Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted April 20 Paid Members Share Posted April 20 (edited) Sick of saying it now but weāre off to the Apex again for this š” itās about the most āApexā looking card you can imagine as wellā¦ ESPN MAIN CARD Song Yadong vs Ricky SimonĀ Caio Borralho vs Michal OleksiejczukĀ Cody Brundage vs Rodolfo VieiraĀ Julian Erosa vs Fernando Padilla Waldo Cortes-Acosta vs Marcos Rogerio De LimaĀ Josh Quinlan vs Trey WatersĀ ESPN+/FIGHT PASS PRELIMSĀ Jake Collier vs Martin Buday Cody Durden vs Charles JohnsonĀ Stephanie Egger vs Irina AlekseevaĀ Journey Newson vs Marcus McGheeĀ Hailey Cowan vs Jamey-Lyn HorthĀ Ā Weak as piss. I mean, there is some stuff worth checking in for and I do actually like that main event. But on the whole, as a complete card itās thinner than Clay Guidaās hairline. Thatās the bout order as it stands but, letās be honest, however they shuffle this one itās not gonna look much better. Canāt polish a turd etc. Ā Ā Song Yadong vs Ricky Simon is your new 5 round main event. These two were originally supposed to meet a week earlier but when the Tsarukyan vs Moicano headliner dropped off this one, they did a reshuffle and moved Song and Simon here. I donāt hate it. It was my āone to watchā when it was on the other card, I was looking forward to it then. Now theyāve got an extra couple of rounds to play with and thatās no bad thing. Songās coming off that doctor stoppage loss against Cory Sandhagen back in September. It was a really good fight and Song was certainly competitive but that horrific gash on the eyebrow and the orbital damage just forced the doctorās hand. It was a good call. He was losing the fight anyway and for a young fighter of 25 years old, live to fight another day. He was on a nice little run before that loss. Knocked out Marlon Moraes and Julio Arce, took a points win off Chito Vera in 2020 in a cracking fight etc. Heās good. He hasnāt quite lived up to the hype some were putting on him when he first came in. I remember Urijah Faber especially bigging him up like fuck back then. But he would with Song being a Team Alpha Male prospect at the time. Heās still got some time. Iām not convinced he gets to that next level and succeeds there but heās good enough that heāll have his moments and there are plenty of fun fights to make with him. This being one of them. Iāve felt like Ricky Simon has been a tad underrated for a bit now. And funnily enough in this case, I think it mostly stems from his 2019 loss to Songās mentor Faber. That wasnāt a good look for Simon. Not that thereās any shame in losing to a legend and pioneer like Faber but the timing of it wasnāt the best. Simon was coming off a win and a really strong performance against Rani Yahya and had also submitted Merab Dvalishvili (forgot about that one!), and here came Old Man Faber, coming out of retirement to just blitz Simon in under a minute. Simon then lost to Rob Font and I think everyone kind of dismissed and wrote him off after that. Heās been on a roll since though. Heās won his last 5 in a row, including a knockout win over Raphael Assuncao and a submission win last summer over Jack Shore. The Shore win really stood out because Shore was unbeaten going in and big things were expected of him. Simon bursting that bubble turned a lot of heads. Thisāll be his first ever UFC main event and if he can beat Song here, it should bag him something juicy next time out. I really like this fight. Happy for them getting the headline spot as well, despite it not being the plan initially. I can see there being some moaning about it as a main event but itās way better than a good percentage of the shit weāve been subjected to at the Apex. Ā Caio Borralho vs Michal Oleksiejczuk is ***WANDāS ONE TO WATCH***Ā this time. Not exactly spoiled for choice on this card. I do like this matchup though. The UFC brass definitely seem high on Borralho. He came in last year off DWCS and immediately got two Fight Night co-main event spots. And here he is again co-headlining. He looks like heās got some potential, to be fair. Heās 13-1-0-1 and 3-0 in the UFC so far. I remember him looking like a bit of a beast in his debut against Omargadzhiev but it ended on a technical decision after an illegal knee. Not ideal. His wins over Petrosyan and Muradov were decent but forgettable. I get the feeling we havenāt seen the best of him yet though. Oleksiejczuk might be the man to bring that out of him because Oleksiejczuk is dangerous. He spent most of his