CFC 6

CFC 6 Friday, October 8th, 2010 at the convention centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba. 


So this was my first CFC experience. My first live MMA experience too. I honestly can't name any of the fighters. I didn't do any background reading and haven't really had any desire to look into them further now. A lot of the fighters had record of 8-9 or 0-3... I understand every fighter has to start somewhere and look at Joe Doerksen, he's not fighting in the UFC and doing not terrible but I'd rather watch once they have established themselves a little bit more.


They had the same sort of ring as the UFC. There were round tables set up around the cage seating about 8-10 people at each. This was the "VIP" area. East side of the ring, past the tables there was general seating. About 20 rows of chairs then bleachers set up. Funny that there were way more VIPs than general admitted people but I'm not too surprised when the CFC only happens 2-3 times a year. We chose to sit front row on the bleachers. Little did we know this would be front row to the most exciting fight of the night.


The first 4 fights were actually pretty eventful. A couple big knockouts and one heavyweight with a pop-eye style I have never seen before. He did the fake out technique. Like in junior high you snap one finger out to the left to distract your opponent while smacking them with your right. Not the most respectful technique but a little funny that it actually worked. He flailed around, not protecting himself at all then would swing at the most random times often at least clipping his opponent. Once again I have no idea who either fighter is. I think it was the second round, the big guy pop-eye was fighting seemed to just get annoyed and knocked the guy out. It was a little weird to see someone so big just drop. 


After the intermission the main card started. Here we had a lot of split decisions. Not because the fights were so amazing, but they were so mediocre, it was hard to say what would be awarded more points, attempted takedowns, takedowns followed up with nothing, or big punches that didn't land. I suppose I have been a little spoiled watching so much UFC lately but I really didn't feel like this was even close to the same level. Although I'm sure I would feel different if I had some sort of emotional attachment or even opinion about the fighters. The only opinion I could form was based on their badly bleached hair or awful taste in entrance music. Thats a very short period of time to develop a complex in depth opinion. 


The biggest fight may have been the one right in front of us. I still don't know why is started or if it was even resolved but I think I saw about 90% of it. All of the sudden two random dudes were grabbing each others t-shirt collar and swinging like crazy. One girl was chasing after them trying to break them up but being half the size of both of them that wasn't too likely. I have no idea if they were friends of the two involved or just heros trying to help out but a few people jumped in and tried to break it up. One rent-a-cop did run over but all he did was clap as the brawlers and tell them to stop. Obviously didn't do much as one huge guy picked up someone half his size and body slammed him! His head was about two inches from smacking against the floor. Definitely made me very uncomfortable. The big guy ended up on the ground too and while security was leaning over him some other punk came up and kicked him in the face! Not saying he didn't have it coming after what he did but jeeze, let security settle it.  The fight eventually broke up and everyone left escorted by... their friends. REALLY? I don't think anyone got kicked out! Interesting that AFTER the scrap teams of more "security" strolled through the area a little more frequently. 


I dont remember exactly which fight it was because at this point I was half frazzled by the fight 30 feet away from me and half falling asleep only being kept awake by the shreiking woman (I think) behind me... but woah one of the fighters got out of a leg bar submission thing literally 15 times. I cant decide if that was impressive or stupid of him to walk into it time after time. It was like CFC gumby, his limbs were definitely double jointed. 


The highlight of the fights was definitely seeing Herb Dean (one of the most well known, and my favourite ref for the UFC). Saddest part of the night was when they did the draw for who got to take a picture with Herb in the ring and the girl that won ran in and stood next to the announcer! He had to say, uhh I'm not Herb Dean. I hope she was embarrassed!


Overall it was pretty cool to watch. Definitely feels a little bit more barbaric watching it live. Seeing a huge room full of people staring at two guys kicking the stink out of each other in a cage kind of makes me think of the days of the gladiator fights at the colosseum. But never the less, I'd like to see another fight live, preferably with closer seats and with a card I'm more excited about.