Shane O' Mac Version 2

Top two fights are of interest to me in this one. Makhachev is clearly a major prospect, and I'm curious to see how Miesha Tate looks in her return. She appears more jacked than I've ever seen her, but then again, Ronda Rousey looked in the shape of her life for the fight with Amanda Nunes, so muscles don't always tell the full story.

Admittedly, may not watch this live. Not invested enough to sit through all the ads and fluff in between fights. I do want to make a habit of watching all the shows again generally though. Thinking I'll watch Impact Slammiversary to see who they scooped up from WWE, then jump back to UFC after.

The first 30-40 minutes was ace. Felt like a PPV with the monster reactions to Vince and everyone in the six man, plus the match was really fun and the crowd were into it. Then Sami and the return of Finn Balor, who at least appears to be keeping some of his Prince presentation for now- was big time.

After that seemed to settle into business as usual for a regular Smackdown. Couple of big spots in the Fatal 4 Way but the match overall was standard fare until Owens' madness.

5 hours ago, mrtrickio said:

Agree. But he still seems a bit like he doesn't like the product at times. Think it was half way through the Christian / Hardy match but the JR comment "I'm so glad we have time limits" seemed very sarcastic and snide. It was met with complete silence by Excalibur and Tony Schiavone.

I thought he sounded very sarcastic too, but then I remembered that I've heard him talk about time limits before in a very positive way. Think that's the old NWA/WCW announcer in him. But I think sarcastic/snide is just JR's default tone these days, even when he's being sincere. Grumpy old bastard.

I might be biased because it was the first- and largely due to COVID, only- WrestleMania I've attended, but this has to be one of the best modern-day ones. A freaking rollercoaster!

Plus a ring above the ring. It's like they wanted to make up for years of bad sets on one show.

Just watched the prelims too, completing the card for me. Woke up 11am Sydney time, just in time for Price vs. Pereira, which was an incredible way to set the tone as my "opener" for the show. I'm starting to think that they haven't put MIchel Pereira in the game because they can't figure out how to program his moves into the game. A standing backflip into mount, Jesus.

Condit vs. Griffin was fun, but I'm beginning to think it's near the end of the road for the Natural Born Killer again. He got chewed up by those leg kicks of Griffin, sure, but he just seemed a step too slow to move and react generally.

The rest of the prelims were great fun. I enjoyed seeing Zhumagulov get that high angle guillotine, he's fast becoming an undercard favourite of mine, and seeing Ryan Hall get sparked in the middle of his leg diving shit was strangely satisfying. I don't dislike the guy, but it's clear he only has one (very dangerous) way to fight. du Plessis got a wild KO outta nowhere and Tavares/Akhmedov had a hard-hitting 3 rounder. Bit of everything.

Main card was the goods for me. Moutinho had all the heart in the world. Didn't like the stoppage, I know he was getting battered but he was hardly defenceless, he rocked O'Malley's shit about 6 seconds prior and was clearly with it still. It was a weird and arbitrary time to call it, he didn't fall, stumble or stagger, and he didn't go a prolonged period without landing shots of his own. Would have given him the last 30 seconds personally, but I guess Herb had money on a Suga Sean stoppage or something.

Aldana vs. Kunitskaya was good while it lasted. The women's divisions need more hard hitters so it's good to see Aldana really start to stand out as a finisher.

Tuivasa vs. Hardy is one of the biggest babyface vs. heel matches the UFC have ever put together. How can anyone hate Tuivasa? He's a good dude, a bit rough but it's part of his charm, and he sparked woman-beating cunt Hardy in seconds. Over the moon. Even as an Aussie though, I can't get behind the Shoey. So unsanitary. Volko did one online too. C'mon mate.

Burns vs. Wonderboy was fun, but played out how I expected. Funny how spoiled the Vegas crowd were with an action packed show- they booed the shit out of Burn's tactics as the first fighter on the card to use grappling for a prolonged period- and it was the co main. Burns was smart, Wonderboy had something of a hope spot with that spin kick late, but Burns gets it down. Also laughed my arse off at them trading strikes on the ground at the end of one of the rounds.

And the main event... look, Conor looked good in the early moments. Imagine if he wiped out Poirier with one of those spin kicks? And the leg kicks seemed to be working well- until they weren't. Conor proceeded to get smashed on the ground after inexplicably thinking he could catch a gullotine. He got battered. And now because of a freak accident, Conor's sitting there like Vince at the end of the 05 Rumble, shouting like a cockhead about Poirier's wife and "doctor stoppages". I hate that this has given the fuckwit a lifeline. I've soured on him so much after the second Poirier fight. I really thought he was maturing for a minute there. I got worked. Please fuck off forever, McGregor.

