Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted January 7 Paid Members Share Posted January 7 (edited) More Apex bollocks… ESPN MAIN CARD Roman Dolidze vs Nassourdine Imavov Renato Moicano vs Drew Dober Randy Brown vs Muslim Salikhov Viviane Araujo vs Natalia Silva Aliaskhab Khizriev vs Makhmud Muradov Gilbert Urbina vs Charlie Radtke ESPN+/FIGHT PASS PRELIMS Molly McCann vs Diana Belbita Azat Maksum vs Charles Johnson Themba Gorimbo vs Pete Rodriguez Blake Bilder vs Jeong Yeong Lee Julija Stoliarenko vs Luana Carolina Marquel Mederos vs Landon Quinones Thomas Petersen vs Jamal Pogues I don’t even have the energy to complain about this Apex shit anymore. What’s the point? This is definitely a card to just cherry pick from on the Sunday. No way I’m sitting through the whole thing but the main card and a few of the prelims will do me. The card’s already had a few pullouts, there’ll probably be more to come. Roman Dolidze vs Nassourdine Imavov is about what we’ve come to expect from these Apex headliners, isn’t it? They love putting these mediocre Middleweight matchups on top of these cards. This isn’t an awful fight, to be fair. Not gonna pretend I’m all that excited about it though. As I type, Dolidze is ranked #7 and Imavov is ranked #11. So they’re getting up there now. Hopefully it exceeds my expectations. In fairness, I’ve quite liked Dolidze so far. He’s Georgian, 12-2 with 10 inside the distance and he’s had some cool finishes so far in the UFC. He came in undefeated back in 2020 but I never took much notice really. And then he dropped a decision against bang average Trevin Giles and I pretty much wrote him off at that point. He bounced back though. He first got on my radar when he smashed up Kyle Daukaus in about a minute. But his back-to-back finishes of Phil Hawes and Jack Hermansson are what properly won me over. In particular, I really liked the way he used leg locks to weaken them both before ending them with strikes. He sparked Hawes shortly after fucking his leg up with the leg lock. And the Hermansson finish was class… Loved that. You don’t often see leg locks used quite like that in MMA. It’s like he’s not even actually looking for the submission. He’s using the position to trap the opponent so he can cause damage with his strikes. He is a capable grappler, has a Sambo and BJJ background, won ADCC competitions. So he can sub guys. But he’s definitely become fond of knocking people out and he’s pretty good at using his grappling skills to compliment that. He was on a nice little win streak there. Won 4 in a row and got 3 finishes and 3 POTN bonuses along the way. He lost to Marvin Vettori on points last time out though, on the London card last March. Decent enough fight from what I remember but the loss has obviously stalled Dolidze’s progress. And at 35 years old, time is of the essence for him now. Imavov I’m less into. He’s French but Dagestan born, 28 years old and he’s 12-4-0-1 now. He’s coming off an unfortunate No Contest in his last fight in June, after a clash of heads with Chris Curtis. What soured me on Imavov though was him losing to Sean Strickland in their Apex main event last January. That was the start of Strickland’s whopping 2 fight streak that led to his title win. I’m putting part of the blame for that abomination at Imavov’s door so fuck him for life. He was having an alright little spell before that. Stopped Heinisch and Shahbazyan and won a fairly fun fight against Joaquin Buckley. But he’s undone all that losing to Strickland. So here we are. Definitely Team Dolidze. Yeah he’s older and probably has less time left in the sport but he’s just the better of the two to watch. I can do without Imavov but, who knows, maybe Dolidze can drag something different out of him. Seeing how they’ve matched up 185 for the next few months though, I wish we got Dolidze vs Brendan Allen instead of this fight and Allen vs Vettori. But whatever. This’ll do. Hopefully Dolidze gets back to winning ways and at least makes this watchable. Renato Moicano vs Drew Dober is the easy pick as ***WAND’S ONE TO WATCH*** here. Even if it wasn’t such a shallow card, this would be the highlight on probably almost any show it landed on. Two of those 155ers you can pretty much always count on to deliver an entertaining fight. Can’t go wrong with this one. Moicano’s been on the roster almost a decade now, believe it or not. He’s always been a bit hit and miss in terms of wins and losses but he’s been someone I’ve always enjoyed watching fight. He had a real forgotten belter against Brian Ortega back in 2017 that he was winning until Ortega got him with a late sub. He’s got wins over Calvin Kattar, Cub Swanson and Jeremy Stephens. Not a bad 3 names to have on the resume at all. But he’s been derailed when he’s stepped up at other times. For whatever reason he never really seemed to click with fans until his last few fights. He showed a bit of personality after his wins over Alexander Hernandez and Brad Riddell (“Moicano…wants…money”) and seemed to gain a lot of fans but unfortunately he