UFC 281: Adesanya vs Pereira - Nov 12 🇺🇸🗽

[Egg Shen]

cooooor

[Panhead]

I think this is the most excited I've been for a card all year. Tempted to stay up for it. 

[WeeAl]

Right lads, prediction time. 

Adesanya Vs Pereira

There's a huge gulf in MMA experience here, but that may not matter a jot in this one. I fail to see anyway that this isn't a kickboxing fight with smaller gloves and in a cage. I'd be very surprised if Israel tries to grapple. Adesanya for a while has looked like he's either coasting, or so good compared to his competition that it looks like he's coasting. I don't see him being able to do that here. Other people have struggled to be able to hit him, but he knows that's not going to be the case in this one. I'm going to say, five rounds, Adesanya's closest MW fight since Gastelum, but abother W for the champ. Winner - Israel Adesanya. 

Esparza Vs Zhang. A clear way to win for each fighter here. Zhang won't be likely to give Carla the opportunity to have another lifeless affair such as the last fight against Rose. Namajunas was implementing some ridiculously terrible gameplan in that fight, and by doing absolutely nothing other than a couple of takedown attempts thrown in, Esparza was able to get the win. That fight should have been declared as double losers, and the belt vacated after that abomination fucks sake. Zhang to come in early and try to get right in Carla's face and not give her the opportunity to settle into the fight. I'm not confident in it, but Zhang by KO/TKO. 

Michael Chandler Vs Dustin Poirier. Prediction? Chaos. The winner? The Audience. It just has the makings of something absolutely barmy. Whether it's two minutes or fifteen, it won't be dull. At some point soon though, one of these two men are going to start looking very shopworn and it wouldn't surprise me at all if it's tonight. If they make it to fifteen minutes, it'll have been something special. I'll predict Chandler, after a round one back and forth bombfest. 

Edgar Vs Guitterez. Not the retirement fight I would have picked for Edgar at all. I see it being sad, and another KO loss for the once Iron chinned Jersey native. Winner - Guitterez. 

Dan Hooker needed this slight step back, but it may not be far enough of a step back in competition to get him back on the horse. Puelles is no joke, and I think he's going to catch Hooker here. Puelles by submission. 

Riddell by Decision. 

Spann by Decision. 

[Egg Shen]

short and sweet, top 3...

Adesanya Decision.

Zhang TKO round 3.

Poirier Sub round 2.

 

[wandshogun09]

I’m going Adesanya on points and Zhang and Poirier by KO/TKO. It’s one of them cards though where I could easily see me going 0-3 on those picks.

Elsewhere, I really think Frankie Edgar should win but I can’t shake the feeling he’s gonna get clipped again so leaning towards Gutierrez there. Similar thing with Hooker vs Puelles really. Hooker at his best probably wins but I feel like the timing favours Puelles tonight. Reyes should beat Spann but the layoff is an x-factor. Riddell vs Moicano is pretty much a tossup but I’m fancying a Moicano sub.

I’m sure about none of these though. Which is probably a sign we’re in for a bit of a wild one. 

[Panhead]

This sport... fucking hell. 

[Tamura]

Fucking Joe Rogan at the end of the main event moaning that Marc Goddard should have let the fight go on because, according to Rogan at least, champions should have to be knocked out to lose their title. Last time I checked referees are empowered to stop a fight if one fighter is no longer intelligently defending themself, there's no caveat that lets champions fight on. What are the UFC doing allowing this clown to opine this way in the first place? At a time when the commentators should be bigging up the new champion, Rogan is trying to tarnish his victory. There's no need for it, since the rematch sells itself anyway without Rogan trying to create controversy where none exists.

[wandshogun09]

3 hours ago, Tamura said:

Fucking Joe Rogan at the end of the main event moaning that Marc Goddard should have let the fight go on because, according to Rogan at least, champions should have to be knocked out to lose their title. Last time I checked referees are empowered to stop a fight if one fighter is no longer intelligently defending themself, there's no caveat that lets champions fight on. What are the UFC doing allowing this clown to opine this way in the first place? At a time when the commentators should be bigging up the new champion, Rogan is trying to tarnish his victory. There's no need for it, since the rematch sells itself anyway without Rogan trying to create controversy where none exists.

