FanHouse Wec36

Jim Rome of ESPN showed again today that he's one of the few members of the elite sports media who really gets mixed martial arts, using the intro of his show Jim Rome is Burning to talk about Mike Brown's win over Urijah Faber last night at WEC 36.

"For those of you who have not jumped on the MMA bandwagon yet, this is exactly what they're selling and what you're missing," Rome said. "Any fighter can win at any given moment. It's not any given Sunday, it's any given shot. Faber was and probably still is a top 5 fighter, pound-for-pound. He's definitely the best thing the WEC has going, and while Brown had won his last seven fights coming in, nobody expected to see the ref pulling him off Faber last night, let alone the first round. ...

"That's what makes MMA so electric. There's no margin for error, the stakes are that high every second of every fight. ... This was not a case of Faber underestimating the opponent, or not being ready for that fight. He was a world champion at the top of his game, and he got caught, and it was over before it even started. That's MMA. Get on board because you can't get that sort of thing anywhere else."

At a time when MMA is still dismissed as barbaric or irrelevant by many of the sports media elites, it's nice to know that Rome recognizes the greatness of the sport, and uses his show to spread the word.

WEC middleweight champion Paulo Filho has disgraced himself this week, from failing to make weight for WEC 36 to putting together a terrible performance in losing to Chael Sonnen, and finally, backing out on his vow to give up the title belt if he lost to Sonnen. Here's Sonnen after the fight when asked about Filho's vow to hand over the belt if Sonnen won:

"That hasn't happened. I did hear that rumor, he said he would surrender, that he would count this as a championship match," he said. "And I would have accepted. I'm that desperate for the championship and to have that goal fulfilled. I would have humbly accepted the belt from him, but no, he didn't offer it."

World Extreme Cagefighting featherweight champion Urijah Faber lost a stunning first-round TKO to Mike Brown tonight at WEC 36 in one of the biggest mixed martial arts upset of the year.

Faber, a huge favorite and the most recognizable name in the WEC, came in with a couple of hard strikes in the first round. But Brown leveled him with a right hand, got on top of him on the ground and rained blows down on him until the referee had to stop the fight at 2:23 of the first round.

"I made a small mistake and he capitalized on it," Faber said after the fight. "Congratulations to Mike Brown."

World Extreme Cagefighting middleweight champion Paulo Filho suffered the first loss of his career tonight, falling to Chael Sonnen in a boring unanimous decision at WEC 36.

The first round got the fight off to a frustrating start, as Filho spent most of the time on his back, hoping to catch Sonnen in a submission, which Sonnen was just trying to avoid.

In the second, Sonnen controlled the round by knocking Filho down and then forcing him to stand back up, but that didn't produce much action. Sonnen didn't try to push the pace of the fight, but Filho didn't try to do anything at all.

Three-time NCAA champion wrestler Jake Rosholt made his World Extreme Cagefighting debut tonight, beating Nissen Osterneck with a second-round TKO at WEC 36.

Osterneck came forward with a combination in the first 10 seconds of the first round, and he appeared to have Rosholt momentarily stunned. But Rosholt responded with a terrific takedown, and from there it was a fast-paced, back-and-forth first round.

The second round was slower at first, as both fighters appeared to be fatigued on the ground. But when they went to their feet momentarily, there was a flurry of action, with Osterneck appearing close to knocking Rosholt out with a series of strikes, only to have Rosholt take him down and ground-and-pound him until the referee had no choice but to stop the fight 3:48 into the second round.

The Paulo Filho-Chael Sonnen fight at WEC 36 will still go on, but it is now a three-round non-title fight after Filho, the middleweight champion, failed to make weight.

Filho weighed in at 192 pounds the first time he stepped on the scale. He then spent two hours in the sauna but still only got his weight down to 189 pounds. So the fight will still take place, but it's no longer for the WEC middleweight title, and Sonnen, who made the contracted weight of 185, will get 25 percent of Filho's purse.

Under ordinary circumstances, Filho would be stripped of the WEC middleweight title belt. But since the WEC was planning on eliminating the middleweight division altogether, that's a moot point. Still, it's an embarrassment to Filho, a talented fighter who has looked this year like he's never going to realize his great potential.

World Extreme Cagefighting middleweight champion Paulo Filho missed weight today for tomorrow night's WEC 36 title fight against Chael Sonnen, showing up at a ridiculous 192 pounds, seven pounds over the middleweight limit.

It's the latest in a long line of setbacks for Filho, a talented, undefeated fighter who hasn't been able to get his personal life in order. Filho hasn't fought since beating Sonnen 11 months ago and has spent time in substance abuse treatment since then.

At this point,t he WEC has not said whether the fight will go on. It's possible that Filho will be stripped of his title.

Official weigh-in results via WEC.tv are below.

Chael Sonnen will fight Paulo Filho for the middleweight title on Wednesday night at WEC 36 in a rematch of a fight last year that had a controversial ending. But it's to Sonnen's credit that he's not complaining about the stoppage of their first fight:

"He put me in an arm lock, he had a submission, I did not tap out and the referee stopped the fight," Sonnen said.

But Sonnen added, "I took the high road, and in truth, I keep saying I didn't tap, but the referee saw I was in trouble and he had the right to stop the fight."

After the jump, watch the controversial ending and see for yourself.

Although I'm excited about seeing Urijah Faber fight Mike Brown and Paulo Filho fight Chael Sonnen, what I'm most intrigued about heading into Wednesday night's WEC 36 show is getting a look at NCAA wrestling champ Jake Rosholt. Here's Rosholt's first MMA fight, against Dusty Miller last year:

At Oklahoma State, Rosholt won the NCAA wrestling title in his weight class in 2003, 2005 and 2006. He's now 4-0 in MMA, and I think he's a star in the making.

But I respect the fact that the WEC didn't give Rosholt an easy opponent in his WEC debut. His fight Wednesday night against Nissen Osterneck won't be easy: Osterneck is 5-0 and has finished all of his opponents in the first or second round, four of them by submission. Rosholt against Osterneck is the kind of fight that no one is talking about heading into Wednesday night, but everyone will be talking about afterward.

WEC featherweight champion Urijah Faber says in this video that he's the best fighter in the world at 145 pounds, and almost all mixed martial arts observers agree with that. But Faber's opponent at Wednesday's WEC 36 show, Mike Brown, has a different idea:

"I think I'm a better fighter," Brown says. "I'm bigger, stronger, I hit harder. ... This is definitely the most important fight of my life. I've got plenty of experience. This is the top, this is my shot."