UFC Fight Night: Overeem vs Arlovski - May 8th

[David]

Does anyone else think that Matt Hamill should have stayed retired? I was never a fan of his, but Jesus Christ, did he look bad on Wednesday night.

 

Thiago Silva came in overweight and looking as though he was carrying some sort of injury. He looked fucked within 2 minutes of the fight starting. Comparing him to his last bout against Cavalcante 4 months ago it was like night & day. Something was clearly bothering him in the lead up to this fight, but he probably wanted to stay on the card as it was Brazil.

 

Hamill though, he looked fucking terrible. He was in worse shape than Silva appeared to be in.

 

He needs to hang up his gloves.

[wandshogun09]

Bloody hell, you're right Ebb. I'm not with it lately. I'm always like this after night shifts.

[Egg Shen]

Does anyone else think that Matt Hamill should have stayed retired? I was never a fan of his, but Jesus Christ, did he look bad on Wednesday night.

 

Thiago Silva came in overweight and looking as though he was carrying some sort of injury. He looked fucked within 2 minutes of the fight starting. Comparing him to his last bout against Cavalcante 4 months ago it was like night & day. Something was clearly bothering him in the lead up to this fight, but he probably wanted to stay on the card as it was Brazil.

 

Hamill though, he looked fucking terrible. He was in worse shape than Silva appeared to be in.

 

He needs to hang up his gloves.

oh yeh, he has to hang em up now. There's no way he's getting another fight in the UFC anyways.

 

They stated on the show that Hamill returned because the deaf community rallied behind him to come back, betting they wished they hadn't now Hamill for a round looked fairly sharp and i thought maybe he'd turned a corner with the camp change...after that, it was painful to watch. It was sad to see.

 

Thiago himself looked awful, there's gotta be some kind of explanation behind the weight problem but Thiago seems to have been plodding for years.

[jimufctna24]

Does anyone else think that Matt Hamill should have stayed retired? I was never a fan of his, but Jesus Christ, did he look bad on Wednesday night.

State the obvious there David

 

His usual coach refused to train him a few weeks out he looked that bad in practice, hence why he switched camps. Its nice that he inspires the deaf community, but for his own safety and self-respect I think he should hang them up, or at least fight somewhere which is bush-league.

 

Hamill's skills and talents have no place in the UFC in 2013.

[Egg Shen]

is that why he switched camps?

[METAL ON METAL]

Yeah his coach said Hamill didn't have it in him any more and couldn't bare to see him like that so refused to train him no matter how much he was offered.

 

When someones reason for coming out of retirement is that they 'missed the fame', it's never going to end well.

[Egg Shen]

Check out Joe Silva's reaction to the KO

Top 10 Joe Silva reactions

[wandshogun09]

Heh, there's been more than I thought. I must have watched Diaz vs Gomi at least 20 times and I never noticed little Joe Silva there losing his shit.

 

The Hendricks-Fitch reaction is the one I've mentioned most on here. He was loving that KO wasn't he? Never seen him look so over the moon. His reaction to the Jones-Bonnar spinning elbow is a classic.

[wandshogun09]

Following his successful UFC debut, Yan Cabral got robbed at gunpoint yesterday. Nice way to start his UFC career.

 

Yan Cabral could probably think of plenty of better ways to celebrate the biggest win of his career than what happened to him on Friday.

 

Cabral (11-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC) on Wednesday swept David Mitchell (12-4 MMA, 1-4 UFC) on the judges' scorecards at UFC Fight Night 29 in Brazil. On Friday, he was given a clean sweep of another kind when he was robbed at gunpoint not far from the Nova Uniao training center in Rio de Janeiro.

 

Cabral shared the news on his Facebook page, saying "Merda de pais"

[wandshogun09]

With all the UFC shows coming, I fucked up here. I somehow skipped the Manchester show when I updated the thread for the Hendo vs Belfort 2 Fight Night.

 

Anyway, this is just two weeks away now.

 

 

FOX SPORTS 2 MAIN CARD - 8pm UK time

Lyoto Machida vs Mark Munoz

Ross Pearson vs Melvin Guillard

Jimi Manuwa vs Ryan Jimmo

Norman Parke vs Jon Tuck

Alessio Sakara vs Nicholas Musoke

John Lineker vs Phil Harris

 

FACEBOOK PRELIMS - 4.45pm UK time

Al Iaquinta vs Piotr Hallmann

Luke Barnatt vs Andrew Craig

Rosi Sexton vs Jessica Andrade

Cole Miller vs Andy Ogle

Jimy Hettes vs Mike Wilkinson

Michael Kuiper vs Brad Scott

 

Originally it was set to be Michael Bisping vs Munoz, a homecoming for Bisping in Manchester, but a detached retina put paid to that.

 

 

Bisping was obviously pulled from the fight immediately and an unlikely replacement stepped in.

 

 

So now we have a headliner of Lyoto Machida vs Mark Munoz. I say unlikely replacement because these two have a history as training partners and friends. They were team mates at Black House for a while and that's a camp that has always dismissed the possibilty of team mates facing off in the Octagon. In fact, only a few weeks before Bisping was pulled from the fight, Machida and Munoz were training together in preparation for their respective fights (Munoz vs Bisping and Machida vs Tim Kennedy). This fight came out of left field.

 

It's an interesting one though for a couple of reasons. The team mate aspect adds a bit of a twist. Also, this will be Machida's middleweight debut. People have speculated about him dropping to 185 for years, mainly because he often comes in a few pounds light at 205. And with mixed results at LHW, the drop to a new division could be a good fresh start for him. Munoz is coming off one of his most impressive performances, a dominant win over Tim Boetsch in July. That was even more impressive when you consider he'd been out a year injured and got all fat and depressed. He's back on track now.

