The MMA general news, events and thoughts thread

[Carbomb]

I saw Thiago Santos on there. I know it's a fairly common name, so surely that can't be the bloke who went to prison?

EDIT: Ah, got confused. That's Thiago Silva. And it seems he got into trouble, but never got sent to jail.

Edited December 11, 2024 by Carbomb

[Egg Shen]

Not mad at this at all, a few years overdue, but one hell of a run:

 

 

[Cousin Jim Bob]

I had forgotten he was unbeaten before he faced Rockhold. Crikey things went south for him and Rockhold after that fight.

 

I remember an interview with Rockhold around that time where he arrogantly said he and Weidman were leagues above all the other UFC middleweights and none of them could touch them. So it was then rather amusing watching the pair of them get lit up by the UFC middleweight division for the next few years.

[wandshogun09]

Yeah the mad thing was, when Weidman vs Rockhold happened, there genuinely was a feeling that those two were the future of the Middleweight division. Crazy how quickly it all went downhill for both of them. 

[Egg Shen]

Beautiful

 

[Dai]

Echo peoples thoughts on Rockhold and Weidman. Have just been trying to make a timeline of the events, and theres a lot of noteworthy and crazy/random stuff there which changed the future (for the better and worse) for a lot of people:

- Weidman gets the title shot against Anderson, but looking at his record, he beat Tom Lawlor, Maia and Munoz to get that shot. I know Maia was still highly regarded at this time, but were Lawlor and Munoz? Consdiering Weidman definately had that 'aura' about him, there wasnt much going on before the Anderson fights from my eyes.

- Anderson pisses about mid fight and gets KO'd, then breaks his leg in the rematch against Weidman.

- Defends against Lyoto and Vitor (not sure if he was still TRT Vitor by this point)

- Weidman pisses about with a spinning kick and loses to Rockhold. Both were definately considered the future at this point.

- Bisping is about 5 seconds away from getting stopped by Anderson and is saved by the buzzer and wins the fight.

- Weidman gets injured before the Rockhold fight

- Bisping gets a short notice title fight, which he wouldnt have got if he'd have lost the Anderson fight.

- Bisping scores huge KO upset on Rockhold. No rematch for Rockhold and Bisping goes down the novelty fight route with Henderson and GSP. If all of these sequence of events dont happen, we would never have seen GSP again.

- Yoel viciously KO's both Weidman and Rockhold and puts the final nail in both guys careers an elite fighter.

 

That sequence of events Anderson, Weidman, Rockhold and Bisping was crazy when you look back at it.

[Egg Shen]

It's GFL Draft Day!!!

In all my years as an MMA fan, i've never been less convinced that something is going to fail and more likely never get off the ground than this. It genuinely feels like its being run a random fan thats just messing an e-fed and is sharing his ideas on Twitter.

Just look at it.

 

Edited January 24, 2025 by Egg Shen

[Egg Shen]

Well, forget all your Weidman retirement talk, he's just gone and been drafted to the New York team

Check out this intro video, this whole thing is insane.

 

Edited January 25, 2025 by Egg Shen

[wandshogun09]

I can’t make head or tail of any of it ?

[Egg Shen]

And apparently they accidentally posted a graphic onscreen of the completed draft before the actual "live" draft had taken place 

I

[Dai]

After 90 seconds of showing washed up fighters in stupid costumes, it ends with the graphic "The Future of Fighting Is Here".

A few Google searches just made me more confused about what is going on, so can anyone fill me in: Is it Middle East money involved here? In any practical sense, how does a team thing work when theres 20 fighters per team? Is it just a league table? What does the winning team win? Do they honestly think that each fighter is going to fight the other 6 guys in the opposing teams that are in their division? How long do they think this one league will take to do, 5 years!? What would be the business sense in paying Junior Dos Santos mega money to fight a guy called Stuart Austin?  So many questions which I know there will never be an answer for!

As youve said Ebb, this sounds like the most nailed on failure that there has ever been in MMA. Surely it runs zero shows, or one show that bombs so hard that it all disappears after that. Wasnt there some rubbish team thing years back involving Rampage and a few others that was shit too? They should just ditch the whole team thing and just run some 'legends' shows where all the half decent names just fight each other.

[wandshogun09]

Absolute jokers are adding fighters without them even knowing about it.

 

[Egg Shen]

18 hours ago, Dai said:

Wasnt there some rubbish team thing years back involving Rampage and a few others that was shit too? 

That's the UFL. I think it's still going in some capacity.

Like you Dai, I just dont understand the need to put a team spin on MMA? I see why promotions want to seperate itself from the UFC but its just never gonna work. I enjoyed the PFL format for a bit but I was very much in the minority and I had to really pay attention to know what was going on, but even then I didnt really a shit about the standings and points, I just hoped id end up seeing certain fights.

Just get a roster, rank it and make the best fights.

[Egg Shen]

 

 

[Dai]

I was never much of a follower of WEC, so where does Dom sit in terms of the best ever in his division? He definately had the 'aura' for those first few UFC fights at least, and then it all went to shit with injuries for him. Looking at his profile, hes had two insanely long injury lay offs, yet still seems to have a pretty big resume before these happened.