Dai

Yeah that Grant fight was very good. Shocked me when I saw Grant though, I remember him from what seems like an eternity ago in the Ultimate Fighter, crying because his opponent missed weight. Good to see him still about.

Not sure I would use the phrase 'fresh contender emerging' with regards to the main event. 'Sacrificial lamb' would be more apt. Through the whole fight I was just thinking how light years ahead Nunes is compared to both of them, it's not going to be pretty when either of them are going to be fed to Nunes. 

I can only assume Guardians of the Galaxy is getting such good reviews because of the very low expectations going in after the Avengers game? Its a slightly better than average game, and nowehere close to as good as Spiderman and the Batman games. The lack of opportunity to switch between all of the main characters seems like a massive blunder. As with Spiderman, the fighting gets repetitive, so if you had the ability to fight the goons as Drax, for example, it would have kept things fresher through the game. This might be the glitchiest game Ive ever played too, which in 2021 is surely not acceptable. Im playing it on the Xbox One, so I assume there isnt much attention being put into this version of the game, which results in really poor graphics at some points, the dialogue stopping midway through a conversation, characters merging into each other, lots of lag, and an insanely long loading time to reload a checkpoint after you die. I guess this is just the way it is now for all big games on the Xbox One. All of the upgrades you can do are all fairly underwhelming too, and not as good as the ones in the Spiderman game.

Cracking fight, but there's no chance in hell this is topping anyone's FOTY list over last weeks fight, with the possible exception of Wand 😆 I think even you wont bump that fight for this one in a few days time.

I was as guilty as Max's corner in thinking/expecting Yair was wilting at the end of round two. His face was a mess, and we've seen countless times before Max go from strength to strength at this point and ruin his opponent. All the credit in the world to Yair in not just lasting the five rounds, but actually being more dangerous in the fifth. 

Ive been making my way through the whole show. Its a car crash of epic proportions, with shit arsery in nearly every match. Because of that, its unbelievably abosrbing viewing. I might do an old school, Deathmatch Interest Thread, run down of the whole show with added pictures, as I used to love that in these threads. If theres any interest I could start doing that. A few quick points about this show:

- Despite there being about 20 fans in a field for this event, the picture quality is the best Ive ever seen from an indy show. Whats crazy is that one of the camera shots has clearly come from a phone. That said, for some reason this smokes the likes of GCW in terms of picture quality.

- If youve ever seen a Carnage Cup from years gone by, its still the same 'owner' as before. There has to be a good story in here somewhere explaining how for all these years hes had the funds to do shows like this. He must have spent thousands on the weapons at this show. At some points, he goes to the ringside and pushes a weapon to the wrestler who he wants to use it, just like boy whose playing with real like action figures.

- This is wrestling, so until Rare shows his severed finger, Im going on the assumption that it was a work. Theres no other reason why they would do it away from the camera. The worst part about that was that it completley overshadowed the box cutter stabbing, which absolutley was real.

- Firecrackers look and sound tremendous. Great gimmick.

- I thought that guy sounded like the XPW guy, doing the 'Waaaaaaaaah' after every big bump. Cant believe its the same guy after all these years.

Ive not really followed PFL, so whats the catch with it? 7 x $1 million prizes on a show that no one will watch, with fighters nobody knows. I assume all the bigger stars who have been eliminated get a decent downside guarantee as well. Is it being funded by a big company as almost a tax write off, as a model like this must surely be a huge money loser.

Yeah, in a perfect world, Fedor, winning by a beautiful KO, in Russia, in a packed large arena, would be the perfect send off. Cant see it happening though.

Fedor and Arlovski are the last couple of remnants from the era most of us started watching MMA, so it will always be a feel good moment when they win. To put it in perspective, the Fedor/Arlovski Affliction match was nearly THIRTEEN years ago! That seems absurd. Even back then people were saying both were on the slippery slope down, so to see them both win the last couple of weeks of satisfying.

Anyone been keeping up with the last few of these?

Ive been a wrestling fan for more years than Id like to remember, and have never heard Johnny K9 mentioned once. Dont think hes ever been mentioned on this forum once in all these years either. That said, it was a decent watch. Its quite a razor thin link to the wrestling industry, but his story was interesting enough.