hasn’t been able to build on the momentum due to inactivity. He subbed Riddell in a round, at MSG of all places, then cut that funny post-fight promo. Overall it had to be the best night of his career and his stock never felt higher. But that was November 2022. He missed the whole of 2023. He was actually supposed to fight Arman Tsarukyan in April but withdrew with an injury. Probably for the best because that would’ve been an uphill battle. But he’s back now. Hopefully he can at least stay active this year. Drew Dober’s fought 3 times since Moicano last stepped in there. Again, one of those fighters you can always rely on for an exciting fight. He’s 35 years old now with a 27-12-1 record. Let’s face it, he is what he is at this point. He’s not gonna be going on some run at the title in a division like the UFC’s 155. It’s just not happening. But not everyone can be a champion, or even a contender. He’s a live by the sword type scrapper and there’s always room for a few of them in any division. He had an awesome 2022. Probably the best 3 fight stretch of his career. Knocked out Terrance McKinney, Rafael Alves and Bobby Green in consecutive bangers and got FOTN and POTN for 2 of them. 2023 wasn’t so kind to him. He got decked by Matt Frevola in a wild one rounder in May but he did bounce back to put Ricky Glenn away in a round in October. Can’t see this being anything short of chaos. Moicano usually brings it and Dober actually seems to be allergic to bad fights. Randy Brown vs Muslim Salikhov was originally booked for 296 in December but Brown dropped out with an illness. Glad they’ve rescheduled it. I don’t see either making great strides in the Welterweight division, they both seem to have fallen into that role of being used as a test for guys coming up. But I’ve quite enjoyed watching them both on the Fight Nights and undercards over the last few years. Brown’s 17-5 and has won 5 of his last 6. He got fed to Jack Della Maddalena at UFC 284 in Perth last Feb and got done in 2 minutes. He got back to winning ways with a decision over Wellington Turman in June. He’s no future champ or anything but he’s decent for his spot on the cards. Big and lanky and a bit awkward. And I really like Salikhov. I know he’s 39 years old, 1-2 in his last 3 and going nowhere. But I’ve always got time for his fights. Between Kickboxing and MMA, he’s had over 200 pro fights and it shows. He’s cool as a cucumber. I think it’s cost him in some fights where he’s been a bit too calm and content to coast a bit. But the times when he’s switched it on, he’s been fun to watch. His fight and finish against Andre Fialho was good stuff. Can see these two matching up well. Viviane Araujo vs Natalia Silva is a fight I’m into, purely because of Silva and this being her step up. Araujo I’m neither her nor there on, to be honest. She’s coming off a decision win over Jennifer Maia in October in a fight that I actively skipped because of its high percentage chance of being fucking rotten. I don’t regret it. Before that, Araujo had dropped back-to-back decisions to Alexa Grasso and Amanda Ribas. Nothing against the woman but she’s 37 years old now, with a 12-5 record, and I don’t recall particularly enjoying any of the fights of hers that I’ve seen. It’s harsh but her claim to fame, if you can call it that, is that she was the stepping stone for Grasso to get her title shot. I suspect the matchmakers are trying to use her as a stepping stone again here. Natalia Silva has been one of my favourite additions to the women’s roster over the last couple of years. Not sure what her ceiling is or if she’s even that good because she’s not exactly been facing the toughest opposition so far. But she’s looked great against that level of opponent. She actually signed with the UFC a long time before her debut but it got delayed for some reason. She finally made her first Octagon appearance in June 2022 and absolutely outclassed Jasmine Jasudavicius. Since then she’s stopped Tereza Bleda with a crazy spinning back kick, finished Victoria Leonardo in a round and decisioned Andrea Lee. The win over Lee got her into the rankings, she’s at #10 now. Araujo is currently ranked #8. So she’s on the climb. I’m not entirely confident she can go all the way but it’d be cool if she can become a legit contender. Throwing her into that mix with the likes of Grasso, Shevchenko, Blanchfield, Fiorot etc could be fun. But we’ll see. This fight should finally answer some questions. Because as much as I don’t rate Araujo that highly, she’s mixed at a higher level and gone 5 rounds with the current champ Grasso. If Silva is gonna be a contender, she should be winning a fight like this. Aliaskhab Khizriev vs Makhmud Muradov is one of the better and more interesting fights on this card for me. Haven’t seen enough of Khizriev really but what I have seen and what I know of him through looking up bits and bobs on him, I’m intrigued. A lot of these Russians come in like that, don’t they? They look the part and have these strong records but you can’t be sure. So far though, Khizriev