Article:Elite XC Saturday Night Primetime Fights Review

CBS' first try into MMA was a bumpy, but very successful one. No one will no until the ratings are made public, but with what I saw was a great card with every fight being hard hitting and exciting, something I don't see all the time in UFC.

There were a few contorversial decisions which I will get to in the fight reviews.

Joe Sampieri gets the stoppage with about two seconds left in the first round. Mike Groves displayed some solid jiu-jitsu at the start, but Sampieri punched away from inside Groves' guard, eventually took the mount and earned the stoppage.

Zack Makovsky beat Andre Soares in an decision, one of the few fights that went the distance on the card.

James Jones beat Calvin Kattar with a rear-choke hold.

Wilson Reis beat Justin Robbins with another submission victory, sending the crowd into a frenzy.

Nick Serra lost in a TKO victory, he just fell down and didn't get up so the TKO went to Makowski.

Chris Liguori beat Jim Bova with a doctors stoppage in the second round.

Brett Rogers improved to 7-0 with a TKO victory over Jon Murphy. There were a lot of TKO's on this card.

Phil Baroni, who was dressed as if Hugh Hefner was a pro wrestler, lost to Joe Villasenor by TKO. It looked as if Baroni had the win at the start of the match, grabbing a high kick and taking Villasenor hard into the mat. But Villasenor kept fighting and got the TK

Now it is time for a female fight, while UFC has all but shunned women's MMA, Elite XC has embraced it and has its star. Gina Carano, better known as crush on American Gladiators. She was 5-0 leading up to this fight and was reported 4.5 pounds overweight. Kaitlin Young accepted the bout anyway and the show went on. The two females went at it in a hard hitting affair and the doctor stopped it before the final round.

Now it is time for the only title fight on the card(in Bruce Buffer voice) This fight is for the MIDDLEWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE WORLD. In the left corner Scott "Hands of Steel" Smith. In the right corner the champion, Ruthless Robbie Lawler.

This fight as an instant claasic, but it had a very conterversial ending in the last minutes of the third round, Lawler accidentaly poked Smith in the eyes. He had five minutes to get ready for the rest of the fight. But the doctors decided to check him out right away ignoring the rule. Smith told them to give him the five minutes he is allowed and he'd be good to go. The doctor took that as him saying he can't see. So the fight was ruled a no contest because a championship fight has to go 3 full rounds for the fight to go to scorecards. Lawler offered a rematch. Hopefuly this fight is on CBS because I want to see this rematch.

Now the main event. Kimbo Slice verses James Thompson. This was a very exciting fight and it was Kimbos first real test. Thompson was the first person to try to expose his weakness for the ground game. For a good two minutes in the second round Kimbo was tied up with the cage, taking punches the doctor didn't stop the fight and Kimbo held on to take the fight to a third round.

This is where the fight got very interesting. Kimbo went all out and he popped Thompson's caulliflower ear. After a few more haymakers the doctor stopped the fight. Kimbo improved to 3-0 in Elite XC and all the other heavyweights must be wondering what it takes to stop this guy.

Overall I rate this card an eight out of ten because we were robbed of the chance to see a instant classic between Lawler and Smith that would have been talked about for ages.

I will post all the fights on the page when I can