CBS opts to come out kicking with mixed martial arts event
Even Elton John agrees Saturday night is all right for fighting, but I'm not sure this is the sort of thing he was singing about.
CBS, desperate for a little summer programming that doesn't involve people locked in an apartment complex and laying around a pool gossiping about each other, turns the so-called Tiffany network over to "EliteXC Saturday Night Fights" this weekend at 8 on WBBM Channel 2. It's MMA action, or Mixed Martial Arts to those of you who haven't been wasting money on pay-per-view bouts or time on YouTube watching Kimbo Slice pummel people.
That's right, Kimbo Slice (nee Kevin Ferguson), who at this point aspires to be the heir to Mike Tyson's abdicated title as the baddest man on the planet. And to judge from those YouTube videos -- some of which take place bare-knuckle in a backyard or a parking lot and ask a viewer to insist he or she is 18 years old to watch -- he's more than halfway there already.
EliteXC is one of several MMA agencies, all of which have various rules trying to bring a barely restrained order to what really amounts to a chaos that might be described as extreme kickboxing. There's punching and pushing and kicking and wrestling, so that just about anything goes. It's not no-holds-barred, but you do have to go to Japan to permit knees to the head.
Slice whipped former heavyweight champ Ray Mercer in two minutes by smacking him a couple of times upside the head, pushing him over, getting on top of him, allowing Mercer to roll him over and then pinching his head in a choke hold against his chest before the ref stopped the fight.
Not exactly the sort of thing that would seem to fit in with CBS' classic Saturday lineup of "All in the Family," "M*A*S*H," Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart and Carol Burnett, is it?
Even so, CBS believes in it enough to devote the impassioned Gus Johnson to it as lead play-by-play man when it debuts this weekend and returns in late July. And Johnson is nothing if not game.
"This is a great career move for me, because I was getting a little bored with the other stuff I was doing," Johnson said on a media conference call. You could've fooled me, Gus baby. If he were broadcasting a chess match he'd no doubt punctuate some brilliancy with his distinctive, "Ha-haa!"
"Everything is new to me," Johnson said. "So my goal is to be able to with fresh eyes tell … what is going on." That means explaining moves and holds such as the arm bar, the triangle choke, the guillotine and, of course, the dreaded rear-naked choke (sure to elicit a "ha-haa!"). "I think that will be beneficial to the new fans tuning in to Mixed Martial Arts for the first time."
Johnson champions MMA as "the sport of the future," calling it "a simulation of what hand-to-hand combat looks like." Which is just what I'm looking for in a sport, same for you? Likewise, Johnson and his color analysts, Mauro Ranallo and Frank Shamrock, plan to work hard to "humanize" the fighters, but without turning them into wussies.
"They're hungry, but one thing I've noticed is they're nice people," Johnson said. As for Mr. Slice, "He's a terrific man. He's focused, he's poised, he's articulate." As if to illustrate that Johnson went on to quote Slice as saying, "Man, you teach a guy on the streets this kind of stuff, and I think I can go really far in this sport. I want to get on the ground. I want to break somebody's arm."
On that note, permit me to introduce Karyn Bryant, who will be the "cageside reporter." "I am a huge fight fan," she said, having watched boxing with her father growing up and moving on -- as Johnson has -- to take martial-arts classes as an adult. She insisted women were as likely to watch as men. "I am so happy to represent the women who watch this sport," she said. "I'm happy to give voice to the women who are watching."
Note that women will be part of the undercard, with Gina "Conviction" Carano taking on Kaitlin Young. Other bouts include the middleweight title bout of "Ruthless" Robbie Lawler vs. Scott "Hands of Steel" Smith and Phil Baroni vs. Joey Villasenor, and the heavyweight Brett "The Grim" Rogers vs. Jon Murphy before Slice finishes the night against James "Colossus" Thompson.
Hey, with a cast like that, who needs "Spunky" Mary Tyler Moore, Bob "Stoneface" Newhart and Carol "Ear-Tugger" Burnett on a Saturday night?
In the air
Remotely interesting: The Cubs produced their highest local Nielsen ratings in 17 years on WGN Channel 9 with their game Wednesday night against the Dodgers. The game averaged an 11.3 local Nielsen, good for almost 400,000 households and an 18.7 percent share of the viewing audience. … The first hour of Saturday's White Sox game in Tampa Bay will be blacked out locally by Fox's national exclusivity. Comcast SportsNet Chicago will pick it up at 6:05 p.m.
Wednesday's third game of the NHL Stanley Cup finals produced a 2.8 national Nielsen and a 5 percent share of the audience. Chicago's WMAQ Channel 5 was not one of the top five markets. The NHL Network is picking up the AHL Calder Cup finals, although they will run locally on Comcast Cable through the Wolves' exclusive agreement.
End of the dial: WMVP 1000-AM held steady with a 1.4 percent share of the overall audience 12 and older in monthly Arbitrend ratings released this week to squeeze back ahead of WSCR 670-AM, which slipped to a 1.3 share.
Dave Weretka and Dave Lockhart play host to "The Golf Chicago Radio Show" airing at 7 a.m. Sundays on WIND 560-AM. The shows tapes at 7 p.m. Thursdays at TopGolf Wood Dale, 699 W. Thorndale Road.
-- Ted Cox
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