at least looks worth keeping an eye on. He’s undefeated at 12-0 with 9 finishes. And unlike most unbeaten Russians, he actually has a notable pre-UFC win. He stopped Rousimar Palhares in just 58 seconds back in 2018! Avoided the early leg lock attempts and put Palhares away. Following that he got a 50 second submission win on DWCS in 2020. Then he made his UFC debut in March 2022, submitting Denis Tiuliulin. Looks good. One thing you’ll notice though, those fucking gaps between fights! He’s literally been fighting once every 2 years. Don’t know if it’s an injury issue or what but he’s 33 years old now. It’s not like he’s got bags of time. It hasn’t backfired yet but as he steps up in levels I think it will. I’d like to see him get busier. Muradov is no pushover either. He’s also 33 but he’s been much more active. He’s 26-8, coming off a decision win over Bryan Barberena and, if we’re going from March 2018 (when Khizriev beat Palhares), Khizriev has only fought 3 times since then. Muradov’s fought 14 times since March 2018. That’s massive. Granted Muradov’s lost some fights along the way but he’s gotta be the sharper of the two here. Very interesting one this. Gilbert Urbina vs Charlie Radtke is just there really. Might be alright but I’ve got no real feelings or opinions on it one way or another. Urbina’s 27 years old, 7-2 with 4 finishes. He was on TUF in 2021 and got subbed by Bryan Battle in the finals. He never fought again until May 2023. To be fair, he looked really good. Proper battered Orion Cosce to a second round TKO. Hopefully he’ll stay more active going forward because inactivity has been a theme throughout his career. He made his pro debut in 2014, for fuck’s sake. Here we are a decade later and he’s only just having his 10th fight? Radtke’s 33 with a record of 8-3 and 5 finishes. He made his Octagon debut at UFC 293 in September and took a points win off Mike ‘Blood Diamond’ Mathetha, whatever that’s worth. Don’t think I even saw that fight. Fuck knows? Molly McCann vs Diana Belbita 2. Yep. A rematch. They fought in October 2019 apparently. Zero memories of that but I imagine it was arse water. Molly won on points. Forgive me if I don’t bother doing my usual watch and review before the rematch here. Molly’s crap. It still makes me laugh that those spinning elbow finishes against jobbers like Hannah Goldy and Luana Carolina, and a friendship with Paddy, actually had people arguing they could sell out Anfield with a Paddy/Molly main and co-main. She’s coming off those 2 submission losses to Blanchfield and Stoliarenko now so that talk has stopped but the fact it was ever a discussion is piss funny to me. Belbita’s Romanian, 27 years old and 15-8. The problem here is, I’m not convinced Belbita is good enough to smash her or shit enough to get smashed by her. So we’re probably looking at a dull as dishwater split decision where neither deserve the W. Azat Maksum vs Charles Johnson is a solid fight. Maksum is from Kazakhstan, 28 years old and undefeated at 17-0 with 12 finishes. He made his UFC debut in July and won a split decision over Tyson Nam. My memory is hazy but from what I recall it was a good fight, a close fight and as always when there’s a close fight, there were cries of robbery after. I don’t remember who I scored it for but I don’t remember being outraged by Maksum getting the nod. Johnson is stepping in for an injured Nate Maness here and he’s no stranger to a close fight himself. Fair play to him, he’s coming off 3 straight decision losses here and he’s jumping in on short notice against an unbeaten prospect? You don’t see that often. Johnson is one of those guys who’s game to fight anyone. Themba Gorimbo vs Pete Rodriguez is actually one of the highlights of the card for me. It was originally supposed to be Gorimbo against McGregor teammate Kiefer Crosbie but Crosbie’s out. I like this better anyway. Zimbabwe’s Gorimbo is 32 years old and 11-4 with 7 finishes. Got submitted in his UFC debut by AJ Fletcher but bounced back with a decision win over Takashi Sato in his last fight in May. Nothing outstanding about any of that. It’s what’s gone on with him outside the cage that’s got me invested in his story. The video is out there on social media but basically, long story short, The Rock bought Gorimbo a house. It started with a seemingly throwaway interaction on Twitter. Gorimbo put it out there that he only had $7 in his bank account before his last fight. He won that fight, sold his fight kit and spent his money on building a water well for his village back home. Now yeah, there’s definitely a discussion to be had about why a fighter in the biggest MMA promotion in the world was down to $7 and relying on free meals from the UFC. But whatever. Gorimbo’s selflessness shone through and the story hit home with The Rock enough for him to buy him a house. It was such a nice moment. Beyond the in-cage stuff, one of the MMA highlights of 2023 for me. And instantly made me wanna see Gorimbo do well. With one video, I went from being indifferent to him to fully invested in