Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted March 16, 2025 Paid Members Posted March 16, 2025 (edited) What’s this? Back-to-back Fight Nights with actual crowds? We’re off to Mexico again and I think this is a pretty fun one… ESPN MAIN CARD Brandon Moreno vs Steve Erceg Manuel Torres vs Drew Dober Edgar Chairez vs CJ Vergara Raul Rosas Jr vs Vince Morales David Martinez vs Saimon Oliveira Ronaldo Rodriguez vs Kevin Borjas ESPN+/FIGHT PASS PRELIMS Ateba Gautier vs Jose Medina Christian Rodriguez vs Melquizael Costa Loopy Godinez vs Julia Polastri Rafa Garcia vs Vinc Pichel Jamall Emmers vs Gabriel Miranda MarQuel Mederos vs Austin Hubbard I like it. A real fan friendly, high quality main event and an undercard filled up with a bunch of entertaining fighters. There’s some dross mixed in as there always is, but on the whole, there’s plenty on this card to like. No complaints from me. It’s actually a slightly earlier start time as well. The prelims get underway at 8pm UK time with the main card starting at 11pm. Not bad. Bout order is how Marcel Dorff has it today. I’ll update it when the pullouts and changes start. Brandon Moreno vs Steve Erceg is a fantastic main event. These are the types of fights we wanna see headlining Fight Nights. Established names and fighters who have a legitimate chance of actually getting in the mix at the top end of the rankings and holding their own. And really, just entertaining fighters. That’s all we really want, isn’t it? These two should make for a cracking fight. And it’s refreshing to see Moreno against someone completely new. Feels like he’s been on a merry-go-round of Figgy and Pantoja rematches forever so it’s nice to see him in with some different opponents lately. Moreno’s still ranked #2 in the Flyweight division as I type this. Just behind Brandon Royval. So he’s still very much in the conversation. It’s really just the fact that he’s already fought both Pantoja and Royval multiple times that’s holding up him getting another crack at the gold. Erceg’s sitting at #8 currently so this is a huge opportunity for him to break into that Top 5. Good stuff. We last saw Moreno back in November, when he beat Amir Albazi on points in their 5 round headliner in Edmonton, Canada. I remember it being pretty much a domination from Moreno. Maybe that’s harsh on Albazi but my memory of it is that it was quite one-sided. The scorecards reflected that as well, with two of the judges having it a 50-45 shutout. I was a bit pessimistic going into that fight because Moreno was coming off those back-to-back losses to Pantoja and Royval and I thought he looked really flat in the Royval fight. Was starting to wonder if maybe all those wars were finally catching up to him but I guess I was jumping the gun. To be fair, both those losses were close decisions and the Pantoja one was arguably the FOTY in 2023. Moreno showed in that Albazi fight that he’s still a force to be reckoned with at 125lbs. Erceg had a bit of a mad 2024 with extreme highs and lows. At the start of the year he was pretty much an unknown. Just another guy on the card. Unassuming, nondescript, just some Aussie guy named Steve. He’d fought twice in the UFC, winning a couple of decisions on the prelims and that was that. In March last year though, people started taking notice when he scored a vicious left hook KO against Matt Schnell. In a division that’s not exactly producing devastating one punch knockouts, it stood out. The matchmakers noticed as well, and he was thrust straight into a title fight against Pantoja on the Brazil PPV in May. I remember a fair bit of negativity about him getting the shot so early but, while he lost on points to Pantoja, he proved he belonged there. They went the distance in one of the best fights of the year and Erceg’s stock only went up. Then this happened… He ran into Kai Kara-France at UFC 305 in August and got brutally stopped inside a round. A crushing loss for Erceg. He’d probably have got another shot at Pantoja if he’d won that fight. There was some talk of that because of how close their fight in May was. If he’d gone out there and finished KKF or something, I think we’d have seen the rematch by now. But obviously that loss set him back big time. Now KKF is probably getting the title shot and Erceg’s having to go back to the drawing board. Still, the matchmakers must like him because he’s straight back in with the #2 guy and a big name in the weight class. If Erceg wins