wandshogun09

Couldn’t see the usual graphic with the start times but according to Marcel Dorff the Fight Pass Prelims start, well now, from 10:30pm. Going with Pantoja, Tsarukyan, Superboy, Steveson and Baraniewski on the main card. Not particularly fussed about any of the results though apart from really hoping Sean Sharaf rips up the script and twats the rapist.

The art work for the Sgt Slaughter figure before Hasbro went into production. Ron Rudat was a filthy little man…

I wouldn’t put a ton of stock in Van’s win over Taira when predicting this fight myself but I can kind of see the logic just because Taira put Van in some bad positions in the grappling and Van was able to find the answers, get out of danger and finish Taira. It was by far Van’s best performance yet for me. So I can see why it might’ve made some people, who might’ve been on the fence, more confident in Van going into this rematch. Still, Taira isn’t Pantoja and until we actually see evidence of Pantoja’s decline or age catching up to him, I find it difficult to pick against him. There’s also the possibility that, even if Pantoja hasn’t declined, Van might just be that guy now. We’ll see. Really can’t wait for this fight. Gotta say as well, I’m loving Sean Sharaf bullying ‘Loophole’ Steveson in the buildup to their fight. Fully expecting Sharaf to lose but I feel like his job is kind of done already. I had a feeling he might be the one to call out Gable for his rapey past when he posted this a few weeks ago… It’s refreshing to see someone actually have the bollocks to bring it up, when you know the UFC really don’t want it mentioned. Especially during one of their press conferences. Fair play to Sharaf for not towing the company line. Steveson’s response has somehow made him come across as even more of a creep. He was actually smiling when Sharaf brought up the rape. Then had the nerve to say Sharaf is a “coward” for bringing it up. A rapist calling an ex Marine a coward. Wrap your head around that one. He wouldn’t look at Sharaf during their weigh in face-off last night. Probably mostly a play on what Jones used to do but I genuinely think he also just doesn’t know how to handle the shit Sharaf is throwing at him because it’s the truth. I’d love nothing more than to see Sharaf somehow chin him. Would be glorious. I know it’s highly unlikely but it’s not like Gable has fought smart in his fights up to now. He’s getting away with it so far but he looked well sloppy and reckless in his UFC debut. And my hope is that he comes in rattled from Sharaf calling out his depravity and runs into something nasty. I know that’s a pipe dream though. Loophole is gonna win. Wouldn’t be surprised at all if the UFC get rid of Sharaf immediately if/when he loses tonight as well. That wouldn’t be unwarranted, a loss here would put Sharaf at 0-3 in the UFC. But I think they might cut him to send a message to Loophole’s future opponents that it’s probably not a good career move to bring up the rape stuff.

It is a bit of a weird one. I get that Pantoja is getting up in age now but there were no signs of him declining before that first Van fight and that fight didn’t last long enough give us any indication of that either. Neither he or Van had established an advantage when the fight ended. It was over before it got going. So unless people have just decided that Pantoja’s arm injury is gonna be the death knell of his career, I’m not sure why he’s being counted out by so many people. I do also think the way Van’s last fight against Taira played out is a factor here though. If Van had waited and just gone straight into an immediate rematch with Pantoja after their first fight, I’m guessing it’d be more of a 50/50 split or Pantoja might even be favoured. But with that Taira fight in between, I think Van’s performance against Taira gained him a lot of fans and believers though. It’s fight day and I’m still back and forth on it myself. I’ve gone Pantoja in the poll and I am slightly leaning that way but Van does seem to be improving all the time.

Nah I thought him gassing was understandable because he absolutely emptied the tank trying to put McMillen away. Some of the best fights in MMA history saw guys gassing horribly. That doesn’t disqualify it for me at all. Plus, it has to be a contender at least. I’m struggling to think of many fights this year that were better or more entertaining. Fair point that the third round was a comedown but nothing was gonna match that bonkers round two.

