Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted December 14, 2024 Paid Members Posted December 14, 2024 (edited) Heading back to California for the first PPV of 2025 and it’s a good one. PPV MAIN CARD Islam Makhachev©️vs Renato Moicano - Lightweight Title Merab Dvalishvili©️vs Umar Nurmagomedov - Bantamweight Title Jiri Prochazka vs Jamahal Hill Jailton Almeida vs Sergey Spivac Kevin Holland vs Reinier De Ridder ESPN PRELIMS Payton Talbott vs Raoni Barcelos Zach Reese vs Azamat Bekoev Bogdan Guskov vs Billy Elekana Grant Dawson vs Carlos Diego Ferreira ESPN+/FIGHT PASS PRELIMS Karol Rosa vs Ailin Perez Rinya Nakamura vs Muin Gafurov Ricky Turcios vs Benardo Sopaj Tagir Ulanbekov vs Clayton Carpenter Love this card. That one-two combo of Makhachev vs Tsarukyan 2 and Merab vs Umar is tremendous, the rest of the main card is pretty solid and there are a few little gems on the prelims. Lovely stuff. As always, I’ll update this post as we go. No doubt there’ll be changes. But yeah, they’re starting off the year the right way with this. Islam Makhachev vs Renato Moicano is the new main event as of 24 hours before show time. First PPV of the year and we’re already dealing with this bullshit. Of course it was supposed to be Makhachev defending against Arman Tsarukyan in a rematch of their excellent 2019 fight. We got to fight week, we had the press conference, we got to weigh in day. Somehow Tsarukyan’s managed to injure his back the day before the fight and that’s that. He’s out. With so little time to play with, there weren’t a lot of realistic options. I emphasise the word ‘realistic’ because whenever something like this happens, you always get a bunch of fighters rushing to their social media accounts making cryptic posts about stepping in. There were a few again this time. Whether they were genuine or just grandstanding, who knows? But from the UFC’s perspective, if they were gonna get a replacement on such short notice, it was always gonna be easier for them logistically to offer it to someone who was already on the card rather than having to fly someone in who probably wasn’t even on weight. Too many variables and shit that can go wrong for that. Luckily they had a 155er on the undercard they could call on… Renato Moicano was all set to fight Beneil Dariush on the main card. A solid fight in its own right but obviously Tsarukyan’s withdrawal fucked the card about good and proper and forced the reshuffle. At 35 years old, this is a massive opportunity for Moicano that he might never have gotten under normal circumstances. While he is on a nice 4 fight winning streak, he’s at #10 currently in the Lightweight rankings and it wasn’t likely he’d be getting a title shot in the near future. But here we are. Just goes to show that getting on the same card as a title fight in your division is always a spot worth trying for. If someone gets injured, you’re pretty much always gonna be the first port of call to step in. Moicano’s a good fighter with a respectable 20-5-1 record. Good Jiu-Jitsu, so-so striking but he makes up for some of that with aggression. He’s game and tough and he’s got some momentum right now coming off absolutely butchering Benoit Saint Denis on the Paris card in September. All things considered, despite the less than ideal way this fight came about for him, this might be the best time for him to get a chance at UFC gold. He’s probably never been in better form in his UFC career. It’s an uphill battle though. Makhachev might just be the pound-for-pound best fighter in MMA right now. He’s really gone from strength to strength since taking over from his buddy Khabib. Wins over Drew Dober, Thiago Moises, Dan Hooker and Bobby Green got him to the title shot. Then in late 2022, he dropped and submitted Charles Oliveira to become champion. He followed that with back-to-back wins over Alexander Volkanovski, the first fight being a legitimate FOTY contender and the rematch being a first round headkick knockout. Then in June, he subbed Dustin Poirier in the 4th round of a gruelling battle. It was a cracking fight and Makhachev didn’t have it all his own way. Poirier fought his arse off like he always does but Makhachev was just a step ahead, made some adjustments and found the finish late in the fight. Hell of a performance. The criticisms he used to get, and still