UFC Boston: Reyes vs Weidman - Oct 18 🇺🇸

[wandshogun09]

It’s a rare Friday Fight Night on 18th October as the Octagon is back in Boston with this lot...

ESPN2 MAIN CARD
Dominick Reyes vs Chris Weidman 

Yair Rodriguez vs Jeremy Stephens 

Greg Hardy vs Ben Sosoli

Joe Lauzon vs Jonathan Pearce

Gillian Robertson vs Maycee Barber 

Deron Winn vs Darren Stewart

 

ESPN2 PRELIMS
Manny Bermudez vs Charles Rosa 

Molly McCann vs Diana Belbita 

Kyle Bochniak vs Sean Woodson

Boston Salmon vs Randy Costa 

Court McGee vs Sean Brady

Kevin Holland vs Brendan Allen 

Tanner Boser vs Daniel Spitz

 

Pretty solid card that. Not the card of the year or anything but there is enough there to make it worthwhile to check out. Poster is a bit wank but it’s the fights that matter and this one looks quite good to me. 

 

Dominick Reyes vs Chris Weidman is a bit of an odd fight to me but an intriguing one. Reyes is one of the new breed at Light Heavyweight. He’s 29 years old and undefeated at 11-0. It’s not really a surprise that he’s being given this headlining position. They need to put the spotlight on some of these guys because Jon Jones is rapidly running out of bodies to devour. But Reyes didn’t exactly look convincing on the London card in March, just about squeaking a split decision over Volkan Oezdemir. Still, he beat OSP and Jared Cannonier before that. So this is a nice opportunity for him to get a win over a former champion in a main event. Weidman is the x-factor for me though. He hasn’t fought in almost a year and this is also his debut at 205lbs. Who knows what to expect? We last saw him getting knocked out in a barnburner against Jacare on last year’s MSG show. He’s lost 4 of his last 5 and at 35 years old and having had his share of injuries, it’s hard to see him clawing his way back to the top. Don’t know what to make of this move to 205. He won’t be the biggest of Light Heavies. But maybe not having to cut weight will serve him well. It’s a tough debut going up in weight as well. The intrigue is Weidman’s grappling though. I don’t recall Reyes facing a good wrestler yet so it remains to be seen how he tackles that. 

 

Yair Rodriguez vs Jeremy Stephens 2 then. This has got to be ***WAND’S ONE TO WATCH*** after everything that’s gone down. Of course, these two just fought on the Mexico show and what a mess that turned into. It’s never good when you settle down for a sure-fire FOTY contender and the fight gets stopped after an eye poke just 15 seconds into the fight. Then we had Yair turning heel, celebrating like he legitimately beat Stephens, throwing a tantrum at Michael Bisping, starting on Stephens again the next day at the hotel then accusing Stephens of faking the injury. The Mexican crowd being twats and pelting Stephens with rubbish didn’t help lessen the overall shitty vibe either. The logical thing to do was obviously to re-schedule the fight as soon as Stephens could go again. And it’s landed here. Makes sense. This kind of makes up for Boston losing that Zabit vs Kattar co-main and it also gives Stephens’ eye a bit of time to heal up. Hopefully we get the show stealer we should’ve got in Mexico. And now with the added grudge element it’s got some extra spice. I never thought I’d root for Jeremy Stephens but I really hope he clobbers Yair here.

 

Greg Hardy vs Ben Sosoli. Wifebeater Greg is back. Can’t be doing with Hardy. Just got no interest in him. He’s 5-1, the loss being a DQ due to an illegal knee. Hits hard but that’s the game at Heavyweight. They all pretty much do. Don’t really see anything else in him and if someone takes him past a round, like Allen Crowder did, I think we’ll see him fold like most bullying pricks do. Don’t know Sosoli but he’s Aussie/Kiwi, 29 years old, 7-2 record with 6 knockouts. And he’s known as the ‘Combat Wombat’. 

 

Joe Lauzon vs Jonathan Pearce will be a fight the crowd is invested in. Lauzon is a Boston guy and a longtime crowd favourite with a long history of awesome fights and FOTN bonuses. Lauzon has bled buckets in there over the years. To be honest, I thought he might’ve quietly retired. He hasn’t fought since April 2018 and was coming off 3 consecutive losses at the time. He’s 35 years old now with a 27-15 record. It’s hard to see where he goes from here and I’d hate to see him keep going and just becoming a full time punching bag. He seems too nice a bloke for that. Maybe he just wanted to fight in Boston one more time. We’ll see. I’ve never seen Pearce but he looks a bit TJ Dillashaw-ish to me so I hope Lauzon chins him even more. Pearce was on Dana White’s Contender Series and he’s 7-3 with 6 finishes.

