Early reviews of last night’s Shark Fights 13 broadcast seem mostly positive, after Trevor Prangley, Houston Alexander and Paul Daley all notched wins. Also, “broadcasters” Don Frye and Bas Rutten said a bunch of crazy stuff live on pay-per-view. Especially Frye, who -- after claiming that he threatened Shark Fights promoters with death if they didn’t put him on the show -- reportedly dropped at least one F-bomb, made jokes about beating his wife and then compared the whole thing to an extended session of violent and satisfying coitus.
Basically, it was the kind of performance that, in any other sport, would cause a major scandal, Frye's immediate firing and the issuing of a vague and halfhearted apology on Sunday morning. In independent MMA, it's just par for the course.
"That was like two hours of hard, rough sex,” Frye reportedly said to close out the PPV. “I need a shot of tequila and a cigarette now."
C’mon Don, like you weren’t doing shots of tequila the whole time.
As the reigning Shark Fights light heavyweight champion, Prangley edged Keith Jardine by split decision. If you’re interested, you can watch it here. Jardine skittered to his fifth straight loss – this time to a natural middleweight – and instead of putting himself on the fast track back to the UFC, he’s raised questions about how much longer (at 34 years old) he should push his luck with this whole fighting thing.
Jardine’s plummet aside, the fight nabbing most of the attention this morning is Alexander’s brawl with Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou. The two UFC castoffs appeared to fully understand what was required of them on this broadcast, engaging in a fairly entertaining two-round slugfest that saw the Nebraskan OG bounce back from a serious beatdown in the first to claim victory.
More than anything, the fight pointed out exactly why Sokoudjou’s status as a top MMA prospect was extremely fleeting. After controlling the first round with his power strikes and a couple of nice takedowns, he looked totally spent and punch-hungry by the opening bell to the second. Whether he had gassed himself out trying to finish in the first or was hurt by two pretty blatant head butts just before the end of the round, we may never know. What we do know is that this guy has no future in the sport unless he can get his conditioning together.
Speaking of conditioning, Daley showed up overweight for his fight with Jorge Masvidal and then by all accounts turned in a fairly underwhelming performance en route to claiming the unanimous decision win. It was a W, but likely not the kind of showing that’s going to make Big DW reconsider that lifetime ban.
And hey, if Paul Daley never fights on the big stage again, that’s fine with me. I mean, we all want to suckerpunch Josh Koscheck sometimes but the fact is, you just can’t do it. Not in a civilized society. Sure, we’ll let Don Frye go on TV and prattle on about domestic violence, but there are limits.
The rest of the Shark Fights card rounded out with a number of small-time upsets, including Danillo Villefort defeating Joey Villasenor and Tarec Saffiedine beating Brock Larson, both by decision. Lastly, heavyweight Devin Cole failed to take the next step in his comeback after pleading guilty to fourth-degree assault and sexual harassment back in 2008. Cole lost to Aaron Rosa by UD. Hard to feel too broken up about that one.
