Dai

Pretty solid event. I know it gets brought up nearly every event, but Mauro's hair is truely something to behold. As for the fights, Gwerder/Bestaev was lots of fun. Franklin's rep as a must see heavyweight gained more steam. I know its way early in his career, but he seems to have that Ngannou type vibe about him, where his power just seems insane. He seems to move really well for a guy whose 6'3 and 265lb as well.

Koreshkov and Moose just showed their class in their respective fights. Showed that they were on a different level to the opposition. The longer the fights went, the more obvious the difference in class became. Both good scraps, though.

Will always remember Brett Cooper for being KO'd by Doug Marshall in Bellator, in Bisping/Henderson style. Had to Wiki Doug Marshall too, as he was one of my favs for a few years, was always involved in great fights. He just fell completley off the radar, must have had a forced retirement or something,

The thing is, Gane humiliated Lewis in this match. If there is a scale of defeats, then this one is surely at the top of that scale. Cant think of a UFC PPV main event (in the last 10 years) where someone was outclassed as much over the course of a few rounds. After seeing him do this to Lewis, surely everyone from now on is going down the wrestling path.] with him.

Surely the big question, other than Big Francis, is how does he fare in the wrestling department. Black Beast, Volkov, Rozenstruik and JDS is a great list of victories, but none of those are wrestling-centric in their approach, which has definitely helped Gane. Someone like Blaydes and Miocic would be interesting to watch, to see if his footwork can actually prevent the takedowns.

How cringe was Buffers intro of Chiesa too? Talk about someone who thinks theyre way more important than what they are. Cruz is mind numbingly dull on commentary too, theres no way he should be the first reserve for PPVs.

Not sure if it's ever been me mentioned before, but Don Frye and Severn seem to have a podcast together, and they have a pretty active YouTube channel. Some vid with those two and Ken Shamrock talking about pro wrestling popped up on my YouTube. 

In that Paiva/Phillips Round 1, how can that possibly not be a 10-8 with the newish way of scoring them? He was about 5 seconds away from the ref stopping it before time ran up. Not one judge scored it 10-8, which is insanity from first viewing. 

After the Lombard incident last time, there was another brawl at this event too after the Blue Face fight. Makes them come across as really bush league when it happens.

Velazquez/Herrera was a really uncomfortable watch, I thought. Miragliota had a mare reffing it. He allowed it to go on way too long for a start. The worst thing he did, was when Velazuez got hit with two illegal shots after he shouted break three times, he gave him no time to recover, even though one of those punches knocked him down. Shocking, and actually dangerous reffing.

Starling/Robb was crazy, and reminded of the Vitor beatdown of Wanderlei from way back.

Van Zant clearly lost. She just doesnt have any power when its bare knuckle. It was an OK fight, but youre not missing much if you dont watch it.

Black Widow:

 

Was spoiler free from the prelims and was excited when Tuivasa did the business on Hardy. The anti bet quickly went downhill after that 😄 The one time I do it is the time you actually nailed most of your bets! 

My Anti-Ebb bet has just been done (leaving out the OMalley squash match) 😄

McGregor, Thompson, Tuivasa, Condit, Price -  £3 at 34/1, x10 trebles at a quid each.

Remember that time when Liam McGeary seemed destined for stardom? His Bellator run, all the way up until the Ortiz fight, was super fun, and he seemed set for a good few years of main events. Went completley downhill afer that first Davis fight, and all of his aura went that night too. Just was never the same after that. He hasnt had a fight in over two years, so the release doesnt seem that shocking considering.

Heather Hardy was always fun to watch, but it looks like shes gone back to boxing, which explains this one.

Straus seems to have been about for ages. Dont remember anything recently about him. I always picture him during those tourneys they used to run years ago.

Cant believe David, of all people, seems to have fallen for the 'Conor's been training well and will be better than last time' stuff. You only missed out on saying hes 'motivated' this time for the full house of nonsense we get with every McGregor fight these days.