You’ve gotta watch that fight Egg. Seriously. One of the best of the year easily for me. On a side note, it’s not a flattering comparison but I can’t look at McMillen without seeing serial killer Richard Ramirez…

Did anyone watch this? I said in the opening post that I thought this looked like potentially one of the best Fight Night cards of the year. I think it mostly delivered. That Seattle card in March was the benchmark for me, but I honestly thought this surpassed it overall. Depends what you like, I suppose. There were a couple of fights dragging this one down a bit whereas that Seattle card was pretty much all at least decent. But I felt like the better fights on this were way better than the best stuff on the Seattle show. This one had three or four seriously fantastic fights and, in my opinion, a genuine FOTY contender as well. Loved this show. Jean Silva continues to be an absolute weirdo but it’s weirdness you can’t turn away from. What’s he on? Walks out crying, starts barking, then back to crying and standing there for ages singing to his entrance song while they were trying to check his mouthpiece and gloves etc. Once the cage door shuts though, it’s undeniable he’s got skills, even if he doesn’t exactly do things the conventional way. Thought this was a really good fight to end a night mostly full of them. On a lot of cards this would easily be your FOTN, here it was probably second or maybe even third. But I enjoyed it a lot. Thought Delgado gave a really good account of himself considering the jump in levels and the short notice. He was looking a bit of a handful early and I did start to think he might be able to just pick him apart with cleaner striking. Especially because Silva wasn’t really throwing anything and seemed to be struggling to get in striking range. Delgado started well with the knockdown and definitely won the first round. Silva came back strong in the second round just by being his relentless bulldog self. Worked much better than him playing the cautious game in round one. Then the third round… All over. By this point Silva seemed to have his range and timing figured out and Delgado was on the retreat. The finish was a beauty. Dropped him, jumped on him and ended it with a one armed rear naked choke kind of using his chin to secure it on the other side. The post-fight scenes were odd. No shock where Silva’s concerned. But that bit when he jumped the fence and was frantically ripping his gloves off and barking, then aggressively handed them to Hunter Campbell, Hunter looked legit scared for a minute there. His life flashed before his eyes in that moment. Like I said, such a weirdo. And unlike most MMA ‘crazies’, I don’t think it’s an act with Jean. If it is and he’s that good of an actor then he’s wasted on MMA. I don’t think any of it is fake with him. Proper Diego Sanchez vibes. Not sure what’s next. My initial thought was maybe they try to rebook that Yair Rodriguez fight that was supposed to happen here. But I don’t know how long Yair’s gonna be out and, even if it’s not long, you can’t really rely on him to show up anyway. Looking at the rankings, Aljamain Sterling and Lerone Murphy are the two guys above him who would be fresh fights and they’re not currently booked. But I kind of feel like they might match them two against each other so I don’t know where that would leave Silva. You never know with him. He might just take a fight at 155 or something. I’d like to see him stay in one weight class for a bit though and see how far he can go. Moreno vs Morales was whatever. I was still coming down from McMillen vs Rahiki when this was on and I can’t say I paid it much attention. Didn’t look like anything special but Moreno got the win and he really had to win this one given Morales complete lack of status in the division. I know he won TUF but what does that even mean in 2026? I still think Moreno is on a fairly significant slide though. He’s not completely shot but I don’t think he’s that far off it becoming really sad to watch now. Mad talking like this about a guy who’s only 32 but it’s been almost 10 years since he made his UFC debut and he’s crammed a lot of hard battles into that decade. Tommy McMillen vs Marwan Rahiki was insanity. I don’t know about anyone else but I think this was legitimately a FOTY contender. I thought there’d at least be some talk about this fight in here by now. If you guys missed it, I’d highly recommend getting on it. Wasn’t pretty at times but fuck me it was wildly entertaining and edge of the seat stuff throughout. I thought McMillen might fight a more tactical fight when he immediately went to his wrestling early in the first round but that didn’t last long. They both landed some good stuff the rest of that round. That second