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Bellator 281 - MVP vs. Storley (May 13th) 🐍


Egg Shen

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Friday Night, next week. Bellator returns to London, live on BBC 3.

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Main Card:

Michael Page vs. Logan Storley - Interim Welterweight Title

Lyoto Machida vs. Fabian Edwards

Denise Kielholtz vs. Kana Watanabe

Paul Daley vs. Wendell Giacomo

Luke Trainer vs. Simon Biyong

Prelims:

Arunus Andriuskevicus vs. David Trallero

Lee Chadwick vs. Maciej Rozanski

Andrew Fisher vs. Attila Korkmaz

Alfie Davis vs. Tim Wilde

Kate Jackson vs. Elina Kallionidou

Oliver Enkamp vs. Mark Lemminger

Daniel Weischel vs. Robert Whiteford

Charlie Ward vs. Alan Carlos

Chiara Penco vs. Lanchana Green

Michael Page finally reaches the summit. This was meant to be for the full title but Amosov is fighting in the Ukraine so Bellator have basically brought in the next best thing in Logan Storley.

On paper, Storley is MVP's worst nightmare, a powerhouse wrestler who can go 5 rounds, but if MVP's movement throws Storley off his game he could win this but it's a big ask.

MVP unbelievably is 16-1 in Bellator, he milled around as a showcase for so long that it felt this shot may never come. I think people forget that he's also 35 years old. Its now or never.

Undercard is good stuff too. Intrigued by the return of Luke Trainer, had proper next big thing vibes last time out.

Solid, this. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Egg Shen
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Yeah, its his retirement fight. He was meant to be fighting Andrey Koreshkov, which probably wouldn't have ended well for him. The guy he's fighting instead is a Chute Boxe fighter i think. So its likely a favourable style fight for Semtex.

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I have tickets to this event and I am pretty excited about it. I'm hoping the card remains in tact as it has taking a bit of a battering already by losing the champ in the main event and also losing Douglas Lima vs Jason Jackson which would have been an interesting fight.

The main selling point for me is seeing Machida live. It will be interesting to hear if he gets cheered because he's Machida or booed because he is up against a Brit.

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anyone catch Bellator?

Decent show, MVP came close, he just allowed Storley to get in on a shot once in every round and Storley would get the takedown and win the round (barring the 4th). Storley clearly wanted no part of the standup, would wait for MVP to lunge in then dive for a leg. The takedown came from a similar move in every round, I think if MVP had kept this a little more conventional he could have won this. Round 4 was perfect for him.

Fabian Edwards sent Lyoto Machida to land of wind & ghosts, and i did not like that 😔

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Paul Daley's career ended in perfect fashion. It wasn't going to plan, but once Daley got going, well..

Highlight of the undercard was Oliver Enkamp's come from behind win against Mark Lemminger, he lost every second until he pulled off this fucking thing...

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apparently, its called a Buggy Choke. Ive never seen one before in my life, amazing.

Edited by Egg Shen
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Enkamp finish was lovely stuff. Reminded me of the Braulio Estima 'invisible triangle' from many years ago in the submission grappling world. 

Daley KO was a nice moment but it was funny for the commentators to immediately be speculating that he isn't actually done. 

Went to bed before MVP and based on what I have read, I made the correct choice. Sounded like a tedious fight followed by the ever tedious post match "I came to fight, he came to wrestle" type bullshit. 

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I didnt find it tedious, actually found it pretty compelling, but it wasn't a crowd pleaser. Actually surprised to see Scott Coker be critical of Storley afterwards, I dont think ive ever heard Coker be critical of anyone. Still, matching MVP up with Storley meant there was always a strong chance that this could happen, if Coker wanted to give MVP a crowd pleasing title win in front of his home crowd he should have given him a more favourable matchup.

Paul Daley has basically he said he's retiring from MMA. I think he's hoping he'll cash in on the fun fight/Triller type shows. There's been talk of a Dan Hardy boxing match which has since died off but I think he's going down that route.

Speaking of Oliver Enkamp, became a bit of a fan of his recently as ive been following his Brothers youtube channel. Its like an online blog doing all things Karate. Oliver and his Brother recently got to train with Sensei Steven Seagal and documented it in a video series, its interesting stuff and is one of the closer looks you'll get into the bonkers world of Seagal. Enkamp and his Brother seem like real good dudes.

