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I was inspired by two things today. The first was this post in the current UFC monthly thread asking for the old thread where people watched random PPVs and recapped/reviewed them, and we had a discussion, had some laughs, and generally killed some time. This leads neatly into the second thing which inspired me, which is that I've been stuck in the house for over a week, and I'm not the only one in that boat. Time, right now, is something we have in spades. So I thought, why not swing around to it again? Let's watch some MMA from the past. I had a think about the events for this one. Currently, the UFC's Fightpass service has old events from the UFC, PRIDE, WEC, Strikeforce, LFA, Cage Warriors, Cage Fury, Invicta, Titan FC, Pancrase, Shooto, etc etc etc. I thought about just throwing them all in a spreadsheet and making a random picker where you could just choose one, then I realised that while it would be alright to watch some old rando Friday Night Fights or SuperBrawl card, chances are good it would be a lot more fun to watch a card where it had people you had ever heard of. As such, I have selected the following promotions: Affliction, EliteXC, Invicta, Pride, Strikeforce, UFC, WEC and WFA. That should be enough events from all sorts of promotions that we get a decent mix of types of events. Chances are decent that we'll get a lot of UFC events, but even their Fight Night events usually have a fight or two that are worth watching. And someone might win the lottery and get UFC 189. I put the list of events in a pastebin here: https://pastebin.com/6G7hVxke The way it works is you get yourself over to RANDOM dot org and go to the little widgit in the top right corner of the screen. Enter the number 764 in the bottom box. For my example, I rolled 444.  This gets me UFC 187: Johnson vs. Cormier, which can be found on Fightpass at https://ufcfightpass.com/video/52664 The full events can be found on the Front page of Fightpass; scroll down a bit and find your promotion, and scroll across to find the event. Mousing over them will show you its name in case you're not sure. For the most part, these events only exist as the main card on Fightpass. This is fine; we don't want to be here all drat weekend. ALSO if you land on something you've seen recently, or something you really kinda can't be hosed watching, feel free to roll again. Mark Coleman might know if you're cheating, but at the moment he has bigger fish to fry. This also includes "hey I really wouldn't mind watching that old Shooto event where Anderson Silva made his Japanese debut, I wonder what the level of competitor was like back in the B-leagues in 2001". Go for it. This is supposed to be fun. I'll edit in who has rolled to watch what, and see if I can link the video as well in case people want to watch along. One last thing; I don't know how this works for people who have dropped Fightpass. It's definitely not the proposition it was three years ago when you could watch a lot more live UFC on it than you can today. Someone else might need to chime in with how well ESPN+ can be used for this endeavour. Memento fucked around with this message at 05:15 on Apr 11, 2020 |
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Mar 27, 2020 10:28
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Reserving this for lists and links. Jerusalem: The Ultimate Fighter: The Comeback Finale Report here. UFC 14: Showdown LobsterMobster: UFC 141: Lesnar vs. Overeem Report here CarlCX: Pride 31: Unbreakable Report here  THREAD MVPBaconPirate: WEC 28: Faber vs. Farrar Memento: EliteXC: Uprising Report here. Pride 10: Return of the Warriors CommonShore: Invicta FC 33 Report here. UFC Live: Vera vs. Jones Report here TheCool69: UFC 64: Unstoppable Street Horrrsing: UFC 99: Unstoppable Report here Gumball Gumption: UFC 97: Redemption Memento fucked around with this message at 11:29 on May 2, 2020 |
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Mar 27, 2020 10:29
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Love this idea, I rolled.... 67 The Ultimate Fighter: The Comeback Finale 11-Nov-06 I have NO idea what this show was, but that's part of the fun!
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Mar 27, 2020 10:40
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Hell yes 343 UFC 141: Lesnar vs. Overeem 30-Dec-11
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Mar 27, 2020 19:45
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I am in and I rolled Pride 31 26-Feb-06 and I am so, so very happy. edit: I forgot I had that unwritten one from the first thread, so either before or after I'm gonna do UFC 45 to make up my three year-old penance CarlCX fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Mar 27, 2020 |
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Mar 27, 2020 20:14
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WEC 28: Faber vs. Farrar
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Mar 27, 2020 20:40
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I rolled up 53 EliteXC: Uprising 15-Sep-07 and I know nothing about that card, who fought on it, or even what sort of fighters I might get and I couldn't be happier.
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Mar 28, 2020 00:26
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I might buy a month of fightpass just to do this... 248 Invicta FC 33: Frey vs. Grusander II 15-Dec-18 Let's do this. Right now!
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Mar 28, 2020 03:30
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248 Invicta FC 33: Frey vs. Grusander II 15-Dec-18 I’ve seen most of the Invicta cards, but I haven’t seen this one in its entirety. Jinh Yu Frey gets quite a bit of promotional push from Invicta. I think since this event she Lost her title on the scale. This is a rematch of a close decision that lots of fans and media disagreed with. Grusander is a Finn who I recall is a bit of a rasslegil with a ground and pound attack. Danielle Taylor, who was half of the worst UFC fight of all time, is in the co-main event against a Mexican with a face tattoo. TJ De Santis wishes me happy holidays. Oh poo poo Julie Kedzie is in the booth with him. She’s more mushmouthed than Goldie. She tells us that this is the very first immediate title rematch in Invicta history. She also tells us that Grusander has great high crotches. Elias Theororou is in the house as the ring boy. And Megan Anderson is the third one in the booth. Card opens with a recap of a local fights but we’re just seeing highlights… There was a 28 second KO. And then a Canadian named Nikokokakos got a TKO, and then a big swangin’ and bangin’ bantamweight fight. Jesus Julie Kedzie can’t stop making weird google eyed faces at the camera. TJ De Santis is better than many of the people who the UFC or Bellator put into the booth. Strawweight bout – Jaimie Moyle vs Brianna Van Buren But first a promo for Jones-Gustafsson 2 and Cyborg vs Nunes. The prefight promo is really generic “Kill or be killed” stuff. Very small venue for this one. They have a screen and stage but it’s like 18 inches high. Van Buren gets to the cage first. The story is that she took a few years out of MMA and is returning. Her nickname is “The Bull” which is funny because her opponent, Moyle, looks like a female version of John “The Bull” Makdessi. As Moyle is walking out De Santis notes that Moyle missed weight by quite a bit. I know I’ve seen Moyle fight more than a couple of times, and Invicta loves to hype her as a big prospect, but I can’t remember her fights. The fight is delayed as we wait for Moyle’s corner (Team Alpha Male) to find her mouthguard. Moyle eventually crosses the hallowed face of Hannibal Burress and into the cage. Holy poo poo. Van Buren weighed in at 115 and Moyle at 125.1. Van Buren must have been desperate to get a fight. Ray Flores is the announcer. He has a weird habit of sneering at the camera as he announces. Did he just say that Van Buren’s style was “bull fighter”? Moyle’s nickname is “Love Boat.” The first thing that we hear from Julie Kedzie is “I’m sorry I’m having technical issues.” There’s some reasonable but not fully committed striking exchanges to open the fight. Not much meaningful connecting. I have to admit that I’m not watching closely enough to score. Van Buren lands a good flurry against the cage which is pretty much enough to clinch the round. She lands a solid body kick and then a shin to Moyle’s chin, and then a big right hook over the top. Another flurry against the cage into a double and a slam to get on top. 10-9 Van Buren. Moyle is bleeding and she looks like horse poo poo. It’s appropriate as “Moyle” is an archaic term for “to exhaust.” The replays show a lot of body work by VB, which I like. Round 2 opens with more of the same – measured striking as VB works her way in and changing levels with her strikes a lot. Moyle landing a few solid strikes but VB is pmuch unfazed and still in her groove. VB has really fast kicks with no windup and throws well from the front leg. Moyle just looks like she’s out of ideas, though VB is admittedly finding fewer opportunities this round. VB gets a rushing dump and gets a takedown with 16 seconds left. 20-18 Van Buren. Round 3 at the beginning of the round Moyle looks like she wants to go home and Van Buren looks like she wants to fight 3 more rounds. Van Buren lands a right hook and then gets a takedown in the first minute. Moyle tries rubber guard and Van Buren responds by punching her a bunch and mashing her head into the cage. Van Buren stands and takes a glancing upkick for her trouble. Some grappling happens but back to closed guard. Moyle goes for an omoplata but no dice. Van Buren stands and lets Moyle back up. Back to the same kinds of striking exchanges. 30-27 Van Buren. She looked pretty good actually! I wonder if she has fought since then. Her record is 5-2 at this time. Official score 30-27*2 30-26. Lol she doesn’t even come up to Megan Anderson’s shoulders. She calls out the winner of the co-main event. Atomweights – Amber the Bully Brown vs Alesha Zappitella Amber Brown is, like Jaimie Moyle, one of these girls who keeps getting opportunities in Invicta despite losing a lot. Zappitella is introduced by the booth as a wrestler. Greg Franklin reffing. Round 1 Zap goes right into the clinch with no respect for Brown’s strikes. Zap uses a whizzer to dump Brown on her face right as Kedzie is telling us how Brown’s height advantage (5 inches) makes it tough for Zap to get the takedown. They end up in guard, but then Zap passes to side as Brown tries to wall walk. Sucks the hips back down and the Zap moves to the back. Brown works her way up but they’re still against the cage and the wrestler has double underhooks. HOLY poo poo JUST GO FOR THE INSIDE TRIP IT’S RIGHT THERE gently caress she gets a nice double and ends up in side control. Brown goes for a gumbi triangle from the bottom but Zap slips out. Zap locks up a nice d’arce and Kedzie has no idea what it is. Back to the feet and then Brown back on her face and the bell goes. 10-9 Zap. Fun grapple round. Round 2 Zap immediately shoots, gets an ankle, and works he way into a double leg. Full guard. Hard elbows from the bottom, but Zap just slices the knee through to pass. Zap working the crucifix and heeeere come the elbows oh shes out. To the back scramble back down and now looing for an arm triangle. Brown clears her arm. Kimura locked up and shes out. Another scramble and Brown grabs a guillotine but Zap is out. Back to the feet at the clapper. 20-18 Zap. Shirtless Elias between rounds. Round 3 opens with Brown landing some left hands and kicks but Zap turns it into grappling by the end of the first minute, in a back ride. Stand and separate. Zap has slowed down and Brown’s strikes still look crisp and she’s landing. Brown sprawls on a shot but ends up on the bottom anyway. Back to crucifix for a bit. Back to the feet. Brown landing knees but not much pop on em. A bit of a toss at the bell. 30-27 Zap. Decent fight. 29-28? At least the fight fighter got it. The 4’11” Zappitella is only up to Anderson’s boobs. She calls out the winner of the main event. Strawweights Sharon Jacobson vs Kay Hansen next Oh poo poo I think I’ve seen this fight already! Maybe I did see this card! I nominated this for a year end award in 2018 for comedy in MMA! Jacobson is a tough wrestler with good punches whereas Hansen looks like she should be saying slurs through meth teeth on Orange is the New Black. Her walk out music is some garbage country about “American girls” ugh. Wearing a 10th Planet shirt for her walkout. 10th Planet Fullerton. Oh god she has an American flag + statue of liberty shoulder tattoo. Hansen is 19; Jacobson is 35. Round 1 Jacobson has kin tape on her legs. Jacobson gets a takedown immediately, basically uncontested. Hansen goes for a guillotine with her back against the fence. They stand, and back down. Jacobson is just wrestlemauling this girl so far. Big slam. Single leg to back ride. Suplex. Up and clinch fight again. Jacobson looking for another suplex but doesn’t get it. Body lock takedown. Jacobson looks for an arm triangle, doesn’t get it, but ends the round with back mount. 10-9 Jacobson. Maybe 10-8 – she didn’t do a ton of damage, but Hansen was basically just there for the ride. Round 2 Hansen finds Jacobson’s chin with a right hand but that can’t stop Jacobson from clinching. Hansen tries pushing Jacobson against the cage and get a takedown but Jacobson just shrugs it off. Jacobson gets a trip and then ends up putting Hansen face down with hooks and throwing punches. Somehow Hansen survives that. Jacobson digs for a choke. More grappling and mauling. No really effective strikes. Jacobson goes for ude gatame! Hammerfists. 10-9 Jacobson. Again, a case for 10-8 again owing to how little Hansen was able to accomplish. She was basically just surviving. 20-18/17/16 Round 3 Hansen comes out and tries to wrestle again. Clinch happens. Jacobson gets the wrestling going again. Gets the double against the fence. Back ride with hooks and punches to the ears. Lol you can see a judge in the background kinda sighing and looking bored. Side control and elbows. Hansen just flailing around ineffectually. Last minute. Hansen hasn’t done anything of note this fight other than survive. Working to her feet. Jacobson goes for a double overhook lateral suplex and flips Hansen RIGHT INTO AN ARMBAR with 17 seconds left. Except HANSEN HAS THE ARM BAR – JACOBSON TAPS aaaaahahaha priceless Aw Jacobson is in tears. I feel bad. But it was funny. In the interview Hansen calls out all of the fake fighters in the UFC Julie Kedzie is always clinching her teeth in a terrifying grimace and she looks like a bona fide crazy lady. Strawweight co-main event – Danielle Taylor vs Montserrat Ruiz Taylor was a UFC washout most notable for a really bad fight against Maryna Moroz. Ruiz looks like a female Mexican version of Cody Garbrandt with her tattoos. I don’t even know what the face tattoo is supposed to be. It’s just like prison scratch. One on her shoulder looks like a goth girl coming out of a toothy vagina. She has some nice flowers though. Round 1 Ruiz goes for a hip toss but stuffed. I’m paying more attention to the tattoos than to the fight. Is that a diseased uterus or is it a flying saucer? Taylor is moving around and feinting a lot. Low blow but Ruiz waves it off. Not much has happened by the end of the 4th minute. Taylor landing a few strikes I guess. 10-9 Taylor. Round 2 Ruiz attacking as if she decided just to brawl this round. Goes for a hip toss but Taylor’s tdd is still perfect. Ruiz rushes and lands a good punch or two but when she clinches Taylor shucks her off and pays her back with a right hand. Some clinching but Taylor reverses hip toss. Taylor flurries to the bell, kinda. One of Ruizes tattoos is a trad pinup girl wearing boxing gloves with WRESTLER above it. Round 3 Opens with more of the same. Bum’s rush from Ruiz now. Taylor counters and circles out. Imanari roll from Ruiz! Ruiz gets Taylor down but Taylor gets her foot out! Kedzie calls it “a rolling head kick attempt at an inside heel hook.” Great commentary. Ruiz gets on top and gets to scarf. Taylor holding on and then worms almost to her back… guard. Scramble. Ruiz ends up on the back standing 10 sec left. Taylor walks around the ring, unthreatened, giving Ruiz a piggyback while making faces at the crowd. Time. Ruiz needs to be held up by her corner because her leg is hosed from leg kicks. 30-27 Taylor. Taylor with the “Thin blue line” flag. loving hell. 30-27*2 29-28 Taylor. Yet another fighter who basically comes up to Anderson’s boobs. Holy poo poo she made some lame rear end comment about “teach her some respect for law enforcement.” gently caress Danielle Taylor. Gonna go to bed and watch the main event over morning coffee. Main Event Atomweight Championship – Jinh Yu Frey vs Mina Gusander rematch Reluctant glove touch. Grusander comes out moving forward. She has a high MT stance and looks like a stiff striker, pumping 1-2s. Frey moving backwards looking to counter, far more relaxed. 3 minutes in and Frey lands some overhands in the clinch – first significant thing that has happened. Grusander lands a big right hand and drops Frey and swarms. Frey gets her defense together so Grusander takes a bodylock takedown and ends up in Frey’s guard to work sound gnp. 10-9 Grusander but that’s entirely based on the last 30 seconds of the round. Round 2 Frey looks recovered. She shoots. Grusander gets a whizzer with crossface and starts throwing knees as she puts Frey’s back on the fence. This has settled on the feet as Frey being the technically better striker but Grusander having little respect for her power. She keeps edging into range and is happy to trade. Frey shoots ad the end of the round but Grusander stuffs it and gives her a bunch of body and thigh knees for her trouble. 20-18 Grusander. God Julie Kedzie is a bad commentator. She needs to learn to shut her mouth and not say half of the poo poo she’s saying. Just verbal diarrhoea. Round 3 Frey stings Grusander with a big left in an exchange and swarms into a takedown. Grusander working an extremely high guard, basically a tepee position. Frey responds with slams and gets her hands out. Grusander gets a pushoff standup but Frey finds her chin again. Grusander gets a reactive takedown through Frey’s rush and into halfguard with the shoulder of justice. Frey gets a reversal and they’re back to their feet. They end up in a clinch and Frey jumps guard but fails to close it up. Grusander gets to side/cradle but it’s fluid. Grusander on the back. Ends up on top doing some GnP. Extremely close round could go either way. Let’s give it to Frey on the strength of the big strikes, so 29-28 Grusander. Round 4 Grusander’s nose is bloody. Frey’s getting the left hand in, but Grusander is still just coming forward. Frey with the reactive double but Grusander pops up against the cage. The double leg seems to have gotten more respect than the knockdown. Grusander is not coming forward as much and Frey is starting to find a bit of a groove. The commentary team seems to think that Frey hits harder. 38-38 going into 5. Round 5 More of the same. Grusander needs to find some momentum if she wants to secure this fight, though she may believe that she won the first 3. 2 minutes in and Frey is just coasting. Grusander dives into a blast shot but Frey gets out against the cage. Separate and more work from Frey. Grusander is trying again for the takedown and paying for it every time, at least in terms of points. Less than a minute left and Grusander is doing her best Johny Hendricks impression. Frey whizzers out. Grusander gets the better of the final 10 but not enough. 48-47 Frey, but Grusander is mugging at the crowd as if she thinks won whereas Frey looks less sure. I really gave the 3rd round to Frey for the sake of discussion – there’s a case for Grusander having the third too. Judges have it 48-47 Frey, 48-47 Grusander, 48-47 for Frey by split. Frey is reserved as she gets her belt. Again the spectacle of Megan Anderson interviewing an atomweight. Not the worst card overall. It certainly has some decent fights on it with the absurdity of the Hansen-Jacobson armbar, which is worth looking up in its own right. I went and looked up some of the fighters. Van Buren won a 1-night tournament and is now 1-0 in the UFC, which doesn’t surprise me. Zap has gone 2-2ish since then, and in looking up her record I see that she once managed to fail a drug test at a loving Combate Americas show on an Arizona Rez so that’s funny too. I’ll give this card a B letter grade – it’s not a waste of time, and it has a bit of everything, from sharp prospects, bad tattoos, an absurd finish, and a back-and-forth 5 round title fight.
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Mar 28, 2020 17:51
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Yes i love, i just finished watching UFC 189 for my rewatch series and was pondering whats next. I got 257, so 257 UFC 64: Unstoppable 14-Oct-06
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Mar 28, 2020 18:40
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#46 UFC 99 - The Comeback I didn't recall them naming events that far along
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Mar 29, 2020 00:15
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Sure, this sounds fun and I've got time on my hands. I got 425 UFC 97: Redemption. This is from way before I got into MMA so I'm excited to know jack poo poo.
