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[jimufctna24]

If it had been another fighter, I do not think we would be having this debate. We would dismiss it as heat in the moment But the fact is that Rampage does do a lot of silly stuff, that makes it annoying to read yet another story about him.

 

I actually like Rampage, but for years he has taken things too far. Jeff Sherwood did a long interview last year about the history of Sherdog, and he said they once had Rampage on film pretending to be "retarded" at a Christmas party they held, they have never shown the footage for obvious reasons

 

The Helwani interview a few years back was just shocking. Squaring up to Helwani is like starting on Louis Theroux.

 

I would not like to be his P.R man

Edited May 20, 2014 by jimufctna24

[Gooner]

Has King Mo ever beat anyone of note?

 

He dominated Gegard Mousasi in 2010. That was his best win. I think the thing with Mo is, people feel like he's more talented than he shows. You see brief flashes of it but he never seems to be able to put it all together. Add to that his horrible history of injuries and health issues. Plus some questionable career choices (going mental at that commission lady and calling her racist, the disjointed camps and moving around gyms etc) he's just never seemed to be able to find consistency.

 

Ortiz suddenly thinks he is special again for beating a guy who weighs 20lbs less than him.

 

Ah let him have his moment...actually fuck that. Did anyone see the post-fight press conference? Jesus Christ. Fair enough, it was a nice moment and a lot of fans are happy for him, but fuck me, his little speech at the presser. I say little but it went on forever. I forgot how much bollocks he talks when he wins. It's been so long.

 

Is Mousasi that good though? I only saw him a few times in Strikeforce and the UFC and I wouldn't say I saw anything special in him. He's a strange one as I have heard of Mo for years and was surprised at the least amount of fights he has had, but makes sense with you bringing up about him having a lot of injuries and health problems. He done better then what I thought he would, but then again maybe I was expecting too much of Rampage.

 

I give Ortiz his due he has done well marketing himself during his career. He just loves to recycle the same nonsense every time I ever hear him talk after a fight whether he wins or loses. Him against Rampage would be about five years too late, but I'm sure some would still tune in and want to watch the fight. I would think that be the biggest money making fight Bellator could make with the roster they have.

[Egg Shen]

oh Mousasi's world class no doubt. He seems to blow hot and cold form-wise because he has performances where he looks like he can't be arsed, but on other occasions it appears that he effortlessly beats very good fighters, he just has an extremely laid back approach to fighting.

[wandshogun09]

Yeah and Mousasi was in the form of his career when Mo beat him. Mousasi was on a 15 fight win streak including the DREAM GP win and wins over Jacare, Hunt, Lombard, Babalu, Sokoudjou, Kang and Manhoef. Not all world beaters but that's a pretty impressive streak. And Mo broke that streak with a shutout decision.

 

He's still a good fighter but I'm convinced he's not what he was before the staph infection and injuries. Phil Baroni was on about it before the PPV saying he thinks Mo is only just getting back to his old self now. And Mo himself said that during his bout of staph, he dropped right down to 180-something pounds. He was really fucked up health wise for a while there. Maybe there's better to come from him still yet. I hope so.

[Egg Shen]

i thought Mo looked pretty good Saturday, i also think Rampage showed he's got more left in the tank than people think. What you have to remember is that when people fight Rampage they have to be weary of the power, so it leads to people being very hesitant on the feet and pick their spots, when people open up against Rampage it usually leads them to being laid out on the ground, that's why there's been so many frustrating Rampage performances over the years, it's a lot down to the fact that fighters do anything to avoid fighting him at his own game. Mo had a great first round but after that looked to pick points to win a decision when his takedown wasn't as effective, he fought a decent fight but i had Rampage winning due to damage and that he was simply coming forward looking to end things in round 3.

 

Mo's after-fight stuff was weird but it just seems like Mo's a horrible loser, he's got excuses for every fight he's lost...or he simply doesn't believe he lost them.

 

I still can't believe he called Bjorn a "dick riding muthafucker" live on PPV, twice!

[Egg Shen]

New champ Will Brooks continues to bash Bellator twitter rant.

[wandshogun09]

Mo had a great first round but after that looked to pick points to win a decision when his takedown wasn't as effective, he fought a decent fight but i had Rampage winning due to damage and that he was simply coming forward looking to end things in round 3.

 

Mo's after-fight stuff was weird but it just seems like Mo's a horrible loser, he's got excuses for every fight he's lost...or he simply doesn't believe he lost them.

 

Yeah he does make excuses but he's no worse than Rampage for that. Rampage might be second only to Tito on the post-fight excuses scale. He even excused the loss to Wanderlei the second time as being down to him 'being saved' and 'finding God' the first day of training camp. If God's such a help to MMA fighters as many of them claim when they win, surely 'being saved' would've helped not hindered him against Wandy. He blames the Shogun loss on a bad camp etc, I think he said the reason Jardine nearly beat him was because he was injured. He's terrible for it. The only reason we haven't seen that whinging side of him lately is because he's been in the win column. I've always said that Rampage's mood seems to depend almost entirely on the outcome of his last fight. If he drops a few losses in Bellator (which I can't really see with their current 205 division), he'll start hating Bellator and slagging them off at every opportunity, just like he did when he couldn't hang in the UFC anymore.

 

I think in this case, Mo has a legitimate gripe. I really think that was a bit of a bullshit decision. I won't call it an outright robbery, I'd have to rewatch it, I'm always hesitant to call something a straight up robbery. But it was a bad decision IMO. I don't think Rampage did enough. It wasn't as clear cut for Mo as the first round, but he still did way more than Rampage that last round, to me. The damage done to Mo was mostly in round two, I don't think Rampage landed any more than three or four decent shots in the last round, and he spent the remainder of that round either getting taken down or trying not to be. It wasn't pretty but I felt Mo did enough to where it should've been a pretty simple one for the judges to score.

