WEC 47 Afterthoughts: Bonnar Deftly Handles Color Duties, WEC Drops Ball on Bowles-Cruz Stoppage

Since Zak and Zach attended the event live and I watched it at home, I wanted to share a couple of quick WEC 47 thoughts in regards to some of the production elements; specifically, Stephan Bonnar's commentary and the confusion that occured at the end of the Bowles-Cruz title fight:

• Stephan Bonnar handled color commentary duties smoothly, but his on-camera performance was a bit wooden. When he was on-camera he strangely resembled a ventriloquist's dummy as someone aparently forgot to tell him that smiling every once in a while is a good thing to do to put the audience at ease.
• I was relieved that Bonnar mostly refrained from the incessant fawning over Miguel Torres that has earned Frank Mir a healthy amount of scorn from MMA fans.
• One thing I found surprising was that while Bonnar gave Javier Vasquez credit for his leg sweep of Jens Pulver during their fight, he failed to acknowledge the mistake that Pulver made by kicking at the legs of the downed Vasquez instead of simply letting him get back up to his feet. That tactical error marked the beginning of the end for "Lil' Evil".
• Overall, Bonnar did a good job and may have moved up a spot or two on the depth-chart in regards to replacement color commentator duty.
• While WEC 47 excelled from a production standpoint there was a giant WTF moment during the Bowles-Cruz title fight that marred what was otherwise a very polished broadcast. As they came back from the commercial break to begin the third round, the action had come to a halt and it took several minutes before the home viewers were informed as to exactly why the bout had been stopped. Both Todd Harris and Stephan Bonnar were confused as well, with Bonnar believing that perhaps a severe case of cramps, excessive blood, or even a broken nose led to the doctor stoppage. In the future, there needs to be quicker and clearer communication between the officials and broadcasters so that viewers at home won't be left scratching their heads.  
• Seeing as how the end to the main event came so abruptly, I would like to make the case for uninterrupted title fights when they are broadcast on either Spike or Versus from now on. Getting one of the card's advertisers to agree to this shouldn't be an overly tough proposition and who doesn't believe that title fights should be broadcast in full anyway. Something along the lines of: "This title fight is being brought to you commercial-free from (insert advertiser here)" would work out very well. Besides, it's always interesting to hear what advice corner-men are offering in-between rounds, especially during title fights. Hearing Brian Bowles in-between rounds one and two telling his corner that he thinks he broke his hand would have gone a long way in explaining why he looked so off his game.

Be sure to also check out the latest edition of Cage Cast as Zak and Zach share their live experience thoughts on all the action from this past Saturday night. 

SBN coverage of WEC 47: Bowles vs. Cruz