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Which Halloween monster is most likely to win a UFC championship? This poll is closed. |
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| A Dracula |
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15 | 34.88% |
| The Wolfman |
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18 | 41.86% |
| Mark Zuckerberg |
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7 | 16.28% |
| Conor McGregor |
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3 | 6.98% |
| Total: | 43 votes | ||
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Oh no Chael don't do it 
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Oct 11, 2022 22:40
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| # ? May 14, 2024 20:50 |
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Trillhouse posted:Aleksei Oleinik has been removed from the roster. Was is oleinik that was giving one of his opponents a lesson on the weird choke he pulled off backstage after the fight?
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Oct 12, 2022 01:39
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yes, that's him.
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Oct 12, 2022 01:45
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ilmucche posted:Was is oleinik that was giving one of his opponents a lesson on the weird choke he pulled off backstage after the fight? https://twitter.com/UFCEurope/status/1512943000867020801
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Oct 12, 2022 01:46
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Why are big guys so nice?
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Oct 12, 2022 02:11
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Sweaty IT Nerd posted:Why are big guys so nice? nothing to prove
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Oct 12, 2022 02:32
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This fight is marked as KO/TKO on tapology but actually click play to see a man's elbow disintegrate https://twitter.com/mmamania/status/1579973828528451584 Dusko Todorovic fights Jordan Wright this weekend.
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Oct 12, 2022 02:39
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  Fight Week, Pet Week! Alexa Grasso has a lil chihuahua, Broly  Viviane Araujo has a pair of pups  Raphael Assuncao has a good dog  Victor Henry's got a big pooch (or maybe Henry is just a lil guy???)  Lucas Alexander has a good dag  Piera Rodriguez has a perro  Sam Hughes also gots a pupperoni  Pete Rodriguez, the dichotomy of double birds while holding two lil Frenchies  And, it is with great sadness that Fight Week, Pets Week has to inform you that Dusko Todorovic lost his very good dog, Bek, last week. RIP, Bek, and condolences to Dusko 
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Oct 12, 2022 03:57
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does anyone have a cat
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Oct 12, 2022 03:58
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(asking for a friend)
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Oct 12, 2022 03:58
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beep by grandpa posted:does anyone have a cat Irene Aldana has many cats. She's got an instagram that's just her cats But it doesn't look like anyone on this week's card got a cat, sorry
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Oct 12, 2022 03:59
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Marching Powder posted:nothing to prove There's a strong element of not wanting to scare civilians for those two I bet.
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Oct 12, 2022 04:56
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Boco_T posted:finally something to look forward to Like I said in Discord, that event/org is something Tito has been part of that just raises money for GOP candidates. There was one in AZ that had Tito, Benson Henderson and some other right wing dipshits.
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Oct 12, 2022 14:55
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Mekchu posted:Benson Henderson this surprised me until i remembered the fact that he was weirdly religious was the most memorable thing about him
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Oct 12, 2022 15:15
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Marching Powder posted:this surprised me until i remembered the fact that he was weirdly religious was the most memorable thing about him I thought the most memorable thing about him was being on the receiving end of the showtime kick.
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Oct 12, 2022 15:18
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Mr. Nice! posted:I thought the most memorable thing about him was being on the receiving end of the showtime kick. sorry yeah i meant him the person not the flowing hair perfectly accentuating the sickest poo poo seen in the cage. e: wec53 has to be up there as one of the most stacked cards ever https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WEC_53 Marching Powder fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Oct 12, 2022 |
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Oct 12, 2022 15:25
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His wrestlefucking of Brandon Thatch and the subsequent wall he ran into when he no longer fought welterweight kickboxers who don't know who to wrestle is also funny.
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Oct 12, 2022 15:34
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i had forgotten that pettis showtime kicked benson into an immediate title shot against frankie but after the draw happened he decided to get active and immediately lost to clay guida and lost the title shot. lol. frankie would have beaten pettis pretty badly imo and would have been a pretty good win to have in retrospect.