his story. Whether he actually can make a run of it remains to be seen. But I’ll definitely be rooting for him. Pete Rodriguez isn’t an easy fight on paper. Late notice replacement or not, he’s heavy handed and dangerous. He’s 5-1 with all 5 wins coming by KO/TKO. The only loss was against Jack Della Maddalena on short notice and he came back and brutally slumped Mike Jackson in his next fight. Really hoping Gorimbo can go on a bit of a run now but we’ll see. Blake Bilder vs Jeong Yeong Lee. Can’t say I really give a bollocks. Bilder’s 33 years old with an 8-1-1 record. Never saw any of his pre-UFC stuff but he beat Shane Young in his Octagon debut in what I recall being a snoozer. Then lost to Kyle Nelson last time out. Not much to take from it really other than I haven’t been blown away so far. Lee I’m even less familiar with. He’s South Korean, 28 years old and 10-1 years with 7 finishes. He was on that Road To UFC thing last year and won the Featherweight final by split decision. Can’t remember watching that and I definitely haven’t seen any of his older fights. Not a clue on this one. Julija Stoliarenko vs Luana Carolina is a nothing fight. Typical Apex fodder. I hope Stoliarenko wins though. She won me around a bit last time out when she submitted Molly McCann in less than 2 minutes. In London. Yes! Call me a cynical bastard but I think it was clear as day what the matchmakers were trying to do here. Molly had scored a couple of uncharacteristic knockouts over ham and eggers on London cards and they must’ve got a bit overconfident in her abilities. Because they matched her up with Erin Blanchfield at MSG and she got schooled and subbed quick. So what did they do? Put her back on a London card against another ham and egger, of course. Stoliarenko was 10-7-2 going in and had lost 4 of her last 5 fights. It was so transparent that this was designed to be a nice easy rebound win for Molly. But Stoliarenko hilariously made short work of her. I saw all sorts of comments on social media after, people going ‘LOL Molly lost to Stoliarenko????’ But it really shouldn’t have been that much of a shock. Yeah Stoliarenko isn’t much good. But neither is Molly. She never was. This is legitimately about her level. Anyway, Stoliarenko’s up against Luana Carolina here. And she’s one of those ham and eggers who somehow got knocked out by Molly. So yeah, she’s shite. Yet somehow she’s got a win over Loopy Godinez so Christ knows how she lost to the Meatball. Whatever. I’ve gone into way too much detail on this cack. Marquel Mederos vs Landon Quinones. Dunno. Never seen Mederos, barely remember Quinones. A quick look on Sherdog tells me Mederos is 27 years old with a record of 8-1 with 6 knockouts. He’s on a 6 fight win streak and just scored a first round stoppage on DWCS in October. Quinones is also 27 and has a record of 7-2-1 with 6 finishes. Apparently he was on the McGregor vs Chandler season of TUF last year and got subbed by Jason Knight. For some reason they still signed him and he lost a decision to Nasrat Haqparast in September. Gotta think this is a last chance thing for him. Thomas Petersen vs Jamal Pogues is the obligatory Heavyweight turd on this card. Never seen Petersen. But he’s only 28 despite looking like a 57 year old truck driver. He’s got them John ‘Earthquake’ Tenta genetics. He’s 8-1 with all 8 wins coming inside the distance. He fought almost exclusively in the LFA promotion before his last fight on DWCS in August, which he won by submission. And Pogues is dire to watch. He’s 10-4 and coming off a lopsided points loss to Mick Parkin in July. Before that he won an absolute rotter against Josh Parisian in what was easily one of the worst fights of the year. Back to the Apex we go. Edited January 29 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 On 1/7/2024 at 7:59 PM, wandshogun09 said: It still makes me laugh that those spinning elbow finishes against jobbers like Hannah Goldy and Luana Carolina, and a friendship with Paddy, actually had people arguing they could sell out Anfield with a Paddy/Molly main and co-main. You don't think they could? I reckon it would be possible. A Pimblett main event and Molly tucked onto the co-main slot against some no-name she can hammer into oblivion? I would wager that the local crowd would eat that shit right up. And not only that, they'd have the place rocking to the extent that you'd think it was McGregor in Dublin all over again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted January 29 Author Paid Members Share Posted January 29 Fight week then. Far from the worst we’ve seen out of the UFC warehouse known as the Apex. Looking at the card again now though, why couldn’t they just have had Moicano vs Dober as main event and put Dolidze vs Imavov in the co-main spot? Just feels like swapping those fights around makes this look much better overall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted January 30 Paid Members Share Posted January 30 Imagine working you're whole life to make it to the highest level of the sport, and you spend