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UFC XXII There Can Only Be
One Champion PPV 9/24/99 Lake Charles, Louisiana Lake Charles Civic Center |
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This was another excellent show. Unfortunately, almost no one saw it because politicians are usually corrupt morons who prejudge everything and aren't open minded enough to give something a chance if doing so won't "benefit" them, especially when doing so could prove them wrong. The country is truly fucked up when anyone with a TV can watch things that are far more violent and dangerous for free, and anyone with either cable box or a satellite that's "smart enough" to punch in or dial an automated number can pay for porn, yet most people can't even pay for UFC. John Peretti did his typical excellent job of matchmaking, as every match was at least entertaining. Although there are occasional exceptions like Condo, the skill level of the fighters he books is such that the matches are almost always good if they are competitive and the guys fight hard, which was the case in just about every match. With the budget being so tight due to UFC being unable to make any real profit off their PPV's until someone actually decides to carry them, the talent level available to him wasn't nearly as stellar as UFC would like it to be. Thus, this was not one of UFC or Peretti's 's best shows from top to bottom because if you have name value and experience, you may as well fight elsewhere (DSE) for a lot more money. If you don't have name value and experience, then you probably aren't going to be that exceptional, but UFC is a good place to try to improve because it's the only NHB organization that in the U.S. with any name value. This was a one match show, but in spite of all the other problems surrounding this promotion, they were able to present a main event dream match between arguably the two best "middleweights" in the world, and that one match more than delivered the goods. The undercard was pretty non-descript, but it was solid even though no match was better than good. If the main event would have been one-sided, over before it started, or boring, the undercard would have been scrutinized. However, the main event was a classic, so the undercard was a good segue rather than nothing spectacular. They did a great job of building up the Frank Shamrock vs. Tito Ortiz
dream match. They put it over as the equivalent of Oscar vs. Trinidad,
except that these two were really the top smaller fighters in the world
and they would deliver where the boring, I mean boxing, match didn't.
The only problem is that they were putting this match over as must see
to the people that had already paid to see it. Still, while he'll never
be Bruce Beck, Mike improves with every show and is certainly the only
Goldberg worth listening to. Meanwhile, Jeff Blatnick remains the best
color commentator in the wrestling or martial arts world and Pat Miletich
offered some good incite on the one fight he announced once they got
his mic working. The sad thing is, after this performance, the people
who think he's boring will probably be calling for him to do color while
the "exciting" guys go out there and display a lot less thought
behind what they are doing and a lot more mistakes. The bar of what it takes to be successful in UFC just continues to go up. At this point, if you don't cross train, your a hopeless fool who has no chance of succeeding. If you don't have the stamina to go the distance, you might win some short matches, but people will exploit this flaw and it will lead to your demise. The amazing thing about this show was there weren't that many big names, but almost everyone has seen that it takes so much all around ability to succeed that they almost all come in (except the absolute bottom of the barrel) as better all around fighters than the big names of the early days like Gracie, Severn and Taktarov were when they competed in UFC. In the beginning, Gracie was practically the only one in the UFC that even knew the guard. On this show, everyone that used the guard had practiced it so much that passing the guard was a thing of the past. |
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