UFC Fight Night: Overeem vs Arlovski - May 8th

[jimufctna24]

Cheers for the offer, I have my own sources .

 

FOTN over Cerrone/Barboza? Might have to track it down!

 

I was going to say Browne vs Hunt or Nelson, but the battle of the fatties has to happen, sorry Browne. Maybe the loser of JDS vs Stipe in May, or if he is out long, the loser of Hunt vs Nelson (provided it happens)

[wandshogun09]

FOTN over Cerrone/Barboza? Might have to track it down!

 

I thought so. Cerrone vs Barboza, while fun, was what three minutes long? Alves vs Baczynski was a proper battle with both throwing big shots, both taking big shots, both getting bloody, heart on display. I really enjoyed that fight a lot.

[lambyUK]

Quite a few good fights.

 

Feel sorry for Barboza. He was completely outclassing Cerrone on the feet but that one jab changed the whole complexion of the fight. Perhaps he got too confident as the fight progressed? Anyway, can't stand Cerrone but hats off to him.

 

Werdum was top class last night, but you can't help feel he could have finished Browne at any moment. Perhaps he simply wanted to prove 5 rounds wasn't a problem for him?

 

Its tough to see a way past Cain, but Werdum has skills that could perhaps cause Cain a couple of problems?

[David]

Browne's injured rib was probably caused by one of Werdum's body kicks early on so it's not like Werdum got lucky. If Browne did break his hand that's a shame, but still, he got soundly beat, outfought and out-thought at every turn last night. He had no answer for Werdum. It totally went against how I saw the fight playing out going in.

Werdum didn't get lucky, that's true, but it definitely puts a whole new slant on the idea that Werdum has suddenly improved his stand-up to the level that Rogan was blabbering about last night.

 

The broken rib & hand weren't luck, but they did have an effect on how the fight played out, that's for sure.

 

I still pick Browne to beat Werdum maybe 8 times out of 10, and hopefully he can put some wins together and come back for a crack at Cain after Velazquez takes care of Werdum.

[lambyUK]

Browne's injured rib was probably caused by one of Werdum's body kicks early on so it's not like Werdum got lucky. If Browne did break his hand that's a shame, but still, he got soundly beat, outfought and out-thought at every turn last night. He had no answer for Werdum. It totally went against how I saw the fight playing out going in.

Werdum didn't get lucky, that's true, but it definitely puts a whole new slant on the idea that Werdum has suddenly improved his stand-up to the level that Rogan was blabbering about last night.

 

The broken rib & hand weren't luck, but they did have an effect on how the fight played out, that's for sure.

 

I still pick Browne to beat Werdum maybe 8 times out of 10, and hopefully he can put some wins together and come back for a crack at Cain after Velazquez takes care of Werdum.

 

Where do you get this great opinion of Browne from David?I just don't see it. In fact, I actually see a very ordinary one dimensional heavyweight who poses lots of power but nothing much else.

 

Let's be honest, if it wasn't for Overeem's gas tank Browne wouldn't have got out of the first round. Then his previous wins were against an aging Barnett and a KO over Gonzaga who's really just a gatekeeper in the HW division.

 

Werdum is simply a class above Browne, irrespective of a broken rib. I'd would easily pick Werdum to beat Browne 8/10 times.

[Shane O' Mac Version 2]

Forgot to mention how good Thiago Alves was. 2 years out and I want to say he's actually improved since before the layoff. He appears to have lost a fair bit of muscle mass and it's for the better, great stamina and a relentless pace. I'd love to see him get back in title contention, he's one of my favourites.

 

As for the heavyweights... I don't think Werdum beats Cain, but he should make a good fight of it, better than Bigfoot anyway. I guess I was too harsh on Browne, sucks about the rib if true. I did notice him wincing a bit from a couple of Werdum's body kicks, but I just assumed they were well-placed.

 

We need Mark Hunt back to save the division. Dude's not getting any younger, he can't afford these long injury lay-offs.

[wandshogun09]

Yeah, Hunt's layoff is down to injury. I think he jacked his hand up pretty bad off Bigfoot's bonce. Last I read he's targeting an August return. There were rumblings of Hunt vs Schaub, but as much as I'd love to see Hunt smack him, I'm really hoping we get that Hunt vs Nelson fight.

[David]

Where do you get this great opinion of Browne from David?I just don't see it. In fact, I actually see a very ordinary one dimensional heavyweight who poses lots of power but nothing much else.

 

Let's be honest, if it wasn't for Overeem's gas tank Browne wouldn't have got out of the first round. Then his previous wins were against an aging Barnett and a KO over Gonzaga who's really just a gatekeeper in the HW division.

 

Werdum is simply a class above Browne, irrespective of a broken rib. I'd would easily pick Werdum to beat Browne 8/10 times.

