UFC 303: Pereira vs Prochazka 2 - Jun 29 ??

[Kfogg1991]

1 hour ago, Panhead said:

Man, what a finish. Like something from a video game! 

Fair play to Dan Ige too. 

Yeah I fell asleep after mvp vs Gary which i disagree with the decision I gave 2 rounds to mvp and one to Gary but not that broken by it.

Need to watch the co main but jesus that main event was terrifying alex is another breed he would have got the knockout in round one had there been ten more seconds left but that head kick once again showed how elite he is 

.some absolute stickers early doors picked up near the main card but tough watch for a while 

[wandshogun09]

Not a great card overall but…

Part 2 was pretty much as wild and violent as the first fight, despite the stupidly short notice and lack of training camps. I think you could throw these two in there 20 times and there wouldn’t be a dud to be had. Their styles just match up perfectly for chaos and knockouts. Unfortunately for Jiri, and us really, Pereira’s now 2-0 and has probably snuffed out any chance of a trilogy.

Wiped him right out with that headkick at the start of the second round. But it all started with that trademark left hook that decked Jiri right at the end of the first. You could see Jiri’s legs were shaky when he got up and I don’t think he ever really recovered in between rounds. Coming out for the second round still fuzzy and then getting blasted by that headkick, he didn’t stand a chance. After the first fight, Marc Goddard was criticised for supposedly stopping the fight too early. This time, Herb Dean was getting panned for not stopping it soon enough! He definitely could’ve got in there a bit quicker. You could see Jiri was absolutely bollocksed when he was trying to get up.

Feel bad for Jiri. He knew the risk getting in there with Pereira, there’s always a very thin margin for error when you’re trading shots with a lethal striker like him. But it’s hard not to feel a bit sorry for him. He seems crushed post-fight as well. He’s already been said something like “I need to evolve or never fight again”. I can’t see him changing now though, he’s too late in the game and set in his weird ways. Whatever he decides to do, it would probably be a good idea to take some time off. Maybe take the rest of the year to heal up, regroup and see how he feels in 2025. I was actually leaning towards him winning this rematch and evening the score 1-1. Feel foolish now but he had his moments in the first fight and I thought this might be his night. Now he’s 0-2 down and this gamble of taking the rematch on short notice has backfired.

Pereira’s flying though. It’s insane how much he’s crammed into such a relatively short MMA career. Two and a half years on the UFC roster and look where he is. Even that KO loss to Adesanya hasn’t seemed to put much of a dent in his aura. Probably because he basically just shrugged it off, stayed active and has racked up 4 strong wins since. This performance against Jiri might’ve been Pereira’s best yet as well. Saw some stats that said Jiri only landed 7 significant strikes and Pereira was definitely better about not getting hit as much. Although I was fancying a Jiri win, looking back it feels like Pereira basically had him figured out by the end of their first fight and this was just a continuation of that.

Can he do it? Is this realistically possible? Can he become the first 3 division UFC champion? As cool as it’d be, I really can’t see it myself. An accomplishment like that is matchup dependent. Like when Conor McGregor moved up to 155 and became ‘champ champ’, the timing was crucial and it helped him massively that it was Eddie Alvarez holding the belt at the time. If Khabib had got there first and became champion, McGregor never would’ve been double champ. With Pereira, I’ve got no doubts that there’s a bunch of Heavyweights he could beat. The problem is, he’s very unlikely to beat the guys in the Heavyweight title mix currently. You’re looking at either Jones, Stipe, Aspinall or Blaydes. Of that lot, Stipe’s probably the most winnable, which sounds mad knowing his legacy. But with his age and time off and not being the biggest Heavyweight, it’s a fight I could see Pereira possibly winning. But Stipe’s most likely not gonna be champ again. Jones or Aspinall almost certainly take Pereira down and sub him within a round, two tops. And Blaydes has that wrestling. I get the excitement at the possibility and if anyone’s gonna become the first UFC triple champ, I’d love it to be Pereira. Really can’t see it though. Pereira’s about to turn 37 in a few days, make the most of him while he’s around because he’s probably not got long left fighting at this level. If his next fight is at 205, it’s probably gonna be Ankalaev. And I hate to say it, I could see him losing that one. Pereira could always waffle him, of course, and that wouldn’t shock me one bit. But as much as everyone likes Pereira, he has benefitted from mostly being matched up with strikers. Ankalaev would be the first who might actually come in with a grappling heavy approach. I’d hate to see Ankalaev end the fun but it’s also one of the only interesting fights left at 205 for Pereira.

