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Which main event fighter are you most looking forward to seeing in July? This poll is closed. |
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1 | 3.33% | |
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9 | 30.00% | |
| Holly Holm |
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11 | 36.67% |
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0 | 0% | |
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1 | 3.33% | |
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3 | 10.00% | |
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3 | 10.00% | |
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2 | 6.67% | |
| Total: | 30 votes | ||
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The first two Max fights were super close and he absolutely almost got put to sleep by Ortega. He wouldn't have had to do much at all differently to lose any/all of those. But the cumulative effect of the rest of that Ortega fight, the third Max fight, the Zombie fight, and coming on strong in the back half of the Makhachev fight have definitely made him seem pretty invulnerable.
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Jul 4, 2023 02:26
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This might already be known but I hadn't heard this before and it cracked me up. https://twitter.com/pdlmma/status/1676045890598080512
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Jul 4, 2023 05:04
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"Didn't win because I heard too much blasphemy" is a new and wild excuse that I wish we got to see.
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Jul 4, 2023 05:29
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Is that recent and GSP is actually training with musk?
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Jul 4, 2023 15:21
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https://bloodyelbow.com/2023/07/04/alistair-overeem-retires-weight-loss/ Overeem retired says some cracked out poo poo on the way out
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Jul 4, 2023 18:01
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TheKingslayer posted:"Didn't win because I heard too much blasphemy" is a new and wild excuse that I wish we got to see.
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Jul 4, 2023 18:03
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Lid posted:https://bloodyelbow.com/2023/07/04/alistair-overeem-retires-weight-loss/ Went in expecting the worst. extremely relieved to learn he’s just a vegetarian now, with some very strange ideas on how pH works.
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Jul 4, 2023 18:45
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weird "alkaline" dietary poo poo is extremely woo
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Jul 4, 2023 20:08
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https://twitter.com/UFCRosterWatch/status/1676350188275867648 This dude is 7-0 all in Combat Night Pro (Florida regionals?), was scheduled to fight on contender series end of August but that's now cancelled and instead: https://twitter.com/arielhelwani/status/1676293045749162003
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Jul 4, 2023 23:30
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not a real person
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Jul 5, 2023 03:00
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Theyre going to do everything to make sure Bo Nickal rises the ranks and becomes a *star* aren't they?
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Jul 5, 2023 03:31
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Nierbo posted:Theyre going to do everything to make sure Bo Nickal rises the ranks and becomes a *star* aren't they? Maybe? I mean matching him up with some completely unknown dude from some unknown organization doesn't exactly accomplish that, and just by the numbers this is a 7-0 dude replacing 4-2 dude so it's possible this matchup is actually less favorable for him.
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Jul 5, 2023 03:52
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Nierbo posted:Theyre going to do everything to make sure Bo Nickal rises the ranks and becomes a *star* aren't they? I mean, that's kind of what they're supposed to do. Of all the lovely things the UFC does, tapping an undefeated guy to come in after the original fight fell through doesn't seem that bad.
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Jul 5, 2023 05:21
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Brut posted:Maybe? I mean matching him up with some completely unknown dude from some unknown organization doesn't exactly accomplish that, and just by the numbers this is a 7-0 dude replacing 4-2 dude so it's possible this matchup is actually less favorable for him. So funny story: I'm obviously working on the writeup (see y'all tomorrow), and while doing research on that dude--on most of the late replacements on this card, actually--it seems like most of them are getting their numbers from the kind of incredibly stupid record-padding leagues that specialize in pumping up prospects with jobber squashes. The last two people Val Woodburn beat were a 17-9 guy for whom 16 of those wins came against people with either 1 or 0 fights and a 30-16-3 guy, except he's 42 years old and he's 1 for his last 7 and those 7 fights date back to 2013 because he hadn't actually had an MMA fight since 2017. I'm actually looking forward to this card, most of it is good and the fun potential is very high, but we are dealing with some incredibly silly substitutions.