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Oct 12, 2022 15:41
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Man, it feels like it's been a lot longer than a week and a half since the last UFC card. It's a good thing we have a really great one to come back to. Oh wait oh jesus oh g CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 34: THE SOUND OF SILENCE  PRELIMS 1 PM PST / 4 PM EST VIA ESPN+ | MAIN CARD 4 PM PST / 7 PM EST VIA ESPN+ Two weeks ago I tried to describe the concept of fight cards so poorly put together that it's plainly apparent the UFC didn't care past the one or two fighters they wanted to push. This, by contrast, is what happens when you don't even get that. This card had a main event, but it fell apart--two months ago--and the UFC didn't bother fixing it. They tried to put together a co-main event by having Daniel Rodriguez fight just a month after getting punched for fifteen minutes and when he shockingly had to reschedule, they decided not to fix that, either. You can't even say this is a main event the UFC cares about, because it wasn't a main event. Grasso/Araújo was originally a maybe-prelim fight on the Ngannou/Gane pay-per-view this past January, it took them seven months to reschedule it as a midcard fight on the Vera/Cruz card back in August, and now, somehow, we're here, and it's a main event, and that's goddamn near all this card has. You notice how almost every time there's a card main-evented by a women's fight not involving Amanda Nunes, the UFC does almost no marketing for it and gives it an undercard almost no one's going to watch? Weird, ain't it?  i really like a lot of these fighters, too, but talk about not caring about the casual market MAIN EVENT: REACHING ACROSS THE DIVIDE WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Alexa Grasso (14-3, #5) vs Viviane Araújo (11-3, #6) The MMA world has been waiting for Alexa Grasso to happen. Alexa Grasso was penciled in for an Invicta FC title shot when the UFC signed her. She was 8-0, she was an extremely talented fighter, she was well-established enough for Invicta to push her as a main event attraction, and in a field as continually desperate for marketable fighters as women's mixed martial arts, she was a well-loved fighter out of Mexico with a built-in fanbase. An injury kept her from a showdown with then-champion Livia Renata Souza, and by the time she came back she took a main-event tune-up, because the UFC was calling. I complain on a weekly basis about how poorly the UFC gets visibility on its fighters. I will almost assuredly do it later on this very card. Alexa Grasso is an extremely notable exception. In nine UFC fights across just under six years, despite never reaching a championship match, Alexa Grasso has only been on the undercard once, which you cannot say about nearly any other woman at either of her UFC divisions. Even current champion Carla Esparza was back on the undercard a few fights before her title victory. Grasso's opponent tonight, Viviane Araújo, was booked on one of the most cursed UFC cards of all time, Overeem vs Sakai, which saw so many injury and COVID pullouts that it wound up being a single, seven-fight televised special with no undercard and Araújo was still booked on just the second fight of the night. Alexa Grasso once missed weight AND won a tepid split decision, two things the UFC loathes above all else, and she was still co-main eventing the next card. Why does the UFC see her as such an outlier? It'd be easy to chalk it up to her marketability--and that's definitely a factor--but it's also insultingly reductive. She's one of the best boxers in mixed martial arts, to the point that the only people to actually beat her in the UFC were superior wrestlers, including the aforementioned strawweight champion Carla Esparza in a bit of a screwjob decision in which only one judge ruled a 10-8 round despite Grasso nearly finishing Esparza by strikes and submission alike. But even if they had gotten it right, it would still only have given Grasso a draw. So Grasso moved up to flyweight. It was overdue; the weight cut was killing her. But 125 also had the benefit of much less accomplished wrestlers in her way. Grasso's 3-0 record since the move isn't much of a testament to improved wrestling--the best wrestler she's faced at flyweight was Maycee Barber, who dragged her down repeatedly--but to an improved grappling game that's seen her much more violently pursue submissions and sweeps and made her much more difficult to pin down and hurt. And now she's fighting Viviane Araújo, who hits 2-4 takedowns per fight and racked up four of her five UFC victories largely through superior grappling. Is Grasso set for another wrestling lesson? Probably not. Araújo, unlike an Esparza or a Tatiana Suarez, isn't a chain wrestler. She's a well-rounded fighter, a talented striker who uses her power doubles to break up the rhythm of her own attacks and interrupt opponents who think they've caught onto her attacks. It was her jabs and her headkicks that busted Emi Fujino's eye and gave Araújo her Pancrase championship, it was her right hook that flattened Talita Bernardo in her UFC debut, and it was her bodyshots that forced the typically composed Andrea Lee into bad, too-far-out takedown attempts that saw her outgrappled and punished. So why, if her skills are so well-rounded, hasn't Araújo managed a championship opportunity? In the central thesis of this matchup: Superior strikers. Her first UFC winning streak was ended at two by the recently retired, forever-hot-and-cold Jessica Eye, who punished her with leg kicks and left her too badly outstruck at range to manage either competitive standup or wrestling, and her second streak also ended after two at the hands of the seemingly inevitable Katlyn Chookagian, who overcame danger in the first half of the fight, dominated the second and took home what should have been an extremely close decision, but it was Texas, so she somehow got a 30-27. There's a definite argument