Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted August 1 Paid Members Share Posted August 1 (edited) Apex. Can’t even be arsed to moan about it anymore. Apex… ESPN MAIN CARDMarcin Tybura vs Sergey Spivac Chepe Mariscal vs Damon Jackson Danny Barlow vs Nikolay Veretennikov Chris Gutierrez vs Quang Le Yana Santos vs Chelsea Chandler Charalampos Grigoriou vs Toshiomi Kazama ESPN+/FIGHT PASS PRELIMS Karol Rosa vs Pannie Kianzad Karl Williams vs Jhonata Diniz Jarno Errens vs Youssef Zalal Stephanie Luciano vs Talita Alencar Not great. Standard Apex stuff. Heavyweight main event, another low level Heavyweight fight on the undercard, couple of shitty women’s 135 fights. Standard Apex. Couple of decent fighters and fights on there but definitely looks like a ‘skim through on Sunday in less than an hour’ job. Marcin Tybura vs Sergey Spivac 2 is about as Apex a headliner as it gets, isn’t it? A rematch of a fight they had in February 2020, apparently, that I’ve got absolutely zero memory of. Tybura won on points that night. Why we’re doing it again, I don’t know, but here we are. They’re both in the Top 10 in the Heavyweight rankings, Tybura’s #8 and Spivac’s #9. It’s going nowhere though. There’s worse than these two in that division, obviously, but this just feels like all the winner is gonna get is to be fed to someone like Pavlovich or Jailton or whoever. Tybura can’t even be arsed to finish his haircut these days but he still had no problem putting Tai Tuivasa away in his last fight in March. It wasn’t a bad fight, to be fair. By Heavyweight standards anyway. Tybura got clipped early, got Tai down, took his back, beat him up a bit then ended it with the choke. It was short and sweet, and that’s always a good thing when it comes to the Heavies. Tybura needed that as well because he’d been steamrolled by Tom Aspinall in his previous fight. He’s 38 years old now. He is what he is at this point. He’s got some alright wins over Arlovski, Struve, Rothwell, Romanov and Ivanov. But he never managed to finish any of them. He did batter Greg Hardy to a TKO though so he’s OK in my book. This is about as high up as he’s getting though, headlining Apex cards and occasionally being fed to legit prospects they’re trying to build up. Spivac’s the much younger man at 29 years old and he has a record of 16-4 with 14 wins coming inside the distance. Like Tybura, he’s nothing amazing but there’s definitely worse at HW. And like Tybura, he also TKO’d Greg Wifebeater so fair play. We last saw Spivac on the Paris card last September, where he got bashed up by Ciryl Gane in the main event. He was on a 3 fight winning streak heading into that one and had finished Hardy, Augusto Sakai and Derrick Lewis. I was actually fancying him to upset Gane. I thought his mauling grappling style could give Gane fits but he seemed to completely fold once his initial attempts to grapple went nowhere and Gane smacked him about for a second round stoppage. Who wins? Who cares? Who’s even watching? Yeah, I’m not loving this either. First off, just thinking about the matchup itself and their styles, it doesn’t exactly fill you with excitement does it? Then, because they’ve put it in the main event spot, there’s the very real possibility that this could go 5 rounds. The horror! Like most Heavyweight fights, we just have to hope it ends early. As for who wins, I’ve given it no thought until now because why would I? I guess I’d favour Tybura again but I don’t know. They’ve both only lost to top guys since their first fight. Tybura’s gone 7-2 since and the only losses were to Aspinall and Volkov. And Spivac’s gone 6-2 with the only losses being against Aspinall and Gane. Maybe Spivac being the younger and fresher of the two will tip the odds in his favour but I don’t know. Tybura’s more experienced and has mixed with a higher level of opposition for longer. Plus he’s gone the distance a lot more times and even went 5 rounds with Werdum. Spivac’s never gone 5 and has only gone 3 rounds 3 times. So if this does go long (please no), Tybura’s been there and done that but it’s uncharted territory for Spivac. Whatever. Dead main event. Hopefully it’s a pleasant surprise and it’s all done and dusted in a round. Chepe Mariscal vs Damon Jackson is ***WAND’S ONE TO WATCH*** here and, on paper, easily the best fight on the card for me. I don’t care about ‘names’, I’d rather have seen this as main event over what we’re getting. Cracking fight. I’ve really liked what we’ve seen of Mariscal so far in the UFC. He’s 31 years old, 16-6-0-1 with 10 finishes and fought for Combate Global and LFA before making his UFC debut last June. He beat Trevor Peek in a wild, silly and stupidly entertaining slugfest in his debut, go and watch that one if you’ve got 15 minutes to kill. He beat Jack Jenkins after that in another enjoyable fight that unfortunately ended when Jenkins injured his arm. Then in April this year, he beat Morgan Charriere in a really fun scrap that was one of the highlights of the Fight Night series so far this year for me. He’s in another potential barnburner here… Yep, Damon’s been to Turkey. He turns 36 just 2 days before this fight but he’s had the hairline of Pennywise for years. He either needed to get the Bic razors out or book a flight to Turkey. He obviously went with the second option. On