Zebra Kid Mark Posted July 30, 2022 Share Posted July 30, 2022 Echoing what Ebb said, great write up. I think Nunes will do enough to get the victory, however we don't really know how she will respond to being such a dominant champion to then losing pretty easily but it's clear she has a champion mindset and she has probably gone back to the drawing board to resharpen all of her tools. Moreno vs France is a hard one to predict, I am edging towards Moreno just because of the 5 round experience he has but France has looked very impressive lately. I hope Moreno wins as he is one of the most exciting fighters in the whole company. My dark house of the night is Anthony Smith, I think he's being written off a bit too easily but I like his chances. He sounds motivated and I think it's going to be a bit of a war. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted July 30, 2022 Author Paid Members Share Posted July 30, 2022 I saw these quotes from Nunes earlier and if true, the way the fight went makes a little bit more sense. Would certainly explain why she faded so rapidly if she wasn’t able to do cardio going in. Interesting that she says she felt “pressured” to still go through with the fight after COVID took her out the first time it was booked. I can see why she wouldn’t have wanted to pull out again, especially if Dana was holding the threat of an interim title over her head. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dai Posted July 30, 2022 Share Posted July 30, 2022 (edited) "Fighter who loses uses injuries to explain loss" is a tale as old as time, so Im not sure I fully buy into that. If Nunes is going into this fight with the mindset that the only reason she lost is because of injuries, which in turn led to poor cardio, then that is a super dangrous frame of mind for a rematch. She was in a fire fight, and lost, which is the main thing she should be addressing. She lost her gas as she was throwing bombs and taking bombs, and got the worse end of the stick. Confused to this 'threat' of there being an interim belt, too. Why would that make any difference to her? Lets say she cancelled the fight and there was an interim champ, Im not sure how that affects anything with Nunes and her next fight, as it would still be a title fight. Edit: Just rewatched the fight myself. I think youve missed a fairly important part of Round 1. Amanda has the front headlock on Pena for a good 30 seconds plus, trying to keep Pena on the ground. DC talks about this not being familiar to Nunes, with someone actively trying to get up. This, along with the right arm being used for a long while to try and get around Pena's neck, may be a factor. Mike Brown is also shaking out her right arm during the break. I think youre off on your Round 2 opinion, too. I think you need to rewatch that first minute, as Pena lands plenty of significant shots to the head, especially that one at the one minute mark, and theres nothing of note coming back from Nunes. The next two minutes though are a crazy back and forth. Its clear to see she falls off a cliff with the cardio as she's throwing bombs and recieving them for 3 minutes straight, going at it full pelt. The best gas tank in the world cannot sustain that. Edited July 30, 2022 by Dai Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted July 30, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted July 30, 2022 I can't see Smith putting a dent in Ankalaev, I just hope Ankalaev fights to make more of a statememt than last time out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted July 30, 2022 Author Paid Members Share Posted July 30, 2022 (edited) 38 minutes ago, Dai said: "Fighter who loses uses injuries to explain loss" is a tale as old as time, so Im not sure I fully buy into that. If Nunes is going into this fight with the mindset that the only reason she lost is because of injuries, which in turn led to poor cardio, then that is a super dangrous frame of mind for a rematch. She was in a fire fight, and lost, which is the main thing she should be addressing. She lost her gas as she was throwing bombs and taking bombs, and got the worse end of the stick. I get that but surely when she’s “losing her gas” when previously she’s gone 5 rounds a bunch of times with no real issues and has had just as fast paced shorter fights against better opposition like Cyborg and Tate and not faded terribly, it suggests something was up with her this time. I don’t know why fans seem so hell bent on insisting Pena beat Nunes at her absolute best here. When you watch the fight, it’s clear Nunes wins the first round comfortably but then fades badly early into the second round, despite the fight really not being difficult on her up to that point. As soon as the pace picked up she went to shit and, like I say, that hasn’t been the case since very early in her career. It’s also telling that she was getting tagged so often by a striker as shite as Pena. Seriously, go back and watch the crap she was throwing. Are people really pretending that the Nunes who stood toe to toe with Cyborg, stopped Holm and went 8 rounds with Shevchenko would’ve been troubled by this bollocks? I get that fighters often make excuses after losses but fighters get hurt all the time in camp. A lot more than we probably hear about. When a fighter performs badly and it doesn’t match how they usually look, especially against someone they had all the advantages over going in, it’s natural people will look for logical explanations. Sometimes it’s not so much an excuse as it is a reason for why a fighter’s form drops off a cliff so drastically and suddenly. And this wasn’t like when Tito Ortiz would just casually throw in his list of injuries immediately in his post-fight interview. Making sure everyone knew why he didn’t look good. Nunes is being specifically asked by media what went wrong the first time. If she was injured, why should she pretend she wasn’t? Plus it’s not like Pena hasn’t been a fucking twat throughout this whole thing. Even way before the first fight she was suggesting Nunes faked having COVID and all sorts, then even after beating Nunes she kept having digs. I don’t see why being ‘classy’ should only apply to Nunes. 