 

Gillian Robertson vs Maycee Barber could be a decent scrap actually. Robertson was on TUF at some point and I don’t remember being particularly impressed. But she’s looked pretty good in her last couple of fights, to be fair. She’s Canadian, 24 years old, trains at ATT and has a 7-3 record. She submitted Molly McCann in Liverpool last year and has finished her last 2 opponents. Barber is 21 years old, undefeated at 7-0 with 6 finishes. She almost got derailed by JJ Aldrich in her last fight but came back to get the TKO. She was recently trying to goad Paige VanZant into a fight but nothing came of it so here we are. Solid fight between 2 young prospects. 

 

Deron Winn vs Darren Stewart is one of the more interesting matchups on the card. Haven’t seen much of Winn but I liked what I did see. He’s 30, trains out of AKA and is a close friend and training partner of Daniel Cormier. High level wrestler and he’s 6-0 in MMA with 4 finishes. Fought on the Liddell vs Ortiz 3 abomination of a card and beat Tom Lawlor. In June he made his UFC debut and beat Eric Spicely in a proper gritty entertaining battle. Stewart is from London, 10-4-1 record and beat Bevon Lewis in his most recent fight. Think we’ll be seeing a different Winn here than we did against Spicely. Stewart has some dangerous striking so it’d make sense for Winn to go to his bread and butter and wrestle this one out. 

 

Manny Bermudez vs Charles Rosa might be the sleeper on this card for me. Bermudez is a real prospect, IMO. Despite losing his last fight, he was 14-0 before that and had stopped 12 of them. Still only 25 years old as well so he’s certainly got time to bounce back from his first setback. Rosa hasn’t fought since 2017 due to a bunch of injuries but he was an exciting fighter from what I recall. His fantastic fight against Yair Rodríguez stands out. 

 

Molly McCann vs Diana Belbita might be worth a look. Meatball Molly is from Liverpool, 9-2 record, former Cage Warriors champ. She got off to a rocky start to her UFC career but she’s rallied back with 2 solid wins since then. Belbita is the newcomer. She’s 22 years old, Romanian, 11-4 with 8 finishes. She has a striking base but has a few submissions on her record. Tricky debut for her against a tough battler like McCann.

 

Kyle Bochniak vs Sean Woodson is one of the fights I’m least bothered about on this card but it sounds like it could still be decent enough. Bochniak is OK to watch actually. Mostly remember him as the guy who fought like a total nutcase against Zabit and tried to just walk through him. He failed, of course, but it was entertaining as fuck to watch all the same. He’s 8-4 now and coming off back-to-back losses so he could really do without another L here. Woodson is another Dana Contender, 6-0 with 3 finishes. 

 

Boston Salmon vs Randy Costa. Boston Salmon in Boston. This isn’t doing much for me. Not even sure I’ve seen either fight before. Salmon is Hawaiian, 6-2 with 4 TKOs. Costa is from the Boston area, trains at Lauzon MMA and is 4-1 with 4 TKOs. Both got stopped in their UFC debuts earlier this year. 

 

Court McGee vs Sean Brady is definitely a fight to keep an eye on, I reckon. McGee’s been around for ages. Tough guy and has an inspiring backstory with him overcoming heroin addiction to go on and become a pro fighter. He’s 19-8 with a career full of mixed results and inconsistency. But he comes to scrap and he’s had his moments. Former TUF winner and has a win over Robert Whittaker on his record. It’s the debut of Sean Brady that’s got my attention though. He’s 26 years old from Philadelphia. Unbeaten at 10-0 with 5 finishes, BJJ black-belt under Daniel Gracie. He was the Welterweight champion for a promotion called Cage Fury and defended it twice. He looks a bit of a handful in the clips I’ve watched. Could be a guy to keep tabs on.

 

Kevin Holland vs Brendan Allen might be alright. Holland’s a guy the UFC seem pretty high on. He was on Dana’s Contender Series a while back, 26 years old, 15-4 record and he’s 3-1 in the UFC so far. Went the distance with Thiago Santos on short notice last year so he’s got something about him. Comes into this one off the back of 3 wins. Allen was also on DWCS, he’s 23 years old, 12-3 with 11 finishes, trains at Roufusport in Milwaukee. Sounds decent. Could be a good fight between two up and comers. 

