UFC Orlando: Thompson vs Holland - Dec 3 🇺🇸

[wandshogun09]

Gone Wonderboy on points in the poll. Fuck knows how that one goes though. You’d think Holland should be favoured because he’s younger etc but I’m not even sure what advantages he has over Thompson in a striking battle, and it’s most likely gonna play out on the feet. Wouldn’t be surprised if Holland clips him but I don’t know. I’m leaning towards Wonderboy winning a frustrating 5 round dance where there’s not a great deal of output. Wonderboy isn’t unknockoutable but he’s not exactly easy to catch either. And he’s tricky to win rounds off in the standup as well so a decision might be difficult. Thompson lost his last couple but Burns and Belal basically grinded out decisions by not engaging in a strict striking match and were able to exploit his weaknesses. I don’t know if Holland has that in his toolbox, or if he even wants to go that route. But I get the feeling that unless Holland knocks him out, he’s more likely losing. Could happen but fuck knows? I’m about 60/40 in favour of Wonderboy.

RDA vs Barberena is another tough one but I’ve gone with RDA by decision. Unless he just decides to get into Bam Bam’s slobberknocker type of fight, I just think RDA’s just got too much for him all around. Barberena’s looked great in his last 2 fights with Robbie Lawler and Matt Brown and they were the best wins of his career by far, but them 2 were only ever gonna fight him one way. RDA could potentially make this relatively easy if he goes the grappling route. And it’s only 3 rounds so him taking 2 rounds that way seems fairly likely to me. Worth remembering he was looking good and was probably ahead against Fiziev in July before getting caught in the 5th round. He’s past his prime obviously, but he’s still got something left in the tank. Only doubts are that he’s going back up to 170 for this and I wonder if the Fiziev knockout might be the beginning of his chin finally starting to go. I hope not. All things considered though, this is a fight I see RDA doing well in. Barberena’s game as fuck but skills-wise, RDA should be winning.

Tuivasa vs Pavlovich is a complete 50/50 for me. Two big lumps with heavy hands, it really probably is gonna be a case of whoever lands first. I’ve gone Pavlovich by KO but it’s more of a gut feeling. I won’t be surprised at all if Tai wins though. It’s gonna be a bombfest and we know Tai’s mega durable, whereas Pavlovich’s chin hasn’t really been tested much at all so there’s that. One of them ‘don’t blink’ fights.

I’m not confident in any of these picks though. Maybe I should contact James Krause for some tips! Looking forward to this card. Still half expecting a bit of a dull main event but I think the fact we’ve had a couple of weeks off from UFC helps. 

[Tamura]

On 12/3/2022 at 12:03 PM, wandshogun09 said:

 I’m leaning towards Wonderboy winning a frustrating 5 round dance where there’s not a great deal of output.

Just like the current World Cup, some things aren't so easy to predict...

[wandshogun09]

5 hours ago, Tamura said:

Just like the current World Cup, some things aren't so easy to predict...

Hey I got the 3 winners right, which I really wasn’t confident in 😂

But yeah, Wonderboy vs Holland was way better than I expected. I suspect a lot of people were half anticipating a bit of a staring contest here because I’ve seen all sorts of FOTY talk today. I definitely wouldn’t go that far but I think it’s people being overly generous because this one surpassed expectations big time. Don’t get me wrong, it would certainly make a shortlist of best fights of the year for me. Just wouldn’t be top of that list. Brilliant fight though.

The end felt like a little bit of an anti-climax with it being stopped between rounds but Holland’s right hand was clearly fucked up and it was probably a smart move to stop it because you could see towards the end of the 4th that he was both struggling to defend himself and he couldn’t throw the right hand back. If Holland came out for the last round I think it would’ve only got worse, he’d have just taken more damage and Wonderboy probably would’ve finished him. Because Holland wasn’t fighting the smartest fight either. Just lunging into Wonderboy’s counter strikes and giving up advantageous positions. Best Wonderboy’s looked in ages though. I think those losses to Belal and Burns kind of gave a bit of a false impression that Wonderboy was shot but he’s never gonna shine against the grinders and grapplers. I expected more of a slow paced, point scoring performance out of him here, just to get back in the win column. But fair play, they both came to scrap and it was great to watch. Considering it was a guy coming up on 40 vs a guy who was on about retiring recently, they overdelivered. Maybe that was part of it. The freedom to just go out there and let their shit fly because they kind of had nothing to lose. Loved it. I think I’d definitely have it in my Top 5 fights this year, maybe even Top 3. Don’t have a clue who you match Wonderboy up with next though.