Yeah I feel like I’m flogging a dead horse but Rogan’s been shite for years now. Over the years I’ve gradually gone from liking him to getting a bit tired of him to now I actually groan when I see his big bulbous HGH head on my screen. He’s awful. We’ve been spoiled lately with him giving 280 a miss and him not working the Fight Nights. He comes back and immediately starts waffling through one of the prelims about protective cups and which ones are better, plastic or metal, different brands etc. Then in the Poirier vs Chandler fight he was going on like Chandler was 2-0 up with a 10-8 in there. Then he was saying Izzy was “piecing Blachowicz up on the feet” in their fight, forcing Jan to take him down. Then he kept wrongly saying last night was Pereira’s 5th MMA fight. That’s all just off the top of my head. Senile old fuck. I don’t even think he follows the sport much now. Sometimes it’s like he genuinely doesn’t know what he’s watching anymore. He used to clearly be clued up on everything and enthusiastic and invested. Now he’s like some mad old rambling uncle turning up at the pub when you’re with your mates and ruining the conversation. I used to think it might be burnout but he hasn’t worked a show since 279 in September, has he? He’s barely there now, you’d think he’d be refreshed when he does show up but he’s as bad as ever. Just repeating himself and his crap narratives, phoning it in and half arsing it all over the place. I hope he takes 282 off because he’s gonna be extra unbearable calling Paddy’s fight.

But yeah, this thinking that champions should be allowed more leeway or extra chances is total shite. When it comes to fighter safety and stopping fights, you can’t play around with ‘champion’s advantage’ goofiness like that. His brain cells don’t give a bollocks if he’s champ or not and CTE won’t recognise it and give him a pass years down the line either. It could have been allowed to go a bit longer but I absolutely don’t think it should’ve been. He was toast.

Anyway…

What a barmy turn of events in the headliner. So many talking points here. For one, it was the best Adesanya fight in ages. Probably since the Gastelum classic actually. Adesanya was obviously up for this. That was evident when he hurt Pereira badly at the end of the first round and he looked good after that right up until it all went wrong in the 5th. There’s been a sense over Izzy’s last few fights that he’s been kind of disinterested and coasting a bit. This fight was always something more because of the history. I thought it was an engrossing fight and I had Adesanya up on the scorecards going into the last round. He wasn’t dominating the rounds and Pereira was having some success with his jab especially. But as far as scoring the rounds, I only had Pereira winning the 2nd. Then in the 5th, Pereira got to him and that was that.

What a bastard. At this point he’s basically stalking Adesanya through combat sports and ruining his life.

Saw mixed responses about the stoppage. Like we touched on above, Izzy looked about as done as done can be to me. Just because he never actually hit the deck doesn’t mean he was OK. He’d stopped defending himself and at that point, the fight is over, no question. The people crying early stoppage must be hardcore Adesanya haters who wanted to see him get brutally ironed out because I don’t see how anyone who’s been watching this stuff for a decent amount of time watched that finishing sequence and thought Izzy was still in the game at that point. Adesanya said he was fine and could’ve continued to the media at the post-fight but he’s gonna say that, isn’t he? At the same time, he wasn’t exactly complaining about the stoppage either.

Izzy also said he’s down for a rematch and I think that’s inevitable given how this one played out. Probably the best thing for Pereira as well because if he gets thrown in with a strong grappler it’s probably ending badly for him. Another go with Izzy will be big after this. A fight with Whittaker could be interesting as well. Whittaker must be happy with this result because at 0-2 down to Izzy, he was out of the title race indefinitely. With Pereira in the mix, it’s a way back in for him. Another one to consider, and it’s premature talking about it yet, I know - Pereira vs Jiri Prochazka. If Jiri beats Glover again next month, and I think he will, Pereira coming up to 205 to avenge Glover is a natural move. Way early for that talk though and he’s got his hands full at 185 as it is. That’s my point though, this has given the Middleweight division the shakeup it badly needed. 

Zhang Weili saved us. I was pretty vocal about saying Zhang really hadn’t done much to earn another title shot here, and I stand by that, but it was all worth it in the end.

