Kimbo is like the American version of Bob Sapp from his Japanese K-1 days. Everyone knew he sucked but he looked the part and his fights were usually the main event. Kimbo just proves that American MMA fans are just as guillible as the Japanese.

a lame promotion.

A “devastating injury to the eye with massive swelling and redness” is likely a injury/inflammation to the external soft tissue around the eye. The eye may be physically injured itself, though, which is _definitely_ more serious and may never heal back to normal, just look @ UFC fighter Jonathan Goulet. Believe it or not, neither is as serious (in my book) as nerve damage since they both heal faster/easier. You may look funny afterward but permanent, debilitating damage is less likely.

Looks like my hunch was incorrect* but loss of vision is pretty serious. That means that either his cornea is scratched (moderately serious) or something is wrong with the optic nerve (extremely serious). In this context, there was likely some of both. Unfortunately, those are not things the doctors can test for ringside so they have to go by what their patient (Scott Smith) tells them. If Smith repeatedly told them that he couldn’t see (blindness), then they _have_ to believe him and stop the fight. Maybe he really could see but it was blurry (pointing toward the scratched cornea). If that was the case, then he should have clarified that his vision was blurry in his right eye. That is a serious handicap in a fight but not a permanent-vision-threatening injury.

Was the doctor pressured into being extra cautious? Maybe. I can’t know. She should have definitely asked him to clarify whether “I can’t see” meant blurry vision or blindness (no vison at all). If she didn’t ask him that, then who knows? Does she have prior experience at ringside? In the absence of these answers, I have to give the professional doctor the benefit of the doubt and trust her judgment. Thus I think/accept that it was a proper doctor stoppage.

* Also, what anyone besides the doctor said in a press conference is hearsay. Maybe she _did_ also see one of the signs I mentioned in Smith’s eye(s). If yes, then there would be no question that the fight had to be stopped then and there.

When was the last time you saw a fight stopped for that?

It has been some time, but when it happens, it usually is a devastating injury to the eye with massive swelling and redness.

I wish I could agree with you, but I think it would be naive not to recognize why she was so quick to stop that fight.

See post 41 of the previous article.

The doctors WERE the ones who stopped it. Smith told them several times that he couldn’t see – that’s what they based their decision on. Was it bogus? Yeah, kinda. But docs have the last say.

Yes, Smith looked fine to us but, if I had to guess, I’d guess that the doc saw Smith’s eyes not respond the way they should (to light, tracking, focus adjustment) suggesting possible nerve damage. If that is the case, then Smith might _feel_ fine and still be mentally there. He was pleading to continue, after all. We wouldn’t be able to see that kind of damage at home and his face looked like it did not warrant a stop.

The doctor probably should have waited until Smith had a few more minutes to recover (I think he had 4 of his 5 minutes left) but, if my hunch above is correct, then that extra time would not have changed the outcome. Nerve damage would take a lot longer than a few minutes to heal.

Overall, I thought it was an okay show. I was entertained by some parts of it. The overall pace was slow and I was a little surprised to see so little lateral movement in the Carano-Young fight. Young seemed timid and walked forward into kicks. It was nice that they put all the commercials in-between the fights and let us see the time between rounds. Kimbo showed everyone that he really _is_ young in MMA and at least a few years away from contending. Villasenor, Smith & Lawler were classy. Smith showed a lot of heart in the fight and some honesty afterward too.

Lastly, I get CBS in HD over the air where I live and it was awesome to behold. They should probably turn down the sensitivity of the mics on their cameras, though. We obviously heard things they didn’t intend for us to hear.

Obviously Kimbo is their “attraction” Gary Shaw said it himself at the weigh ins, so makes sense to me that they’d try to promote him with signs for the fans.

If thats not slanted I don’t know what is.

-Baroni should hang it up.

-Rogers is ok, but I’m not sold on him at this point.

-The production started out slow with 2 bad fights, but picked up steam as it got on.

-The dancing girls…well it takes”dancing girls” to make the world go ’round, lol.

-Gina was impressive, but i still want to see her fight someone her own size. This stoppage was warranted, Young’s eye was jacked and she was taking a one-sided beating.

-Smith/Lawler was a great fight, what were the morons booing??? That doctor should never be allowed in a fight again. terrible stoppage.

-Thompson showed more heart tonight, and I wouldn’t mind a rematch. This is obviously a good test for Kimbo’s level, so it would be fine with me.

-I haven’t seen an ear move like that since the Goonies!! Why wouldn’t you drain it before the fight?

