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How many UFC champions will lose their titles this month? This poll is closed. |
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4 | 11.76% |
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4 | 11.76% |
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5 | 14.71% |
| 3 |
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1 | 2.94% |
| All of them, in an event known as The Happening |
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20 | 58.82% |
| Total: | 34 votes | ||
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DO YALL WANT A BOXC posted:MMA's very own Ricky Hatton, bless him reminded me of ricky fatton as well
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Jul 12, 2022 16:57
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https://twitter.com/AlexBehunin/status/1546910770880843777 Remember this guy?
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Jul 12, 2022 18:52
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Fozzy The Bear posted:https://twitter.com/KyleForgeard/status/1546695048015667200 These guys also have some permission to private sponsor a fighter in the UFC and put their branding on it. Coincidentally they're also right wing leaning Canadians/Americans
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Jul 13, 2022 04:43
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why is he uncle. that's weird and creepy.
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Jul 13, 2022 05:44
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better than daddy I suppose.
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Jul 13, 2022 13:13
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Early start time for Staurday's card 10am CDT/11am EST
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Jul 13, 2022 13:22
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i feel like yair is gonna whoop ortega really bad but the actual fight outcome is like a 50/50, depending on how much yair hits him in the body and legs.
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Jul 13, 2022 14:55
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what loving moron put ricky simon vs. jack shore on the undercard and lauren murphy vs. miesha tate as the first main card fight
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Jul 13, 2022 14:57
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Foul Fowl posted:i feel like yair is gonna whoop ortega really bad but the actual fight outcome is like a 50/50, depending on how much yair hits him in the body and legs. A year ago I would have thought it looked Yair Frankie, but Yair putting on a fight of the year candidate and an insanely competitive loss to Holloway suggests he's come a long loving way. He's shored up his fundamentals and boxing to such a massive degree. I'm not confident about predicting the outcome but it'll probably be a really good fight.
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Jul 13, 2022 23:28
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Either Yair does a flying helicopter kick and one-shots Ortega or Ortega pins him and submits him imo. Ortegas tough as poo poo and has made up a lot of his deficiencies on the feet and I could see him taking Yair down against the fence. I also hate ortega and will never forgive him for the TKZ fight. On the other hand, I basically always bet against Yair before HIS TKZ fight, did not see that elbow putting our boy out to pasture. I hope Yair wins, lots of sprawling and spinning poo poo.
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Jul 14, 2022 00:41
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Ortega has a 24% takedown accuracy and scores 0.87 takedowns a fight. Unless Yair gets rocked or does something stupid Ortega isn't getting it to the ground.
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Jul 14, 2022 01:12
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I think the fight might be extremely good, they're both excellent boxers now and I don't think either of them will be satisfied with a casual outpointing
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Jul 14, 2022 01:38
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TheKingslayer posted:Ortega has a 24% takedown accuracy and scores 0.87 takedowns a fight. Unless Yair gets rocked or does something stupid Ortega isn't getting it to the ground. Ortega gets his subs in the scrambles though and that's where he's dangerous. It's not the takedown that gives him his success it's just getting people to react to the attempt.
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Jul 14, 2022 04:58
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The only person Ortega has snatched up a sub on in a scramble in the UFC is Renato Moicano in 2016 and Moicano mostly dove into a guillotine. He just sort of pulled an exhausted Cub into one in the clinch and Diego Brandao was a triangle from guard. The rest of his subs... also triangle chokes. So I'm not exactly sure about this deadly scramble. But maybe he'll show up with some new skills. Yair is much cooler though so I hope not. TheKingslayer fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Jul 14, 2022 |
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Jul 14, 2022 05:19
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i mean ortega also came within an inch of tapping volk off a slip, i don’t think you can underestimate his ability to snatch a sudden victory from the jaws of defeat. i think they’re both horrible shits so ideally yair turns ortega into mincemeat for 4.5 rounds before slipping and getting tapped.
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Jul 14, 2022 10:09
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yair to win via cartwheel knee ko in a sort of flipping matrix dodge vs a jab attempt
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Jul 14, 2022 10:13
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Foul Fowl posted:i mean ortega also came within an inch of tapping volk off a slip, i don’t think you can underestimate his ability to snatch a sudden victory from the jaws of defeat. That was the story of his career for awhile, iirc. Take a bunch of damage on the feet then pull out a crazy finish in the last round.
