jimufctna24

2 hours ago, Carbomb said:

Seems Pat Miletich was at the attempted putsch on the Capitol, and has consequently lost his job at the LFA. Good.

https://www.bloodyelbow.com/2021/1/12/22227934/ufc-pioneer-pat-miletich-fired-attending-capitol-riot-mma-politics-trump-news

Pat is one of the very few good MMA commentators. 

It's a shame he ruins it by being a massive bellend. 

I voted for Ebb. 

He keeps the boxing and Bellator threads ticking on here. I especially appreciate that he keeps me company in the Bellator/Rizin threads. I also find his love for shit MMA and his betting failures to be endearing. 

I would have perhaps voted for Wand had he been nominated because he more or less keeps the UFC threads going on here. And lets face it, the UFC threads are the main draw of the sub-forum. The Bellator threads are mainly just me wanking over two Russian fighters that about 7 people have heard of. I also really enjoyed reading and posting in Wand's top 50 fights of the 2000s thread. 

Honourable mentions to all the other regular contributors (WeeAl, Carbomb, David, etc), who also keep the forum active. 

I went with Izzy. 

Khabib had the best performance of the year, but Izzy more or less cleaned out his division by beating the 4th best middleweight in the world and then the 3rd best middleweight in the world. His win over Costa was arguably his best to date as well. 

MMA Fighting article about Spencer Fisher's medical problems - https://www.mmafighting.com/2021/1/12/21554602/the-cost-of-being-the-king-spencer-fisher-ufc

It's a long and depressing read. But at the same time, very interesting. 

FFS.

Horiguchi claims he isn't going to fight on Rizin's March show at the Tokyo Dome. Instead, he wants to rest up for a while, and then attempt to reclaim the Bellator BW title.

Sweet, I would be well up for Horiguchi vs Archuleta or Horiguchi vs Pettis. 

5 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

I genuinely think he’s one of the very best fighters on the planet at the moment, regardless of weight class. 

No question.

Given that Khabib is inactive, Usman, Izzy and Volk are the clear top 3 in my view. 

Irwin Rivera has been charged with murdering two women:

Quote

 

Ultimate Fighting Championship bantamweight Irwin Rivera has been booked and charged with two counts of first-degree murder in Florida.

The news first broke from MyMMANews on Thursday, with the outlet reporting Rivera was brought in after allegedly stabbing his sisters. Per the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, Rivera was booked on Thursday morning and has been charged with two counts of Homicide – Murder, First Degree Premeditated. He is being held without bond. According to the 2020 Florida Statutes, “the unlawful killing of a human being…when perpetrated from a premeditated design to effect the death of the person killed or any human being” is punishable by either death or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

In a statement from the UFC made to MMA Fighting on Thursday, the promotion noted it had been informed of this news, writing, “UFC is aware of the recent incident involving Irwin Rivera and subsequently received information from his management that he has been exhibiting behavior consistent with mental health issues. The allegations are extremely troubling and the organization is currently gathering additional information. The investigation is ongoing and any potential next steps including disciplinary action or medical attention will be determined upon the conclusion. Furthermore, UFC has informed Rivera’s management that he will not be offered a bout at this time.”

Rivera competed in the UFC three times throughout 2020, winning a split decision over Ali AlQaisi but dropping judges’ verdicts to Giga Chikadze and Andre Ewell. “The Beast” made his way to the UFC by scoring three knockouts in a row with Titan Fighting Championships, earning him a short-notice opportunity in May. Rivera worked his way up to that place by taking fights with Legacy Fighting Championship and Combate Americas, although he lost more times than he won with those two organizations.

 

I think Gaethje, Oliveria and Poirier are the only lightweights worthy of fighting for the mandatory title. McGregor and Chandler don't have any recent wins over top-tier lightweights. 

Thus, I'd book Gaethje vs Oliveria for the vacated title, and have Poirier and McGregor fight to be the number 1 contender. 

Bloody Elbow's expose of One FC:

Part 1 - https://www.bloodyelbow.com/2020/12/9/22158239/threats-gag-orders-and-more-fighters-and-employees-throw-serious-allegations-at-one-championship

Part 2 - https://www.bloodyelbow.com/2021/1/6/21355267/blatant-mismatches-questionable-claims-fighters-employees-serious-allegations-one-championship

"Single"

3 hours ago, Kfogg1991 said:

I just watched a video on Youtube saying that dana said Khabib has indeed vacated the title and this main event will be for the vacant belt but i can't find anything on Twitter or whatever to support that. HOWEVER the meeting with Khabib did take place yesterday so I and I'm sure the rest of the world is extremely egar to hear what has come out of it. 

Probably has something to do with this - https://goalmirror.com/?p=18835

Quote

 

And it seems as though the UFC are planning on moving on with the division without the Russian superstar, after the UFC’s Twitter direct message chatbot posted: “Don’t miss Poirier take on McGregor for the lightweight title bout. Who do you think will walk out of the Octagon with the W.?”