Luna's one was OK. Thought the XPW one was disappointing. The Herb Adams/UWF one was one my favourates, so was expecting more of that. Whether it was because the stories they focussed on have been done to death (New Jack throwing Grimes off the scaffold, the Messiah thumb chopping, the ECW incident), or because they couldnt get Rob Black to feature on it, it just felt a bit by the numbers. Disappointing.

Rico/Saddik was insanity. I highly recommend everyone to watch it, as its probably my favourate fight of the year. Rico standing there, with a massive fresh cut under his eye, pouring blood, after he was just dropped, was something youd see in a Rocky movie. Crazy. Rico's eye swelling horribly, and almost getting finished, to surviving the onslaught, to finishing Saddik, who gassed himself completley trying to finish the fight, was text book movie stuff. Even something like Saddik slumping on the ropes at the end of R3 was like a movie. Watch this fight!

Badr on commentary in the main event was great too. If youve ever wondered what Mousassi would be like on commentary, then this is as close to it as youll get, As the camera shows the gaping wound on Saddiks shin, which looks like hes been hit with an axe, Badr casually says "This is nothing, they should just close it" 😄

McSweeny is only 40, but looks like hes well into his 50's. Man must have had a hard life. He was clearly outclassed, and his leg looked nasty at the end. I assume he hasnt been able to walk since this fight.

20 hours ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

Curb your Enthusiasm Is back, and still as enjoyable as ever. Strong opener I feel.

It was super enjoyable, and nice to have them all back on the screens. Dont think you can ever go wrong with Leon, Jeff, Susie and Larry at this point. The blatant Audi placements were very noticable though, and quite frequent. They must have paid a nice sum to be advertised in the show. Dont think Ive ever seen it done before in Curb.

Vettori/Costa was lots of fun. You get the feeling Costa can do what he wants because hes exactly the type of fighter that Dana wanks over. Case in point, all the weight nonsense was definately forgot about by Dana after the fight, as Costa just put on a belting stand up fight. Bisping was channeling Joe Rogan in the main event too, getting obsessed with Costa gassing out. Sure, he looked tired, but every single round Costa was putting the pressure on and landing bombs. Only by R5 was Bisping back pedalling; it went from "All that extra weight puts insane pressure on your body and gas tank" in R1, to "He hasnt had a gruelling weight cut, which is helping his gas tank" in R5

The Badr fight from the last show was insane. Four body shot knock downs by Badr in a round and a half, then going in for the kill he gets KO'd by a kick to the head. Badr is never in a boring fight.

I watched Rico's last fight, and hes an animal. 6'5 and 265 of muscle. Hes essentially Overeem from his K1 days. You have to be happy for Overeem that this fight didnt go ahead, as it surely would have been a masacre. For years on end during Reems' fights, youd be on the edge all the time because of his frail chin, so this fight would have been a disater on the Bigfoot Silva level had it gone ahead.

I remember that show having no fans, no commentary, and no corners mic'd up, and it was actually a pretty good viewing experience to be able to hear every punch and grunt by the fighters. You could really hear the effort and force they were throwing, which is usually lost in the crowd noise and commentary.

1 hour ago, Supremo said:

The finish to the women’s triple threat on this show is absolutely bonkers. The most egregious, “BUT IT’S LEGAL,” moment they’ve ever done. Becky - you know, the heel - steals the pin by holding onto the ropes. Byron, doing his job correctly, points out that the heel is cheating to win; “the ropes! The ropes!” But before he’s even finished calling it and before the ref’s hand has even hit three Michael Cole angrily interrupts like a maniac; “IT DOESN’T MATTER IT’S TRIPLE THREAT!”

Amazing. Why even have heels doing heelish things if the babyface commentators are going to scream about how it’s legal, completely undermining the point. I know the answer to almost every question about WWE’s presentation is, “it’s ran by a senile maniac,” but still. There must be internal discussions about this approach. I’d genuinely love to know what they think is being achieved by endlessly justifying the actions of heels like this. It seems so ridiculously counterintuitive.

Yeah though. Best Goldberg match in years, highlighted by an incredible looking finish. Pack it in here, Bill. You’re never having a better match than this again.