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Jul 14, 2022 14:43
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TheKingslayer posted:Ortega has a 24% takedown accuracy and scores 0.87 takedowns a fight. Unless Yair gets rocked or does something stupid Ortega isn't getting it to the ground. I'm not really a fan of stats in combat sports.
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Jul 14, 2022 15:45
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What does the scouter say about Yair's power levels?
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Jul 14, 2022 15:46
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I for one love knowing with how many MPH a punch is being thrown
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Jul 14, 2022 17:09
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brian posted:yair to win via cartwheel knee ko in a sort of flipping matrix dodge vs a jab attempt i think it’s more likely that he helicopter matrix kicks himself onto his back and gets guillotined when he scrambles back up
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Jul 14, 2022 17:16
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CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 24: RODTEGA  EARLY START WARNING | PRELIMS 8:00 AM PST/11:00 AM EST VIA ESPN+ | MAIN CARD 11:00 AM PST/2:00 PM EST VIA ABC | EARLY START WARNINGThe UFC is back on network television and it's got the kind of killer primetime slot only the hottest sport on the planet can demand. Pack your cooler and bring your tailgate grill, it's time for violence at eleven in the god dang morning. On a personal note: Between writing the main event and the rest of the card I had to rush my dog/fight predictions superstar Picks Queen Rosie to the ER and we're waiting on more news. Apologies if the rest of the fights are a little phoned in this week.  it's a lot better than last week's, at least MAIN EVENT: GRAND FINALS (LOSERS BRACKET)  FEATHERWEIGHT: Brian Ortega (15-2 (1), #2) vs Yair Rodríguez (14-3 (1))For the last three years, the shadow of Max Holloway has loomed large over men's featherweight. No one else could truly lay claim to challenging Alexander Volkanovski while he stood, because no one else could beat Max Holloway to get to the belt. Until their feud was concluded, the featherweight division was, ultimately, a two-man show. That show is over. Alexander Volkanovski is the undisputed champion, his time is going to be split between 145 and 155, and Max Holloway will almost certainly never got another shot at him. That means all the people they beat get to try all over again. And no one was more thoroughly beaten by both men than Brian Ortega. "T-City" was a hot prospect right off the bat, coming in as the undefeated 8-0 featherweight champion of the then-prominent Resurrection Fighting Alliance, a highly-touted Rener Gracie black belt with an intensely tricky, dangerous ground game that saw him choking out welterweights and outgrappling champions and stand-up that was, uh, functional and present. When his UFC debut saw him easily backpack and choke out a then-notable Mike De La Torre in just ninety-nine seconds, people were prepared to pay attention. And then, marking the first in what would be a series of weird career occurrences, he pissed hot for steroids and had to immediately sit out for a year. Everyone remembers Brian Ortega's path upwards to title contention, but his repeated victories have done an excellent job of overshadowing the thing that made him really notable: How constantly close he was to losing. He knocked out Thiago Tavares, but only after getting beaten violently through the second round. He choked out Diego Brandão, but only after getting shut out for the entire fight. Clay Guida was twenty seconds away from winning a decision against him, Renato Moicano was touching him up and had a potential decision in his hands, even Cub Swanson was styling on him before Ortega caught and choked him out. It wasn't until his title eliminator against Frankie Edgar that Brian Ortega had a truly dominant high-level performance--up to that point he was the guy who excitingly found ways to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. By Mortal Kombat uppercutting the former champion to death, he demonstrated his readiness to fight the best of the best. After eight long years, it was time for title contention. And he got the poo poo beat out of him. Brian Ortega became one of Max Holloway's career-defining performances, the champion doling out a beating so one-sided that he famously paused in mid-fight to show Ortega how to block his hooks before immediately resuming hitting him with them and cruising to a final strike differential of 307-112. It would take almost two years of injury rehab, and one deeply stupid incident where he slapped celebrity and Chan Sung Jung's friend and translator Jay Park for, uh, accurately translating a Chan Sung Jung interview, because fighters are dumb assholes, for Ortega