7-2-1 UFC record, six stoppages, four knock out of the night awards, one submission of the night award. What's not to be impressed by? He's certainly not a "great" by any stretch, but he probably poses the most interesting fight for Cain in the division at present.

 

A fit Browne brings that one punch KO power to the table, and he also brings his height, both of which make things at least a bit interesting for the first two rounds or so.

 

Werdum will get outwrestled, outworked and generally fucked up until he gets stopped late or loses a lopsided decision. He couldn't even stop a one-handed, broken rib suffering "one dimensional heavyweight", so what chance does he have against the champion?

[wandshogun09]

Browne is definitely a very good fighter. With JDS out of the title picture he's probably got the most interesting style to fight Cain, although I think he'd still get wrecked.

 

But still, considering hardly anyone gave Werdum a shot going into this fight, it's still a tremendous win. Broken rib and hand or not. Werdum still fought very well and came in in better shape than in recent fights. He wasn't able to stop Browne but Browne's insanely tough as shown against Overeem. That doesn't lessen Werdum's performance for me.

 

But yeah, Werdum isn't beating Cain. I don't think it'll even be close. I think it might actually be quite boring to be honest because I can't see Cain wanting take him down and play on the ground, and the standup could be pretty even. I think Cain might just bully him against the fence like Cormier did to Mir, opening up with strikes now and then but mostly just controlling him. I think that could really wear on Werdum, who doesn't have amazing cardio as it is, and Cain will stop him around the 4th. But I can see it being a bit dull.

 

Next

 

 

FOX SPORTS 1 MAIN CARD

Matt Brown vs Erick Silva

Costas Philippou vs Lorenz Larkin

Erik Koch vs Daron Cruickshank

Neil Magny vs Tim Means

Soa Palelei vs Ruan Potts

Chris Cariaso vs Louis Smolka

 

FOX SPORTS 1 PRELIMS

Ed Herman vs Rafael Natal

Kyoji Horiguchi vs Darrell Montague

Yan Cabral vs Zak Cummings

Eddie Wineland vs Johnny Eduardo

 

FIGHT PASS PRELIMS

Manny Gamburyan vs Nik Lentz

Justin Salas vs Ben Wall

Anthony Lapsley vs Albert Tumenov

 

Yeah, not a great card on paper. That main event though!!

 

Brown vs Silva is going to be insane. There's some fights you can just tell. Matt Brown is one of the most aggressive, come forward fighters in the sport. And Erick Silva will be right there to meet him. Silva's allergic to boring fights, even having barnburners with Jon Fitch and Dong Hyun Kim. And Brown is from the same cloth. Erick Silva is basically a Brazilian Matt Brown. Not necessarily in fighting style but in the way they seem to approach fights with that 'kill or be killed' mentality.

 

 

I absolutely can't wait for this. It's one of the fights I've been most looking forward to so far this year.

 

Philippou vs Larkin should be good. Both heavy hitters. Philippou's got more of a boxing style whereas Larkin's more varied with his Muay Thai. Philippou is coming off getting crushed in a round by Rockhold so he'll be looking to redeem himself in style here. Should make for a fun fight.

 

Koch vs Cruickshank is another fight that should be exciting. Cruickshank is a creative striker, coming off a highlight reel stoppage of Mike Rio, and he's usually in pretty entertaining fights. And Koch's the same. I can't stand him or his bellend-pink complexion, but there's no denying he can go when the Octagon door closes. He just stopped Rafaello Oliveira and had a cracker with Dustin Poirier before that.

 

Beneath these fights...yeah, pretty slim pickings.

 

Herman vs Natal might be decent, I guess. I really liked Yan Cabral in his UFC debut. His grappling was fantastic to watch. Poor cunt got mugged at gun-point in Brazil following that fight though sadly, not a nice welcome to the UFC. Wineland is usually worth a watch. Gamburyan vs Lentz is actually the prelim I like the look of most, but as I don't have Fight Pass...

 

So yeah, thin card. Decent-ish tri-main and co-main events, and a fucking killer main event.

 

[Egg Shen]

just typed up a bit of a late write up for the Fox show then accidentally deleted it, i aint typing it again haha.

 

Voiced my disappointment in Travis Browne though. I know people will play off the injury things, but after losing that bounce his step half way through round 1 it became pretty apparent that Travis Browne is a very ordinary fighter, once you take that explosiveness away from him that sets him apart from the rest of the pack he just sits right in there with the rest of them. Lots of people will give him a pass because of the supposed rib injury but it was a poor show.

 

Werdum however looked awesome, i think him coasting a little in rounds 4 & 5 held Dana off giving him the POTN bonus, but how can they realistically give Alex White the bonus over Werdum? what?

[Egg Shen]

oh and this:

 

[wandshogun09]

Werdum however looked awesome, i think him coasting a little in rounds 4 & 5 held Dana off giving him the POTN bonus, but how can they realistically give Alex White the bonus over Werdum? what?

