UFC Edmonton: Moreno vs Albazi - Nov 2 ??

[wandshogun09]

On 11/2/2024 at 4:37 PM, wandshogun09 said:

Gone Albazi, Namajunas and Shore in the poll.

Had a mare predicting this card ? Have to echo the overall negative feeling on the show. It was a weird bout order from the off, which didn’t help. There were some fights on the prelims that you knew were gonna be at the very least good and had the potential to be great. Then you had a big turd like Ribeiro vs Machado just plopped into the middle of the main card for reasons nobody was able to figure out. And that fight turned out as bad as expected.

Was happy to see Moreno back to winning ways. Didn’t know what to expect out of this but ended up picking Albazi, despite his layoff and coming off neck surgery. Says it all about how big of a hit my confidence in Moreno had taken. I was probably overly harsh, to be fair. Losses to Pantoja and Royval, both close decisions and one a genuine FOTY contender, isn’t the end of the world. I just thought he looked really flat against Royval last time and I’d convinced myself maybe the wars had finally caught up to him. He looked better here though, he won this clearly, which I didn’t expect really from either side. Thought we were in for a close, competitive fight either way but Moreno pretty much dominated.

20 hours ago, Zebra Kid Mark said:

Does Moreno now have to fight down the rankings? Is Royval going to get the winner of Pantoja and Asakura?

Yeah, he’s in a funny spot now. He’s even said as much himself to the media post-fight. He’s saying he thinks he’ll have to win another fight before he can get another crack at the belt. We’ll see though. Say Asakura goes out and sparks Pantoja next month, I think Moreno might just get the title shot next. If Pantoja wins it gets tricky though yeah. If he is gonna fight once more before a title shot, he’s gonna have to fight down in ranking because the only names above him are Royval and obviously Pantoja. There are a couple of other fresh fights for Moreno that I’d love to see. Steve Erceg or Tatsuro Taira. Not ideal because they’re both coming off losses and they’re lower ranked than Moreno. But what can you do? With Pantoja vs Asakura just weeks away, it makes sense to just see how that plays out. If Asakura pulls it off and wins the title, depending on how he wins, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Moreno gets a shot at the gold again.

Blanchfield vs Namajunas was shite. Never expected a barnburner but this was just ugly to watch. The fact it was 5 rounds just prolonged the misery. Really wanted Blanchfield to become something after she squashed Meatball Molly that time but she’s been terrible to watch in her last few fights. She’s still quite young so maybe she’ll get there eventually but, right now, there’s just not enough to her game. And as she’s stepped up in levels, she’s became harder to watch because when she’s faced better opposition like Rose, Manon Fiorot and Taila Santos and she can’t just bulldoze them with her grappling, she’s forced to use other skills and she doesn’t really have much else. All that said, Rose is just so frustrating to watch. I really don’t think her heart’s been in it for a while now. She started well but it almost felt like she shut down and checked out after a couple of rounds and kind of gave it away. Just can’t see where she goes from here. Seen a bit of talk of Blanchfield vs Alexa Grasso next and it makes sense. I hate that fight for Grasso though. She just got wrestled into oblivion by Shevchenko, last thing she needs now is a fight with someone like Blanchfield where all she does is wrestle. I can see that fight happening though, and maybe Rose vs Maycee Barber.

Ribeiro vs Machado, nah, fuck this. I gave it about a minute and started skimming through. The increase in fights like this are a huge part of the reason I never watch Fight Nights live anymore. I need the ability to skip bollocks like this. Looked horrible. And again, I said it from the moment the bout order came out, what the fuck was this doing on the main card?

Zoned out for a lot of the Jasmine Jasudavicius fight but saw she got the late sub. Looked like she’d taken over by that point anyway but the finish always helps. Quite telling though that she apparently outlanded Da Silva by a massive margin and landed tons of ‘significant strikes’, yet Da Silva looked like she’d barely been touched.

Never would’ve predicted that Dustin Stoltzfus would score the only knockout on this card, or any card ever. He’s either bored me shitless or just got battered the previous times I’ve seen him and I really felt like this was a case of the matchmakers trying to give Barriault a bit of an easy win on home soil. Well…

Proper Hockey scrap vibes, so you know the Canadians loved it. Fair play to Stoltzfus. I was harsh on him in the opening post and I still don’t think he’s very good, he’ll probably look useless again next time. But he got it done here. Saw a clip of him saying a POTN bonus would be life changing for him and asking Dana to make it happen. While I hate seeing fighters having to beg for crumbs from Dana like that, I was pleased to see Stoltzfus did get the $50K. Not looking good at all for Barriault. This was his third loss on the bounce and he’s been brutally put to kip in the first round in his last two fights.

