UFC Fight Night: Overeem vs Arlovski - May 8th

[Magnum Milano]

Cheers for the info Wand. I've got a copy of Invicta 3 at home somewhere so I'll give that one a watch at some point over the weekend. Yeah, just from her tweets and the photos she's been re-tweeting she seems really approachable and almost overwhelmed by all the attention she's been getting.

[David]

Fucking hell, apparently Gustafsson is out of tonight's fight with a stomach bug!

 

He's been replaced by Nick Chapman;

 

 

3-3 record, UCMMA fighter.

 

 

 

 

Just kidding lads!

[jimufctna24]

Git

 

You had me going there for a second.

[Egg Shen]

fucking hell, you had me then Dave haha.

 

well played sir.

[lambyUK]

Not even a case of you had me there for second. You had me with a wretched feeling in my stomach whilst on the verge of vommiting whilst also almost texting my mate about the cancellation.

 

You sneeky shit David.

[David]

Sorry about that! I figured at least a couple of you would be going, so it was worth the shot!

[Tazzmission]

Used the

[David]

Well, that was an excellent little event tonight I think.

 

The gulf in class between Gustafsson and Manuwa was bigger than I thought it would be. I expected Gustafsson to win, but I thought he'd outlast Manuwa and get the finish via exhaustion late in the fight. An excellent performance, and he's surely cemented himself at the legitimate #1 contender?

 

Gunnar looked fucking awesome tonight as well, didn't he?

[seanz25]

Fucking hell, watched prelims etc on BT then went to Channel 5 to see what they where doing, watched their coverage of the Gillard fight, gave up after it, terrible British presenter, went back to the BT coverage they where 2 minutes in to the main event, no idea that Five where showing on tape delay.

 

Edit: if they're hoping the channel 5 deal will give them a boost, they can give it a second thought. Utter wank coverage.

[lambyUK]

Well, that was an excellent little event tonight I think.

 

The gulf in class between Gustafsson and Manuwa was bigger than I thought it would be. I expected Gustafsson to win, but I thought he'd outlast Manuwa and get the finish via exhaustion late in the fight. An excellent performance, and he's surely cemented himself at the legitimate #1 contender?

 

Gunnar looked fucking awesome tonight as well, didn't he?

 

Completely agree. Gus looked absolutely devastating and I have to say he looked savage. If he goes in like that I think he will finish Jones.

 

I thought Michael Johnson looked superb and again making his opponent look like a chump.

 

Nelson was amazing and Pickett/Seery was a slogfest.

 

Onto BTs coverage and the other new changes. Firstly, well done BT, that really was a massive step in the right direction. As I said earlier in the thread, I wanted the pundit analysis in the arena so it wouldn't take away from the atmosphere, and we got just that.

 

Then, the big thing, the removal of GAD. Did anyone else notice his pathetic professionalism? Outside of general mumbling, he ridiculously was on his fucking mobile phone distracting Pearson as we cut back. This was the last of GAD we saw and the guy from the bleacher report was brought in, who I must add was exceptional and a real natural in front of the camera. Please, get rid of GAD and bring him in! They need to get rid of James Haskell though.

 

I thought the commentary team were truly exceptional and both were completely natural. What a refreshing change that was. Great job by both. Hardy was a little uncomfortable for the in ring bits but that will improve over time.

 

Hell, even Buffs replacement did a decent job.

 

Overall great night of fights.

[Bring Back Minipops]

Fucking hell, watched prelims etc on BT then went to Channel 5 to see what they where doing, watched their coverage of the Gillard fight, gave up after it, terrible British presenter, went back to the BT coverage they where 2 minutes in to the main event, no idea that Five where showing on tape delay.

 

Edit: if they're hoping the channel 5 deal will give them a boost, they can give it a second thought. Utter wank coverage.

 

I didnt realise Channel 5 werent showing it live as claimed and knew the result of the main event before they were even in the cage on 5 thanks to Twitter.

 

Fight still ongoing on 5 at the minute. Shambles. Why say its live on the listings when it isnt even close.

 

EDIT - What a finish!

[jimufctna24]

Channel 5 did a good job tonight (besides them saying Live when they were on delay)

 

They kept it nice and basic, it was very direct but straight to the point. The presenter was clearly not the most educated, but he served his purpose, he did not do what GAD did and become a point of conversation over the fighters.

