wandshogun09

I guess the positive is that they’ll have to bring a stronger card than the usual Fight Nights they do over here. And I usually enjoy the UK shows anyway, to be fair. Gotta be a double header with Tom Aspinall and Leon Edwards defending their belts, right?

I’m guessing it’s almost certainly gonna be Leon vs Belal 2, and maybe Aspinall vs Blaydes 2. I read the other day that Ciryl Gane was offered the Aspinall fight and turned it down again because he’s supposedly gonna be in some movie. I’ve found Gane quite likeable on the whole but his blatant ducking of Aspinall has been ridiculous. It’s gotta be at least 2 or 3 times now he’s rejected offers to fight Tom. The fact he was even being offered an interim title fight again, after going 0-2 in his last 2 shots and coming off one win over Spivac, was a bit much IMO. I hope Blaydes gets the fight. I think it’s a more interesting fight plus it’s unfinished business with how the first fight ended. 

Not a specific fight announcement but it’s been confirmed everywhere that UFC 304 will be in Manchester on July 27th.

On a bastard US time zone! Prelims start at 11pm, main card at 3am. And no doubt they’ll still whack it on Box Office. 

I knew of and saw a pic of IRS’s cack brown tights from when he debuted but I’d never seen them in motion until now. Horrific. 

 

@Egg Shen The plague is spreading as well.

One that springs to mind for me is Shane Douglas claiming that when he came into the WWF in 1995, the plan was for him to beat Shawn Michaels for the IC title (fair enough, maybe) then they’d rematch for the World title at WrestleMania 12. 

There’s just…no way, is there? I’ve seen him say it in a couple of different interviews and it seems like somewhere along the line he genuinely convinced himself it was supposed to happen. But;

1) Clearly Vince had no grand plans like that for the Dean. I can see him winning the IC title, and he kind of did (via forfeit), but he was never gonna be in the mix to win the big belt, was he? Especially in that rancid powder blue girls swimming costume with the big exclamation mark on the back. Even in the lean times of 95, there were always a bunch of better options than that. I give that a ‘D’ for ‘delusional’, Mr Douglas.

2) The talk from almost everyone who was around in that mid 80s - early 90s era has always been that, back then at least, Vince used to plan his top Mania matches way ahead. There’s no way Douglas, who came in around the summer of 95, would’ve been pencilled in to headline the Mania that would happen about 7/8 months later. I’m guessing that it wasn’t long after Mania 11 that the plan became for Shawn to become champ, and him being turned babyface right away set the wheels in motion. But it was never gonna be Shane Douglas in the opposite corner. If he was Hulk Hogan returning in 95 or something then no doubt Vince would’ve shuffled the deck. But plans weren’t gonna change for the Dynamic Dude.

3) What about Bret? And how in the fuck would they have gone about the title changes? I’m presuming Douglas reckons he would’ve gone into Mania as defending champ, with Shawn’s “boyhood dream coming true” the same way it did, only against a sodding teacher instead of the Excellence Of Execution. So Douglas would’ve still presumably ‘won’ and then lost the IC belt to Razor in October, then somehow became the World champ within the few months spell leading into Mania 12? Dean Douglas dethroning Diesel or Bret Hart? Sounds likely. Would’ve been a total clusterfuck. If the logic was that it would be better if Shawn took the belt off a heel, surely they’d have gone with Owen for that role considering he was the one who worsened Shawn’s concussion issues in the storyline. Shawn vs Owen doesn’t scream Mania headliner in 95 either but it would’ve had more legs to it as a redemption story and no doubt the match itself would’ve been better than hastily throwing Shane in there. 

4) It simply was just never happening, was it? The Franchise? More like The Fantasist. 

I know this is all coming from Douglas himself and I’ve never seen Bullshit Bruce or…frankly anyone else talk about this scenario as being ever in the plans. But I find it hilarious picturing Vince signing Shane Douglas in summer 95 and immediately turning to Patterson, Prichard and whoever and going “god damn pal, scrap all those plans for WrestleMania. That’s my new headliner”. In a time of struggle for the WWF, the thought of Vince seeing a teacher main eventing Mania as being something that was worth reshuffling plans for is comical to me. Of course, how it went from that to Vince holding him back and ‘not using him properly’ is all 100% the Kliq’s fault. 

It looks like an Apex card but it’s not. Off to St Louis, Missouri with this lot…

ESPN MAIN CARD
Derrick Lewis vs Rodrigo Nascimento 

Joaquin Buckley vs Nursulton Ruziboev

Alonzo Menifield vs Carlos Ulberg 

Carlos Diego Ferreira vs Mateusz Rebecki

Alex Caceres vs Sean Woodson

Waldo Cortes-Acosta vs Robelis Despaigne

ESPN+/FIGHT PASS PRELIMS 
Chase Hooper vs Viacheslav Borshchev

Terrance McKinney vs Esteban Ribovics

Tabatha Ricci vs Tecia Pennington

Trey Waters vs Billy Goff

Jake Hadley vs Charles Johnson

JJ Aldrich vs Veronica Hardy

 

This card is gonna get shat all over and it does look weaker than your usual non-Apex Fight Night. But I honestly think there’s not much wrong with this card that a decent main event wouldn’t have cured. That headliner is the shits. No getting away from it. But there’s some fun stuff lower down the card. Joaquin Buckley is actually from St Louis and was campaigning hard for the main event spot here. Even went as far as to harass Dana about it at the UFC 300 press conference/Q&A or whatever it was. He rightly said that no-one wants a Lewis-Nascimento main event. Then within a few days, that poster dropped, confirming Buckley wasn’t gonna get his wish. Bollocks.

 

So Derrick Lewis vs Rodrigo Nascimento it is then. Whether we like it or not. You’ve probably guessed by now I’m not a fan of this. The matchup itself is whatever. Lewis is coming off a bad loss so I don’t have a big problem with them scaling his opposition back like this. But having it as a main event of anything is a bit much. Even on an Apex card, this would’ve been a shite main event. But for a Fight Night they’re taking on the road and charging tickets for, it’s the absolute dregs. Obviously Lewis is still one of the more popular Heavyweights on the roster. With the right opponent, him headlining a Fight Night is fine. But against Nascimento? I’m guessing there’s a decent sized chunk of the fanbase who don’t even know who Nascimento is! I mean they’re both ranked as I type this. Lewis is at #12, Nascimento has just about entered the rankings at #15. But that says more about the state of the division at the moment than anything else.