 

Yeah Dana kept saying at the post-fight press conference that Werdum played it safe as well.

 

I mean, before this fight everyone was writing Werdum off and saying he was going to get knocked out. The FOX vote thing had something like 85% picking Browne. Werdum comes out, dominates the fight throughout and Dana criticises him and say he played it safe. There was only really one round (4th I think) where I thought Werdum looked to be fading and like he took his foot off the gas. Aside from that he was always attacking. Just because he never finished doesn't mean he played it safe. He's not a KO machine and Browne is stupid tough. I thought Werdum looked great.

 

Interestingly, for all the talk of Browne's injuries, the medical suspensions have been released;

 

Travis Browne: 90 days suspension, broken nose, cut over right eye

 

There was no mention whatsoever of a rib or hand injury. And 90 days is fuck all, if he had a broken rib or hand he would've had a longer layoff.

[David]

Interestingly, for all the talk of Browne's injuries, the medical suspensions have been released;

 

Travis Browne: 90 days suspension, broken nose, cut over right eye

 

There was no mention whatsoever of a rib or hand injury. And 90 days is fuck all, if he had a broken rib or hand he would've had a longer layoff.

The post-fight medical examinations aren't usually all that thorough though, and really only take into account injuries that can be identified there & then.

 

Browne did break his hand as a result of dropping Werdum in the first according to his coach. There's x-ray evidence to back it up;

 

 

FOX Sports.com is also reporting that Browne did end up with broken ribs, and also dislocated bones in his foot.

 

It's also worth pointing out that Browne himself has not made mention of any of these injuries as an excuse. It's more being used as a reason for his performance than anything else.

[Egg Shen]

anyone else pumped for Saturday?

 

Don't think there's much fan-fair going in but it's a belting little card. Brown/Silva has FOTY written all over it for me.

 

It's one of those cards that's loaded up on exciting fighters, Lorenz Larkin has been disappointing in the UFC compared to his Strikeforce run but he's due a break out performance, Cruickshank is one of the most must see fighters in the promotion at the moment and he's taking a bit of a step up against Koch, Smolka's one of the hot prospects at 125, Eddie Wineland's buried down there, like the looks of Lentz/Gamburyan.

 

Tim Means returns too, i didn't even realise he'd come back. I love it when a guy gets cut, keeps his mouth shut and just works his ass off to get back to the promotion, always sits well with me.

 

It's good shit from top-to-bottom.

[wandshogun09]

The lack of fanfare probably goes back to the 'spreading themselves too thin' thing. Truth be told it's a decent little card and I'm sure a lot of the fights will deliver but, outside the main event, it's not a card that jumps out on paper as must-see. That's how a lot of these Fight Nights are these days though. Imagine if we were still doing separate threads for every Fight Night? Half of these would be one or two pages at most the amount of discussion they get. Fuck, even UFC 173 is still on page one. There's just so much going on these days you barely have time to process the next card because there's usually another three in your lap in the three weeks beforehand. Cards like this get lost in the shuffle. I'm in two minds with it. On the one hand a positive of the increase in events is that now a fight like Brown vs Silva gets top billing and five rounds (not that I think it'll need it). On the other hand it's on a card that a lot of people will probably either skip or simply forget is happening.

 

If they were still in the days of doing say 20 shows a year instead of 40 odd, fights like Brown vs Silva would've probably wound up as a PPV opener or something. Imagine it opening UFC 175?

 

Weidman vs Machida

Rousey vs Davis

Chael vs Wanderlei

Brown vs Silva

 

Sweet Christ!

 

I'm massively looking forward to Brown vs Silva. I'd be very surprised if that turns out to be anything short of an absolute corker. Their styles shouldn't allow for anything else. I like Larkin but he's been a bit of a wet fart in the UFC so far. Cruickshank's worth watching. Basically what I've already said in the post up there.

 

I worry every time I see a card like this though. All it takes is one badly timed injury and you're left with a Philippou vs Larkin main event. I know most times they're able to get a replacement in but say a card like this had one of the headliners drop out a week or two out, they'd be fucked. The Shogun-Hendo 2 card was the same. Luckily it all stayed together but it could've easily fucked up, especially with two guys as banged up as Shogun and Hendo. It's risky. There's more and more of these cards now where they're pretty much one fight shows. I wouldn't be surprised if there's another UFC 151 situation at some point this year. But the FOX deal and their international plans mean they're locked into trying to make this work one way or another. It's why they've brought back Arlovski. They really need names more than ever now. I wouldn't be shocked if Dana finally caves and brings back Paul Daley at some point soonish either. He's someone you could throw into a headliner on a UK show and he's exciting to watch.

 

So yeah, Brown vs Silva is where it's at for me on this card. The rest might be good but I can't pretend I'm getting all wet with anticipation. The undercard for this is just mild foreplay compared to real action the main event promises to be.