UFC Vegas: Covington vs Woodley - Sep 19 🇺🇸

[WeeAl]

I make Woodley a huge dog here too. He's done. He might be able to get the odd win against some of the fringe guys in the rankings, but he looks like the hunger has totally evaporated. Like Jim, I expect Colby to stop Woodley late on. 

That's if Covid decides to let them fight at all. Every single time there is a new post in any of these threads, I just expect it to be a withdrawal or cancellation. 

[David]

The thing with Covington is, he's a terrific fighter. Strip away all the nonsense outside the cage, and when he's in there he's a fucking beast.

Yeah, he got his jaw cracked by Usman, and everyone got swept up in the hysteria of seeing him lose, but in doing so it was easy to brush over the fact that he's probably been the most competitive against Usman that we've seen. Not to mention, he took a broken jaw and smashed face and didn't fucking budge an inch. He's nothing like the weasel type character he portrays.

I think he handles Woodley easily, and I still believe he's the only man in the division today who could beat Usman.

[Egg Shen]

yep, i think people were so happy he lost they forgot just how well he did. Think i had it 2-2 going into the fifth and have Colby winning the last round until he was stopped. Colby is a beast. Interesting to see if that war effects him coming in here though, he could be gun shy himself? 

He's suprisingly quiet leading in though? where's Colby?

[David]

Just now, Egg Shen said:

He's suprisingly quiet leading in though? where's Colby?

I'm kind of hoping he's taking the Chael approach, where he's a complete cunt of a man to draw initial interest and get his name out there, before drilling back a bit on the over-the-top shit behaviour and becoming more of a less annoying and offensive version of himself.

[Carbomb]

To be fair, I think everyone on here is level-headed enough that we recognised Covington as a hard bastard from the Usman match. I certainly didn't write him off, not as a fighter anyway. I don't think Woodley has much of a chance, and that's predominantly because I think he's mentally checked out now. I don't believe it to be 100% true every single time, but that thing about "when a fighter starts talking about retirement, they should probably stop fighting straight away" seems to be true of Woodley. Physically, he doesn't look anywhere near shot; he's still got enough ability that perhaps, with some motivation, he could probably switch things up and challenge for the title again, but that would require a shit-ton more drive than he's shown recently. He just looks and sounds done, and hopefully he's made enough money that he can get out with his health mostly intact and live well. 

[Egg Shen]

4 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

He just looks and sounds done, and hopefully he's made enough money that he can get out with his health mostly intact and live well. 

To be fair, i listened to Woodley on Helwani's show last week and he did a half decent job of convincing me that he's back, i snapped out of it though.

Woodley probably has convinced himself that he's back, he talked of Covington is scared because he knows how training went between the two. I just cant see past the fight starting, Covington setting a high pace and Woodley going into his shell.

[David]

I hate it when fighters use the scared patter and actually mean it.

It's cage fighting for fuck sake. There isn't one person on that UFC roster who's "scared" of anyone.

[Egg Shen]

Gerald Meerschaert was interviewed on The Bash podcast this week, this got me proper fired up for the fight with Chimaev. Meerchaert is a good interview.

I also hadn't realised initially that the UFC is allowing Chimaev to the 185 fight then have him cut to 170 for the Maia fight. 

 

[WeeAl]

Can anyone remember the UFC officially doing this before? Booking a guy's next follow up fight for definite, before he's had his current fight? 

What if Chimaev doesn't get past Meerschaert? Should he still get the Maia fight, which would be a step up again, despite Maia's advancing age. 

There's nothing springing right to mind of a time that they have done this before. They hint at it a lot, say "yeah, if he wins we're looking at this next" etc. Very rarely do they book both fights in the calendar, as confirmed and nailed on to happen. 

[wandshogun09]

36 minutes ago, WeeAl said:

Can anyone remember the UFC officially doing this before? Booking a guy's next follow up fight for definite, before he's had his current fight? 

They actually did this very recently with a guy called John Allan. They booked him against Ed Herman on the September 12th card and again vs Roman Dolidze at UFC 255 in November. But Allan has since pulled out of the Herman fight next week due to visa issues. Aside from that, no other example is jumping out at me.

36 minutes ago, WeeAl said:

What if Chimaev doesn't get past Meerschaert? Should he still get the Maia fight 

If that happens then I think our Gerald should get the Maia fight instead. It’s only right. Especially with all the hype on Chimaev. If Meerschaert derails that I think he should get a name like Maia. Although I’m not sure how much of a reward fighting Demian Maia is, even this late in his career, it’s still a nice opportunity for someone trying to break through into the top end of the division. I mean, imagine Meerschaert ending 2020 with wins over Chimaev and Maia? That would be some underdog story and would set him up nicely going into 2021. Not that I expect him to beat them both, he probably doesn’t beat either of them, but it’d be cool to see something like that happen. 

Edited September 9, 2020 by wandshogun09

[Scott Malbranque]

I was so happy this morning, Magic:

 

[wandshogun09]

Ha, that’s class. 

[Egg Shen]

14 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

 

If that happens then I think our Gerald should get the Maia fight instead. It’s only right. Especially with all the hype on Chimaev. If Meerschaert derails that I think he should get a name like Maia. Although I’m not sure how much of a reward fighting Demian Maia is, even this late in his career, it’s still a nice opportunity for someone trying to break through into the top end of the division. I mean, imagine Meerschaert ending 2020 with wins over Chimaev and Maia?  

Meerschaert is a middleweight though and recently was pegged to fight at 205. No way he's fighting Maia.

[wandshogun09]

Maia beat Gonzaga in BJJ. It’s the least he can do for Gez.

Regardless, if Meerschaert somehow pulls this off, he definitely deserves a biggish name fight. Whether that’s Maia or whoever. If Jessica Eye can main event a card in 2020 then Meerschaert should be getting the Hogan in the 80s main event push. 

[wandshogun09]

Just watched that Meerschaert interview Egg posted. Never had him down as much of a talker but I loved that. He seems well up for this. I think it’s my ‘one to watch’ now actually. Nothing against Chimaev but I’d love to see Meerschaert pull this off. And it’s not outrageous to think he might. As good as Chimaev looks so far, we don’t know much about him and his first 2 UFC opponents were last minute and either good stylistically (Phillips) or inexperienced (McKee), so who really knows how he’ll handle someone of Meerschaert’s experience/toughness. If I had to make a prediction I’d still probably favour Chimaev, but it’s mostly just a gut feeling that he’s the real deal. I wouldn’t be massively shocked if Gerald hands him his first loss. A year or two down the line, this post might seem mental if Chimaev turns out to be Khabib 2.0 but until he’s tested we won’t get those answers. At the very least I hope Meerschaert can make a proper fight of it.