 

I grew to dislike Forrest Griffin in his twilight years, but he was pretty decent as an analyst . He gave his opinions clearly, and did it in a way where a novice fan could understand what he meant.

 

Gusty looked pretty good. Took a few shots, but managed to close the show in convincing fashion.

 

I picked Melvin over Johnson, boy was I wrong. Johnson looked the better fighter throughout the 3 rounds, and deserved that verdict. Johnson has hit his stride as a fighter the past year, and given him showing he is a level above Lauzon and Guillard, I think he deserves a step up in class.

[nfc90210]

Edit: Nevermind

[wandshogun09]

I went to the show last night and really enjoyed it. I haven't watched either the BT or 5 coverage back yet so I can't comment but in the arena it was a top show.

 

I didn't go to the weigh ins or Q&A or anything either. I've never been to any of that stuff and I keep meaning to. Never got into London until late Friday though.

 

First time my girlfriend has been to a UFC as well. She's not much into UFC really, she'll watch the odd bit. But we ended up going with my mate and his girlfriend and make a weekend of it in London. It's worked out well with the weather as well.

 

We briefly met Ross Pearson (nice bloke). We were sat directly next to the BT Sport studio bit. So if you were watching that, we were just to the left of Caroline Pearce off camera (like you give a fuck). Caroline Pearce looks even fitter up close, and I saw some bloke attaching microphone wires or whatever to her trousers and his hands were all over her arse. He gets paid for that. I should've tried harder at school. I was within spitting distance of the mighty GAD as well, saw him there flicking his greasy hair about every few seconds. I was very tempted to lob a shoe at him in disgust. I didn't spot the infamous green handbag though.

 

Very early in the show we were arsing about around the expensive seats and none other than Conor McGregor walked past us with who I assume was his girlfriend. Looked sharp as ever and even gave my girlfriend a wink. I'll allow it from him. She nearly fainted. Fuck that, I nearly fainted.

 

I noticed GAD fucked off halfway through the show like lamby said. I recognised his replacement as well. He used to pop up on Setanta's Ultimate Talk. Ben something, I think his name is isn't it?

 

Anyway, to the fights;

 

Man, Gustafsson looked fantastic, didn't he? Manuwa was a live underdog going in and a risky fight for Gus with a title shot looming. Not many would've taken a fight with an undefeated fighter, with KO power, and in his backyard. But he did exactly what a top contender should do. Took very little damage and found the right balance between not taking too many risks while also not being overly safe. He was very smart as well. Taking Manuwa down early so Manuwa would be thinking about that again when they stood back up. The finish was nasty as well. Those uppercuts were vicious. Some berk next to us was screaming early stoppage. "That's bollocks. That's fackin bollocks mate". I didn't get it. Manuwa looked well fucked to me.

 

I see Gus vs the Jones/Glover winner is pretty much set now from the Dana quotes I read. Can't wait. Either way it's a great fight but if it's Gus vs Jones 2, as I expect it will be, that's going to be brilliant. We should see it by the end of the year easy. Maybe even the summer.

 

Thought Michael Johnson looked excellent. Melvin is copping a lot of flack and he was hesitant but I think Johnson should get the lions share of the credit for that, more than criticising Melvin. He just shut Melvin down. Melvin seems like one of those guys like Cro Cop and Cerrone, who is lethal coming forward but doesn't respond so well when put on the back foot. Johnson probably knew this from their time training together and he looked really good. He's really stepped up his game over the last year.

 

I don't know if it came across on TV but in my section the crowd were awful for that fight. After about three minutes they just booed the shit out of everything. The same div crying early stoppage in the main event next to us was giving his expert analysis throughout. When Johnson hurt Guillard (2nd round I think?) the guy was balling at the top of his lungs "Keep fackin' hittin' him you cant. What you stoppin' for you barstard? Fack 'im up mate don't let 'im off the hook". Over and over and he moaned about it through the entire third round as well. I could hear people all around me saying how shit the fight was and it baffled me. It wasn't the barnburner I was kind of expecting but it wasn't a bad fight by any means. It was Just Bleedism at its worst in my section. A bloke behind me kept saying in the third round how Johnson "had to go for the KO" and that he needs to "let his fucking hands go". He was winning handily and attacking just fine. If anything it was Melvin who badly needed to make something happen by that point.