 

Just rewatched the second fight. What I hadnt remembered is that Conor landed some really nice, heavy punches, and Dustin ate them without an issue. These were the world famous, Round 1, fresh, Conor punches, and they had no effect on Dustin.  He was very comfortable through the whole fight, chewed up Conors calf (which he will more than likely do this time as well), and Conor was KO'd during the first big Dustin onslaught of the fight. I can see the fight playing out the exact same way this time, especially with the kicks. Theres no reason why this fight should be a coin flip with the bookies, other than the McGregor fans blindly backing him and driving the prices out of skew. Even money for Poirier is a steal.

I'd highly recommend watching the Alves fight. Shows you how good the bare knuckle thing can be. Violent, short and sweet rounds, both guys busted up within a few minutes. Great stuff.

The Beltran and Lombard fights were enjoyable. The Lane fight was a cracker too, they busted up each other well. 

I'm with Ebb on the bare knuckle thing. Dipping into a handful of fights, with known names, every couple of months is something I'll carry on enjoying, and makes for a good alternative. The production on these things is pretty good too. 

I'd have a wager that this is about money 'negotiations'. Francis' team could have said that he's not fighting again until he is paid the cash befitting a champion. Dana fast tracks this new 'title' match as a giant FU to big Francis. An even bigger FU is given when it draws just as much as a Francis main event, and they've only paid a couple of hundred grand to the fighters. 

Are we talking about Jones now, or Jones overall? Saying Sterling is a better fighter than Jones implies to me that he means taking everything into consideration, and not just the current versions. If its the current version of Jones, then comparing this version of Jones, who has had ten years worth of championship fights under his belt, is a bit silly and pointless. I dont think theres anyone who thinks Jones now is the best version of him. Also, the guy in the vid is clearly one of those who shits on the 'old guard', so is completley discounting guys like Lyoto, Shogun, Vitor etc, as one dimensional or basic fighters.

It all boils down to this statement to me, and if you agree with it or not:

"Jones' resume has big names, but none of his opponents have had even the closest inkling of awareness that Sterling's opponents have had. None of them actively exploited his weakness".

If you believe that none of the huge amount of title challangers that Jones has had come close to guys like Pedro Munhoz and Jimmie Rivera in terms of competition, then good luck to you.
 

Ive somehow made it all the way through the video, and thought it was a massive pile of horse shit, if Im honest. I cant be bothered to go too much into detail on it, as most of the video is an armchair expert who is cherry picking at minutiae to prove his point. Check out this quote from the vid:

"Jones' resume has big names, but none of his opponents have had even the closest inkling of awareness that Sterling's opponents have had. None of them actively exploited his weakness".

Whats worse, "Closest inkling of awareness" or "working on the intricacies of details of maneuvers"? Hes basically saying that all these former world champions, and countless other elite fighters didnt 'actively exploit his weakness'. All of these world class trainers of his opponents, who have spent probably hundreds of hours analysing Jones and cooking up gameplans against him, dont have 'the closest inkling of awareness'. Maybe they havent done it because Jones is that good and didnt aloow them to?

Quote

- He panics when under fire from his opponents. 

- He doesn't throw punches in combos. 

- He struggles with kickers.

- His game works best against fighters who follow him by plodding forward in a straight line and allow him to land his linear kicks/circle out (DC, Glover, etc). 

'Plodding foward' somehow allowed DC to beat everyone in his path apart from Jones and Stipe. Guys like Gusty and Glover have somehow managed to get good records by plodding foward in straight lines as well. Again, how about missing the whole point that Jones is so good that he can neutralize these guys like almost no one else could.

Would you not panic when someone like Glover or Reyes are throwing bombs at you? All of these points are obsurd, in my opinion, as he still beat everyone put in front of him. He may 'struggle', 'panic' and 'not throw combos', yet still beat two generations of the elite.

Sterling was on a way to a loss in his last fight, which must make Yan the greatest of all time according to this guy. Ive spent far too much time on this already, but one final point. The crux of this argument is basically '135>205' in terms of opponents, so lets take a gander at Sterlings last five opponents/wins:

- Yan (Sterling was heading for a loss)
- Sandhagen (2-0 since Sterling)
- Munhoz (1-1 since Sterling and lost to a past it Edgar)
- Rivera (1-2 since Sterling)
- Stamman (2-2-1 since Sterling)

Doesnt look favourable against the murderers row of talent that Jones has fought recently or in the past either.