Edited by Egg Shen
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What annoys me when a dangerous striker gets wrestlefucked, is the propensity of fans/experts and even promoters to blame the fucker and not the fuckee.

If you're going to come to the table with a one dimensional skillset, then it absolutely makes sense that your opponent will exploit that. That's the whole point of the sport. Don't blame the winner, blame the loser for being arrogant/daft enough to think they don't have to have a plan B.

And, on the rare occasion that person may simply not be good enough to have a plan B... don't blame anyone, blame yourselves for putting them on a pedestal (fans), backing them despite any reasonable evidence (experts)... or for putting them in that fucking position in the first place (promoters).

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1 hour ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

What annoys me when a dangerous striker gets wrestlefucked, is the propensity of fans/experts and even promoters to blame the fucker and not the fuckee.

If you're going to come to the table with a one dimensional skillset, then it absolutely makes sense that your opponent will exploit that. That's the whole point of the sport. Don't blame the winner, blame the loser for being arrogant/daft enough to think they don't have to have a plan B.

And, on the rare occasion that person may simply not be good enough to have a plan B... don't blame anyone, blame yourselves for putting them on a pedestal (fans), backing them despite any reasonable evidence (experts)... or for putting them in that fucking position in the first place (promoters).

...and go and watch kickboxing instead if you have a problem with wrestling being used as a means to win.

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Just caught up on this, although the Daley KO got sent to me on WhatsApp by my nephew on the night.

Glad to see sense being talked in here on the main event. Watching the fight and then reading the reaction on social media was like night and day. Nearly every comment I saw was nonsense about how Storley shouldn’t have got points for just wrestling and “doing nothing with the takedowns”. As if wrestling isn’t as much a part of MMA as striking is. I get that argument if a guy is scoring takedowns but then the guy on bottom is outworking him from his back, doing damage with elbows etc and the guy on top spends the whole time defending submissions and trying to survive. In that case, yeah, the guy is getting his takedowns but still losing the round by being forced on the defence the whole time. You’ll still get lazy judges score those types of rounds for the guy on top but it’s bollocks. This fight wasn’t that though. If the only thing happening in the round is wrestling, the fighter winning the takedown and control battle obviously wins the round. MVP had moments where he looked effective, and one of the later rounds he did very well but that was the only round I gave him. The rest of the time Storley simply outwrestled him.

It was always on the cards. MVP lost the wrestling exchanges when he fought Paul Daley, for fuck’s sake. No doubt he’s worked on that and improved to some degree since but the blueprint was always out there and Storley being a wrestler, what did people expect? It’s not the result people wanted and that’s why there’s so much whinging and wanting to rewrite the rules to score it for MVP. It wasn’t the most entertaining fight to watch and it’s always frustrating seeing a fighter repeatedly get shut down in one area. But that’s the way it goes sometimes. Nobody had a problem with it when Chael Sonnen did it for 4 and a bit rounds against Anderson Silva. But because the popular fighter got shut down, it’s not the way fights should be scored? Nah.

Fabian Edwards stopping Machida was the result most probably expected in 2022. Still a nice scalp for Edwards but a win over Machida today doesn’t carry the weight it used to, obviously. Went from having a bittersweet feeling watching it to being just plain sad Machida lost. Especially hearing Edwards mouthing off after like he just dethroned prime Anderson Silva or something. As a Brummie, I wish there were some more likeable representatives in the big leagues of MMA. I like Leon Edwards but haven’t really warmed to Fabian and Jake Hadley seems a bit of a dick as well.

Paul Daley had about as fitting a send-off as he could’ve really. If it does actually end up being his send-off that is. Kind of neatly summed up his career in one fight. Got grappled into oblivion the whole fight but that punching power has been the one consistent thing throughout his career and, once again, it was there when he needed it most.

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Only thing missing, which would’ve really summed up his career, was a bit of controversy. Finished with the right hand this time as well, instead of that bomb of a lead left hook he usually ends people with. Although I think the left did start the finishing sequence. Good stuff.

I don’t think we’ve seen the last of him though. Like Ebb says, it might be it for MMA but I think he’ll fight somewhere under a striking only rule set of some sort. Either a Boxing match or even some Muay Thai in ONE maybe? Imagine him in Bare Knuckle? 

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