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17 | 42.50% |
| Total: | 40 votes | ||
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If you are stuck in the past, you can return to July. Welcome to August, the month where everyone begins impatiently anticipating October. We're in for a much lower-key month after the madness of the last couple, thank christ; only three UFCs, only one Bellator, and Rizin and Invicta are nowhere to be found. But don't worry: PFL and ONE are here to save your soul. This month's thread title courtesy of me stealing and perverting Boco_T's idea. If this is your first time here you should stop and say hi so we know it's not just the same couple dozen of us cussing each other out all the time, but you may want to start with The General Q&A Thread for the basic gist of mixed martial arts. Yes, I'm still doing the new one. If you want to talk about MMA or combat sports events that aren't included in this breakdown: Please do. In a world of Road FC and Rizin events that don't actually air in America and the WBC threatening to rank Jake Paul, there's space for everything. THIS MONTH'S PUNCHSPORTS EVENTS 
IS THERE ANY NEWS https://twitter.com/arielhelwani/status/1549938109541933057 ONE Championship unveiled their Amazon Prime event schedule, with one event a month happening for the remainder of the year. Hopefully this works out better than ONE on TNT did. https://twitter.com/UFCNews/status/1550053337944432640 The vacant lightweight title will not be vacant much longer. Former/lineal champion Charles Oliveira will face Islam Makhachev, who is somehow simultaneously the deserving contender and a guy who has, like, maybe one top ten win if you squint, at UFC 280 this October. Charles, please make weight this time. My heart can't take it. https://twitter.com/bokamotoespn/status/1549470809244188674 The Diaz brothers will have one more valiant ride against logic and reason, as Nate Diaz will most likely permanently finish his time with the UFC by, having won one fight in the last six years, getting his third consecutive fight against the top contender at welterweight, this time facing Khamzat Chimaev. Whatever happens, rest assured: It's gonna be stupid.  After nineteen years and eighty-five fights across three different sports Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone, after getting submitted for just the second time in his career, retired from professional fighting. He had one of the most exciting, varied careers in mixed martial arts history and fought one of the most prolonged murderer's rows of competition any fighter will ever face, and I deeply respect his competitive contributions. He's also a sexist, racist, transphobic trust fund baby cowboy-cosplaying rear end in a top hat whose bigotry was a blight on the sport and who is currently exalting in his new life as a star in Ben Shapiro's alt-right student films. Congratulations on the career, thank you for sticking around long enough that we could all see you get repeatedly beaten up, and please gently caress off into the sun forever. WHERE ELSE CAN I TALK TO LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE ABOUT VIOLENCE? Any of the following hangouts:
DO WE HAVE OTHER COMMUNAL THREADS? So many.
WHAT IF I HATE FORUM SOFTWARE? Through the magic of instant messaging and 40 year-old technology, you have, at a minimum, three exciting options!
 Disclaimer: These are unofficial offsite chatrooms, somethingawful's rules and liability do not extend to them, and complaining about discord stuff is still offsite drama posting
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WHAT HAPPENED IN JULY July kicked off with the last PFL card of its regular season, PFL 6 on the first of the month. It was PFL's attempt to salvage what had been a pretty hosed up regular season by giving their big stars a boost, but it didn't really work out: Star Ray Cooper III finally got a win but was already mathematically eliminated from the playoffs and thus it didn't matter, Rory MacDonald got outworked and looked like poo poo against Sadibou Sy but he's where the money is so he's still main-eventing the playoffs, and Kayla Harrison lost her opponent and had to fight an oversized, outmatched last-minute replacement. Rizin followed it up later that day with Rizin 36: Okinawa, a massively cursed card that wasn't even particularly great in the first place and suffered even more after losing its main event two days before it happened. Two kickboxers turned MMA rookies had a main event in its place and Miyuu Yamamoto dropped her record into the negatives after getting narrowly outfought by DEEP champion Saori Oshima. The UFC's busy month officially began with UFC 276: Adesanya vs Cannonier on July 2. It was, on the whole, a weird loving card. Uriah Hall fell even further, Maycee Barber notched a last-minute replacement win, Jim Miller retired Donald Cerrone, Sean O'Malley got a no-contest after gouging Pedro Munhoz's eye, Bryan Barberena made us all sad by crushing Robbie Lawler, Alex Pereira won a title shot by destroying a seemingly hypnotized Sean Strickland, and the main events were weird polar opposites: Alexander Volkanovski made the biggest statement of his career, ending his trilogy with Max Holloway and leaving no room for doubt by dominating him from pillar to post, handing him the most one-sided loss of his career, but in the main event Israel Adesanya took another fan-unfriendly, poke-and-peck win over Jared Cannonier. We were back at it the next week with UFC on ESPN: dos Anjos vs Fiziev on July 9. It was...a difficult card to stay engaged with, but Jamie Mullarkey stopped the nonsense of Michael Johnson winning fights in 2022, Chase Sherman inexplicably won a UFC fight again, Said Nurmagomedov won a close fight against Douglas Silva de Andrade, Caio Borralho beat Armen Petrosyan in a truly inexplicable main event, and Rafael dos Anjos put up a deeply respectable fight against Rafael Fiziev for four close rounds, but got knocked out eighteen seconds into the fifth. We then proceeded to get fuckin' weird with UFC on ABC: Ortega vs Rodríguez on the 16th. The card got scrambled a half-dozen times and by the end it somehow turned into a referendum on prospects. Invicta champ Emily Ducote upset Jessica Penne, Dustin Jacoby knocked out Da Un Jung, Bill Algeo messed up Herbert Burns, Ricky Simón ended Jack Shore's undefeated record, Punahele Soriano punched Dalcha Lungiambula's face off his head, Lauren Murphy ended Miesha Tate's title hopes, Li Jingliang knocked out the King of Kung Fu Muslim Salikhov, Michelle Waterson suffered her first submission loss in five years against Amanda Lemos, and in the main event, the much-anticipated fight between Yair Rodríguez and Brian Ortega ended in, uh, an abrupt injury loss when Ortega's shoulder popped out. Invicta took over next with Invicta FC 48: Tennant vs Rubin. As with most Invicta cards, it was short, precise and a lot of fun: The infuriatingly-named Auttumn Norton got a killer knockout, Amber Leibrock, Kristina Williams and Talia Bernardo all scored rear naked choke victories, and Contender Series reject Taneisha Tennant continued her reign as bantamweight champion with a closely-contested split decision over former Bellator contender Olga Rubin. And then it was time for ONE 159: De Ridder vs Bigdash on the 22nd, which was exactly as weird as ONE cards always are. Muay Thai, kickboxing, MMA, all the varied fun times ONE can offer were on display. Far too underrated Marat Gafurov got back to his winning ways by knocking out Ariel Sexton, Muangthai P.K.Sanenchai ended his own losing streak by extremely narrowly defeating Russian champion Vladimir Kuzmin, Janet Todd won the interim Muay Thai Women's Atomweight Championship by dominating Lara Fernandez, and in the main event, unsurprisingly, Reinier de Ridder outgrappled the poo poo out of yet another man, submitting Vitaly Bigdash in style with an inverted triangle choke. Bellator made their single appearance for the month with Bellator 283: Jackson vs Lima later that day. It was, respectfully, a weird loving card card. The prelims were actually a lot of fun, with former Invicta champ Vanessa Porto getting upset and choked out by Veta Arteaga and Dalton Rosta scoring a pretty neat TKO, but the main card was the story. On one hand, Usman Nurmagomedov and Tofiq Musayev continued their journey up the prospect latter by effortlessly dusting their opponents--particularly sad in Musayev victim Sidney Outlaw's case, who was supposed to be getting a lightweight title shot and got murdered by a debuting fighter instead--but Lorenz Larkin's much-hyped fight ended in a no contest after three minutes when he elbowed Mukhamed Berkhamov in the brainstem, and in the main event, Douglas Lima showed up overweight and undermotivated, getting very, very slowly outwrestled for twenty-five minutes and falling to 1 for his last 5. And then we were back to London for UFC Fight Night: Blaydes vs Aspinall on the 23rd. The UFC's attempt to redo their card-of-the-year London show from earlier in the year went unfortunately wrong: There were so many decisions on the undercard that it actually ran long and cut into the main card's start time, most of them very slow, wrestley and unsatisfying, and the main card was a mixture of elation and depression. Hometown heroes and rising stars Molly McCann and Paddy Pimblett scored impressive stoppage wins again, but Volkan Oezdemir played it safe and slowly defeated Paul Craig, Jack Hermansson struck from a distance and decisioned Chris Curtis in a fight for which he immediately apologized, Alexander Gustafsson reminded everyone why retired fighters should stay retired after getting blown out in a minute by Nikita Krylov, and the main event, a hugely-anticipated match heavyweight contendership match between Curtis Blaydes and Tom Aspinall, became the second consecutive UFC main event to end in a freak injury, as Tom Aspinall blew out his entire knee fifteen seconds into the fight while throwing a leg kick. Jesus wept. The UFC closed out its month on UFC 277: Peña vs. Nunes 2 on the 30th. What started a little slow wound up being a really loving fun ride with a whole mess of great fights: Nicolae Negumereanu and Michael Morales cemented themselves as prospects in their divisions, Drakkar Close styled on Rafa Garcia, Drew Dober scored a knockout by liver punch, Magomed Ankalaev got his first stoppage in two years over Anthony Smith, Alexandre Pantoja and Sergei Pavlovich both ran through their opponents, and in the two main events, Brandon Moreno became the first man in a decade to knock out Kai Kara-France to win the interim flyweight title and Amanda Nunes answered the questions from her upset loss last year by absolutely dominating Julianna Peña for twenty-five straight minutes, earning I believe the first 50-43 in women's MMA history and her women's bantamweight championship back. But Japan brought down the curtain with Rizin 37: Saitama. It was one of Rizin's bigger cards in a few months, with heavyweight sumo Sudario knocking out SHREK to become arguably Japan's top heavyweight--it's