Yeah, we all love the ‘Black Beast’ but it seems like the party is almost over at this point. He’s 39 now, which isn’t even that old for a Heavyweight, but he’s had 40 fights and he not only hit his ceiling years ago, he’s continued to keep banging his head against it repeatedly. He’s lost 4 of his last 5 fights and really hasn’t made any significant improvements to his game…well, ever really. That might sound harsh but you can go back years and years through his career and the guy who got beat up by Mark Hunt in 2017, the guy who scored that mad comeback KO against Alexander Volkov in 2018, the guy who challenged Daniel Cormier for the title at MSG and got squashed and the guy who iced Curtis Blaydes with a horrifying uppercut…they’re all the same guy we see in 2024. He’s always been the same, zero evolution. Heavy hands but his entire grappling game seems to consist of ‘just standing up’ when taken down. If that doesn’t work he generally gets subbed. But he’s also had a tendency to kind of check out when things get rough in there.

He’s pushing 40 now so he is what he is at this stage. Probably doesn’t have many fights left but, in fairness, I’ve thought that for a few years now and here we are. He did sign a new 8 fight contract over the summer, which sort of baffled me. He was coming off that quick KO win over Marcos Rogerio De Lima at the time and I thought for sure he’d go after that PFL money and the Francis Ngannou rematch. But I’m not sure he even entertained offers from other promotions. If he did, it wasn’t for long because he seemed to sign that 8 fight deal with the UFC almost as soon as he became a free agent. And what thanks did he get for his loyalty? As soon as the UFC had him locked into another contract, he was matched up with Jailton Almeida. Possibly the worst style matchup for Lewis and in enemy territory in Brazil. To be fair, it wasn’t the original plan. It was supposed to be Almeida vs Blaydes but Blaydes dropped out. Lewis stepped in but even then he said they “tricked him” into accepting it…

Something to do with not wanting to fight in Brazil because of the taxes. And he said the matchmakers offered him the fight but never told him it was in Brazil until he’d already accepted. Who the fuck knows? Either way, it’s too late now. Lewis is locked into that contract for the foreseeable. Most likely for the remainder of his career really. He looked fucking terrible in that loss to Almeida as well. One of the worst fights of 2023 and, while Jailton caught most of the flack for it, Lewis was just as much to blame. More, in my opinion. All I could think watching it was that I bet Lewis regretted re-signing with the UFC and wished he pursued that Ngannou fight in PFL, and especially the $2M payday that would’ve come with it.

Nascimento’s first UFC main event. It says it all that even with Lewis in a bad slump and on awful form, this fucker is still so clearly the B-Side here. Looks totally out of place on the poster. I watch almost everything, there aren’t that many fights I miss and even I can barely tell you anything about Nascimento from memory. Which is bad because he’s been on the roster since 2019. Almost 5 years! He’s 31 years old and 11-1-0-1 with 8 finishes. Not the worst record numbers-wise but when you look closer his best career wins are a couple of split decisions over Tanner Boser and Ilir Latifi, neither of which were kept around long after. Oh and he’s 2-0 over Don’Tale Mayes! No doubt the likes of Aspinall and Pavlovich are quaking in their boots about this fella.

Haven’t got a good feeling about this at all. There’s always the hope and possibility when Lewis faces these lower ranked guys that he’ll score a big knockout. But honestly, don’t be surprised if he drops a bollock again here. From what I do remember about Nascimento (which is admittedly not much), he’s predominantly a grappler. You know how that can go with Lewis. I’m hoping for a Lewis KO but I won’t be at all surprised if Nascimento just drags him about en route to an abysmally dull decision. Seriously, nothing against Nascimento and this is a nice opportunity for him. Lewis is still a big name and Nascimento does have a style that could cause the Beast all manner of problems. But there’s no dressing it up, this is dead on arrival as a main event.

 

Joaquin Buckley vs Nursulton Ruziboev is a late addition and is now the co-main event. Buckley gets his hometown fight after all! He was pushing hard to headline this show but the matchmakers Heavyweight hard-on scuppered his plans. I’d still have rathered this as main event over Lewis vs Nascimento myself but whatever. It’ll be cool to see Buckley get to fight in his backyard. It’s a fun fight, I think.

There’s your semi-regular reminder of Buckley’s KO against Impa Kasanganay back in October 2020. One of the greatest knockouts in UFC history. A modified enziguri Owen Hart himself would’ve been proud of! Whatever Buckley does in the remainder of his career, this is probably the thing he’ll be remembered most for. Incredible KO. It doesn’t have the significance or the crazy context of, say, Holloway vs Gaethje to give a recent example. But just in terms of pure style points and being so jaw dropping aesthetically, it’s up there at the top of the list for me. Anyway, Buckley’s on a nice little run of form at the minute. He’s 18-6 now with 13 knockouts, and since dropping back to Welterweight last year, he’s won his last 3 fights. He’s coming into this fight on a quick turnaround having just scored probably his biggest career win to date, TKOing Vicente Luque on the Atlantic City card at the end of March. He immediately called for the UFC to switch things up and put him as the main event in St Louis. He didn’t quite get his wish but I guess this is the next best thing.

Ruziboev is a risky fight for him on paper though. I’m not gonna pretend to know a ton about this guy. Just haven’t seen enough of him yet. But so far, he’s looked a bit of a handful. He’s from Uzbekistan, 30 years old and already has a record of 34-8-2-2 with 32 of his wins not requiring judges. Granted a lot of his opposition is gonna be unknown but it’s all experience and he’s looked dangerous in the UFC as well since making his debut last year. He brutally knocked out Brunno Ferreira in just over a minute in his UFC debut. He then fought on the Atlantic City card in March, the same night Buckley beat Luque, and Ruzi stopped Sedriques Dumas with eyepokes leading to a TKO. Usually I’d feel sorry for the guy getting eyepoked but Dumas is a cunt so sod him. Ruziboev is an interesting one. Sherdog has him listed at 6’2” but Tapology and the UFC’s official ‘Tale Of The Tape’ has/had him at 6’5”! And he’s dropping to 170 for this fight. Not sure what the future looks like for him but with his size and power, KO and submission ability and his experience at a relatively young age, he seems to be in a great position to make a proper run over the next few years. Time will tell. He’s a bit of a mystery at the moment.

