UFC Austin: Kattar vs Emmett - Jun 18 🇺🇸

[wandshogun09]

It’s quality. Stuff like Means vs Holland and Marques vs Rodrigues isn’t getting much discussion on social media but both fights have serious show stealer potential. And I really love that Ismagulov vs Kutateladze fight. Even a fight like Daukaus vs Dolidze, I’d have had no problem with that taking up a main card spot, here it’s opening up the Fight Pass prelims. This is all before you even touch on the main and co-main events. One of the strongest Fight Night cards top to bottom I can remember in recent history. 

[wandshogun09]

Cerrone looking like the opening credits of One Foot In The Grave at the weigh in. 

[Egg Shen]

got a feeling Cowboy loses and retires tomorrow night

[wandshogun09]

It’s fight day and this is a fantastic card. Kind of sad how little discussion we’ve had going on in here really. Remember the days when a card like this would spawn at least a 3 or 4 page thread with a bunch of posters all popping in. Yet here we are on fight day and only 4 of us have even voted in the poll. Shame really.

[Egg Shen]

we definitely need to attract a few new posters to the forum

[David]

1 hour ago, wandshogun09 said:

Yet here we are on fight day and only 4 of us have even voted in the poll.

When I vote I tend to wait until fight day as I don't believe a card is happening until the day of.

[wandshogun09]

Start times and the (hopefully) final bout order. 

[Keith Houchen]

So close! 

 

[wandshogun09]

Fuck sake. It was Cerrone eating something dodgy last time, this time it’s a weird freak injury to Lauzon’s knee.

https://www.mmafighting.com/2022/6/18/23173831/joe-lauzon-explains-freakiest-weirdest-thing-ever-that-scratched-him-from-ufc-austin-donald-cerrone

[wandshogun09]

Another tremendous show. We had that little lull with a few lacklustre Apex shows recently but 275 and this card back-to-back have got things well back on track. And in the next few weeks we’ve got some incredible stuff to look forward to. That cracking Tsarukyan vs Gamrot card next week, the ridiculously stacked 276 the week after, then Dos Anjos vs Fiziev, then Ortega vs Yair, then the London card. These are all week after week for the next month or so. I know a lot of fans dip out when there isn’t a Lesnar, McGregor or Rousey type sitting on top of the sport but if you actually love MMA fights and not just the big characters, there’s still plenty going on.

Emmett vs Kattar did everything it said on the tin except for deliver a finish. How these two went 25 minutes I don’t know but it was some scrap. Mega close as well.

I’ll be honest, I felt like Kattar won when it was over. I think I had him taking rounds 2, 4 and 5. Looking at the judges cards I see Chris Lee gave Emmett the 4th, which I definitely had for Kattar. So that’s a bit iffy. Still, I wouldn’t call it a robbery and maybe one of the other rounds could’ve gone to Emmett anyway. Whatever the case, Emmett fought better than I expected. My thinking was that if Emmett was gonna win, it’d be by him landing a big shot and putting Kattar out. I never envisioned him going the full 5 rounds with Kattar and taking a decision. If it went the distance I thought Kattar would outclass him down the stretch but however you scored it, Emmett was there the whole time and giving it back. Really entertaining fight. They’ll never beat the Volkanovskis and Holloways of the world though, as good as this was I think it’s clear they’re a level below that. But they’re good enough that I think we’ll be seeing both challenge for the gold at some point.

Kevin Holland looked great subbing Tim Means. I was actually kind of glad that Cerrone vs Lauzon got scrapped and this became the co-main. It was always worthy of that spot and, in 2022, it was more likely to deliver than today’s version of Cerrone vs Lauzon anyway. Holland is well back on track now after that slump at 185 last year. That’s back-to-back finishes over a couple of tough veterans in Alex Oliveira and now Means. Didn’t think Means fought a bad fight, Holland was just quicker on the draw and pounced on his opportunities better. Still don’t see Holland making waves in the title mix but there’s a bunch of fun fights to make with him at 170. Loads of fresh fights too. Just off the top of my head, Holland vs Michel Pereira or the winner of Lawler vs Barberena jump right out as obvious can’t miss fights to make.