not a big pack--Daichi Abe soccer-kicking the piss out of Marcos Yoshio Souza, the first round of Rizin's Atomweight Grand Prix going down with Seika Izawa, Ayaka Hamasaki and Rena Kubota winning their expected international villain matches but Si Woo Park taking out Kanna Asakura in hers, Koji Takeda suplexed the poo poo out of Johnny Case, and Hideo Tokoro, who's been around for so goddamn long he's nicknamed after Volk Han from Fighting Network RINGS, came out of semi-retirement to face young star Makoto Takahashi, who outgrappled him and defeated him but at least both of his ears stayed on. WHAT'S COMING IN AUGUST August 5 marks the beginning of PFL's playoffs, thanks to PFL 7. Because playoffs are weird and silly, half of the fights on the card have nothing to do with the playoffs and are there just for fun--don't you want to see Mamoud Fawzy fight Itso Babulaidze--but the main card holds the lightweight and light-heavyweight playoffs, with the latter being Josh Silveira vs Omari Akhmedov and Rob Wilkinson vs Delan Monte, and the former, Olivier Aubin-Mercier vs Alex Martinez and Anthony Pettis vs Stevie Ray. Why, yes, Stevie Ray did just submit Anthony Pettis a month and a half ago. It's almost like playoff formats don't actually translate well to mixed martial arts. The following day on August 6, the UFC kicks off an unusually abbreviated month with UFC on ESPN: Santos vs Hill. Terrance McKinney tries to get his poo poo back together, Bryan Battle and Takashi Sato should have some fun, Sam Alvey makes what we all hope to christ is his last stand, jase1's guardian angel Sergey Spivak is back to battle Augusto Sakai, Vicente Luque tries to recover from his Belaling by fighting Geoff Neal, the TUF finals take place as Brogan Walker meets Juliana Miller and Zac Pauga fights Mohammed Usman, and the main event will be a struggle between Thiago Santos and Jamahal Hill to have a fun fight instead of a sad one. Khabib's Eagle FC returns next with on August 10, with, uh, Eagle FC 49: Busurmankul vs Magomedov, and, like, look, I committed to wanting to cover Eagle FC because they were starting to take big swings at the MMA mainstream, but they were a regional federation before they did that, and this is very much a regional card. With the exception of one guy from Georgia, this is all fighters from Russia and Kyrgyzstan and I'm not sure any of us have seen any of them before. But Eagle's flyweight and featherweight championships are on the line, so, if you feel like it, pull up FLXcast and enjoy Irgit Oveenchi vs Magomedrasul Gadzhiev and Rasul Magomedov vs Busurmankul Adbdibait uulu. Bellator puts up its one event for the month with Bellator 284: Gracie vs Yamauchi on August 12 and, man, it's real sleepy even by Bellator's usual standards. There's the usual thousand prelims with people you've never heard of plus Josh Hill and Justine Kish, but the main card is a little dire: Austin Vanderford bouncing back against Anthony Adams, double trashweight action with Said Sowma vs Gokhan Saricam and Valentin Moldavsky vs Steve Mowry, former Women's Flyweight champion Ilima-Lei Macfarlane vs Bruna Ellen, and in your main event, Neiman Gracie fights Goiti Yamauchi. It could be fun! I dunno. We've got a double-header the next day and it starts with PFL 8 on the 13th. This card marks the heavyweight and welterweight playoffs: Denis Goltsov vs Matheus Scheffel and Ante Delija vs Renan Ferreira represent the big boys--if you're keeping track, that's one injury replacement and one playoff contestant who lost his last fight but is here anyway--and over in welterweight, Sadibou Sy meets Carlos Leal, the two most-wronged men in the bracket, and Rory MacDonald, despite having just been beaten by Sy, fights Magomed Umalatov in the main event. And then we're off to UFC on ESPN: Vera vs Cruz. It's one big card of sorting out potential contenders: Devin Clark vs Azamat Murzakanov, Gerald Meerschaert vs Bruno Silva, Ode' Osbourne vs Tyson Nam, Alexa Grasso vs Vivane Araújo, and the main is a much-anticipated matchup between Marlon "Chito" Vera, riding the hottest streak of his career, and bantamweight GOAT candidate DOminick Cruz, who wants one more shot at the title. The PFL playoffs end on August 20 with PFL 9, carrying out the featherweight and women's lightweight classes. Featherweight will see Ryoji Kudo vs Bubba Jenkins and Chris Wade vs Brendan Loughnane; women's lightweight, Larissa Pacheco vs Olena Kolesnyk and, of course, Kayla Harrison vs Martina Jindrová. Once again, there's a UFC on the same day, but this time it's a bit of a bigger deal. UFC 278: Usman vs Edwards 2 is chock-full of fun fights: Tyson Pedro vs Harry Hunsucker, Aoriqileng vs Jay Perrin, Leonardo Santos and Jared Gordon will have a grapplefest, Marcin Tybura and Alexander Romanov will get someone to post that Al Iaquinta tweet about hugging each other on Pluto, Paulo Costa and the long-awaited return of Luke Rockhold will try to be desperately handsome in the midst of its violence, José Aldo and Merab Dvalishvili do battle in what could very well be a title eliminator, and in the main event, Kamaru Usman defends the welterweight championship of the world against the extremely conventionally clear contender, Leon Edwards. We close out the month on, oddly enough, a ONE Championship double-event. On August 26 at 6:30 PM SGT--which is to say about 3:30 in the morning, PST--we're getting ONE 160: Ok vs Lee 2. As always, the card is split: Six MMA bouts, three Muay Thai bouts, one submission grappling match, but the Muay Thai Flyweight Grand Prix holds its semi-finals, ONE's featherweight championship is defended as Thanh Le meets Tang Kai, and ONE will finally complete its effort to re-crown its marketable fighter as Ok Rae Yoon defends his belt against the man he took it from, Christian Lee. That evening, at 6 PM PST, we get the back half and possibly ONE's most important event yet: ONE on Prime Video 1: Moraes vs Johnson 2, or as I like to call it, One 1 2. Having failed to get off the ground on cable television with TNT, this marks the beginning of ONE's distribution deal with Amazon Prime, who are positioning ONE as part of their growing live sports catalogue, and unsurprisingly, ONE's stacked the card with their most exciting and most-westernly-known talent: Amir Aliakibari will be a steroid golem against Kirill Grishenko, Amir Naseri meets British Muay Thai champion Jonathan Haggerty, Rodtang takes on WBC champion Savvas Michael, the ONE Muay Thai Bantamweight Championship is up for grabs as Nong-O Gaiyanghadao fights Liam Harrison, and in your main event, ONE Flyweight Champion Adriano Moraes defends his belt in a rematch with the man he beat to get it, Demetrious "Mighty Mouse" Johnson.
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CURRENT UFC CHAMPIONS Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs   Francis Ngannou - 17-3, 1 DefenseAfter getting dicked about by the UFC for most of 2021, Francis "The Predator" Ngannou met both the biggest challenge of his career and the nexus of his promotional challenges in the form of a championship unification match against heavyweight striking savant and (bullshit) interim champion Ciryl Gane. For all of his punching prowess, Ngannou found himself getting pretty soundly outstruck and on the road to a decision loss--and he adjusted by channeling Mark Coleman and repeatedly tossing Gane on his rear end with double-legs and powerslams. In what was somehow a simultaneously incredible and disappointing performance, Francis Ngannou won a unanimous decision, notched his first title defense, turned away his stiffest challenge, and went home with his future one great big question mark. He's made a lot of noise about going into boxing thanks to the UFC's refusal to stop paying him peanuts, but his contract situation is complicated by his standing as a champion, particularly as he's now had knee surgery to repair his ACL and MCL and will be sitting out the remainder of the year on medical leave, which could mean dealing with a contract freeze. It all depends on how lovely the UFC decides to be to him, but the best gauge for that is Dana White's auspicious absence at the post-fight belt ceremony and post-card press conference. In response, Francis Ngannou appeared with Tyson Fury after his high-profile destruction of Dillian Whyte and the two hyped a potential boxing vs MMA fight between them. The UFC is pinning its hopes on a Jon Jones/Stipe Miocic interim championship match later this year, but that requires relying on Jon Jones. Light-Heavyweight Champion, 205 lbs   Jiří Procházka - 29-3-1, 0 DefensesAfter a solid decade of being one of the most consistently weird people in mixed martial arts, Jiří Procházka is the champion of the world. Where most fighters get inspired by the Gracies or Bruce Lee, Jiří's interest in martial arts originated in playing Tekken with his fellow 90s kids and the turning point in his life was his viewing of the 2008 Jeff "Remake Fantasy Island as a horror movie, what could go wrong" Wadlow classic, Never Back Down. Where most of his peers embraced the athletic future of martial arts, Jiří rejected modernity and fashioned himself as The Czech Samurai, living by the code of bushido and training in The Old Ways and fashioning himself as a sometimes-berserk striker. It works wonders: He was a champion in the Czech Republic, he was a runner-up in the 2015 Rizin Grand Prix, he took the (short-lived) Rizin light-heavyweight championship, and after just two UFC fights he found himself in the cage with UFC champion Glover Teixeira. The result was an instant classic, widely hailed as the best UFC light-heavyweight title fight of all time and one of its best ever in any division, as Jiří and Glover beat the sense out of each other, trading intense if occasionally sloppy offense back and forth for four and a half rounds before Jiří finally put an exhausted Glover on the floor and, shockingly, choked him out. Ten years after his journey began, "Denisa" is on top of the world. His first defense will likely come against Jan Błachowicz towards the end of the year. Middleweight Champion, 185 lbs   Israel Adesanya - 23-1, 5 DefensesAfter his successful if poorly-received title defense against Robert Whittaker earlier this year, I wrote that Israel Adesanya was emulating idol Anderson Silva's career not just in meteoric rise or martial arts technique, but in their mutual capacity for winning fights in ways that make people angry. Adesanya, who rode a successful kickboxing career into mixed martial arts and became one of its fastest-rising phenomenons, is just as cursed by expectation: His technique is so clean and his striking advantages so pronounced that when he turns in a fight like his July 2 title defense against Jared Cannonier and earns a wide, obvious decision against a dangerous contender, it's considered disappointing. He set the pace of the fight and pecked Cannonier apart from the outside while waiting for Cannonier to come in and get countered, but after Cannonier learned his attacks wouldn't work he settled on not trying much else, and Adesanya was