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What will cause the heavyweight title to stay vacant this time? This poll is closed. |
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| Jon Jones goes on a pre-fight bender in Vegas |
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3 | 8.11% |
| Jon Jones goes on a post-fight bender in Vegas |
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1 | 2.70% |
| Jon Jones goes on a mid-fight bender in Vegas |
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4 | 10.81% |
| Jon Jones tests positive for supercocaine, which USADA spends the next three months pretending is normal |
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18 | 48.65% |
| A well-fought majority draw |
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1 | 2.70% |
| No Contest on account of simultaneous dick kicks |
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10 | 27.03% |
| Total: | 37 votes | ||
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GSP was even fighting in the UFC when Masvidal was in the same company. He won the middleweight title while Masvidal was getting bodied by Demian Msia.
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Mar 22, 2023 05:21
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I was just thinking about this guy and an article hit my news feed: https://www.columbian.com/news/2023/mar/20/ahead-of-next-mma-fight-vancouvers-ed-herman-branches-into-ownership-promotion/
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Mar 22, 2023 05:22
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Marching Powder posted:lawler is the greatest ww champion. 
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Mar 22, 2023 05:25
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point taken. i still can't believe that happened. i love that serra is emoting for me.
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Mar 22, 2023 05:43
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and matt brown. if you haven't seen matt brown vs eric silva, stop what you're doing. it's insane. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8utq0RNZ2jE
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Mar 22, 2023 05:46
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i genuinely feel for eric silva. the loving pressure is relentless. matt brown rules.
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Mar 22, 2023 06:01
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I don't think anything in MMA will ever blow me away as much as Serra-GSP 1, it still seems surreal
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Mar 22, 2023 06:54
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Honestly, just that whole magical period of time where Matt Brown was the elected disposal unit for rejected prospects. Erick Silva, Stephen Thompson, Jordan Mein, they were all these hyped, skilled young dudes and even in Silva's case people still thought he was going to break out and be ranked any second now, and then Brown just threw all three of them in a loving dumpster.
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Mar 22, 2023 06:58
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The thing about Rogan's point about fighting eras isn't hugely off the mark, he just completely debunks himself by picking one of an incredibly small number of fighters to whom it simply doesn't apply, GSP, and then he uses a fighter who wouldn't land a single punch to double down on the self debunk. In a list of all time greats from the past who you could argue would still be the clear best all time in their division now, if in their prime, the list is like: Clearly best ever at their weightclass, no one else is close: GSP, Jon Jones (LHW) More arguable examples: Anderson, Khabib (very short reign though) And you'd maybe say prime Aldo & prime Max makes prime Volk a fun fight, but I'd favour Volk. (Arguably, we had prime Max vs prime Volk?)
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Mar 22, 2023 07:19
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Josuke Higashikata posted:
Mighty mouse.
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Mar 22, 2023 07:42
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Boooooooooo
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Mar 22, 2023 08:08
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Marching Powder posted:gsp is without a doubt the best fighter to ever fight at welterweight. he would beat anyone at his peak. he's too good. rogan is a loving moron. gsp at his peak was just absurd. when he hosed his knees up he went from the best athlete in MMA history to, like, one of the top 5 athletes in MMA history
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Mar 22, 2023 09:09
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https://streamable.com/fepyca koscheck wrestled his entire life only to lift a french canadian with no wrestling background into the air and still end up on his back. lmao.
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Mar 22, 2023 09:12
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https://twitter.com/AlexPereiraUFC/status/1637496467504898050
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Mar 22, 2023 09:13
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The vibe on this forum when Robbie Lawler was ww champ was something else too. It was like everything came full circle.
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Mar 22, 2023 09:30
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Josuke Higashikata posted:The thing about Rogan's point about fighting eras isn't hugely off the mark, he just completely debunks himself by picking one of an incredibly small number of fighters to whom it simply doesn't apply, GSP, and then he uses a fighter who wouldn't land a single punch to double down on the self debunk. I think that tweet has some pretty deliberate lovely emphasis. I didn't take it when I heard it at the gym as Rogan saying that Masvidal is on a different level to GSP, I took it as him more saying that he was on a different level now, to the competition that GSP faced - at the time. GSP was the best we've seen from his era, but I think there's a pretty big gap between the WW division now to when GSP was king of it and the sports supposed to go that way really. Nierbo posted:The vibe on this forum when Robbie Lawler was ww champ was something else too. It was like everything came full circle. He was a must watch every single time and everyone was on board with him winning no matter what. Truly a joyus time.
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Mar 22, 2023 09:52
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I didn't start watching MMA until 2021 so every time someone posts clips from old fights, I'm amazed at how much the on screen graphics look like placeholder HUD elements from a video game that never came out.
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Mar 22, 2023 09:56
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BlindSite posted:GSP was the best we've seen from his era, but I think there's a pretty big gap between the WW division now to when GSP was king of it and the sports supposed to go that way really. i think it's the good division that's improved the least, though i think it's largely because of the horrible booking since the division is not lacking for talent. but compared to flyweight through lightweight which have all become incredible must-watch divisions, welterweight's just kinda there except for when you get the odd well matched high level fight. better than middleweight (though nowhere near as funny) and lhw + hw but that's not saying much.
