"Art of War" Impressions

by: DarthMolen 1 year, 8 months, 3 weeks, 10 hours, 48 minutes ago 1

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First off, I would like to thank SUN Sports & Entertainment Inc. for inviting Komikazee to the event as press. I was able to sit close enough to the cage where I could literally stretch my arm out and touch it. The sounds when you are that close are quite clear and the perspective is totally different than if you were to watch it on TV or from further back.

I heard every grunt elicited by delivered knees and witnessed the sweat flying off the fighters faces when they were hit hard in the head with lightning precise punches and kicks. It was a very visceral experience being that close to the action.

The matchmaking for the event was stellar. The whole card was UFC caliber and highly entertaining. I would even say better than the UFC in some respects. Guy Metzger, the matchmaker for the event, truly did a good job bringing in the talent. More importantly, he actually matched the fighters up perfectly with their skill levels and styles. I didn't see one mis-match the whole night where I thought, "There's no way this guy can win" or ,"This fighter really doesn't have the tools to deal with his opponent". The whole night culminated with a Pedro Rizzo / Justin Eilers slugfest that left a very satisfied feeling. You can read the full review of the fights here

You could tell that this was a first time event for the production crew. They were playing rock music at full blast as a full military color-guard entered the cage before the anthem. The national anthem to start out the event was the worst I had ever heard. The live brass band sounded good. The singer had a great voice. They just couldn't time each other worth a darn. It got so bad that the singer missed the last line of the anthem because the band took some artistic liberties with the end and the singer had no clue what they were doing. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't the singers fault. She had a beautiful voice, but next time if you are going to have a live band, either play it straight so the singer can sing, or have it where the singer can see the director. Practice beforehand would also be nice.

One of the most arousing sights of the night was when they brought out a troop of military recruits in between rounds and had them encircle the cage. There were about 30 on hand. Two fully dressed military personnel then entered the middle of the cage and, raised his arm to the square along with all the recruits, and had them all pronounce the military oath in unison as he swore them in to our nations military in front of 6700+ people. Quite touching to watch these young people volunteer 3-5 years of their lives to protecting freedom.

The arena was cavernous. The 6000+ that filed into the venue left a lot of seats empty but it didn't feel overly empty. One thing that I did notice, when you looked up at the suites, they were jam packed so the high and mighty were definitely in attendance that night.

There was definitely paid eye candy at the event. In between each round there were 4 spotlighted and scantily clad women dressed in leather outfits energetically dancing on giant pedestal boxes at the 4 corners of the arena. There was also a different woman toting a card around the ring for each round. The organizer of the talent had apparently ranked the women because the looks rose proportionally to the rounds with the more beautiful women coming later in the night. There was even a bikini contest during the intermission. It was always interesting to chase after the fighters because you had to run past a gaggle of gorgeous looking women lined up in the tunnel to get to the locker rooms.

One thing to note is that I saw young children at the event. Why parents would bring their children to such a venue is beyond me. With all the scantily clad women, suggestive dancing models, plus the blood and sports violence present, it was definitely an adult oriented event.

HDNET was the production company on-hand to film everything so I would assume that the event will eventually be broadcast on that channel, but I haven't been able to gain confirmation of when from Sun Organization.

For encore performances, SUN Sports & Entertainment Inc. hopes to bring another show to the city of Dallas, Texas at the end of the year, preferably at the AAC. The Art of War will also put on a show at the Austin Convention Center on May 11 and at the San Antonio Alamodome on June 30.

In spite of the hiccups, it was a very successful event. The fights were professional quality. The crowd left very pleased and the fighters were happy with the results. Komikazee will definitely be closely following the rest of the events that Sun has planned in the future.