Noah Southworth Posted June 13, 2017 Share Posted June 13, 2017 2 minutes ago, Egg Shen said: Noah, are you drunk? No, just making points that you're responding to with insults. I wonder why that is. 9 minutes ago, lambyUK said: you can't possibly tar Lawler with the same brush as Belfort. When he is, by even your own admission, likely juicing, I can. Just because Lawler's changes were less drastic than Vitor's, that in no way mitigates his cheating Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members lambyUK Posted June 13, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted June 13, 2017 16 minutes ago, Noah Southworth said: When he is, by even your own admission, likely juicing, I can. Just because Lawler's changes were less drastic than Vitor's, that in no way mitigates his cheating Don't be preposterous. Yes, I have my suspicions he was on something but I don't have proof. There is factual proof Belfort was abusing TRT, and also failing a test in 2006 for an anabolic steroid. There's also picture evidence of Belfort's severe change. None of this applies to Lawler, who has never failed a test in his entire career. This is precisely the reason why Lawler doesn't receive the same levels of flak that Belfort does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guy Bifkin Posted June 13, 2017 Share Posted June 13, 2017 Carlos Condit is my favourite welterweight. Robbed of the title by that 'roidhead Lawler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members ColinBollocks Posted June 13, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted June 13, 2017 Throat fucked by that cheat Damian Maia too. Speaking of (Maia, not the lethal cock choke), has anyone benefited more from the post-TRT era of UFC as much as Maia? Certainly the likes of Bisping have done well out of it, but Maia looks borderline unstoppable now fighters have to give up the Bane juice. I suppose maybe Stipe has shown a tremendous upswing in form since they've decided to clean up their company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members lambyUK Posted June 13, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted June 13, 2017 I would say it's still Bisping Bollocks because of how vocal Bisping was about the cheats within the sport. I think Maia's tear is more to him coming to his senses than anything else. He abandoned his very average stand up game and re-embraced his on a whole other level world class ground game. Also dropping to Welterweight where he's a friggin monster in terms of size is another factor. I tell you what, he maybe a boring fucker, but it makes you appreciate Jake Shields (well, just a little). The guy beat Maia in a straight up ground game fight, in Brazil no less. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted June 13, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted June 13, 2017 1 hour ago, Noah Southworth said: No, just making points that you're responding to with insults. I wonder why that is. When he is, by even your own admission, likely juicing, I can. Just because Lawler's changes were less drastic than Vitor's, that in no way mitigates his cheating thing is, Lawler came back into the UFC at the time when TRT was allowed, so if Lawler was using it we likely would have known anyway, so i don't really understand the suspicion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noah Southworth Posted June 13, 2017 Share Posted June 13, 2017 I'm going to move on from the Robbie Lawler discussion because it's clear some people are too entrenched in their views to warrant debating with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noah Southworth Posted June 13, 2017 Share Posted June 13, 2017 In other news, Sean Grande is out as Bellator's lead play-by-play guy. Judging from his open letter, sent to MMA Fighting, it appears it's all down to him wanting to spend more time with his son; the increase in Bellator's schedule, combined with his main work as the radio announcer for Boston Celtics games, was just too heavy. And in his later, he hints at 'old-school fans' being happy with his replacement, which has led to speculation it's either Mike Goldberg or Mauro Ranallo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted June 13, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted June 13, 2017 I'm with Mr Bollocks that a massive chunk of MMA fighters, especially from the era Robbie Lawler came from, were partaking in PEDs at some point or another. It wasn't ever condoned (unless you were in Pride) or admired but it wasn't quite as frowned upon back then. Saying that, I don't like tarring fighters with the PED brush unless there's solid proof. I'm not into labelling guys cheats just based on looking at their physique or because they've been winning more. I get that it could possibly have something to do with it but I don't like going down the route. I thought Rogan and Schaub were massive cunts for practically branding Rafael Dos Anjos a cheat for example, when he was champion. People were all over that bandwagon and the backbone of their argument was side by side picture comparisons, ridiculous ones, years and years apart of him looking like he wasn't even in camp in one and weighing in for a fight in the other. Just the most cynical and agenda driven choice of pictures you could imagine. Am I alone on not seeing this drastic difference in Robbie Lawler's physique as well? I'm not seeing it. The differences are very slight. Nobody is going to look exactly the same body wise forever. And, actually, I think Lawler's body hasn't changed that much over the years. Even going back to his original UFC run in the early 2000s. He's bigger now but I don't look at him and think he's an obvious juicer at all. He might well be, but I'm not seeing these drastic changes everyone else seems to be, at all. And before anyone accuses me of being biased, it's nothing to do with Lawler being one of my favourite fighters. I have no problem admitting if one of my favourites has used PEDs. Fuck, one of my 2 all time favourites is Wanderlei bastard Silva! And I'm still a huge fan. I don't really give much of a fuck that he was juiced to the gills in his prime. Cro Cop's also one of my favourites ever. Now there's a body that changed noticably. You