UFC Fight Night: Overeem vs Arlovski - May 8th

[Egg Shen]

well ive watched the New Zealand show, that was a quality little event.

 

* Nate Marquadt is back then. He looked outstanding. Against an aggressive powerful guy like Te Huna, Nate met his aggression and simply out MMA'd him in every facet of the game. Bit of a statement from Marquadt who many people have written off. 185 is definitely his division.

 

...and as for people who shit all over the main event before it happened, the actual night proved why these things take place, that crowd was into that main event, the haka (which was cool), the noise, it really felt like a big deal and it meant a lot to the New Zealanders watching, it's a shame Nate shut them up at the end up but i thought the main event was a bit of a middle finger to the detractors cause it was the cherry on top of a good night of MMA.

 

Don't think there was a bad fight on the card other than the Rosholt/Palelei fight which came down to Rosholt simply outwrestling the bigger guy (Rosholt is the new John Madsen).

 

* Bit sad to see the O'Connell/Villante fight take FOTN over Oliveira/Hioki too. It was a fun slugfest and both guys left it all out there (which is suppose is Dana's criteria for the FOTN bonus), but Oliveira/Hioki was a rare chance to see two legit jiu jitsu guys go at in a grappling based MMA fight, loved it. Charles Oliveira is a must see fighter.

 

Elsewhere...

 

* Loved the look of Roldan Sangcha-an. He lost but that guy had clearly had some wild standup skills, Richie Vas fought smart and tired the Phillipino out but i came out of that wanting to see Sangcha-an matched up with a stand-up fighter. Sergio Pettis needs to drop back to down to 125lb and fight this guy.

 

* Jake Matthews is an absolute tank at 155. The size thing may have been a combination of him being huge plus Dashon Johnson being small for the weight but fucking hell, at 19 years old Matthews could be the future of Australian MMA, sky's the limit. I never quite saw the hype on TUF Nations but that experience probably helped him out. Thought he deserved a Performance of the night bonus too, stupid bonuses.

 

Enjoy it.

[wandshogun09]

I only saw the main card of the New Zealand show. Really enjoyed it. Like I said, I like these short and punchy Fight Pass cards.

 

I wouldn't say Nate Marquardt is necessarily back based on this win, I think that remains to be seen when he faces some of the better middleweights, but he certainly looked good. I felt a bit sorry for Te Huna. Hometown crowd, main event, must've been a really special moment for him and he pretty much got steamrolled in round one. Nate cracked him with a brutal knee very early on which looked like it wobbled him, the armbar finish was cool.

 

Do you think Te Huna might be gone now? That's three losses in a row. All first round finishes. Although he's put in a hard shift, facing Glover, Shogun and Marquardt in a row. Maybe he'll get one last crack being that he's in a new division.

 

Is CB Dolloway booked? Wouldn't mind Marquardt vs Dollaway next. Or Marquardt vs Philippou.

 

I'm with you on Oliveira vs Hioki. I'm so glad it lived up to my expectations. Been wanting to see that fight for ages and it didn't disappoint. Sometimes when you get two really strong grapplers they seem to want to avoid a stalemate on the ground and it becomes a striking match. I'm glad this two didn't do that. Best ground fight I've seen in a while. And Oliveira did well to come back from the eyepoke and a fairly tough round.

 

That submission was fucking quality as well. Sort of a half guillotine/half Peruvian necktie. That type of submission is always impressive but to pull shit like that off against a grappler like Hioki, who had never been submitted before, was incredible. Awesome fight.

 

Grappling heavy fights hardly ever win FOTN I didn't see the Villante fight but everywhere I read people are saying Oliveira vs Hioki was their FOTN.

 

I enjoyed the other show as well.

 

Swanson vs Stephens was very good. Stephens did better than I expected really, I thought Swanson would end up stopping him but he was more competitive than I thought he'd be. Swanson was just a higher class of striker though. More variety, better movement, more accurate. Stephens' power evened it up at times though which made it fun to watch, but I had Swanson doing enough to win. Good fight to have coming off a layoff as well, got his five rounds in and knocked some rust off.

