UFC 309: Jones vs Miocic - Nov 16 ???

[wandshogun09]

Daily instalment of Jones talking bollocks. This time he was moaning at the press conference about Stipe supposedly bringing up his kids or some shite, with Jones even saying during the face-off “don’t ever mention my kids again”. Stipe looked legitimately confused by the whole thing.

The only clip that anyone’s been able to find that it could possibly be referring to is this from Rampage’s podcast. And it’s got absolutely fuck all to do with Jones or his kids. 

 

[kev2050]

I suppose he's doing a decent job in selling the fight. I don't think I've ever wanted someone to lose so badly before! He's a complete and utter bellend. 

[wandshogun09]

If it’s selling the fight I think a lot of it’s accidental though. I think Jones is that wrapped up in his own bullshit he genuinely thinks he’s handling things well and coming across favourably. 

[Egg Shen]

1 hour ago, wandshogun09 said:

Daily instalment of Jones talking bollocks. This time he was moaning at the press conference about Stipe supposedly bringing up his kids or some shite, with Jones even saying during the face-off “don’t ever mention my kids again”. Stipe looked legitimately confused by the whole thing.

The only clip that anyone’s been able to find that it could possibly be referring to is this from Rampage’s podcast. And it’s got absolutely fuck all to do with Jones or his kids. 

 

Yep, that's the quote I believe. I dunno how Jones has tagged that as being a dig at him. Very strange, you could tell Stipe was genuinely abit pissed off and confused about it when Jones mentioned it at the face off.

In fairness to all involved, fight week has been really good. It's been different, but if the idea of the whole thing is to generate interest in the fights on a Saturday night, it's worked a treat.

[wandshogun09]

16 minutes ago, Egg Shen said:

In fairness to all involved, fight week has been really good. It's been different, but if the idea of the whole thing is to generate interest in the fights on a Saturday night, it's worked a treat.

I don’t know, it’s a weird one. Nothing that’s happened this week has made me wanna see Jones vs Stipe more. I’m still in that mode of ‘let’s just get this shit over with’, to be honest. Jones has spent more time talking about why he’s not fighting Tom Aspinall and why he should be fighting Alex Pereira, Jamahal Hill and Derrick Lewis than anything to do with Stipe. And Stipe’s his usual couldn’t give a fuck self. The buzz for this fight is negligible for me. The real intrigue is what happens in the fallout. I’m honestly over the whole Jones shit now though. If he’s not gonna fight the fights that matter, I’d rather he just fuck off.

All that said, if Stipe somehow gets it done and sparks Jones or something, this immediately becomes one of my favourite cards ever ?

Edited November 15, 2024 by wandshogun09

[wandshogun09]

Weird seeing these two being civil…

Also he mentions Stipe supposedly bringing his kids into it again there. Apparently in a video where Stipe’s “in his living room”. So in his head, it’s not the clip from Rampage’s podcast. Nobody else seems to have seen this video from Stipe’s gaff though. Be interested to see if Jones can share the clip at some point or is it, as I suspect, just a figment of his cocaine and booze addled imagination? 

Edited November 15, 2024 by wandshogun09

[Bus Surfer]

I think the Stipe/kids thing is Jon's lame way of trying to draw attention back to the fight and away from the 'Aspinall fest'. 

Jones has really done a number on himself this week, and for all of Dana's fluffing up of Jones over the last 12 months, he's pushed for the interim unification fight this week if either decide to stick around after this. If Jones does stick around, it ain't gonna be Jamal Hill. 

Stipe has absolutely been the forgotten man this week. Watch him sneek in and KO a rattled Jones now. 

Edited November 16, 2024 by Bus Surfer

[wandshogun09]

Ha! Seems Jones saw the clip going around of what Stipe actually said. And he’s now “forgiven” Stipe. For something he didn’t even say in the first place. How big of him.

 

[NeverYield]

I'd love to see Stipe pull this off

[wandshogun09]

Feels like the Oliveira vs Chandler rematch tonight is being massively overlooked due to all the silliness surrounding Jon Jones. It’s not a fight I was really desperate to see run back but I don’t have any complaints. One thing it shouldn’t be, given both guys track records, is boring. Just gave the first fight another look for probably the first time since it happened.