to fight again, whereupon he showcased massively improved striking and unfortunately destroyed Jung and earned another title shot that saw him nearly choke out Alexander Volkanovski before somehow being even more violently battered. At the same time, on a very similar path, there was Yair Rodríguez. Where Ortega was a grappler, Yair was a lifelong Taekwondo practitioner, giving him an immediately identifiable style that stood out from his peers: A long, relaxed stance with a plethora of kicks at angles the sport at that point hadn't really seen. He took home the first-ever The Ultimate Fighter: Latin America title, a prestigious award if ever there was one, and stormed onto the UFC scene as a ready-made star--a charismatic, twenty-two year-old Mexican kickboxer who fought like no one else on the planet. And it...never really worked out. Despite repeatedly winning, despite holding a trophy for the UFC's most blatant attempt at expanding into the Latin market, the Yair train never really got out of the station. Some of it was timing--around the same time Yair entered the spotlight there was this Conor McGregor guy suddenly dominating the UFC's attention at featherweight--but some of it was bizarre matchmaking choices. He would beat up the highly-touted Dan Hooker and knock out Andre Fili with a flying switch kick, and his main event reward would be against Alex "Bruce Leeroy" Caceres. When the UFC did decide to give him a big promotional push, it was in an absolutely inexplicable main event matchup against BJ Penn, who at one point was one of the sport's most celebrated fighters but at that particular point hadn't won a fight in seven years and was coming out of retirement for the third time. Rodríguez beat the absolute poo poo out of him and knocked him out twenty seconds into the second round, and rather than impressed and excited to see more of Yair, most people just felt deeply depressed for BJ Penn. And then, uh, Yair got fired. To be precise, he fought and lost to a still-vital Frankie Edgar and then had a falling-out with the UFC so thorough that they straight-up released him as part of an attempt to play contractual hardball, only to blink and rehire him when he threatened to sign with Bellator. He returned to the UFC in November of 2018 and scored one of the most unlikely knockouts in the history of the sport, dropping Chan Sung Jung with a blind, upside-down reverse elbow strike with one second left in a 25-minute fight, in exchange for which he was given a high-profile matchup with...Jeremy Stephens. Which ended in fifteen seconds after an eyepoke and had to be re-run a month later. And then Yair broke his ankle and got into trouble with USADA for going off the grid and basically lost two years of his career. After seven long, winding years, he got his title eliminator against Max Holloway. What most people expected to be a trouncing wound up being one of the closest fights of Holloway's career, an ultimately losing effort that demonstrated Yair's growth as a fighter, putting on such a multifaceted striking performance that Max Holloway, the self-styled best boxer in the UFC, was forced into wrestling and grappling to win. Even in defeat, it raised Yair's stock--enough so that rather than the back of the line, he's here, about to have a fight that could easily have title implications. Two long and winding roads, littered with angry urine testers, promotional malfeasance and backstage assaults, have led here. Both men have been bounced from the top of the division before and both men are entirely too eager to prove they deserve another shot. Saying "striker vs grappler" would be entirely too reductive, but at some level, that same classical ethos is here. Fancy kicks and jumping guillotines have made these men. Who wins the style vs style matchup? The betting odds have Ortega as a solid -200 favorite, and I understand why--Yair has been outgrappled before and Ortega's losses have shown him to be exceptionally durable, making it easy to imagine Ortega playing into Yair's weaknesses and controlling him. That said: Brian Ortega has improved as a striker, but his striking is still inherently plodding. A lot of his success comes from marching forward and trusting in that granite chin to let him walk punches and knees into his opponents. Yair is particularly good at striking at range and moving away. He can be taken down, but Ortega's takedowns come from the clinch more than catching kicks or shooting doubles. I'm out on a limb, but I see Yair being a much rougher stylistic match for Ortega than people think. Yair Rodríguez takes a decision. CO-MAIN EVENT: OUR KINGDOM FOR WOMEN'S 105 WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Michelle Waterson (18-9, #10) vs Amanda Lemos (11-2-1, #11) It's deeply unfair to describe Michelle Waterson's career as disappointing; it's anything but. Michelle Waterson is one of the best fighters in the history of women's mixed martial arts. She just would really, really benefit from a major