David

Wasn't it announced that he'd found religion or something? Hopefully he stays retired and enjoys the rest of his life without stepping into a bare knuckle ring.

The UFC now has zero interest in actually growing the fanbase. The deal with ESPN basically killed any need for that off completely. It's gone from a live event and PPV business to primarily a television and PPV business. 

As things stand, they get paid the exact same amount of money from ESPN regardless of if they stage a show at the Apex, or in an arena in Brazil. It would appear the profit to be made from selling tickets in somewhere such as Brazil isn't worth the workload and outlay nowadays.

Dana has been cruising along on neutral since his pals sold the company if we're honest, and apart from a few key events each year when the stars align, the UFC is pretty sub-par.

Most of the promotion is done by the fighters themselves. The company always did relatively little by way of actual promotion of fighters, unless a superstar was dumped on their lap like McGregor, GSP or Lesnar, but they've taken it to a new low even by their own standards. Dana now goes out of his way to actively bash his own champions and the very people he's supposed to be promoting. He's more focused on the bullshit nonsense of the slap league.

Says it all really.

Imagine if they created some sort of boxing title for this? And Ngannou put up his UFC title belt? Fury wins, and he can parade around with the UFC heavyweight title, goading Dana with chat that he beat the "real" UFC heavyweight champion and that Jones is just a fake champ?

I'm just shocked that people still watch wrestling live on traditional television, never mind "channel hopping" during the show like they're part of a skit on MTV or something.

After the weekend, I wouldn't mind at some point seeing DDP smash his way through the Apex King.

Quick question for anyone who can be arsed answering. Is the Emergence event usually worth watching? I'm thinking of going along next month.

One thing we can be sure of, is that if Du Plessis actually beats Adesanya there will be absolute scenes in Pretoria. He's already said he's taking the belt on a tour of Africa if he wins, with the aim of promoting the martial arts lifestyle and discipline to young men and women over there.

Like I said, hopefully nothing comes of the ugly shit we saw at the weekend. The town of Hatfield where DDP lives is predominantly black African, so he likely knows all too well the shit that can come from that kind of division. 

Apologies for the double post, but another moment of class from the UFC and the fighters involved...

Just now, BrodyGraham said:

Collision's just an awful fucking slog isn't it?

I've been enjoying it. But then I'm also getting into watching ROH as well, so it seems the bar for me isn't all that high.

2 hours ago, Egg Shen said:

It's a messy one. I have no real knowledge to speak on it, but the racial divide and struggle in South Africa is well documented and this is quite clearly hitting a nerve. This is gonna be one of those buildups we're gonna have to watch through our fingers, it could up being one of the nastiest rivalries we'll ever see in the UFC. 

You just get the impression that Izzy will double down too. He'll have quotes and material prepared to fire off whenever the cameras are rolling.

I actually think it'll be fine. As you mention, South Africa is a place that has known its fair share of racial issues, and from what I've seen of Du Plessis he's all too aware of that. He seems savvy enough to not get involved, and he responded brilliantly on Saturday night. 

If anything, Adesanya will only continue to hurt his own stock if he continues down this road. He won't get a similar response from DDP, because that's just not what he does. He's not daft enough to get involved simply because when it's all over and done with he isn't buggering off to a nice house in New Zealand. He needs to live with anything he says, because he's going back to South Africa, living among and training with Africans. 

What will be interesting is seeing how this affects Izzy mentally. Because he's clearly rattled. Like I said, he leaned into his Nigerian heritage a lot, but he has seen a bit of backlash from fans in that part of the world who have sussed him out. All his talk of "bringing a UFC event to Africa" has seen responses along the lines of fans saying that the two or three weeks he'd be there promoting the event is the longest he'd ever spend in Africa etc has annoyed him.

Again, he's a cracking fighter and seems like a decent guy, but he maybe miscalculated and thought that African fans would be a bit more naive and just be happy to have someone representing them that they'd overlook the fact he doesn't actually spend time among them unless the cameras are rolling.

Not to say that those same fans see Du Plessis as their representative by any means, but the one thing they have in common with him is an actual love for their country and continent, and the fact he lives there and has no intention of leaving is a factor. Say what you will about him, and I'm sure his ancestors weren't all that pleasant (apparently his family arrived in Africa in the 1600's or something?) but that's nothing to do with him, and shouldn't be held against him. He loves his country, his gym, and his people. 

1 hour ago, Egg Shen said:

Outside of Holly Holm's hometown, nobody. That isn't the point though, if the UFC were in an arena they wouldn't present a card this poor.

As I've said before, the problem is that the UFC roster is too big, and I'd say about 60% of it nowadays consists of fighters who have no business being in the UFC. 

They stuffed their roster full of these no-names because they signed lucrative TV deals that mean they need to produce so many shows per year. So Apex shows are a necessity now, sadly. It's more of a contractual obligation than anything else, and the simple answer is to give them a miss. 

On 7/8/2023 at 7:16 PM, SuperBacon said:

@David I just want to say I really hate your avatar 🤣 please change it, it's so off-putting. 

