Dai

Funny that the 200 thread was started on March 17th, FOUR months before the show. It was just a different time back then. Full of big characters (good and bad), matches and fighters you REALLY wanted to see, and a knowledge that the UFC really did give a shit about putting on a big, memorable show (their income depended on it). All of that is now gone, for me at least. There was also 199 on June 4th, then a two week gap to a fight night, then another three week gap until the 200 fight weekend. Plenty of time for people to get hyped for the show. This is a fantastic show, from bottom to top, but with the exception of one or two (ie, Max, Gaethje, etc), its just a bunch of really good fighters that I have no investment in at all. Theyre just there. The UFC plan of making the brand the selling point, not the fighter, is complete, and this show is a big indicator of that for me.

Surely its just a case of 20% just not being that much of a deterent? Just like the guy in the co main; hes essentially spending probably $10k to have a weight advantage and not have to cut the really hard last couple of pounds. By doing so he drastically increases his chance of winning and getting his win bonus. You know for a fact that these lower level fighters are terrified of pulling out of a fight and pissing off Dana. Seems like a very good risk/reward.

Cheers lads. Will definately be watching some MVC over the next few days, and Ill give those Alrbright matches a gander in a bit!

Is there a paid for service which streams the 90s AJPW stuff? Id be more than happy to pay a monthly subscription for that, rather than dig around my external hard drives for a pixelated .wmv file of the matches.

After a somewhat underwhleming last series, I think the new batch on Taskmaster all seem like they will be great value. Some great stuff on the first episode. A looking foward to what Steve Pemberton will do for this one. The Gentleman is about as Guy Ritchie as you can get. Its also a perfect fit for a binge watching Netflix show too, so its a great fit for both. A very fun, switch your brain off show that you can enjoy half asleep just before you go to bed.

What was the deal with Alrbight then? Everyone only seems to talk about his UWF run, and in all these years Ive never heard anything about his AJPW run, which suggests it wasnt up to much. Looking at his Cagematch, he was wrestling the main men in AJPW in the mid to late 90s, which surely should have produced some great stuff, yet its never really talked about. You'd think wrestling people like Kawada in 95 would produce something memorable, but seemingly not. Speaking of alternative realities, Ive just seen that in 1995, Albright and Hansen's third tag partner was RVD. Something extremely surreal about that visual.

Wasn't Bushido on Bravo too? I think I watched it on there, but it may have been Eurosport. What a killer he was though. Amazing suplexes!

Just like last week, this was a fun show, and an easy watch for a Sunday. The first four fights were really good, and worth going out of your way to watch. Talbotts performance and Shahbayan's come from behind win were the highlights of the card. The first two fights were real solid too. Zoned out of the Ribas/Rose match fairly quickly. I did see that they popped up some persons twitter post that had it 3-0 for Ribas going into R4, which was mental. Dont know how anyone on earth could of scored it 3-0 in this one. As I said, I was skipping ahead frequently in this one from around R3 onwards. Just didnt grip me. Skipped through the Tafa fight whenever it got to the ground too, as it was clear early on that Tafa had nothing on the ground.

Despite your preview posts, I just think there's so many UFC shows these days that it's almost impossible to look foward to or highly anticipate a Fight Night card. When they happen, I watch and enjoy, but there's rarely anything memorable on them and I don't really look foward to them. Maybe that's the perfect business model for the UFC though.

On a related note though, its come out that Conor is the most drug tested UFC fighter in 2024. He's been tested 5 times already, and presumably passing.

Some highlights/lowlights from the first night:Dobromyslova putting up a great fight against former BDO Number 1 Robert Thornton. Very enjoyable match. Dobromyslova is hot.The first match they showed on Sky was really poor. Not a great showcase to start the event.Richie Burnett playing abysmal.Priestley playing really well.Mardle playing shit, but still going through.Tonight it gets good, though. Couple of the best matches to look foward to:Michael van Gerwen v Robert ThorntonAdrian Lewis v Wayne MardleVincent van der Voort v Colin LloydLloyd is meant to be on fire, so look foward to see if he brings it to the TV.