The World Series of Fighting (WSOF) made their debut Saturday night at the Planet Hollywood Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. The show featured debuts, knockouts, and upsets and was generally an entertaining inaugural show.
That being said, the show did not go off without any glitches. Read on for the good, the bad, and the ugly from last night’s WSOF debut.
Miguel Torres has nothing left
Photo courtesy of Sherdog.comOnce upon a time, Miguel Torres was the most dominating bantamweight on the planet. Career defining wins over Takeya Mizugaki, Yoshiro Maeda, and Chase Beebe made Torres a legendary figure amongst the WEC ranks.
More than just the wins, Torres became known for his back and forth brawl-like encounters, particularly the ones against Maeda and Mizugaki. Those defining bouts are referred to as “career shortening” for a reason, as we saw at World Series of Fighting 1.
The once tenacious, reckless Torres has mellowed with age, both personally and professionally. After five losses in his last eight bouts, perhaps it’s time for Torres to move.
Much like the great Shane Mosley, Torres has given all he can to the sport. He’ll be remembered for his incredible WEC run, but no one wants to see him fight in 2012.
The missed opportunity of Tyson Nam
Word spread before the WSOF debut that recent phenomenon Tyson Nam would compete for the promotion’s bantamweight championship on their second show against the winner of the Torres versus Morian Moraes bout.
Many thought the previously mentioned Torres would be too much for the unproven Moraes, and many pundits were already beginning to piece together a bout between Torres and Nam.
Flying Nam out to the inaugural event, it was expected he would make an on air presence, perhaps in the form of a face-to-face stare down against his opponent.
Instead, the cameras shied away from showing Nam, missing a great opportunity to give people a face to match with the name. The promotion cannot assume Nam is a household name after a single win on a relatively small show in Brazil. The mainstream fan does not know Nam, and the promotion should have done a better job of promoting the fight.
WSOF 2 build
While we’re on the subject of building bouts, the promotion should have used this show to promote the next one, tentatively scheduled for January. Yes, they made it known that Tyson Nam versus Marlon Moraes will take place, but it would have been ideal for the promotion to announce a couple more bouts for fans to remember.
Moraes was booed throughout his bout against Torres, and it is him who is the selling point for fans going into the next show. The promotion will certainly announce more bouts in the coming weeks, but it was during the first broadcast they had the world’s attention.
Tyrone Spong is a special talent
The word ‘mismatch’ has been tossed around the online universe coming out of Tyrone Spong’s phenomenal debut performance at WSOF. It’s hard to call any debut fight a mismatch, but Spong certainly made it seem that way.
As expected, Spong dominated on the feet. His kickboxing was fantastic and he set-up the finishing straight punch with beautiful precision.
It’s now on WSOF to bring this prospect along with proper pacing timing. There’s no need to rush him against a submission specialist.
Spong is a special talent, and someone WSOF could build the promotion around.
Stream issues
Perhaps blame should lay with NBC Sports instead of the WSOF, but last night’s preliminary card streaming was bizarre. After streaming the first three bouts with little to no problem, the stream paused, and then began again from the beginning.
In doing so, the promised full undercard stream did not take place. A viewer count was attached to the streaming video, and by showing the same fights again, viewership dropped by over half.
Invicta FC has shown the power of live streaming, and it’s something the WSOF and NBC Sports need to get figured out sooner than later.
