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What will Nate Diaz move onto after the UFC? This poll is closed. |
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| Official Stockton Weed King |
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26 | 48.15% |
| Rizin champion, stripped within two days of winning |
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4 | 7.41% |
| Official spokesperson for Subway sandwiches |
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6 | 11.11% |
| Let's be real: it's Bareknuckle Fighting Championship |
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18 | 33.33% |
| Total: | 54 votes | ||
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trying to remember didn't he gently caress up his neck or back a few years back so bad he couldn't barely get out of bed. even though he's dumb i feel bad for him cause life keeps dealing him lovely hands (he got hosed up by covid for like an entire summer iirc).
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Sep 7, 2022 04:15
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| # ? May 14, 2024 21:52 |
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never like it when people force their kinks on others in public. it's fine if you want dom cruz to bust all over you, love is love, but cmon cody
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Sep 7, 2022 04:28
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Can't get my head snapped back in a fight if I practice snapping my own head back.
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Sep 7, 2022 04:37
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https://youtu.be/tecPzsis2jg i don't think I have ever rooted harder than I will this weekend for Nate. if he wins you will hear my 209 from space
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Sep 7, 2022 04:51
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i haven't forgotten about you dom. my neck, throat and face are in mint condition and will go toe to toe with anything you can throw at it. why don't you come over here and just go to town on my face? you can't summon the brutality to make me quit. my face will absorb any punishment and i'll just be smiling right back at you pretty as ever. in fact, get your whole gym to drop by and we'll see who quits first. i'm serious, form an orderly line and let's loving do this.
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Sep 7, 2022 05:32
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Sep 7, 2022 05:37
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obliviously homoerotic garbrandt was easily one of my favorite mma "characters." i just wish he was the rear end motorboat man instead of koscheck, but sometimes i just have to power through looking at josh's awful, punchable face to appreciate it in gif form
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Sep 7, 2022 07:25
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 Dana is such a dweeb and such a shill for absolutely stupid poo poo its amazing. The guy is more carney than McMahon.
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Sep 7, 2022 07:41
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What's the context for the pic, just that he's wearing a DK shirt?
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Sep 7, 2022 13:53
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Yeah obviously he'a shilling, but Draft Kings doesn't even crack the top 10 of most absurd/laughable things that have been promoted in the Legendary UFC Octagon over the years so I am having a hard time registering this as the thing that establishes DW as the Carny to surpass Metal Vince
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Sep 7, 2022 14:48
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CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 31: THE PENSION PLAN PRELIMS 3:00 PM PST/6:00 PM EST VIA ESPN+ | MAIN CARD 7:00 PM PST/10:00 PM EST VIA PAY-PER-VIEW The UFC is daring you to spend money on this. This is a Fight Night card through and through and it's not even a particularly great one: No title fights, no big contendership fights (sorry, Women's Featherweight, you don't count), two fights that aren't even pinned to a weight class. But Nate Diaz is here, so the UFC will expect you to pay $75-100 for this show. Dana White's kids need gas money.  as i write this the card is six days away and four of the fights still aren't even announced yet MAIN EVENT: THE BALLAD OF THE DIAZ BROTHERS WELTERWEIGHT: Khamzat Chimaev (11-0, #3) vs Nate Diaz (20-13, NR) Khamzat Chimaev wins by TKO. But we're not really here to talk about that, are we? In February of 2006, Nick Diaz was in the middle of a skid. Nick, who even then was one of the more interesting boxers and grapplers in mixed martial arts, had just lost his two-fight winning streak thanks to the aggressive wrestling of Diego Sanchez one fight ago, and on that night in February he lost back to back fights for the first time in his career after once again being outwrestled, this time by the owner of one of the worst name tattoos in the business, Joe "Diesel" Riggs. Both men went to the hospital after the fight; Nick for his numerous facial wounds, Riggs having injured both of his hands. Upon realizing Riggs was there, Nick began taunting him for wrestling and demanding that they fight for real. As Riggs tells it, he replied he'd already hosed him up on television and began walking away, and then a moment later one of his teeth was missing and Nick was on top of him. Joe Riggs, wrestling around with a bleeding man in a hospital gown who was now trying to stab him with his IV needle, turned to Nick's accompaniment and screamed to get his crazy brother off of him. And a rail-thin, 19 year-old Nate Diaz replied, "Nah, man. Nothing I can do." People think the Diaz Brothers saga started when Nick knocked out Robbie Lawler in 2004, but it wasn't until the two of them tried to stab Joe Riggs in a hospital that their legend truly began. Because people heard that story and loved it. And I have to admit: It bothered the absolute poo poo out of me, and it took me years to finally, truly understand. Nick Diaz would go onto stardom as one of the central figures in EliteXC and Strikeforce, and after several more brawls, multiple run-ins with drug testers and some of the most memorable fights in mixed martial arts, would return to the UFC a half-decade later as one of the most-beloved if most-controversial people in the sport. Nate Diaz, for a very long time, was, comparatively, the Good Diaz. He worked his way through the WEC, he grappled everyone on The Ultimate Fighter 5 and ultimately won the tournament (because Manny Gamburyan separated his shoulder while wrestling the crap out of him, but all the same), and while his older brother was having his career renaissance, Nate Diaz had a UFC tenure that could be best described as Fine. Just fine. Volume boxing and triangle chokes. Win a few fights, lose a couple fights. Beat up Josh Neer, get wrestled by Joe Stevenson. Choke out Melvin Guillard, get outboxed by Gray Maynard. Move up to welterweight, make Marcus Davis look stupid, get suplexed a thousand times by Rory MacDonald. A three-fight streak and his domination of fan favorite and idiot bigot Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone got him into title contention, and in the biggest fight of his life, at the apex of his career, he got manhandled by Benson Henderson and that was it. The Nate Diaz show was over. He started taking one fight a year, his performances got uninspired, and having been rejected from the top of the mountain, he seemed more or less done with the sport as a relevant contender. And then, a week before the UFC's biggest fight of the year, Rafael dos Anjos broke his foot and had to pull out of just the second-ever champion vs champion match in UFC history, and featherweight champion Conor McGregor needed someone willing to fight the biggest star in the sport on ten days' notice. At the apex of his fame and power in the sport, as an