wandshogun09

This’ll be a long one. Yeah. This has to rank up there among the greatest cards the UFC have ever put on. Not sure I’d say it’s THE best. I get that people are buzzing coming out of this show and rightly so, but calling it the #1 best ever card covers so much ground. The phrase ‘recency bias’ gets overused these days but I think there’s a little bit of that with this card. But I can’t hate on the positivity and enthusiasm. And it was an incredible show. Certainly makes all the bitching about the card going in look silly. Note to future Alex Pereira opponents, do not, under any circumstances, kick him in the balls. 🤣 What a finish. Honestly looked like something out of a martial arts movie. The low blow, Herb Dean trying to step in and Pereira just casually saying ‘nah, I’ve got this’, then walloping Hill was hilarious. Proper highlight reel moment. I always find myself doubting Pereira going into his fights. Partly his relative lack of experience in MMA, partly his limited skillset overall in MMA, partly that the way he moves looks so stiff and he always just seems a bit too ‘there to be hit’. As powerful and lethal as he obviously is, he always has a slight air of vulnerability about him. That adds to the edge of the seat factor in his fights but it always has me half expecting him to get clipped as well. So I was well chuffed with this. Also happy that Pereira has now avenged the last 2 losses of Glover Teixeira’s career. Good stuff. Not a lot more to say about the fight itself. It was short and sweet and I got the result I wanted. I don’t get the feeling Pereira’s reign is gonna last long just because he made the switch to MMA so late and it still feels like there’s an obvious blueprint there to beat him which his opponents up to now haven’t fully committed to exploiting. But he’s undeniably fun to watch and definitely has an aura around him. Just enjoy the ride while it lasts. Interesting that he was pushing to get on UFC 301 in the post-fight interview. I had seen a quote from him before the fight saying similar but I didn’t pay it much attention. With how quick this fight was though, and with Pereira seemingly not taking any significant damage, he’s probably good to go for 301. Of course you never know what damage he’s taken in camp but considering he was still saying he wants on the Brazil card after this fight, he must feel like he’s up to it. The problem is though, just because he’s up for it, they’d have to find him an opponent who’s also willing to step in on 3 weeks notice. It’s easy for Pereira to do it because he’s fresh off a training camp and it would simply mean just keeping the ball rolling for a few more weeks and maintaining that conditioning and sharpness. For the opponent, they’d likely be coming in completely cold. This pic was interesting 🤔 and Pereira did mention wanting to fight at Heavyweight. But I can’t see him and Aspinall happening yet. It’d be kind of cool, I guess, but I can live without it. I’d rather see them both keep winning in their own divisions than one of them get derailed. I think it’s obvious Pereira only mentioned Heavyweight for the Brazil PPV because he doesn’t wanna have to make 205 twice in 3 weeks. Which is fair enough. Would’ve been badass if he was able to turn right back around and defend his belt against Ankalaev at 301 but, yeah, making weight twice in such a short period of time would be rough. Plus Ankalaev isn’t gonna agree to what might be his one shot at UFC gold on 3 weeks notice and no training camp, is he? The Zhang Weili fight was so weird. Not the best fight to watch but it worked out alright because I think everyone kind of needed to calm down and catch their breath after what Mad Max did in the previous fight. Talk about a tough act to follow! The end result was what I think we all expected. Of all the fights on this card, besides the Bo Nickal fight, this was the one I was most sure about. But fuck me, Zhang had me worried for a bit there. Whether it was an adrenaline dump after nearly finishing Yan twice or what, Zhang faded in the third round and I thought Yan might just run away with it. Thankfully Zhang recovered and secured the decision but it looked a bit iffy there in the middle. It’s funny though, on a card where so much of the talk was about ‘making history’, Zhang has a legitimate claim here to having beat Yan via submission, TKO and decision all in one fight! That’s a first right there. Seriously, I thought Yan was done at the end of the first round from that choke. She was out and very lucky the fight wasn’t called off there and then. She was gone. Then in the second round when she had the back mount and was just raining down strikes, I thought the ref could’ve easily stopped it then as well. Then obviously, Zhang ended up winning on points. Sod it. I’m saying she subbed her, TKO’d her and decisioned her. Count it as 3 successful title defences in one night. Max Fucking Holloway! What more can you say? One of THE single greatest overall performances I’ve ever