a serious note though, he’s a tough bastard. He’s 23-6-1-1 with 19 finishes, mostly submissions. He’s one of those guys who’s never really moved up the ladder and he’s certainly never gonna be a title challenger, but he’s grown on me over the years. Win or lose, I can’t recall ever being bored watching him. He’s coming off a close points win over Alexander Hernandez in April. He snapped a 2 fight losing streak with that win. Got a good feeling about this one. Danny Barlow vs Nikolay Veretennikov might be worth a look actually. Barlow made his UFC debut on the Volk vs Topuria undercard in February and got a TKO over Josh Quinlan. I recall him looking good throughout the fight and then he got the finish in the third round. He’s undefeated at 8-0 with 6 finishes now. He was all set to face Uros Medic here but Medic dropped out just a couple of weeks before show time. In steps Veretennikov. Never heard of him before. He’s from Kazakhstan, 34 years old and has a 12-4 record with 10 inside the distance. Looking up his record, he was on DWCS in 2021 but lost to Michael Morales. He’s gone 3-0 with 3 finishes since then. Not a clue on this but I’m kind of interested in it. Chris Gutierrez vs Quang Le is a last minute switch. Gutierrez had originally been scheduled to face Javid Basharat on the Abu Dhabi card on the 3rd but it got pushed back a week to this card. Then just days out from the fight, Basharat dropped out and here we are. In steps Quang ‘Bang’ Le. Never heard of him. Sherdog tells me he’s 32 years old and unbeaten at 8-0 with 5 finishes. All but one of his fights were in LFA and he’s won his last two fights by first round knockout. Gutierrez is 20-6-2 and a decent enough fighter but he’s had his ups and downs. Hes coming off a losing effort against Song Yadong in their Apex main event in December and that wasn’t just a loss, it was a pretty boring fight as well. His career highlight so far is a KO over a completely shot Frankie Edgar. You never know how a late replacement is gonna do but this could be a risky one for Gutierrez against a relatively unknown undefeated fighter. Yana Santos vs Chelsea Chandler, again, Women’s Bantamweight. Expectations are rock bottom for this. I’ll most likely just skip this, to be honest. Santos is 34 years old and 14-8-0-1. Seems a nice enough woman and she’s married to Thiago Santos who’s always seemed like one of the good guys in the sport. So I always kind of want Yana to do well. But…there’s no sugarcoating it, she’s rotten to watch. Honestly can’t think of one fight of hers that I’ve enjoyed watching. Doesn’t help that she’s coming off 3 straight losses here. Chandler’s 30 years old and a teammate of the Diaz brothers at Cesar Gracie’s in Stockton, California. She’s 6-2 and coming off a points win over Josiane Nunes in March. Saw bits of it and it looked awful, and Chandler missed weight to make matters worse. Chandler’s fought 3 times in the UFC now and the only thing I remember is when she turned her back and literally sprinted away from Norma Buttcheeks in hilariously cartoonish fashion. Charalampos Grigoriou vs Toshiomi Kazama. Dunno. Barely seen anything of either of them. Grigoriou’s from Cyprus, trains out of Longo-Weidman and he’s 32 years old with a record of 8-4 with 6 knockouts. He got a quick win on DWCS last summer but lost on points in his UFC debut against Chad Anheliger in March. Not even sure I saw that fight but if I did I remember nothing of it. Kazama’s 27 with a 10-4 record and 8 finishes. He was on that Road To UFC thing but got chinned by Rinya Nakamura in seconds in the finals. He followed that up by getting stopped in a round again by Garrett Armfield. Yeah, this is a proper clash of the jobbers. Karol Rosa vs Pannie Kianzad is a nothing happening fight. It’s no secret that Women’s Bantamweight is the shits, there’s no dressing it up. Just checked the rankings and Rosa’s ranked #8 at 135 currently, says it all about the state of the division, doesn’t it? Kianzad’s at #11 as well. In fairness to Rosa, she is coming off a very rare Bantamweight banger… Her and Irene Aldana went to war at UFC 296 in December. A stacked card like that and somehow these two got FOTN? They actually deserved it though. Aldana’s always been one of the more watchable fighters in the division but I never expected that kind of fight out of her and Rosa. I went in with zero expectations and it massively overdelivered. It’s funny, Rosa lost on points but it was the first time I gave a shite watching her. She’s not much good though. She’s 17-6, which doesn’t sound too bad until you realise she’s lost 3 of her last 5 and her best wins are Yana Santos, Lina Lansberg and Bethe Correia. Kianzad’s even less memorable. At least Rosa had that Aldana scrap. Kianzad’s been on the roster 5 years and has done nothing of note. She’s coming off back-to-back losses to Ketlen Vieira and Macy Chiasson. Yeah, not expecting much from this at all. Karl Williams vs Jhonata Diniz is probably gonna be total arse. Like women’s 135, Heavyweight is generally shite. Especially when you get outside the handful of top ranked names. Williams is 34 years old, fights out of American Top Team and he’s 10-1 with only 3 finishes. He’s on a 7 fight winning streak and 6 of those wins went the distance. He’s now 3-0 in the UFC, all decisions