Elite XC Heat: Winners and Losers

Completely shocking and explosive action marked the Elite XC card on this Oct 4. More important than the actual scorecards and fight records, though, are the ramifications of the event. There are many different kinds of winners and losers from this event, but here they are.

Winners

1. Seth Petruzelli

I'm quoting this from the Wikipedia article as of 11:23 PM 10/4/2008.  

"Petruzelli offered to step up and fight after Shamrock received a cut over his left eye in pre-fight practice. Seth has now proved himself as one of the top contenders in ELITE XC for his 14 second technical knockout over Kimbo Slice. Seth took the fight on a last notice, he showed up to the arena to find out he was fighting Kimbo Slice in place of Ken Shamrock. Ken 'the pussy' Shamrock was forced to back out of the fight due to a last minute eye injury. He won."

In a further note, the Wikipedia article lists time of the fight as 0:11 of the first round, the method of victory as "Looking at him."

Man, those computer guys work fast. EliteXC made a big gamble when they decided to put their biggest attraction, Kimbo Slice, up against a fighter, who, while having no victories of "big name" opponents, had eight wins by KO or TKO. Petruzelli made the most of his opportunity by annihilating Kimbo in the first quarter of a minute.

2. Andrei Arlovski

While having far more notice than Seth Petruzelli, Arlovski took his fight with Roy Nelson on two-weeks notice. Arlovski proved that his striking is superior to that of Nelson with an impressive knockout. With this knockout, don't be surprised to see Fedor vs. Arlovski coming soon to PPV.

3. Jake Shields, Gina Carano, Benji Radach

Jake shields was able to show off his superior grappling and Jiu-Jitsu with his win over Daley. Carano was able to once again prove that she is more than just a pretty face, by using superior striking, and nullifying Kobold with excellent takedown defence.

Radach toughed out a great fight with "Ninja" Rua, to set up a match with Robbie Lawler. While none of these victories by themselves will gain them any new titles, these wins will all look good on the resumes of the respective fighters.

4. Affliction Entertainment

It seemed like every other commercial was for Affliction...I don't know what Affliction paid to get all of that advertizing, but it was definitely there. Aside from that, Affliction probably got the win that they were hoping for. 

With Andrei's win over Nelson, Affliction was able to get some great exposure for one of their top fighters. With a little bit of wind back under the sails of Arlovski, he should jump above Josh Barnett in contention for the "WAMMA" belt, currently owned by Fedor Emelianenko.

While the argument can be made for Barnett, in light of Arlovski's recent publicity alone, Fedor vs Arlovski becomes the more marketable fight, and Affliction will need that kind of fight in order to survive.

5. Elite XC

Four out of five ain't bad. That's how the executives at Elite XC are going to need to look at this outcome. The promoters got probably four of the winners that they wanted to get out of this card.

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