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HEY! Fights this weekend starts Friday morning, in like, 8 hours? Let's get it in!LobsterMobster posted:
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Oct 21, 2022 04:00
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| # ? May 21, 2024 18:40 |
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I was phone watching at 1.5X speed and now I am phone posting my thoughts - Snoowwwww Leopard! - Not sure how Belakh survived the armbar, and I dont fully agree with him getting the nod. oh welp - Echo Ronnie is real good at submitting people whom do not know what is The Take Him Down - Gustavo Balart, Mall Cop is just a lil guy! - The kickbox and Muay Thai fights were p good All told, a solid card.
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Oct 21, 2022 17:42
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ONE on Prime Video 3 coming up!LobsterMobster posted:
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Oct 22, 2022 00:54
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Was that TKO by boob punch?
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Oct 22, 2022 01:18
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Digital Jedi posted:Was that TKO by boob punch? i assumed tummy, but i was paying roughly less attention than herb dean, which is no mean feat
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Oct 22, 2022 01:27
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D-d-d-d-d-diamond heart
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Oct 22, 2022 01:31
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I like that ONE keeps Schiavello locked in a box for most of the fights on the Amazon cards and only let him out sparingly to holler THE BIG KIBOSH GOOD NIGHT IRENE
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Oct 22, 2022 01:34
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Short fight, but pretty radLobsterMobster posted:D-d-d-d-d-diamond heart
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Oct 22, 2022 01:37
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ahem COW SUCK MUAY THAI
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Oct 22, 2022 02:36
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RULES RULES RUELS
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Oct 22, 2022 02:40
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LobsterMobster posted:RULES RULES RUELS round 2, also badass
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Oct 22, 2022 02:47
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grapplechild does it again
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Oct 22, 2022 04:21
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my poor meaty cube of a son 
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Oct 22, 2022 05:43
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Somehow this is the least of Lineker's injuries 
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Oct 22, 2022 05:46
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LobsterMobster posted:my poor meaty cube of a son sorry that you aren't getting grandkids
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Oct 22, 2022 05:48
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Good morning, 90 minutes out
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Oct 22, 2022 14:07
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Thirty minute warning. I wish I drank coffee. CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 35: LEGACY   EARLY START TIME WARNING | PRELIMS 7 AM PST / 10 AM EST VIA ESPN+ | MAIN CARD 11 AM PST / 2 PM EST VIA PAY-PER-VIEWWe journeyed through the doldrums and we have arrived at the fireworks factory. Live from Abu Dhabi at gently caress You O'Clock if you're on the west coast, it's UFC 280, and it is stacked as hell with implications. Two championship bouts, two essentially guaranteed title eliminators (even if one of them is aggressively silly), two fights that easily COULD be title eliminators, and a bunch of well-matched prospects all the way down. There's going to be a whole lot of wrestling, and we are privileged to get it.  i am begging this card to hold together MAIN EVENT: NO VACANCY  LIGHTWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP: Charles Oliveira (33-8 (1), #1) vs Islam Makhachev (22-1, #4)This fight is for a championship, but it's about more than a championship. It's about legacy. For those just tuning in, I sang the song of Charles Oliveira this past May when he fought Justin Gaethje: CarlCX posted:Charles "Do Bronx" Oliveira is one of the best stories in mixed martial arts. He's a São Paulo favela kid who came back from near-paralysis as a child and was introduced to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu by a neighbor to keep his body strong, and two years later he was winning grappling championships, and seven years after that he was a black belt, a Brazilian MMA champion, and an undefeated fighter just starting his UFC career. People expected greatness from him almost immediately. And then he ran into Jim Miller and Donald Cerrone and chose to drop to featherweight, where he found nothing but struggle: Struggle to make the 145-pound weight limit, struggle with fighters he should have outclassed, struggle with his inability to break past the top ten. At the end of 2017, at the lowest point in his career, he had lost 3 of his last 4, had gotten kicked out of featherweight by the UFC after missing weight by almost ten pounds, and was fighting to keep his job. He made the difficult decision to leave his school, keeping his old BJJ coach but moving his primary training over to Chute Boxe in the hopes of tightening his striking and solving his problems staying mentally in his fights. And it was ruined by one half of one pound. The governing rules of mixed martial arts--in America, anyway--have a one-pound allowance over the weight limit for all non-title fights, as an observation of the unpredictability of the human body. Championship fights don't get this allowance. You're the best of the best, and that means you must, zenlike, expel all unwanted water molecules from your pores until you hit the weight limit on or below the dot. Charles