American promotion adopting the 105-pound Atomweight class, where she reigned in Invicta. But the UFC only goes down to 115, so she did her best. And honestly, her best was still really good. She's an extremely canny, tricky grappler with a violently dangerous guard game that catches a lot of people unaware, and her karate background ("The Karate Hottie" is a nickname I have always kind of rolled my eyes at but it's a good gimmick) gives her striking a particularly creative, evasive bend, at risk of sometimes being less than effective. These were more than enough to make her a permanent fixture in the top ten at her division for the last six years--her only UFC losses, in fact, are against champions and their top contenders, including a split against Carla Esparza that could very easily have gone the other way. No one sensible doubts her skill; it's her trouble physically competing that drags her down. Her style and her size conspire to keep her at a disadvantage in a division populated by larger, stronger athletes. And thus, we get to Amanda Lemos. "Amandinha," which is still a low-effort-rear end nickname, is...a physically imposing striker who uses her athleticism and strength to hurt her opponents. Lemos is particularly skilled at keeping people on the end of her jabs, which have been powerful enough to drop opponents all on their own, and her only two career losses came against fighters powerful enough to out-bully her at her own game--most recently Jéssica Andrade, in her last fight, and back in the dark ages of 2017 Leslie Smith, who was most recently fighting Cyborg at 145. If it sounds like I am describing a matchup that is not enormously favorable to Michelle Waterson, that is because I am. Waterson most definitely has a grappling advantage, but she's going to have a lot of trouble muscling Lemos to the ground to use it, and Lemos is not going to be inclined to take her down. Waterson's going to be dealing with a bigger, stronger striker who herself has a leg kicking game that could be problematic for Waterson's karate style. Amanda Lemos gets a decision and I continue to be mad we don't have more weight classes. MAIN CARD: PRECISELY TWO WEEKS TO GET OVER COVID WELTERWEIGHT: Li Jingliang (18-7, #14) vs Muslim Salikhov (18-2, NR) The transition from hyped prospect gatekeeper is a cruel one. Li Jingliang was a centerpiece of the UFC's initial push into the Chinese market back in 2014. You might think he earned "The Leech" as a nickname thanks to his wrestling or his energy-sapping clinch grappling, but it's actually just some dumb poo poo a training partner yelled at him once while he was working a guillotine choke, because a dark secret of mixed martial arts is half of all nicknames are just inside jokes with training partners. But it's irrelevant anyway, because after eight years and fifteen fights, no one remembers Jingliang for his grappling, they remember him for his surprisingly aggressive standup and his constantly underestimated punching power. Seven of his ten UFC victories have come through some form of hand-bone death bludgeonings, none more famous than his most recent, as he welcomed once-highly-touted Santiago Ponzinibbio back from a 27-month layoff by deleting him from reality with a left hook. Jingliang could, with promotion and careful matchmaking, be a title contender. But that's not what the UFC wants. They did, once upon a time, but the sun has set on Jingliang as a favored star. You do not put favored stars against Neil Magny. You especially do not put them against other, much more visibly favored stars, like Khamzat Chimaev, who ragdoll and humiliate them and shatter their credibility. And hey, what do you know: It's Muslim Salikhov, a Russian kicking machine who's much more favorable to the market the UFC is currently chasing. What a strange surprise. Which seems disrespectful to Salikhov, so let me be clear: He's a bad, bad motherfucker. He's got some absurdly vicious body kicks and is capable of generating a shocking amount of power in a very short distance, to the point that he once punched Ricky Rainey in the side of the head so hard his entire body flung around in a half-circle and cartoon birds flew out of his ears. He prefers to fight in a more defensively sound, measured style, which lowers his knockout opportunities, but he's also got enough of a chin that when a monster like Francisco Trinaldo punches him in the face, rather than falling over, he laughs and punches back harder. The one patch, of course: Wrestling. Salikhov's one UFC loss came from getting grappled to death by Alex Garcia back in 2017. Li Jingliang prefers to strike, but he does have power doubles in his arsenal, and he was, once upon a time, more grappler than boxer. Can he channel it successfully again? Probably, but I'm still going with Muslim Salikhov by decision. Li's in love with his hands and has relied on them to his own detriment at times, and in the meantime Salikhov's defensive wrestling has improved. I think Li