UFC Apex: Rosas Jr vs Barcelos - Sep 26 🇺🇸

[wandshogun09]

Been a little while but we’re back at the Apex…

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Raul Rosas Jr vs Raoni Barcelos 

Norma Dumont vs Ailin Perez 

Luis Hernandez vs Sedriques Dumas 

Mehemmedeli Osmanli vs Ilimbek Akylbek Uulu - TUF Bantamweight Finale

Melissa Amaya vs Tina Black - TUF Strawweight Finale

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Rinya Nakamura vs Brady Hiestand 

Rodolfo Vieira vs Robert Bryczek 

Rodolfo Bellato vs Christian Edwards 

Elves Brener vs Josiah Harrell 

Montel Jackson vs Ricky Simon 

John Castaneda vs Alateng Heili 

Yazmin Jauregui vs Vanessa Demopoulos

 

 

Like most Apex cards, not the best, not the worst. I’m not really feeling that main event myself but it’s not a terrible fight. Bit of a test for young Raul. His first five rounder and first headliner and he’s up against an experienced, tough veteran in Barcelos, who’s on a five fight win streak and is currently the only man to beat Payton Talbott. The rest? Rinya Nakamura’s fight might be worth a look. The two TUF finals mean nothing to me and sod trying to pronounce the names of the men’s final, but I’ll give them a chance. Elves Brener is usually in entertaining scraps. Same with Simon and Castaneda as well. Yazmin Jauregui looked like a fun prospect for a short spell but fell off just as fast, I’d like to see her get back on track. And of course, the Battle Of Bumcheeks between Norma Dumont and Ailin Perez. You know whose side I’m on. Yeah, not much to this card but it’s far from the worst Fight Night we’ve ever had.  And to be fair, the Apex isn’t as lifeless as it used to be now they’ve tarted it up a bit.

 

Team Norma…

Edited September 26 by wandshogun09

[wandshogun09]

Shite card but here’s the usual fight day stuff…

Pretty much the whole bout order got shuffled this week. Not sure when they changed it but I know Vieira vs Bryczek was co-main at the start of the week. Now it’s the Battle Of Buttocks. I’m fancying a Barcelos win in the main event. Can’t really put my finger on why, more of a gut feeling, but I’m never confident in Rosas and I think this might be a serious test for him. Co-main, it’s gonna be awful to watch but hopefully Dumont gets the win. Perez is rotten and, while I’m a fan of the female bum, her whole arse shaking schtick just comes off really try-hard and desperate to me. Norma actually threw condoms and money at her at the weigh in 🤣 and Perez immediately put her country’s flag on the floor to pick that stuff up. Not a great look that, frantically scurrying around on the floor to grab those rubbers and dollar bills.

The rest isn’t grabbing me. Although it always baffles me whenever I realise Sedriques Dumas is still around. Why the UFC persist with him, I’ll never know. Awful fighter, even more awful person. I could swear they let him go after his last loss but here we are again. The funny thing about this though, is he was originally supposed to fight Mickey Gall but Gall dropped out. The replacement they’ve brought in, Luis Hernandez, is a cop!

Really does write itself this one, doesn’t it? If I still did full event write ups for Apex cards, this would probably be my ‘one to watch’. 

[Dai]

The main event was comfortably cruising to a Fight of the Year contender, until that horrific end. Has something like that ever happened before? Was very scary and I thought it looked like a heart attack or something similar. Barcelos literally gave everything in this one. Glad to see that hes doing ok now. 

The Dumont fight was a stinker. Was strange that both Cruz and Felder were shitting on it hard from 2 minutes in, which they dont usually do. Was crap though, and neither looked good.

Tina Black looked good though, and one to keep an eye on. Looks like she has some great power, so definitely worth keeping tabs on.

The Hernandez/Dumas one was funny too. Hernandez in the cowboy hat had strong vibes of Don Frye/a real man's man. 

Good show!

[jimufctna24]

55 minutes ago, Dai said:

Has something like that ever happened before? Was very scary and I thought it looked like a heart attack or something similar. Barcelos literally gave everything in this one. Glad to see that hes doing ok now. 

There is probably a better example, but Ken Shamrock had a heart issue during his Pride 10 bout with Fujita in 2000. Shamrock, however, didn't collapse or lose consciousness. He just appeared as though he was fatigued and signalled to his corner that he could no longer continue. Shamrock believes this heart issue was triggered by stress. He was going though a divorce at the time. 

There is nothing official yet, but it does appear that it was a sudden medical issue that caused Barcelos to go limp and lose consciousness (it did indeed look like a heart attack). Previously, it has been speculated that Rosas's hear may have landed under Barcelos's chin as Rosas completed the takedown, and that this had caused Barcelos to lose consciousness. However, from the video I have seen, Barcelos appeared to go limp before Rosas Jr landed the takedown.

[Kfogg1991]

11 hours ago, jimufctna24 said:

There is probably a better example, but Ken Shamrock had a heart issue during his Pride 10 bout with Fujita in 2000. Shamrock, however, didn't collapse or lose consciousness. He just appeared as though he was fatigued and signalled to his corner that he could no longer continue. Shamrock believes this heart issue was triggered by stress. He was going though a divorce at the time. 

There is nothing official yet, but it does appear that it was a sudden medical issue that caused Barcelos to go limp and lose consciousness (it did indeed look like a heart attack). Previously, it has been speculated that Rosas's hear may have landed under Barcelos's chin as Rosas completed the takedown, and that this had caused Barcelos to lose consciousness. However, from the video I have seen, Barcelos appeared to go limp before Rosas Jr landed the takedown.