round might be Round Of The Year though. Jesus. It was worse than this. The gif doesn’t do it justice. How McMillen weathered the storm I don’t know. Obviously has an insane chin. He ate some horrible shots here, head snapped back the lot, then ate more while still badly rocked, and still somehow survived. And not only did he survive that round, he came back and ended the round on top going for the D’Arce choke. Definitely lost the round but he answered some serious questions in this round on his chin, cardio and heart. Because he really had no right to be making round three after that arse kicking. Then in the third… Fuck me. Credit to Rahiki for surviving that, especially at that point in the fight when he seemed gassed. But it led to McMillen controlling a lot of the last round on the ground. Rahiki defended well off his back, despite getting caught in bad spots over and over. His grappling defence looked a lot better than his striking defence. Both of them were basically all offence, no defence on the feet. It made for a stupidly fun fight but it’s something both are gonna need to tighten up. In the end, McMillen just seemed to have more in the gas tank. He was absolutely relentless. And also he had the grappling to fall back on, which made a big difference at crucial times here. Definitely a McMillen win. Absolutely barmy stuff. Yeah I loved this fight. Two young, fearless, undefeated guys and they went out there and fought like it. They fought like they didn’t know how to lose. Sometimes when you get two unbeaten fighters facing off, they’re both so concerned with protecting that perfect record that it becomes a bit of a nothing happening snoozer. Not with these two. Looking forward to seeing much more of them. I want to dislike McMillen, he seems like such a goofy twat. But if he’s gonna keep fighting like this then I can’t help but have a soft spot. Can’t be doing with all the “gangsta” talk though. Alexa Grasso surprised me. I rate her and usually enjoy watching her but I really had a bad feeling about this one. I felt like Fiorot would probably be able to get her ‘clinch and do nothing’ thing going and basically out strength Grasso. But Grasso came out strong right from the off and I think it wasn’t what Fiorot was expecting. She did a great job putting Fiorot on the back foot early on and her striking looked on point. I did think Fiorot came back into it in the third round and I had her winning that round but by then she was already 0-2 down and needed a finish. I probably sound overly critical because this was a good performance from Grasso and there’s reason to be positive. But I do wonder how this would’ve played out as a five rounder. Fiorot was getting back in it by the third and I’m not sure Grasso could’ve maintained that pace she had in the first couple of rounds over 25 minutes. But whatever. Chuffed with this result. Not sure what they do with her next though. She’s at #2 now on both sets of rankings, with only Valentina Shevchenko and Natalia Silva above her. But obviously we’ve got this Silva vs Wang Cong mess for the vacant title to sort out first, and then you have to assume Shev’s gonna get an immediate title shot on her return. Grasso is either gonna have to sit out ages or fight down in rank. Blaydes vs Waldo was wank. Didn’t expect any more from it though really. I was just happy Blaydes got the win. Bollocks to Waldo. I’m glad that brief hype train he was building late last year/early this year has been derailed and people now remember that actually he was always quite shit. Nice to see Blaydes back in the win column though, even though it was an awful fight and even though his career is going nowhere. Martinez vs Ige didn’t do much for me. Another solid win for Martinez and it wasn’t a bad performance by any stretch. But I don’t know. There’s just something missing there for me as he’s stepped up in levels. And this was a 35 year old Ige making his first cut down to Bantamweight. I don’t wanna be too harsh on Martinez, he won this one clearly, but if he’s gonna go on to be anything special, you’d expect him to shine more in fights like this. Similar thing with his last fight against Chito as well. Chito had never looked more checked out and disinterested yet Martinez seemed content to do pretty much the bare minimum to just coast to a decision. Elliott vs Chairez was another banger. Up until this point in the night, I had this as FOTN, but obviously that changed when McMillen and Rahiki got out there. Cracking fight this was though. It was looking bad for Elliott for most of the first round. That first big right hand from Chairez looked like it had him buzzed for a minute but Elliott recovered well enough to the point he dropped Chairez towards the end and he finished