career as a chubby 205er but he always had a dig on him. After a loss to Dustin Jacoby last year, he finally made the cut to 185 and heās bashed up Sam Alvey and Cody Brundage with back-to-back first round finishes. I donāt think heās going very far in the Middleweight division. His flaws are there whichever weight class heās in. Heās an all or nothing type who will gas himself out trying to knock you out. You either survive and he fades, or you eat canvas. But he makes for entertaining viewing. I expect Borralho to go the grappling route here and itāll probably pay off for him. But Iād like to see Oleksiejczuk ask some questions of him, put him in a bit of bother or something. Ā Cody Brundage vs Rodolfo Vieira, like a lot of fights on this card, is just there filling a slot. Itās not a bad fight but itās not one thatās jumping off the screen or getting anyone excited either. Brundage is 8-3 and got stopped in a round by Oleksiejczuk in his last fight in December. Before that heād scored back-to-back first round finishes over Tresean Gore and Dalcha Lungiambula. Vieiraās 8-2 and has lost 2 of his last 3 against Chris Curtis and Anthony Hernandez. Heās one of the most decorated grapplers on the roster, a BJJ black-belt with medals coming out of his arse but it hasnāt been that smooth of a transition into MMA. It started well enough but it seems like heās already found his level and itās not particularly high. Think he just made the jump a tad late, to be honest. Heās 33 now so his skillset is what it is really. Heās not gonna be making any huge strides in the striking. This is a winnable fight for him but theyāre both kind of floundering. Might be decent but Iām not counting the days or anything. Ā Julian Erosa vs Fernando Padilla will be worth a gander. Erosa is the type who seems to be able to have at least a decent fight with anyone, win or lose. Heās 28-10 and coming off a TKO loss to Alex Caceres. Like pretty much everyone else on this card, heās going nowhere but usually fairly consistently entertaining to watch. Just quickly looking at his record now, his fights with Steven Peterson and Sean Woodson immediately jumped out in my memory as proper hidden gems that a lot of people mightnāt know about. Heās also got a 56 second flying knee KO win over Nate Landwehr! Donāt know this Padilla sod. Sherdog tells me heās Mexican, 26 years old and 14-4 with 12 finishes. Thisāll be his UFC debut. Heās fought a few recognisable names already though. He submitted Darrick Minner back in 2017 and has decision losses to Dan Ige and Spike Carlyle. Interesting. Ā Waldo Cortes-Acosta vs Marcos Rogerio De Lima is arse. De Limaās been on the roster since 2014. NINE FUCKING YEARS! He did absolutely fuck all of note the first 7 or so. He has scored first round finishes over the ancient versions of Andrei Arlovski and Ben Rothwell in more recent times. Too late now though. Just canāt be doing with him. Maybe Cortes-Acosta can do something with him but Iām not holding my breath. Heās undefeatedĀ at 9-0Ā and has beat Jared Vanderaa and Chase Sherman since signing with the UFC. The fact he couldnāt finish either of them doesnāt fill me with hope and I fucking hated one of those fights. Think it was the Vanderaa one where Acosta kept taunting and dancing about in a fight that any real Heavyweight prospect of note wouldāve treated like a squash match. Can see the fast forward button on my remote taking the biggest beating in this one. The fact this is on a main card, even an Apex main card, in 2023 is depressing. Ā Josh Quinlan vs Trey Waters is a mystery now. Iām not that familiar with Quinlan and Iāve never seen Waters. It was supposed to be Quinlan vs Ange Loosa but Loosa pulled out. The one time I did see Quinlan, he made quite a first impression. He knocked out Jason Witt in just 2 minutes in his Octagon debut back in August. Looked good as I recall and it was cool seeing how calm and collected he was to stop himself landing that unnecessary follow up shot there as well. Just shows how relaxed he mustāve been, despite it being his debut, to have the presence of mind to do that with the adrenaline flowing. Heās undefeated at 6-0-0-1 so far. Waters jumps in on less than a weekās notice. Heās 7-1 with 6 finishes and heās 6ā5ā which is big for Welterweight. His only loss to date was a submission against Gabriel Bonfim on DWCS in September. He bounced back in style by winning the LFA title in his last fight 2 weeks ago.