Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted November 14, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted November 14, 2023 (edited) We’re off to Austin, Texas with this doozy… ESPN MAIN CARD Beneil Dariush vs Arman Tsarukyan Jalin Turner vs Bobby Green Rob Font vs Deiveson Figueiredo Sean Brady vs Kelvin Gastelum Clay Guida vs Joaquim Silva Punahele Soriano vs Dustin Stoltzfus ESPN+/FIGHT PASS PRELIMS Miesha Tate vs Julia Avila Cody Brundage vs Zach Reese Joe Solecki vs Drakkar Klose Ihor Potieria vs Rodolfo Bellato Wellington Turman vs Jared Gooden Jamey-Lyn Horth vs Veronica Hardy Some card that, isn’t it? As good a Fight Night card as they’ve ever put on for me. Maybe the best. Seriously, I’d say 4, maybe 5 out of those 6 fights on the main card could’ve headlined their own Fight Nights. Yeah it’s top heavy and the quality dips massively as you go down the card but that main card, and especially those top 3 fights! I don’t recall another Fight Night with a top 3 like that. As usual, don’t get caught up in the bout order. You know it’s gonna change multiple times between now and fight night. Beneil Dariush vs Arman Tsarukyan headlines this beauty. Really like this fight. It’s been talked about for months and there were a few rumblings that it was gonna be added to UFC 294 in Abu Dhabi in October at one point but I’m happier with how it’s played out. 294 didn’t really need it and I’d rather this fight headline in a 5 rounder than get lost in the shuffle as a 3 round fight in the middle of a big PPV. This fight warrants 5 rounds and I’m glad they’ve got those extra 10 minutes if they need them. Dariush is currently ranked #4 at Lightweight according to the UFC website. Tsarukyan is at #8 as I type this. Dariush has some work to do now though. He’s 34 years old now, which isn’t ancient for a Lightweight but by mid 30s you’re generally on the home stretch of your career as a lighter weight class fighter. He was on the best run of his career, on an 8 fight winning streak and coming off an impressive win over Mateusz Gamrot going into his last fight. Only for Charles Oliveira to completely undo his good work in just 4 crushing minutes at UFC 289 in June. It was exactly the rebound performance Oliveira needed coming off the Makhachev loss, but the last thing Dariush needed. He was finally getting close to that elusive title shot and a win over Oliveira would’ve made him difficult to deny. But now he’s been knocked back a few steps again. He’s a really good fighter. Strong grappler, kind of crude striking but carries power and he’s tough and as game as they come. But despite still being highly ranked, it feels like he’s never gonna quite get there. I’d like to see him at least get a shot at the belt before it’s all said and done. They’re not throwing him any easy bounce back fights though… Arman Tsarukyan just turned 27 and has a record of 20-3 and 13 finishes. His losses so far were a KO in his second pro fight (whatever), a points loss in his UFC debut against Islam Makhachev (hasn’t exactly aged badly) in a tremendous fight and a dodgy decision loss to Mateusz Gamrot last year which I strongly felt he won. He’s had a funny old UFC run really. Lost to Makhachev then won 5 in a row, ‘lost’ to Gamrot but should’ve won, then dominated Damir Ismagulov last December. Coming off that win, I fully expected him to get a biggish name or at least a Top 10 opponent. I was baffled when it was announced he’d be facing Joaquim Silva in June. Made no sense to me and I could only assume it was just a case of Tsarukyan wanting to stay active and none of the big names being interested. I thought Silva would be a bit of a squash match but the fight didn’t quite play out like I expected. Silva wobbled him good and proper. Caught him a treat and I really thought we were heading for the upset for a second. But to his credit, Tsarukyan weathered it, recovered and came back to batter Silva to a TKO finish in the next round. Rough one but he got through it. As you can imagine, social media was full of doom and gloom after this performance. Talking like this exposed Tsarukyan as a bum or a fraud. But you don’t get the answers on a fighter’s chin, durability, heart, conditioning etc until they face some adversity. And while it was a surprise to see him rocked like that by Silva, I thought he responded as well as can be expected. You’re gonna get cracked at some point as a fighter. Tsarukyan ate it and answered with an onslaught and a stoppage. Can’t ask for much more than that. He’s gonna have to be sharper than that for this Dariush fight though. He’s been waiting for his big step up for a while now and this is it. He’s finally getting it. A main event against the #4 ranked Lightweight in the world. Big fan of this matchmaking. A win for Dariush over a young, rising contender is the perfect way to wash the taste of that Oliveira thumping away. And a win for Tsarukyan would be his biggest to date