international superstar and newly-crowned champion at the top of his game, having not lost a fight in half a decade and knocked out five straight opponents including the greatest featherweight of all time, Conor McGregor was beaten up and choked out in just two rounds by an 18-10 journeyman. Suddenly, Nate Diaz was one of the most popular fighters on the planet. And it broke mixed martial arts. I never liked the Diaz brothers. They were a ton of fun to watch--Nick Hokuto no Ken punching people a thousand times until they abruptly fell over and Nate triangle choking people and submitting them while flipping double birds--but they lived entirely in their own, separate patch of reality. Nate Diaz didn't lose to Benson Henderson, he just ran out of time and wrestling shouldn't count. Nick Diaz didn't lose to Karo Parisyan, because look at his face, he's bleeding. Nate Diaz suffered the first knockout loss of his career when Josh Thomson dropped him with a headkick and punched him in the head twenty-two times, and when interviewed about the fight, Nate Diaz replied that Josh Thomson was scared of fighting him, running for his life, and, quote, "making bitch rear end lady sounds" and didn't do anything. Nick Diaz got dominated by Georges St-Pierre, only to accuse him of planting spies in Nick's camp to steal his techniques, because at one point Nick tried to roll for a kneebar--the most basic leg submission there is--and GSP reversed it, which proved his fraud, as there was no way he could possibly have seen it coming unless he cheated. And people loved it, and it drove me insane. Everyone agreed that the Gracie family and their constant whining, reality-denying and demands for special considerations were bullshit, everyone agreed that Conor McGregor getting into brawls and chucking dollies at buses was bullshit, but when the Diaz brothers whined and brawled and did whatever they wanted, the fanbase--and tons of fighters!--heralded them as the only Real people in the sport. And it baffled me. For years. But when Nate beat Conor, that pocket of reality usurped our own. They held an instant rematch and Conor won and the UFC got its golden boy narrative back, but it didn't matter. The damage to the fabric of sense itself was done. Championship rankings flew into chaos. Contenders were crowned by fiat. Weight divisions were created with nobody in them and no formal rankings in pursuit of superfights. Fighters began jumping weight classes in pursuit of money bouts. A year later, Conor McGregor was boxing Floyd loving Mayweather Jr. Two years later, Nate Diaz was fighting abrupt welterweight sensation Jorge Masvidal for the UFC's first purely symbolic title: The Bad Motherfucker Championship, presented to the winner by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. It was the Diaz's universe. Nate Diaz, who hasn't won a fight in three years and whose last win over a dedicated welterweight fighter was in 2010, was the title eliminator fight for the last two top welterweight contenders. And now, with Khamzat Chimaev, he's making it a third. Why, you might ask, would the UFC give Nate yet another top contender fight? Because, after fifteen years, it's the last fight on his contract and he's not going to re-sign. But Carl, you say, that doesn't make any sense. Why would the UFC risk top contendership on someone who's about to leave the company? The answer is simple: They're not. Khamzat Chimaev is a -1200 favorite. He's an undefeated superstar in both MMA and wrestling, a multiple-time national champion in the incredibly competitive Swedish wrestling circuit, and a fighter so powerful as both a wrestler, grappler and striker that he spent the first year of his UFC career randomly bouncing between welterweight and middleweight and icing everyone he fought at either. He's even broken the curse of all undefeated fighters by successfully dealing with the first real adversity of his career, having emerged victorious in a war with Gilbert Burns this past April. He's been the UFC's desired top contender for the last two years. Which is why he's fighting Nate Diaz. The UFC didn't expect Nate Diaz to beat Jorge Masvidal or Leon Edwards, but they were, at the very least, standup fighters who theoretically could play into Nate's strengths, and if Nate happened to win, as one of the UFC's biggest names, they'd still be just fine. The UFC knows Nate Diaz, a man from the family that doesn't believe in wrestling, leg kicks or blocking punches, isn't going to beat Khamzat Chimaev. But they know, just as they did in the two fights previous, that Nate is the biggest name Chimaev could put on his record. And that, in the end, is what made me find peace with the Diaz brothers. I love mixed martial arts. It's the most interesting sport in the world. But it can be a cold, terrible place. Promoters are unscrupulous, fans are fickle, careers are short, health is fleeting, and no one, often not even your own coaches, are looking out for your best interests. In a quarter-century of watching MMA I'm pretty sure I wouldn't need more than one hand to count how many times I've seen a corner actually, genuinely throw in the towel out of concern for their fighter--but for all their macho bullshit, Nick Diaz did it for his brother without a second thought. There are no pension plans in mixed martial arts, no 401ks or retirement accounts or even health insurance, but they're more than happy to throw a broke, 39 year-old Nick Diaz in with Robbie Lawler to get punched until he falls over for 5% of the card's profits on a year where the company broke a billion in revenue. And they're more than happy to let Nate Diaz get his head dribbled off the canvas by fighters he has no realistic chance of beating on his way out the door. I don't like the Diaz brothers. I don't like their personas, I don't like their refusal to learn from their mistakes, I don't like that their best friends and business partners are alt-right nutjobs. I don't like people getting jumped in hospitals and beaten up in nightclubs. But in a sport as ravenous for exploitation as mixed martial arts, while it took me awhile to get there, I fully understand the power of asserting your reality over everyone else's. Nate's going to lose, and it's going to be bad, but then he'll be free, and I hope he finds a way to continue making Dana White mad for the rest of his life. CO-MAIN EVENT: WALK WITHOUT RHYTHM WELTERWEIGHT: Li Jingliang (19-7, #14) vs Tony Ferguson (25-7, #11 at Lightweight) I really hate this fight. Tony Ferguson is one of the best lightweights of all time. He's a lifelong athlete and wrestler, he was the champion of The Ultimate Fighter 13 back in 2011 after not just defeating but destroying everyone else in the tournament, in the first nine years of his UFC tenure he went 15-1--or 18-1, if you count those three TUF fights--and he earned a reputation as maybe the most terrifying fighter at 155 pounds, as people were coming out of losses to him absolutely butchered. His stiff jabs, his vicious elbows, the unpredictable ways he would string his attacks together, they left opponents needing plastic surgery to recover from the things he did to them. The most-desired fight in the division was Tony vs Khabib Nurmagomedov. He was the only fighter people saw giving the undefeated wrestler actual trouble, with his quick grappling reversals, his unusual takedown defense and his constant, tireless aggression. I know this is typically where I say something unkind about UFC matchmaking, but in this case, they went above and beyond trying to make the fight happen. Tony vs Khabib was booked on five separate occasions across five separate years. Every year they'd sign the fight, and every year, something would gently caress it up. Khabib separated his ribs in 2015, Tony started spontaneously bleeding into his lungs in 2016, Khabib hosed up a weight cut so badly he was hospitalized in 2017, Tony tripped over a camera cable and tore his knee apart in 2018. By early 2020 Khabib was the undisputed champion, Tony hadn't lost a fight in nearly a decade, they were both