Done.

Just now, wandshogun09 said:

At the same time though, didn’t DDP kind of start all the hostility early in his UFC run when he said he’d be the ‘first REAL African UFC champion’ or something?

He was asked how he feels representing South Africa in the UFC and how he'd feel being a South African UFC champion at the UFC 285 media day, and replied saying:

“Did those belts ever go to Africa? As far as I know, they came to America and New Zealand. I’m going to take a belt to Africa. I’m the African fighter in the UFC. Myself and Cameron [Saaiman], we breathe African air. We wake up in Africa every day. We train in Africa, we’re African born, we’re African raised, we still reside in Africa, we train out of Africa – that’s an African champion, and that’s who I’ll be.”

Since then it's been distorted to the extent that people think he said he is "the only" African born UFC champion if he wins, or that he's "more African" than Izzy. But he didn't. He simply made the (valid) point that he's one of a few active UFC fighters who were born, live, and train in Africa. 

One thing that's being missed in all of this is that there is an element of African fans who believe that some fighters of African descent like to use their heritage when it suits them and helps them to make themselves marketable, but in reality they spend all of their time living the good life in the US, New Zealand, France or Australia. 

Du Plessis is clearly someone who is very vocal about where he's from. He's never shied away from representing South Africa, or promoting the fight scene in his country. 

He's always been a bit of an ambassador for South African MMA.

I just don't think Adesanya liked some fans calling him out. He clearly knows that when African fans talk about fighters who use their heritage when it suits them but who spend very little time there, they're talking about guys like him. 

But just as I consider someone like Leon Edwards, who moved to the UK at the age of nine to be a British fighter, I certainly consider Du Plessis who was born and raised in South Africa by parents and grandparents born there to be African. 

What this boils down to is Izzy getting some backlash from African fans who don't like him playing the Africa card when it suits, but buggering off to his big mansion in New Zealand when the cameras aren't rolling. And he sees a somewhat easy target in whiteboy DDP to vent on. 

But, it seems he's not getting the reaction he wanted, as his chat has been shat on by most. As it should be. Talking about DNA tests and throwing language like that about. He needs to grow the fuck up.

7 hours ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

I think what sticks in the craw the most is, Punk and Omega would have an absolute banger of a match. 

I may be wrong, and there's obviously been a million "reports" doing the rounds, but wasn't it claimed that Punk and Omega spoke shortly after the incident and cleared the air? 

Obviously, we don't know the full story but from the outside looking in, it seems that key figures in the company are looking to try and smooth this shit out. And quite rightly, as there's money to be made here. Punk is a star in the company, and his merchandise sales etc prove that, so having him stuck on one show and not interacting with the top talent is mental, as others have said.

It seems that the company is willing to throw away a lot of money, storylines and have one of their top stars cut off from everyone else based on the feelings of what is a mid-level tag team. If Khan decided to run with Punk vs Omega as a storyline I think we know who would be upset about that.

Absolute insanity.

It's an Apex card for sure. Who the hell is actually buying a ticket to see this? i wouldn't look out the window if Holly Holm was fighting on the street.

Jones vs Miocic in 2023 is kinda "meh" to me. 

This isn't the Stipe we saw putting Cormier away in terrific fashion in their second fight. This is 40 year old Stipe who hasn't fought in two years and last we saw him he got absolutely hammered by Ngannou.

No doubt a win for Jones here will immediately have him considered the greatest fighter of all the times, and so on. But nah, it's a fight that's a bit too late for me. It would be like signing Jones vs Ngannou in three years. 

This is a card that I will be watching absolutely none of. Zero interest in any of the fights. 

Just now, sirdobbo89 said:

The Robbie Lawler victory and subsequent playing of the tribute video while he stood watching in the Octagon was absolutely wonderful.

Agreed. For once the UFC got it absolutely right. They booked him to face someone who wasn't just gonna bulldoze him and make him look like shit, and they handled the post-fight with a lot of class.

I see Dana played a blinder at the weekend.

On the matter of Conor coming back, and the fact he's not in the USADA testing pool Dana said this:

Quote

“You know, there’s a lot of business that needs to be handled before we talk about this and I was doing an interview on Friday and a bunch of f****** scumbags wrote stories that I said, ‘F*** USADA, I don’t care what USADA says.’ It’s not even remotely close to what I said, so first of all I’d like to say, ‘F*** you’ to everybody that wrote that story, number one. And number two, there’s a lot of stuff that has to go on before he fights."

“My point was no matter who’s talking about it, whether it’s USADA or whoever and this and that, it’s not even worth talking about right now. Everybody wants to keep bringing it up so that pieces of s*** can write stories like that. Never did I say, ‘I don’t give a s*** what USADA thinks’ or disrespecting USADA or anything like that. It doesn’t matter what anybody says, I don’t know how this whole thing’s going to play out. Let’s wait and see.”

