UFC 277: Pena vs Nunes 2 - Jul 30 ??

[Egg Shen]

and she retired after it, no job is worth that stress.

[Egg Shen]

The card doesn't feel the typical UFC PPV level but im looking forward to this, i need a pallet cleanser after the London show.

[wandshogun09]

I’ve finally updated the opening post with the latest card and the couple of short notice replacements. This Hamdy Abdelwahab bloke who’s stepping in against Don’Tale Mayes has caught my eye. Fights out of New York but he’ll be the first Egyptian fighter in UFC history, competed in the 2016 Olympics in Rio in Greco-Roman wrestling, currently 5-0 with 5 knockouts in MMA. Worth a look. 

[Carbomb]

1 hour ago, wandshogun09 said:

I’ve finally updated the opening post with the latest card and the couple of short notice replacements. This Hamdy Abdelwahab bloke who’s stepping in against Don’Tale Mayes has caught my eye. Fights out of New York but he’ll be the first Egyptian fighter in UFC history, competed in the 2016 Olympics in Rio in Greco-Roman wrestling, currently 5-0 with 5 knockouts in MMA. Worth a look. 

Checking his record, all of his fights have been for a Jorge Masvidal promotion, so he's probably the guy's protegé or something. Three of them for Gamebred (which, I'm told, is BKMMA), and the other two for iKon (IFC), which apparently is listed as "Jorge Masvidal's", so I'm guessing that's his more "standard" MMA brand.

EDIT: IKon isn't owned by Masvidal, it's owned by Roy Jones Jr. Promotions' owner (who, oddly, isn't Roy Jones Jr.). It's just the broadcast programme that's called "Jorge Masvidal's iKon Fighting Championship".

Edited July 26, 2022 by Carbomb

[wandshogun09]

Yeah I put something about the Masvidal affiliation in my bit in the opening post but couldn’t be arsed to do the homework on it.

This made me chuckle on Abdelwahab’s record on Sherdog as well. Obviously a fuck up or they don’t have the info on times etc but…a KO in 0 seconds?! This guy really doesn’t fuck about. ?

[Egg Shen]

Yeah, interesting replacement. I heard a preview show say that Hamdy really struggled against a .500 recently but there's clearly potential there. Anytime an Olympian comes in, i'm interested.

Edited July 28, 2022 by Egg Shen

[wandshogun09]

[wandshogun09]

OK, with two rematches headlining Saturday‘s card, I’m doing my thing of revisiting the first fights. In this case, I say revisit but I don’t recall if I even saw the first instalment of this one…

Moreno vs Kara-France 1 went down in December 2019 at UFC 245. Same night Usman cracked Covington’s jaw. It was a pretty stacked card with 3 title fights plus the likes of Aldo, Yan and Faber in key matchups. So Moreno and KKF were just two more guys on a bloated card. So much so that it was all the way down on the Fight Pass prelims! I mentioned it in the opening post but it’s crazy looking back and seeing a fight like this on the Fight Pass stream. Obviously, in 2019 these two weren’t in the title mix so it wasn’t as outrageous as it looks today. At the time of this fight, Moreno had been through TUF and had been let go by the UFC briefly after a couple of losses to Sergio Pettis and Alexandre Pantoja. Looking back, that release was way harsh. He’d always been exciting to watch and sacking him for a couple of decision losses against that level of opposition is bollocks, isn’t it? Especially in light of some of the absolute dross they’ve kept on the roster for years on end, some of which have losing records or are on 4 and 5 fight losing streaks. Moreno went away and won a fight in LFA (and their title) and was brought back to the UFC in 2019. They probably only rehired him at that point because they had a Mexico card coming up. And immediately they threw him in against unbeaten Askar Askarov. They wound up going to a draw in a fantastic fight and that led us to this fight. Kara-France was 20-7-0-1 at this time, was on an 8 fight winning streak but was largely untested against strong opposition. He was coming off a couple of points wins over Raulian Paiva and Mark De La Rosa. So looking back, you can kind of understand why this fight didn’t get higher billing on a loaded card like 245.

Brandon Moreno vs Kai Kara-France

UFC 245: Usman vs Covington

December 14th 2019

Las Vegas, Nevada

Usual PPV commentary team of Anik, Rogan and Cormier for this. Referee is Chris Tognoni. I’m sure Anik said Kara-France was the betting favourite at the start. Which I find a bit odd given Moreno had fought and beat a much higher level of opposition to the guys KKF had beat at this point. Regardless, this should be good. Saddens me to see all the empty chairs around Octagonside for this fight. These two deserved better.

