Although I doubt he's much of an MMA fan, Elton John said it best, Saturday night's alright for fighting! Actually, I'm pretty sure Bernie Taupin actually wrote that lyric. Thanks to Bellator and MTV2, we now have quality MMA fights every Saturday night for the forseeable future. Throw in all the UFC cards and the odd Strikeforce card and Saturday nights have once again become THE night for fight fans, especially MMA fans. And don't forget, boxing might be on life support, but it's still breathing, albeit, barely. MMA is the proverbial tank that has crushed all in it's path, especially the sweet science. That said, boxing has too many self inflicted wounds to even get into right now. The maniacs who run and ruined that great sport are their own worst enemies.
Tonight's Bellator card could easily be their best ever. It features an excellent main event with Eddie Alvarez defending his lightweight title against the very promising, very tough prospect, Pat Curran. Eddie is a beastly fighter, easily Top 5 in the class. Pat has a big win over former UFC latin poster boy, Roger Huerta. That should be an absolute banger. Bellator is also in the midst of their MW tournament which has already showcased some amazing fights. Tonight's match-up at 170 just adds to that quickly growing momentum. NYC's own, Lyman Good (pictured below) is mixing it up with the undefeated, heavy handed, Olympic judoka, Rick Hawn. Lyman is, in my opinion, one of the most slept on fighters in the sport. This dude can fight! He's very well rounded, loves to bang and has the heart and gas tank to back that up. I love to see this guy let it all out in the cage, which he always does. And of course, I've got to support my local fighters who rep NYC. Regardless of that, this kid is the real deal! There's also a very intriguing lightweight match-up between Toby Imada and Patricky “Pitbull” Freire. Pitbull most definitely epitomizes his nickname, this little dude brings it. Toby made MMA history by pulling off the very rare inverted triangle choke submission which earned him last year's Submission of the Year honors. Amazingly, Bellator's Richard Hale pulled off the exact same submission last week. Bellator is now officially the home of the inverted triangle. Hmmmm, maybe they should change the shape of their cage to a huge triangle? Somebody get Bjorn Rebney on the phone! You heard it here first, the Bellator Triangle! On top of all that, former UFC veteran, Ben Saunders, is making his Bellator debut against the very game Matt Lee. Ben's clinch game is insanely vicious. Dude throws knees with intent to kill. Easy, I don't mean he is literally trying to kill anybody. He definitely wants to hurt them though, and he sure as hell does. We're talking Anderson Silva type of clinch game devastation. Poor Brandon Wolff's dome is probably still lumped up from the beating Ben administered to him in the clinch over two years ago. It was beautifully brutal! Ask Marcus Davis what he thinks about Ben's knees? Worst beating he ever took, that's for damn sure! Ben is a very dangerous dude!
On the UFC front, Zuffa just made an interesting decision to start all their Saturday night cards at 9pm(EST) instead of it's longstanding 10pm start time. I kind of have to shake my head about this move. What's the point really? I assume they think that it's too late for people on the east coast. I think that's ridiculous. It's Saturday night, having the main event at or around midnight is perfect as far as I'm concerned. It's got to really suck for fans on the west coast. Who the hell wants to watch fights at 6 o'clock?!? The sun isn't even down yet unless it's the dead of winter. I'm curious to see what fans on both coasts think of this move. I can't see anyone on the west side being at all happy about this. Here on the east side it's not that big a deal, but I'd still prefer the later start. Then again, I operate on vampire hours so I'm probably the wrong guy to judge this move.
MTV2 is smartly being very flexible with the Saturday night Bellator cards. When it comes to nights when the UFC is also holding an event, Bellator has the option to start their cards a few hours earlier so as to not have to directly compete with the much bigger, much more established behemoth promotion. That's makes perfect sense to me. MMA fans can cozy up to the couch for as much as 6 or 7 straight hours of fights. You can't beat that, unless you make the mistake that I have, which is starting the beer consumption too early. Two words, fellow MMAlcoholics, pace yourself! If you don't, you'll either be sleeping by the late card's main event or you'll have no recollection of what you watched. Thank God for the DVR. I've had to re-watch many a fight on Sunday but that's a whole other story!
Thank you, Bjorn Rebney (pictured above), and thank you as well to the Zuffa brain trust, you've made this MMA fan, and many others, very happy. Saturday night's alright for fighting again, in a BIG way!
Domo arigato gozaimasu!!!
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