this fight he’s right back in business. He hasn’t even really had to work his way back up, he’s straight in another big fight. Love this fight but I’m torn on who I want to win. Both are likeable and both really can’t afford a loss right now. I guess Erceg winning might freshen up the top of the rankings a bit but at the same time Moreno’s only just getting back on track and I don’t really wanna see him get derailed now. Especially on his home turf in Mexico. Ultimate babyface match this. It’s like sticking Ricky Steamboat vs Ricky Morton on a card in the 80s. Who the fuck do you cheer for? We know which side the crowd is gonna be on but I can’t pick a side here. Usually in these situations I just say ‘let’s just hope it’s a great fight’ but that feels a bit redundant here because it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that these two are gonna have a fun fight. I dunno. Might have to root for a draw in this one lads. Then stick them both in a triple threat with Pantoja after he inevitably wins his next fight. Manuel Torres vs Drew Dober is ***WAND’S ONE TO WATCH*** and a pretty nice co-main for a Mexico card. Of course, Torres is Mexican so he’s a natural fit but Dober’s also got the kind of ‘live by the sword’ style that Mexican fight fans will love. Torres turns 30 just days before this fight and he’s 15-3 with 14 finishes. He was on a nice little streak until recently, scoring six first round finishes in a row. They put him on the Sphere card in September and that could’ve been his big breakthrough moment but he got knocked out by Ignacio Bahamondes, ending his run of wins. So he’s looking to redeem himself here. That’s how Dober looked the last time we saw him in July. Courtesy of Jean Silva. Good old Mean Jean diced him up with elbows forcing the doctor to stop it. It’s a testament to Dober’s toughness though that the gash was opened up in the first round and he soldiered on into the third with it and had to be stopped by the doctor because he would’ve let his face fall off before waving the white flag. He’s hard as nails. Hopefully he’s fully healed up and ready to go now. One of the most consistently exciting undercard fighters on the roster for me. Win or lose, you’re most likely getting a dogfight out of him. I don’t see this one being any different. Edgar Chairez vs CJ Vergara. I’ll give it a bash. Really enjoyed what I’ve seen of Chairez in the UFC. The results haven’t always gone his way, he’s gone 1-2-0-1 so far, but there hasn’t been a dull moment yet. He stepped in on short notice in his UFC debut and lost a decision against Tatsuro Taira but had his moments in the striking. Then he had that weird two fight series with Daniel Lacerda which he ultimately came out on top of. Then he fought Joshua Van at the Sphere in September, lost on points again but it was a proper banger. Felt like that fight got lost in shuffle because it was on the prelims, you had the FOTY in Ribovics vs Zellhuber further up the card and bigger talking points with a couple of title fights on there. But Chairez vs Van was fantastic. If you missed it, I’d recommend getting it watched. Vergara’s 12-6-1 and coming off back-to-back losses to Asu Almabayev and Ramazan Temirov. Only thing I really remember about him is that barmy fight he had with Daniel Lacerda in 2023. Raul Rosas Jr vs Vince Morales is another fun one on paper. Really like Rosas. I’ve seen some criticism of him but it’s worth remembering the lad’s still only 20 years old. He’s a fucking baby in MMA and far from the finished product. There’s always a little bit of pushback when a young fighter comes in with the UFC hyping them up right out the gate but that’s not Rosas’ fault. He’s 10-1 now with the only blip being that decision loss to Christian Rodriguez back in April 2023. Like with any young undefeated prospect suffering their first setback, there were questions on how he’d respond to that first loss. He’s gone 3-0 since and finished two of them. Wasn’t beating killers but it’s a good sign and shows he didn’t just go to bits mentally after that first defeat. He stopped Terrence Mitchell in just 54 seconds in his very next fight after that loss, then subbed Ricky Turcios and decisioned Aoriqileng. That last fight against Aoriqileng kicked off the Sphere card as well. Raul was in the first ever fight at the Sphere. Pretty cool experience for a 20 year old kid. He’s up against Morales here who’s a decent test at this stage of his career. He’s 