Bob Canobbio
CompuBox/CompuStrike
President

Sexton,
Maxwell,
Kedzie,
Evinger.

btw The women’s division is the one area I feel Bodog deserves the most credit, both bringing in top talent and treating them with respect. EliteXC should emulate them but instead appear content with their sideshow Carano showcase division.

Amanda Buckner:

It’s irrelevant that Gina was willing to fight someone heavier, that’s her own choice. She had already fought Elaina and was obviously comfortable with how her strength and size compared. I’m unclear at this point if she weighs 140 or 145 but if she’s close to 140 she should have had no problem making the weight for the Kedzie fight and if she’s 145 she shouldn’t be taking fights at 135 unless she knows she can make the weight which she obviously couldn’t in the case of Rosi. The Rosi situation sucked in my opinion because Rosi is small, (I’m small for 135 and she’s even smaller than me), and I’m sure was under weight. For Gina to cut and only be able to make 139 means she was between five and ten pounds heavier by the time they fought. Gina is skilled and it’s crazy to think that wouldn’t make a difference. I’m not even saying that it changed the outcome of the fight because I haven’t seen it and have no idea what it looked like. Rosi is a game fighter and of course she was going to choose to fight, but is sucks that she was put in the position of having to make that choice. In my mind it’s very clear cut, agree to a weight and then make the weight. Obvioulsy most people are going to give you the extra if you don’t make it but it’s disrespectful to make them have to do it.
Rick – there is one small thing you said that I just have to address. You made a comment that said obviously other fighters were going to want their shot at Gina now before her ground game catches up. I think you are doing a huge disservice to alot of the women in the fighting community and greatly underestimating the fighting spirit, for lack of a better term, of alot of the women fighters to assume that people are wanting to fight her before she gets to good. I for one would rather fight her once she has trained the ground for a longer period of time because if we fight and I happen to catch her in a submission I wouldn’t want to hear any crap about how she’s newer to the ground game. I would want her at her best and I know most of the top tier women probably feel the same.

The only other thing I have to say on this topic is that the three minute rounds in the Kedzie/Carano were bullshit no matter how you look at it. Either they did it because they are women which is crap or they did it because Carano is a striker and it is common knowledge that shorter rounds favor strikers. We’ll never know if it had an effect in this fight or not , Kedzie was in trouble at the end of round one but Carano was on the bottom of a solid side control at the end of round two. But like I said, it’s crap that their fight was the only one on the card that was three minute rounds.

I don’t want anyone to misinterpret anything I’m saying to be negative about Gina. I think she is an amazing addition to womens mma and if strikers of her level are getting interested in mma it makes me hopeful that others will follow which will elevate the womens scene to a whole new level.

I definitely could be wrong about Gina’s ranking. I will be honest in letting everyone know that I consider my biggest weakness when it comes to MMA knowledge is the Japanese MMA scene outside of K-1. I’m not familiar with most Japanese female fighters and I’m working on trying to learn more about Shooto and DEEP because I realize that’s where a lot of the top talent is at 135 lbs. and 145 lbs in the male divisions.

I feel like I could tell you about a lot of obscure fighters fighting in California, the Midwest, and the Northeast, but I’m weak when it comes to the smaller promotions in Japan. I am working though on watching YouTube footage of Shooto and DEEP and trying to reach as much as I can.

It’s unfortunate that that there aren’t enough females who compete a bit closer to Gina’s natural weight, so I do have more sympathy for her than for most guys who have trouble making weight. But it’s not like there’s absolutely no opponents for her at higher weights. She’s being protected due to marketability (i.e. looks) by matchmaking that has her walking into the ring far bigger than her opponents. I have to assume if she was willing to fight people her own size, EliteXC would raise the catch weight, which seems to have been set especially for her (just like the 3-minute rounds designed to keep her standing more).

I agree with #1 that women’s physiology should be taken into account – maybe broader, different weight classes would be best for women’s fighting.

The reason Carano should take heat for the deal with Tonya Evinger is that Evinger was led to believe, according to Josh Gross, that there was no pound-over provision for the 140 target. Look at boxing – if a guy fails to make weight, a commission like Nevada will either substantially fine the fighter in violation or the fight will be canceled. Forget the fines – not making weight certainly could be a breach of contract and subject to lawsuit.

Evinger, of course, was stuck in a crappy position. Where else was she going to make money fighting? If she rejected the fight and sued, it would cost her a lot of money. She had no leverage going into that situation, whereas Carano had the name power and the backing of the promotion.