Round 1: Very little in the way of a feeling out process here. Within about a minute they’re both throwing heat. According to the Tale Of The Tape, Moreno’s only got a one inch reach advantage but it seems like more than that when he’s throwing his jab out. Kai getting through with his own jab and he’s starting to connect with his right hand nicely now. Moreno upping the aggression and starting to have some fun in there but KKF is still finding the target a fair bit and I think he’s getting the better of a lot of the early exchanges here.

BIG right rocks Moreno but he somehow absorbs it and stays upright. Kai’s mixing it up now, jabbing the body and whipping in some leg kicks. He’s looking good early. He cracks Moreno again with a clean right to the kisser, and you see Moreno’s legs kind of dip for a second but he eats it well and still doesn’t go down.

Moreno’s chin doesn’t get the credit it deserves. Even in the 3 fights with Figgy, he ate some bombs but did he ever get knocked down, I can’t remember? Moreno coming back with some good stuff in the last minute of the round now. Both landing in the last seconds and that’s a fun first round in the books. Kara-France takes it 10-9.

Round 2: They’re picking up right where they left off. Both trading but Moreno’s starting to up the pace now and it’s working for him. He’s got Kai backing up more and he’s letting the flurries go. Moreno fucking loves that lead left high kick. Almost every combination he throws, he ends it with that kick. You’d think it’d make him predictable, and I guess it does to a point, but it works pretty well for him because it either lands on the head and does damage or the opponent blocks it with the arm and it weakens the arm, and either way, at the very least it forces the opponent to move to their left, into Moreno’s right hand. He spams the fuck out of it but it seems to have the desired effect more often than not.

Kara-France with a sweet uppercut, that the commentators completely ignore, and Moreno immediately fires back. Again, durability for days. Moreno with more of those headkicks and a few look like they come dangerously close to landing full force. KKF’s just about deflecting them or rolling with them enough to take some of the edge off. Kara-France still connecting at times but Moreno seems to be holding up better through 10 minutes and he lands a few more eye catching shots just before the buzzer. Moreno 10-9. So I’ve got it all even going into the last round.

Round 3: Moreno definitely looks the fresher of the two at this stage in the fight. Kai’s still in it and there’s no quit in him but he’s starting to look beat up, slower and like he’s running out of answers. Right when I think that though, he lands a glancing headkick that Moreno acknowledges came close.

Moreno with a combination and Kai comes back with one of his own. Moreno’s fired up and screams in Kai’s face. This is a competitive round but Moreno is really putting the pressure on now and seeing him constantly walking Kai down and throwing strikes the whole time, he seems to be well in control.

Nutcase ? he fucking loves it. Cormier keeps going on about this being a mega close round and he keeps talking about Moreno only winning it in the judges eyes because of “the visuals” of him walking forward and showboating a bit. But I think he’s winning it anyway at this point. Kai’s game as always but he seems to be wilting a bit under the constant pressure to me. And it’s not like Moreno’s only walking him down and taunting, he’s been landing shots pretty much the whole time while KKF’s been backing up.

“I would pay to see these guys fight any time they wanna do it. What a fight!” - Joe Rogan

Rogan trying to sell us the rematch almost 3 years in advance there. Ever the company shill. Kai lands one last flurry, Moreno returns in kind and that’s a wrap. Another 10-9 for Moreno, in my opinion. So I’ve got it 29-28 in his favour.

Winner - Brandon Moreno by unanimous decision.

The correct call. He got two 29-28s and a 30-27, which I think was a bit off. For me, Kara-France definitely won that first round. Very enjoyable fight to watch. I don’t think I did see the full thing at the time. Think I just caught highlights of it because I definitely remember some bits of it. Of course, we know what happened since. They’ve both gone from strength to strength. Especially Moreno.