The co-main, well, where do you even start? This card went through so many changes and even as late as Friday there was one last hiccup, Brian Ortega couldn’t make 145 so the fight had to be agreed for 155. Diego Lopes said yes and once the weigh ins were out of the way it seemed like everything was locked in. Then shit like this started popping up on Twitter…

When I saw the BMF thing from Ige, I initially thought he’d bagged a fight with Max Holloway on an upcoming card and I was baffled why they’d go with that fight as it made zero sense for Max. Then I saw the one from Nicksick. Then I saw the likes of Ariel Helwani, Luke Thomas and a few other reputable media guys throwing out cryptic tweets saying ‘keep an eye on this developing story’ and shit. I was watching some of the prelims live and deep into the prelims they were still putting graphics up on screen with Ortega vs Lopes included. The main card wasn’t far off starting when Anik finally dropped the news on us.

Madness. Ortega got sick apparently. I think. Still not sure what the issue with him was. But Ige started messaging Hunter Campbell saying he wanted in. Somehow it got made. I don’t know how they pulled it off, when did he weigh in? But he took the fight on FOUR FUCKING HOURS notice! And let’s not forget, Lopes also said yes on 4 hours notice. Unbelievable. If I hadn’t been watching the prelims live, I’d have avoided social media, skimmed through on Sunday and probably missed the announcement completely. I wouldn’t have had a clue what was going on seeing Ige in there instead of Ortega. Especially after I’d already seen Ortega weigh in and face off with Lopes. Madness.

How the co-main event spot on this card started as Jamahal Hill vs Khalil Rountree at 205 and somehow ended as Diego Lopes vs Dan Ige at a Catchweight of 165…never seen anything quite like it. There’s been some fucked up cursed cards in the past, some even got completely cancelled. But this has to rank among the most chaotic of all time. Barmy stuff.

The fight itself feels like an afterthought compared to the nutty circumstances leading into the whole thing. It was a good fight though. Wasn’t either’s best showing and that’s understandable. But it was good. Thought Lopes was 2-0 going into the last round and I had Ige clawing one back with a strong third round but it was too late. Lopes wants on the Sphere card and, honestly, they should give him whatever he wants after this. Not only did he initially jump in on 2 weeks notice against Ortega to give the card a boost, he then had to deal with Ortega’s bullshit with the weight, Ortega dropping out on the day of the fight and Ige stepping in. He took it all in his stride and got the job done. Dana’s already said both Lopes and Ige can pretty much call their next shot and he’ll give them what they want. If it was up to me I’d make Lopes vs Yair at the Sphere. Sod Ortega. As much as I wanted to see that fight, sod it. Ortega was saying he was planning to move up to 155 anyway, regardless of the result against Lopes. So he might as well just crack on with that.

Didn’t like the Roman Dolidze vs Anthony Smith fight at all. Can’t be too critical though given the circumstances, short notice, no chance for a proper training camp or gameplan etc. They had to just go out there and wing it. Wasn’t any good though and, to be honest, I just don’t have any desire to watch Smith fight anymore. Even with that recent win over Petrino, it’s just going nowhere isn’t it? And Dolidze’s not great himself. With Smith losing this one…where does he even go from here? Like I said in the opening post, jumping in on short notice has backfired on him before, and here we are again. He doesn’t really have time to build himself back up so I get why he’s trying to back door his way into contention by taking short notice fights and stuff. But that obviously only works if you win. At this stage of his career, every time he loses one of these fights it’s another nail in the coffin. Losing to a Middleweight who came in last minute looks even worse.

Was gonna just skip the Macy Chiasson vs Mayra Bueno Silva fight but had a phone call and left it on in the background. No thoughts on the fight really, other than it didn’t look as shit as I thought it’d be. That cut though!

?

It’s not on the same level as Marvin Eastman years back but it’s a mini version of it. Horrible cut and in the worst place possible right above the eyebrow. They had to stop it. Despite what Dr Shithead Rogan was saying. “It’s only blood”. Anik immediately following up with something like ‘the doctor said it was pretty much down to the bone…’ was class. Piss off Rogan. Sucks for Silva. I was really hoping she’d get back to winning ways here and from what I saw the fight was definitely better than that dud she had with Pennington last time. The win was still within grasp but that elbow at the start of the second round was obviously a total game changer. Chiasson actually mentioned Kayla Harrison as a fight she’d be interested in next. Credit where it’s due there, after the way Harrison steamrolled Holly Holm at UFC 300, I didn’t think anyone at 135 would be mentioning her name.