seen in all my years watching this mad sport. It was a pretty straightforward fight to score. I think everyone had Max 3-1 up going into the last round, with Gaethje only winning the 4th. Max absolutely didn’t need to take any crazy risks in the 5th. Watching him stand there with 10 seconds left in the fight and basically throw down the gauntlet was one of those moments that will be replayed in video montages and promos endlessly. He’s done it in fights before but never on a card as big as this, in a fight as big as this and against an opponent as lethal as Gaethje. To go up in weight, against a killer like Gaethje, pretty much school him for 3 of the previous 4 rounds, then do that at 4:59 of the 5th! One bastard second to go in the fight. Insanity. And it’s mad because just think about if that went wrong. I haven’t seen much talk of that because everyone’s understandably jizzing over what did happen. But Gaethje has arguably the heaviest hands in the Lightweight division. Just imagine if he cracked Max there and sparked him. That was a very real possibility and if that happened, Max’s decision to just throw caution to the wind in that last 10 seconds would be being looked at right now as probably the dumbest move in UFC history. Again, it’s a risk Max didn’t have to take but here we are. He did it and it levelled this fight up from what would’ve already been a mega impressive performance to a nailed on all time great moment and one of the best knockouts ever. Unbelievable. It’s gonna be retconned to fuck now after the fact, and I’ve already seen a bit of it, but never forget that when this fight was originally announced it was met with a lot of doom and gloom about what was gonna happen to Max. A lot of fans looked at his last venture up to 155 and seemed to decide that because he lost that fight (in a FOTY war against an animal in Dustin Poirier, I might add) that basically closed the door on any chances he had to do well at 155 ever again. I know Gaethje is a beast but some of the talk I saw going into this fight, acting like Max was a lamb heading into the lions den, was ridiculous. As the fight got closer I started to think Max was gonna win. Wasn’t sure of it, but something about him in the build up gave me a tad more confidence in him. Plus from early on when the fight got made it looked like he was more prepared for the move up in weight this time, looking a bit bigger and stronger physically. I had some doubts about whether that could hinder his speed but that obviously turned out to be a non factor. He looked fantastic here. Hopefully we can now put to bed this impression some seemed to have that Max is on the decline. It seems like since the losses to Volkanovski, people have been trying to zip the bodybag up on Max’s prime. I remember seeing a fair few predicting he’d lose to Arnold Allen last year. There wasn’t so much of that before the Korean Zombie fight but I think that was more because everyone knew the Zombie was on the way out himself. But the amount of people I saw completely counting him out against Gaethje was nuts. Not just predicting he’d lose, I can understand picking Gaethje, but predicting he’d get badly fucked up and like he was out of his depth going up to 155. Losing a war against Dustin Poirier doesn’t mean you can’t beat other Lightweights. This fight was the perfect redemption and ‘fuck you’ to the doubters for Max. The KO itself was the cherry on top but winning like 20 out of the 25 minutes before that really proved he can hang at 155 and that he’s far from done. He had Gaethje hurt a bunch of times, including badly in the 5th even before the KO. Is this next for Holloway?! It seems like we’re getting Topuria vs Volk 2 first but fuck knows at this point. Topuria vs Holloway always seemed like a cool fight for down the road but after this and then Max calling out Topuria in the cage, then the camera cutting to Topuria in the crowd looking in shock. I think I wanna see it more than the Volk rematch next but Volk absolutely deserves another crack for the reign he had. I don’t know what’s gonna happen. Seems like there’s a few really fun options for Max now. If it’s 145 there’s the Topuria fight. If it’s 155, it doesn’t make much sense but don’t tell me you wouldn’t be all over Holloway vs Oliveira for the BMF title. Then there’s the outside possibility of Holloway vs McGregor 2 maybe? Really enjoyed the Tsarukyan vs Oliveira fight. I know we already had 3 title fights on this card but, looking at how this fight played out, it’s a real shame this wasn’t 5 rounds. I agreed with the decision. Seen the usual cries of robbery but I think a lot of that is just because people like Oliveira more. He did have the more memorable ‘moments’ as well. He definitely won the first round and that guillotine looked tight. Tsarukyan did well to survive that. But Tsarukyan answered by winning round 2 in dominant fashion and, while Oliveira had the late sub attempt in round 3, I didn’t think the rest of the round was close enough for that lone