 

He's surely next for Aldo/Mendes now. I saw Helwani tweet something about there being stuff to play out at 145 with Penn vs Edgar, McGregor vs Brandao and Guida vs Bermudez. But none of those can lay claim to the shot like Swanson can. McGregor needs more time and big wins, which he may or may not even be up to. Guida and Bermudez aren't there yet. Penn hasn't won a fight in years and Edgar is 1-0 at 145 and been out a year. Swanson is on a 6 fight win streak over some really tough opposition. It's time he gets his shot.

 

I really enjoyed Gastelum vs Musoke. I like Gastelum a lot. He shows a lot of promise and he's still only 21. He's going to get much much better yet. Apologizing for missing weight and not making excuses was a good move, hopefully that was a one off though. Ferreira vs Craig heated up nicely towards the end. I was rooting for Craig to pull out the late comeback during his last attack. Everyone loves a comeback and I have a weird irrational dislike of Ferreira for no reason. I liked Hester vs Neto. Close fight. I love watching Clint Hester fight, when he goes for the kill it's great to watch. Carlos Ferreira vs Colton Smith was a pleasant surprise as well, Ferreira breezing through him wasn't what I expected.

 

Johnny Bedford was on the end of a bollocks stoppage. Yeah he went down but he didn't look limp and the ref didn't give him any opportunity to fight out of it. As soon as he hit the floor the ref ran in and waved it off. In some cases that's the right call, like Hendo vs Bisping or something when you can tell the guy is out. But Bedford was moving and didn't get chance to move or defend or anything. Bad stoppage. Shame because the fight was exciting while it lasted as well.

 

Pretty good bunch of fights between the two cards.

[Shane O' Mac Version 2]

Do you think Te Huna might be gone now? That's three losses in a row. All first round finishes. Although he's put in a hard shift, facing Glover, Shogun and Marquardt in a row. Maybe he'll get one last crack being that he's in a new division.

 

I think he'll get another go. Like you said, new division and he lost to two upper echelon LHWs. In addition, this Fight Pass show was the first one ever in New Zealand, it'd look pretty bad to release UFC's biggest Kiwi star immediately after (since Mark Hunt refuses to lay claim to NZ). Getting destroyed by Marquardt, who has historically been good but not at Shogun-type levels of star power/relevance, doesn't bode well for him though. I enjoy watching Te Huna fight but really hope he pulls off something outstanding if he gets another shot. This fight doesn't do much to show where he'll be at MW either, that knee levelled him about 30 seconds in, would have probably finished some other fighters but we know he has a good chin. No idea how the cut affected him in terms of strength/energy/stamina.

 

I enjoyed Hioki vs. Oliveira, I've seen the sub referred to as a "Bronx Necktie", which I think sounds pretty cool. I only saw the main card as well but that was FOTN-worthy to me. I think a big part of what dictates FOTN is the crowd reaction, and the Kiwi crowd was disappointingly quiet for the exchanges, I even heard some light booing at some point. Just bleed and all that.

 

Liked Robert Whittaker's fight too. I think he has a very bright future, and he's adding some diversity to his already impressive striking ability. The only thing that concerns me is his defense- yes, he has good head movement, but keeping his hands that low is a recipe for disaster. I understood that approach against Colton Smith, but against Thompson and now Rhodes, you'd want a better guard against higher level strikers.

[Egg Shen]

i think Te Huna gets one more shot as well, guys seem to whipe the slate the clean when they drop a division as if they are given a chance to adjust. So i say Te Huna gets one more crack, especially as he's never in a boring fight win or lose.

 

The American show wasn't as good as the New Zealand show but it had some bright moments.

 

Swanson was just a slight step above Stephens for the majority of the fight, i scored it 49-46 for Cub but it was competitive. Swanson has to get a title shot now, i love how they can play off the angle that Swanson was destroyed in the first fight too, that may sound weird but i like the idea of selling it as a revenge fight.

 

Think wand. echo'd my thoughts on a few other fights...i had Braga Neto beating Clint Hester though 29-28. Other than round 3 i don't see how anyone could have given Hester either of the first two rounds. He was soundly outgrappled.

[wandshogun09]

I probably had Neto beating Hester as well, yeah. Was a bit distracted during that fight though so didn't really catch everything that was going on until late in the fight. But from what I saw it looked to me like Neto got the better of the first two rounds.

