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Biggest Letdown Fights


wandshogun09

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Pretty self explanatory. What fight promised the most but delivered the least for you? Doesn’t even have to be an out and out stinker but what fights really got you buzzing when they were announced, only to fall way short of expectations in reality?

I’ll kick things off with this one...

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Nick Diaz vs Carlos Condit - UFC 143 - February 2012

This was a legit dream match for me for years. While Matt Hughes and Georges St Pierre had been dominating at 170 in the UFC, there was still a pretty healthy Welterweight scene outside the UFC. Diaz had been on a hell of a run through EliteXC and Strikeforce and, parallel to that, Condit was tearing shit up in WEC. The thought of them fighting each other seemed little more than a pipe dream though, unless one of them jumped ship to the others promotion. And that didn’t seem likely at the time as they were both champs in Strikeforce and WEC respectively.

In 2011 though that all changed. Condit was already in the UFC now, after Zuffa had merged WEC’s 170 fighters onto their roster. But in late 2011, Strikeforce were on life support and the UFC were swooping in nabbing some of their top talent. Overeem, Hendo, Cung Le and Nick Diaz were all Octagon bound. Diaz bashed up BJ Penn in his return at UFC 137 in the October. And when his next fight was announced...

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This poster gave me the horn at the time. I couldn’t believe it was finally happening. And seemingly at the perfect time. Diaz was coming off that big run and had just beat Penn and Paul Daley in great fights. And Condit was on fire with a 4 fight win streak where he had barnburners with Jake Ellenberger and Rory MacDonald and stopped Stun Gun and Dan Hardy in highlight reel fashion. The styles seemed to make for a match made in heaven. Both were known for attacking in all areas, with strikes and submissions. Both were ridiculously durable and didn’t mind putting themselves in harm’s way to do damage back. Add in the extra spice that it’d be for the Interim belt and the winner would unify against GSP at a later date, it was everything you could dream of as a MMA fan. 

Then there was Primetime. For anyone who wasn’t following MMA back then, Primetime was a 3 part documentary series that they’d trot out only for their really major fights. It was slicker than the usual Countdown fare and they were all great. The Diaz vs Condit ones might’ve been the best of them all for me. Some of the more engrossing fight build content the UFC have ever produced, in my opinion. The ending to the last episode was epic. To use pro wrestling terminology, it was the ideal finish to the ‘go home show’ for the big fight would take place. 

Still get goosebumps watching that and I know now how everything ends. 

By the time these two weighed in I was 100% ready for the mayhem and violence that we were sure to witness the following night. Nothing in MMA is ever certain, but a fight between Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit was about as close to a guaranteed FOTY contender as you could get. 

I remember being sick as a dog the weekend of the fight. Blocked nose, sore throat, aching everywhere it’s possible to ache and feeling as weak as a Ben Askren backfist. Proper feeling sorry for myself I was. But I was ready. Didn’t have the kids then so I stayed up and watched it live. All wrapped up in a big fuck off blanket, dosed up on my PEDs to get me through it. I was on a cocktail of Paracetamol, hot tea and soup. Hardcore. Oh and Lemsip, which my missus swore would help but all it did was add a nasty artificial lemony tang to my list of woes and didn’t even dent how shite I felt. To this day I can’t even look at the stuff. It didn’t matter though. As bad as I was feeling, at least I’d be seeing that crazy war soon. 

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Basically just got 25 minutes of this though. This and Condit throwing “baby leg kicks” the whole fight.

In all seriousness, it actually wasn’t anywhere near as bad a fight as people make out. But I think we were all in the same boat expecting this mad scrap. This should’ve been up there with Lawler vs Condit and Lawler vs Rory 2. But for whatever reason, it just didn’t ignite. In fairness to Condit, he fought a really smart fight. We’d seen so many fighters try to ‘go to war’ with Diaz coming into this one and it always ended with them on the floor, gassed to fuck and busted up. Condit wasn’t playing that game. I wish he did though. 

So yeah. Condit won by unanimous decision. 48-47, 49-46, 49-46. Those 49-46’s seem way too wide. It was a very, very close fight. I know Jim will be in with his usual ‘Diaz 1, 2, 5’ like he does whenever this fight is mentioned. Whoever you had winning though, it wasn’t anywhere near a robbery like Diaz’s fans cry about. And I didn’t even really care who won. I didn’t have a dog in this race. I just knew it was going to be an all time classic. I just knew it. Until it wasn’t and was just a very average and tactical game of cat and mouse with Diaz waving his arms about a lot and Condit trying to stick and move his way to the scorecards. 

This was probably the highlight of the whole night, to be honest. Spinning shit!...

The pre-fight delivered, the post-fight was hilarious for the typical Diaz nonsense. It was just that 25 minutes in the cage that fell flat.

What say you? There’s got to be loads of these. I’m thinking of about 5 right of the top of my head as I type this but I’ll hand it over now.

Go on. Who disappointed you most? 

Edited by wandshogun09
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I have since warmed to Condit. 

But in the spirit of the clueless and immature dickhead that I was in 2012............Diaz 1,2,5. 

Anyway, I will go with the final of the 2006 OP GP between Cro Cop and Barnett. The ending, where Cro Cop poked Barnett in the eye by accident, was such an anti-climax. 