It went down at UFC 262 in May 2021. Khabib had retired after beating Justin Gaethje in October 2020 and relinquished the belt. Despite Dana refusing to accept it for a while and practically begging Khabib to fight on, he wasn’t having it, he was done. So the title became vacant. Nobody was expecting Khabib to call it a day at the time so it threw the whole title picture into chaos. At the time of Khabib’s retirement, there were three big key Lightweight fights booked - Oliveira vs Tony Ferguson was set for December 2020 then in January 2021 you had Poirier vs McGregor 2 and Chandler’s UFC debut against Dan Hooker. I think at the time people expected Poirier vs McGregor to become a title fight but Dana pissed about so long in his refusal to accept Khabib’s retirement that the ship sailed. We ended up with Oliveira beating Fergie, Poirier sparking McGregor and Chandler knocking out Hooker. I remember feeling strongly that it should’ve been Oliveira vs Poirier to decide the next champ but Poirier understandably jumped on the opportunity for a big third fight with McGregor. That left us with this…

Charles Oliveira vs Michael Chandler - Vacant Lightweight Title

UFC 262: Oliveira vs Chandler

May 15th 2021

Houston, Texas 

All I can think as I watch the entrances and Buffer intros here, is it’s a shame Khabib didn’t fight these guys. I totally get why he decided to call it a career after his old man died because his Dad was such a massive influence on his career and the voice he listened to most. They were a team and half of that was now gone, so I absolutely respect his reasoning for not wanting to carry on without him. But man, thinking about the possibilities of Khabib vs Oliveira, Khabib vs Chandler, maybe even rematches with Poirier or McGregor, an eventual Superfight with Volkanovski? Although the other way of looking at it is, had Khabib stuck around, Islam Makhachev never would’ve got his moment in the sun because they’d never have fought and Makhachev would’ve either just chosen to take a backseat fighting aimlessly at 155. Or he’d have had to move up to 170 and I’m not sure that would’ve worked out too well for him. Especially a few years ago.

Anyway, gone off on a tangent there. Usual PPV commentary team of Jon Anik, Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier. Referee is ‘Big’ Dan Miragliotta.

Round 1: As soon as the fight starts Chandler flies across the Octagon and takes the centre of the cage, but is immediately met with a calf kick from Olives which drops him for a second. Oliveira trying to control the distance with jabs and teep kicks early, Chandler’s trying to force his way into range with body punches. Chandler cracks Charles with a left hook that clearly registers and Charles shoots in for a takedown but gets caught in a guillotine. Imagine Chandler subbed Charles in the first minute of the fight like that? Charles escapes and now he’s got Chandler’s back! He’s trying to secure a choke but Chandler’s holding onto the hands for all he’s worth, stands up and…

Christ! This is all within the first 90 seconds or so. Charles is still on his back though. He just ate the slam and held on with the body triangle. Chandler’s still fighting the hands and then explodes back to his feet and he’s out of danger. Chandler now standing over him and trying to drop punches but he’s wary of Oliveira’s upkicks off his back. Both back on the feet and Chandler whacks him again with another hard left hook as Oliveira’s moving back to the cage and Chandler’s got him in all kinds of trouble now…

Oliveira’s moving about just enough to avoid the worst of it and keep the ref from jumping in but he took some punishment there. Still has enough wits about him to survive and you can see him throwing the legs up looking for armbars and triangles but he’s still on his back with Chandler on top dishing out the ground and pound. This is a bad look for Oliveira as the first round comes to an end. It’s a 10-8 for Chandler for me.

Round 2: Opening seconds of the second round…

Yep. That’s it! What a turnaround. From an absolute disaster of a first round to just smoking Chandler seconds into the following round. Unbelievable.

Winner - Charles Oliveira by TKO. Round 2 - 0:19.

