"KJ Noons began the fight with a hesitant look on his face. He squared his shoulders and moved quickly around the ring as Diaz chased and threw some peppering shots into the face of Noons. Noons stepped back, unloading a haymaker that caught Diaz and put him to the mat. Noons, calm as can be, stuck to his guns and remained on his feet as Diaz shuffled on the ground toward him. Unbelievably, Noons ran away causing Diaz to stand back up. Diaz relentlessly threw himself at Noons's legs for the takedown. Noons continued to stuff takedown attempts and eventually caught Diaz with a knee as he came in for a takedown, reminiscent of a Franca knee blast into Sherk's forehead. Diaz, beaten and battered, hung on for the remainder of the round."
That's a small dose of the action that took place this weekend at EliteXC: Renegade. Sounds a bit exciting, doesn't it? Well, the event had some potentially explosive battles that turned out to be cut short of their full potential to the fight fan. One fight in particular proved to be one of the most controversial that the promotion has had in quite some time. After EliteXC's last event, which I deemed to be successful, this was a poor showing and you can't really blame Gary Shaw for some of the outcomes. After all, this is mixed martial arts... anything can happen? These are some of my post-event thoughts regarding the "work", the stoppage, and the overall event.
Nick Diaz looked horrible!
Let me give you a small background as to how I feel about Nick Diaz. I find his attitude to be a bit enlightening at times. He has the type of personality that screams "I don't care what anyone thinks!". Society seems to try to push this type of personality on people with the media at times, but for the most part, business seems to be driven on the inclination that you will want to be someone you are not. Some people may buy expensive clothes to look like they belong in their "clique" of friends. Nick Diaz would slur vulgarity in your direction. His views on organic foods, the promoting aspect to MMA, and the fact that his name gets splashed on every horrible card in California from time to time seems to fuel his anger at times. I can respect the fact that he has opinions and actually self-educated himself on the food industry and probably much more. Problem is, his mixed martial arts background looks unbelievably impressive on paper, but not so impressive in the cage.
Many fans like to point at the fact the "weed" had a lot to do with his win over Takanori Gomi earlier this year. Fact is, the fight was still impressive and Nick Diaz is known for his amazing chin. Diaz has only been stopped ONCE in his career. Jeremy Jackson was able to do so very early in Diaz's career back in 2002. I find it hard for people to still believe that Diaz would have been completely knocked silly during the Gomi fight. Drop it already. The KJ Noons fight should be a proving point.
Noons landed a couple solid haymakers that staggered Diaz, but Diaz has one aspect to his game that is always a saving grace. His Brazilian ju-jitsu is highly feared by even the most aggressive opponents. It allows him to recover and continue, and that's the game that Diaz has decided to play no matter what type of opponent he is fighting. Is this an effective gameplan? Absolutely not. I don't mind seeing Diaz try to outbox his competition. Diaz has some decent boxing skills, but he clearly has improvements he needs to make in his defense. He would land a couple of peppering shots to Noons and then get smacked with a hard shot from Noons. Defense is key when coming in for the clinch while throwing jabs. Diaz didn't have it.
I'm ignoring another factor in this battle though. Diaz's gameplan didn't seem to be the gameplan we've seen in previous battles. It's standard procedure, at least historically, that Diaz comes out with his fists churning like a locomotive wheel. Apparently before the fight with Noons, he made a switch in his head. Diaz came out looking for the takedown immediately. The problem: Diaz's takedown attempts were TERRIBLE. Diaz needs some explosiveness in his lead step to make any attempts effective. Slowly running into his legs looking like a turtle isn't going to cut it when someone is trying to destroy your face at the same time.
Combined with a horrible takedown game, Diaz was outstruck. This was one of the aspects of Diaz's game I liked. I thought he could potentially stand with Noons, but I was wrong. Noons countered effectively during the first round. Noons cut Diaz up with some good punches and a huge knee. The stoppage was a bit premature to many fans, but it wasn't controversial. Diaz had some big cuts in bad areas. I did feel Diaz could have continued until it was noticeable that he wasn't seeing punches coming in. It ended a fight that could have potentially been great in the later rounds. We can now look forward to seeing Noons vs. "Crazy Horse" Bennett early next year.
Shields chokes out Pyle
Jake Shields continued his dominance in EliteXC with a win over Mike Pyle. I wasn't overly impressed with Shields, but then again, I haven't ever been really impressed with him. Shields seems to be a guy with an excellent ground game, but his standup is still lacking. From what I heard from Frank Trigg this past week about Pyle, Pyle was looking to catch Shields early. Unfortunately, Shields has explosive takedowns that actually pummel his opponent to the ground. Pyle became overwhelmed and was choked out. I was actually impressed with his aggressiveness on the floor. Quality win for Shields and a step up in the competition. Who will EliteXC go out and get since Shields managed to sign a new long-term deal with EliteXC? It should be interesting to see who they can really put up against him.