 

Alonzo Menifield vs Carlos Ulberg could be an entertaining fight. By modern day Light Heavyweight standards, it’s not bad for a mid level fight. Menifield is ranked #12 at LHW so it’s an opportunity for Ulberg (currently unranked) to crack into that Top 15. Menifield is 15-3-1 with 13 finishes and is coming off a points win over Dustin Jacoby in December. He also knocked out Paul Craig early in his UFC run. Ulberg is from New Zealand, 9-1 with 7 finishes and is on a 5 fight win streak. He’s stopped Ihor Potieria and Da Un Jung in his last two outings. These two are both into their 30s now and I don’t see them climbing too much further up the ladder. But they’re alright middle of the pack fighters for 205.

 

Carlos Diego Ferreira vs Mateusz Rebecki is a fight where I like the pairing but it definitely has the feel of ‘out with the old, in with the new’ matchmaking. I know it’s part of the game and always will be but it still feels a bit shitty regardless. I’ve always quite liked Ferreira. He’s been in the UFC since 2014 and he’s 39 now. He’s had a respectable 10 year run and has some solid wins over the likes of Anthony Pettis, Jared Gordon and Olivier Aubin-Mercier. He also had two proper bangers against Beneil Dariush but went 0-2 against him, and he fought and lost to Dustin Poirier in 2015. He’s knocked around a bit. We last saw him in May last year, knocking out Michael Johnson in brutal fashion…

That was a win he desperately needed. He was on a 3 fight losing streak going in and that KO probably saved him from getting the chop. At pushing 40, he’s on borrowed time anyway, harsh as that sounds. But I was happy to see him snap that losing skid and stop the rot anyway. Poland’s Rebecki is 31 years old, trains out of ATT and he’s 19-1 with 16 wins inside the distance. He’s finished Loik Radzhabov and Roosevelt Roberts in his last 2 fights. He’s also on a 16 fight winning streak. So…you know what this is. You know what the matchmakers are going for. Part of me wants to see Ferreira flip the script and ruin their plans but I don’t mind Rebecki either from what I’ve seen so far. Just gonna sit back and hope for a good fight.

 

Alex Caceres vs Sean Woodson is one of the standout fights on the card for me. Could easily see these two banking some bonus money. Woodson’s a bit of an unsung entertaining fighter, I think. He’s had some really good fights over the years that have gone under the radar. The Julian Erosa fight in 2020 was fantastic. He also scored a peach of a body shot stoppage on Collin Anglin in 2021 and a flying knee KO over Terrance McKinney on DWCS in 2019. And you know what you’re getting out of Bruce Leroy.

We’ve come to expect fun fights out of him. There’s a reason he’s been kept on the roster for 13 years despite clocking up a 16-12-0-1 UFC record. Win or lose, he’s been propping up prelims and undercards for donkeys years with entertaining fights. And he’s had his main card moments along the way as well. He submitted Sergio Pettis and handed him the first loss of his career back in 2014. I remember him giving Urijah Faber a good fight before Faber got to him late in their fight. Took Yair Rodriguez to a split decision in their 2016 main event as well. And even now, at nearly 36 years old, he’s in a position where he’s won 7 of his last 9. He lost to Giga Chikadze on points last time out but, on the whole, he’s doing alright for where he is. He’s never gonna go on a run at the title but his longevity as a lighter weight class fighter has been pretty cool to see. Fucker was on the TUF season with GSP and Josh Koscheck as coaches! That’s how long he’s been knocking about. Can’t really see any way this is anything less than a belter.

 

Waldo Cortes-Acosta vs Robelis Despaigne is ***WAND’S ONE TO WATCH*** here. Very rare that I highlight a Heavyweight fight on these Fight Nights but here we are. And trust me, it’s got nothing whatsoever to do with ‘Salsa Boy’ Acosta. I’ve made no secret I’m not a fan of him. He’s fought 5 times in the UFC and I’ve hated 4 of those fights. He had that one big KO win over Lukasz Brzeski in there but, aside from that, he’s been fucking rancid to watch. His decision loss against Marcos Rogerio De Lima and his decision wins over Jared Vanderaa, Chase Sherman and Andrei Arlovski have been among the worst Heavyweight fights I’ve seen in recent memory. And you know that covers some ground when we’re talking about bad Heavyweight fights. I think the thing that I dislike most about him though is his arrogance about it. Always taunting and talking shite and dancing during fights. He always seems way too pleased with himself considering how rotten his fights are and how he’s going the distance with nobodies and old relics. Needless to say, I’m hoping Despaigne obliterates him.

He made his Octagon debut at UFC 299 in March and crushed Josh Parisian in just 18 seconds. He might completely fizzle out at any time and chances of that are high, to be honest. The Heavyweight division is a lottery at the best of times and Despaigne is such a late starter to MMA. He’s 35 years old now and only 5-0. But man, it feels like a long time since we saw a Heavyweight come along like this. An Olympic bronze medalist in Taekwondo, 6’7” in height, longest reach in UFC history and his last 4 fights have lasted a combined 37 seconds! Insane. Basically, he’s the type of Heavyweight you just know Pride would’ve been all the fuck over if they were still in business. Obviously, with the unpredictable nature of the division, Despaigne’s late start and him probably having zero grappling coming from a pure striking background…his bubble is probably gonna burst sooner rather than later. But I hope he’s at least good enough to chin a few of these lower level jabronis before someone ends the fun.

 

Chase Hooper vs Viacheslav Borshchev is a total throwback to the old style vs style days of the sport. It’s actually kind of mad that a fight like this is still happening in 2024 but I quite like it. Obviously you still get your fighters who are stronger and weaker in certain areas but this is just about as close to a pure grappler vs pure striker matchup as you’re gonna get in this day and age. Hooper has some striking but his game is mostly grappling from what I’ve seen. And Slava Claus? He’s ALL standup. His wrestling is practically nonexistent. That was evident when he got wrestled into oblivion in back-to-back fights by Marc Diakiese and Mike Davis. He bounced back with a vicious knockout win over Maheshate and then went to a draw with Nazim Sadykhov in a fantastic fight on the MSG card in November.