Ā Ā Jake Collier vs Martin Budayā¦ugh š¤¢ this is gonna be ugly. Iāve made no secret that Iāve got no time for Collier. He might be a nice guy for all I know but I only see him in the cage and there heās a boring great big slug of a man. Honestly think the only time Iāve enjoyed watching him was his last fight and thatās only because he got walloped by Chris Barnett. Heavyweight is full of these type of shitehawks. Itās not just Collier, obviously. But heās the go-to name I think of when the subject of crap, fat, lazy, dull HWs comes up. He embodies all thatās wrong with the division. Budayās not much better either but he hasnāt been around as long so I havenāt sat through as many duds of his. Heās 11-1 with 8 finishes and coming off a big split decision win over Lukasz Brzeski! Ā Cody Durden vs Charles Johnson isnāt doing much for me but Iām hoping Johnson chins him. Really donāt like Durden at all. Seemed a right cock in the buildup to the Mokaev fight last year and heās said and tweeted some dodgy/racist stuff as well. Fuck him. That said, heās not a bum. Heās beat Aori Qileng and JP Buys and in his last fight he spoiled the UFC debut of Carlos Mota, who was coming in with some buzz. Heās not a terrible fighter. He is a cunt though. Johnson is 13-4 and lost a split decision to Ode Osbourne in a good, close, competitive fight back in February. He battered Jimmy Flick before that and he did take Mokaev to the scorecards last summer. He certainly fared better against Mokaev than Durden did. Ā Stephanie Egger vs Irina Alekseeva is a fight Iām kind of interested in and itās not for Steph Ham & Egger. Sheās 34 with an 8-3 record and sheās going nowhere. Very average. Sheās submitted Jessica Rose Clark and Ailin Perez but thatās about as good as itās getting for her. Alekseeva is making her debut here and Iām a tad intrigued. Sheās 32 years old and 4-1 in MMA, nothing outstanding about that. Sheās also a 3 time silver medalist at the Russian Judo Championships and has won gold medals in Sambo. In some circles sheās been nicknamed the āRussian Rondaā. Hopefully itās just the Judo background they have in common. Weāll see how she looks here. Like I said, Egger isnāt much good but sheāll beat the bottom level girls. So weāll at least see if Alekseeva is above that level here. Ā Journey Newson vs Marcus McGhee is whatever. Itās a last minute patch up job because Brian Kelleher was pulled out with injury issues. Donāt know whatās gone on there but Kelleher seems like he wanted to fight but the UFC doctors wouldnāt clear him. McGhee steps in on a few days notice. I donāt know anything about him but a quick search tells me heās 32 years old with a record of 6-1, all 6 wins by KO/TKO. If heās any good he should probably be beating Newson but the short notice could be a bit of an x-factor. Newsonās been on the roster since 2019 and I couldnāt really give you any standout moments. Heās 10-4-0-1 and has only won 1 out of his 5 fights in the UFC. Ā Hailey Cowan vs Jamey-Lyn Horth. Not a clue. Both are making their UFC debuts and Iāve never seen either fight before. Cowanās had a few false starts. Sheās had a couple of fights scheduled as her debut and theyāve fallen through. Sheās 31 years old and 7-2 with 4 finishes. Fought exclusively in LFA in her first 7 fights, won one fight in Invicta last year then took a split decision win on DWCS in August. And thatās led her to the Octagon. Horth is Canadian, 33 years old and unbeatenĀ at 5-0, all finishes. Thatās that. Havenāt seen either and donāt know the names theyāve fought so going in completely blind. Ā Thatās me done. Edited April 29 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted April 20 Author Paid Members Share Posted April 20 (edited) Sorry for the double post but this has got to be a fucking record. Posted the thread 17 bastard minutes ago. Looking at the time, it was off before I even hit sendĀ š Ā Edited April 20 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Silky Kisser Posted April 21 Paid Members Share Posted April 21 If any card deserved a Alex Pereira raising his hand Gif, it's this one.Ā Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted April 21 Author Paid Members Share Posted April 21 3 hours ago, Silky Kisser said: If any card deserved an Alex Pereira raising his hand Gif, it's this one.Ā A gif for every occasion.