and should get him around the Top 5 in the rankings. Obviously the grappling is where the really good stuff happens with these two. So I really hope they go more that route. There’s always the chance with two strong grapplers that they decide to just strike it out and take their chances there. I can see Dariush especially fancying that kind of fight. He’s scored some big knockouts in his career and, seeing how Tsarukyan got buzzed by Silva last time, no doubt Benny will like his chances of clipping him as well. But I’m hoping we at least get to see them take it to the mat at some point. That’s where we get the best out of this fight. On paper you’d think the winner of this should be right up there in the title race. But thinking about it, I’d imagine Charles Oliveira and Justin Gaethje are the frontrunners for the next crack at the champ Islam Makhachev now. Chandler’s still checking his phone every 3 seconds, holding out hope for that McGregor fight. And I can’t see Poirier being arsed about fighting either of these two. I’m stumped who the winner actually ends up fighting. Can honestly see them ending up fighting down in the rankings against a Benoit Saint-Denis or the winner of Turner vs Green or something. You never know though. All it takes is someone to get injured and, if the winner of this looks impressive, they could slot right in there. Jalin Turner vs Bobby Green is the new co-main. Originally supposed to be a 5 rounder between Green and Dan Hooker but that’s went tits up. Now it’s a 3 rounder with Turner. Really strong replacement, to be fair. About as good as they could’ve got on such short notice. Kind of fitting as well that it’s Turner stepping in when his last fight was against none other than Dan Hooker. Turner vs Hooker was a tremendous fight, one of the best of the year, and would’ve stole the show on almost any other night. But it went down at UFC 290 in July, which turned out to be one of the best shows the promotion has ever put on. It kind of got lost in the shuffle as just another great bit of an amazing card in the end. But it was a cracker. Hooker won by split decision. Can’t remember how I scored it now but I recall it being mega close and really exciting to watch. Might try and squeeze a rewatch in before this card as a refresher. And Bobby Green is coming off that stunning 33 second KO win over Grant Dawson in their Apex headliner in October. An impressive win for Green that ended Dawson’s 12 fight unbeaten streak. He subbed the ghost of Tony Ferguson before that but that obviously doesn’t hold much weight these days. The Dawson KO though, and especially how fast it happened, was maybe Green’s best win in the UFC. Not sure how this goes but it should be fun to watch regardless. Doesn’t feel like a comedown from the Hooker fight at all for me. As substitutes go, they’ve done a great job here. Rob Font vs Deiveson Figueiredo is ***WAND’S ONE TO WATCH*** for this card. Absolutely buzzing for this one. Finally Figgy makes the move up to Bantamweight and they’re chucking him straight in there with a Top 10 opponent. No messing about. Figgy turns 36 a couple of weeks after this fight so there’s no time to waste. Just get him in there mixing with the players at 135 and see what’s what. I love it. Not only that, it’ll be nice just to see Figgy fight someone other than Brandon Moreno at this point. As much as I was a huge fan of their fights, Figgy’s fought him 4 FUCKING TIMES in a row now. They’ve been married 3 years, it’s run its course. We haven’t seen him fight since January, where he lost the 4th fight against Moreno via doctor stoppage in Brazil. I thought it was the weakest fight of their rivalry and it was a shame to see it end in a bit of an anticlimactic fashion. But it’s time time to move on. Off to 135… I don’t know when these pics were taken but Figgy’s clearly been eating well since he decided his days as a Flyweight were over 🤣 I’m sure he’ll be in good nick come fight week. It’s been common knowledge for a long time that he struggled to make 125lbs and his performances often seemed to depend heavily on how his weight cut went. I’m happy to see he finally decided to sack the cut to 125 off. So many fun and fresh matchups for him at 135. I was hoping to see him against Petr Yan but this’ll do nicely. Font’s style is very boxing heavy so him and Figgy should gel style-wise to create some serious fireworks. Font’s coming off that loss to Cory Sandhagen in August, in what turned out to be a surprisingly dull fight. I think Sandhagen’s injury played a massive part in that though and that’ll be why he mostly just took Font down and held him there. Still, it was frustrating to watch and had to be mega frustrating for Font. So you know he’ll be motivated to redeem himself and put on a show here. Same with Figgy. He’s coming off that shitty ending to the Moreno series and he’ll wanna make a statement in his fresh start up at Bantamweight. Feels like the timing