UFC Fight Night: Overeem vs Arlovski - May 8th

[seanz25]

Not watched the show yet, but everyone's agreeing on the daylight robbery of a shite decision for Pearson. That's two fucking dire decisions in 2 consecutive weeks for the Brits now. With the Luke Barnet one being poor last weekend too.

[Marshmallo]

Can anyone think of a worse decision than that in MMA history? It really was disgusting.

 

Benson is phenomenal, I gave Khabilov the first round and I thought he performed well, but anyone who beats Henderson is pound for pound.class. If you look at what he's been doing since the first Cerrone fight he has to be in the discussion for top few lighter weight fighters in history.

[wandshogun09]

Can anyone think of a worse decision than that in MMA history? It really was disgusting.

 

If you go right back there's been some real howlers over the years.

 

I haven't seen them in years but I remember thinking Ricco Rodriguez got robbed in Pride against Big Nog. And I was shocked when Rampage got the verdict at the end of his fight with Ninja Rua. But its been that long since I saw those fights, I might feel different watching now.

 

The majority think Kevin Randleman got robbed back in late 90s UFC against Bas Rutten. And in more recent times, I thought the second Bendo vs Edgar decision was horseshit. Bendo's had a few controversial ones but I wouldn't call his wins over Melendez, Thomson or the first Edgar fight robberies. You can make a solid case for Bendo in all of those. And I definitely thought he won the first Edgar fight. The rematch though, I had it 4 rounds to 1 for Frankie. I could maybe, possibly, see two rounds for Bendo. But three? No chance. That was a bollocks decision, in my opinion.

 

People can call it bias if they want but I'll always maintain that Shogun vs Machida 1 was a total robbery as well. I remember going online the day after and I couldn't believe there were people arguing that the decision was right. Again, I had it 4-1 Shogun. At a generous stretch I could see it 3-2 to Shogun. No fucking way did Machida win 3 rounds though. From what I recall every major MMA media site had Shogun winning handily. Dana had Shogun winning. The crowd started the fight booing Shogun and then were on the bandwagon by the final buzzer, and booed the decision. Machida looked like he was at a funeral before the verdict was read as well, he knew he lost. The FightMetric thing had Shogun outlanding Machida in every single round as well, and ending up with Shogun scoring over double the strikes overall in the fight or something. That was a shite decision. Cecil Peoples after the fight basically admitted that he ignored Shogun's leg kicks because "leg kicks don't win fights". One of the other judges admitted he might have fucked up his scorecard somehow as well, as I recall. Just a shambles on all fronts.

 

There's a fight between Chase Beebe and Mike Easton that's supposed to be a terrible decision as well but I've never seen it. The aforementioned Garcia vs Phan 1 has to be in the running also, a fight which led to Joe Rogan losing his shit all night and going off on tangents about bad judging even while other fights were going on.

 

So yeah, there's been a bunch of them. The thing with this Pearson vs Sanchez one though that really makes it stand out, is Sanchez wasn't ever really that competitive. It was basically a shut-out. There was no grey area of aggression vs counter striking, power vs technique or quality of strikes vs quantity of strikes. To anyone with a brain, Pearson was mostly more the aggressor (at least the 'effective' aggressor, not hitting thin air), he was the better counter striker, he landed more power strikes, he was more technical, and he landed in both more quality and quantity than Sanchez. It's really a baffling decision.

 

It comes down to this... if you look at the judging criteria which they always run through at the start of the shows - [MikeGoldbergVoice/]"Effective striking, grappling, aggression and Octagon control"[/MikeGoldbergVoice] - there wasn't one category where Diego got the better of it. Even in Shogun vs Machida, at least Machida was landing counter strikes as his legs got bashed up. Sanchez really seemed to have nothing for Pearson.

 

It's up there for me, right alongside the worst decisions in MMA.

[Supremo]

I hate when people overreact and call a decision the worst of all time. But I genuinely can't think of one this bad. Poor Ross got absolutely robbed.

