UFC 305: Du Plessis vs Adesanya - Aug 17 ??

[Kfogg1991]

Yeah agreed this show for a start was fantastic it went by very quickly. 

Main event I think I gave it either 2 a piece or 3-1 to DDP by the fourth round both of them looked considerably gassed which was surprising and jesus christ DDP'S style and stance is breathtakingly scary he just tucks and takes tones of shots but takes them, subbing izzy which no man has done is shocking too. That's it now for izzy I think he's still a elite level but he's not the elite now the division has moved forward which I like he reigned on top for a while just give him a couple of exciting scraps till he retires.

 

Kai kara omg that knock out was outstanding personally think he was out with the first knock down he just recovered slightly until fully going the second time.

I gave it to Dan hooker but jesus it got fight of the night for a good good reason. Also did alot for gamrott showing he had impressive stand up power too 

The tai tuivasa fight was the worst judges scorecard in history and should be looked at fully because you could argue it was either incompetence or........illegal activity which is extremely negative for the sport and company that cannot be brushed under the carpet and forgotten.

Leech being knocked out for the first time in his career by a new guy from the contender and being the first to knock him out is a very very big deal on your resume going forward excited too see what happens with him.

The prelims were exciting and enjoyable even if they went all the way this is what the Manchester card should have been seriously. 

It could be my favourite event of the year thus far not including 300 which I think can't be counted in that sense because it was a one of a kind show with the first early prelim having two former champions so it is in its own world and category imo 

Very very enjoyable recommended everything bar the tuivasa fight that was absolutely horrible 

[wandshogun09]

And still…

Happy with the result here. Like I said before, an Adesanya win here would’ve been the least interesting result. Plus I wanna see DDP’s reign continue for a bit yet. Feels like we’ve seen all there is to see from Izzy at 185. Thought this was a very good fight as well. Competitive, entertaining, both were trading big shots and it felt like there were enough ebbs and flows that you could never be sure what was gonna happen next. Thought Izzy definitely looked more dialled in and sharp here than he did against Strickland. I had it 2-1 for DDP going into the championship rounds. Had DDP taking 1 and 2 but I felt like Adesanya was having his best rounds after that. Definitely had him winning the 3rd and I thought he was ahead in the 4th until it all unravelled spectacularly. Du Plessis just refused to fuck off. He’s so weird. What he does looks so uncoordinated and clunky but he makes it work for him and, one way or another, he keeps finding a way to get his hand raised. You can’t argue with the results. And he’s beating all the top Middleweights. This doesn’t keep happening by accident or luck. He knows what he’s doing, he just does it in a way that makes him look sloppy and reckless. There’s clearly a method to the madness though and I think it’s obvious at this point that he’s a lot harder to deal with for these guys once they’re actually in there with him than they probably expected from just watching footage of him.

On 8/19/2024 at 12:51 PM, Dai said:

I thought DDP was gassed going into R4, but he seemed to get a second wind.  

That’s the thing with Du Plessis. He’s looked gassed in pretty much all of his UFC fights at one point or another. I’m not sure if it’s just the way he looks and moves that makes him look more tired than he is or what. But he’s one of those guys where it doesn’t seem to matter as much. He gets tired and just keeps going. Shogun used to get some stick for gassing in fights but he was similar to DDP in a way, in that he’d be knackered and still just keep attacking like a zombie. Some fighters seem to mentally fold and wilt when their conditioning fades, others seem to be able to just keep pushing through it. I think some of it with DDP though, is his weird lunging movements make him look gassed when he might not always be. I think his defence is a bit overlooked as well. He was getting tagged a bit here but in general he keeps his hands up and doesn’t get hit clean all that often.

On 8/19/2024 at 12:51 PM, Dai said:

Izzy easily gave his back up I think in R2, which I thought was dangerous at the time, and he did the same thing for the end of the fight too. Very risky way to try and get to your feet. Overall a very enjoyable fight. 

Yeah, for all Izzy’s strengths as a fighter, grappling has obviously never been his strong suit. But nobody had really been able to exploit that until now and not many of his past opponents even really committed to trying to go all out with the grappling against him. In fairness, I think Izzy’s got pretty decent takedown defence, but when someone is able to actually get him down, he seems lost and it’s purely survival mode. There’s no threat from him there, it’s all about just getting back up at the first opportunity. And, as you say, giving up his back came out of that. Credit to Du Plessis for recognising when to switch things up as well. He was having rough spells in rounds 3 and 4 and when he started hurting Adesanya towards the end, a lot of fighters would’ve just head hunted and chased the knockout. He took that opportunity to get Izzy down while he was hurt and put him where he’s most vulnerable. I was as critical of DDP’s style as anyone before the Whittaker fight but I think it’s evident now that he’s a smarter fighter than his style on the surface would have you believe.