 

Tanner Boser vs Daniel Spitz is the other Heavyweight offering on this card. Boser looks like a total throwback to the SEG era. He’s 28 years old (hard paper round or what?), Canadian with a 16-5-1 record. He was meant to make his Octagon debut at UFC 240 in July but his opponent got popped by USADA at the last minute and the fight got scratched. Spitz is 6-2, known as ‘Daddy Long Legs’, and has a 2016 win over Cabbage Correira on his record. Wait, Cabbage was still fighting in 2016?! Anyway, he lost to Walt Harris in his last fight in June 2018 and has been inactive since. 

 

Like I said, it’s a nice little card. Reyes vs Weidman should be anything but boring, Rodriguez and Stephens get to settle the score in what should be a hell of a scrap, Lauzon is back, Winn vs Stewart should be a lot of fun, we’ve got some decent sounding newcomers and hopefully The Wifebeater gets a kicking. 

 

Edited October 17, 2019 by wandshogun09

[Egg Shen]

am i right in thinking Lauzon retired last year? or did i dream that.

[wandshogun09]

I think you might have dreamt it, Ebb. It’s probably because it’s felt like he should retire for years now, plus this 16 month layoff. But I can’t find or remember anything about him retiring. 

Found this really good article on MMAFighting by Chuck Mindenhall though, that goes into his hiatus and why he doesn’t want to hang the gloves up yet plus the struggles with his little boy going through cancer (thankfully he’s cancer free now). This is from January, it’s a long read but it’s worth it; 

Yesterday, January 12, was Joey Lauzon’s fifth birthday. The Lauzon’s celebrated it in a low key manner with a few friends and family out in Massachusetts, and his father, Joe — the 26-time UFC veteran — made sure not to go too crazy.

“At his first birthday, we had it at my gym and there were a ton of people,” Lauzon says. “We started singing, and he started crying. He’s got a hearing aid so all the noise is kind of tough for him sometimes.”

Little Joey will have the hearing aid forever, or at least “until 10 years down the line when they get some super-pumped up PRP where they’ll spin something up and inject him to fix his hearing.” That could happen some day. But for now, too much background noise creates different amplification for Joey, and too much activity becomes a sensory overload.

So his birthday was a purposely subdued affair. Still, there was a particular joy in the room as he blew out the candles, one of relief for his father and family. Joey doesn’t remember the chest tubes and the bright lights and glass walls, nor all the concerns about his well-being as he was incubated for long periods of time in his infancy. “It’s not even a dream to him,” Lauzon says, “he has no freaking clue about any of it.” Lauzon does, though. He describes the last five years as a “roller coaster.” And it’s a remarkable thing to emerge at the other end still intact.

When Joey was less than a week old it was discovered he had neuroblastoma, the most common form of pediatric cancer, even if it’s ultimately rare. He was 4S, a stage that is deadly for older children. He was fighting for his life from the moment he came into it, and it was all that Joe and his wife Katie could do to stand by and watch their firstborn struggle through treatment. Joe posted pictures of Joey along the way on social media and made the little guy’s fight a public one, but it was a lot to take for a guy who’s made a career of being able to dictate his own will.

“For this, I was f*cking helpless,” Joe says. “There was nothing I could do to influence or change anything. You’re at the complete mercy of the disease, and that’s a really, really crappy feeling.”

These years later, the scorecards are in: Joey beat it. Earlier this week, just days before his birthday, the Lauzon’s got the news they have been gradually working towards for Joey’s whole life. He is cancer free. There hasn’t been a trace since he was six months old, but it takes a long time to go through the cautiously optimistic stages — from “no evidence of disease” to remission — and be declared out of the woods. His fifth birthday was special in that it was the first one that put cancer in the past tense.

Now it’s the way it should be; Joey’s just a normal kid who happens to have a father that fights in a cage.

It’s been a rough five years for Joe “J-Lau” Lauzon. Just a month before Joey was born, Lauzon scored a big victory over Mac Danzig at UFC on FOX 9 in Sacramento. He’d already compiled a dozen end-of-the-night bonuses, enough to buy a house in the Boston area and set up his life the way he wanted. At that moment, he felt on top of the world, especially as he found himself on the verge of fatherhood.