sub attempt to tip it in his favour. Tsarukyan was winning for 4+ minutes before that. Right man won but, like I said, I wish it was 5 rounds. Oliveira was always dangerous and it felt like it was just starting to really heat up at the end of the third. Rounds 4 and 5 would’ve been very interesting. We talked about it in the Fight Announcement thread but Tsarukyan was offered the title shot backstage immediately following the fight and turned it down. I get it. I’m sure he’d love the shot if he could get some rest first and then get a full training camp in. But jumping straight back into camp now for a fight on June 1st isn’t the best. That’ll be why they’ve gone with Makhachev vs Poirier. The right move now, with that fight only 6-7 weeks away, is surely to just let Tsarukyan rest up and face the winner in Abu Dhabi in October or something. But you know what Dana’s like. He throws a tantrum when he gets told “no” and I’m sure he’s got the hump with Tsarukyan now for turning the fight down. But Tsarukyan challenging the winner of Makhachev vs Poirier is the most logical way for this to go now. Bo Nickal predictably beat Cody Brundage. As he was supposed to. Nothing much to read into this. I’ve made no secret of the fact I think Brundage is total shite. So if anything, him lasting deep into the second round wasn’t a good look for Bo. Don’t get me wrong, Bo was in control the whole fight and was never in any danger. But if he’s gonna be as good as he talks himself up as, he should’ve been steamrolling this bum within 5 minutes. I don’t know. It’s another win for Bo and it’s still early days so I don’t even have a problem with the matchmaking. But I can’t help but finding myself wanting to see him lose. He was pretty humble in the post-fight interview but he talks so much shite usually and it’s not even in a charming or charismatic way. He just comes off as a bit of a twat to me. And the UFC/Dana bumming him doesn’t help. Dana was right there as he left the cage apparently giving him a pep talk and shit, which you never see him do usually. Something about these golden boys/chosen ones that instantly makes me wanna see them get derailed unless they’re insanely likeable or something. Bo isn’t. Apparently Khamzat tweeted something criticising Bo’s performance and Bo went “I’m getting finishes, this guy’s going to decisions”. Because finishing Val Woodburn and Cody Brundage is definitely in the same league as going to decisions with Gilbert Burns and Kamaru Usman. I know it’s just trash talk but that’s wally talk. Jiri Prochazka vs Aleksandar Rakic was a lot of fun. It was a fight I was looking forward to but nowhere near as much as some of the others on this card. And a lot of that was down to not knowing what to expect from Rakic. He was coming off such a long layoff here and I’d been underwhelmed by him a couple of times even before the injury. But I thought he was looking really good early on. It’s odd because he had 2 years of inactivity and this was probably his toughest opponent to date but I honestly thought he was looking better in that first round than I can remember him ever looking. Even into the second round, I was getting the feeling he was well on his way to winning. Jiri was being Jiri and, despite his odd movement and wacky style, always looked dangerous. But I thought his weirdness wasn’t really working and Rakic was landing the better stuff. Until, he wasn’t… Such a stupidly fun fighter to watch. Emphasis on the stupid. And I don’t even mean that as a knock. Most of the time it genuinely doesn’t even look like he trains because no coach would recommend you fight that way he does. It’s like he just goes in there and wings it. It’s gonna end in tears eventually. In a lot of ways he reminds me of a bigger Tony Ferguson. His style looks like it shouldn’t work but it mostly does and he gets by a lot of times just by out-toughing the other guy and catching them with something off-beat or from a funny angle. But like Fergie, he puts himself in harm’s way so much that, at some point it feels like he’s gonna crash and burn in similar fashion. For now though, enjoy it while it lasts. I’ve seen Jamahal Hill call him out, wouldn’t mind that next. And I’d do Rakic vs Blachowicz 2. That’s unfinished business because the first fight is where Rakic injured his knee and they were supposed to rematch in January. Thought Aljo Sterling looked a handful in his Featherweight debut. He looked strong and actually seemed more aggressive than I remember him being in his last few fights at 135. He was coming forward and initiating the action more than usual I thought. You could chalk that up to this being his first fight in a few years that was scheduled for 3 rounds instead of 5, and I think that was definitely part of it. But I just thought he seemed to look more energetic in general and that’s surely down to not having to cut so much weight. Seen a fair bit of negativity towards this fight but I thought it was fine myself. Not gonna pretend it was mega exciting