content to jab him for the remainder of the fight. The mixed martial arts community whines and has the same argument it's been having about defensive fighting for twenty years, and people wonder why Adesanya gets more of the blame than Jared Cannonier, and we move on with our lives. Izzy will be making his next defense against former kickboxing rival Alex Pereira, though whether that's at the end of this year or sometime in the next remains to be seen. Welterweight Champion, 170 lbs  Kamaru Usman - 20-1, 5 Defenses"The Nigerian Nightmare" had to work harder than anticipated in November. Usman/Covington 2, a rematch very few people outside of the UFC's top brass wanted, seemed at first like the one-sided beating most people had hoped for, but Colby Covington's shitheadedness is matched only by his toughness and he was able to give Usman serious trouble in the back half of the fight. Usman won a hard-fought but clear decision, and now stands as unquestionably the UFC's greatest male champion, an incredibly tough, well-rounded and cerebral fighter who now holds the second-longest reign in welterweight history. The UFC appreciates him, kind of, but not enough to not repeatedly try to get him to drop the title to Jorge Masvidal or Colby Covington. They spent several months dicking around regarding his next contender, but after years of trying to deny his existence and desperate attempts to buy time for Khamzat Chimaev, the UFC has finally acquiesced and admitted Leon Edwards and his 19-3 record deserve the next shot at the belt. Usman claimed to want more time to rehabilitate his hand injury, but either it was a bargaining chip or the UFC successfully pressured him, as Usman and Edwards are officially on deck for UFC 278 on August 20. Lightweight Champion, 155 lbs   VACANT - Permanently undefeated being as they are an abstract concept of space and time, 5-time heavyweight champion, 5-time light-heavyweight champion, 1-time middleweight champion, 2-time welterweight champion, 5-time lightweight champion AND 1-time lightweight tournament champion, 2-time bantamweight champion, 1-time flyweight champion, 1-time women's featherweight champion, 1-time women's flyweight championCharles Oliveira dusted Justin Gaethje in one round at UFC 274, but he weighed in half a pound over the 155-pound divisional limit. Initial hopes and fears about a commission fuckup wound up not panning out, meaning his historic rise to the title and historic run through the division is at least temporarily capped off by an equally historic feat: He is the first UFC fighter to officially lose their title on the scale. The world lightweight championship is vacant, and that means the most decorated competitor in mixed martial arts history is back. No one has defeated more top stars than Vacant. Vacant is the greatest heavyweight champion of all time. Vacant has held every UFC belt except featherweight and women's strawweight. Vacant is 3-0 over Jon Jones, and it WOULD be 4 if the UFC hadn't felt bad for him and given one of the victories to Daniel Cormier instead. Vacant has held championships in every combat sport, is a crossover star with nearly incalculable professional wrestling belts, and to this day holds the Olympic gold medal for the women's 100m run at the 2000 Summer Olympics. Vacant even has a couple successful UFC title defenses. Barring something silly happening all over again, however, Vacant's days are finally numbered: Charles Oliveira and Islam Makhachev will do battle to fill the void at UFC 280 on October 22. Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs   Alexander Volkanovski - 25-1, 4 DefensesSometimes it takes a lot of work to convince people you're the best. Alexander Volkanovski's rise through mixed martial arts is the kind of thing reserved for the all-time greats of the sport: He lost once, in the fourth fight of his career--at welterweight--and that was nine years ago. He's won twenty-one straight fights since, defeating top talent from around the world before landing in the UFC and proceeding to dominate every fighter placed in his way. There was one, single weight placed around his career's ankle: Max Holloway. Holloway was the UFC's much-lauded and much-marketed featherweight champion while Volkanovski was on his way up, and even as a 20-1 dynamo, he was an underdog against the Hawaiian. Alex beat him--soundly--but because of Holloway's prior dominance, and because the UFC wanted to get the most for its marketing buck, they ordered an instant rematch. Alex won again, but this time it was by a very close split decision, and that left a vocal part of the fanbase even angrier and more certain Max was the real champion. Two years and two fights apiece later, Alex and Max met one last time on July 2, and Volkanovski beat every shade of hell out of Holloway, not just repeatedly wobbling and outstriking him but completely and utterly shutting him out of a fight for the very first time in his career. When the bell rang, there were no questions left: Alexander Volkanovski is the absolute, undisputed best featherweight in the UFC. And now, having more or less destroyed his division, he has his eye on the pound for pound ranks. Volkanovski has taken the unusual step of calling for an interim title fight in his own division between top contenders Yair Rodríguez and Josh Emmett while he waits for the result of Charles Oliveira vs Islam Makhachev so he can issue a champion vs champion challenge--and if successful, he says, he wants to do what Conor McGregor said he was going to do and defend both at the same time. Inadvisable, but at this point, the man's earned the right to call his shot. Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs   Aljamain Sterling - 21-3, 1 DefenseVindication has rarely pissed off so many people or been so loving funny. Aljamain Sterling is a tough man and an exceptional grappler, but when he became the bantamweight champion of the world on March 6, 2021, it was not because of his talents but because the undisputed king of the division Petr Yan was a huge idiot and intentionally fouled him, leading to the first time a championship has changed hands by disqualification in MMA history. The MMA world, being a smart, balanced community, placed almost universal blame on Sterling for this. After thirteen months of anticipation, two reschedulings and an absolutely endless raft of poo poo-talk from Yan about Sterling being a fake champion, the rematch finally came on April 9, 2022, and against almost everyone's predictions (including mine!), Aljamain Sterling beat Petr Yan fair and square, controlling him in the grappling and neutralizing his striking for most of the fight and ultimately taking a split decision. People are of course even more upset at him now, but gently caress 'em. Yan is foaming at the mouth for a rubber match, but Sterling, rightly pointing out that a rubber match when you're 0-2 is stupid, eyed a fight with TJ Dillashaw, Jose Aldo or Dominick Cruz later this year, and the UFC, being the UFC, picked Dillashaw. The fight's going to co-main event UFC 280 in Abu Dhabi on October 22. Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs   Deiveson Figueiredo - 21-2-1, 0 DefensesWe have come so far, and yet we are still where we were. On December 12, 2020, Deiveson Figueiredo shockingly went to a draw with heavy underdog Brandon Moreno. On June 12, 2021, Moreno even more shockingly dropped and choked him out, wrestling the flyweight championship from his hands. On January 22, 2022, the two met for the third time and the result was an instant fight of the year candidate that saw both men trade the advantage in striking, grappling and wrestling alike back and forth, but Figueiredo's smart adjustments from their second fight won him a razor-close but still unanimous decision and the return of the flyweight championship. And now, having fought each other three times in thirteen months and finally finished their trilogy, the next stop for new champion Deiveson Figueiredo was seemingly yet another fight with Moreno, this time in Mexico as a big money card. And then: Things fell apart. What at first seemed like an amicable rivalry turned sour when Figueiredo refused to fight Moreno again, citing what he saw as racist disrespect from his corner, and called instead for a fight with top contender Kai Kara-France, only to then say he needed time to rehabilitate hand injuries and couldn't take the fight until later in the year, and the UFC, ever the sensitive organization, responded by booking Moreno and Kara-France for an interim flyweight championship match on July 30 at UFC 277. Interim Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs   Brandon Moreno - 20-6-2, 0 DefensesAnd just like that, we're right back where we started. Moreno and Kara-France put on a furious two and a half back-and-forth rounds, but as he somehow does Moreno became only more vicious and found his combinations as the fight wore on. Four and a half minutes into the third round he stunned Kara-France with a spinning backfist and followed it with a charging liver kick that put him down for good and put gold back around Brandon's waist. Immediately following the fight, Moreno called Deiveson Figueiredo into the cage and attempted to bury the hatchet, and the two appeared to somewhat tensely reconcile enough to agree on the now entirely inevitable rematch. In theory, Moreno/Figueiredo 4 will happen towards the end of the year. After the roller coaster this whole thing has been, I will hold my breath. Women's Featherweight, 145 lbs  Amanda Nunes - 22-5, 2 DefensesWomen's Bantamweight, 135 lbs  Amanda Nunes - 22-5, 0 DefensesThings are back as they should be. Up until December of 2021, Amanda Nunes was unquestionably the greatest women's mixed martial artist in history. She held and defended titles at both the signature class of Women's Bantamweight and the arguably real class of Women's Featherweight, and with her mixture of vicious power, aggressive grappling and solid conditioning, she defeated every UFC champion in the history of either class and, for good measure, Valentina Shevchenko, the ultra-dominant champion of Women's Flyweight, twice. What's more, she crushed most of them, taking on legends like Ronda Rousey and Cris Cyborg and knocking them dead in under a minute. Which is why it was something of a shock when she was choked out by unheralded journeywoman Julianna Peña. The abruptness of the ending to her streak, and the shockingly sloppy way she was taken out, left the fanbase both demanding a rematch and openly questioning how much of the loss was due to something being wrong with Nunes, rather than Julianna Peña doing something right, and opinions flew wildly regarding how close the second bout would be. Seven months and one season of The Ultimate Fighter later they met on July 30, and the answer was: Not even slightly. Amanda Nunes dumpstered Julianna Peña for five straight rounds, dropping her a half-dozen times and elbowing her face entirely open, and barring one touchy moment with an armbar, Peña was entirely shut out and lost a wide unanimous decision that included an