UFC 310: Pantoja vs Asakura - Dec 7 ??

[wandshogun09]

Fight day!

[Panhead]

Great card on paper. The prelims alone would be a decent Fight Night. 

[wandshogun09]

This was an alright show. Not amazing or anything but it had its moments. If you missed it, it’s not the end of the world but I’d recommend watching Pantoja vs Asakura and Evloev vs Aljo at least.

Pantoja was awesome in the main event. He’s putting together quite a reign as champion and hopefully he’ll start getting a bit more love now with a performance and finish like this. Asakura was game and looked lethal from the off anytime they were exchanging strikes. That jumping knee right at the start of the fight set the tone and he landed a few big strikes after that would’ve probably ended the night against a lot of 125ers. Just so happens Pantoja’s chin is fucking cement. Then the finish…

That back take was absolute filth. Outstanding stuff. The way he set it up, sweeping the leg to throw Asakura off balance, locking on the body triangle as they were falling to the mat, then choking him unconscious. Thing of beauty. Brilliant performance and it’s not like Asakura looked bad. Obviously he was outmatched once it became a grappling battle but most will be against Pantoja. But he looked like a threat until Pantoja forced that game and I think Asakura is still gonna have his moments in the UFC. Lots of fun fights to make with him in the Flyweight division. Pantoja’s the man though. What a fighter. Between his grappling skills, his pace, his conditioning and his iron chin, he must be an absolute nightmare to fight.

This was interesting, I get why Pantoja called him out and of course I’d love to see it if possible. If you’re the Flyweight champ, why wouldn’t you wanna prove yourself against the consensus GOAT in the weight class? I get it. Problem is, it’s not gonna happen. Not only that, it can’t happen. As far as I can tell, even if he came out of retirement, Mighty Mouse would still be under contract with ONE. DJ’s already shot it down as you can see there and I’ve actually seen some gonks accusing him of ducking Pantoja. This is completely different to the Jon Jones situation though. For one, like I said, DJ’s not even contractually free. Even if he wanted to fight again, he can’t legally just turn up in the UFC and fight Pantoja. Who knows how many fights were left on his ONE deal but he’d have to fulfil that first. And if that’s, let’s just say, 3 more fights? He’s 38 now. He’d be 40-odd by the time he could even negotiate another UFC contract. It’s silly talk, a pipedream and basically MMA’s version of fantasy booking. Also, unlike Jones, DJ has officially retired already. He didn’t tease hanging around, he didn’t hold the belt hostage and try to cherry pick a couple of easy fights for extra paydays while constantly making sly digs at the actual deserving contenders. He bowed out the right way. It’s far from ducking. The amount of idiots I’ve seen acting like DJ can just show up in the UFC now is hilarious. If all you had to do to get out of a MMA contract was retire, then come out of retirement and just sign with another promotion, everyone would do it.

Shavkat vs Garry was a bit of an eye opener. Shavkat got the win and he’s gonna be getting the title shot so, in that sense, the outcome was what I expected. It’s how we got there which kind of surprised me though. Despite winning, I felt like Shavkat’s monster aura took a bit of a knock here. And I think Garry’s stock actually went up in defeat. To make it clear, I had no issue with the decision. I did think Shavkat won. There were a couple of close rounds but I had Shavkat winning by a round. But Garry fought really well, especially considering he was the one stepping in on short notice. His takedown defence was better than I expected and he did come closest to finishing the fight with that choke in the 5th round. I really thought it was all over for a minute there but Shavkat survived. It was enough to win him that round but I already had him 3-1 down going into the 5th. He needed a finish by that point for me and he very nearly got it! Wasn’t a great fight but it was interesting to watch and it certainly made Shavkat look a bit more human. I saw something from Cormier saying Shavkat was carrying a knee injury going into the fight. Maybe that played a part but whatever. Garry went up in my estimation here. First man to not get finished by Shavkat and almost finished him himself.