Ian Garry vs MVP wasn’t much good. Was pretty much how I expected it to look but I hoped I was wrong and one of them would grab the fight by the bollocks and do something impressive with it. Neither came out of this looking particularly good. Thought it was straightforward to score, had it 29-28 Garry and the grappling made the difference. MVP, at 37 years old and 25 fights into his MMA career, still seems to have made no progress in his grappling. Despite it costing him fights in the past. I know the striking is always gonna be his bread and butter but it’s like he’s made literally zero improvements there after all this time. He did land some good strikes here, some of which seemed to sting Garry a bit, but it wasn’t enough. Garry fought smart, I guess. He’d have been an idiot to just strike and give MVP the maximum chance for success. And the grappling is such a gaping hole in MVP’s game, why wouldn’t you exploit it? But it was no fun to watch, MVP looked bad and even in victory Garry didn’t look very impressive. In the end, Garry probably only won with the late back take in the third round.

Not sure what’s next for either. Garry was talking a fair bit about Shavkat to the media after, saying they’ve trained together in the past and he wants to hand Shavkat his first loss. Shavkat’s responded saying Garry must’ve “forgot what happened in those training sessions”. I wouldn’t mind seeing that fight and fair play to Garry for calling for it. But I think that’s a terrible matchup for Garry myself. He makes too many mistakes and I can’t imagine Shavkat not making him pay for it. There’s Jack Della Maddalena lurking as well, he’s gotta fit in somewhere. I was hoping we’d get Shavkat vs Maddalena and Garry vs Covington but Covington doesn’t want that so fuck knows. As for MVP, I can see them trying to give him a bit of a layup now. A striker/brawler type who he can style on. Problem is, I can’t think of anyone obvious at 170. MVP vs the winner of the upcoming Vicente Luque vs Nick Diaz fight sounds morbid but it honestly wouldn’t surprise me if they go that route.

Fuck me, Joe Pyfer absolutely wasted Barriault. Exactly what he needed coming off that loss to Jack Hermansson last time. A win in any fashion would’ve done but a quick KO like this is the ideal bounce back.

Just flatlined him. And Barriault’s tough. He’d only been stopped by KO/TKO once previously against Chidi Njokuani. He’s been in some tough scraps and isn’t exactly chinny. Pyfer wrecked him in just over a minute. Not a fan of Pyfer and, again, I found him annoying in the post-fight interview here. Just can’t take to him. He’s on about fighting Paul Craig now apparently, because he “doesn’t like his face”. OK then. Bit weak calling out Craig at this point though when Craig’s coming off back-to-back losses and just got knocked out. Calling out fighters coming off losses is never a good look and just reeks of looking for an easy win. Half hoping it happens and Craig snaps his arm.

Fili vs Swanson was alright but didn’t really catch fire like I think many expected and/or hoped it would. Wasn’t a bad fight by any stretch but it was one where even as I was watching it I was thinking it would’ve probably been a serious banger when they were both younger. Now at 34 and 40 respectively, both having been through some battles and suffering some rough stoppages, it wasn’t quite what I think it could’ve been if it happened 5-7 years ago or something. They got FOTN apparently, which was a little bit surprising to me. But then looking at the card, there weren’t a bunch of great fights really. Just a few great performances and finishes. One of those cards where it probably would’ve made more sense to not bother with FOTN and just give out more POTN bonuses. But whatever. Happy to see these two get an extra cheque.

I’m liking Jean Silva so far. I didn’t take much away from his debut a few months ago because he just bashed up Westin Wilson, who’s useless. But even then, Silva managed to stick in the memory with his stupidly long entrance. I was looking forward to this because Jourdain was more of a test on paper, Silva definitely passed the test.

That final uppercut was nasty but I really loved those elbows to the body just before it. His takedown defence didn’t look bad anyway but I really liked his use of elbows and his ability to do damage at the same time as defending the takedown. Jourdain doesn’t get finished often and he’d never been stopped with strikes before this. Impressive performance from Silva but, again, marred a bit by him missing weight. Hopefully that was a one-off and doesn’t become a habit. Silva could be a fun addition to the Featherweight division. He just has to, you know, make Featherweight.