Following the win over Kara-France, he beat Jussier Formiga and Brandon Royval, earning himself a crack at UFC gold at the end of 2020. And he’s basically been married to Deiveson Figueiredo ever since. His last 3 fights have been title fights against Figgy. They’ve shared the Octagon for a total of about 62 minutes and there’s still no clear answer on who’s superior. The first fight was a classic, the best fight in Flyweight history for me, and went to a draw. Moreno unexpectedly ran through Figgy in the rematch to take the belt. And then their third fight at UFC 270 in January was another 5 round war that was only a couple of shades of awesome below their first fight. But Figgy reclaimed the belt. Meanwhile, Kara-France won a belting fight against Tyson Nam, lost a corker against Royval, battered Rogerio Bontorin, smashed Cody Garbrandt to bits and beat Askar Askarov in another fantastic fight. The Askarov win was probably Kai’s best overall career performance for me.

So here we are. The rematch.

I still don’t get why we need an interim title for this but whatever. I’m not gonna moan about a fight of this quality and either against Figgy in the unification match is gonna be class. To be honest, I’ve enjoyed Moreno vs Figgy as much as anyone but after seeing it 3 straight times, I’m just happy we’re getting a fresh fight.

I was already favouring Moreno going in and, looking at this first fight, it just strengthens that opinion a little bit more. I just feel like his overall pace and toughness might still be a tad too much for Kara-France. And he’s a proven 5 round fighter whereas Kai’s yet to go longer than 3. We’ll see. KKF is definitely better than when they first met though. I’d even go so far as to say he’s improved more out of the two of them since their 2019 meeting. And training with champions like Volkanovski and Adesanya on a day to day basis at City Kickboxing, they’ll have him prepared well for 5 rounds. Add to that he’s powerful for a 125er and he’ll be coming in more confident than ever. It’s a hell of a fight. And even in the first fight, he was giving Moreno all he could handle in that first round. It wasn’t like he just got schooled from start to finish. Little adjustments here or there could make a big difference. I wouldn’t be shocked at all to see him pull it off. But I’m leaning towards Moreno, probably on points and probably in an all-out war.

I’ll revisit Pena vs Nunes 1 sometime tomorrow. 

Edited July 28, 2022 by wandshogun09

[Egg Shen]

props to the Black Beast for making Dana White shit his pants, but Pavlovich is a big boy isn't he? For some reason I expected Lewis' to be the much bigger man, not the case:

 

 

[Egg Shen]

Alberto Del Rio has a new gig:

 

 

[wandshogun09]

Yeah I saw that. I preferred his old MMA gig. 

[Egg Shen]

Juliana left it to the last 90 seconds before weighing in, suggesting that she had a hard cut. It could just be mind games, but you never know. I've finally had my mind swayed though and i'm picking Nunes by TKO in rounds 2 or 3.

[Kfogg1991]

1 hour ago, Egg Shen said:

Juliana left it to the last 90 seconds before weighing in, suggesting that she had a hard cut. It could just be mind games, but you never know. I've finally had my mind swayed though and i'm picking Nunes by TKO in rounds 2 or 3.

Yeah I'm going with nunes once again the double champ within 2 rounds 

[wandshogun09]

I apologise in advance because this’ll be a long one. Taking another look at the first Nunes vs Pena fight and there’s a lot to it. As mad as it was, I don’t think I watched the fight back since it happened so I’m interested to see if it’s how I remember it.

It took place just 7 months ago, December 2021 at UFC 269. Not gonna bother going into the buildup again. We’ve covered it and it’s still recent enough that it seems pointless. Needless to say, regardless what people said after the fact, no-one was genuinely giving Pena a realistic shot at pulling this off. Based on both women’s track records, the quality of Nunes’ top wins vs the quality of Pena’s, the fact Pena’s main strength was her grappling yet she’d been guillotined by Germaine De Randamie who’d never subbed anyone before, it felt very much like just another routine squash match title defence for the champ.

“She doesn’t have a lot of clear cut challengers in front of her where you’d say ‘this fight must happen’. It’s just a matter of who’s willing to get in there and fight her. She is an assassin!” - Joe Rogan

This quote pretty much sums up what the general feeling was going in. While the revisionist analysts are now claiming they knew all along that Pena was the problem opponent for Nunes, the reality is that nobody was clamouring for this fight. Pena was getting this title shot solely because there was nobody else.

With the benefit of hindsight, the pre-fight video here is interesting. Pena is talking about a longer fight favouring her and how she was planning to drag Nunes into deep waters and tire her out. Who knew “deep waters” would mean…the second round? It still makes zero sense to me ?

Amanda Nunes© vs Julianna Pena - UFC Bantamweight Title

UFC 269: Oliveira vs Poirier

December 11th 2021

Las Vegas, Nevada

Commentary is brought to you by the usual crew of Anik, Rogan and DC. And Marc Goddard is on reffing duties for this one.