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Mar 29, 2020 00:54
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Gonna do another while waiting for Goonweight 663 UFC Live: Vera vs. Jones 21-Mar-10
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Mar 29, 2020 00:58
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663 UFC Live: Vera vs. Jones 21-Mar-10 I saw this when it happened. Oooh JDS vs Gonzaga in the comain. This was back when people had some respect for Brandon Vera Oh Face the Pain! James Irvin vs Sakara! I remember that fight! Paul Buentello vs Kongo! This is some classic stuff! Is there only 4 fights on the main card for this? The video on Fightpass for the main card is only 76 minutes long. Goldberg starts us off telling about the Modern Mixed Martial Artist – Vera v Jones is a CLASH OF TITANS! Rogan has hair! Telling us about Vera’s Spectacular Muay Thai! Goldie: “Speaking of getting in each other’s face, how about the battle of the Brazillians” Rogan: Listening incredulously. “He Cro Copped Cro cop!” “He did Cro Cop Cro Cop!” Middleweight: Goldie “UFC Veteran” Alesio Sakara vs James Irvin. Irvin’s middleweight debut. He looks like a loving zombie at middleweight even in the prefight hype interviews. Sakara is coming off of his win over Thales Leites, who had just fought Silva. No walkouts on our video. Straight to Buffer, who is far more verbose than now. Rosenthal. R1 Sakara opens with a nice combo. Slips on a body kick. Sakara with some spinnin’ poo poo. Sakara just looks healthier. Irvin of the gigantic weight cut looks sluggish. Irvin trades a low kick for a straight right (lol). Sakara working the body then a nice right over the shoulder again. Irvin turtles up from a hook like a poke, ref steps in, but on the replay it was clearly a closed fist going right into the eye. James is swearing in the corner saying he can’t open his eye. Rosenthal stops it because it was a legal punch. That’s the fight. Sakara by 1st round TKO due to fake eye poke. Crowd boos when it’s waived off and announced. Lightweight bout Clay Guida vs Shannon Gugerty “Googerdy” I remember that something notable happened in this one too. Was this the one where Guida got his jaw broken? Or did he break someone else’s jaw? Guida is going to “return to the style which made him one of the most popular fighters in the UFC today” Lol Guida Mean mugging so much. Shot goes right to the octagon so this must be a prelim. Googerdy. The pad in the cage has UFCONDEMAND.COM which parses like UFC CONDEM MAN.com R1 Guida coming out bouncy and fenting and kicking at air. Crowd chanting hard for Guida. Lol loving Goldberg is like “I can’t imagine what [Guida] would be like if he drank energy drinks!” loving Goldberg. Guida rushes in and Googerdy snags an arm in guillotine. Guida slams out. Googerdy with the triangle. Guida stacks. Googerdy to mission control. Rogan going on about rubber guard as Guida lands big elbows. Guida passes to half. Rogan starts going on about underhooks. Crowd chanting for Guida even though guida isn’t doing anything. Googerdy gets his guard back and then back to half. They’re praising how Googerdy has prevented Guida from getting a dominant position and is stifling his offense, but Guida still wins the round 10-9. R2 Googerdy throws the worst superman punch I’ve ever seen. He’s a terrible striker. Guida gets a bodylock hip throw. Googerdy gets to butterfly. Guillotine attempt. Rogan “might be under the chin!” right as Guida pops out. Discussion of whether the hair gives an advantage. Guida gets to half guard and Rogan compares him to Brock Lesnar. “It’s impossible for Guida to be in a boring fight” Rogan going on about Googerdy’s grappling opportunities as Guida punches him in the face repeatedly. Double hammerfists from Guida. Guida passes to mount and grabs an arm triangle in the process.. Googerdy taps. Hmm I thought there was a broken jaw in that fight. Wikipedia tells me that’s his next fight against RDA. Ah well. Welterweight – Daniel Roberts vs “Muay Thai Titan” John “Doomsday” Howard I remember that something happens in this one too. Howard was undefeated at this time R1 Howard lands a nasty looking leg kick and then Roberts grabs a takedown. Roberts scrambles back up. Roberts gets a kimura and takes a sweet rolling sweep to take Howard back down. Howard rolls for a leg lock and gets punched for his trouble. Howard stands up a bit and then slams the gently caress out of Roberts, who pulls some rubber guard and an omaplata and Howard just powers out. Aaahaha Just as Goldberg is saying “Now if you’re Howard do you let him stand up?” Howard sails in with a gigantic left hand and two more to follow up and Roberts is SUPER unconscious. He’s staring through the astral plane and still being checked on as Howard is getting his hand raised. loving haha they cut over to the clearly brain damaged Roberts being tended as Buffer says “Doomsday” Heavyweight – Cheick Kongo vs Paul Buentello As far as a battle of physiques goes this looks like a Kimbo Slice video: Buentello was the tough dad at the BBQ who got a bit liquored up and picked a fight with a guy who looks like a He-Man figure. Really promoting Kongo as a elite striker. Buentello doesn’t even look like a fighter as he’s being announced. He’s just some scared random dude from the audience. R1 “Buentello down about 20 pounds…” ok. They’re going about how Buentello is guaranteed to give Kongo the stand-up fight that he wants, and Kongo gets grazed by a punch and immediately shoots. Gets it with some difficulty. Blatant cage grab by Buentello as Kongo grabs the shorts. Up and down. Kongo landing some uppercuts under the armpit. Buentello grabs a kimura and Joe is like “lol he doesn’t know what to do with that.” Kongo landing some grounded knees to the body. Buentello separates and immediately grabs his hand in pain as if his hand is hosed. Buentello says it’s the equipment, i.e. that the glove is out of position, not that his finger is dislocated. Some officials come see him and muck around with his hands. Herb Dean threatens to stop the fight if they’re treating him for an injury. Buentello wants to fight but Dean consults with the commission. Fight restarts. Kongo just shoots again and starts throwing knees again. Buentello grabs the shorts just as Herb separates them. Buentello falls over. 10-9 Kongo. R2 “Good first round for the French striker” A bit of swanging and banging and the “French striker” shoots again. Kongo landing some good gnp on a turtling Buentello but he’s trying to work up again. Dean warns Kongo for 12-6 elbows to the rear end. Joe just gets started ranting about it when Kongo lands a knee to the body then a knee to Buentello’s face, clearly illegal. Lots of fouls in this fight. Buentello says he’s going to resume. Dean takes a point from Kongo. Fight resumes. Kongo immediately shoots. There’s a napkin in the ring. It's really funny because they keep going about how Kongo is such an elite striker but Buentello has no answer for the takedowns. Oh the napkin was a patch from Buentello’s shorts. Buentello gets back to his feet but grabs the shorts Kongo lands a knee to the head so Buentello puts his hands down and Kongo knees in him the head like 3x more but Dean says “you were playing the game” Lol what? Rogan praising the decision. Ok, I guess. A bit of an exchange and Kongo gets the takedown again Buentello goes back to punching and kneeing a turtled Buentello. Dean stands them up. Buentello standing there looking really tired with his feet together. R3 Kongo shoots for the takedown. Buentello turtles. Goldberg talking of Kongo as a title contender and Rogan’s like “he’s fighting Paul Buentello.” Rogan going on about the 12-6 elbows again as Kongo throws elbows at the turtle into the thighs. Buentello taps to strikes. Herb Dean really should have stopped that sooner, whether a TKO for Kongo or a DQ for Buentello on the knees. What a loving mess. Heavyweight – Junior Dos Santos, “the rising star, attempts to achieve true contender status against” Gabriel Gonzaga. JDS still has a bit of hair. This was back when Gonzaga was still a top heavyweight, too. One of the Nogs in JDS’s corner. R1 Gonzaga opens with a leg kick. I just remembered how this one ends. Lots of feinting and movement. JDS with a big straight to the body. Gonzaga gets a takedown but JDS pops up in the scramble. JDS jabbing to the body and face. JDS 1-2. Gonzaga throws a glancing head kick as they’re going on about Cro Cop. JDS throws two back and goes back to throwing the low-high jabs. JDS turns a jab over into a hook and down goes Gonzaga. JDS leans into Gonzaga’s legs and starts smashing vertical 1-2s and bouncing Goznaga’s head off of the canvas. Rosenthal stops it. Beautiful TKO Light Heavweight Main Event Brandon “The Tooth” Vera vs Jon “Bones” Jones Virtual Goonweight is starting. Good thing that I know that this is a quick and brutal fight. R1 Jones just takes Vera down with a body drop, a tai otoshi, if you will. Into Vera’s guard. Joe is going on about how Jones’s is at risk of getting subbed. Vera does a sweet pushoff and gets up. Clinch, Jones gets the takedown into guard. Joe saying Jones shouldn’t be extending his arms in guard. Jones punches the poo poo out of Vera. Vera lands an illegal upkick. Jones looks at the ref and hams it up a bit, holding his jaw. Dean checks the fighter, takes a point from Vera, and then lets Jones have the position back. Vera lands a legal upkick. Joe says “HE DID IT AGAIN” and Goldie says “But he caught him in the shoulder!” It was a legal upkick to the jaw. Jones facewashing Vera. Elbow elbow elbow punch punch turtle TKO. That’s it. This card was an A for the amount of entertainment in 76 minutes on Fightpass. It had some moments but it's not an all-time great. Tons of fouls, and multiple fights with point deductions. Time for goonweight.
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Mar 29, 2020 02:28
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UFC 99: The Comeback Ah the ufc gladiator! Good to see you man, it's been a while Cain Velasquez thinks Cheick Kongo is the stiffest test of his career. Fingers Crossed! I'm not sure if the comeback is for the main event or the entire card but I'm sure the broadcasters will let me know. So the "comeback" features two former champions fighting at a catch weight? How does that help anyone? In fact I doubt either Wand or Rich Franklin ever got a title after this. Ahaha Marcus Davis / Dan Hardy is up first and Marcus is pissed that dan hardy correctly noted that living in Boston doesn't make you irish. Kind of get the feeling that Marcus Davis is getting offered up as a softball to hardy but I'll see shortly. Rogan is saying a lot of "wow marcus davis looks motivated and in shape this time out" kind of stuff. Round 1 Lot of circling. Few kicks. Marcus goes for a takedown, hardy stuffs it. Stuck against cage, dan eats a few knees. Marcus gets him down, passes into mount. Hardy gets into guard, rolls to knees while marcus has his back. Bit of gnp while hardy grabs Marcus's leg. One min to go. Back to their feet. One good shot from hardy, marcus stumbled to knees, that might have rocked him. Hardy finishes round pushing marcus into the fence and dirty boxing. Well you don't have to be gsp to make hardy look like a fish out of water on the ground. 10-9 davis Round 2 Marcus has a cut over left eye. Bith Circling and throwing kicks. Marcus is consistently landing his straight right. Beautiful knee from dan hardy as he was backing up! Drops marcus. Dan is now in Marcus's guard largely doing nothing. Armbar attempt from marcus! Ah he let it go. Marcus is throwing strikes from the bottom but they're not going to really do anything. Standup. Dan trying to counter marcus's kicks. Marcus get hardy down again. He's held down until the round again. 19-19 R3 Hardy immediately knocked off balance. Davis is on top. Marcus passes to half guard. Marcus goes for a knee bar... now a heel hook. Loses it. Back standing. Round is half over. Marcus pushing dan into the fence . Now it's dan. Dan gets the takedown. Big elbow from hardy. Ref stops to see cut. Marcus's face is a mask of blood. One min left hardy raining down strikes. Standup. Large hematoma on the side of marcus's head. Nice counter from hardy. Probably 29-28 hardy. Split decision for hardy. Not the walk in the park I imagined for hardy. Good fight. Spencer Fisher vs caol uno Fisher is a guy who's name I recognize and uno is a guy who I think beat bj Penn, when that meant something. Video promo says Spencer beat Jeremy Stephens. Interesting. Uno fought a lot of good dudes, but they don't say who he beat though. My gut feeling is that fisher wins this by wrestling uno a lot Round 1 Lot of fainting. Uno shoots and is stuffed. Spencer is on top. Back standing. Spencer has double under hooks against fence. Uno reversed position, fails to get takedown. Tons of booing. Ref separates them. Circling and fainting. Spencer lands a good right hand, briefly get uno's back and lands a good knee on the break. Uno finishes round pushing spencer into the fence. Probably 10-9 spencer. Coach is urging spencer to not worry about the takedowns and let the strikes go Round 2 Spencer is taken down 15 seconds into r2. Spencer gets up. Uno kneeing legs, fails a trip and they separate. Failed shot from uno, falls back into guard and Spencer backs off. Failed shot, spencer has head control. Scamble and uno is now on top in Spencer's guard. Not doing much. Uno tried to stack spencer, who pulled on his heels, tripped him and now they're standing again. Uno with some nice dirty boxing against the cage. Uno is trying some marginal 5% chance stuff where he's pulling half guard? It looks terrible and probably will cost him the round. Spencer tries to sweep uno but ends up on the bottom. Back to the feet. Uno lands a nice knee to the head. Uno pulls guard, eats some gnp and rolls to his knees and tries to stand. Basically uno's gameplan for the entire fight: get him into your world, eat poo poo and then try to go into his. I don't know what venue for success uno really has. 20-18 spencer but his coach thinks 1-1 R3 Huge left from Spencer. Uno on a leg. Spencer is on his rear end against the cage. They're back standing. Uno shooting again. Ref separates them. Joe calling the fans drunken meatheads. Spencer stuffs a takedown and gets on top. Standing instantly. Uno pushing spencer into the cage. Spencer separates lands a nice combo. Uno get spencer down and into mount. Finally landing some gnp. Uno might get this stopped. 10 seconds left. Uno had a great 30 seconds. Probably 29-28 spencer but it wouldn't be a robbery either way. Spencer with the UD Swick/Saunders Haha man is this a trip down memory lane. This should be a good match. I have a hunch swick takes this one but Saunders is undefeated as of this match. Swick is 8-1 Round 1 Saunders pulls guard after getting bum rushed by swick. Saunders is mitigating damage swick can't do much. Shots to the saunders ribs. Swick going for a guillotine, doesn't get it. Rogan: So far the most significant exchange was the poo poo talking and that was a draw. Saunders uptick. Swick back in guard. Ref stands them up. Saunders lands a nice body kick. Body lock against cage. Saunders with a nice knee. Swick reverses in last 15 seconds. 10-9 swick Round 2 Circling. Swick with a flurry largely blocked into two nice knees. Swick catch a knee falls into mount. Saunders escapes into guard. Saunders largely neutralizing swick on the ground. Still on his back though. Rubber guard! Oh he let it go. Ref standup. Swick is good at flurrying into a thai plum and throwing knees. Feints and circling. Swick lets go with a flurry, the shots are getting through! Saunders gets dropped and the ref stops it. That fight didn't live up to my expectations. Cro cop vs mostapha al-turk Cro cop is back after being away for a year and he's back to feast on a heavyweight who's 6-4. Truly carrying on the spirit of PRIDE. "Al turk might have lost his debut fight to kongo but he showed a lot of heart while getting unmercifully thrashed and we think those qualities will serve him in good stead against cro cop". Joe Silva you sick bastard. Announcers confirm crocop is one of those who the "comeback" is titled for. I seem to recall this ends in an eye poke. Apparently al turk was a late replacement for crocop. Rogan is treating crocop as damaged goods. Mirko is only 34, basically a spring chicken. Round 1 Al turk lands a nice left. Al turk is getting right in cro cop's face. Lots of leg kicks from turk. Two failed takedowns from turk. Really telegraphed looping punches from turk. Crocop on the offensive! Swarming him and turk falls down. Crocop stands him up and resumes the beating. Turk completely turns his back and covers up until the ref calls it. Replay shows that turk did get eyepoked and that's what prompted him to shell up. Well that's the fight game. Al turk was always probably going to lose but he was in the fight more than any of greg hardy's opponents with the exception of that russian. Kongo/Velasquez Excited to see some prime velasquez. Really the only question I have going into this fight is how many fouls kongo can land on cain en route to UD loss. My personal guess is zero, that the rear end beating began so early and so thorough he never found the footing to reach into his bag of tricks. But we'll see. Bruce speaks in German to the crowd. Cain won't look at kongo. I think he's shook. Round 1 Kongo lands a hook! Wobbles cain who shoots a double. Kongo is on his knees while cain is on his back and raining down gnp. Kongo got mounted, rolls to his belly while cain sinks a RNC. It's tight. Kongo gets out, velasquez beats his rear end from side control. Takes Congo's back. More savage gnp. Kongo has no answers here. On his back against the fence. Finally gets to his feet and instantly down. Mounted away from the octagon walls. Kongo grabbing Caine's leg frantically. Ten seconds to go and he gets to his feet. 10-9 cain R2 Velasquez right back into it. Kongo rocks cain again! And kongo goes for the takedown! Fails now kongo is pushing cain into the cage. Cain gets a takedown and kongo is turtled up taking gnp. Flattened out on the ground now. Back to his knees getting mauled. Halfhearted Fence grab from kongo. His cheating is weak and uninspired, he's really getting battered out there. Knees to the body from cain. Kongo is clearly waiting for the round to be over than fight his way to standing. 20-18 cain Round 3 Brief trade of strikes. Kongo tried for a takedown, cain stuffs it and has his back. More of the same gnp from cain. Joe's calling cain pillowfisted and that kongo is in no danger of getting finished. Kongo back to the feet. Kongo on the offense! Cain looked vulnerable but now he's on top of kongo in side control. Now mount in center of octagon. Kongo trying to strike from the bottom of mount. 12 seconds to go and kongo was looking about to get finished. 30-26 cain. Cain is thanking kongo for taking this as a short notice fight so that's something. Wand/Franklin - the comeback! Wand is coming out and the music isn't sandstorm. What in the absolute gently caress. I guess he came out first because rich was a former ufc champion. Oh wait sandstorm was kind of there but some other track was playing louder over top of it. I seem to recall wand wins this match by controversial decision. And here. We. Go! Round 1 Extended feeling of period which given Wand's swarming attack is probably warranted. Single kicks and jabs being thrown out on both sides. Nice counter from rich. Round halfway over. Caught kick from wand and he dumps franklin on his back! Wand is in rich's guard and not doing much. Rich battles to his feet wand drops for a guillotine and doesn't have it. Now rich is on top raining down gnp. They stand and separate. Probably 10-9 rich? Rich thinks he broke wands nose. Round 2 Feints and the occasional kick from both fighters. Franklin knocks wand off balance and drops him on his rear end. Doesn't capitalize on it. Wand wades in and lands a hook. Franklin is outshooting wand as he tries to close the distance. Wand wobbles franklin! He smells blood and looks for the finish. Doesn't find it. Both men are exhausted and looking a little wobbly. Wand stumbles several times after missed kicks and punches. Rich's coach is saying he only wants a strike or two from him and then get out of the pocket. 19-19 Round 3 - final round (?) Straight left from rich. Nice counter from rich. Straight from rich as wand tries to close the distance. Dick kick from Franklin. Immediate restart. Wand's swarming rich who defends. Lots of wand eating single strikes as he tries to close the distance. Wand flurries rich in the last minute and Franklin gets a takedown! Wand back to his feet. Rich has back control, finishes round raining punches. I'd say 29-28 franklin. Which it was. Another two round would have been better Overall the event was a 6/10. Hardy/davis was fun, as was the co main and main. The rest was either boring or weird. The undercard has an absolute classic in struve/stojnic and seeing that fight would have made this a 7/10
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Mar 29, 2020 03:35
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CommonShore posted:663 UFC Live: Vera vs. Jones 21-Mar-10 This the only time in UFC history that a punch that felt like an eye poke is decided to be a TKO stoppage. James Irving really was the unluckiest son of a bitch in mma.