incredibly rare 50-43 scorecard. Back on her throne, Amanda Nunes signaled her readiness to take a goddamn vacation for the first time in years while the UFC figures out where to go from here. Women's Flyweight, 125 lbs   Valentina Shevchenko - 23-3, 7 DefensesSometimes, when you've been untouchably atop your division for too long, any display of weakness seems like a loss. Sometimes, you might actually have lost. Valentina Shevchenko is a martial arts phenom: Multiple black belts, multiple Master of Sports degrees, dozens of kickboxing championships, hundreds of combined fights across all of her disciplines and twenty years of combat sports experience--by 34. Her most internationally popular achievement, of course, is her reign as the UFC Women's Flyweight Champion. She is, in fact, 12-2 in the UFC, and those only two losses came against Amanda Nunes, the champion of both 135 and 145, and the second was a split decision that could easily have gone the other way. This is what made it so shocking for people when the relatively unnkown Taila Santos very nearly defeated her at UFC 275. Santos controlled Shevchenko on the ground, spend a good part of the fight in back mount and at one point nearly choked her out, but Valentina fought back and eked out a razor-close split decision victory that, as always, many people disagreed with. While the sport continues its ongoing struggle over what wrestling and positional control do and don't count for anymore, Valentina Shevchenko remains the queen of the hill. Her most likely next contender will come either in another cross-class fight with the winner of Peña/Nunes 2, or from her own class with the winner of Katlyn Chookagian vs Manon Fiorot this September. Women's Strawweight, 115 lbs   Carla Esparza - 19-6, 0 DefensesCarla "Cookie Monster" Esparza is the top strawweight in the world again, and most of the MMA world is pissed. This is not a new phenomenon for her career. When Carla Esparza won Invicta's strawweight championship it was against "Rowdy" Bec Rawlings and people were upset, because Rawlings was both a fan-friendly brawler and a huge underdog. When Carla Esparza won the UFC's inaugural strawweight championship it was against "Thug" Rose Namajunas and people were upset, half because Esparza's stifling wrestling turned them off and half because the TUF editors did an excellent job making her look like an rear end in a top hat. When Joanna Jędrzejczyk butchered her in her next fight it was hailed by the entire MMA internet as the birth of the 'real' strawweight championship and everyone just kind of consigned Esparza to the dustbin of martial arts history. (Including me. I am guilty.) It took seven years, several tough losses and the UFC publicly sabotaging her championship aspirations, but Esparza made her way back to title contention and threw the gauntlet down at her once-defeated now-undisputed rival. And in 2022, when Carla Esparza won the UFC strawweight championship back from Rose Namajunas people were upset because it was quite possibly the worst title fight in UFC history. Even weirder: It wasn't entirely Esparza's fault. If anything, she was comparatively the aggressor--if very sparingly and typically ineffectually--and Rose spent the entire fight refusing to engage and being inexplicably reassured by her corner that she was executing a perfect gameplan and everything was fine. By the end the two combined for 68 landed strikes in five rounds and no one was happy save Carla Esparza, two-time champion of the world. Joanna Jędrzejczyk and Zhang Weili had a rematch of their all-time-great fight at UFC 275, and this time Weili controlled and ultimately knocked Joanna out in two rounds, making her almost certainly the next contender. The fight has not yet been announced; Weili Zhang is already a -300 favorite. CarlCX fucked around with this message at 06:27 on Aug 2, 2022 |
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ROGUES GALLERY: NOTABLE CHAMPIONS ACROSS THE WORLD Bellator Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs  Ryan Bader - 30-7 (1), 2 DefensesNo, I will never stop hating on Ryan Bader. I know it's not fair. Objectively, the man's had a pretty great career--he's a huge, action-figure-looking wrestleboxing motherfucker who only ever lost to the best of the best (EXCEPT TITO ORTIZ), when he puts it together he's got some great knockouts to his name and he humiliated Fedor Emelianenko AND Matt Mitrione, which are both things I deeply adore. But Ryan Bader is Ryan Bader, and that is both his blessing and his curse, and the continual ire he gets from the MMA community for daring to exist in the way that he does is as responsible for his career resurgence as his fists. He followed his successful slow-motion nothing of a title defense back in January with an even slower, less eventful defense in his rematch with Cheick Kongo, which for bonus points was in front of a very partisan and very upset Parisian crowd who in no way appreciated his wrestling and his refusal to mix any offense into it. He recently signed a new Bellator deal that he intends to retire under and he's made clear he no longer has any intention of competing at light-heavyweight, and that means his likely next contender is either Linton Vassell, who himself only returned to heavyweight three years ago, or a Fedor rematch, which would be loving hilarious no matter what happens. Bellator Light-Heavyweight Champion, 205 lbs   Vadim Nemkov - 15-2 (1), 2 DefensesAll the success in the world cannot stop the curse inherent to being in Bellator. Vadim Nemkov is a four-time sambo world champion, a former Spetsnaz operative, a 6'0" steroid golem and the light-heavyweight champion of Bellator, but his main contribution to the MMA world right now is unintentional comedy. Bellator held the finals of its light-heavyweight grand prix on April 15, and after twelve months of competition including six titlists it came down to standing champion Nemkov and top contender and professor emeritus of Beastin' Corey Anderson, and while Anderson was well in control an inadvertent headbutt opened a huge gash on Nemkov's brow--and as the fight was paused just five seconds before the end of the third round it was too early for a technical decision. So the tournament ended in a No Contest, and Bellator's championship is held by a champion who was clearly beaten, and the tournament final will need a do-over later this year, and Scott Coker continues to live a life cursed by his participation in Surf Ninjas. The rematch is expected for late July or August. Bellator Middleweight Champion, 185 lbs  Johnny Eblen - 12-0, 0 DefensesThe world did not see this one coming. Gegard Mousasi, widely considered the best middleweight outside of the UFC and arguably better than the majority of those inside, was a -260 favorite to retain his Bellator championship and cruise through his second straight year as a titleholder. And then he got punched in his god damned face. "The Human Cheat Code" Johnny "Diamond Hands" Eblen "Suffix Nickname" dropped Mousasi on his face with a hook out of nowhere just minutes into the fight, and that signalled the beginning not just of an upset but a five-round shut-out, as Eblen dominated Mousasi standing and grappling, earning both Bellator's middleweight championship and, for the first time in his career, his own Wikipedia page. Unsurprisingly, Eblen is a lifelong wrestler out of American Top Team, explaining the power hooks and power doubles alike, and unsurprisingly, Mousasi's achilles heel was a really good wrestler. What comes next for Eblen is anyone's guess. Could be a Mousasi rematch if Scott Coker gets mad about wrestling existing again, could be the winner of Larkin/Berkhamov, could be Yoel Romero dropping back down to 185. For the moment, Eblen gets to be on top of the world. Bellator Welterweight Champion, 170 lbs   Yaroslav Amosov - 26-0, 0 DefensesYaroslav "Dynamo" Amosov is in that very strange place where he's simultaneously one of the most successful prospects in the sport and a fighter almost no one feels a need to pay attention to. He's a four-time world champion in sambo, he's undefeated in nearly a decade of mixed martial arts competition, he has a 26-0 record at just 28 years old and he dominated the very tough Douglas Lima to become the first Ukrainian MMA world champion (you came so close, Igor), and he has a total of 1,253 Twitter followers. Some of it is exposure--it probably doesn't help that Amosov was on Bellator's prelims just before his title eliminator--and some of it is a very tactical and sometimes control-centric style that does not lend itself well to attracting viewers, as seen in a 7-0 Bellator record with only two stoppages, one of which was a doctor's stoppage on cuts between rounds. The fact that he's a 26-0 world champion and is still mostly being looked at as a prospect is a testament to both the amount of talent he very clearly has and the way everyone's still kind of waiting for something big to happen to him, which, uh, also indicates where Bellator is in the pecking order of the collective MMA consciousness. Bellator had been planning to finally cash in on their many years of can-crushing by having Amosov defend his title against weirdo striker Michael "Venom" Page on May 13, but Amosov is fighting in the ongoing war in his homeland Ukraine, which doesn't appear to be ending anytime soon. Consequently: Bellator Interim Welterweight Champion  Logan Storley - 14-1, 0 DefensesStop me if you've heard this one before: A company books a massively-hyped international superstar striking specialist against an American wrestler and the result makes everyone really mad. Bellator has been salivating over the idea of getting a championship on British kickman Michael "Venom" Page for years, and with Amosov no longer available they thought the half-a-foot-shorter Logan Storley would be a good candidate, and shockingly, the 14-1 wrestler whose only loss was a split decision to Amosov himself proceeded to wrestle Page for about 2/3 of their 25-minute fight. He ultimately won a close split decision that should easily have been both broad and unanimous, and as always happens with this script, MVP wants an immediate rematch. Scott Coker, proving every promoter is just one piss-fit away from becoming Dana White, used the post-fight presser to complain about the judging and insist that Storley's choice to just wrestle "isn't MMA" and shouldn't have won him the decision. It's 2022 and it is still the wrestler's fault that their opponent can't wrestle. In theory a unification match between Storley and Amosov is next, but with no sign of an end to the invasion of Ukraine, who knows. I'm sure Bellator would love to give MVP a rematch. Bellator Lightweight Champion, 155 lbs  Patricky "Pitbull" Freire - 24-10, 0 DefensesBellator's lightweight division is in a deeply unfortunate place right now. Bellator's canonical best fighter, for a very long time, was the reigning Featherweight and Lightweight double champion Patricio Pitbull, who knocked out some guy you may have heard of named Michael Chandler to win the latter. He's one of the best