wandshogun09

Fuck, is the MSG card about to get even more stacked? Surely it lands on 245 if it’s either of them. How much more can they load up MSG? Although, as cool as it’d be to have Ortega vs Zombie added to one of these cards, I think I’d rather see it headline a Fight Night so we get 5 rounds. I’ll take it as a 3 rounder though. Just needs to happen.

GSP is a Fury fan; Was the Fish Eyes show on BT any good last night? Not the Fury card the Sunny Edwards one on the regular BT Sport. Anything worth my time on there? It’s sat in my planner but I just clocked that it’s about a 4 hour run time and I don’t know if I can be arsed.

The superfight that got away... I love the way GSP’s more interested in setting up some ground and pound with the blonde later.

As expected, this was a really entertaining show. Gaethje vs Cerrone was good while it lasted. Sounds sadistic but my only gripe is that I wish we got another round or two before it ended. Gaethje for me has solidified himself now as the next in line after Ferguson. First round knockouts of Vick, Barboza and Cerrone is good going. Love that. I’m not saying I think it’s how it’d go but I’d love to see Gaethje spark McGregor out cold. And then to see how McGregor and his mutant bumlicker followers would somehow twist it so they could sleep at night. At this point, if McGregor is coming back then Gaethje vs McGregor is absolutely the fight to make. If not, then Gaethje deserves the winner of the Khabib vs Ferguson fight that we better be getting next. Glover vs Krylov was pretty good. Glover, on the eve of being 40 in a few weeks, is still a badass. I love the way he escaped that choke in the first round then almost immediately wobbled Krylov on the feet. He’s granite. It was a tough fight and fairly close but I felt like Glover did enough to get the win so didn’t have a problem with the decision. Krylov had his moments in every round but I don’t think I could’ve scored him two rounds. Duffee vs Hughes was the down moment of the main card. Proper flat ending with the eyepoke. Duffee has one of the oddest careers ever. Just one thing after another with him. Pereira vs Connelly was fun for all the wrong and right reasons. I love the way Twitter twats had a meltdown after this and completely turned on Pereira. Yeah, there are plenty of flaws in his game but I don’t think many of the people hyping him before this show were predicting him to become the champ or anything. The buzz around Pereira seemed to me to be almost exclusively that his weird style was bags of fun to watch. He’s like a Lando Vannata to me. I don’t particularly care if they never get in title contention. But if I see their names on a card, I’m all over it. Those kind of guys are unlike anyone else on the roster and I find it refreshing. I get that there wasn’t a great deal you could say positively about his performance here but it was like some fans saw the majority of the MMA community getting a kick out of Pereira and were just waiting for him to drop a bollock so they could tell everyone how shit he is after the fight. Anyway, it was an exciting fight to watch. Regardless of what Pereira did or didn’t do, I thought Connelly fought a fantastic fight himself. Especially on short notice and with Pereira missing weight. Apparently they got FOTN and Connelly got the full $100k because Pereira didn’t make weight. Nice to see him get rewarded like that and what a mad story. Took this fight last minute and walks away with a big win and a cheque for $100gs on top of his fight purse. As for Pereira, I don’t think he needs to completely sack off all the theatrics. It’s what makes him him and partly what makes his style effective. But he could probably reign it in a bit so he’s not fucking gassing during the Buffer intros 🙄 Misha Cirkunov busting out the Peruvian necktie was sweet. Don’t see many of them. Doing it to an undefeated prospect was even more impressive as people were starting to get high on Crute. Cirkunov needed something like this coming off that quick knockout loss to Johnny Walker. Sakai vs Tybura ending quickly was a pleasant surprise. I was fully expecting a 15 minute sluggish plodfest but Sakai did him in a minute. Fair play. He might’ve redeemed himself for that Kongo stinker with this for me. And Skelly vs Griffin, fuck me, if you skipped the prelims do yourself a favour and just watch this fight. It’s fantastic. Reminded me a bit of Tyson Griffin vs Clay Guida or Diego Sanchez vs Nick Diaz all those years ago. One of those frantic grappling wars where they’re all over the place like a pair of lizards. I actually had this as FOTN but they got fuck all in the way of bonuses as far as I can tell, which is criminal. Tremendous fight. I started off kind of half watching it and half playing with my daughter so wasn’t really paying attention at first. But every time I looked up they were in a completely different position and going 100 miles an hour. I paused it and started it again when my wife took the kids to her mums because I knew I should wait and watch it properly. Seriously, give it a look. 15 minutes well spent. Top show. Couple of lacklustre fights but the stuff I expected to deliver did and that Skelly vs Griffin match just reminded me why I still bother checking out the prelims.