Payton Talbott has got something. I don’t wanna get too swept up in the moment and start saying he’s the next big thing or something. I haven’t really been familiar enough with any of his opponents so far to properly rate the wins or what I think his potential is. But so far, you can’t fault him. He’s 9-0 now, 3-0 in the UFC and he’s improved in each of those 3 wins. The win over Cameron Saaiman was impressive last time, then he comes out and tops it here with a 19 second KO…

Like I said, I don’t know too much about Yanis Ghemmouri so I’m not sure how good a win this was exactly. But a 19 second knockout over anyone is pretty sweet. Loved the callout of Adrian Yanez! Never even thought about that fight but it’s perfect. I think that one would be ideal for that big card at the Sphere in September. Timing-wise it seems to work and you can’t go wrong with the matchup itself. Looking at the Bantamweight division, there’s endless potential barnburners you can throw Talbott in.

Gillian Robertson schooling Michelle Waterson with grappling was about how I expected that fight to go. Waterson just had nothing for her. Dominant performance from Robertson but I’ve been saying for ages now I think Waterson’s been done for a while. It’s been rough watching her last bunch of fights. I’m happy she’s finally decided to call it a day.

Nice little post-fight moment and interview for Waterson. Saw a bit of piss taking and complaining that she got a sendoff like this but I think that’s harsh. Yeah, she was no Robbie Lawler and she didn’t have much of a career in the UFC. But she was a pioneer in women’s MMA, she was around long before the women were welcome in the Octagon, and she fought her whole UFC career above her actual weight class. Her best fights were pre-UFC as an Atomweight. I can’t begrudge her that moment.

Buday vs Arlovski was just as abysmal as it sounded from the second it was announced. I wanted to be wrong but the way I envisioned this going in was exactly the way it turned out. From the opening post…

On 5/13/2024 at 12:25 AM, wandshogun09 said:

Andrei Arlovski vs Martin Buday. Heavyweight banger alert! Yeah, this is gonna be arse. Big fat, wet, smelly Heavyweight arse. One of those HW fights that you can just immediately picture in your head and you know how it’s gonna go. I’ll be amazed if this is anything more than 15 minutes of slow plodding about, with one of them squeaking out a decision. 

Yep. Buday wins via split decision in a proper rotter. Dana told the media after the show that this was Arlovski’s last fight. What a way to go out. He’s been awful to watch for years now but, given his tenure and history with the UFC, it would’ve been nice if he got some kind of sendoff like Waterson got. But I’ve since read a tweet from Helwani saying Arlovski isn’t retiring. This was just his last fight on his contract and they’re not renewing it. So at 45 years old and after 60 fights and coming off 4 straight losses…he’s gonna fight on elsewhere. Jesus wept. He’s never gonna stop, is he? He’ll probably be getting what’s left of his brain scrambled in BKFC in 6 months. Or worse, Arlovski vs Bigfoot 2 in some smoke filled abandoned warehouse in the favelas of Brazil.

Enjoyed Rei Tsuruya’s debut. A finish would’ve been nice, obviously, but I liked what we saw. Really cool grappling and I felt like the 15 minutes just breezed by.

Don’t really know much about Shinsuke Nakamura, I know he did some MMA years back but his WWE run came years after I stopped watching wrestling regularly. But I was certainly familiar with his name just from being on this forum. Pretty cool him cornering Tsuruya. Who knows where Tsuruya’s ceiling is. He’s still so young, now at 10-0 and pretty much dominated Hernandez here. He’s got a long way to go but I’m looking forward to watching his progression. Between Tsuruya, Tatsuro Taira climbing the ranks and now Kai Asakura about to come in…all of a sudden there’s a strong Japanese presence in the Flyweight division.

Vinicius Oliveira didn’t knock my socks off with his points win over Ricky Simon in the Fight Pass opener. Wasn’t a bad performance but I felt like it was more a case of Simon just not really looking at the races lately than anything in particular Oliveira did. Solid win for Oliveira but I think a lot of people (and definitely me included) got a bit carried away after that breathtaking flying knee KO in his debut. Not convinced he’s gonna go very far really but he’ll provide some entertainment in the bottom half of the Bantamweight division. Not sure about Simon now though. In hindsight it seems he peaked with that submission win over Jack Shore a couple of years ago. Since then he’s gone 0-3 and it seems the Song Yadong beating might’ve taken something out of him. It’s been downhill ever since that loss. Oliveira’s been banging on about Umar Nurmagomedov for some reason. Absolutely pointless. Umar’s in a title eliminator against Sandhagen in a few weeks and Oliveira’s just got in the door. 