Amazing moment. I’d been a fan of Oliveira for years but he was one of those guys I never expected to see become champion. It’s kind of been retconned now and I’m sure newer fans think Oliveira eventually winning the title was obvious but it really wasn’t. Older fans will remember all the losses and setbacks he had earlier in his career, all the talk about him folding when fights would get rough, some even went as far as saying he was a quitter. That was the knock on him for years. Plus, Khabib was still champion just months before this. A UFC title just never seemed to be on the cards for Charles. Timing is everything though. This was the perfect storm of the right set of circumstances, Khabib retiring etc and all coinciding with Charles hitting his absolute career peak form at the same time. I was chuffed to see him with the gold. And while he’d obviously never have chosen to have to walk through fire in the first round the way he did here, it must’ve been an even sweeter victory for him to be able to come back from an arse kicking like that and snatch a win from it with a KO himself. He silenced a lot of doubters with this win. Fighting through adversity and showing heart many doubted he had, and becoming UFC champion in the same night.

Not a clue what to expect out of this rematch. My initial thinking was Charles goes 2-0 in another barnburner. I’ll stick with that. I think Charles should really be winning this fight given Chandler’s inactivity. But honestly, it’s a bit of a coin flip for me. I find Chandler annoying and a bit cringe but, fair play to him, he’s game as fuck and he’s always got that power. And it’s not like Oliveira’s hard to hit. He gets clipped at some point in almost every fight he has. It’s not difficult to imagine a scenario where Chandler hurts him again (we already saw he can do it in the first fight) but this time closes the show. It’s not some crazy thought that’s beyond the realms of possibility, is it? I’m hoping Charles wins though. I’ve got a feeling one of these two is gonna be Max Holloway’s next opponent. Either would be a hell of a fight with Max but I really wanna see Holloway vs Oliveira 2. There’s unfinished business there and we were robbed of the war we should’ve got last time. There’s also the possibility that the winner of this back doors their way into a title shot. I think that’s more likely if Chandler wins though, oddly enough. It’s looking like Makhachev vs Tsarukyan 2 is going down early 2025 but if Chandler knocks out Oliveira or something tonight, I could see him getting the next shot after that.

Whatever. This should be a cracker tonight. I was lukewarm on it when it was announced for some reason but now it’s almost here and I’ve refreshed my memory on the first fight, I’m bang up for it.

Edited November 16, 2024 by wandshogun09

[WeeAl]

If Stipe/Jones happened in 2019-2021 I was always picking Stipe to be the more likely winner. I expected he'd be able to negate enough of Jones wrestling in order to allow a significant enough duration of the fight to take place on the feet and I fully expected only one man would have the ability to hurt the other. Jones was going to win a decision or Miocic was going to be the man to do what we had all been waiting on, and bounce JJ's head off the canvas. 

This gets harder now as both men are a shell of themselves. I've no idea why Jones is such a strong favourite now. He's something like -725 on the Vegas line I believe. Sure, he's going to go off as favourite, but Jesus. Other than being entirely gifted a win by Cyril Gane, Jon Jones hasn't looked impressive since beating Gusty 6 years ago.

Jones did enough to take a decision off Anthony Smith comfortably, who if we're honest, is and was a gatekeeper.

There's nobody in the planet convincing me Jones won 3 round off Dominick Reyes, and I wasn't convinced on Reyes going into that one and we know what became of him after. 

Then Jones goes out and takes another close decision over Thiago Santos, another decision I wouldn't have given him, but it was a fairly close fight. It's not a gleaming gold star for Jones because Santos was on his last legs, both literally and figuratively. He went in with one knee made of dust and came out with the other made of breadcrumbs. Yet Jon only just beat him - and even then, that's not how I viewed it. 

In the same sort of time period Miocic only fought 2 men, but I don't think there are really any questions marks over his wins or losses. Against DC and Ngannou, he was only fighting the top opponents available. He got KO'd twice, which is a problem, especially the DC one, but he managed to avenge the DC loss, and probably looked better in the 3rd fight than the 2nd. 

I'm closer to 50/50 on this than I used to be, but I'm going to stick with Fireman Stipe. It's a cash in for both, in a fight both think they can win, when both are long past their best. Either one of them could walk into the cage and make that statement age terribly by turning back the clock a bit, but I doubt it. In a game with the last thing to go being power, and neither man likely to be sharp anymore, I'm going with the heavier hitter and hoping he can touch Jones chin early doors. 