That was my main takeaway watching it. Obviously a lot of the credit has to go to Wallin. He didn’t come to just be ‘the opponent’ and collect his paycheque. He wanted to win. But Tyson definitely didn’t look as sharp as you’d expect. Maybe he’s actually overtrained. He’s fought a lot over the last year or so and while the opposition, bar Wilder, has been weaker, that’s a lot of time in training camp, sparring, doing media etc. Part of it was likely complacency as you say, he clearly saw no threat from Wallin until his eye got fucked up. But he just looked a bit flat and burnt out in general to me last night. The cut might actually be a good thing now in an odd way because it’ll force him to take a break from fighting and sparring. Maybe that’s what he needs. Give his body a rest until the Wilder camp starts. IF Wilder comes through the Ortiz rematch that is, which is no gimme. Christ though, that eye...

This is fucking outstanding...

That’s the man’s name. In my house.

They’ll definitely whack that KSI vs Logan Paul fight on Box Office. It doesn’t interest me but that will reach a whole different audience who don’t usually pay for Boxing. And you’ll still get some Boxing diehards buy it to see Saunders the cunt fight.

Fuck! You’re right David. Just looked up the schedule that weekend and we’ve got... Josh Warrington vs Sofiane Takoucht on BT Sport. Oleksandr Usyk vs Tyrone Spong on Sky Sports. And the UFC Tampa show with Joanna Jedrzejczyk vs Michelle Waterson and Kron Gracie vs Cub Swanson. After all that work on the opening post, I don’t even know if I’ll get around to watching this myself with all that lot on! ONE don’t half know how to pick their dates, don’t they?

Ha. There’s a lot of names I don’t know on there and it’d be better if Mouse and Alvarez were facing people we knew. But the stuff I’ve seen from ONE I’ve enjoyed. It’s a similar thing with Rizin shows. I don’t watch much but whenever I do dip in, I won’t know a good 80% of the names on the card but I’m usually entertained by it. Even if I immediately forget half the names as soon as it’s over. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with DJ and Eddie after this. If they both win the tournaments what’s the future? Are the ONE deals 100% exclusive or can we get crossover fights? I’d love to see Mighty Mouse vs Horiguchi again somewhere down the line. And that Alvarez vs Chandler rubber match that we never got in Bellator. You’re spot on about fans who shat on DJ’s defences in the UFC but suddenly like him in ONE though. I’ve noticed some of that and it’s fucking odd. Definitely got a ‘but A-Train was good in Japan’ feel about it. DJ was always awesome though. In fact, he was better to watch in the UFC than he has been in ONE so far. Can’t even defend the Vera thing though. Him headlining anything isn’t ideal. He’s the Heavyweight champ because ONE barely even have a Heavyweight division. My hope is that he gets battered. He’s been useless apart from twatting Frank Mir to pieces. And that was 2006. His goodwill with me from that ran out years ago.

They really are taking the piss with the PPV thing here now. I don’t think anyone’s got a problem with huge fights like Ruiz vs Joshua 2 and Fury vs Wilder 2 being on Box Office. But when you’ve BT charging £20 for Fury vs Wallin, they can dress it up however they want it’s a straight piss take. I saw an interview on IFL with Francis Warren the other day and 1) fuck me, Fish Eyes Jr has even more of a slimy vibe than his old man and 2) he was asked about the backlash to the decision to put the Fury fight on PPV and he basically just shrugged and said ‘It’s always been the same. If you want to see the best you have to pay for it.’ It’s funny because I doubt he’d have been singing that tune if Sky tried to charge £20 for Joshua vs some nobody as a rebound for AJ. They’re all at it. As much as I love Lomachenko, the undercard for him and Campbell was weak from Sky. And don’t even get me started on ITV putting fucking DeGale vs Eubank on PPV earlier this year. It reminds me of something I heard on a wrestling podcast before. Might’ve been Jim Cornette. He said something like when it comes to big matches and selling out stadiums, it was always better to have a huge match that justifies a stadium not a stadium that needs a big match. Because you might not have that big match that warrants it. I think it’s a similar thing has happened with PPV here now. Instead of the promoters and TV companies just putting the truly big fights on PPV that actually warrant being on PPV, it seems like they’ve got a set number of how many PPVs their channel should do regardless of whether they have the fights for it. It’s pure greed obviously and they’re all copying each other. Fuck, even just a couple of years ago you’d only get a little handful of shows on Box Office a year and it’d pretty much just be when a big name like Joshua, Mayweather etc would be on. There’s been a real noticeable increase in the number of PPVs recently, especially this year, and it’s anyone with even the slightest bit of name value. It’s a joke.

