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UFC 221: Rockhold vs Romero


wandshogun09

Who wins and how?   

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A one match pay per view, for an unnecessary interim title, that only one man can win. What a shit show. With each passing day that the UFC continues to stumble and fall, the Fertitta’s decision to sell looks better and better. 

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1 hour ago, Supremo said:

A one match pay per view, for an unnecessary interim title, that only one man can win. What a shit show. With each passing day that the UFC continues to stumble and fall, the Fertitta’s decision to sell looks better and better. 

I dunno. One could argue that it's because the Fertittas sold it that it's stumbling and falling. Pretty sure they would bother with bollocks like this, or that they wouldn't have allowed it to happen in the first place.

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The post weigh-in interview Luke Rockhold did with Megan Oliveri is terrifying. Fucking terrifying. It’s proof that those severe weight cuts don’t just effect your body, they fuck with your mind. That is a straight up different human than who he’ll be in a weeks time.

Weight cutting is such a rank business.

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Well then:

Between the ages of 38 years and 7 months, and 40 years and 9 months; Romero has produced stoppage wins over Rockhold and Weidman, and a decision win over Jacare; all of whom are top 5 middleweights today, and probably top 10 all-time in their weightclass. Arguably, those three scalps are as impressive as any three scalps that Couture took in his late 30's and 40's. This win followed the same pattern as the Weidman fight. Romero dropped the first round, started giving his opponent issues in the 2nd round, then hit the homerun in the third. By design? Probably not, but it shows that Romero is dangerous well into the middle rounds. He's perhaps not as multi-faceted a fighter as those around him, which leads to him being slightly underestimated in some circles, but he's just as effective overall, as his resume shows. 

I have believed for some time that Rockhold is the best middleweight in the world, based on how complete he is. However, he's perhaps been caught out one too many times now. I could overlook Bisping clipping him, and turn a blind eye to Branch having him on wobbly legs, but with Romero as well now stopping him? It's clear that he is very beatable in stand-up exchanges when pitted against top-end middleweights.

Blaydes winning was probably best for the division in the long-haul. Despite that, I was willing Hunt on to finish the job in the first round - just because it's Hunt. It's hard to say how good Blaydes is - or how good he will turn out to be. He's still young for a heavyweight, and perhaps has a lot of untapped potential. We'll see if he ends up as a gatekeeper or a legitimate contender. For now, I can't see him giving Miocic any sleepless nights. 

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Fuck all the criticisms of this card. Yoel's knockout made everything alright with the world. What a joyous day this is! 

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Like you say as well Jim, for all the critiquing people do of Romero's unorthodox style and the kind of suggestion that he doesn't know what he's doing/gets lucky half the time...this shit happens too often and to too high a calibre of opponent. Of course it's not all planned, like he's not dropping rounds early on purpose or anything. But everything he does do is measured and by design. He's unlike anyone else in the game in that I genuinely don't think he even worries about winning rounds or scoring points. 

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What a mockery interim titles are. Yoel can’t win an interim title, but he gets Whittaker next anyway. So... the point? Anyone?

Obviously, I’m delighted. Utterly delighted. But it was spoiled slightly by my parents who are staying over this weekend. They woke up early, whilst I was trying to watch the fights, and had some interesting insights. Despite the fact that I trained for years, and had a few amateur fights, their first few questions during the Mark Hunt fight were ‘is this cage fighting then?’ (I think it was the two men fighting in the cage that gave it away) and ‘I didn’t realise you could fight on the ground’.

During the main event my mum said, twice, of Yoel Romero that he had a ‘lovely little arse’ and that she’d ‘fly to Cuba a thousand times’ to meet him. She soured on him at the finish, though, when she shouted, and this is a genuine quote, ‘dirty bastard...he can shove his lovely arse up his arse’.

...Sake.

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Well that finish was fucking awesome. Almost worth trawling through the undercard for. Nice of Yoel to prove his gay credentials by necking a concussed Rockhold  post fight. Almost certainly not the result the UFC wanted here. 

From the rest Israel Adesanya stood out as maybe a star in the making. Very good performance from him and he looks to have a lot of natural confidence and charisma.

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It’ll get lost in the general misery that engulfs all right-minded people when Mark Hunt loses, but that was a pretty great performance (and chin) from Curtis ‘Suplex City’ Blaydes. Really important for the division, too, that someone in their 20’s is coming up.

Be interesting to see who they match him up with next. Ngannou rematch? Overeem? 

Also, I quite enjoyed that main card. Tai Tuavasa is a brutal man. The second fight was a proper brawl, and Tyson Pedro scored a decent submission.

I’m sure the 17 people that paid for it enjoyed it.

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Yeah, Adesanya's debut went about as good as you could hope for. For the people who'd seen him fight before, this was what you wanted/expected. And for the people who were seeing him for the first time, this was the kind of introduction that was needed. Everyone will be looking forward to his next outing after that performance in the cage and on the mic. There's things he still needs work on but this was a really strong debut all in all. 

Tai Tuivasa looked like a killer again as well. Really like the guy. He looks like Mark Hunt and Cain Velasquez had a baby. And I love the way he fights. He wiped out Rashad Coulter in his debut and here he just fucking devastated Cyril Asker. I actually felt sorry for Asker here. After a minute or so it was clear he was done. Some of the punches and standing elbows he got hit with were just ruthless. He did well to last the 2 minutes or so he did. Ref should've called it a bit quicker IMO. Asker was throwing the odd feeble shot back but he was eating so many unanswered bombs and wasn't defending them. The ref only stopped it when he did because Asker's legs finally gave out but refs really don't need to wait until a guy falls down to step in. Asker was out on his feet a while previous to faceplanting. 

Nice rebound for Tyson Pedro as well. Safarov is nothing special but he's granite tough and doesn't back up. Pedro looked good. Hurt him with some shots on the feet and submitted him with a nice kimura. I hope they don't rush him along too quick because you can still see he needs time in certain areas but I think there is genuine promise there. 

Blaydes vs Hunt was the disappointment of the night. Both the result and how the fight played out. I do think there is potential there in Blaydes though. He's huge, he's pretty agile, his physical conditioning is getting better, he's still the right side of 30. And he's shown some key ingredients that you want in any fighter. He's durable and has heart, as he showed against Ngannou. And he's got the capability to fight intelligently and not necessarily in a meatheaded way some heavies do. As we saw here against Hunt. People can shit on him but he needed this win, he got it, he did it while taking relatively little damage compared to most Hunt opponents and it was the biggest win of his career. He's on the right track. For Hunt, he still showed early that he's a threat but it's becoming more and more apparent that that last run at the title probably isn't all that realistic anymore. Sadly, I don't see him retiring anytime soon but I hope he doesn't go on too much longer. He still showed some good stuff here, it's not like he's shot to bits or anything. But he's on the way down and at his age, you're not really going to get better, only worse from here on in. 

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