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Are MMA organizations fixing their fights?
Man, I hope not! A disease that has and continues to plague boxing, match-fixing or unfair officiating could be making its way to the mixed martial arts arena. Take for instance this past weekend's prime-time premiere of Elite XC on CBS. Highly publicized and promoted, CBS is leading the way for major broadcast television stations in bringing MMA to the mainstream. Don't get me wrong, SpikeTV, Versus, Showtime (Sho XC), and HDNet put on shows all the time, but they are cable/satellite outlets - not one of the big 4 broadcasters. I think CBS did it right and I applaud them for doing this. It won't be long (maybe 3-5 years) before MMA takes over boxing for viewership, ticket sales, purses, etc. However, on the Elite XC CBS show, I saw unbelievable lapse in judgement on the part of the trained medical staff and referees. Two of the 5 fights ended in controversy. 1. In the Robby Lawler / Scott Smith fight, Smith (the challenger) suffered an accidental poke in the eye. Typical of accidental injuries like this or groin hits, the contestant is supposed to have up to 5 minutes to recover from this injury. What happened to Smith within his allotted 5 minutes got me dumbfounded. The doctor examined Smith's eye (at first she kept checking the wrong eye - quite amusing), then concluded he was unable to continue fighting. Huh? Over an eye poke? And replays showed the poke was more a graze of the finger than an actual digging into the eye. I've had that happen to me - twice in six months (i won't go into detail how. it's not from fighting, i'll just say that) - just a corneal abrasion which hurt like a mutha when it happened but doesn't impair your vision that you couldn't continue doing whatever it is you're doing, certainly not enough cause to stop a fight. Anyway, Smith protested and was visibly upset at the decision. He looked fine to me and his vision was fine enough to track down the officials in protest. So, Lawler's belt is safe. It was a great fight up until that point. Either they hired a crappy doctor, or something else very fishy was factoring into the stoppage. 2. In the Kimbo Slice / James Thompson fight, Elite XC had in mind to protect their up-and-coming superstar in Kimbo, made sure he got the W with another suspicious fight-ending call. Two big men going at it, both with strong punching power (Kimbo had the heavier hands, however) in a fight many thought wouldn't go past the 1st round. The fight was close in the 1st which I would give the slight edge to Thompson, the 2nd round which was clearly Thompson's. But the 3rd round in which Kimbo wobbled (but NOT knocked down) Thompson I felt should not have been stopped but was. Thompson had been wobbled several times in the earlier rounds and this was no different. He wasn't 'out on his feet' either. He could have continued. The ref stopped it. Kimbo's status is safe. This has been his toughest test so far and it could very well have been his first loss. Was someone whispering in the ref's ear before the last round? CBS was not at fault. They get no blame. But I question Elite XC's integrity in what suspiciously looks like their attempt to protect the 'superstars'. |
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glad to see some other MMA fans here. i just saw the fights last night (no PPV or CBS here in Thailand so i had to download) and while i was disappointed in the stoppage in the lawler fight, it is CBS and primetime so i think in the future that under those circumstances, early stoppages will be the norm. regarding kimbo, i've been a fan for at least 5 years now and while i was totally pulling for him, the fact that they didn't stop the fight when thompson was dropping elbows was an early and clear indication that the fix was in. however, i don't believe the final stoppage in the kimbo fight was unjustified, watching the replay several times you can see that thompson was out on his feet, rubber legs and eyes bouncing around in his head like slot machine wheels. cheers.
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