could get him down if he committed to it, but I'm not sure that he will, let alone if he could keep him there. FLYWEIGHT: Matt Schnell (15-6, #8) vs Sumudaerji (16-4, #11)I wish the UFC's rankings were real. Flyweight is one of my favorite divisions, you cannot find a single bad fighter at the division without breaking out of the top 40, but Matt Schnell, the #8 flyweight in the division, has two victories in the last four years, and one of them was against Jordan Espinosa, who had one UFC fight to his name, and the other was Tyson Nam, who had not beaten anyone ranked in the organization. Sumudaerji is ranked at #11 based on victories over Malcolm Gordon, who was 0-1 in the UFC, and Zarrukh Adashev, who was 0-1 in the UFC, 3-1 overall, and had just come off a loss...also to Tyson Nam. Rankings are fake. Sports are fake. We are hurtling towards oblivion and the order of our annihilation will be determined by a made-up panel of fake journalists the UFC pays to say Conor McGregor is a better fighter than Damir Ismagulov. Matt Schnell is a good fighter who should be a great fighter. He's strong as hell and his game is more well-rounded than he allows it to be, because he can shoot a great takedown when he wants to and he has some vicious choke setups, but he focuses too much on slanging and banging to use his skills in as rounded a manner as he should, and it keeps costing him. He got knocked out by Pantoja, he scraped by Nam, he got controlled by Bontorin, and in his last fight he went nuts trying to scramble with Brandon Royval and was summarily choked out for it. His focus on wild athleticism over control handicaps him. Sumudaerji is better than a guy who lost to Louis Smolka in 2016 should be. He's got surprisingly solid boxing and a very strong base, to the point that even when people have managed to drag him to the ground he's popped back up again in seconds. He was a Tibetan shepherd before he became a professional fighter and he has the combat composure of a man who burnt out his ability to feel rattled a long time ago, but he's still somewhat untested on the big stage just because he can't maintain steady activity--he's fought only once a year since his UFC debut, thanks in large part to a series of knee injuries. On paper, this should be Schnell's fight. He's better-tested, he's better-rounded and he's got a solid wrestling game. But he doesn't loving use it. Sumudaerji by TKO after outpunching him and eventually hurting him when he gets wild. FEATHERWEIGHT: Shane Burgos (14-3, #14) vs Charles Jourdain (13-4-1, NR) There is this tragically forgotten class of fighter in every generation, and it's the Pretty Good fighter. People who are Great are easy to remember because they're always on top and people who are Bad are easy to remember because they're hilarious--I bet a bunch of people reading this remember Rolles Gracie and his flair flop knockout loss but only 10% of you remember who knocked him out--but the Pretty Good guys get lost in the shuffle, forgotten under the pressure of their repeated bouncings out of the ranks of the Great. Shane Burgos is Pretty Good. He's that dangerous kind of brawler who knows how to work things into brawling other than haymakers. He'll rip hooks into the body in the pocket, he'll kick legs dead, and he's got both solid defensive instincts and an outright unfair chin that has stood up to Josh Emmett right hands and Cub Swanson headkicks. It took two of the best strikers in the sport in Calvin Kattar and Edson Barboza to knock him out, and even then they had to batter him for two and a half rounds first. He's been bounced out of the upper echelon of the division twice, and now he's trying to build himself up for a third run. Charles Jourdain, meanwhile, is still working on his first. He's been signed to the UFC since mid-2019 but it wasn't until just this past April that he managed to record his first back-to-back wins with the company. "Air" is a very talented fighter, with a mixture of really good offensive grappling and shockingly powerful striking, but he was held back for a long time by his inability to keep himself under control. He winged punches, he threw flying knees, he rolled on bad submissions and it cost him. His last couple fights have shown some maturing as a fighter, particularly in his knockdown and subsequent choking of Lando Vannata. That said: Burgos is a danger for Jourdain. Not just because he's a good fighter, but because his entire approach is built around engaging in the kind of brawls Jourdain excels at getting into and unfortunately losing. Jourdain may be maturing, but Burgos is going to try to drag him into his kind of fight, and unless Jourdain can take him down and break up his rhythm and attack, he's going to get overwhelmed. Shane Burgos gets the decision. WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Lauren Murphy (15-5, #3) vs Miesha Tate (19-8, #10 at Women's Bantamweight) Remember when I complained about rankings being fake? Remember how fun that