David

52 minutes ago, neil said:

UFC 300 TRIPLE THREAT - MUSK VS WHITE VS ZUCK WITH SPECIAL REF DONALD TRUMP

I'd pay £19.99 to watch that.

The only thing better than the current situation would be Dana to mouth off about it, as he likely will, then the winner of Musk vs Zuckerberg to publicly challenge him to a fight. 

This fight ended pretty much as we all expected really, but like most I don't see him doing that to Wilder. Personally, I think Joshua is just going through the motions at this point. I know he's talking a good game, but he just seems like someone who not only doesn't really believe deep down that he can still reach previous heights, but I'm not all that sure he wants it.

He seems like a guy who just wants to be left the fuck alone to enjoy the rest of his life.

Fuck me. And people are critical of the UFC undercards?

Looking at Lewis' previous documented payouts, he got $400k base pay for the Spivak fight and $500k for the Pavlovich fight at UFC 277. I don't see the UFC offering a 38-year-old fighter on a 2-3 in his last five record a significant pay increase on $400k for Fight Night and $500k for PPV showings. I reckon his new deal is pretty much the same as his current one, with maybe a nice little signing bonus or something.

The question is, while he's got that eight-fight deal, is he going to fight eight times? He's fought eight times in three years, so potentially I guess? 

To make the base amount he'd have gotten for fighting Ngannou, he'll need to fight another four times on PPV in the UFC, or on another five Fight Nights. That's not even taking into account the scope for external sponsorship and so on outside the UFC. We know he gets like $20k per fight inside the UFC for their sponsorship agreement, which is peanuts really.

If I was him I'd have went all-out for an NGannou fight, made that $2 mill plus, and called it a day. 

50 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

I get that. I’ve said as much myself pretty much every time I’ve previewed his fights. But looking at it from the Garry side, it’s almost the same thing as the Neal fight. Magny’s a couple of ranking spots lower than Neal but he’s still above Garry and he’s still a logical next test. If Garry vs Magny was the original matchup instead of Neal it would’ve been perfectly logical as the next step for Garry. And like I say, usually they just sling a DWCS guy in there or some no hoper off the feeder leagues looking for a break. Garry beating someone like that wouldn’t move him any further forward really. This Magny fight at least does. 

Oh, absolutely. He may not be the most exciting fight, but he's a challenge. Since 2020 he's only lost to prime Chiesa (who was coming off wins over RDA and Condit), Rakhmonov, and Gilbert Burns.

If Garry gets a stoppage win here? He's solidified as legit.

42 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

Seen a fair bit of negativity about Magny as the substitute but I think they’ve done well to still get a ranked guy in there on this short notice. 

Magny is one of those guys who is seen, rightly or wrongly, as bland and uninteresting. 

5 hours ago, Egg Shen said:

New and untested? he's coming off a win over Petr Yan.

Not new and untested now, obviously. But this push of O'Malley isn't a new thing. He's generating that interest from fans because he's one of the few fighters where the UFC actually did their job and promoted him. Way back when he wasn't even well-known, the UFC made him into a huge deal, Dana made him sound like a huge deal. That spills over into the fans buying into him as a fighter.

Dana always goes for certain guys and gives them the "Dana treatment." Be it Conor, be it O'Malley, or more recently Bo Nickal. And they all have a certain type to them.

Young, white, with a dash of Irish blood in them. When O'Malley, Conor or Nickal are arrogant, flashy or act like they're a big deal Dana loves it. 

When it's Woodley, Mighty Mouse, Sterling, Ngannou, and even Jon Jones before he allowed himself to become weaponised against Ngannou, it's seen as them "getting in their own way" and being problematic.

I mean, when Woodley made some legitimate accusations about how black fighters are treated back in the day, what was Dana's response? He didn't say that he'd take Woodley's words into consideration, or that he'd even speak to the fighter privately. How did he deal with it? By saying the dude is a "drama Queen" then go on to tell him he should be more like a white fighter in McGregor. 

Dana has played it perfectly though, because his following is that kind of stupid fuckwit, where any claims of racism or bias is instantly met with "oh, you woke!" or "here come the snowflakes!" 

Then again, maybe I'm wrong. I mean, the kind of politics Dana espouses, the kind of company he keeps, would never suggest he's that kind of guy, right?

1 hour ago, Kfogg1991 said:

Your probably right Dana is obviously pushing him to the moon and there is no stopping that it seems. I do seem to be in the minority of people who don't like him. It's not that he's not good and talented cos he is but he is being pushed too much and too fast over others in my opinion 

As I said further up the thread, Dana has a type that he actively likes to push. And O'Malley is it. Sure, other fighters come along and he'll happily ride the wave with them and generate the money, but when it comes to guys who are new and untested, there's a certain type Dana likes to push. 

If we're honest, O'Malley is likely getting two cracks at the title anyway. If he loses to Sterling and Sterling moves up, it'll be O'Malley and Merab for the vacant title.

2 hours ago, wandshogun09 said:

Yeah Rampage has dropped a fair bit of weight as well from when he turned up against Fedor looking like Kamala without the paint. 

I saw him in Manchester in April. He still looks to be around 250lbs. Basically, a man enjoying retirement.

Obviously not wanting the challenger to have home field advantage. The bastards.

Jesus Christ.

1 hour ago, Egg Shen said:

You've changed your tune though David, you were the one openly mocking Joshua when he chose to fight Andy Ruiz on a week or so's notice a few years back 

Big difference though, he was the champion and "the man" back then. He needs to generate some wins and interest, not to mention confidence now.