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Mar 29, 2020 03:53
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The Ultimate Fighter: The Comeback Finale - 11 November, 2006 Here's what I know about this show: Absolutely loving nothing. Here's what the opening video package told me: Some dudes believe they can beat the other dudes they have to fight, and the guy who made the video REALLY digs the film Gladiator. What Mike Goldberg told me: This is the finale of the fourth season of The Ultimate Fighter, the gimmick of which was to give middleweight and welterweight UFC fighters a second chance at fighting for title shots in their respective divisions. Jorge Rivera vs. Edwin Dewees Both of these fighters lost in the Middleweight Bracket of the contest to Patrick Cote, who will be fighting for the Middleweight title shot later tonight. The tale of the tape matches them up pretty closely, with Jorge having a longer reach but Dewees having youth on his side, he's 10 years younger at 24 (but has a 34-10 record!). Bruce Buffer, looking incredibly young, is already being referred to as the Veteran Announcer on this 2006 show. Yves Lavigne is the referee. Round 1: The first minute is spent avoiding contact, both guys seeming wary of engaging and risking a possible early KO or submission. Finally they tie up but quickly part and keep their distance again, until Rivera is able to crowd Dewees up against the cage and start throwing punches. Dewees does a remarkably good job of covering up, turns it around and gets Dewees against the cage again, throwing his own shots... but then seemingly out of nowhere Rivera manages to score a glancing shot on his chin and Dewees instantly backs up and Rivera is all over him. He lays in shots to the side of Dewee's head as he's bundled up in the corner. Lavigne calls it and the fight is over, Dewees getting upset and claiming he was covering up and unhurt. He does look fine, but he was also offering NOTHING back as Rivera swarmed all over him. Final Thoughts: Both guys seemed gun-shy, each was able to get the other fighter on the backfoot on the few times they engaged but they seemed reluctant to maintain pressure, perhaps out of fear of burning out. The moment that Dewees took that shot to the chin he immediately was backpedaling and covering up, and when he turtled up I am assuming that his plan was to wait out pressure he knew wouldn't last and then get back up relatively fresh. Instead the fight got called off, and I can't really blame Lavigne for doing it, but neither guy particular covered themselves in glory with this performance - that might be unfair to Rivera, after all he did put on more pressure and he can't be blamed for a fight ending early, but this didn't really increase my desire to see him fight again. Where are they now?: Dewees had 12 more fights in his career, his last in 2014 and none of them for UFC. Of those, he won 4 and lost 8. Rivera remained in the UFC and had 9 more fights. He won 5 and lost 4, finishing up his fighting career in 2012. Rich Clementi vs. Din Thomas Both these men fought in the Welterweight Division of the contest, but have shifted to Lightweight for this fight. Clementi has more experience, but was beaten in the Quarterfinals by unanimous decision. Thomas made it to the semi-finals where he lost by unanimous decision to Chris Lytle, but he does have a KO victory on his record against the other welterweight finalist Matt Serra. The tale of the tape makes them almost interchangeable in age, height and weight, but Thomas has a 4-inch reach advantage over Clementi. Steve Mazzagatti is the ref. Round 1: Thomas holds the middle of the ring looking to take advantage of his greater rich, with Clementi keeping his distance but frequently coming in trying to figure out a way to score shots, either punches or kicks. When they finally tie up 3 minutes into the round, they trade blows up close while struggling to assume dominance, neither seeming interested in really going for a takedown. They're not really going anywhere up against the fence so Mazzagatti separates them and they take it back to the center of the Octagon. Thomas seems to be getting the better of the exchanges and this becomes more apparent when he scores a shot on Clementi that drops him on his rear end. Thomas is immediately on him but can't lock him down, and Mazzagatti separates them again and they go back to trading in the center, Clementi trying a flying knee that doesn't connect. Clementi actually manages an awkward takedown right as the round is ending, but I'd say it's not enough and round 1 must be 10-9 to Thomas. Round 2: Clementi has shifted to more kicks than punches, which is one way to negate Thomas' reach advantage, but it does lead to him slipping and Thomas is immediately on top of him. Nothing really happens on the mat though and they end up standing and up against the fence again, Thomas again taking control and scoring some sharp shots to a momentarily stunned Clementi who eventually pulls clear and back to the center of the ring. Clementi looks tired, frustrated and making some moves that aren't quite desperation but getting closer to it. Thomas looks measured and in control by comparison, and scores some more precision shots that are extremely will-timed. Following a solid shot to his jaw, Clementi more crumbles to the ground rather than being taken down, and this time Thomas is able to easily throw him into a rear-naked choke and get the submission victory. Final Thoughts: Clementi never really had control at any point in this fight. Thomas dominated every facet of this fight and never looked troubled in the slightest. He outclassed Clementi, who never stopped trying but simply didn't have what it took to overcome either Thomas' reach or his cooler head. Where are they now?: Clementi had an astonishing 31 more fights before ending his fighting career in 2013, winning 19 and losing 12. His last UFC match was in 2009 against Kyle Jensen, which he lost by injury in 40 seconds. Din Thomas by comparison only fought 9 more times before his fighting career ended, also in 2013. He won 5 of those fights, lost 3, and one was a no-contest. His last UFC fight was in 2008 in a unanimous decision loss to Josh Neer. Pete Sell vs. Scott Smith Pete Sell made it through to the semi-finals where he lost to Middleweight Finalist Travis Lutter, while Scott Smith was submitted by Lutter in the quarterfinals in round 1, which was only his second loss of his career to date. Smith, whose nickname is "Hands of Steel" is promising an exciting, stand in the middle and throw wild punches style of of fight. The tale of the tape doesn't put much between them stats wise, with both in their mid-20s, roughly the same height, exactly the same weight, and Sell having only an inch and a half reach advantage - even their records are similar, with Smith having an 11-2 record and Sell 7-2. They also apparently became good friends during the contest, which hopefully translates to a good fight. The ref is Jon McCarthy (with no facial hair!) Round 1: The promised wild brawl is nowhere to be seen in the first minute as they test each other's reach and guard. A minute in though Smith starts throwing hands and eagerly clapping and calling for Sell to join in. They straight-up high five each other before going back to it, but Sell is the aggressor and Smith is mostly stepping back and choosing his moments to strike rather than throwing with the reckless abandon he was encouraging Sell to participate in. Smith's strategy seems to be working, he's throwing less but hitting more, and has even bloodied up Sell's face leading to ANOTHER high five. Things start to slow down as they get up against the fence and struggle for position, before taking it back to the center, where Sell ends up stumbling back on his rear end after taking another precision shot, though he's quickly back up and Smith doesn't really capitalize. Smith manages to land a dangerous looking knee, and at this point Sell is still throwing more and being more aggressive but he's looking tired and less-controlled. The round ends with them laughing and hugging before they move to their corners, they're having a great time and so am I. I'd make it 10-9 to Scott Smith right now. Round 2: They high five to start the round and then it's largely the same as round one, though Smith is being slightly more aggressive this time while still throwing the more well-timed, accurate shots. Sell does manage to back Smith up against the fence and land some shots, but Smith gets out easily enough and still looks fresh, but he's bleeding a little now himself. As the round progresses, Smith seems to be getting tired and Sell is starting to dictate the pace, and when he lands a heavy body shot on Smith he sees his chance. Smith stumbles back in obvious pain and Sell launches forward... and Smith absolutely drills him with a right hand direct to the face and drops him. He follows up with another shot on the ground and McCarthy immediately calls off the fight, Sell was clearly out for a moment there. But it wasn't a fake-out by Smith, he's still down himself hurting from the solid body shot he took. Sell, awake now, is trying to get up as McCarthy and his corner are hurriedly trying to explain to him the fight is over. Final Thoughts: Exactly what it was promised to be, two good friends went in and beat each other's rear end. Smith, despite being the one calling for all the wild action, was the more controlled and thoughtful fighter but towards the middle of that second round he was clearly starting to feel the pressure. Had Sell been able to follow through on the body shot the victory would have been his, but Smith hit the perfect punch to put him down and save himself from only the third loss of his career and even worse two in a row. Definitely the most exciting fight so far, and Smith putting over Sell heavily in the post-fight interview really made him look classy. Where are they now?: Only ending his fighting career in 2016, Scott Smith fought another 17 times, but his win/loss ratio suffered severely after this as he only won 7 of those matches, lost 9 and had one no-contest. His last UFC fight was a loss to Ed Herman in 2007. Pete Sell fought 8 more times before ending his fighting career in 2015, and similarly did not enjoy much success as he won only three of those matches and lost the other five. His final UFC match was in 2009 where he lost by TKO to Matt Brown. Patrick Cote vs. Travis Lutter A video package lets me know these fighters love their families and respect their coaches, the only really interesting part of the video being when Cote declares that Lutter is a boring fighter. This is the final of the Middleweight Bracket of the contest, and the tale of the tape again puts both fighters on roughly equal footing, though Lutter is 7 years older than the 26-year-old Cote he does have a 2-inch reach advantage. Cote has a record of 9-3, while Lutter's is 11-3, again putting them on roughly the same level. The referee is John McCarthy again. Round 1: Lutter holds the center of the ring as Cote darts around the outside, but the first body contact comes when he gets too close and Lutter immediately grabs at him and - after brief resistance - takes Cote down to the matt. Cote attempts to get Lutter into a Kimura but it doesn't seem likely, and Lutter manages break out of the hold and take side control. Before Cote even knows what is happening, he finds himself on his back, Lutter's legs wrapped around his waist and grabbing at his arm. Cote attempts to wriggle free but Lutter turns it into an armbar that Cote doesn't stand a chance of escaping, and he submits to the "boring" Lutter less than 3 minutes into the first round of the final. Travis Lutter is the winner of the Middleweight Bracket of the The Ultimate Fighter. Post-fight, a young(er) Dana White presents Lutter with his trophy, a watch, 100k... and more importantly, a shot against Anderson Silva for the Middleweight Title (Dana actually screws up the divisions and says the fight will be against GSP or Matt Hughes at first before quickly correcting himself). Lutter gives a post-match interview insisting in a thoroughly underwhelming way that he will take down Anderson Silva and submit him. Silva is also interviewed and offers his own thoughts, a very polite congratulations. Final Thoughts: Cote had nothing. Lutter dominated every aspect of the short fight, making his win look almost casual as he took Cote down, easily avoided a rough attempt at a Kimura and trapped him in an armbar like it was nothing. Cote was right that it wasn't an exciting fight, Lutter was "boring"... but he also won, and won quickly. There's not much else to say really, as the climax of a season of fighting it was rather underwhelming even if the ease with which he won was impressive. The most relevant thing about the fight was that Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva was watching from the crowd, and making it clear with his reaction that he wouldn't be the same easy-beat as Patrick Cote turned out to be. Where are they now?: Cote fought another 22 times before his final fight in 2017, a loss to Thiago Alves. He had a brief stint outside of the UFC in 2011 but returned in 2012 and fought the rest of his fights there. He managed 15 wins and 7 losses, the final two coming in his last two matches against Donald Cerrone and Thiago Alves respectively. Travis Lutter would only fight four more times after this, ending his fighting career in 2010. Of those four fights, he only won once more. Two of his last four fights were in UFC, the first being a round 2 submission loss to Anderson Silva in the title match he earned with this victory, the other a TKO to Rich Franklin. He was the first Ultimate Fighter winner to be released from a UFC contract. Martin Kampmann vs. Thales Leites Neither of these men were in the contest and both are new to the UFC. Kampmann has fought there once before and has a 10-1 record. This is Leites' debut fight in the UFC and he has a 9-0 record in his MMA career to date, so this debut will either continue his undefeated streak or end it in his very first UFC fight. They are similarly matched in all respects except for reach, where Leites has a 3.5 inch reach advantage over Kampmann. Yves Lavigne is the referee. Round 1: It's a little bit of everything to start, with clinches against the cage, a little bit of trading blows, and an attempt at a takedown, with neither really gaining any advantage. 90 seconds in, Kampmann straight up just hurks Leites off of him and lands a couple of good shots, and they stand and trade for a little bit, Leites evening things up by knocking him down with a shot and jumping straight on him. Kampmann is able to kick his way clear and they go back to the clinch, so far there is not much separating these two aside from Kampmann bleeding mildly and Leites being slightly more aggressive. As the round draws to a close, Leites fails to keep Kampmann down on the ground and they end up clinched up against the cage again and Lavigne has to separate them. The round ends and Leites is probably ahead by 10-9, but hasn't really dominated. Round 2: They spend the first couple of minutes trading shots in the middle of the octagon, outside of one half-assed attempt at a takedown by Leites. The commentary, trying to find something to discuss, fixate on Kampmann not using enough leg kicks to take away Leites (so far unseen) takedown advantage. It seems Kampmann had other plans though, as he gets the best of the exchanges to the point that Leites makes a desperation takedown attempt that Leites easily avoids. They go back to trading and Kampmann is scoring more and more shots, Leites stunned enough to take a wide open kick to the face without making the slightest motion to avoid it. Leites slips as he avoids one punch with roughly 10 seconds left, and simply lays there as Lavigne yells at him to get up. He does but he's managed to eat up the time, he's exhausted and needs the break. 19-19 now, with Kampmann clearly winning the second round. Round 3: Leites tries to open the third round with a takedown but Kampmann again easily blocks it, so with clear reluctance Leites goes back to trading shots which he struggled to do in round 2. When Leites ends up on his back he tries to lure Kampmann in with hopes of a submission, but Kampmann is uninterested, walking away. Leites gets back up and returns to the aspect of the fight he's been failing to win, and takes enough shots that he's knocked on his rear end. Kampmann gets in some shots before the ref returns them to their feet, and for Leites the three minutes remaining on the clock must seem the longest of his life. Leites takedown attempts are doing nothing, and when he lets Kampmann simply walk away he simply sits on the canvas waiting until the ref orders him up, wanting to take every possible second of recovery he possibly can. His face is bloodied up but he continues to try and trade shots with Kampmann despite clearly being inferior at this aspect of the fight, playing entirely into Kampmann's game who is content to just make precision strike after precision strike while suffering almost no physical damage himself. With 40 seconds left, in a frankly pathetic display, Kampmann effortlessly shoves Leites half-assed takedown attempt away and then casually just punches him in the face, Leites offering no resistance. He walks away and Leites lies there, making no attempt to move until the ref commands it, so sadly cowed now that may be more hoping the fight will be called off than just trying to eke a few seconds extra recovery time. Kampmann lacks power, but he doesn't need it, he's technically dominating, hitting Leites at will, making a mockery of his opponent's undefeated status. Lavigne warns Leites again when he once more simply lays on the mat, saying he'll end the fight if he doesn't get up. Leites does, but he's finally successfully waited out the clock and mercifully the fight ends. A 29-27 victory to Kampmann, surely. Two of the judges (including Adelaide Byrd!) agree, while the third makes its 29-28 (a draw in round 1, I'd assume), but all agree that Kampmann is the victor, and Leites doesn't even make a show of protesting or looking surprised, he knows he got beat. Final Thoughts: This was frankly embarrassing. That Kampmann so heavily outclassed Leites in the final two rounds was bad enough, but Leites constantly lying on the mat making no move to get up was just sad. He was exposed as a one-dimensional fighter (and what was his corner doing?) by endlessly returning to exchange blows with Kampmann who was clearly superior in that regard. Kampmann either lacked power or simply didn't want to expend it, and he didn't need to: by the end of round 2 he could see he had the fight in the bag, and nothing in round 3 pushed him to change that mindset. He completely dictated the flow of the match, made Leites fight the fight he wanted him to, and never showed the slightest sign of being troubled or under pressure once he made it through Leites' energetic first round. Where are they now?: Believe it or not, Leites first match in UFC was not his last. He remained in the company until 2009, then returned in 2013 and continued to fight there till 2018 which was his last MMA fight. In total he fought 27 more times after this loss, with 19 wins and 8 losses. He actually won his final UFC fight too, defeating Hector Lombard in a unanimous decision. The rest of Martin Kampmann's fighting career was spent in UFC, though his final fight came in 2013 with a loss to Carlos Condit. He fought 15 more times, winning 9 and losing six, with two of those coming in his last two fights. Matt Serra vs. Chris Lytle This is the Final of the Welterweight Bracket, with the winner to get a shot at the Welterweight Title. The commentators declare that Serra and Lytle couldn't be more different, with Lytle as a family man and volunteer firefighter while Serra lives only for training to fight.... except that the video package that then airs plays up Serra as ALSO a family man who loves spending time with his loved ones, with only a tiny portion showing his actual training for fighting. Serra has a 14-4 record while Lytle has a frankly confusing 32-12-4 record, which stands out all the more when the Tale of the Tape shows he and Serra are the same age. They also share the same weight (well, I mean, obviously!) and almost exactly the same reach, but Lytle has five inches on Serra in terms of height. The referee is Herb Dean. Round 1: They hug before starting the fight, like Sell/Smith these two became friends during the contest. Serra almost immediately goes for a takedown, pushing Lytle against the cage and throwing some knees and foot-stomps in his effort to get Lytle down, who uses his greater height to resist and throws the odd knee himself. Serra is expending a lot of energy trying to get Lytle down to the mat, but Lytle is expending a hell of a lot resisting it too, and Serra is dictating the entire flow of the fight almost three minutes into the round. Lytle finally uses his height to his advantage to go on the offensive, actually managing to take Serra down instead. But as Lytle attempts to take advantage, Serra is able to wrap his leg around and almost lock in an armbar, and Lytle immediately breaks and retreats. Both men are back on their feet again and the crowd applauds wildly, loving what they're seeing so far. Serra attempts a Superman Punch but his short stature works against him and Lytle attempts a Guillotine Choke, but he can't get all of it and time runs out. I'd say 10-9 to Serra but it's close, it could just as easily be a draw (but NOT 10-9 to Lytle). Round 2: Lytle catches a leg-kick by Serra and clinches with him, hoping to work on Serra up close... until Serra stomps his foot again in preparation for a takedown attempt. Lytle backs up to the cage, meaning Serra can only try to take him down from one direction, not that he stops trying as he continually stomps the foot and attempts to flip him. It's largely a repeat of round one, Serra is setting the pace, working endlessly, relentlessly for takedowns while Lytle remains always on the defensive doing admirable work blocking them but getting in very little offense on Serra in the process. Finally Herb Dean splits them up and they return to the center, where Lytle's lack of reach advantage negates his height advantage as they throw punches at each other they're both able to avoid. The round ends just as Serra manages a quasi-takedown on Lytle. I'd once again give the round to Serra, though I could see it being a draw again. I'll say 20-18 to Serra, but the only thing I'm confident of is that Lytle hasn't won a round yet, at best he has drawn. Round 3: This is the final round, and the commentators remind us that in the case of a draw, a fourth round will take place as there MUST be a winner. Serra finally manages to get his desired takedown on Lytle, and then in a rather remarkable display stands up to a squat, deadlifting Lytle with him which causes Lytle to have to expend energy AND lets Serra pass his guard, scoring some easy shots on Lytle who immediately brings them back down to the matt in the hope of forcing Herb Dean to stand them up. Lytle isn't done though, far from it, as Serra starts to bring him up again he forces him down and Herb Dean has no choice to break them up, irritating Serra who was finally in his home element after two rounds of trying to force the takedown. They trade a few shots in a clinch and Serra attempts a sudden takedown but Lytle is able to block it and cause Serra to drop only himself to the canvas. They get back into the clinch and up against the cage, Serra still looking for another takedown, Lytle again doing almost nothing but defending against it. When Lytle avoids another takedown he takes a wild swing at Serra but misses. Neither are hurt and neither are all that tired, but Lytle is starting to get desperate now as the round ends. His only hope now is a draw, but I don't think he'll get it: Serra clearly won the third round to my mind and I'd make the scores 30-27, but even if giving Lytle draws in the first two rounds the best he could hope for would be 30-29 still in favor of Serra. The judges disagree, though, or at least one of them does. Matt Serra is given the contest 30-27 by 2, with another having it 30-27.... to Lytle? They think Lytle won EVERY round!?! Madness! But it makes no difference, it's a Split Decision victory to Matt Serra, who wins the Welterweight Bracket of Ultimate Fighter and earns himself a titleshot against either GSP or Matt Hughes, whichever wins the Welterweight Title fight coming up soon. Serra is ecstatic, Lytle appears shocked (c'mon, dude) and Dana White presents the trophy, the check, the watch, the car and of course the title shot. Serra, whose record is now 15-4, tells Joe Rogan that he respects and likes Lytle and doesn't think its right that Serra's own supporters were booing Lytle, which is a nice touch. He admits that he respects GSP but would prefer to fight Hughes simply because he's a bit of a dick, and that's that, the Ultimate Fighter is done! Final Thoughts: It was a good fight on a technical level, though it lacked the drama and excitement of some earlier fights. Serra was the deserving winner, he never seemed anything other than in charge of the entire fight even if the first two rounds could have arguably gone to a draw. While it wasn't the most exciting fight on the card (that would be Sell/Smith) it was undoubtedly the best, and certainly far better than the Middleweight Final. Where are they now?: Lytle would finish out his fight career in UFC, in about the best way possible. He had 14 more fights after this one, winning 9 and losing 5 before finishing up in 2011. The final fight of his career was as the headliner in a UFC Live show against Dan Hardy, who he defeated with a submission in round 3 which also won him bonuses for Fight of the Night and Submission of the Night. Lytle was true to his word, saying he would retire no matter the outcome of the fight, and so he went out on a high, leaving victorious to go and spend more time with his family. Matt Serra, meanwhile, only had 5 more fights in UFC and lost three of them, but the two he won... oh maaaan. Georges St-Pierre defeated Matt Hughes to win the Welterweight Title, but lost it on his first defense to Matt Serra, one of only two losses on the all-time-great's record. Serra lost the title back to GSP on HIS first defense, as well as a follow-up fight with Matt Hughes that earned him a Fight of the Night bonus. He defeated Frank Trigg with a Knockout of the Night in his penultimate fight, and in 2018 he was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in the pioneer wing. But perhaps fittingly for the purposes of this write-up, his last ever fight in the UFC was against Chris Lytle, the man he beat to earn the title shot that arguably made his career Hall of Fame worthy. Lytle defeated him with a unanimous decision victory at UFC 119, avenging his loss and wrapping up the comeback story of Matt Serra. I can't think of a better way to end this write-up than that. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 11:03 on Mar 30, 2020 |
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Mar 30, 2020 07:39
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Some  about that card - Lutter misses weight for his title shot and two fighters who lost matches on that card would go on to lose boring fights to Anderson Silva!
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Mar 30, 2020 14:51
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CommonShore posted:Some The Michael Jordan of BJJ Joe.
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Mar 30, 2020 14:56
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CommonShore posted:Lutter misses weight for his title shot Oh my loving God no way? He went through the entire season, won the final to earn a title shot... and misses weight!?! 
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Mar 30, 2020 23:16
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Jerusalem posted:Oh my loving God no way? He went through the entire season, won the final to earn a title shot... and misses weight!?! The best part is Lutter was actually loving Anderson up, too. Lutter easily won the first round and spent a good twenty seconds or so pounding on Anderson's face from full mount and with a little more precision and patience could have stopped him before he ever had a title defense, but instead he got swept, and then he got discouraged, and then he got tired, and now he's just that idiot who missed weight for the biggest fight of his career and got his skull broke.