healthy, and the time was right. And then COVID happened, and the fight died for the last time, and when the smoke cleared, the moment was gone. Tony Ferguson fell apart in 2019: He'd had a nervous breakdown that led to days of insomnia and months of punching holes in walls and tearing apart appliances in search of tracking devices he believed were spying on his family. The breaking point came after his wife tried to drive him to a hospital, leading him to jump out of the car on the freeway, run across it and flee back to their home, where he was found trying to figure out how to open his leg to retrieve the microchips he said doctors had implanted in his reconstructed knee. It would eventually arise that he'd been taking anti-psychotic medication since 2012, and as he entered the spotlight, he began drinking and neglecting his mental health. He would, eventually, recover, and he would, eventually, fully return to the sport. But between the injuries, the incidents, the competition and the passage of time--as he exited his prime and entered his late thirties--things changed. His winning streak ended after a career-altering beating at the hands of Justin Gaethje. He was dominated and had his arm nearly snapped in half by Charles Oliveira. He was shut out and nearly had his knee torn apart again by Beneil Dariush. After a full year to recover and regroup he was given a fight against top contender Michael Chandler, gave him absolute hell for one round, and got knocked cold almost immediately in the second. It's 2022. Tony Ferguson, once the owner of one of the longest winning streaks in UFC history, has taken four straight losses. In each one, he has been visibly injured; in the most recent he was knocked unconscious for the first time in his career. He's turning 39 in February. This is when, ideally, you begin having serious talks about retirement, or sub-ideally, you begin having talks about giving a veteran a tune-up fight. Tony Ferguson is going up 15 pounds to fight one of the 15 best welterweights on the planet. Li Jingliang, himself, has been around the UFC for most of a decade. He was picked up in 2014 during the UFC's aggressive attempt at expanding into the Chinese market, where he reigned as the welterweight champion of Hong Kong's Legend Fighting Championship. He was primarily a grappler, then, who'd scored four of his eight wins by guillotine. And upon entering the UFC with a great deal of local hype, he proceeded to...have two very forgettable split decision performances, one victorious and one not, and the matchmakers more or less forgot about him, because being forgettable is the worst sin you can commit in the UFC. By the next year he was supposed to randomly battle 3-1 nobody Roger Zapata on the undercard of the UFC's debut in the Philippines, but an injury forced a last-minute change to a much more imposing competitor: Dhiego Lima, the 6'2" wrecking machine who'd come up short as the runner-up for The Ultimate Fighter 19. Jingliang was the afterthought in his own fight, and Lima, despite taking the fight on three weeks' notice, was the -200 favorite. And Li Jingliang knocked him cold in ninety seconds, and suddenly, he wasn't an afterthought anymore. Where his grappling and wrestling had been his trademark, Jingliang very unexpectedly became known as one of the most underrated strikers in the division. Tough, heralded prospects who'd never been stopped in their careers would meet him in the cage and get dropped in seconds. Making matters worse, his wrestling still remained a constant threat, forcing opponents to leave themselves open to taking an uppercut or a straight to the jaw just to keep from getting thrown to the canvas. By 2021 he was 10-5 in the UFC, and the only people who'd beaten him in the last six years were the perennially underrated Jake Matthews and Neil Magny, one of the best fighters in the division--and Li still dropped him on his face and came seconds away from a knockout victory. Even in rare defeats, he looked threatening. And then he fought Khamzat Chimaev, who carried him across the entire cage while Li flailed helplessly and choked him out while holding a conversation with Dana White at cageside. No matter how good you are, no one's hype survives getting crushed by the next big thing. Li Jingliang was forgotten overnight. And, as a fighter does, he went home, recovered, came back, and knocked Muslim Salikhov out half a year later to start the process of getting people to remember who the gently caress he is. And that brings us back around to my thesis, which I'm going to restate more bluntly: I really loving hate this fight. Tony Ferguson is one of the best fighters at lightweight, but he's also, visibly, a compromised fighter. He's been through dozens of wars and it's taken a toll. He's absorbed 838 significant strikes in his career; 234 of those were in just his last four fights. Justin Gaethje is one of the hardest punchers mixed martial arts has ever seen: He hit Tony Ferguson in the face one hundred times, until Tony simply began violently shaking his head and trying to run away. Michael Chandler nearly detached his skull from his body with a kick just four months ago. The UFC is matching him against the #2 knockout artist in the quarter-century history of the welterweight division. Santiago Ponzinibbio is a fantastic boxer, Muslim Salikhov is a devastating striker, Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos is one of the most well-rounded, eclectic fighters in the entire division. The latter two had never suffered a knockout loss in their lives. All three of them are tougher and sturdier than Tony Ferguson. Li Jingliang punched every single one of them out. I don't want to disrespect Tony Ferguson by counting him out. You can never count Tony Ferguson out. The last time we saw him, he very nearly beat the #5 lightweight in the world. But, ultimately, he didn't. Ultimately, he hasn't won in awhile. And ultimately, I cannot help feeling like testing a potentially roadworn Tony Ferguson by having him fight one of the hardest punchers at an entirely different weight class is a deeply irresponsible choice. Li Jingliang by KO. MAIN CARD: RIGHTING THE SHIP  CATCHWEIGHT, 180 LBS: Kevin Holland (23-7 (1)) vs Daniel Rodriguez (16-2)Weren't those depressing? Guess what: We get an actually really good fight now! Kevin Holland might have the most ridiculous strength of schedule of any recent UFC prospect. Between winning on the Contender Series, pissing off Dana White by being too much of a loudmouth (come on, man) and joining the UFC shortly after anyway as a late replacement, Kevin Holland has been with the company for just four years, and in that time he's had 15 fights--this one is his 16th--and has fought four different world championship contenders. He was good at middleweight until he met all of the people who can wrestle, and as a dyed-in-the-wool wild-eyed striker, he decided to move down to welterweight, the division where all the wrestlers live. Eventually, this could be a problem. But the UFC's aware of it and is deliberately avoiding matching Holland against any of them, so for now, whee! Daniel "D-Rod" Rodriguez was an equally intriguing prospect up until he vanished into the ether. Rodriguez joined the UFC with virtually no hype: He was an impressive-looking 9-1 and he'd won a Contender Series fight, but he didn't even get a contract from it, he had to go back to the regional scene and win a pitched battle with the 15-29 Quinton "The 11th Dimension" McCottrell at SMASH Global 9: Black Tie Fight Night: Smash For Troops, and before you laugh, that is also the event that put Gregory "Robocop" Rodrigues and Jared "The Mountain" Vanderaa on the UFC's radar, because this sport is hilarious. D-Rod was in the UFC three months later, and proceeded to kill everyone. In two years Rodriguez went 6-1, with his sole loss a fight with Nicolas Dalby that media scores had as an even 50/50 split, and he's only been passed over by the hype train because after absolutely destroying former top fighter Kevin Lee in his last fight, he