Paid Members Carbomb Posted July 5, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted July 5, 2023 3 hours ago, Egg Shen said: Fuck it, that'll do. I'd imagine he has zero takedown defence. Saw an article quoting a tweet from Chris Curtis: "Happy for my guy Val. Good friend and teammate. He deserves his shot. It's hard to double leg a fire hydrant, trust me I've tried and Val is coming to scrap." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted July 6, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted July 6, 2023 Robbie Lawler’s last fight week… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted July 7, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted July 7, 2023 Just a few Hall Of Famers… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted July 7, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted July 7, 2023 Being International Fight Week, the UFC sometimes an extra show or a BJJ contest to coincide with the PPV, this year we get... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted July 7, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted July 7, 2023 (edited) OK, been meaning to dig into the Moreno vs Pantoja stuff for a bit now. Been looking forward to it because I’m pretty sure I never saw their TUF fight and, while I know I’d have seen their 2018 fight, I have zero memory of it. So this is all gonna be fresh to me. Had the day off work today so got stuck in. So yeah. These two first crossed paths back in 2016 on a season of The Ultimate Fighter coached by Joseph Benavidez and Henry Cejudo. It was an all Flyweight season and was billed as the ‘Tournament Of Champions’, with the gimmick being that all the contestants were title holders in their respective promotions on the regional scene. The UFC also upped the stakes a bit by announcing that the winner of the tournament would get a title shot against then champion and Flyweight GOAT Demetrious ‘Mighty Mouse’ Johnson. Not a bad setup but by this point I’d already tapped out of the whole TUF thing. I wasn’t all the way out back then, I still used to at least try to dip in and keep up with it. These days pretty much nothing could tempt me back. I haven’t watched a single second of this McGregor vs Chandler one and I don’t plan to. But skimming through the early stages of this 2016 one for this post, I did get a little bit of a nostalgic tingle for some reason. Even though this season was well after the shine had come off TUF and it had became tired and stale as a format. Looking back on TUF 24 now is interesting though. Partly because it’s 7 years ago now and some of these guys have become mainstays on the UFC roster. Obviously Moreno and Pantoja are the names that jump out at you. But looking down the cast you see names like Kai Kara-France, Tim Elliott, Matt Schnell and former WEC vet Damacio Page. Being Flyweight, I’m guessing the fights were probably of a fairly decent standard as well. Not gonna be rewatching the whole thing but it’s kind of cool to look back at it now. This was the story going in. Pantoja came in as the RFA champion and was the #1 seed in the tournament. The favourite to win the whole thing. On the other end of the scale, Moreno was seeded #16 which basically means he was looked at as the runt of the litter. An interesting twist here is that Moreno was friends with Cejudo and they’d trained together. But the way the seeding worked, when Cejudo’s first pick was top seed Pantoja, that paired him off against the lowest seed Moreno. And Moreno automatically got sent to Team Benavidez. So that put old Lego Head in a funny position where Team Cejudo’s top man was facing Cejudo’s buddy. He opted to stay neutral and didn’t corner Pantoja for this fight. Alexandre Pantoja vs Brandon Moreno - TUF 24 Round Of 16 The Ultimate Fighter: Team Benavidez vs Team Cejudo Air Date - Aug 31st 2016 Las Vegas, Nevada Man, they’re both babies here. Pantoja is only 26, Moreno is just 22 years old! Fuck, this is long enough ago that they still had the Harley Davidson sponsorship and the big orange logo on the canvas. The pre-Monster energy drink days. Anyway, we’re off… Round 1: Moreno moving a lot early and trying to jab and draw Pantoja into counters. Pantoja is just going for power in his strikes but he’s not really finding the target yet. He’s trying to just bullrush and run at Moreno with ugly punches but he’s having no luck. Moreno lands the first meaningful punch… Seemed to stun Pantoja briefly but nothing major. Moreno’s feeling it now, just missing on a flying knee. Pantoja going for leg kicks, which is smart really, he’s got to stop Moreno moving so much somehow, but he’s eating punches at the same time. Pantoja just keeps marching forward and when he does connect, he seems to have some sting in his