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UFC Fight Night: Overeem vs Arlovski - May 8th


wandshogun09

Who wins and how?   

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here's the payouts for UFC Dublin...

 

Louis Smolka: $2,500 Paddy Holohan: $2,500
Norman Parke: $5,000 Reza Madadi: $2,500
Nicolas Dalby: $2,500 Darren Till: $2,500
Neil Seery: $2,500 Jon Delos Reyes: $2,500
Mickael Lebout: $2,500 Stevie Ray: $2,500
Aisling Daly: $2,500 Ericka Almeida: $2,500
Krzysztof Jotko: $2,500 Scott Askham: $2,500
Tom Breese: $2,500 Cathal Pendred: $5,000
Darren Elkins: $10,000 Robert Whiteford: $2,500
Garreth McLellan: $2,500 Bubba Bush: $2,500

TOTAL: $62,500

 

:cry:

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In open air, Vitor did have some brief success against Weidman. At one stage, Vitor seemingly had Weidman in a bit of trouble. It was all over when Weidman scored that takedown though. Not since Pettis landed two hard kicks on Bendo, have I seen a fight's momentum change so drastically. Belfort had no answer on the mat. 

 

I don't think Vitor will face the same problem against Hendo. There is little chance that Hendo will be able to neutralise Belfort, let alone overwhelm him. A lot has changed since 2006. Provided Belfort doesn't rush his work, and run into a H-Bomb, he should clip Hendo sooner rather than later, and stop him.

 

I would have liked Hendo to hang them up after his last fight. It was the perfect ending to a legendary career. A bit like how Big Nog's victories over Schaub and Herman would have been a perfect end to his career.

 

This fight seems needless. As Wand said, I would have preferred Bisping to fight one of them. 

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Yeah I think Belfort smashes Hendo early again. He showed in the Weidman fight he's still dangerous early and Hendo is a slow starter sometimes (see the second Shogun fight, the Mousasi fight, Machida etc). His chin isn't what it was and his movement, which was never exactly smooth to begin with, has slowed down with age and the knee problems over the last few years.

 

The shit thing is, there was a time when a Vitor Belfort vs Dan Henderson fight would've been close to perfect as far as them meeting at both their peaks. Around 2009.

 

Back then Hendo was at his best, around the time of the Bisping KO and the Strikeforce run. And Belfort had returned to form after that slump when his sister went missing. By '09 Vitor was back to knocking heads off in Affliction and on his UFC return vs Rich Franklin. That was the ideal time for them to meet but they missed each other. As Vitor was returning to the UFC in September 2009, Hendo was just leaving the UFC and signing with Strikeforce.

 

That was the time though. Both were in good form. Hendo's chin was still concrete and his knees weren't fucked. And they both had strengths that, on paper, should've troubled the other guy.

 

As it stands it's a trilogy that never was what it could've been.

 

First fight in 2006 - Belfort was on his arse career-wise and in the worst form of his career.

 

Second fight in 2013 - Terrible timing for this one. Hendo was having his worst year of his career and Vitor was having his best year of his career. Hendo was 0-2 in 2013 coming in and shopworn. Vitor was 2-0 in 2013 coming in, improving his standup at Blackzilians and TRT'd to the gills to boot. Couldn't have picked a worse time to match these two up really.

 

Third fight in 2015 - Hendo's even further gone and Vitor's a big question mark post-TRT.

 

It might be the most ill-timed MMA trilogy ever. Timing just never worked out to get the best out of it. And the shittest thing is, the whole point of a trilogy is to determine for sure who the better fighter is over three fights - and I'm not sure we'll ever really have that answer with these two because they've never met with both on form.

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I agree that 2009 would have been perfect. Provided Hendo's back held up, both would have been firing on all-cylinders. I would not be comfortable in picking a fight between the two if they fought in their primes. As it stands, even if Belfort wins the trilogy, I will still consider Hendo greater overall.  It's true that Hendo has come undone quite often in his career, and Vitor has only been beaten by strong fighters (the two weakest opponents Vitor lost to are Tito in 2005, and Overeem in 2005/2006), but Hendo has better wins and has achieved a bit more.

 

Even though Fedor was past his best, considering that Hendo was naturally two weightclasses below Fedor, that win still holds up. Hendo's first win over Shogun is a sure-fire classic. His win over Wanderlei in 2007 is a credible notch also. While Wanderlei was nearing the end of his peak, no one of a similar size had stopped him in nearly a decade (ironically that was Vitor). Hendo's loss to Rampage did more for his reputation then against it. 

 

What are Vitor's best wins? The win over Couture is in the record books, but for obvious reasons, it doesn't mean much. He has beaten Wanderlei and Rockhold, but neither were quite at their best. Other than that Vitor has beaten a lot of very good fighters like Bisping, Franklin, Rumble and Herring, but in my opinion, they don't hold up against Hendo's best wins. Plus, Hendo has also beaten Franklin and Bisping, and additionally, beaten other fighters of similar quality (Babulu, Lil Nog, Palhares etc).