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Mar 31, 2020 04:46
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Scott Smith had another amazing come from behind fight against Cung Lee
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Mar 31, 2020 19:14
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Street Horrrsing posted:Scott Smith had another amazing come from behind fight against Cung Lee And also Benji Radach
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Apr 1, 2020 00:34
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LobsterMobster posted:Hell yes UFC 141: Lesnar vs Overeem Jimy Hettes vs Nam Phan Jimy Hettes is a judo guy and his name is spelled wrong. He is coming off a win over Alex Caceres. Nam Phan is a TUF alum, and he is most famous for getting caught jerkin it in the shower. He also had two pretty good fights with Leonard Garcia. Phan’s a BJJ dude who tends to not grapple as much as he probably should. Round 1: Hettes opens with a kick, then dives on a takedown. Phan gets back to his feet, but Hettes drags him back to the mat. Phan once again is back up, but Hettes goes for a guillotine, loses it, but ends up on top, landing some big shots. Phan eventually gets some semblance of guard back, and then stands back up.  Nam lands an uppercut and that’s enough to get Hettes to grab another clinch and press him to the fence. Big ol hip toss, Hettes gets full mount, and is landing some elbows. Jimy grabs an arm, but can’t finish. Jimy is trying to punch his way into landing the submission, cutting open Phan’s brow. Final ten seconds concludes with Hettes punching Phan from mount. 10-8 Hettes, easily. Round 2: Hettes goes for a takedown, Phan defends. Hettes back on a leg, drags Phan down. Nam looks for a leglock, but Jimy escapes no problem. Hettes slides into mount, lands a little ground and pound, and jumps on a choke. Phan escapes, Hettes goes for a guillotine, Phan escapes again, ends up on top and lands some punches of his own from on top. Hettes gets back to his feet, and once again, takes Phan down. Phan back up, they separate. Jimy with another big throw, lands in side control and lands more punches. Phan again gets on top, and the round ends with Hettes pushing him against the fence. 10-9 Hettes. Round 3: Hettes looking for more takedowns early, but can’t get a solid hold of Nam. Phan starting to land some jabs on the feet, despite the reach disadvantage. Jimy finally ducks under, gets a clinch, and drags Nam down once more. Phan wall walks back up, but Hettes won’t let go, getting another takedown immediately. Phan back up, and Hettes looking a little tired now. Phan landing some shots, but Hettes gets him to the fence and secures another takedown. Jimy grabs onto an arm triangle, but doesn’t secure the submission. Hettes on top mount, landing shots. Phan getting blasted with elbows as the round ticks away. 10-8 Hettes Judges decision: 30-25x2, 30-26 for Jimy Hettes. Unfortunately, Jimy Hettes ended up suffering a knee injury a few years down the line, and the mounting medical debt derailed his MMA career  . Sucks, because this was a seriously Khabib-esque mauling at times.Alexander Gustafsson vs Vladimir Matyushenko Goldberg basically says “look, Matyushenko is a stepping stone, and if Gustafsson wants to make it to the top, he’s gotta paste this old man”. Gustafsson is a few fights removed from his loss to Phil Davis, and is riding a 3-fight, 3 finish win streak. Matyushenko has a 2-fight, 2 finish win streak since getting his head elbowed by Jon Jones. Aaaaand I just spotted Lloyd Irvin in Gustafsson’s corner at the HARLEY DAVIDSON PREP POINT, so that’s a bummer. Vladdy made his Octagon debut at UFC 32, in case you forgot how old this old man is. Round 1: Gustafsson circling, throwing a few strikes. Not much from either man in the first minute. Gustafsson goes for a front kick, Vlad eats it and clinches. Alex escapes, resets to the center of the cage. Gustafsson throwing some big kicks, gets Matyushenko to back away. Vladimir walks into a combo from Gustafsson, and the Janitor goes down hard. Gustafsson swarms with ground and pound and the fight is over! Odd bit of business on Fight Pass, as right before the ending sequence, I can very faintly hear Goldberg doing an ad read, but it’s like they tried to scrub the audio for it? Or maybe I’ve finally succumbed to Brain Rot. Johny Hendricks vs Jon Fitch Jon Fitch hasn’t lost since GSP walloped him, and is coming directly off a draw with BJ Penn. Hendricks is 6-1 in the UFC, and is coming off a split decision win over Mike Pierce (that, if I’m remembering correctly, should have been a win for Pierce). Goldberg announces this is the first appearance of the BIGG RIGG moniker for Hendricks, and that Mike Dolce assisted with his weight cut. I’m sure that will always be an easy part of the fight game for Johny. Round 1: KABOOM, MOTHERFUCKER. Twelve second knockout for Hendricks that launches Fitch across the cage. Big left hand kills Fitches dead.  Donald Cerrone vs Nate Diaz  Nate Diaz, having gotten bitch-slapped back to 209 (and 155) by both Dong Hyun Kim and Rory MacDonald, has most recently defeated Takanori Gomi. Donald Cerrone is 4-0 in the UFC since coming over from the WEC. This New Year’s Eve eve bout is Cerrone’s 5th for 2011. There was a hat-related altercation at the weigh-ins that thankfully didn’t escalate.  Oh man, you can just hear Kid Rock, faintly underneath the royalty-free music they put on for Fight Pass. Round 1: Cerrone charges out first, Nate grabs a clinch and is looking for a takedown. Donald defends and lands a nice knee in the clinch. They exchange some strikes against the fence, Donald forces a separation. Donald with a solid low kick, and Nate fires off some straight punches to the head. Nate landing consistently with jabs and straights to the head and body. Clinch from Nate, big knee to the body. Separation, but Nate keeps landing punches at distance, pushing Donald back. For every low kick Cerrone throws, Nate probably tags him with half a dozen ones and or twos to the face. Cerrone lands a decent knee to the head, but Nate just taunts it away. Cerrone slips off a missed head kick, but Nate lets him back up. Diaz digging punches to the body, Cerrone’s mouth hanging open as he eats more punches. Round ends with Nate forcing Cerrone against the fence, landing shots. 10-9 Diaz. Round 2: Cerrone knocks Diaz down with a low kick, but Diaz pops back up. Nate landing more punches to the face. Diaz gets tripped again with a low kick. Nate clinches, forces Donald to the fence, Cerrone spins out. Nate landing body and head, Cerrone nearly trips him again with another low kick. Cerrone slips off a head kick that lands, Diaz also sitting. Cerrone sends Diaz to the mat again with a low kick. The Diaz punches are landing solidly to the jaw. Nate goes down to yet another low kick. Nate landing more jabs, and down he goes again. Cerrone stumbles back from punches, Nate digging to the body and head. Kind of a tough round to score. Cerrone certainly had the more impressive strikes, with Nate going to the mat so many times. I wouldn’t be mad at 10-9 Cerrone. Round 3: https://streamable.com/2fgst  Nate lands straight punches to start off. More combos for Diaz. Cerrone getting tagged. Donald lands a kick, but gets tripped. Diaz landing and landing and landing. Cerrone with a nice step-in knee that Alex Hernandez clearly never watched in film study. Cerrone lands a trip, but Nate is back up and pinging punches off Donald’s chin. Another big knee to the body from Cerrone, but Nate is just snapping Donald’s head back with every punch. Nate going to the body and the head and the head and the head. Cerrone is bleeding from the eyes and nose and mouth. Glancing head kick from Cerrone, and a low kick trip, but Nate is dominating this round. 10-9 Diaz. Judges decision: 30-27x2, 29-28 Diaz Alistair Overeem vs Brock Lesnar Brock Lesnar has been out of action for over a year due to a combo of bad guts and an unfortunate encounter with Cain Velasquez whomping him. Alistair Overeem supplied multiple suspect urine samples and has only been granted a conditional license to compete tonight. Winner gets to fight Junior Dos Santos for the title. Reem is also fresh off a win in the StrikeForce heavyweight Grand Prix quarterfinals over Fabricio Werdum. He then didn’t fight in that tournament any more. Reem is walking out to some royalty-free instrumental ska. Better than whatever house mix he put together, probably. Brock gets some dad-grade buttrock. Round 1: Brock throws some little kicks, Overeem misses a big overhand. Brock looks for a single leg, Overeem avoids it. Overeem bleeding from one of Brock’s paws. Overeem pressures Brock to the fence, lands a big knee to the body. More knees to the body, Brock looks pained. Knee to the body, big kick, Brock crumples, Overeem swarms with punches. The fight is over! RIP, Brock’s guts. Brock retires and he will hold to this for about 5 years. Goldie leaves us with the prediction that 2012 could see not one, but two Diazes with UFC title belts. Overall Event Rating: A+ I remember watching this live back in 2011, and it was fun to take a trip back to simpler times. I don't think I fully appreciated what Hettes was doing back then, so it was fun to see that with more learned eyes. Phan did get back to his feet a lot, but hey, dude's a black belt in BJJ, he's not some kind of CM Punk out there. Baby Gus was still a few fights away from challenging Jon Jones, so that was neat. Hendricks vs Fitch barely counts as a fight, it was just one leaping left hand and that's it. It was cool that Fitch tried to wrestle Steve Mazzagatti. Cerrone refusing to utilize a game plan as simple as "just kick this fucker in the legs over and over and over and over" was classic Cowboy (Oh, also, he said post-fight that he got his lip split open from a horse headbutting him, so that's why his mouth was open most of the fight). Reem killed Brock's guts and Brock flew off back to WWE, while Alistair's piss remained too unstable to grant him that title fight. Oh well!
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Apr 1, 2020 05:57
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Nate's pic here makes him look like the AFTER picture for one of those guys who got lap-band surgery and dropped 80lb without working out. LobsterMobster posted:(Oh, also, he said post-fight that he got his lip split open from a horse headbutting him, so that's why his mouth was open most of the fight). I love Donald Cerrone and his strange life so much 
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Apr 1, 2020 06:12
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 THE BACKGROUND: Pride 31: Dreamers (and/or Pride 31: Unbreakable as it was named for English-speakers, for some reason) was Pride's first event in 2006. It was booked to be an advertisement for Pride's big grand plan to beat back its business woes, the 2006 Openweight Grand Prix, with 7 of its 9 bouts featuring fighters who were intended to compete in its opening round three months later--most of them in matches designed to not be particularly competitive. With one exception, this worked exactly the way Pride hoped it would. But it's a fantastic exception. Before any of that, however, we have our opening bout:  Pedro "The Rock" Rizzo is a legend of mixed martial arts, a Marco Ruas protege who made his big-stage debut knocking out Tank Abbott at UFC Brazil in 1998 and went on to challenge for the heavyweight championship three times. He's a powerful, multifaceted striker who at this point had already recorded wins over five past or future world champions, but had come up short in his Pride debut against Sergei Kharitonov. Roman Zentsov was more of a mixed bag; an 11-9 journeyman who was just one fight removed from eating four consecutive stoppage losses, including a Pride submission loss to Fabricio Werdum and a cut stoppage to Travis "Give Me A Room With A" Wiuff. If you're wondering why I'm spending so much time talking about their records instead of the fight itself, you're very perceptive. ROUND ONE Zentsov pumps a jab, Rizzo pumps a jab, they circle, Rizzo throws a leg kick and, suddenly:  Roman Zentsov defeats Pedro Rizzo by KO, 0:25, Round 1. Commentator Bas Rutten, who trains with Pedro, yells a very Joe Rogan-esque "OH NO" as he collapses. AFTERMATH Pedro Rizzo never returned to Pride. He would fight for another nine years, most notably getting knocked out by Fedor Emelianenko in his (first) retirement bout, and retired in 2015 at 20-11. Roman Zentsov was two fights into a seven-fight win streak, the best of his career, but called it quits just two years later in 2008 at 18-12. Zentsov used his retirement mostly to boost Russian neo-Nazi organization White Rex and started his own far-right training militia, Soprotivlenie. gently caress Roman Zentsov.  Rampage is one of the biggest stars in the MMA world and comes into this fight at 23-6. Yoon Dong-Sik came in third place at the Judo world championships half a decade prior, had only begun fighting a year ago, and was an incredible 0-2 in mixed martial arts. This was the last fight on Rampage's contract with Pride, and they very much wanted to feed this undersized, underexperienced pseudo-fighter to him in the hopes of a flashy finish and a chance to re-sign him with some promotional momentum behind him. ROUND ONE Three seconds after the bell rings, Yoon charges forward into the clinch. They remain clinched for the next minute, with small wrist punches, clinched knees and half-attempted takedowns that go nowhere, until Yoon shockingly trips the bigger wrestler to the mat and into half-guard--which lasts about twenty seconds, until Rampage just deadlifts him, drops him and gets top position. Quinton Jackson is in his prime here and is very visibly built like a particularly muscular truck; Yoon Dong-Sik looks like someone who was a respectable judoka five years ago in his twenties, and Rampage's physicality vs Yoon's technique is quickly established as the story of the fight. Rampage throws his traditional body-body-head ground-and-pound combinations, but every time he tries to posture up and do real damage, Yoon locks him down or threatens with a sweep. Three minutes into the round, Yoon swings his legs up and catches Rampage in a surprisingly tight armbar, and when Rampage attempts to lift him and slam him on his skull, Yoon, who has seen this movie before, hooks his leg, weighs him down, and eventually escapes down into half-guard again, but after a minute of neutralizing Rampage's offense he makes the mistake of over-committing to a kimura attempt and, now pinned in the corner, begins eating knees, stomps, and fully elevated punches to the head. This is where Yoon Dong-Sik's defining trait as a fighter--being way too loving tough for his own good--was established. Despite having one of the hardest hitters in the sport teeing off on him he shows essentially no ill effect and successfully traps Rampage down in half-guard again, and aside from the referee dragging them to the center of the ring to get them out of the ropes the round ends several minutes later with Rampage unable to do anything but chip away with arm punches. It's been so long since I watched a full Pride fight that I forgot how long 10-minute first rounds feel. ROUND TWO I also forgot how much of the good stuff tends to happen in those first rounds. Yoon begins the round visibly intent on standing with Rampage, but after his fastest one-two combination does nothing we return to the clinch for the next several minutes until, coming up from a dip for a takedown attempt, Yoon accidentally knees Rampage in the groin. They resume after just forty seconds, and Rampage quickly and angrily defends the honor of his testes by jabbing Yoon back into the ropes and unleashing a volley of knees and uppercuts that stun Yoon into shooting a bad takedown, for which he immediately eats ten straight Rampage knees to the goddamn head and regains clinch control anyway, because he's not goddamn human. He attempts a belly-to-belly throw that Rampage blocks and reverses into guard by extremely visibly holding the ropes, which goes completely unnoticed by the referees and commentators who instead compliment his incredible balance, because watching fights is for chumps. Rampage hangs out in guard with more chipping shots for the last minute and a half of the round, and despite being clearly in control and having landed every significant strike of the fight, he returns to his corner looking more visibly winded than Yoon, who is a weird South Korean terminator. ROUND THREE The first half of the round is defined primarily by inaction. Yoon, while game, is very visibly limited as a standup fighter; fast enough to close the distance but uncertain what to do once he gets inside that isn't clinching. At one point he closes on Rampage and throws an awkward kick at his ankle. Rampage's counterpunching is as sharp as it's ever been, but by this point in the fight he's already hit Yoon with his best shots to virtually no effect and he's too tired to press the action, settling instead for popping Yoon with knees to the gut when they inevitably clinch. Two minutes into the round they slowly clinch their way along the ropes and into a neutral corner--and suddenly, shockingly, Yoon shoots a double, drops Rampage on his rear end, and jumps straight into mount! Yoon postures up and starts dropping bombs, and the heretofore silent crowd is suddenly very alert as he tees off on the vast, vast favorite, but Yoon is a judoka without much punching power and Rampage is halfway through the ropes, and after the referee restarts the fight in mid-ring Rampage locks Yoon down and eventually hits the BJJ white belt hip-bump escape, gets full guard, and goes right back to short, chipping punches. With thirty seconds left in the fight Yoon rolls for the same armbar he attempted in the first round, but Rampage steps through it to side control and rains down a few more knees to the face, but he's too tired to put enough on them to threaten a stoppage and instead settles back down into side control until the bell rings the fight out ten seconds later. Quinton Jackson defeats Yoon Dong-Sik by Unanimous Decision. The commentators wax poetic on how much Yoon's stock will rise even in defeat, having put forth such a surprisingly gutsy performance, and they're definitely right, but he also got his rear end whooped for about 19 of the 20 minutes of the fight. On his way out of the arena Jackson gives his trademark chain to a fan and signs a few autographs, because he knows he's not coming back. AFTERMATH It was, in fact, Rampage's last fight in Pride. A few months later he announced his signing with the World Fighting Alliance, a dormant promotion that was attempting a big 2006 comeback to siphon off the UFC's explosion into the mainstream. They had him main event WFA: KING OF THE STREETS, their grand return, on a card that included Bill Goldberg on commentary, Ricco Rodriguez on cocaine at superheavyweight, Jason "Mayhem" Miller fighting 30 pounds above his usual weight class, Lyoto Machida making his American debut against the 24-26-2 Pancrase veteran Vernon "Tiger" White, Bas Rutten coming out of retirement to fight Kimo Leopoldo only to have Kimo test positive for steroids and get replaced by Ruben "Warpath" Villareal, who fought in a singlet which was aggressively illegal, and after Bas won he promptly tested positive for three different types of drugs and retired again. The main event saw Rampage fight former UFC champion and future Republican House candidate Matt "The Law" Lindland and win a contentious split decision that Lindland still complains about to this day fourteen years later. The WFA began promoting KING OF THE STREETS 2, but folded before it happened. The UFC bought their contracts, Quinton Jackson was set up with a rematch against light-heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell, and the rest is history. Yoon Dong-Sik lost his next fight against Murilo Bustamante, leaving him with a total Pride record of 0-4, only to shock the world and rattle off four consecutive wins in his next four fights, including a submission win over Melvin Manhoef, the greatest fighter of all time. He competed a full decade after Pride closed up shop, but retired in 2017 at 9-10. He never became a truly well-rounded fighter, and mid-2000s MMA thought it was hilarious to call him The Donger, but he was tough as gently caress and never an easy out for anyone.  With that, we arrive at our tournament showcase fights and get onto what many were considering the sleeper fight of the card. Even at this early stage in his career Fabricio Werdum is considered quite possibly the best grappler in the sport, a multiple-time BJJ champion who was 5-1, having just taken his first loss against Sergei Kharitonov in a split decision that was notable primarily for the unintentional hilarity of Werdum repeatedly butt-flopping and waving Sergei into his guard, which, somehow, did not impress the judges. John-Olav Einemo, a 6'6" Norwegian mountain, is not only undefeated at 5-0 but is the only man to ever beat Roger Gracie, a ten-time world jiu-jitsu champion, at the ADCC submission wrestling championships. After the disappointment of Werdum's struggle with Kharitonov, people were chomping at the bit to see these two world-class grapplers test themselves against each other. Unfortunately, there's this thing that tends to happen when world-class grapplers test themselves against each other. ROUND ONE Both men come out flicking slightly awkward jabs, Werdum glances him with a cross and it quickly turns into a clinch against the ropes. After jockeying for position Einemo attempts to trip Werdum, but gets reversed and winds up in full guard. Werdum, after all of three seconds of grappling, stands up, attempts a couple stomps that come nowhere close to landing, and stalls until the referee stands Einemo up. The flicking, awkward punches resume and within seconds again lead to a clinch against the ropes, but luckily for us, they separate rather than doing anything interesting. After more circling and flicking Werdum charges forward with wild, flailing punches that actually manage to land and stun Einemo, which Werdum follows up on by, uh, aggressively dropping down to his butt and pulling guard. No one gets anything done and Einemo stands up, which leads to a series of winging clinch uppercuts and knees from both men, and while none land with any concussive force, Einemo comes away with a big cut on the bridge of his nose that immediately pauses the fight, as Pride's TV networks really, really hated blood. Upon restarting they barrel right into the clinch and exchange dirty uppercuts again, and this time Einemo scores a solid right and throws Werdum to the ground only to very quickly separate, again, with Werdum pointing at Einemo's cut and yelling for a stoppage, because Fabricio Werdum has always been kind of a poo poo. The fight is paused to once again mop up Einemo's face, and Werdum charges in on the reset with another wild but effective combination that somehow ends with him again on his butt and in full guard, but once again, nothing happens, and once again, the fight is paused to clean Einemo's face, and once again, the grappling terminates when Einemo just stands up so they can do some more subpar boxing and clinch on the ropes. Einemo counters a guillotine by slamming Werdum into side control, but with only fifteen seconds left in the round he doesn't press for anything, and gets cleaned up one last time on his way to his corner. ROUND TWO The second the round begins Werdum charges in and starts trying to put uppercuts on Einemo's nose, but this was before Werdum really knew what striking was, so there's nothing on them and Einemo mostly looks vaguely annoyed and perplexed as he charges Werdum into the clinch in a corner. This becomes the story of the round: They circle, they gravitate to the ropes, but as Einemo closes in for the clinch Werdum will land a quick couple of hooks or uppercuts that have no hope of actually ending the fight but score points as opposed to Einemo's general output of Nothing. Halfway into the round Werdum wraps Einemo in a bodylock and attempts to trip him to the mat, but Einemo reverses and winds up in guard, where, once again, the two do essentially nothing. After a minute the referee stands them up, warns Einemo for his inactivity with a yellow card and has his face wiped off for the fourth time. The two men circle and peck and Werdum manages a couple decent knees in the clinch, but winds up on his back again, where he lands a few token hammerfists but otherwise accomplishes nothing and ultimately stands up, again. He's visibly having trouble breathing with all the blood gushing from his nose. Werdum finally scores a takedown, but it's with just a few seconds left in the round. ROUND THREE Both men are visibly gassed, at this point. Einemo's mouth is wide open--it's the only way he can breathe--and he's doing a sort of unintentional mummy guard as he struggles to keep his arms upright, whereas Werdum still has some bounce in his step but he's tired his arms out to the point that he's throwing short kittycat arm punches whenever Einemo gets in range. Werdum is landing more or less every time he throws, as Einemo is far too gassed to be evasive, but Einemo is also walking through his strikes and pushing into the clinch, where he's unfortunately too tired to make anything happen. Midway through the round Werdum lands a slapping combination and a knee to the chest, Einemo retorts by bouncing a right hand off Werdum's temple, and Werdum charges forward with flailing punches to, once again, force a clinch against the ropes. By the time the round is half over Werdum is too tired to continue even his awkward amount of output and the fight degenerates into mostly clinching and circling. With twenty seconds left on the clock Einemo manages one last takedown into Werdum's guard, but neither man has the energy left to make anything happen, and they embrace as time expires. Fabricio Werdum defeats John-Olav Einemo by Unanimous Decision. This is the grappler vs grappler problem: They almost never want to grapple. Stephen Quadros calls the victory "very workmanlike," which is the MMA equivalent of Jim Ross calling a match "bowling-shoe ugly." In retrospect you can see why Werdum would eventually become a dangerous striker: He's got a very good understanding of distance and how to quickly close it and press the action, but he doesn't actually have any of that technique or strength behind him yet. Einemo is very tough and has some pretty impressive takedowns, as you'd expect, but he never managed to do anything or muster any significant offense. AFTERMATH Werdum did in fact fight in the Openweight Grand Prix, but got knocked out in the second round by Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, in the process answering a bunch of questions about who the best jiu-jitsu fighter in MMA was at the time. He'd make his way through the UFC, Pride and the UFC again, ultimately achieving the peak of his career by defeating New Old Mark Hunt and Non-Sea Level Cain Velasquez to become the undisputed UFC heavyweight champion, but a few losses and a positive test for steroids looked to end his career--until he turned snitch and reduced his sentence by ratting out his supplier and other takers to USADA. He's currently scheduled to return this May at UFC 250, which is definitely an event that will definitely happen. John-Olav Einemo never came back to Pride. He hosed up James Thompson later that year in the Netherlands, retired for five years, then made his UFC debut in 2011 at the spritely young age of 35. He got beat up by Dave "Pee-Wee" Herman, got released, got somehow un-released, came back and retired following a deeply unfortunate loss to Mike Russow, human refrigerator impersonator and owner of MMA's greatest hammerfist.  