Joaquin Buckley vs Albert Duraev was one way traffic but Duraev’s toughness kept it alive and exciting. Buckley put a beating on him, his power was causing Duraev all kinds of problems and his eye got well fucked up.

Referee ‘Nasty’ Nick Cotton and the doctor were absolutely right to stop the fight there. Bit odd that they called it a third round doctor stoppage though. The third round didn’t actually start, did it? Regardless, Buckley’s always fun to watch.

Really enjoyed the Ismagulov vs Kutateladze fight. Had a feeling it’d be good but I’d seen limited footage of both so it was actually nice to see them go the distance to get a good look at them. Close one as well. I felt like Kutateladze maybe just nicked it but didn’t have an issue with the decision going to Ismagulov. Hopefully Kutateladze is able to stay more active now. He’s had razor close fights with Gamrot and Ismagulov in the UFC so far, one decision went in his favour, the other decision went against him. But I get the feeling there’s better to come if he can just stay healthy and get regular cage time in. Him and Gamrot was a great fight and they were neck and neck when they fought in 2020. Fast forward a couple of years and Gamrot’s main eventing against Tsarukyan next week, in a fight that will catapult the winner into the Top 10 and should see them mixing with the top names of the division. Makes me wonder where Kutateladze could be now if he wasn’t shelved the last 2 years.

Gregory Rodrigues vs Julian Marquez was as chaotic as I predicted in the opening post. If I can find any fault with this at all it’s only that it didn’t last long enough.

About 3 minutes in, Obama proper whacked him. Really fun few minutes it was though. Marquez just doesn’t do dull and Rodrigues has quickly become an undercard favourite of mine since he signed last year. He’s so entertaining to watch. One of those guys who just goes for the finish all the time and either he succeeds or it’s war.

On 6/1/2022 at 10:41 PM, Zebra Kid Mark said:

That's a bit better. Though he should be opening up the main card in my mind!

You got your wish in the end. With Cerrone vs Lauzon getting binned last minute, Adrian Yanez opened up the main card. And it was beautiful. Tony Kelley has shown himself to be a right dickhead recently. Between his dodgy comments about Brazilians while cornering Andrea Lee, to just generally being a cock since, to mouthing off at Yanez in the fight. He paid the price.

Lovely stuff. I usually wouldn’t be a fan of flipping a guy the middle fingers after you’ve just battered him but fuck Kelley. He had this coming and Yanez delivered right to his door. Apparently at some point Kelley called him “the Wish version of Jorge Masvidal” and Yanez didn’t appreciate that…

🤣

Love Yanez. Maybe the best find from DWCS yet for me. This was his 5th fight in the UFC and he’s been a highlight of all 5 of those cards. He’s got either POTN or FOTN for all 5 fights as well. Has any other fighter done that? Got 5 straight performance bonuses in their first 5 UFC fights? He’s ace. Glad he finally got to fight in front of a crowd as well, and not just a crowd, his home city of Texas. He’s been great to watch from the jump since signing with the UFC but seeing this performance, the bit of attitude and edge from him and the reaction he got from the crowd, this felt like the moment that’s gonna really make people take notice. Hope he gets a biggish fight next. A name, a spot on a PPV or something. If it was up to me I’d give him the winner of O’Malley vs Munhoz at 276.

Thought Natalia Silva looked fantastic in her UFC debut. It might’ve gone under the radar on a card like this because it went the distance on a show full of highlight reel finishes. But this was a really strong, complete performance from her. I’d never seen her fight before and she hadn’t fought since 2019 anyway. I wasn’t expecting much at all from her and almost just fast forwarded through this fight. But I ended up leaving it on and she looked class. Jasudavicius had no answers whatsoever.