 

In 2005, you could point to Hendo as say he was the best Middleweight in the world. In fact, the general feeling at the time supported that belief. Maybe there was a point in the 90's where Vitor could have been considered the best, but the sport was a mess back then, and the loss to Couture did expose Belfort's weaknesses at the time. It should be noted that Vitor didn't plug holes in his grappling for quite some time afterwards. When Hendo was surpassed by Anderson, he wasn't really exposed, it was just that a better fighter emerged, and one that no one at the time had an answer for. 

 

I won't get too much into the PED talk, as it's all a bit murky. Belfort has always been under the microscope. Even during his Cage Rage run, rumours went around that certain fights were cancelled due to him being suspecting of juicing (which is odd for several reasons) Hendo was seen as the sport's purest competitor until the TRT era emerged.  Overall, they are both Hall Of Fame fighters, I just rate one a bit better than the other. 

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Yeah, Hendo's definitely accomplished more. It's a shame he never got a UFC title though because that's really the only thing missing. You look at Hendo's record and, whether he won or lost, he's got maybe the most impressive resume of opponents in the sport. Look who the bastard has fought;

 

Anderson Silva

Fedor Emelianenko

Wanderlei Silva x2

Shogun Rua x2

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira x2

Daniel Cormier

Rampage Jackson

Vitor Belfort x2

Lyoto Machida

Renzo Gracie

Rashad Evans

Gegard Mousasi

Michael Bisping

Rich Franklin

Babalu Sobral x2

Jake Shields

Ricardo Arona

Rousimar Palhares

 

Of that lot - he fought Anderson, Rampage, Wanderlei and Big Nog in their prime.

 

Mental. In the first 10 fights of his career he was in with Wanderlei Silva, Big Nog, Carlos Newton, Babalu, Gilbert Yvel and Allan Goes, for fuck's sake! He's fought the best fighters around since pretty much day one of his career.

 

The only names that really stand out as missing are Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture and Jon Jones. But the Couture fight was unlikely to ever happen anyway with their friendship. The Liddell fight would've happened in 2007 had Chuck beaten Rampage. And the Jones fight...well, we know that story.

 

Aside from that;

 

*SEG era UFC tournament winner

*RINGS tournament winner

*Pride Middleweight champion

*Pride Welterweight champion

*Only man to hold two Pride belts at the same time

*Strikeforce Light Heavyweight champion

*As a natural middleweight he holds wins over two of the best heavyweights ever - Fedor and Nog

*One half of maybe the best fight in MMA history with Shogun

*Scored maybe the most memorable KO in UFC history against Bisping

*Ended Wanderlei's 6 year title reign

 

The fact he was able to accomplish all this despite his losses is quite incredible really. He never went on that big unbeaten run which is probably why he's not seen on that very top level. But for me, there's the Anderson/GSP/Jones level, then guys like Hendo are just under that. I think a lot of his inconsistency comes from him bouncing around the divisions an fighting every fucker breathing. If he'd stayed in one weight class who knows? But then he wouldn't be Hendo and he probably wouldn't have that Fedor KO or Shogun classic on his record.

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yeh considering this is a trilogy between two of the most popular fighters of all time it doesn't really feel that special, there's no real rivalry there. Usually with trilogies people are clamouring to see that third fight, it really feels like this one is happening for the sake of it.

 

Still, im looking forward to seeing how it plays out. The book's still open on Belfort post-TRT, he looked alright against Weidman until the fight hit the deck so despite the change in appearence we don't really know what he has left. Hendo really is the perfect opponent to showcase what he does have. Strange fight this one...

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etJMx.jpg

 

This is tonight then.

 

I've still got Vitor winning by stoppage but fuck me he looked so lifeless in the staredown at the weigh in. Like he just can't be arsed. Total opposite to his awesome weigh in face-offs with Bisping and Rockhold where he was all TRT'd up and mega aggressive. Obviously there's no bad blood between him and Hendo and you can tell by the way he talks about Hendo that there's a lot of respect there, but he just didn't seem that up for it at the weigh in.

 

Hendo, on the other hand, seems motivated and is talking about redeeming himself from their last fight. That was the first time Hendo had ever been knocked out and he seems really bothered by it and wanting to erase it.

 

On pure motivation, Hendo seems way more up for this fight than Belfort to me. And you never know, Hendo's got that KO power. I just don't see it though. If he can weather Belfort's initial storm he might take over, I guess, but I just think Vitor's too fast, too strong a starter, too accurate and much more varied in the striking for Hendo to not get caught with something.

 

I reckon Vitor by KO/TKO, late round one/early round two.

 

The rest of the card is pretty underrated, I think. Almeida vs Birchak, Burns vs Magomedov and Guida vs Tavares stand out as potential barnburners. Glover vs Cummins and Tibau vs Trujillo could be good as well. Solid card, this is.

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Ah, bollocks. Was hoping to watch it in work tomorrow. This show feels like it snuck up on me out of nowhere, but now I'm really looking forward to it.

 

Anyway, what the fuck is going on with Patrick Cummins? I feel like the last time I saw him fight was against Cormier, where he got destroyed, but now people are picking him to beat Glover? I've obviously either missed his fights on the prelims or simply forgotten them afterwards, but has he really improved that much? On paper that looked like a squash match that Glover would win easily.

 

Really hoping Hendo wins and then retires on top. Very worried he'll get caught with an early Vitor flurry though.

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