Stephen Quadros introduces this fight as a battle of national MMA legends, and he's not wrong. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka is a pioneer of MMA in Japan, a star of sometimes-work-sometimes-shoot promotion Fighting Network RINGS, a champion of one of the Japan's earliest MMA tournaments the Lumax Cup, the owner of a 3-3 record in the UFC, and the only man at that point with a win over Fedor, even if it was a bullshit cut stoppage and Fedor knocked him stupid in a rematch. He comes into this fight 27-17-2, with eleven years of fighting already under his belt. Mario Sperry is a titan of BJJ, a multiple-time world champion and the first ever ADCC openweight champion, with a 12-3 fighting career that stretches back into the sweaty gym war days of the mid-90s. Both men are tough as nails and widely celebrated for their grappling; both men are also the kinds of fighter pigheaded enough to ignore their strengths and wing hilarious punches instead. ROUND ONE After a feeling-out period of roughly eight seconds, Kohsaka charges in with punches and the two begin trading dirty boxing and quick knees against the ropes. Kohsaka goes for a low leg kick and Sperry counters with a loving enormous overhand right that sends Kohsaka stumbling cartoon-style all the way across the ring. He fires back and both men begin trading wild, angry hooks, with Sperry landing about twice as many, but after rattling Kohsaka he attempts a heel trip and the former judoka reverses and flips him down into guard. Sperry immediately secures wrist control and begins settling into butterfly guard, and Kohsaka decides he wants nothing of it, stands up and motions him up for a reset. Within seconds they're back against the ropes winging wild hooks at one another and Sperry is once again getting the better of it, but somewhere in the middle of this forest of aimless punches, Kohsaka plants a redwood on Sperry's temple.  Sperry is out, but Kohhsaka follows up with a few extra shots for good measure. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka defeats Mario Sperry by KO, 1:20, Round 1. Kohsaka and his corner share an emotional celebration, and Kohsaka gives a post-fight interview where he makes clear that after the Openweight Grand Prix he'll retire from the sport. AFTERMATH Kohsaka got hosed ALL the way up by Mark Hunt in the opening round, and did, in fact, retire. For nine years. He returned to MMA in 2015 at the insensible age of 45 for RIZIN, the third or fourth attempt to resurrect Pride, where he managed to somehow still knock out James Thompson and entered their 2016 World Grand Prix, a hilarious tournament that included a fully-roided Cro Cop, a 6'6" sumo wrestler, no less than three fighters who had already retired, and three injury replacements out of a field of eight fighters. He promptly got smothered by the sumo wrestler and came back one last time, a year later, to fulfill the fate of every Japanese MMA superstar by getting knocked out by Cro Cop in sixty-two seconds. Sperry was basically done. He'd never been knocked out before and the experience very quickly made him decide, as he entered his forties, that it was time to stop. He took one last fight the following year against British national legend Lee Hasdell, submitted him in a minute, and never fought again.  The commentators describe Overeem as being in the process of finally bulking up, which in contrast to his debut as Ubereem about a year and a half from now is hilarious. He's also sporting a dark horse contender for the most inexplicable facial hair decision I've seen in mixed martial arts:  Kharitonov has all the hype, here: Overeem is currently on a three-fight skid in Pride, all coming by stoppage, while Kharitonov is 13-1 with his only loss coming against Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. The camera repeatedly pans to Fedor in the crowd, as Pride is laying the seeds for a Russia vs Russia title showdown. ROUND ONE Even "he put on 20 pounds for this fight" Overeem looks like he belongs a weight class below Kharitonov. 20 seconds into the fight Sergei slips a jab and counters by sticking Overeem with an uppercut, but Overeem uses the proximity to trap him and trip him directly into side control, drawing a mildly shocked murmur from the crowd. Overeem is walking his hips up and trying to glance knees off Sergei's temple and Sergei is turning to put himself out of range, so Overeem begins to switch between elbows to the abdomen, shivering hammerfists to the jaw and knees whenever Kharaitonov is too distracted by his hands to stop him. Sergei repeatedly tries to spin and walk his way out, but Overeem isn't giving him a single inch out of position, and when his focus lapses for a second Overeem pounces into full mount and rains down punches. Sergei manages to buck him off after a dozen solid shots, but Overeem jumps to the sprawl, grabs him in a headlock and flips him right back into side control. Kharitonov is bleeding, battered and visibly overwhelmed, and when Overeeem begins violently bicycling knees into his face he has no answer save limply putting a hand in front of his face, which Bas Rutten insists is an effective defense, because he is insane. After seven-goddamn-teen unanswered knees to the face the referee finaly jumps in and waves off the fight.  Alistair Overeem defeats Sergei Kharitonov by KO, 5:13, Round 1. The crowd is stunned, and Fedor is visibly upset and shaking his head. Kharitonov leaves the ring looking devastated and holding his right arm up with his left, as it appears his shoulder may have popped out. Bad, bad goddamn night for him. AFTERMATH Alistair Overeem took literally every single steroid in the known world, grew to roughly the size of an island, won the last real K-1 World Grand Prix, and still somehow never touched a UFC title. He's 45-18 (1) and is supposed to fight Walt Harris this month, which will hopefully happen sometime in November. Sergei Kharitonov got chubby and old and still kicked the poo poo out of a bunch of people. He somehow managed to occupy the same position for his entire career--widely considered one of the best heavyweights, but always underperforming just before he got a big opportunity. He murdered Overem in a rematch a year later, but got choked out by Jeff Monson in Dream. He moved to Strikeforce and destroyed Andrei Arlovski, but got choked out by Josh Barnett one fight later. He's in Bellator now getting beat up by the Javy Ayalas of the world, because life is cruel.  This fight takes place on the razor's edge of meaning and meaninglessness. On one hand, Kazuhiro Nakamura is a talented judoka with a solid winning record in Pride that includes victories over two UFC champions, Igor Vovchanchyn and a Gracie, and had earned his place as a solid competitor within Pride, and Josh Barnett was arguably on a downward slope, having not won a major fight in three years and having lost his first two outings in Pride. On the other, Nakamura was a 5'10" (Pride gave him an extra inch) middleweight fighting 40 pounds above his weight class and Josh Barnett was a superheavyweight grappling champion who was only 0-2 in Pride because both of those 2 were Mirko Cro Cop and he got kicked out of American MMA after doing too many steroids by the stringent standards of the 2002-era UFC. The fight is not hard to predict. ROUND ONE Seriously, Barnett fights hunched over and he still looks about about twice Nakamura's size, who appears to have bulked up to heavyweight primarily by way of ribs. They spend the first two minutes of the fight on their feet, and Nakamura tries his best to match Barnett's punches, but he's coming up roughly half a foot short every time and at one point tries a headkick that struggles to get above Barnett's elbow, while Barnett is repeatedly thumping him in every exchange. Nakamura eats a knee to the gut in the clinch that visibly concerns him, and he dives on a single-leg and winds up with Barnett sprawled across his back, who leisurely pounds away on his head until Nakamura rolls and gives up side control. After another minute of punishment Barnett rolls on a heel hook attempt, and Nakamura uses the ropes to stabilize himself and counter with his own heel hook attempt, and for the next minute both men stare at each other with insteps cradled in underarms, uncertain quite how to proceed, and eventually they mutually disengage and get back to their feet and settle into a series of clinch wars in the corner. Halfway through the round Nakamura actually gets the clinch trip he's been looking for all fight and gets Barnett down into side control, but he can't get any offense off and Barnett quickly shrugs him directly into a single-leg takedown. He spends the next three and a half minutes pounding Nakamura's side with punches, softening him up until he desperately gives up his back. Barnett is on it immediately, and within ten seconds he has a rear-naked choke and the fight is over. Josh Barnett defeats Kazuhiro Nakamura by Submission, 8:10, Round 1. Rather than submitting, Nakamura chooses to lose consciousness. Barnett cuts his post-fight promo half in Japanese like the gaijin hero he is, and vows victory in the Openweight Grand Prix and revenge on Mirko Cro Cop. AFTERMATH Josh Barnett tore through the openweight tournament ranks, submitting Alexander Emelianenko in two rounds and Mark Hunt in one, and won his way to the tournament finals after a grueling split decision grapplefest against Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. He promptly got the poo poo kicked out of him by Cro Cop for the third time. After Pride folded he made his way back to America, where he singlehandedly killed upstart promotion Affliction after testing positive for steroids again. He tried to get his revenge on the concept of tournaments by fighting his way to the finals of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix in 2012, only to get dominated by little-known injury replacement Daniel Cormier, and went back to the UFC, where he once again got popped for a failed drug test, and then went to Bellator, where he still has not actually made his debut thanks to what's either the coronavirus, more steroids, or a mixture of the two. Kazuhiro Nakamura fought for another eight years, including a two-fight deal with the UFC, both of which he lost. He returned to Pride revival attempts Sengoku and DREAM, but his best successes came on the regional circuit. He retired in 2014 at 21-13. The best moment of his career is not any of his victories, but the time he got frustrated in the middle of getting his rear end beat by Wanderlei Silva, ripped off his gi top, chucked it at him and promptly got knocked out twenty seconds later.  And then, there's this. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira is the #2 heavyweight in the world. He's a 6'3" jiu-jitsu ace with sharp boxing and an incredible chin who comes into the fight at 23-3-1 (1), with 2 of those 3 and the additional NC all coming against Fedor Emelianenko. Kiyoshi Tamura is a living legend of the sport and one of the most important figures in Japanese MMA history. He's also a 5'11" middleweight who hadn't had a good MMA win in six years, and that was against Pat Miletich, a welterweight, as a qualifier for that year's RINGS: King of Kings tournament, which he was knocked out of after getting submitted by, uh, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. Yeah. ROUND ONE It's like watching a kid wrestle their dad. Nogueira very easily takes Tamura down and takes his back fifteen seconds into the fight. For the next ninety seconds he controls Tamura, peppering him with punches and wrenching on his shoulder to hold him in position as he slowly crawls upward, and two minutes in he steps forward into an armbar. Tamura tries to stand out of it and Nogueira immediately pulls him down and taps him out. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira defeats Kiyoshi Tamura by Submission, 2:24, Round 1. Tamura punches the mat, rolls over on his stomach, and screams. Stephen Quadros wonders aloud about the expectations of a fight pitting a 187-pound middleweight against the 240-pound top heavyweight contender in the world. AFTERMATH Nogueira came up short in the Openweight Grand Prix thanks to Josh Barnett, but he made his way to the UFC after Pride folded, won its interim heavyweight championshiup, and then, in a career that had seen him fight Dan Henderson, Fedor Emelianenko and Mirko Cro Cop without ever getting knocked out, he was promptly knocked out by Frank "Has a Tattoo of a Samurai Riding a Rhinoceros" Mir, because the world is cruel. He fought his way back towards contention, and then, in a career that had seen him fight Jeremy Horn, Josh Barnett and Fabricio Werdum without ever getting submitted, he was promptly submitted by Frank "Motivated to Fight By My Wife's Desire to gently caress Randy Couture" Mir, because the world is wrong. He retired in 2015 and is still the best. Kiyoshi Tamura wasn't really all that interested in MMA anymore, but he wanted to complete a legends tour of sorts. His three final fights came against three of Japan's most legendary fighters: Hideo Tokoro, the Magician of the Ring and lesser Gracie hunter, Masakatsu Funaki, one of the originators of Pancrase, and finally, in a match that had fallen through three times in a decade, Kazushi Sakuraba himself. Tamura won all three and rode off into the sunset.  Finally, we've reached the fireworks factory. As I said earlier, this card was mostly built around squash matches booked to get over people Pride saw as top contenders in the Openweight Grand Prix. Shogun vs Coleman was actually the main event in the American PPV broadcast of Pride 31, and it was unequivocally seen as a coming-out party for Shogun in America: He was an undefeated 8-0 in Pride and 12-1 overall, was their 2005 Middleweight Grand Prix champion, and was coming off consecutive victories over Rampage, Rogerio Nogueira, Alistair Overeem and Ricardo Arona. He was young, deadly and unstoppable. Mark Coleman, by contrast, had just turned the corner into his 40s, had eaten three dominant losses to Pride's top heavyweights, and his last victory over a ranked opponent had been in the finals of Pride's inaugural 2000 Grand Prix. It was inconceivable that this fight could end in any way but Shogun taking his head off or removing one of his limbs. Inconceivable. ROUND ONE Shogun comes about an inch away from decapitating Coleman with a headkick right off the bat. Coleman responds by muscling Shogun down to the mat, but he rolls into a triangle attempt. Coleman deadlifts and powerbombs him out of it, and Shogun bails to roll instead for a leglock, which Coleman successfully spins out of. As they scramble for position, Coleman grabs Shogun and pushes forward into an ankle pick. Shogun turns to his side and tries to land on his hip, but Coleman lifts his legs and causes him to instead land on his elbow, which instantly and very visibly breaks. Shogun screams in pain as his arm flops limply to one side. I'm not giffing this, and you are welcome. Mark Coleman defeats Mauricio Rua by TKO, 0:49, Round 1. Pandemonium erupts before the fight can even officially end. Coleman begins to throw ground and pound even as the referee is diving between them, and a furious Coleman throws the referee to one side and gets into a shouting match with Shogun's brother Murilo, who is in the ring screaming in his face. An all-out brawl breaks out between Hammer House and Chute Boxe, as fighters from both camps flood the ring throwing punches at each other, and a very confused Pride production crew creates one of the most unintentionally hilarious visuals in the sport by hyperfocusing the camera on Shogun, who is writhing around in excruciating pain while the Pride victory theme plays, while dozens of event staff rush toward the unseen side of the ring to stop Phil Baroni and Wanderlei Silva from killing each other. Mark Coleman stands on Wanderlei Silva's neck as four different people try to pull them apart and Andre Dida repeatedly punches him in the side, which he doesn't appear to notice. Coleman pulls himself away from the pack to stand on the turnbuckles and pose, and the crowd cheers for him, because we are all terrible, irredeemably bloodthirsty people. Postfight, Coleman pulls Bas Rutten up so he can yell into his microphone that he loves his daughters and he did all of that for them.  Sometimes these things happen in MMA. AFTERMATH No one suffered any consequences for the brawl, because unlike the UFC Pride never even pretended to give a poo poo. Mark Coleman got a rematch against Fedor where he was again fairly easily armbarred, then came to the UFC for a rematch with Shogun that was surprising not for being competitive, which it was not, but for the way that one round in Coleman was so impossibly exhausted he could barely move and Shogun somehow still couldn't finish him until there were twenty seconds left in the fight. He'd fight twice more before retiring in 2010 at 16-10 and lives on as Rowdy Ringsports' longest-lived MMA meme. Shogun won four more fights before Pride folded, came to the UFC and promptly got schooled by Forrest Griffin, which is the fight pick I am still smuggest about to this day. He took the UFC championship from Lyoto Machida and is highly celebrated as a legend of the sport, but he's also the fighter people most generally want to see retire. He entered the UFC at 16-2 and as of present he's now 26-11-1 and fighting to draws with the likes of Paul "The Bear Jew" Craig. And now, finally, it's time for (the other) main event:  Christ. Okay. The concept of the Freakshow Fight is by no means unique to Pride or Japanese MMA, but no one ever did it as frequently or unashamedly, between things like Giant Silva: The Fighter or the great ballad of Heavyweight Contender Zuluzinho. This is by no means the worst freakshow Pride ever put together, it might not even be in the top ten, but it's a contender. Mark Hunt, in 2006, is already a superstar. He's a K-1 World Grand Prix champion and a massively beloved personality with a 3-1 record in MMA, which becomes considerably more impressive when you take into account that 2 of those 3 were Wanderlei Silva and Mirko Cro Cop. He's limited, but he's the toughest guy and one of the hardest hitters in the sport. Yosuke Nishijima was a professional boxer. He was a very good boxer--he retired at 24-2-1--but he was a cruiserweight, which pegged him around 190 pounds, and the "was" was quite intentional, as he had practically retired in 1999. In other words: The main event of Pride 31 was a kickboxing world champion and top MMA superheavyweight against an ex-boxer in his thirties at a 90-pound weight disadvantage who hadn't fought in three years and had never touched a non-boxing combat sport. It was a fuckin' barnburner. ROUND ONE Hunt immediately lands an outside leg kick that makes Nishijima jump about a foot. Nishijima tries to jab and circle, but Hunt repeatedly closes the distance, grabs him and knees him in the sternum, which makes Nishijima dash across the ring. He attempts to rope-a-dope Hunt and bait him into throwing punches while he slips; Hunt promptly cracks him in the mouth, shoves him into the corner, lifts him and dumps him down into side control. Nishijima maintains his cool, and Stephen Quadros mentions he's been working with heavyweight judoka Hidehiko Yoshida on his ground game, but to paraphrase Rampage, it's very hard to get the moon off of you. Hunt lands a couple glancing knees to the face and steps over into full mount, which Nishijima makes no attempt to defend. Hunt spends the next several minutes battering Nishijima with punches from the mount, but a rope reset leads them to the center of the ring and Nishijima rolls just as Hunt is posturing up to throw at full strength, which makes him lose his balance and position. Nishijima tries to capitalize on standing again by charging aggressively forward with punches, of which he lands exactly zero, and Hunt calmly lands a hook, uppercut, knee and low kick in about three seconds. Nishijima returns to the ropes and the story of the fight is already clear: His head movement helps him avoid punches, but he has no answer for clinch strikes, and even when he lands the occasional stinging jab it doesn't really do anything to Hunt save annoy him. Nishijima will circle and pump the jab, Hunt will bully him into the ropes and knee him in the gut, and every time they land he slows down a little more and it becomes harder to slip the big right hands Hunt's tossing his way. A few minutes into the fight Hunt stuns him with a combination in the corner and Nishijima tries to regain aggressive control with a flying knee only for Hunt to punch him out of midair. With a few minutes left in the round Hunt drops Nishijima with another knee to the chest and briefly mauls him from half-guard, but he steps away and waves him up. Nishijima is red and bleeding and Hunt is arguably having a little too much fun with this fight. Nishijima tries to get control back with his jab, but Hunt hits him with a counter hook that sends him stumbling into a corner, and upon seeing how rocked he is Hunt charges in with a flurry of punches and a flying loving kick. An irate Nishijima tries to throw his own flying kick in retaliation, and once again, Hunt punches him out of midair and drops him like a sack of potatoes. Hunt follows him down into side control and spends the next two minutes peppering him with hammerfists and hunting down wristlocks, but unfortunately, Mark Hunt is Mark Hunt and does not actually know what a wristlock is, so he eventually settles instead for A FLYING loving KNEEDROP.  The crowd and commentators are absolutely losing their minds. Nishijima is up and bouncing and trying to jab, but he's landing nothing and his face is a mess. With one minute left Hunt is just hurting him, over and over, and Nishijima is sending nothing back except jabs that aren't even making Hunt react anymore. Hunt is visibly tired, however, and the crowd comes alive as Nishijima lands a flurry in the last fifteen seconds, but the round expires with both men clinching. ROUND TWO Hunt has slowed down almost completely, and Nishijima is dancing around him and bouncing jabs off his stomach while Hunt tries to walk him down with leg kicks. An errant kick goes high and pauses the action briefly, but the crowd and the commentators are now fully behind Nishijima and talking up his performance as incredible and unexpected and indicative that he could, in fact, win the fight. So Mark Hunt promptly shoves him into a corner, tees off on him, drops him with a right and kicks him in the goddamn face. Hunt lets Nishijima up, and I cannot overstate how out of sync the commentary is with what's actually happening, as Stephen Quadros opines on Nishijima being the next Sakuraba-level superstar as the referee wipes blood off his visibly dazed face. Hunt punches him back into a corner and begins unloading again, and Nishijima escapes into the opposite corner. "Nishijima still has some pep in his step and is still moving behind that jab," says Quadros, as he stands completely still against the ropes while Hunt hits him five times in a row. With one minute left in the round Nishijima is stumbling and just getting loving battered and staying standing only by grace of the ropes, but he's a national hero fighting a foreigner, so the referee absolutely will not stop the fight. Nishijima goes down again just seconds before the round ends, and Hunt walks away smiling and shaking his head. ROUND THREE The beating that probably should have already stopped the fight has visibly taken its toll; Nishijima is washed, bouncing on his feet but going straight back into the ropes, and Hunt looks rejuvenated, landing hook combinations from the inside until the referee breaks them up because god dammit, man, give the guy we want to win a chance. Hunt is backing Nishijima into the corner with low kicks, and he's too tired to do anything about them or land anything whatsoever, and then Hunt leaps in with a left hook and an absolutely thunderous straight behind it that sends Nishijima tumbling to the canvas in slow motion, and finally, mercifully, the referee gives up.  Mark Hunt defeats Yosuke Nishijima by KO, Round 3, 1:18. Streamers fall from the ceiling, but the party is somewhat hampered by the medical staff attending to Nishijima in the corner the entire time they're playing the fanfare and passing out giant checks. Nishijima is helped to the back because he's having trouble walking, Hunt takes his big check backstage, and we all wonder why we love violence so much. AFTERMATH Mark Hunt would win his next fight and then fail to win another, across either sport, for half a decade. Then he almost became UFC champion like twice, because our sport is weird. He retired in 2018 at 13-14-1 (1), everyone loves him, and if you don't, you're a monster. Pride refused to give up on Yosuke Nishijima being the next big Japanese MMA superstar, and he paid for it with his health. Nishijima fought four times in 2006: His vicious battering at the hands of Hunt, a very quick triangle choke loss to training partner Hidehiko Yoshida, another violent beatdown at the hands of Cyborg Santos, and a one-sided wrestling assault from Phil Baroni. After Pride folded K-1 bought out his contract and promptly booked him against loving Melvin Manhoef, who, unsurprisingly, flattened him. K-1 then booked him into kickboxing matches and had him make his sport debut against Peter Aerts, one of the greatest ever, and Ray Sefo, the second-toughest Samoan kickboxer in the world. But he beat Bob Sapp during his international job squad tour in 2013, so, hey: At least he got one. WHAT DID WE LEARN ON THE SHOW TONIGHT, CRAIG? Pride was hosed up, man. Every MMA organization has its terrible foibles, but legitimately nothing I've ever seen compares to the absolute meat grinder Pride put their ostensible stars through, and it's impossible to watch an untrained fighter get the absolute poo poo kicked out of him for 16 minutes by a man who outweighs him by almost 100 pounds while the referee refuses to save him and the commentators refuse to shut up about what an incredible warrior he is and how his amazing talent of Not Being Dead is setting him up for future stardom without feeling a little grossed out. Hell, it's impossible to watch Pride's utter glee and IMMEDIATE promotion of fighters straight-up assaulting each other without feeling a little grossed out. The mismatches, the freakshows and the total, complete lack of ethics were always integral to Pride's identity, and there's no way to feel particularly comfortable with them. But it's mostly uncomfortable because it's kind of awesome and that sucks? Those heavyweights beat the poo poo out of those middleweights! Mark Coleman stood on that dude's loving NECK, man! It's complete, unapologetic garbage mixed in with a bit of really fun violence, and Pride understood the way those things dovetailed into the same gross chemical receptors in your brain. How can you be mad at a pro-wrestling style brawl when someone threw a pro-wrestling style knee drop in a real fight? It's insidious, and it's fun, and I hate it, and I miss it. Pride never die, and thank god it's gone.