to make for Araújo winning that fight 29-28--there's an argument that she should be fighting in the next title eliminator. But she didn't. She's not. She's fighting one of the UFC's favorite prospects. Typically, that statement comes with some level of disdain: I have none. This is an exceptionally solid fight between two exceptionally solid fighters, and the winner has a very strong claim as the #2 contender in the division. And it's kind of a toss-up. There's very little difference in size and reach, both fighters have extremely active scrambling games. Viviane has the wrestling chops to power Grasso to the floor, but she's been swept by multiple opponents. Alexa's shown some considerable improvement with leg kicks since moving up in weight, and they'll definitely be a valuable weapon, but it'd be foolish to rely on them too much, as the longer her legs are out, the more likely she's defending takedowns. The biggest gap between them is conditioning. Grasso is a famously well-conditioned fighter who'll sling a hundred punches per round; Araújo is the stronger, more powerful striker, but she tends to fade after the second round. Of course, this is a five-round, main-event fight, which Grasso's never had to do before. It's very possible cardio could ruin them both. But over five rounds, Grasso should be able to outlast Araújo and chip her down. Alexa Grasso by decision. CO-MAIN EVENT: THE WEC'S DYING EMBERS BANTAMWEIGHT: Cub Swanson (28-12) vs Jonathan Martinez (16-4) I'm not sure if the UFC doesn't know what to do with Cub Swanson or Cub Swanson doesn't know what to do with Cub Swanson, but someone's making some very poor booking choices. Cub has one of the most enduring careers in mixed martial arts--he's two months into his eighteenth year of competition--and he's remained a fan favorite and a relevant fighter for nearly that entire span, which is shocking not just as a statement about his longevity, but as an examination of his style. Despite his first formal martial arts training coming from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Cub was a street fighter, and that unorthodox striking approach has always been the core of his approach to fighting. Cub Swanson has more performance-of-the-night bonuses in his UFC tenure than he does takedowns. He moves at odd angles, he throws unpredictable combinations, he lands some of the most vicious body shots in the sport, and he's got a score of great names in his win column--from international stars like Tatsuya Kawajiri and Hiroyuki Takaya to can't-miss prospects like Kron Gracie and Hacran Dias to today's champions like Dustin Poirier and Charles Oliveira. So why, with such an effective style, such a fan-friendly striking game and such a long, legendary career, has Swanson never made it to the top? Back in 2007, Cub was one of the most highly-regarded featherweights in the deeply beloved World Extreme Cagefighting. He was 11-1, he was fun to watch and he'd just taken out two top prospects. And the WEC matched him against former UFC champion Jens Pulver, who was attempting a career comeback. Pulver dropped and submitted Swanson in thirty seconds. It was the last ranked victory of Pulver's career. Two years and two wins later, he was up for title contention again, and this time he was knocked out in eight seconds by a little-known prospect named José Aldo. The next year, it was Chad Mendes. The next, Ricardo Lamas. Even when Cub notched the best winning streak of his career, it was broken by Frankie Edgar and Max Holloway. In 2017 it was Brian Ortega. Just last year, it was Giga Chikadze. Cub Swanson has fought the best fighters on the planet. Unfortunately, more often than not, he has lost. He's been a top 20 fighter virtually his entire career, sometimes even top ten, but he's never been able to break past the top of his division. Which is why, at 38, he's giving a new one a try. This fight marks his first-ever appearance at 135 pounds. Ordinarily this is where you give someone an interesting matchup, and bantamweight is absolutely rich with interesting matchups, especially for someone with Swanson's style and stature. Adrian Yanez, Brian Kelleher, Douglas Silva de Andrade, there are a bunch of relevant fighters Cub could have drawn to immediately evaluate his place in the division. The UFC elected to give him Jonathan "The Dragon" Martinez, and I have no idea why. I don't mean that with any disrespect to Martinez, who is a fine fighter. He's a very respectable 7-3 in the UFC after four years, he's a well-rounded fighter with an underrated wrestling game (because he very rarely uses it), he's got an unusually kicking-focused approach to offense, and in twenty fights he's only been finished once. He's tough and well-conditioned and, look, no one knows who he is. Jonathan Martinez fought and won two fights this year. If you're reading this, there's a decent chance you've seen me talk about Jonathan Martinez for several paragraphs. Do you remember either of them? No? Yeah. That's the problem. Jonathan Martinez has ten fights in the UFC and he hasn't really gotten anywhere. He dropped his debut to Andre Soukhamthath, most famously known for being the guy who saw Sean O'Malley hopping at him on one leg and elected to stop trying to kick him, and he dropped a close split decision to Andre Ewell, the guy who was a hair's breadth away from a six-fight losing streak in the UFC, and he got destroyed by Davey Grant, who was most recently seen struggling with the just-fired-for-the-second-time Louis Smolka. He's only now on his first real, three-fight UFC win streak, but they were all victories over mostly-unknown fighters on the early no-one's-watching-yet prelims. One of them was over one of my favorite bad UFC choices, a 13-0 Georgian prospect named Zviad Lazishvili, who turned out to have only defeated two fighters who weren't rookies, lost badly, pissed hot for clomiphene, got banned for a year and was immediately cut. None of this is Martinez's fault. I don't mean it to impeach