UFC Long Island: Ortega vs Rodriguez - Jul 16 🇺🇸

[wandshogun09]

Enjoyed this show a lot but what an anti-climax Yair vs Ortega turned out to be. It was all looking good early, they weren’t wasting any time going after it, Yair was bleeding within the first minute, bit of a stalemate against the cage then they were right back at it. It looked like it was shaping up to be exactly as advertised.

Bollocks. Just 4 minutes in and Ortega’s shoulder popped out. Looked like it happened when he was pulling out of the armbar attempt. But I’m blaming all that cuddling they did during fight week, all that embracing and back slapping must’ve loosened the shoulder.

Seriously, such a deflating ending to what seemed to be warming up into a great battle. We waited years to see this matchup, it had to be navigated through long layoffs for both men and their friendship could’ve scuppered it. We finally get the fight in the cage and this happens. Gutted. You could almost reach out and physically grab the disappointment oozing out of Jon Anik at the end. It’s even worse because you just know this fight probably isn’t getting booked again either. I know Yair said if they fight again it should only be if there’s a title on the line but, for that to happen Volk has to lose the belt so, yeah, never mind. Ortega seemed up for a rematch regardless, to be fair, so maybe we will see it again sometime. I hope so anyway. Apparently Volk just had surgery on his broken hand and Dana’s already on about creating an interim title 😏 sounds like Yair vs Emmett is the plan.

Amanda Lemos getting a submission over Michelle Waterson wasn’t how I saw that fight playing out at all. I thought this would be a case of Lemos just trying to strike and Waterson being the one looking to take her out of her element and make it more of a ground battle. They were both content to strike for the first round but not a lot happened until Waterson got that late takedown. At this point the fight was going pretty much how I pictured it. Then in the second round Waterson goes for a sloppy takedown…

Done. Felt like a strange ending at first, everyone seemed to miss the tap, including the ref. Nice job by Lemos. She needed this coming off that quick sub loss to Jessica Andrade last time. Don’t know where Waterson goes from here. I’ve said for ages that she seems just that bit too small to compete in the upper levels of the Strawweight division and, once again here, she was outmatched in size and strength. And at 36, her skill set is what it is at this stage. Can’t see her fighting too much longer.

Li Jingliang couldn’t have really asked for a better way to rebound from the Chimaev mauling than this. He’s now the first man to finish Muslim Salikhov with strikes in MMA. And even in 199 Kickboxing bouts, Salikhov had only been stopped once! He’s no title challenger but he’s a hard sod and clearly doesn’t go away easily.

Big win for ‘The Leech’. Puts him right back on track. Wouldn’t mind seeing him against Michel Pereira next.

Fucking hell Matt Schnell! I’ve said a bunch of times that he’s decent but has never really wowed me in past fights. This was nuts though. Like I said in the opening post, I was into this almost solely because of Mudaerji. I really liked what I’d seen of him in his last few fights and was looking forward to him finally getting back in there after a long layoff. Schnell was like a man possessed in this one though. Turned out to be the wrong man for Mudaerji to make his return against.

Cold as fuck. Quality win for Schnell. Mudaerji was so close to ending it in that second round as well, cracked him with some huge shots and Schnell was hanging on by a thread. That one big elbow Mudaerji walloped him with looked like it was gonna close the show but Schnell somehow survived that and the follow ups and came back to get Mudaerji down, batter him with elbows and choke him all way out with the triangle. Barmy fight. Rightly got FOTN and it’s genuinely one of my favourites so far this year. Remember when Dana wanted to bin the Flyweight division?

Burgos vs Jourdain was a corker as expected. Loved this fight. I feel like I say it every week about at least one fight on every card but I completely lost track of the scoring here. I mean, I felt like I knew who won which rounds. I had Burgos winning round 2, Jourdain taking round 3. First round was the closest but I felt Jourdain might’ve edged it. But it’s the old thing again of close rounds being scored the same as clear cut decisive rounds. There’s probably a good case for scoring the first round either way but it’s a definite 10-9 whichever way you lean. But on first watch, for me Jourdain should’ve got a 10-8 for the third. Especially as one of the judges gave Burgos a 10-8 for the second round. There’s just no consistency. As with any close fight, the cries of robbery are flying about today but I really wasn’t sure which way this was going when the final buzzer went. There’s a very reasonable argument for both.

Regardless, it was a tremendous fight. One of them fights that you wish had an extra couple of rounds to really decide it. I think a 4th and 5th round here would’ve either seen one of them really put a stamp on a decision or one of them would’ve turned it up and got a late finish. If not for Schnell vs Mudaerji, this would’ve been FOTN for me.

Lauren Murphy vs Miesha Tate looked pretty much exactly as I expected out of those two in 2022.

