For a few days now, I have watched a lot of people condemn the Diaz brothers for what they did after the show. The usual reason for attacking what happened is that it was too much like pro wrestling, and turned MMA into a spectacle. Of course, anyone who has had to go through the pain of watching wrestling over the last 6-7 years knows this is not true. The “angle” after the fight Saturday night was better than anything WWE has done in years, and it was better because of intangibles that only real people and real grudges can provide. The Diaz brothers are legitimate punks, the heat between the sides is legitimate, and it actually seemed like a chaotic scene rather than a planned joke. I can’t wait to see them fight, which is a lot more than I can say for most other upcoming Elite XC fights.
Before the confrontation, Diaz/Noons would have been just another match. Frankly, most talk would have centered around how unjustified it was to do the fight given Nick’s inability to make weight. Now, for the first time, Elite XC has a future match between two guys with a legitimate gripe that they can really hype up as a title fight between two guys that hate each other. It’s too bad they can’t do this fight in July (they should), because it has money written all over it.
Elite XC is never going to to beat the UFC at its own game. If it is going to be successful, it needs to do something different, which is what it did in May with Gina Carano and Kimbo Slice. I hate to break it to people, but 5 million people didn’t tune in to see technical ground battles, they tuned in to see stars fight.