(One brief moment from the “dull affair” that was Lawler-Smith)

New York Times reporter Joshua Robinson either didn’t really watch Elite XC’s event on Saturday night, or he didn’t understand what he was seeing. Those are the only two explanations I can come up with anyway, considering that he had this to say about the Robbie Lawler-Scott Smith middleweight title bout:

The next bout, between Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith, was a dull affair. The officials stopped it in the third round after what they deemed an accidental foul — Smith took a thumb in his right eye — and the bout was declared a no contest. But that fight was quickly forgotten when Slice stole the show.

It’s interesting to note that this is the perspective of someone hired by the New York Times — one of the best newspapers in the nation — to write about sporting events for a living. If he could have misconstrued what was happening in the cage so badly, is it possible that mainstream America was confused as well?

We gave Elite XC a hard time for their event as a whole, but to refer to Lawler-Smith as a “dull affair” is a statement that is untenable at best. It makes you wonder if it was the sporadic boos during the fight or the fact that it was actually pretty technical and not an all-out slugfest that prompted this reporter to start looking at his watch. Either way, he probably should have kept his eyes on the action. That, or the Times should have assigned someone who knew something about the sport they were covering.

In other news from the MMA world…

- Elite XC welterweight and former Team Takedown member Eric Bradley has been arrested on charges of burglary, along with a lot of other charges that often accompany burglary, such as receiving stolen property, criminal trespass, and “prowling”. Five Ounces of Pain got the scoop on the story this afternoon, and while Bradley, who last fight on Elite XC’s “Street Certified” event (ironic, no?), isn’t exactly a big name for the organization, this is still the worst possible time for this kind of news.

Sam Caplan reports that Ted Ehrhardt, the founder of Team Takedown, which takes promising collegiate wrestlers and grooms them as MMA fighters, disclosed that Bradley had been released from the team for “personal issues” about a month ago.

- All fifteen fighters drug tested for UFC 84 passed with flying colors. No performance-enhancing or recreational drugs were found in tests of Sean Sherk, B.J. Penn, Keith Jardine, Wanderlei Silva, Tito Ortiz, Lyoto Machida, Rousimar Palhares, Ivan Salaverry, Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou, Rich Clementi, Yoshiyuki Yoshida, Shane Carwin, Thiago Silva, Dong Hyun Kim. Is it a statement about the world we live in that this is considered newsworthy? Probably. Best not to dwell on it though.

- Matt Hughes has confirmed that he will take on Matt Serra after his bout with Thiago Alves at UFC 85 this weekend, regardless of the outcome of the fight. Hughes also says that if he beats both Alves and Serra he expects another shot at title-holder Georges St. Pierre. One can only assume that Dana White told him that the same way you tell a child that if they’re really good you’ll take them for ice cream.