 

 

 

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The one thay comes to mind for me was Rampage vs Evans. Throughout that season of TUF and the shit talk beforehand I was certain it was going to end with someone getting banged out.... then it was just a sea of meh. 

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Didn’t even think of that one. Thing was, there was always a pretty high chance Rashad was just going to wrestle him into oblivion. And aside from that right hand he clipped and stunned Rampage with early, that was how it played out. But yeah, TUF 10 built that fight up to a point the bar was probably set too high for them to reach. 

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I don't know why I got excited for Anderson Silva vs Nick Diaz. When it was announced I thought it would be one sided but I got sucked into the build up and thought it might catch fire. In the end it was rubbish with Nick doing his favourite post fight trick of losing but then claiming he had won every round because the other guy didn't brawl with him. Thankfully the crowd booed his dumb ass for that.

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I don't have as wide a field to draw from, but for me it's got to be Ngannou vs. Lewis. Utter boredom, made worse by the simple fact we know these two can throw down and have done regularly.

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Mine has to be USMAN vs MASVIDAL..... 

I had such high hopes for this one as did everyone else and it just ended up as a boring clintch match which let's face it is smart to win the fight but never going to win you fans and respect from your peers ext. I can't remember a fight without McGregor i was that excited for and i walked away from it so bummed out it almost hurt.

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the most i think ive ever felt deflated after a fight was after Anderson Silva/Vitor Belfort. Despite it having one of the greatest finishes in MMA history, it just felt anti-climatic. That sounds kind of ridiculous given the finish, but i was pretty bummed at the time weirdly.

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Francis Ngannou vs Derrick Lewis tops the list for me, I get that it must be terrifying to even get close and into the punching range of either guy, but damn, that was awful. 

Adesanya vs Yoel, Cro Cop vs Mir, Wonderboy vs Woodley 2, and because I bought into the hype like a sucker, GSP vs Jake Shields. 

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12 hours ago, Carbomb said:

it's got to be Ngannou vs. Lewis. 

Yep. This was one of the ones I was thinking of. It really had no business being so crap. With hindsight, I definitely think a lot of how that fight played out was because Ngannou was still headfucked from getting schooled by Stipe in his previous fight. I like Lewis a lot and I actually think people underrate him slightly at times because he’s looked at as more of a character than anything else. But Ngannou had all the advantages in that one. If they fought again now I’d pick Francis in a heartbeat. But the timing of it meant Lewis caught him on the rebound, neither of them really got going but Lewis won because he got going a tiny bit more than Ngannou. Awful fight. 

4 hours ago, SBD said:

Aldo Vs McGregor

How did I not think of this one? That whole buildup was probably the best in UFC history. A solid year or so of anticipation, that mad media world tour, the original July fight getting pushed back to December, it was a right rollercoaster. Then the fight starts and it’s over in 13 seconds. That’s always better than a fight being shite, of course, but it was a major letdown at the same time because we really never got to see them actually fight or got to see how their styles matched up and all that good stuff. It was over on the first collision. If they fought 100 times that probably wouldn’t happen more than once. 

4 hours ago, Scott Malbranque said:

Nick Diaz vs GSP and most recently Izzy vs Yoel.

I know what you mean with GSP vs Diaz. We waited so many years to see those two fight and there’d been so much talk but it seemed like it’d never happen because they were in different promotions. Finally happens and it’s cack. But honestly, I never had any expectations that the fight itself would be any different. GSP was always all wrong for Diaz. It had 50-45 UD written all over it from day one and that’s what we got. Diaz still probably thinks he got robbed though.

Izzy vs Yoel was a kick in the balls though. Like we always say, there’s always that risk with how Yoel fights but I never would’ve expected it to be that poo. 

1 hour ago, sukhy said:

Cro Cop vs Mir 

Don’t even start me on that load of old wank. 

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5 hours ago, Kfogg1991 said:

Mine has to be USMAN vs MASVIDAL..... 

I had such high hopes for this one as did everyone else and it just ended up as a boring clintch match which let's face it is smart to win the fight but never going to win you fans and respect from your peers ext. I can't remember a fight without McGregor i was that excited for and i walked away from it so bummed out it almost hurt.

Did everyone really think that fight was going to be a barn-burner? 

In my mind, there was always a decent chance that Usman was going to shut Masvidal down for 5 rounds rather than stand and trade with him. 

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Yeah, I’m an Usman fan but he’s not typically in amazing fights and that’s because he’s usually so dominant. The Covington one was the big exception because Colby the Cunt was able to match him at a lot of his strengths.

Just noticed the mention of Woodley vs Wonderboy there, that was a strange one. I remember loving one of their fights but thinking the other was shit. Can’t recall which was which now though. 

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2 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

Yeah, I’m an Usman fan but he’s not typically in amazing fights and that’s because he’s usually so dominant. The Covington one was the big exception because Colby the Cunt was able to match him at a lot of his strengths.

Just noticed the mention of Woodley vs Wonderboy there, that was a strange one. I remember loving one of their fights but thinking the other was shit. Can’t recall which was which now though. 

The rematch was the shit one. Nothing really happened until the final round, where Woodley rallied.

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