One last thing, this might just be the coolest UFC Hall Of Fame class yet.

For me personally, it’s probably never gonna be topped. Obviously, Wandy and Shogun going in puts it top of my list. Self explanatory. But also, I’m a massive fan of Frankie Edgar and Joanna Jedrzejczyk is probably my favourite female fighter in MMA history. Chael was fun for a spell. Not sure why Dariush is up there. But yeah, Wanderlei, Shogun, Frankie and Joanna is an awesome foursome. 

Edited July 1 by wandshogun09

[Carbomb]

It's weird, but at some point, I picked up the mistaken idea that Nakamura had been an Olympic judo silver medallist. Fuck knows whom I've confused him with.

[Kfogg1991]

Seriously this card was cursed jesus not often I say this but I feel sorry for dana and the team.

The show was a mix of absolute scraps and utterly embarrassing and unacceptable on this stage outings.

I won't go through it all but pereira is a terrifying beast and I want no part of this talk of going up to heavyweight he's got some great tears to go through yet it's getting stupid now every main ppv we get talks of X fighter moving up, down, left, right.....stop and stay in your division and stop ruining every top levels taking the champion away it's now stupid.

The co main wasn't world shattering but what respect and professionalism by both fighters this shows up everyone that complains and moans instead of swallowing and using it to their benefit because now both of those fighters will be on the main card at the shard show which I guarantee every fighter will be doing everything to get on that one they deserve that for being outstanding company representatives.

The opener with mvp vs Gary was embarrassing and not acceptable by both parties. Gary won after landing 0 significant shots and mvp looked amateur on the ground and let Gary take the rounds and fight by holding him in a position and staying there. I personally scored it a draw but it's not anything to boast and feel proud of not that Ian will realise that.

The arlovski fight was so diabolical he has been made to retire and dana said he's done and won't be fighting again after that. No highlight package and given flowers like Waterston-gomez got dana wasn't impressed 

So unimpressed he agreed at the press conference to give 2 fight of the night bonuses and announced there wasn't 2 deserving so just the one which was fili vs swanson which was a great fight 

Yeah christ we have had a couple of under par outings bar a few flights here and there 

[sirdobbo89]

Everything's been said but two things to add. 

When Anik announced on the prelims Ortega was out & Ige was in, Cormier was smiling his head off and it proper blagged me. I was thinking 'why the chuff is Cormier laughing at this situation' only for Cormier to later explain he had been told about the fight change two minutes prior and he was laughing at Rogan's dopey face processing this as Anik announced it. The Ige thing is totally barmy, fair play to the lad.

Also, when the Bueno Silva fight was stopped she jumped the cage and seemingly bled all over Dana and whoever else was over there. I'm sure he'll have loved that. 

[neil]

7 hours ago, wandshogun09 said:

Piss off Rogan

The absolute drizzing shits. Man who has never fought a pro match saying "It's only blood" - fuck off. Also Rogan the BJJ expert going "It's locked in, it's over...oh he escaped" during the Garry/MVP match. Just terrible, will be a great day when he retires.

[Egg Shen]

Buffer's gotta go first.

 

[WeeAl]

Yeah, Rogan was utterly terrible on this show. Not " I'll tune him out" bad either, he really detracted from things here.

I have a habit of watching the main show first and then going back to the prelims. A bit of protection against spoilers. Well, imagine my suprise when I'm waiting for Brian Ortega to walk out. "What the hell is Dan Ige doing here and what has he done with T-city?" Wasn't sure if he had done the 'ol 2x4 through the dressing room door handles, or the sneak attack during the pre-match recorded interview. 

Overall though, this card was a good case for the argument against late notice fight additions. Ige/Lopes was a decent fight, but probably a barn burner if they were preparing properly for each other. Smith/Dolidze was a dud and Garry/MVP was fairly close to the same, as I kind of expected with those two. 

The exception to that is Alex Pereira, who lives by his own rules and sends people to the upside down. 

