CommonShore posted:

UFC 265 Breakdown it’s a numbered card so here you go

Main Card
Interim Heavyweight Championship Derrick Lewis vs Cyril Gane
I’m going to avoid going on a rant about the union busting poo poo and how unnecessary this interim title is. It’s about as bad as it gets. Pay the fighters, Dana, you loving piece of poo poo. The main reason that I’m avoiding this is that I’m tired of being mad about stuff, so here’s the fight as I see it:

Lewis is a punch-based fighter who has basically maxed out STR and WIS. WIS? Well he’s possibly the most patient fighter in the UFC. He’s extremely good at hitting people very hard, and at conserving energy and avoiding risks while waiting for that opportunity, which he more often than not eventually finds. This has led him to be one of the UFC’s two all-time KO leaders (tied with Immortal Matt), with an unusual number of his KOs coming in the 3rd round or later, which is when heavyweights usually start just doing nothing. This is his second title shot, after several years ago DC big brothered him to a RNC on relatively short notice. In his last outing he KOed poor Curtis Blaydes with a counter uppercut.

Lewis is also an extremely cool dude by most accounts, with an entertaining social media presence, though I think he has displayed some idiocy during Covid.

Gane is more of a DEX and WIS type of fighter, as far as heavyweights go anyway. He seems well rounded, but his real strength is his French kickboxing game. He’ll fight outside for five rounds and doesn’t seem to be too worried about getting the finish if it doesn’t come, though he did score a late heel hook victory in a fight that he was comfortably on his way to taking a 30-27. Both of his last two fights were essentially outfighting point victories against opponents who showed little (or no) ability to offer Gane new questions after the first round.

So where does this WIS vs WIS fight take us? Well in a frictionless vacuum where both fighters stay on the default game plan, Gane wins this with a comfortable 50-45 points-based victory with 80% of his connections coming from jabs or low kicks thrown while moving backward from a plodding Derrick Lewis. So the real battle involves resolving these sequential questions: does Lewis have the ability to fight with more urgency than usual and cut the cage against Gane? And can his cardio hold up to a higher work rate? And can Gane adjust to a fighter with an evolving game plan?

Bantamweight Jose Aldo vs Pedro Munhoz
Aldo is always a good time. He’s the greatest featherweight of the last generation, making a run at bantamweight for monies and funzies I guess. His accomplishments are too many to list. Stylistically he’s a Brazilian muay thai fighter who is extremely good at loving up wrestlers with uppercuts and knees, and with legendary low kicks which have been seen less in recent years. Divisionally he’s not championship material anymore, but he’s still an extremely high level gatekeeper. In his last fight he outworked a game Marlon Vera for a UD. Munhoz is more of a dark horse. His UFC record is better than it seems, because he has a few fights where the judges were huffin’ poppers or something, most notably against Frankie Edgar last August. He’s a pretty brawly fighter with several FOTN awards to his name, but like, he’s good. IIRC he has a good guillotine? He’s best known for KOing Cody Garbrandt. His last fight was a great UD rematch with fellow fringe contender Jimmie Rivera.

Welterweight Michael Chiesa vs Vicente Luque
Chiesa won some tuf ages ago. He’s basically the upgraded version of Cody McKenzie – looks like a hobo, is long and lanky, and strangles people. He’s on the short list for best back control in the UFC, with most of his finishes coming from RNC. He’s also a sore loser and whines a lot about everything. He has been 4-0 since moving up to welterweight. Vicente Luque is a violence elemental. He’s a powerful striker who just goes to war until someone falls over, but he’s also good at grabbing head-and-arm chokes in scrambles. A few fighters’ only (or first) career loss by KO are to Luque, including Belal Muhammad. His only losses in his last 15 are Wonderboy and Leon Edwards, so he’s really good too. Right now he’s on a 3-fight streak with a submission of Tyron Woodley. He has never been tested by a really determined grappler, though, so we’ll see how that goes.

Strawweight Tecia Torres vs Angela Hill
This is a rematch and it might be good? Torres is another divisional dark horse – she is one of the strawweight division’s originals, having come up through Invicta before the divisional merger, but then fairly recently soaked up 4 straight losses. Seems bad, right? But three of those losses are to (now) former champs, and the fourth is starting to orbit a title picture. Torres was competitive in all of them. Not so bad. She’s a top-tier strawweight with a kicking game. My stroke against her is that she turns into a cage wrestler when her opponent is a bit threatening. But she has also shown an ability to just beat the tar out of an opponent when she sees the opportunity (like she did to Poor Sam Hughes back in December). Angela Hill is probably the coolest person in the UFC. Her social media presence is great, and she always makes funny videos and stuff. She and Torres fought back in 2015, which Torres won, and Hill soon took a b-league tour as she only had like 4 fights. Hill is an attrition kickboxer without great shock power, but who is known for keeping steady violence through the whole fight. She has several split decision losses on her record which seemed pretty bad – in fact, if two of those had gone her way as most observers scored them, she’d be on a 6-fight win streak right now. This could be a killer stand-up war, but it could also be Torres pushing Hill into the fence for 3 rounds.