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Mar 22, 2023 11:03
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Nierbo posted:The vibe on this forum when Robbie Lawler was ww champ was something else too. It was like everything came full circle. It was honestly awesome watching him FINALLY catch the UFC title after years of sorta good but middling success both in the UFC and out of it. That run he went on was a beautiful orchestra of violence years in the making.
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Mar 22, 2023 11:33
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Marching Powder posted:Mighty mouse. Yes, good shout.
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Mar 22, 2023 14:26
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Even though many of Anderson's title challengers could challenge Pereira, I'm pretty sure that Pereira would beat the best Anderson Silva who ever stepped into the cage even if only from a styles-make-fights standpoint.
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Mar 22, 2023 14:35
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Marching Powder posted:and matt brown. if you haven't seen matt brown vs eric silva, stop what you're doing. it's insane. Eric Silva seems like he was on the receiving end of many fighter's best performances. Silva v. Fitch is by far Fitch's best fight ever.
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Mar 22, 2023 14:50
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Nierbo posted:The vibe on this forum when Robbie Lawler was ww champ was something else too. It was like everything came full circle. I was pretty ready for Charles Oliveira to be the next version of the journeyman-makes-good champion that everybody backs.
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Mar 22, 2023 16:30
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Mr. Nice! posted:Eric Silva seems like he was on the receiving end of many fighter's best performances. Silva v. Fitch is by far Fitch's best fight ever. I was talking about this fight a while ago, where someone lost years off their life in the ring.
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Mar 22, 2023 16:30
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CommonShore posted:Even though many of Anderson's title challengers could challenge Pereira, I'm pretty sure that Pereira would beat the best Anderson Silva who ever stepped into the cage even if only from a styles-make-fights standpoint. out of all the GOAT candidates (imo gsp/aldo > anderson/jones > MM/holloway/khabib/etc.) i think his style has aged the worst since the level of striking in MMA has so dramatically increased since he was a champ. but then i also think he's a huge reason why it's gotten so much better. rewatching some of those old fights it doesn't even feel fair, anderson feels like he's three steps ahead of everyone in the striking and 200 steps ahead in the mind games. and he was such a precise clinical finisher when he had people hurt. if he was in his prime i think he'd still be an incredible fighter and i think he'd beat the current adesanya, but not the current perreira. whittaker would be a really really hard fight for him with all the feinting and the wrestling and the high level footwork. he'd probably beat everyone else but in competitive fights rather than with ease. actually i don't even know when his prime was since he kept improving into his mid 30's, maybe the vitor fight? the forrest fight? which is also making me reconsider if he should be in the gsp/aldo tier because that's insane when you think about it.
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Mar 22, 2023 16:59
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I think the canonical Anderson Silva matches up pretty well with a lot of folks, but I also think you'd see him get eaten up by, like, Kelvin Gastelum and Bo Nickal, and that's a world of depression I would prefer to avoid.
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Mar 22, 2023 17:57
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Condit was so cool
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Mar 22, 2023 18:25
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People underestimate just how much MMA has developed in the last 10 years. Even the broad strategic strokes of a fight were different, before all the new tactical wrinkles. "Good" wrestling defense was having a fast, heavy sprawl. The average striking pace was glacial in comparison. People who weren't BJJ world champions were happy to work from the bottom for extended periods of time to try to catch submissions. That said, prime GSP would wrestle prime Masvidal into oblivion.
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Mar 22, 2023 18:45
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Lawler had great fights, but he (should have) won just 1 of the 5 UFC title fights he was involved in. Still bummed Condit didn't get to be recognized as the rightful champion for at least a couple of months.
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Mar 22, 2023 18:46
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Tom Clancy is Dead posted:People underestimate just how much MMA has developed in the last 10 years. Even the broad strategic strokes of a fight were different, before all the new tactical wrinkles. its not even that, Masvidal was being wrestled and outstruck to oblivion by lightweight Gilbert Melendez when GSPs career was winding down and he he still dominated for another 2 years but looked beatable against Condit and Hendricks its like the worst possible comparison point
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Mar 22, 2023 19:50
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CarlCX posted:I think the canonical Anderson Silva matches up pretty well with a lot of folks, but I also think you'd see him get eaten up by, like, Kelvin Gastelum and Bo Nickal, and that's a world of depression I would prefer to avoid. However, on people who insisted on striking, I think Anderson would still completely hold up. Foul Fowl posted:if he was in his prime i think he'd still be an incredible fighter and i think he'd beat the current adesanya, but not the current perreira. Agree on Adesanya. Agree on Pereira, mostly cuz he's just huge. Whittaker I don't see Anderson having much trouble with. He was so good at laying traps and finding accurate counters. Whittaker's offensive cadence would give Anderson a lot of opportunities, and generally starting from range would give Anderson the best chance at managing down the pace of the fight.
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Mar 22, 2023 21:21
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kimbo305 posted:Anderson's wrestling defense was always his biggest weakness, so yeah, even mediocre strikers who could come in multiple times around and get hands on Anderson would score well. My stance on Anderson-Pereira is mostly based on my belief that Anderson's striking style was optimized for eating up people who don't know how to strike very well and/or for opponents who engage cautiously. Pereira is neither of those things.