Oliveira committed a heretofore unseen sin: He weighed in at 155.5 pounds for a 155-pound title fight. He was not the first UFC fighter to miss weight for a championship bout. Joe Riggs did it against Matt Hughes, Travis Lutter did it against Anderson Silva, Anthony Pettis did it against Max Holloway. But there was a commonality: They were all challengers. Nicco Montaño, the inaugural women's flyweight champion and Trivial Pursuit answer for "who was the worst UFC titleholder," previously came the closest to this, losing her belt thanks to a botched weight cut that saw her hospitalized before she could even make it to her weigh-in. Until May 6, 2022, there had never been a UFC champion who actively weighed in above the championship limit for a title defense. And that meant, after all of his accomplishments, after the ten years of crap Charles Oliveira crawled through to reach the peak of the sport, even after atomizing one of the toughest men in the world in just one round, Charles Oliveira created a record all his own: The first, and only, UFC champion to lose their belt on the scale. To this day, Oliveira holds that he was screwed. He believes he made weight perfectly and the Arizona State Athletic Commission intervened in an attempt to hand local boy Justin Gaethje the belt. Given that Oliveira missed weight four times in his career, I'm not sure I buy it, but I also think the entire thing is ridiculous in general and the likelihood that the singular half-pound of weight gave Oliveira enough of a competitive edge to win a fight he otherwise would not have is aggressively silly. I cannot imagine Oliveira not being furious. I cannot imagine not carrying a chip on your shoulder. I cannot imagine not wanting to tear the next guy you fight apart to restore your legacy. And that's why it's important that his opponent--his challenger--is carrying another man's legacy on his shoulders, whether he likes it or not. Khabib Nurmagomedov had a massive impact on the sport. Some of it was his crushing wrestling, some of it was his attitude, a great deal of it was his destroying Conor McGregor before landing a flying dropkick on his jiu-jitsu coach. Mostly, though, there's simply nothing in combat sports that matches the mystique of being undefeated. Fighting for more than a decade, reaching the pinnacle of the sport, beating the best people on the planet and retiring with an unmarred record is so incredibly powerful as a legacy that fighters like Fedor Emelianenko, who haven't been undefeated or even relevant for more than a decade, are still idolized and worshipped simply because they, at one point, were. Almost no one at the highest levels of combat sports gets out unscathed, and the Floyd Mayweather Jrs., Rocky Marcianos and Khabib Nurmagomedovs are the impossibly rare exception. Islam Makhachev and Khabib Nurmagomedov have been linked since they were next-door neighbors in Makhachkala. They trained together under Khabib's father, they came up together as Combat Sambo champions, and when Khabib joined up with the American Kickboxing Academy he brought Islam along for the ride. When Islam joined the UFC in 2015, Khabib was already six fights into his run and seen by many as the next champion, and Islam was Khabib's slightly younger friend whom he proudly told anyone and everyone would one day be a champion, too. And then Islam Makhachev did the one thing Khabib Nurmagomedov never could: Lose. While fighting rising contender Adriano Martins, Islam charged recklessly forward behind a left hand and Martins immediately flatlined him with a single hook. Two years later, Martins would be out of the UFC; he hasn't won a fight since that punch in 2015. Two years later, Khabib Nurmagomedov was the #1 lightweight on the planet and getting slotted to finally fight for a title. Two years later, Islam Makhachev started rebuilding his credibility by destroying Nik Lentz and knocking Gleison Tibau, the one man who'd almost defeated Khabib, out cold with one punch. By 2020 Khabib's camp was on top of the world: He had the belt, Islam was on a six-fight winning streak, and their army of wrestling buddies were beginning to take over the world. And then the pandemic happened, and Khabib lost his father to COVID, and just like that, his career was over. At the top of his game and the peak of his power he abdicated the throne and all eyes fell to Islam Makhachev. And Islam loving hates it. Islam never wanted to be the next Khabib. He didn't want the media attention, he didn't want the pithy interviews, he didn't want the expectations or even the presumptions about his style. He doesn't even want a nickname. As his coach at AKA tells it, he wants to come to the academy, learn studiously, win a championship belt, go home and ride horses. He's honored to be associated with Khabib, he's blessed to have Khabib in his corner, but he sees himself as a different fighter, a different stylist, a different man. Which is unfortunate, because boy, the world sure doesn't. It's not just because of their mutual upbringing and training or their tendency to be wrestling monsters, it's the gravity of their performances. In just a couple fights I'm going to whine for at least thirty-four paragraphs about how unfair it is that Sean O'Malley is in a title eliminator when he hasn't beaten a single opponent in the top ten; Islam Makhachev, at 22-1 and heading into the first championship bout of his career, has only defeated one top ten opponent in his career, and it was Dan Hooker, who not only was in the middle of trying to right a slide himself but who took the fight on short notice, having just fought a full three rounds the month before. And no one cries foul because, like Khabib before him, it's not simply that Islam wins, it's that he destroys people. In his twelve-fight UFC tenure, Islam has absorbed an average of 7 significant strikes per fight. To put that in perspective, Dan Hooker landed 155 significant strikes on Dustin Poirier, one of the most beloved and most feared strikers in lightweight history. Against Islam he managed four, and then Islam tore his arm in half. The world of mixed martial arts has accepted there's no goddamn point in waiting. Islam Makhachev is a top contender who never beat a top contender