look at his chiseled physique against Fedor in August 2005, then compare it to his soft looking body in the Magomedov fight just a few months earlier. Then look at how small he looks in the UFC in 2007 (particularly the Kongo fight). Then last year you see him all yoked up in Rizin. That's the Cro Cop we all want. So yeah, if one of my favourites looks different I'll say it. The Lawler physique changes are overplayed though. Lawler's resurgence seemed to be effected by many things and different circumstances. It's easy, and frankly quite lazy IMO, to just go 'must've been the roids lol' to explain it away. But you look back and he'd just joined ATT, he was finally dropping back down to 170, he was returning to the UFC for the first time in nearly a decade, I believe his wife had just had a baby as well. There was a lot going on and a lot of changes going down in Lawler's life/career at that time. All could've been factors in refreshing him and giving him a new focus, work ethic, motivation etc. I wouldn't rule out him getting on some gear as well but I don't think it's fair to put his awesome run from 2013-2017 down to cheating when he's never failed a test or even had any controversy with testing. It's all speculation and rumours based on very flimsy stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimufctna24 Posted June 13, 2017 Share Posted June 13, 2017 3 hours ago, Guy Bifkin said: Carlos Condit is my favourite welterweight Good choice. I forgot to mention Nick Diaz. His run from 2009-2012 was highly entertaining. Coker's favourable matchmaking gave him a run of results that he would have never achieved in the UFC. The highlight was his fireworks displays with Paul Daley and Marius Žaromskis. His feuds with Frank Shamrock and K.J Noons were fun as well. The UFC Primetime leading to his fight with Condit was also a triumph. Edit: Regarding Wand and Bollock's point: They said on Sherdog radio around 2009/2010 time, that an estimated 70-80% of MMA fighters were on PED's. I believe it was an undesirable - but wildly accepted - part of the game for a while. The only fighters who I strongly believe didn't partake, were Bisping (despite what Rampage says), Hendo pre-TRT, and Penn in his prime. Although, you never quite know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted June 13, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted June 13, 2017 Diaz vs Daley is my favourite one round fight ever. Kongo vs Barry usually gets all the love but I think some of that is because it happened in the UFC. Strikeforce had some absolutely killer one rounders though. Diaz vs Daley, Rousey vs Tate 1, Fedor vs Hendo to name a few. Just tremendous fights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted June 13, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted June 13, 2017 46 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said: Lawler's resurgence seemed to be effected by many things and different circumstances. It's easy, and frankly quite lazy IMO, to just go 'must've been the roids lol' to explain it away. But you look back and he'd just joined ATT, he was finally dropping back down to 170, he was returning to the UFC for the first time in nearly a decade, I believe his wife had just had a baby as well. There was a lot going on and a lot of changes going down in Lawler's life/career at that time. All could've been factors in refreshing him and giving him a new focus, work ethic, motivation etc. perfectly put. Noah's comment "I'm going to move on from the Robbie Lawler discussion because it's clear some people are too entrenched in their views to warrant debating with" is baffling when you consider he's the one throwing unfounded accusations out there. There is no debate, only speculation because Lawler was never caught or admitted to taking anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted June 13, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted June 13, 2017 3 hours ago, lambyUK said: I would say it's still Bisping Bollocks because of how vocal Bisping was about the cheats within the sport. I think Maia's tear is more to him coming to his senses than anything else. He abandoned his very average stand up game and re-embraced his on a whole other level world class ground game. Also dropping to Welterweight where he's a friggin monster in terms of size is another factor. I tell you what, he maybe a boring fucker, but it makes you appreciate Jake Shields (well, just a little). The guy beat Maia in a straight up ground game fight, in Brazil no less. true Lamby. There was something mentioned around the time of Maia/Masvidal when someone mentioned that Maia was a guy who never abandoned his MMA roots and always fought to his strengths, it may have been Joe Rogan in the hype or Stann on the commentary but that was way off base, Maia went through a very strange stage of his career where he wanted to be a kickboxer and he was very unsuccessful with with it. Moving the 170lb and going full jiu-jitsu was the best thing he ever did. ...and correct about Jake Shields, one of the strangest careers in MMA that man has had, so good but gets little to no credit from the fans (including me at times). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted June 13, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted June 13, 2017 As I mentioned above, I always had questions about Lawler and Dos Anjos, because of the shift in form, but also considered wand's point he made ages ago that theoretically anyone could be at it because of the sheer frequency doping seemed to be being exposed in the sport, and therefore the best approach should be that, even if someone is suspichy, it's best to go with "innocent until proven guilty". Unless they actually get flagged, especially when you take into account that testing has become a lot more prevalent in recent years, it's probably not fair to write them off as a cheat. I'd like Shields to come back, just so I can see my boy Maia get his revenge and pull him apart like cheese strings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TildeGuy~! Posted June 13, 2017 Share Posted June 13, 2017 Bellator have signed Mike Goldberg and Mauro Ranallo to their commentary team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.