Then the trouble began. He saw his baby born, and the next thing he knew he was acquainting himself with new terminology and trying to grasp what everything meant.

“I’ve learned so much shit about stuff I had no interest in ever learning about,” he says. “It becomes so important. You learn about sequencing and periodization and how all this stuff is treated, and just the whole entire process — it’s just not a fun thing to go through firsthand. It’s just kind of crappy.”

Now with a more profound idea of what it means to fight, Lauzon was able to capitalize his next time out against Michael Chiesa when the UFC visited Foxwoods in Connecticut, right in the heart of New England. He won via TKO (doctor stoppage), and picked up yet another Fight of the Night honor. It was meaningful, given his family’s recent struggles, and it seemed as though Lauzon had a renewed sense of purpose.

Yet it’s been a rough time for the now 34-year-old Lauzon. He has lost six of his last nine fights, even if he’s been competitive in most of them. And there are flashes of the old Lauzon, the one that came off his stint on The Ultimate Fighter 5 like he’d been released from a bow — the one that put on the wars with Jim Miller. He found himself on the receiving end of the punch against the likes of Al Iaquinta (TKO) and Clay Guida(TKO), but he’s also had some good showings. Sprinkled among those losses were victories over Takanori Gomi, Diego Sanchez and Marcin Held.

In his last bout against Chris Gruetzemacher at UFC 223 in Brooklyn, it was good before it all went south.

“That last fight, I thought I was in good shape, but then I got hit in the body and it affects your cardio and I just… I felt great at the beginning of the first round, and I felt like shit at end of the first round,” he says. “I sucked it up and I pushed through, but there was nothing there. I was just getting beat up. The corner stopped the fight, which was definitely the right thing. I wasn’t winning that fight, it was like dead man walking.”

That loss — the first time in his career where he’s dropped three fights in a row — set up an inevitable self-examination.

“Going in, I definitely felt like this was a fight I was supposed to win,” he says. “I thought, if I don’t win this fight maybe I should be done. I didn’t win the fight, and I was like, f*ck… is this the end? Am I done?”

Is he? Lauzon is still in the process of discovery towards the verdict. He’s looking at himself from the outside, while at the same time gauging things from the inside. Ultimately, he believes he will fight again. It’s not just that he’s reluctant to hang them up. It’s that there are signs that he’s still got it. That he can more than hang with UFC lightweights.

“My gym, we’re just south of Boston, we’re kind of like the hub for all of New England,” he says. “All the best fighters in New England come to my gym every Saturday morning. They’re not my guys. I don’t claim them as my guys, I don’t corner them — well, I corner some of them — but everyone comes together. We all get together, we all train, we all make each other better. We have all the best guys. Cowboy was out here with guys like Mickey Gall, Joe Schilling, a couple of others guys.

“We have like 15 UFC guys out here every Saturday morning. And my gym is not super-well known. It’s not like Jackson-Wink or ATT (American Top Team), it’s definitely a smaller gym in comparison to those. But we get really good guys here. I go at all these guys and I do so f*cking well. I do so well against them. It sucks to do great against all these guys but I’m going to say I can’t fight.”

Lauzon reflects here for just a moment, like a man who has thought a lot about a life avoiding regrets.

“I’ve seen some guys where they should have stopped eight fights ago and they’re still pushing it,” he says. “I definitely don’t want to be that guy. I understand that my last few fights have not gone very well. I’m not delusional. I’m not like, I’m still great and all this, I get it. The results of the fights have to speak. I’m not giving up yet because if I give up at 34, when I’m 38 or 40, I’ll be like f*ck, why didn’t I give it a little bit longer?”

**

Lauzon is grateful. He says it a lot, and it doesn’t just mean that he has survived 26 trips to the Octagon and taken home more bonuses than the most promising competitors have fights. He’s grateful that things have “worked out.” He has a happy family, and his son — who made him contemplate life in ways that nobody ever wants to — has given him perspective.

“It definitely changed me,” Lauzon says. “Since I’ve been a little kid I’ve always been good about figuring out where I wanted to go and what I had to do to get there, and figuring out the steps. Even with that, I am here and I’m trying to get there, it’s really f*cking hard — as an athlete, with work, or whatever, there’s a million things that can kind of pop up and derail you.

“But I always looked at it as it’s a bump. If something isn’t going your way, you adjust. You work on it a little harder, you go little bit longer, you do what you do but you can always kind of deal with it.”