🤣 It was such an exciting fight it was almost a shame it went to a draw. But at the same time, it was the kind of fight where neither man deserved to be called a loser. One of the more fun under the radar fights of 2023. I’m torn on this fight. I like them both and I can obviously see a clear path to victory for both. They’re both strongest where the other is weakest. I don’t wanna see either take another L but probably rooting for Slav more just because he’s a bit older and really can’t afford another loss. Hooper’s had some tough losses but bounced back nicely after moving up to 155 a couple of fights ago. Ah, I don’t know. This is gonna be bittersweet either way but it’ll be kind of cool to watch the clash of styles.

 

Terrance McKinney vs Esteban Ribovics is gonna be a fun one. Say what you want about McKinney, and he definitely has his flaws as a fighter, but win or lose there’s never a dull moment. Right from his UFC debut when he knocked out Matt Frevola in 7 seconds, it set the tone. He’s fought 8 times in the UFC so far, 6 of them haven’t gone past a round and none of them went past 2 rounds. He’s had his setbacks and I get the feeling he’s a bit of a front runner. He’s a stupidly fast starter but it seems like if he can’t blast the opponent away early, he fades a bit. He’s coming off a couple of quick TKO wins now though. Low level opposition, it was only Mike Breeden and Brendan Marotte. But wins are wins.

There he is steamrolling Marotte in October. Whole thing only lasted 20 seconds! He won’t go much higher, especially in a division as strong as Lightweight, but it’s always worth tuning in for his fights. And Ribovics should make for a cracking scrap with him. He’s Argentinian, 28 years old and has a record of 12-1 with 11 finishes. I haven’t seen much of him yet, just his two UFC fights and he’s gone 1-1 so far. But I enjoyed both fights a lot. Not sure how many saw them because I think both were on the Fight Pass prelims, but he was great to watch in defeat against Loik Radzhabov, then he came back with a win over Kamuela Kirk at UFC 290 in July. Don’t blink during this one.

 

Tabatha Ricci vs Tecia Pennington is whatever. Might be alright, I don’t hate the matchup, but I’m not counting the days or anything either. Pennington is, of course, formerly known as Tecia Torres. Her and Raquel Pennington got married apparently. They had a baby girl last year and Tecia carried and gave birth to the baby, which is why she’s been out of action since April 2022. She lost on points to Mackenzie Dern in her last fight and it’s been so long now I can’t even remember how she looked. And fuck knows how she’s gonna do now coming off 2 years away, and not just away, but giving birth and all the distractions and responsibilities that come with becoming a parent. Fair play to her but my memories of her as a fighter aren’t the best. I do remember an absolute banger she had against Rose Namajunas in Invicta very early into both their careers. But I’m not sure how that would hold up on a rewatch and I found her UFC fights mostly pretty boring.

‘Baby Shark’ Ricci is knocking on the door of a Top 10 ranking at Strawweight. She’s #11 at the moment. So it’s a bit odd that she’s been matched up with an unranked opponent who’s coming off a long layoff here. This matchup really doesn’t do a great deal for her, does it? Although she is coming off a split decision loss to Loopy Godinez so I guess she’s not in a position to really make demands or callouts towards the Top 10. She’s not a bad little fighter but she hasn’t really proven herself at a high level yet. Her best wins so far are grapplephobe Polyana Viana, a 40 year old Jessica Penne and Gillian Robertson in a fairly forgettable decision. She’s been active though and catching Tecia coming off a 2 year layoff here, she should probably be winning this.

 

Trey Waters vs Billy Goff. Not familiar enough with either of these two really but I’ll go through the motions. Waters is 29 years old, 6’5” which is big for a Welterweight and he’s 8-1 with 6 finishes. He beat Josh Quinlan on points in his UFC debut in April last year. His only loss to date was against Gabriel Bonfim on DWCS. Goff is 25 years old, 9-2 with 7 by KO/TKO and he’s on a 7 fight win streak. He made his Octagon debut on the Holloway vs Zombie card last August and stopped Yusaku Kinoshita in a round with a nasty bodyshot. So yeah, haven’t seen a lot of these two but that’s not to say it’s a bad fight. I’m just not up on these two. Looking at their records, finishing rates and factoring in Waters height, it’s a fairly interesting matchup on paper.

 

Jake Hadley vs Charles Johnson is a cracking fight. I didn’t pick it as my ‘one to watch’ but if I had to predict what will probably end up being the FOTN, I’d say this is my front runner. Really enjoying the Flyweight division. It’s not quite as good as Bantamweight, Featherweight or Lightweight but if you can get past the Groundhog Day title picture there’s some ridiculously exciting fighters in at 125lbs and it feels like it’s just a matter of time before the division really catches fire. These two have been consistently fun to watch on the undercards and prelims over the last couple of years. Hadley’s someone I wanted to root for being a fellow Brummie but I just can’t take to him at all. He’s coming off a points loss to Cody Durden in August in an incredible fight.

Bit of a hidden gem from 2023 that. It didn’t get much discussion, even at the time, but it was a hell of a fight. I find both quite unlikeable so it was a bit of a heel vs heel match for me but, fair’s fair, it was some scrap. Hadley had finished Carlos Candelario and Malcolm Gordon before that and at one point it seemed like the big UK domestic grudge match with Muhammad Mokaev might be on the cards but that loss to Durden completely shelved that and Mokaev’s onto bigger things now. Johnson is coming off a really good fight himself. He beat Azat Maksum by decision on an Apex card in February. He snapped a 3 fight losing streak with that win and called for a fight on UFC 300 after. He didn’t get his wish but it’s nice to see him on a card with a crowd here. He’s fought 7 times in the UFC and his last 6 have been at the sodding Apex! No good. This has show stealer written all over it for me.