The talk before the fight started was that Silva was an armbar specialist so everyone, including Jasudavicius, probably expected a grappling approach from her. She put on a bit of a striking clinic though, barely got hit herself, defended the takedowns nicely and the few times they did kind of grapple she came out on top. If this is what she looked like after a 2+ year layoff, the future is looking bright for her if she can stay active now. And at 25, she’s only gonna get better. Exciting addition to the Flyweight division. If this fight was on any other card, she’d likely have got a POTN bonus for this.

Jeremiah Wells flattening Court McGee early was rough. On a card full of finishes, this was the one I found scariest.

Wasn’t the flashiest KO on the card but I honestly thought McGee might be badly hurt watching it. The punch itself was bad enough but then the way his head bounced off the canvas and the couple of follow up strikes on the ground, it was one of those knockouts that gives you an uneasy feeling. Wells is looking like he might be a real issue though. That’s 3 wins and 3 finishes in the UFC so far. At 35 years old, time isn’t exactly on his side but he’s making the most of his opportunity. I’d like to see him get a bit of a step up next. Nobody specific is jumping out at me but there’s plenty of options at 170. Chuck him in with a Matt Brown or Niko Price type or something. 

I said in the opening post that I wasn’t particularly impressed by Ricardo Ramos. Then he goes and does this…

Crazy finish. And like they said on the commentary, it’s not the first time he’s done this. He stopped Aiemann Zahabi the same way a few years ago. In fairness to him as well, he’s still only 26. Maybe he’ll go on a run yet.

Cody Stamann bashing up Eddie Wineland was a bit hard to watch for me. Longtime fans remember Wineland from back in the WEC days. Never world champion material but a tough guy who’s beat some solid opposition. Stamann smashed him in a minute. Wineland has since announced his retirement;

I hope it sticks. Like I said, he was so tough in his younger days but watching his last few fights, it looks like that durability has finally gone. I think that brutal O’Malley KO might’ve been what finally killed his chin for good. He’s about to turn 38, has had over 40 fights and started in 2003. He’s had a long run, especially for a lighter weight fighter. I saw he took his gloves off in the cage, shame he never got to say his goodbyes in there. You’d think they had time as well with the previous fights being finishes. To think Bethe Correia got her in cage farewell moment and Eddie Wineland had to do his on Instagram.

Phil Hawes vs Deron Winn well surpassed my expectations. I didn’t expect a bad fight but I didn’t think they’d be throwing down quite like they did. Hawes was just too much though in the end. Winn hadn’t fought in 18 months so that wasn’t ideal. But he’s also a wrestler that seems to forget he’s a wrestler a lot of times. He was landing some digs in the exchanges and he was game but he’s also built like Scrappy Doo. I’ve said before but Winn is kind of in no man’s land weight class wise. He’s clearly too short for Middleweight but he looks too thick and naturally stocky to cut to Welterweight without absolutely fucking himself over health wise. That combined with the layoff and Hawes just being the better striker meant he was up against it last night and it didn’t work out. Cracking fight though. One of my favourites on the card, which I really didn’t anticipate going in.

The finishing elbows from Hawes were nasty as well. Winn looked like he was gonna argue the stoppage for a second but then just crumpled to the floor.

Don’t know if anyone caught it but Hawes got into a bit of back and forth with Cormier in the cage post-fight…

Nothing much to it really. Hawes seemed to think DC handpicked him as an opponent for his boy Winn and he felt slighted by it. He soon calmed down though. You can hear DC saying “I don’t pick fights. Do you know how many times we tried not to pick this fucking fight? Look at what happened. Why would I want this fight?” That’s gonna sting with Winn hears it. DC basically admitting he knew his mini me was fucked going in 🤣

Roman Dolidze opened up the Fight Pass prelims in style, wiping out Kyle Daukaus with a vicious knee.

Seems that set the tone for the rest of the night with the big first round finish. This was impressive from Dolidze. I hadn’t been blown away by him in the UFC up to now but taking a quality fighter like Daukaus out like this in a minute or so was quite a statement. Especially coming back after a year of inactivity.