went on the shelf for an entire year thanks to multiple hand surgeries. This has the trifecta: It's an interesting fight from a divisional perspective, as both guys are knocking on the door of the top fifteen, it's an interesting fight stylistically, as both guys are well-rounded but vastly prefer to strike, and it's an interesting fight physically, as both guys succeed in large part based on outstanding physical characteristics. In Kevin Holland's case, that characteristic is being huge. He's a 6'3" welterweight with 81" reach, giving him a longer range than all but four fighters in the heavyweight division. In Daniel Rodriguez's case, it's being a brick loving wall. He has genuine striking skill, he's by no means coasting on his power, but one of the most unique things about watching him fight is the way his opponents will hit him and seemingly barely even budge him, and he will respond and knock them flat on the floor. This is a serious coinflip. Kevin Holland is also more than capable of trucking people, and Daniel Rodriguez is going to be fighting through a 7" reach deficit. But Holland also tends to swing wild, and that's going to open a lot of opportunities for the kinds of sharp counters Rodriguez is best at, and he's not a man you can give those opportunities. Going out on a bit of a limb, but: Daniel Rodriguez gets a TKO. WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Irene Aldana (13-6, #4) vs Macy Chiasson (8-2, #10) Gather around, children, it's time for another episode of the Women's Weight Classes Are Screwed Up Show. Irene Aldana is, in theory, a dedicated bantamweight--the second-largest in the division, in fact, at 5'9"--except she's missed the weight limit for the class twice in her career, most notably in her last fight against Yana Kunitskaya. She's a good, solid fighter, with unusual power for the class and just enough grappling chops to stay competitive. That said: She also got blown out by Holly Holm, outgrappled by Raquel Pennington, and at one point nearly knocked out by Bethe Correia. Macy Chiasson is not a bantamweight OR a featherweight. She won The Ultimate Fighter 28 as a featherweight, and in her post-fight interview, announced her intentions to immediately return to bantamweight. She went 4-1 at the weight class, but decided to take a late replacement fight at featherweight--which she missed weight for, after which she was promptly choked out. She then stayed at featherweight and defeated Norma Dumont, who also missed weight, by split decision in a fight that saw the judges inexplicably give Chiasson a round in which she was outstruck by a 10-2 margin, got nearly knocked out twice and choked out once. Chiasson celebrated her victory over an actual women's featherweight by announcing her intention to drop back down to bantamweight again. Macy Chiasson has three fights at women's featherweight, only one of which saw both fighters actually make the featherweight limit. She is ranked #10 at women's bantamweight, hasn't fought at women's bantamweight in a year and a half, and of her five bantamweight opponents, only two are still in the UFC, and the only one of them who beat Macy is somehow ranked lower than she is. Irene Aldana, the woman she is fighting, hasn't made the bantamweight weight limit in two years: She is the #4 women's bantamweight in the world. Whoever wins this fight is, at worst, one fight away from the bantamweight world championship. I love women's MMA, but it's a loving trainwreck. Irene Aldana by decision. LIGHT-HEAVYWEIGHT: Johnny Walker (18-7, #13) vs Ion Cuțelaba (15-6-1 (1)) Two years ago, this could have been a legitimate top contender fight. Now both dudes are fighting to keep their jobs. MMA is harsh. Johnny Walker was one of the first real Contender Series sensations, an insanely powerful knockout artist who won three UFC fights over legitimately talented light-heavyweights in just 168 seconds and became one of the most hyped prospects in the sport. And then, in a testament of things to come, he dislocated his shoulder doing The Worm during his post-fight celebration. He's now 1-4 in his last five fights, including two violent knockout losses, one of which he is currently coming off of. Walker is still power and range incarnate, and can shut off anyone if he touches them, but he seems visibly confused about how to fight, alternating between being thoroughly gunshy and entirely too reckless. Ion Cuțelaba never quite reached the top, but he was a tough, gritty top ten staple for years, to the point of crushing Khalil Rountree and at one point nearly knocking out future champion Glover Teixeira. And then he had that fateful fight with current #3 contender Magomed Ankalaev that saw him lose a 40-second screwjob thanks to a terrible refereeing mistake, and he sacrificed a year of his career pursuing a rematch that, once he finally got it, saw him getting unequivocally knocked cold. Things haven't gone much better since: He fought Dustin Jacoby to a draw, beat an overmatched Devin Clark, and then got immediately choked out by Ryan Spann. His skills are sound, but his berserker style has been finding its limits. And fighting like a charging berserker is a really terrible idea against a fighter with a 7" reach advantage and the power to knock you out with any of his limbs. This is Johnny Walker's fight to lose, and, to be certain, that sentence means he is absolutely capable of losing. If he hasn't straightened out his approach, if he's too wary to pull the trigger, Cuțelaba will get inside on him and hurt him repeatedly. I am choosing to believe Johnny Walker remembers he can still throw front kicks. Johnny Walker by KO. PRELIMS: SOME NUMBER OF FIGHTS, DEPENDING FEATHERWEIGHT: Hakeem Dawodu (13-2-1) vs Julian Erosa (27-9)This fight might have the highest potential violence quotient on the card. Both of these guys are borderline top fifteen featherweights trying their hardest to break the rankings. "Mean" Hakeem Dawodu is a crisp, dangerous volume striker who averages a genuinely impressive 180 strikes attempted per fight (caveat: I'm excluding his first UFC fight because he got choked out in thirty seconds before he could do anything), with a great sense for mixing up strikes and inflicting damage across the head, body and legs in equal measure, and his only loss in the last four and a half years came against Movsar Evloev, the undefeated #10 in the world and the only person who was able to successfully wrestle Dawodu. Julian "Juicy J" Erosa, in addition to helping found the Three 6 Mafia, is one of the most hot and cold fighters in the sport. In one moment, he'll be using his wild striking and quick grappling to knock out Nate Landwehr or choke out Charles Jourdain; in another he'll be getting ragdolled by the Seung Woo Chois and Bobby McIntyres of the world. This is, in some ways, the price of his style: He's a wildman who loves flying knees and haymakers and jumping on chokes, and entirely too often, he dies by the sword. This fight is going to be dictated by mistakes. Hakeem Dawodu is an extremely composed fighter--arguably sometimes a little too composed, as his several split decisions show--but he has supreme control over his attacks, which is why he's able to throw as frequently and accurately as he does. Julian Erosa will throw the kitchen sink at people to get them out of the cage, has knocked himself over with his own power, and will dive on a neck if it's exposed for more than three seconds. This fight is control vs fury, and I'm betting on control. Hakeem Dawodu by decision. CATCHWEIGHT, 220 LBS: Jailton Almeida (16-2) vs Anton Turkalj (8-0) Jailton Almeida might actually be the best Contender Series prospect. A 6'3" light-heavyweight who's been boxing and doing jiu-jitsu essentially since he was a fetus, "Malhadinho" joined the UFC at the start of 2022 and easily won his first two fights, which gets much more impressive when you consider the second fight was a weight class up and at a forty-pound weight disadvantage against 13-6 heavyweight Parker Porter, a change Jailton took on a month's notice. It went so well that Jailton had actually intended to take another fight at heavyweight on this card, but his original opponent, the #14-ranked Shamil Abdurakhimov, had visa issues and couldn't get out of Russia. So, this time on a week's notice, Jailton accepted a new replacement. Anton Turkalj scraped out a win on the Contender Series two months ago. I could tell you that his biggest strength is grappling and thus he's going to be in a lot of trouble here, or that his striking is sort of loping and awkward and that would easily get him dropped. I am not going to tell you those things. I am going to tell you that his nickname is The Pleasure Man, and this is his profile picture on the internet's biggest MMA database.  