the man. I'm just baffled by their drawing on him for Swanson's bantamweight debut. Cub was borderline top 15 at 145, he's one of the more notable fighters at either division, his last fight saw him hand Darren Elkins the worst beating of his career, and the UFC's putting him on a throwaway Fight Night against a guy who's hovering around the #25-30 rankings who's only been off the prelims twice in his UFC career. It's a bizarre choice. And it's also a fight he could totally lose. Martinez is very solid and very difficult to hurt, and Cub's loose style could play into his controlled attacks and occasional but tricky attempts at wrestling. But I have faith in Cub's stopping power and his ability to string attacks together in ways that keep people guessing. Or maybe I'm just not ready to give up on him yet. In either case: Cub Swanson by TKO. MAIN CARD: TWO OF THE BEST FIGHTERS IN THE WORLD FLYWEIGHT: Askar Askarov (14-1-1, #4) vs Brandon Royval (14-6, #5) If the UFC didn't hate flyweight so much, this would be the main event. Both of these dudes are top flyweights who were one fight away from the championship and either winner has a great argument for a title eliminator fight once the Figueiredo/Moreno saga ends and Alexandre Pantoja gets the championship bout he's deeply deserved for several years. Askar Askarov was numerically clean until this past March. He's an extremely fast striker and wrestler, he's got an exceptional level of awareness for counterpunching, and his only actual UFC loss came thanks to Kai Kara-France putting on by far the best performance of his life and counter-wrestling him while periodically socking him in the mouth. If there's a patch on Askarov's style, it's the lack of a fifth gear. He'll maintain a high-pressure, cage-clinching, wrestle-boxing assault for three to five rounds without slowing down, but he's also never shown a proclivity for speeding up. This is what led him to his draw against Brandon Moreno, and it's what ultimately took his undefeated streak away against Kai: Even when his style and pace stop working, he doesn't know how to change them. Brandon Royval, by contrast, is all speed. He doesn't know how to fight at any pace but fast-forward: Charging attacks, spinning backfists, flying guillotines and power doubles are his bread and butter. He has, in fact, only won two decisions in his twenty-fight career, and one was a razor-close split. He doesn't want judges. He doesn't want subjectivity. He wants to hurt people. And sometimes, that hurts him. Royval's only lost twice in the UFC, and both came from losing aggressive scrambles against superior grapplers, whether through Alexandre Pantoja choking him out or Brandon Moreno wrenching his arm out of its socket. He hits very hard, his chokes are very tight, and his willingness to roll with his opponents regularly gets him in trouble. Guess what's probably going to cost him against Askar Askarov, a ludicrously-composed, high-level grappler? Kai Kara-France laid the blueprint for beating Askar, and it involves denying him access to his best techniques: Outjab him, outsprawl him, out-clinch him. Those things are not Brandon Royval's strengths. His willingness to fearlessly engage with his opponents on their ground is a liability here, and either he's going to catch Askar cold in the first few minutes, or Askar Askarov wins by decision.  MIDDLEWEIGHT: Jordan Wright (12-3 (1)) vs Duško Todorović (11-3)These men are fighting each other, but they're also fighting a potential run-in with the chopping block. "The Beverly Hills Ninja" Jordan Wright has had a tough time in the UFC. He arrived in the UFC as an undefeated 11-0 contender--he did get knocked out during his Contender Series tryout, but his opponent dared to have smoked weed at some point in the previous month, so the fight was scratched off as a No Contest --and emerged as one of the UFC's favorite kinds of fighters to book: A violent stand and bang elemental who would rather move forward in a whirlwind of hooks and headkicks than dare to throw a jab. On one hand, this earned him stoppages over Ike Villanueva and Jamie Pickett. On the other, it's gotten him beaten silly in three of his last four fights, and a loss here would make the dreaded three in a row. Duško "Thunder" Todorović made his UFC debut as the Serbian Battle Championship champion, and maybe the best encapsulation of how thoroughly nonsensical the regional mixed martial arts scene can be is that one fight before that bout, in which he defeated Michel Pereira, a a top 15 fighter in the UFC today, he defeated Kazuo "CANNIBAL YOSHIKI" Takahashi, the fifty year-old, 60+ fight veteran who debuted at the very first Pancrase card back in 1993. Duško had a successful UFC debut, thanks to that most faithful of tools, wrestleboxing; he's gone 1-3 since, having been repeatedly put in trouble by big power punchers--twice knocked out, once soundly outfought, and even in his winning effort against Maki Pitolo he got his head bounced around like a basketball and was nearly choked out on a desperation takedown. His skills are extremely solid, but his vulnerability to power is very real, and one more loss makes him one for his last five outings. So the UFC is giving him a living whirlwind of angry arms and legs. Jordan Wright by TKO. I think Todorović is the more technically sound fighter and I get why he's a betting favorite; I also think Wright is bigger, stronger, rangier and hits a lot harder, and that's going to be as big a problem as it's ever been. LIGHT-HEAVYWEIGHT: Misha Cirkunov (15-8) vs Alonzo Menifield (12-3) If the previous fight was an example of the chopping block, this one's more of a sacrificial pyre. Six years ago, Misha Cirkunov was seen as a possible champion. He was 13-2, he was 4-0 in the UFC with every win coming by stoppage, his grappling was crushingly effective and his boxing, while not the strongest part of his game, was sound enough to keep opponents too distracted to stay on their feet. And then Volkan Oezdemir