shots. Moreno’s the first to shoot for a takedown but it goes nowhere. Body shot from Moreno and Pantoja’s upping the aggression late in the round and finding a bit more success. Pantoja’s bleeding. Moreno’s eye is swelling up. They’re both getting a bit wild in the last minute but Moreno did the better work and I had him winning the round. Moreno 10-9. So much for the seeding! Moreno said fuck that. He really took it to Pantoja in that round. Round 2: Moreno comes out firing. You can tell he really fancies this now. But he gets a bit too reckless and Pantoja clips him in the exchange and then almost lands flush with a big headkick. Moreno did well to roll with that and take the edge off it because that could’ve been bad. Real sense of urgency from the Brazilian now. He’s chasing Moreno down and just trying to inflict any kind of pain he can. He goes for the Thai clinch and tries a jumping knee to the body but they end up falling to the mat. We see a bit of grappling for the first time. The talk going in was that the grappling was both men’s bread and butter but that Pantoja was the superior fighter in that area. But it’s Moreno who persists with it and takes Pantoja back down. Pantoja with some nice elbows from the bottom and he gets back up. Both exchanging on the feet again, Moreno’s clearly the better striker and Pantoja looks a bit weary now. He’s still connecting though. Now it’s Pantoja with a brief takedown and takes the back but Moreno pops back up. This is a proper battle. They’re against the fence and Moreno’s digging in nasty body shots while Pantoja starts going to fucking town on him with elbows and a big knee. For the first time in the fight, Moreno looks a bit wobbly. The swelling on his eye has blown up now and his mouthpiece has come out so that buys him a little bit of time. Not enough though. Pantoja’s all over him. Shoots in again and gets to work… That’s a wrap. I didn’t actually see Moreno tap but the ref waved it off and Moreno certainly didn’t complain after. Maybe it was verbal. Winner - Alexandre Pantoja by submission. Round 2 - 3:44. Bit of a war that. Glad I watched it. I always forget how fun Pantoja is to watch. Obviously we know all about Moreno. But I don’t know what it is about Pantoja. I feel like he’s gone under-appreciated for years. Maybe it’s just a case of him not being active enough. I seem to remember his fight against Figgy being bags of fun as well. Another one I’ll have to revisit at some point. But yeah. This was good stuff. Cejudo’s basically saying after that it’s bittersweet and that he’s happy for Pantoja but he’d have been happier if Moreno won. Something like that. Usually I’d take that at face value but Cejudo just comes off like a little weasel who’s playing both sides when he says it. And didn’t he help train Figgy for one of the Moreno fights later? So his friendship and loyalty to Moreno clearly meant fuck all. Moreno’s eye looks jacked here… 🤢 Benavidez is consoling him after and says he’ll be back. Joey B was right wasn’t he? Moreno actually got signed straight to a UFC contract on the strength of his performance in this fight. Watching it now I can see why. To come in as the lowest seed and take it to the guy everyone thought was the killer of the show like that was badass. They’d have been complete idiots to not get him signed immediately. In fact, if this was today, they’d have probably let him slip through their fingers and go to Bellator or PFL. They’ve lost it. But whatever. Thankfully in this case, common sense prevailed. Moreno actually signed and was fighting in the UFC before the Finale even took place! If you’re wondering how the rest of that season of TUF played out, it turns out Pantoja didn’t even make it to the finals. For some reason I always had it in my head that he did. But apparently he lost a decision in the semi finals to Hiromasa Ogikubo, who I barely remember. He later fought in RIZIN, lost to Kyoji Horiguchi a couple of times. Then Tim Elliott beat Ogikubo in the final and got his shot at ‘Mighty Mouse’ on the Finale card that December. He lost but I remember Elliott actually giving a really good account of himself. I wonder what the reason was for Ogikubo never fighting in the UFC after TUF. Unusual for a guy to make it to the finals, and especially beating the #1 seed, and them just cutting ties once the show wraps up. Did anyone watch that season, was Ogikubo a boring cunt? Bit of a Japanese Jake Shields or something? Anyway, it would take 2 years but Moreno and Pantoja would meet again. More on that later… Edited July 7, 2023 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zebra Kid Mark Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 Great write up. Unfortunately Jack Della Maddalena's new opponent has had to