It was kind of cool to see them squash the beef and end the nastiness post-fight. Even if it doesn’t last and they’re at each other’s throats again next week, it was nice to see. Honestly thought Izzy might be about to retire when I saw him taking the gloves off. I’m not convinced he wasn’t going to either. Some of his comments since the fight make me think he’s half checked out now. He was asked by the media about a possible rematch and he said something like “I’m not desperate to get it back”. Looking at the post-fight bit in the cage again, I honestly think he was gonna just call it a day initially but changed his mind during DDP’s interview.

As for Du Plessis, I’ve loved his little victory lap on social media. He’s seemingly been scouring the internet for anyone who counted him out pre-fight and now he’s gleefully rubbing their nose in it.

Brendan Schaub was completely dismissing Du Plessis going in and confidently predicting an Adesanya showcase…

Darren Till was criticising DDP and took to Twitter when the fight was announced to give Izzy some tips on how to deal with Du Plessis…

Steve Erceg called DDP “a 6 out of 10 fighter”…

And Drake reportedly bet $450K on an Izzy win…

I love it ? 

Just for shite like this he’s quickly becoming a favourite of mine. Looks like it’s the Strickland rematch next, which I can’t say I’m looking forward to much. Dana seemed to be leaning that way anyway. But I still think this Whittaker vs Khamzat fight in October (if it actually happens) could throw those plans out. I think it’s arguable Whittaker deserves the title shot more anyway right now, if he hands Khamzat his first loss I think it’s almost impossible to deny him at that point. And just say Khamzat goes out there and steamrolls Whittaker, he’s jumping ahead of Strickland isn’t he? You know Dana’s dying to get Khamzat into a title fight and to be fair, of all the options, DDP vs Khamzat would be the only completely fresh fight. So there’s a few ways this could go.

Kai Kara-France is back with a bang! I wasn’t sure how this was gonna go. The lack of recent activity for KKF and the fact Erceg just ran Pantoja to the wire made me lean towards Erceg. But either way, the one thing I did expect was a competitive, back and forth battle that was probably gonna go the distance. Nope. Kai had other ideas…

Jesus Christ!

Rare you see a shot like that at Flyweight and it says a lot about Erceg’s durability that it never put him straight out. But from the second that big left connected flush and the way Erceg hit the deck, you just knew it was a matter of time. KKF swarmed all over him and gave him no opportunity to recover. Bittersweet. Nice to see KKF back and firmly in the mix again but sucks a fat bollock that it was at the expense of a good egg like Erceg. A good Erc-egg? He was so close to winning the title against Pantoja that a win here probably would’ve seen him get a rematch before the end of the year. Now that’s obviously down the pan and we’re likely looking at Pantoja vs KKF for the strap. On the plus side, that’s a fresh title fight, which is pretty rare at Flyweight. Fuck knows what’s next for Erceg but I think he can bounce back from this and we’ll see him back in the title picture down the road. Maybe give him Kape or something.

Hooker vs Gamrot was fantastic. Easy FOTN. I thought it would be a good fight but it clearly surpassed my expectations. Didn’t really know what to expect out of Hooker after a spell on the shelf and especially coming straight back against a grinder like Gamrot. Had a feeling this matchup was all wrong for Hooker but it turned out to be Hooker‘s best win and performance in years. Actually might be Hooker’s best win overall, to be honest. At least since the Gilbert Burns KO all those years ago anyway. Close one but I felt like the right man got the decision. As for what’s next, it’s a no brainer for me. There’s one name in the rankings that sticks out like an absolute sore thumb. A fight that’s pretty much a guaranteed barnburner and one that’s gotta happen before one of them retires. Tell me you wouldn’t be all over a Dan Hooker vs Justin Gaethje scrap!

Rozenstruik vs Tuivasa was pretty much the typical plodder all Heavyweight fights degenerate into if they go any longer than about 4 minutes. Clear win for Rozenstruik though, despite the one judge somehow scoring it 30-27 for Tuivasa? Completely baffling that scorecard. There’s simply no case to be made for Tuivasa winning the fight, much less every round. Never mind the fighters, I think they need to start drug testing these judges. Big Tai’s fucked it. Really can’t see where he goes from here. He’s now 0-5 in his last 5. He never got finished this time, which I guess is some kind of progress. But it’s not looking good is it? Still only 31, which is young for HW, but it just seems like he’s already on the scrapheap. As primitive and basic caveman as the skill level is for most of the Heavyweight division, Tuivasa seems too one-note even for that. Maybe a career in BKFC awaits. Wouldn’t mind seeing him clobber Greg Hardy again, to be honest, this time without gloves.

Carlos Prates is someone we’re gonna have to keep tabs on. Absolutely smoked Li Jingliang.

