By Jonathan Snowden

We will honor the UFC’s KOTC level live special by live blogging throughout the evening. That means I will be telling you, the gentle reader, what I think of the show in real time. Uncensored views will follow.

These may end up being great fights. It’s just that there isn’t a single fighter or fight that would make a PPV broadcast if the promotion was still running bi-monthly shows. Many of these guys really would have been KOTC fighters a few years ago before the TUF expansion. I didn’t intend it as an insult, more just the lay of the land. The fighters that are almost ready for the big time are now main eventing television shows instead of fighting in Indian Casinos. Just another sign of how fast the sport is growing.

Show Begins:
Goldberg explains the idea of cutting weight, setting the stage for Swick’s cut to 170 tonight. Burkman and Swick is truly Beauty and the Beast. Burkman may be an “incredible athlete” but he’s sure hastily put together.

IT”S HERE! Commercial for a fourth Rambo movie complete with a Drowning Pool song at least as old as Sylvester Stallone. After the success of Rocky 6, can Demolition Man 2 be far behind? Will we finally learn the purpose of those damn three sea shells? Will anyone understand my Demolition Man jokes?

Fight 1: Alvin Robinson vs. Nate Diaz

Diaz has the reach advantage on Robinson. He’d have the reach advantage on anyone this side of Inspector Gadget. Damn he’s skinny. Diz with an immediate takedown and Alvin is real close to securing the guillotine. Diaz is so skinny he looks like Santa’s Little Helper. Great back and forth action on the ground including an omoplata sweep from Diaz. Diaz finished the fight at 3:39 with a triangle. Nice fight and solid win for Diaz. Robinson was no can and Diaz made it look easy. Diaz talks like one of the Wayans brothers doing a Mike Tyson impression. Which is awesome.

God help me, but this movie Vantage Point has me intrigued.

Fight 2: Omigawa v. Tavares

How did they find a Japanese translator that didn’t speak English any better than Omigawa? Also, will Omigawa sport his awesome mullet in the ring? Pretty even first round, fought mostly on the ground. Omigawa is a guy that belongs at 145 and will always have a size disadvantage in this weight class. I gave him the first round after he landed the most solid shots of the fight in the last minute.

Second round starts slowly, with Tavares failing to take Omigawa down for two solid minutes. This was not compelling. Update: they can’t turn the crowd mic down low enough to drown out the boos. This has gone from “not compelling” to horrible. Rogan just compared Omigawa to a karate robot. I thought that was Machida’s gimmick. Horrible round, and I refuse to award it to either fighter. Except I give it to Tavares on aggression.

Round three. Rogan called the fight “relatively lacklustre.” Relatively? Somehow someone got cut despite a lack of any discernable action. The best part of this fights are the Rambo replays. Not for the action, it is the same bad action as the fight, but RAMBO REPLAY!

Commercial for Never Back Down. This is clearly the new Karate Kid and should be an instant classic.

Tavares wins a unanimous decision. Stallone watches from the crowd. He looks 75 and drunk.

Joe Rogan interviews Rambo. The unintentional comedy scale has just broken from the weight of this moment. Stallone is wearing an Affliction T-shirt. Rambo is apparently soem kind of documentary about the human suffering in Burma. Stallone will take that suffering and GARROTE it. “Killing’s as easy as breathing.”
Fight 3: Patrick Cote v. Drew McFedries

Don’t lie. You want to see what McFedries’s leg looks like. Will it have a horrifying hole? Will it be a slightly different skin tone? Cote is not scared of Drew’s power but is surely scared to death of his staph. No sign of a problem with his leg, which was a huge disappointment.

Cote shrugs off a solid left from McFedries and lands a right uppercut flush. We expected this to end in a brutal KO and weren’t disappointed. Cote wins another convincingly.

Filler: Pellegrino v. Crane:

Pellegrino is a kind of bottled water. And the Batman name is taken. So I’m for Crane here. Crane lands an immediate high kick but instead of jumping on him with punches on the ground, he starts looking for submisisons. You can’t let Batman back in the fight and Pellegrino recovers. Rogan goes on and on about how Pellegrino’s mouth hanging open may mean he’s tired. Or maybe he’s just a slack jawed yokel?

This fight has the classic UFC tough man standup from two ground specialists, but is pretty solid with a variety of techniques shown by both men.

In the second round Crane went for a takedown and couldn’t finish it. Pellegrino cracked him good and Herb Dean stopped the fight immediately. Pellegrino apparently had his teeth pushed through his lips with the initial kick but persevered.
Main Event: Swick v. Burkman

This is an intriguing fight. Rogan says Swick is as slim as he’s ever seen him. Really? Could be because he’s cuttign down to 170. Rogan and Goldberg are hardly paying attention to the show. Swick comes out to StraightRidda, which surely has Pac busting some caps in his grave. “You don’t want to fuck with me. I got Abercrombie and Fitch with me. ” Mazzagatti is the third man in the Octagon, so there is a chance of a premature death. He’s still got the mustache.

Much is made of Swick’s new size advantage at 170, but Burkman bulls him into the fence and lands some knees to the leg. They seperate and Burkman lands a big left. Burkman takes an uneventful first round.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that nothing at all happens in the second round. Did they break the clinch between rounds. This clinch is unending. This show is worse than expected and that’s saying alot. The UFC is clearly stretched too thin and it shows here. This is not a main event level match up and these guys are being distressingly passive. The crowd must be shitting on them, because the crowd is either silent or the mic is turned down. It sounds like a TUF fight, with loud corners giving instruction.

The match will end, but the clinch may continue throughout the rest of the night with Steve Mazzagatti calling them at home to break and start again. Swick wins a Majority Decision. Not a good way to end the night.

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