 

JJ Aldrich vs Veronica Hardy is the curtain jerker. Third straight time Hardy’s kicking off the Fight Pass prelims. They’ve been lower level fights so it’s not outrageous they’ve been on the Fight Pass stream but part of me thinks it’s directly a case of Dana being a dick. Shocker, right? We all know Dan Hardy’s not on Dana’s Christmas card list so burying Dan’s wife as far down the card as possible sounds like a decision that came from him. Could be a coincidence but would it shock anyone? Dan’s publicly said that when Veronica fought at UFC 286 in London last year, he was banned from all her fight week activities except the weigh in. Never underestimate the pettiness of the big pink multi-millionaire man child Dana White.

Team Hardy here.

I’ve been sceptical about Veronica going into her last couple of fights. I was rooting for her but wasn’t really confident about her chances based on her early UFC fights. She had a 3 year layoff between 2020-23, not sure why, but since she returned last year she’s gone 2-0 and looked pretty good from what I remember. I still wouldn’t say I’m confident about her winning and she still lacks in the grappling department. But she seems fully committed to getting better and the girl she beat last time was undefeated going in. Love to see her keep winning. For one, she seems cool when I’ve seen her on Dan’s YouTube channel and also, you know Dana’s gonna hate it if she starts climbing the rankings. Aldrich has been on the roster since 2016 somehow! Had no idea she’d been around that long, which doesn’t say much good about how memorable her performances have been. She’s 13-6 and coming off a couple of wins herself. Team Hardy!

 

 

That’ll do. Another Heavyweight headliner…

Don’t know if Costa is 100% fucking about here (he usually is tbf) or if he genuinely found out about the Strickland fight when the rest of us did. Wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t know though.

 

She was also around Gino Hernandez a lot just before he died. Think she said she lived opposite him at the time of his death. For someone who wasn’t active in wrestling herself all that long, she’s got a fair bit of interesting stuff to talk about. 

It’s officially Apex fight week again. Try to contain your excitement!

 

Absolute madness. I’m still not sure if he just had us all over but I think Haney being a bit overrated by some and Garcia missing weight played their parts too. Crazy stuff though. 

Obviously this meeting of minds is what benefitted him most…

Oh and this exchange between Eddie Hearn and Garcia’s old man killed me 🤣

 

32 minutes ago, Cousin Jim Bob said:

What are the best Miracle Violence Connection matches ?

I remember watching a few in my tape buying days but that was 20 years ago now. I'm guessing the ones against the big AJPW guys stand up but are their WCW matches any good too ?

Depends what you like. A lot of their PPV matches in 92 were quite long and quite methodical but I liked them. The matches with the Steiners being the standouts but they had a couple of good matches with Barry Windham and Dustin Rhodes as well, at the Great American Bash 92 and a TV match on Saturday Night around the October.

For something shorter and faster moving though, there’s them murdering the O’Days at a Clash Of The Champions. It’s on Dailymotion but it’s not embedding for me on here for some reason.

Two miles I walk every morning. 

Bloke takes a 97” waist and a 12” leg! 

16 minutes ago, Egg Shen said:

Im currently locked into a £9.99 a month price until next March. They are gonna need to drastically improve the content to make me lock in again though.

This is exactly the boat I’m in. I re-subscribed in March for AJ vs Ngannou and went for the year at £9.99 a month. So I’m good with that until next March but I’ve already cancelled so my sub will end in March. Just can’t be doing with it. Bollocks to the liberty taking greedy bastards. 

Thought I’d bring this in here from the Fight Announcement thread. This was in response to Elle Brooke vs Paige VanZant being announced but it’s more about the general pisstaking from DAZN bumping their subscription price up by 50% a month but then putting all their best fights on PPV and charging extra on top of that. 

12 hours ago, wandshogun09 said:

DAZN hikes up the subscription price 50% and offer up the Boxing equivalent of a bra and panties match from Raw in 2002? 

Coincidentally, I cancelled my subs today. 

 

1 hour ago, Egg Shen said:

Can't blame you wand. they are starting to put all their bigger fights on PPV now and they still cranked the price up. It wouldn't have been so bad if they'd announced the increase with an announcement that they were adding some top tier football or something, but nothing. Really poor, and judging by the reaction, it's backfired, a lot of people are leaving the platform.

Fucking joke and goes completely against the line that was being spun when DAZN was launched. The whole thing was that “PPV was dead” and this was gonna provide Boxing fans with quality fights all in one place at a reasonable price. And ALL fights would be included in your monthly subs. No PPV whatsoever. Now we’ve got 3 PPVs in the next month or so.

Remember this?

The app/channel was something like £2.99 when it started. Obviously that was never gonna last. Think it went to £7.99 after that, then £9.99 or whatever. And I’d have been fine with paying that if they’d stuck to their word and had everything included in the monthly subscription. They’d have probably had me as a customer for life. Now it’s been hiked up to £14.99 a month but the vast majority of the fights I’m gonna be interested in, they’ll wanna charge another £20 or whatever on top of that! And not even at a discounted price for subscribers.

 

DAZN hikes up the subscription price 50% and offer up the Boxing equivalent of a bra and panties match from Raw in 2002? 

Coincidentally, I cancelled my subs today. 

Been watching this guy’s interviews for a while now and really enjoying them. Especially when he has wrestlers on who you don’t see doing interviews that much anymore. The latest being Perry Saturn…

 

Good to see Saturn getting about and doing stuff like this again. Wasn’t there stories that he’d completely gone off the grid and nobody had heard off him not too long ago? He looks healthier here than the last time I saw him as well. He looked like really gaunt and sick at one point. Not sure about the Seth Armstrong ‘tache but it’s nice to see that he seems in good spirits here. 

Coming off a barmy UFC 300, it’s back to reality, back to the mundane routine and back to the Apex…

ESPN MAIN CARD
Matheus Nicolau vs Alex Perez 

Ryan Spann vs Bogdan Guskov 

Ariane Lipski vs Karine Silva

Jhonata Diniz vs Austen Lane

Jonathan Pearce vs David Onama 

Tim Means vs Uros Medic

ESPN+/FIGHT PASS PRELIMS
Rani Yahya vs Victor Henry 

Austin Hubbard vs Michal Figlak 

Don’Tale Mayes vs Caio Machado 

Marnic Mann vs Ketlen Souza 

James Llontop vs Chris Padilla 

Ivana Petrovic vs Liang Na

Hayisaer Maheshate vs Gabriel Benitez 
 

A little bit of a comedown from 300 🤣 Doesn’t help that the original Nicolau vs Kape 2 headliner fell apart but, looking at the entire card, there’s really not much at all to like about this. Even by Apex standards, I think this is at the lower end of the scale in terms of quality. Couple of bits I’ll actively seek out but I get the feeling I’m gonna be skimming through a LOT of this.

