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.
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More Hot Stories at larrybrownsports.comThis entry was posted on Sunday, June 1st, 2008 and is filed under MMA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Funny how the FCC and the networks don’t seem to have a problem with the multiple close-ups of guys like Rasheed Wallace “GET THAT FUCKING CAMERA OUT OF MY FACE!” or Kevin Garnett “FUCK YEA WE GOT THIS SHIT!” during games without a delay.
[...] Larry Brown Sports: Gina Carano – the face of female MMA [...]
FCC is unnecessary obviously. Parents have an off button. The bits I saw of the CBS telecast were good. I thought their boy Kimbo was through when dude had him on the cage hitting him with multiple elbows. But he came back strong…. even tho the fight was stopped a bit too soon I think
[...] 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 [...]