Dos Anjos winning is always so satisfying to see. Like I said, as much as I like Barberena, RDA really should have been winning this one. He had all the advantages in terms of overall MMA skills. Only way I saw Bam Bam winning was if RDA just abandoned any kind of gameplan and just got into a slugfest with him. And even then it’s not like RDA is easy to put away. He played to his strengths though and it worked out nicely for him.

Rear naked neck crank of doom. Khabib vs McGregor 101 right there. Dos Anjos needed a win like this coming off that Fiziev loss. I’m under no illusions, he’s not gonna go on some run at the Welterweight title now. He wasn’t able to do that a few years ago so there’s even less chance now. That ship has sailed. But he’s showing he’s far from washed up. Loved his post-fight interview as well. The Conor McGregor callout seems kind of unrealistic when anyone does it but I do think it makes sense in RDA’s case. They have the history and when McGregor does return, if he even does, it’ll probably be at 170. There’s a bunch of names that make sense for McGregor’s return but Dos Anjos is definitely on the list for me. I doubt he gets that fight though.

Matheus Nicolau vs Slaphead Schnell was a good little fight but moreso a stellar performance from Nicolau. He looked really sharp here, seemed like Schnell could hardly land a glove on him and Nicolau was really efficient and technical and made his shit count.

Good stuff. Shame for Schnell really, I was hoping he’d be able to build off the momentum of that mad win over Su Mudaerji but Nicolau wasn’t having any of it, refused to play that game and just outclassed him and got the finish. Fuck the crowd booing during the fight. There was nothing wrong with what they were doing and it wasn’t even boring.

Turned out my gut feeling about Sergei Pavlovich being bad news for Tai Tuivasa was right. 54 seconds…

When you look at some of the shots Tai has taken in past fights and just soaked them up - I’m talking eating punches off heavy hitters like Shitehawk Greg Hardy and a flush headkick from Ciryl Gane - to see Pavlovich put him on his arse with a fucking jab just tells you how powerful he is. I still think part of this was because Tai rushed back too soon after that beating from Gane but Sergei would’ve been dangerous as fuck for him regardless. It’s mad but Pavlovich has fought 6 times in the UFC now and we still don’t really know anything about him other than he hits like a sledgehammer. All his UFC fights have ended in the first round. The answer is surely to force him into more of a grappling match. His one loss was to Overeem and even Reem went with a more clinch/wrestling based approach from what I remember. Standing with him seems foolish. Why invite that risk? But trying to grapple a tank like him brings its own risks. Looking at his record, he actually went 5 rounds on a card in Russia in 2017. I might have to see if I can find that just to get a bit more of a read on him because he’s not giving much away in the UFC at all. Just headaches for his opponents. Probably be a good idea for Tuivasa to take an extended break now but no doubt he’ll back in there on the Perth card in Feb.

Roman Dolidze is no joke! Comes in on short notice, brings the pain and stops another one. Hermansson’s got his flaws but he’s mixed with some of the players at 185 and even beat some of them. Pretty big scalp for the Georgian.

This is twice in a row now he’s used some kind of leg lock to set up a KO/TKO finish. First the kneebar to soften up Phil Hawes for the KO. Now a nasty calf slicer to hold Hermansson in place for the ground and pound TKO. Dolidze could be a bit of an issue at 185. His striking isn’t exactly pretty but he makes up for some of that in raw power and he’s clearly dangerous on the ground as well. I liked the Chimaev callout and I’d actually love to see that fight but it’s not gonna happen is it? Chimaev’s onto bigger names now.

Not sure why the Phil Rowe vs Niko Price fight ended up on the main card last minute, I’m guessing because the prelims ran long? But it was every bit as exciting as I expected. Niko seems allergic to dull fights and, in fairness, Rowe hasn’t bored me yet either. These two weren’t playing, always looking to inflict damage. Rowe just got the better of it.

Sad to see Niko lose though. Anik touched on him possibly being a bit rusty after the year plus layoff and I think it may have been a bit of a factor. Still, he had his moments and Rowe not only wouldn’t go away, he rallied back with the finish. Rowe being so aggressive and long and powerful just proved too much in the end. Really fun one. Hopefully Price can stay active now and I’d like to see Rowe get a bit of a name like Michel Pereira or Matt Brown.

Angela Hill had one of her better performances in a while. She’s never troubling the title picture and she’s probably not got that many more fights in her at pushing 40 but I’ve always enjoyed watching her fight. It’s obvious by the username that I’m a Chute Boxe bummer so anyone regularly doing damage from the Thai clinch is alright in my book. Hill is one of the few on the roster who still uses it a lot. Ducote’s gonna struggle going forward, I reckon. Based on her debut win over Jessica Penne, which wasn’t that impressive, and now getting schooled by an ageing Hill, I think she’s gonna be floundering in a division like Strawweight.