does sometimes, about being boring are in tatters at this point. Complete bollocks. In his last 8 fights, he’s finished 7 of them and the one that went the distance was that FOTY with Volk. He’s worked hard to improve his striking to the point he’s hanging with, dropping or even stopping the likes of Oliveira, Volk and Poirier. When he’s grappling he’s looking to finish. Doesn’t seem a prick outside the cage and usually comes across as likeable and even quite funny at times. What’s not to like? At this point I’m convinced a lot of the twats who still hate on him are just Islamophobes, because there’s no logical reason to dislike him as a fighter. The other knocks he used to get are mostly in the bin now as well. The ‘he only fights in Abu Dhabi’ one has been put to bed. The Poirier fight was in New Jersey, this Moicano fight is in LA. The other one after the Volk fights was ‘he doesn’t have one defence against a real Lightweight’. So he’s just fought Poirier then had this Tsarukyan/Moicano bollocks. Now I’m seeing people act like he’s ducking Topuria. A Featherweight! Make it make sense. The haters can’t decide what to hate him for. Already I’ve seen divs criticising him for defending against Moicano like this situation is his fault. But if he declined Moicano on short notice and wanted to rebook the Tsarukyan fight, the same dickheads would be giving him shit for that. Nothing will be good enough for these types. Makhachev’s ace. One of the best and most consistently entertaining champions the UFC has right now. Not the fight any of us expected, including the two fighters involved. And as I’ve said later in the thread when the news broke that Tsarukyan was out, I’m not feeling it. Totally get why the UFC went this route given the circumstances, the lack of options on such short notice and Makhachev probably insisting on staying on the card. This was the best they had to work with in a really shitty situation. Still, I can’t pretend I’m that interested in this despite how long I’ve waffled here. I just don’t see Moicano having much for Makhachev. While the Saint Denis beatdown was impressive, he didn’t look amazing against Drew Dober and he was pretty much knocked out by Jalin Turner at UFC 300 but Jalin inexplicably let him off the hook. There’s always the x-factor that mad shit can happen when there’s a late replacement. When a fighter has trained specifically for a certain opponent then it gets switched up last minute, especially 24 bastard hours before, it’s a recipe for weird things to happen. I’d be shocked though. Moicano’s good, Makhachev’s great. There’s a difference and I think Makhachev should win comfortably. There’s no area where I think Moicano has an edge. Merab Dvalishvili vs Umar Nurmagomedov is on! Our first title fight of 2025 and I was actually pleasantly surprised when this got announced. Merab’s been so vocal about Umar not deserving a title shot that I thought we were in for a long drawn out load of old bollocks with him refusing to fight Umar and butting heads with Dana and the matchmakers over it. I don’t know what changed but however they got it done, I’m just glad they got it done. Fascinating fight this. I never shut up about Bantamweight being my favourite division these days and this is about as intriguing a fight as there is in that shark tank of a weight class. Merab finally became champ on the big Sphere card back in September. Although the judges scorecards had it closer, I thought Merab dominated Sean O’Malley to almost a shutout. I was happy to see him take that UFC gold. For one, I’m not a fan of O’Malley so him losing the strap was fine by me. But Merab had also grafted his way into that position. He wasn’t the UFC’s chosen one and I’m sure they were hoping O’Malley would spark him. Merab’s had some setbacks over the years. In 2018 he was 7-4 and coming off back-to-back losses. Since then he’s gone on an 11 fight winning streak and beat the likes of John Dodson, Marlon Moraes, Jose Aldo, Petr Yan and Henry Cejudo to earn that title shot. I’ve seen Ray Longo and Matt Serra talk about his work ethic and apparently he was still working construction for some of his UFC career. To see a guy like that reach the top of the sport is always nice. This is where I started to sour on Merab a bit. Immediately after winning the title from O’Malley, Rogan