Ā Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kfogg1991 Posted April 29 Share Posted April 29 This is yet another extremely weak card overall,Ā I'll watch bits tomorrow but they are in a lull period right nowĀ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted April 29 Author Paid Members Share Posted April 29 5 hours ago, Kfogg1991 said: This is yet another extremely weak card overall,Ā I'll watch bits tomorrow but they are in a lull period right nowĀ Yeah this time of year the Fight Nights do generally be a bit shite. Theyāre loading up the summer cards so thatāll be why you get some lean looking shows around April/May time. Itāll pick up. Apex cards are what they are though. If you get a good one itās a bonus but donāt expect much. Iāve finally got around to updating the opening post with what is hopefully the final bout order and a couple of fight changes. Nothing earth shattering but Trey Waters as a late replacement sounds interesting. A 6ā5ā Welter who just won the LFA belt a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully no more changes or eleventh hour drop outs. Hereās the card graphic and start times.Ā Oh and Irina Alekseeva missed weight by 4 fucking lbs for her debut. Hell of a first impression that. She looks heartbroken about it as well.Ā Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted May 1 Author Paid Members Share Posted May 1 No-one gave a single fuck about this did they? š I mean I watch everything and even I only watched the main event and caught bits of the rest. The fact only 3 of us even bothered voting in the poll speaks volumes. Speaking of the poll, I was the lone voter who picked Ricky Simon to win. How did that work out? Song Yadong looked really good, in fairness. Strong way to bounce back from the Sandhagen loss. I thought this was gonna be a mega competitive fight but it wasnāt really. Song looked a step ahead throughout to me and that left hand was money for him all night. Still not convinced he goes much higher than this but heāll have the odd bright spot and heās an entertaining fighter to watch so heās always a guy you can throw in the mix. My immediate thought for what I wanna see next is Song vs Chito 2 and Sandhagen vs OāMalley. Both proper bangers. And maybe Yan vs Font or something. I wanted Chito or Yan vs Figgy but apparently Figās staying at Flyweight now for some reason. Chito vs Yan would work as well. As always, so many options at 135 itās ridiculous.Ā Like I said, I skimmed over the rest. Had other stuff going on and even though itās a bank holiday weekend and I had more than enough time to properly catch up and watch everything, frankly, I just couldnāt be arsed.Ā The two Heavyweight fights looked as exciting as they sounded going in. Caio Borralho looked good from what I saw of the co-main. Oh and I did see that the āRussian Rondaā Irina Alekseeva got the quick submission win in her debut. Nice intro to the Octagon for her. This shiteās got to stop thoughā¦ Fucking cringed watching that. Especially after she badly missed weight going in as well. Kind of interested to see what she can do, and fuck me the Bantamweight division needs all the help and fresh blood it can get, but hopefully she gets the weight cut sorted going forward. We just got rid of Aspen Ladd. We donāt need another one.Ā Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted May 1 Paid Members Share Posted May 1 I actually watched all of this. Song looked great. Just physically on anoter level to Ricky Simon. I had expect Simon to perhaps outwork Song over the course of 5 rounds but Song shrugged any attempt of a takedown off like it was nothing and his striking looked as sharp in round 5 as it was in round 1. Song my be a problem at 135, still super young too. Ā Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce85 Posted May 2 Share Posted May 2 I did plan on watching this over the weekend but didnāt really find time. Normally Iād made time but this just wasnāt gripping me. I might be wrong but I think the next few cards are looking stronger!Ā Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted May 2 Paid Members Share Posted May 2 wise move, this weekend's PPV should be a belter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zebra Kid Mark Posted May 2 Share Posted May 2 I watched only the main card and it took me most of Sunday to watch it. I kept losing interest, pausing it and then coming back to it over and over. Song looked great, as Wand said, that is pretty much his ceiling but he will always be great value for money and a fun addition to any card. His english has massively improved too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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