because no one doubts he'd beat the top contenders. Everyone is more than content to jump to the end of this movie because everyone's much more interested in what happens when maybe the two best grapplers at lightweight meet. And thus, we arrive at the doors of destiny. A championship with no champion, a legend who wants back what he feels he never lost, a challenger who wants to shed the weight of one of the sport's biggest shadows. Legacy, and the desperate attempt to control it. And it's a tough loving call. The strengths are almost irritatingly complementary. Islam learned his lesson and stopped recklessly overextending after the Martins fight, but he still throws casting hooks and leaves his chin open sometimes; Oliveira's cultivated some of the most dangerous punches in the division, but his defense is still incredibly shaky and he's gotten badly hurt in every championship fight he's had. Islam's wrestling is the thing superlatives are made of and if he wants the fight on the ground he'll have absolutely no trouble getting it there, but Oliveira has quite possibly the most offensively dangerous grappling in the sport and has justifiably unshakable faith in his ability to jump on submissions. Those submission skills make things even more dangerous for Islam on the feet--because unlike his other opponents, Charles Oliveira is absolutely not going to rein in his standup for fear of being taken down. Writing this out makes me feel as though my brain is tearing itself in half. Logically, I see so many more reasons for Oliveira to win this fight. His entire style is a hard counter to so many of Islam's strengths. But I have seen Charles struggle, and I have seen Islam effortlessly cleave through so many people, that in my gut, I cannot help leaning towards him. It feels right, and I almost always pick with my heart, and I almost never learn my lesson. But I've picked against Charles Oliveira too goddamn many times not to. Charles Oliveira by submission. I see too many paths to victory for him and too many counters to Islam's strengths, and too many opportunities in the way Islam fights for takedowns not to get in trouble, and by god, I'm just not ready for the Charles Oliveira story to be over quite yet. CO-MAIN EVENT: THE POWER OF RULES BANTAMWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP: Aljamain Sterling (21-3-0, Champion) vs T.J. Dillashaw (17-4, #2) Here, too, we have a championship match featuring two title reigns defined almost entirely by the relationship between their respective champions and the rules. It's inexplicably easy for most of the MMA audience to forget and/or ignore this, but Aljamain Sterling is one of the best bantamweights in the history of the sport. In almost twelve years of competition and twenty-four fights, Sterling has only been beaten by three men, two of whom in Marlon Moraes and Raphael Assunção were among the best in the world, and the third, Bryan Caraway, should by all rights have been a draw. Right up to his championship bouts, everyone else fall to his lanky striking and his best-in-class grappling. Cory Sandhagen, the rightful #1 contender and one of the toughest, most talented men in the sport, can say he went toe to toe with John Lineker, knocked out Frankie Edgar, outfought Raphael Assunção and even in losing efforts lasted twenty-five minutes against T.J. Dillashaw and Petr Yan and landed hundreds of strikes on both. Aljamain Sterling effortlessly countered him, backpacked him and choked him out in ninety seconds. And all of that went away the moment Petr Yan kneed him in the face. It remains, to this day, one of the most explanatory examples of the MMA fanbase the sport has ever unintentionally given us. Aljamain Sterling, with dozens of fights to his name, who was at the time getting the poo poo kicked out of him by Petr Yan and continuing to fight and attempt to win, gets hit with an illegal knee to the face so blatant that the referee had, seconds before, warned him not to do it, and Petr Yan is disqualified, and the consensus takeaway from the incident, somehow, is Aljamain Sterling is a liar/coward/pussy/not a real fighter. Everyone agrees he took an unprotected knee in an undefended position from one of the most vicious strikers in the sport, but no one could agree that he deserved the disqualification. Every possible angle of his cowardice was alleged: He was faking it and could have continued, he was faking it and we know it because he gave an interview after the fight, he was faking it and we know it because he had an afterparty later that night, he was faking it because no real fighter would accept a championship victory that way. When the rematch was rescheduled because Sterling needed surgery, despite this, too, being an incredibly common thing, it was cited as evidence all of his naysayers were correct--especially by Yan himself, who dubbed Aljo a paper champion ducking the end of his time in the spotlight. It took thirteen months for the rematch to come. And Sterling won. Not even particularly subjectively; it was a pretty clearcut 3-2 victory, and one of those rounds was a pretty clear-cut 10-8 domination. But Sterling used the forbidden art known as 'grappling' and thus, despite his victory, his honor was somehow only tarnished further among his detractors. The judges called it a split, Dana White called it a travesty, and somehow, being on the same side of an argument as Dana White didn't make the anti-Aljo faction realize they might be wrong. The fall of T.J. Dillashaw was much more traditionally hubristic, but his rise was the stuff of which hubris is made. In 2014, Tyler Jeffrey Dillashaw was both the #6 bantamweight in the world and the owner of virtually no hype whatsoever. His primary achievement as a fighter was runner-up status on The Ultimate Fighter 14 after getting knocked silly by John Dodson, who fought an entire weight class lower, his run to possible title contention had been stopped by Raphael Assunção (boy, he comes up a lot), and he'd managed only one win against the skidding-towards-retirement Mike Easton when he was tapped as a challenger for bantamweight champion Renan Barão after his intended challenger--no points if you guessed it was, yet again, Raphael Assunção--had to bow out with