36 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

Even if all the results work out and Fury, Usyk, AJ and Wilder are all coming off wins towards the end of the year, I’m not convinced those fights happen. Just seems like there’ll always be something stopping them. One of them’s gonna go and lose anyway now. You just know it. I get most of the politics shit and financial reasons why the fights haven’t happened yet but as a fan it’s frustrating to the point it’s killing my interest in the division altogether that these fights haven’t already happened by now. Not so much Fury vs Usyk because that one’s relatively new in terms of their history and build up for the fight. But the AJ vs Fury and Wilder fights should’ve been in the history books before the Saudi thing even became a factor. It’s dragged out to fuck now. 

It's a weird situation, caused primarily by Saudi inflating the market to obscene levels.

I'm not entirely sure why Usyk and AJ can't fight in Saudi until January 2024 at the earliest. It's possibly to do with them switching promoter for that part of the world to the Skill Challenge Entertainment organisation. They may be tied to their previous promoter until then, which is why they're in Saudi limbo of sorts for now.

Otherwise, why else is Usyk fighting in a 45,000 seat stadium in Poland and not in Saudi? Same with AJ? Both of those guys in Saudi, even for the fights they have at the moment, would make more money than they will fighting in the UK and Poland.

Fury is in a different camp, with his fight against Ngannou being promoted by Riyadh Season, which is Saudi Arabia's state-sponsored entertainment and sports festival happening the week of the fight. And obviously Ngannou isn't tied to any actual Saudi promoter. For now, anyway.

The end game is that we're left with a Mexican stand-off of sorts. None of Fury, AJ, Wilder or Usyk wants to face the other outside of Saudi, because they see doing that as basically wasting a big fight when they could make more money in Saudi.

It's a dangerous game to play, because if any of them lose before that it vastly decreases interest in the fights. 

As I said before, AJ is looking to get something in before his Saudi promoter, Skill Challenge Entertainment, arranges his next fight in Saudi early next year. It doesn't really matter who it is, does it? As long as he stays active and keeps winning. Amer Abdallah, their Head of Boxing, has said that he has no issue with that as long as AJ wins.

It's still a risk for AJ, and he has to be commended for it. A loss to Whyte would have been damaging enough, but a loss to Helenius would effectively kill off the big fight with Wilder in Q1 of 2024 in Saudi. 

If any of us still have hopes of seeing the top four at heavyweight face each other, we need AJ to win, Usyk to get past his mandatory, and Fury to see off Ngannou. That happening will see us get the big fights at some point between January and March of next year.

Katona has always been a weird one for me. He came in from the Ultimate Fighter five years ago, looked quite good, beat Jay Cucciniello in the featherweight finale, scored a win at bantamweight over Matthew Lopez, then dropped two decisions, one of which was against Merab. He got cut with a 2-2 record.

Since then, he's rattled off four wins in Brave. Seems like a guy who could come in and be a perennial prelims fighter, but there's nothing wrong with that. As long as he's fighting at a .500 clip he should be kept around. He's a known face, and that accent sets him apart. 

Has anyone seen the mental rumours that Fury vs Ngannou will be held under boxing rules but with MMA gloves? Surely that can't be correct? No commission would allow that, would they?

I honestly thought Diaz was gonna get stopped in the 1st, so fair play to him for coming back from that onslaught. He never really troubled Paul during the fight, though, even if he did display how tough he is.

I know he gets a lot of shit, but I actually think Jake Paul is improving with every fight. You see calls for him to man up and face a ranked boxer and so on, but the dude is only eight fights deep into his career.

He's in a weird situation, because he's such a big name that he now has to keep fighting "names" in order to pull in the fans, but he's probably at the stage now where old MMA fighters and so forth aren't really going to be able to provide a challenge. 

He's needing guys with similar records to himself, and unfortunately, they won't draw money unless they get creative with the marketing. Create a kind of Rocky type scenario where it's seen as an up & coming actual boxer looking to get his big break and so on.

Decent fight though. I enjoyed it for what it was. And that co-main was mental. Heather Hardy really had no business still being in there beyond the fifth or sixth round.

I don't see Paul stopping Diaz definitively. But I 100% expect the fight to get stopped when Diaz gets cut up, which will prompt him to moan like fuck about it being a bad stoppage.

Just now, Carbomb said:

Amazing. Just him talking about what he was doing for his own made me root for him, but that's got me hooked in proper. 

Hope he goes on to do well - his record's not the best, but now he's in the US and training there, fingers crossed he gets to the next level.

We may have finally found someone in MMA for you to root for! Until the inevitable photo of him grinning like a goon and giving the thumbs-up in a selfie with Trump, of course!

On 8/1/2023 at 8:02 PM, Gooner said:

Always fun watching one of these MMA fighters come in to the boxing world, after years of talking about how good a boxer they are, getting the biggest paycheck they have ever received to face a YouTuber in the boxing ring and getting humbled.

Virtually all of these MMA fighters readily admit that when they say "how good a boxer they are," they're talking about MMA terms. Which is vastly different.

And that paycheck you speak of is usually more than most legit boxers will ever see.

Hopefully Tommy beats the brakes off the racist twonk.

Just now, BomberPat said:

He has been cleared in the eyes of the law, which means he hasn't been sentenced, isn't going to jail, isn't paying a fine or doing any community service. My opinion that he's still a creepy sex pest doesn't carry the authority of the legal system, which should be so obvious a point as to not be worth saying, yet here we are.

Your opinion individually means absolutely fuck all (as does mine). You're correct. But let's not pretend that a groundswell of people with similar viewpoints doesn't have an impact on the likes of Spacey's future endeavours. 

We've seen numerous examples of this kind of thing over the past number of years. 

On 7/29/2023 at 5:52 PM, LEGIT said:

It's okay for anyone to choose not to work with him of course, but if people choose to employ him the angry mob shouldn't hound him and his employers.

But they will. We all know that.