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Mar 22, 2023 21:32
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Fight Week, Pets Week - ONE on Prime edition Sadly a little thin in terms of quantity, but what pets are there are v good Itsuki Hirata's dog  Danial Williams has a pooch 
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Mar 22, 2023 21:38
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That's giblert melendez tyvm
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Mar 22, 2023 21:54
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Its a silly thought experiment, since we will never know for sure. But 2010 GSP would beat Usman and Edwards and Colby.
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Mar 22, 2023 22:16
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CommonShore posted:My stance on Anderson-Pereira is mostly based on my belief that Anderson's striking style was optimized for eating up people who don't know how to strike very well and/or for opponents who engage cautiously. Pereira is neither of those things. I think the cautiously thing is because people saw the Leben fight and then the Franklin fights and thought "oh drat I will get the most brutal rear end kicking of my life if I engage with this guy full on". I think he would eat up Pereira real bad. I think Rockhold, Yoel, and GSP all would have great shots against him though. Fozzy The Bear posted:Its a silly thought experiment, since we will never know for sure. But 2010 GSP would beat Usman and Edwards and Colby. yeah. I think "if you could transport their skills/body composition/etc. into the appropriate weight class, in their prime, who would win", it would be: 1. Jones 2. GSP 3. Mighty Mouse 4. Khabib 5. Aldo 6. Volk 7. BJ 8. Cejudo 9. DC 10. Anderson then Usman, Cruz, Conor, Stipe, etc. Not saying this has anything to do with accomplishments, just "who would win". Anderson is one of my all-time favorite fighters but he just never really had the takedown defense against truly elite wrestlers, I don't think. I think there's a big gap between #1 and #2/3. Then another big gap between #3 and #4. Then another big gap. It's fun picturing a heavyweight Dominick Cruz. DO YALL WANT A BOXC fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Mar 22, 2023 |
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Mar 22, 2023 22:20
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A lot of Dustin Poirier deniers itt 
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Mar 22, 2023 22:42
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I'll deny whatever I want. Dustin Poirier, Christ, my sexual feelings for other men. Doesn't matter, I'm a loving warrior. just me me bang bro
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Mar 22, 2023 22:44
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It's weird to realize I have now officially done a full year's worth of these. CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 52: THE LONG WAY UP  SATURDAY, MARCH 25TH FROM THE AT&T CENTER IN SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS PRELIMS 1:00 PM PST/4:00 PM EST VIA ESPN+ | MAIN CARD 4:00 PM PST/7:00 PM EST VIA ESPN+ So, do you feel like you kind of need to take a big, deep breath, too? It has been an exhausting month for combat sports. Multiple comebacks, multiple retirements, Jon Jones, the heavyweight championship, the fall of Valentina Shevchenko, the ignominious return of Colby Covington to immediate title contention, the third scratching of Arjan Bhullar--we've been through a lot in an awful short amount of time. And the UFC knows it, and clearly, the UFC is tired, too, because you have the surest sign of the company giving up on a card there is: Only 13 fights, and only one that dares go above 170 pounds. And that's fine. There's still some real good stuff to be had here. But the UFC's ready for a break, and in fact, next week is the first in two and a half months without a UFC event. So soak this one in, and bury the leftover violence underground so you can dig it up in April, and we'll all get through our last bits of residual winter together.  yeah, they kinda went on vacation early MAIN EVENT: CROWNING A SUBCONTENDER  BANTAMWEIGHT: Marlon Vera (21-7-1, #3) vs Cory Sandhagen (15-4, #5)Boy, it's hard not to feel like the equation of this fight has changed. Two weeks ago, in previewing Petr Yan vs Merab Dvalishvili, I talked about this month's slate of fights as an unofficial bantamweight tournament--#2 vs #3 in Yan and Merab, #4 vs #5 in Vera and Sandhagen, with a clear likelihood that the winners would face each other later this year in a title eliminator. And I still think that's more likely than not. Here's the thing: You may notice Marlon Vera is not #4 anymore. I assure you, he did not have a fight in the last 14 days. He's gone up a rank because Merab so thoroughly drowned Yan, the former champion, that he killed Yan's stock as a contender. It was a career-best performance against a career-toughest challenge, and arguably, the first truly unequivocal loss of Yan's entire career. It was so impressive a fight that it lifted Merab up from an undervalued prospect to a clear #1 contender. While that doesn't change the whole equation--I promise you the UFC will try to give Sean O'Malley a title shot before Merab no matter who has the belt--it does mean the onus is on Marlon Vera and Cory Sandhagen to not just win, but win in a way that gets people invested in their contendership. But that style of fight is exactly what got Vera this far. Marlon "Chito" Vera's closing in on a decade with the UFC, but up until just three years ago he was looked at as a journeyman: Too tough to finish, better than most, but just not top-fifteen material. The UFC, at the very, least, agreed: As early as mid-2019 they were trying to book Vera against the still-new Sean O'Malley in an attempt to feed the credibility of a longtime veteran to their young new favorite. And it was going their way--until, while