Paid Members Egg Shen Posted April 20, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted April 20, 2020 great post from Magnum above. If you're gonna spend some time with the WEC, do not neglect their mostly forgotten Light Heavyweight Division. They eventually dissolved it but the likes of Brian Stann, Steve Cantwell and Doug Marshall had a great collection of fun brawls. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimufctna24 Posted April 20, 2020 Share Posted April 20, 2020 (edited) 13 hours ago, wandshogun09 said: But ask me what the third fight on the main card of UFC 89 was* and bang it’s there. All I could remember about that show was Bisping beating Leben on points, and it being the night where I gave up on Brandon Vera - after checking it turns out he dropped a points decision to Keith Jardine. Btw, if anyone of you fancy following some MMA tutorials during these quiet times, especially if you are a novice (like me), then I highly recommend the work of Bas Rutten, Bradley Scott, Rener Gracie, FightTips, Hard2Hurt, Stephan Kestling, and the stuff Billy Robinson's did with Damage Control. You can find all of their content on Youtube. Edited April 20, 2020 by jimufctna24 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shane O' Mac Version 2 Posted April 20, 2020 Author Share Posted April 20, 2020 Damn, really did not expect this amount of feedback! You guys are absolute gents, thank you. It's a little late here now, but first thing tomorrow I plan to start on Pride 10 and work my way through that lot of recommendations. I hear that era/promotion romanticised so much, it's a bit like being a wrestling fan and not being familiar with the Attitude Era. And there's not a WEC fight I've seen that I've disliked- I've seen Henderson vs Pettis with the Showtime Kick, Aldo vs. Faber and I recently went through and watched all of Cerrone's fights in the lead-up to his main event with Conor. So that'll be a lot of fun to work through too. And obviously, the UFC stuff is a no-brainer. 2 hours ago, Egg Shen said: great post from Magnum above. If you're gonna spend some time with the WEC, do not neglect their mostly forgotten Light Heavyweight Division. They eventually dissolved it but the likes of Brian Stann, Steve Cantwell and Doug Marshall had a great collection of fun brawls. That's definitely something I'm keen to see. I really liked Brian Stann. Had that awesome finish of Leben, and that insane fight with Wanderlei... and then he bowed out. Hard to go out on a better fight, but I felt like he definitely could have done more between middleweight and light heavyweight had he fancied it. Then he went into commentary, and I thought he was one of the better fighters turned commentators- current ones included. So I was almost as disappointed seeing him take off the headset as I was seeing him take off the gloves. Guessing he's doing something related to his military background now? Last I heard, he was running some kind of charity or organisation for veterans. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted April 20, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted April 20, 2020 Brandon Vera initially was the most exciting fighter in the sport, anyone would have banked on him being an absolute megastar, he seemed to be the whole package. Never panned out at either light heavy or heavyweight but he seems to have fallen on his feet with One. I imagine he's making more with them than most UFC fighters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted April 20, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted April 20, 2020 Unsurprisingly to anyone who’s familiar with my posts over the years, Vera got in my good graces when he kneed Frank Mir into crumbs. Aside from that though, I never got fully aboard the hype train. He was exciting to watch early on but he was mostly beating ham and eggers, he looked like a Poundland version of Tong Po and him declaring that he was going to be the first UFC ‘champ champ’ after beating fucking Justin Eilers and Assuerio Silva was proper eye rolly stuff even then. It all went tits up after that dud with Tim Sylvia but he did have a few moments after that. I’m sure I scored the Randy Couture fight for Vera but the judges went against him. And his fight with Shogun in 2012 was fucking quality. Easily the best fight of Vera’s career even in defeat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimufctna24 Posted April 20, 2020 Share Posted April 20, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, Egg Shen said: Brandon Vera initially was the most exciting fighter in the sport, anyone would have banked on him being an absolute megastar. Yep, one MMA site in 2006 pitched a fantasy match-up between Vera and Cro Cop. Despite Cro Cop's stock being at an all-time high at the time, the author of the article picked Vera to beat him. Vera knew he was in high demand as well. He flirted with free agency in early 2007 before eventually re-signing with the UFC. In retrospect, the hype surrounding him was probably a bit smoke and mirrors. Look at who he beat to forge his reputation: Whitehead: An all-time great in the gym. Very average on fight night. Mir: Still not fully recovered from his motorcycle accident. Eilers: Best win of his career came against Mike Kyle. Lost to almost every other name fighter he fought. Assuerio Silva: I will give Vera this one. Silva was not a top heavyweight - but he was a decent scalp at the time. Edited April 20, 2020 by jimufctna24 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted April 20, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted April 20, 2020 the thing with Vera was that aside from an exciting style (especially when whacking jobbers) he had a charisma and ability to cut a bit of a promo, always a handy combination. The fact that hes still one of One Championships poster boys despite being way past his prime and fighting pretty sparingly is proof of that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shane O' Mac Version 2 Posted April 26, 2020 Author Share Posted April 26, 2020 Okay, finished watching PRIDE 10. Holy shit, what a show! I'd heard of Kazushi Sakuraba vs Renzo Gracie as a legendary fight, but to actually see it play out was spectacular. I didn't know who won or how it ended going in, so I was sure we were getting overtime before that Hail Mary kimura. Awesome stuff. Was also really cool seeing fighters I knew, but had mostly only seen past their prime in the UFC. Wanderlei Silva was an absolute savage, wasn't he? And I was really impressed with Ken Shamrock- he lost in weird fashion but he looked a million times the fighter he did against Tito in my very first introduction to MMA at UFC 40. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted April 26, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted April 26, 2020 I look at Pride 10 as the real arrival of the promotion and the start of them becoming what they later became with the big event atmosphere. Prides 1-9 certainly have their moments but there’s also a load of shite on those cards that people forget when looking back at Pride with the rose tints on. I NEVER want to relive Dan Severn vs Kimo or Renzo Gracie vs Sanae Kikuta again. Ever. They were still finding their feet those first 9 shows and the rules seemed to change wildly from show to show. 10 felt like a real shift to me. The whole event looked great in the Tokyo Dome setup, the card was stacked and the fights delivered. Without checking I’m pretty sure that’s the first Pride that had proper live commentary as well. Before that it was just Quadros and Rutten recording after the fact commentary from someone’s spare box room or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted April 26, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted April 26, 2020 this might be handy: 5 hours of the best fights in Bellator history. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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