the run fighting at the Apex. Absolute toilet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted February 3 Author Paid Members Share Posted February 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted February 3 Paid Members Share Posted February 3 Shame Pete Rodriguez is gonna stick one on his chin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted February 3 Author Paid Members Share Posted February 3 That’s my thinking as well unfortunately 😞 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted February 3 Author Paid Members Share Posted February 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted February 3 Paid Members Share Posted February 3 Lovely stuff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted February 6 Paid Members Share Posted February 6 I skipped the show and focussed on the boxing at the weekend but following the fallout, the biggest talking point seems to be this post-fight interview with Charles Radtke... A lot of top MMA media outlets are covering this, some are sticking the boot into Radtke (who is a controversial figure) but I cant be the only one who thinks they've completely misread his response here? Isn't he just saying 'whoever he fights next depends on what he's getting paid?', coupling it with the media getting to ask questions for free muddies it, but it's quite clearly been misinterpreted, no? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dai Posted February 6 Share Posted February 6 I agree with you Ebb. It was a very odd way of wording it, and I can see how it can be misunderstood. He is essentially moaning about having to do the interviews as he doesnt get paid for them, so he just threw that line in there. I watched the show, but I cant really remember anything about it. The Apex factor just felt huge for me in this one for some reason. There was some OK stuff on it, but its just a bunch of random fighters, for the most part, fighting in an empty building. Just kills any sense of importance for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted February 6 Author Paid Members Share Posted February 6 (edited) Yeah this wasn’t the best of shows. To be honest I’ve really had enough of these endless Middleweight main events on the Apex cards. 185’s not much of a division anyway these days so I’m not sure why the matchmakers seem so fixated on feeding us a constant stream of 5 rounders from them. Imavov vs Dolidze summed up my apathy towards the Middleweight main event thing. Didn’t enjoy this much at all. Thought it started off alright and it looked like Imavov might make it an early night but Dolidze survived and the fight quickly tapered off and got more and more frustrating to watch with each passing round for me. There were flashes of quality from Imavov and in those moments I thought he looked better than I’ve seen him in any of his previous fights. But then he’d squander those moments and Dolidze just never seemed to get into it after that rough first round. His conditioning wasn’t up to 5 rounds either and overall I thought he just looked really sloppy. Yeah not a fan of this. Aside from a few fighters, Middleweight is arse. Moicano vs Dober was nowhere near as fun as it sounded on paper going in. That’s mostly on Dober for his complete lack of answers for Moicano’s grappling though. He was basically just in survival mode every time he got taken down. Sound strategy from Moicano to take the easiest path to victory but it didn’t make for the most exciting viewing. Wasn’t a terrible fight, just wasn’t the barnburner I think most were hoping for. Oh well. The most entertaining thing about this was Moicano’s barmy post-fight interview. Goes from his 62 year old dad becoming a dad again all the way to having a pop at that MMA Guru berk. What a rollercoaster! He’s calmed down a bit since and has been calling for a fight with everyone from Beneil Dariush to Dan Hooker to Jalin Turner to Paddy Pimblett. Randy Brown made surprisingly short work of Muslim Salikhov. Really didn’t expect this to be a quick fight. Thought it’d be a hard fought standup battle either way but Brown just took him out. Beautiful finish. The gif doesn’t really do it justice, Brown set up that right hand perfectly with a double jab. He was doubling up on the jab a few times before that as well and I think that coupled with how long and rangy he is just bamboozled Salikhov a bit and left him open for that finishing right. Was happy to see Natalia Silva pick up another win. While I said in the opening post I don’t rate Araujo that highly, this was undeniably the first real step up for Silva and I felt like she won pretty comfortably. Wasn’t a great fight or anything but Araujo doesn’t really have good fights with anyone. I liked Silva’s performance. Not a clue who she gets matched up with next though. She’s moved up to #7 in the Flyweight rankings with this win but everyone above her except Grasso and Shevchenko are booked, and they’re almost certainly fighting each other again next. All I can think is maybe Silva gets the winner of Barber vs Cerminara (Chookagian) at 299 next month. The Khizriev vs Muradov situation was really unfortunate. 