It’s over for Tate, isn’t it? She had that feel-good return win over a 44 year old Marion Reneau last year but it’s been downhill ever since. She looked bad in the Ketlen Vieira fight and then this was supposed to be her fresh start at Flyweight and she’s been shut down at the first hurdle by a 38 year old Murphy. I mean, fair play to Tate for trying after 4 years out, having two kids and going through some shit. She did well to even make a comeback. But there’s really nowhere to go from here. She’s shut out of 2 title races and it’s not even like there are fun ‘name fights’ for her. The fact she was cutting down to Flyweight for the first time at nearly 36 years old felt desperate but then to see how slow and weak she looked in the fight, she just looks done. It’s clearly not for a lack of putting the work in but it just seems like it’s not there anymore. Murphy didn’t look bad but it’s one of them where Tate looked so poor it’s hard to even properly rate Murphy’s performance. I quite liked Murphy’s idea of fighting the winner of the Andrade vs Fiorot fight though.

Really happy to see Puna Soriano back to winning ways and doing what he does best, slinging bombs.

He hit a rough patch with those back-to-back losses to Allen and Maximov. This was a much better matchup style-wise for him and he got the job done. Dalcha looked dangerous at times but Soriano was just quicker on the draw. Lots of fun fights for Soriano at 185.

Well that’s Jack Shore derailed.

Ricky Simon looked fantastic here, to be fair. It was always gonna be a tough test for Shore and I wouldn’t have been surprised at Simon winning. I didn’t expect him to just beast him like this, rock him on the feet and then submit him though. I’ve thought Simon is a bit underrated for a while, I think that quick loss to old man Urijah Faber has followed him around a bit and made people think less of him. But that was a blip. His performances against Yahya, Merab, Assuncao etc tell you what he’s really about. But this Shore win was something else. Easily the best showing of his career to date. And over an undefeated young rising prospect who everyone was pretty high on. Shore will be back, he’s only 27 and seems to have his head screwed on. He strikes me as the type who will only learn and improve from a loss. But it was a decisive loss and you never know if that’s gonna fuck with a guy mentally going forward. Especially as a first loss. Simon looked class though. This was supposed to be the fight to finally catapult Shore to the main card, Simon absolutely deserves that recognition now. I’d love to see him matched up with Sean O’Malley next like he called for. On this form I think he’d ask some serious questions of Suga. And they’re right next to each other (#12/13 as I type) in the rankings. They also have a little bit of history as Simon offered to step in against O’Malley last year but O’Malley tried to say Simon turned the fight down and then Suga somehow ended up fighting Kris Moutinho. Perfect matchup, in my opinion.

Bill Algeo vs Herbert Burns was an odd one. It started off great with Burns going all out for the submissions and tying Algeo in knots on the ground. Algeo did well to weather the early triangle and armbar attempts, especially from a grappler like Burns. But it really did seem like once that opening onslaught failed and Algeo was still there, Burns just shrunk. Before the first round was even over, Burns looked absolutely done. Exhausted already and just looked like he’d mentally checked out. Didn’t help that Algeo was blasting him with ground and pound the whole time either. The way Burns struggled to get to his feet at the end of the round, I really thought they were gonna just call it off between rounds. Then Gilbert was practically pleading with him to keep fighting in the corner, which is never a good sign. It was just a matter of time and sure enough, the ref waved it off early in the second round.

They mentioned it on the commentary that Gilbert said something before the fight about Herbert actually being a slicker grappler than him, but that Gilbert was always the harder worker. That seems to be the big difference between the two. I remember Herb’s loss to Daniel Pineda going similarly to this and he also missed weight that time. At the time I thought he must’ve been injured but maybe it’s more of a work ethic issue. Shame because he’s got a great base to do really well in MMA but he’s probably one of those guys who’s a beast on the grappling mats but just doesn’t have the heart for it when strikes are mixed in. Gilbert’s the total opposite but Herbert just seems like he doesn’t have that dog in him. Algeo looked ace though. I like him. Wouldn’t mind seeing him try to “punch a hole through that little bird chest” of Chase Hooper like he said post-fight. That’d be a fun one.

Jacoby vs Jung predictably ended with a bang. For a hard hitter, Jacoby hasn’t been the finisher you’d expect in his recent UFC fights but I had a feeling this wasn’t going the distance one way or the other because Jung has a tendency to just stand and trade as well.

This time it didn’t work out too well for him. Not sure what’ll be next for Jacoby. He’s in the Top 15 now but most of the names above him are either already booked or in the title mix. Wouldn’t be surprised if they feed Shogun to him. Not ranked but he’s a name and a legend and that’s the next best thing.

Emily Ducote had a solid but unspectacular Octagon debut. Beat Penne fairly clearly over 15 minutes and I really thought she might stop her with those nasty calf kicks in the third round. Decent win but you really should be beating someone like Penne at this stage if you’re any good. Can’t see her going too far in the Strawweight division but we’ll see.