With Joey, he couldn’t do much. It was a shock to learn that he was sick, and it was torment to see him suffer through his first years of life. It was beyond Lauzon’s control to do anything about it, other than stand by and keep the faith. But he did. He kept the faith. He learned all about neuroblastoma, and he watched his son beat it. A chip off the old block? Lauzon doesn’t do the parallels between one fighter and another. Everyone’s fight is different.

In the New Year, Lauzon is working on his strength and conditioning, setting up what could be his final run in MMA.

“We’ll give it a few months and we’ll see how that goes, and then I’ll make a decision,” he says. “I plan on fighting again. I think I’m 100 percent going to fight again. But, I’m not going to be a fool either. If in three months I’m crushing strength and conditioning and I’m still getting really, really tired and things just aren’t working my way and it’s not going the way I like. Then at that point I’ll pull the plug.”

Yet no matter what happens next in his MMA career, he’s grateful that everything has worked out in the more important ways. It was a big week for the Lauzon’s. They got the news they hoped for. It was a good birthday for Joey, and life goes on.

“[Joey]’s a happy little kid,” he says. “He’s not a fan of going to the doctors all the time, because it’s almost always accompanied with blood work. So it’s always, ‘I don’t wanna get a poke, I don’t wanna get a poke.’ I’m sure it’s soured doctor’s appointments for life, but that’s the way it goes.”

Lauzon laughs at his next admission, like he’s passing on an old truth that keeps proving itself before him.

“You don’t get to choose what life’s going to throw your way,” he says.

[Dead Mike]

'The Combat Wombat' is my new favourite nickname.

[wandshogun09]

Don’t forget this is a Friday show. Fight Pass prelims kick off at 11pm. Televised prelims start at midnight on BT Sport 1. Then the main card from 2am. 

And while I’m here, here’s a Jeremy Stephens interview; 

Sounds well fired up about this Yair Rodriguez rematch. The Ortega thing is bubbling up nicely as well. Can see that fight happening early next year if Stephens beats Yair and Ortega gets past the Zombie. 

[WeeAl]

Ah shite. Normally I would be quite up for an early show on a Friday, but we're away this weekend so it means one extra day to have to avoid spoilers for 😒. 

[wandshogun09]

You won’t find many more likeable people who fight for a living than Joe Lauzon. 

Top man. He’s said in another interview (think it was the media scrum) that he’s not ruling out this being his last fight. It’d be nice to see him win and then retire on his turf in Boston. If anyone’s earned that moment it’s Joe Lauzon. 

[Keith Houchen]

On 9/27/2019 at 7:12 PM, wandshogun09 said:

Meatball Molly is from Liverpool,

Is she really?  I don't think I've ever heard her mention this.

[wandshogun09]

She really is. And get this, Darren Till is also from Jimmy Corkhill-land. 

[Keith Houchen]

Next you'll be telling me Paddy Pimblett is not really the guy from The Inbetweeners.

[Egg Shen]

remember, this show is tonight. Be wary of the spoilers

[jimufctna24]

I'm split on the main event. On one hand, Reyes is probably a more exciting match-up for Jones. He's tall and can kick. 

Nevertheless, I have a soft spot for Weidman. He's had a rough few years, with him getting clobbered by most of the middleweight elite (Jacare, Rockhold, Moose, Romero). He was actually competitive in all those fights before either getting caught or gassing (or in some cases both). He did, however, pick up a submission win over Gastelum a few years back. In fact, he's the only fighter, middleweight or otherwise, that has a stoppage win over Gastelum. 

He's a really good wrestler, and while that may not count for much against Jones, it could very well count for something against Reyes. Ultimately, I think Reyes will stop him, if not in the early rounds, then in the later rounds when Weidman slows down, but I won't be surprised if Weidman uses his wrestling game to net himself a decision victory. 

[David]

Quick question, is this starting at midnight in the UK? It's supposed to start at 6pm Eastern, which is five hours behind the UK.

[jimufctna24]

13 hours ago, David said:

Quick question, is this starting at midnight in the UK? It's supposed to start at 6pm Eastern, which is five hours behind the UK.

http://time-time.net/times/time-zones/usa-canada/current-eastern-time-est.php

US Eastern time is currently 5 hours behind us. Daylight savings has knocked off an hour. 

So aye, the prelims kicked off at 11pm (10 minutes ago)

Edited October 18, 2019 by jimufctna24

[David]

BT Not covering them all then?