Random EliteXC Thoughts: How About Hiring Refs Who Pay Attention?

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-Kimbo's loss makes it almost impossible for EliteXC to seriously consider a PPV event in the first half of 2009. The more likely possibility is EliteXC fighters competing at an Affliction PPV.

-Speaking of Affliction, I wonder how they are feeling today? They received a tremendous amount of promotion on Saturday night on the broadcast and during the commercials. If casual fans did not know about Fedor Emelianenko, they sure do now.

Hopefully they learn from EliteXC's mistake and do not put all their hope into one fighter. Even the long-dominant Fedor can lose if the right circumstances come to pass.

-Andrei Arlovski needs to work on his ground game...a lot. Nelson dominated the action, until the referee inexplicably stood the fighters up. I'm sure Fedor is more than pleased with Affliction's selection of his next opponent.

-Benji Radach's win over Murilo Rua has been lost in the Kimbo news. It was one of the worst beatings I have seen a fighter take. It didn't help that the referee completely missed Rua's head smacking the mat in the first round.

Radach threw a huge punch, and the force caused him to fall as he connected with Rua's face. The ref looked back at Radach and never saw Rua fall face-first into the mat. He was out for a few seconds and the fight should have been over.

How much longer will MMA go on with inadequate referees? Fighters do not criticize refs out of respect and fear. Someone needs to step up and figure out a way to educate refs on MMA.

There are a handful who actually understand it and that's too small of a number for a growing sport. I hope it does not take a serious injury to a fighter for this issue to be resolved.

-One of the judges in the Carano/Kobold fight scored it 29-28 Carano, meaning they gave a round to Kobold. This was more shocking to me than Kimbo losing. Carano did not just win every round, she controlled them from beginning to end.

Kobold was a game opponent and kept coming back, but she did not come close to winning any of the rounds. Maybe it's time judging gets overhauled in MMA. To me the 10-point system is outdated and does not accurately score MMA bouts.

You'd be better off with a straight Win/Loss system. Fine and suspend dirty fighters who rack up low blows, eye pokes, etc, or you could have the referee hand out penalties. Two penalties and you lose the fight. 

You could even just have educated judges who are able to determine things like how a low blow affects a fight and have them factor it into their overall Win/Loss decision.

None of this will ever happen, because Athletic Commissions are all run by boxing old-timers. Thirty years from now when they are all gone, we might get some MMA rules that make sense.

-I'm tired of seeing Jake Shields face lesser competition. Rent him out to Affliction for the January show, please.

-EliteXC's entrance setup is lackluster. I kinda of like the idea of fighters coming out alone. Done right it can work. The problem is their walkway is too far away from the fans. I want to see the fighters interacting with the fans.

In fact, why are fans never a part of MMA shows? All we get are shots of "celebrities" or other fighters in attendance. This is a big production flaw, in my opinion. The crowd does not exist for the viewer at home. We barely even heard them last night.

A funny moment was when Gus Johnson tried to say the fans were going nuts when Kimbo came out when it was obvious they were not at all. I realize MMA crowds are not Monday Night Raw crowds, but Pro Wrestling did not always have such loud audiences.

What changed was the production of their televised events. They made the crowd a bigger part of it. They encouraged fans to bring signs and take an active role. MMA does nothing of the sort.

-Seth Petruzelli was not the underdog the announcers and EliteXC tried to make him. In fact, when it was announced he would fill-in for The Mummy, sportsbooks made him less of an underdog than Shamrock was.

-In Kimbo's defense, he had zero knowledge of Petruzelli's style, while the entire world knows how Kimbo fights. He still should have won, though.