UFC 264: Poirier vs McGregor 3 - Jul 10 🇺🇸

[Chunk]

5 hours ago, Keith Houchen said:

I know I’d be downvoted to fuck on Sherdog but the O’Malley vs Moutinho match was pretty uncomfortable to watch. I was hoping it would’ve been stopped a lot sooner as he was never going to win and just risked more and more damage. Had no business being in there, but will have secured more UFC fights in doing so!

Couldn't agree more. Corner should've stopped him coming out after round 2. 

[Egg Shen]

I know someone said Dana probably loved it, but even he said in the presser that he thought the fight should have been stopped sooner.

Moutinho did himself proud and probably set himself up for a nice little run in the UFC, especially considering he was a bit of a running joke during fight week. Hopefully he moves to 125lb and finds himself in more favourable matchups because no one needs to be taking that amount of damage.

[wandshogun09]

Yes RDA!

Edited July 11, 2021 by wandshogun09

[Egg Shen]

If Dustin goes on to fight Oliveira and schedules dont pan out for a 4th fight, i think a fight with RDA could be a good return fight for Conor. They had a little run in on one of the Embedded's for this show so theres clearly a little heated rivalry going on there that id pretty much forgotten about. Id love to see RDA get that McGregor payday too.

[John Matrix]

Heh..

 

[wandshogun09]

[wandshogun09]

Not much left to say about the main event. John Kavanagh’s take on what happened is interesting. 

Never considered the teep but looking back at it, you see Dustin block it with the elbow. I had thought this was where it started;

Doesn’t look like much but Dustin referred to something like this and the little point made me think this must be it. But maybe it was the teep catching the elbow. Doesn’t matter in the end. Kavanagh’s also claiming now that McGregor had an ankle injury 2 weeks ago that could’ve weakened it. Sigh. No doubt there’ll be Wilder levels of excuses coming out in the coming weeks and months. 

Shame there wasn’t a more satisfactory and decisive ending but it’ll do for now. It served its purpose of Poirier going 2-1 up and also gets Conor out of the way for a bit so we can crack on with that Oliveira vs Poirier title fight. A win all-round really.

Rest of the card mostly delivered.

Burns vs Wonderboy went completely different to how I pictured it. Was sure Burns would have fits trying to get in range for the takedown, and wasn’t sure he’d even go for them that much, but he did a grand job. In hindsight, bringing in Raymond Daniels was a bit of a masterstroke. Those hours in camp spent getting the timing down and working out how to create those clinch and takedown opportunities would’ve been invaluable. He kept mentioning Daniels at the post-fight presser as well so he was no doubt a massive boost. Great win for Burns. This was dodgy as fuck though;

I love Burns but that was bad and blatant as fuck. A stray shot here or there when the other guy is moving about I can get. Totally understandable. But to be looking down at the back of a guy’s head and throw a series of punches like that is indefensible. The fight was as good as over anyway by that point, only about 20 seconds left, it didn’t change the outcome of the fight. Wasn’t good though. Shame for Wonderboy because this was probably his last run at a title shot and he would’ve been a fresh challenger for Usman but, honestly, watching this, he’d have almost certainly got completely dominated by Usman anyway.

Leon Edwards must’ve been made up with this result. A Wonderboy win last night would’ve just pushed him further back in the queue. Burns isn’t getting another shot yet though so in theory it should be Leon against the winner of Usman vs Covington 2. Dana’s still pushing that Edwards vs Masvidal fight though so who knows?

Big Tai Tuivasa deserved every penny of that $75K bonus for this.

Always liked Tuivasa despite not rating him all that highly as a fighter. He had enough to clobber the wifebeater though and was considerate enough to us lot who were staying up late to end it before they both gassed horribly as well. Top man. Seriously, I was about as close to 50/50 as it gets going into this but hoping for the best and Tuivasa never let me down. Had a feeling his toughness might make the difference and it did. He got tagged good but fired back with the fight ender. Lovely. Always nails the walkout as well. The Spice Girls FFS!