trying to escape Vera's circling footwork, O'Malley hurt his leg and got knocked out minutes later. And, of all things, that became the hallmark of the hottest streak of his career. Chito's success has increased at an inverse proportion to how bad--relatively--he looks. He spent two minutes getting kicked by O'Malley, then power-walked him until his knees fell apart and elbowed him to sleep. He got outworked and outwrestled by Frankie Edgar right up until Vera slammed a foot upside his chin and ended him. Rob Font outstruck him in every round of their fight, but Vera found a way to almost knock him out in four out of those five rounds and win a wide victory anyway. Dominick Cruz was outworking, outwrestling, and outstriking Marlon at an almost 2:1 clip right up until the moment Vera destroyed his nose and knocked him cold with a single kick to the head. That's how Marlon made it to the top five. It's one of the rarest and scariest traits a fighter can have--confidence in, and mastery of, their abilities. Most fighters will struggle for dominance in every second of a fight for fear of losing the advantage at any level of competition: Marlon will let himself lose 4/5 of a round against some of the best fighters on the planet because he's just that certain he's going to find the shots he's looking for, and he is, demonstrably, correct. His ability to take punishment, his ability to maintain his energy level, and his absolute patience all let him pick his shots and execute on them flawlessly. Which is scary as hell when you're fighting guys like Cory Sandhagen. Sandhagen walked into the UFC as one of the top regional featherweights in the world back in 2018, he dropped down to bantamweight after one fight, he was in the top ten one year later and he's been there ever since. His speed, his range, and the expertise with which he landed and got the hell out of the way meant he could get in the cage with absolute monsters like John Lineker, Iuri Alcântara and Marlon Moraes and not just escape with his life, but with sometimes incredible victories. Because he, too, has a particular mastery of his weapons. He long jabs kept Lineker from flooring him, his counter-grappling kept Raphael Assunção off of him, and his loving spinning wheel kicks and flying knees floored people like Moraes and Frankie Edgar. Even as depleted and close to retirement as he was, Edgar was still enough of a tough, gritty competitor to have pressed top fighters like Max Holloway a couple fights before and Marlon Vera just one fight later; Sandhagen timed him out so well that he simply deleted him with a flying knee in thirty seconds. He's a phenomenal fighter. But he's not a top contender. Cory Sandhagen is in a unique position. He's the odds-on favorite to win tonight, but all of the momentum is on Marlon's side. Sandhagen's 8-3 in the UFC, and each of those three were title eliminators, and each time, Sandhagen blew it. In 2020 he suffered the only stoppage loss of his career when future champion Aljamain Sterling effortlessly choked him out in just ninety seconds, in July of 2021 he came razor-close but lost a coinflip decision to former champion TJ Dillashaw thanks in no small part to Dillashaw's wrestling, and three months later he got an interim championship shot against Petr Yan, ate the first knockdown of his career and lost a wide decision. He's been to the top of the mountain and he's been repeatedly thrown off. Or, to put it more bluntly if disrespectfully: Marlon Vera has fought his way out of being considered a gatekeeper and is fighting to be a contender; Cory Sandhagen has fought his way into to being considered a gatekeeper and is fighting to escape. And I'm not optimistic about his chances. Cory Sandhagen is one of the best, most well-rounded fighters in the division, but he's also demonstrated a difficulty with pressure. Aljo and Yan, for their many differences, beat him in essentially the same way: Cutting off his escape routes, forcing him to fight against his own range and overwhelming him with pressure. All of those things are the things Marlon Vera has been using to murder top ten opponents for the past year and a half. This should be a great fight. Sandhagen's active, fast and dangerous, and Vera's style means he'll have a lot of opportunities to hurt him. But on a long enough timeframe, I'm still picking MARLON VERA BY TKO. CO-MAIN EVENT: AISH AISH WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Holly Holm (14-6, #4) vs Yana Santos (14-6 (1), #6) Do you remember believing in the unlimited possibilities of youth? Or, more specifically: Do you remember being young, and the sense of excitement and onrushing freedom you felt about how amazing it would be when you became an adult? There's a sense of optimism that's not so much unfettered as uninformed. You have no concept of the responsibilities that lay ahead of you, or the paralysis of watching doors close behind you, or the capacity let alone the experience to understand the feeling of life continually pressing new layers of complexity atop you. You just know that what you have now is a smaller, thinner world, a world where the walls are both visible and imposed, and you just know that one day you're going to break out of them and all of the potential you feel coursing through your veins will surround you in glory. And then you, somehow, make it out of high school. And you go through college. And you get a job. Somewhere along the line you realize it's been ten years since you felt that excitement about the world. You're not unhappy--being an adult's pretty cool sometimes!