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Apr 2, 2020 00:38
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CarlCX posted:Pride never die, and thank god it's gone. gently caress me that's a good post. Well done.
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Apr 2, 2020 01:05
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CarlCX posted:Pride never die, and thank god it's gone. Incredible write-up, thank you.
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Apr 2, 2020 06:11
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Memento posted:gently caress me that's a good post. Well done. Jerusalem posted:Incredible write-up, thank you. Thank you, I worried I was overdoing it. I'll bust out UFC 45 sometime next week. Also now that I'm done with it and can actually read the thread: CommonShore posted:663 UFC Live: Vera vs. Jones 21-Mar-10 This was awesome and made me feel weirdly nostalgic and I will never forgot the facial expression Vera made when Jones broke his face. Street Horrrsing posted:UFC 99: The Comeback It is a shame that Anderson beat Franklin so bad it killed his legacy because man, he was a great middleweight. Jerusalem posted:Here's what I know about this show: Absolutely loving nothing. This was an awesome writeup and that Smith/Sell finish is still one of the best moments in MMA history. god I miss this awkward, awkward era of the UFC's graphic design department
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Apr 3, 2020 06:29
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Just want to echo the sentiments that CarCX's Pride 31 recap is incredible Oh, also, I ran the randomizer and got Pride 30, so that's neat!
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Apr 3, 2020 16:52
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Bumping this because gently caress it, there's no new UFC to watch in the meantime: 102: UFC 14: Showdown 27 July 1997 Don't know anything about this one but it's an early show so should be fascinating, hopefully in a good way.
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Apr 11, 2020 03:57
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It really is incredible to me that somehow "work from home, stay home and watch TV and hang out with your kids and your dog, you'll have tons of free time!" has actually meant "holy poo poo how the gently caress are you supposed to keep two active children occupied for like nine hours a god drat day teachers should be making like a hundred grand a year minimum". Anyways, thanks for the bump, and I've updated the 2nd post with links to fightpass and reports. Really great efforts folks, I appreciate it. CarlCX going above and beyond with that post. I went back and watched that Mark Hunt fight and I think I don't know if you'd call it peak PRIDE freakshow booking but it's definitely up there. Also, I hosed up with the original pastebin link, that was an old version of my spreadsheet that didn't have the Strikeforce cards in it. So now they're in there, and there's 764 events to choose from. Once again, thanks everyone for the posts. I still have no idea what my card is, but once the kids are in bed tonight, I'm going to crack a can of beer and find out.
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Apr 11, 2020 06:04
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Elite XC: Uprising! 15th September 2007. I went into this one deliberately knowing nothing at all about the card. Hawai'i! A tropical getaway! A land of beautiful beaches! ... and apparently a breeding ground for some of the toughest fighters in MMA. Ninja Hua! Is fighting ROBBIE LAWLER?!?!? Holy poo poo I loving lucked out here. Jake Shields? Gina Carano? Nick Diaz? Joey Villasenor?!?!? I've heard of nearly all those people! Tonight Paradise is Lost! Pretty sure this is Mauro, and he did a pretty good job at hyping this card up. The opening montage had all the standard Hawai'i things, and the highlight reels were good too. From the Blaisdell Arena in Honolulu, we have coconut-bra'd grass-skirted hula ladies and shirtless dudes hitting drums. Ninja Rua and Robbie Lawler get a bit of an introduction, walking into the arena. We've got Mauro Renallo confirmed, and they're hyping the main event of Ninja vs. Lawler up as "champion vs champion", even though one of them isn't a champion with this promotion. Mauro introduces his broadcast partner... Bill Goldberg. Oh dear. Also we have Stephen Quadros, who in his first sentence stumbled over the word "superstar" and has eyes practically on stalks. Looks like they're doing just as many drug tests for the commentary team as they are for the fighters.  So here's our card. For a card I picked completely at random, six out of ten fighters are people I've heard of and at least one of them are in fact true MMA royalty. Murilo Rua is the EliteXC Middleweight champion, and Robbie Lawler is the Icon Sport Middleweight champ. I've never heard of the latter. Considering the date this takes place, this is nearly a decade before we get Final Form Robbie Lawler, so I'm interested to see how he goes. SHIELDS vs. VERISSIMO This is a 175lbs fight, Elite clearly not being shy of a catchweight. Renato is speaking about how fighting is part of his soul, and comes into this fight at 8-4. Renato also says he's a good bottom kind of guy.  Renato gets a pretty decent interview, and is being talked up as beating Carlos Newton in his first UFC fight.Talking up Jake Shields' fights in PRIDE and Rumble on the Rock. Jake boasting about being out there to fight and out there to win, which is something I guess he gets less and less good at, changing that out for being out there to stick his dick in people's faces and grind points off them in tepid decisions. I deliberately didn't look at anyone's records in this before I watched it because I wanted to have literally no idea who wins - having said that, I have a reasonable idea in the famous fighters' cases how the fights go. Jake coming into this fight with a record of 18-4-1, and saying he'll be winning this fight then chasing the EliteXC belt for his third world title, because we're just going to gently caress around and call Rumble on the Rock and Shooto titles "world" championships. The video has been transcribed weirdly, and no matter what I do I can't see the bottom of the chiron. Maybe to avoid old sponsors or something? The top of the video is noticeably cut off later on as well.  Mario Yamasaki officiating. Let's see which Mario we get; borderline competent, or sacrificing fighters' brain health on the altar of Mt Xyience? Starting out, Shields throws a testing kick to the body, Verissimo responds with hands and Shields tries to time a blast double. Verissimo shucks him off, they clinch and the Brazilian easily trips Shields and lands in his guard. Shields does a really good job of wallwalking up the cage to regain his feet. Clinch game along the fence for a bit then Shields gets an awkward but effective trip and lands in Verissimo's guard, who is very quick to close it up. Shields throwing hard short hooks into Verissimo's body, you can really hear them thud home. Shields postures up and lands a couple of heavy elbows to Verissimo, who tries to scramble out but Shields is very heavy on top. Shields goes to move into side control, Verissimo has the very early beginnings of a kimura grip but Shields pulls himself back on top and frees his leg for side control, forcing him to let it go. Shields gets into full mount and peppers little blows on top of Verissimo, which allows him to get a very high mount and start blasting Verissimo with elbows and punches. Verissimo is getting all sorts of hosed up, and it looks like we're getting "hmm, I'll see where this goes" Yamasaki. Maybe there's no other sort. Verissimo has his hands covering his head, ineffectually, and Shields is loving him up. Yamasaki finally steps in and Shields is the winner by TKO at 4:00 of the first round. Shields doesn't have a mark on him and Verissimo is lying on the ground with a little bit of blood leaking out of his mouth. In replay, Verissimo wasn't taking an absolute ton of damage; possibly while Shields was really landing bombs he was defending well and by the time he couldn't, Shields had just about gassed. Goldberg doing the in-ring interview. Shields said he wanted to be a more exciting fighter, and to be perfectly honest that was the most excited I've been by a Jake Shields fight. "Team Gracie gets their hand raised against BJ Penn's organisation", and Jake gets a cool Hawai'ian club, with maybe shark teeth on the sides. VILLASENOR vs. FUKUDA I know nothing about either dude. The Japanese Fukuda has trained in the last year with AKA, Extreme Couture and Team Grabaka in Japan, and apparently "tonight we'll see if those frequent flyer miles add up... to victory". Dreadful line. Very generic interview with Fukuda, doesn't look like a massive 185 at all. Coming into this fight with a record of 8-2. Now we have "Smokin'" Joe Villasenor, middleweight from Albuquerque. These highlight reels have some pretty bad sound effects dubbed over the top and I definitely just heard the World of Warcraft squish sound over the top of a pretty hard body slam. Very interesting choice there. Villasenor saying he got too caught up with chasing a belt, and I assume that means he's lost some fights he thought he'd win. His camp is "Jackson Submission Fighting", not Jackson-Wink which probably isn't around yet, Villasenor coming in 23-6, with an amateur boxing record of 16-0. His most recent fight a a KO loss to Murilo Hua, and his style listed as "Boxing and Subminssion" [sic] on the Tale of the Tape. Steve Mazagatti has a much more American accent than I thought. Fukuda has "The New York Badass" Phil Baroni in his corner. Ahh, the old days, when you could call yourself something like that and people wouldn't just cover their mouths and smirk. The commentators then decide that New York Badass was too much of a mouthful and just call him the NYBA. Is that the exact same number of syllables but somehow even dumber? Why yes, yes it is. They start out with heavy punches, Villasenor almost looks like he catches Fukuda with a right but it's actually the Japanese man changing levels for a takedown. Villasenor ends up on bottom, Fukuda gets side control and starts working for an arm triangle. It looks like he nearly gets a good grip, but Villasenor manages to bridge out and roll over for a great escape. That was pretty impressive and I wouldn't mind trying it out if I ever get back to the mats. drat coronavirus. Villasenor gets after him and nearly lands a knee as they return to their feet, and a protracted dirty boxing sequence sees Villasenor taking serious damage to his midsection. Fukuda gets two very strong left hooks to Villasenor's liver and then as the American breaks away, Fukuda follows it up with a very stiff body kick. Villasenor backs out a bit, but Fukuda swings again for the body and turns it into a very nice double leg takedown. Fukuda on top with Villasenor sitting against the fence, but he gets spun around onto the ground and Fukuda ends up on top in side control. Villasenor manages to get out the side and stands up and they start trading heavy shots. Fukuda takes a left hand to the mouth as he goes for a headkick and gets wobbly, less so than the commentators seem to think but Villasenor is measured and doesn't try to pounce for the kill. They finish the round out trading single shots, with Villasenor throwing a headkick as the bell goes. That was all Fukuda in the first three, three and a half minutes, but Villasenor came back well to stop it from being a complete blowout. 10-9 Fukuda. Dancing girls on the ramp between rounds. 2007 as gently caress. Round two starts and neither fighter looks as fresh as they did. Double leg attempt from Fukuda is easily avoided, the fighters clinch and Villasenor lands a nice elbow on the break. He then throws a naked high kick that is blocked by Fukuda but rattles the Japanese fighter a little and pushes him back. They're still trading, and Villasenor lands a left hook that sends Fukuda headfirst into the cage. He literally bounces off the fence and I'm giggling like an idiot. They trade further and Fukuda gets a clinch along the fence. He's throwing knees to the midsection of Villasenor, there's not a ton of sting on them but they must be adding up. He's in a pretty advantageous position... so of course Mazagatti breaks them up and resets them to the middle of the cage. That was a really bad call, but the commentators give him props for it when it does the same thing again 30 seconds later. Commentary team talking up the conditioning regimen at Greg Jackson's while a visibly winded Villasenor sucks air, his gut bellowing in and out. Fukuda catches a kick and pushes Villasenor to the ground, landing on top and throwing a couple of massive bombs down as the round ends. 10-9 Fukuda but very close. In the replay, it's clear that Fukuda grabbed the ankle brace Villasenor is wearing to help him with the trip. Wily veteran moves there. Round three, and both men are tired. Someone said that there's nothing worse than B-league Middleweights, and I fear I'm about to find that out. Fukuda gets a couple of very solid shots on Villasenor but doesn't have quite enough on them to really rattle the American. A boring kickboxing match has broken out, but Villasenor has remembered you're allowed to low kick and has landed a couple of very solid shins to Fukuda's quads. Fukuda shoots at the three minute mark and geta Villasenor down, with the American kinda just falling over at the end of it. Fukuda works for full mount and just as he gets his leg out, Villasenor uses the momentum to sweep him and get into Fukuda's guard. Villasenor seems like he might be OK at the whole grappling thing. They spend a fair amount of time in guard with Fukuda very active on the bottom. Villasenor gets to his knees in an attempt to posture out of guard, and Fukuda scrambles out to his feet. The final round winds down and I give it to Villasenor 10-9 with Fukuda taking the fight 29-28 on my scorecard. Having said that, I'm prepared for either guy to win because the middle round was pretty close. Fukuda doing some pushups as the ring fills with officials, and Quadros pointing out correctly that that's energy he should have spent on fighting if he wanted to assure himself the win. We switch backstage, and Robbie Lawler gives us the cheesiest murderer grin you've ever seen.  First judge scores it 29-28 Villasenor, second 29-28 Fukuda and the third judge scores it 29-28 with Villasenor picking up the split decision victory. Fukuda gracious in victory, but the crowd hates it with audible boos. Villasenor talking up Fukuda's toughness in the post-fight. CARANO vs. EVINGER We cut to some stock footage of jet fighters and then a really clumsy segue to the women's fight. Tonya Evinger, from Odessa Missouri, says "fightin's natural to me" with the hayseedest accent I've heard in a long time. She talks about how she has three big brothers and that if she loses to Gina she might just sit down and cry because she beats guys all the time, "I can't lose to a girl!". Coming in with a record of 5-1. Gina Carano being lauded for her heavy hands and striking skills. Her highlight reel is her absolutely knocking the piss out of some fighters who I'm sure were actually good. Coming in with a perfect record of 4-0. As Carano gets her introduction to the arena, we switch to a shot of Glen Carano who is talking on a first generation iPhone. That's a blast from the past. Fight taking place at a "contracted weight" of 140, with Carano coming in at 141 and the commentators saying she had a very hard time making the weight and nearly collapsed. This fight will take place across 3*3 minute rounds, which I assume was an artefact of WMMA not being fully established at this time. Carano looks good and is called "the sensational young star of women's MMA". Mario Yamasaki officiating. Round one starts strong, with Carano throwing two stiff leg kicks, and Evinger coming in with a very quick takedown into side control in the first 20 seconds. Evinger working in half guard but throwing nothing, trying to maybe get a guillotine but she really doesn't have that either. Gina works for position and then brute forces her way into top, with a very low side control. Evinger tries to roll out and gives her back up very easily. Carano makes a futile attempt at a rear naked choke with her right arm, but switching to the left sees her sink it in. Evinger taps out well after the clapper went to signal ten seconds left. I'm not sure she'll be happy about that considering that holding on for another seven seconds probably would have seen her survive to the second. That wasn't a great fight, neither fighter really knew what they were doing on the ground but all of the action took place there anyway. Carano by Submission (rear naked choke) at 2:52 of Round 1. Goldberg again with the post-fight. Camera staying off Evinger who might actually be crying. Gina Carano: "I just wanted to choke her until she didn't breathe anymore. Wny won't you diiieeee?!?!?" DIAZ vs. AINA The co main event of the evening is up. Nick Diaz taking on Mike Aina at 160lbs. Commentary definitely talking up how Hawai'i native Aina is a very long odds underdog against Diaz. Coming in at 9-5-1, Aina is very keen on his punching power. He's introduced as "Iron" Mike Aina. Woof. BJ Penn gave him that nickname apparently, which actually makes a lot of sense. Nick Diaz fails to look directly at the camera and comes in at 14-6. "I just want to win". Very understated. Crowd loves him, after almost zero noise for the local boy. Diaz is coming off the suspension after beating Takanori Gomi. Diaz looks very young here, which the Tale of the Tape bears out, I didn't realise he was only 24 years old for this one. During the introductions Diaz seems to get a combination of cheers and boos. Mazzagatti officiating again. The fight starts with both men feeling each other out. Diaz jabbing nicely, Aina throwing ineffectual kicks at range. Aina backs off and points to his little finger? Huh? The commentary mentions he's had a wardrobe malfunction as Mazzagatti calls for a timeout. He seems to put his finger back in his glove, not sure what happened there. The ref calls time on again and the two go back to work. They continue peppering each other with Aina possibly getting the better of the long game but Diaz working the clinch to his advantage. The commentary mentions Aina cancelled his honeymoon to take this fight. Definitely a braver man than I. Diaz has found his range as the round enters its final minute. His shots are measured and finding his opponents face constantly, but not with any fight ending power on them. Aina is swinging comparatively wildly but his strikes look like they could spell a lot of trouble if they land. Round ends with Diaz having spent a lot of the latter part of it with a Thai clinch secured, sending knees up the middle and around the outside into Aina's midsection. 10-9 Diaz but close. Between rounds it strikes me that while Aina might have a lot of power, he probably doesn't have enough to knock out a 24 year old Diaz, and Diaz is definitely not showing enough power to knock out anyone in his league but he could seriously carve up Aina. Round 2. Aina tags Diaz in the face, Diaz responds with a solid leg kick, Aina gets another right on Diaz' nose, who seems to slip down. He lands on all fours and immediately shoulder rolls over the top in the Diaz-est thing I've seen so far, even with the "c'mon down here" gesture he became famous for later in his career. He buttscoots towards Aina and throws some little kicks, with Aina backing off and Mazzagatti standing Diaz up. Diaz goes for a takedown, rolls again over his shoulder onto his back and Aina wants none of it. The commentators announce that Aina won round 1 on two out of three scorecards. The two fighters continue a very solid back and forth exchange, with Aina having a clear power advantage but not able to utilise it, and Diaz landing at will but not seeming to hurt Aina. With a minute left in the round, Diaz has a cut near his right eye. Sky blue, water wet, Diaz gets cut open. Diaz gets behind Aina with a very solid bodylock and drags the local fighter to the floor with 30 seconds remaining. Diaz passes incredibly easily to mount, Aina rolls over and gives up his back. Aina is definitely saved by the bell, and that takedown and might have saved Diaz the round, which I'm giving 10-9 to Aina but last minute takedowns seem to give the fighter a lot of credit in the judges' eyes. Something something memories like goldfish. The cut on Diaz' right eyebrow is easily sorted out by the cutman and if you think a Diaz brother is going to be affected by blood streaming down the side of their face then you should probably watch more Diaz fights. Third round and Diaz quickly has Aina pressed against the cage. Diaz works knees and might be going for a single leg but Aina gets out. They clinch again and Diaz lands a rattling elbow upside Aina's head. Both men are unloading combinations with Diaz managing to slip most of them and tagging up Aina, who has a decent sized went under his left eye. With 1:42 on the clock, Diaz manages a takedown that Aina no longer has the stamina to power out of. Nine seconds later Aina has given up his back. Aina clearly out of his depth on the ground, spends the rest of the round frantically defending submission attempts and getting peppered with shots from the back and then the top. The round ends with Diaz having rolled around to threaten an armbar and once again Aina has been saved by the bell. 10-9 Diaz with the extended sequence at the end of the round saving him the round and on my scorecards the fight. Judge 1 scores it 30-27 Diaz, judge 2 scores it 29-28 Aina and the third judge scores it 29-28 Diaz with Diaz winning by split decision. Mauro Ranallo with the shittiest take of the night, "this decision attracting boos like a trailer park attracts tornadoes". Nick calling out the toughness of Hawwai'ians to loud boos from the crowd in the post fight interview. We switch back to all three commentators in front of the desk and Quadros doesn't look like he's sure what planet he's on.  