knocked him out in thirty seconds, and it's been a long, unfortunate slide ever since. Misha's 2-6 in the last six years, five of those losses were stoppages and his last marked the end of his failed attempt to rescue his career by dropping down to middleweight. He's on a three-fight losing streak and he hasn't had his hand raised in more than three years. Some part of it is having faced very powerful fighters, some part of it is hitting his mid-thirties, and some is the sport catching up with his slightly more one-dimensional game. And the UFC is trying to show him the door. "Atomic" Alonzo Menifield is a wrecking machine who is on one hand a talented wrestler-grappler and is on the other a lifelong athlete whose martial roots lay in the ancient combat art of Football. His physicality lets him bowl people over and simply crush them into dust. All three of his career losses have come against fighters who compete in the heavyweight division and were able to match him muscle for muscle. When last we saw Menifield, it was in 2022's funniest fighting farce not involving a Diaz brother, as he faced Azkar "No Mercy" Mozharov, who turned out to have faked about half of his record and tricked the UFC into signing him as a hot prospect. Menifield destroyed his face in one round and cut an angry promo after the fight about wanting a real opponent. He's got one. And he'll probably win. Menifield's gotten a bit gunshy from his string of losses, but Cirkunov's always struggled when he's at a power disadvantage and Menifield is more than enough of a wrestler to stop Cirkunov from easily taking him down. That's bad news for him. Alonzo Menifield by TKO. PRELIMS: LOVE / YOUR HATE / YOUR / FAITH LOST BANTAMWEIGHT: Mana Martinez (9-3) vs Brandon Davis (14-9) Why yes, this IS headlining the prelims over a battle of a former top contender and a high-rising prospect. No, I don't know why either. Leomana aka Mana aka Manaboi Martinez was a solid part of the regional fight scene in Texas when he got a shot at the Contender Series in 2020, and his energetic brawling style failed him, as he got choked out in the first round by a superior grappler. He was pulled into the UFC as a late injury replacement last year anyhow, but it's been a difficult stay; he scraped a split decision win over the perpetually embattled Guido Cannetti despite being bigger, stronger and much younger, and he was thoroughly outwrestled and dropped several times by Ronnie Lawrence this past February. Brandon Davis has had the inverse experience: He was one of the very first Contender Series contract winners back in 2017 and proceeded to get released form the UFC two years later on the back of a 2-5 run, returned to the regional salt miles to toil away at a four-fight winning streak, and began his second UFC tenure last year by taking a brutal beating from Danaa Batgerel. The odds have Davis as the notable underdog here, and I respectfully disagree. Davis gets a lot of crap for his UFC losses, but there isn't much shame in losing to Enrique Barzola, Giga Chikadze or fuckin' Zabit Magomedsharipov. Martinez is a wild fighter with some vicious punches, but that wild approach has seen him get lit up by seemingly inferior strikers and repeatedly threatened on the ground. Unless he finds Brandon's chin early, he's in trouble. Brandon Davis by decision. BANTAMWEIGHT: Raphael Assunção (27-9) vs Victor Henry (22-5) This sport is loving cruel sometimes. Raphael Assunção is, by any estimation, one of the best bantamweights of all time. He's been a consistent problem for the world since his debut in 2003, a jiu-jitsu black belt with an iron jaw, deceptively threatening hands and the ability to fight far outside the expectations of his 5'5" frame. Seriously, the dude beat Jorge Masvidal once. The UFC's refusal to give Assunção a title shot due to his decision-heavy style was an internet meme that got beaten into the ground because he was a top contender for like half a goddamn decade. Even in 2017, in the backside of his thirties, he was taking Aljamain Sterling and Marlon Moraes and Rob Font and TJ Dillashaw to decisions--and winning almost all of them, even if sometimes by the skin of his teeth. But it's 2022 now, and Raphael Assunção is 40, and he's riding a four-fight losing streak. So he's fighting on the prelims under Mana Martinez. What can you do. Victor Henry, at the contrastingly ripe young age of 35, is one of the UFC's more unexpected prospects. A catch wrestler under the tutelage of Josh Barnett, Henry spent most of the last five years loving around in Japan, where he won the DEEP bantamweight championship and beat the tar out of people in RIZIN for kicks. The UFC picked him up in 2021--apparently Japanese titles weren't enough, but when he won the prestigious LIGHTS OUT XTREME FIGHTING championship he could no longer be denied--and slotted him in against top Brazilian prospect Raoni Barcelos. Despite being a big underdog (I, too, picked against him), Henry put on a show and ultimately won an upset decision. In other words: The UFC got an unexpected prospect dropped in their laps and they want to feed him an aging legend. It makes sense, it's a tried-and-true method, and on the back of Henry's great performance against Barcelos and Assunção's slide, oddsmakers have Henry as a big favorite. Tough poo poo. I am mad with power and I deny all of you. Raphael Assunção by decision. Henry's scrappiness against a wilder fighter like Barcelos is going to get him in trouble against someone as composed as Raphael, and unlike his other recent opponents, Henry hasn't demonstrated the nuke-level power to stop Assunção. It'll still be close, like all Raphael Assunção fights, but he'll scrape it out. Or he'll get destroyed because his chin has gone with time and he needs to retire. Get out of my goddamn office. MIDDLEWEIGHT: Nick Maximov (8-1) vs Jacob Malkoun (6-2) Welcome to the pit where the UFC throws fighters it wants to forget exist. Nick Maximov is a class traitor: A Diaz-trained fighter who