A week ago there was a fight card in Las Vegas and I just got to watch it on my DVR. The problem with the card is that all the fights were predictable, and some were outright mismatches. There were no competitive fights on the whole card.

One of the most interesting was the one with two women, and a lady referee. One of the women, Stephanie Palmer, walked into the fight with an 0-2 record, nice tattoos, and a terrified look on her face. The other, Elena Baby Doll Reid, wiggled her way into the ring with a big smile on her face, promoting sexuality in women's MMA. She was pretty. She had a 1-0 record in MMA, but more to the point, she is currently a world champion boxer in one of the alphabet organizations for women's boxing. In other words, an absolute mismatch, an execution.

The result was that pretty Baby Doll, wiggling frequently and looking great, beat the living whatever out of poor Stephanie. Then she wiggled some more.

Vegas hometown boy Jonathan Mix fought John Halverson, who I've heard of. The announcers were making a fuss over Mix, acting like he should beat Halverson. And he did. He beat him pretty good. It wasn't all that competitive.

I remember Josh "Bring the Pain" Haynes of the odd colored hair from his stint on TUF and from getting beaten up by his good friend Rory Singer. I know Haynes is pretty good and a warrior. His opponent Sean Salmon always loses when he fights people I heard of. So Haynes beat Salmon. Big surprise.

John Alessio is always good. At one time he was a WEC champion, so you know he has to be pretty good. His opponent was Gideon Ray. You may remember him from the TUF tournament that Matt Serra won, when they brought in a bunch of guys with dead careers, and the winner gets a title shot, and Serra ended up KO'ing GSP. Gideon Ray was past his prime then, and he's more past his prime now, and he was never all that good to begin with. But he's obviously a smart guy, a humble guy, nice guy, distinguished guy. Fat lot of good that did him. Alessio beat him. To Alessio's credit, he stopped hitting him before the ref stopped the fight. He motioned to the ref to stop it, and the ref did.

Mike Pyle vs. Brian Mandingo Gassaway was a lot like Alessio vs. Ray, a really good white guy against a black guy who was never all that good and is now on the way out. Mike Pyle beat up Gassaway. After the fight, during the post fight interview, Pyle just blurted out the truth, that Gassaway is not a good ground fighter, and then tried to backtrack because you really aren't supposed to be so blunt and honest, so he praised Gassaway's boxing ability. Yeah, but this is mixed martial arts and Gassaway ain't got the right mix.

Basically it was Mike Pyle sitting on Gassaway's chest and punching the shit out of his face, and Gassaway sucking so bad on the ground that there was no way he was going to break free and do anything in return. Then Pyle snapped a submission hold on him, to end Gassaway's embarrassment at sucking so bad.

Jay Hieron fought Chris Kennedy. No, not Ted Kennedy, not John F. Kennedy, not Bobby Kennedy. Chris Kennedy. As in "who the fuck is Chris Kennedy?" An obvious stupid mismatch. Hieron's opponent was supposed to be some other guy I never heard of, but that guy failed a steroid test and was cut from the show. Chris Kennedy took the fight on three hours notice. He's a cop. Come on. You don't just get yourself a cop to fight a highly trained and highly successful professional fighter like Hieron. What the fuck are we watching here? A mugging. A cop getting mugged. It was stupid.

Prior to this fight, Chris Kennedy's most famous opponent was Joe the Plumber. He also fought Sam the Butcher and Zelda the Accountant, who gave him quite a beating.

Hieron took Chris down at will, and then elbowed the poor bastard in the head repeatedly, drawing lots and lots of blood. Chris landed no punches in the first round, and one in the second, from his back. Hieron landed 450 elbows, 387 punches, and had a couple of submission attempts. Poor Chris bled like a stuck pig from start to finish. To his credit, he lasted three rounds. Red blood pouring down from his many wounds. He had a creature growing out of his head. Swollen isn't the word. It was a creature, a living creature, growing out of his head. It talked on the microphone to Whatshisname Kruck. Ron Kruck.

Reminded me of the old Simon and Garfunkel song The Boxer. In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade and he carries the reminders of every glove that beat him down and cut him til he cried out in his anger and his shame I am leaving I am leaving but the fighter still remains. What a fuckin pathetic way to make a buck. Getting the crap beat out of you and coming home all cut and bloody, with a swelling across your forehead making you look like a Neanderthal. Rough day at the office.

The headline event was Hector Ramirez vs. Rick Roufus. Rick Roufus is this old white guy in his 40s who used to be the kickboxing champion of the world. He's a lefty with a big punch and a Cro Cop type kick. He could KO Cro Cop at stand up fighting, still.

Ramirez is pretty good. He beat TUF champion Kendall Grove. Knocked him out. He went the distance with Forrest Griffin and Rashad Evans. You know the guy has to be a well rounded MMA fighter. If not A Level, at least B Plus level. What in the hell is Rick Roufus doing in the ring with him? You know Ramirez is just going to get on top of Rick and pummel him. Make Ramirez a 100-1 favorite to beat the one-dimensional and aging kick boxer.

Guess what happened. Roufus boxed very well in the first round. Ramirez took him down in the second and third rounds, and won easily. All three judges scored the fight correctly, Roufus winning round one, Ramirez winning the other two rounds. My guess is that Ramirez was told to keep the fight standing in the first round, and not beat the crap out of the old man until later.