--but something doesn't feel right. Something's missing. You expand. Your world grows and contracts like the ebbing of the tide. Maybe you've found a special person, or some special people, and maybe you've had kids, or maybe you're someone important to someone else's kids. Maybe you've found importance in yourself, and you rise to the dawn content with your own company. Maybe every breath you take flows a sense of wellbeing into your lungs that reminds you of a life you've lived just the way you wanted to. And then your head hits your pillow and you stare upwards for hours at night, looking for meaning in the crannies in your popcorn ceiling, because something still isn't right. There's supposed to be more. You're doing the right things, and you're building the right foundations, and you're patiently waiting for the moment that it coalesces and you feel alive for the first time. But it's just not coming. And you don't know why. And for the first time you're starting to wonder if you missed your chance to find it. Your bones creak every time you move, now. You still wake up in the morning and salute the sun, but the light isn't as warm as it used to be. Each hour coasts interchangeably through the next. A decade ago you joked that you regularly had to remind yourself what day of the week it was; you realize that at some point the passage of time fused so completely that you can't remember the month anymore, not without having to stop, and think, and look around to reorient yourself. Has this much time really passed? God. Is there really still this much time left? It's years before you realize that, at some point, you began counting your life not in distance from its origin, but distance 'til its end. No, not counting. Anticipating. There aren't any guidepoints anymore. Everything is a featureless, frictionless void. Your room is the kind of white that can only exist when someone is perpetually responsible for keeping it clean of all unwelcome impositions of color or motion. The same show has been playing on the same television in the same corner for as long as you can remember. And you're tired. You're so tired. But it's a tiredness that's cut with a cold, sharp anger. It wasn't supposed to be like this, you tell yourself. Something, somewhere, was supposed to happen. But it never did. A monitor beeps, then stops. Your eyes shut and one last, ragged breath passes your lips, desperately seeking the one moment of engagement it spent a century failing to find. A struggle ends. A horn sounds. You open your eyes. Thirty minutes ago you started watching a Holly Holm fight. You knew what would happen, just like it always does when Holly Holm fights--nothing--and you gave that half hour of your life away. It lived, died, and passed into eternity on the back of punches that could never have landed. A flight of aishing angels sang it to its rest. As you rub the dark visions from your eyes, you see on Twitter that Holly Holm just signed a new six-fight contract. And you wonder how much more of your life you have to lose. HOLLY HOLM BY DECISION. MAIN CARD: COULD YOU JUST STOP CALLING YOURSELF 'KGB' FOR AWHILE FEATHERWEIGHT: Nate Landwehr (16-4) vs Austin Lingo (9-1)This is the rare 'gently caress it, you both lost opponents, fight each other' booking. And it's going to be kind of a slopfest, and it should be great. Nate "The Train" Landwehr has had a weird loving time in the UFC. 3-2 doesn't look like a good record on paper, but context is king. His two losses were against the eternally hot and cold Herbert Burns and Julian Erosa, and his three victories were against the incredibly tough Darren Elkins, the exceptionally skilled Ľudovít Klein, and the massively hyped David Onama--and he beat Onama to a near 10-7 round, he turned championship kickboxer Klein into a desperate wrestler, and in one of those things that shouldn't happen in real life, he beat the incredibly tough Elkins so badly that he ended the second round by outboxing Elkins with one hand while holding the other behind his back. It's impressive. It's fun! And it also gets in his way all the goddamn time. Here's the problem with showboating: If you're winning enough to showboat, but you're not winning enough to end the fight, you're probably not actually winning enough to showboat. Landwehr was dogging Elkins in the second round, but he lost the third. He scored a 10-8 against David Onama, but wound up only taking a majority decision because he let the third stay too close. Even the Klein fight, his clearest victory, saw him getting punched across the cage. And he wasn't supposed to have this fight. Neither was Lingo, in fact. I wrote about Austin Lingo for his originally scheduled fight two weeks ago: CarlCX posted:Austin Lingo has been out of action with injuries since last we saw him in mid-2021, but even though his march-forward-through-hell-to-punch-you style won him the night against Luis Saldaña, he took a boatload of damage from the numerous punches and kicks he was quietly accepting as the consequences of his approach. And that included eating three crushing spinning back kicks to the gut. And one fight before that, against Jacob Kilburn, he got dropped by a spinning backfist. This is the problem with the straightforward approach: When you're constantly on a forward trajectory, it gets real easy for your opponents to figure out where you're going to be and exactly how much time they have to majestically pirouette before they boot you in your chest. That was an attempt to evaluate Lingo's chances against Ricardo Ramos, a fighter who spins more than he walks. But Ramos missed weight by a truly impressive nine pounds, or essentially an entire weight class, and two days later Nate Landwehr's original opponent for tonight, Alex "Bruce Leeroy" Caceres, pulled out. So the UFC smashed their action figures together. And boy, it's a very different fight for both men. Nate Landwehr was preparing for a tricky, long-limbed grappler with an unconventional kicking game; Austin Lingo was preparing for a human gyroscope. Who's got the easier adjustment to make? NATE LANDWEHR BY DECISION. We've watched Landwehr take out straightforward pressure fighters, and we've watched Lingo get eaten up by trickier, more multifaceted fighters. Landwehr outfighting him for two out of three rounds seems likely. WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Andrea Lee (13-6, #11) vs Maycee Barber (Maycee Barber (11-2, #13) Seriously, do you know why Andrea Lee calls herself "KGB" and wears hammer-and-sickle gear? It's because someone said she looked Russian once. Who was that someone? Her trainer, future and now ex-husband, whom she repeatedly publicly defended for having Aryan prison tattoos by assuring everyone he was a good person. Also he went to prison for shooting someone in front of his house who was sitting unarmed in a car because he was a cop and thought he could get away with it. Also they're now divorced because it turns out he was a horrible domestic abuser. Seriously, I am begging you to change your nickname. Andrea Lee is also, unfortunately, a fighter perpetually hoping for a comeback. Her tough-as-hell, decent-at-everything style has both kept her divisionally relevant for five years and kept her firmly stuck in its bottom half, be it thanks to fighters like Joanne Wood beating her at her own game, or fighters like Lauren Murphy beating her with raw physicality, or fighters like Roxanne Modafferi and Viviane Araujo beating her with sheer grappling expertise. It's Lee's ability to do everything pretty well but no single thing fantastically that gets her in trouble--be it with another fighter's power or the judges siding against her. But boy, the judges sure don't have that problem with Maycee Barber. As a general rule, if you came from Dana White's Contender Series and you've been handed the promotionally-approved nickname "The Future," there's a good chance that a) you've been selected as a personal marketing darling and b) I dislike you. Both things, in this case, are true. Barber's not a particularly exciting fighter--she likes to grind people out in the clinch, wear them down, and either knock them out in the back half of the fight or coast to a decision--and after getting outgrappled by Roxanne Modafferi and outstruck by Alexa Grasso she really should have fallen into the treacherous three-fight-skid territory where prospects go to die, but she was rescued by the numerically-voted worst decision of 2021, beating Miranda Maverick by inexplicably winning rounds where she was outstruck, outgrappled, and spent minutes fighting off submission attempts. And the UFC, as it does with its favorites, rebuilt her. They gave her Montana De La Rosa, and after Maycee won, they gave her Jessica Eye, who was on a three-fight losing streak and about to retire. And now, lo and behold, THE FUTURE is here, on a three-fight winning streak, poised to break into the top ten. Funny how that happens. And it is, most likely, going to happen. For my managerial misgivings, Maycee Barber is a good fighter with a strong clinch game and some very irritating grappling pressure. Lee does her best work when she can either use her mobility to attack her opponents or use her ground defense to put them in danger; Barber's entire style is about negating both of those things. MAYCEE BARBER BY DECISION. FLYWEIGHT: Alex Perez (24-7, #6) vs Manel Kape (18-6, #9)This fight will rule, if it actually happens. Why do I have this fear that it won't? When Alex Perez fought Alexandre Pantoja back in July, I wrote this: CarlCX posted:It's an amazing matchup! I'd love to see it! It's not gonna happen. Let me present to you the Tapology listing for the last two years in the career of Alex Perez: Right?  Curses don't loving end. They just take a break. The gods allowed one Alex Perez fight to happen. They will not brook another. Manel Kape will fall through a crack in the sidewalk that leads to a hidden subterranean society of mole people who need him to be their savior. Perez will get into the shower the morning before the fight and undergo ultra-rapid carcinization and evolve into humanity's final form, the crab, and lawyers will spend the next decade arguing about the ability of crabs to legally consent to cagefights. Sealife activists will abduct him in the middle of his horizontal cagewalk and the UFC will go under from the ensuing lawsuit. This fight cannot happen. Mixed martial arts itself would crumble. But if it does, MANEL KAPE BY TKO because Perez likes to come out hot and Kape's going to be too fast and strong for him and he'll pay for his aggression with his soon to be decapodal blood. MIDDLEWEIGHT: Chidi Njokuani (22-8 (1)) vs Albert Duraev (15-4) Boy, this is one of those zero-sum fights. Both of these guys do one thing really well, and everything in their style centers around opportunities to Lauryn Hill people by doing that thing. Following in the footsteps of his older brother and World Extreme Cagefighting veteran Anthony, Chidi Njokuani is here to hit you very, very hard, from very, very far away. At 6'3" with 80" of reach he outranges most of the heavyweight division, let alone his middleweight home, and he's very adept at using it to snipe people before they can get anywhere close to him. This is why 64% of his victories have come by horribly violent knockout. And it's also why nearly every one of his eight losses have come by opponents getting through his range, throwing him to the ground and crushing him. Once he's down--he's down. Albert Duraev, conveniently, very much wants to take you down. He'll throw leg kicks and left hooks and jab his way in, and if he happens to hurt you then, hey, all the better, but the vast majority of his victories come from navigating his way into single-leg or clinch range, dragging his opponents to Hell, and drowning them in elbows and chokeholds. And it was working extremely well until last June, when his ten-fight, seven-year winning streak came to an abrupt end after Joaquin Buckley caught his takedown timing and kicked his eye shut. On one hand, Chidi Njokuani has been taken down at least once by every fighter in the UFC who has attempted to take him down. On the other, we've just seen Albert Duraev's takedowns get real desperate and real easy to counter once he gets hurt, and Chidi hurts everyone he fights. Between the size, power and range differences, I have a bad feeling. CHIDI