Not fucking paying for it though. 

[Dai]

I think Jones being such a favourate is nearly all down to how people are perceiving Miocic. Previous fights like the Reyes one, which happened a lifetime ago, have absolutley zero bearing or factor in this fight, as do every other fight both guys have had, with the exception of the Gane fight. The only thing in the past that is relevant is that Jones prepared for an absolute killer in Gane, and did it fairly recently.

The feeling seems to be that Stipe, on the other hand, has pretty much been living the life of a retired fighter for years, and is clearly only coming back as a one off because of the cash involved. I dont think Ive seen any speculation as to what would be next for Stipe if he wins in terms of other fights, as it seems so obvious that hes done after this one. Combined with his age, that video of him walking into the arena that one time, and such a big layoff, I think the odds seem OK. Theres no way Id bet on Jones at those odds though, as its still heavyweight fighters.

Maybe Im just biased as I believe the speculation that Stipe is physically shot, but even him walking onto the scales and on the stage during the ceremonial weigh ins just seems off. He doesnt inspire confidence, but am hoping he can pull off the win tonight.

[Dai]

Enjoyed the two main fights, which is all thats important on top heavy cards like this.

Unfortunately, everything people suspected about Stipe was true. He looked exactly like a physically shot, semi retired fighter in his 40s, coming back for a nice payday. Did you hear the absolute guff that Rogan and Anik was saying during Stipes entrance? "Some people believe that having time off from when Stipe was 38 until 42 is a good thing", Rogan says "I think having that time off would be a benefit". What complete bollocks. Rogan even brings up recovery time for Stipes KO against Francis. A good few months, yes, but three and a half years? What nonsense. Then he says hes put on a tonne of muscle, which he clearly hasnt either. Id like to know who these people Anik have been talking too who thinks having three years off in your late 30s is a good idea.

Jones could only beat the shadow of what was in front of him, but he still looked good to be fair. Very solid performance, but its hard to truely assess how good he actually is when he was against someone so bad. Theres no chance in hell hes fighting Tom, and I think even Tom knows it now by the complete no sell he did when the camera went to him. The post fight was a classic slimey Jones performance too, where all the rehearsed stuff is said, and nothing of any substance is.

 

Enjoyed the Charles/Iron Mike fight too. Unbelievable performance from Oliveira. Up until that spell in the last round, it was complete dominance. Chandler never gave up though, and I was rooting hard for him to finish the fight when he has Charles in trouble. Very enjoyable stuff to watch such a high level fighter like Oliveira.

 

The rest of the main card was all forgetable but decent. Had to fast foward the womens match though, but the other two fights were decent.

[wandshogun09]

This prick.

Fight went about as predictably depressing as most expected. Stipe looked beyond washed up to me, looked barely mobile at times and was almost a static target for significant spells of the fight. He just looked like a guy who’d been out 3 years and was pretty much retired when the call came to fight again. I don’t doubt he trained hard, or as hard as he can at this stage. Although I do think he was doing this mostly for that one last payday, he’s a pro and I do believe he gave it his all in camp and in the fight. The problem is, his ‘all’ now at 42 years old and after all that time off just wasn’t enough. I don’t even know how to rate Jones performance, to be honest. It’s gonna come off as me just being a hater but it was so obvious going in that he’d cherry picked an old inactive Stipe and carefully timed this to his advantage, how do you properly rate it? Jones seems to think this goes down on his record as a win over prime Stipe but for me beating this version of Stipe adds very little to his legacy. Agree with @Dai that the commentators were talking utter bollocks trying to spin Stipe’s time on the shelf as some kind of positive. Absolute cobblers that.

It was a cool finish, I’ll give him that. Brutal kick. You could see the heel dug right into the body and there’s a clip going around from close up at cageside where you can hear the impact and it’s sickening. Stipe’s body understandably completely shut down when that landed. It’ll look good on highlight reels. But the actual quality of the win, over 2024 Stipe, it all just feels hollow as fuck.