Malott vs Giles…awful. Nothing else to add, it’s not worth typing about other than Malott’s going nowhere.

The prelims was actually where the best stuff was…

Aiemann Zahabi had a solid showing outworking Pedro Munhoz. A finish would’ve obviously been better but Munhoz is notoriously durable and has never been stopped so it wasn’t really expected anyway. Best win of Zahabi’s career, hopefully he stays more active now. He turns 37 this month so he’s already on borrowed time as a Bantamweight.

Nice to see Charles Jourdain get a win on home turf. Especially coming off a couple of losses. He needed this. Although I’m fully expecting him to lose his next two fights again now. It’s just how he rolls. Good fight as well. Really enjoyed it. There was no FOTN awarded but if there was this should’ve got it, I reckon. Kind of bittersweet because I like Victor Henry, but Jourdain looked good here and you can’t argue with a decisive finish.

Youssef Zalal got another strong win. Probably his best career win and overall performance yet, to be honest. That’s 3-0 with 3 submissions and back-to-back POTN bonuses since his UFC return this year. Fair play. Shite that it had to be at the expense of Jack Shore but Zalal just got the better of it pretty much throughout to me. Shore tried and failed to take Zalal down the whole first round, then was taken down himself towards the end of the round. Had to be a bit demoralising. Then early in the second…

Christ! Don’t know how Shore wasn’t instantly sleeping from that knee. It was flush on the jaw. You knew it was the beginning of the end though and Zalal put him away with the arm triangle seconds later. Stellar performance from Zalal and his three straight subs this year should bag him a biggish fight in early 2025. I don’t think he’s going too much further but we’ll see. He’s clearly levelled up since his first UFC stint.

Nothing to say about anything lower down the card than that. Other than Romanov doesn’t exist to me anymore. Sod the great big vat of dripping (Rik Mayall™️). The days of me marking out for his suplexes are long gone. Bloke’s been rotten to watch in his last bunch of fights now. Unless they match him up with someone I really like, I’ve got no intentions of ever watching the big lump again. I’m done with him.

Edited November 4, 2024 by wandshogun09

[Egg Shen]

Well you'll enjoy this:

Absolutely no issue with that. The shit thing is, you can see that if he dropped 30lb he'd probably be a top end heavyweight, the skillset is there, he just clearly cant stop eating.

I'd happily be shot of 4-5 fighters on this card.

[wandshogun09]

Yep. Good riddance to the gannet.

I agree as well, it’s not like he’s mega skilled and his grappling would’ve only taken him so far. He’d never have became UFC champ or anything. But with the lack of quality in the Heavyweight division today, I definitely think he could’ve carved out a long term spot there. Even as just a Heavyweight version of Neil Magny or something. But the other option was cake and that was that. You can trace it right back to that loss to Tybura. He was undefeated going in and, if you remember, that was the fight where Romanov had actually got himself in good shape. He lost a decision in a crappy fight and seemed to just stop giving a fuck permanently after that. By his very next fight all that weight he’d lost, well, he found it again. 

Edited November 5, 2024 by wandshogun09

[Carbomb]

33 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

Yep. Good riddance to the gannet.

I agree as well, it’s not like he’s mega skilled and his grappling would’ve only taken him so far. He’d never have became UFC champ or anything. But with the lack of quality in the Heavyweight division today, I definitely think he could’ve carved out a long term spot there. Even as just a Heavyweight version of Neil Magny or something. But the other option was cake and that was that. You can trace it right back to that loss to Tybura. He was undefeated going in and, if you remember, that was the fight where Romanov had actually got himself in good shape. He lost a decision in a crappy fight and seemed to just stop giving a fuck permanently after that. By his very next fight all that weight he’d lost, well, he found it again. 

This is the thing, isn't it? We often talk on here about what a fighter's response to their first defeat will be, and the reason it's so often cause for speculation is that you'll get as many responses like Romanov's as you will get those like, say, Makhachev's.