and from what I remember (I’ve blocked most of it out), they were all boring as fuck. And it’s not like he’s been facing top competition. He’s beat Lukasz Brzeski, Chase Sherman and Justin Tafa in the UFC. The absolute dregs of the Heavyweight division and Williams has still failed to impress. Hopefully Diniz delivers another one of these… That was how his UFC debut in April ended. Knocked out Austen Lane in the second round of a total mess of a fight. Thank fuck it ended when it did because it was like they were fighting on ice the way there were falling about the gaff. Maybe the two most uncoordinated people to share a cage since the Kimbo vs Dada 5000 classic in Bellator. It was that sloppy. I’m fully expecting Williams to wrestle the bollocks off Diniz here and he’ll probably fail to get the finish or do anything impressive again. I’d love to see Diniz get an early KO though. Jarno Errens vs Youssef Zalal is a potential hidden gem actually. A fight that mightn’t jump off the page at first glance but I can see this being a belter. Errens is Dutch, 29 years old and has a record of 14-5-1 and 8 finishes. He went 0-2 initially in the UFC, losing a couple of decisions. He finally got his first Octagon win in March, beating Steve Nguyen in an absolute corker. Seriously, that fight deserved more love than it got but it was on an Apex card that probably 12 people actually watched. Zalal is Moroccan, 27 years old and has an almost identical record of 14-5-1 but 11 of his wins didn’t make it to the scorecards. This is his second stint in the UFC, the first didn’t go so well. He went 3-3-1 in that run and was let go after losing 3 in a row and then going to a draw against Da’Mon Blackshear. He went away and won 3 fights, all first round finishes, in a promotion called Sparta Combat League. He returned to the UFC in March - on the same night as the Errens-Nguyen dogfight - and scored a second round submission over Billy Quarantillo. Really solid performance and maybe his best career win to date. He stepped in on short notice for that fight as well, which makes it all the more impressive. Not sure quite how good he is but I think he’s better than that initial UFC stint suggests. He actually fought Ilia Topuria in Topuria’s UFC debut as well and went the distance with him. Stephanie Luciano vs Talita Alencar 2 then. An epic rematch will start and end this card. Apparently these two met on DWCS last September and went to a draw. Not a single clue on this. Luciano is 24 years old with a 5-1-1 record. Not many fights but she has already gone 5 rounds, when she became the Jungle Fight champion in 2022. Looking into this, it’s a bit weird how things played out after that draw with Alencar on DWCS. Initially, Dana gave Luciano a UFC contract but not Alencar, despite the fight being a draw. When asked about it he said… “She has that ‘it factor’, she has that thing about her. I think Stephanie is special. The minute that girl stepped into the Octagon…it’s this weird fucking thing that happens to me.” - Dana White Yeah Dana, that “weird fucking thing” that happened to you? It’s called an erection. Dirty old perv. Alencar got a fight in the UFC anyway in the end but having a fight go to a draw and only giving one fighter a contract is a bit rum, isn’t it? Alencar wound up making her UFC debut in December and beat Rayanne Dos Santos by decision in a fight I think I skipped. Looking her up, she’s a grappler, a BJJ black-belt and trains under TUF 4’s Charles McCarthy! Had no idea ‘Captain Miserable’ was still involved in MMA. That’ll do. Edited August 9 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panhead Posted August 4 Share Posted August 4 "The hairline of Pennywise"! ??? I'm dying at that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted August 9 Author Paid Members Share Posted August 9 Latest bout order a day out for this absolute dollop of a card… Few changes. • The planned co-main event of Gutierrez vs Javid Basharat is off as of a few days ago. Basharat’s out, Gutierrez is fighting some undefeated sod called Quang Le and the Mariscal vs Jackson fight has (rightly) been bumped up to co-main. • As I type this, the weigh ins are going on and Chepe Mariscal, Chelsea Chandler and Danny Barlow have all missed weight. Mariscal and Chandler missed big as well, by 4lbs and 5lbs respectively. Hopefully that Mariscal vs Jackson fight goes ahead because it’s pretty much the only thing worth a shite on this card. • Oh and one of the only other fights worth tuning in for - Allan Nascimento vs Jafel Filho - is also off because of course it is. Fuck‘s sake man. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted August 9 Paid Members Share Posted August 9 dollop is an apt. word. This may be the nadir of the apex era, proper dregs and seemingly nobody gives a fuck. If anything though, 10 fights is fine, these cards don't need to be any longer than that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted August 9 Author Paid Members Share Posted August 9 Too right. I just don’t get the logic in the fights they choose to headline these things. The Apex cards don’t matter anyway so if there is a use for them, surely it’s to give up and comers or entertaining undercard fighters an opportunity to shine? This card would be weak no matter how they’d have shuffled the order but nobody, not a single soul, wants to see a potential 5 rounds of Tybura vs Spivac. They should just stuck Mariscal vs Jackson in the headline spot. It’s the best fight on the card. Also don’t get why Errens vs Zalal (the second best fight on the card IMO) is the second prelim on the Fight Pass bit while complete dross like Santos vs Chandler and Grigoriou vs Kazama is on the main card. Once again, fuck the Apex. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zebra Kid Mark Posted August 9 Share Posted August 9 I think I’ll watch this show Sunday morning with the remote control firmly in my hand the entire time. The fast forward button is going to be used a lot for this card. Absolute dross. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted August 10 Paid Members Share Posted August 10 12 hours ago, wandshogun09 said: Too right. I just don’t get the logic in the fights they choose to headline these things. The Apex cards don’t matter anyway so if there is a use for them, surely it’s to give up and comers or entertaining undercard fighters an opportunity to shine? This card would be weak no matter how they’d have shuffled the order but nobody, not a single soul, wants to see a potential 5 rounds of Tybura vs Spivac. They should just stuck Mariscal vs Jackson in the headline spot. It’s the best fight on the card. Also don’t get why Errens vs Zalal (the second best fight on the card IMO) is the second prelim on the Fight Pass bit while complete dross like Santos vs Chandler and Grigoriou vs Kazama is on the main card. Once again, fuck the Apex. Agree 100% Thing is, Tybura/Spivak would be a better fight over 3 rounds too, why put two tubsters in a position where they need to watch their gas tank, just let em have a shootout. Speaking positively of the Apex, The Contender Series starts next week, now that's where it's utilised properly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted August 10 Author Paid Members Share Posted August 10 Yeah the Apex should be reserved only for DWCS and TUF fights. They’ve done good money taking Fight Night cards on the road that were headlined by Rodrigo Nascimento and Nassourdine Imavov this year, for fuck’s sake. There’s no excuse to still be doing live televised Fight Nights in a glorified shed. Dana’s said recently that they’re spending a load of money expanding the Apex though. So, despite what he occasionally says about wanting to phase out these Apex cards, they’re gonna keep plopping them out. I guess the best we can hope for is that, if they expand it, they can start getting a bit of an actual audience in there which would surely help the atmosphere a bit. At the moment the people in the chairs around the Octagon are pretty much just media shills who don’t really give a shite and are just there to tell Dana how cool Power Slap is so they can keep getting access to events and getting paid. I miss the days of Fight Nights at the Hard Rock… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kfogg1991 Posted August 10 Share Posted August 10 I can't remember the last time we had a ufc card that's so weak I completely forgot it was a thing till Monday and I won't be rushing to watch in the morning probably download and skip through the main card but christ this is low quality for them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted August 11 Paid Members Share Posted August 11 (edited) On 8/10/2024 at 9:25 AM, wandshogun09 said: Yeah the Apex should be reserved only for DWCS and TUF fights. They’ve done good money taking Fight Night cards on the road that were headlined by Rodrigo Nascimento and Nassourdine Imavov this year, for fuck’s sake. There’s no excuse to still be doing live televised Fight Nights in a glorified shed. Dana’s said recently that they’re spending a load of money expanding the Apex though. So, despite what he occasionally says about wanting to phase out these Apex cards, they’re gonna keep plopping them out. I guess the best we can hope for is that, if they expand it, they can start getting a bit of an actual audience in there which would surely help the atmosphere a bit. At the moment the people in the chairs around the Octagon are pretty much just media shills who don’t really give a shite and are just there to tell Dana how cool Power Slap is so they can keep getting access to events and getting paid. I miss the days of Fight Nights at the Hard Rock… If they can get a Hard Rock feel and a cram a 1000 fans in there and get em close to cage it would be pretty cool, i'm all for that. Edited August 11 by Egg Shen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted August 15 Author Paid Members Share Posted August 15 They finally broke me. I never got around to watching any of this on Sunday and now I can’t even muster up the motivation to give it a look. Did anyone watch? Was there anything worth my time? Unless there’s something I need to go back and check out, this will end up being the first UFC card I’ll have completely skipped since I started watching. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted August 15 Paid Members Share Posted August 15 I didn't watch it either, but it seems the main was short and sweet, and not uneventful: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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