Guida vs Holtzman was a bit of an odd one, as Clay’s fights often are these days. Wasn’t a fan of this. Guida’s in that Arlovski phase of his career where his fights aren’t really that good to watch usually anymore but it’s still nice to see him win and he gets a pass due to what he’s done in the past. This was a close one, I kind of lost track of the scoring and didn’t particularly care by the end if I’m being honest. But for a guy going into his retirement fight, you’d have thought Holtzman would’ve had a bit more urgency about him. He probably could’ve gone out on a W if he’d just been a bit more aggressive.

Michael Johnson back in the win column was nice to see. Not a whole lot else to say about this fight or take from it. Other than I don’t know how Diakiese thought he was gonna get the decision at the end. Why was he acting shocked at the judging? It was in no way controversial. I think I said in the opening post I wasn’t sure how this was gonna go but I knew Diakiese wasn’t gonna have as much success with his newfound wrestling in this one. People forget that Johnson has a solid wrestling background because he usually just strikes, but he’s no wrestlephobe like Slava Claus or Hadzovic. But Diakiese didn’t do much on the feet either really. He didn’t do anywhere near enough to be shocked at the decision.

Jonathan Pearce vs Darren Elkins went pretty much how I expected, although I wasn’t quite as impressed with Pearce as the commentators seemed to be. Bisping kept saying Pearce was “something special” but I didn’t get that feeling watching this myself. He put a beating on Elkins no doubt, clearly won the decision. But as tough as Elkins is, if you’re “something special” you should probably be getting this current shopworn version of Elkins out of there, especially when Old Man Cub was able to make short work of him fairly recently. A solid enough performance from Pearce but I don’t see him going a lot further than this.

Stupidly tough prick but it’s really getting hard to watch Elkins now. He takes so much punishment and it seems to be almost every fight he’s in. His skill level plateaued years ago and he’s just gotten older and slower and collected more scar tissue and head trauma as the years have gone by. I like him and you can’t help but respect him but you watch a guy like Elkins and think about the state Spencer Fisher is in these days and it’s scary. Guys like that aren’t even on that much money either. The sport just chews them up and spits them out. Hopefully he’ll stop soon but I get the feeling Elkins is one of those guys who, even if the UFC let him go, he’ll just continue to plod into concussions in BKFC or something.

Natan Levy vs Genaro Valdez was quite an entertaining little ruck. Was interested how this would look because they had similar starts to their UFC stints, losing their debuts after coming in undefeated etc. I don’t see either making any real waves but both went for it here and it made for a fun fight. Valdez is tough as fuck to take some of the punishment he absorbed here. Makes Frevola KOing him even more impressive.

Francis Marshall had a great debut. First time seeing him and you can tell he’s still a bit green and raw but he looked good on the whole, showed some decent hands, bit of his ground game and got the big knockout over a fairly tough guy.

Rojo’s been stopped a bunch of times but he’s got that wild style and he’s pretty dangerous. Wasn’t an easy debut on paper but Marshall made quite a first impression. Looking forward to seeing what 2023 has in store for him.

And finally…Yazmin Jauregui has quickly become one of my favourite female fighters on the roster. Loved her debut fight over the summer and here she was again delivering another banger. I said this deserved better than to be stuck in the Fight Pass opener spot and they proved me correct. I say ‘they’ because Istela Nunes certainly held up her end of making this a fun one. Don’t recall if I’d seen Nunes fight before but she was clearly well up for this and even dropped Jauregui early in the fight. Again though, Jauregui was impressive. She kept her composure after the knockdown, recovered well, put on a show, scored a couple of knockdowns of her own and got the finish.

Tremendous stuff. Jauregui’s ace. Really exciting to watch and at just 23 years old and 10-0 now, she seems to have a bright future. I hope they don’t rush her along too quickly but she should definitely be on main cards every time going forward, at least if she’s on Fight Nights. She’s better to watch than probably 85% of the fighters we see on Fight Night cards, especially at the Apex. Lots of fun fights in the Strawweight division for her. I hope they keep Nunes around too. Not a good record but at least she goes for it.

Really enjoyable night of fights overall. Prelims got off to a strong start with the Jauregui fight and Marshall’s debut but started dragging with all the decisions. It felt like a long old slog at times. But the main card was the opposite. All finishes and a cracking main event. Always helps to have a crowd as well, of course. 

Edited December 4, 2022 by wandshogun09

[Egg Shen]

Only saw the prelims for this but I agree your assessment of Pearce over Elkins. I actually thought rounds 2 & 3 were fairly close (but Pearce justifiably winning them), yet Michael Bisping was banging on like Pearce was the 2nd coming of Anderson Silva or something, I just wasn't seeing it out of perhaps the first 90 seconds of round 1.