Round 1: Looks like it’s gonna be a bit of a cautious start but within the opening 30 seconds Nunes has already dropped her with a calf kick.

Might’ve been the very first strike landed in the fight as well. Pena back up and, to be fair, she’s putting herself in harm’s way trying to get in with the jab. Going into the fight I expected her to just be diving in for takedowns from the off. Pena’s striking looks woeful here though, like genuinely awful. But she’s standing her ground so far.

Pena’s down again from a teep and a follow up right hand. Think it caught her more off balance than anything but, still, she’s hit the deck twice already and we’re not even 90 seconds into the fight yet. Not the best of starts. Nunes is taking her time here, well in control so far, and Rogan’s talking her up as if this is just a matter of time (how that narrative changes). Pena does a nice job getting up without taking any significant damage but she’s soon on her back wedged against the fence and Nunes is working from the top.

Nunes takes the back. Not good at all for Pena this. Crucially, she’s able to keep Nunes’ left arm trapped, preventing her from completing the choke. She survives and Nunes abandons it but maintains control from top position. With about 30 seconds to go, Pena is going for a kimura. They’re talking it up on commentary and saying Nunes looks concerned but it’s not close and Nunes is defending it and clearly knows the round is about to end so just sits tight. That’s the first round in the books and it’s clearly a Nunes round.

I’ll say 10-9 but you could score that 10-8, to be honest. The kimura at the end was nothing but it had Nunes defending for a minute so I’ll go 10-9.

Pena seems flustered in the corner between rounds. Again, the revisionist bandwagon jumpers would have you believe she came in and just bossed this fight but she doesn’t look too confident in the corner here. Saying something like “she’s stopping me” something or other and her corner are having to reassure her.

So through the first 5 minutes, all is pretty much how it was expected to be.

Round 2: The Pena corner were telling her to grapple but she’s trading here early. Cormier says that if Nunes starts chasing the knockout she’ll fatigue. Which seems a bit strange at this point because it’s not like she had any recent history of fading in fights and she pretty much always threw with bad intentions.

Regardless, this is becoming a slugfest. The kind of fight you’d definitely expect Nunes to get the better of against someone like Pena who’s never shown much in the way of striking. She’s actually landing some jabs and right hands though. They’re not technically pretty but they’re finding the mark more often than anyone could’ve imagined. DC again goes “Oh this is gonna make Amanda tired!” Again, seems like he’s really forcing that narrative before it’s even became a factor in this fight.

This is sloppy as shite but Nunes is still throwing. And once again Cormier tells us that Nunes is loading up on her punches and she’s gonna gas herself out. She does look more wild than usual here and she’s just wading forward with zero defence or respect for what might come back at her. But DC’s obsessed with it. But right enough, somewhere around the 2 minute mark of the round, Nunes goes from looking reckless to fucking terrible. Whether DC finally willed her into exhaustion with his constant banging on about it or whether something Pena hit her with got her scrambled, fuck knows. She was getting hit but there wasn’t any standout punches that you could pinpoint as the real turning point or that would’ve obviously started the downward spiral. They’re both still swinging and it really feels like either could just drop at any second now. There’s no defence whatsoever from either of them here and they’re both just winging shots with their mouths wide open. Then it happens. Pena starts landing more, Nunes is noticeably flagging. Pena pushes her against the fence and gets a takedown.

It’s over!

Absolutely barmy scenes. Never got the hooks in, just slapped the choke on and Nunes was done. Only thing I can compare it to would be when Mirko Cro Cop submitted Pat Barry years ago. But Cro Cop wasn’t a submission specialist and Barry was pretty much a complete grapplephobe. It was understandable why someone like Barry would panic and tap in that situation. For someone as experienced as Nunes though, a BJJ black-belt and 2 weight UFC champ who’d trained at ATT for years, it was an embarrassing way to lose to say the least.

Winner - Julianna Pena by submission. Round 2 - 3:26.

