Two cents worth from the Weekend:UFC and Little League baseball

Las Vegas, Nevada – Seemingly ageless Randy “the Natural” Couture once again dominated a favored opponent to win the UFC Heavyweight Championship. The 44 year-old Couture dominated the entire fight and secured a takedown in round 3 where he scored a vicious TKO on Gabriel Gonzaga after breaking his nose earlier in the fight.

SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — Dalton Carriker couldn’t feel his legs as he rounded the bases.

His home run in the bottom of the eighth had just given Warner Robins, Ga., a thrilling 3-2 victory over Tokyo to win the Little League World Series title.

“I felt like I was flying, like Peter Pan,” Carriker said. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Adrenaline took over from there, said the 12-year-old slugger with braces.

His dramatic home run over the right-field wall off a 2-1 pitch from Japan’s Junsho Kiuchi gave the United States three straight Little League championships.

“USA! USA!” cried the Georgia-partisan crowd as dozens of fans waved American flags. Columbus, Ga., won the crown last year, and Ewa Beach, Hawaii, in 2005.

Those were two of the bigger events of the weekend and did you watch?

The Little League World Series from Williamsport, Pennsylvania took center stage Saturday and Sunday, as ABC and ESPN had the kids from Warner Robins, Georgia up front and in your face when they defeated Tokyo to win the World Series.

With Brent Musburger, Orel Hershiser, and Dusty Baker calling the shots ABC gets huge ratings from the Little League baseball. What is the attraction? Is it adults watching kids play ball and thinking, “hey that could have been me”?

The entire audience can’t be just friends and relatives of the players, everyone is watching. This has become the big event at the end of the summer. You had to be looking in along with all of the fans, it’s now a rite of summer. “The Little World Series from Williamsport, Pennsylvania”.

Saturday night on pay-per-view many Ultimate Fight fans were following along as Randy Couture pounded Gabriel Gonzaga to win his UFC battle and “the Natural” seems to be an ageless wonder.

Couture broke Gonzaga’s nose and the blood was flying all over the octgaon. Gonzaga could hardly breathe because the blood coming from his nose had his mouth clogged up.

Couture is an animal and he is making big money for fighting while millions are looking in. Couture and Chuck Liddell appear to be the top names in the UFC and the crowds keep flocking to see the fights.

I caught the action on free pay-per-view at J. Butler’s on New Garden Road, stopping in after the Greensboro Grasshoppers game. Don Moore and Cecil Carr joined the Greensborosports.com viewing area and while the UFC bouts were on the TV’s the NASCAR race from Bristol, Tennessee was just about complete.

The UFC has built an audience and it should grow as younger guys like Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Matt Hughes become known on the same level with Couture and Liddell. Don and Cecil were watching the action and seemed to be glued to every punch and were not distracted by the bloody-nosed Gonzaga. Gonzaga looked to be beaten badly and all fans let out a sigh of relief when the ref, Big John McCarthy, finally stopped the fight.

Good hard-nosed action, pun intended, and the question is were you watching? I hadn’t planned on it, it just happened that the stop was J. Butler’s on New Garden, they were showing the fights, and this is the second free bout I’ve caught at Butler’s.

The UFC puts on a good show and it’s hard to beat free PPV TV.

*****Randy Couture opening info from www.randycouture.tv and the Little League World Series opening info from www.espn.com*****

4 thoughts on “Two cents worth from the Weekend:UFC and Little League baseball

  1. The next time we’re in your area come on down to the Octgaon and I’ll show you how this thing works. You can’t handle it and as for the ratings, if it was on free TV you couldn’t add up the ratings. That’s why the UFC is on Pay-per-View. We call it ON DEMAND. Fans are willing to pay $50.oo a pop to see it on Pay-per-View.

    Contact your doctor and let him know to get your death certificate ready if choose to fight with us. Idiots are talking down the UFC everyday, but nobody messes with:

    Ken Shamrock

  2. Yeah, we shouldn’t care about UFC. Instead we should all sit around with our cold brew, chewin’ tobaccy, chompin’ barbecue, and watchin’ NASCAR cars go round and round and round and round and … well, you get the idea. C’mon rednecks, join the rest of us in the 21st century. UFC rules.

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