Paid Members Egg Shen Posted August 8, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted August 8, 2019 Dropping weight classes as a fighter gets older rarely works out well, i wouldnt be surprised to see Frankie buck that trend though. Its a shame Frankie cant beat the absolute elite at 145 because hes been a solid top 5 since he joined the division. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimufctna24 Posted August 8, 2019 Share Posted August 8, 2019 (edited) Aye, I hope this doesn't work out like Rashad's move to middleweight. However, Rashad looked shot before he moved down in weight. Edgar has looked okay in recent fights, barring perhaps the Ortega loss. He was competitive in stages against Holloway (a P4P ace) and had few problems with Swanson. Edgar is someone who divides opinion. Jon Snowden has floated the theory that he was lucky to catch Maynard and Penn (his two best wins) as they were starting to decline. Perhaps there is some truth to that perspective. But it overlooks that he was robbed by the judges in the rematch against Benson, took a prime version of Aldo to the wire in their first meeting, and has scored comfortable wins over many other top 10 fighters. I'm neutral to him as a person, neither liking or disliking him, but he's absolutely a HOF candidate. I do wonder how his career would have panned out had Zuffa hired him a year later. Perhaps then, around 2008 time, he would have instead debuted in Zuffa's growing WEC promotion at featherweight or bantamweight. He was always undersized at 155lbs in the UFC and clearly could have moved down in weight sooner. Nevertheless, in spite of his size disadvantage, he became a contender at lightweight as the 2000s came to a close, and then champion in the spring of 2010. He thus had little reason to move down in weight until the Benson robbery in late 2012. Had he undertaken an alternative career route in the WEC, he could have been the one to usurp Faber's titles reign, unseated Torres as batamweight kingpin, and clashed with an up and coming Dominick Cruz. The possibilities are endless. Edited August 8, 2019 by jimufctna24 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted August 8, 2019 Author Share Posted August 8, 2019 Personally, I'd rate him as top five in whatever division he's fought. He usually only runs into issues against the top guys, so he's absolutely a top fighter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted August 8, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted August 8, 2019 (edited) Snowden has been around years and knows a lot about MMA but he also talks some bollocks sometimes. Discrediting Edgar’s wins against Penn and Maynard is easy to do in 2019 with the benefit of hindsight and having seen both their form fall off a cliff. But I wouldn’t say Penn was even declining at that time. The first time they fought Penn was coming off those wins over Diego Sanchez and Kenny Florian which everyone rates as ‘peak BJ Penn’. He butchered Sanchez in December 2009 and fought Edgar in April 2010. That’s quite a sudden decline. The rematch a few months later Edgar bossed it and Penn moved up to 170, where he was never that effective. The title win over Hughes in 2004 gives a distorted impression of Penn as a welterweight. That aside, he never had much success there besides the competitive first fight with GSP (which he still lost). By the time he came back down to 155/145, yeah he was done, but that’s after beatings from the likes of Rory MacDonald and Nick Diaz. The third Edgar vs Penn fight, sure, Penn was shot. But I think it’s complete revisionist bullshit to diminish the 2010 wins. The Maynard fights are a bit weirder because he fell off in a big way directly after their third fight. But at the time, Maynard was considered a top lightweight and I don’t think that’s wrong. He was up there. They had 2 wars and Edgar came out on top in the end. He must have some weird agenda against Frankie otherwise why would you try to discredit a great career of one of the most universally respected guys in the game? Yeah, he lost to Aldo and Holloway, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a great fighter. Just means he wasn’t THE man and came up short when mixing with the absolute elite all-time greats. Like you say Jim, the first Aldo fight was pretty damn close, and I remember thinking he won at least one of the Benson Henderson fights. Then you throw in wins over Penn x3, Maynard, Faber, Swanson x2, Mendes etc. Then there was the win over Yair Rodriguez when Yair was supposed to crush him, Sean Sherk when Sherk was still a force, Tyson Griffin when Griffin was the big unbeaten prospect out of Team Couture. Frankie Edgar is one of the best lighter weight fighters in MMA history easy. To fight at the level he’s been at for so long as a lighter weight fighter is a rare thing. Especially when you consider he probably fought about half his career as an undersized 155er. Snowden can eat a bowl of cock. Edited August 8, 2019 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimufctna24 Posted August 8, 2019 Share Posted August 8, 2019 13 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said: He must have some weird agenda against Frankie otherwise why would you try to discredit a great career of one of the most universally respected guys in the game? This article summarises Snowden's key arguments - https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2846937-a-look-back-at-frankie-edgars-career-mmas-almost-man The main problem I have with the article is that he brings up that eight out of the nine media members who kept a scorecard for Penn vs Edgar 1, scored the bout for Penn. Yet, he doesn't mention how controversial the judges' scorecards were in the rematch between Bendo and Edgar. In fact, eight out of ten media members scored that bout in Edgar's favour, whereas the other two scored it a draw - http://www.mmadecisions.com/decision/3645/Benson-Henderson-vs-Frankie-Edgar As for Penn at Welterweight, he did hold Jon Fitch to a draw in early 2011. Penn won the first two rounds, before Fitch took over in the third frame in what was a clear 10-8 round. Nevertheless, this outing came after his bouts with Edgar. I think Penn was waning a bit in 2010, after he had looked unbeatable in 2008 and 2009, but he wasn't shot or anything. The