16-9 and coming off a couple of points losses, so nothing special. But he’s experienced and just gave young up and comer Elijah Smith a pretty tough test on the Cannonier vs Robocop card a few weeks ago. David Martinez vs Saimon Oliveira. Not a clue and seems a bit of an odd choice putting this so high up the card but I give up at this point trying to figure out the logic behind the UFC’s card placement. Martinez is from Mexico City, so there is that. And I guess maybe he impressed on DWCS? He was on there in October and won a decision. He’s 26 years old and 11-1 with 9 of his wins coming by KO/TKO. Oliveira’s 33 years old with a record of 18-5 and 16 finishes. He’s fought in the UFC a couple of times but he’s gone winless at 0-2. Hasn’t fought since a stoppage loss against Daniel Marcos back in January 2023 either. Feels like they’re trying to give Martinez a bit of a showcase for his debut on home soil but we’ll see. Ronaldo Rodriguez vs Kevin Borjas could be a fun one. Rodriguez is Mexican, 25 years old with a record of 17-2 and 12 finishes. Seems a bit of a twat but he’s been good value so far in his first couple of UFC fights. Subbed Denys Bondar on the last Mexico card last Feb and then took a decision off Ode Osbourne on the big Sphere show in September, which was a really entertaining fight. Think the matchmakers are pretty high on him as well, they had that Osbourne fight as the PPV main card opener at the Sphere after just one UFC win for Rodriguez. Borjas is Peruvian, 27 years old and 9-3 with 8 by KO/TKO. He’s gone 0-2 so far in the UFC with losses to Joshua Van and Alessandro Costa. He got stopped by Costa but I remember that Van fight being an absolute belter. Ateba Gautier vs Jose Medina. Not a clue on this. Never seen Gautier, barely remember Medina. Looking Gautier up, he’s from Cameroon but fights out of Manchester from bits I’m reading. Only 22 years old and 6-1 with 5 knockouts. Nicknamed ‘The Silent Assassin’. That’s how his fight on DWCS ended back in September. His opponent had to be stretchered out after which you never like to see. Gautier looks like he might be someone to keep an eye on though. Although I can’t wait for the UFC production staff to try telling me he’s the only Cameroonian in UFC history as if Francis Ngannou never existed again. Clowns. Medina’s Bolivian, 33 years old and 11-4 with 10 finishes. He lost on DWCS in 2023 but still got in the UFC for some reason? Maybe he got the opportunity by jumping in as a late replacement or something, I can’t remember or be arsed to check. He made his UFC debut in August and dropped a decision to Zach Reese. Christian Rodriguez vs Melquizael Costa could be a really fun fight actually. Don’t recall either boring me yet and I think this has potential to be a really entertaining, high paced fight. Rodriguez has developed a reputation as a bit of a prospect killer at this point. He’s 27 years old, 12-2 and, as that pic shows, he’s handed Raul Rosas Jr, Cameron Saaiman, Isaac Dulgarian and Austin Bashi the first losses of their careers over the last two years. Basically we’re at the point where if you’ve got a young, undefeated prospect you wanna build up, it’s probably a good idea to keep them the fuck away from C-Rod. Costa’s 28 with a 22-7 record. So Rodriguez won’t be giving him his first taste of defeat here. But Costa’s a scrappy fucker and coming off a couple of nice submission wins over Shayilan Nuerdanbieke and Andre Fili in his last two outings. Loopy Godinez vs Julia Polastri is another insignificant filler fight but I like Loopy so I’m hoping she wins. She’s Mexican/Canadian, 31 years old and 12-5. There was a time when I really thought she could become a bit of a darkhorse contender in the Strawweight division but it seems that ship’s probably sailed. She’s coming into this fight off a couple of decision losses to Virna Jandiroba and Mackenzie Dern, so it seems that’s her ceiling. She was on a 4 fight win streak prior to that and beat Tabatha Ricci just before those last two losses. Brazil’s Polastri is 27 years old, 13-4 and coming off a split decision win over Cory McKenna in her last fight in October. She lost on points to Josefine Knutsson before that. So this is a clear step back for Loopy and a fight she really should win. Rafa Garcia vs Vinc Pichel. Not arsed in the slightest. Garcia’s 30 with a 15-4 record and coming off taking an absolute hiding off Grant Dawson in his last fight in October. Seriously, it