 

 

So yeah, Matheus Nicolau vs Alex Perez tops the bill. Not an amazing headliner by any stretch but I’ll take this over a lot of the rotters they’ve served up at the Apex. It’s not a Heavyweight, Middleweight or Holly Holm fight so it’s at least a step in the right direction! Worth pointing out that this was originally supposed to be Nicolau vs Manel Kape 2. A rematch of their Apex clash back in 2021. But true to form, Kape withdrew. He’s become one of the most frustrating fighters on the roster for me. Talks a load of shite about everyone else but when it comes time to get in there and back it up, he calls in sick a lot of the time. Seriously, one look at his Tapology page will tell you all you need to know. In his UFC stint, he’s had more cancelled fights than fights he actually showed up to. Nicolau vs Kape 2 was actually supposed to go down in January but - surprise, surprise - Kape missed weight and the fight got scrapped. So they rescheduled it for this card and, once again, Kape’s out. Rib injury this time, apparently. Who cares at this point?

Nicolau’s a very decent fighter. Currently ranked #5 in the Flyweight division. He’s Brazilian, just turned 31 years old and holds a record of 19-3-1 with 10 of those wins coming inside the distance. He was initially on the UFC roster in 2015 but was let go after one loss (harsh) to Dustin Ortiz in 2018. He went away and won a couple of fights and was brought back in 2021. That’s when he beat Kape by decision. He beat Tim Elliott and Matt Schnell after that but he’s mostly gone under the radar really. Looking over his record now, I watch pretty much everything but I can’t say much of it is jumping off the page as particularly memorable. I don’t recall anything bad, he’s just fairly nondescript and has kind of blended into the background on a bloated roster. Especially in the Flyweight division with the logjam we’ve had there at the top end over the last few years. Not many new contenders have been able to really break away from the pack and stand out with all the endless rematches but that cycle seems to have been broken for now. Time for the rest of the 125ers to step up. Nicolau was on a solid 6 fight win streak before getting knocked out by Brandon Royval in his last fight last April. So it’ll have been a whole year on the shelf for him by the time he walks up the Octagon steps here.

Alex Perez is taking a bit of a risk here. He’s already coming off 3 straight losses so jumping in on short notice here mightn’t be the wisest move. Depends how you look at it though. If he loses this fight, obviously a 4th loss on the trot wouldn’t be good, but him stepping in and ‘saving the card’ here will no doubt earn him some brownie points with the UFC big wigs. Under these circumstances, even losing a 4th straight, he’d likely get another chance. Perez fought recently as well. He lost that dull decision against Muhammad Mokaev in early March. So he shouldn’t have strayed too far out of condition. And in fairness, his 2 losses prior to that were against Pantoja and Figgy. No shame there, obviously! Perez is a funny one for me though. He’s clearly not good enough to beat that elite level of Pantoja/Figgy. But he did stop Jussier Formiga in a round with leg kicks that time. And the thing I think has really hurt and hindered Perez in recent years has been his lack of activity. His last 3 fights have all had long gaps between them. He lost to Figgy at the end of 2020, was out a good 18 months before losing to Pantoja in mid 2022, then had an even longer layoff before the loss to Mokaev in March this year. If nothing else, the quick turnaround here is better than that.

That’s that then. Not a fight I’m gonna be counting the days to but it’s not bad or anything. It’s a weird one really because it’s far from ideal circumstances for either man. Nicolau’s coming off a year out and Perez is taking it on short notice and is on a 3 fight losing skid. Who the fuck knows? Hopefully this goes ahead though regardless. Hate to even mention it and possibly put a jinx on it but it’s not like Perez is any better than Kape for showing up to fights. Again, I’m looking at his Tapology and it’s pretty grim. Since his UFC debut in 2017, Perez has fought 10 times. And he’s had 13 scheduled bouts cancelled! And worryingly, 10 of those fights that got binned were in the last few years. His sicknotes are becoming more frequent. Had to chuckle really when Kape dropped out and they called Perez. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if this fight goes ahead, to be completely honest.

 

Ryan Spann vs Bogdan Guskov as co-main is rotten but it’s the Apex so it’s about what we expect these days. I don’t know, maybe it’ll be better than my low expectations but I can’t pretend I give much of a bollocks. Typical Light Heavyweight. You know the drill. Outside the top few 205ers, it’s generally shite. It’s Heavyweight but with slightly less flab. Spann’s been on the roster since 2018 now and has first round finishes over the likes of Little Nog, Ion Cutelaba and Dominick Reyes. He’s also somehow gone to a split decision with Sam Alvey so there’s that. He’s coming into this fight off back-to-back losses to Nikita Krylov and Anthony Smith. And speaking of Anthony Smith…

I do find it kind of amusing that Spann has gone 0-2 against Anthony Smith and now here he is trying to get one back against Smith’s doppelgänger. Guskov is from Uzbekistan, 31 years old and has a record of 15-3, all finishes. He made his UFC debut on the Paris card in September but got subbed in a round by Volkan Oezdemir. He bounced back in February with a brutal first round knockout over Zac Pauga. Can’t see him amounting to much but he hasn’t bored me yet, which is more positive than I can be about most of the lower end of 205. Hopefully this exceeds my expectations. It’d be difficult not to really.