This’ll be next then. Should be seeing it in the first half of 2025. Very interesting one. It’s mad how a couple of fights can completely change your thinking on how a fight might go. If you’d asked me this time last year how I saw a potential Belal vs Shavkat fight going I’d have been fairly confident in picking Shavkat. I truly felt like Shavkat was the uncrowned champion in waiting and Belal had been winning but in the dullest and least impressive fashion possible. Now here we are and I’m really not sure. Belal completely dominating Leon Edwards and ripping the title off him wasn’t something I saw coming and it made me rethink my opinion on Belal a bit. And this fight has done similar with Shavkat. He’s still really good and he’s dangerous as fuck. But I get the feeling Belal will have been very pleased with what he saw in this fight. Garry exposed a few things which Belal will fancy being able to capitalise on. There are positives for Shavkat to take from this though. He’s got his first 5 rounder in the bank and he proved he can fight through adversity. He’s not just gonna fold in tough moments. If Belal comes in with that tunnel vision grappling approach like he did against Edwards though, I’m not sure how Shavkat’s gonna respond to that. If nothing else, I’m more intrigued by Belal vs Shavkat now than I was before this show.

Gane vs Volkov 2 was arse. Never expected much from it but still came out disappointed somehow. Whether it’s the layoff or what, Gane seems to be getting worse to me. He’s seemingly made no progress in the grappling and actually appears to have regressed in the striking, which is supposed to be his strong suit. Thought the decision was bollocks as well. First round was close, I’d have to rewatch that one. But I thought Volkov definitely took the second and third rounds. Rogan talking about Von Flue chokes that weren’t in and shit Kimura attempts from Gane were doing my head in. Rogan’s beyond washed as a commentator. Even his grappling commentary is awful now. Felt bad for Volkov. It wasn’t a good fight and it wasn’t his best performance by any means but I absolutely felt like he won this fight. And at 36, this might’ve robbed him and snuffed out his last chance of a run at the title shot. Not that I think he’d win the title but he was on track to at least getting a crack at it. That’s gone now. Whole thing was strange with Gane leaving the cage after and having to be brought back in for the Rogan interview. Not sure where either go next but they’ll probably have to do Aspinall vs Gane regardless because Jones is still quacking.

Thought Bryce Mitchell vs Kron Gracie was pretty shit up until the finish. Dead first round, kind of came alive in the second when Kron was going for the armbar from the bottom but once that failed it was like Kron was just done. The constantly pulling guard just isn’t gonna cut it in MMA anymore, even if your last name is Gracie. It’s 2024, not 1994. Finish was class, to be fair…

It looked like he was pretty much out of it from the slam to me but the two big elbows that followed were nasty. Bryce needed that coming off that brutal Josh Emmett KO and a year on the shelf. With how deflated Kron looked going into that third round, Bryce most likely would’ve won on points if it went the distance anyway but the finish was perfect for him. Amazing how a big finish will wash away the bad taste of an awful fight. The KO made everyone forget. That’s gotta be the end of the Kron Gracie/UFC experiment now surely. Fucker fights once every blue moon and looks like shite when he does. As for Bryce, I wouldn’t hate seeing him and Aljo tangle.

Korean Superboy put on a bit of a masterclass to kick off the main card. Best he’s ever looked in the UFC for me and I didn’t really expect this kind of fight out of him. I think everyone thought him and Landwehr would just be wall to wall chaos and mindless violence. Choi looked as sharp as I’ve ever seen him though and he fought a smarter fight than I thought he had in him at this stage of his career.

The lead left uppercut especially was money and he busted Nate up, outclassed him and found the finish late in the fight. Quality performance from him. Not sure what’s next. I kind of liked the Bryce Mitchell callout just for the clash of styles but there’s an Edson Barboza vs Steve Garcia fight coming up in February. Choi against the winner of that wouldn’t offend me one bit.