At the time this fight was made, I thought Marina Rodriguez deserved the shot more and I still think she did. But seeing how Marina looked losing to Amanda Lemos a week ago, I’m glad it played out how it did. The Rodriguez we saw last week probably would’ve lost to Esparza and we’d be stuck with her as champ into mid next year at least. Zhang stopped the pain for all of us. I said going in I had some doubts about how she’d deal with Esparza’s wrestling but she did fine. Not so much in defending the initial takedowns but she was always threatening with submissions and it was clear early on that Esparza wasn’t gonna be able to just blanket her way to a safe points win. I actually think this was one of Zhang’s best overall performances by far. She showed more layers to her all around MMA game last night than she has in almost all her previous UFC bouts combined. Despite my doubts, I ended up picking her to win but my heart sank every time Esparza shot for a takedown. I was pleasantly surprised how well Zhang handled it and when she locked up the finishing choke I involuntarily jumped out of my chair. Great stuff. I’m guessing it’ll be Zhang vs Lemos now? Not gonna shift many PPV buys with that one but it’ll be fun however long it lasts and it’ll be fine on a card under a stronger title fight.

Poirier vs Chandler was everything it was advertised to be. Some combinations are just sure-fire barnburners and these two together was always one of them. Someone tweeted that Poirier, Chandler, Gaethje and Alvarez all had nothing but classics against each other and they really did. Probably as close to a ‘Four Kings’ as MMA has had for me. Just banger after banger no matter how you mixed and matched those four. This was great and I got the result I wanted as well.

It obviously wasn’t plain sailing, it was a bumpy ride and Chandler had his moments. But I was chuffed to see Dustin get the finish. Especially after Chandler was being a dirty little shit with the blatant fishhooking.

Seen people making a big deal about him hitting Dustin in the back of the head as well but that can happen by accident. The fishhooking was bollocks though. It’s a shame that’s even a talking point after such a brilliant fight. Actually saw some people complaining that Poirier brought up the fishhooking. Baffles me. Moan about the fighter who got fishhooked but not the guy trying to cheat? Got to be salty McGregor fans still sore about last year 😂 Fantastic fight regardless. Don’t know how they keep doing it. Especially Poirier. He’s had so many wars over the last decade or so.

Don’t know what’s next for either. I could see them trying to shoehorn Poirier into another title shot now but I think it’s too soon. This was his first fight since his failed shot against Oliveira. As good as this fight was, one win over a Chandler who’s now 2-3 in the UFC doesn’t scream #1 contender really. If McGregor was due back anytime soon I’d say chucking either of these two in with him would be the move. Poirier vs McGregor 4 would settle their unfinished business and Chandler vs McGregor is an obvious matchup to make. But I don’t know if McGregor’s anywhere near returning. Is he in the USADA testing pool now or does he get away with that? Failing that, you could do Dariush vs Poirier while Makhachev vs Volk plays out. But I don’t think Poirier goes for that now. He even said in the pre-fight video here that he’s only looking for fights that “make sense” now and Dariush is probably not a fight that appeals to him much.

Chris Gutierrez became a heel by default in my house last night. He couldn’t just let Frankie have one last moment? Absolute bastard.

And in front of Frankie’s wife and kids. Shithouse. Seriously, as gutting as this was, it’s probably for the best as fucked up as that sounds. A win might’ve convinced him to stick around for ‘one more’. Even a competitive points loss might’ve seen him try to fight on. There was no grey area here though. It’s 100% over. The chin, the reaction times, it’s all gone. It’s shit but hopefully he’s content to move on now. One of the best ever when it comes to 155 and below. Everyone looked like they felt bad after, even Gutierrez and his team. You could really see how universally respected Frankie is in pretty much all the coverage this week.

Nice to see Dan Hooker back in the win column after a rotten couple of years. Granted, the losses were to top level opposition and this was a welcome scaling back from that but still a risky one on paper and he put in his best showing since his losing effort in that war with Poirier.

Puelles really got exposed as a one trick pony here though. I quite like those specialist fighters who have a finisher. Guess it brings back fond memories of prime Cro Cop kicking heads off years back. But these days, unless you’ve got enough about the weaker areas of your game to get by, you’re not gonna cut it past a certain level. The sport has evolved enough, at least in the lighter weight classes, where you can’t get away with just being Mr Kneebar or whatever anymore. Hooker wasn’t playing that game, was able to mostly shut it down after that dicey spell in the first round, and Puelles was all out of answers after that. When his Plan A didn’t work, he was done. Not a good sign. Hooker busted him up with them body kicks. Hooker definitely needs to stay at 155 as well. They touched on it on the commentary but cutting to 145 to fight Arnold Allen was a really bad move in hindsight.