Tremendous show top to bottom. I read that all 9 fighters who got finishes all got POTN bonuses last night. This’ll be up there with my favourite cards of the year by December, I reckon. Fantastic main event, tons of finishes, a hot crowd and nothing outright bad on the card. Can’t ask for much more than that. 

[thevestofdeanambrose]

On 6/18/2022 at 9:25 AM, Egg Shen said:

we definitely need to attract a few new posters to the forum

Keep it up boys! I love reading Wands write ups and use them before and during every show. 

Also love reading Eggs, David, Wands and others pre and post fight opinions! Also in the boxing threads. 

I do not contribute as much as I would like like but all your opinions and views don't go unnoticed and is always a highlight of my fight week! 

[WeeAl]

Well, that was one dandy of a show. 

The first fights I watched were Ricardo Ramos and Jeremiah Wells going out there and realising they left the heating on. No messing about here. You can almost see Ramos opponent's brain short circuit following the elbow, almost like Brad Riddell against Fiziev. Court McGee just ended up in the shadow realm. 

Yanez is a bit of a star in the making it seems. Absolutely going places this fella. He's a joy to watch. Such slick boxing for an MMA fighter. I love how much he goes to the body. 

Barack Obama's post presidential career is going remarkably well. If he was still president we could have had him take out Putin by hand during some faux peace talks. Big Gregory's power looks a damn lot to try and handle. If it hits the mat you've also got to imagine he's going to be pretty happy with that. May not be a tippy top guy but I can see him beating some of the folks that think they are. 

Kutetaladze and Ismagulov was very high level stuff. That these two are where they are goes to show the incredible depth of the division. These two are damn good. Didn't have a problem with the decision, it was a close fight. 

Kevin Holland got a really solid win. Tim Means is no easy out for anybody and Holland came out of it with a quicker night of work than most against Tim. I don't think he'd beat Sean Brady at the minute but I'd like to see some of those fights Wand mentioned. 

The main event was another really good fight. Again, I had no issue with the decision. I struggled to score this one. When in doubt though I always favour those landing the harder shots, even if they are less frequent, they matter more. Plus, some rounds Kattar wasn't really outstriking Emmett either. All the same, 48-47 either way would have been pretty reasonable. I'm good with Emmett taking on Volk or Holloway too, as even though they are both head and shoulders above the division, Emmett does bring that late career, game changing C4 with him, which will keep fighters honest when going against him. 

[Zebra Kid Mark]

What an absolutely awesome show. I didn't end up watching it until yesterday evening and it was worth the wait.

I disagree with the judges decision on both the Kattar/Emmet fight and the Kutetaladze/Ismagulov fight. They were both very close but I scored it the other way to the judges.

Kevin Holland is one of my favourites and he looked incredible. I'd like to see him fight another non ranked fighter before he starts fighting the ranked fighters.

It was sad to see two legends like Court McGee and Eddie Wineland get knocked out. I'm not surprised that Wineland has retired but I was surprised to hear the commentary say he had just signed a 4 fight deal before this fight....what's the point in that? As soon as they said that I thought "there's no way he's fighting through that contract."

Adrian Yanez....what a man. He looks so crisp and fluid. I love his style. 

[Egg Shen]

ive only just caught up as i was away on the weekend, but this was some show!

Emmett winning screwed me out of a little earner on the betting side of things though which sucks.

[Egg Shen]

On 6/19/2022 at 7:07 PM, wandshogun09 said:

 

Really enjoyed the Ismagulov vs Kutateladze fight. 

 

Should have taken FOTN for me. The thing that struck me watching this, and I might be getting ahead of myself, is that either of those men could probably hang with anyone in the top 5 of the division now. This was probably the highest quality non-ranked fight i've ever seen, they both looked great. You can't sleep on any of these Georgian fighters coming into the UFC, they are all good. Dolidze proved that in the opening fight.