NJOKUANI BY TKO. PRELIMS: EVERYONE'S THE CONTENDER SERIES NOW AND I SHOULD PROBABLY LEARN TO STOP CARING FEATHERWEIGHT: Daniel Pineda (27-14 (3)) vs Tucker Lutz (12-2) Daniel "The Pit" Pineda is in an extremely unique position: Over the last four years, most of his career hasn't actually happened. Since May of 2019 he's only had one win and one loss, but he's also managed three fight cancellations and a truly incredible three No Contests. First his entry into the 2019 Professional Fighters League season was delayed when Gadzhi Rabanov missed weight, then his championship fight was scrapped--and his two seasonal victories, both very impressive stoppages, were removed from his record--because he failed a steroid screen. A year later he was back in the UFC anyway, where he knocked off the then-rising Herbert Burns but got his lights turned out by Cub Swanson, and then he spent a round getting absolutely crushed by Andre Fili only to wind up with a No Contest again when Fili almost poked his eye out. And then Pineda tested positive for amphetamines and got suspended for another year. And then his return bout was cancelled. And now he's a 16-year, 40+ fight veteran with a previous UFC stint that hasn't fought in two years and only has one legal victory in half a decade. What do you do with a guy like Daniel Pineda, if you're the UFC? If you said 'you feed him to a Contender Series guy,' you've been reading these for too long and I'm so, so sorry. "Top Gun" Tucker Lutz, who I cannot believe passed on the opportunity to have a truck nuts-themed nickname, is a product of the ever-growing regional record-padding scene. Until his Contender Series debut he'd spent all but one career outing in Baltimore's SHOGUN FIGHTS. On one hand, he was its lightweight champion and belts are neat! On the other his competition was a combined 44-48 and 12 of those wins came from one guy. When Lutz was called up for DWCS he was an 8-1 champion defending against a 2-2 guy who, himself, had only barely won against an 0-3 guy, because regional fighting is wonderful. And then Lutz had to win on the Contender Series twice because Dana was mad at him for daring to be a wrestleboxer who sometimes wrestled. And then he made it to the UFC, picked up a win against the about-to-be-released Kevin Aguilar, and promptly got the absolute poo poo wrestled out of him by Pat Sabatini. Lutz, mourning the loss of a twelve-fight winning streak over guys like Irvin "The Weasel" Nicholas, hasn't been seen for a year and a half. Why is the prelim headliner two guys who haven't fought in years? I don't know and I don't think the UFC does either. It might be an attempt to salvage Lutz, who's still a pretty hard-hitting wrestleboxer, but his style does play into Pineda's hard-kicking, choke-grabbing counter-fighting. DANIEL PINEDA BY TKO but it's also possible the fight winds up having never happened a few days later. FEATHERWEIGHT: Steven Peterson (19-10) vs Lucas Alexander (7-3) I went through a brief rollercoaster looking through Steven "Ocho" Peterson's instagram in the hopes of finding a post about the entire year he's been out of action, and I came up empty, but I did find a whole bunch of posts about how the country is better than the city, people shouldn't use technology and we need to teach our children godly morals, but also, 11 year-olds should be trained sharpshooters and you should probably buy my self-branded cannabis and also here's a bunch of sponsored ads for Hooters. There's a certain level of unceasing certitude that goes through the mentality of a fighter, and it's as inspiring as it is baffling, particularly coming from someone who's extremely certain he's one of the best featherweights on the planet despite having missed weight in both of his previous fights and having ended the last one getting beaten up by Julian Erosa. Lucas "The Lion" Alexander is another in the long line of unintentional contracts: The UFC signed him as a last-minute injury replacement for Joanderson Brito back in October, and Alexander dutifully stepped up with just two weeks to prepare, showed off his best tattoos, and got choked out in two minutes, and now the UFC's on the hook for another couple fights. So it might as well be this one. STEVEN PETERSON BY SUBMISSION. I may not be convinced of Peterson's top fifteen bonafides, but he's a tough, well-rounded guy who managed to go the distance with some real tough competition. Two fights ago, Lucas Alexander was fighting Ty Mamous Melvin "La Pollona" Johnson.  gently caress, I want that guy in the UFC now. WELTERWEIGHT: Trevin Giles (15-4) vs Preston Parsons (10-3) Trevin Giles is still fighting to save his job. Despite having just turned 30 last year Giles is about to complete his sixth year with the UFC, and in that time he's looked more good than bad--mostly--and even managed a win over Roman Dolidze that has aged extremely well. Unfortunately, both of his runs up the ladder got very badly interrupted. Back in 2019 his undefeated streak ended with two back to back guillotine choke losses, and after racking up three comeback wins he promptly got knocked out twice in a row. He's coming off a win against Louis Cosce, but for one, Cosce is no longer in the company, and for two, if he loses here he's 1 for his last 4, and that's a dangerous place to be. Preston "Pressure" Parsons is on a mission to prove he belongs here at all. Parsons was a last-minute injury replacement plucked out of the Floridian fight scene and he was dispatched in short order by Daniel Rodriguez in his debut, but he got his own last-minute regional injury replacement in Evan Elder last April and wrestled him into a fine paste. Trevin Giles represents Preston's first chance to beat a longtime veteran and justify his place as an actual UFC fighter. And he's got a pretty good chance, quite frankly. Trevin Giles is a threat, but he's a threat when he can move and fight at his own pace. He doesn't like getting smothered, especially when said smothering includes a wrestling