pull out. He has been diagnosed with moyamoya disease, a rare blood vessel disorder in the skull, which showed up during the pre-fight medical exam. Looks like that fight is off. Also, why did they induct Robbie Lawler into the HOF, the same week of his retirement fight, the poor guy can't celebrate the induction properly. He wouldn't have been able to enjoy a nice beverage. Despite the drop outs, this card is still stacked. I am very much looking forward to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted July 7, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted July 7, 2023 Yeah just saw that. Gutted we don’t get to see Maddalena fight but it’s obviously better than the alternative and Harrell going in there in that condition. With hindsight, thank fuck he did get the call for this fight because that led to him undergoing the tests which brought this to light. Imagine he’d taken more fights on smaller shows where they don’t carry out such tests? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted July 8, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted July 8, 2023 9 hours ago, Zebra Kid Mark said: Also, why did they induct Robbie Lawler into the HOF, the same week of his retirement fight, the poor guy can't celebrate the induction properly. He wouldn't have been able to enjoy a nice beverage. Yeah, not ideal. Id imagine Lawler wasn't arsed eitherway though. Has there been any word on why Rory wasn't there to pick up his? Looks like he retired and disappeared. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted July 8, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted July 8, 2023 Right then. Second meeting but their first proper official fight. Obviously TUF fights don’t go on the record. In the 2 years since they fought on TUF, they’d both had mixed results. Moreno got off to a great start in the UFC. He won his first 3 fights against Louis Smolka, Ryan Benoit and Dustin Ortiz. It was all looking good, the promotion seemed to see something in him and, in August 2017, he was put in his first 5 round main event on a Fight Night in Mexico. But he wound up losing a decision to Sergio Pettis. Pantoja had beat Eric Shelton and Neil Seery before dropping a decision to Dustin Ortiz in early 2018. And that was that. The stage was set. Brandon Moreno vs Alexandre Pantoja UFC Fight Night: Maia vs Usman May 19th 2018 Santiago, Chile Forgot they ever even went to Chile. But yeah, there’s probably good reason not many remember much about this Moreno vs Pantoja fight. This was a very forgettable card and they were on the prelims. Maybe my memory is being overly harsh but I just recall that main event being dire. Suarez running through Grasso in less than 3 minutes in the co-main is interesting to look back on now 5 years later though. Commentators are Brendan Fitzgerald and Jimmy Smith, which is a change of pace. Jimmy Smith in the UFC is something I always forget was a thing. Still don’t know why that didn’t work out but coming in as Mr Bellator probably didn’t do him any favours behind the scenes. Referee is Marc Goddard. Round 1: Moreno seems to be trying to start the same way as their TUF fight. Jabbing and moving. But right away here you can see Pantoja has improved in the standup. He looks much calmer and isn’t trying to force anything or just run at Moreno. He’s being more patient and making his movements count more. We’re only a minute in and he’s already mixing in threatening back takes and clinch attempts rather than solely trying to trade punches like he did early last time. Moreno trying to go the grappling route now but Pantoja shuts it down. Jabs and leg kicks starting to land for Pantoja now. Both trading and Pantoja actually getting the better of it. Hard leg kick again, followed by a nasty jab that stops Moreno in his tracks for a second. Think it popped his nose. Pantoja’s looking really good here. Moreno’s actually running away from him at one point. They collide and Moreno gets a bit reckless and overcommits and falls down. Bad mistake. This round was already not going well for him. Now he’s basically handed Pantoja top position with less than a minute left on the clock. And fuck me, Pantoja is making him pay. Moreno’s getting mauled here. He was lucky there wasn’t much time left in the round because had Pantoja had another minute or so to work with there, I doubt Moreno survives the round. Easily a 10-8 round for Pantoja. Moreno’s looking worse for wear when the round ends. It’s not going well. Moreno’s corner sound a bit panicky between rounds and understandably so. That opening round couldn’t really have gone much worse for him. There’s a bit of a delay getting the second round started because Moreno’s mouthpiece isn’t in. Crafty bit of gamesmanship from his cornermen