asked him in his post-fight interview about possibly defending against Umar Nurmagomedov next. And right away Merab was deflecting the question and talking about how much he loves Dana White. In the weeks that followed, he was even pushing to rematch O’Malley on a quick turnaround as early as the MSG card in November. Then when Umar got vocal about fighting in Dec/Jan so it would be before Ramadan, Merab was suddenly saying that was too soon for him. Despite calling to rematch O’Malley in November? Then he was angling to defend against Figgy. Then when Figgy lost to Petr Yan, he was campaigning to fight Yan. Again, that would be another rematch against a guy he’d already beat handily. I don’t know. I just don’t like champions picking and choosing who ‘deserves’ a title shot. And especially when they’re trying to swerve interesting fights in favour of rematches of fights they already won in one sided fashion. However you chop it up, it’s never a good look for a champ to be calling out guys he already dominated. But we got there in the end. In early December, out of nowhere, it was announced. Umar Nurmagomedov would be getting his shot after all. It was clearly the fight the UFC wanted to make. The fact they had Umar in attendance at the Sphere and had the cameras all ready to go on him during Merab’s post-fight interview told you what the plans were. So despite Merab trying to insinuate O’Malley, Figgy and Yan into the mix, this was the direction the UFC wanted and Merab doesn’t really have the star power or pull to call his own shots like a Jon Jones or McRapist might. Umar tweeted this as far back as 2021! He was just one fight into his UFC career at that point. Here we are 4 years later and he’s well on track to achieving it. Has he called it perfectly? Time will tell but if he pulls this off, that tweet is gonna age beautifully. I don’t have a problem with Umar getting the shot at all. I get the arguments that he doesn’t have a strong enough overall resume. And I do understand, to a point, why Merab thinks Umar hasn’t done enough considering Merab took the harder route to his title shot. I get it. But Umar’s 18-0 and coming off a clear and impressive win over Cory Sandhagen in August. Sandhagen was ranked #2 going into that one so Umar rightly shot up the ladder with that win. And looking at the rankings, this is the Top 10 at Bantamweight currently, if not Umar, who right now would you rather see challenge Merab? OK, O’Malley just lost clearly to Merab. Yan’s coming off a couple of really solid wins but got 50-45d to fuck by Merab in 2023. Sandhagen just lost to Umar. Figgy just lost to Yan. Chito just lost to Figgy. Do I need to go on? The only one with a real argument is Yan and, like I said, he got completely dogwalked by Merab not too long ago. I think the move now is clearly O’Malley vs Yan 2. Give them 5 rounds and that should determine the next contender for the winner of Merab vs Umar. It’s pretty simple. But at this moment in time, there isn’t a more compelling fight at 135 than Merab vs Umar. I don’t know how anyone could be mad at it. And the fact Merab seemed so hesitant to sign on the dotted line just makes it even more intriguing. Is he unsure of himself against Umar or is it just that he genuinely dislikes him and thought he wasn’t worthy of the opportunity? They did the press conference recently and Merab had a lot to say… “It’s going to be a tough fight. He’s a good fighter. But he didn’t earn it like everybody else. You have to go through the best but he only fought no-wrestling Sandhagen. Yeah, he’s a good fighter but you have to fight everybody to prove. But I give people what they want and I give the UFC what they want.” “I was going to take my time. I was thinking to take six months between my fights and I was going to enjoy. Then when Petr Yan had a great fight against Figueiredo, I was so excited, especially because he called me out. Since Umar wasn’t able to fight in March, I said OK, let’s fight Petr in March in Las Vegas. O’Malley was coming back in April. I was thinking to fight O’Malley in April and I was thinking to fight Umar in May. Now it’s flipped.” “Of course it’s personal, because every time I see him, I give him my respect, I shake his hand, I even tell him I was going to fight him one day. He started talking trash online and real men