This round of EliteXC on CBS wasn't too bad of a show. They've definitely improved on it in a number of areas but at the same time still have quite a bit to improve on. This time I didn't think they delivered a major disappointment to all MMA like their first attempt with CBS in May. While it was about fights for me and I didn't mind too much that the whole production portion of the first show was a complete fumble.  Kimbo and Thompson shouldn't have been a main event, but it was an ok brawl. I think MMA media overall, especially Yahoo MMA, were blowing EliteXC's production issues completely out of proportion. Come on, MMA is speeding steam-rolling train that nothing can stop it at this point.  Mere 2 months after everyone proclaimed EliteXC did SO much damage to MMA's acceptance by general public NOT too many people even remember that.

• Their intro highlight compilation is still the worst of just about any MMA show out there with any sort of budget, especially with a real TV station backing. It's outrageous in my opinion. Did they have golf highlight clip specialist make that? Scrap it, take all that good EliteXC highlight material to date and hire some of the very talented MMA highlight video makers out there in the wild of the internets. They'll probably be happy to make it for free.
• Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos vs Shayna Baszler - Wow, Cyborg's wife Cyborg is one vicious and angry woman. Training at Chute Boxe with a bunch of crazy men sure made her one of the most dangerous female fighters out there. It's a little scary how powerful and snappy her striking was. It was a great fight. I blame Josh Barnett for Shayna Baszler's mistakes though. WTF was he thinking not yelling for Baszler to let go of the damn useless toehold! She had Cyborg's leg extended for a least a good kneebar attempt and she kept cranking and wasting whatever energy/strength she had on, I'll say it again, a useless toehold. When the leg is almost straight and near a kneebar position toeholds just don't work until the leg is bent and the toes are near the butt. Then again, Baszler was just thrown down by an angry and a much stronger amazon woman and really had no choice but try for a submission, except she should have tried to get guard and work armbar/triangle. Obviously the end of the fight was a little weird, reminds me of Matt Linland vs Murillo Bustamante, where the clear winner of the fight had to interrupt their celebration, come back and win the fight again. Mazagatti and company should have known better and stopped the fight after first knockdown when it was clear Baszler wasn't ok to continue. But for a great TV moment they made, a mad at that point, Cyborg come back and beat Baszler even worse.
• Jake Shields vs Nick Thompson - Shields was again very impressive and dominated the Goatboy Thompson. Shields was great in taking every single opening and taking full advantage of it. Takedown to side, mount, guillotine from the top - like clockwork. Thompson came in with a good win streak over lesser competition and was little to confident with that stupidest looking goat beard. Shields ate him up. Who's he fighting next?
• Nick Diaz vs Thomas Denny  - I wasn't overly excited to see this fight. I mean Denny is a journey man at best with a spotty record. Crazy stupid hair doesn't buy you skills, just look at that sloppy bum Heath Herring. Is it me or has Diaz been sloppier with his boxing? I know he's got a bit of an unorthodox style, but lately he's been taking a whole lot more punishment to his face than he used to. This cost him the KJ Noons fight. This also made it kind of embarrasing when a bum like Denny landed as much as he did with his awkward striking. So Diaz TKO's Denny and I guess not gets to rematch with KJ Noons. I'm predicting KJ Noons to beat Diaz again by crisp striking and complete face busting with cuts under and over both eyes, nose and forehead. Time for a new boxing coach for Diaz to work head movement and parrying or whatever, but to just avoid eating so many damn punches!
• Antonio Silva vs Justin Eilers - Eilers is a bum that should have retired after looking just plain weird during every single of his three consecutive KO during his UFC punching bag days. So Silva beating Eilers was no surprise at all, even considering his not so stellar heavyweight accomplishments either. UFC's heavy's are a joke? Nope. EliteXC's heavy's are a complete mockery of even a half legit division. Eilers, Weizorek, Ricco Rodriguez? Even Silva himself, whose big accomplishment is beating those three bums. After Brock Lesnar chews Heath Herring up and spits him out, Herring will have a nice home and fame in the EliteXC's bum heavy division. He'll be a great fit. They'll only be missing Gan McGee.
• Robbie Lawler vs Scott Smith - Nice fight. Started a little slow because it was hard for both to just jump in the slugfest they had previously. Both knew they could get hurt. Lawler pressed the action most of the first round, but Smith rebounded nicely with a good flurry at the end. Smith made a big mistake by just hanging out after he cut Lawler. I kept wondering what he was waiting for when Lawler punched him in the liver with those sharp grazing liver punches during clinch. Those didn't get through right away,but they certainly had a major compound effect which set up the final knees to break right through to knocking the wind out of Smith and putting him down for good. Awesome job by Lawler to pick up the pace and finish the fight.

This was really decent as far as fights go. I wish EliteXC would break the bank and hire some better competition or at least some bright new blood. Other than that, they're on the right track to eventually be #3 behind WEC on Versus and UFC on Spike.