was so bad Dawson even got the TKO and Dawson hardly ever stops anyone with strikes. Just ground and pounded him into crumbs. Garcia had beaten an ancient Clay Guida in his previous fight but what does that even mean these days? Pichel’s 42 years old, 14-4, has fought twice since 2022 and went 0-2 to Mark Madsen and Ismael Bonfim in that period. Who gives a bollocks? Jamall Emmers vs Gabriel Miranda is just there really. Inoffensive enough filler but it’s just that, filler. No strong opinion on it one way or the other. Emmers is 35 years old with a 20-8 record and has been on a win one/lose one merry-go-round for the past 5 years now. He got knocked out in a round by Nate Landwehr in his last fight and that was a year ago now. So judging by his typical form, he’s a due a win here. Miranda’s 34 years old, 17-7 and also coming off a knockout loss. His was at the hands of Morgan Charriere on the Paris card back in September. Not much else to say about this one. Not a terrible fight, not a great fight, just a fight to fill a gap. MarQuel Mederos vs Austin Hubbard has been thrown together out of the rubble of cancellations. The original fight was gonna be Daniel Zellhuber vs Elves Brener which, honestly, may well have been my ‘one to watch’ if it went ahead. But Brener dropped out, Hubbard stepped in, then Zellhuber dropped out, then Mederos stepped in. And here we are. A ‘Trigger’s broom’ of fight bookings. None of the original components are there anymore. Mederos is 28 years old, 9-1 with 6 by KO/TKO and he’s on a 7 fight win streak. He made his UFC debut in February last year, beating Landon Quinones on points in a fight I have no recollection of. Hubbard’s 33 with a record of 16-8 and is coming off a split decision loss to Alexander Hernandez at UFC 307 in October. ??? Edited March 29, 2025 by wandshogun09 Quote
Paid Members Carbomb Posted March 17, 2025 Paid Members Posted March 17, 2025 (edited) Vinc Pichel can fuck off, with his whining about grappling. If you can't handle grapplers in MMA, it just makes you a shit kick-boxer. Edited March 17, 2025 by Carbomb Quote
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted March 17, 2025 Paid Members Posted March 17, 2025 Off to BKFC with Pichel Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted March 29, 2025 Author Paid Members Posted March 29, 2025 This is today then. I’ve seen mostly negative reaction to this card from bits I’ve read but I don’t really get it. Think it’s a pretty fun one myself and the main event especially could be incredible. Plus it’s in front of actual fans. I’m in. Fatty Gastelum actually made weight as well! No fight result on this card is gonna shock me more than that. Someone tweeted this yesterday though. The fact I wasn’t sure if this was even a joke or not and had to look up the official weigh in results says it all about my confidence in Gastelum at this point! I was ready to believe this shit… Quote
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted March 29, 2025 Paid Members Posted March 29, 2025 The negativity is probably carrying over from last weeks London show. The knives are out at the moment. Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted March 29, 2025 Author Paid Members Posted March 29, 2025 So Gastelum finally makes weight and this happens. Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted March 29, 2025 Author Paid Members Posted March 29, 2025 Think this is getting underway now. Here’s the updated bout order after the Gastelum vs Pyfer cancellation. Chairez vs Vergara gets the bump up to the main card… Quote
TildeGuy~! Posted March 30, 2025 Posted March 30, 2025 Only watched the highlights from the TNT Sports YouTube page but did Rojas Jr deserve the win? Seemed like half the fight he was just struggling to get out of a submission. Quote