Jailton Almeida by submission. MIDDLEWEIGHT: Denis Tiuliulin (10-6) vs Jamie Pickett (13-7) This is going to be a weird fight. Both fighters are large middleweights, with Pickett having a slight advantage at 6'2" with 80" reach to Tiuliulin's 6'1" and 77", and both have similar styles, preferring to work from behind their hands and close into clinch range before they begin dragging the fight to the ground. Tiuliulin likes to work in a more focused, pressure-heavy attack, while Pickett has two range settings: Stand away from you and hit you in the guts and jump into your face and clinch you as hard as I can. This is the biggest pick 'em of the card. We barely got to see any of Tiuliulin's skills in his UFC debut, as he spent the whole thing getting wrestled, and how he'll cope with Pickett's very similar gameplan is a big question mark. My instinct is Jamie Pickett by decision, but I say it with all the ferocity of a gentle shrug. HEAVYWEIGHT: Jake Collier (13-7) vs Chris Barnett (22-8) The most damning thing I can say about the UFC's heavyweight division is, in a just world, Jake Collier would have one of its longest active winning streaks. Collier SHOULD be riding four consecutive victories: He dominated Gian Villante and choked out Chase Sherman, and after each of those fights he outstruck Carlos Felipe and former champion Andrei Arlovski and somehow lost split decisions in both contests. The Felipe fight, at least, was somewhat close; 100% of media outlets scored the Arlovski fight for Collier. He has one of the sport's most common problems: His style is ugly. He throws sloppy punches, he clinches on the fence, and when he gets hit he looks like he wants to die, and that makes the judges think he's losing even when he's winning. Chris "Beastboy" Barnett, by contrast, is a fighter you desperately want to love, but that love will only hurt you. Despite being 5'9", which by average height would place him around the featherweight division, Barnett spent most of his career fighting between 285 and 330 pounds, bouncing between federations with super-heavyweight or just plain openweight divisions. It worked, in the sense that he won more fights than he lost, but respectfully, the competition at superheavyweight in mixed martial arts is very, very thin. He wouldn't have sniffed the UFC were it not for Ben Rothwell losing four opponents in two months and needing an ultra-last minute replacement, and he wouldn't still be here had he not scored a hilarious wheel-kick knockout over Gian Villante in the latter's retirement fight. I want to be abundantly clear, here: I do not in any way mean this to disrespect Barnett by calling him a bad fighter. He's anything but. He's powerful, he's deceptively fast and he's a 5'9" heavyweight with a god damned wheel-kick knockout. But he's a 5'9" heavyweight. His output drops off quickly and his defense follows soon after, and against someone as tough and bread-and-butter as Jake Collier, that's a tragic combination. Jake Collier by TKO. WOMEN'S FEATHERWEIGHT: Norma Dumont (7-2, #15 at Women's Bantamweight) vs Danyelle Wolf (1-0) Guess what: We get two episodes of Women's Weight Classes Are Screwed Up on one card. Norma Dumont has 5 UFC fights, in which she is 3-2. Four of those fights have been contested at Women's Featherweight, the most recent of which she failed to make weight for. She has one fight at Women's Bantamweight, a 2020 victory over Ashlee Evans-Smith; she missed the bantamweight limit by almost five pounds. Because of her one bantamweight victory, two years ago, over someone who was 1-4 since 2016, Norma Dumont is ranked #15 at Women's Bantamweight, a class for which she has never made weight in the UFC. Danyelle Wolf is a 39 year-old amateur boxing champion who never turned pro and switched to mixed martial arts after failing to qualify for the Olympics. She made her MMA debut on Dana White's Contender Series in 2020, won an extremely controversial decision, and promptly went on the shelf for two years. This is a fight between a fighter who is 2-2 at Women's Featherweight in the UFC and a fighter who is 1-0 in any professional combat sport and has never fought in the UFC. The winner will be the UFC's #2 at Women's Featherweight, because there are, in fact, only five women at Women's Featherweight, one of them is the champion, and two of them are 0-1 and 0-2 respectively. There are a lot of things in mixed martial arts that aren't real. Nothing is less real than Women's Featherweight. Norma Dumont by submission. BANTAMWEIGHT: Chad Anheliger (12-5) vs Alatengheili (15-8-2)The last time I talked about Alatengheili I predicted he would have a lot of trouble dealing with Kevin Croom's concerted grappling attack, and instead Croom got punched stupid in less than a minute. He's growing into his wrestleboxing style, mixing fast, accurate straight punches with quick dives on single-leg takedowns, and I had vastly underestimated the improvement in his hand speed. By contrast we've only gotten to see Chad Anheliger fight under the UFC banner once, and it was a brutal, back-and-forth affair with Jesse Strader that Strader was just barely winning up until Anheliger knocked him out 90 seconds before the fight would have ended. He likes to trade, he likes to brawl, and he likes to open up opportunities by taking a punch to give one. And that's going to cost him against someone this quick and powerful. Alatengheili by decision. WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Elise Reed (5-2) vs Melissa Martinez (7-0) This is one of the rare times I feel some confidence in a regional women's prospect. "Super Melly" Melissa Martinez got picked up after winning the strawweight championship at Combate Americas--specifically as the co-main on the incredibly silly event where Tito Ortiz fought professional wrestler Alberto del Rio--and while it was a very close split decision win, it showcased her ability to engage in prolonged clinch battles, defend herself in bad ground positions and maintain her cardio for three full rounds. She was originally going to fight Hannah Cifers, but all the way back in July Cifers withdrew with an injury and got replaced by Elise Reed, which is, in its way, a better fight for Martinez: Not only is Reed a more credible opponent, but she's a better stylistic match. Elise Reed has a very solid base and deceptively solid punches, but she likes to hit and run, which is a problem against someone who closes distance as quickly as Martinez, and she tends to fatigue towards the end of her fights, which is a much bigger problem. Reed's tough as nails and the fight would stay close, but the longer it goes the more of an advantage Martinez has. Melissa Martinez by decision. WELTERWEIGHT: Darian Weeks (5-2) vs Yohan Lainesse (8-1) The UFC's getting the housecleaning fight out of the way first, for once. Yohan Lainesse is probably still safe if he loses--he's a Contender Series baby who only made his UFC debut this year, a KO loss to "Gifted" Gabe Green, the real GGG--but Darian Weeks, who's 0-2 in the UFC and facing his potential third loss in a row, is firmly planted in a zone of danger, and that's firmly on the UFC's head, which has gleefully used him as a sacrificial lamb. You can tell how much the UFC cares about a prospect based on how careful their matchmaking is: In the case of Darian Weeks, who was a still thoroughly inexperienced 5-0, they gave him Bryan Barberena, one of the most durable, most experienced fighters in the division. And after he extremely obviously lost that fight, they threw him to Ian Garry, their next Irish McGregor cloning project. And now, at the most precarious moment in his career, he's getting a bigger, stronger, more experienced knockout artist. And it is, one last time, a very bad matchup for Weeks. His best offense comes from probing kicks and diving wrestling attacks; Lainesse is a stronger, faster kicker and wrestler, and I can't see this fight not resulting in Weeks getting picked apart. Yohan Lainesse by decision.