assault, and Pressure is, quite literally, Preston's middle name. PRESTON PARSONS BY DECISION. FLYWEIGHT: CJ Vergara (10-4-1) vs Daniel da Silva (11-4) Here, we have a failing prospect battle. CJ Vergara was a 9-2-1 Fury FC champion and Contender Series winner when he got called up to the big show, where he has proceeded to miss weight in two out of three attempts and, if we're being honest, lose all three of his fights--a record he's saved by solely through a pretty screwy split decision against Kleydson Rodrigues. But two of those fights, at the very least, made it to a decision. Daniel da Silva hasn't been as lucky. He joined the UFC as an 11-1 Shooto Brazil veteran with a lot of hype for his wonderfully frenetic offense, then proceeded to get knocked out by Jeff Molina, kneebarred by Francisco Figueiredo, and ground-and-pounded into the dirt after agreeing to be a late replacement against Victor Altamirano. He was lined up to get fed to Vinicius Salvador this past December, but hosed up his weight cut and was hospitalized instead. It's not a great look, and it's a pretty unfortunate position to be fighting from. I wish I believed in Daniel da Silva. He's gotten a terrible set of matchups, and no 0-2 prospect should be taking last-minute replacement fights. But we're here, and his frantic offense and lack of patience have cost him his first three UFC bouts, and while Vergara may not be great shakes, I believe he's smart enough about his weapons to make da Silva pay for getting overaggressive like he always, invariably, does. CJ VERGARA BY TKO. LIGHTWEIGHT: Manuel Torres (13-2) vs Trey Ogden (16-5) Let me tell you a tale of two cities. Manuel "El Loco" Torres is a hard-punching finish machine out of Mexico who won his way into the UFC through a knockout on the Contender Series where he poked Kolton Englund in the eye before dropping him, but Herb Dean missed it, and it turns out an instant replay where a fighter pokes his opponent in the eye and the opponent goes 'ow, my eye' is insufficient cause for review. (Torres says Englund just didn't want to fight anymore, which explains why Dana likes him.) Torres got booked into a UFC debut against Frank Camacho, who had eaten three violent stoppage losses in his last four fights, fulfilled his duty by being knocked out in the first round again, and was immediately fired. Over this same period of time, Trey "Samurai Ghost" Ogden, who clawed his way up the regional scene, got picked out as a last minute replacement against Jordan Leavitt, where he wound up on the wrong end of a split decision, and the UFC rewarded him by trying to feed him to another Contender Series promotional favorite, Daniel Zellhuber. Ogden won--so now he's fighting another, different Contender Series baby they're trying to build up with wins on the early preliminaries of a forgettable fight card, and Daniel Zellhuber has a nice, comfortable striking matchup against the widely beloved Lando Vannata on the undercard of a Max Holloway main event next month. It's not even remotely subtle, and I'm less angry these days about the fact that they do it than I am that they don't even try to cover it up. Manuel Torres is very used to dropping people in minutes after favorable matchups and Trey Ogden is tough as poo poo, and I'm not convinced Torres won't pay for it when he can't get him out of there. TREY OGDEN BY DECISION. FLYWEIGHT: Vinicius Salvador (14-4) vs Victor Altamirano (11-2) Vinicius "Fenômeno" Salvador is a living icon of why I dislike the Contender Series and still complain about it every loving week. Once upon a time, fighters had to be scouted after fully working their way up the regional circuit. If someone made it to the UFC, you knew they had been tested and repeatedly passed. Vinicius Salvador is a 14-4 veteran and half of his last six fights were against 0-0 rookies making their combat sports debuts. When we ask ourselves, collectively, how poo poo like Askar Mozharov getting into the UFC with an obviously fake record happened, it's hard to ignore that the UFC is transitioning into being a company that doesn't really give a poo poo about your record as long as you fit into the mold of the kind of fighter they're looking for. Are half of your recent victories against people who had no business fighting, let alone fighting a guy with almost 20 professional bouts? Sure. Do you like to punch people and do you promise not to shoot takedowns if we pay you minimum wage? Awesome. Everything is fine. VICTOR ALTAMIRANO BY DECISION. Salvador likes to put himself in bad positions so he can counter and flatline people, and that works really well when you're fighting people who are bad at fighting. Victor Altamirano, thus far, seems Pretty Okay At Fighting. WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Tamires Vidal (7-1) vs Hailey Cowan (7-2) You know, it's the little things I get mad at so goddamn often. Hailey Cowan is a new Contender Series prospect, and she is, respectfully, the kind of cage-clinching wrestler-grappler the UFC really tends to loathe, to the point that she won her contract in a real, real close split decision featuring the kind of grinding assault Dana White traditionally dismisses as pointless and boring. Tamires Vidal already made her UFC debut last November, came in on late notice, fought an opponent in Ramona Pascual who traditionally fought up at featherweight AND missed weight for their 135-pound tilt, and Vidal aggressively attacked her and knocked her out in one round with a flying bicycle knee to the liver. So why am I mad? What is it about this fight between one iffy prospect in Hailey Cowan who hasn't actually fought for the UFC yet and one who's already been in the UFC for nearly half a year and knocked her opponent the gently caress out with a highlight-reel performance that angers me? This is how the UFC's official card breakdown displays the fight.  Y'know. It's the little things. TAMIRES VIDAL BY SUBMISSION.
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