RUA vs. LAWLER Robbie Lawler has no emotion or change in tone during his introduction. Coming in at 14-4, he's "not too worried about what people say, just what I do". Murilo Rua says that winning the championship title was one of the greatest moments of his life. Well, he didn't say that, the translator did. He's been training hard and is very proud to represent Chute Boxe. He's coming into this with a record of 14-7-1 having beaten Joey Villasenor to become the inaugural EliteXC Middleweight champion. Ninja comes down to the cage with the belt held up behind him. Decent looking strap. The third man in the cage is Mario Yamasaki, which bodes well for someone getting knocked the gently caress out. The fight starts with both men circling and feinting, neither biting on anything, but with Rua committing to the first punch Lawler immediately clinches and hits a picture perfect lateral drop. Lawler lands on top of side control and gets a couple of short elbows into Rua. Rua pushes back and Lawler nearly lands a massive right hand as he scrambles to his feet. Rua setting the pace as both fighters start to establish their range. Lawler showing good cage control and keeping Rua from circling out off the fence. Rua starts getting some low kicks to land and marking up Lawler's lead leg. Rua comes in off a leg kick and starts throwing combinations to Lawler's head. Lawler shells up and shoulder rolls to avoid any serious damage and circles out off the cage to disengage. Rua spends the last minute of the round firing 1-2-legkick; the punches aren't landing but the leg kicks are mounting up the damage. Robbie tries a superman punch just as the bell sounds. Rua 10-9 with Lawler not quite doing enough towards the end to secure the round. Second round starts with Rua still doing serious work with the low kicks. Rua is attempting to keep Lawler at range with the low kicks and having a fair bit of success; when Lawler manages to close the distance he's clearly stinging Rua with jabs and straight lefts. Rua shoots for a double with Lawler executing a textbook sprawl to avoid the takedown, and rocks Rua on the way up with a right uppercut. Halfway through the round Lawler is stalking his opponent with a massive grin on his face, eating shots and putting hard left hands on Rua's face. Rua is still coming forward but is looking very tired in the latter part of the second round. Lawler catches a kick and tips Rua over onto his back; the American walks backwards and motions his opponent to get back up. Lawler and I are both thoroughly enjoying this. Rua attempts a takedown that can only be described as desultory, "lacking a plan, purpose, or enthusiasm", and Lawler just kinda steps out of the way. Rua is looking drained and Lawler is taking the occasional leg kick but putting his left hand on the face of his opponent with impunity. The round ends with Lawler throwing another huge strike at the end. Lawler 10-9, Rua showed aggression but ran out of puff about two minutes in. Third round and Rua starts off with leg kicks. Rua goes to throw one and Robbie counters with a left body kick and a straight right to the head that rocks Rua. Rua is working his jab and low kicks, but Lawler isn't showing any signs of being unsteady on his lead leg. Lawler checks a leg kick and walks Rua down, who runs out of cage and fights himself against the fence. Lawler tees off on him with a big left uppercut that clearly rattles the Brazilian. Lawler smells blood, and works his jab twice into Rua then hits him with another big left. Lawler glances another left uppercut off Rua's head, then hits him with a massive right hook. As Rua stumbles, Lawler hits him with a huge right uppercut and Rua crumples to the mat. Lawler drops two huge hammerfists into Rua's face and it's all over. Yamasaki has other ideas, and seven more blows land with the last clearly putting Rua out cold before the referee steps in. Ruthless Robbie Lawler is the new EliteXC Middleweight champion, stopping Murilo Rua by KO at 2:04 of the third round. CONCLUSIONS This was a pretty solid card for 2007. Clearly, women's MMA was in its very very early stages. Gina Carano would power along until she met a Cyborg-shaped steroid mountain two years after this event, and then decide that fake fighting in movies and TV was a far better way to make money. Jake Shields never excited anyone ever again, and after losing to GSP in his second UFC fight, never sniffed the bigtime title. Renato Verissimo retired after this event to coach BJJ. Mike Aina never made it out of the B-leagues, with his last fight coming in November 2014, and his other fight of note being an NC (Overturned) against Billy Evangelista. Aina originally won the fight due to an illegal knee, where he was considered unable to continue, but upon review the CSAC overturned it to a No Contest as the knee looked to connect with Aina's shoulder more than anything else. With his win at this event, Joey Villaseñor started a 4-fight winning streak, including knocking out the aforementioned New York Badass Phil Baroni in a minute and change. He then came up short against Jacare in Strikeforce, could barely eke out a split draw against Chris Camozzi and retired in 2012. After this event, Riki Fukuda went 9-1 in his next ten fights, but when called up to the UFC managed to go 2-3 in five and was released. He's been fighting exclusively for Road FC in Korea and Japan since, with his last fight coming in 2017. Tonya Evinger was released by the UFC as recently as March 2019, having managed to win and retain the Invicta Bantamweight belt and then go 0-3 in the UFC including losing against Cristiane Justino in a fight to determine the UFC Featherweight champion after Germaine de Randamie vacated it. Nick Diaz would lose his next fight against KJ Noons, but then go on an 11-fight win streak, including winning and defending the Strikeforce Welterweight title. He beat BJ Penn in the first fight of his second UFC run, but was roundly decisioned by Carlos Condit, Georges St Pierre and then Anderson Silva. He then lost 50-43 to the Nevada State Athletic Commission, who used all sorts of dirty tactics to keep him out of the game for five years. Robbie Lawler retained his EliteXC belt in his next fight with an accidental eye poke stoppage over Scott Smith, then in the rematch soundly beat Smith with soccer kicks and punches. He went to Strikeforce and didn't impress, going 4-5, and then moving over to the UFC as a part of their purchase of Strikeforce. It was with a change of camp to America Top Team that Lawler was truly able to shine. In his next nine fights, he only lost one by decision to pre-USADA Johny Hendricks, beat him in the rematch later that year to claim the UFC Welterweight championship, and then had the consensus best MMA fight of all time against Rory MacDonald in July of 2015. After losing the belt to Tyron Woodley in July 2016, he has gone 1-3 in his last four including a questionable stoppage against Ben Askren, and is still contracted to the UFC. Murilo Rua would go 6-5 after losing to Lawler, having spent the best years of his career being pummeled by roid monsters in PRIDE. In the best traditions of combat sports, he retired in May 2011, then retired again in September 2012.
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Apr 12, 2020 14:04
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I'm definitely going to have time to do at least one of these a week.   Oh ho ho 
Memento fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Apr 12, 2020 |
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Apr 12, 2020 14:11
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I rolled UFC Fight Night: Bisping vs Le all the way from 2014. This was an event I know happened but never saw and can only say the reason I didn't care to watch it was because A) Cung Le and B) it was probably on at a stupid time in the day because it took place in Macau. The card hand a few local guys but was top heavy with Tyron Woodley vs Dong Hyun Kim and Michael Bisping vs Cung Le. It was commentated by our beloved Mike Goldberg and Kenny Florian. Florian is too bland to play off Goldie and it was painful to live through it. Jianping Yang vs Ning Guangyou This was a unique The Ultimate Fighter Finale fight where the tournament final didn't take place on a TUF Finale because ~International TUF seasons~. These two Featherweights came in as the finalists of The Ultimate Fighter: China which was coached by Cung Le as well. TUF China was super weird because while it had two teams of fighters, there obviously weren't to Chinese language coaches because at the time the UFC didn't have enough Chinese talent to do such a thing so they brought Cung Le (a Vietnamese-American) in as the chief coach and the teams had amazing names. First there was the red and gold called Team Sky Dragons and their rivals were the gold and black team also called Team Flying Lions. I swear to god this is already my favorite thing about TUF China. Yang repped Team Flying Lions and Ning represented Team Sky Dragons. Oh bonus, imagine Mike Goldberg saying those names. Now imagine it again only it's on live TV. Ning Guangyou came into the finals with fire ahving KO'd his quarterfinal and semifinal opponents to reach the finale. Yang Jianping however took a slightly more difficulty route, as he quickly submitted his first round opponent, but in the semifinals had to go to the sudden victory round before earning the Unanimous Decision victory. Both fighters were also their teams respective first picks for the Featherweights so this should be a good fight for TUF China standards. To start off Ning threw a cracking overhand right and moved into attack further but Yang got a solid hip throw and to the mat before moving to side control. As Ning moved to take the back Yang bailed and got back to his feet. The two continued to stand and exchange looking an opening though they were tentative making the crowd get a bit rowdy. After a short clinch, Yang got a trip but couldn't keep Ning on the ground and they return to standing exchanges. They locked up in a clinch again and a bunch of knees came from Ning but nothing significant landed. As the round ended the two frantically darted in and out before Ning landed a jumping knee but failed to rock Yang as the round finished. Ning definitely took that round as Yang failed to get much offense going other than a few shots. The second round started and neither fighter opted to use a jab whatsoever. A series of low leg kicks came from Yang and landed pretty solidly. The two continued to throw kicks at each other before deciding to strike with the hands. Ning did a great job sliping the punches fo Yang before shooting in for a takedown and ended up in open guard. Ning then worked to half guard but again nothing really came from Yang other than a scramble that lead to Ning getting an arm in guillotine at 3 minutes. It looked pretty tight but Yang escaped and Ning pushed him off to get back to his feet. Another low leg kick comes in from Yang and smack dab lands to the groin of Ning ending the action temporarily due to a groin shot. Up to this point thought the pace had picked up from Yang which was unfortunate. Ning didn't seem to notice the kick to his dick and didn't really listen to the referee until the ref held his face and said "ARE. YOU. OKAY?" which was comical. When the action continued the two throw wild hooks and punches before a short inside flurry came as the horn sounded to end the round. Ning took that round thanks to the take down and then the submission attempt. For the final frame Yang came out very energetic and moved a bunch but didn't throw much in the form of volume allowing Ning to slip or avoid the strikes Yang sent out. Ning did a good job throwing counters. However the problem has been that anytime one of them moved forward, the other would move backwards. Mostly this was on Yang who did little forward offense while Ning did at least stand and try and trade when Yang did opt to attack. Ning began to taunt Yang due to Yang's lack of action as the fans began to boo the fighters. This was pretty much the tempo for the last half of the round as the crowd began to audibly yell "BULL.poo poo.BULL.poo poo." The round ends without much action happening other than the constant movement and light strikes from both fighters. Ning Guayngyou visibly look frustrated at the end. I can't honestly say who won that round since nothing happened. Oddly the rules somehow stipulated that if a winner wasn't definitively decided, they'd go to a 4th round which is weird as hell. The fight goes to a decision and the judges give the fight to Ning Guangyou via Unanimous Decision (29-28 across the board). This wasn't a terrible fight but it was not a good debut for either guy, which makes sense given both guys flunked out of the UFC. It can be summed up by how deflated Dana was in awarding Ning his trophy, and Kenny's post-fight interview. Next up we had Zhang Lipeng vs Brendan O'Reilly in the Lightweight division. Zhang won the TUF China Welterweight tournament (the finals took place in March of the year of this event) but now is a Lightweight and O'Reilly also participated on TUF via TUF Nations: Canada vs Australia repping the Kangaroos but was eliminated mid-season. In the first round, O'Reilly circled on the outside while pushing into range with his jabs and changed levels quickly to get Zhang against the cage. O'Reilly threw a series of knees but Zhang was able to get off the cage and take O'Reilly ground ending up in top position. O'Reilly used his half guard to sweep up to top position throwing a series of short punches which Zhang answers back with as the round ends. O'Reilly took that round thanks to his pressure and ending up in top position. As the second round begins Aussie Man used his kicks to set the tempo. This caused Zhang to move back and ends up engaging in a grapple. Zhang then was able to position himself so that O'Reilly gave up the inside cage position before trying to get O'Reilly down. O'Reilly however was able to prevent the take down and tried for his own trip but failed. Zhang then chose to knee the Kangaroo warrior before ragdolling him to the mat. Zhang then hunted for the back position and took back mount. Immediately Zhang then tried to get an RNC going but Wombat was able to prevent it but ate a series of punches for the effort as the round ends. Zhang took that one which thus far has made up for that last fight. The final round began and both guys were a bit tentative to start. Eventually O'Reilly rushed in to force Zhang into the fence yet again and they fought for the grapple position. Zhang then got a take down via a trip, and as O'Reilly fell more on his front than his back, Zhang jumped for the back position. Again Zhang worked from back mount and even did a Kazushi Sakuraba "Double Palk Strike to the Head". Zhang didn't let up and worked the strikes in as well as the position control going for a rear naked choke attempt. As the round ended it was clear Zhang took the fight thanks to his back control and strikes while O'Reilly had no answer for that position. Zhang won the round and the fight in my opinion. Judges agreed 29-28, 29-28 and a baffling 30-27 all for Zhang. Next was Tyron Woodley vs Dong Hyun Kim in the Welterweight Co-Main event. Woodley was fresh off the Rory Macdonald loss and was filling in with 10 days notice. Kim just came off a great KO in the previous UFC Fight Night in Macau earlier that year. Starting things off, Stun Gun moved forward on Woodley and threw a solid combo closing the distance. In return, Woodley threw his own combo to help press Kim into the cage. Woodley then broke free allowing Kim to come at him again. Kim then tried a spinning back elbow which he had used in a recent fight but Woodley scouted it and threw a counter right cross that caused Kim to fall face first onto the mat. Woodley then wasted no time with follow up strikes prompting the fight to be ended via TKO. Woodley won via TKO. This is what Kim was going for  This is what happened https://thumbs.gfycat.com/InbornCoarseHoneybadger-mobile.mp4 Finally in the main event we had a Middleweight bout with Michael Bisping vs. Cung Le. With the fight starting off, Bisping came out using his jab but opted to target Le's body rather than this head. Le worked his leg kicks which he's of course known for. Both guys work their combos and give as good as they take getting in a few hits here and there. Le threw a series of combos trying to land on Bisping's body but The Count did a solid job avoiding the majority of them and countering with strikes of his own. Both guys finished the round throwing strikes with fluidity and speed. Bisping 10-9 The next round saw Bisping continue to throw leg kicks on Le. Bisping continues to work his combos and gets in close on Le early, tearing him up with strikes. Le's eye began to bleed and at an appropriate point the referee stopped the action to check it out with the doctor which was deemed OK to continue. Le's face was all messed up and it was a bit weird it wasn't called off but whatever. Le tried to rally back and did a decent series of attacks but it was all Bisping this round. Bisping 10-9 Between rounds, Le's corner worked their best to unfuck his face & eye but it wasn't going to go well no matter what. As the round started Le came out strong and threw his patented kicks and made it clear Bisping would need to work for the win. However Bisping continued to work solid combinations and picked his timing really well as he beat up Le again for the majority of the round. This was essentially a continuation of the beating the began in the previous round. Bisping 10-9 In the fourth round Bisping again came out strong throwing combos and forced Le to cover up and back himself to the cage wall. Bisping didn't let up and throw more combinations until a few knees and punches crumpled Le and the Referee stepped in to call the fight off. Bisping wins by TKO. https://thumbs.gfycat.com/FixedKindGoldfish-mobile.mp4 Take Away Overall the main card wasn't actually that bad. The TUF Finale guys really did poorly in the Featherweight bout, but Zhang Lipeng did a great job against O'Reilley in his 2nd UFC fight. Looking on paper even back in 2014 it was hard to imagine Cung Le would beat Bisping despite Bisping at the time having the reputation of being a sole gatekeeper. The same also went for Woodley/Kim except Woodley had that giant body so how could you not think he was gonna beat the skinnier guy? Aftermath Bisping would go on to become UFC MW champion by KOng Luke Rockhold in embarassing fashion. He'd also avenge his loss to Dan Henderson before dropping the title to GSP in a hell of a fight. Bisping then was KO'd by Kelvin Gastelum which prompted his retirement. It was also revealed that Bisping had been fighting for years WITH BARELY ONE loving WORKING EYE. Bisping is now a podcaster and MMA analyst for the UFC and is our spirit animal and hero. Cung Le retired after the bout and is now seen as an extra or stunt character in Z-Movies starring other MMA notables. Tyron Woodley would also go on to be a UFC champion dethroning Robbie Lawler. He would then defend his title a few times before Kamaru Usman demolished him. Woodley was due to have his comeback fight early in 2020 but the whole COVID19 thing happened. Dong Hyun Kim would go on to win a few more matches before losing to Colby Covington and essentially retiring from MMA. He know lives in his native South Korea and is doing various TV appearances and commercials. Interestingly enough, the spinning back elbow mentioned earlier was a move Kim used to beat John Hathwaway in March of 2014 (4 months before the Woodley fight) and earned Kim a KO of the Year award. Which explains why he went for it. Zhang Lipeng would fight a few more times in the UFC but never won which prompted his release from the promtion. He returned to China and fights in Kunlun MMA Fight which is a Chinese MMA, Kickboxing, and Boxing promotion where he is also a divisional champion in MMA. Were he to return to the UFC's LW division, he'd probably die. Brendan O'Reilley also fought a few more times but never had much going and were also cut. Post-UFC info on him though is non-existant as far as I can find. Ning Guangyou fought several more times but also failed out of the UFC. He was last scheduled to fight Takeya Mizugaki in Rebel FC in 2018 but that was canceled. Yang Jianping also flunked out of the UFC and now fights in Kunlun MMA Fight and is riding a 4 fight win streak per Tapology. Mekchu fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Apr 12, 2020 |
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Apr 12, 2020 15:40
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Memento posted:Elite XC: Uprising! 15th September 2007. I went into this one deliberately knowing nothing at all about the card. Small spoilers for Jake's 2007 future:  Memento posted:Elite XC: Uprising! 15th September 2007. I went into this one deliberately knowing nothing at all about the card. Was this included in the replay? https://twitter.com/LegKickTKO/status/755562114001932288
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Apr 13, 2020 01:58
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LobsterMobster posted:
That was definitely there, you could hear Goldberg's facial expression in his voice. I thought I had mentioned it, I had two versions of my write-up (BBC editor and Word) so I could spell check myself, and I lost a good chunk due to drunk copy and paste errors and had to re-write some. That and Gina saying "why won't you diiiiiiieeeeee?!?!?" were the two highlights of what was a pretty garbage fight.
