UFC 100

I watched my first UFC event for the first time last night. I think I must have ordered 6 or so boxing events in the past, but never a UFC pay-per-view.

Suffice it to say, I know nothing about UFC.

I don't know too many of the fighters. I know there's a couple of good guys with the last name Silva. I know who Rampage Jackson is. I know Iceman Chuck Lidell. I know Brock Lesnar from the WWF. That about does it for me.

I don't know too many of the moves. I know what a guillotine is. I know an arm bar. I know what it looks like when someone gets knocked the eff out. That's about it as far as moves go for me.

So with limited knowledge, I watched UFC 100.

I'm sad we missed the first seven bouts, because there were three submissions that would have been fun to watch. The fact that after merely an hour and fifteen minutes they finished seven matches is, to me, awesome. I'll get to this later.

Michael Bisping getting destroyed by Dan Henderson was awesome. Georges St-Pierre defeating Thiago Alves was, at best, boring. Brock Lesnar knocking out Frank Mir was a spectacle. Jon Fitch defeating Paulo Thiago was boring.

So, of the four matches, two were good. About what I expected.

A couple of things I was thinking about:
1. What do I do with Brock Lesnar? I like him, but I don't.

I love guys with charisma. Brock Lesnar has charisma. However, Lesnar has moments where he is exceedingly unclassy, which I am not a fan of. I highly enjoy small amounts of classlessness (e.g. touchdown dances, sack dances, admiring a home run after hitting it, bat flipping after hitting a home run, team Korea planting the Korean flag on the mound after defeating team Japan in the WBC).

Brock Lesnar's classlessness was a bit too much for me. If he had praised Frank Mir after the fight, however contrived it may have been, I would have loved it. I was also not a fan of his flipping off the fans, but that may be holdover behaviour from the WWF. He gets a pass for that.

I'll reserve judgement on Lesnar for another day, but I'm leaning toward being a fan of his, especially in light of his post fight press conference. I liked what he said there.

2. UFC has an inherent entertainment advantage over boxing.

The matches are shorter, so the action is faster. This is more entertaining. This also allows UFC to schedule more matches per event than boxing, which is a great selling point for viewers. More fights means that you're going to see at least one knockout during the course of the event, which the reason why most people watch hand-to-hand combat.

With boxing you get about five matches, but nobody really watches the undercards because nobody really knows who these guys are.

For the main event, best case scenario is a knockout between rounds 8 and 12 or a decision with multiple knockdowns during the fight. Anything else is either a disappointment because of lack of action, or it is too short.

Boxing really should consider shortening its fights down to 7 rounds, max.

3. UFC President Dana White has an amazing product on his hands.

The biggest hurdle for the UFC was whether or not the public would accept it. The public has, without a doubt, accepted and embraced UFC.

UFC has fewer rules, fewer restrictions, and fewer governing bodies than boxing. UFC is actual legit fighting, which is its advantage over professional wrestling, but is almost as eventful.

UFC has found its place into a small, comfortable, profitable place of the fighting world between antiquated (boxing) and absurd (pro wrestling). You would think that the next step would be for some sort of unification of the different mixed martial arts companies, but I disagree. I think having all of those competing entities is good for the sport overall.

If you want to know which one I like better, UFC or boxing, my answer is neither. If I had to pick, I would say boxing because it's a known quantity to me, but I could definitely see myself becoming a UFC fan if I continue to order pay-per-views and get into it more. But I don't think that liking boxing for the sake of its having more history is a good reason to like it more than UFC. The Yankees have more history than the Rays, but I think the Rays are much funner to watch and are a better team.