Poirier was excellent. He won't get the credit for this win, but hey, maybe he can turn people around when he fights Oliveira for the title. Tough one for me, been a big fan of both since 2010/11. Was more an Oliveira fan, but everything about the way Poirier's carried himself through these last two Conor fights has made me more of a fan of him. Including telling the booing crowd to "kiss his whole asshole". They were giving him shit for the cardinal sin of not being the bus-smashing, old man bashing, sex pest coke fiend Conor McGregor. Fook 'em all. 

9 minutes ago, RancidPunx said:

McGregor genuinely seemed pathetic in that. His act is beyond cringe at this stage.

Like i felt pity for him, and that takes something .

 

I agree, except I felt no pity for him. Was once a massive fan, then the bus incident and all the shit surrounding it made me sour on him. The "reformed family man" thing he was selling heading into the Cerrone fight and 2nd Poirier fight almost made me give him another chance, then he just acted like a complete twat in the wake of both of these losses. I just want him to go away now. No rematch, leave the UFC, don't show up in WWE... just go box the Paul brothers or something, I don't have to give a shit about that. 

Ah. Fight Pass must be region-based then, I went there first and the most recent one I could find was TUF 28. Might need to find a quality VPN- my anti-virus has one in-built but the sites I've tried recognise that I'm trying to use a VPN and block it. Tried to get onto Peacock so I could watch Young Rock.

Just played catch up on the fights. Both pretty good ones, and I really enjoyed Turcois vs. Argueta. Nice to see Volko's team getting on the winning track.

My issue I keep missing it live. I'm not sure when it's meant to air in Australia, seems to be all over the place on ESPN. One week it was Wednesday, another it was Saturday, another week I checked on both days and it was neither. There's no option to watch on demand- even though there is with most other shows/channels, and I've got nothing to record with. Luckily, I remembered about a site I've used to watch wrestling, which also has UFC stuff.

If I can't find it on ESPN again, I'll go back to the site next week. Interesting story of Josh and Brady being friends and roommates and having to battle. Also the old young lion vs. old lion things. Hopefully it's a good one. 

1 hour ago, Shy Dad said:

Twitter and Instagram instantly going the "9 months...must be pregnant" route is exhausting.

Agreed. What, is she supposed to pop out a kid and turn up on the following Smackdown?

Yeah, watched the press conference this morning and it was a bit sad. Conor seems like a desperate, insecure man. He tried his old hits, and it was immediately shut down with Poirier's simple, factual, "you got knocked the fuck out!" You could see the cogs turning in McGregor's head as he tried to think of a good comeback. Problem is, there really is none. The shit talk doesn't work when we had the result we had in January. Even that guy that brought up Conor's record- one win since Obama was prez- McGregor just tried to shout at him and drown him out "Shut yer mouth! Ya fooking rat!" There's really nothing he can say to gain any credibility. It's gotta be done in the cage now.

I wasn't really a WCW guy, but I came across Sting vs. Flair as a DVD extra on one of the WWE Bashes. Amazing match.

I'll get to WCW one day. Just didn't have access to it at the time, and watched select matches/shows over the years, but been prioritising working through WWE archives first. Might use some of the good suggestions in this thread to get the ball rolling. Seen a few Mysterio WCW matches- was Mysterio vs. Malenko GAB 1996, or have I mixed up PPVs in my head? 

From WWE, most of their attempts at the Great American Bash have been shit. Although Cena vs. Lashley at GAB 2007 is pretty quality. Also on that show- it wasn't a classic or anything, but it was cool seeing Orton vs. Dusty Rhodes in a Bullrope Match. Dusty might have been well past it at that point, but god was he charismatic.

Even Cole sounds momentarily caught off-guard by how frantic those camera cuts are. 

44 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

The scary thing is that the people who actually write, produce and approve stuff like that genuinely think it's good. Everyone involved in this company lives on a different fucking planet from the rest of us.

Do they think it's good though? Sometimes I don't think they give the slightest shit, especially in the last year or so. As long as they're producing CONTENT in these pandemic times, that's the bottom line.

Alternatively, there's only one person in the company that thinks "it's such good shit!" and everyone's too scared to tell him otherwise.

Definitely watching this season for Volko, but Ep 1 was pretty dull in all honesty. One of the only interesting bits was how the guys who ended up Team Ortega wanted him to be the coach, while Volko's guys seemed fairly ambivalent about it all. Seems like a continuation of the general narrative I see across my MMA pockets of social media where Alex doesn't get the respect he deserves. Mostly because of that razor-close 2nd Max fight, but even after the first one, people were shitting on Volkanovski. I get that people love Holloway- honestly I'm a big fan too- but Volko put on a masterclass in his title win.

The other thing was how the picks for fighter/fights went about. I'm not a TUF diehard, but from the seasons I recall, it always seemed a better choice to pick the first fight rather than the first fighter. Sure, you run the risk of not getting your #1 draft pick, but you can stack the odds in your favour in the early going by putting #2 against the other team's #8 and so on. Seems to be how it played out to start the tournament here too. Volko's guy looked absolutely lost when it hit the ground.