Dominick Reyes vs Anthony Smith was uncomfortable to watch. Good for Reyes getting back-to-back wins this year after that horror show slump of losses previously. But I don’t know what you can take from this because Smith clearly didn’t belong in there. It’s sad hearing about the death of his coach/best friend and clearly he was struggling with that here. But honestly, it might sound harsh but I think he was pretty much done anyway. He hasn’t looked right for a while to me. Little moments of positivity like the Petrino sub aside, he’s looked beyond washed up and checked out for some time. Despite him hinting at retirement in the post-fight interview, I’m not convinced this is it. He’s already leaving the door slightly open by only committing to it “probably” being his last fight but I think he might try and do at least one more.

Luque vs Gorimbo was always gonna be bittersweet. At least it was over quick though, I suppose.

Shite seeing Gorimbo get dropped and subbed in a minute. Crappy way for his little win streak to end. On the other hand, I was happy to see Luque get a win and without taking any damage. Still not convinced he’s “back” now but we’ll see what happens. What I really don’t wanna see next though, is another attempt at getting that Nick Diaz fight booked. They’ve tried twice, it’s fallen apart twice on Diaz’s side. There’s clearly something going on with Diaz, I hope they leave that alone now.

I never expected to be saying this but Evloev vs Sterling was the best fight on the card for me. Loved this fight. Whenever two really strong grapplers are matched up I usually say ‘hopefully they stick to grappling’ and they rarely do. We normally end up with a sloppy standup fight. This is why I say it though. There were obviously moments of striking, it’s MMA, but it’s clear it’s neither man’s bread and butter. Luckily for us, they mostly stuck to their strengths and it was great to watch. So much cool shit going on. Honestly expected a bit of a snoozer here but I was interested to see it play out. Way better fight to watch than I thought it’d be.

Best fight either of them have had in a while. Had no problem with Evloev getting the decision. It was close though. I thought Aljo definitely won the first round and Evloev won the second. All depends how you scored the third round and, while Aljo had good spells of control time, I felt like the difference maker was Evloev was more aggressive with trying to make a finish happen when he got control. Close one. Could’ve done with 5 rounds to properly play out to its natural conclusion but they obviously weren’t getting 5 rounds on this card. Fun fight though. They rarely give out a FOTN bonus these days. If they did then I’d give it to this fight. You know Dana wouldn’t have though and proof of that is that neither of these two got a POTN bonus either. I know, I know. Dana hates grappling shocker!

Battle vs Brown was surprisingly dull. Expected better from this and I had Brown winning as well so I didn’t like the fight or agree with the decision. Seen a lot of robbery talk but I wouldn’t go that far. I had Brown winning but there’s a case you can make for Battle. It was one of those fights though where neither came out looking good. This whole thing felt like a really unfortunate case of self sabotage from Battle. He was coming in with some momentum after that KO win in Paris. Then he follows that by rocking up on fight week this time and missing weight by 4lbs, squeaking out a split decision by doing a bunch of cage hugging, then starts moaning about getting booed? I was all for him telling the crowd to fuck themselves in Paris because he had a great performance that night and they were clearly booing him solely because he wasn’t French. This one though? You can’t really get arsey about booing when you miss weight badly then fight like shit and get an iffy decision. There’s a time for giving the crowd a ‘fuck you’, this wasn’t it.

Felt like Eryk Anders really drove the final nail in Chris Weidman’s career. Surely there’s no coming back from this. Anders has never been great but he’s really dropped off in recent years. So for Weidman to not only lose but look like shite against him? It’s over. It’s been over for years and years now but if he can’t get over the line against a last legs Eryk Anders, what are we even doing anymore?

