5 Items To Be Thankful For In MMA

Family. Friends. Good health. The oil has stopped flowing.

Yes, these are all  things we need to be thankful for this 2010 Thanksgiving Day, but as we are all MMA fans at this site, I thought we should keep an MMA focus for our thanks just for a moment. Hence the top 5 items from the world of MMA as we know it that we should be thankful for on this holiday:

 1.) Brock Lesnar Losing His Belt - Although I respected what Lesnar did after the first round, the Carwin fight should have been stopped in the first. That said,  I  really enjoyed seeing him roll around the cage in the process of losing his belt to Cain Velasquez. And not in the fashion of  a tough fought battle, but one that truly saw Lesnar exposed for what he is. A big, strong, fake wrestler.

2.) Shane Carwin On The Comeback- With Shane Carwin recovering from recent "successful" back surgery to repair damage and alleviate pain that has hampered him almost his entire MMA career, it will be nice for fans to see a renewed Carwin that is  highly motivated to have a strong 2011 and get the belt back. We possibly could see the best Shane Carwin to date, and for his opponents that's pretty scary.

3.) Vince McMahon Still Isn't In MMA- This topic comes up every now and again, but I don't think Vince will ever make his way into MMA. Nobody is eager to get in the market versus Dana White. Especially after the WEC merger, let alone someone coming from the world of fake wrestling. The fans would never allow it. The other MMA promotions currently out there wouldn't allow it and the sport definitely doesn't need it. How about working on making Brock a full time employee?

4.) The UFC/WEC Merger- This was inevitable and needed. Business side of things out of it, for us as fans this means deeper talent in an already stacked UFC. This will make for better fights in 2011 than the previous structure could have provided. This said, we will see some fighters we have enjoyed watching, get absorbed into other organizations while others will disappear completely from the main stream MMA scene.

5.) James "Lights Out" Toney Went Out- There is no way MMA could have lived down a win in any ugly from by James Toney against Randy "The Natural" Couture. Even though I had much confidence in Randy to finish Toney easy, there was always that "what if?"  factor that worried me. But as things turned out, MMA has shut up the boxing world at least for the time being.

As we look to 2011, we can also be thankful that the sport we love is growing by leaps and bounds adding to an already strong foundation that no doubt will propel growth for years.

Happy Thanksgiving to fight fans everywhere!

Also check out: http://www.colorado-mma-colorado-boxing.com/2012/01/ryan-martinez-gets-win-on-to-finals.html.