Every bit as strange to watch now as it was in December. The first round was even more clear cut for Nunes than I remembered. And right up until about 90 seconds into the second round, it was all going pretty much as expected. Nunes completely dropped off a cliff in that second round though and it was so sudden. Nothing makes sense either. There was nothing that landed that looked devastating. They were slugging it out but it was still fairly early in the fight and wasn’t at some crazy pace where you could see why her gas tank would empty at such an alarming rate. And even when people say she mentally ‘quit’ or whatever, and I hate that talk, it still doesn’t make sense. Because there was really nothing obvious in the fight that you could see making her fold mentally. She’d already won the first round handily, and even during the brawling with Pena she was still landing shots herself. She’s been tagged by the likes of Cyborg, Holm and Shevchenko and never let that discourage her. Why Pena? I don’t know what the fuck happened. I’m still none the wiser even after rewatching it.

People can call it excuses but nobody can convince me that Nunes at her best loses to Julianna bastard Pena. And especially in the manner it went down. I know we’re all supposed to pretend Pena is some elite level beast now but I’m not having it. The twats who keep saying they called it like to say Pena was always a bad matchup for Nunes and act like she beat her due to some kind of superiority in her skill set. But you watch this back. She was rotten for most of it. While she deserves credit for her toughness and relentlessness to hang in there get it done when so many others couldn’t, this definitely feels like a result that’s more down to what Nunes did wrong than what Pena did right. Whether Nunes took her lightly, was still struggling from her battle with COVID, had an injury or something or what? Something wasn’t right with her.

We’ve touched on it a couple of times but part of me thinks Nunes had one foot out the door even before the fight. There’d been talk for a while and she’d dropped hints about thinking retirement a few times. And I don’t remember seeing it on the night but I noticed this during the post-fight mayhem on this rewatch…

Nunes taking her gloves off in the cage, which usually only means one thing. She’s all class post-fight, giving Pena credit. But despite the gloves coming off, she’s already talking about getting back in the gym and “coming back stronger”.

Obviously the loss to Pena the first time was a disaster and probably the worst Nunes has ever looked. But even then, it’s been remembered as her having a terrible fight, really she had a terrible couple of minutes. She was cruising that first round. Won it comfortably. And like I say, even when it all started going off the rails she was still landing some shit. She just got too reckless for a short spell and paid dearly. I can absolutely see how she could make adjustments and make this a very different fight this time. Pena’s striking is so sloppy that it’s a miracle she never got cracked with something nasty last time. And now there’s the added factor of her possibly coming in overconfident. It’s a very intriguing one.

I’m thinking Nunes gets it done this time. But there are a few things giving me doubts. The change in gyms is one I’ve mentioned before. Like I said, maybe it’ll have been good for her to have a fresh camp and different surroundings this time. But changing teams after a loss is always a worrying sign. Also, this retirement thing. There were the hints a year or so ago, taking her gloves off after losing to Pena last time etc. And even at the press conference last night, she was asked about her motivation this time and she kind of slipped out something like “I have to do this. I couldn’t retire like that…” and kind of caught herself but it was already out. She was asked later if she’d defend her 145 title next if she wins this fight and she said yes but I’m not sure. I think this might be it for her, win or lose.

I hope she wins this time. Especially if it does end up being her farewell. Pena having the bragging rights to retiring Amanda Nunes would be shite. Plus if people think women’s 135 wasn’t very interesting before, watch how cack it’ll be in a Nunesless division with Pena as champ. These new Pena ‘fans’ should be careful what they wish for. I’ll take another 3 years of Nunes squash matches over Pena stinking PPVs up defending against the likes of Aspen Ladd and Raquel Pennington any day.

Anyway, yeah, it’s half wishful thinking but I’ve got Nunes by stoppage. People forget but there’s a good reason why Pena winning last time was considered such a massive upset that it was compared to Matt Serra beating GSP. She wasn’t supposed to win but, fair play, the stars aligned and she grasped the opportunity. Hoping Nunes rights that wrong tomorrow night. If Pena goes 2-0, it’ll be the weirdest case of an unlikely boogeyman/woman derailing a great champion since Bob Sapp went 2-0 over Ernesto Hoost in K-1. I said it before but it’d be like fucking Kwang taking the WWF title off Bret Hart in 1994.

Anyway, that’s a wrap. Christ, I’ve rambled longer than Pena at a press conference. 

Edited July 29, 2022 by wandshogun09

[Egg Shen]

Great write-up wand. I think time we'll see Nunes just strike with accuracy and efficency. Her getting excited and going for the finish is what drained her in the first fight. I think we'll see a lot of calf kicks and outside striking here. Nunes wins.

but yeah, i'm excited:

 

Edited July 30, 2022 by Egg Shen