don’t do this. So it’s personal for me.” - Merab Dvalishvili He also cut Umar off when he tried to speak and had a bit of an outburst calling him a “piece of shit” and that he’d lost his respect. I honestly don’t know what Umar’s supposed to have done or said that’s got Merab so pissed off but it was the most angry I’ve ever seen him. From what I can tell and what I’ve seen, Umar’s ’trash talk’ has just been standard stuff from a contender trying to get a title shot. It all seems like a bit of an overreaction from Merab to me and it’s making me think he might be rattled. It’s weird because it’s a fight I’m pretty much 50/50 on but Merab’s behaviour is giving me major doubts. This thing about fighting Yan in March, O’Malley in April and Umar in May is pure shite as well, isn’t it? That was never ever gonna actually happen. In another bit of Dana bullshit, he told this story at the presser of Merab “storming into his office” late one night and demanding the Umar fight because he was fed up of the disrespect. Only problem was, Merab was on Helwani’s show after saying that, before they called him about this fight, he was planning to go back to Georgia in January to celebrate his birthday. He wasn’t planning to fight on this card until the UFC (whether it was the matchmakers or Dana himself) called. He did say he went to the office but it didn’t sound like the way Dana described it. Merab was saying he went to the office and said “OK” to the fight, “I step up. I’m just tired. OK we can fight, even though I was coming from injury”. It sounds to me like he didn’t really fancy it and they pressured him. I’m all the way fucking in on this. Balls deep. Feel like I kind of have to put a disclaimer in here though, that it might not be a barnburner. Given their styles, there could be a lot of grinding against the cage and stuff. But it’s a fight that needed to happen and if you’re a fan of MMA and not just ‘knockkoutzz’, it’s gonna be absolutely engrossing to sit back and watch how they match up, who wins the wrestling battle, whose cardio holds up longer etc. And there is a chance these two do go out and tear the house down. We just saw Evloev and Aljo have an unexpected banger, these guys are definitely capable of something similar. Not sure how it goes but seeing how emotional Merab was getting at the press conference puts an extra added twist on this for me. I’ve never seen that side of him in the build up to a fight before. Awesome stuff. I think I’m actually more buzzing for this fight than the main event! Jiri Prochazka vs Jamahal Hill is an OK fight by current Light Heavyweight standards. That’s not saying much and it does probably sound overly negative but I don’t hate this matchup. If nothing else, I’m gonna be invested because Jiri’s a likeable goof and Hill’s a total gonk. It’s not a fight people are gonna be indifferent to and for me it’s a crystal clear babyface vs heel situation. If it feels like this fight should’ve happened before, you’re right. We were seemingly headed in the direction of a Prochazka vs Hill title fight not too long ago but it never materialised and then Alex Pereira came along and snatched the 205 crown. Jiri’s trying to rebound from that brutal headkick knockout loss in his rematch against Pereira back in June. It was a rough one and with him now being 0-2 to the champ, he’s gonna have a hard time getting another crack at the belt while Pereira’s holding it. Not impossible but he’s got his work cut out. He did take that fight on very short notice, to be fair, so maybe that will help his case if he can bag a couple of wins. He did stop Aleksandar Rakic at UFC 300 and, Pereira losses aside, he was on a long winning streak for years. Jamahal Hill’s still bellyaching about this ? A fight where he kicked Pereira in the balls, they paused, Hill acknowledged the bollock shot, they touched gloves, restarted, Hill threw a punch, got countered and knocked the fuck out. That’s what happened. We all saw it. Yet for the last 8 months, Hill’s been crying about it and saying Herb Dean screwed him over somehow and Pereira fought dirty or cheated somehow. If I wasn’t already familiar with how sensitive and thick Hill is from his social media, I’d have thought he was trolling. He seems to have genuinely convinced himself he was on the wrong end of some kind of conspiracy