 

Ariane Lipski vs Karine Silva is a fight I’m kind of into actually. Not in love with it or anything but it should be worth a look. I’ve been neither here or there on Lipski for most of her UFC career. She’s far from the worst fighter in the Flyweight division but she’s just been a bit too inconsistent to really put a proper run together. She’s only just turned 30 and she is coming off 3 wins now, so maybe she’s turned a corner. She had possibly her best showing yet last time out, armbarring Casey O’Neill at UFC 296 in December. Karine Silva is why I’m interested in this one though…

Haven’t seen a ton of her but what I have seen I’ve liked. She’s Brazilian, she’s also not long turned 30 and she’s 17-4 with all her wins coming inside the distance and she’s on an 8 fight winning streak. She made her UFC debut in June 2022, subbing Poliana Botelho in a round. Then she absolutely mangled Ketlen Souza’s knee with a horrible leg lock in June last year. Then in her last fight in August, she guillotine choked Maryna Moroz in a round, avenging a loss from when they first fought way back early in her career. As always, it remains to be seen how far she can go and it’s not like she’s been beating a who’s who of opposition. But so far, she’s handled business the way any solid prospect should. Can’t ask for any more than that.

 

Jhonata Diniz vs Austen Lane is the obligatory main card Heavyweight offering. Every Apex card has to have one for some reason. Not even gonna dump on it. I’ve never seen Diniz before and I’ve seen very little of Lane. So I can’t really say much about it, positive or negative. Diniz is making his debut here. He’s Brazilian, 32 years old and undefeated at 6-0…all first round knockouts. He also has a 22-7 Kickboxing record with 15 knockouts and went the distance with Rico Verhoeven on a GLORY card back in 2013. Lane’s 36 years old and a former NFL player. He transitioned to MMA in 2017 and he’s 12-4-0-1 with 12 finishes, mostly by KO/TKO. He made his UFC debut against Justin Tafa last June but it ended as a No Contest due to an eyepoke. They rematched in September and Tafa chinned him in about a minute. So either Diniz stays undefeated or Lane gets that elusive first UFC victory. Hopefully it’s short and sweet either way.

 

Jonathan Pearce vs David Onama is ***WAND’S ONE TO WATCH*** on this show. Wasn’t spoilt for choice here was I? This is a fun one though, on paper. Pearce is one of those decent fighters that, for some reason, I took a bit of a disliking to early into his run and I can’t even put my finger on why. Something about him just bugs me. So needless to say, I was quite pleased to see him get submitted by Joanderson Brito in his last fight in November. He was on fairly good form before that though, rattling off a 5 fight win streak and beating Christian Rodriguez and Darren Elkins along the way. Make no mistake though, Onama is the reason I wanted to highlight this one…

We haven’t seen him since last June but he’s been nothing but entertaining to watch so far in the UFC. If for some reason you never saw his 2022 fight with Nate Landwehr, fix that immediately. Fuck, even if you did see it, watch it again. Legitimately one of my favourite fights of the last couple of years. He lost a close decision that night but it was one of those losses where it felt like his stock was only raised by it. The fight was that good. Then he came back in his last fight and knocked out a game Gabriel Santos after a tough opening round. Can’t go wrong with basically any matchup you throw Onama in. He’s fought 5 times in the UFC, he’s gone 3-2 in results but when it comes to delivering fun fights, he’s 5-0. Looking forward to seeing him back in there.

 

Tim Means vs Uros Medic might just be the sleeper on this card for me. Not a fight that immediately jumps out at you but I can see it being a good old scrap. Means is one of my favourite journeymen in the game. He’s a guy I’ve always enjoyed watching fight but it feels like he’s been around forever. He turned 40 in February and this’ll be his 51st pro MMA fight. Over the years he’s beat the likes of Nicolas Dalby, Thiago Alves, Mike Perry, John Howard and Bobby Green. He was in a slump recently, losing 3 on the bounce, but he snapped that losing streak in his last fight in September, stopping Andre Fialho in a really entertaining slugfest that got FOTN. Medic is the younger man at 30 and has a record of 9-2 with none of his 9 wins going to the judges. He’s had a few pretty exciting fights himself but comes into this one off a nasty neck crank submission loss to Myktybek Orolbai in November. I like this pairing.

 

Rani Yahya vs Victor Henry is alright. Quite like both of these two, to be fair. I just don’t really know what to expect out of the matchup itself. I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for Yahya for some reason. He’s one of the last men standing from that ‘one trick pony’ era of MMA. Turns 40 in September, has a record of 28-11-1-1 and he’s been around long enough to have fought the likes of KID Yamamoto, Joseph Benavidez, JZ Cavalcante, Mark Hominick, Mike Brown and Chad Mendes. A veteran of WEC and the underrated K-1 HEROS promotion before signing with the UFC in 2011. He’s got no real striking to his game, in 40+ fights he doesn’t have one finish via KO/TKO. He’s a grappling specialist. But even still, he’s managed to win 2 of his last 3 fights. He’ll have been out of action a whole year by the time this fight gets underway though. At pushing 40, not ideal. Henry is 36 with a 23-6-0-1 record and trains under the legendary Josh Barnett. We last saw him in October getting his ballbag kicked in by Javid Basharat. Obviously all groin strikes are horrible but this was a particularly bad one. The fight was stopped and ruled a No Contest and Barnett said after that when they went to the hospital post-fight, Henry’s sack had “swollen to the size of a satsuma.” Lovely. Basharat was a complete twat about it as well, to add insult to injury. Went from denying the kick was low at all to calling Henry a quitter for not just shrugging it off. He shouldn’t have to worry about being hit low in this one though because, as I’ve said, Yahya doesn’t strike much at all.

 

Austin Hubbard vs Michal Figlak might be decent. Hubbard’s 15-7 and this is his second UFC stint. After a mixed bag of results in his first run between 2019-21, going 3-4 overall, he was let go. He went away and got a couple of wins in 2022 then went on the TUF season last year coached by McGregor and Chandler. He made it to the finals but got submitted by Kurt Holobaugh at UFC 292 in August. This is his attempt to rebound. Poland’s Figlak is 27 years old and 8-1 with 4 finishes. He came into the UFC with some high expectations after a successful run in Cage Warriors. He made his Octagon debut in September 2022 on the first ever UFC card in France, but lost on points to Fares Ziam. He was out all of 2023 and will have been inactive for around 20 months by the time he steps into the cage here.