 

With how the 185 division is right now, a big win here could catapult the winner into title contention pretty soon. There'd really only be Belfort and Jacare ahead of the winner. And a lot can change. Belfort has to get past Dan Henderson next month yet, and Jacare and Anderson have already said they won't fight. So it's up in the air.

 

Style wise, I've always favoured Machida over wrestlers. You look back over his career and it's the wrestlers he's looked his best against (until the Phil Davis fight anyway). His performances against Rashad Evans, Ryan Bader and Randy Couture are the best of his career. But Machida hasn't looked too good in his last two fights. They were fights I thought he'd win comfortably on paper but his own inactivity worked against him. He just didn't pull the trigger enough against Hendo and Davis and we got two close decisions. One went in his favour, the other went against him. It'll be interesting to see how he approaches this fight. He needs to make something happen now because the general feeling seems to be that he's lost a step. And if Munoz is improved from his last fight, which he should be now he's back in the groove after the layoff, he could give Lyoto some problems.

 

I like Machida in this fight but he's been so inconsistent lately it's hard to call.

 

 

That's your co-main event. Pearson vs Guillard. Two of the most explosive and powerful lightweights in the world. I can't wait for this. The original plan was Pearson vs Takanori Gomi but that fell through. Shame because that had FOTN all over it. Hopefully that fight will happen down the road. But as a second choice, I think I'd have picked Pearson vs Guillard if Joe Silva phoned me personally and asked me. It's just one of those fights that you know will be exciting, and likely end in dramatic fashion.

 

Pearson is really looking great lately as well. Ever since coming back to 155 he's been on fire. He's 2-0 since abandoning his featherweight plans. 2-0 with 2 stoppages over George Sotiropoulos and Ryan Couture. Guillard has been hot and cold his whole career but when he's on he's as lethal as any 155er in the division. As Mac Danzig found out in Guillard's last fight.

 

Should be a cracking fight.

 

Manuwa vs Jimmo should tell us what Manuwa's really got. He's looking like a destroyer so far but there's still questions on him and I think Jimmo should be able to give us the answers. Jimmo has the experience and he's crafty, good in all areas and he can grind out a decision if he has to. If Manuwa blows through him like he has everyone else so far, then it's time to really start getting excited about him. It's a good step up for Manuwa.

 

I'm a fan of John Lineker. Probably my favourite flyweight. He's so exciting to watch and he has good power for 125. The problem is he keeps missing weight. He'd probably have had a title shot by now with how shallow the weight class is but they're not going to risk giving him a title shot and then having him pull a Travis Lutter. This should be a good main card opener. Lineker is so fun to watch.

 

Parke vs Tuck could be the sleeper. It's one of those fights no-one will really talk about going in but I think they match up well. Tuck had one of the forgotten gems of 2012 against Tiequan Zhang on the UFC China debut card. Awesome fight. And I really enjoyed Parke's last fight against Kazuki Tokudome. Could be a good one.

 

Some good stuff on the prelims.

 

Sexton vs Andrade, I can see being an excellent fight. I think Andrade shows some promise. She got dominated by Liz Carmouche last time out, Carmouche looked scary that night. But Andrade, for her inexperience has done pretty well considering. If it doesn't work out in this run I can see her going away to Invicta and coming back better later. She's only 21 or something so she's got time. I like Sexton here though. I just think her experience will prove too much. And it's a good fight for her as an undersized 135er because Andrade is pretty small for the weight herself. When you see how well Sexton fought against Alexis Davis (I had it a draw), who everyone expects to be a contender, I think she'll do really well with an opponent more her size.

 

I expect Kuiper vs Scott will be a good back and forth fight. Both are fun to watch. Same with Hettes vs Wilkinson. Don't know this Piotr Hallmann other than he's Polish and 14-1 with a win over Francisco Trinaldo. Must be decent.

 

Oh and Luke Barnatt is fighting and he's bringing this guy with him;

 

 

Actually, just realised that also Al Iaquinta is fighting. Al Iaqunita from Team Serra-Longo.

 

 

Could they be making the trip as well? Longo will defo be there, don't know about Serra. With Sonnen, Serra and Longo possibly coming, there's no shortage of great choices for the Q&A. Hopefully they get them three on BT Sport's Beyond The Octagon in some form as well.

 

So is anyone going to this?

[jimufctna24]

As this is free on BT Sport (thanks Wand's brother for the tip off), I am going to watch this with the fire on and a lovely brew at home. As much as I enjoy UFC live, at this time of year and with live coverage, that sounds like the better deal given the ticket prices and the messing about with trains.

[wandshogun09]

I meant to mention that BT free weekend thing again actually so thanks for reminding me. I've put it in the thread title. With it being free and on at a decent time, it'd be nice if this pulled a good rating. If they promote that it's free to air and people know, it could be great for the UFC over here. Could get a lot of new viewers. Then it would just depend on the fights delivering.

 

One thing I don't like, I wish the prelims were being televised as well. I know we're spoiled these days and I shouldn't complain when they're streaming them for us. But I've got used to having the prelims in nice, shiny HD now. And I'm most likely not going to be able to stream them live on the day. Oh well.

[jimufctna24]

Boxing on Sky Sports the same night could harm UFC's live viewers. It is Kell Brook against the guy who beat Hatton last year, as popular as Machida is and he is probably more popular than Bisping worldwide, in England I think Bisping would draw a lot more interest.

 

I will probably watch UFC on Sky Plus right after the Boxing.

[cleslie92]

I'll be there, waving my press pass around to try and breathe the same air as Chael P.

[Wild Pegasus]

Can anyone confirm when the weighins actually start? 1pm-4.30pm window at Manchester Central I believe, but as Im trying to sneak out of work a more accurate time would help.