there, I think. Trying to buy him a little bit more time. Marc Goddard knows what’s up though and he’s saying something to the Moreno corner, looks like he’s giving them a bit of a bollocking. Round 2: Pantoja picking up where he left off. He’s all over Moreno here, not giving him any space to breathe. Moreno’s trying his arse off though. It’s never dull because he’s always trying to make something happen. More leg kicks from Pantoja and still connecting with punches. Even when Moreno’s firing off flurries of punches, Pantoja stays right there with him and doesn’t even flinch. He catches Moreno with a shot in the last 30 seconds that has the Mexican backpedaling a bit and he’s pouring in on as the round is coming to an end. Two rounds in the books and it’s another one for Pantoja. It was a bit more competitive than the first round but it was still very much Pantoja’s. There’s no question who’s winning. Even Moreno’s corner are telling him that the first round was a 10-8 and he needs a finish now to win the fight. Round 3: Slightly slower start to this round, which I get from Pantoja’s side. He’s ahead so he can just coast if he chooses to. But Moreno really needs to make something happen here. Pantoja clinching him against the fence and Moreno with a nice elbow on the break. He just doesn’t seem urgent enough here to me. But then whenever they do start throwing, Pantoja always seems to land the better shots. So I think it’s got Moreno hesitating more than he usually would. They’re talking about the cardio like it’s a massive advantage for Moreno and a weakness for Pantoja. But I don’t see it being a factor for either man here. Pantoja has definitely taken his foot off the gas a little bit but he doesn’t looked like his conditioning is flagging or anything. I think he just knows he’s built up a lead and doesn’t need to do anything spectacular at this stage in the fight. With 10 seconds left on the clock… They both bite down on the mouthpiece and swing for the fences. Nice end to the round but that’s another one for Pantoja to me. 10-9. So I’ve got him winning 30-26 overall. Winner - Alexandre Pantoja by unanimous decision. Scorecards were 30-26, 30-26 and 29-27. Not sure what the judge scoring 29-27 was seeing but apparently he had the third round for Moreno. Don’t get that myself but whatever. The right man won. It was a clear Pantoja win. No controversy whatsoever. And while he didn’t get the finish this time like he did on TUF, I thought he looked much improved in this fight. It’s weird to criticise his performance in the TUF fight because he did win and got the finish, but he looked sloppy that first round, lost the round and had to win a dogfight. Here he looked much better. Maybe he underestimated Moreno on TUF because of the whole highest seed vs lowest seed thing. Whatever the case, he was on point here. Obviously since then a lot has changed. They’ve both gone on to more success but Moreno’s had the more interesting story. He was actually let go by the UFC following this loss to Pantoja. Which seemed really harsh to me. Like I said, he was 3-1 in the UFC coming into this one and was consistently exciting to watch. Loses to Pettis and Pantoja and they just sack him? He went away, won one fight in LFA and became their champ, and the UFC brought him back. He should never have been released. Since his return in 2019 it’s been banger after banger. Of course the 4 fight series against Deiveson Figueiredo is the thing people associate with him but he beat Kai Kara-France twice in really entertaining fights, won a fantastic one round sprint against Brandon Royval, beat Jussier Formiga and dragged Askar Askarov to the best fight of his life in a draw. Moreno becoming UFC champion is such a great success story. To go from being the lowest seed on TUF, to being sacked from the UFC, to coming back and becoming champ is some Rocky movie stuff. Pantoja’s not had the same kind of attention, hasn’t had the big title fights or PPV headliners. He hasn’t really been active enough to properly get the momentum rolling. But he’s had a solid run himself since the night he beat Moreno again in Chile. He’s gone 6-2 since, with the only losses being against Figgy and Askarov. In his last 3 fights he’s beat Manel Kape on points and submitted Brandon Royval and Alex Perez. He’s a handful. Really strong grappling but definitely a bit underrated as a striker as well. Watching this second Moreno fight confirmed that. It’s not necessarily always pretty striking to watch but it’s effective. I think if people remember anything about the Pantoja vs Moreno fights, it’s mostly that Pantoja got the better of him on the ground. But he was winning most of the striking exchanges against Moreno here. And if he gets your back, forget it. It’s