embraces the forbidden art of wrestling. Maximov has a special honor in the annals of the UFC: A victory where he attempted more takedowns than he landed significant strikes. He will dive on doubles by the dozen, and he will grind people down to nothing, and he will win decisions despite losing the striking battle 2:1, because wrestling rules everything. Unless you're Jacob Malkoun. Malkoun, too, is a volume wrestler, but his two-fight winning streak was somewhat controversially snapped in his last out against Brendan Allen this past June. Malkoun easily controlled the fight and took Allen down a half-dozen times, but Allen's submission attempts and Malkoun's perceived inactivity led to a unanimous decision loss and another chapter in the ongoing battle about the ever-changing landscape of judging and its perception of effective grappling. But we don't have to worry about that here, because this is a mirror match with two wrestler-rear end wrestlers who bear the same blood curse. Maximov's the considerably bigger man, Malkoun is arguably the faster man, but at the end of the day, I simply choose to believe in the power of American wrestling vs Australian wrestling. Nick Maximov by decision. Bring a snack, it could take awhile. FEATHERWEIGHT: Joanderson Brito (13-3-1) vs Lucas Alexander (7-2) In one of the rare instances of my being on the same page as the UFC, I had sky-high hopes for Joanderson Brito, a hard-striking, fast-grappling featherweight out of Chute Boxe with some fantastic wins under his belt even before the UFC came calling. Instead he served as a coming-out party for Bill Algeo, who'd been struggling to catch on for several years, revealing the holes in Brito's defense and conditioning. Brito then rebounded by knocking the tough-as-nails Andre Fili the gently caress out in under a minute for just the first time in his career. (Andre Fili then rebounded from that loss by taking a hard-fought decision over Bill Algeo. It's like poetry. It rhymes.) Brito was initially going to get a solid test in the form of kickboxer Melsik Baghdasaryan, but Baghdasaryan busted his hand, so we've instead got late regional replacement Lucas Alexander. And thus, we have the constant issue of how to rate regional fighters who've only fought regional competition. On one hand, the tape I've seen of Alexander isn't bad. He's got fast striking, he's got some particularly vicious kicks and he knows how to use them to maintain range. On the other, it's much easier to look good when you're fighting in THE COMBATAGON, which looks like you could reach 2/3 of the way across it if you laid down, and your opponent is a 5-4 guy whose only forms of offense are pulling guard and jumping on heel hooks. Mostly, though, Alexander's takedown defense seems shaky, and for a guy as powerful at dumping and controlling people as Brito, that's a liability. Joanderson Brito by submission. WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Piera Rodriguez (8-0) vs Sam Hughes (7-4) Our other women's fight for the night is a prospect test. Piera "La Fiera" Rodriguez is one of the UFC's more potentially promising pickups for the women's divisions: An undefeated strawweight, an LFA champion and a deeply dedicated sprawl-and-brawler who managed a successful debut against Kay Hansen earlier this year. Her fast hands and her scrambling game were both well-showcased. Unfortunately, so was her occasionally porous takedown defense. Against Sam "Sampage" Hughes, who was on the bubble of release after three losses before pulling together a two-fight winning streak on the back of her constant, inexhaustible wrestling attacks, that's going to be a problem. Piera has more than enough striking power and volume to hurt Hughes, but she's going to have to defend against the constant threat of takedowns to use them. I think she'll manage. But it's going to be tough. Piera Rodriguez by decision. FLYWEIGHT: C.J. Vergara (10-3-1) vs Tatsuro Taira (11-0) The UFC really wants a successful, marketable Japanese fighter, they're just constantly bummed out that they're flyweights. Tatsuro Taira has a lot of hype thanks to his undefeated record, his regular submission victories and his immaculately-cut pageboy haircuts, but the big surprise from his UFC debut was the right hand that repeatedly dropped Carlos Candelario on his rear end. In light of his standup improvements, the UFC's giving him a stiffer test in his second appearance: C.J. Vergara is a Pete Spratt Muay Thai student, which, as any Muay Thai fan knows, translates largely into booming, looping punches. He has solid body kicks and dangerous knees within clinch range, but his primary method of closing the distance is big overhands and wide hooks. In other words: They're curious to see if Taira can pick him off with his seemingly improved straights, or if the additional pressure and power will crack him. Personally: Tatsuro Taira by submission. Vergara's almost certainly the stronger and more powerful fighter, but he commits enough to his attacks that he'll be open for Taira's somewhat unorthodox single-leg entries, and on the ground, he's in trouble. WELTERWEIGHT: Mike Jackson (1-1 (1)) vs Pete Rodriguez (4-1) We're going to spend more time than usual talking about the curtain-jerking fight, because this is probably the last time we're going to see Mike Jackson, and boy, he deserves a professional eulogy. Mike Jackson was not supposed to be in the UFC. They did not want or need him. He was not, in fact, a professional fighter when he made his UFC debut. But WWE and AEW champion CM Punk was having a fever-dream fantasy of transitioning into mixed martial arts competition in his late thirties after having already spent more than a decade and a half destroying his body in wrestling rings, and Dana White saw dollar signs. Thus began the CM Punk Sweepstakes, a mini-talent search to determine what kind of rookie the UFC could pick up to fight him. They ultimately had Mickey Gall, a young, athletically promising grappler who'd already