Edited May 22, 2014 by wandshogun09

[bono]

Any news on the bellator ppv buyrate?

[Loki]

I think in this case, Mo has a legitimate gripe. I really think that was a bit of a bullshit decision. I won't call it an outright robbery, I'd have to rewatch it, I'm always hesitant to call something a straight up robbery. But it was a bad decision IMO. I don't think Rampage did enough. It wasn't as clear cut for Mo as the first round, but he still did way more than Rampage that last round, to me. The damage done to Mo was mostly in round two, I don't think Rampage landed any more than three or four decent shots in the last round, and he spent the remainder of that round either getting taken down or trying not to be. It wasn't pretty but I felt Mo did enough to where it should've been a pretty simple one for the judges to score.

 

Apologies if this seems like a newb opinion, but.. the reason I thought Rampage won was because he was effective in the areas of the fight he was looking to be effective in. He landed damaging hits in the standup. Mo got takedowns, but then couldn't capitalise on them and show aggression or finish the fight. Rampage seemed comfortable defending and eventually getting back to his feet.

 

It's a boxing thing also, but I look at the faces of the fighters at the end, and Mo looked to have had a worse time of it than Jackson.

[wandshogun09]

Nah I see the logic there Loki. But by the same logic Mo wanted that fight on the ground and he was pretty successful at it for a lot of the fight. To be fair I might need to rewatch the last round, I haven't seen the fight since it first aired. I think most agree it came down to the last round, with Mo taking round one and Rampage taking round two. And in the third, I just thought Mo had more of the round and Rampage didn't do enough damage in that round to me to offset that.

 

It's a boxing thing also, but I look at the faces of the fighters at the end, and Mo looked to have had a worse time of it than Jackson.

 

He definitely looked worse yeah. But under the 10 point system used in MMA that means little. If it was a fight on the street you'd look at the two after and think 'fuck, Mo took a hiding'. But with rounds and the point system, it's different. Rampage did the majority of his damage in the second round. But I felt he lost the other two rounds so it wasn't enough to take the decision.

 

Plus judging on how the guy looks post-fight (while I see why people do that) can be very misleading. I mean look at Georges St Pierre here;

 

 

This was after he'd dominated Nick Diaz last year in a fight where he won every round and barely even lost a minute.

 

Diaz looked like this after the fight;

 

You could be winning a five round fight, dominated every minute of every round, and then get clipped with an elbow that splits your forehead wide open in the last ten seconds of the fight but the fight goes to the judges. You would probably look worse but you definitely won the fight. Plus some guys just mark up easier anyway.

 

This Rampage vs Mo fight wasn't the same thing, of course. It certainly wasn't as dominant as GSP vs Diaz was. But I just thought Mo had more of the fight and it wasn't like Rampage was doing huge amounts of damage. He landed a few good punches over the course of 15 minutes. The rest of the time he spent either on his back or trying to defend the takedown. I don't think you should win the round if you're put on the defence for most of it.

 

It's the old, what scores more damage or control?, debate. Usually I'd go with damage but when the damage all comes from a few punches and the other two rounds you were pretty much nullified, I'd give it to the guy who controlled the fight.

 

Soz, I've rambled a bit there.

[seanz25]

Any news on the bellator ppv buyrate?

 

If I recall correctly Meltzer said it was somewhere around the 65,000 range. Apparently officials where pretty happy with it. Wasn't exceptional but not too bad either.

 

Anyone know if the Glory show this Friday is on TV here?

[wandshogun09]

GLORY? I don't think there is a show this Friday is there? I thought the next one was in June with Ghita vs Verhoeven. Cro Cop's on the fucking prelims of that one.

 

65K is better than I expected for Bellator. I'm sure I remember reading that they were aiming at around 50K or something but I could be wrong. If so they've got to be happy. It's not a great number but you can't expect a non-UFC PPV in the current climate to do too much better than that. That's with losing Alvarez vs Chandler as well so not bad going, under the circumstances. I guess it depends what Viacom were wanting though. That's who Bellator have to keep happy.

Edited May 27, 2014 by wandshogun09

[seanz25]

My bad meant ONE FC.

 

And yea a solid number in my eyes, a lot of people still had time to cancel etc if they'd already purchased with the exclusion of the Alvarez fight. Meltzer noted there gonna do another one for sure, with the aim too be 2-3 stacked PPV shows a year. That was from today's show.

[Egg Shen]

didnt a OneFc card air on a channel over here recently? or did i dream that?

 

i think the show definitly airs on an online PPV but other than that i dont know, i wanna see the Askren fight.

[wandshogun09]

Ah right, I forgot One FC was happening this week. Haven't even looked up the card.

 

Two or three Bellator PPVs a year might be a bit ambitious. They better get signing more headline guys, although where from is anyone's guess. I don't fancy them doing even 10K with something like a Cheick Kongo vs James Thompson PPV. Seriously, I hope they can make it work. But considering they had to cancel the first PPV attempt just because Tito fell out with injury, I'm not sure how they're going to hold two or three 'stacked' PPVs a year. A stacked Spike show they can do easily, when you're asking people to part with money though, it's a different thing. Signings like Sokoudjou and Thompson are fun additions to the roster but they're going to have to do better than that to make people hit 'buy', surely.

 

They're good for the next PPV though. Something like Alvarez vs either Chandler or Brooks as main event. Then Rampage vs Mo 2, fuck maybe even Emanuel Newton vs Tito? If not then they can always do Rampage vs Tito. Some variation of Doug Lima, Pat Curran, one of the Pitbulls, Michael Page. Couple of them on the main card and you've got a very solid card. Match those guys up with the right opponents and its a better card on paper than the last PPV was to me.