OK, don’t usually do this but just clocked that ONE are doing a big double-header next month to mark their 100th show. The cards look pretty good and seeing as it’s a milestone it probably deserves more than a couple of passing mentions in the Other MMA thread. It all goes down on October 13th in Tokyo. I think. Most places have it all listed as taking place on the 13th. But MMAJunkie has it split over 2 nights with Part 1 on the 12th and Part 2 on the 13th. I think it’s all on the 13th though. Whatever. PART 1 MAIN CARD Angela Lee vs Xiong Jing Nan - Atomweight Title Demetrious Johnson vs Danny Kingad - Flyweight Grand Prix Tournament Final Eddie Alvarez vs Saygid Guseyn Arslanaliev - Lightweight Grand Prix Tournament Final Ekaterina Vandaryeva vs Janet Todd - Vacant ONE Muay Thai Atomweight Title PART 1 PRELIMS Yuya Wakamatsu vs Dae Hwan Kim Sam-A Gaiyanghadao vs Darren Roland - Muay Thai Yushin Okami vs Agilan Thani Rika Ishige vs Itsuki Hirata Senzo Ikeda vs Lito Adiwang Phoe Thaw vs Yoon Chang-Min Sunoto Peringkat vs Kwon Won Il So that’s Part 1. I like it. Main event is a rematch of one of the better overlooked fights so far this year. All four main card fights hold some level of interest for me actually. Yushin Okami on the prelims as well. Angela Lee vs Xiong Jing Nan 2 headlines. A rematch of their fantastic fight in March on the ‘New Era’ show. Like in March, this is a champion vs champion matchup. Lee is from Singapore/Canada and is the Atomweight champ, Xiong is Chinese and is the Strawweight champ. In the first fight Lee went up to 115lbs to challenge Xiong for her title. Lee went in undefeated at 9-0 with 7 submissions and was coming in pretty hyped up as kind of the poster girl of ONE. Xiong wasn’t having it. They had a hell of a fight. One of the best of 2019 so far, to be honest. If it happened in the UFC it’d have been talked about a lot more in the FOTY discussion but with it going down in ONE it went under a lot of radars. It wouldn’t be my #1 or anything. It was no Adesanya vs Gastelum. But it was a tremendous and dramatic fight. They went back and forth and at one point it looked like Lee had it all wrapped up with a tight armbar in the 4th round. But Xiong survived it and rained down a storm on Lee in the 5th that just melted her. A vicious attack to the body proved to be too much for Lee to withstand and Xiong got the stoppage and picked up her second title. Xiong was actually the first Chinese fighter to win a major MMA title. Obviously this didn’t get as much coverage as Weili Zhang’s recent title win in the UFC, and understandably so because of where it happened. But if she wins this fight, Xiong can lay claim to being the first Chinese ‘champ champ’ in MMA history. So yeah, with that win, Xiong gets a crack at Lee’s Atomweight strap now. Of course, this brings a new set of challenges as Xiong now has to cut down to 105lbs. An interesting new wrinkle but I’m expecting another excellent fight here. Lee lost another fight in July so she’s 9-2 and coming off back-to-back losses now. She’s still only 22 years old, she’s got time, but she needs to bounce back here. Xiong is now 14-1, coming off 9 wins in a row and hasn’t lost since 2013. If she goes 2-0 over Lee here, she solidifies herself as the undisputed queen of ONE and has all the gold. The first fight is up in full on ONE’s YouTube channel. Definitely worth a watch if you haven’t seen it; Very much looking forward to the rematch. Skills-wise l really think this could go either way but Xiong must have the psychological edge now coming off that first fight and Lee has the pressure of possibly losing a third fight on the bounce which is obviously never good. Demetrious Johnson vs Danny Kingad is the Flyweight Grand Prix Tournament final. DJ’s obviously been the significant favourite to run the field since he was announced to be in it. He hasn’t really had it quite as easy as most would’ve predicted though so far. He beat Yuya Wakamatsu in March with a guillotine choke, then outpointed Tatsumitsu Wada in the semi finals in August. He got the wins and that’s the most important thing. He never looked bad or anything, just not as dominant as he did during his UFC title reign. Whether it’s that he’s lost a step, that he was taking these guys lightly or maybe the competition in ONE is just better than we think. Whatever the case, Mighty Mouse is in the finals as expected. Danny Kingad is from the Philippines, 11-1 record with nearly all his wins by decision. He beat Senzo Ikeda and Reece McLaren on points to get here. I don’t expect DJ to have much hassle here. Eddie Alvarez vs Saygid Guseyn Arslanaliev is the Lightweight Grand Prix final. Alvarez was originally knocked out of the tournament in his ONE debut, when he got stopped in a round by relative unknown Timofey Nastyukhin. One of the more shocking upsets of 2019. But Nastyukhin picked up an injury and pulled out of the GP, so Eddie got another bite of the cherry. He stepped in against Eduard Folayang in the semi finals in August and, after a rough start and an apparent leg injury, he rebounded with an awesome sweep and submitted Folayang with a rear naked choke in about 2 minutes. Typical Eddie Alvarez. Nothing is ever straight forward but it’s usually wildly entertaining to watch. Not really familiar with Arslanaliev but from little bits I read when this fight was announced, a lot of people seem to think this might be another rough night for Eddie. Arslanaliev is 24 years old, from Dagestan and he’s 8-1 with all his wins being finishes. He knocked out someone called Amir Khan (not him) in his last fight and he also stopped Nastyukhin. It’s usually a safe bet to pick the Alvarez fight as the likely FOTN but especially here as this Arslanaliev guy sounds a bit of a handful himself. Ekaterina Vandaryeva vs Janet Todd is a Muay Thai fight to crown the first ONE Atomweight Muay Thai champion. Can’t say I’ve ever seen these two. Vandaryeva is 28 years old from Belarus and has a record of 58-7. How do you still look that hot after 65 Thai fights?! 