Renato Moicano stole the prelims for me. Even with everything else going on. Submits Brad Riddell in a round then cuts the promo of the year.

🤣 “Moicano. Wants. Money!”

Sadly he never got a bonus, unless they shoved a bit extra in his envelope behind the scenes or something. This was a card where really they should’ve been writing a bunch of bonus cheques. Love Moicano. Don’t know what’s happened to Riddell though. He’s really hit a brick wall in his last few fights.

Ryan Spann didn’t exactly roll out the welcome mat for Dominick Reyes in his return did he? Jesus Christ.

Disaster for Reyes this. To the point I really don’t know how he bounces back from it. Like with Frankie Edgar, it’s such a cruel sport sometimes. But at least Frankie had the HOF career before his chin finally gave out. Reyes losing that close decision to Jon Jones is gonna end up being his career peak. After getting flattened by Jiri and decked by Jan the way he did, the best thing he could do would be to take some time out, heal up and regroup, and come back refreshed. He did all that and still got laid out. And Spann isn’t the level of Jiri or Jan. On paper this was a much needed couple of steps down and very winnable return fight. It was a reasonable matchup but it honestly is starting to look like he might be shot already at just 32. And it’s not even like Spann gets a great rub from it because he missed weight going in. 205’s a mess. Used to be the glamour division in the days of Chuck, Tito, Randy, Wandy, Shogun, Rampage etc. Now it’s a jumbled up clusterfuck. After Jiri vs Glover 2 next month, there really isn’t much on the horizon worth getting excited about.

Erin Blanchfield breezing straight through Meatball Molly was satisfying to watch. Had a feeling this was gonna be a step too far for Molly. I hadn’t seen a ton of Blanchfield going in but what I had seen looked promising and I’d heard nothing but good things about her grappling especially. And considering grappling has never exactly been Meatball’s strong suit, it just felt like bad news for her style-wise. And sure enough, got her down, battered her from the crucifix then nearly ripped her shoulder to shreds.

Yep. Loved seeing it even more after the crowd booed Blanchfield (who’s from next door in New Jersey) before the fight. Her making short work of it after that then just casually walking off brushing her shoulders was cold. Hopefully Paddy suffers a similar fate at 282 but I suspect we’ll have to wait a bit longer for his humbling. Miranda Maverick has already called out Molly, which is a bit odd calling out someone who just got squashed. But that would most likely be another loss for Molly so I’m up for it.

Wasn’t in love with the Petroski vs Turman fight but it wasn’t bad and Petroski bags another win. Got to give him his due calling out Bo Nickal and Gerald Meerschaert post-fight. That’s a tough couple of fights there so fair play to him for not trying to take an easy route. Interesting him saying Bo turned a fight with him down twice. Something brewing there. Would be a good test for Bo for his debut.

Frevola vs Azaitar was short and sweet. The nicknames kind of gave you the heads up how this was gonna look. ‘Steamrolla’ vs ‘Bulldozer’. Someone was getting put to bed. Azaitar jumped in face first and paid dearly for it.

First loss of Azaitar’s career. In fairness, he’d been on the shelf for over 2 years and I felt like it kind of showed a bit. Rogan was banging on about his timing looking off and it did a bit. Frevola did his thing though. He’s had a good year after losing a couple in 2021. He’s bounced back big time stopping two previously undefeated and dangerous knockout artists in a round. I liked the Pimblett callout. That’s a fun fight for early 2023 if Paddy gets past Jared Gordon at 282 next month.

Was made up to see Karolina Kowalkiewicz pick up another win. First time she’s won back-to-back fights since 2017/18. Think I said in the opening post that I had a bad feeling Juarez was gonna catch her at some point. She’s not great but she has shown heavy hands in past fights. Glad Kowalkiewicz didn’t suffer that fate. It’s all delaying the inevitable unfortunately though. Karolina isn’t going much further than this level in 2022 and beyond. So as nice as it is to see her win, it’s only gonna lead to a tougher fight and that’s gonna end in tears. What was going on here though?