"Kimbo Slice" wins by intimidation
Kimbo won his fight on Saturday night before he even stepped into the cage. He was taking on Bo "Redrum" Cantrell who took the fight on short notice and shouldn't have been in the cage in the first place for a number of reasons. First and foremost, Cantrell has been knocked out cold in 3 out of his last 4 fights. He also allowed himself to be gogoplata'd by Brad Imes in his most recent bout that took place only a couple of weeks before this fight. He obviously has no ground game, which is exactly what EliteXC probably wanted to see during the matchups. This wasn't the problem I had. It's widely known that when you withstand a lot of knockouts, it becomes more of a problem later down the line. It seems that the problem has reached its peak for Cantrell.
Cantrell took a stiff uppercut to the armpit, then a solid elbow to the head and went down. While on the ground, he looked very coherent and wide eyed. He instantly tapped however. The concensus of many fans who were watching the action unfold with me was that the fight was a "work" as in it was fixed to allow Kimbo to win. In my analysis, it looked as if Cantrell was staring into the fists of fury that Kimbo was about to unleash on his head and didn't want any of it. It's widely known that Kimbo has thunder in his hands and Cantrell obviously hates that kind of punishment. You can call it a "work" all you want, but Cantrell was overmatched before he even entered.
Kimbo could be seen telling Shaw that he was upset at the fact he barely fought. I'd be a bit upset at the fact that all of the training and hype surrounding me ended in a 17 second intimidation stoppage. Hopefully Kimbo will get a test in his next fight, I'd be interested in seeing a guy with some decent defensive standup and a good ground game taking on Kimbo.
Australia gets a new ambassador
I've been fairly critical of the Australian mixed martial arts scene recently. The only real fighter that they've had come out of the country was Elvis Sinosic, and he seems to be the UFC's fallback cannon fodder. Although he's excellent in ju-jitsu, he's small for his weight class and seems to always be fed to bigger strikers. The problem for me is every time I think of Sinosic, I think of the fight in which he was submitted via chin to eye by Chris Haseman back in the old Aussie Vale Tudo days, ahh the memories. Noke, on the other hand, seems to have some impressive tools in his arsenal. HIs boxing still needs some improvement, but his ground tactics were excellent. He was able to withstand Kleinbeck's initial standup strikes and take Kleinbeck down easily for a choke win. EliteXC has a nice prospect on their hands and it will give another look at the Australian progressive in MMA. Also look out for George Sotiropoulos, currently a cast member on this season of the Ultimate Fighter. He's another guy who could propel the MMA scene down under.
Antonio Silva once again being mentioned as a Fedor beater
Ridiculous claims once again are surfacing. Antonio Silva hasn't fought since February of this year, and finally came down to 265 and looked impressive against Jason Wiezorek. At one point in his career, he was the man that could give Fedor problems, which I firmly believe could be a possibility. Making claims that he is now ready to take on the Russian is outright ridiculous though. We need to see Silva against a couple more opponents before something like that could happen. He has some awesome potential to be a very intimidating presence in the heavyweight divison though. His striking is heavy and he has a good ground game. He also has some surprising agility and can pull of some flying knees in the clinch. He is another big heavyweight that can make the cut from the looks of it and present big problems in the division. We may see him in the UFC or M-1 later down the line.
EliteXC pulls the streams for the preliminaries
A business opportunity or the cost of streaming the events is mounting? Which is it? I believe it's the latter. I was looking forward to watching the preliminaries on ProElite.com on Saturday only to find out that I would not be able to. One of the appeals to the organization for me was that I could watch the entire card without having to pay for the preliminary bouts. I bought Showtime for the simple fact that they have some decent movies at times, boxing, and mixed martial arts. I pay for Showtime. Give us back the streams!
Final thoughts on the evening
With the two controversial fights headlining the EliteXC's card, it was inevitable that the event would be deemed a disappointment. It felt like it was when I was tuning in for the event. The Diaz-Noons fight was just beginning to get interesting due to the fact that Diaz is one of the toughest fighters out there. If he could have had a few more rounds to work, we may have seen a miraculous comeback from Diaz. Instead, it was stopped after the first round. I can't complain about the stoppage, but I would have loved to see more.
Kimbo didn't live up to the hype, only because his opponent decided to tap out because he was "scared" of the beatdown he was about to receive. EliteXC needs to put a quality opponent against Kimbo for his next fight. I'm not talking about somebody who is 10-0, but give him an up-and-coming prospect who also has some decent potential to be a good mixed martial arts fighter. I'd love to see if Kimbo's ground tactics have progressed as well.
I want to see more of Antonio Silva. His size and abilities interest me and it was amazing to me that he was in such great shape for the fight at 265 lbs. EliteXC can also set up the Eric Pele rematch and bring in some bigger heavyweights to take him on. M-1 could be a potential partner in that kind of venture as well. Jake Shields seems to be in the same position. Great potential, but needs some significant steps up in competition. It will be interesting to see who EliteXC can draw into the promotion to fight Shields. Shields should also teach Diaz how to shoot with some aggressiveness.
Overall, the event wasn't horrible, but in the arena of mediocrity. The two top fights didn't live to the explosiveness that I had hoped, but for very different reasons. The two lower main card battles weren't too impressive, but they were entertaining. I would have liked to see the Yves Edwards fight on the main card. Many people write him off completely due to his last few losses, but they were against some ranked opponents. The potential for future cards looks to be pretty damn good however. They have some talent coming in from ShoXC and grabbing up Noke and Silva was good for the promotion. Hopefully, their next event will feature some great matchups.