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Sep 7, 2022 17:57
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Bluedeanie posted:Yeah obviously he'a shilling, but Draft Kings doesn't even crack the top 10 of most absurd/laughable things that have been promoted in the Legendary UFC Octagon over the years so I am having a hard time registering this as the thing that establishes DW as the Carny to surpass Metal Vince Oh 100% it's not the most egregious thing, it was just funny to see he had a shirt for that poo poo ready to wear.
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Sep 7, 2022 18:03
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carl with another banger
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Sep 7, 2022 19:20
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at risk of sounding like a herb, i also disliked the diazes for a chunk of time for the exact reasons you did op. then eventually i really DID learn to stop worrying and love the bomb after the fracas in strikeforce iirc. they really do operate in their own weird world where jake sheilds is someone worth risking a trip to jail for and piss collectors are unwitting stars for your social media as you blaze a joint while that guy sits on your couch. after all, these fellas have been getting (and dealing out) punches to the head since kindergarten. a man cannot be held accountable after receiving robbie lawler punches. theyre not good. for your head.
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Sep 7, 2022 19:38
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Firsthand accounts of the Diaz hospital brawl, from Riggs and Nick: https://youtu.be/QybqrxyFSKs
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Sep 7, 2022 19:45
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I don't write as well as Carl, but I'm a fan of the Diaz bros. Does a fighter losing prevent you from being a fan? Do you have to agree with 100% of the politics of your friends? I have friends who have done some horrible stuff, but we still hang out and are cool. I have friends who have voted for Tump. I think Jake Shields is an idiot, but Diaz being his friend, doesn't prevent me from being a fan of Diaz. Why I am a fan of the Diaz bros: They are anti-establishment. They make digs at the UFC every opportunity they get. They are smarter than they appear: they know their worth and will hold out to get more money, or leave the UFC to get more money. If you listen to interviews, they know what's going on, and use their "rage against the man" attitude to appeal to fans. Their fights are almost always exciting. They are the opposite of Jon Fitch. Win or lose they are not trying to get a judges decision. Pre-fight pressers are exciting, the Diaz know how to trash talk, and they are about that life. You saw that recently with Jake Shields training Paulo Costa. Khamzat Chimaev started talking trash and acting like he wanted to fight Costa at the Performance Institute. Jake Shields opens the cage door and said come on in, lets go. Chimaev walked away. https://twitter.com/rastamanlive2/status/1567577365433270272 I hope Diaz wins, and gets a huge boxing payday after escaping the UFC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beu6IowtJo8 Fozzy The Bear fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Sep 7, 2022 |
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Sep 7, 2022 19:58
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Eat This Glob posted:a man cannot be held accountable after receiving robbie lawler punches. theyre not good. for your head. Those boys are real and true.
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Sep 7, 2022 21:06
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I've only read the Diaz preview but edit that out and loving sell it ESPN dude. It's fantastic
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Sep 7, 2022 21:26
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https://twitter.com/MMAFightingSM/status/1567563818016079874 2022: Usman received a flat $500,000 vs Leon Edwards $350,000 1927: Jack Dempsey purse was $770,000 and Tunney's was $200,000 
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Sep 7, 2022 21:31
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The champs that Dana and the brass likes and big name fighters make way more than the disclosed payouts from the commissions via backdoor deals and stuff. Some low level fighters do too if they take short notice fights and save cards etc. Chief example, Pettis openly saying he got 1+m a fight way back when he actually was a champ like almost 10 years ago. There's stories of fighters at fight island getting their own "POTN" bonuses from the locals aka duffel bags full of actual cash. It's shady, and obviously the pay sucks overall but generally speaking I heavily doubt Usman made only that much. And why speak out about it if you're a member of the club? I fully believe Francis and Aljo when they say they make what they make, but that's because Dana and his crew hate their asses
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Sep 7, 2022 23:20
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OmegaFartHuffer posted:The champs that Dana and the brass likes and big name fighters make way more than the disclosed payouts from the commissions via backdoor deals and stuff. Some low level fighters do too if they take short notice fights and save cards etc. Mr Fart Huffer, The UFC welterweight champion, who has defended his belt 5 times, was undefeated for over 9 years, should rely on the kindness in Dana White's heart, "here you go kid" giving an envelope of cash? ....oh poo poo, a brand new poster, who thinks fighters are paid fairly, does cocaine and watches MMA. Are you Dana White? Fozzy The Bear fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Sep 7, 2022 |
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Sep 7, 2022 23:53
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Not saying he should, but that's just how it is and nobody in that type of position has ever spoken out against the hand that feeds them I never once said fighters are paid fairly, see my post, but coke absolutely rules my man
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Sep 8, 2022 00:01
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my reading was fart huffer made a "this is how it is" post rather than "this is how it is AND this how it should be" post. imo, if you're a company dude/ette, your drive to show solidarity with lower paid employees is wholly dependent on your morals, cuz if you go from the dana "hands out $250k in birthday cash to youtubers" white inner circle to being perceived in any way adversarial, you're gonna lose a shitload of cash. Or you don't get any extra backroom bonuses he hands out to pals. also, ive never done any drugs like coke but i imagine mma viewing could be greatly enhanced with a toot while watching ok-to-good fights but the tradeoff being bad fights are unbearable. it'd explain why anything dana watches is either the greatest fight he's ever seen or you're a dog poo poo no talent fucker if you shoot a double in the third and grind out a win
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Sep 8, 2022 01:12
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It would actually explain a lot about the rise of Sean O'Malley if Dana is spending all of his fights vibing out over his hair.
