100 and counting

If you weren’t at SPX this weekend, then maybe you were parked in front of the tube watching either the baseball playoffs or the Elite XC show on CBS last night. And you could only be left asking one question after the night was over.

Who had a worse night: The Cubs or Kimbo Slice?

The heavily-favored Cubbies had the best record in the National League and were expected to perhaps end their century-long championship drought. Instead, the Dodgers, led by ex-Yankee skipper Joe Torre and former Red Sox slugger Manny Ramirez, swept the Cubs and sent a whole region of the country into despair.

Meanwhile, Slice, MMA’s most notorious fighter, had his night and aura and future ended after fourteen seconds, losing to a replacement fighter with blotches of pink hair. Seth Petruzelli, a one-time participant in the Beat’s favorite TV show The Ultimate Fighter, was supposed to fight on the show’s undercard, but was vaulted into the main event after Ken Shamrock was injured the day before the fight and ruled ineligible by the commission.

The one highlight of the EXC show was the peformance of the promotion’s other star, Gina Carano (aka Crush from American Gladiators). Carano managed to make weight for this show (although not before having to strip naked behind a towel to get light enough) and dispatched her opponent, setting up a fight with Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos, who also won last night.

Of course, the big question today is whether there even will be another event on CBS. EC has been hemorrhaging money and if last night’s rating wasn’t to CBS’s liking, there will probably not be any more shows. Did Shamrock’s scratch from the lineup hurt viewership? Numbers are not in yet, but there have been arguments made today that the number could go either way. So we’ll just have to see on this one.

Oh, and if you’re a Dodgers fan today, you’re far from melancholy. You should just be getting ready to play the Phillies and hoping for a repeat of when the teams met 30 years ago in the playoffs. Is Danny Ozark still around anywhere?

Posted by Mark Coale

1 COMMENT

  1. Slice can be rehabbed. Spin the loss as a fluke, build the guy back up as a bad ass with training videos and interviews, as well as a few more tomato cans. Additionally, they’ll have to underscore his record as a novice MMA (3-1) fighter. If EXC can survive their cash crunch – through CBS purchase – or ‘merge’ with Affliction – this could be done, provided they retain the CBS contract.

    I know, it’s a lot ‘ifs.’

    Can’t wait to see Carano v. Cyborg. That’ll be a helluva fight, provided Carano isn’t dehydrated.

  2. As someone who grew up on the West Side of Chicago, I’ve been a fan of both the Cubs and the White Sox since the 1960s. As one can imagine, it was doubly painful each year because until 2005, neither team had won a World Series since 1908.

    This year there were high hopes in Chi-Town when both teams were in the playoffs for the first time since 1906. But the Cubs, despite the fact they had the best record in baseball this year, went down with a whimper in the first round.

    And while it looked like the White Sox would quickly follow the Cubs into a post-season flop, they managed to win this evening and stay alive to fight another day.

    As brutal as it has been for Cubs fans in the post season, if the White Sox pull off a miracle, stay alive, and then meet, and beat, the Dodgers in the World Series, it would be the most crushing blow of all for Cubs fans.

    Afterwards I can almost envisage a mass exodus of Cubs fans from the North Side of Chicago, marching east into Lake Michigan, like lemmings throwing themselves off of a cliff.

    Ah, to be a baseball fan in Chicago. If that isn’t a humbling edxperience, nothing is.

  3. As someone who grew up on the West Side of Chicago, I’ve been a fan of both the Cubs and the White Sox since the 1960s. As one can imagine, it was doubly painful each year because until 2005, neither team had won a World Series since 1908.

    This year there were high hopes in Chi-Town when both teams were in the playoffs for the first time since 1906. But the Cubs, despite the fact they had the best record in baseball this year, went down with a whimper in the first round.

    And while it looked like the White Sox would quickly follow the Cubs into a post-season flop, they managed to win this evening and stay alive to fight another day.

    As brutal as it has been for Cubs fans in the post season, if the White Sox pull off a miracle, stay alive, and then meet, and beat, the Dodgers in the World Series, it would be the most crushing blow of all for Cubs fans.