turned pro after banking an amateur championship, face Mike Jackson, a photographer entering his mid-thirties who'd participated in a single amateur bout almost half a decade ago. Gall choked him out in forty-five seconds and went on to destroy Punk in two minutes. That could have been the end of the experiment, but CM Punk wanted another try, so they two years later they brought back the understudy. Mike Jackson was 0-1 and had in the interim lost his one and only Muay Thai fight, CM Punk was 0-1 and had two more years to train and prepare, it was quite possibly the only realistic way to give Punk a chance at a UFC victory. And in one of the most deeply, deeply unfortunate spectacles in pay-per-view history, Jackson not only defeated but embarrassed Punk. It had been one thing to get quickly dispatched by a young, talented fighter; Jackson, who was neither young nor particularly talented as a fighter not only dominated Punk but intentionally drew the fight out, foregoing possible finishes in favor of forcing a bloody, exhausted Punk to throw more desperate, pointless offense that he could easily pick off. Jackson won a 30-26 that one outlet scored as low as 30-23, which I'm not sure is actually possible without point deductions. The dream was over, the story was over, we could all move on with our lives. Except Jackson pissed hot for marijuana. Dana White was already furious with Mike Jackson, ranting to the press about how disgraceful his non-fight-finishing antics had been to the sport, which was definitely his primary concern as opposed to being mad about the total loss of a revenue stream; the fight being turned into a No Contest only made things worse. Jackson still, technically, had a contract with the UFC, and it was no longer enough to simply let him go. He had to suffer. For a year and a half, Dana White tried to book Mike Jackson against his equivalent of a professional hitman: Dean "The Sniper" Barry, a young, 4-1 power puncher out of Ireland who'd knocked out every opponent he faced in the first round. Ordinarily, the regional nature of his competition would call his skills into question, but--it was Mike Jackson. This fight wasn't about prospects or divisions: This was about revenge. And as the fight began, it looked like Dana would get his way. Barry came out throwing heat, Jackson came out playing and landing nothing of consequence, and it seemed like a matter of time before Barry put him out. And then, two minutes into the fight, Dean Barry landed a spinning back kick square on Jackson's balls. Two and a half minutes of Jackson rolling around on the canvas yelling "my balls, that motherfucker" later, Barry got a warning--technically the second of the match, after a near-miss with a knee earlier--and the fight resumed. Once again, Jackson ate punches and kicks, and once again, the fight seemed like the foregone conclusion it was meant to be. And then, while just a few punches away from a possible TKO, Barry rammed his middle finger into Jackson's eyesocket. After two and a half fouls, and given the gravity of the poke, the foul was ruled intentional, giving Mike Jackson the victory by disqualification. Mike Jackson, six years after his debut, had a UFC victory. I could tell you about Pete "Dead Game" Rodriguez, and how he was trading punches back and forth with Jack Della Maddalenna with some success before he was inevitably knocked out. I could tell you about his surprisingly sneaky body shots and his tough chin, and how even though he's giving up almost half a foot in height there's only a 1" reach difference between them. I can tell you Pete Rodriguez will win by TKO. That does not matter. You will see him again down the line fighting the latest Contender Series victor, be it Indiana wrestler Bobby Dirtroad, Brazilian Muay Thai specialist Sanderson Wilva, or New York's latest Sean O'Malley impersonator, Zazz "I'm The Guy You Like But Better" McFuckyou. He'll be back. Mike Jackson probably won't be. He's turning 38 next March, his UFC career has already lasted far longer than either of them intended, he's got poo poo to do. And he doesn't need any more UFC victories. He already beat Dana White.
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Oct 12, 2022 21:52
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Marching Powder posted:e: wec53 has to be up there as one of the most stacked cards ever https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WEC_53 WEC4Lyfe. Pictures lost to time but you can look at the GDT and see the kick's aftermath: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3373859&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1
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Oct 12, 2022 22:16
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kensei posted:WEC4Lyfe. Pictures lost to time but you can look at the GDT and see the kick's aftermath: that was really fun. i'd forgotten so many details about the event (the audience heavily boo'd this card) and the posting culture. the highlight though was people trying to come to grips with the concept of dominick cruz being a really good fighter. it was hilarious. quote:petition to invade the wec production meeting and use illegal methods (don't ask what the methods are!!!) to make the commentators refer to That poo poo Dominick Cruz Does With His Feet as "footslavery" rather than "footwork" hearing people refer to him as the dancing weirdo who talks like a molester and then gradually watch as the thread collectively starts to appreciate that what he's doing looks dumb as hell but it loving works. miss manyak as well. that dude knew a shitload about fighting and blessed cruz straight after the win with an assessment that a lot of people weren't ready to make in their hearts. i want to watch pettis / bendo again now because the thread was actually losing their minds before the showtime kick. it's never sprung to mind as one of the best fights ever for me and i'm starting to wonder why. congrats on op'ing a part of history.