 

The crowd in my section was fine until the last two fights. Apart from a very camp middle-aged bloke spilling his drink down my mate's girlfriend's back. She wasn't happy on the train back smelling like Don Frye's beer soaked 'tache.

 

Pickett vs Seery was good fun. Probably FOTN for me. Pleasantly surprised by Seery. He was well up for this. Short notice but he did himself proud. Looking at his record I really thought Pickett would be able to submit him once he got him down but Seery kept escaping.

 

Conor McGregor never sat down the whole fight. He was up, shouting, twitching about, throwing punches, the lot.

 

Gunnar Nelson appeared to have no ring rust, which was my only worry going in. He's just a beast of a grappler. He must be a weird puzzle for opponents to tackle. A BJ Penn-like grappling game, combined with an unorthodox Karate style standing up. Great to see him back.

 

Prelims were pretty good. Mostly finishes. Barnatt battered a game Mats Nilssen. Nilssen wasn't fucking about though, he cracked Barnatt a few times early. Crowd went berserk for Barnatt at the finish though. That was the first really loud reaction of the night. Gaudinot never broke a sweat breeding through Phil Harris. He got a tight guillotine and Harris tried to flip and kind of somersault and ended up in a mounted guillotine and tapped quick. Looked awesome. Araujo vs Mitchell was alright, first two rounds were good. Wasn't much keen on the Brad Scott fight.

 

And what about Some Fucker, eh? He looked better physically and in practice with the full camp. I've joked about him on here but it was a bit of a feel-good moment seeing him get the win. There were loads of Swedes in the crowd as well so he got a pretty cool reaction. Bit of a shit way for Diabate to go out but at 40-odd and with the long career he's had, it's probably time.

 

Glad to read on here that the commentary was good. I always thought Hardy would be a great fit for that stuff so I'm happy he's still around the UFC in some capacity. Wasn't keen on Buffer's replacement at all though. Maybe it's a case of needing to get used to him but I found his voice really hard on the ears.

 

Oh and on the debate about promoting in the other thread - the Shogun vs Hendo 2 card is two weeks away, there wasn't one mention of it anywhere all night. The promos they ran in the arena were just UFC 171, TUF Brazil and the UFC EA game. I know they can't run through everything but it's two weeks away. A guy was talking to us about favourite fights/fighters and stuff and he seemed clued up enough. Yet he had no idea the Shogun/Hendo rematch was that close until I told him. There's just not so much awareness of stuff coming up anymore. It's well and good saying that's down to the fan to find stuff out but that's only true to a certain extent. With any TV show, if you don't promote or advertise it properly it won't generate the same level of interest. Not everyone is going to be a hardcore who scours MMAJunkie or twitter for info. If they only want the hardcores watching then what they're doing is fine. But to reach a wider audience you have to advertise what you're selling and get the message out there aggressively.

 

Anyway, cracking show.

[Chunk]

I didn't go to the weigh ins or Q&A or anything either. I've never been to any of that stuff and I keep meaning to. Never got into London until late Friday though.

 

I made it along to the weigh-ins and Q&A in the end. Fantastic afternoon and I didn't spend a penny!

 

Got to the O2 about 1:30 and the queue for signings was already closed. I wasn't really too bothered to be honest, so just decided to hang around until the weigh-ins. At about 2pm they re-opened the queue for a second round of signings, so I figured if I was waiting for weigh-ins I might as well wait in the signing queue. The Q&A was for fight club members and press only, but they had a big screen up that you could see from outside the fenced-off area - I just stood in the queue and listened to the whole thing. Connor Mcgregor and Forrest Griffin came over really well I thought; a highlight being Connor Mcgregor calling himself the Irish Bruce Lee and saying Aldo's leg kicks wouldn't mean shit if he fought him. He also hinted at being back in time for the Dublin show.

 

Signings followed shortly after Q&A with Pearson, Mcgregor, Griffin and Joanne Calderwood. They kicked us out and then led us back in for the weigh-ins before the main queue was allowed in.

 

I thought it was really well organised and a great way to spend an afternoon. Would highly recommend it.