If you watch it back, the ref, midway through the pin, and Becky, change their angles to try their best to make it look like he could not see it. Based on that, I assume the original plan was the 'cheating' aspect. Because it clearly looked like shit, and clearly the ref could see it, Im guessing Cole just thought it was better to go down the 'its legal'/call it as a real sport route rather than pretend the ref couldnt see it, which wasnt a bad shout to be fair.

Yeah good shout about the Eye match, however, wasnt this after Eye had had her World Title fight? Guess that would make it more of a 'main event' compared to last Weekends

When you factor in 'star power', and actual fight quality, this surely goes down as the worst main event in UFC history doesn't it? There's been worse fights as main events for sure, but never with two people who are prelim fighters. 

I assume all of the 'receipt' talk is bollocks, but if you search for 'John rare Spider boodrow' on youtube, youll see that he legit stabs Spider in the arm with a stanley knife, so hes quite known for doing disgusting things. I remember the following year they had a match, and Rare used an electric saw on Spider's arm, and you can see the cut after he does it.

Dern fell off a cliff completely after Round 2. It was shocking to see how gassed she was in R3, as you'd assume she could do that ground stuff for hours. I remember she looked fairly good in the stand up in her last fight, but she looked completely average in this one.

Suprised the commission have allowed Holland to fight again in 4 weeks time. Looking back at it, that headbutt was a nasty KO. Had it been a punch, the fight would have been over straight away, and dont they give fairly lengthy medical suspensions after those sort of KOs? I assume because it was a No Contest they can skirt around it, but surely he shouldnt be back in the gym straight away after such a bad knock.

13 hours ago, wordsfromlee said:

Gabe in The US Office. Any of the Sabre lot really.

Not having that, sorry. Gabe was fantastic. Solid addition, with some cracking one liners. Nellie would be a much more fitting choice.

As Wand said earlier, Rogan is off this show. Whats more interesting is the reason. From the news report I read, it was because he was going on a hunting trip. Is this the beginning of the end for him, do we think? Missing shows because of his standup makes somewhat sense, but surely missing shows because hes off hunting seems to suggest something more. He probably gets paid more than most fighters on the show, so losing him to save some extra cash makes sense to the bosses.

I cant get my head around the betting odds for Diaz/Lawler, other than blaming it all on the myth and mystique of Diaz. Now that Condit is done, I checked the main card of the last show Diaz was a full time fighter on (against GSP), and nine out of the ten fighters are retired. That show is truely from a different era, featuring the likes of Johnny Hendricks and Nate Marquardt. Cant understand how its a pick em fight, when Lawler is still an active and dangerous fighter.

Someone buying this show, unless seriously deranged, would surely have the lowest expectations imaginable. That this show probably still made everyone who bought it feel short changed is an impressive achievement. 

Is that an official poster? Its so bad that it makes you want the cookie cutter one they always use.

I watch every UFC show, and genuinely had no idea who 'Spann' was when I read the title before opening it. Even looking at his picture, I have no idea who he is. One of the only times ever that would be the case for a UFC event for me.

Is this the first time in UKFF history where a UFC event has had zero response in the first couple of days after the event? Usually at least one person has said something by now. Can sort of see why, most of the fights were just...there. The main card was just a blur of perfectly fine, competitive matches, with nothing really kicking into top gear. Cannonier looked pretty good against Kelvin, but you dont exactly get the feeling he'd trouble Izzy based off this though.

I remember reading something someone here posted many months ago about fighters pay. My recollection may be off, but I seem to remember regarding the double tax, I think it was an American fighter fighting in Europe getting the tax here and then over there. There may have even been issues of the US state where the fight is taking place taxing you, and then you have another 'general' tax on top of that too. Was a very interesting article.

In that article it also talked about the managers/agent/team mates fees of 10% here and 20% there. Unlike in that Gane example, they would work out the percentage on the pre tax amount, rather than post tax (in Ganes example the 20% fee becomes $70k).

The most interesting part of the story to me was the 70% tax bit. That seems insane. Must be horrible if thats the rate for the sub $100k fighters too. Imagine your purse is $80k and being left with $24k before any costs like manager/agent fees, trainers fees, travel etc, are factored in. Not much mone left at all for the amount of time spent in preparation and then having to actually fight.