    Afterwards I can almost envisage a mass exodus of Cubs fans from the North Side of Chicago, marching east into Lake Michigan, like lemmings throwing themselves off of a cliff.

    Ah, to be a baseball fan in Chicago. If that isn’t a humbling experience, nothing is.

  4. Speaking of Ken, I like how Frank seemed to be planting the seeds for the expected brother vs brother fight in 2009.

  5. @Mark – True on both accounts. Affliction can market, can’t they? And using Sylvia prominently made Fedor look unstoppable. Good stuff. Frank was in business for himself last night, I thought I was the only one who noticed.

    @Jamie – Agreed. Hope when Tito comes back in ’09 they make it a special event. It’ll be far enough for fans to have forgotten the negativity surrounding his UFC departure.

    @Simon – I’ve heard there’s one more Saturday Night Fights left on EXC’s contract, so hopefully Ken will be healed by the next airing so we get Slice-Shamrock.

  6. My only solace as a Wisconsinite is that the Brewers, despite getting trounced by the Phillies today and losing the series 3-1, lasted one game more than the Cubs.

  7. When everyone was talking about the red sox curse, they never mentioned they had been to the series in the 80s. The Cubs… 1946? And then there are clubs which have never been. Like the Rays.
    My prediction: Cubs Vs. White Sox in 2012, just before the world ends.
    In the meantime, read Kinsella’s The Great Iowa Baseball Confederacy. Or some of his comics.

  8. Will–>

    To be honest, I’d like to see Ken versus Frank, as Mark mentioned. It’s wrong, and we all pretty much know what the result would be, but it would just be so… biblical. And those are two guys who know how to hype fights, even if they don’t always deliver. It would make commercial sense for EXC.

    I’m not sure Kimbo would ever be the draw he was, unless he legitimately works his way back from the bottom up.

  9. Too bad for all you Cubs fans, but seriously did we really need the NLCS polluted with all the “lovable losers”, billygoats & Bartman nonsense? Last time I checked the city of Chicago won 6 NBA championships in the 90’s, as well as a World Series a few years ago. The four Philadelphia sports teams (Eagles, Sixers, Phillies, Flyers) have now gone a combined 100 seasons without a championship, so Chicagoans can spare me their tears.

    I think the Phils have the advantage over the Dodgers, but naturally I never expect to win. The difference between this time and 30 years ago is is that this time Davey Lopes is on our team! Ha!

    GO PHILS!!!!!

  10. I like Kimbo Slice, he is charismatic and a great showman. However, he finally got exposed for the overhyped fighter that he really is. He should fight Butterbean next or Zuluzino or another washed up Tomato Can. If he fights a legit MMA fighter he will lose again.
    He should have lost the James Thompson fight. Thompson had him on the ground and for over 2 minutes, continuously raining blows onto his head with no defense from Slice. In another other organization, the ref would have stopped the fight, but since Kimbo is EliteXC’s gravy train, they let it go. Kudos to Seth Petricelli for showing what a real MMA fighter can do to a brawler.

  11. Wow Heidi, you must read the same MMA blogs and news sites I do. You should start a separate MMA blog. You clearly are well versed in it.

    But yeah overall that show was pretty solid. I dont know whats going to happen with Kimbo, he was going to get beat down eventually. Someone mentioned Butterbean, but even Butterbean knocked out James Thompsson.

  12. “But the Cubs, despite the fact they had the best record in baseball this year, went down with a whimper in the first round.”

    No, the Angels had the best record in baseball this year. Not that it’s helping them in the first round either….

  13. Yeah, you’re right. The Cubs only had the best record in the National league.

    Still, like you said, having a great regular season hasn’t helped either team much.

  14. R. Maheras: As one can imagine, it was doubly painful each year because until 2005, neither team had won a World Series since 1908.

    It’s a small point, but prior to 2005, the last Chicago World Series victory was White Sox in 1917.

  15. Last season, the Beat wrote TUF reviews on another site. I don’t know if she is doing it this year or not.

  16. Joe Torre and Manny Ramirez have years battling the toughest playoff teams in the American League and they have the rings to prove it. The Yankees learned they underestimated Torre by staying at their homes in October, watching the playoffs on TV. So Cub fans, don’t be so upset your team got steamrolled.