[wandshogun09]

Yeah, I always try to steer away from outright declaring a fight a robbery. There's only been a handful of actual robberies in MMA history in my opinion. People saying Melendez and Thomson's losses to Bendo were robberies, or that Thomson got robbed in the third Melendez fight and stuff is bollocks. The outcry at the Condit vs Diaz decision was especially silly, I thought. There's a huge difference between a close decision and a robbery. A robbery is when there's no way you can score the fight to one guy, yet he wins. If there's any way you can justify the other guy winning, even if you disagree, then it's not a robbery. Thats the difference between Pearson vs Sanchez and say, Jones vs Gustafsson or GSP vs Hendricks. You can debate the latter two, you really can't argue that Diego Sanchez beat Ross Pearson. And if you try to you're a fucking Cecil Peoples-level dummy who has no idea what they're looking at.

 

Surely, Pearson gets his win money. He's got to eat the loss on his record, but they can't rob him of half his money as well, surely. I think they'll pay him in full. And they'll probably just treat this like he won as far as booking his next fight goes. This shouldn't set him back.

 

Fuck it, they're going to Japan in September. Pearson vs Gomi?

[JNLister]

Telegraph says Pearson's filed a complaint with the athletic commission, but it'll fail unless they can prove either corruption or some sort of fuck-up.

 

Then again, a transcription fuck-up is a more convincing explanation than Jeff Collins scoring it 30-27 for Sanchez.

[David]

The UFC should be pushing for some sort of judging reform surely? I mean, I don't see why these guys can make shit decisions yet still get paid, and even worse still, get used in future events!

 

If anyone else doesn't perform at their work they get sacked eventually!

[wandshogun09]

Another UFC double-header coming up. Two events in one night again on the 28th.

 

There's the UFC's debut in New Zealand;

 

 

FIGHT PASS MAIN CARD

James Te Huna vs Nate Marquardt

Soa Palelei vs Jared Rosholt

Hatsu Hioki vs Charles Oliveira

Robert Whittaker vs Mike Rhodes

 

FIGHT PASS PRELIMS

Jake Matthews vs Dashon Johnson

Richie Vaculik vs Roldan Sangcha-an

Chris Indich vs Vik Grujic

Neil Magny vs Rodrigo Goiana de Lima

Ian Entwistle vs Dan Hooker

Gian Villante vs Sean O'Connell

 

Not a killer card or anything but there's fun to be had with some of this, I reckon.

 

Te Huna vs Marquardt should be a good fight. Both guys' backs are against the wall here. Te Huna was last seen getting knocked out by Shogun in December. Before that Glover Teixeira made quick work of him. Marquardt's been on a similar downslide. Coming off back-to-back quick KO losses to Hector Lombard and Jake Ellenberger. Before that he had his legs battered for 25 minutes against Tarec Saffiedine. Te Huna's 32 coming off a two fight losing streak, Marquardt is 35 coming off a three fight skid. You have to assume the loser is a goner in this one. Unless it's some kind of Hunt-Bigfoot type war, it's hard to imagine them keeping the loser around.

 

So a fight like that can go one or two ways. Either they fight safe to just bag the win at all costs. Or they fight like their bollocks depend on it. With their styles and the fact it's in Te Huna's backyard, I think it'll be more the latter.

 

Hioki vs Oliveira is the fight I'm most excited about on this one though. I've been erect for the idea of this fight since around the time Hioki signed with the UFC back in 2011. I've built it up in my head as some grappling version of Melendez-Sanchez, so it'll probably disappoint now. But I'm really looking forward to this. Two of the best pure submission artists in the lower weight classes, both underrated strikers, both similar lanky build. They're pretty much the Japanese and Brazilan versions of each other.

 

 

That's the fight for me on the New Zealand show.

 

Rest of the card doesn't do a great deal for me. Soa Palelei isn't going to be troubling anyone in the upper level of the heavyweight ranks, but he's fun to watch for what he is. Just a big heavy hitter. This is a real test as well because Jared Rosholt has the wrestling skills to give him nightmares potentially. Could be interesting but it's also got the feel of a fight that could turn out to absolutely suck a dick as well. We'll see. Robert Whittaker is exciting to watch.

 

I posted in the MMA News thread a few weeks back about Ian Entwistle as well. He's making is UFC debut. British but fights out of Thailand. 8-1 record. Mainstay of the Cage Warriors forum where he takes some stick.