was? Miesha Tate ended a half-decade of retirement last year. She won one fight, beating a Marion Reneau who was 0-4 since 2018 and retired immediately afterward, and then Tate got battered by Ketlen Vieira for three straight rounds. Miesha Tate is 1-1 since returning and her last ranked victory was in 2016. She's the tenth-ranked women's bantamweight in the world and she's about to fight one of the top flyweights in the world in a weight class at which she's never competed. Fake rankings, fake sport, real fighters. Lauren Murphy is one of the best fighters at women's flyweight, and the five-fight winning streak that brought her to her shot at Valentina Shevchenko's championship consisted of one now-retired fighter, two fighters who got fired from the UFC and one who is serving a two-year suspension for taking meldonium. Half of her success comes from her ability to press interminably forward behind 1-2s and single-legs thanks to her physicality, which is somehow both visibly slow and oddly effective. And yet, she's also not a volume puncher--she was in fact numerically outstruck in three of her five title-run wins. But her strength and her implacability make her a force to be reckoned with. Miesha Tate, by contrast, Exists. She's a very tough, well-conditioned wrestleboxer with one of the better takedown games at the weight class, and her retirement clearly didn't rust her over all that much as she took Marion Reneau down without much trouble, but the aforementioned Vieira put on a clinic in jabbing and punched Miesha all the way down to women's 125. But that's also because the UFC would really, really like Miesha to get a title shot. Miesha Tate is one of the recognizable names left from the Rousey era (and the era before the UFC forgot how to market people), and the UFC's mad its attempt to fast-track her to a shot at 135 failed so now they're doing it at 125. There's a reason she's fighting Lauren Murphy, someone her skillset complements and possibly even eclipses, and not someone like Alexa Grasso, or Manon Fiorot, or Katlyn Chookagian. Hell, this fight was supposed to happen two weeks ago, Lauren Murphy tested positive for covid, and rather than time to recover she was rebooked to fight again the literal moment she was no longer legally infectious. They want Miesha to win. And she probably will. Miesha does the same things Murphy does--decent straight boxing and power doubles--but a bit faster and a bit better. It's very possibly Murphy's strength could stifle the wrestling and force Miesha to deal with getting chipped down by 1-2s, but I think Miesha's going to drag her down and grind out the score. Miesha Tate wins a decision. PRELIMS: BRINGING BACK THE GOOD NAME OF THE MULLET MIDDLEWEIGHT: Punahele Soriano (8-2) vs Dalcha Lungiambula (11-4) Fun fact: Ricky and Jack were the featured prelim until Wednesday, because someone at the UFC realized this fight was more likely to end in a knockout. And, I mean, they're probably right. both Soriano and Lungiambula are brawlers with considerable knockout power and a love of chucking haymakers, often to their detriment. Both men are trying to halt two-fight skids, Soriano's a pair of decisions after being controlled by either better wrestlers or more multifaceted strikers, Dalcha's most recent being a deeply unfortunate fight that saw him punch Cody Brundage silly only to shoot a naked double-leg and get immediately guillotined. I'm still going with Dalcha Lungiambula by submission, though. Dalcha's judo background gives him an additional layer of grappling control that Soriano's fallen victim to before, and Soriano's tendency to gas is going to play into his strengths as the fight goes on and Lungiambula can hurt him and exploit it on the ground. Or Soriano could punch his head into the third row. Either's possible. BANTAMWEIGHT: Ricky Simón (19-3, #11) vs Jack Shore (16-0, #14)Sure, it's the ranked fight featuring the undefeated European prospect a bunch of people have pegged as a future champion, but you don't need to PROMOTE things like that, right? Ricky Simón is, and you'll have to trust that I mean this as a compliment and not an insult, neo-Clay Guida: Nearly perpetual forward motion, aggressive if sometimes wild striking, and dogged pursuit of takedowns that are as much about capitalizing on his constant momentum as his actual wrestling skills. It's carried him into a four-fight winning streak most recently capped off with a beautiful, clean knockout over Raphael Assunção, which even at his level of mileage is not an easy thing to accomplish. Jack Shore is the Great Welsh Hope. He's an undefeated 16-0, he's got a five-fight winning streak in the UFC, he's shown some genuinely impressive all-around skills including heavy, accurate hands and a great defensive grappling game, he had a real fun performance against a top-fifteen competitor in Timur Valiev in his last fight and he and Ricky have fight of the night potential printed all over themselves. Which is why this is in the