😍 Only 16 stoppages so not exactly a finisher. She does hold a win over Joanna Jedrzejczyk in 2011 though. Todd is 33 years old and American. Not sure on her record. Only one I can find is that she’s 27-8 as an amateur but 0-1 as a pro. Doesn’t sound right so I’ve probably got duff info. Regardless, love a bit of Muay Thai so I enjoy the mix on ONE’s cards. So onto Part 2.... PART 2 MAIN CARD Aung La Nsang vs Brandon Vera - Light Heavyweight Title Bibiano Fernandes vs Kevin Belingon - Bantamweight Title Rodtang Jitmuangnon vs Walter Goncalves - ONE Muay Thai Flyweight Title Giorgio Petrosyan vs Samy Sana - Kickboxing Featherweight Grand Prix Tournament Final Shinya Aoki vs Honorio Banario Arjan Bhullar vs Mauro Cerilli PART 2 PRELIMS Mei Yamaguchi vs Jenny Huang Hiroyoki Tetsuka vs Hernani Perpetuo - Pancrase vs Shooto Takasuke Kume vs Koshi Matsumoto - Pancrase vs Shooto Rafael Silva vs Shoko Sato - Pancrase vs Shooto Daichi Kitakata vs Yosuke Saruta - Pancrase vs Shooto Another solid bunch of fights there. Some names on there plus what should be closure on the Fernandes-Belingon series and I really like the look of those 2 Kickboxing fights. Aung La Nsang vs Brandon Vera tops Part 2. Another champ vs champ battle. This one is for Nsang’s belt at 205lbs. Vera is ONE’s Heavyweight champion coming down in weight to challenge for a second title. Haven’t seen much of Nsang, just a couple of fights. He’s 34 years old, Burmese and has a 25-10-1 record. He’s won his last 6 fights, finished his last 5 and holds both the Light Heavyweight and Middleweight belts. His first fight against Ken Hasegawa in June 2018 was a crazy scrap with Nsang eventually getting the 5th round knockout in a proper slobberknocker. They had a rematch in March and Nsang stopped him fairly easily. Vera is 41 years old now and is mostly remembered for his spectacular start to his UFC career, that fizzled out into years of lacklustre mediocrity before he quietly parted ways with the company in 2013. He’s gone unbeaten in ONE since, although he’s been mega inactive. He’s only fought 4 times since 2014. But he’s managed to get 4 first round knockouts and won ONE’s Heavyweight gold. Clearly, the lack of top Heavyweights over there has helped. Also, the lack of drug testing seems to have done wonders for him... But he’s going back down to 205 here and, although I don’t know enough about Nsang to really rate him, I’d say this is Vera’s first ‘proper’ fight since he left the UFC. Bibiano Fernandes vs Kevin Belingon 4 then. Yes, 4! They first met in 2016 and Fernandes won with a first round kimura. The second fight was in November 2018, and Belingon won a split decision to take Fernandes’ ONE title. The rubber match took place in March and was supposed to settle the score. But the fight was marred in controversy when Belingon landed an illegal elbow to the back of Fernandes’ head, Fernandes couldn’t continue and Belingon was disqualified. So they have to go a fourth time. Should be a good one and hopefully we get a decisive and controversy free ending to this series this time. Rodtang Jitmuangnon vs Walter Goncalves should be an entertaining Muay Thai clash. Jitmuangon is defending his title here. He’s only 22 years old and already has a record of 258-41-10. Read that again. 309 fucking fights! At 22 years old! Those Thai fighters don’t mess about. He started at 8 years old. Goncalves, nicknamed ‘Iron Hands’, is Brazilian. Can’t find his current record but he looks good in the highlights I’ve seen. Giorgio Petrosyan vs Samy Sana is the Featherweight final of a Kickboxing tournament I didn’t even know was happening. Should be fun. Petrosyan is Italian/Armenian and he’s a bad man. He’s fought everywhere from K-1 to GLORY to It’s Showtime to Bellator Kickboxing to ONE. He’s experienced but still far from past it at 33 years old. Has a record of 101-2-2-2 with 41 knockouts and has beaten some of the top names in the sport over the years. Sana is French, 30 years old with a record of 135-11-2 with 49 of his wins by knockout. Not familiar with him but he did beat Yodsanklai Fairtex in May and also beat Petrosyan’s brother Armen in November. So there might be a bit of a revenge element to this one. Shinya Aoki vs Honorio Banario...this is all about Aoki. He’s coming off a KO loss to Christian Lee (younger brother of Angela Lee) in May so you know ONE are hoping he bounces back in style here. Aoki isn’t really talked about among the best Lightweights discussion, mostly because he never fought in the UFC, but you look back over his career and he fought everywhere else. Pride, Strikeforce, DREAM, Bellator, Shooto, Rizin, the lot. He also holds wins over the likes of Kazushi Sakuraba, Eddie Alvarez, Tatsuya Kawajiri, Joachim Hansen, Caol Uno, JZ Cavalcante and Shaolin Ribeiro. 43-9-1 record with 28 submissions. He’s had quite a career. But at 36 and coming off a bad loss, he needs to be making a statement here. Banario is Filipino, 29 years old, 14-9 record, has been submitted 4 times and is coming off back-to-back losses. Make no mistake, Aoki should be winning this comfortably. If he loses this fight, it’ll be a disaster and will be a sign that he should maybe sod MMA off. Arjan Bhullar vs Mauro Cerilli was a fight I didn’t expect to see listed here. When did the UFC let Bhullar go? And why? Seems odd. He’s 9-1 and was coming off 2 wins in the UFC and just beat Juan Adams. On top of that he’s an Indian/Canadian Heavyweight, there aren’t many of them around. And he’s a teammate of Daniel Cormier and supposed to be a top class wrestler. From what I’m reading his contract expired so I guess they just didn’t fancy renewing it. All I can think is they weren’t a fan of his wrestling-heavy style. Whatever. He’s in ONE now. And they could certainly do with some Heavyweights. Don’t know this Cerilli bloke. Looking him up he’s Italian, 36 years old with a 13-3 record. Plenty to like there. Hopefully it’ll be streamed live on their YouTube channel. That’s how I watched the March show anyway and I remember the quality being good.