pretty much a death sentence. So here we go. Their third meeting overall, second official fight. And this time it’s 5 rounds and for all the marbles. I think it being 5 rounds does add an intriguing twist to this one. While I said I don’t think Pantoja had a big problem with the gas tank in this 2018 fight, who knows how he’d have held up if there were another couple of rounds? He did slow down, for whatever reason, and he was looking up at the clock in the last minute of the fight. He’s never gone past 3 rounds so maybe that’s something to keep an eye on. We know Moreno can go 5 rounds standing on his head. His last 5 fights were all scheduled 5 rounders. Even if they didn’t all go the distance he’d have prepared for the full 25 minutes. On the flip side though, how much have those wars with Figgy taken out of him? While people might look at Pantoja not being as busy as a negative, maybe it’ll serve him well coming in as the fresher man. Depends how you look at it, I suppose. Really looking forward to it though. Not sure how it goes but my gut is telling me Pantoja gets it done again. Just got a feeling he’s got Moreno’s number. 🇲🇽🇧🇷 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted July 8, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted July 8, 2023 Its flying right under the radar that Pantoja is 2-0 up, just feels like Moreno is so improved that its abit of non-story, wonder if it mentally plays into how Moreno performs though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted July 8, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted July 8, 2023 Not long now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce85 Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 Great writes up as always! looking forward to this card, I’ve missed been out of the loop and missed the past several fight nights. I completely forgot Moreno was 2-0 down, not sure if I’ve seen the first 2 fights or not. Like Egg said, it seems to have flown under the radar. Should be a good fight and I think Moreno gets the job down either in points or a stoppage in the championship rounds. I assume everyone is backing Volk. Would be a hell of an upset but stranger things have happened! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted July 8, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted July 8, 2023 32 minutes ago, Bruce85 said: I assume everyone is backing Volk. Would be a hell of an upset but stranger things have happened! It’s funny but when the fight was first announced I remember looking at social media and seeing nothing but talk about how Yair was basically getting sacrificed and it wasn’t interesting. As the fight’s got closer I’m seeing more and more tweets giving Yair a shot at causing the upset. I don’t believe anyone genuinely thinks Yair is winning tonight though. You get this every time with people picking the underdog just so they can say “I called it” after the fact. I remember from about the day after Julianna Pena beat Amanda Nunes right up until the rematch, I saw so many divs bragging that they called it and that Pena was always a bad matchup for Nunes. That talk abruptly stopped when the rematch put things right and Pena got 50-45ed into oblivion. For me, unless Yair lands some wacky Hail Mary weird strike like the last second elbow on the Zombie that time, I just don’t see a clear path to victory for him. I think he’ll either have to land the perfect strike or he’ll have to buzz Volk with something and dive on a choke. It’s not the likely or logical pick though and there isn’t really a reason to expect it to go like that because it’s not like Volk makes a lot of mistakes. I reckon it’ll end up looking a bit like Volk’s fight against Zombie. While I’m here, this is cool. Some of the fighters on tonight’s card giving their thoughts on Robbie Lawler… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce85 Posted July 9, 2023 Share Posted July 9, 2023 That’s was a brilliant card. Volk really is a beast, just on another level! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marshmallo Posted July 9, 2023 Share Posted July 9, 2023 Best card of the year so far by quite a distance. From the first prelim to the main event it was non-stop violence. So many of the UFC cards these days seem like faceless filler but this one was full of meaningful stuff that will impact their divisions. The build up to Adesanya vs De Plessis has the potential to plumb new depths unfortunately. That went to some dark places in the cage immediately after the fight, never mind what can happen in the next few months. It could make McGregor in the build-up to Khabib look like the height of sportsmanship. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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