fighters on the planet. This is not him. This is his twin brother Patricky, who is one inch taller and also less good. Patricio held the lightweight championship without defending it for two years until the moment Bellator agreed to put Patricky in a championship main event, at which point he coincidentally decided to vacate the belt and focus on 145. Patricky also got the title shot coming off two consecutive losses, one of which was a somewhat absurd cut stoppage in a fight he was winning against Peter "The Showstopper" Queally, who himself was only 11-6 at the time and was delivered into title contention based on a victory over a guy who never won a Bellator fight. (The secret: He was Irish and the title fight was in Dublin.) Patricky won the rematch handily and is now the champion of a lightweight division where the two top contenders are 4-1 and 3-0 respectively and when you talk about him most people think you're talking about his brother. He was supposed to defend his title against Sidney Outlaw at Bellator 283 on July 22, but a last-minute injury, which for comedy's sake I'm assuming is a reaggravation of his groin tear, forced him out. Outlaw was instead knocked out by debuting Tofiq Musayev in thirty seconds. That monster is presumably awaiting Patricky upon his return. Bellator Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs  Patrício Pitbull - 33-5, 0 DefensesOne fight after being violently dethroned, Patrício Pitbull is back on top of the world. Patrício Pitbull has long been considered Bellator's GOAT, as a two-division champion with a 21-5 record across twelve years in the organization that's staggering not just for its breadth but for the way he had only ever been defeated by hard-fought decision or freak injury until July 31, 2021, when the meteorically-rising A.J. McKee knocked him loopy and choked him unconscious in one round. Pitbull protested the stoppage, as fighters always do, but he didn't have a case. By their rematch on April 15, 2022, Bellator had already anointed McKee as their new top star to the point of making him the central feature of their new promo packages--which made it very awkward and very funny when, after five hard-fought if tentative rounds, Patrício emerged with a unanimous decision victory. It has since been McKee's turn to complain and cry foul about bad judging, despite the fight actually being fairly clear, but he's also declared his intention to leave the division and move to lightweight, so Patrício is once again the undisputed king of his division. What comes next is presumably a match with Adam Borics later this year. Bellator Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs  Sergio Pettis - 22-5, 1 DefenseSo Sergio Pettis is good now, apparently. It's not that he was ever bad, exactly, it's that he was more or less forever in big brother Anthony's shadow. Sergio had a long five years in the UFC where he on several occasions seemed poised to break out into the top ranks and vie for a title, but he always managed to fall just short, building a strong win streak before getting controlled by Henry Cejudo, barely squeaking past Joe Benavidez only to get dominated by Jussier Formiga, moving up to 135 and getting shut down by Rob Font. He went to Bellator just a few months before his brother left for the PFL, and now, in a stunning turnaround, Sergio is the successful one in the family. He won Bellator's bantamweight championship in his third fight with the organization, and in the biggest fight of his career, an interpromotional match pitting his title against Rizin bantamweight champion (and former Bellator champion himself, who vacated due to injury) Kyoji Horiguchi, Pettis shocked the world by battling through four difficult rounds he was fairly clearly losing and knocking out the heavy favorite with a painfully pretty spinning backfist. Sergio Pettis is no longer an also-ran. Unfortunately, as these things always go, he followed this up by getting injured. He's out of this year's Grand Prix and his timetable for return is iffy enough that Bellator immediately booked an interim championship between Raufeon Stots and Juan Archuleta for Bellator 279 on April 23. Bellator Interim Bantamweight Champion  Raufeon Stots - 18-1, 0 DefensesHe did not waste the opportunity. Raufeon Stots has been looked on as a major bantamweight prospect for years: A two-time DII wrestling champion, a heavy-handed puncher and an exceptionally conditioned grappler with guidance from Roufusport, Jens Pulver and Kamaru Usman thanks to their shared alma mater who won his first regional title just two years into his career. He's 18-1 with his only loss coming via a shock 15-second knockout against one of the best in the world in Merab Dvalishvili. Stots stormed Bellator in 2019 and is on an unbeaten six-fight streak with the organization, and when faced with both the entrance to his first grand prix, the stiffest competition of his career in former champion Juan Archuleta and the interim Bellator championship on the line, Stots did what some of the best in the world couldn't and knocked Archuleta out in the third round. Loudmouth wrestler Danny Sabatello defeated Leandro Higo to reach the next round of Bellator's Grand Prix, and will face Stots later this year for both the championship and the first berth in the finals. Bellator Women's Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs  Cris Cyborg - 26-2 (1), 4 DefensesYup. It's 2022 and Cris Cyborg is still out there. For those who don't know, Cris Cyborg was the canonical women's featherweight fighter, a muay thai wrecking machine who didn't just beat but brutalized essentially all of her opponents, including ex-Star Wars Gina Carano, and her popularity as a destroyer of humans is the only real reason women's featherweight even exists as a division, to the point that the UFC added it when she was the only actual fighter at the weight class they employed. She was 20-1 (1) when she passed the torch to Amanda Nunes, who slew her in just fifty-one seconds. She took one more fight in the UFC to complete her contract, but left for Bellator almost immediately afterward with uncharacteristic cooperation from the UFC itself--after all, they'd gotten what they wanted out of her. Her first Bellator fight was a one-sided destruction of their featherweight champion, and she's defended it three times since. At this point in Cyborg's career the problem isn't her or her fighting or her age, but simply that there's no one in Bellator for her to fight--after just five fights she's already hitting rematches, having just recorded her second one-sided bludgeoning of a very game but outmatched Arlene Blencowe. Consequently, Cyborg has stated she wants her next fight to be a boxing match, not MMA, which Bellator is more than happy to oblige being as it's apparently always been an option in her contract and they couldn't stop her if they wanted to. Who or how this will happen is anyone's guess. Bellator Women's Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs  Liz Carmouche - 17-7, 0 DefensesThis wasn't a thing most people expected, nor are most people happy about it, but it kind of makes me smile. Liz "Girl-Rilla" Carmouche is a former marine who's been grinding away at mixed martial arts for twelve years, and for the entirety of those twelve years she's been just good enough to touch the top of the mountain but not quite good enough to climb it. In 2011, just one year into her career, she challenged for Strikeforce's bantamweight championship only to get choked out, in 2013 she participated in the first women's fight in UFC history and nearly upset everyone's marketing plans by neck cranking the poo poo out of Ronda Rousey before ultimately getting armbarred, and in 2019 she challenged Valentina Shevchenko for her flyweight title but just couldn't touch her. Her shift to Bellator wasn't met with much fanfare, but three wins with two violent stoppages earned her a shot at champion Juliana Velasquez on April 22, 2022. It seemed to be going Velasquez's way, but just before the end of the fourth round Carmouche muscled her to the ground, put her in the crucifix position and began landing elbows that were, respectfully, pretty visibly inconsequential, but referee Mike Beltran felt differently and called the fight off, leaving Velasquez apoplectic and Carmouche a world champion for the first time in her career. Velasquez is appealing the decision, which is aggressively silly and will go nowhere, but Bellator will almost certainly put together a rematch. It's worth noting that a) ONE uses different weight classes and b) ONE also has a dozenish various kickboxing champions, and for the moment, for sake of my sanity, we're just going to stick to the MMA champions. Maybe later we'll change this. FOR NOW: ONE Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs   Arjan Bhullar - 11-1, 0 DefensesIt's Arjan Bhullar, the man ONE CEO Chatri Sityodtong swears is better than Francis Ngannou. Bhullar, the first Indian world champion in the sport, was a big deal as a wrestler in his native Canada, won multiple collegiate championships at heavyweight, took a Commonwealth Games championship and ultimately achieved his dream of representing Canada at the 2012 Olympics where he was eliminated in the first round. He made his MMA debut two years later as, you may have already guessed, predominantly a wrestler. He was picked up by the UFC in 2017 at 6-0, and had a respectable 3-1 record with the organization, but chose not to sign a new contract after feeling the UFC was lowballing him. He signed with the then-growing ONE Championship in 2019, won his debut fight, took a year and a half off for the pandemic and returned in May of 2021 to TKO the baddest heavyweight in ONE, its reigning champion of almost six years, the man, myth, legend and Truth, Brandon Vera. And then, much like Vera, he promptly refused to sign a new contract and sat out for a year so he could play hardball. Chatri publicly shat on him and his management and set up an interim championship, and after many, many months of back and forth Bhullar agreed to a new deal, setting himself up against his stiffest competition yet. ONE Interim Heavyweight Champion   Anatoliy Malykhin - 11-0, 0 DefensesFor all things, there is a Russian punchman. Anatoly "Spartak" Malykhin is both an undefeated mixed martial arts fighter, a punching machine, and an avowed wife guy who credits her with his career, which he was about to give up as a 5-0 regional champion before meeting her. He promptly moved to Phuket, upped his game, met ONE's talent scouts and got signed directly into co-main event status. He is not only 11-0, and not only has finished all eleven fights, no one has yet made it further than the second round with him, including noted steroid elemental Amir Aliakbari, whom he starched in three minutes, and interim championship contender Kirill Grishenko. The fight hasn't been formally signed yet, but the heavyweight championship unification is expected sometime this ONE Light Heavyweight Champion, 225 lbs   Reinier de Ridder - 16-0, 0 DefensesONE Middleweight Champion, 205 