a rib injury. Renan Barão was a -1040 favorite against T.J. Dillashaw, and in proper context that made perfect sense. At the time, Barão was the bantamweight division. Dominick Cruz was seen as his only potential challenger, and Cruz 's body was perennially on the verge of falling apart, meaning their fight for GOAT status never materialized. So you had Barão, who lost his debut fight in 2005 and proceeded to rack up an uninterrupted, 32-fight win streak as an impossible monster of knockout power and submission ability who was dumpstering some of the best fighters in the sport, against T.J. Dillashaw, on a win streak of one over a guy no one particularly cared about, known only for being a wrestler who occasionally kicked people. T.J. Dillashaw shocked the world. It wasn't just that he beat Barão, the MMA world can handle a major upset here and there, it was that he dominated Barão. He beat him from pillar to post, dropped him repeatedly, nearly submitted the world-class black belt twice, and ultimately outstruck him 169-68 en route to a fifth round TKO. His footwork, his combinations and his counters were all immaculate, and newfound turbo-striker T.J. Dillashaw was a threat the bantamweight division hadn't counted on. In the space of one fight he went from being seen as a forgotten quantity to an unbeatable champion. Which lasted two fights. Then Dominick Cruz came back for one year, won back the title, defended it once, lost the title, got injured and disappeared again. It was a wild twelve months. In Cruz's stead, Dillashaw challenged the main who defeated him and knocked him out twice--once in a title fight and again in an instant rematch--and was once again the reigning, defending bantamweight champion, as though nothing had ever changed. And then he dropped to flyweight to fight Henry Cejudo in a champ vs champ match and his dehydrated skeleton got knocked out in thirty seconds. And then he tested positive for notorious performance-enhancing drug EPO and was stripped of his bantamweight championship and suspended for two years. Suddenly, his reputation was gone, and every bad thing ever said about him--his reputation as a gym bully, his allegedly giving hot prospect the concussion that ended his career, Conor McGregor's constant references to his being an untrustworthy snake--became his new identity. Hell, the fact that T.J. Dillashaw went from one of the most unexpected and celebrated stars of mixed martial arts to losing the moral high ground to Conor McGregor is a devastating loss in itself. But Dillashaw did his time, came back, and was given a fight against Cory Sandhagen. Much as Sterling's reputation taints fan perception of his performances as a fighter, Dillashaw's reputation taints his: Dillashaw won a split decision in a fight so incredibly razor-close that its striking statistics are nearly identical, but the public consensus was an unjust robbery. When Dillashaw had to take a year off to rehab a knee injury suffered during the fight and returned to the announcement of an immediate title shot--not fan favorite and resurgent José Aldo, not the road warrior Marlon Vera, but T.J. Dillashaw, once again getting a championship opportunity thanks to one victory--it only cemented his status as a villain of the sport. So we have two bantamweight champions whose title fortunes hinged on violations of the rules; one a victim fighting to justify his place at the top of the mountain, one a perpetrator fighting to regain the credibility he lost. Aljamain wants people to realize just how good he is; Dillashaw just wants people to remember. Can Sterling overcome the striking advantage, or is Dillashaw about to get wrestled? It's loving tough to evaluate. T.J. Dillashaw is a world champion challenger who only has one fight in nearly four years, and it was an unfathomably close battle against a much different type of fighter. He looked a little slower and a little less effective, but he was also fighting Cory Sandhagen, one of the toughest strikers in the division. Aljamain Sterling is an exceptional grappler, but he's also two dozen fights into his career and he's never stopped anyone on their feet. Dillashaw, even at 36 and rusty, is a faster, stronger and more versatile striker than Aljo. Every moment the fight spends standing is a liability for him. In other words, this fight comes down to one basic question: Can Aljamain Sterling ground and control T.J. Dillashaw? Thoroughly. Aljamain Sterling by submission. Dillashaw's style centers around a lot of quick, darting movement, and Aljamain Sterling's style centers around capitalizing on moments of lost control. To close in on the larger, rangier fighter, Dillashaw's going to have to open up, and his favorite entries are quick, hop-in kicks, which are where Sterling does some of his best single-leg entries, and lunging crosses, which are how Sterling tends to wrap people up in the clinch. This fight is going to get to the ground; if Sterling can keep Dillashaw there, he'll win easily. If Dillashaw gets up, it's going to be a long night. MAIN CARD: RISE OF THE JUGGALO BANTAMWEIGHT: Petr Yan (16-3, #1) vs Sean O'Malley (15-1 (1), #12)Christ, this fight. I warned you during Oliveira/Makhachev that I was going to complain about this fight, and let me make my position clear: This fight loving sucks. Petr Yan is, unequivocally, the second-best bantamweight in the world. After four years and ten fights in the UFC his record is 8 and Aljamain Sterling, and he was five minutes away from fairly handily beating Sterling before he lost because he was too much of a dumbass to live. The biggest patch on Yan's career, aside from the Aljo-shaped hole in his psyche, is his success having been a touch too fast to let him climb the ladder; thanks to José Aldo's retirement, Petr Yan is a divisional #1 who's only actually beaten one person currently in the top 15. His vicious striking, his deceptive wrestling and his outright meanness in the cage all pushed him so fast he just soared over the rest of the competition and straight to the belt. (That and a truly inexplicable fight with 2019-era Urijah Faber.) But even with that, Petr Yan earned his spot at the top. He beat everyone in front of him, he almost beat the current champion, he did