I don’t know who Corey Hill is and I really don’t care who he is. All I know is that the guy had an MMA fight on Wednesday night and it didn’t go so well. Make sure you have the stomach for watching gruesome injuries if you plan to take a peak at this video. And seriously, view at your own risk.

That might just be the most horrific injury I’ve ever seen in sports. The freeze frame of the leg snapping might also be the worst picture I’ve ever seen. I wonder if he’ll have the minerals to step in the ring again. That would probably be my deterrent.

(via With Leather)

This whole internet thing is pretty new to me. I’m just discovering what they call email, instant messaging, and YouTube videos. I had this vid sent to me because apparently I was in a cave for the entire week-long span that this video got over a million views. If you are not one of those millions, make sure you add to the total. This video is great.

Later in an interview, one of the fighters explains what happened. He says he got caught with a thumb in his eye that hit a certain motor nerve or something and that’s what caused him to go down suddenly, creating the double knockdown. I wonder if he’d be willing to recreate the situation in person for our entertainment — I’d be a willing customer.

When Kimbo Slice busted onto the scene, I was skeptical about his success; I said immediately, despite my limited MMA knowledge, that he was being set up against easy opponents to rack up an impressive record. Looks like I was right, because Kimbo didn’t even last 15 seconds with Seth Petruzelli in their fight on Saturday night. Check out the video of the fight (if you can even call it that):

Here’s just the knockout (with a great call by Gus Johnson he’s hilarious!):

Here’s the fight including the entire buildup and ring entrances:

Read The Full Story…

I was recently alerted to the new Nike ad campaign called “Train Like It” that features LaDainian Tomlinson rolling Knightrider-style to do outrageous training stunts with MMAer Kimbo Slice. This has to be a Nike campaign because there’s no way a player actually drinks leather, punches animal carcasses, and pulls Cadillac SUVs as part of their real training regimen. Seriously, who actually trains by punching refrigerators?

Even with the gloves on, I’m still not sure Norv Turner would approve. Make sure you check out all the other videos as well — they’re equally crazy. And given the recent news about his shredded knee, I’m surprised to hear it wasn’t Shawne Merriman training with Kimbo this off-season instead of LT. Just for the record, I am predicting a major knee injury for LT this year — it’s incredible he’s gone this long avoiding one.

I’ve already shared some of my thoughts on Saturday’s EliteXC card in Newark as MMA made its network TV debut on CBS. In particular, I was impressed by Gina Carano and think that’s a strong meal ticket for EliteXC. So getting down to it, there was a lot of mixed reaction to the fights on Saturday night. Let’s start with the ratings. In Miami, it drew a 5.0; in LA it did a 4.7; nationally, it had a preliminary rating of 2.7 equating to 4.3 million viewers. Those figures are pretty strong, but let’s think about context here. How much competition for live entertainment is there on Saturday night? A live, novelty event like the EliteXC card should do well — and it did.

Alright, so that’s a solid number for MMA’s network TV debut. I was watching and excited to see how it would turn out. I consider myself someone who’s becoming a fan of the sport. But even as a newer fan of the sport, I think they could have done a better job setting up the fights and the telecast in general, a point well illustrated by Kevin Iole on Yahoo! Sports. I watched the WEC fights on Versus Sunday night just for a basis of comparison and came away thoroughly impressed by the quality of fights, and that’s my main issue. I really think MMA is a sport that sells itself — people like to see fighting and blood — and high quality fighting at that. Personalities are important, like a Gina Carano or a Kimbo Slice (he’d be worthless if he shaved), but I really think the fights on Saturday night should have been a lot better. And therein lies the issue.

The big problem as I now see things is that CBS has a deal with EliteXC, which is probably the weakest of the MMA groups. The best fighters as far as I can tell are in UFC, where many big names already exist. I’m pretty confident UFC on network TV would have done better than the EliteXC fights did. And if you want some more details, check out the comments on this post at FanHouse; they pretty well delineate the plight of the MMA fan. Additionally, I’m still surprised that CBS aired this type of programming. When I checked up Bloodsport and Kickboxer — two of my old-time Van Damme favorites — they each had R ratings. These EliteXC fights can’t be any different. So you’re really telling me that R-rated programming is on basic cable? I just hope elementary school kids and kindergarteners aren’t going around practicing submission holds on their classmates this week.

MMA, or shall we say EliteXC, decided to make Kimbo Slice the (bearded) face of their organization. It was a conscious decision that they chose to make him into their star, using his brute and daunting appearance as a reflection of the savage nature of the sport. Well, it became quite clear on Saturday night’s EliteXC show on CBS that Gina Carano was the other face they wanted to promote. And what a face to promote. They knew exactly what they were doing when they introduced some of their characters to the mainstream world. In fact, their tagline for Gina Carano was “The face of female MMA.” Funny how most of America had never seen a female MMA fight yet they were already being told that this was the face of the sport, leaving them no room to decide on their own. And between Gina’s KO and Kimbo’s TKO, I have my suspicions that their opponents were handpicked to make sure the evening went “according to plans.” Couldn’t possibly have your two faces lose. Anyway, I’m getting slightly off topic here.

More on topic, this Gina Carano woman is like the perfect person to have represent your sport. How lucky they are to have her, and it didn’t take much brilliance to realize that they were sitting on a goldmine. An attractive, full-bodied, lady-like woman who also happens to kick major ass in the ring? Does it get any better than that? Unfortunately for me, I don’t find her fighting too sexy. She’s too pretty to be doing that, so it doesn’t exactly turn me on. And seeing the chick she fought dealing with a busted ass face — blood and bruises coming out of everywhere — was none too pleasant. Between Kaitlin Young’s bloodied mug and James Thompson’s cauliflower ear gushing red juices like the Kool-Aid man, I certainly had my fill of grossness. Overall, I’m guessing the telecast was a success and probably did some strong ratings.

One serious problem however, is the fact that these fights can’t be aired until the FCC “Safe Harbor” hours which is after 9pm. That just doesn’t work because in these days, it’s too easy to find out results (as I did on the internet). They just need to host events on the West Coast and air it live at midnight on the East. That’s a serious drawback for them. But they definitely have at least one thing going for them: Gina Carano. Quite the asset, I must say.