7 hours ago, Tamura said:

Rape and sexual assault accusations have a tendency to make people rethink friendships, strange as it may sound. 

In an ideal world, yes, but some people sadly have trouble with that concept. I'm a teacher. A guy I went to uni with was busted the other week for having kiddie porn. While I'd like to see him rot in jail and experience some prison justice, there's a segment of my friends that are trying to avoid condemning him and are thinking more along the lines of "oh no, what's going to happen to him? How will this affect his life?" Because they were such close friends, it's like they don't want to believe or face the reality of what he did.

Really enjoyable card. 

I'm over the moon about Oliveira's victory. He got through some dicey spots in the first round. I re-watched the fight this morning and it wasn't quite as bad as it seemed live. Oliveira stayed calm and escaped the early guillotine, but the subsequent damage felt a lot worse in the moment knowing Chandler's power and Oliveira's track record of wilting under pressure. He took maybe 3 hard shots on the ground but otherwise largely kept Chandler at bay. Then he went Super Saiyan to start R2.

On the other end of things, Tony Ferguson getting handled like that for the second fight in a row was depressing as hell. At least the Gaethje loss was a barnburner. Oliveira and now Dariush shut Tony down completely. And between Ferguson and Cerrone lately, it's hitting home that I've been a dedicated UFC fan long enough to see the UFC debuts, rise, and fall of some of these fighters. I watched sporadically throughout the 2000s but it was really 2010 when I started watching enough to consider myself a proper fan.

Really looking forward to this. It's a weird one for my normal watching dynamic for UFC PPVs- I normally get my uncle and brother to come around to watch. Brought this show up and they weren't keen on it, but I'm still getting the PPV and making a day of it.

I've been a fan of Oliveira since 2010. The first fight of his I actually saw of his was the Efrain Escudero fight. He got booted in the nuts, took a moment to recover and came back pissed off. He submitted Efrain moments later. He was almost like he went Super Saiyan or something. So I was hooked from that point. He's had his ups and downs, but the last couple of years it seems like it's really come together for Oliveira. So while he might not have the "casual" appeal, this feels as big as almost any event to me. And Chandler's being a great foil and feels fresh/exciting, being new to the UFC.

Also hoping Ferguson can rebound from his loss to Oliveira.

34 minutes ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

Hangman Page & Christian Cage vs Ethan Page & Brian Cage, winners get the rights to use the surnames Page and Cage respectively.

I know we criticise WWE for going Bubba Poon on most of their new signings but at least it avoids scenarios  like this.

It's really not confusing though. For me, that's why I dislike a lot of WWE naming conventions... there's the underlying assumption that people will get mixed up, "oh, Adam, you need to change your name because we already have an Adam" or "last names only, full names are too complicated". Like wrestling fans are too dumb to comprehend people sharing names.

No one is ever going to think that Christian Cage and Brian Cage are the same guy.

On 5/1/2021 at 4:12 AM, LaGoosh said:

Unfortunate, but it was always going to be a potential drawback to being on a top network. Didn't this always used to happen with WCW too?

I understand that it'd never happen because we're the minority and the NBA and its audience is the majority, but I wish with stuff like this, that real sports had to work around wrestling. I couldn't give the slightest shit about basketball (or most sports really). Wish that they'd go, "well, we can't have our game on TNT Wednesday night because AEW Dynamite is on, we'll shoot our hoops on Friday night instead." 

The Austin one is 100% new. Talking heads Foley and JR are circa 2020, not circa 2003, and the clips of Austin talking show him aged and wearing Broken Skull merch.

Steph De Lander- Indi Hartwell's real life bestie- just got signed to WWE, announced as part of the WWE PC class today. Headlining the list of recruits is Sarray, who just made her TV debut. So, I expect SDL to show up on NXT any week now to throw Candice around- and maybe Johnny as well.

https://www.wwe.com/shows/wwenxt/article/wwe-performance-center-international-recruits-april-2021

Also, if you're unfamiliar with Steph, a little more on her here- as well as Matty Wahlberg, another Aussie wrestler that got signed as well.

http://snapmayorsmedia.com/australian-wrestling-news/aussie-standouts-matty-wahlberg-steph-de-lander-among-newest-wwe-signings/

Awesome performance by Whittaker. Genuinely shocked that Kelvin walked through some of those shots.

A more patient, composed Whittaker could actually give Adesanya a fight. He was pretty reckless in that title loss. Think he thought he could take Izzy's power after surviving Yoel's best. Calm Rob is a problem. He looked leagues about Gastelum, who was still game all five rounds.

Man, imagine if Whittaker and Askren both score KOs this weekend? It'd be like Christmas! 

Askren getting paid handsomely here compared to his MMA fights so doubt he really gives much of a shit how this goes. On the off-chance that he looks decent, it'll still get scored for Jake Paul. Probably the same judges that judged Tyson vs. Jones Jr. last year.

Stlll hoping for a miracle KO. Ben Askren would immediately become everyone's favourite fighter.