is right and the ingredients for a war are all there. Can’t wait to see how this one plays out. Sean Brady vs Kelvin Gastelum is alright. Not gonna pretend I’m counting the days or anything though. But even this, it’s 4 fights down the main card here but we’ve honestly had worse Fight Night headliners than this over the last few years. Just not sure what to think about Brady. He’s coming off that TKO loss to Belal Muhammad and he’ll have been inactive for about 14 months since then by the time he steps back in there for this fight. Before that loss he’d gone 15-0 but I don’t recall ever finding him very enjoyable to watch personally. Strong grappler and got a couple of solid wins over Jake Matthews and Michael Chiesa. But his striking always looked a bit shit and the fact Belal, who’s far from a good striker himself, was able to batter him on the feet says it all. And Gastelum…where do you start? Tough bastard and, all respect to him, he’s shown time and time again he’s up for fighting absolutely anyone. Just look at his record and who he’s fought. But Christ he’s took some punishment over the years. Blows my mind to think he’s only just turned 32! He’s got some fucking miles on him. Not sure about this move either. He’s coming off a win over Chris Curtis in June, in a really entertaining scrap, but now he’s dropping back down to Welterweight for this? His last run at 170 ended in 2016 because he kept missing weight. And that was obviously as a younger man when the weight cut should’ve been easier. I’d love to be proven wrong but I can’t see it going well for him. Clay Guida vs Joaquim Silva is an OK fight. Not terrible but I’m not exactly giddy about it either. It’s Clay, bless him. He’s fallen into that Arlovski role at this point. Nowhere near as exciting to watch as he once was but nobody really dumps on him when he has a boring fight these days. He’s done more than enough in the past that he gets a pass. It’s mad that he’s still going at all. If you’d asked me around 2009 how long I thought his career had left…after he had those wars with Diego Sanchez, Roger Huerta and Tyson Griffin I’d have said not very fucking long! Maybe 2-3 years tops. Yet here we are 14 years after that and he’s still on the roster making his 36th walk to the Octagon and his 62nd fight overall. Insanity. It’s only because he changed up his style though. Caveman Clay was gonna burn out fast fighting like that. He’s became way less fun to watch but it’s given him longevity, extended his career by at least a decade and he’s taking a lot less damage. You can’t blame him for that. As for Silva, as I mentioned above… He almost scored a big upset back in June when he had Arman Tsarukyan on rubber legs for a few seconds. He was basically brought in as a sacrificial lamb, a showcase opponent for Tsarukyan, but he didn’t come to lose and was inches away from completely flipping the script. Aside from that it’s been a fairly unremarkable career. He’s approaching 35 years old now and he’s 12-4 with his only notable wins being a KO against Jared Gordon back in 2018 and a split decision over Reza ‘Mad Dog’ Medadi in 2017. Honestly, I think Clay, even 2023 Clay, should still win this but we’ll see. Not expecting much from this, hopefully it’s a pleasant surprise. Punahele Soriano vs Dustin Stoltzfus should be enjoyable enough. Soriano hasn’t bored me yet, win or lose. Typical Hawaiian scrapper. Came in undefeated off DWCS in 2019 and scored a couple of brutal knockouts but it’s been mixed results over the last few years. Even in a losing effort he’s usually fun to watch, I remember his fight with Brendan Allen being a belter. But he got wrecked by Roman Kopylov in his last fight in January. Kopylov fucked him up with horrible body kicks. Hopefully he can get back in the win column here. Hazy on Stoltzfus but he’s in desperate need of a win here. He’s 14-5 overall and has gone 1-5 in the UFC. Hasn’t fought in well over a year now and got crushed in 19 seconds in his last fight by Abus Magomedov on the first Paris card. I like Soriano but if he loses this one, it’s not looking good at all. Miesha Tate vs Julia Avila isn’t great. This feels like a proper desperation move by Tate at this point. Looking back, when she retired in 2016 it was probably the right time. Ever since she came back in 2021, I just haven’t had a good feeling about it. I got her reasoning that she was in a better place mentally and didn’t wanna look back years later when the ship sailed and it was too late thinking ‘what if?’ In her mid 30s, it was ‘now or never’. And fair play, she got into the best shape of her career. But the comeback really hasn’t panned out for her. Ageing like fine wine everywhere apart from in the cage sadly. She’s going back up to Bantamweight for this one. After losing her Flyweight debut against Lauren Murphy. Like I said, desperation move. She lost to Ketlen Vieira before that as well and looked really bad in that fight. Now she’s coming back off a near 18 month layoff, at 37 years old and 1-2 since she came out of retirement. It’s a rough game. Avila AKA ‘Raging Panda’ is 35, she’s no spring chicken herself. But at 9-2 she’s way less banged up. Tate’s been through some really hard fights in her career, Avila hasn’t really had that. So she’s fresher. Although she’s also not fought in a long time. She’s been out since June 2021. She had a baby last year so that’s why. Don’t know what to expect out of this. Obviously Tate’s on her last legs now but it’s still the biggest name and biggest step up of Avila’s career. And coming off having a baby and a 2+ year layoff? Who the fuck knows? Hopefully it ends up better than I’ve made it sound here. Cody Brundage vs Zach Reese. Sigh. Brundage is absolute dogshit. Just awful. Funnily enough his record is 9-5. And that’s the shift he probably should be working in an office cubicle somewhere. Because he’s no good at this MMA stuff. He ‘won’ his last fight against Jacob Malkoun by DQ due to an illegal elbow. And that’s temporarily saved his spot on the roster. He went into that fight on a rotten 3 fight losing skid. My main memories of him are him repeatedly going for stupid failed guillotines all over the place in one fight and Michal Oleksiejczuk chinning him in another. Hopefully this Reese guy shows him the door. He’s making his UFC debut here, 29 years old and 6-0, all finishes. A quick look at his record tells me he subbed ex UFC fighter Aaron Phillips in 35 seconds on a Fury FC card in February. And he does have one loss as an amateur against Kevin Holland but that was the amateurs, way back in 2012 and it went the distance. This fight should actually give us a decent idea on Reese as a first impression because, as I’ve said, Brundage is arse. If Reese can’t beat him, he’s no prospect. Should be rolling over him really if he’s got anything about him. Joe Solecki vs Drakkar Klose is a solid enough fight for the prelims. Solecki’s 30 years old and 13-3 with 9 finishes. Pretty handy grappler from what I remember. He’s had a bit of a weird UFC stint though. Came in in late 2019 off a submission win on DWCS. His first 3 fights in he beat Matt Wiman, Austin Hubbard and Jim Miller. A decent start and a win over Miller always looks good on the record of a guy coming up. But then he lost a split decision to Jared Gordon and it’s stalled big time since. He’s beat Alex Da Silva and Carl Deaton in his last two outings. Alright wins and I recall him schooling Deaton and getting a POTN bonus. But to go from beating Miller and running Gordon to a split to then being scaled back to Da Silva and Deaton is a bit strange. This isn’t a bad fight though, maybe a win over Klose can get him back on track. Klose is 35, 13-2-1 and has mixed with some of the names higher up on this very card. Lost to Dariush by KO in a forgotten slobberknocker and beat Green on points. He’s coming off a couple of wins but hasn’t fought in well over a year now and he found his level a while back. Solecki really should be winning this, I reckon. Ihor Potieria vs Rodolfo Bellato. Not Bellat-OR. Bellat-O. Dunno. Haven’t got much of an opinion on Potieria. He’s Ukrainian, 27 years old and 19-4 with 15 inside the distance. He got stopped by bang average Nicolae Negumereanu in his UFC debut and then I instantly soured on him when he bashed up Shogun in Shogun’s retirement fight (in Brazil of all places!) then did some silly dance like he just beat the 2005 Pride GP version of the great man. Piss off. OK, I guess I do have an opinion on him! He got his comeuppance in May anyway when Carlos Ulberg walloped him in 2 minutes. Good lad. And Bellato? Not a clue. Just disappointed he never fought in Bellator. According to Sherdog he’s Brazilian, 27 years old and 11-2 with 10 finishes. He’s been sparked by Vitor Petrino twice already but he’s coming off 3 wins now. Sherdog has him listed as repping Team Nogueira as well so I know who I’m rooting for. Wellington Turman vs Jared Gooden is a clash of the Ham and Eggers. Can’t find much positive to say about this. Turman’s 18-7 and coming off back-to-back losses to Andre Petroski and Randy Brown. He’s 3-5 overall now in the UFC and hasn’t looked very impressive in any of those fights as far as I can recall. I’m gonna report him to trading standards because his nickname being ‘The Prodigy’ is surely false advertisement. Gooden’s 22-9 and got sacked from his first run in the UFC after going a miserable 1-4. He went away and won some fights and the UFC brought him back in February, only because he jumped in on short notice, and he missed weight and lost to Carlston Harris on points. Nothing to see here. Jamey-Lyn Horth vs Veronica Hardy is nowt to write home about but I’ll give it a look. Horth is Canadian, 33 years old and unbeaten at 6-0 with 5 finishes. She made her Octagon debut in April and beat Hailey Cowan by decision. Can’t even remember if I watched that fight. She also beat