ZUFFA’s most recent PPV outing has met with, at best, lukewarm support.  I believe the word “crap” has popped up more than once.  In keeping with the Total-MMA commitment to balanced journalism (a commitment which I, in fact, just made up), it falls to me to present a slightly different view.  St. Pierre-Serra 2 was not a complete waste of your time and money.  No fewer than ten quality things came from that broadcast.  To wit:

10.  Rich Franklin’s sweet armbar escape.

For a guy who isn’t supposed to have much in the way of ground skills, that was a sweet little move.  I, for one, missed the Joe Rogan Experience and had to exclaim “That’s high level jujitsu!” to myself.  But it had nothing on…

9.  GSP’s Superman punch/leg kick combo.

As has already been said on our forums, that’s some wacky video game shit right there.  You might be forgiven for missing it in light of the complete beatdown being administered, but, seriously, damn.  This is why I stopped watching pro wrestling entirely - MMA has progressed to the point that I can see borderline impossible techniques performed under competitve circumstances.

8.  Someone besides me is talking about getting Nate Quarry out of fighting and into announcing.

Granted, that person is Nate Quarry.  Still, dudes with severe spinal injuries should probably not be involved in combat sports.  Quarry seems like a good guy, and I’d rather not see him paralyzed.  Can’t he do a Fight Night or something?  Please?

7. We should never see Kalib Starnes on PPV again.

Seriously, what was that all about?  Starnes has never impressed in previous outings, and this should be the final nail in his coffin as a PPV performer.

6.  Or Travis Lutter.

Don’t make weight once, shame on you.  Don’t get in shape twice, see ya later.

5.  Michael Bisping is that much closer to a middleweight title shot.

Wherein Anderson Silva will kill him dead.  But with two-time Silva victim Franklin and boring non-English speaking Okami the closest things to top middleweights available on the ZUFFA roster, you take what you can get.  The fight could be a decent semi-main, or main event in London and draw a decent house.

4.  I don’t really have a #4.

Maybe just nine good things happened.  Oops.

3.  The 170lb title has now been defended in five countries, more than any other major title.

Pat Miletich defended the then-lightweight belt in Brazil (vs. Mikey Burnett) and Japan (vs Kenichi Yamamoto), in addition to his US title defenses.  Matt Hughes and Carlos Newton added Great Britain to the list.  No other major MMA belt has as great a claim to being a true “world” title.

2.  Matt Serra’s presumptive return to the 155lb ranks where he belongs.

I don’t have strong feelings about Serra as a person one way or the other, but I like him as a fighter.  As a lightweight fighter.  Hey, if you’re a professional fighter and you get a shot at a world title, you take it.  Serra hit the fadeaway grandslam hail mary Rocky mixed sports metaphor jackpot in the first GSP fight and got to hold the belt for a few months, and good on him.  Now let him go fight Frankie Edgar, Kenny Florian, Roger Huerta, and other guys his own size. 

1.  The best man finally holds the welterweight title.   

This is a biggie.  Anyone committed to MMA’s credibility wants the best fighter in a division recognized as “world champion” by the sport’s premier company.  No one doubts GSP is that man.  Without meaning to denigrate Matt Serra as a fighter, he was a fluke champion and we all knew it.  Let’s start lining up challengers for the real champ now. 

I’m not a betting man. (If you are, Iain has a fine column with you in mind.)

So on the night of a UFC, I like to consult the “experts” just for fun and not for profit. Tonight’s UFC, emenating from the childhood home of Matt Serra’s hero Arturo “Thunder” Gatti, and that guy in the picture above, is no exception. Here’s what I found on the net when I should have been preparing for a wedding today:

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by Kendall Shields

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Make no mistake, I love my country. But were I to enumerate its shortcomings, were I to catalogue the ways in which the Canadian people fail to live up to the highest principles and ideals our nation stands for, first among them (or at least somewhere near the top of the list) would be our collective inability to get TSN’s Michael Landsberg off the air. Landsberg, who has hosted a sports talk program called Off the Record for over a decade despite no discernible talent or skill, is reputed to be “Canada’s king of in-your-face debate,” as the show’s site proudly proclaims — in-your-face debate, apparently, being . . . a good . . . kind . . . of it? Michael Landsberg — not to be confused with Michelle Landsberg, writer, activist, worthwhile human being — is a smug little gnome of a man held in the utmost contempt by all right-thinking people. And yet, every so often, he features guests on his show that genuinely interest you, and so there you are, helpless to resist, despite your better judgment.

And it is in this spirit that I direct your attention to the 5 February 2007 edition of Off the Record, viewable through the program’s website — look for the “TSN Broadband” section to the right, and launch their player from there. Landsberg’s guests in this edition included UFC welterweight champion Matt Serra, UFC interim welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre, and — raising this to the status of utterly essential viewing — from the fighting city of Windsor, Ontario, UFC 5 runner-up “Dangerous” Dave Beneteau.

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By Lee Casebolt

Now you’ve had a week to think about Penn vs. Sherk and Shamrock vs. Le, and you are, no doubt, quivering with anticipation over both fights. But wait, fight fan, there’s more. Much, much more. Well, ok, just a few more. There’s a welterweight rematch, a battle of the two best middleweights in the game, and a heavyweight scrap that’s going to annoy a lot of people. Let’s take a look.

Georges St. Pierre vs. Matt Serra, UFC Welterweight Title

2007 was a year of upsets, but none were bigger than Matt Serra knocking out Georges St. Pierre. Forget the fact that GSP was (and is) indisputably the best 170lber on the planet. Forget that he’d just wrecked Matt Hughes, as dominant a fighter as the UFC has ever seen. Forget that Matt Serra was “just a reality show winner”. Remember that Matt Serra was (and is) a blown up lightweight groundfighting specialist who, up til last April, had never knocked out any opponent in his career. And he stops GSP in the first round? What kind of world is this?
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