 

He posted this on there shortly before his UFC signing was announced;

Infact fuck waiting you've challenged me so fuck it I will do it calling out the fucking lot of you who wants it Ronnie man brett johns,menga,brum,Cory Tate nothing personal but this mother fuckers challenged my manhood I went to make a brew slammed the kettle Down and thought I will show that mother fucker who billy big dick of the bantam weight division is.

 

Decipher that.

 

Then the same night in San Antonio, Texas;

 

 

FOX SPORTS 1 MAIN CARD

Cub Swanson vs Jeremy Stephens

Kelvin Gastelum vs Nicholas Musoke

Cezar Ferreira vs Andrew Craig

Ricardo Lamas vs Hacran Dias

Clint Hester vs Antonio Braga Neto

Joe Ellenberger vs James Moontasri

 

FOX SPORTS 1 PRELIMS

Colton Smith vs Carlos Diego Ferreira

Johnny Bedford vs Cody Gibson

Marcelo Guimaraes vs Andy Enz

Ray Borg vs Shane Howell

 

The main card was supposed to have Abel Trujillo vs Myles Jury as well but Jury got injured. Then they tried to book Trujillo vs Frank Trevino but that fell through as well so Trujillo's now off the card altogether.

 

I love the Swanson vs Stephens match up. It's hard to imagine that being anything but exciting. Swanson wants to get back on the horse here. He was in the form of his career, on a 5 fight win streak with 4 KOs. Wins over Dennis Siver, Dustin Poirier, Charles Oliveira, Ross Pearson and George Roop. He was on fire, but injuries set him back and he's been on the shelf nearly a year now. Stephens is 3-0 since dropping to featherweight. He's looked impressive in beating Darren Elkins and Rony Jason in his last two fights.

 

With how the 145 division stands currently, a win here could land one of these two a title shot late this year or early next year. Especially if it's Swanson.

 

Gastelum has been tons of fun so far since winning TUF. He had a tremendous back and forth fight with Rick Story a few months ago. This feels like a bit of a step down though. Lamas is looking to rebound from his one sided loss to Jose Aldo. I like what we've seen so far of Clint Hester. Tough opponent though in Braga Neto, who's a multi-time BJJ world champion.

 

So yeah, neither card is jam packed. But between the two there's some really good stuff here. It's better than the last double-header anyway, I reckon. Really looking forward to Te Huna vs Marquardt, Hioki vs Oliveira and Swanson vs Stephens especially.

[Egg Shen]

going back to Saturday's card...

 

* first off Bryan Carraway won me

[wandshogun09]

I didn't hear them say RDA, but they might have. The Caraway fishhook thing wasn't really a factor, Perez himself said he didn't even notice. Fuck Caraway though. He hasn't won me

[Egg Shen]

agreed, lets have them explain their decision.

[wandshogun09]

Dana has confirmed that Jason High has been released from the UFC for his shove of the ref after the stoppage.

 

Also, Dana on the Pearson vs Sanchez decision;

"Pearson easily won that fight. We have to treat Pearson like he won and give him that next level fight."

 

Pearson got an extra $30K as well.

[Mr Tibbs]

Thats great to hear. However, I would still have liked to see a re-match between the two. Hopefully we might get that Pearson/Gomi fight that has been talked about for a while now. Will they do it in Japan to continue Pearsons run of facing opponents in their own backyard?

[Egg Shen]

a rematch in Ireland makes sense, co-main event, people will be up for it, it sells itself.

 

Dana has mentioned they'll treat Pearson like he won the fight though in terms of what comes next.

[wandshogun09]

Yeah, doesn't sound like there will be a rematch.

 

"It was horrible," White told ESPN.com. "In the second round, Diego got dropped and one judge still gave him that round. Insanity, man. Pearson got robbed. Pearson won that fight clearly. He easily won that fight. We have to treat Pearson like he won and give him that next level fight.

 

"Next level fight" won't be Sanchez. The Dublin rematch would've been good but that's assuming Diego would be good to go again by next month. Pearson came out unscathed but Sanchez took some punishment. He mightn't have been medically cleared in time for Dublin even if that was the plan.

 

I could see Pearson vs Gomi on the China show in August or the Japan show in September. Or failing that, Lauzon isn't booked is he?

 

Are there any plans for another UK show late this year? Usually one around October/November.