lbs  Reinier de Ridder - 16-0, 2 Defenses"The Dutch Knight" Reinier de Ridder is probably ONE's most successful MMA fighter and he was recently deemed insufficiently important to merit a Wikipedia page. ONE prides itself on creating the 225-pound cruiserweight class many MMA fans have wanted for years, but it almost immediately fell victim to the problem many had theorized: A sufficiently skilled 205-pounder will probably also just win at 225. Aung La N Sang was the first to hold both titles simultaneously, but Reinier, a childhood judoka turned all-around adult grappling monster, choked him out in one round to win his middleweight title. Curiously, Sang was scheduled to defend his remaining title against someone else, but COVID put the seemingly more logical Reinier in, who promptly took the other belt home too. Because ONE is very, very silly, Reinier then made his first defense of the 205-pound title against Kiamrian Abbasov, ONE's 185-pound champion (whose own title was not on the line) whom he also choked out, meaning Reinier de Ridder is now the lineal titleholder of 1/3 of ONE's entire men's MMA program. To further make this more ridiculous, his first post-triple-champ fight was not a fight, but a grappling match against all-time BJJ great André Galvão, and upon wrestling him to a draw, he challenged him to an MMA fight which Galvão accepted. André Galvão's last mixed martial arts bout was twelve years ago, it was at 170 pounds, and he was knocked out in two minutes by Tyron Woodley. While the fight is still expected later this year, de Ridder made a pit stop to defend specifically the middleweight title against former champion Vitaly Bigdash at ONE 159 on July 22, in which Bigdash, fighting a grappling savant, decided it was a good time to jump a guillotine. He was styled on and submitted with an inverted triangle choke. ONE Welterweight Champion, 185 lbs   Kiamrian Abbasov - 23-5, 1 DefenseIt's Kyrgyzstani wrestleboxing time, baby. Kiamrian "Brazen" Abbasov came up in the Russian regionals and took home both the Tech-Krep FC championship and the MixFace championship, which is much, much funnier. He was picked up by ONE as an ultra-promising middleweight prospect, and lived up to that promise by immediately getting outworked against living legend Luis "Sapo" Santos. He was back in ONE nine months later, and was its new welterweight champion ten months after that. He's a smart, tactical fighter with a well-rounded skillset, but he has a tendency to get manhandled by superior wrestlers, which made it all the more baffling when ONE booked him against Reinier de Ridder, who pretty easily controlled and ultimately submitted him. Admittedly, ONE kind of has a proto-WEC thing going on--their lower weight classes are dangerous and interesting, their higher weight classes are so much less important that ONE doesn't even have rankings above lightweight on their own website. Abbasov is a champion, but what he is a champion of, no one knows. ONE Lightweight Champion, 170 lbs   Ok Rae Yoon - 16-3, 0 DefensesOk Rae Yoon was not supposed to be here. A lifelong part of Team MAD, the South Korean chain of MMA gyms that boasts superstars like Seo Hee Ham, Kyung Ho Kong and Doo Ho Choi under its wing, Ok Rae Yoon, despite being a very tough striker and counter-wrestler, flew mostly under the radar for most of his career. It wasn't until his mid-2020 capturing of South Korea's regional Double G Lightweight Championship that ONE took an interest. He was booked against former ONE featherweight champion Marat Gafurov, whom they seemingly expected to win, and he instead shut him down and took a decision. ONE promptly booked him into another match seven days later against Eddie Alvarez, whom they OPENLY expected to win, only for Yoon to shut him down, too. So they gave him a shot ONE's lightweight champion and one of its biggest stars, Christian Lee, and in the funniest thing yet, Ok Rae Yoon won an extremely controversial decision and upended everything. Christian Lee called the decision bullshit and demanded it be overturned and he be given a rematch. It was not overturned, and if you want to know how ONE feels about having one of their golden boys knocked off, Ok Rae Yoon has been a champion in ONE for almost a year, he's the only (non-interim) MMA champion to not even have a written profile on their website, and he's rematching Christian Lee at ONE 160 on August 26. ONE Featherweight Champion, 155 lbs  Thanh Le - 13-2, 1 DefenseDemetrious Johnson was once asked which ONE fighter would have the best shot in the UFC, and without hesitation he answered Thanh Le, which is particularly funny because they had two shots at him and passed each time. A Vietnamese-American by way of New Orleans, Thanh Le took to Taekwondo as a child and MMA after graduation, and five fights into his career he was on ill-fated The Ultimate Fighter: McGregor vs Faber that left us stuck with Artem Lobov forever. Despite scoring a knockout victory on the show, he was eliminated in the second round and not brought back. Two years later he was 6-1-0 and invited onto the second-ever episode of Dana White's Contender Series, and even knocked his opponent out with a violent headkick, but that was also the episode that debuted Sean O'Malley so nothing else mattered. Two years later he was an 8-2 prospect getting his shot in ONE, and five violent knockouts later he's a defending champion who has stopped every fight he's ever won. The culmination of his career came this past March, when undefeated MMA fighter, multi-time BJJ champion and total rear end in a top hat Garry Tonon came in against him as a betting favorite and got ground and pounded into unconsciousness in fifty-six seconds instead. Thanh's knockout streak makes him one of the most exciting fighters on ONE's entire roster. But, y'know, the UFC got Sean O'Malley, so really, who won? Thanh will be defending his title against Chinese contender Kai Tang at ONE 160 on August 26. ONE Bantamweight Champion, 145 lbs   John Lineker - 35-9, 0 DefensesJohn God drat Lineker, world champion. "Hands of Stone" is a 5'3" ball of muscle with lunchboxes attached to it. Our own LobsterMobster very accurately described him as someone who hits like a truck made out of a train. Lineker's been fighting since 2008, but he ran up a fairly unimpressive 6-5 record in the first year of his career and briefly considered retiring. And then, settling into his style of gritting his teeth, stomping forward and never, ever ceasing in his attempts to punch you as hard as he possibly could, he started murdering everyone. After thirteen straight victories and two regional bantamweight championships he was picked up by the UFC for its then-nascent 125-pound weight class, which was problematic given his love of being a giant muscle golem. He went 6-2 at the weight class, but he also managed to miss weight in half of those fights, resulting in his being forced up to bantamweight, where he was noticeably undersized and often gave up half a foot of height, and it didn't loving matter because he was John God drat Lineker. He went 6-2 again, with his only losses being a unanimous decision to two-time champ TJ Dillashaw and a razor-close split against top contender Cory Sandhagen. And staring at this massively marketable multiple-bonus-winning top contender who was knocking dudes dead at 135 pounds, the UFC decided to release him. Dana White said it was his lack of professionalism and weight misses, which seems like a strange thing to get mad about three years later; it is somewhat more likely ONE FC was trying to sign him and he rationally asked why he, as an eight-year, 16-fight UFC veteran, was only getting paid $46k to show. Three months later he was destroying people at 145 pounds in ONE, and three years later he fought reigning champion Bibiano Fernandes, one of the best featherweights of all time and arguably the best fighter outside the UFC period, and became the first person to ever knock him out. John Lineker is a violence machine, his fights are must-see television, and he's a goddamn 145-pound champion at 5'3". ONE Flyweight Champion, 135 lbs  Adriano Moraes - 20-3, 2 DefensesAdriano Moraes was one of MMA's best-kept secrets until very recently. His is a hard luck story that almost ended tragically; abandoned by his mother in an alley at 3, learning capoeira and judo at 7, running with street gangs by the time he was 12 and narrowly escaping death on several occasions until his friends and his adoptive mother convinced him to channel his energy into learning jiu-jitsu. He made his MMA debut at the end of 2011, and by the summer of 2013 he was 9-0 and a Shooto Brazil champion. His ultra-aggressive grappling, his quick, accurate crosses and his willingness to throw his entire body at you to take you down made him an incredibly dangerous grappler. It also made him occasionally too wild to retain control over his fights. Moraes is 17-3, and all three of those losses were close split decisions--two of which he's since avenged. This has also made him ONE's most recurrent champion, as he's actually now on his third flyweight title reign, with one successful defense in each previous period. But most people only really started paying attention to him this past April when he met the greatest flyweight of all time in Demetrious Johnson and not only defeated him, but became the first man ever to knock him out. Now he's in the weird if enviable position of having cleaned out ONE's flyweight division: Every successful contender they've signed, he's turned away. Instead of finding him anyone new, ONE is re-running his title win by having him rematch Demetrious Johnson in the main event of ONE's debut on Amazon Prime on August 26. ONE Strawweight Champion, 125 lbs   Joshua Pacio - 20-3, 3 DefensesJoshua "The Passion" Pacio, thusly named after his passion for hotel and restaurant management. A childhood student of both kickboxing and wushu, Pacio quickly established himself as one of the best 125-pound MMA fighters in the Philippines and, ultimately, was too good to stay there. He signed on with ONE in 2016, and his combination of solid grappling, spinning kicks and quick, darting punches got him up to a strawweight title shot within the year, which led to the first loss of his career and the discovery of his primary weakness: Strong wrestling games. Fortunately, this being 125 pounds and a striking-centric promotion, there aren't that many threats out there for him. He's on his second title reign now, his first having been ended during its first defense in a split decision by the greatest rival of his career, grappler Yosuke Saruta, but he wrested the championship back from him in a rematch and this past September defeated him again in a rubber match. Pacio is among the longest-reigning champions in ONE, having notched 1000+ days and 3 title defenses, but as ONE's profile has risen it has begun attracting international talent, and at ONE: Reloaded on April 22, former UFC fighter Jared "The Monkey God" Brooks took a decisive victory and lined himself up as the most likely next contender--and then got himself injured and scratched from his title shot a week before it happened. Better luck later this year. ONE Women's Strawweight Champion, 125 lbs   Xiong Jing Nan - 17-2, 6 DefensesXiong Jing Nan dreamed of lifting weights. She'd enjoyed sports as a child, and when China started its national push for Olympic supremacy she began training heavily in hope of joining the national weightlifting team. But then she met aspirants for its boxing team and fell in love with the idea of living out a martial arts movie and getting to hit people for fun and profit and she never looked back. She turned pro in 2014 and immediately became a standout, going 9-1 in China's Kunlun Fight promotion with wins across three separate weight classes. What made her truly dangerous wasn't one-punch power, but the ability to break her opponents with constant pressure striking, scoring TKOs with combinations stretched out across dozens of consecutive, unending strikes. The story was no different when she moved to ONE in 2017, and she was strawweight champion within two fights. ONE's women's MMA divisions have been its most stable, each having had exactly one champion, and they were so dominant that they inevitably had to fight each other--and, hilariously, traded wins back and forth in the process. 