beat the #1 contender. Sean O'Malley, to say the least, has goddamn not. Sean O'Malley is Dana White's special Contender Series baby, and the UFC has done everything possible to make Sean O'Malley a star. They served him a steady diet of journeymen and aging fighters ready to be put out to pasture so he could collect knockouts that were all inexplicably highly-featured. Sean O'Malley, who was signed as an 8-0 fighter with no particular hype, has been on the prelims once in his ten-fight UFC career. "The fans just love him, you can't explain it," Dana White says, while shoving him over fighters like Dominick Cruz and Ilia Topuria. "It's just this crazy x-factor he has that makes people want to see him fight," Dana White says, while booking him against people on three-fight losing streaks. Sean O'Malley is ranked #12 in the UFC and even that is a lie. He's never beaten a top 15 opponent in his life. He's fought ranked competition exactly twice. The first time, Marlon Vera broke his leg and elbowed his face off. The second time, he and Pedro Munhoz spent a round and a half going 1:1 on strikes landed before O'Malley nearly gouged his eye out and somehow got away with a No Contest instead of a Disqualification. That's it. That's his resume. The best win on Sean O'Malley's record is Raulian Paiva, who was a UFC flyweight until five months before the O'Malley fight. The company is billing this as a huge, crazy fight--Dana White personally compared it to José Aldo vs Conor McGregor, because he has no shame--but it's all one desperate thrust at marketing Sean O'Malley. They tried to bring him up the ladder twice and they failed twice, and now they're done being subtle in their attempt to put a strap on their favorite living Xanax prophet. So it's Sean O'Malley, #12 going on 20, vs Petr Yan, the #1 contender. Does he have a chance? Yes! That's the most infuriating part of this whole thing! Sean O'Malley is not a bad fighter! Sean O'Malley is a legitimately dangerous striker with insane range on his punches and an unnatural ability to put them in the right place at the right time. He's quick, he's elusive, and he controls his range well. And he's goddamn 27. Left to his own devices, it's very possible Sean O'Malley could've developed into a contender all on his own. But he didn't do that. He got served an array of aggressively weird opponents and became a 5'11" slugger who struggles with guys he has more than half a foot of reach on somehow still leg kicking him at a distance. He hasn't had to deal with high pressure or top-class competition, and now he's fighting one of the best pressure fighters on the planet. If Pedro Munhoz was able to hobble O'Malley's legs, Petr Yan might rip them off. My second-biggest concern here isn't even O'Malley, it's Yan. Petr Yan showed a propensity for occasionally fighting stupid in the Sterling duology. He knows what a ridiculous fight this is, and that's half of what the UFC's counting on. If he plays with O'Malley, if he gives him space and opportunity, he can easily get his head taken off. If he closes on O'Malley and makes him suffer, it should be an easy night. That's my second-biggest concern, anyway. My actual biggest is how unbelievably insufferable the entire internet will become if O'Malley wins. Petr Yan by TKO. Please save us from the darkest timeline. LIGHTWEIGHT: Beneil Dariush (21-4-1, #6) vs Mateusz Gamrot (21-1 (1), #9)This is an almost quaint throwback: An actual match between two actual near-top contenders based on no marketing, hype or personality-based feud. It's just two really good guys who've beaten a bunch of people. I could weep. Beneil Dariush has been drastically underrated until very recently. He's actually been in the UFC for most of a decade, but most of his career has been dogged by unfortunate losses, and the combination of a three-fight winless skid from 2016-2018 and the fact that even though he's actually fairly young he has that Nogueira thing where he looks 45 left people writing him off. And then, much like Charles Oliveira, he put his poo poo together. The last four years of his career have seen a Beneil Dariush with tighter standup, more willingness to sit down on his punches, more offensive grappling and more confidence in his ability to survive against the top of the division. After wrestling the poo poo out of Tony Ferguson last year he was penciled in for a shot at Islam Makhachev, but an ankle injury scratched him and somehow we wound up here. Instead, he has Mateusz "Gamer" Gamrot, and boy, that's a hard deal. Gamrot came into the UFC in 2020 with a fair amount of hype as the lightweight champion of his native Poland's KSW, but he had the bad luck of making his debut against Guram Kutateladze, who took his undefeated streak with a split decision--a decision Kutateladze, for what it's worth, thinks Gamrot should've won. Gamrot responded by going on a four-fight tear, but some critics (including me; sorry, Mateusz) wanted him to fight stiffer competition than, say, an aging Jeremy Stephens. We got our wish this past June, as Gamrot put on a fight of the year candidate against fellow rising star Arman Tsarukyan and escaped with a close but unanimous decision against a fellow top lightweight in their prime. And I believe he's going to do it again. Beneil Dariush has worked his rear end off to get to the top ten, but he's got an uphill battle, here. Dariush is a very powerful grappler with some very powerful hands, but he's always worked better as the hammer than the nail, and Mateusz Gamrot just put on a masterclass in overwhelming a game opponent. Unless Dariush can crack him upside the head or force him down and control him, he's going to get outworked. Mateusz Gamrot by decision. WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT, BUT IT'S A 127.5 CATCHWEIGHT NOW BECAUSE CHOOKAGIAN MISSED: Katlyn Chookagian (18-4, #1) vs Manon Fiorot (9-1, #7)That's right, I'm putting a Katlyn Chookagian fight on the pissometer. Stop me, baby. Katlyn Chookagian has, for years, seemed inevitable. Even when she was losing to the Liz Carmouches and Jessica Eyes of the world, she was losing by very close split decisions and climbing the ladder again thereafter, undeterred, which is her entire identity as a fighter. Katlyn