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Sep 8, 2022 01:29
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OmegaFartHuffer posted:Not saying he should, but that's just how it is and nobody in that type of position has ever spoken out against the hand that feeds them Francis has spoken out about it a lot.
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Sep 8, 2022 01:38
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Fighters need a union yesterday.
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Sep 8, 2022 01:38
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Sep 8, 2022 01:39
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lmao as if Dana wouldnt nuke the entire UFC before even allowing a fighter to think the word "union"
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Sep 8, 2022 01:54
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we interrupt our regularly scheduled reminder that the UFC is a bad place for this important news bulletin https://twitter.com/ZenGinnen/status/1567675520900530176
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Sep 8, 2022 02:03
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Is SBW a wrestler? Slim Beautiful Woman?
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Sep 8, 2022 02:15
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here's my take on Nate Diaz. the short post is: the Diazes are my favorite fighters of all time, 209 bitch 209 209, NDA mother fucker. the longer post is: I have loved Nick and Nate since the moment I first watched them. Nick especially is magnetic and charismatic in a way that few fighters are, and their slow fading from the sport is emblematic of MMA trying to be less of a sport for weird hosed up people and more of a mainstream athletic competition. which, gently caress that, you're taking everything I There's been a lot of discussion over the last couple of pages over Dana's outright desire to have a bunch of WARRIORS and BANGERS and entertaining, risky fights instead of the athletic competition. Taken as a whole with the economics of fighting, the abuse, the crookery, the lack of longterm healthcare, the lack of bargaining power, etc., it is really morally reprehensible. I don't know that I buy Dana as Vince. He's more Richard Dawson in The Running Man to me. He wants to somehow rectify the ~two wolves~ that have been in MMA since the beginning and that IMO will never go away. He wants the Sanchez-Melendez JUST BLEED poo poo while also being legitimate athletically enough to have a Nike sponsorships and Disney co-promotion and constant debt-riddled private-equity growth, which means he's going to try to do as much exploitation and lying and bullshit as he can, constantly, never-ending, to try and further that. You may say "that just sounds like all pro sports" and well, yeah, it does. All of them have their own form of the ~two wolves~ in the form of "we want to be a nice mainstream athletic competition" and...other things. Hockey has old guy GMs trying to fight in barns and Canadian nationalism and some of the most idiotic depraved nepotism you'll ever see, and they'll never get rid of that. American football, especially in the South, is tied up with boosterism and weird religiosity and pre-game prayers and horrific CTE and militarism and nepotism/racism in coaching and management. Pretty much every sport IMO has a weirdo culture part of it and a mainstream/athletic/objective part of it that are constantly in tension, and those can make them incredibly compelling both from a "this is interesting" perspective and a "surreal things happen when these things come into direct conflict". Don't celebrate or even try to score more if you're up 5-1 in ice hockey or else you'll have to fight. This other team is more skilled than us, so let's constantly hook and harass them and slow them down but the whistles get put away in the playoffs because That's Tough Old Time Hockey. Ray Lewis going on 3 minute surreal miced up pregame speeches a year after he murdered a guy with a knife in a night club. Tony Dungy respectfully answering that he doesn't think the Jets are haunted by the spirits of dead dogs that Michael Vick killed. The Diazes are basically that for MMA. They are like literal golems of the weird parts in people's brains that make them become fighters in our society. They are completely deranged and weird. They are not objectively great fighters. Even strikers like Cowboy could have probably easily beaten them if they just took them down and turned it into more of just an athletic competition, which as someone mentioned before, the Diazes hate. But Cowboy would never do that, because he's a Fighter. The Diazes have exactly one weird trick to win fights: inform you, the other fighter, that you are in fact a huge pussy and bitch if you don't just try and move forward and do damage at all times. This does, coincidentally, play exactly into their strengths. They can absorb a tremendous amount of punishment and keep going and be dangerous indefinitely. They will throw at 30-50% for a lot of the round so that you get used to just taking their punches because they really don't hit hard, and then bam, they throw 1/10 punches really hard and it stuns you. And now you're worried because they're swarming you, and you're more tired, and you don't have enough energy to keep them off of you. You can beat them in so many ways. You can take them down, easily. They're not real threats off their back unless you're exhausted. You can 1-2 and run away from their slow combos like Condit or Conor in the 2nd fight. You can leg kick them for 5 rounds like Benson. You can do pretty much all of that, like GSP. You can not engage and lead much, like Anderson. If Khamzat wanted to, he can probably win the fight within 2-3 minutes very easily. But over and over in their career, they've been able to hypnotize people over and over into fighting their style of fight, because their style of fight is the thing that the majority of fighters and a ton of fight fans think is True Fighting Spirit. To be insane enough to do MMA for a career, you need to have something in you that needs to dominate and be seen as tougher than the other guy. So Nick fights BJ, and instead of BJ just moving around and out-techniquing him to death, he has to prove that he's tougher than Nick, and Nick lays an absolutely brutal rear end kicking on him. Paul Daley has to prove that he can knock anyone out instead of just leg-kicking and circling Nick. Pettis has to prove that he's as tough as anyone. Conor thinks that he's the guy who will actually knock Nate out with punches. I remember these threads 10-12-14 years ago constantly being "this guy can easily beat Diaz unless he gets hypnotized", and any analysis of their fights against basically any top-level fighter could be summed up as that. But you never know if the other fighter is going to be hypnotized. And in addition to the fighting stuff, you have Nick doing nunchucks for 20 minutes on a conference call, The Dork Court, the repeated weed busts and lighting up on camera, I'm Not Surprised Motherfuckers, Euron Steroids, Nate trying to fight Karo Parisyian on TUF, them jumping Mayhem on live TV, Nick shooting Dan Quinn car videos, any of Nick's interviews but especially the interview a couple of years ago with Ariel where Ariel asked "how are you?" and Nick talked for about 29 minutes straight, Nate doing basically the same thing with Brett Okamoto this week, the built-in Scarface reference of "gently caress the loving Diaz brothers" and so on and so on. For me personally, they have