loss to Diaz in late 2011 was probably the end for him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted August 9, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted August 9, 2019 I always forget about the Fitch fight. Penn had his moments at 170. The first round against Fitch, even the first round against Diaz he was really going for it. And there was the quick KO on Hughes in their third fight. But I think it was always clear he wasn’t supposed to be at 170. I think the main reason he fought at welterweight was because he was lazy and couldn’t be arsed to keep cutting to 155. The GSP rematch was there too but I think laziness is what plagued him most. There’s been a few fighters that have said his training camps were too relaxed and back then he used to look well chubby between camps. That 2 fight spell under Marv Marinovic (Florian/Sanchez) is probably the only time he ever had a really serious and intense training camp with proper dedicated strength and conditioning and cardio work put in and the results spoke for themselves. My point is, Snowden saying Penn had declined when Edgar fought him is off, IMO. Looking at his fights before Edgar, he looked great. And his fights after Edgar were at 170, where he shouldn’t have been anyway. So of course he started losing more after the Edgar losses in 2010. He was out of his natural weight class and had slacked off his training. If he’d stayed at 155 after Edgar beat him things might’ve been different because I still think he’d have beaten a lot of lightweights back then. He wasn’t so far gone at that time. But he went up to a division which wasn’t suited for him. And like you say, he was still competitive with Fitch and Diaz (to a degree, early on) and knocked out Hughes. That doesn’t suggest he was declining much at that time to me. Edgar beat Penn 3 times and each time he beat him more clearly than the last. The first one was close enough that many felt Penn was robbed so he clearly still had something left. Frankie’s the man. It won’t happen but I’d love nothing more than for him to be the one who takes the belt of Cejudo at 135. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted August 9, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted August 9, 2019 Nicolas Dalby is back in the UFC and is fighting Alex Oliveira on the Copenhagen card next month. Haven’t seen much of Dalby but he took Darren Till to a draw years ago in the UFC and he’s coming off a wild bloodbath against Ross Houston in Cage Warriors. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend giving it a look if you’ve got Fight Pass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamTH17 Posted August 12, 2019 Share Posted August 12, 2019 Till's just mentioned on Helwani's show that he was offered a fight against Platinum Perry, over here in Manchester no less, but Newark ended up taking that card slot instead. Bollocks! That would be a brilliant fight, and if it got booked tomorrow I'd be all over it. One of those where after their history with each other, and the way their styles match up, it doesn't matter in the slightest that they're both coming off defeats. That would've been a great fight, and hopefully it's still in the pipeline to get booked. Think the question is will Till still be at welterweight by the time Perry's ready to make his return? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted August 12, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted August 12, 2019 It’s a great fight but sod Till. Lawler vs Perry is the one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Chunk Posted August 13, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted August 13, 2019 Perry isn't going to be fighting anyone for a quite a while given that nose injury from the weekend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted August 13, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted August 13, 2019 Yeah it’ll be a while. But I’m hoping it’s Lawler he gets next. Can’t see Lawler rushing back in there too quickly either, he’s been in camp nearly all year already with the Askren fight in March, the scheduled Woodley rematch in June then the 5 non-stop rounds against Covington at the start of this month. I can see him coming back around December, maybe January. Hopefully Perry’s good to go then. I’ll be gutted if that fight never ends up happening. From what I’ve read, Till hasn’t even decided whether his next fight will be at 170 or 185 yet so fuck knows who’s next for him. Wouldn’t be against Till vs Anderson Silva at 185 at some point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted August 13, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted August 13, 2019 On 8/9/2019 at 3:51 PM, wandshogun09 said: Nicolas Dalby is back in the UFC and is fighting Alex Oliveira on the Copenhagen card next month. Haven’t seen much of Dalby but he took Darren Till to a draw years ago in the UFC and he’s coming off a wild bloodbath against Ross Houston in Cage Warriors. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend giving it a look if you’ve got Fight Pass. was a bit of a movement going to have them do Dalby/Houston 2 in the UFC. Thought that have been a really good way of bringing both guys in together. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted August 13, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted August 13, 2019 (edited) Stefan Struve has announced hes coming back. Fighting Dec. 7th against Ben Rothwell. Certain guys i have no issue with coming back, but Struve is a young guy who probably stepped away too late as it was. Went out on a win too. Dont need to see this. Edited August 13, 2019 by Egg Shen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ironic Indie Lad Posted August 14, 2019 Share Posted August 14, 2019 Anyone watched the Till interview with Gooden from BT Sport? Till looks absolutely beyond mental now. Like some sort of final boss in side scrolling beat em up game where the bad guys are scouse pikeys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted August 14, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted August 14, 2019 there it is. He's done a long form sit down with Fight Disciples, should be worth a listen too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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