Thought he looked good and in control pretty much the whole fight, then capped it off with the big KO deep into the second round. Really strong showing for him. I said in the opening post I liked what we’d seen of Prates so far but the opposition he’d beat wasn’t the strongest. Even this, as impressive as it was, Jingliang was coming off a 2 year layoff so you’ve got to take that into account. It was still a step up for Prates on paper though and he passed the test in style. Not sure what’s next for him. It kind of feels too soon but do you give him a ranked opponent now? Looking at the rankings, MVP is currently at #14 and something about that matchup leaps off the page to me.

Against my better judgement, I gave Valter Walker another chance after his rotten debut. Still don’t think he’s much good but at least this was all done and dusted inside a round. I watched the weigh ins on Saturday and thought Walker was giving off real dickhead vibes so between that and hating his debut, I was fully hoping Tafa would chin him here. And he was tagging Valter up early on and Valter clearly decided he wanted none of Tafa’s striking after that so went the grappling route.

Don’t get the so called controversy around this. Seen a load of bitching about it being a ‘bad stoppage’ and Tafa not tapping. Even the commentators seemed confused but there’s no reason to be. Hasn’t the rule been in place for fucking ever that any type of audible scream constitutes a verbal tap? It’s not a new thing and you’d think Cormier and Cruz especially would know. No surprises that Cruz was about to start crying about refs screwing fighters over, every chance he gets he rants about that because he’s still sore about the Cejudo stoppage 4 bastard years ago. Thankfully DC cut him off. But yeah, this doesn’t tell us much about Walker because everyone knows both Tafa brothers have no grappling.

Ricardo Ramos vs Josh Culibao was a decent fight. Seen cries of robbery but it was a close fight and I can see the argument either way. The first two rounds were straightforward to score. Ramos definitely won the first and Culibao clearly won the second. All comes down to how you had the third. Personally I felt like Culibao edged it, didn’t think Ramos bit of control at the end was quite enough. But I felt like Culibao pissed about a bit too much in that last round to have a huge gripe. He fought like he already had it in the bag to the point I was actually quite glad Ramos got the nod. It was close enough that I think the robbery talk isn’t warranted but Culibao only has himself to blame, in my opinion. Had he kept up attacking the legs and mixing it in with his boxing he could’ve made this a clear win or maybe even forced a late stoppage. He left it close enough that Ramos getting top control at the end swung two of the scorecards against him.

Casey O’Neill vs Luana Santos didn’t look much cop. Watched the first few minutes and then found myself zoning out and skimming through. Was kind of hoping Santos might be better than I initially thought but she didn’t look good in the bits I saw here. And I don’t really rate O’Neill so losing to her doesn’t really fill me with optimism for Santos going forward.

Jack Jenkins put a right beating on Herbert Burns. I’ve enjoyed every Jenkins fight I’ve seen so far but this was his best performance yet for me. A solid showing all around but he started whipping in those leg kicks early and they obviously added up and paid off late in the fight.

Burns was bollocksed. Jenkins broke him down with those kicks, his leg must’ve been mince meat by that point. And considering Burns has kind of developed a reputation for folding when a fight gets rough, Jenkins seemed fully focused on putting that to the test and making this as miserable an experience as possible for him. And while I wouldn’t necessarily say Burns quit, I think it was clear by about the middle of the second round that he didn’t really wanna be in there anymore. So many great fights you can make at 145 for Jenkins. Just off the top of my head I’m thinking Nathaniel Wood, Damon Jackson or even Jean Silva. That’s without even considering ranked opponents.

Happy to see Tom Nolan pick up another win. Fun fighter to watch. Bit reckless at times and there’s always a feeling watching him that it’s all about to go tits up. But fun to watch. Fair play to Reyes for hanging in there and seeing the final buzzer. He was always trying but at times he just looked like a guy who’d barely fought in years.

Didn’t take a lot of notice of the Song Kenan vs Ricky Glenn fight but it looked decent from what I saw. That lump on Glenn’s dome was nasty.

Not pretty, is it? The commentators comparing it to Mark Hominick’s (vs Aldo) and Joanna Jedrzejczyk’s (vs Zhang) can piss right off though. Glenn’s lump was bad, I certainly wouldn’t want it on my head, but those other two were proper Elephant Man shit.

The curtain jerker of Jesus Aguilar vs Stewart Nicoll on Fight Pass was a short and sweet ground battle. Really enjoyed it while it lasted and thought Nicoll was looking really good in the initial exchanges but one mistake was all Aguilar needed to capitalise. Had to laugh at Dominick Cruz insisting Nicoll was OK in the guillotine, only for Nicoll to roll over completely unconscious with his eyes rolling about. Good win for Aguilar but unfortunately marred a tad by him missing weight.


Yeah, good show all in all. Better overall than I thought it would be actually. Main event and Hooker vs Gamrot were both great and more entertaining than I expected. Onto the UFC 306 Riyadh Season Noche Mexican Independence Day Sphere bollocks. 

Edited August 20 by wandshogun09