or injustice though. Then there was that video that came out of him confronting Pereira at some gym. Pereira threw some gloves at him and offered to settled it there and then. Hill bitched out. To reiterate, he approached Pereira, talking tough like he wanted to fight, then backed down when Pereira called his bluff. Pathetic shit. I mean, part of me understands why that Pereira loss is eating away at him. He’d talked shit going in and then ended up as a meme. It had to be embarrassing and he’s had to sit on that loss for 8 months. That was his last fight. So it’s probably been driving him nuts. But every time he talks or tweets or does anything, he makes a right tit of himself. Hoping Jiri clobbers him here. First and foremost, just because I like him more. And also, I’m curious to see just how much more deluded and stupid Hill’s excuses can get with another loss here. Jailton Almeida vs Sergey Spivac isn’t too bad for a Heavyweight fight. It doesn’t make me wretch the way most fat boy division fights do these days. Jailton’s actually probably a future title contender. He had that blip where he beat Derrick Lewis but looked shite, then got stopped by Curtis Blaydes in his next fight. He’s since rolled over Alexandr Romanov in double quick time but that Lewis/Blaydes two fight stretch pretty much killed his buzz. He’s still better than most of the slugs that populate HW though. Once all this shite with Jon Jones is cleared up and he finally fucks off, when Tom Aspinall is officially the champ I can absolutely see Almeida being one of his first challengers. He’s gotta get past Spivac first though. At 29, Spivac’s young for Heavyweight. He’s 17-4 and coming off a first round submission win over Marcin Tybura in August, avenging his decision loss to Tybura back in 2020. I don’t know. Spivac’s far from the worst in the division and he’s got some decent wins but I’m not sure about him. The way he fell to pieces against Gane doesn’t give me much hope for his future. Either way, I just hope this is over within a round or so. Nobody needs long Heavyweight fights in their life. Kevin Holland vs Reinier De Ridder is ***WAND’S ONE TO WATCH*** this time. Really like the sound of this. They’re not messing around with De Ridder, are they? Despite being a two weight champion in ONE, when he signed with the UFC he was quite vocal about being disappointed that ONE weren’t keeping him busy enough by the end of his run there, he’s definitely making up for lost time now. He literally just made his UFC debut in November, submitting grizzled veteran and jam-up guy Gerald Meerschaert in the third round of a really enjoyable battle. It wasn’t pretty to watch, particularly in the striking exchanges, but you couldn’t fault the effort. They both went for it and emptied the tanks. I’m not convinced De Ridder can go too far in the Middleweight division. There’s a sloppiness about him which leads me to believe he’s gonna get chinned at some point but he’s a very welcome addition to the division. It’s not like 185 is really deep on talent these days either. Who knows? Maybe De Ridder can get further than I’m expecting. I like him though. And this is a fun fight and a logical next step for him… Holland’s gonna have to have better answers for the grappling than that in this fight ? Like I said though, Holland is a logical next step for De Ridder. Meerschaert was a solid debut fight and certainly no pushover. But I feel like Holland offers a different kind of threat. He’s not clueless in the grappling but not as skilled there as Meerschaert. But where he’s more dangerous is on the feet. I’m not convinced he can keep it standing because his defensive wrestling isn’t the best, so in that sense I think it’s a good style matchup for De Ridder. But he’s scrappy and has power and could make RDR pay if he gets reckless with his striking or careless with his attempts to grapple like we’ve seen before. Really good fight and I know I’m probably jinxing it now but it’s one of them where you can’t see it going the distance either way. It’s got ‘Holland by KO’ or ‘De Ridder by submission’ written all over it for me. Payton Talbott vs Raoni Barcelos really stands out from the undercard to me. It’ll probably get lost in the shuffle going in on a card like this but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s one of