Yeah there was no impact before to justify it they were clinching against the cage before he goes completely out what looked like a heart attack. It's incredible he is okay and didn't suffer anything fatal or life altering but the UFC dream is done he cannot be put out there again for his care and protection.

How shocking was the comain Jesus what a bad one 

 

The cop smashed the criminal in quick time and taking no damage so a successful debut in the UFC and fantastic end of a low and despicable fighter they carried on working with to no-ones understanding he is done now right we can agree he's out the door 

[wandshogun09]

It’s becoming an increasingly regular occurrence lately but I never got around to watching this until this morning. Walked into the fallout of the main event the day after and just never got to watching it until now.

Scary situation with the Rosas vs Barcelos ending. Like I said, I’d already seen spoilers for the show and caught some stuff about the main event, so it wasn’t as shocking and confusing to me as it would’ve been for anyone watching spoiler free. By the time I watched it I already knew Barcelos was alright. Even still though, very worrying scenes. Definitely seemed to be more of a medical issue than any kind of impact causing a knockout or something. He just seemed to completely fade and go limp before he even went down. All I could think seeing how it played out was that I was so glad Rosas recognised something was wrong and didn’t follow up with any shots on the ground. Like Dai said it was a cracking fight before the unfortunate ending. Felt like Barcelos was well on his way to victory and, while Rosas answered some questions on his heart and ability to go into deep waters, I did think the fight as a whole showed he still needs a lot more time. I hope they don’t push him into a big fight now based off this ‘win’ but I suspect they might. 

Gotta say as well, once again, what the fuck was Herb Dean doing at the finish? There didn’t seem to be any signs that he was gonna stop the fight despite Barcelos clearly having some major issues. It took Rosas to basically stop the fight himself before Herb basically went ‘oh yeah, maybe he’s done’. The bloke’s a liability. Genuinely dangerous. He’s been doing this dopey, half soaked, going through the motions shit for years now and there’s still some who call him the best ref in the sport. I can’t even remember now, was he always like this or did he used to be better but has since also checked out like Dana, Rogan etc? Because I honestly don’t think he’s any better than refs who used to get shat on all the time like Mazzagatti, Winslow etc. He’s been shit since at least 2020/21 when the whole Dan Hardy debacle happened. 

Perez vs Dumont was as crap as I think everyone expected. I completely zoned out of this one and started skimming through it before the first round was even over. It looked awful though. And Perez won which somehow made it even worse. We did get another shocked Norma face when the decision was announced though…

Cracks me up. This is back-to-back fights now where she’s done nothing for 15 minutes and then acts horrified and surprised when the judges go against her. It didn’t look like Perez did much either and I did see a lot of people saying Dumont should’ve got the decision. But in a fight this shit, who even really cares? When you leave a fight this close and barely do anything the whole fight, you kind of give up the right to moan when the scorecards don’t go your way. Best thing this fight provided, other than the gifs above, were these two tweets…

Got a chuckle out of me anyway and each a very justified dig at both women. If you want a true indication of just how deep into the sewer the women’s Bantamweight division has gone, Ailin Perez is now at #2 or #3 depending on which set of rankings you look at. Ailin Perez is considered the second or third best 135er on the planet. Let that sink in for a second. I genuinely think Ronda Rousey could come back and be champion again. The division hasn’t evolved at all since she left, if anything it’s got worse. Once Harrison and Nunes are gone, which genuinely could be after their fight next month, we’re fucked.

Luis Hernandez making short work of Sedriques Dumas was a satisfying watch. Less than one minute it took.

Quite an animated celebration as well. The win itself tells us sod all because Dumas is pure shite. Hernandez could be useless himself and still be able to roll over Dumas. So time will tell on him. This was a real feel-good moment regardless, watching that scumbag get dealt with. We say it after every loss but surely that’s it for Dumas now, right? Surely. Right? If they still keep him around after this, that’s basically proof that they’re doing it just because Dana has nothing but contempt for the fanbase and/or is looking after his fellow wifebeater.

The two TUF finals came and went. The men’s one was over before it got going and ended on a DQ. What was he playing at with this?

I love the little look back at the ref, presumably hoping he wasn’t looking when the knee landed. Just bin TUF man. A final ending on a DQ and no-one cares anymore. The women’s final was better, it at least had a proper conclusion and Tina Black looked a bit of a handful. Didn’t know her or her opponent going in though so the jury’s out until we see her face more established competition. Did appear to have some actual power though, which the Strawweight division can always do with.

If you skipped the prelims, Brady Hiestand had a tremendous performance pulling off somewhat of a surprise win over Rinya Nakamura. Hiestand had fought in the UFC previously but I had no real recollection of him and he’d been inactive since 2024 coming into this one. And considering Nakamura was being talked up as a bit of a prospect not long ago, I thought this was gonna be a bit of a layup for him. I think it was supposed to be. Hiestand gave him hell from the off and found the submission in the second round. Really impressive performance, especially after two years out.

Not much else of note from the prelims. Elves Brener wiping out Josiah Harrell was rough to watch though…

Knowing Harrell had a brain issue a few years ago, then since he’s come back he’s been on the receiving end of that late stoppage against Jacobe Smith and now this? Not good. Montel Jackson got a nice finish over Ricky Simon and I was happy to see Yazmin Jauregui blitz Vanessa Demopoulos in a minute in the curtain jerker. She really needed a win like that. 


Not a bad little show, although I think the fact my expectations were rock bottom helped.

Edited October 3 by wandshogun09