[Egg Shen]

Ouch

[Dai]

Speaking of the women's match and Dr 'It's only blood' Rogan, how bad was the real doctor during that timeout? It's his literal job to make the call and use his expertise to make the best decision. His expertise just led him to keep saying to the ref 'It's up to you' and 'Its a bad cut'. Completely on the fence. 

[wandshogun09]

18 hours ago, Kfogg1991 said:

The co main wasn't world shattering but what respect and professionalism by both fighters this shows up everyone that complains and moans instead of swallowing and using it to their benefit because now both of those fighters will be on the main card at the shard show which I guarantee every fighter will be doing everything to get on that one they deserve that for being outstanding company representatives.

What does the bold bit mean? As admirable as what Lopes and Ige did on Saturday night is, and they will benefit from it, this absolutely shouldn’t be the norm or expected of fighters going forward. And fighters shouldn’t be criticised for turning down stupid last minute fights like this either. It’s cool that Lopes and Ige were still down to fight but I don’t wanna see it set a precedent where a similar situation crops up in the future, fighters refuse to fight under such unreasonable conditions and get trashed for it by Dana and half the fanbase.

It shouldn’t take fighters taking massive risks under ridiculous circumstances like this to get a bit of praise from the wife slapper or rewarded with a spot on a certain card. The Sphere show will be big but, even then, fighters shouldn’t be bending over backwards or begging to get on there. I do get why they’d want on there just because it’ll probably be a cool experience. But it’s not like they’ll be making extra coin off it, they’re still gonna get their usual contracted pay so fuck grovelling for a spot on there. 

18 hours ago, Kfogg1991 said:

The arlovski fight was so diabolical he has been made to retire and dana said he's done and won't be fighting again after that.

Dana can’t make him retire. Arlovski’s contract is up and either the UFC didn’t wanna renew it or Arlovski chose to look elsewhere. He’ll be fighting again, make no mistake about that. Dana has zero authority over what a fighter does when they’re out of one of his restrictive contracts. I don’t wanna see Arlovski fight again but it’s his choice and he’s already said he’s not done and he’ll be fighting again somewhere else. Fuck Dana talking like he owns these guys. 

18 hours ago, sirdobbo89 said:

When Anik announced on the prelims Ortega was out & Ige was in, Cormier was smiling his head off and it proper blagged me. I was thinking 'why the chuff is Cormier laughing at this situation' only for Cormier to later explain he had been told about the fight change two minutes prior and he was laughing at Rogan's dopey face processing this as Anik announced it.

Yeah, I can’t stand Rogan and I’ve found Cormier increasingly shite on commentary with almost every passing card he works, but I did enjoy that little moment. I assumed Cormier must’ve known beforehand because he was completely fixed on watching Rogan’s reaction.

6 hours ago, WeeAl said:

Overall though, this card was a good case for the argument against late notice fight additions. Ige/Lopes was a decent fight, but probably a barn burner if they were preparing properly for each other. Smith/Dolidze was a dud and Garry/MVP was fairly close to the same, as I kind of expected with those two. 

The exception to that is Alex Pereira, who lives by his own rules and sends people to the upside down. 

Yep. Like I’ve said above, this shouldn’t be expected of fighters but it seems it’s becoming that way. Already since Saturday I’ve seen a few tweets and comments about champs like Leon Edwards and Ilia Topuria not being active enough and “holding their division up”. Like, because Alex Pereira fights every other PPV, that’s the standard people wanna hold every champ to now. It’s bollocks. Edwards fought in December, was trying to get on UFC 300 in April, now he’s booked for 304 in a few weeks. 7 months between fights, as champ at the elite level, isn’t even a long gap between fights. As for Topuria, he only fought in February and the reports are that they’re currently working on a date for him against Max Holloway. Considering Max just fought in April and probably wanted a bit of a break after, those two fighting around Sep/Oct would be perfectly fine. Again, at that level, 7/8 months between fights isn’t “holding a division up” at all. Jon Jones is what you call holding a division up. The reason Alex Pereira doing all these back-to-back short notice fights is getting so much discussion is because it’s so rare and risky. And if he keeps doing it and coming in underprepared, sooner or later he’s gonna lose a fight he should’ve won and the same people currently calling him a ‘gangster’ will be calling him dumb. He’s got away with it so far but there’s a reason hardly any other champions do this, it rarely works out well.