Another strong show, definitely better than the RDA vs Fiziev one last week. But the way the main event ended really put a downer on it for me. I honestly think there was a FOTY contender to be had between Ortega and Yair.

Oh, those mustard ABC jackets were ugly as fuck as well 😂

[David]

I love how folk on social media etc are treating the Ortega stoppage as some sort of freak injury that happened out of nowhere.

It wasn't as if it popped when he was throwing a punch or his knee went when he was just standing there. The shoulder popped because he was trying to escape a submission attempt. That's a win in Yair's book for me. 

[Ironic Indie Lad]

1 hour ago, David said:

That's a win in Yair's book for me. 

And perhaps more importantly than that, it's officially recorded as a win.

From what I can see, its not 100% freak accident but also clearly not your typical submission victory. I suppose that's why there is any debate in the first place. Anyone going too far in either direction is pretty silly imo.

In my view, Ortega did everything that you would be taught in lesson one of defending an armbar from the bottom. He had Yair somewhat stacked, he grabbed his own bicep in a figure four grip, it looked like he was about to try and work the hand from the 'free' arm to behind Yair's knee. Ordinarily you would see guys try to stack their opponent more while also pushing the leg down and getting their elbow above the opponents crotch. You are pretty much out of danger 99 times out of 100 at that point (unless you have a Mir/Sylvia situation).

Watching it back now and it looks like after Ortega grips his own arm, he immediately lets it go again and signals that he is done. There is no real shoulder lock there but Yair was attacking and regardless of technique, Ortega got hurt in the process. That has to go down a win.

[Egg Shen]

On 7/16/2022 at 2:15 PM, wandshogun09 said:

 

Just made my picks in the poll and interested to see @Egg Shen voting Ricky Simon to beat Jack Shore. Can’t say I’d be mega shocked if that happens. Simon could be a very tough test and I do think he’s being overlooked a bit

I've just always felt Jack Shore might get found out by a good wrestler. I think Shore has the skillset and fight IQ to be top level but it's always felt like he may lack strength and not be able to compete on a physicality level, that's pretty much what happened here. 

The whole prelim was a blessing and curse in the end. It got everyone talking about him. I heard a few major MMA media outlets rally for him last year and ask why he was placed so low. A big win would have been great and championed the cause but because he lost like he did, it felt very much like a 'what was all the fuss about?' thing.

The main event and co-main event's were anti-climatic feeling for different reason, but outside of that I thought it was a quality night of fights. Lots of standout performances. 

[Egg Shen]

😄

[Zebra Kid Mark]

Really good show, as a Welshman I was obviously sad to see Jack Shore lose but Ricky Simon really impressed me. His call out of O'Malley was smart, if that fight goes ahead I can see O'Malley being in a lot of trouble due to Simon's relentless pace. O'Malley hasn't fought anyone with his gas tank before.

The main event was obviously a big shame to see end like that. Featherweight is fun to watch but Holloway and Volk have wrecked everyone and there aren't really any exciting challengers. Arnold Allen and Josh Emmett are two of the only fighters on a win streak of more than 3 fights I think so if I were them I would be trying to fight either a top 3 guy (if you're Allen) or trying your hardest to fight for the title. Just don't put either of them against Max, we can't have him wreck another possible challenger.

Shame to see Misha lose, she just doesn't look like she's even close to finishing any of her opponents. I don't know if she will stick around now, I'd like t see her fight again but she is completely out of the title picture now so I can't see her just making up the numbers.

 

[Ironic Indie Lad]

I forgot that this was on at a good time in the UK. I was with my girlfriend visiting my parents at the time when I remembered and I put it on their telly.

Within minutes my dad, who knows NOTHING about MMA hit out with, "what do you think of Paddy the Baddy?". I was fucking baffled because he has never even asked me about any fight/fighter in decades with the exception of the McGregor/Mayweather fight.

He did love the Matt Schnell come from behind win though. Meanwhile my mum and girlfriend both thought that Mudaerji had been killed.

[Egg Shen]

If that isn't proof of Paddy Pimblett's cross-over appeal, nothing is. The people's champion 😬

[WeeAl]

I'm way behind and only got catching up with the main card of this one this morning. Such a disappointing way for the main event to end, but then's the breaks sometimes. Possibly another layoff for Ortega as well. I wouldn't be disappointed in Yair Vs Emmett if Volk is out, but it really doesn't need an interim belt. That's what would happen, but it doesn't need it. 

That Matt Schnell comeback was something else. The whole second round was just barmy. That pic above in Wand's post? It absolutely looks like Schnell has just taken Mudaerji's life in some kind of fight to the death. How he stayed on his feet at points in this one, I'll never know.