Loopy Godinez twice on points in the amateurs but that was back in 2016/17. I’m hoping Hardy can get another W here though. That’s from her last fight against Juliana Miller at UFC 286 in London in March. My hopes weren’t high for her going into that one. She had an iffy record anyway going in plus she’d been on the shelf for 3 years. But she put a bit of a beating on Miller. I like Veronica, and not just looks-wise. She’s often on husband Dan’s breakdown podcasts for UFC cards and seems really cool on there. I’d like to see her do well. But I think the Miller fight might’ve been more to do with how shite Miller was than anything. Call me a cynic but I’ve got a feeling they only brought Veronica back in the hopes she’d get battered in front of Dan cageside. You know what Dana’s like. The fact she won and now they’re throwing her (at 7-4-1) in with an undefeated fighter but burying it down in the curtain jerker, makes me think there’s some slightly sinister motives by the matchmakers here. For that reason alone I hope she keeps winning. UFC Austin. WHAT? I said UFC Austin. Edited December 2, 2023 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted November 22, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted November 22, 2023 Well this sucks: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce85 Posted November 22, 2023 Share Posted November 22, 2023 5 hours ago, Egg Shen said: Well this sucks: That sucks, was looking forward to that fight. Wonder if they’ll try and keep Green on the card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted November 23, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted November 23, 2023 I'll take this replacement: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted November 29, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted November 29, 2023 Finally got around to updating the opening post and the poll with the new co-main event. Here’s the latest bout order. Hopefully no more changes before Saturday but don’t hold your breath or anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dai Posted November 30, 2023 Share Posted November 30, 2023 A proper solid card, this. The top 4 fights all look very interesting. Suprised to see that Tate isnt on the main card, considering shes a pretty big name. I think Arman will win this one, but most looking foward to seeing how Figgy looks. That picture on the bike, where he has a belly, doesnt bode well for him if its a recent pic though. Will be very interesting to watch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted November 30, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted November 30, 2023 (edited) 3 hours ago, Dai said: most looking foward to seeing how Figgy looks. That picture on the bike, where he has a belly, doesnt bode well for him if its a recent pic though. Nah, to be fair that’s a pic I saw doing the rounds back when this fight was first announced. Was probably taken right at the start of his training camp when he was at his heaviest. Here’s how he’s looking now on fight week. I think he’ll be OK. He might well still lose but at least it won’t be because he’s out of shape. Really interested to see how he does at Bantamweight. They’re not easing him in gently at all throwing him straight in with Font but I love that. Fuck it. Fig’s about to turn 36 in a few weeks. There isn’t really time to piss about. Chuck him in with the players at 135 and see what’s what. Anyone seen Jalin Turner’s media interviews? This sounds a bit dodgy… Really doesn’t sound like he wants to be there. Although a lot of that could be because he’s cutting weight and miserable at the moment. His comments about feeling like he “had no choice” though. I was buzzing for this fight when it was announced Turner was stepping in and replacing Hooker. But that’s because you assume the guy stepping in is bang up for it and was campaigning for it behind the scenes or something. When you hear shit like this it takes the shine off it. If it’s how Turner made it sound and they’ve pressured him to take the fight, I don’t really get why. Because this is a card that actually could’ve afforded to lose a fight and it wouldn’t have been hurt much. If Turner vs Green was the fight they wanted I’m sure they could’ve gone ahead with it and moved it to that weak Song vs Gutierrez card or even 296 to give Turner a bit more time to make the weight. I don’t think anyone would’ve complained about Font vs Figgy getting promoted to co-main status. Or if they had to have Turner vs Green on this card, why not at least make it a Catchweight? Edited November 30, 2023 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kfogg1991 Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Holy shit I am excited and set for this one which I thought for some reason was the final fight night before the final PPV of the year which would have made sense and been smarter to finish big than have a fucking weird rollercoaster