115 lbs champion Angela Lee went up to 125 to challenge for Xiong Jing Nan's belt but Nan stopped her with body kicks in the fifth round, and half a year later Nan dropped down to 115 to challenge for Lee's belt only for Lee to choke her out with twelve seconds left in the fight. Having ultimately accomplished nothing both returned to their own divisions, and Xiong Jing Nan now has six defenses to her name, the most of any champion in the company. ONE Women's Atomweight Champion, 115 lbs  Angela Lee - 11-2, 5 DefensesAngela Lee is one of ONE's biggest stars and has been widely called its postergirl, and while the metrics may be debatable, she's an extremely solid choice. Her background is varied both culturally and martially: Born in Canada in a Singaporean-South Korean family made entirely of martial artists who all collectively moved to Hawaii when she was a child, she was not only training alongside them as a child, but training in multiple disciplines. By 15 she was a national Pankration champion, by 18 she had been signed by ONE before having a single professional fight, and by 20 she had two black belts and three defenses of ONE's atomweight championship. Lee is an extremely versatile fighter, capable of backing up her aggressive if sometimes loose striking with very solid defensive and offensive grappling, and her only two losses have come when fighting up a class at 125 pounds, against both its champion Xiong Jing Nan--whom she later choked out in a rematch at 115--and world jiu-jitsu champion Michelle Nicolini in a very, very close decision. Lee went on hiatus at the end of 2019 to have a baby and intended to be back by the end of 2020, but then the pandemic happened and she decided to use her cache within the company to just sit it out, making her aguably the smartest fighter in the world. ONE declined to make an interim championship, so she returned to competition this past March as a defending champion and main-evented the ONE X supercard against its atomweight queen in her absence, Stamp Fairtex, and notched her fifth title defense after choking her out in the second round. ONE has its star player back, and in all likelihood she'll be facing her next challenge in Hamderlei Silva herself, Seo Hee Ham, later this year.  Rizin Lightweight Champion, 156 lbs  Roberto de Souza - 14-1, 2 DefensesRoberto "Satoshi" de Souza is trying to become the new Gegard Mousasi. On April 17 he had the chance to avenge the only loss of his career, a half-knockout half-injury against "Hollywood" Johnny Case back in 2019, and he succeeded in emphatic fashion, climbing Case's back, locking him in an inverted triangle choke and eventually forcing an armbar. He's now 14-1 and inarguably one of the best lightweights outside of the UFC, but unlike most of the other fighters to bear that title, he has made it clear he has no interest in changing that. Where the A.J. McKees and Michael Chandlers of the world want to test free agency and notoreity, Roberto de Souza is happy in Japan, both because his Rizin pay is fairly lucrative and his entire family jiu-jitsu business is based in the country. This is admirable, but it's also a little unfortunate: Rizin really only has around a dozen lightweights under contract, and "Satoshi" has already beaten a third of them. He may be waiting for a Spike Carlyle or a Luiz Gustavo to work their way into contention, but the Rizin ranks hold few surprises for him at this point. If he's happy, though, he's happy. Rizin Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs   Juntaro Ushiku - 21-8-1, 0 DefensesJapan has always had an extremely strong regional MMA scene, and occasionally top competitors somewhat abruptly pop out of it. The Fighting Bull Juntaro Ushiku is the latest, and one Rizin didn't quite seem to expect. One of Rizin's primary stories has been its love of the Asakura brothers, Kai and Mikuru, both of whom have made big impacts and gotten some perhaps occasionally favorable matchmaking to speed along their route to Japanese stardom. It was somewhat counter to Rizin's plans when Mikuru got outfought and controlled by a lesser-known wrestler in Yutaka Saito, and even moreso when Saito promptly got his face kneed off by Ushiku, the featherweight champion of DEEP. Look at that lovely, low-res picture up there. If you dealt with it with aplomb, quote this for something dumb. Ushiku did, in fact, immediately return to DEEP two months later. He's a scrappy fighter--well-rounded, no enormous standout skills, lots of split decisions, very difficult to finish--and Rizin wanted the title back on Saito enough that they gave him a rematch despite having only lost a fight in the interim. The resulting fight was very close, but off the strength of having dropped Saito with a headkick, the judges gave Ushiku the unanimous decision. I had assumed Ushiku would be defending against Mikuru, but Mikuru is instead fighting, uh, Floyd Mayweather Jr. So who the gently caress knows. Rizin Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs  Kyoji Horiguchi - 29-5, 0 DefensesKyoji Horiguchi is going through a difficult time in his career. Horiguchi is, indisputably, one of the absolute best flyweights on the planet. He's an incredibly fast, powerful striker with very solid wrestling and aggressive grappling to back up his skills, and the streak of incredible knockouts and submissions on his record is a testament to his skills. Trouble is: He's not fighting at flyweight, he's fighting at bantamweight, and it's finally starting to become a problem. His half-decade unbeaten streak ended in 2019 thanks to a first-round upset loss against Kai Asakura, but Rizin rushing him back in mid-knee injury was blamed for that, especially when Kyoji starched Kai in a rematch the next year. And then he lost his Bellator bantamweight championship to Sergio Pettis after winning most of the fight only to walk into a spinning backfist. And now he's lost his berth in Bellator's bantamweight grand prix after just getting grappled to death by Patchy Mix, who, while very good at jiu-jitsu, also had the advantage of half a foot of height and reach on Horiguchi. He continues to be almost certainly the best fighter in Rizin, and inarguably Japan's best at flyweight AND bantamweight, but three years ago he was the nearly-undefeated champion of the two biggest b-leagues in the world simultaneously and now he's 1-3 in said three years and has a Rizin title he's never defended. For someone who wants to be the best in the world, there are questions to be answered about where he goes from here. Rizin Women's Super Atomweight Championship, 108 lbs  Seika Izawa - 6-0, 0 DefensesAll hail the new queen. After years of reigning as Japan's best atomweight, the legendary Ayaka Hamasaki fell not once but twice to the rookie Seika Izawa. A 24 year-old who was pushed into judo as a child by a frustrated mother who was tired of her constant fighting with her brothers, Izawa discovered a love for grappling that led her to win junior championships in judo, wrestling and sumo alike. She would still be pursuing judo had the pandemic not shut down much of its competitive scene, but fortunately, mixed martial arts is a terrible sport run by monsters who don't care about things like deadly diseases, which made it a tempting professional prospect. Four months after her formal MMA training began Izawa was winning fights in DEEP, less than a year after that she was DEEP's strawweight champion, and one year later she was dominating one of the best women's fighters in history on Rizin's New Year's Eve special. As Japanese organizations tend to do, frustratingly, the fight was a non-title affair, meaning Izawa had to come back and do it again on April 17. After a scary moment where Hamasaki almost stole an armbar, Izawa resumed her wrestling domination and formally took Rizin's atomweight championship. As entirely fresh blood, the world of Rizin's talent is open to her--but that also means she's got a real, real big target on her back. She's taking part in this year's Rizin Atomweight Grand Prix, and got through the first round with a submission victory over Brazilian champion Laura Fontoura at Rizin 37 on July 31. The rest will most likely be on New Year's Eve.
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Aug 1, 2022 18:03
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https://twitter.com/ChaelSonnen/status/1553876338615910408?s=20&t=-Lpf7LIVwbcwMF9ND076HQ
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Aug 1, 2022 18:05
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cue the Top Gun themebeep by grandpa posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDlEJQt_feg Please ignore her support for Bolsonaro.
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Aug 1, 2022 18:21
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ok
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Aug 1, 2022 20:03
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Guys guess who's fighting this weekend? That's right, it's Smilin' Sam Alvey! I do remember his last victory fondly. Why, I was at the Philadelphia theatre with my darling wife Clementine. We were eating hard tack and watching Sam and a weighty Italian engage in fisticuffs to get our minds off the war with the Confederates. Clementine lost her dear brother at Antietam, but the excitement and joy of seeing that man raise his hand in victory cleared our thoughts of all negative emotion, if even for a single, fleeting moment. Though he hasn't won since, I pray one day he will experience the sweet taste of victory again.
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Aug 1, 2022 20:19
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Eh, he's got a strong enough opponent that it should be pretty quick and maybe even fun, I don't think Alvey can drag it out even to the halfway point.