They recreated the Aspinall vs Pereira pic! If Jones vs Aspinall somehow happens, and it won’t, that should be the poster. Just whack the UFC logo on it, a big ‘JONES VS ASPINALL’ and the date. It doesn’t need anything else.

It’s a travesty that this fight is never gonna happen. I fucking knew Jones was probably gonna tease fighting Aspinall in the cage post-fight and then backtrack. I said as much here…

On 10/4/2024 at 3:49 PM, wandshogun09 said:

If that’s how it plays out and they put him on the spot like that I can see Jones teasing sticking around to fight Aspinall in that moment, but then backtracking later. He’s not gonna wanna lose face by publicly declining the fight to Aspinall’s face in front of the MSG crowd, surely. His ego won’t allow it. 

He was put on the spot and had to come up with something to try to save face and not look like the great big duck he is. But just like I said, he was already backtracking on that by the time he was talking to the media less than an hour later. Saying what he’s been saying for ages. That he’s not interested in fighting Aspinall, that it’s either Alex Pereira or he’s happy to give up the belt and walk away etc.

He’s added on the money thing now, saying he’ll fight Aspinall if the UFC pays him “enough money to where winning or losing won’t matter”. If that’s not an admission that he’s shook by Aspinall I don’t know what is. I’ll give him his due, he’s great at controlling narratives and giving his fans excuses to argue in his favour. Now when the fight doesn’t happen it’ll all be ‘He wanted to fight but the big bad UFC wouldn’t pay him his worth’ instead of just calling Jones out for avoiding the fight. There’s certainly truth that the UFC should pay better but that’s not what this really is. When Jones agreed to come back to the UFC early last year, it was an 8 fight deal, he said his pay was bumped up and he seemed very happy with it. He never mentioned wanting to be paid “his worth” when he fought Gane, he never complained about money for this Stipe fight and he’s never mentioned needing a bigger “life changing” paycheque if he gets that Pereira fight he wants. He’s happy with the money he’s getting to fight those guys. The only time he’s started banging on about the UFC needing to pay him monster money to make it worth his while is when the names Ngannou or Aspinall have came up. I wonder why.

He’s never gonna fight Aspinall. I see people getting their hopes up now because Dana said he’ll pay big money for that fight but whatever number he offers, I think Jones will want more. One of the oldest ways of ducking is to price yourself out. And as tight and detestable as Dana can be, I don’t think anything he offers he’s gonna be enough to get Jones to do it. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. I’ll be over the moon if the fight somehow gets made. But I don’t see Jones’ insecurity and ego allowing it. Everything he’s been saying and doing tells you he wants nothing to do with Aspinall. And he’s made enough money that he shouldn’t really need to ever fight again. He’s all wrapped up in his legacy and, in his fucked up head, he thinks his legacy is perfect now just because he doesn’t have a legit loss on his record and technically he’s a 2 division champ (even though at Heavyweight he never beat the champ and refused to unify with the interim champ) and he’s just stopped the UFC’s Heavyweight GOAT (even though he was slow as treacle and basically decrepit in fighter terms). He thinks his resume is absolutely stellar.

The mad thing is, I’m not even 100% sure Aspinall beats him. Jones fans seem to think that everyone who’s calling Jones a duck must think Aspinall definitely smokes him. I think it’s a winnable fight for Jones but he’s ducking because he doesn’t wanna take the risk. I don’t have a clue what happens. It’s why I really wanna see the fight. I don’t know what the fuck happens. As impressive as he’s looked, there are still major questions on Aspinall. How does he do if a fight goes past a round or two? We haven’t seen his ground game really put to the test. How does he respond to real adversity? Cuts? Etc etc. Jones could potentially push him in all those areas. And on the flip side, Jones hasn’t faced anyone who’s as big, fast, powerful and dangerous as Aspinall. Not just at Heavyweight, probably ever. If I had to pick though, I would lean towards Aspinall by KO. As bad and slow as Stipe looked last night, he was still managing to tag Jones at times. I just can’t shake the thought of what a much quicker and younger Aspinall could’ve done in those moments. I guess we’ll never know. It’s a truly fascinating fight and we’re never gonna see it because Jones doesn’t want any of it. He actually said to the media last night “Aspinall can have the belt, I don’t care about it”. Yet there’s still fools defending him and hating Aspinall for daring to speak up about it. This is basically the MMA version of Riddick Bowe throwing his belt in the bin because he didn’t wanna fight Lennox Lewis.