Chookagian is bigger than you, tougher than you, and is going to march at you while punching you, and if you get hurt, that's, well, highly statistically improbable, because Katlyn Chookagian has only three finishes in 18 victories and the last one was almost seven years ago in her last pre-UFC fight. She's credited with landing 1,267 strikes in the UFC and has produced exactly one knockdown, so if Katlyn Chookagian hits you, be careful: There's a 0.08% chance you're going to fall down. This has still seen her beat nearly everybody in the division, and despite her having been trounced by Valentina Shevchenko in their championship bout she seemed primed for another title shot, because, well, who else is there? Enter Manon Fiorot, French kickboxer. Her career is only four years old and she's fighting to become the #1 contender for an entire weight division, and this is thanks, primarily, to her unusual propensity for loving people up. Fiorot hits hard, but more importantly, she hits often and with thorough versatility. More than anyone in her division short of the champion herself, she's great at mixing her attacks and keeping opponents guessing, particularly as they come in to attack, and she's accentuated her point by showing the ability to use her strength to hoist and slam people if they're getting too close on the inside for her comfort. Fiorot's won all four of her UFC fights, the first two by particularly scary standing TKOs, and now she's up against the brick wall of progress. And she's gonna knock it down. Katlyn Chookagian's an exceptionally aggressive fighter, and that aggression has cost her against heavier-handed, better-seasoned strikers. When you wade forward throwing punches on everyone, inevitably, someone's going to make you pay for it, and when you can't necessarily outwrestle or outpower someone to stop them, you're in trouble. Manon Fiorot by TKO. PRELIMS: USING THE ENTIRE YEAR'S QUOTA FOR THE LETTER V WELTERWEIGHT: Belal Muhammad (21-3 (1), #5) vs Sean Brady (15-0, #8) It's time for wrestling's kid brother: Two wrestlers who can't wrestle each other because they're both too good at wrestling so instead they're gonna trade jabs for fifteen minutes. Belal Muhammad has been grinding for six goddamn years to get here. After a shaky start in the UFC and one difficult loss to Geoff Neal in 2019, Muhammad has gone eight fights without a loss thanks to his wrestling, his cardio, and his dogged willingness to stand in front of people and punch them in the face. It hasn't been without its travails: He was headed towards a one-sided loss to then-top-contender Leon Edwards before an errant eyepoke rendered the fight a No Contest. He rebounded from his injury by dragging Stephen Thompson to Hell and derailing Vicente Luque's violent stoppage streak, so he's more than earned his place here, knocking on the door of top contendership. And guarding that door is a Mortal Kombat Mirror Match. Sean Brady is a wrestler-rear end wrestler. He's 5-0 in the UFC with a victory over a top ten opponent and he's so much of a wrestler that virtually no one remembers it or even knows who he is, which makes particular sense when you realize that in that victory--it was over Michael Chiesa, for the record--Brady landed 5 takedowns but only 18 significant strikes, and 60% of them were landed in the first round. For the last two rounds of the biggest victory of his career, Sean Brady completed three takedowns that resulted in 0 submission attempts, and over the course of six full minutes on top of his opponent he landed an average of 1.3 significant strikes per minute. I like wrestling. Unlike so many of my peers, I refuse to betray the old ways. But Brady is hard to recommend to fans, and while the UFC has never much cared for Belal Muhammad, I have to believe they're desperately hoping he'll win this one. Fortunately: He should. Wrestling is Brady's entire gameplan, and Belal is very, very hard to take down, as Demian Maia's 1 out of 21 successful attempts will tell you. Belal's hands are sharper than Brady's, and unless Brady has been training to forego his own strengths in anticipation, he's getting boxed up between takedown attempts and cage clinches. Belal Muhammad by decision. MIDDLEWEIGHT: Makhmud Muradov (25-7) vs Caio Borralho (12-1 (1)) Makhmud, welcome to the sacrificial pyre. Muradov was seen as an interesting prospect when he was signed back in 2019, quite possibly the #1 fighter out of his native Uzbekistan and a regional middleweight champion after his victory over my new favoritely-named fighter, Tato "El Espectaculo" Primera, but his momentum was slowed to a crawl thanks to the pandemic and some bad luck putting him on the shelf for more than a year, and his 2021 comeback ended after a submission loss to Gerald Meerschaert. So, having seen him fall victim to a superior grappler, the UFC is now going out of their way to feed him to a grappling monster. Caio "The Natural" Borralho is one of the UFC's favorite new Contender Series winners, and you can tell by the way they very subtly gave the champion judoka and BJJ black belt a kickboxer with half his fighting experience for his second bout, and are now following it with a guy who just got trounced by a sloppy wrestler. This should not be a close fight. If it is, it means Caio has fumbled the promotional bag. Caio Borralho by submission. LIGHT-HEAVYWEIGHT: Volkan Oezdemir (18-6, #8) vs Nikita Krylov (28-9, #10)This fight's going to be either really good or really silly, and either way would be great. Volkan Oezdemir was at one point the scariest knockout artist at light-heavyweight and challenged for the world championship, but he's 3-5 since then and he's only got one stoppage in the last five years; Nikita Krylov left the UFC voluntarily in 2016 to hone his skills and return as the best in the world, but since said return in 2018 he's 3-4, and his only pandemic-era victories came against a newly-broken Johnny Walker and a deeply depressingly diminished Alexander Gustafsson. Oezdemir is unquestionably the more powerful striker, but he's been hesitant to pull the trigger in his recent contests, and Krylov, who has somehow made it to 37 fights over 200 pounds while suffering only one knockout loss, is going to be happy