Irene Aldana looked good bashing Kunitskaya up. Unfortunate that she missed weight and I’ve seen the online experts saying she did it on purpose to get an edge but I doubt it. She won’t be making a ton of money as it is, I highly doubt she’d happily hand over 30% of her purse to Kunitskaya just to get a bit of a weight advantage. Hopefully she can get back on track now though. As someone else said, she’s got fuck all for Nunes but at least she can dig a bit. Most of these women don’t even have a puncher’s chance against Nunes.

O’Malley vs Moutinho was a beatdown. Definitely agree that it should’ve been stopped sooner. Incredible display of heart from Moutinho but I’d rather have seen it called before he had to show too much toughness. Especially given that he’d come in on short notice and wouldn’t have been as well prepared/conditioned as well. The definition of the phrase ‘too tough for his own good’. And of course, Rogan wanted to see it continue until the hearse showed up.

Hopefully O’Malley gets more of a test next time. I get that his original opponent dropped out so that’s not his fault but I wasn’t in love with Smolka as an opponent anyway. Wouldn’t mind seeing that Ricky Simon fight booked. Or the Brian Kelleher one. Both were wanting to step in on this card so they’d both be logical and better tests than an underprepared Moutinho or a so-so Smolka.

Griffin vs Condit was pretty good but it was still a downer for me. Condit’s one of those guys who was killing it when I first got into MMA. He was trying but watching this it just doesn’t feel like it’s there anymore. Griffin fought well and deserves all the credit but I just don’t really wanna see Condit fight anymore unless it’s against guys in a similar stage of their career as him. And there aren’t that many of them left at 170. He said all the right things going in, physically looked in as good shape as ever, had the old Rage Against The Machine walkout, seemed as up for it as I’ve seen him in ages. Everything looked right. But once the fight starts there’s just something not firing quite the same in his timing or reactions these days. It happens to everyone eventually. Especially someone who’s been in the wars like Condit. I had the same feeling even watching his wins over Brown and McGee but those guys are finishing up as well and he had enough to beat them. Griffin’s good but he’s not a guy I’d have seen an in-form Condit losing to.

Pereira vs Price was the FOTN for me. O’Malley vs Moutinho got the bonus though. Which is nice for Moutinho given the beating he took and the short notice but I didn’t enjoy that fight anywhere near as much as this one. Criminal really that these two didn’t get a bonus at all. Got to keep O’Malley’s hair dye funds topped up though, eh?

Mad bastard. Really loved this fight. Bags of fun and exactly how you’d have envisioned it, except maybe minus a crazy finish. It had the feel that it could come at any time though. Proper edge of the seater. Pereira faded again towards the end. Seems to be a recurring theme and it’s hardly surprising when he’s backflipping and springboarding all over the place from the opening bell. Have to agree with whoever said that if this was a 5 rounder Niko likely would’ve got to him. Such an entertaining fight.

Topuria vs Hall ending how it did was kind of how I thought but it was such a tricky one to call. Hall’s always seemingly just a second away from mangling your leg but Topuria wasn’t having it. Seemed inevitable that someone would catch Hall and put him to bed eventually. And Topuria was the man for the job. 

Got a good feeling about him. Seems to have skills all around and he’s still young. He’s already called out Calvin Kattar on Twitter, which seems a bit quick but he must be confident he’s ready for it. I’d be all over that fight. Not sure where Hall goes next. Maybe this result will see more fighters fancy their chances against him now but it’s still a risky fight for anyone. I don’t think it’ll be as straight forward as Topuria made it look here.

Dricus Du Plessis KO was a good one. The Zhumagulov sub was sweet down on Fight Pass as well. A good card all in all, I reckon. 

Happy days. 

Edited July 11, 2021 by wandshogun09

[neil]

1 hour ago, wandshogun09 said:

This is a funny photo, but really shameful on the part of UFC and Rogan to do this.