Weidman turned heel for me after the multiple eyepoke fight with Bruno Silva in March, so it wasn’t like I was particularly rooting for him here. But even still, it was rough to watch. He had his chances as well, he had Anders in trouble in the first round but couldn’t close the show. It’s a wrap. Dana reeled off a few names who he thinks should retire after the show and Weidman’s name was one of them. If we’re being honest, the only reason his career has dragged on this long is probably because that big layoff after the leg injury delayed things. People talk like that injury was the beginning of his downfall but the truth is he was on a sharp decline for a while before that. Had that injury not happened, I think we’d have seen him beaten into retirement at least a couple of years ago. Hopefully he’ll see sense and the people around him will convince him it’s time to pull the plug. 40 years old and, what did Anik say, 40 surgeries? Shut it down.

Van vs Durden was a belter as expected. Tough first round for Van and I felt like Durden might just be able to grapple his way to victory but Van came back with a vengeance in the second and third and put a right beating on him.

If he’d had an extra 30 seconds at the end of the last round, I’m pretty sure he’d have got Durden out of there. He looked absolutely bollocksed at the end. Credit to him for hanging in there but there was no doubt who won when it was over. As much as I enjoy watching Van fight, I’d actually like to see him have a rest now. He’s fought 4 times this year and 3 times since July. He’s fought 3 times in 5 months! And they were hard fights as well. He’s only just turned 23. He’s stupidly entertaining to watch but he doesn’t need to be cramming all these dogfights into such a short timeframe this early in his career. I get that he’s probably not making that much money and he wants the regular paydays but if he doesn’t reign himself in a bit, I think there’s a real danger of him burning himself out early like Tyson Griffin did way back.

Michael Chiesa looked alright in his submission win over Max Griffin. Wasn’t that arsed about this though and the fight itself didn’t blow me away. Just felt like a fight where both are looking down the barrel of retirement so they got chucked together for the sake of it. Turns out Griffin has less left in the tank. Wasn’t the worst fight and Chiesa looked better than he did against the empty shell of Tony Ferguson last time. But at 37 and with all the layoffs, it’s going nowhere.

Man, Chase Hooper pissed straight through Clay Guida in a couple of minutes with ease. Although Guida’s age and miles on the clock kind of makes it hard to properly rate Hooper’s performance, this was probably the best I’ve seen him look. Just complete and utter dominance from the jump and a cracking finish to top it off. Loved the way he set the whole thing up…

It was one of those young prospect vs old veteran fights where you knew what the matchmakers were going for and if Hooper didn’t win it would’ve been a bad look for him. But the way he did it was still pretty impressive. Even in the later stages of his career, it’s not like Clay’s been getting finished regularly, Chase squashed him. He’s definitely improved and looked better since moving up to 155. I think you have to put it in perspective though and I felt like the commentators were getting a bit carried away, especially when they were talking about his improved striking. It does look better than it did but Guida’s never been a great striker himself and he was outgunned in height and reach here. Hooper’s on the right track though. He was struggling at 145 but looks much better at 155. He reminds me a lot of Joe Lauzon when he was young and on the rise. Both in fighting style and because of his nerdy likability.

Kennedy Nzechukwu made short work of Lukasz Brzeski in the Fight Pass opener. Dealt with that ham and egger the way anyone half decent should.

Nice KO. That’s Kennedy at 2-0 now with 2 first round finishes since moving up to Heavyweight. Rogan going on saying “he’s a contender” was a bit much. As shallow as the division is, wins over Chris Barnett and Lukasz Brzeski don’t make you a contender. But maybe he can go further at Heavyweight than he would’ve at 205. He’s definitely got the size and HW is even weaker than 205 so who knows? I like him and he seems a nice guy but I don’t see him challenging for any titles or making any real waves in the rankings. Still, I’d be quite happy to see him just keep mopping up the useless fat slugs and no hopers at the bottom end of the division. Let him take out some of the trash.



Yeah, not a bad card. Nothing earth shattering but the main event was a fun sprint, Evloev vs Sterling was excellent and we had a few sweet finishes scattered throughout the card. There’s been worse shows.