Sad to see Stipe go out like that. I genuinely wish he never came back. Hopefully he got paid well for this but his last fight week being dominated by all the bullshit that surrounds Jones is a shitty way to finish up a great career. Going out on the Ngannou KO obviously wouldn’t have been ideal but at least it was a loss to a good egg. Being used as a pawn in Jones game of record padding and fight dodging is a much sadder ending for him. Shame he didn’t get more of a sendoff, at least a montage or something. They must’ve known there was a strong chance he was retiring after this ahead of time. Then again, Stipe’s the type who probably wouldn’t even want a fuss made of it. 

Oliveira absolutely schooling Chandler in the co-main wasn’t really how I expected that fight to go. I picked Charles to win but thought it would resemble the first fight, just a wild back and forth corker however long it lasted, with Charles finding the finish at some point. It was almost a shutout though.

Had him running like Jones runs from legit fights. First 4 rounds were complete one way traffic. Probably a 10-8 or two in there. Almost all went tits up in that last round, wouldn’t be an Oliveira fight without him having to weather at least one storm. Thankfully Charles got through that and got the win. Happy to see Chandler lose. Once again he was being a dirty cheating little shite. Eyepoking, fence grabbing, glove grabbing and a load of back of the head punches. And he still lost clearly. Awful reffing letting him get away with all that unpunished. ‘No Nonsense’ Keith Peterson needs a new nickname because he allowed all kinds of nonsense from Chandler here.

As good as the performance from Charles was, the highlight for me was seeing him just casually walk past Trump and Musk as if they didn’t exist…

Beautiful. Had to be deliberate. The fuss they made about Trump and Musk being there, them doing the silly walkout with Dana before the main card started etc, there’s no way Charles didn’t know what he was doing there ?

I wanna see Oliveira vs Holloway 2 next. I know I’ve mentioned it a bunch of times on here but I’ll keep mentioning it like I did with Yan vs Figgy and hopefully wish it into existence. Make it for Max’s BMF belt so we get 5 rounds. Perfect. On the other hand, Chandler was as cringe as ever in his post-fight interview. Still begging for that McGregor fight, now of all times with McGregor literally in court for rape, felt slimy as fuck. Then the goofy shit like saying “we’ve been keeping the Octagon warm” - a guy who’s been inactive for 2 years. And “beat me if you can…” - a guy who just lost 4 rounds to 1. Fuck off Mickey.

Really not sold on Bo Nickal. He’s still green and young, maybe he’ll get there eventually but the way he was being hyped up and pushed down our throats when he came in never rang true for me and this just confirmed to me why I felt that way. Yeah, Paul Craig was a step up but Paul Craig’s also about to turn 37 and is on a 3 fight losing slump. If Bo was what everyone cracks him up to be, he’d have dealt with an ageing, in bad form Craig convincingly. As it was, he won a decision in a shit fight and didn’t really look all that good. The whole of MSG chanting “OVERRATED” at him said it all. Like I said, he’s got time. But it’s hilarious to me that he came in talking shit on Khamzat, Izzy, Pereira and so on and he’s looking bang average against Paul Craig. Seen some talk that he ‘carried’ Craig to get more cage time. Not buying it. You don’t do that on a PPV main card at MSG. If he could’ve blasted Craig out of there, he’d have done it.

The women’s fight, Araujo vs Silva, lost me. Had little interest in it going in, was baffled why it was billed so high on the card and I’d pretty much zoned out by the end of the first round. Didn’t pay it a ton of attention, it looked close but seemed to me like Karine Silva either gassed or kind of checked out in the third round. Disappointing. Didn’t look like much of a fight. Leave shit like this in the Apex.