38 minutes ago, Dai said: Confused to this 'threat' of there being an interim belt, too. Why would that make any difference to her? Lets say she cancelled the fight and there was an interim champ, Im not sure how that affects anything with Nunes and her next fight, as it would still be a title fight. The interim title itself isn’t a threat but it’s something the UFC basically uses as a message that they can strip you and just make a new champ if they want or if you don’t jump to their demands. We’ve seen it with Francis Ngannou where they made Gane vs Lewis an interim title fight because Ngannou wanted a different fight date and also publicly talked about fighter pay. Ngannou wasn’t refusing to defend his title, he just wanted a later date, but Dana threw his toys out the pram and made the interim. Basically letting Ngannou know they can just roll on with a new champ and leave him to sit out. I don’t know the ins and outs but a similar thing seems to be going on with Figgy now as well. They’ve made this Moreno vs KKF fight for an interim belt, despite Figgy only winning the title in January and he was being lined up to fight Moreno again. Then all of a sudden, this interim title fight gets booked, no mention of Figgy and when someone asked Dana at the press conference the other night if there was an update on Figgy, Dana just bluntly went “no” and pulled his ‘I’m not happy’ face. Something’s up. That’s just 2 examples of probably a bunch where interim titles are used to hold over a reigning champion. Not so much a direct threat but it’s definitely used as a message to put pressure on them to play ball and do as they’re told. That’s probably what Nunes was worried about. I remember when she pulled out with COVID the first time and immediately there was talk of doing Pena vs Aspen Ladd for an interim title. The horror! Thankfully that never happened but it’s always there if you’re a champ who pulls out of a fight. Like you say, I don’t think they’d have outright stripped Nunes of the title but who the fuck knows with Dana and co? It doesn’t take much for you to be in the doghouse. Especially when you’ve been hinting at retiring as champ anyway. Last thing Dana wants is Nunes walking away as champ. So if he could’ve found an excuse to strip the belt off her, I’m sure he’d have jumped on it. Her pulling out a second time against Pena might’ve been that excuse for him. I can just picture him saying to the media before the big Pena-Ladd dream match, “yeah, well Nunes didn’t want the fight. These are the 2 best active Bantamweights in the world right now. When Nunes wants to fight, we’re here.” You know how he gets. Edited July 30, 2022 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted July 30, 2022 Author Paid Members Share Posted July 30, 2022 52 minutes ago, Dai said: Edit: Just rewatched the fight myself. I think youve missed a fairly important part of Round 1. Amanda has the front headlock on Pena for a good 30 seconds plus, trying to keep Pena on the ground. DC talks about this not being familiar to Nunes, with someone actively trying to get up. This, along with the right arm being used for a long while to try and get around Pena's neck, may be a factor. Mike Brown is also shaking out her right arm during the break. You make some solid points but 30 seconds of a headlock, while it might tire your arms out, shouldn’t have caused her to completely unravel the way she did the following round either. I could see maybe if it was later in the fight but that was at the end of one round, that Nunes was in control of for 4 minutes plus before defending that bit of a kimura attempt at the end. The first round wasn’t even particularly fast paced and Nunes was cruising. I can’t see why 30 seconds of her holding onto a headlock would completely sap her cardio. Unless…she’d been hindered in camp and her cardio wasn’t up to snuff as a result. Plus DC was obsessing over Nunes gassing from fairly early on. He turned out to be right in the end but him saying that doesn’t hold much weight because he seemed to be doing the Rogan thing of latching onto a point and absolutely hammering the shite out of it. He was on about Nunes gassing quite a bit before she did. Round 2, I don’t know. They were both flailing, both landing but both were probably missing just as much. Swinging and missing is gonna take it out of you as well, fair enough. But again, Pena’s striking is cack so it’s still baffling. Unless there was something wrong with Nunes going in, I can’t see why she’d have that much trouble to begin with in a slugfest with Pena. That’s a fight Nunes wins almost every time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted July 30, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted July 30, 2022 I'm almost certain by this point that Covid was a factor. If not in her match condition at the time, at least in her training and conditioning leading up to it. Post-Covid definitely affects people's stamina and breathing, and a lot of people end up surprised how long it takes to recover from, so I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if that's what happened to Nunes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted July 30, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted July 30, 2022 (edited) Edited July 30, 2022 by Egg Shen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dai Posted July 30, 2022 Share Posted July 30, 2022 All very good points, wand! Yes, you wouldn't expect anything in R1 to really tax Nunes, but with hindsight you have to look at the smallest of things I guess. You're more than likely correct about something being not right with her going in. That makes this fight even more intruiging, as its super interesting to see how it plays out. The bookies have it way closer this time too, with Pena only being slightly more than a 2/1 dog Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted July 30, 2022 Author Paid Members Share Posted July 30, 2022 Yeah we’re all just trying to make sense of it 😂 in the end though, it all makes for a very interesting rematch. How’s everyone seeing the main card going then? I’m going Nunes by TKO, Moreno by decision, Pantoja by sub and Ankalaev on points, although I’d like to see Smith win. Struggling with the Heavyweight fight but I’ve got a bad feeling Pavlovich might stop Lewis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted July 30, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted July 30, 2022 same winners as you wand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dai Posted July 30, 2022 Share Posted July 30, 2022 Can't disagree with those picks, either, apart from the main event for me. There's too many variables of doubt on Nunes for me. I didn't even know about the training camp change, so add that to the list of things. A dominant champ losing the title, talk of retirement, the questions over the first fight, the affects she still may have which affected her in the first fight, the mental aspect of being out struck. Is Pena going to do to Nunes what Nunes did to Ronda? I'm going out on a limb and saying yes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted July 30, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted July 30, 2022 Truth be told, I can't shake the bad feeling Pena is going to go 2-0 up. Not because she's better, because she's really not, but because there's something about fate and the gods being cunts that they would reward a wanker like her. I'm really hoping it's not the case, but the universe has a tendency to flip decent people the V on the regular. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted July 30, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted July 30, 2022 13 minutes ago, Carbomb said: but because there's something about fate and the gods being cunts that they would reward a wanker like her. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted July 30, 2022 Paid Members Share Posted July 30, 2022 6 minutes ago, Egg Shen said: I never said it made sense. But let's face it. This sort of thing has a tendency to happen. We've expressed we expect, and probably want, Nunes to win. So now you can hear the gods going "Oh yeah?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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