middle of the prelims, I guess. Simón's aggression is going to be a serious test for Shore. Jack's best successes tend to come from either setting the pace of a fight and not letting opponents get going or countering and backing them off when they try; Ricky is not the kind of dude who gets easily backed off or stops trying. I'm still going with Jack Shore by decision based on the likelihood that he can defend the takedowns and land the harder shots, but this one could be a lot closer than the betting odds have it pegged. FEATHERWEIGHT: Bill Algeo (15-6) vs Herbert Burns (11-3) I'm still mad at "Senor Perfecto" Bill Algeo, because back in January he made me look very silly when I wrote a big thing about this great new prospect in Joanderson Brito and Algeo turned out to be tough as poo poo and fully capable of handing him a 29-28 thrashing. Algeo's scrappy as poo poo, both as a brawler on the feet and a thrower of men with some real good clinch reversals. Herbert Burns, Gilbert's younger brother, is a real, real good grappler who's in an unfortunate position: He came back from two years of injury layoff prepared to fight another grappler in Khusein Askhabov and had to switch his sights to Algeo on a week and a half's notice. Algeo himself was preparing for Billy Quarantillo, but avoiding scrambles and fighting on the feet was his plan in the first place. Algeo's a tough adjustment for an already tough fighter and I believe it will cost him. Burns' victories come from outgrappling his opponents and Algeo is going to be very hard to get on the floor, particularly with his size advantage. Bill Algeo gets the decision. LIGHT-HEAVYWEIGHT: Dustin Jacoby (17-5-1, #15) vs Da-Un Jung (15-2-1, NR)This is the rare light-heavyweight fight I kind of want to see. I'm not convinced it'll be a great FIGHT, because it's light-heavyweight, but it is an interesting one. These two are extremely evenly matched not just stylistically but positionally: Dustin Jacoby ("The Hanyak": Top-tier nickname) hasn't lost in six UFC fights but has them broken up by a split draw to almost-contender Ion Cutelaba, and Da Un Jung hasn't lost in five UFC fights but has them broken up by a split draw to the non-Euclidean beast of the deep, Sam Alvey. ...that said: It really should've been a win for Sam Alvey. Da Un Jung realistically should have lost a fight to late-2020 Sam Alvey. He's had success since then, but Dustin Jacoby is a big dude with a tough chin who actually knows what combinations are, like some sort of bigger, better Sam Alvey, and Jung's wrestling attacks are going to have trouble landing on him. Dustin Jacoby breaks his decision streak and gets a TKO. MIDDLEWEIGHT: Dwight Grant (11-5) vs Dustin Stoltzfus (13-4) We most likely are looking at our loser-leaves-town match of the night. Just a few short years ago Dwight Grant was a Contender Series winner and a promising prospect, but since 2020 he's 1-3, he's been violently finished twice, and more damningly to the UFC, he hasn't won a fight by anything but split decision since early 2019, an unfortunate side effect of his potshotting striking style. Dustin Stoltzfus is trying to avoid being an immediate washout: He, too, won his way into the UFC through the Contender Series in 2020 as a potential standout wrestler, but in a particularly merciless example of matchmaking, his UFC career went from top-fifteen grappler Kyle Daukaus to world jiu-jitsu champion Rodolfo Vieira to tough-as-nails chokeman Geralt Meerschaert, and shockingly, he's 0-3 in the UFC and on the precipice of release. The good news: This is a winnable fight for him. Dwight Grant is a smaller fighter moving up to 185 in an attempt to save his career/because he's almost 38 and making weight is hard, and his strength has never been wrestling. If Stoltzfus can manage to not trade with him and keep him fighting the wrestling battle, he should be fine. Dustin Stoltzfus wrestles his way to a decision. WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Jessica Penne (14-5, #14) vs Emily Ducote (11-6, NR) And here, the feeder league dilemma. People forget this based on how badly she got crushed by Joanna Jędrzejczyk, but Jessica Penne is a good fighter. She's got a solid jab, some good body kicks and persistently underrated grappling. Emily Ducote, up until a month ago, was Invicta FC's strawweight champion, and like all Invicta champions, her inevitable fate was the call-up to the big leagues. Her record looks worse than it is--she spent the first half of her career as a persistently outsized 5'2" fighter at flyweight before settling into her proper weight class. She's got stiff counterstriking and some very good wrestling instincts. Unfortunately for her, she's not great at dictating where fights take place, she's more content to counter, and even more unfortunately, this it he UFC and she's about to step into a 115-pound division where she's suddenly outsized and outpowered again. Jessica Penne gets a decision and we feel sad for Invicta again.