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Apr 13, 2020 02:08
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Memento posted:"tonight we'll see if those frequent flyer miles add up... to victory". Mauro HAD to be the one who said that line, right? Memento posted:Lawler drops two huge hammerfists into Rua's face and it's all over. Yamasaki has other ideas, and seven more blows land with the last clearly putting Rua out cold before the referee steps in. This made me laugh and then feel bad about laughing. Mekchu posted:This is what happened Well that's not good! LobsterMobster posted:Was this included in the replay? loving 
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Apr 13, 2020 02:33
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PRIDE 30: Fully Loaded Do we maybe know some of the outcomes because of the PRIDE 31 write-up? Sure. Does that matter? Hell naw, it’s Pride Fighting Championships, the journey (steroid-ballooned monster thrashing confused pro wrestlers) is just as important as the destination (the Yakuza chopping off someone’s pinky for showing disrespect) Zuluzinho vs Sentoryu  Super fuckin’ trashweight action, y’all! Zuluzinho is making his Pride debut, and his daddy got whooped by Rickson Gracie. Sentoryu is a sumo, but Zulu’s got the size, by a lot. Round 1:  Sentoryu and Zulu winging haymakers. Sentoryu back Zuluzinho to the corner with big, wide hooks, but Zulu grabs on to a clinch. Knee up the middle and a slapping hook from Zulu slightly wobbles Sentoryu. Zulu clinches up again, backs Sentoryu to the corner and drives a knee directly into the nards.  Sentoryu gets fondled by two officials, and hey, why not check Zuluzinho’s cup while we’re at it as well? We get a quick shot of Zulu’s dad, Rei Zulu, looking on in admiration at his large, round son, and it’s back to the action! Sentoryu and Zulu have some brief exchanges, and Sentoryu start looking for a takedown. He succeeds at pulling the back of Zulu’s shorts down, but that’s about it, as Zuluzinho slams a meaty knee up the middle, into Sentoryu’s face. Two more knees is enough to drop Sentoryu, and Zulu keeps his hands firmly around Sentoryu’s head. One knee on the ground and Sentoryu drops to his side, and the ref calls the bout. Sentoryu is very upset at the decision. Your winner, by knockout at 1:31 of the first round, ZULUZINHO!  a proud dad Murilo “Ninja” Rua vs Murad Chunkaiev Rua was name-dropped in the previous fight as having cracked Alexander Otsuka’s cup at a prior event, so he’s clearly got powerful strikes, despite coming into this with a 5-5 record in Pride. Fighting out of Chechnya, Chunkaiev wants to pound out Rua so that people will know his name, so I guess ol’ Chunky finally found out what his whole deal is. Round 1: Ninja opens with a high kick, Murad answers with an overhand, and Rua throws a flying knee, that ends with Chunkaiev getting a takedown. Ninja quickly looks for a triangle, Murad slips out, postures up briefly, and Ninja gets space to try and stand back up. Murad tries to clinch, but a Murilo knee opens up the distance and we are back to standing. Ninja charges forward with punches, grabs for a clinch and hits a knee to the body. Rua with more knees to the body, and they finally break the clinch and separate. Chunkaiev looking for overhand rights, Rua avoids. Ninja clinches, slips around the back, and briefly gets Chunkaiev to the ground. Murad going for a kneebar, but Murilo slips out. Back to standing, and Ninja with more knees to the body. Both men throwing wild shots, Ninja slipping a bit. Rua stumbles backwards, and Murad shoves him to the ground. Chunkaiev jumps on top in guard. Rua briefly looking for a triangle, Murad escapes, and both men get back to their feet. Rua backs up Chunkaiev with swarming punches, lands a clinch knee, but Murad takes down Murilo. Chunkaiev lands some ground and pound, passes to half guard, but Murilo remains active off his back, and eventually escapes to his feet. Ninja clinches Murad in the corner, and looks for a takedown. Murad gives up his back, Ninja transitions to the front, and lands knees to the head of a turtled Chunkaiev. Chunkaiev tries to stand, but eats some soccer kicks to the face for his efforts. Ninja on Chunkaiev’s back, but Murad sweeps, only for Ninja to scramble for a leg lock. Murad’s shoes are a problem, and he is forced to tap. Your winner, by submission due to a heel hook, at 3:31 of the first round, Murilo “Ninja” Rua. Alexandru Lungu vs James “The Colossus” Thompson  I know Sentoryu was a sumo guy, but Lungu really is the proto-Baruto. Just an ideal specimen of a man. James Thompson is James Thompson, the fighting pride of Willie D’s hiding spot in some shrubs. The Colossus is here to punch and be punched, none of this silly grappling nonsense.  this is the ideal make body. you may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like Round 1:  No Gong-n-Dash from James, which might be his undoing, as Lungu swipes out with a mighty paw, clipping James upside the head and knocking him more incomprehensible than he already is. Lungu tries to take James’s back, but Thompson isn’t completely out of it, and spins enough to give up side control, then slowly establishes half guard. Unfortunately, we don’t have Rampage Jackson in the booth to ask how you’re supposed to get the moon off of you, but Thompson is trying to figure that out. James gets things to full guard (an open guard, of course, no way to close that one up), then pushes Lungu off enough to create space to stand up. Lungu looking to clinch, but Thompson is throwing heaters. James fights off the clinch with some knees and punches to the body, and they are back in open space. Thompson with knees to the head and some big, wide haymakers. Lungu misses a punch, gets spun into the corner and remains there as James whomps away. Lungu tries to escape out of the ring, but this is a man that was clearly crane-lifted over the ropes, no way he’s getting out between the ropes. The ref has seen enough and calls the bout, Lungu having been tenderized enough. Your winner, by knockout, at 2:13 in the first round, James “The Colossus” Thompson. Hirotaka Yokoi vs Quinton “Rampage” Jackson Rampage is coming off getting Shogun’d in the Pride Middleweight GrandPrix, which was not good for anyone’s brains. Rampage chalks up his recents losses to a lack of training partners (“I don’t want to make excuses for my losses, but I have excuses for all my losses”), but says now he’s got a good crew, and is looking to start waking Bas up at 10AM to train. He’s also been dodging Tito’s big head in the wrestling room, and has had Mayhem Miller and Randy Couture stop by as well, so Quinton seems well prepared for this one. Yokoi, who gets one sentence in the pre-fight hype video, says he wants to go out there, be aggressive, and win, which will make him happy. Seems like there’s no obvious favoritism going on here! Round 1: Yokoi shoots early, Quinton sprawls, and ends up on top. Yokoi getting frisky with his hips, seeking out an armbar, but Jackson puts a stop to that with some big punches from on top. Rampage postures up a bit to land some more powerful punches, but Yokoi breaks him back down. Hirotaka grabs at his foot, and I was not expecting the 10th Planet infection to have been present in Japan at this point! Yokoi threatens with a triangle, then an omoplata, which he uses to sweep Jackson, ending up in side control. Quinton establishes half guard, and Yokoi spends some time trying to free the leg that Jackson has locked down. Hirotaka briefly gets back to side control, but Rampage again establishes the half guard, and lands some decent shots from bottom. Jackson looks for a kimura, but Yokoi frees his arm and once more takes side control. Few little puches from Hirotaka, but Rampage explodes and reverses position. So I guess the best way to get the moon off of you is to hope that the moon is very tiny, and you are full of the best quality steroids that 2005 can buy.  Big knee to the head by Jackson from side control. Rampage traps Yokoi in the mounted crucifix, and these aren’t little baby punches, these are some big hammers that Jackson is raining down. Yokoi almost escapes, but Quinton re-establishes the position, lands more punches, then as Yokoi starts turtling up, Rampage lands a soccer kick and a stomp to the face before the ref realizes Hirotaka’s out of Bushido Fighting Spirit, and calls the fight. Your winner, by TKO, at 4:05 of the first round, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson Sergei Kharitonov vs Fabricio Werdum No time for hype videos, just a quick tale of the tape for the former Russian paratrooper and the once and future Go Horse. However, the little dots on the playbar show that this section of the event is three times as long as every other previous bout, so we might actually get to the second, maybe even the third round here. Exciting! Round 1: Intense staredown from two intense men (Fabricio had clearly not yet discovered the secret behind his goofy face, >:} ). Sergei backs Fabricio into the corner just with sheer pressure. Kharitonov throws some punches, Werdum looks for a takedown, but it is easily defended by Lean Sergei. They circle around the ring, Werdum shoots for another takedown, but Sergei stuffs this one as well. They end up clinched against the ropes, Sergei hits a little trip, but Werdum powers through it to end up standing again. Fabricio goes for a trip of his own, Sergei pushes away, and we are back to both men standing in the middle of the ring. Kharitonov throws a dinky little low kick, Werdum responds with an overhand that he chains into a takedown attempt. Sergei defends, but Werdum keeps at it, and manages to get the fight to the ground, though Sergei has a half-hearted arm-in guillotine going. It’s more of a controlling headlock, so Werdum looks to jump over Kharitonov’s guard, but that just gives Sergei the space to get to his feet. Fabricio with another overhand-to-double leg attempt combo, but Sergei defends this one as well, so Werdum just decides to flop into guard. Sergei with a few little kicks to Werdum’s legs, and then jumps into guard, because gently caress it. Werdum operating out of a closed guard, peppering some short punches to Kharitonov’s head, while also trying to lock down an arm to open up for a submission attempt. Sergei does well to avoid any major mistakes. Fabricio looks for a kimura, Sergei defends, and Werdum chains that to an armbar attempt. Sergei stacks, almost slams Werdum, and shimmies his arm out of danger. Both men kick each other’s legs, but the ref calls for a break and orders Werdum to his feet. Fabricio with another overhand that he chains into a takedown attempt, and after a little bit of work, succeeds in taking down Kharitonov. Werdum in half guard, but Sergei quickly locks down Fabricio’s leg and clamps his arms around Werdum’s head. Sergei nearly gives up his back, but spins through and ends up on top of Werdum. Fabricio going for a triangle, but Sergei slips out. Ref calls for another break to stand up Werdum. Fabricio going for that same takedown off the overhand, but he’s maybe a little gassed, because this attempt is super lazy, and he just flops down to guard. Sergei barely misses a soccer kick that gets the crowd pumped. Werdum lands a solid upkick, Sergei eases into the guard, but Fabricio looks for another triangle. Kharitonov slips out, and takes some more upkicks. Werdum pushes Sergei off to create space, dives for a takedown, but Sergei defends, and Werdum flops back. Ref quickly stands things back up. Werdum lands some solid punches that seem to have caught Sergei off guard because Fabricio isn’t instantly diving for a takedown immediately after them. Sergei fires back, and Werdum once again looks for a takedown in the barest sense of the word. Werdum is on his back, and the ref wants things standing. Sergei lands some solid punches, prompting Werdum to shoot for a takedown. Sergei sprawls, then looks for his own takedown that Werdum defends, going to a front headlock position. Bas wants knee strikes to the head, but Fabricio goes for a trip that Sergei avoids, and we are back to a standing position. Both men popping punches, and what do you know, but Fabricio is looking for another single leg takedown. Sergei defends, Werdum pulls guard, and Sergei throws some kicks to the legs as the round ends. Dear lord, to go from four fights that not only all had first round finishes, with a combined fight time of a little over 11 minutes, but had ridiculous action nearly the entire time to one solid round of one guy going for takedowns, the flopping over to guard is nearly unbearable. Best moments might have been Werdum’s upkicks, which landed pretty solidly on Kharitonov’s jaw. Bas takes the round break to advise all chicks and babes at home to go to PrideFC dot com to buy underwears and lingeries. Uh, thanks Bas. We also get a very brief look at, per Mauro, the Japanese boxer Nishijima, who will be making his Pride debut soon. I’m sure that will go just fine for Mr. Nishijima... Round 2: Sergei pops a quick jab, which pushes the one button on Werdum’s face that signals TIME TO SHOOT SINGLE LEG, AND FAILING THAT, PULL GUARD. The ref instantly orders Werdum back to his feet. Yeesh. Werdum circles from one corner to another. He lands a jab, and Sergei lands a right hand that prompts another shot from Werdum. Sergei gets a little to close and eats several upkicks before backing away. Werdum is back up long enough to throw a wild overhand that gets him off-balance enough to shoot his bad takedown, and then pull guard. It’s like a human Rube Goldberg machine of making a fight unwatchable. Fabricio does the same thing, overhand, shot, pull guard, a number of times that I’ve lost track of. The ref issues a yellow card to Fabricio. I wonder if this will curb that behavior, but I really doubt it. Kharitonov lands some jabs to the body and head, Werdum with a solid teep to back up Sergei. Werdum shoots again, Sergei sprawls out, and we’re back to standing. Kharitonov backs Werdum into the corner, and both men exchange some good shots. Werdum seems to have some problem with his eye, and Kharitonov is landing upstairs with single shots. I will say this for round two, at least it was shorter. It didn’t even have any fun grappling exchanges that were lightly sprinkled throughout round one. Kharitonov doesn’t want anything to do with the ground, and Werdum is unable to complete takedowns any more. Round 3:  here in my guard i feel safest of all i can lock it all down it's the only way to live in guard Werdum lands a decent overhand, and hey, big surprise, shoots for a single leg. Sergei defends, Werdum pulls guard, and even an offer of side control isn’t enough to bait Kharitonov into going to the ground. Werdum lands some low kicks, shoots another takedown, pulls guard, and this time, Sergei ends up on top. Werdum looks for an armbar, Kharitonov escapes, and Fabricio seems to be offering up north-south position, to no avail. Werdum lands a good right hand, shoots again, and Kharitonov defends. Werdum is bleeding a little bit, but it doesn’t seem to be a major issue. Both men exchange strikes on the feet, with nobody really getting anything of note going. The round and the fight ends with Werdum, once again having pulled guard unsuccessfully, in butt scoot, with Sergei throwing punches. Ultimately, I probably could have truncated my recap of this fight. I didn’t need to document every time Fabricio shot for a lazy single leg and got stuffed. But, dear reader, how else would you know how interminably boring most of it was? Anyway, we go to the judges for the first time of the evening, and your winner, by split decision, Sergei Kharitonov. Takimoto Makato vs Yoon Dong Sik Here’s a quote from Mauro during the fighter intros at the start of the event: “South Korea’s Yoon Dong Sik tries to do to his opponent what he’s been able to do, twice, while in judo - that’s beat him!” No time for hype videos again, just a quick look at the tale of the tape and we are off to the bout! Round 1: Makato rocking the gi here,  Both men exchange punches, and I’m honestly shocked nobody’s pulled guard yet. Gotta get that Werdum stank out of my mind. Makato clinches, hits the throw, and gets to half guard. Takimoto perhaps looking for a gi choke, and the ref warns Yoon about punches to the back of the head briefly. Takimoto looking to pass to mount, Yoon tries to escape, and Takimoto lands a stomp to the face. Yoon going for a leglock, and Takimoto is nearly horizontal as he holds on to the top rope for support. Takimoto escapes, and we are back to standing. Little trip from Yoon, into half guard. Takimoto going for a kimura, Yoon escapes from half guard, but Takimoto rolls on top. Sik rolls through that, but Takimoto rolls again, to end on top. Makato lets go of the kimura, instead looking for a straight armbar. Takimoto lets go of the submission, and we get moved away from the ropes for safety. Not much on the ground, just little bitty punches from both men, and the ref stands them up. Bas explains that the writing on Yoon Dong Sik’s knee and ankle wraps signifies that the tape was checked and was confirmed as not hiding anything dangerous or illegal underneath, such as “blades, lasers, nunchuks”. High kick from Yoon, blocked. Yoon throwing wild, slips and turns it into a double leg attempt. Yoon passes to mount, lands ground and pound, and Takimoto gives up his back. Hooks in for Yoon, and he’s diving for an armbar. Yoon loses it, ends up in full mount, but Takimoto gets it to half guard. Reposition away from the ropes. Yoon tries to pass guard, but Takimoto keeps half guard. Yoon slides up to full mount, lands some punches and then dives on an armbar. Takimoto escapes and ends up on top in full guard. Round one ends with Takimoto throwing little baby punches from on top. That was a much more entertaining full 10 minute round of fighting! Round 2: Round starts with both guys throwing pretty wildly off the mark. Yoon clinches Takimoto against the ropes for a bit, but the ref calls for a separation. Takimoto charges in with punches and kicks, but doesn’t really land anything of consequence. Yoon lands a few punches, but neither man is really much of anything to write home about in the striking department. Takimoto starts landing some of his wild punches, and Yoon clinches him against the ropes again. Another referee separation after nothing happens in the clinch. Takimoto is landing a bit more in these wild exchanges, but Yoon clinches and secures a takedown. The round finishes up with Yoon in half guard, landing some small punches. A whole lot of not much in this round, but it wasn’t bad to watch. Bas getting horny for the ring girls during the round break. Round 3: Takimoto opens with a body kick, then starts landing knees to the body as Yoon grabs on to a clinch. Ref calls for a break, and both men swing big without much connecting as they reset in the middle of the ring. Yoon with another clinch, forcing Takimoto to the ropes. We’ve got another break, and both dudes are gassed. Yoon gets the clinch again, forces Takimoto to the ropes, and both men exchange knees to the body, but the ref stops action as one of Yoon’s blows got a little low. We start again with one minute in the fight. Takimoto throwing haymakers, and Yoon is looking for a takedown, but Takimoto reverses. Takimoto is on top and throwing some punches from full guard. Yoon sort of setting up an armbar, but the round ends before he can really sink anything in. Honestly, it wasn’t too bad of a fight! Your winner, by unanimous decision, Makato Takimoto. Kazushi Sakuraba vs Ken Shamrock Ken Shamrock says he is healthy, and he makes it sound like this is something that is hardly ever the case for his bouts. Sakuraba doesn’t get to speak during the hype video, which seems rude. Round 1: A lot of feints early from both men. Nobody wants to make a mistake here. Sakuraba keeps faking takedown attempts, and Ken is biting pretty hard on all of them. Sakuraba explodes forward with punches, catching Ken flush on the chin. Shamrock turns and falls into the ropes, with Sakuraba hot on his tail. Kazushi lands another punch, but the ref is already pulling him off. Shamrock, of course, is protesting the stoppage. Your winner, by TKO at 2:27 of round one, Kazushi Sakuraba. We go to Ken in the back as he complains about the stoppage, saying he fell to his rear end (he has face down, head on the ropes), he was getting to his feet (only after the ref pulled Sakuraba away) and that Sakuraba didn't land any follow-up punches (He did). So you know, normal Ken stuff. Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic vs Josh Barnett This is a rematch from the year before, when Barnett had to tap out due to a shoulder injury. Barnett says he doesn’t have issues with many fighters, but Cro Cop is one of them. Cro Cop proclaims Barnett to be “an arrogant idiot”. BEEF ALERT! Round 1: Barnett looking to bull in and clinch early, but Mirko’s able to avoid Josh’s grasp. Mirko lands a solid body kick. Josh finally tracks Mirko down against the ropes and clinches up, landing some knees to the body. Mirko breaks free, throws another body kick, but Barnett catches it and scores the first takedown of the fight. Josh tries to stack up on Mirko, but Cro Cop pushes off with his powerful hind legs and gets back to his feet. Solid left hook from Barnett, and he clinches Cro Cop against the ropes again, putting more knees up the middle. Josh tries for a takedown, but Cro Cop ends up in full mount. Mirko landing short shots to the head as Josh looks to buck and either escape or reverse. Mirko postures up briefly to land some bigger punches, but Josh bucks him off. Mirko jumps back on top, landing in half guard. Cro Cop lands some punches from the closed half guard, but Josh escapes to his feet and secures a clinch against the ropes. Josh lands some big knees from the body clinch to Mirko, and then a good hook on the break. Josh reestablishes the clinch, pressing Mirko into the corner and landing more knees. Barnett keeps attacking with knees, but one misses the mark, drilling Cro Cop in the nards. The stoppage in time is brief, and so is the separation, as Barnett clinches again. And we’ve got another low blow to Mirko. The round wraps up with Barnett clinching Cro Cop against the ropes. Shockingly, the grappler that has around 40 pounds on his opponent is bullying things in the clinch! Round 2: Barnett starts the round with, you guessed it, clinch against the ropes and knees to the body. The ref has already seen this, so he stops things. Cro Cop pops Josh’s head back with a jab on the restart, but Barnett has once against forced things to a clinch against the ropes, with a forecast of more knees. Cro Cop eats some rights to the body, but he explodes forward and takes Josh down, ending up in side control. Cro Cop passes to mount, and apparently training with Fabricio Werdum for the past year has really paid off! Cro Cop postures up sporadically to land ground and pound, but Josh keeps bucking, disrupting Mirko’s balance on top. Barnett finally explodes and pushes Mirko off, but Cro Cop dives back in, briefly gets north-south, but Josh scrambles to give up side control. The round ends without much else done. Another very solid round. Mirko probably needs to not get his guts tore up in the clinch in the next round. Fight advice is easy, and I am very smart. Round 3: Barnett pushes Mirko into the corner, but doesn’t get much done before Cro Cop forces a separation. Josh gets the blood wiped off his face, the result of an accidental clash of Cro Cop skull to Barnett cheek meat. Fight resumes and Mirko is FIRED UP. Liver kick and about a five punch combo has Barnett reeling backwards with a busted and leaking nose. Hopefully there’s a pen at hand to reset the break. Josh clinches and looks for a takedown, but Cro Cop defends. A brief clinch on the ropes, but the ref breaks it up again. Josh eats a jab, but walks forward and grabs a clinch once more. Another break, this time for a knee to the groin (C’mon Josh, Yuji Shimada explicitly said no to the groin!). Josh works Cro Cop into the corner and rips to his Croatian Cop body with knees and punches. Ref isn’t impressed and calls for another breka, but it doesn’t last long, as Josh clinches up again. Mirko reverses position and I think Josh was looking for a lateral drop, but Cro Cop ends up on top, in half guard. Very little striking on the ground, as Josh has a pretty solid lockdown game. Josh looks for a leglock as the round comes to a close. Pretty decent fight overall. The clinch moments could have been allowed to marinate a little longer, but oh well. You winner, by unanimous decision, Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic. This event was a tale of two halves. There were some classic freakshow fights and over-matched opponents, leading to a lot of early first round finishes. Then there were two very closely matched bouts, Kharitonov versus Werdum, and Barnett versus Filipovic. One of those was a good fight, the other was a butt flopping dorkus refusing to allow an inability to dictate where the fight took place from trying to force the fight to take place exclusively where he wanted it to. Overall, I recommend this event to all, children, old uncles, chicks, babes, and even the Dutch.
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Apr 16, 2020 04:40
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LobsterMobster posted:PRIDE 30: Fully Loaded Holy poo poo, what the gently caress was PRIDE?  Great write-up, and man was Ken Shamrock ever actually any good? I don't think I've ever seen or read about or heard of any fight he ever had not resulting in either him losing in embarrassing fashion or insisting that he actually won and got cheated. Literally puts the pens on the floor before putting them up the guy's nose
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Apr 16, 2020 23:26
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