Every now and then, a fighter stepping in on short notice can be cool but when it’s a situation like this and like a quarter of the card has been completely shagged by injuries and substitutes, it’s just shit. I don’t know about anyone else but I don’t wanna keep seeing the best fighters in the world fighting at 50% of their capabilities because they stepped in on short notice.

You see it all the time now and it drives me nuts. A card will get battered by pullouts, it’ll be 6 days before the show and fans will be going “who can step in? They should throw Charles Oliveira in there.” Or whoever. It’s always top names. I’m at the point where I’d rather just take the hit and lose a fight, or even cancel the whole card and I’ll do something else with my Saturday night/Sunday afternoon. Fuck it. Like when McGregor dropped off this card, the amount of times I saw calls for Max Holloway to step in against Chandler in a BMF title fight was mental to me. Why would anyone wanna see that at the expense of potentially getting Topuria vs Holloway in a few months? That’s one of the best fights the UFC has on the horizon right now and you wanna put that on hold, maybe even risk letting it slip away altogether, for the sake of ‘saving’ one poxy PPV? Get the fuck out.  

Edited July 2 by wandshogun09

[Carbomb]

15 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

What does the bold bit mean? As admirable as what Lopes and Ige did on Saturday night is, and they will benefit from it, this absolutely shouldn’t be the norm or expected of fighters going forward. And fighters shouldn’t be criticised for turning down stupid last minute fights like this either. It’s cool that Lopes and Ige were still down to fight but I don’t wanna see it set a precedent where a similar situation crops up in the future, fighters refuse to fight under such unreasonable conditions and get trashed for it by Dana and half the fanbase.

It shouldn’t take fighters taking massive risks under ridiculous circumstances like this to get a bit of praise from the wife slapper or rewarded with a spot on a certain card. The Sphere show will be big but, even then, fighters shouldn’t be bending over backwards or begging to get on there. I do get why they’d want on there just because it’ll probably be a cool experience. But it’s not like they’ll be making extra coin off it, they’re still gonna get their usual contracted pay so fuck grovelling for a spot on there. 

Was gonna say. There are plenty of fighters in the UFC who have slogged their fucking guts out, only to be met with dismissal and criticism from Plastic Caesar and his dickhead ball-lickers - of course they're going to complain if they think they're being shafted, especially if they've done everything right leading up to it. 

[wandshogun09]

6 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

Was gonna say. There are plenty of fighters in the UFC who have slogged their fucking guts out, only to be met with dismissal and criticism from Plastic Caesar and his dickhead ball-lickers - of course they're going to complain if they think they're being shafted, especially if they've done everything right leading up to it. 

Right. Even in the case of Jiri Prochazka on this card, yeah he’ll get praise from fans and brownie points for stepping in and saving the UFC’s bacon. But in the long run, he’s almost certainly gonna look back and regret his decision to jump in here. It’d probably be different if him and Pereira had never fought each other before. Then maybe they could use the short notice element to justify a rematch somewhere down the line. But now he’s 0-2 to Pereira, that’s a lot less likely and he might well have just locked himself out of the title mix until Pereira loses it. The first fight was good enough and Jiri did well enough early that he’d have got a rematch at some point anyway. The UFC were reportedly planning on booking that rematch for the Australia PPV in August. You have to think Jiri’s regretting ‘saving’ 303 now and wondering if things might’ve been different had he got a full camp in and fought in August as originally planned.

[Bus Surfer]

I'd like to think that with 205 being mostly dog shit, and because Jiri (and Alex) stepped in on short notice to save the show, that despite being 0-2, Jiri would get another shot against Perieira with a full camp, providing he can get a few wins under his belt. 

If not, he's really shot himself in the foot by trying to be a company man. 

[Kfogg1991]

I don't think it now should he mandatory I apologise I've not put it the correct way. I think what Lopez went through was outstanding and clearly shows how dedicated and passionate he is for fighting and the company to sign up and go through what he did really is inspiring and I think should be a example it should be considered and repeated in future.

However it should be looked at and brought into arguments and consideration for the correct situations I'm not saying because these two did this everyone else has no right to say no or turn a replacement down that's completely unwinnable or dangerous but there has been times in recent months that fights have fallen through and I think the hardest pill to swallow is having top names completely removed from the card due to their opponent pulling out which has been a repeated issue in the last year which does suck and make the hard work and fight camp the fighter has been through go to waste which I hope can be looked at and changed not every time I'm not that deluded but when possible