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Jul 14, 2022 20:47
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Foul Fowl posted:i think it’s more likely that he helicopter matrix kicks himself onto his back and gets guillotined when he scrambles back up
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Jul 14, 2022 22:00
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CarlCX posted:
derrick mehman (the meh-iest of men) did the deed upon rolles gracie and it shall always and forever be Real Cool
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Jul 14, 2022 22:07
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Don't care about the fights, just hoping Rosie is alright and has a speedy recovery from whatever is ailing herquote:he famously paused in mid-fight to show Ortega how to block his hooks before immediately resuming hitting him with them Is there video of this ilmucche fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Jul 14, 2022 |
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Jul 14, 2022 22:24
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https://twitter.com/martialmind1/status/1113565308697174023
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Jul 14, 2022 22:52
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rolles also got hosed up by the mexicutioner, whose actual name i don’t remember lol
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Jul 14, 2022 23:32
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Foul Fowl posted:rolles also got hosed up by the mexicutioner, whose actual name i don’t remember lol Joey Beltran
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Jul 14, 2022 23:48
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LobsterMobster posted:derrick mehman (the meh-iest of men) did the deed upon rolles gracie and it shall always and forever be Real Cool you're always in the 10%, lobmob. ilmucche posted:Don't care about the fights, just hoping Rosie is alright and has a speedy recovery from whatever is ailing her Me too, buddy. Hopefully we'll know this evening.
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Jul 14, 2022 23:55
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Wait this 11 am card is in Long Island? I thought this was a FIGHT ISLAND card, what the gently caress is going on.
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Jul 15, 2022 00:15
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CommonShore posted:Joey Beltran that’s him, he looked exactly like the kind of guy a gracie would have executed in the 90’s but it’s a brave new world
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Jul 15, 2022 15:17
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also sick write up as always, you really should try to get paid for it bc it’s better than any published preview
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Jul 15, 2022 15:20
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I would happily throw a couple bucks in a patreon or sonething
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Jul 15, 2022 15:22
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d'aw, shucks. I started publishing these on a substack after my sister-in-law told me she wanted to be able to read them without registering on a forum from the 1700s, but fight riches are some time away, I think. On the topic of money, however, if you use ESPN+ to watch the UFC be aware you are about to get a worse deal: https://twitter.com/gerryfsmith/status/1547977087436222478
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Jul 15, 2022 17:52
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Jul 15, 2022 19:04
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lol
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Jul 15, 2022 19:29
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ESPN+ is absolutely not worth 
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Jul 15, 2022 21:30
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What’s a solid bet for the card tomorrow?
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Jul 15, 2022 23:20
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devilmonk posted:What’s a solid bet for the card tomorrow? I don't believe in Puna, so the odds on Dalcha seem good to me. If you don't wanna bet on an underdog, Miesha Tate is a pretty safe bet.
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Jul 15, 2022 23:45
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For bookmark followers, https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4007452 GDT for this morning's event is up. I am intensely curious to see how many people actually watch and post about this. I'm guessing it'll be like four.
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Jul 16, 2022 16:03
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