Paid Members Egg Shen Posted May 6, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted May 6, 2022 The Nate Diaz being the other example that springs to mind when I think of Cerrone appearing to be mentally broken in the cage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ironic Indie Lad Posted May 6, 2022 Share Posted May 6, 2022 I dont think Oliveira is going in there looking for a takedown and then working his submission game from there, personally. I think if he does catch a submission I think it could be an RNC where he transitions to the back via a standing exchange / clinch. Either that or he will take the head / head and arm and work for a guillotine or an anaconda if they clinch, if Gaethje dips his head or on the off chance Gaethje initiates a grappling exchange. I am interested to see how Ferguson performs. To me he looks like he has aged a lot in the last couple of years both appearance wise and how he has fought. Granted the three losses are against truly top guys but when you look at his record you notice how far removed we are from the Cerrone (2019), Pettis (2018) and Lee (2017) wins. Wins which I am not sure history will be kind to as time rolls on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted May 6, 2022 Author Paid Members Share Posted May 6, 2022 (edited) Surprise, surprise. Norma Dumont’s arse missed weight again. She’s giving up 30% of her purse to Macy Chiasson now. Which probably leaves her with about £50 after taxes. Oliveira missed by 0.5lbs on his first attempt as well and was given an extra hour. Hopefully he makes it. Edit - Fuck’s sake… Edited May 6, 2022 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted May 6, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted May 6, 2022 yep belt is gone, unbelievable! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members WeeAl Posted May 6, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted May 6, 2022 44 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said: Surprise, surprise. Norma Dumont’s arse missed weight again. She’s giving up 30% of her purse to Macy Chiasson now. Which probably leaves her with about £50 after taxes. Oliveira missed by 0.5lbs on his first attempt as well and was given an extra hour. Hopefully he makes it. Edit - Fuck’s sake… Fuck sake, that's dreadful news. I was about to come in here and chat a few predictions, but I'm glad I refreshed the page first. What a terrible state of affairs that has worked out to be. Just when the division was gaining some clarity and Oliviera was getting traction as a tippy top level fighter, this goes and changes all the discussion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted May 6, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted May 6, 2022 First UFC fighter to lose his belt on the scales, disastrous. He'll lose a large portion of his purse and the PPV points for this most likely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted May 6, 2022 Author Paid Members Share Posted May 6, 2022 (edited) It’s so disappointing. Watch Oliveira go and win by flying triangle or something now just to make it more messy. Don’t know what happened here. He tweeted yesterday that he was on weight. Missed by 0.5lb, got the extra hour and came back still weighing 0.5lb over. So either he just stopped trying at that point or his body just reached the limit where he stopped sweating. I’ve been an Oliveira fan for way longer than it’s been popular to be, but it’s not a good look. Everyone’s suddenly been on his dick since the Chandler and Poirier wins last year so I’m seeing all kinds of wanting to bend the rules now and let him keep the belt because “it’s only half a pound” but that’s shite. If it was a fighter people disliked you wouldn’t hear any of that. It’s called ‘championship weight’ for a reason. Watch how these divs all turn on him if he goes and gets sparked tomorrow now. Plot thickens; Edited May 6, 2022 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted May 6, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted May 6, 2022 what on earth?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted May 6, 2022 Author Paid Members Share Posted May 6, 2022 A lot of people are running with it as an excuse and the video of Oliveira on the scales, his facial expression does make it seem like he was genuinely shocked to hear he was over the limit. But I don’t know. If the scales were off how come everyone else was on weight? The only two fighters on the whole card who missed weight were Oliveira (who has missed weight a few times in the past) and serial weight misser Norma Dumont. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted May 7, 2022 Author Paid Members Share Posted May 7, 2022 (edited) Rewatched Esparza vs Namajunas 1. Almost certainly the first time I’ve seen it since it happened 8 years ago. Went down in December 2014. The finals of The Ultimate Fighter 20 to crown the first ever UFC champion at 115lbs. Esparza was the #1 seed in the tournament having already claimed Invicta’s belt but Rose Namajunas came in as a bit of a wild card and had caught everyone’s attention on the show. She was green as grass at just 22 years old and only 2-1 in her career at the time but she breezed through her 3 opponents on the show with submissions. She was even being hailed as the “Next Ronda Rousey” at the time. Like I say, I’d never watched this back. The only thing I remembered was how it ended so I was interested to give it another look with the rematch nearly upon us. Especially with it being so long since the first meeting. I know the UFC furiously bums instant rematches but, to me, it’s always more interesting when there’s been a gap between fights and they’ve been on their separate journeys and you can see where they’ve improved over time. Carla Esparza vs Rose Namajunas - Vacant UFC Strawweight Title The Ultimate Fighter 20 Finale: A Champion Will Be Crowned December 12th 2014 Las Vegas, Nevada Commentators are Jon Anik and Kenny Florian. Ugh. Forgot how much I disliked Ken-Flo on colour. If dry Ryvita was a commentator. The original Dominick Cruz. Referee is Yves Lavigne. I forgot he existed. Both women look a little bit nervous during the Buffer intros, understandably. It’s the UFC debuts for both and it’s for the gold. Round 1: Rose comes out looking sharp and she’s non-stop on the attack. Maybe too aggressive though and Esparza uses it against her to score her first takedown of the fight. She manages to get up fairly quickly and starts getting her striking going again. She’s constantly moving, bouncing around, throwing all kinds of kicks. It’s keeping Esparza guessing and on the back foot but it almost feels like Rose is too eager to land a highlight reel KO or something. Just pure nervous energy. But it’s working alright for her so far. Esparza’s trying to land knees and elbows in close but it’s clear she’s out of her depth in the striking here. She keeps going back to throwing spinning shit though and it’s not really paying off. Feels like if she stuck to the basics she could’ve put Esparza in some serious bother here but I don’t think she was as confident in her hands at this point so she’s going the crazy kicks route. Always a risk against a wrestler and Esparza gets another brief takedown, lands some ground strikes but can’t keep her there. Slower pace in the last minute and Esparza gets one last takedown right as the round ends. Close one. I’d score it Namajunas 10-9 but I suspect the judges had it for Esparza for the takedowns. Trevor Wittman wisely tells Rose between rounds to pace herself and that they probably scored it for Esparza as well. Round 2: Esparza lands a right hand. Nothing special but probably the best punch she’s been able to land so far. And Rose looks nowhere near as fresh or light on her feet as she did in the opener. Esparza gets an easy takedown and gets to work just chipping away with some ground and pound. She oddly lets Rose up though. Don’t get that. Rose trying to strike but she looks pretty knackered now. She’s slowed down massively. Another takedown from Esparza. Rose tries to stay active off her back but she looks exhausted at this point and Esparza gets full mount and ends the round dropping punches. Rose looks wobbly on her feet going back to the corner and it’s a clear round for Esparza. I’d give it 10-8, to be honest. She dominated and if she’d had another 30 seconds or so, I think she’d have forced a stoppage. It’s panic stations in the Namajunas corner between rounds now. Pat Barry is off with some attempt at a profound pep talk but it consists of him just repeating “YOU MADE A CHOICE. YOU MADE A CHOICE THAT DAY” or some shite and Wittman beautifully cuts through the crap and goes “OK technical, let’s be technical” 😂 He starts giving her actual advice and guidance but Rose’s face says it all. She looks about done. Round 3: Seems like a formality at this point. Esparza comes out, gets the takedown, takes the back and has a loose body triangle on. All within the first minute of the round. Not looking good for the ‘Next Ronda’. Esparza locks on the choke… Rose tries to fight it for a bit but there’s no getting out of it. She taps. It’s a wrap. Winner - Carla Esparza by submission. Round 3 - 1:26. Not amazing or anything but not a bad fight. I think it was clear that this fight just came along a bit too soon for Rose though. She looked good in the first round but it seemed like she was operating on excitement and adrenaline initially and once that wore off, she was spent. It felt like the occasion overwhelmed her. At 22 years old, only 3 fights deep as a pro and making her Octagon debut, it’s understandable. In the 8 years since she’s obviously matured and improved a lot as a fighter. She’s been through a lot - won the title, lost the title, regained the title, ended the reign of Joanna Jedrzejczyk