Adjusting scorecards after the fact just looks fishy as fuck. I read something like they had the names the wrong way around or something. But how hard can it be? You’re literally just putting numbers under names and the fighters are clearly identified by the red or blue corner/wrist tape and different colour fight attire. I had Kowalkiewicz winning anyway, it wasn’t like there was some injustice going on. But it’s never a good look when scorecards are getting messed about with like that after a fight.

Trizano vs Choi was another fun one rounder. When the fight’s just started and less than 30 seconds in you get a double knockdown, it sets the tone nicely.

Both were tagging each other with some good stuff but Trizano just found the sweet spot more consistently and it paid off for him with the knockout at the end of the round. Loved this. I didn’t expect a bad fight but it was one of those extra little filler fights you see on a stacked card and don’t really give a second thought to. This exceeded my expectations. Really exciting round of action. Trizano’s a funny one. Never got into his fights at all and thought of him as one of the most forgettable TUF winners ever for the longest time. But this year he’s had two absolute belters with Lucas Almeida and now Choi. More of this please. Only dampener on this was he missed weight.

And Carlos Ulberg kicked the night off the right way down on Fight Pass. Chewed Negumereanu’s leg up with kicks then finished the job with that big left hook.

All done and dusted in a round, pretty much the perfect card opener. Nice to see Ulberg back on track. He had that disaster UFC debut when he somehow snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and got decked by Kennedy Nzechukwu, but he’s rattled off 3 wins since and he’s ended his last 2 fights quick. No doubt he’ll end up on that big Perth card in February now. Probably safe to assume that him, Hooker, Riddell etc will all be on that one. 

Awesome card. 280 didn’t quite deliver on expectations last month but this one certainly did. Off the top of my head I can’t think of a better card this year. Had a bit of everything and I didn’t think there was anything outright bad on the card.

Edited November 13, 2022 by wandshogun09

[Egg Shen]

What great show, not a single dud in there, lots of great and weird and wonderful shit. Even the Esparza fight was good to watch.

I'll add more in a bit, but I love this game!

[Egg Shen]

 

[David]

Chandler should wear the ice mask to the cage and during his after-match promos in future. Amazing.

[wandshogun09]

Anyone seen Eddie Alvarez is after a UFC return and the Chandler trilogy decider?

I’d be well up for that. Fuck it. I haven’t watched the full post-fight press conference yet but apparently Chandler was asked about it and he’s up for it. Dana was asked as well and said Eddie has contacted him. He didn’t seem that keen though in the quote I read. Something about ‘we’re looking for younger guys with a long future’ or some pish. Which you can translate to ‘we don’t wanna sign this established name who’ll want paying properly when we can fill the roster with DWCS guys and pay them peanuts’. I mean, I do get it. Alvarez will be 39 in January, hasn’t fought in about 18 months and he’s not looked too clever over in ONE his last few fights. The completist in me wants to see him and Chandler settle the score though. And let’s be honest, Dana signed Chandler who was mid 30s and only a couple of fights removed from the knockout loss to Pitbull. I wanna see it. Especially now with no obvious next fight for Chandler. It feels like Chandler vs Alvarez 3 is either gonna happen now or not at all. We were robbed of it in Bellator, it’d be a shame if it never happens. 

[Egg Shen]

Dana said post-281 that the UFC doesn't sign people on the way down or have had their best days in the UFC already. Still, i'd be all for it, just bring Eddie in on a few fight deal and have him in fan friendly fights, im all for it.

[Carbomb]

If that were true, why did he sign Arlovski back? 

I suppose there's an argument CM Punk's best days in MMA weren't behind him - they just weren't much cop. But he was pretty much on his way down the moment he signed.

[Bus Surfer]

There's no logic to it really is there, just Dana and UFC talking. 

Punk was an anomoly. He was signed purely for the eyeballs it would attract. His MMA skills, or where he was at in his career were not relevant to anything. 

If there is money to be made the UFC will sign anyone. Heavyweight is always weak on numbers so they probably thought Arlovski was worth a punt in an already thin division. Alvarez has won 1 fight since he left the UFC and I can't Imagine he'd fight for peanuts. They probably don't see him worth investing in when 155 is already stacked with names. 

Edited November 17, 2022 by Silky Kisser