Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted March 3, 2018 Author Paid Members Share Posted March 3, 2018 Ha, I meant to mention Ortega's hair. You have to be mega confident to walk out in front of a load of people as a man in pigtails. Or whatever that hairstyle is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamTH17 Posted March 3, 2018 Share Posted March 3, 2018 Anyone see this? Cyborg had some masked bloke come out and grapple with her at the open workouts, and it turned out being BJ Penn. Getting battered. Again. Some predictions: Cyborg to win via TKO whenever she fancies. If Holly Holm didn't have anything troubling her, I doubt that Kunitskaya will, without any disrespect. I just think Cyborg is far too dialled in at the moment to have any type of slip up in this one. It's not just her opponent mind, I can't see anyone in this division giving Cyborg any bother for the foreseeable future. Ortega to win via Submission. This one is a coin toss, honestly. I could hear arguments for either Edgar or Oretga taking this one, they're both so good and they have skills which cancel out the others magnificently. It's a great match in terms of conflicting styles. Edgar didn't show me anything against Yair to even remotely suggest he was on the wind-down, but I just have this hunch that Ortega is going to be the bloke that does it. Edgar probably has the edge in terms of striking, but if it gets to the ground I'd be worried if I was Frankie, Ortega's lethal. It's honestly a stupidly tough fight to pick but I'll plump with Ortega. I'll say Soukhamthath wins on the basis of O'Malley being a bit of a cock and how he didn't look that confident against Ware. Struve to beat Arlovski, probably due to the early knockout. I really rate Volkov, and Struve was giving him some problems on the feet during that one, whereas Arlovski bumbled past some bloke wearing a nappy. This is probably as far as both men are going to go in their careers, as most other Heavyweights within the top 10 batter either of these guys. Mental to think this was pencilled in as the co-main given where both guys stand at this point in their careers. Wouldn't begrudge Arlovski bowing out after this one in the slightest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted March 3, 2018 Author Paid Members Share Posted March 3, 2018 @AdamTH17 Tried quoting you but the quoting function went all wonky on me for some reason. Quote Edgar probably has the edge in terms of striking, but if it gets to the ground I'd be worried if I was Frankie, Ortega's lethal. I wouldn't be so sure of that. Of course, Ortega's best shot is always on the ground and he has the kind of submission game that's going to be dangerous for anyone. Edgar certainly can't sleep on it or get lazy in there. But then at the same time, when does Edgar get lazy in there? I think Frankie will respect Ortega's BJJ game, and he'll have to mind his Ps and Qs at all times, but I don't think he'll be worried about it. Frankie doesn't seem like he sweats much in life and he's a BJJ black belt himself and has trained for years and years under Ricardo Almeida and Renzo Gracie. That combined with and backed up by his high level wrestling base, I don't think there's much Edgar fears in grappling situations. That's not to say Ortega can't catch him in something but Edgar's not going to just fall into a submission. Ortega's going to have to force a mistake out of a guy who very, very rarely makes them. And he only has 3 rounds to do it. It's a tough one. Quote Wouldn't begrudge Arlovski bowing out after this one in the slightest. Me neither. It'd be nice to see Arlovski retire before he ends up full on Bigfoot but I wouldn't get your hopes up on that. In his interview with Helwani this week, Ariel asked him how much longer he wanted to keep fighting and Arlovski said "a few more years". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted March 4, 2018 Author Paid Members Share Posted March 4, 2018 Well... On 2 March 2018 at 11:54 AM, wandshogun09 said: If Ortega wins though it's massive. Especially if he's the first to finish Edgar. Huge. It's a big ask though. Brian Bastard Ortega. Fuck! That's it now, this guy has arrived big time. I don't think anyone would've called it to go like that. If you were picking Ortega to win you most likely either fancied the submission or maybe him nicking a decision. A first round knockout though?! That wasn't something anybody was forecasting. It was a hell of a finish as well. The elbow that started it all was a thing of beauty and the big uppercut that ended it just lifted Frankie off the ground. This was a humungous win for Ortega. To not only beat Frankie Edgar but to be the first man to finish him, and in the first round, it's unbelievable. We know how tough and how good Frankie is so to do that you're something special. We'll probably get the doom and gloom crew saying Frankie looked old or like he's declining or whatever now. If anyone says that it's bollocks. He was looking as sharp and smooth on the feet as ever early on. Ortega just got him. Cyborg vs Kunitskaya ended predictably. First round stoppage. But Kunitskaya seemed to really throw her off at the start with the takedown and the clinching against the fence. But then just when it was looking like getting interesting...Cyborg Smash! Didn't think much of Arlovski vs Struve. Nice to see Arlovski get another win but it was a disappointingly dull fight. Least nobody got KO'd though. Mackenzie Dern didn't have the best of debuts either. On paper Yoder was a pretty easy debut fight for her and was coming off back-to-back losses. Dern ideally should've gone through her and submitted her but she went to a split decision with a girl who was 5-3 coming in. Not the best start but could've been partly down to the old 'Octagon Jitters'. Alexander Hernandez made a big statement in his UFC debut though. Dariush is a really good fighter and tough as nails and Hernandez KOs him dead in 40 seconds. Holloway vs Ortega is going to be bananas! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimufctna24 Posted March 4, 2018 Share Posted March 4, 2018 Just caught the tail-end of Edgar vs Ortega. The words of Randy Couture after his first knockout loss came to my mind - "if you stand there long enough, it's bound to happen" (sic). Edgar has faced prime versions of Penn, Aldo, Maynard (who should have been a weightclass above him) and countless other dangerous strikers and not been stopped before tonight. As great as Frankie is - and he is a truly great fighter - the law of averages was likely to catch up with him in the end - especially given the level of opposition that Edgar mixes with. Ortega was the right guy to end Edgar's run. It's a massive achievement for him. Jordan Breen was saying before the fight that Edgar has not slowed down in recent years, and as Wand pointed out, it's not like he caught Edgar on an off-night. The sport has someone relatively new to get excited about. Holloway vs Ortega is going to be bonkers. Say what you will about the current MMA landscape, but there are fights on the horizon that will give the purists wet dreams. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted March 4, 2018 Author Paid Members Share Posted March 4, 2018 Yeah, I knew Rogan was going to start with the 'Frankie is 36, that's when the decline usually starts' stuff and he did at the end of the show. It's way, way premature for that talk. Before tonight there was absolutely ZERO indication of any kind of decline. Before this we last saw him smashing a young and lethal Yair Rodriguez, who was another guy who was supposed to make Frankie look old, to a pulp. Aside from the loss to Aldo at UFC 200, he's looked fantastic in every fight over the last 5 years or so. And he looked pretty excellent in this fight with Ortega for about 4 minutes of a fight that went 4:44. People can't wait to declare a fighter shot but I don't think this was that sort of thing at all. And that kind of talk actually diminishes what Ortega just accomplished. Ortega just KO'd an in form and sharp Frankie Edgar in the first round. He didn't KO a fighter who looked on the decline. The fact is that can happen to anyone. It doesn't mean you're washed up. Now if Frankie starts losing to nobodies and getting knocked out left and right we can start talking about his decline. Until then, people need to calm down on the wanting to call time on fighters' careers all the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d-d-d-dAz Posted March 4, 2018 Share Posted March 4, 2018 Ortega looked fucking massive. Good Lord. The step and uppercut was a classy finish, but the heavy lifting was really done with the elbow. A fully awake Frankie probably doesn’t allow the space for Ortega to wind up the uppercut of all uppercuts. Frankie looked great early on, so no one should take anything away from what Ortega did. The Cyborg show is dull as fuck. Hector Lombard finally got his explosive power back. Ahem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FUM Posted March 4, 2018 Share Posted March 4, 2018 I watched it all and I just keep going back to wondering why Mackenzie Dern, born and raised in Pheonix, had a translator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted March 4, 2018 Author Paid Members Share Posted March 4, 2018 Yeah, her accent is ridiculous. There are videos going around that show how it's changed from a normal American accent to suddenly going all Brazilian/Portugese sounding in the space of about a year or so. Back to Ortega vs Edgar, because I'm still blown away. Look at this shit... And this one that shows it literally lifted Frankie off his feet; Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamTH17 Posted March 4, 2018 Share Posted March 4, 2018 Will post full thoughts later but think it's a testament to the quality and class of Edgar with the outpouring of respect that's been given out to him on social media. What a fantastic guy. When McGregor is writing about how much he respects you, you know you're a good egg. War Cyborg marches on! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted March 4, 2018 Author Paid Members Share Posted March 4, 2018 Yeah, Edgar's one guy McGregor has always kind of gone light on, even when he was trashing the whole featherweight division. They've had their moments but you can tell McGregor respects him. Max Holloway was all class as well; Probably could've used a better choice of words than "chin up" though, under the circumstances Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TildeGuy~! Posted March 4, 2018 Share Posted March 4, 2018 Dern with that Rousey level striking! I had Yoder winning that fight, also was it just me or did CB Dolloway completely over sell the Lombard KO? I thought there was nothing wrong with him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d-d-d-dAz Posted March 4, 2018 Share Posted March 4, 2018 There seems to be a camp of people on Lombard's side. Bollocks to that. He hadn't wound up the 1, never mind the 2, before the bell. If you can't DQ someone for that, that means you can only DQ someone for an after-the-bell strike if they run over and twat someone on their stool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted March 4, 2018 Author Paid Members Share Posted March 4, 2018 I wouldn't go as far as to say there was nothing wrong with him. If you take a flush punch from Hector Lombard there's going to be something wrong with you. But I did definitely feel like Dollaway was milking it. If you watch it back he gets up after the knockdown and the ref is trying to sort it out. Dollaway looks a bit wobbly getting up but he's clear eyed and even has the wherewithal to say to the ref "you called time?" He then repeats that to another guy who comes in to look at him. Then within seconds he's suddenly blinking and acting like he can't see and saying "what happened?" over and over. Him originally asking the ref if he called time suggests he knew what happened. Then as he's being helped out of the cage he suddenly can't walk, has to be stretchered out and you can see him saying "what happened?" again. Regardless, Lombard landed a clearly illegal punch after the round ended. It was grounds for a DQ whether Dollaway was out of it or doing fucking cartwheels. But I did feel like Dollaway was hamming it up a bit. We've all been watching long enough to recognise when a fighter is hurt and the way Dollaway looked and was moving, something just didn't ring true about it. Still, Hector Lombard might as well go ahead and retire. He's had a disaster of a run ever since USADA popped him three years ago. It's like karma has come back on him and jinxed him from that very day he pissed dirty. He's been a bust in the UFC and he's no spring chicken now anyway. Wouldn't be surprised if the UFC just let him go and we see him on Rizin's New Years card all juiced up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members ColinBollocks Posted March 4, 2018 Paid Members Share Posted March 4, 2018 Fun show, despite the criticism of the card. Ortega is a monster. You feel all the sympathy you can muster for Edgar, because there goes his title fight, but it doesn't half set up a killer match with Holloway now. The stoppage was more than fair from the ref, but with Edgar you fancy he should get at least a few seconds of brain damage extra to get back in it, which is all to do with how mental his heart is. Ortega seems like a good dude too; fair play using your post-fight time for a good cause, but I'm pleased DC did the heavy lifting with pointing out a Holloway fight should be next. Good luck beating that for KO of the year. Cyborg did a Cyborg. Clearly had zero respect for her opponent and was looking to smash from the off. What now? O'Malley's fight resembled an old school squash/showcase in wrestling for the first two. I have not a clue, but despite being an incredible talent, I just can't take to O'Malley. Maybe it's the crap MMA tats, or more likely it's because he looks like Baron Corbin's son. He's lucky Soukhamthath either has the lowest fight IQ in the history of fighting, or he still had a scrambled brain after the hammering in the first, because any decent fighter with a functioning brain is probably going to kick his leg out of his leg. I thought Arlovski won his fight pretty handily. I don't know if Arlovski is looking reinvigorated, as Rogan was saying, or that's where Struve is in 2018. As wand rightly pointed out above, Struve is wearing his wars, despite his young age. He never really seemed to get anything going on the feet, despite his ridiculous physical advantage - let's not forget Arlovski is just as battered, and much older. Rogan/DC pointing out Arlovski that never count out Arlovski is bang on, never write the boy off, I have several times, but he's still hanging in there and did look good here, even if that may have something to do with Struve being a bit gone now. Zingano v Vieira was a decent scrap. I didn't really have much of a clue (or I forgot) about Vieira's wrestling background - obviously it was very telling. That judo throw in the 2nd was Rousey-like in how well done it was. Vieira had all the control, but thankfully for Zingano, she didn't really do too much damage. A right shame Zingano's leg got injured because Zingano was clearly looking for a finish and was going for it. If you ever need another example of what a good man DC is, that opening is it. Rogan was fighting not to go Pacino in Godfather 3, so DC decided to be a dude and console him. Be more like DC. Also, the three man team is wonderful, these days. Even Anik is looser, even if his jokes are always rubbish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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