Thiago Alves is out of the co-main. They’re looking for a replacement for Gunnar. Hopefully he stays on the card. Shame though, I really liked that fight. Edit - Gilbert Burns is stepping in against Gunnar. I actually think that’s a better fight than the original. Burns matches up much better on the ground with Gunnar than Alves would’ve plus he still offers that knockout threat on the feet. He deserves an opportunity like this as well. He’s won his last 3 and jumped in on short notice last time and beat the undefeated Alexey Kunchenko who was 20-0 previously.

Missed weight? Did he ‘Showtime’ off the scale as well or something? The man is a lunatic. Did anyone catch Todd Duffee’s media scrum from earlier in the week? Doesn’t talk a lot about the fight or even his lay-off really but it’s pretty interesting. It quickly turns into a discussion about MMA media and how they cover the sport. I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says but I thought Duffee brought up some interesting points. Typically, it’s resulted in a bunch of twats talking about him being shit/overhyped etc. So who is he to speak up? But Duffee even said himself that his gripes aren’t about how he was covered. It’s more in general. He wasn’t even a dick about it. He’s an intelligent guy and it’s a discussion worth having. Although, hopefully he’s focused on this fight more than what the media are doing. Helwani seemed a bit bothered about it on Twitter. I don’t think he watched the full video, probably just went off the title and little sound bites.

