UFC Vegas: Emmett vs Murphy - Apr 5 ??

[Egg Shen]

Did anyone see the Torrez Finney fight?

I skipped this card but that sounded like the peak of pure Apex shittery. 4 significant strikes landed in a 15 minute decision win, mental.

[wandshogun09]

Only just caught up on this. Wasn’t gonna bother (and at times watching this I wished I hadn’t) but stuck the main card on earlier and skimmed through the prelims.

Lerone Murphy with another win and another perfectly solid but unspectacular performance. Again, very Leon Edwards-like. It’s weird because you watch him and he shows little flashes of real quality and you think he should be doing better than he is, scoring finishes etc. But something feels like it’s missing. Can’t be too harsh on him here, he was in with a heavy hitter and managed to mostly shut him down. I picked Emmett to win and fancied the KO, so I can’t criticise Murphy for proving me wrong. It was a good win but it was the kind of performance which isn’t really gonna get anyone clamouring to see him fight again. It has to move him up the rankings but it feels like this win is just gonna keep him in that same stagnant spot and it’ll probably keep him in the Apex as well.

Murphy’s received a lot of criticism for his performance and, like I said above, I can kind of understand why. Some of it’s been a bit of an overreaction though. If you just read fan responses to this fight instead of watching it yourself, you’d get the impression that Murphy was just running away and avoiding Emmett the whole fight. That’s not what happened. He wasn’t just standing in the pocket and trading for 25 minutes because why would he against Emmett? But he was landing nice elbows in close, good kicks, doing damage and mostly getting out of the way of the counters. It was really only that last 10 seconds of the fight where he was actively avoiding Emmett.

Wonder what they’ll even do with Murphy next. Looking at the rankings, he’s moved up to #8 now. Brian Ortega could be an option but I’m not sure what he’s doing. He was on about moving up to 155 not too long ago so I don’t know if that’s still the plan. What else? An all British clash of Murphy vs Arnold Allen maybe? I actually wouldn’t be surprised if they book Murphy vs Evloev next just because they’re both (fairly or unfairly) getting a rep for being dullards and that would be a way for the matchmakers to eliminate one of them from the title race. Whoever he fights it’s probably gonna be at the Apex again. 

Disappointed in the Sabatini vs Brito fight, mostly because I like Brito and this was a wasn’t a good showing from him at all. That’s two losses in a row now after a nice little winning streak prior to that. But at least with the Gomis loss in Paris, it was a decision which many disagreed with so he didn’t lose too much steam. This wasn’t controversial in any way though. Sabatini dominated him. Wasn’t great to watch but Sabatini schooled him. Even more frustrating as a Brito fan was seeing him repeatedly try to defend the takedowns by jumping the guillotine. Was never gonna end well against a grappler like Sabatini.

Enjoyed Chang Ho Lee vs Cortavious Romious. Thought Lee looked good and he got the finish, which is always especially welcome on an Apex card. Not sure about calling him the ‘Korean Khabib’ and the ‘Korean Merab’ already. Feels like comparisons like that mostly end up seeming like a bit of a curse in the long run. I liked this performance though and I’ll definitely be checking out his next fight.

Wasn’t in love with Tavares vs Meerschaert. Wasn’t a bad fight just never really got into it. Tavares basically just shut down Meerschaert’s attempts to grapple and outstruck him for 15 minutes. And between Tavares not being much of a finisher and Meerschaert being durable, it was always gonna go the distance if Gerald couldn’t get the takedowns working.

Yeah, that Torrez Finney fight was rotten. A 15 minute fight that somehow felt like it was triple the length of that. And that’s even with me skipping bits of it! Just terrible. If the Apex had to be summed up by one specific fight, this was probably it.

Basically just this for about 90% of the fight. He was strong enough to hold him there but couldn’t (or just wouldn’t) advance or get anything else going from there. And Valentin was too shit to do anything about it. After the little bit of buzz I’d seen for Finney going in, after this load of wank any interest I had in him has completely evaporated. His nickname is ‘The Punisher’ but the only ones getting punished here were the viewers. He certainly didn’t ‘punish’ Valentin. In the opening post I questioned why Finney had to go through DWCS three times to get in the UFC. Maybe that in itself should’ve answered my question. Considering some of the mediocre shite that’s got UFC contracts coming off DWCS, just the fact Finney had to have three goes on there should’ve probably been a pretty good indicator that something was missing. We’ve still got two thirds of 2025 left but it’s gonna take something shockingly bad to beat this for ‘Worst Fight Of The Year’.

Skimmed through the prelims. Couple of quick thoughts…

Never watched the fight but saw Dione Barbosa made short work of Diana Belbita and subbed her in a round. Not surprised. Belbita’s awful. She’s the only one Molly McCann was able to beat in her last five fights, which tells you how bad Belbita is.

Nice to see Rhys McKee finally get that elusive first UFC win. It took two stints and four losses but he got there in the end. He did it in style as well. Not a nice welcome to the UFC for Daniel Frunza. McKee battered him. State of his lip…

Fucking vile. The eye was in a bad way as well. Gashed underneath and swollen shut. But that lip! Jesus Christ. Reminded me of Robbie Lawler’s after the Rory MacDonald all time classic.

Thought Victor Henry looked fantastic in his points win over Pedro Falcao. From what I saw of this card, I thought Henry’s performance here was probably the best on the card overall. So of course he never got a POTN bonus. Really like Henry. Lot of fun to watch. Shame he got to the UFC late, he’ll be 38 next month which is practically a senior citizen at Bantamweight.

Oh and while I’m here. Saw Michelle Waterson was working the desk as an analyst for this show. Always nice when she graces my screen, so now she’s gracing yours.

Hopefully that pic will make up for that horrible one of Frunza’s lip. Gotta say though, I thought she was terrible in the role. It wasn’t her first time at the desk either. It’s not a job for everyone.

 

Yeah, another lacklustre Apex card in a long line of them. Read something earlier that on the last four UFC shows, there was no Fight Of The Night bonus given. That’s gotta be the first time they’ve had a four card stretch with zero FOTN bonuses, hasn’t it? They weren’t even all at the Apex either (London and Mexico were sandwiched in between the two Apex cards) so we can’t blame it all on that. 

[Egg Shen]

That Murphy/Emmett main event couldn't have happened at a worse time with fans perceptions the way they are at the moment.