ending but this is the road to the end of the year we have three weekends left with show's before my Saturdays get super boring and I have to show how autistic I am and watch a old show instead because I'm so used to being up all night for a UFC show my brain won't stop and let me sleep. This entire card pretty much is strong as and has some very potentially FOTN stealing going into it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted December 1, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted December 1, 2023 (edited) Well fuck. Despite my doubts, Gastelum made 170 with no issues and actually looked alright and energetic on the scales. Still don’t see him having much of a run at Welterweight but fair play. Also from the weigh in, 135 Figgy looked great. In other news, the Steve Garcia vs Melquizael Costa fight is off. Because we can’t get through a single fight week these days without something falling off the card. Oh and I don’t know if anyone seen it but there was a bit of a run in this week between Bobby Green and Arman Tsarukyan. And from the clip I saw, Tsarukyan not only instigated it, he rolled up on Green with a group of people while Green was sat on his own. Nothing much happened, they exchanged shoves and it was quickly broken up. But coming at a guy like that when he’s outnumbered is never a good look and now makes me hope Dariush chins Tsarukyan tomorrow night. Worst of all, from what I can gather it was all because Green said in an interview that Tsarukyan is boring to watch. That’s it. Edited December 1, 2023 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dai Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Yes Figgy looks very good there. Very excited to see him fight. Crazy to think that he's third from top on a Fight Night card. Would love to see him get the win Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted December 1, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted December 1, 2023 I really really wanna see Figgy vs Petr Yan. Regardless of the result of this Font fight. When talk of Figgy moving up to 135 started picking up steam earlier this year, the 2 fights that instantly came to mind for me were Figgy vs Yan and Figgy vs Chito Vera. Need to see both before it’s too late. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted December 2, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted December 2, 2023 Nearly there. Didn’t realise the prelims were starting at 9. Love this card. Now fight day’s here, I found the top 3 fights quite tricky to predict in the poll. Went Tsarukyan, Turner and Figgy in the end but I’m close to 50/50 on the main event and the x-factors of Turner stepping in last minute (and looking rough on the scales) plus the unknown element of how Figgy’s gonna fare at 135, I think they’re all fairly difficult picks. That always makes for a more interesting card though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dai Posted December 2, 2023 Share Posted December 2, 2023 Yes, this is a great card. Gastelum has been about for donkeys years too, so am invested in him winning too (I always want the 'old school' fighters to keep winning for as long as possible). Smooth Bobby is a 13/8 outsider for this one, which considering the weigh in attitude issues for Turner seems a bit crazy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members WeeAl Posted December 2, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted December 2, 2023 I've went with Tsarukyan, Green and Font in the poll. Oliveira just walked through Dariush in a way that I never foresaw. Just made him look like an amateur. I think these two are meeting at the perfect time for the younger man. With Green, it's the stuff coming from Turner during the week. Which didn't sound fucking good. If it was all intentional as a ploy then fair fuck's to Turner and his camp - if not? It was all the wrong signals. Plus, Green is coming off that great win over Grant Dawson - despite his age he's showing he'll beat these younger division climbers if they aren't the Real Deal Holyfield. I think Font beats Figgy 8 times out of 10 - especially in a three rounder. I don't see Figgy as active enough to win this by decision - and until he shows otherwise, I'll say he can't automatically lean on the game changing power like he did at 125, which could allow him to give away rounds. He's not exactly Chito Vera levels of doing this, but he's selective enough in his output that I'll say Font's jab takes it home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce85 Posted December 3, 2023 Share Posted December 3, 2023 That was a banger of a card, not a dull fight amongst them. Even the Tate fight was enjoyable. The stoppage in the Green fight was dreadful though! Tsarukyan looked the real deal, he blitzed Dariush like he was nothing. Not sure what the plans are but I’d like to see him in there with Olivera. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.