Every time I think I’ve seen all the nutty Pereira clips out there, another one surfaces. Just fucking look at this shit, will you... Who does that? This mad bastard, that’s who.

This is amazing. And probably not a million miles from accurate with the translation;

I hope not. As much as I love the matchup I’m already sick to death of all this ‘gangsta’ talk. And as good as Masvidal and Diaz are, they’re fans wouldn’t want to admit it but this BMF Title would just be a consolation prize because basically they know they’ll never win the real thing while the Usmans, Covingtons and Woodleys are knocking about. They’re basically Taz in ECW when they had him drop the title to someone so he had a strop like a chubby orange child and created the FTW belt. I think that’s how it went down anyway. Regardless, all this gangsta shite talk is doing my head in already. It wasn’t cool or impressive when Konnan did it in WCW and it’s still cringeworthy 20 years later.

That’s amazing. Diego is out there and eccentric but he’s a good guy and his heart’s in the right place. Really warms the heart stuff like that. A moment that guy will remember for the rest of his life. It’s actually from 2017 but I’d never seen it.

All Prograis would need is a bottle handy so he could ‘glarse’ him. Delboy’d be fucked.

All I got from that was... I’m there.

Ha, “at large”, like he’s a murderer/cannibal on the run or something. Well, it wouldn’t really surprise me. As well as Fury vs Wallin on Saturday night (fuck BT Box Office), there’s also a solid Matchroom card on Sky Sports tomorrow night/early hours of Saturday morning. Devin Haney vs Zaur Abdullaev Heather Hardy vs Amanda Serrano Michael Hunter vs Sergey Kuzmin Those are the top fights. Worth a watch. Loved the Hunter vs Kuzmin stare-down yesterday, Kuzmin tried to intimidate Hunter and Hunter didn’t even blink. Looking forward to that one.

God that Russow vs Duffee KO was nuts. I forgot all about that. One of the maddest comebacks ever. Tim Boetsch vs Yushin Okami was another one, complete with Rogan completely losing his shit more than maybe any other fight. While I’m here, this is good. ‘The War Room’ with Dan Hardy; Can’t believe we’re just 2 days away from this now.

Justin Gaethje talking about training with Cerrone back in 2012;

Prochazka vs Maldonado plus Pitbull and Kawajiri in the tournament. Not bad. I’m the same with Rizin. I catch bits and pieces here and there but don’t really keep up with it.

Don’t even know the card but this poster for Rizin 19 is lovely. WHAT A DRAMATIC MMA!!