Dai Posted March 31, 2025 Posted March 31, 2025 16 hours ago, TildeGuy~! said: Only watched the highlights from the TNT Sports YouTube page but did Rojas Jr deserve the win? Seemed like half the fight he was just struggling to get out of a submission. He did, for at least 3/4th of the fight he was in complete control during the grappling exchanges. The first two rounds were clearly his. From memory it seemed like the submissions were either in R3 or toward the very last few seconds of the other rounds. Was a decent show, with some nice KOs, but was not a fan of the main event. It was painfully obvious by R2 that Erceg was one or two levels below Moreno. He was getting outclassed from the very first minute, yet didnt change his tactics or approach at all, and suprise suprise, lost a super obvious 4-1 decision. Considering what we have seen from him before, I thought it was a massive let down when youve been given a main event spot on a card which has fans, against a top level guy. Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted April 4, 2025 Author Paid Members Posted April 4, 2025 Just got around to catching up on this. Had a bunch of shit going on lately and this stuff hasn’t exactly been a priority. Moreno vs Erceg was such a disappointment. Kind of wish I hadn’t even bothered watching it and I never expected to be saying that going in. This felt like one of those ‘can’t go wrong’ type pairings but it just never got going at all. Moreno just started racking up the rounds and, I don’t know, Erceg just looked like he was scared to commit to anything or take risks. I kind of get it coming off getting switched off by Kai Kara-France in his last fight but he just wasn’t ever gonna win a fight against Moreno by hanging back and playing the cautious game. Wasn’t like Moreno looked amazing but he never had to be. Erceg never forced the issue so Moreno just did his thing and banked rounds. Looking back, as much as this looked like a great opportunity for Erceg, maybe he needed to scale back after that KKF loss. He’s still only 27. It’s not like he’s some old fucker who’s running out of time. But it feels now like he might’ve already peaked in that losing effort against Pantoja. That was a great fight and a hell of a performance from him but he hasn’t looked right since and I do wonder if it was a good thing or not to just throw him straight back in the deep end after that Pantoja loss. He’s young enough to where you’d think he could’ve built himself back up with the right fights after that loss. Now I’m not sure he can. Manuel Torres fucked Drew Dober up in the co-main. Brutal. His legs were gone after the one-two but all those hammerfists after were just devastating. Dober got up arguing the stoppage but it was clearly over. He ate so many unanswered shots there. In fairness to Dober, he’s since admitted the stoppage was good and that “the lights were on but nobody was home”, which is refreshing to hear from a fighter after a loss. He’s a tough bastard and of course in the moment he’s gonna think he can fight on. He’s obviously gone back and watched it and saw what we saw though. The ref had no choice. If anything, he should’ve stopped it a few hammerfists sooner. Edgar Chairez getting a quick sub was cool. Liked him since his debut. He’s been a fun fighter to watch pretty much every time out win or lose. Raul Rosas fight was surprisingly dull, I thought. Although it’s always worth taking into account Rosas is still very much a work in progress. This was far from his best performance but the fight was also thrown together on pretty late notice as well, to be fair. On 3/31/2025 at 2:33 PM, Dai said: He did, for at least 3/4th of the fight he was in complete control during the grappling exchanges. The first two rounds were clearly his. From memory it seemed like the submissions were either in R3 or toward the very last few seconds of the other rounds. Yeah, those TNT highlights can be misleading. Rosas was comfortably 2-0 up going into that last round. Morales needed a finish and, while he gave it a good try, just never found it. The highlights TNT puts up are just that, highlights. And unfortunately, there wasn’t much to highlight from this fight other than Morales’ desperation submission attempts late in the fight when he was already 0-2 down. Tell you what though, if I never hear that “CHIWIWIS” bollocks again it’ll be too soon. That video package before the fight where they kept playing different clips of cunts saying it was GBH of the ears. David Martinez looked good the short time he was in there. Nasty first round finish over Saimon Oliveira. Not much else to say about it really. Need to see more but that’s gonna come. As UFC debuts go, you want to make a statement and preferably have it be short, snappy and violent. This was that. Bantamweight just got a little bit deeper. Kevin Borjas derailed Ronaldo Rodriguez big time in the main card opener. Christ. It was a fun fight to watch, despite the one-sidedness of it, but I thought Borjas pretty much schooled him. Seemed like he couldn’t miss with the right hand. Pretty much every meaningful