Here's what he said on the Friday to TSN. An exact quote:

Quote

“We’ll see how that plays out. They’re saying that now, but we don’t-who knows? I don’t talk about s*** until s*** happens. To sit here and think hypothetically how a million different things could happen, no idea. … The Conor thing, who the hell knows how that’s going to play out? Who cares what USADA says, we’ll see what happens when it happens. So I don’t know.”

So he loses his shit with reporters for reporting that he said he didn't care what USADA says. Despite literally saying that he doesn't care what USADA says a matter of days previously?

Just now, Bruce85 said:

Yeah the Izzy/DDP face off was pretty dreadful! God knows what levels that might sink to in the coming months! 

It appears that the level it dips to will be entirely down to how Adesanya decides to play it, he's the one making an arse of himself. It's mental, because he's clearly a very good fighter and was a seemingly cool guy, but he's losing a lot of fans of late. His antics after knocking out Pereira and how he reacted to his son, and now his antics last night? I heard reports that he was drunk, but still. 

Du Plessis has opened some eyes this weekend, including mine. Fucking hell, he handled Whitaker as if he was a nobody. That was mental. 

So, we're getting Mark Briscoe subbing for Eddie Kingston at Death Before Dishonor against Claudio for the title. As much as I'm a fan of Briscoe, and have loved the feel-good storyline surrounding him since the horrible crash with his brother, I'm not sure I want to see him as world champion.

16 hours ago, sj5522 said:

It was his breakout year and the year he switched from the old CHIKARA ant gimmick to this one. I watched US indies like Beyond and GCW then so I saw him plenty. He's still having the same matches he was then.

And the fans are still loving them.

4 hours ago, Dai said:

Seems bizarre that Longo has allowed him to do the fight just based on what a super small minority of the fans may think about him. Doesn't make any sense if this truly is the reason. 

Longo hasn't allowed him to take the fight based on a small minority of fans. Sterling has taken the fight because he's basically been pushed into a corner, and he's a fighter. Make no mistake, Dana has been around these types of guys long enough to know what pushes their buttons.

We all know how it would have went. If Sterling had "pulled out" of the announced fight, do you think when Dana gathers the media for one of his chats he'd have said "Well, Aljamain had some injuries to deal with that prevented him fighting. We should have checked that shit out before announcing anything, but, y'know, Ngannou was set to announce his PFL deal and we all know I couldn't have that in the headlines, so I threw a tantrum and basically just made some shit up to keep the guy out of the headlines. My bad."

Of course not.

He'll say something along the lines of "Look, the kid doesn't want the fight. We booked the fight, O'Malley is ready to go, but for whatever reason Aljo isn't fighting." Then he'll launch into his tired nonsense about how he can't make people want to fight.

Then someone in the media will cautiously mention the injuries and the fact he fought like ten minutes ago and Dana will just smirk and shrug, saying "it is what it is." 

Which is basically insinuating that Sterling is afraid, a "pussy" for acting injured, or whatever. 

Honestly, how the guy can get away with calling himself a fucking promoter I don't know. If he put half as much energy into promoting his fighters as he does that dumb slap league crap we'd maybe have some more legit stars in the company, rather than having to rely on some coked-up Irish has-been to prop up the PPV business.

10 hours ago, Dai said:

Not to defend Dana, but how is he forcing Aljo to fight, when Wand's detailed all these other champs taking as long as they want between fights? Is there any detail, apart from one sentence from Aljo? Surely all Dana can do is threaten with the creation of an interim champ, which Aljo shoudnt really give a shit about.

Well, after the Cejudo fight Sterling was dealing with injuries. It happens after a long training camp and a five round fight, so that's not anything out of the ordinary. Most champions would assume they'll get a few months to rest up, and maybe even get a little longer if the prognosis on their injuries is bad.

But Dana then announced the title fight between O'Malley and Sterling for August before Sterling had even agreed to the fight or signed the contract. Remember when he needed a whole bunch of news items to release so he could try to bury Ngannou's announcement? Yeah, the fight was one of those.

Dana announced the fight while Sterling was still waiting on x-rays coming back from his doctor. 

Ray Longo went public, saying that while the UFC had announced the fight, Sterling hadn't signed a contract. There was no agreement made. In fact, Aljamain had said he hoped he'd be cleared and able to fight in September. 

But this is how Dana rolls. What starts as Sterling, the actual fucking champion, saying he would get medical feedback and then come back to the UFC about a potential September date, ends with Dana White announcing an August fight between Sterling and O'Malley.

Now, if Sterling says "guys, I'm not cleared to fight. I don't have enough time to heal and have yet another fucking training camp all within three months of going five rounds with Cejudo" it isn't a case of him not agreeing to the fight. It's now him pulling out of the fight injured, which is totally different. The fans will be all over him on that, Dana was already making comments about how Sterling "can't get out of his own way" and shit like that.

It's all optics. White knows how to play the fans, and now Sterling is in a position where he really can't pull out of a fight he never actually agreed to take in the first place!

White is an absolute scumbag of a guy. He's literally the worst of the worst. People talk about the likes of Frank Warren? White is double the scumbag he is.

Makes his win even more impressive.

The legend of the Apex Predator grows!