11 seconds into the fight and… This after all that time on the shelf for Khizriev as well. I was really looking forward to seeing him back in there. It looked like a particularly bad eyepoke though. It was one of them where almost immediately it seemed like 5 minutes just wasn’t gonna be enough time for Muradov to recover. Shitty ending but better to just call it a No Contest and hopefully rebook the fight for an upcoming card. The Radtke thing is something of nothing as you guys say. I saw all the backlash before I actually watched the clip and thought he was being a cheeky git and pulling a Pimblett. Then I watched it and it’s clear he’s responding to the question of who he wants to fight next. He just follows it up with the comment about the media getting interviews for free so they’ve ran with that. Seems like a couple of them misinterpreted it, ran with it, and everyone else followed suit. It’s a non issue. Molly McCann submitted Diana Belbita and now I’m seeing almost overwhelming positivity towards her on social media. OK, by Molly’s standards it was probably her best performance to date. But is that saying much when it’s against a no hoper like Belbita? This is what Molly does. She beats scrubs (and even loses to them sometimes) then looks utter shit when she faces anyone of real substance. She wasn’t anywhere near as overbearing in the post-fight interview this time, so that’s something. Maybe losing to Stoliarenko humbled her a bit. But for all the praise she’s gotten for winning by submission, I don’t think we can look at this win and conclude that she’s fixed the grappling weakness now. She subbed Diana Belbita who had 8 losses coming into this fight and 4 of them were by submission. I know I’m a ‘hater’ and all that but we go through this every few fights with her. Beats a couple of jobbers, steps up, gets schooled, rinse and repeat. If you skipped this card and you’re gonna watch anything from it, make it Charles Johnson vs Azat Maksum. They had a fantastic fight, so much cool stuff in it. Really thought Johnson was in for a bad night after that first round. I thought he was done for when Maksum had him locked in the choke and then Maksum dropped him as well. But Johnson toughed it out and came back to win the last 2 rounds and took the decision. Really fun competitive scrap. Loved Johnson’s idea of fighting Joshua Van at UFC 300! That gets a thumbs up from me. If not at 300 then I hope that’s the fight they make anyway. Themba Gorimbo got the job done in style. We needn’t have worried in the end. 32 second TKO! Lovely stuff. The fight was so short there isn’t much you can take from it but I was pleasantly surprised. I don’t remember Gorimbo showing that kind of finishing ability on the feet before and I thought if anyone would score an early stoppage like that, it’d be Rodriguez. Happy for Gorimbo. They really should’ve put this on the main card. I felt that way going in and, the way the whole thing played out, even more post-fight. Really likeable guy as well. Think he’s being way ambitious talking about title shots and stuff but I watched his media scrum thingy after and the stuff he’s doing, and planning to do, in his village back home is really great to hear. Not sure who he fights next but I hope he at least makes the main card. In a sport full of negativity and toxicity, his story really shines through all the bullshit. I liked what I saw of Jeong Yeong Lee. Wasn’t paying the fight a lot of attention really but he looked good from what I did take notice of. Sweet. Looked like he won comfortably, shame he wasn’t able to close the show and get a finish but it seemed like Bilder reached a point in the fight where he was content to just survive by trying to just hold Lee against the fence and run the clock down every chance he got. Hard to finish someone who’s determined to do the bare minimum and take zero risks. Didn’t bother with the first few prelims but apparently Luana Carolina stopped Julija Stoliarenko, which just further backs up my thinking that Meatball Molly is shite. I did catch this picture from the fight though… Her foot! One more Apex card and we get 298. Wishing my life away here. Edited February 6 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted February 7 Paid Members Share Posted February 7 Definitely seeing more of an Apex backlash taking place recently, fighters are starting to speak out too. Lets get it binned off. (Cue David entering the chat and explaining how its convenient and saves them money) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted February 7 Author Paid Members Share Posted February 7 1 hour ago, Egg Shen said: (Cue David entering the chat and explaining how its convenient and saves them money) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeverYield Posted February 7 Share Posted February 7 Apex cards look a bit underwhelming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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