So I just got a chance to catch SpikeTV's "Countdown to UFC 79 Nemesis". It was mostly a good show except for the narrator, but as most UFC's tv shows it'll get better I'm sure.  I think they really got some good footage, quotes and to a trained eye, like myself, lots of insight with some hints as to what may actually happen during UFC 79 this Saturday night on December 29th.

Georges St. Pierre had the best quote of the whole show: "I'm gonna hit him as hard as I can ON his head" - I love it! I really hope he does, even though I also like Matt Hughes most of the time, just not when it comes to St. Pierre.

When asked about the lovely incident immediately following St. Pierre's TKO loss to Matt Serra (who is a prick btw, but more on that later) when Matt Hughes together with Sean Sherk were laughing and hugging each other in cause they were both apparently very happy see Geoges lose in the biggest upset in MMA of 2007, St. Pierre seemed a bit ticked off but said "he laughed...what are you going to do...now I'm gonna hit him as hard as I can ON his head". St. Pierre is such a respectful guy that he's just going to do his talking and laughing in the octagon.

St.Pierre's loss to Matt Serra was good for him in retrospect, he himself expressed how much it grounded him, made him re-focus on his training. He seemed to be really enjoying himself getting better at each of separate MMA disciplines, Muya Thai, Wrestling, Boxing and Brazilian JiuJitsu and combining them for a complete package. This approach has worked for him in the past.

By the way, did I mention, how smart he was to anticipate the boolsheet (wallid's famous words) of Matt Serra dropping out the fight with Hughes and being in shape and getting another crack at cementing his top contender status and beating MMA legend, again? Well, it was very smart of him to anticipate the fight falling through and being right there to jump on it. There are also numerous reports of St. Pierre looking veerry sharp in final days of training.

Matt Hughes...for the record, I really like the guy, he is what some may say a "straight-shooter" (at fightlinker.com for example). He was great on the last season of Ultimate Fighter TV show opposing the short "kofee and kake" prick Matt Serra and now came across some wonderful excerpts telling it like it is to Tim "The Lame-iac" Sylvia from his new book Made in America: The Most Dominant Champion in UFC History.

Back to the UFC 79 Nemesis Coundown. So it looked like he didn't have a good gym to train in or lots of good sparring partners, well except for current EliteXC middle weight champion, man no words, Robbie Lawler. Hughes's thinking when taking this fight was that St. Pierre didn't have too much time to train and would be unprepared, but as everybody in MMA knows now that wasn't true at all and Georges St. Pierre was very much prepared when he took the fight.

I gotta point out Joe Rogan's thinking that if Hughes has a desire to not to just avenge his loss to St.Pierre BUT re-establish himself again as the most dominant welterweight champion, we could, potentially see Hughes become that dominant champion again. Thing is, Hughes has been saying this whole past year that he's almost done with MMA as a fighter and generally portraying himself as not too motivated.

So I think Georges St. Pierre vs Matt Hughes will be an exciting and possibly lengthy fight with St. Pierre fighting smart and beating Hughes again.

Now, Wanderlei Silva...his english improved quite a bit! So now we can actually understand his interviews. There are also lots of other good news for him from the show:

• his head does not look swollen any more and looks almost normal (no more juice?). He also generally looked leaner so his cardio has got to be great
• for the first time in his career he has a whole camp of trainers and sparring partners JUST FOR HIM. So all the personal attention he is getting will be great for him all around.
• the fact that Wanderlei trains at Xtreme Couture gym and I'm sure will have Randy Couture's support as far as strategy and game plan
• I doubt the fight will go to the ground at all, but Silva's Brazian JiuJitsu coach is Andre Galvao. Awesome! This guy is a Ninja! Marcello Garcia type.

The bad news? Well he was knocked out twice in his last two fights, but I don't think it'll be a factor. Silva had a nice long break since then.

Chuck Liddell... good ol Chuck and Hackleman are singing the same ol tune of "Ima gonna knock him out". Chuck said he doesn't get bored with training but he does. His late night outings right before fight nights and same old routine isn't going to do him any good.  Granted Hackleman does put together good game plans, but he also puts together bad ones and can't control Chuck very well if a first round of the fight isn't going well. We saw this with first Quinton Rampage fight in Pride, his first fight with Randy Couture and lately against Keith Jardine. So Hackleman saying that he didn't really see anything in Wanderlei Silva's game they could capitalize on, they're back to same old stuff and Chuck will be bored through training.

I think Wanderlei Silva has everything going for him to beat Chuck Liddell and put himself in the mix for the UFC's light heavyweight title.

More on the rest of the card of UFC 79 in the next post or two.

Oh, yeah, don't forget to check out Matt Hughes's new book Made in America: The Most Dominant Champion in UFC History. Should be a blast!