The new MMA general news, events and thoughts thread

[the_mole]

3 minutes ago, Noah Southworth said:

Important fights don’t need belts to be important. A belt can make a fight important, or even more important, but only if it’s a belt that people think means something. Simply creating a belt to add to a fight in the belief it’ll make it more important won’t work. The belt first needs to be made important, by stars and fighters people care about competing for it. And you need the fighters to be important before they can make the belts mean something. That’s the problem that needs to be solved first before you add more titles to the mix, and unfortunately, it’s a problem that can’t be solved easily and is more down to luck than anything else.

Adding more belts means more for fans to keep up with.  It’s difficult enough keeping up with the eleven champions the UFC currently has; you seriously don’t understand how adding even more belts will make things even more chaotic, more difficult to keep up with? Order and logic doesn’t inherently mean easy to keep up with.

Adding more weight classes doesn’t tackle the real problem behind the issue with weight cutting, which is the mentality to try and have as much of a weight advantage over your opponent as possible. If the problems with weight cutting are to be fixed, that mentality needs to be addressed and dealt with. More weight classes do nothing to help the situation because they’re not dealing with the root cause of the problem.

The new CSAC rules are clearly there to stop extreme weight cutting, you won't be able to put on more than 10% of your body mass on the same day weigh in, they will let you fight if you look healthy but will tell the promoter X needs to move up a division. The doctor doing your medical will also take your weight a month and a week away from fight night and you would have to be under a certain limit.

[Noah Southworth]

1 minute ago, the_mole said:

The new CSAC rules are clearly there to stop extreme weight cutting, you won't be able to put on more than 10% of your body mass on the same day weigh in, they will let you fight if you look healthy but will tell the promoter X needs to move up a division. The doctor doing your medical will also take your weight a month and a week away from fight night and you would have to be under a certain limit.

Rules that not everyone will follow. The only long term solution to the issue of weight cutting is to deal the mentality behind it. Anything else is just superficial and ultimately meaningless.

Also, the rules of the CSAC won’t necessarily be followed by everyone. The rules of MMA itself are called the ‘Unified Rules’ but they’re anything but unified. They change from state to this. This won’t be any different.

[the_mole]

Everybody followed the morning weigh in thing the CSAC started because it helped the fighters but obviously some people objected to the new "unified" rules, especially New Jersey who have a lot of say but that was over hitting a grounded opponent with knees, that was them not wanting to see guys get hit and take even more punishment. This is to help the fighters and having them fight nearer there own natural weight class.

[Noah Southworth]

10 minutes ago, the_mole said:

This is to help the fighters and having them fight nearer there own natural weight class.

The problem with this sentiment is that it is predicated on fighters wanting to fight at or near their natural weight class. Until the mentality behind cutting weight is changed, from cutting the most possible to only cutting what is safe, then any measures taken that don't involve addressing that issue are not addressing the only way to deal with this problem in the long term.

[Noah Southworth]

The recent Fight Night was the UFC's 400th event. In honour(!) of that milestone, a quick trivia question;

The UFC have cancelled three events because the main event fell apart and they couldn't put together a suitable replacement; without looking them up, what were those three events?

[the_mole]

Without looking it up I'm guessing 152 Jones-Henderson, 176 (I think that was the number, think it started off with Aldo Vs Pettis & didn't they cancel a PPV in January because they couldn't find a main event. I think they may have cancelled a few Strikeforce & 1 WEC show but I think that was more a weather thing.

[wandshogun09]

This is where me doing the event threads helps. 

UFC 151: Jones vs Hendo 

UFC 176: Aldo vs Mendes 2

And the Fight Night in the Philippines (either this year or last I can't remember) with the Penn vs Lamas main event. 

Those are the 3 I can think of. Are they your 3 Noah? 

[Noah Southworth]

Yes, those are the three. I figured you'd be the one to answer correctly.

It's remarkable when you think about it, that the UFC have 400 events, especially when you consider their origins and near-demise. From one to three events a year, going from strong PPV business to the verge of extinction, and now they're running events all over the world. And just to make ourselves feel really old, consider that UFC 400 will be filled with fighters who are probably, right now, not long out of nappies.