 

Did anyone catch Mike Goldberg's fuck up on the New Zealand show?

 

Fuelling the American stereotype of being completely ignorant about other countries, the US commentator announced,

[wandshogun09]

Might as well combine these next two Fight Nights because they're so close together. Cerrone vs Miller is on July 16th in New Jersey. Then three days later on the 19th is the McGregor vs Brandao card in Dublin.

 

Unlike one or two recent Fight Nights, I think both of these look pretty fantastic.

 

 

FOX SPORTS 1 MAIN CARD - BT Sports 1 - 2am

Donald Cerrone vs Jim Miller

Edson Barboza vs Evan Dunham

Rick Story vs Leonardo Mafra

Justin Salas vs Joe Proctor

John Lineker vs Alptekin Ozkilic

Lucas Martins vs Alex White

 

FOX SPORTS 1 PRELIMS - BT Sports 1 - 12am

Gleison Tibau vs Pat Healy

Jessamyn Duke vs Leslie Smith

Hugo Viana vs Aljamain Sterling

Yosdenis Cedeno vs Jerrod Sanders

 

FIGHT PASS PRELIMS

Claudia Gadelha vs Tina Lahdemaki

 

The official bout order hasn't been announced yet but this is the order currently floating about. I'll update it if it changes. I really like the look of this one.

 

Cerrone vs Miller, on paper, is the type of fight you could see being in the FOTY talk by the end of the year. You try not to jinx it by saying it's a guaranteed barnburner or something, but there's certain combinations of fighters that you just can't imagine producing anything short of a crazy war. And this is one of them for me.

 

Both are super aggressive. Both are skilled everywhere. Both tough as fuck. Both always try to finish. Neither are opposed to getting into a wild scrap. Add to that it's in Jim Miller's backyard in New Jersey, so the crowd will be electric. It's got all the ingredients of something special.

 

Barboza vs Dunham is another fight I can't see anything but good things from. Two fighters who at one point were thought to be serious prospects and future title contenders. The door on that isn't closed yet but they've both hit a few stumbling blocks along the way. Both exciting fighters though. I'm expecting a good one here.

 

John Lineker is always worth tuning in for. I'm not sure which will be his tougher opponent though, Ozkilic or the scales. He's such a talented and exciting fighter but at this point it seems like he's always one weight miss away from getting sacked. Hopefully he's got his shit together now.

 

Tibau vs Healy could be good. Or could end up being one of those tough grinding battles where they just shut each other down. Viana vs Sterling is a fight I'm really looking forward to.

 

Oh and I know nothing about him but...Leo Kuntz. Kuntz! Can't wait to hear Buffer shout that one

 

 

FIGHT PASS MAIN CARD - BT Sports 2 - 7.30pm

Conor McGregor vs Diego Brandao

Gunnar Nelson vs Zak Cummings

Brad Pickett vs Ian McCall

Norman Parke vs Naoyuki Kotani

 

FIGHT PASS PRELIMS

Ilir Latifi vs Chris Dempsey

Neil Seery vs Phil Harris

Cathal Pendred vs Mike King

Tor Troeng vs Trevor Smith

Nikita Krylov vs Cody Donovan

Josh Sampo vs Patrick Holohan

 

This is another really solid little card, I think. Who's going? I wish I was, just bad timing for me.

 

I think McGregor vs Brandao is going to be incredible. Both in terms of in cage action and atmosphere. The crowd is going to be insane. No doubt fight week will be full of excitement with the press conference, the scrums, the weigh in. Then the fight itself has all the makings of a really exciting battle. Brandao only has one speed and one direction. 100% and forward non-stop. That's it. Probably why he gasses. He throws 100% power strikes right from the off, including wild stuff like flying knees and spinning shit.

 

So far, so good is about how you'd sum up McGregor as far as his early UFC run has gone. It's way early to proclaim him a contender. It's also way early to dismiss that he could be one. It all remains to be seen and it's all speculation for now. Brandao is someone I think McGregor should beat. But who knows? It's certainly not without risk. Brandao has big power and he's a BJJ black belt. Add to that McGregor has been out nearly a year and had to have knee surgery. It's not an easy fight by any stretch. As long as he's patient early, I like McGregor to win. Brandao could be hell for a round or two though.