 

Don’Tale Mayes vs Caio Machado. Vomit. I can say right now, I’ll be skipping this. I watch almost everything, even on these crappy Apex cards, but life’s too short for this shit. Mayes isn’t very good. He’s 10-6-0-1 and his career highlight has been his TKO win over an old, washed up Andrei Arlovski last summer. And in typical ham and egger fashion, he followed that up by losing a nothing happening decision to Rodrigo Nascimento in his next fight. And Machado has only fought once in the UFC and I’m already done with him. He’s 8-2-1 and lost on points to Mick Parkin in November in an awful plodfest.

 

Marnic Mann vs Ketlen Souza. No opinion on this. Haven’t seen enough to care. Mann is 31 years old and 6-2 with 4 finishes. Made her UFC debut in September and lost a decision to Josefine Knutsson in a fight I don’t think I even watched. Souza’s 28 years old with a record of 13-4 and 9 finishes. She made her first Octagon appearance last June and it ended painfully for her when she got kneebarred in less than 2 minutes by Karine Silva. It was a bloody horrible kneebar as well. I remember on the replays you could actually see her kneecap completely shift 🤢 I’m actually surprised she’s back less than a year later, to be honest.

 

James Llontop vs Chris Padilla. Not a clue. Never seen either of them. This was originally gonna be Llontop against Gabe Green but that’s fell apart at the last minute and now we’ve got two Octagon newcomers squaring off. Llontop is Peruvian, 24 years old, 14-2 with 8 finishes and he’s on an 8 fight winning streak. He won a decision on DWCS back in September. Padilla’s stepping in on less than a week’s notice. He’s 28 years old with a record of 13-6 and 11 finishes. A quick look at his Sherdog page tells me he’s fought in RFA, KOTC, Brave and Bellator in his relatively short career. He’s coming off 3 wins inside the distance.

 

Ivana Petrovic vs Liang Na. Can’t say I’m arsed. I’m not really familiar enough with either of them. Petrovic is Croatian/Norwegian, 29 years old and has a 6-1 record with 5 finishes. She won the Ares Flyweight title in 2022 and successfully defended it with a 4th round submission in April last year. All sounded good but then she lost a decision in her UFC debut against Luana Carolina in July. Instant hype killer that. Could’ve been partly down to the old ‘Octagon jitters’ but losing to Luana Carolina is never a good sign. And China’s Liang is really floundering. She’s 27 years old and 19-7 with 17 finishes. But she’s gone 0-3 in the UFC so far and she’s been finished in all 3 losses. And it’s not even like she’s been facing elite opposition. Ariane Carnelossi, Silvana Gomez Juarez and JJ Aldrich have all managed to get her out of there in 2 rounds or less.

 

Hayisaer Maheshate vs Gabriel Benitez is an OK fight. Could be fun. Maheshate made a hell of a first impression in his UFC debut a couple of years back, sparking Steve Garcia out cold in about a minute. It was some knockout. Reminded me a bit of Paul Daley’s KO against Scott Smith in Strikeforce. Garcia completely faceplanted. The old Flair Flop. It’s been all downhill since then though. He lost a decision to Rafa Garcia in his next fight and then got knocked out himself by Slava Claus in his last fight in May last year. He’s 9-3 overall now. Still only 24 years old, he’s got some time. Benitez is probably on the home stretch of his career. He’s nearly 36 now and has gone 2-5 in his last 7 fights. Not good. We last saw him getting face cranked into submission by Jim Miller in January.

 

Back to the Apex…

Obviously I hope it’s a troll job and there’s nothing serious going on with Garcia but that clip there, the way the camera pans out to reveal a completely bamboozled Haney just cracks me up 🤣

6 hours ago, WeeAl said:

Shocked at that. I don't see that as a slip at all. 

I read someone, pretty sure it was Luke Thomas, saying they don’t count cases where a fighter hits the canvas and immediately bounces back up to their feet as official knockdowns. Obviously in Boxing is a clear cut knockdown but apparently not the case in MMA. Fucking stupid, if you ask me. So next time Holloway fights, they’re gonna keep trotting out the “he’s never been knocked down” spiel when we all saw Gaethje punch him and put him on his arse. No matter how brief a time he was down, it should count shouldn’t it? Gaethje physically knocked him down, so by definition it’s a knockdown.

6 hours ago, WeeAl said:

Thought Moicano sounded like an absolute moron in his post fight speech too. I liked his staff talking shit about the apex previously, but this nonsense about first amendment rights? Wouldn't mind seeing Jose Aldo give him one to the liver again. 

Yeah. His first couple of post-fight outbursts were quite funny but this one didn’t really hit for me. It seems like he’s run out of things to rant about and he’s trying too hard now. It’s just “MOTHERFUCKER, I’M BRAZILIAN BUT I LOVE AMERICA! I WANT TO BE A COP HERE IN AMERICA AND KILL THE MOTHERFUCKING BAD GUYS. I WANT MONEY! I WANT BONUS! MOTHERFUCKER! PPV POINTS! AMERICA! MOTHERFUCKER!” Everyone’s lapping it up but it’s getting really old for me already.

His best moment on the mic is still this and it’s not even him who makes it funny, it’s Hadzovic and then Bisping’s chuckle in the background.

 

On 4/15/2024 at 9:07 AM, WeeAl said:

But he's Justin Gaethje and he always carries that threat to just change your world in an instant. He showed that by being the first man to drop Holloway, in his career.

Forgot to mention this. Apparently it wasn’t counted as an official knockdown.

Not sure why. A punch was thrown, a punch was landed, an arse hit the canvas. It was a knockdown. Shit, there’s not much positive Gaethje can take from this fight at all. They can’t give him that at least?

Thinking about this card again, another thing I forgot to mention is how amazing it is that the card all stayed intact. Unless I’m overlooking something, I don’t think one single fight got cancelled or changed once they were officially signed. In this day and age, that’s a minor miracle! The similarly stacked 299 card pretty much stayed together as well last month. We’re gonna pay for this at some point, aren’t we? Rest of 2024 is probably gonna be in tatters. 

Just now, TheScarlettChad said:

So what will he do when he's never allowed back? 

He’s 107 years old already. So I’m guessing nothing. 

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. 

2 hours ago, Egg Shen said:

The Matchroom vs. Queensbury press conference is on today at half 5, all five fights will be announced.

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