Edited December 9, 2024 by wandshogun09

[Egg Shen]

You can't unsee it

 

[sirdobbo89]

I thought Rogan shoving a mic in Anthony Smith's face mere minutes after getting beat and asking him if he's going to retire after he'd just told Rogan he's lost his best friend and his head is all over the place was awful. I know he'd taken his gloves off but Christ, just leave the fella alone man. 

I put one bet on this card, Anders over Weidman. It was a pick em at some bookies, couldn't believe it. Anders is shot but he's not 40 years old coming off having your leg get put back together shot. To be fair, Weidman had me scared a bit in the first round but come the second round he had absolutely nothing left to give. 

[Egg Shen]

45 minutes ago, sirdobbo89 said:

I thought Rogan shoving a mic in Anthony Smith's face mere minutes after getting beat and asking him if he's going to retire after he'd just told Rogan he's lost his best friend and his head is all over the place was awful. I know he'd taken his gloves off but Christ, just leave the fella alone man. 

 

To be fair to Rogan, I don't think that his call, the guys in his ear will be teling him to try getting an interview.

Dunno if anyone picked it up, but Dana said post fight that Guida, Weidman & Smith all fought their last fights in the UFC Saturday and all 3 should retire.

[wandshogun09]

Yeah, I reckon Smith will move into the analyst role full time. Maybe even some colour commentary would be worth a try. He can’t be as bland as Dominick Cruz anyway.

If this is it for Guida then it’s a real end of an era. Yeah, he’s been a bit shit to watch for years but he was a big part of the resurgence of the Lightweight division when it was brought back in 2006. Bigger than he’s probably given credit for, in my opinion. They clearly revived 155 because BJ Penn was back and they wanted to do the Jens Pulver rematch but if they didn’t also have a ridiculously strong and exciting supporting cast of Guida, Tyson Griffin, Roger Huerta, Frankie Edgar, Kenny Florian, Joe Stevenson, Leonard Garcia, Spencer Fisher, Sam Stout, Melvin Guillard, Joe Lauzon, Thiago Tavares, Terry Etim etc etc then I don’t think the revamp would’ve worked quite so well. The fact I can still rattle off those names from 16/17 years ago off the top of my head tells you how awesome that division was. And Guida’s fights with Tyson Griffin, Roger Huerta and later Diego Sanchez and Benson Henderson were all time great 155 wars. Seriously, if I had to put together a list of the best fights in Lightweight history, Guida’s probably got 4 of the Top 10 spots sewn up right there. 

So while he’s not been much fun to watch in recent years, I’ve always had a soft spot for the mad bastard. He did enough earlier in his career to get a pass for the lacklustre later years to me. Fair play to him for turning what looked like a career that was guaranteed to burn out within a few years into an 18 year, 37 fight UFC run.

[WeeAl]

Pantoja was excellent here. I have a feeling we'll be seeing this one again fairly shortly as I can still see Asakura smoking 1 or 2 people in spectacular fashion and getting a re-match. But on this night Pantoja showed he's just got too much to his game for him. 

Shavkat/Garry was impressive stuff from both I thought. Both very talented fighters meeting at similar points of the careers, just having entered their prime, neither with any losses yet. Each man should have been each others sternest test to date. Shavkat risked the title fight he'd already earned and Garry took on the guy few wanted to fight and looked impressive in defeat. They'll meet again. Garry/Edwards, Belal/Rakhmonov next? 

Volkov got robbed. 

Bryce Mitchell . . .? Can't stand the wally. Wouldn't mind seeing Choi get him next actually, and with a bit of luck chin the Muppet. How this fight was on the main card ahead of Aljo/Evloev was a disgrace. Speaking of which, that fight was immense. Just neither man willing to accept any position and both constantly trying to escape, transition, and force the fight. A masterclass of grappling in an MMA fight. 

It was a delight seeing Superboy come out looking so strong here as well, he made Landwehr look like he'd stepped straight out of UFC 3. Even nicer that he took pretty much no damage. It would be cool to see him put together a late career streak. 