-Kimbo. Damn, I actually caught myself rooting him on tonight! While I think all the criticism he gets is mostly off base, I never counted myself as a fan. Maybe it was the adversity he was dealing with that had me pulling for him. He showed a couple flashes on the ground, but I think having all that weight on him, just took a toll. Many are saying the fight was fixed, it wasn’t. Was it stopped early? maybe by a punch or two, but it was over. JT had no legs and he was done, see my comment below as to why. Kimbo looked like a guy starting his mma career, which is what he is. I always felt that the hype was overdone, but so was all the calling for him to fight a big time HW. Now we know where he is, a couple of years away from being competitive with a top 10-15 fighter.

So the show was a B- for me, and that is for the whole production. With better camera work, tighter packaging and better match ups/fights, i think it will be good.

here is my opinion/dilemma:

It seemed obvious to me, that the refs were instructed to not let things get out of hand on network prime time. Of course no promotion wants a fighter to ever get a serious injury, so that isn’t the problem. What I saw was, not, “don’t let anyone get hurt”, but rather “let’s show the world that mma and EXC err on the side of safety and this sport is not as brutal as some media will say”. So in other words, at the first sign of “trouble”, stop it or get the Doctor, which imo, resulted in what we saw tonight.

my examples:

-Rogers ko, while not premature, the ref wasted no time in getting in there.
-Young’s stoppage, I think this would have happened anywhere. her eye was bad and she was taking a beating. I really don’t see how they could have let this go to the 3rd.
-Smith’s NC. This was the prime example, imo. Why exactly was this stopped? His eye looked fine and he wanted to continue. In the very least, give him his 5 minutes. One of the worst stoppages i have seen.
-Kimbo’s KO, It may have been stopped a little early, but it was inevitable, imo. JT was stumbling, his ear could have sustained serious damage (see Ludwig/Gomi) and i don’t think they want it to be any more brutal then necessary on CBS.

So, all things considered, it was somewhat entertaining, but i’m not sold on CBS being the home of mma if it is going to impact what happens in the fights themselves.

The entire card sucked. There were huge implications for the promotion of MMA and I can only hope (but doubt) that it helped.

The first 2 fights ended so quickly (with crappy fighters, strikers only). Then they would cut to a fighter welding and talking about heart and training and all this other crap. They tried to portray it as a sport but then have it execute as a WWE brawl. They really should have tried to class it up to give it the air of a sport.

The Lawler fight was not that great it was 2 guys striking and nothing else. Absolutely nothing else and it was a poor boxing match. They could have changed up their game plan a little bit. Lawlers flying knee was tight!!! The stoppage was not good for their event. I thought this would be a good fight.

The Carano fight was actually okay. I’m not sure of the veracity of the stoppage. It was definitely more viable than the Lawler stoppage. At least there was somewhat of a ground game. The fight looked good compared to the other fights.

The Kimbo fight was the best, by far. Kimbo was out striking him without question. On the score card was definitely in Thompson’s favor though. He dominated him on the ground. They battled back and forth. I think the 35 seconds of uncontested hits could have been a technical yet undeserved stoppage because they were weak but by definition of the rules that could have stopped it. I thought the actual stoppage was un-just. I thought confetti was going to fly out of that dumpling on Thompsons ear. However, the blood did not seem to be in his eyes. Kimbo had a strikers chance but was so gased if it would have went to the ground that would have been all she wrote.

There was no/little way Kimbo was going to lose this fight (fixed or at least slanted). That is very unfortunate. Mirgliota is a shit ref. I always hate his judgment calls.

All in all I would call the event a failure. The Kimbo fight was good, the rest of the fights sucked, and the overall event was the trashy cousin of a UFC event. I just hope that this event doesn’t feed into this trend that seems to force fighters to be strikers, and have all kinds of “Drama” matches. If they wanted to spend the begining of the show calling it a complex and honorable sport (of which it is) then they should have tried to portray it like one.

The bottom line is I’m sure a ton of people watched so on paper it will look good to the network. The true test will be with the next event.

Nice recap of the events I agree with almost everything. I also don’t understand why people think it should of been stopped in the 2nd round when JT was dropping those love taps. If they really were doing damage and *if* all 30 of them landed then how come Kimbo didn’t have any cuts or bruising to his face… to me it seemed like they had zero power on them and JT blew his chance when he could of pulled off an easy submission or at least knee kimbo to the chest.

I also noticed that Kimbo looked understandably nervous during the introductions, I’m wondering if he partially gassed because of nerves , from his few submission attempts or if he just has zero cardio?