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Aug 1, 2022 20:26
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Alvey's come a long way, from being explicitly punished by the UFC for going into business for himself and spray tanning a sponsor on his chess, to keeping his job only because he is the loudest and most vehement anti-union fighter in the company
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Aug 1, 2022 21:07
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The Automator posted:https://twitter.com/ChaelSonnen/status/1553876338615910408?s=20&t=-Lpf7LIVwbcwMF9ND076HQ Chael, still the greatest heel the UFC has ever seen
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Aug 1, 2022 23:19
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Meanwhile at Urijah Faber's A1 Combat 4 in Stockton, CA: https://twitter.com/UFCFightPass/status/1553859325738762240 Hahaha it's what you're seeing here between rounds, ref starts the next round, immediately calls time to wipe water from a corner of the cage, like a full minute goes by while they're waiting, everyone's ready, ref starts the round again, calls time again and brings in the doc who of course immediately calls it. Brut fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Aug 2, 2022 |
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Aug 2, 2022 00:16
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Oh poo poo! It's  B League Preview Time! PFL 7 - Friday, August 5 Postlim Card - 9PM ET, ESPN+ Featherweight - Brahyan Zurcher vs Ricardo Jimenez Zurcher is 3-0 with a pair of submission wins. He was last in action in March, winning a decision on the PFL Challenger Series over Scottie Stockman. Jimenez is 0-1-1 with some boxing bouts in the mix as well. Look, it’s postlims with a winless guy. Who gives a honk. Lightweight - Elvin Espinoza vs Corey “Maximus” Jackson Espinoza is 6-0 with 3 RNCs and 3 TKOs. This is his first fight since last August, a submission over Hopeton Stewart at PFL 2021 #7. Jackson is 5-1, and he’s never not gone the full time. He’s on a two-fight win streak. I’m going with the guy who finishes to get a finish. Welterweight - Lucas “Hulk” Barbosa vs Elmar Umarov Barbosa is 2-1, with his last MMA bout taking place in 2012. Since then, he’s been in a ton of grappling contests. Umarov is currently 4-1, with 3 submission wins. Barbosa probably has more grappling experience, but he hasn’t had to deal with getting punched in the face in a decade. Lightweight - Alexei “Russian DNA” Pergande vs Elvis Lebron “Cutthroat” Quiles Alexei is 1-0 as a pro, cinching an arm triangle on PFL Challenger Series 7 in April. He went 4-0 as an amateur, with 3 submissions and one TKO win. Quiles is making his pro debut here, having gone 4-0 as an amateur, all decision wins. I wanted to pull for the dude named LeBron, but it looks like Pergande actually has finishing instincts. Main Card - 7PM ET, ESPN Lightweight Semi-Finals - Anthony “Showtime” Pettis vs Stevie “Braveheart” Ray Pettis went 1-1 in the regular season, both bouts ending by submission. He finished Myles Price in the first round with a first round triangle choke, and lost his second bout via what’s being called a modified twister, though at first, I assumed his ribs had popped asunder like in his Poirier fight. Ray is also 1-1 in PFL 2022 regular season action, dropping a decision, and then snatching the aforementioned modified twister in the second round against Pettis. Here we see the weird nature of the PFL format. Pettis and Ray fought a few months ago, and due to points totals, we’ve got a rematch in the first round of the playoffs. These guys have seen each other, they’ve drunk deep of each other’s musks. Pettis is more skilled, but his body has a tendency to hate him and fall apart. Light Heavyweight Semi-Finals - Omari “Wolverine” Akhmedov vs Josh Silveira Akhmedov went 2-0 in PFL regular season competition, first burying Viktor Pesta next to the Crone Under the Root in the first round, and then he arm triangled Teodoras Aukštuolis. Silveira squeaked into the playoffs, after only having 1 regular season fight, a first round KO over Marthin Hamlet. He had previously pulled out of the opening bout against Emiliano Sordi. Look, let’s just get this out of the way. I am emotionally ruined because Shoeface had to withdraw because of a torn ACL. So, whoever wins the whole thing is a fraud champ. But Akhmedov is probably going to starch Silveira here. Light Heavyweight Semi-Finals - Rob “Razor” Wilkinson vs Delan Monte Razor Rob and his fantastic mustache went 2-0 in PFL regular season, first putting away Bruce Souto in round 2, and then punching his ticket by punching Viktor Pesta in just over 3 minutes. Monte is another playoff squeaker, going 1-1 in the regular season. He got Shoeface’d in the first bout, but managed to bounce back with his own first round finish, putting out Sordi. The dream for Del Monte ends here, folks. The mustache is too strong. Lightweight Semi-Finals - Olivier “The Canadian Gangster” Aubin-Mercier vs Alex Martinez OAM won a pair of decisions, a splitter over Natan Schulte, and unanimous against Raush Manfio. Martinez also won two decisions, taking out Stevie Ray, and then stealing victory from Clay Collard via split. Alex Martinez is a bastard man for illegally winning a fight against Clay Collard. Harrumph! Prelim Card - 6PM ET ESPN+ Heavyweight - Marcelo Nunes vs Dylan “Big Poppa” Potter Nunes is 8-1 with 6 submission wins. He had a 4-year absence from MMA, competing in grappling contests. He’s on a 3 fight win streak, with a pair of arm triangle choke wins, including his most recent, a March win on the PFL Challenger Series over Bevon Lewis Potter is 10-5 with 7 sub wins. He got submitted in his last fight in September, but his opponent took female fertility drugs, so that fight got overturned to a no contest. Potter has lost to the likes of Ronny Markes and Anthony Hamilton. I don’t think he’s very good. Light Heavyweight - Cory Hendricks vs Marthin Hamlet Hendricks, sadly, got hosed in the regular season. He was an alternate and beat Emiliano Sordi in round 1, but he didn’t get another bout, leaving him on the outside looking in with 6 points. Hamlet went 1-1 in the regular season, decisioning Teodoras Aukštuolis, and then getting knocked out by Silveira. Hendricks is going to show why he should have been in the playoffs. Expect a whomping, Hamlet. Welterweight - Mahmoud Fawzy “Prince of Egypt” Sebie vs Itso Babulaidze Sebie is 2-1 in regular MMA, 1-0 in bareknuckle MMA. All of his fights have ended by punching. He lost his last bout at Bellator 271 in November. Babulaidze is 1-0 as a pro, 3-2 as an amateur. Sebie is gonna win by punching.
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Aug 2, 2022 01:13
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Aug 2, 2022 01:33
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https://twitter.com/rizin_English/status/1553642090734690304?t=1p77-HarYYLmwovEWY8OyA&s=19
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Aug 3, 2022 01:04
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What a loving comeback over in the contender series https://twitter.com/ufc/status/1554646914682986498?s=20&t=gOzlcU-9hJhThwlQ1J5qvA All the fights were pretty drat good this night after last week's eh card
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Aug 3, 2022 02:56
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Digital Jedi posted:What a loving comeback over in the contender series Wow that really is crazy. drat. If you scrolled past this, go watch it. What a crazy sport
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Aug 3, 2022 08:24
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The look on the guy in red's face as he gets dropped is very "wtf happened" energy
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Aug 3, 2022 08:29
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Reinier de Ridder plans to go after the ONE Heavyweight championship so ONE might have one dude holding the belt in 3 divisions simultaneously.
Unperson_47 fucked around with this message at 10:57 on Aug 3, 2022 |
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Aug 3, 2022 10:37
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How does that reflect on their hydration testing? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA WE KNOW ITS FAKE
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Aug 3, 2022 12:07
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Surely it's a fat BJ fighting HW at 180lbs sort of thing.
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Aug 3, 2022 15:42
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Aug 3, 2022 17:32
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kimbo305 posted:Surely it's a fat BJ fighting HW at 180lbs sort of thing. ONE uses hosed up weight classes; middleweight is 205 and light-heavyweight is 225. Reinier de Ridder is actually 6'4" with 79" reach to Arjan Bhullar's 6'1" with 76", and the last time Arjan weighed in for a fight in ONE he was about 235.6 pounds. So it's actually not out of the realm of possibility Reinier could have a size advantage over the heavyweight champion.
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Aug 3, 2022 17:38
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Jfc lol
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Aug 3, 2022 18:08
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https://twitter.com/shaunalshatti/status/1554876927353032704
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Aug 3, 2022 18:17
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Grasso has withdrawn from her Aug 13 bout rough luck for a real contender imo
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Aug 4, 2022 00:46
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 lol look at this card for the UFC's first visit to the 8th biggest city in the US since 2015
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Aug 4, 2022 01:02
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Tangy Zizzle posted:Grasso has withdrawn from her Aug 13 bout Grasso might be one of the most disappointing imports in the UFC. It's not even a Zack Makovsky/Hector Lombard/Will Brooks style crash and burn, just a steady stream of underperforming, injuries and false starts that's lasted 6 years now. It's a shame since I remember what an absolute beast she looked like in Invicta. If you don't remember it, her fight with Mizuki Inoue was one for the ages. I'm still holding out hope that she lives up to all that promise.
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Aug 4, 2022 02:36
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I didn't realize this was a Dalle thing at first when I scrolled and I was legit horrified like I just saw some of the photos they don't send back from the war
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Aug 4, 2022 02:38
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Also I just wanted to post that today I thought about Amanda Nunes performance from last week and it made me happy :-]
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Aug 4, 2022 02:38
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Sorry to triple post I am just staring at this and it's making me laugh more and more and I am making strange faces at my screen. I am reminded of a thread I saw on SA maybe 10-13 years ago titled "Images that make you go JESUS loving CHRIST" edit: help, I don't think I've laughed this hard at something like this while 100% cold sober in many months edit edit: that is the most depraved thing I have ever seen in my entire life and no one should look at it beep by grandpa fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Aug 4, 2022 |
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Aug 4, 2022 02:40
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Agreed, it's good having the lioness back at the top of the mountain. I generally don't like monopolies in divisions but I could watch Amanda every weekend honestly
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Aug 4, 2022 03:37
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https://twitter.com/freelancegoon2/status/1553598896370319362 i'm still cracking up at this. that fight was the purest diego sanchez energy i've seen in a long time.
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Aug 4, 2022 08:26
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Nierbo posted:Agreed, it's good having the lioness back at the top of the mountain. I generally don't like monopolies in divisions but I could watch Amanda every weekend honestly I normally get deeply tired of double-champ nonsense, but not only do I like Nunes as a fighter, women's featherweight isn't real so it doesn't derail anything to let her have both. It's perfect. Foul Fowl posted:https://twitter.com/freelancegoon2/status/1553598896370319362 https://twitter.com/drizzydezmond/status/1553600410254016513
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Aug 4, 2022 09:09
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lmao
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Aug 4, 2022 10:27
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Is there a stated reason there’s no womens heavyweight?
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Aug 4, 2022 14:00
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Head Bee Guy posted:Is there a stated reason there’s no womens heavyweight? There isn't an explicit reason, but the actual reason is there aren't enough heavyweight women. 175lbs is the women's boxing HW line so I'm using it. There are so few 145lbs women in the UFC that there are no rankings for the weight class:  The number of 145lbs women fighters in the world is vanishingly small. The number of women larger than that who are also fighters is extremely small as well. Right now it seems women's heavyweight in MMA is basically Gabi Garcia, and she's so juiced she makes wanderlei silva look small. 
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Aug 4, 2022 14:16
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Head Bee Guy posted:Is there a stated reason there’s no womens heavyweight? Lol. I assume the talent just isn’t there. Women’s Featherweight (145) isn’t even a real division anywhere afaik and take a look at the posts above to see how Bantamweight (135) Peña, who beat the greatest female fighter of all time previously, strikes. I also assume there’s very few 206-265 lb women out there fighting and that you’d want to see fight. Men’s Heavyweight is lovingly called “trashweight” for a reason.
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Aug 4, 2022 14:24
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FishBowlRobot posted:Lol. No sport has the same HW limit for men and women. Most women's heavyweight fightsport arein the 170-175lbs area. Your post still stands otherwise.
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Aug 4, 2022 14:27
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Mr. Nice! posted:The number of 145lbs women fighters in the world is vanishingly small. not to mention a lack of any viable contenders who haven't already been beaten by the gatekeepers who amanda demolished also PFL does do women's 155lbs (lightweight), but its just kayla beating people who aren't actually as good as her
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Aug 4, 2022 14:42
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