Darren Elkins needs to go something else though, it's painful to watch.

Bisping is the worst commentator in the UFC, terrible.

[wandshogun09]

11 hours ago, Egg Shen said:

Bisping is the worst commentator in the UFC, terrible.

He’s not great but he’s nowhere near as bad as Rogan, Cormier or Cruz for me. They’re all fucking awful and grating for different reasons. Anik and Felder are my favourites now and I wasn’t keen on either when they both first started. They’ve both really grown on me as they’ve got more comfortable on the job. 

[Egg Shen]

I'll always have time for the Rogan/DC combo. I can see why people don't like it, but it works for me.

Bisping just doesn't shut up, he just rambles on and always comes off overly loud and a little obnoxious, he just irritates me...but I do like Bisping as a personality.

[Dai]

Outstanding main card, I thought. A perfect Fight Night. Plenty of recognizable fighters having great fights, and plenty of good finishes.

I agree with Wand and on the pro Bisping side. Disagree with lumping DC in with Rogan and Cruz though! DC and Bisping are exactly the same for me. They have their flaws, however you can see that they are both genuinely interested and excited to be there. They are both likable personalities too.

I think it'd be a great idea for the UFC to try some new blood in the booth, especially during those really lacking Apex shows. Felder is the newest addition to the group, and hes seemingly been about for years at this point too. They should throw some new blood in there, even if its just as a third man on these Apex shows, as a trial to see who would be good for the future.

[WeeAl]

Bloody astonished after watching that main event. I had no expectation that it would be anywhere near as exciting as that. Wonderboy looked slick here. Holland took an awful amount of punishment - usually people take this abuse through punches but the amount of kicks he absorbed and continued through was alarming. He could do with 9-12 months off after that.

Glad to see Wonderboy look in good form here. Just fun fights with him from here on out please, because the stuff that the Wonderman does? He can still do incredibly well. Come to think of it, I Wouldn't mind seeing him Roundhouse kick the needle right out of McGregor's shoulder and then wash his mouth out with soap afterwards. 

[Carbomb]

Until Barberena went through him, I would've asked why Lawler's never been matched up with Wonderboy. I don't know - is it too early to say Lawler's shot?

[wandshogun09]

2 hours ago, Carbomb said:

Until Barberena went through him, I would've asked why Lawler's never been matched up with Wonderboy. I don't know - is it too early to say Lawler's shot?

I don’t know if I’d say ‘shot’. Like I don’t think he’s at the level BJ Penn or Rashad Evans were at the end. They were shot to the point I was looking around for a grassy knoll. And even guys like Chuck Liddell and Frankie Edgar, their skills had slowed down but it was their chins finally disintegrating that really fucked them over. But I could see lumping them in with the shot lot. Nick Diaz looked absolutely shot to shit when he came back last year. Shogun looks shot now. I wouldn’t put Lawler in that bracket myself. Yet anyway. But he’s on the slippery slope now, no doubt. There were times in his last fight with Barberena when I thought Lawler looked pretty much as sharp as ever. And he ate enough shots and hung in and gave it back to where I wouldn’t go as far as calling him shot. But the way that fight ended, I don’t know. That was a style matchup that would favour Lawler at least 8 times out of 10 in my opinion. Yet he got stopped. That was a bit of a red flag to me. It’s one thing him losing to guys like Covington and Magny, who have the kind of gruelling and grinding styles that likely would’ve given Lawler problems at any stage in his career. But on paper, Barberena was tailor made for him. A tough scrapper who is willing to just stand and trade but doesn’t really have that big one shot power. In a shootout, you’d give Lawler the edge in that kind of fight all day. So while I’d stop short of declaring Lawler shot right now, I get the feeling I’ll look back on Bam Bam stopping him as the real beginning of the end for him. When you start losing the fights that are made for you, the writing is on the wall. 

[Egg Shen]

9 hours ago, Dai said:

 

I think it'd be a great idea for the UFC to try some new blood in the booth, especially during those really lacking Apex shows.

I should probably have added that the a big part of the reason I dislike Bisping's commentary is because he's primarily on the lifeless Apex shows, and im used to hearing him there these days, so stick an asterix next to it.

[Egg Shen]

Elkins post-Orlando...

that guy is gonna be a mess in his 50's

[wandshogun09]

Does he not realise that when you have a nickname like ‘The Damage’ (and get it tattooed across your chest, for fuck’s sake), it’s supposed to refer to damage you inflict on your opponent? Poor sod’s doing it all wrong. Thank fuck Wanderlei Silva never misinterpreted his nickname the same way and offed himself with an axe. 

Edited December 16, 2022 by wandshogun09