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Oct 12, 2022 23:44
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Marching Powder posted:congrats on op'ing a part of history. Yeah, it was a great walk down memory lane. I like to think I pioneered some of the OPs you see today, so thanks 
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Oct 13, 2022 00:28
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WEC was loving magic and got me through a really rough patch in my life. I was working a really lovely job and watching an event a night off my hard drive. I finished that around the time I got a better job and became a lot less miserable. WEC was in such a perfect sweet spot where it had a lot of top tier talent but also a lot of just fun dudes who weren't going to be champ but had great fights. The matchmaking helped. A good chunk of my favourite fights happened there. Torres/Mizugaki is an all timer, as is Condit/Miura Also, I'm genuinely surprised Assuncao is still around. He went from being a good but uninspiring perennial contender/bridesmaid to being on a pretty nasty losing streak.
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Oct 13, 2022 01:16
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Marching Powder posted:nothing to prove When asked about teaching his opponents techniques Oleynik basically pointed out that unless they practice defending the technique for like 5000 hours before a theoretical rematch they would still be powerless to stop him from doing it
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Oct 13, 2022 02:30
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Fentry posted:When asked about teaching his opponents techniques Oleynik basically pointed out that unless they practice defending the technique for like 5000 hours before a theoretical rematch they would still be powerless to stop him from doing it it must be weird to be physically massive but also one of the most dangerous fighters on earth. kensei posted:Yeah, it was a great walk down memory lane. I like to think I pioneered some of the OPs you see today, so thanks yeah you definitely did. felt like you were every op till you weren't. i wonder what it was like to be an mma fan who wasn't on this forum. i've always been fascinated with mma since i rented the first few ufc's on tape in 97 but i was never a hardcore fan till i found my way here a decade and change later. as an aside, does anyone else remember a dunc(?) post with ascii art in the style of the mass effect dialogue wheel?
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Oct 13, 2022 02:54
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CarlCX posted:CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 34: THE SOUND OF SILENCE This has to be the worst card that UFC has ever put on, right?
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Oct 13, 2022 05:07
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https://twitter.com/forthepeople/status/1580214394457317376
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Oct 13, 2022 05:33
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blue footed boobie posted:This has to be the worst card that UFC has ever put on, right? So far!
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Oct 13, 2022 05:43
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BlindSite posted:So far! Lol. Contrasting the certainty of the community that the show time kick could not be topped with the certainty that the UFC will put on a worse card is amusing. I might watch this. Rock bottom expectations can lead to a mediocre card seeming pretty decent..
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Oct 13, 2022 05:58
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blue footed boobie posted:This has to be the worst card that UFC has ever put on, right? 
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Oct 13, 2022 06:01
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Marching Powder posted:yeah you definitely did. felt like you were every op till you weren't. drat, same goes for belt holders.
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Oct 13, 2022 06:18
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kensei posted:Yeah, it was a great walk down memory lane. I like to think I pioneered some of the OPs you see today, so thanks My stuff wouldn't exist without yours, CommonShore's and Mekchu's, so I'm fuckin' grateful for you. blue footed boobie posted:This has to be the worst card that UFC has ever put on, right? The "hey, people in a region, this is for you" cards were so commonly a special kind of bad. This German show was a numbered loving event:  But in terms of just straight up regular-rear end fight cards where there's no excuse for it to be as bad as it is, Grasso/Araujo's definitely one of the worst.
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Oct 13, 2022 06:34
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CarlCX posted:"hey, people in a region, this is for you" cards were so commonly a special kind of bad. i was fully expecting dogshit for a brisbane australia card. not only was the entire card really fun i got to witness hunt / bigfoot 1 live and personally i think it's still the best heavyweight fight i've ever seen. i also had no idea a smidge over 11k people could make noise like that. couldn't hear the bell to start the fifth. incredible energy.
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Oct 13, 2022 09:36
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i would really appreciate it if someone could find me the gdt for hunt / bigfoot 1. i've been trying to work the search function for like 10 minutes. i am a failure.
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Oct 13, 2022 09:49
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Good to learn that to this very day if I so much as see Yushin Okami's name written down I immediately hear "Yushin Okami! Thankyou! Yushin Okami!" in my head.
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Oct 13, 2022 10:09
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Marching Powder posted:i would really appreciate it if someone could find me the gdt for hunt / bigfoot 1. i've been trying to work the search function for like 10 minutes. i am a failure. Unfortunately you still can't search archives. Hitting the last page of the subforum shows all threads from 2014 so I figured it would be in there instead of the live forums. Anyway here's the thread: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3591575 The OP seems to mostly consist of a literal food recipe.
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Oct 13, 2022 10:42
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all the best OPs had a recipe for some fight night appropriate snacks
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Oct 13, 2022 10:45
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Brut posted:Unfortunately you still can't search archives. Hitting the last page of the subforum shows all threads from 2014 so I figured it would be in there instead of the live forums. legend. much love.
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Oct 13, 2022 11:46
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Quoting this for uhhh, reasonsquote:MMA Snack Rating ™ Vegetable and Chicken Sausage Rolls
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Oct 13, 2022 13:11
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I made the proposed snack a few times. There was one that was like mini smokies cooked in some kind of trashy bbq sauce and it was bad but not in an "I made this wrong or it's supposed to taste different" way, rather "the people who eat this like it to taste like this". I ate it all anyway.
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Oct 13, 2022 15:09
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