A few Fight Night's ago, they were promoting a TUF Post Show. How can there possibly be anyone who watches that? We have a decent amount of pretty big MMA fans on this board, and by the looks of it there are zero watching even the main TUF. I assume its content for contents sake, and a way to fulfil their TV contract with the lowest costing way to produce a show, as there cant be any way that theres people watching a TUF wrap up show.

Both the Daley and Lima fights were depressing and not very good to watch. Looks like mother nature has caught up with Semtex, as it was pretty sad that it looked like he didnt really have much threat even when the fight was standing.

Lima got outclassed in the wrestling, showed no urgency when the fight was standing or when he was on the ground. A recipe for a 50-45 loss. The strange thing is, even though he won very convincingly, it was nowhere near a star making or 'wow' performance in my opinion. Maybe because it was a very dull fight, but Im not excited at all to see what Amosov does next.

Aaron Pico, however, was tremendous. Still extremely rough around the edges, but he never stops with the aggression, which is fantastic to watch. Hes still only 24, so will be interesting to watch just how far he can go. Could be real good in a few years time.

Have to jump on the 'Like it' train as well. I 100% skip the narration intros these days, and know for a fact Id watch the Face The Pain ones if they brought them back. For as mid 00's as that song is, even watching that youtube vid gets the blood flowing way more than Ron Pearlman talking nonsense.

Cracking write up as usual, Wand.

 

Holloway/Yair is one of those fights that is almost physically impossible to be a bad watch. Should be a cracker. Also very much looking foward to watching Makhachev again. His last win over Dober was as close to Khabib vibes as anyone has been since he retired. Hoping for the same again.

Tate has had plenty of memorable moments over the years, so I cant hate on her making some extra cash at this point in her career. No matter how good she looks in this fight, can we all imagine what a rematch with Nunes would look like? Would be like another Rousey squash match if shes lucky, and not a long drawn out pumelling over 5 rounds.

Yeah, Cruz had a mare on this show I thought. Him and Bisping are not a good team. Zero chemistry. During the Dolidze vs Staropoli snoozefest, where there was a waistlock for minutes on end and Bisping was getting pissed off, Cruz compared it to Khabib, somehow not seeing how it wasnt the same. Felder is way better than Cruz with Bisping.

As the faint voice said 'Partridge you wanker', you could also hear Partridges voice become weaker as he was holding the squat for too long. Plus he also signed the Chemsex writing on the pavement

Judging from the list, by 'in Japan' and 'the country', you actually mean 'there was a poll on NJPW's website'. Steve Williams, for example, hasnt made the cut.

Oliveira/Chandler was fantastic. Outstanding first round. With hindsight, maybe Chandler should of let Oliveira up instead of the ground and pound, as DC suggested. That said, I personally think it was OK to keep it on the ground, as Oliveira wasnt that rocked, and it was good tactics to 'bank' a few minutes of wearing on him in the guard in the first round of a five round fight.

Speaking of great first rounds, the Barboza fight also had a cracking one. Great scrap, and surely the only time any of us have seen such a delayed reaction on a punch. Very scary when you think it took 5 seconds for the brain to shut down.

Its almost a year to the day from the Ferguson/Gaethje fight. It really does look like Gaethje took part of Fergusons soul in that fight. 54 weeks ago, Ferguson was considered 'the best of the rest', and the man to give Khabib his toughest test. Now hes struggling to keep a top 10 ranking. One of the biggest and quickest fall from graces of all time in the UFC, surely? Chuck, Bararo, Pettis, cant think of many more.

Was it just me who was expecting a much better conclusion to neil's story, rather than 'so I had sex with a very attractive, 5'10 blonde'? Bad sex is still not exactly a nightmare. No payoff to the 'how did the friends meet' teaser at the start of the story either, its like LIne of Duty all over again. 😉