that round strong. He still probably lost that first round but his toughness and experience pulled him through and I thought he came back to win the last two rounds. Brilliant fight. If you skipped it, get it watched. On this forum especially, I think people will appreciate Elliott’s tweet here from Saturday. That was just hours before his fight 🤣 Tim tackling the important issues. On a serious note, Elliott’s not the most consistent and he’ll always fall short against the top guys but his longevity fighting at this level is crazy really, especially considering the division he’s in. He’s gonna turn 40 in December and he’s still fighting like this as a Flyweight? One of the real unsung guys on the roster for me. Really enjoyed Bahamondes vs Salikhov. Wasn’t fought at a blistering pace but there were some really good striking exchanges in this one as you’d expect. Salikhov just seemed to really struggle with getting in range and getting past Bahamondes limbs. Salikhov is just a hard old bastard. He took some nasty shots in this one and just kept coming forward. Cormier actually raised a worthwhile point for a change, talking about Salikhov hurting his right arm. It definitely looked like he did and there were big chunks of the fight when he barely even threw it. Decent win for Bahamondes. Didn’t even realise this was his Welterweight debut either. Yousri Belgaroui claimed another victim. This time it was Djorden Santos in the first round. It was always gonna be a squash this. And Santos stepped in on short notice replacing fatty Gastelum. Fair play to Santos for jumping in. Belgaroui just smashed him though. The least impressive of his three UFC wins so far just because of who the opponent was but that wasn’t Belgaroui’s fault. And if there is something to take from this win, Santos was a durable opponent if nothing else. He’d only ever been finished once before this and that was against Baisangur Susurkaev by submission. And it took Susurkaev until the third round to get Santos out of there. He’d never been put away by strikes before and Belgaroui goes and blows the doors off him in a round. Good stuff. Really like Belgaroui. Tommy Gantt had a strong showing and stays undefeated. Can’t get too carried away because Klose is no spring chicken and was coming off a layoff. But Gantt did what he needed to do and capped it off with a sweet reverse triangle… Not sure what to think of the post-fight handbags. My first thought was that Gantt came off as a dick for getting in Klose’s face after he’d already finished him. But then I remembered that Klose has seemed a bit of a prick for years so when Gantt said it was a receipt for Klose talking shite at the weigh in, it tracked and Gantt gets a pass IMO. Cormier leaving the commentary booth to corner Gantt was ridiculous. If it’s happened in the UFC before then I can’t remember it. Seeing his big fat head and him in the suit in the corner was weird. Rongzhu vs Rafa Garcia was, yet again, another really fun fight. I’ve been bigging Rongzhu up on here for a while as a real highlight of the prelims on any card he appears on and I’ll continue to. He comes to scrap every time. And Garcia was game and made a dogfight of it, so it was really entertaining to watch. Rongzhu just proved the better striker in the end. Get on the Rongzhu bandwagon if you’ve never watched him. I’d recommend typing his name in on Fight Pass and binging his last few fights as well. Never gonna make a dent in the rankings but he’s always worth a watch. Sean King had about as perfect a UFC debut as you could possibly wish for. Unless I’m forgetting something obvious, we haven’t had a proper slam KO in quite a while, have we? And this was both beautiful and scary at the same time… Christ almighty. Love the way he held the arm on the way down so Rosas couldn’t even post to break his fall even a little bit. Vicious little sod. 36 seconds is all it took. Instantly reminded me of Frank Shamrock murdering Igor Zinoviev with a brutal slam way back in the late 90s. Although Shamrock did it even quicker. Don’t know if we’ve posted it on here before but Zinoviev actually went on to become Jeffrey Epstein’s bodyguard later. So that KO has aged like Salma Hayek. But yeah, incredible introduction to the big stage for King. And on the other end, a disastrous debut for Rosas. Thought Regina Tarin looked good again in the prelim opener. Didn’t get the finish which, considering the opponent was bang average JJ Aldrich, not a blow away performance. But it’s worth remembering Tarin is still only 21 and a work in progress. The main thing for me is the effort is there. She really goes for it and makes her fights entertaining, which you sadly can’t say about a lot of the current crop of women fighters on the roster.