A replacement message was quickly posted following the apparent error, although plenty of fans noticed the mistake before the word ‘title’ was removed. 

 

Possibly a brainfart by whoever updates UFC's Twitter page. 

The Fight Site's analysis on how Khabib beat Gaethje:

Given that we are discussing 42 year old Andrei Arlovski and Greg Hardy, these comments from Frank Mir seem appropriate:

Quote

 

According to Mir, the heavyweight division doesn’t require the same type of special, determined athletes as say, featherweight or lightweight. There are fewer fighters, thus less competition. Also, today’s heavyweights don’t want to fight in an exciting manner – or do so at all, said Mir. To further prove his point, Mir told a story about a recent MMA event he attended with his wife, before some self-deprecation.

“We were at some fights and we were watching two high-level guys,” Mir said. “She looked over at me. One of the guys was in the top ten rankings, right? She looked at me like, ‘Holy (expletive), you’ll be able to fight the rest of your life. This is horrible.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, this is heavyweights.’ “Heavyweights suck, the majority of us. We’re just not very good fighters. They’re like watching polar bears fighting over some food. Balance isn’t great. No one knows how to do submissions barely. Once you get out of the top ten, you’re really scratching the bottom of the barrel.”

 

I grew tired of the whole McGregor spectacle in 2017 and grew to loathe him as a person a year or so later for various reasons (the bus incident, punching the old man, etc). 

Therefore, I am going to ignore everything McGregor related over the next few weeks until he actually steps into the cage. From what I have read, the general feeling seems to be that McGregor has an excellent chance of stopping Poirier early. I can understand why many are predicting that outcome, but only a fool would rule out Poirier, who is at the very least in the top 15 fighters in the entire sport. It gets forgotten that Poirier holds definitive and recent victories over Holloway and Gaethje, two of the very best fighters in the game. And while he was bulldozed by Khabib, so were McGregor and Gaethje. 

I'll probably make my final prediction the day before the fight, but thinking about it now, I could easily go either way. It's a very interesting match-up. 

1 minute ago, Carbomb said:

if they've not got plans for Miocic/Ngannou 2.

Miocic vs Ngannou 2 is being targeted for March apparently. 

Big Glenn was a massive draw back in the day. 

He headlined cards at Gateshead Leisure Centre, Marton Country Club, and Oldham Civic Sports Centre. 

Big Glenn on the comeback trial!

He'll be giving Jones, Tyson, Holyfield, etc sleepless nights. 

He looks about 45 in this picture. 

On 12/31/2020 at 6:49 PM, Egg Shen said:

Honestly, i think the ideal outcome is the have Izzy beat Jan, Jones beat Stipe and do Izzy vs. Jones for the heavyweight belt. That would be monstrous.

...don't tell Francis.

Surely there is no way that Izzy is daft enough to fight at heavyweight. 

I know he's a vastly superior fighter to everyone north of 185lbs, but we have weightclasses for a reason. 

Barnett and Tito are bother petitioning to be Fedor's next opponent - https://mmajunkie.usatoday.com/2021/01/josh-barnett-tito-ortiz-interested-fedor-emelianenko-bellator-retirement-fight

I really hope Barnett gets the fight. Ortiz has the dreaded X-Pac/Covington heat. 

I've seen a few on Twitter argue, quite reasonably mind, that they rate Horiguchi highly based on eye-test, more so than his resume. Yet, his best wins since leaving the UFC are actually very impressive:

Manel Kape: At worst a top 20 BW, probably knocking on the door of the division's top 10. Kyoji absolutely dominated him. 

Kai Asakura: At worst a top 20 BW, probably knocking on the door of the division's top 10. Kyoji had few issues with him in their rematch. 

Darrion Caldwell: A massive BW and a stylistic nightmare for Kyoji. Yet, Kyoji beat him twice, the first time via submission, the second time via decision.

Before the Asakura loss in August of 2019 and the absence that followed, he was by some experts' accounts a top 20 p4p fighter, and arguably top 10. The worry was that he would never be the same after his knee surgery and thus unable to reach those heights again, but other than some slight pain when he moves around, he appears to be back to his old self. I genuinely believe that he's one of the best active fighters in the world, only bested by the very elite such as Izzy, Usman and Volkanovski. It's a shame that he won't be fighting Figueiredo and Yan the two best fighters in his weightclasses, in the near future to prove my hypothesis correct beyond doubt, but I will say that I would favour him over Figgy and I wouldn't be shocked at all if he beat Yan either. 

For now, it looks like he will stay at bantamweight. Brown believes that the extra muscle he puts on to fight at 135lbs actually makes him a more powerful striker at bantamweight while fighting bigger men than at 125lbs where he fights men of similar size. He'll probably fight next on Rizin's show at the Tokyo Dome in March, with Bellator BW Champion Juan Archuleta and Rizin BW Naoki Inoue as potential opponents. 

Sign me up for either of those fights!

Kate Abdo is the highlight of DAZN's coverage. 

Be warned lads, GAD is a massive part of DAZN's coverage.