to watch and being on a card like this didn’t help it, but it wasn’t as bad as I’ve seen it made out to be. The powerbomb was quality… Rough return fight for Kattar. Coming off a long layoff and an injury only to get completely shut down and dominated like this must be utterly demoralising. It might’ve been a slightly better fight had he been more active coming in but Aljo had his way in the grappling to such an extent that I don’t think the result would’ve been any different regardless. Thought it was way harsh that they never interviewed Aljo post-fight, to be honest. Only adds to the general feeling that Aljo isn’t well liked by the bosses behind the curtain. I’ve seen people defending the UFC/Rogan not interviewing him ‘because he didn’t finish’ but that’s bollocks. I’d maybe get that if they were up against it with time constraints but the other 3 fights on the televised prelims all ended in 2 rounds or less. So that doesn’t wash with me. They definitely had time for a quick interview. You just know that choice was made via Dana calling an audible, because he hates wrestling, and telling Rogan to not give Aljo the mic. Couldn’t have been happier to see Kayla Harrison get the decisive win and finish over Holly Holm. From the second the fight was announced I was half dreading it just because it felt like it had such high dud potential. And Harrison having to cut to 135 felt like it almost guaranteed a rotten fight. I still fancied her to win, which is more indicative of my thoughts on Holm in 2024 than anything. But I wasn’t exactly confident about it. Thought she looked great though. Pretty much the perfect UFC debut and, let’s face it, about as good as you can look against the excitement repellent that Holm’s become. She looked scary here. And the UFC ruleset and her being able to use elbows is really gonna compliment her game. Made me laugh listening to the commentators being so confused and questioning why Holm was choosing to clinch with Harrison. As if Holm hasn’t been a boring clinch-and-do-nothing merchant for years on end now. Nothing against the woman personally but it was very satisfying watching Harrison just crush her here. Not only because it’s closed the door once again on Holm getting back in the title mix. But also, Christ knows the Bantamweight division has been crying out for some new blood for a long time and Harrison’s performance here was the first time I’ve been excited about anything in that wasteland of a division in yonks. Seems I’m not alone in that either… She’s got Amanda Nunes attention! I don’t know whether she was just doing this for a laugh or to keep her name out there, or whether she’s seriously thinking about coming back. I’ve got mixed feelings on that because I did feel like she got out at the right time. But I can’t lie, if Harrison keeps winning and becomes champ, then Nunes comes back to face her, it’d be the best thing to happen to the division since the Rousey days. Half the reason Nunes retired in the first place was probably because there wasn’t much in the way of exciting fights worth sticking around for. I saw Cyborg tweeting something like ‘maybe I should come back too’ or something but it’s pointless because it’s never gonna happen. She’s never gonna make 135 and she can’t fight in the UFC because she’s contractually tied to PFL and Dana hates her. Holm was ranked #5 going in. I honestly wouldn’t be shocked if they just go ahead and give Harrison a title shot now. I saw a quote from Pennington before this fight along the lines of “I’ll have a bitter taste if they let Kayla skip the line and take away the opportunity from all these other women”. By “all these other women” she means Irene Aldana, Mayra Bueno Silva, Ketlen Vieira and Julianna Pena. They’re the ones that were ranked above Holm before Saturday. Of that lot, Aldana is coming off one win but lost a lopsided decision in her title shot just before that. Bueno Silva just lost in her title shot and proper shat the bed in what’s probably the front runner for worst fight of the year so far against Pennington. Vieira’s coming off one win but lost to the current champ Pennington before that. And people are gonna argue the case for Pena but she hasn’t fought in almost 2 years when she got battered to a shutout by Nunes in a failed title shot. I’m struggling to see why any of this lot are any more deserving than Harrison. Diego Lopes did it again! As much as I’m always bigging him up I had some doubts about this fight for him. Had a feeling Super Sodiq might prove just a step too far for him at the moment. Needn’t have worried though. Blitzed him in 90 seconds. Very impressive. Yusuff’s had some losses but you just don’t see people blast through him like this. This is a guy who’s gone the distance with Arnold Allen and was coming into this fight off the back of going 5 rounds in a tough battle against Edson Barboza. And Lopes just smashes him like this? I keep saying I’m not sure where his ceiling is but he just keeps winning. And Yusuff was a ranked