etc. She’s unbeaten in rematches as well. And of the two, I’d say she’s definitely made the most progress out of her and Esparza. I still think this could be a really tricky one though. While Rose is definitely way better and more equipped for this kind of fight now than she was in 2014, Esparza has a style that I think is more of a challenge for Rose to overcome. She’s shown she can hang with pretty much anyone in a standup battle but Esparza’s not gonna be looking to play that game. And as I recall, Zhang Weili was able to take Rose down a bunch of times in their second fight in November. That was Rose’s most recent fight and she still looked susceptible to the takedowns and that was against a lesser grappler than Esparza. We’ll see but it’s an interesting one. I could see Rose catching her with something nasty and ending the show early. But I could just as easily see Esparza shutting her down with takedowns and making her hesitant with just the threat of them. Probably am leaning slightly towards Esparza on points actually but it’s close to 50/50. Edited May 7, 2022 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted May 7, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted May 7, 2022 for whatever reason ive just never got on board with Esparza, im probably underselling her chances here but im favouring Rose to win Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted May 7, 2022 Author Paid Members Share Posted May 7, 2022 Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never been a fan. But I’m really unsure on Rose when it comes to dealing with wrestlers. You look back at her best wins and they were against Jedrzejczyk, Zhang, Andrade, Waterson etc. All predominantly strikers. And the times she lost - Andrade first fight and Esparza - it was a KO from a slam against Andrade and her wrestling/inexperience letting her down in the Esparza fight. Then Zhang was able to take her down fairly easily in their rematch. I hope Rose wins. She’s the much better fighter to watch and I’d love to see her go on a proper run of defences against Marina Rodriguez, Mackenzie Dern and even an Andrade trilogy decider. But there’s enough there when it comes to the wrestling that’s giving me doubts. And wrestling is really all Esparza does. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Jesse Posted May 7, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted May 7, 2022 19 hours ago, wandshogun09 said: A lot of people are running with it as an excuse and the video of Oliveira on the scales, his facial expression does make it seem like he was genuinely shocked to hear he was over the limit. But I don’t know. If the scales were off how come everyone else was on weight? The only two fighters on the whole card who missed weight were Oliveira (who has missed weight a few times in the past) and serial weight misser Norma Dumont. I've no idea what I'm talking about, but I saw a few people saying that non-title fights have a leeway that title fights don't have that mean many of them could have been half a pound over but not put down as 'missed weight'. Could all be bollocks, mind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted May 7, 2022 Author Paid Members Share Posted May 7, 2022 (edited) 22 minutes ago, Jesse said: I've no idea what I'm talking about, but I saw a few people saying that non-title fights have a leeway that title fights don't have that mean many of them could have been half a pound over but not put down as 'missed weight'. Could all be bollocks, mind. Nah that’s right. For non-title fights there’s a 1lb allowance so for Lightweight if you weigh in at 156 you’re still good to go. But with title fights you have to hit the weight on the dot, ‘championship weight’. I don’t know. Looking at the weigh in results, there are a lot of .5s there, which of course is allowed in non-title fights but you don’t usually see nearly every fighter weigh in at something-.5lbs. Fuck knows? I’ve read all kinds of different theories, other fighters on the card saying the scales were giving different readings to the backstage ones, Oliveira looking genuinely shocked on the scales etc. Maybe there’s something to it. Here’s the full weigh in results; Edited May 7, 2022 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Jesse Posted May 7, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted May 7, 2022 Suppose it's something we'll never actually know the truth of, but that's grim for Oliveira if that's true, gotta assume that's a lot of money (and potential future money) to be lost over a poorly calibrated scale. But at the same time I'm probably willing it to be not his fault because I've enjoyed his fights for ages and was so glad to see him get a run with the belt. If it was someone I didn't give a toss about I'd accept it without a second glance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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