed Martial Artist.” Doing the hard sell for the 5/8 Montreal PPV on a (WEC) PPV broadcast hype special… notice UFCstore.com on a couple of spots on the cage?
Leonardo Garcia vs. Chan Sung Jung… horribly sloppy fight, highly entertaining and both men have big hearts. Garcia got exposed against Mike Brown and has had trouble since that loss, but he’s always gritty and gutty. Nelson Hamilton scored it 29-28 for Leonard Garcia along with one other judge… oh my. Wrong decision, IMO… Garcia’s right hand, he claims, is broken and that he broke it in the first round. How ironic that Leonard’s post-fight interview was the only time the name “WEC” was mentioned… I cracked a smile when Mike Goldberg said The Korean Zombie was “making his organizational debut here tonight.”
30-27 Jung on my card. That said, that’s the most offense I’ve ever seen one guy have without winning a round. Highly entertaining if inept.
Buhahahaha. Lost every single round. The [BS] judging surrounding Leonard Garcia will never stop. What a damper on a highly fun fight.
And with that, Leonard Garcia is 0-5 in his last five fights in the world of truth.
Another fight that shows judges need monitors. If you didn’t have a TV, I question if you saw how often and bad Garcia got bopped inside.
Also, I haven’t seen a single person say they thought Garcia won yet, which means sanity prevails.
Someone message Jordan with the following from Dave Meltzer:
Garcia is going to be a superstar out of this one. Garcia with a knee. Garcia 29-28. One of the biggest standing ovations for an undercard fight I’ve ever seen here.
Take a look at this official score card for the Leonard Garcia fight. All the judges scored the last round for Garcia. Plus, look at who judged the fight: Nelson Hamilton, Abe Belardo, and D. Stell. Note that Belardo had the last round scored 10-10 but crossed out the 10 on Jung’s side and made it a 9. As Dave Meltzer has noted before, you don’t see 10-10 rounds often… especially at Zuffa events.
If you had Manny Gamburyan at +500 (or whatever ridiculous underdog odds he was at, Mike Brown was nearly -700), then you my friend were a big winner tonight.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, WEC, Zach Arnold | 28 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
So long, World Extreme Cagefighting. You had a good run. I remember you back in the day, and I’m proud of all you accomplished.
Fluyid — if you could, please send me an e-mail. I wanted to talk to you about something. Thanks.
Look for an email from [email protected]. I just created that account. Any other email ain’t me.
Garcia-Jung was an exciting fight, but so goddamn sloppy. They gassed themselves out 45 seconds in. I guess that’s what most people want but I personally like to see more technique in fights.
I’m all for technique, but you’d have to be lacking a pulse not to enjoy that fight. Sloppy, wild, brilliant.
I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy it, but I just like to see some more technique. Jung had Garcia clinched with the double palm and was kneeing him, but let him go to throw a punch. Why not continue to bring Garcia’s head down and knee him to end the fight?
I really don’t get people that bitch about sloppy fights even after a brilliant performance like the one we saw last night.
I enjoy a good technical Sakuraba-Newton style technical chess match as much as anyone, but that doesn’t mean I have to look down my nose at fights that go in a different direction. Frye-Takayama was one of the sloppiest fights and least technical fights ever, but it still ranks very high on many old school fans favorite fights lists.
MMA fan snobbery is lame.
Garcia-Jung was the only thing I saw sitting in my hotel room. I was laughing my ass off at that bar brawl posing as top level sporting event. I am laughing even harder now that I see people saying its “snobbery” to not like it. Whatever. I don’t watch High School Football or Northern League baseball either.
that was one of the worst decisions I’ve ever seen. Jung won all the rounds and probably should have won the first round 10-8. What a joke.
I agree. Jung was the one who did all stalking and continuously walked down Garcia. Isn’t that considered aggression?
Fue una falta de respeto al público, a los fanáticos, a los seguidores de este deporte. Por qué D. white no opinó sobre el particular con justicia, por respeto al publico, al espectáculo, a los que pagamos por disfrutar del evento. Se mostró muy desilusionado con el último combate de The Spider Silva. ¿Cómo puede catalogarse esto? Los jueces estaban parcializados? Me sentí muy mal, desilusionado, ofendido, por la falta de justicia
Shock! The Zuffa-darling Leonard Garcia gets another gift decision, on the basis that he kept winging wide haymakers and actually landed one that temporarily dropped Jung, who still managed to come back and win the round (except for in the hearts and minds of the judges).
MMA decisions may as well be a popularity contest, this is fucking ridiculous.
Meltzer had it 29-28 for Garcia…
Doesn’t Meltzer get a paycheck from Zuffa? 🙂
“MMA decisions may as well be a popularity contest, this is fucking ridiculous.”
So how in the hell did Edgar get the nod over Penn?, let’s not try and rewrite history here the fight was razor thin and could have gone to either guy. Personally speaking I had it Garcia 29-Jung 28 but it could go either way, there have been tons of bad decisions for people to complain about but this fight was basically a draw for 3 rounds let’s leave the outrage for fights that deserve it.
Is that you, Nelson Hamilton?
When someone is backpedaling the entire round, and then you knock them down with strikes, that’s a draw?
Huh…interesting. I guess the scoring system in MMA needs to be better explained to me.
I still don’t understand you guys defending the decision. Jung controlled the WHOLE fight. Landed the much harder/cleaner shots. Got the only takedowns of the fight, stopped all Garcia’s attmempts and took his back.
30-27 Jung should’ve been down the line. Again, something needs to be done about judging in MMA.
lol @ EJ. What a joke.
Main event scoring was even more embarrassing. 2 judges had it 49-45 (implying a round was even, LOL), and no 10-8 rounds. That was ridiculous.
Maybe not MORE embarrassing, but it was close.
When you crucifix someone and pound them with like a zillion unanswered shots, that’s NOT a 10-8 round?
If that’s not, what is? Tearing a limb off?
First round was close. There were maybe a dozen strikes combined that landed cleanly over the entire 5 minutes. A 10-10 draw isn’t ridiculous in that round. You’re unduly influenced by the beating Aldo gave Faber over the following 4 rounds.
So… best fight card of the year? I can’t see imagine anything topping it. Literally ever fight was exciting.
I thought it signaled that two judges scored the first for Faber, and the fourth 10-8 Aldo. That would have led to 49-45 scorecards.
I think you nailed it.
First round was competitive, but Aldo still clearly won. Also there were multiple 10-8 rounds. Regardless, Garcia “winning” was a disgrace of epic proportions. Dana and Rogan could even be heard on air talking about how they didn’t even think it was close.
I didn’t see the MMA (can’t say WEC, can I?) card tonight, but I watched all three boxing cards tonight (Frock-Kessler on Showtime, Jorge Arce on Fox Sports Espanol, and the HBO fights) and all of those fights were very entertaining. And the Zuffa MMA (that will have to do for now) was excellent too? Best night of fights overall in a very long time? I will say yes. On the boxing front none of the fights were FOTY contenders, but all were sufficiently entertaining.
I think Froch vs. Kessler is the early candidate for FOTY.
Now that was a great fight.
I really thought Kessler was gonna unravel down the stretch.
Why is anybody surprised casual fans call this UFC? They thought Elite and Strikeforce were UFC too. Just like how all wrestling is called WWF/E or some people call all cola soda Coke. They might as well run with it.