occasional moments of lucidity, intentional or not, where they say profound poo poo. In the dork court video, Nick in his 12 minute unprompted rant said something to the effect of "Being in a room with those types of people, having to listen to those types of rules and that type of bullshit, that's the entire reason I got into fighting, because I never wanted to be stuck in a room with those types of people since I was in school." I felt that deep in my bones. I've hated every little power-hungry school administrator hall monitor type dweeb I've ever met, but I've not been able to avoid them like the Diazes have. The appeal of fighting to someone like Nick/Nate was that it doesn't matter what the rules or the Supposed-To-Dos say, that he can get up there, mean-mug, throw 10,000 strikes, talk poo poo, have no wrestling defense, have eyebrows that bust open when you graze them, train like fights are 100 rounds instead of 5, goad people, and win the fight. And win the fight even when he doesn't win the fight. And fight in the hospital to continue the fight. The appeal to me is that I get to live vicariously through them throwing up the double-birds and doing it and somehow getting away with it. I said it a month or so ago, but Khamzat is such a big favorite because Nate's old enough and Khamzat's good enough and big enough that it probably doesn't even matter if Nate manages to pull off one last hypnosis. But I will be putting $100 on Nate at whatever the odds are because as mentioned: 209 bitch 209 209. DO YALL WANT A BOXC fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Sep 8, 2022 |
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Sep 8, 2022 02:25
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Fozzy The Bear posted:Is SBW a wrestler? Sonny Bill Williams He's a former World-Class level Rugby player from New Zealand. He played on the NZ national team (the All Blacks) and competed in the Olympics in 2016. He started boxing in 2009ish but I got that from Wikipedia so I don't know poo poo about his boxing career
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Sep 8, 2022 02:45
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DO YALL WANT A BOXC posted:here's my take on Nate Diaz. 
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Sep 8, 2022 03:12
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DO YALL WANT A BOXC posted:the short post is: the Diazes are my favorite fighters of all time, 209 bitch 209 209, NDA mother fucker.
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Sep 8, 2022 03:17
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Even as not a Diaz guy this is fantastically put, thank you. They are definitely of a dying breed and MMA will not be the same without their active competition.
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Sep 8, 2022 03:18
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DO YALL WANT A BOXC posted:here's my take on Nate Diaz. 
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Sep 8, 2022 03:21
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“Why did you sting me,” cried the Frog. “Now you’ll drown, too.” “209,” said the Scorpion. “209 motherfucker 209.”
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Sep 8, 2022 03:28
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there's been a few excellent effort posts about the diaz's and i've enjoyed reading them. the perspectives are very different and very well justified and i can't hate any of these opinions. somehow, i've still got more i want to add. i've met the diaz's. spent a few hours with nathan just chilling and chatting wass after he instructed a jiu jitsu seminar and a few things stood out to me. off camera he's very softly spoken and reserved. very respectful. introduces himself as nathan instead of nate - the person instead of the character. he loves jiu jitsu, doing it and teaching it. he reveres his brother. nathan loving hates fighting and seemed to resent that he's so good at it and that it pays way more than any other work he's qualified for. forget when he said it but my loose recollection is that it went something like 'my opponent accepted a contract to attempt to kill me with his fists for money. i hate that and i hate them. this isn't a job to me, this is as personal as any fight on the street, i can't just switch it off'. nick literally ran into me in vegas at a dead sprint and when i said that i was a fan as he was getting off the floor he came over to me and shook my hand in a surprisingly personal and sincere way and said 'nice to meet you man, i'm so sorry, but i really have to go' and sprinted towards his destiny. despite learning nearly nothing personally about nick, i believe nathan modeled his entire personality after nick. here's my take on some of the big beat diaz moments covered in this thread. their reticence to accept fight opportunities are not shrewd business moves. when they both semi-retired it was because they didn't need the money, they hate the circus around prize fights, and they hate fighting. the only way to coax them back into the cage is by giving them ridiculous fights they didn't really earn and pay them so much that they just can't say no. they hate the ufc and dana personally because they hate fighting, they hate the idea of being bound to the ufc by 'legal bullshit', and every time they're offered such a stupid huge payday to go and do something they hate again they look at what they were paid for all their other fights and the resentment builds. their brawling (in hospital and post fight) and adherence to stockton rules is what it is: accepting money to hurt them and then hurting them is personal to these guys. they're still fighting because they're still breathing. when nate said 'can't help you man' he meant it two ways. he meant it in the sense of 'well, you were paid to fight nick. congratulations, you're fighting nick.' and also in the sense of nathan being literally unable to contradict nick. especially at 19. even if he didn't understand why nick was beating him up his opponent in a hospital, he'd assume nick had the very best reasons and trusts him absolutely. gently caress it. that's enough typing for now.
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Sep 8, 2022 03:38
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DO YALL WANT A BOXC posted:they say profound poo poo. i just thought about this part of your post again and one of my personal favourites was in the lead up to the fight with conor. conor had this air of absolute invincibility and everyone was sucking his dick. when footage emerged of him training with a 'movement coach' it was treated by everyone as a futuristic training technique and really cool / sick. everyone except nate who took one look at it, called it 'touch butt in the park', and the phrase 'movement coach' has ceased to exist as a concept in the world of mma.
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Sep 8, 2022 04:08
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I will never forget how Conor McGregor, the best talker in the sport, got outworked by Nate Diaz. Even on stuff he was objectively right about. Everyone remembers Nate Diaz accusing everyone else in the sport of being on steroids, everyone remembers "you're on steroids," no one remembers that comment was a response to Conor extremely correctly pointing out that goddamn near all of Nate's training partners had pissed hot. No one cared. The Diaz reality was too strong.
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Sep 8, 2022 04:14
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