guy. This was supposed to be a significant step up for Lopes and he treated it like it was light work. Saw someone on Twitter suggest doing Lopes vs Yair Rodriguez on the next Mexico card. I never even thought of that but I’d be all the fuck over that fight. Can you imagine? Lopes is ace. Just a whirlwind of hair, bad tattoos and violence. Renato Moicano got it done and got to do his thing on the mic but, man, Jalin Turner must be absolutely furious with himself for letting Moicano off the hook after this… There’s obviously no guarantee Jalin would’ve ended it there if he jumped on Moicano but going for the old Mark Hunt walk-off certainly didn’t work out very well for him… Deary me. He fucked up big time and it’s gonna haunt him. Thought the finish was a bit weak actually. Moicano was dominating that second round and was dropping the ground and pound but is it just me who felt like not much of it landed? For all the ground strikes Moicano threw at the end, it looked like all but maybe one or two of them were hitting the arms. Regardless, Turner’s gonna be kicking himself watching this back. Wouldn’t be surprised if he gets another fight booked ASAP now, just to get the stink of this loss off him. Didn’t think much of the Jessica Andrade vs Marina Rodriguez fight. Andrade was aggressive as always but it just never really caught fire. Close one as well, I thought. I had Andrade winning the first round and Rodriguez winning the third. The second was the decider and, honestly, I can see the argument for either woman. I thought Rodriguez was coasting to winning that round until the last minute or so and then Andrade was all over her. Didn’t have a problem with Andrade getting the nod myself. I think she might’ve nicked that second round plus I prefer her so I was cool with it. Bobby Green vs Jim Miller was a war. Exactly the type of fight anyone familiar with these two would expect. A fight 10 years in the making but it was worth waiting for. So glad it finally happened, would’ve been criminal if these two went their whole careers just missing each other. On almost any other card, this is your FOTN. It did get rough to watch as it went on though. Miller took a bad beating. I’m vague on the scoring now but I remember him having a good first round but the second and third were just an all-out assault from Green. I had Green taking both rounds 10-8. I think the cut played a big part in Miller taking so much damage because it seemed like he couldn’t see the punches coming from that side after a certain point. Before the cut it was fairly even and still up for grabs. After the cut it was all downhill for Miller and Green just busted him up. I know he does it all the time but with all the taunting and shit talking Green was doing, I was dying for Miller to just waffle him but it never came. Shame to see Miller lose this one. Especially after winning at UFCs 100 and 200. What a tough bastard though. Even in the final seconds when he was covered in blood and all looked lost, he was still trying right to the end going for a leg lock. I know Miller changed his mind going into this fight about retiring just yet but a fight like this surely has him reconsidering that now. At 40 years old and having had such a long career and so many fights, the last thing he needed was a brutal, bloody dogfight like this. I thought maybe he’ll wait for that New Jersey PPV so he can retire in his home state but that’s early June and surely there’s no way he’s back in there that quick. Especially with a cut like that. He’ll probably fight on for a while but this was hard to watch. I liked Green’s callout of Paddy Pimblett. I’d be up for that. Not sure Paddy will be though. Figgy finishing Cody Garbrandt wasn’t a surprise to anyone but I think pretty much everyone expected a knockout. Figgy switched things up… He had mercy on Cody’s crumbling chin. Shame. I was looking forward to seeing him get flattened again. Nice of Figgy to just strangle him instead. He’s looking good at 135. Should’ve sacked Flyweight off a bit sooner. I keep saying it and I’ll keep saying it…I really wanna see Figgy vs Petr Yan or Chito Vera. Or Yan vs Chito. Any combination of those three, I want it. Figgy was actually asked by the media post-fight about possibly fighting Yan but he shut it down and said he wants a title shot? Fair enough for trying. If you don’t ask you don’t get etc. But there’s no way, is there? Not yet. O’Malley vs Merab is absolutely the title fight to make next. And even after that, Sandhagen is ahead of him and you have to think Jose Aldo will quickly be back in the conversation as well if he wins at 301 in Brazil. Hopefully the matchmakers can talk some sense into Figgy and get him in there with Yan or something. Because, as much as I’ve enjoyed Fig’s first couple of Bantamweight fights, wins over Font and Garbrandt don’t scream ‘number one contender’ do they? Barmy show. When MMA goes right, it’s something else. If there’s a better card than this to come in 2024 then we’re in for a treat.