punch he threw with the right seemed to connect and Rodriguez had neither the defence or reaction times to avoid it. He’s clearly durable, he ate a bunch of shots like that flush on the chin and recovered quickly but you don’t wanna keep taking digs like that. Seemed like Rodriguez was a guy the UFC big wigs wanted to push. They put him on the main card at the Sphere and he’s got over 2 million followers on Instagram. Which shouldn’t really matter but you know it does these days. Now this fight comes along and not only does he get his head boxed off, he also missed weight. Not good. Apparently Borjas didn’t get any kind of POTN bonus as well, which is bullshit. Smacks of it being a case of ‘the wrong guy won’. Borjas is fun to watch though so it was nice to see him flip the script and get a win here. Ateba Gautier had quite the UFC debut. Just smashed Jose Medina about for the first round stoppage. Medina looked well out of his depth here. Doughy and slow and lacking defensively. Perfect showcase debut opponent for Gautier in that sense. I got Antonio Margarito vibes off Medina watching this, minus the actual skills obviously. Hard to take much away from this given who he was in there with but my first impressions of Gautier are that I like him. I’ve seen a bunch of comparisons to fellow Cameroonian Francis Ngannou already and I guess I can see it. They’re both from Cameroon, built like Hasbros and can whack. Time will tell though. Way too soon for any silly comparisons. Need to see him against opposition I’m more familiar with but this was a nice debut. And lord knows the Middleweight division badly needs new blood so hopefully he can make a run of it. Melquizael Costa got a solid win over Christian Rodriguez but the fight didn’t catch fire like I hoped. C-Rod’s such a weird case. He’s beat all these undefeated prospects and gave them their first losses but then in fights like this that you expect him to win, he just doesn’t look quite at the races. How many times did he hit that foot sweep here? Costa seemed to have zero answer or defence for it but Rodriguez couldn’t make it count or use it to lead to something more significant for whatever reason. Frustrating to watch. Loopy Godinez vs Julia Polastri was way more enjoyable than I thought it would be. Had no real expectations going in but Loopy’s shown enough little glimpses of potential in the past that I’ve become a bit of a fan. She’s just never been consistent enough but I usually give her fights a chance. Glad I watched this one. Loopy kind of set the tone early with this in the first round… Love that. After that it settled down and Loopy was looking decent. Then the third round they just emptied the tank. Polastri really brought it, knowing she most likely needed a finish, and Loopy (holding in a shite from what the mics picked up between rounds) wasn’t having it. Wasn’t pretty technically but it made for a tense last round. Didn’t watch anything before that but did see this doing the rounds. Vinc Pichel doing his usual thing of showing up once a year or so, only to lose a fight and then bitch about it. Complains when grapplers grapple, now he’s moaning about being robbed by the judges. Didn’t even watch the fight to see whether he has an argument or not but Rafa Garcia won by unanimous decision and got 30-27 on two of the scorecards. Good. At this point I don’t even care if they did rob Pichel. Wish he’d just piss off, can’t be arsed with him. Not a bad show, in fairness. Main event let it down though and I really didn’t think that would be the case with Moreno and Erceg. Oh well. This was much better overall than London. Let’s get tomorrow’s Apex card out the way and it’s onto 314! Quote
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted April 5, 2025 Paid Members Posted April 5, 2025 It was a cracking pallet cleanser after London, agree on the main event though. Quote
Dai Posted April 8, 2025 Posted April 8, 2025 On 4/4/2025 at 9:18 PM, wandshogun09 said: Just got around to catching up on this. Had a bunch of shit going on lately and this stuff hasn’t exactly been a priority. Hope all is well, Wand! Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted April 9, 2025 Author Paid Members Posted April 9, 2025 On 4/8/2025 at 1:07 PM, Dai said: Hope all is well, Wand! Sorry mate just seen this. Yeah, it’s nothing too serious just a few things going on at the same time. Thanks though. Quote
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