"EliteXC is a desperate promotion that’s hemorrhaging money. It’s willing to sell anything, even a false portrait of its sport, to succeed. Kimbo is a guy with unexpected and most likely fleeting earning potential; understandably he’s willing to cash in even if it means tomato-can opponents and an image so unfortunately stereotypical. CBS is so focused on quick television ratings, it will present a cheap trick, lowest common denominator show. This, rather than an introduction to a sport that if treated with respect and patience could grow into a powerful property. Everyone is using. Everyone is getting used. In the end, what will be left from this experiment?... Will MMA on CBS just be a short-run, freak show discarded by all, left to return to its true roots and better promotions after the circus has left town?... Saturday’s card is not set up to show the best of mixed martial arts and introduce America to a sport it would likely embrace. If CBS was trying to build serious interest in football, it wouldn’t trot out an unproven pro team against a doomed high school squad and call the ensuing blowout the best the game offers. It’d get the New England Patriots and the New York Giants and let people see the real deal. But neither the network nor EliteXC are treating the sport or Kimbo Slice as anything but disposable programming. And that’s the problem here."
-- Dan Wetzel at Yahoo!Sports.com raises some concerns about the network television debut of mixed martial arts on CBS this weekend at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. In particular, the "use" of YouTube.com street fighting sensation-turned mixed martial artist, Kimbo Slice, in the main event of the evening. What say you?
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