to pressure him with long kicks and straights if he isn't willing to press the issue. Oezdemir could put Krylov's lights out with a single punch at virtually any point, but he seems to have settled into a pattern of being a much more orthodox, careful striker, and I think Krylov's one of the few guys against whom that's a mistake. Nikita Krylov by decision. Zubaira Tukhugov is another of Khabib Nurmagomedov's students, but he may be the strikiest of them. While Tukhugov can wrestle, he seemingly prefers to march forward throwing pressure-heavy hooks, which would be more admirable if he were just a touch better at it--as it stands, four of his eight UFC fights ended in very, very close split decisions. This, plus the three and a half year gap in his career that means he hasn't had two back to back victories since 2015, means the UFC doesn't really know what to do with him. Thus: New guy. Lucas Almeida only made his UFC debut this past June, where he clubbed The Ultimate Fighter 27 (jesus christ) winner Michael Trizano upside the head en route to a third-round TKO victory. His striking is sharp and he's good at mixing up his attacks, but his ability to quickly adjust between positions proved problematic. I'm not sure that'll be a problem here, though. He's the stronger, faster striker and Tukhugov's tendency to go punch for punch with his opponents is putting a big crosshair on his chin. I'm not sure he'll get the stoppage, but I do think he'll land the more damaging strikes and satisfy the judges. Lucas Almeida by decision. WELTERWEIGHT: Abubakar Nurmagomedov (16-3-1) vs Gadzhi Omargadzhiev (13-1) Not all Nurmagomedovs are relatives of Khabib Nurmagomedov, but this one is. Abubakar is Khabib's bigger, slightly more headkick-happy and unfortunately much less successful cousin. He was a standout in the latter days of the World Series of Fighting, but sometimes around its switch to the Professional Fighters League he hit difficult times: He's 2-2-1 since 2018, and despite signing with the UFC back in 2019 he's fought in it only twice, having gotten triangle choked by David "I'm Sort Of Named After Two Street Fighter Characters" Zawada and wrestled a decision out of Jared Gooden. Gadzhi Omargadzhiev is an arguably tougher pull than either, a Sambo world champion who bounced into the UFC by way of the Contender Series and a kneebar over Jansey "Jones" Silva only to lose to the earlier-mentioned Caio Borralho despite taking an illegal knee to the head on the horrifically cursed Luque vs Muhammad 2 card where half the fights had some kind of flagrantly terrible foul happen. Gadzhi Omargadzhiev by decision. To some extent this is a coinflip, as we see Abubakar so infrequently that it's near-impossible to really chart his growth or regression as a fighter, but in our fleeting glimpses into his beautiful world we've seen him have trouble with canny grapplers and Omargadzhiev's game presents difficulties for his occasional overcommitments. MIDDLEWEIGHT: Armen Petrosyan (6-2) vs AJ Dobson (6-1 (1))AJ Dobson is the living ideal of what Dana White wants from his fighters: No head movement, no defense, just pure, straightforward slugging and the desperate hope for a finish, which is why he was wrestled into a fine paste by Jacob Malkoun in his last fight. Armen Petrosyan is a kickboxer and one of the few people to visibly hurt Gregory "Robocop" Rodrigues, most recently seen fighting to a successful victory despite having an internal artery in his face turned external, which is a testament to exactly the kind of firepower it takes to halt his progress. The UFC, because it is an organization run by monsters, has had both guys facing big, scary grappling monsters, and having now successfully debased them, it's time to stand and bang. Armen Petrosyan by TKO. Dobson is the rangier and more aggressive fighter, and he could always clip Armen, but we just saw Petrosyan cope with one of the most unstoppable pressure strikers in the game in Rodrigues, and his kicks and counters are a very bad match for Dobson's severe lack of defense. FLYWEIGHT: Muhammad Mokaev (8-0 (1)) vs Malcolm Gordon (14-5)Give the UFC credit: They know they have a potential star in Muhammad Mokaev, and they could be slow-walking him to the top, and instead, they're giving him some actual growing challenges. Mokaev's the British-Dagestani star hardcore fans had been talking about as one of the biggest amateur prospects in the sport for a couple years before he was even on the mainstream radar, and his UFC debut in 2022 was the best coming-out party he could've asked for, flattening the very, very tough Cody Durden in seconds with a flying knee before choking him out in less than a minute. Rather than a soft target the UFC gave him LFA champion Charles Johnson in his followup, and Mokaev still won, but it took three rounds of grappling dominance to get there. Malcolm "X" Gordon is an equally challenging draw: A flyweight champion out of Canada, a talented striker and wrestler, and a 2-2 UFC fighter who's currently on the winning streak side of that equation. I picked against him in his fight with Denys Bondar back in February, citing Gordon's tendency to get cracked in the first round while he's still cold; Gordon took the opportunity away by breaking Bondar's arm in half in less than ninety seconds. But he does still have that tendency, and Mokaev is both an ultra-fast starter and more than capable of exerting insane amounts of pressure for three rounds. He could easily suffocate Gordon all night, but I don't believe he'll have to. Muhammad Mokaev by submission. WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Karol Rosa (15-4, #9) vs Lina Länsberg (10-6, #12) We couldn't have a card without a chopping block fight. Karol Rosa is a prospect in the making: A solid all-around fighter who ran up a four-fight UFC win streak thanks to her ability to handle herself as well on the feet as on the ground, up until facing, say, an Olympic wrestler like Sara McMann, who ground her into a fine paste. Lina "Elbow Queen" Länsberg does not carry the nickname out of a sense of irony: She's not unskilled by any means as a standup fighter, but her best performances universally come from forcing opponents onto the cage where she can open up with elbows and knees. When she can contest a fight at clinch range, she's violent and dangerous; denied that, she loses more often than she wins, and is currently both on a two-fight losing streak and closing in on her 41st birthday. The UFC likes Karol Rosa. They gave her Bethe Correia's retirement fight. They are, in all likelihood, intending to do it again here, and they are, in all likelihood, going to get what they want. Rosa's not just a well-rounded fighter, she's an incredibly well-conditioned one, and if she makes it out of the first round the fight will only favor her more and more. Karol Rosa by decision. CarlCX fucked around with this message at 15:18 on Oct 22, 2022 |