 

These two were actually originally being planned to fight each other on December's UFC 168 PPV, before the full extent of McGregor's knee injury was known. They were having pops at each other on twitter as far back as last August;

 

Diego Brandao @DiegoBrandaoMMA

You want to challenge me and when I accept you run and cry and say your injured here is #TEAMBRANDAO @TheNotoriousMMA I destroy you bro

 

Conor McGregor @TheNotoriousMMA

They grow a set of balls when i'm injured. @DiegoBrandaoMMA you're a part-time Martial Artist. Your last contest proved that. I'm 24/7. 365.

 

 

Awesome Conor McGregor highlight

 

Gunnar Nelson vs Zak Cummings is a potentially excellent ground fight. Gunnar's grappling is some of the best to watch in MMA for me. It's seamless and it always leading somewhere. He's never just in a position for the sake of it or to rest or ride out the clock. It's always leading to a better position or a finish. He's always reminded me of BJ Penn on the ground. And Cummings is no slouch there either. He just had a really good fight with Yan Cabral, who's another quality grappler and hung with him on the ground and won the fight. I've got high expectations for this one.

 

Brad Pickett vs Uncle Creepy was meant to happen on the London card in March so I'm happy it's been re-booked. Can't see past an exciting all-action fight between these two. I don't think I've seen a crap fight out of either of them yet. Could have title implications as well. Looks like Dodson is next in line but this could determine the next next guy, if that makes sense. Especially with Pickett holding a win over Mighty Mouse.

 

Parke vs Kotani could be a good main card opener. Lawlor vs Fucker is one I'm quite looking forward to, forgot it was even signed. I thought Latifi looked really good with a full camp on the London show. Wonder what Lawlor will do for the weigh in. Leprechaun suit? Be interested to see Neil Seery again. He fought his nuts off against Pickett on short notice last time. I'd like to see Cathal Pendred look impressive. Liked him on TUF. Mike King's a scrappy fucker so I can see that making for an entertaining fight. Patrick 'Hooligan' Holohan is yet another McGregor team mate out of SBG.

 

Two really good cards there, I reckon.

 

[Egg Shen]

loving both of these shows.

[weevil]

Claudia Gadelha vs Tina Lahdemaki is also worth paying attention to on the Cerrone vs Miller card, as the winner could plausibly be a UFC champion in 2015.

 

Gadelha (11-0) is ranked third at strawweight and was one of the favourites to win TUF 20, but dropped out as she didn't think she could repeatedly make weight in the house. Lahdemaki isn't quite as established, but she's undefeated (5-0 pro , 6-0 amateur), so a win over Gadelha would shoot her to the top of the division.

[David]

Jeremy Stephens has the shittest beard in MMA.

[wandshogun09]

That covers a lot of ground. It's almost like saying someone had the worst teeth on Jeremy Kyle.

 

It is a shit beard though. I'd rank Kenny Florian's little bumfluff number pretty high as well.

[David]

That covers a lot of ground. It's almost like saying someone had the worst teeth on Jeremy Kyle.

 

It is a shit beard though. I'd rank Kenny Florian's little bumfluff number pretty high as well.

His beard looked terrible on Saturday night. It's one of those curly ones that grows out the way rather than down and in a decent shape.

 

Saying that, Nate the great looked like a fucking hobo as well, didn't he?

[jimufctna24]

Roy Nelson has the worst beard

 

McGregor's is the best

[wandshogun09]

I love McGregor but I have to be honest, his beard's a bit cack, I think. It's like a load of gingery pubes stuck on with glue.

 

For the best beard in MMA, see my sig. Everyone else's can fuck off. Although Don Frye with a full beard would be a sight to behold. He's grown a goatee before hasn't he? But I'm talking a full-on face warmer.

 

Marquardt looked about 50 with the beard and brillo pad head combo on Saturday night.

[Egg Shen]

i liked Nate's beard, had a bit of an Evan Tanner look about him.

keep it.

[jimufctna24]

McGregor's suits him, he looks slick. I am not a fan of the slovenly beard look (Nelson)

 

Anyway, clean shaven is the best way to go