It was sad watching Anthony Smith in there taking a beating that he had no need to be taking. He was in no shape mentally to fight. He's been done for a while, but my goodness this was hard to watch, someone that's pretty much inviting a beating in order to feel physical hurt for a few minutes over the mental anguish. Could have been stopped donkeys before it was really. Reyes didn't do anything wrong here, but there's no credit to be dished out to him for beating this Anthony Smith. We learnt absolutely nothing about Dominick Reyes here, just a whole pile of information about where Smith is at. 

Luque taking no damage was also nice to see. The announcers though? Deciding he's in his prime after this? Have a word with yourselves. Solid win. Hopefully someone else Luque is likely to grapple is up next again rather than someone's he'd feel compelled to put in 3 rounds on the feet with. 

[wandshogun09]

1 hour ago, WeeAl said:

Bryce Mitchell . . .? Can't stand the wally. Wouldn't mind seeing Choi get him next actually, and with a bit of luck chin the Muppet.

Choi’s called him out again using a picture of the very round, very non flat Earth ?

[wandshogun09]

Pantoja vs Figgy 2 anyone?

I was all for Figgy moving up to Bantamweight and I still think it’s obviously a more healthy weight class for him at this stage in his career. And for all the talk of him being undersized at 135, he’s proven he’s very competitive at the weight and his power has carried up to the point he was dropping the likes of Chito (who’d never hit the canvas before) and Yan.

BUT…

I can’t even deny I’d love to see a Pantoja vs Figgy rematch. And even though Flyweight’s been Rematch City for the longest time, the first Pantoja vs Figgy fight was long enough ago (2019) that it would feel fresh again now and from what I remember of the first fight it was a lot of fun. If Figgy can still make 125, I’m in. The alternatives right now are a third fight with Brandon Royval or a fourth fight with Brandon Moreno. And it’s not like they’re back and forth series, the Brandons have gone winless in a combined 5 fights against Pantoja. I do think Royval’s earned another shot with the wins over Moreno and Taira this year, but I don’t know, he’s 0-2 down and the last fight was only a year ago. The Figgy fight just does it for me. 

[Tamura]

On 12/10/2024 at 2:37 PM, Egg Shen said:

To be fair to Rogan, I don't think that his call, the guys in his ear will be teling him to try getting an interview.

I'n not convinced there's guys in his ear, or if there are they want sacking along with Rogan for not cutting his mic whenever he says something mind-numbingly stupid. Less than a minute after Jones beat Miocic at UFC 309 we have this.
 

Quote

Anik - The greatest mixed martial arts fighter of all time adding to his appreciable legacy by knocking out the most decorated heavyweight champion to ever do it, Stipe Miocic in round 3
Cormier - That was beautiful, it was a great performance from start to finish. Just strategically breaking Stipe down [unclear] Left Stipe with no answer
Rogan - Lets be honest about this though, Jon looked very good Stipe did not. He looked slow, he looked like he was having a hard time closing the gap. Now how much of that was what Jon was doing to him and how much of it was what Stipe had left in the tank

Notice how Anik and Cormier are doing the sensible thing and bigging up the winner, especially since even the dogs in the street knew Miocic was done after that failed comeback. But instead of going with the flow and just saying something positive about Jones, we have Rogan needlessly playing devil's advocate and tarnishing Jones' performance. Or if he couldn't have said anything positive, he could have said absolutely nothing at all. 

[Egg Shen]

On 12/10/2024 at 3:32 PM, wandshogun09 said:

 

So while he’s not been much fun to watch in recent years, I’ve always had a soft spot for the mad bastard. He did enough earlier in his career to get a pass for the lacklustre later years to me. Fair play to him for turning what looked like a career that was guaranteed to burn out within a few years into an 18 year, 37 fight UFC run.

Yeah, legendary run.

There was that short period of time like you said when Guida was arguably the most 'must watch' fighter in the sport.