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Oct 22, 2022 15:02
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On one hand, the first walkouts have begun. On the other, the broadcast audio is broken and commentary cannot talk. Jump on this golden opportunity while you can.
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Oct 22, 2022 15:43
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At least it's Felder instead of Rogan
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Oct 22, 2022 15:46
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They fixed it. It was one beautiful round of peace.
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Oct 22, 2022 15:55
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carol hose-a
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Oct 22, 2022 15:56
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LobsterMobster posted:carol hose-a clap clap clapclapclap
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Oct 22, 2022 15:56
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evilpicard posted:At least it's Felder instead of Rogan Yeah he only works domestics PPVs This fight is very lina lansberg
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Oct 22, 2022 15:58
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More like getting elbowed queen
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Oct 22, 2022 16:07
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lets go chaos, sterling, and chucky
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Oct 22, 2022 16:07
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It would be nice if this hype train stayed on the tracks.
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Oct 22, 2022 16:18
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Is the Fight Island discord down or something?
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Oct 22, 2022 16:23
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lmao corner yelling "He's just wrestling you" as if that's at all helpful
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Oct 22, 2022 16:28
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Flaskraven posted:Is the Fight Island discord down or something? Nope, we're on it too. Not working for you?
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Oct 22, 2022 16:32
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lmao friendly ref giving repeated cage grabbing warnings like a disappointed dad
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Oct 22, 2022 16:34
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CarlCX posted:Nope, we're on it too. Not working for you? Nope, can't find it in my servers and the invitation in the OP doesn't work. I'll try to figure it out. Also, fight related. All my Mokaev hype is gone.
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Oct 22, 2022 16:34
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oh poo poo
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Oct 22, 2022 16:37
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Does it hurt more from a standing position like that? That was a quicker reaction than I usually see from an armbar and he was cradling it a lot more after.
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Oct 22, 2022 16:43
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Flaskraven posted:Nope, can't find it in my servers and the invitation in the OP doesn't work. I'll try to figure it out. https://discord.gg/8TqvPfGc See if that one works for you. I'm still high on Mokaev, he's got the skills and the ability, but he needs a coach to dial him in.
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Oct 22, 2022 16:52
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hi all. what's the deal with that guy who dyed his hair a very strong hue of red? is he a pretty fun or funny guy? i'm going to catch most or all of the main show if i remember. hugs or fist bumps you according to your preference
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Oct 22, 2022 16:54
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Cavauro posted:hi all. what's the deal with that guy who dyed his hair a very strong hue of red? is he a pretty fun or funny guy? i'm going to catch most or all of the main show if i remember. hugs or fist bumps you according to your preference He's either gonna die tonight or live forever as a legend.
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Oct 22, 2022 16:59
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Wtf my early prelim stream ended after Rd 2? Lol
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Oct 22, 2022 17:02
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Cavauro posted:hi all. what's the deal with that guy who dyed his hair a very strong hue of red? is he a pretty fun or funny guy? i'm going to catch most or all of the main show if i remember. hugs or fist bumps you according to your preference he's very funny, but unfortunately for him, looks aren't everything.
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Oct 22, 2022 17:02
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is that mark Coleman in someone's corner? perhaps just in the arena or across the street
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Oct 22, 2022 17:02
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Bizarre approach from Dobson there, seems like he was just coasting.
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Oct 22, 2022 17:08
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