[wandshogun09]

It's scary. When I first started watching I think I was younger than every single fighter on the roster. I was fucking 19 when I started watching MMA! I was living at home with my mum's cooking, had spare cash all the time, a lovely full head of thick hair and couldn't grow facial hair to save my life.  

As I sit here today, I'm 32 in a few weeks, married, have a 3 and a half year old daughter, a shaved head and a wild beard, a mortgage, bills and responsibilities coming out my arse. And there are UFC fights now where I might be older than both fighters. And the ring girls. Maybe even the ref. 

Sometimes it seems like me loving MMA is the ONLY thing that's stayed the same. But when I look back it seems like no time at all. 

I'll be old and dead soon. 

[jimufctna24]

Aye. I remember when Dan Lauzon made his UFC debut in 2006 at age 18. It stood out at the time, because he was the only fighter on the roster younger than me.

MMA is weird. Some quite recent instances feel like they occurred ages ago. For example, Sonnen is a complete relic these days, but it was less than 5 years ago that he was the hottest act in MMA. Maybe 4 years if you count the underwhelming - but prominent - programme with Jones. 

In contrast, some past instances feel like they occurred much more recently than they actually did. For instance, it doesn't feel like 4.5 years since Ronda Rousey's UFC debut. 

[ColinBollocks]

Apparently Sage Nothcutt is joining Team Alpha Male. Good move for him. Hopefully this means his old man is getting the sack.

[AdamTH17]

He was on Garbrandt's Instagram before pissing around with Faber, so it seems likely. 

It won't ever happen, but can you imagine the trash talk between Sage and Cody if they were to ever fight? I love Sage, in a world of wannabe tough guys, he's a shining light of a clean cut babyface. Top guy.

[wandshogun09]

So now I have to dislike Sage too  

Seriously, he'll almost certainly benefit from this move but looking at the way that camp seems to carry on if I was a fighter I think I'd be looking at pretty much ANY other gym. I'd even prefer to risk AKA's injury curse than subject myself to the overdramatics and bitchiness. It'd be like Loose Women with armbars and tribal tattoos. And worst of all, Justin Buchholz. Every day. Nothing Alpha about it. 

Speaking of gym changes, in case anyone missed it Robbie Lawler left ATT and is training with Henri Hooft now. Mixed feelings on that. Lawler had the best run by far of his career under ATT. And Hooft has had hit and miss results with his fighters. Seems more miss, to be honest. Hopefully Lawler finds the move reinvigorating. I'd love to see him get that belt back. He's probably my favourite welterweight ever. He's been very hesitant to talk about the split with ATT as well. Anyone got any info? 

[jimufctna24]

Favourite Welterweight ever? 

I will go with GSP pre-2007. He was probably a better fighter once he teammed up with Greg Jackson, but he was much less exciting to watch. It was astonishing to watch GSP take apart Trigg, Sherk and Hughes in 2005-2006. These fighters were meant to be the cream of the division, yet all three were finished within 7 minutes, and didn't mount any meaningful offence in the interim. 

He also showed he was more than a front-runner against Penn at UFC 58. Penn sliced him up good and proper in the first round, and GSP looked like a lost lamb as he went back to the corner. He admitted that he was scared after the fight. Yet, he somehow rallied in the 2nd and 3rd, to take a very narrow decision win. GSP should not have won that fight. 

Lawler is a close second. His duels with Hendricks x2, Rory (rematch) and Condit were all fight of the year candidates. He certainly spiced up 170lbs once GSP left. I didn't miss GSP while Lawler was in title fights. Why would I?

I'll give an honourable mention to Dan Hardy. He was probably never an elite level welterweight, but for a 6 month period in 2009-2010, he was one of the hottest stars in MMA. While the fight was a dud, the build-up to GSP vs Hardy in 2010 was expertly done. Even though most knew the fight would be a foregone conclusion - and it was - it was hard to not get carried away with it all. There was an excellent scene at the end of the first episode of UFC Primetime where Hardy claims to be getting some special help with training, only for Matt Serra to appear. Hardy was a fairly exciting fighter as well. 

[Egg Shen]

Lawler moving gyms is a weird one, he seemed like he was set for life with ATT at one point, the countdowns and all that seemed to all focus on how happy he was there.