the more talked about fights the next day. Good feeling about it. Talbott’s really emerged over the last year as one of the more exciting prospects on the roster. He’s 26 years old, undefeated at 9-0 and has gone 3-0 with 3 finishes since making his UFC debut in late 2023. Not only that, he’s looked more impressive each time. He got the TKO over fellow prospect Cameron Saaiman in March and looked fantastic. Then in June… Totally iced Yanis Ghemmouri in just 19 seconds! After a finish like that, on a big card like UFC 303, I was sure they were gonna throw him into a prominent spot on a card in his next fight. So I was kind of surprised he’s on the prelims again but they couldn’t really bill him higher than anything on that main card. Plus, there’s no rush. He’s got time. And Barcelos is definitely a test on paper. At 37, he’s no spring chicken. The matchmaking does have a bit of a Boxing feel to it where the young up and comer is matched up with an ageing journeyman. There is a bit of that here but Barcelos is tough and dangerous and could push Talbott and ask some questions of him. He’s coming off a submission win over Cristian Quinonez on the Mexico City card in February, so almost a year of inactivity here, obviously not ideal, especially at 37. Barcelos isn’t a gimme but I do expect Talbott to win. There’s a reason they’ve made this fight now. At this point in both their careers, Talbott is ascending and Barcelos is descending. Zach Reese vs Azamat Bekoev is a late change and sounds like a bit of an upgrade to me. Reese was supposed to fight woman beating scumbag Sedriques Dumas here. Dumas is out and the card lost nothing of value. In steps Bekoev who I’ve never seen before but Sherdog tells me he’s 18-3 with 14 finishes and he just did this in his last fight in June… Just off the strength of that KO alone, having seen fuck all else of Bekoev, he’s an improvement on Dumas for me. Reese is 8-1 with 7 finishes and is coming off wins over Julian Marquez and Jose Medina. Can’t remember much about him but I see he lost to shitehawk Cody Brundage so that doesn’t exactly fill me with optimism for his future. Bogdan Guskov vs Billy Elekana is a late change. Was meant to be Guskov against Johnny Walker but Walker’s pulled out about a week before show time. Tough break for Guskov but Walker was a winnable fight and a decent-ish name. Now he’s in with a debuting guy nobody really knows so it’s more risk than reward now. Looking up Elekana, he’s 29 years old with a 7-1 record and he’s on a 3 fight winning streak. He’s fought in PFL and LFA previously but the only name I recognise on his record is Bryan Battle. Apparently, Elekana won a split decision over Battle on the amateur circuit back in 2018. Guskov’s 16-3 with a 100% finish rate. Lost his UFC debut against Volkan Oezdemir but has bounced back with a couple of stoppages over Zac Pauga and Ryan Spann. Fuck knows? Not familiar enough with Guskov and I’ve never heard of Elekana until now. Grant Dawson vs Carlos Diego Ferreira is a fight I quite like the sound of actually. Both have fallen into that ‘also ran’ category at 155 but they’re both the type of fighters who can give a lot of guys a tough time when they’re on their game. Both are coming off their best performances in a while as well. Dawson battered Rafa Garcia in October and forced a rare TKO finish. And Ferreira absolutely beat the brakes off Mateusz Rebecki in May in what was genuinely one of the more brutal beatdowns of 2024. Dawson’s 30 years old now, 22-2-1 with that first round stoppage defeat against Bobby Green being his only loss since 2016. And Ferreira’s turning 40 the day of this fight! He’s 19-5 with notable wins over Anthony Pettis, Michael Johnson and Jared Gordon. I like this fight. Ferreira’s on borrowed time but showed against Rebecki that he’s not done yet. Dawson’s gonna be a tough assignment for him though. Hopefully they mostly grapple because there’s a banger to be had there. Karol Rosa vs Ailin Perez is rotten stuff. No interest in it. Rosa did have that surprise FOTY contender (seriously) with Irene Aldana in 2023 but, while it takes two to tango, I’m mostly crediting Aldana with that. Rosa’s been completely forgettable outside of that one fight. She should win this fight though. Perez is awful. That’s her gimmick. That’s it. I’ve made no secret