Beterbiev-Bivol face-off. Inject this into my veins.

Maybe but when Dana initially announced Oliveira vs Tsarukyan he said it was a #1 contender fight. That lines up with why Tsarukyan was offered the title shot first. With him turning it down and Oliveira losing the only real options were Poirier or Holloway. And I think Holloway is gonna go back to 145 now so that just left Poirier.

Yeah, standard shit from the UFC but it’s bollocks that they hit fighters with that immediately after fights. No doubt Dana will turn on Tsarukyan now and claim he “didn’t want the fight” but who knows what he’s got going on physically and/or in his personal life. For him to pass on a title shot, there must be a good reason. And to be fair, turning straight back around into another training camp isn’t ideal. He’s been waiting to break through in the title mix for a while now and he’s already 0-1 down to Makhachev. He’d be a fool to accept the fight now if he feels like he can’t get a proper camp in. If he said yes and lost the fight, then he’s 0-2 to Islam and who knows when he’d get another shot? You want a full, dedicated and very specific training camp for a guy like Makhachev. And with the show only being about 6-7 weeks away on June 1st, it’s not ideal. Especially if he’s got any injuries from this UFC 300 camp or the fight itself. Or even just fearing he might overtrain doing back-to-back camps. But yeah, blindsiding fighters straight after fights to ‘negotiate’ the next fight is bullshit. Here’s my favourite example of that backfiring spectacularly…

I’ll post more when I’ve had a sleep and caught up on the stuff I missed but, fuck me, what a show. Loads of good stuff to talk about but Max Fucking Holloway man!

It’s on then. McGregor vs Chandler. UFC 303. June 29. 5 rounds at 170lbs.

Well fuck… And…

I’m going Pereira, Zhang and I’ve come around to thinking Max might pull it off the closer it’s gotten. Admittedly the Pereira and Max picks have a touch of wishful thinking to them, wouldn’t say I’m hugely confident in either getting the W tonight but I’m leaning towards both and hoping they win. Pretty sure of a Zhang win but we’ll see. Further down the card I’m actually thinking Tsarukyan might spoil the Oliveira comeback and Bo Nickal is gonna squash Brundage, obvs. On the prelims I’m fancying Aljo to beat Kattar, Jiri to KO Rakic and, fuck it, Harrison to finally put Holm out of OUR misery. Got Yusuff over Lopes as well, Turner over Moicano and Andrade over Rodrigues. Miller vs Green I’m about a dead 50/50 on but I’ll go with Miller because it’s the result I want. And I think Figgy decks Garbrandt in the curtain jerker. Oh and while I’m here, a fan caught this video last night of Jiri Prochazka just standing there, staring out the T-Mobile Arena. He was out there for at least 20 minutes according to this guy 🤣 Jiri’s a different type of cat.

I’m late but happy birthday Devon. Hope you had a good one.

Looks lovely that! Chips look perfect.

Have it.

Slaphead Makhachev sighting.

Just looked back at the UFC 200 thread on here. 74 fucking pages!! Times have changed… Obviously there was more to talk about with 200. McGregor vs Diaz 2 initially being planned for it, Holm vs Rousey 2 being rumoured at one point, Aldo returning coming off that disastrous 13 seconds against Conor in his previous fight etc. Then there was the whole madness with Jon Jones getting USADA’d and fucking up the Cormier rematch leading to Anderson Silva stepping in at the eleventh hour. There was a LOT going on. And of course, Brock Lesnar coming back against Mark Hunt was a massive talking point on here in 2016. Goes without saying, on this forum, any time a big pro wrestling star makes the jump it’s gonna get more attention. But still, 74 bastard pages. And here we are on UFC 300 fight day and we’re only on page 2.

McGregor was on James Corden’s podcast apparently. Genuinely can’t think of much I’d wanna listen to less than this shite.