It’s 100% confirmed now as well. Pico vs Keita is on. Marcel Dorff’s tweeted it.

Mike Heck from MMA Fighting has tweeted that Arnold Allen is out of the Aaron Pico fight at UFC 333 next month. Nothing’s been confirmed yet but Losene Keita was teasing the other day that he’s stepping in on short notice to fight a Top 15 opponent. All adds up. I’d fucking love to see Pico vs Keita. Arguably a better fight than the Allen one, or at least just as good.

Plus, it’s not like this was the first time Gaethje properly busted someone’s face up and made a mess of them. So we’re expected to believe he’s got away with loading his gloves for years and somehow bypassing the pre-fight checks? And that’s just four examples. Gaethje’s got that weird power where it doesn’t really put guys out with one shot but it’s just constant thudding mallets over and over that might not knock you unconscious but hurt enough and cause enough damage to change your face. A knockout would probably be kinder.

It’s weird. Gaethje vs Topuria might well have been the FOTY so far but I don’t wanna see an immediate rematch, and I don’t think it’s warranted either. Topuria didn’t just get stopped, he got his face broken to the point his own brother had to pull him out and get the fight called off. It was nowhere near the one-sided demolition job for Gaethje that I’m seeing a lot of fans (Topuria haters) act like it was. Topuria very nearly had him out of there earlier in the fight. But the way it ended, I don’t think we need to see it again straight away. Plus it wasn’t like Topuria had some long, legendary reign as champ at 155 either. I could kind of understand it if he’d gone on some GSP-like run with the belt but this was literally his first defence after winning a vacant title. To me it’s straightforward, Gaethje has said he’s taking the rest of the year off anyway. Tsarukyan vs Ruffy goes down in two days. If Tsarukyan squashes Ruffy, as most expect, do Gaethje vs Tsarukyan for the strap in early 2027. And in the meantime, do Topuria vs Pimblett, maybe in December. Then have the winners of those two fights face off for the gold. That should take us into the summer. But of course TKO don’t care. No long term vision whatsoever, all they’re arsed about is getting that fast money and they probably think Gaethje vs Topuria 2 is bigger than the other options. It probably is but then again they’re not even on PPV anymore in the US so it’s not even an obvious money grab. I don’t know. I like my scenario much better but I suspect we’re getting the immediate rematch. As for the glove tampering thing, load of shite. Topuria actually put out a really classy response initially after the loss back in June. Don’t know what this bollocks is now, must be the only way he can think to try to goad Gaethje into the rematch because Gaethje has been saying he’s not interested in it up to now.

And on top of that, unlike those guys, he’s a legit Heavyweight who couldn’t make 205 if he chopped a limb off. All those attributes plus actual Heavyweight punching power. Jones didn’t want any of it. Like you say, it’s not even that I think Jones couldn’t beat Aspinall. There were enough unanswered questions and things we hadn’t seen from him yet to give me some doubts. But we’ll never know now because Jones fannied out of it, turned down the biggest payday of his life and scurried off into retirement. I do think I’d have favoured Aspinall to clip him early if they fought though. Jones has been past his peak a lot longer than people like to admit. He hasn’t looked like his prime self since the latter days of his 205 run. The second Cormier and second Gustafsson fights in 2017/18 were the last times we saw prime Jones, in my opinion. And even those performances have asterisks attached to them due to PED fuckery surrounding those specific fights. We’re coming up on a decade of Jones being past his best and, while that was still enough to get him over the line against the opposition he’s faced, I think a younger, fresh, big, quick and powerful Heavyweight like Aspinall would’ve got to him. People forget that, as washed up as Stipe was when they fought, old and slow as fuck Stipe was still catching him at times. If 2024 Stipe was able to find the odd opening to lay gloves on him, I have a hard time imagining Aspinall not catching him early. Of course if it went long, that’s a different story and those questions I had on Aspinall come into play. But people often get hung up on the prime versions of these guys when predicting a fight, and that guy hasn’t existed since 2018. Same going into Holloway vs McGregor 2 recently, the amount of people I saw acting like 2015 McGregor was gonna show up was hilarious. In the end, I just think the timing of when fights happen and paths cross is so huge in combat sports. I think Aspinall was the wrong man at the wrong time for Jones and, despite all Jones bluster and bullshit, he knew it.

Left $30 million on the table as well. He saw something that spooked him with Aspinall. There’s no other reason why you’d pass on that kind of payday otherwise. And 99% of fighters would still take a fight that they didn’t fancy for that kind of money. But Jones is so fragile and obsessed with being able to say he’s never lost that he bottled it. Yet now he’s tweeting agreeing with people saying Aspinall is faking the injury. Aspinall’s the pussy apparently. Not the man who ducked Ngannou and Aspinall for years and only resurfaced when it was safe. Genuinely think I’d root for Frank Mir over him at this point 🤣

He’s probably likely to do something with MVP because he was supposed to fight on that Rousey vs Carano show on Netflix in May. Wouldn’t be surprised if Coker swoops in either though. If his strategy was to make himself look like a complete joke at the end of his career, have a farce of a cherry pick fight against a shot Stipe and be a total coward running from the Aspinall fight, yeah he played it perfectly. More Jones is never a good thing. If he’s not fighting Aspinall or Ngannou, I’d rather he just fuck off and never come back. And it doesn’t look like either of those fights are ever happening now. Funny how he’s suddenly interested in a return now the guy to beat is Ciryl Gane, who he already subbed in a minute. Just further proves the point that he didn’t really wanna retire at all, he just really didn’t wanna fight Aspinall. Plus, even the ‘maybe he’ll mess up and get chinned’ thing, who of the current shower of shite is even gonna chin him? He’s gonna come back, squash someone like Derrick Lewis or Tai Tuivasa, wins that add not a single thing to his legacy at all, and his fans will go ‘he’s the GOAT! It’s not even up for debate anymore!’ Like wins over guys like that cement that in any way. Pure ‘just go away’ heat with me. He’s awful.

According to Gable Steveson, Jon Jones wants to come back. Conveniently the day after Tom Aspinall vacated the title. Can’t stand this slime ball.