on here over the years that I’m a big fan of the female buttock (or even two!) but this seems to be literally Perez’s whole personality. If you take the woeful attempts at ‘twerking’ away, there’s fuck all there. Her fights are crap to watch, the skill level is in the toilet and for some reason she seems arrogant with it. Arrogance isn’t an admirable trait at the best of times but unjustified arrogance? That’s the worst. Shaking her bumhole in peoples faces after beating them? Rikishi should sue her for gimmick infringement. Anyway, yeah, as mediocre as Rosa is, she’s got no business losing to this ham and egg sandwich. If she does, she might as well pack it in. There’s no coming back at that point. Rinya Nakamura vs Muin Gafurov will make the Fight Pass bit worth checking in for. Nakamura’s one of the best prospects to come out of Japan in years. And with Tatsuro Taira recently losing and Kai Asakura coming up short in his title shot, maybe Nakamura’s got the best chance of becoming Japan’s first ever UFC champion? I get that it’s too early for that talk but he’s definitely one to keep an eye on. He’s 9-0 and hasn’t put a foot wrong yet. Incredible wrestling and that’s always gonna be his bread and butter but he has shown legit KO power as well. He scored a 33 second knockout in his UFC debut but has gone the distance in his last couple. They weren’t crazy mind blowing performances but he’s getting that valuable cage time and racking up the wins. His future looks bright. Gafurov I’m a bit hazy on. He’s from Tajikistan, 28 years old and 19-6 with 17 finishes. He went 0-2 in the UFC initially and I do remember him getting guillotined in a minute by Said Nurmagomedov. He got his first UFC win in June, taking a decision off Kyung Ho Kang in a fight I watched but remember sod all of. Ricky Turcios vs Benardo Sopaj was originally supposed to go down on the Magny vs Prates undercard at the Apex in November but was scrapped after the weigh ins due to a Turcios illness. Glad it’s been rescheduled because it’ll probably be a fun scrap. Turcios is nothing special but he’s not boring. He won TUF back in 2021 but has been floundering a bit since. He’s 12-4 now and got subbed by Raul Rosas Jr in June. I was happy with that result because Turcios was being a right little dickhead in that fight. I’m interested to see Sopaj back in there. Last time we saw him he was face down, out cold after a horrific flying knee KO from Vinicius Oliveira in March. Easily one of the best knockouts of 2024, unfortunately for Sopaj he was on the wrong end of it. I do remember him fighting really well before that though and it was a good competitive fight. That was all forgotten when that knee landed though. One of the scariest KOs in recent memory for me. Sopaj is still young, time’s on his side. But a KO like that can completely change the trajectory of a career. Tagir Ulanbekov vs Clayton Carpenter. Good stuff. If Ulanbekov makes it to fight night that is. Feels like I’m forever writing these previews for his fights that never happen. He’s looked good at times but he just isn’t active enough to get on peoples radars or stay there when he does. He last fought at UFC 296 in December 2023, submitting Cody Durden. Before that he’d also subbed Nate Maness in 2 minutes. Before that he lost a decision in a fantastic fight against Tim Elliott. Like I said, when he shows up, he’s entertaining to watch. It’s getting him through camp that’s proving to be a problem. Carpenter’s 28 years old, undefeated at 8-0 with 6 inside the distance and he’s 2-0 with 2 submissions so far in the UFC. Also beat Edgar Chairez on DWCS in 2022. Like Ulanbekov though, he hasn’t been mega active himself. Hopefully this goes ahead. Going back to Cali ☀️ Edited January 17, 2025 by wandshogun09 Quote
Paid Members Bus Surfer Posted December 14, 2024 Paid Members Posted December 14, 2024 Cheers for another year of quality content, Wand! Quote
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted December 15, 2024 Paid Members Posted December 15, 2024 wand. always the MVP. Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted January 5, 2025 Author Paid Members Posted January 5, 2025 From Jiri’s Instagram 2 days ago. Either he’s used an old pic here or he’s really not taking this Jamahal Hill fight very seriously… Quote