[Egg Shen]

[Egg Shen]

double post sorry, but it sounds like McGregor was saving himself for round 2 😂

 

[wandshogun09]

Course he was. We needed Dominick Cruz on commentary really, to explain to us the genius of what Conor was doing here. Clearly a tactic to injure Dustin’s elbows with his face.

[David]

It would seem that Conor's act isn't getting old with everyone just yet...

Quote

 

It could be upwards of one month before the final numbers are in, but UFC 264 is trending to be a big success on pay-per-view, per UFC President Dana White.

White announced at the post-fight press conference that he expects Saturday’s event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas will garner between 1.7 and 1.8 million buys when all the data is collected. That would equate to an approximate revenue range of $118,983,000 and $125,982,000 at the event’s standard price tag of $69.99.

White said the event was over 1.2 million buys by 8 p.m., or one hour after the pay-per-view began. He noted beforehand that the record for pre-buys were broken for Dustin Poirier and Conor McGregor’s trilogy and a 2 million buyrate was possible.

“I have to be careful with this stuff now that we’re a public company – I can’t go shooting my mouth off and have it be completely wrong,” White said. “But I’m going to say we came in anywhere between 1.7 and 1.8 million.”

 

Imagine the interest in the rematch if it has both Conor coming back from a terrible injury and Dustin defending the title? Christ. Sucks to be a regular top three contender in the lightweight division, as you're likely not getting that next shot at whoever wins between Poirier and Oliviera.

[Chunk]

8 hours ago, neil said:

This is a funny photo, but really shameful on the part of UFC and Rogan to do this.

To be fair, McGregor was calling Rogan over wasn't he? It's not like they forced the mic in his face and made him talk.

[d-d-d-dAz]

Yeah, Dustin is the bad guy.

Fucking hell.

[wandshogun09]

Man’s a fucking shambles at this point. And on a serious note, it’s concerning what the fallout from this is gonna be over the next few months-a year or so. The last time we saw Conor come out on the losing end of a big grudge match was the Khabib fight and he really went off the deep end after that. Never fought for over a year and that’s when a lot of the worst stories of him started coming out. He lost to Khabib in October 2018, the alleged rape was said to have happened in December 2018. Then I think it was around April 2019 he smacked the old fella in the pub. Then later in 2019 there were stories circulating about another sexual assault and then something else where him and one of his goons tried to force a woman into their van. This was all in that year after the fallout from the Khabib loss. This obviously wasn’t as clear cut a loss and there’s gonna be things he can tell himself to cope with it, blaming it on a ‘fluke’ injury or whatever. But the combination of the loss, the injury, the grudge with Poirier, and now he’s gonna have to be inactive for a bit because his leg’s knackered. It’s a recipe for another downward spiral. Those threats he was making were ridiculous. Obviously I don’t think anything will actually come of it, it’s just Conor being a prick, but it’s also been known for a long time that he’s got connections to some well dodgy characters in Ireland. As much as these threats seem laughable while he’s sat on his arse with his leg in tatters, I honestly wouldn’t put anything past him at this point. Not that I think he’s actually gonna have Poirier and his wife killed, but I could see him paying some unsavoury characters to send threats or harass them or something. At this point could anyone say that would be out of character for a cunt like McGregor? 

Seeing how angry and unhinged he was after the fight there is mental. People will claim he’s just hyping a fourth fight but in that moment I don’t think that’s what was going on. He was embarrassed and fuming and lashing out. That’s it. No doubt, in time, it’ll turn into building up an inevitable fourth meeting but in that moment itself I think he’d simply lost his head. Plus he wouldn’t need to start drumming up interest for another fight. The interest is already there whenever he returns. This one writes itself it doesn’t need the hard sell, especially when the fight can’t happen for a while anyway now.

Edited July 12, 2021 by wandshogun09