Mauricio Ruffy had a solid performance and won clearly. Glad we got to see more of him here and that was because Llontop’s durability kept him in there. Ruffy cracked him with some nasty shit and he soaked it up and saw the final buzzer. Tough bastard. I felt like Ruffy was trying to be a bit too flashy and cute here. His style’s fun to watch but some of the weird stuff he was doing just seemed to be for the sake of it. Can’t help thinking it’s gonna backfire at some point but, yeah, entertaining to watch.

I liked the callout of Benoit Saint Denis. Seems a bit soon for that but if he wants it and BSD’s up for it, fuck it. Why not? Benoit’s coming off that bad loss to Moicano as well so it’s not like he’s in the mix anyway now. Although he mightn’t fancy the risk coming off back-to-back losses and then facing an unproven Ruffy. Probably more risk than reward but I wouldn’t mind seeing it. Had to laugh at Din Thomas speculating Ruffy might’ve been nervous because Trump was watching. What?

McGhee vs Martinez was a decent fight but it didn’t get going like I expected/hoped it would. Definitely felt like McGhee winning was the correct decision but Martinez should’ve done more with that opportunity in the third round when he had McGhee badly hurt with the leg kicks. That was his chance and he let it slip away. I like McGhee though. Don’t see him as a future contender or anything but there’s fun to be had with him in the Bantamweight division.

Always nice to see Jim Miller do his thing and get a win and a finish. Especially after that beating he took off Bobby Green in his last fight at UFC 300.

Short and sweet. Not sure who he fights next but hopefully he can get a couple more quick finishes in short fights like this where he takes minimal damage before he’s back in another hard scrap. Sounds like hitting that 50 UFC fight milestone is his next goal now, that’s only 5 fights away so I guess it’s realistic. Hopefully he doesn’t go on too much longer but at this point it seems like he’s not going anywhere for the time being. That’s Damon Jackson done though. Lay his gloves down and quietly stepped away.

The David Onama fight was a typical David Onama fight. So much fun to watch. Big credit to Roberto Romero as well. Takes two to tango and he came in on a few days notice against a tough opponent and just went for it. Cracking fight. First round especially was fantastic. I saw the other day that the next London card is gonna be in March. Give us Onama vs Nathaniel Wood on that show and I’ll be well happy.

Tybura made a right mess of Jhonata Diniz. I thought Diniz might just stop him early when he hurt Tybura at the start but he made the mistake of following him to the ground and pissing about going for leg locks and shit. That gave Tybura the opportunity to get back in it and that was that. He just beat Diniz down all the way to the doctor stoppage at the end of the second round. Typical Heavyweight stuff really but at least it didn’t go the distance.

Ramiz Brahimaj just smoked Mickey Gall quick. Made short work of him.

It’s a wrap for Gall, right? He’s 7-7 now and coming off 4 straight losses. I know we all thought and were told he was some hot prospect when he squashed CM Punk but…he’s just not very good, is he? At 32 years old, it feels like he’s on the scrapheap already.

Oban Elliott scoring the big knockout at MSG was a cool moment, especially when you know how badly he wanted on this card. Sounded like fighting at MSG was a bit of a bucket list thing for him so I was happy to see him finish it in style.

Hopefully Hafez is OK, it was a rough one. Obviously not important but I was a tad surprised and disappointed that Elliott didn’t go with a pro wrestling song for his entrance.

Eduarda Moura ending Veronica Hardy’s little win streak was a downer to kick off the card. Wasn’t overly impressed with Moura, she looked alright. Hopefully she stays at Flyweight though because it’s clear she’s too big for Strawweight. The grappling made the difference here in the end. Hardy’s clearly been working on her ground game but it’s still way below par.


Not a great show but it had its moments. And considering Jones vs Aspinall is almost definitely not happening, hopefully this was it for Jones and we can all move on from his silly bollocks games. It’s really Jon Jones all over that we waited about a decade for him to finally move up to Heavyweight and he still managed to disappoint us. If this was it, good fucking riddance.

Edited November 17, 2024 by wandshogun09

[Carbomb]

I just don't understand how a guy who has been lauded as arguably the GOAT can be happy with the way he's conducted himself in these last few matches. He's clearly doing some mental gymnastics to delude himself that this is champion-like behaviour.