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted January 5, 2025 Paid Members Posted January 5, 2025 he'll still have enought to put Jamahal away Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted January 5, 2025 Author Paid Members Posted January 5, 2025 (edited) You’d hope so. Speaking of Hill, someone tweeted this meme about fighters making excuses after losses and Jamahal immediately assumed it was about him and flew into the comments arguing with randoms. This wasn’t his only response to it either. He was replying to almost every comment that mentioned him and getting all wound up. In a sport full of thin skinned, emotionally delicate fuckers, Hill genuinely might be the most fragile I’ve ever seen. Must be searching his name almost every waking moment just in case anyone’s said something mean about him. He was rowing with Michael Johnson recently over something Johnson said about the gym confrontation with Pereira as well. The man’s in shambles at the vaguest whiff of criticism. Edited January 5, 2025 by wandshogun09 Quote
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted January 12, 2025 Paid Members Posted January 12, 2025 Johnny Walker is out of the Guskov fight. and check out the shape of Tsarukyan going this, 'kin hell: Quote
Paid Members Carbomb Posted January 12, 2025 Paid Members Posted January 12, 2025 Looks like a pro wrestler! Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted January 12, 2025 Author Paid Members Posted January 12, 2025 Yeah it’s not like he was a flabby bastard before but he’s even more ripped than I’ve ever seen him. He’s basically gone from this… To this… Quote
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted January 14, 2025 Paid Members Posted January 14, 2025 Dumas out... Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted January 17, 2025 Author Paid Members Posted January 17, 2025 (edited) This is lovely… And he’s also donating $50K and has shaved his hair off in support of her… Restores a bit of faith that not every MMA fighter is a cretin. Edited January 17, 2025 by wandshogun09 Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted January 17, 2025 Author Paid Members Posted January 17, 2025 So I’m guessing this is legit. For FUCK’S SAKE. Quote
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted January 17, 2025 Paid Members Posted January 17, 2025 I'm watching the weigh in show now, but im about an hour behind on it. I'm taking it Tsarukyan doesn't weigh-in. Shit news if true. Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted January 17, 2025 Author Paid Members Posted January 17, 2025 (edited) Everyone’s on about Moicano stepping up and facing Makhachev and people seem happy with that but I…just don’t give a shite about it. If it’s true that Tsarukyan’s out, I get that they’re in a tough spot and Moicano is already there and on weight. I get why they’d do it. But MMA fans have somehow been conditioned to be happy with stuff like this in the name of ‘saving cards’. Am I alone in not feeling the same way? I’d honestly rather they crack on with Merab vs Umar as headliner and try to reschedule Makhachev vs Tsarukyan for a later date if it’s nothing too serious. I’ve got almost no interest whatsoever in Makhachev vs Moicano. I guess Makhachev is probably insisting on still fighting on this card so that his training camp wasn’t for nothing, so I get that. But purely as a fan, I get very little enjoyment out of these ‘gangsta moves’ of last minute replacements. Especially in title fights. It’s a little bit different if the replacement is as good or better than the original fight. Like that mad card when you had Makhachev vs Oliveira 2 and Khamzat vs Costa, they fell apart and we got Makhachev vs Volk 2 and Khamzat vs Usman instead. That was actually an upgrade. But something like Makhachev vs Moicano? Nah I’m alright. Edit - Yep Makhachev vs Moicano confirmed by the walking bollock… Edited January 17, 2025 by wandshogun09 Quote
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted January 17, 2025 Paid Members Posted January 17, 2025 it's not in the UFC's MO to reschedule, they'll always try and keep the show rolling. I was really up for the Tsarukyan fight but i'm ok with this too. It sounds like they gave Makhachev the option and he just went with it. Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.