Bantamweight Song Yadong vs Casey Kenney
Song Yadong is the youngest fighter at bantamweight. He’s a Chinese sanda guy with a 5-1-1 UFC record, most losing to Kyler Phillips. He has a (disputed) win over Marlon Vera and a (disputed) draw with Cody Stamann. He’s pretty good. I think he trains at TAM. Casey Kenney is a judo plus punches fighter. He’s drifting out of the “prospect” phase of his career at this point, but his only UFC losses are to Dvalishvili and Dom Cruz, so he’s not like washing up or anything yet. He’s also a sexist turd, though.

Prelims
Lightweight Bobby Green vs Rafael Fiziev
Fiziev is the coolest striker in the UFC. He was the striking coach at Tiger Muay Thai and Phuket Top Team and then just decided to do MMA. He’s from Khazakhstan and he’s amazingly fun to watch. On top of that he’s extremely technical and strategic in the way he sets up his power strikes and poo poo. He KOed Renato Moicano in December. gently caress yes. Fiziev. Bobby Green is an interesting opponent for him. “Outside of fighting, Rafael Fiziev enjoys blacksmithing with an emphasis on cold steel arms.[6]” Green is a kickboxer, too, but a journeyman rather than an exciting prospect. He has been in some fun fights over the years, but lots and lots of split decisions. He has not finished a fight since 2013, and that was a dubious one with several groin kicks and a possibly botched referee call. But Green is durable, and he’s game.

Bantamweight Vince Morales vs Drako Rodriguez
??? Morales is a 1-3 UFC fighter whose only win is against Aiemann Zahabi, which is actually a decent win. Rodriguez is a contender series guy who got KOed by uh, Aiemann Zahabi in February.

Light Heavyweight Ed Herman vs Alonzo Menifield
Menifield is a DWCS prospect who KOed a bunch of dudes and then it was revealed that he has like half a round of gas and then he goes into cardiac arrest. He von flued a rando in March. Ed Herman is a Team Quest veteran from way back. He is in the top tier of “most UFC fights. He was last seen cheating his way to a hilarious victory with a botched groin shot call (wasn’t a groin shot) and then grabbing the cage to get a kimura vs Mike Rodriguez. I thought that was awesome. He’s on a 3-fight streak. If Herman can survive the initial onslaught he should be able to handle a gassed Menifield. That’s a big “if.”

Strawweight Karolina Kowalkiewicz vs Jessica Penne
Two faded former title challengers. KK is a Polish kickboxer who lost to JJ and then a few fights later got brutally KOed by Jessica Andrade, and she hasn’t been the same since. She’s on a 4-fight skid and hasn’t fought in over a year. Penne was the Invicta atomweight champ and later challenged JJ for the UFC strawweight title and got the poo poo kicked out of her in a really ugly way. She took a few years off at USADA’s suggestion (she got hosed over actually, but no rants today). She took a split decision from Lupita Godinez in a fun fight back in April.

Early Prelims
Flyweight Manel Kape vs Ode Osbourne
Oh good Kape is getting another try. He’s a Portuguese dude who was the Rizin champ, but he’s also 0-2 in the UFC. He’s a great, fun kickboxer but he also spent huge amounts of those fights doing nothing and thus lost two decisions. Osbourne is a DWCS guy who got choked by Brian Kelleher and then won a fight by quick KO in his follow-up.

Bantamweight Miles Johns vs Anderson dos Santos
Johns is a DWCS guy who is 2-1 in the UFC and has a b-league win over surging Adrian Yanez. Dos Santos is 1-2 in the UFC with a loss to a guy named Nad. If that joke seems familiar it’s because this was booked a few weeks ago and then scratched due to covid protocols.

Flyweight Victoria Leonardo vs Melissa Gatto
Leonardo’s picture on Tapology has her dressed up like Goku. She came from DWCS and got KOed by Manon Fiorot (the French kickboxeress) in January. She has been KOed an unusual number of times for a female fighter with under 10 fights, in fact. Gatto is a marketable Brazilian fighter who is undefeated, but who also hasn’t fought since 2018. She has four consecutive scratched fights, two in the UFC (it looks like 7 on tapology but look at the dates). Her record is suspiciously fuzzy – she’s undefeated but the method of victory and time is only there for two of her fights. This fight might have some weird poo poo happen.

Bantamweight Johnny Munoz Jr. vs Jamey Simmons
Munoz is an undefeated KOTC guy who lost his UFC debut in August. He has lots of RNC victories, with a heel hook thrown in, so I’m guessing a grappler. Definitely a b-league finisher, though. Simmons lost his only UFC fight to Giga, by KO.

Brut posted:

Oh poo poo Joe Rogan isn't working this one despite being a US PPV in the loving state he lives in now, wild. He's doing a show in Milwaukee.

Troy Queef posted:

and apparently at a show last night in Des Moines someone tried to fight him on-stage

Personally I can’t wait to hear the reaction when Lewis’ walkout music hits, because Tops Drop is about as Houston as it gets

Brut posted:

https://twitter.com/aaronbronsteter/status/1423992004070023172

D-Pad posted:

Hollandia posted:

Loving DC trying to control this interview lol