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Jul 5, 2023 06:30
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Ah drat, I was wondering why I had no idea wtf Combat Night Pro is, guess that explains it. Looking forward to the writeup tomorrow, thanks as always Carl!
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Jul 5, 2023 06:35
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I watched part of the latest Tuf ep, man - Connor McGregor is all kinds of hosed up. Watch like 5 minutes of him doing a talking head and go back and watch a clip of him in an interview a few years ago and it's jarring.
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Jul 5, 2023 10:12
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100% of the feedback I've seen about this tuf is "yeah I caught part of it, conors barely in it and when he's there he's on all the drugs" lol. this poo poo is bombing worse than power slap
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Jul 5, 2023 16:11
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Do you think he was just genuinely never there and let his coaching staff handle everything, or was he there but so hosed up constantly the production team could only use a fraction of the footage they got of their biggest star? Not sure which is funnier/more pathetic
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Jul 5, 2023 16:14
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Apparently his team is 0-6 and that includes his special boys he demanded to be included at the expense of kicking off guys that had already been cast. So at least everyone is getting something good out of this season, including the coach fight that will certainly happen and won't be canceled because Conor still hasn't submitted a peepee sample
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Jul 5, 2023 16:33
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And Katona, the guy who trains at Sbgi and isn't on Conor's team, won his fight.
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Jul 5, 2023 17:12
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CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 65: THE BALANCING ACT SATURDAY, JULY 8 FROM THE T-MOBILE ARENA IN PARADISE, NEVADA EARLY PRELIMS 3 PM PDT / 6 PM EDT | PRELIMS 5 PM PDT / 8 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 7 PM PDT / 10 PM EDT VIA PAY-PER-VIEW We've had a pretty shaky past six weeks in terms of overall card quality, and while most of it is the UFC's refusal to give a poo poo, blame and/or credit can also be laid on the altar of International Fight Week. The UFC has chosen the week of July 4th to be one of their biggest of the year; in eons past you'd have multiple press events, multiple television specials and sometimes even multiple fight cards in those seven days. We're not doing that this week. Even International Fight Week, itself, has been scaled down to just be the 6th through the 9th. It's more of an International Fight Weekend. But the Hall of Fame is happening, and one of the year's biggest pay-per-views is happening, so, hey: It could be a lot worse. And this card, to be clear, is fantastic. Two title fights, one title eliminator, one ultra-popular prospect and the retirement of Robbie Lawler, one of the greatest to ever do it? A score of great prospect fights? You could and arguably should have spread this out among some other cards, because boy howdy we are paying for it when Holly Holm vs Mayra Bueno Silva main events next weekend, but for now, let's enjoy the ride.  i have so many little bits of template art i've made for card graphics so i stop using these but i hate all of them MAIN EVENT: A THRONE FOR AN ERRANT KING  FEATHERWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP: Alexander Volkanovski (25-2, Champion) vs Yair Rodríguez (15-3 (1), Interim Champion/#1)I'm thoroughly into this fight and its implications, and it's funny, because I virtually always hate interim championships, especially interim championships happening while the world champion is not only healthy but active. That almost always happens because the UFC is trying to put contractual pressure on a fighter who is daring to ask questions and make demands. But this one time, I'm into it. Hell, this one time, the title challenger isn't the real #1 contender, and I'm into it. We're breaking all the rules. And it's only possible because every once in awhile you get to follow one of the greatest fighters of all time and things get real, real weird. At this point, I've been doing these writeups for a year and a half. In those eighteen months in the UFC:
Every single one except the featherweight title. In a time of upheaval and divisional change, Alexander Volkanovski has been a constant. Not only was his almost decade-long unbeaten streak tearing unabated through the shark tank that was the UFC's featherweight division, not only was he easily racking up the second-longest reign featherweight has ever seen, but defying all normality, he has, somehow, gotten better. He was threatened by Brian Ortega and replied by beating him insensible. He so thoroughly dominated Chan Sung Jung that Jung very nearly retired afterwards out of sheer despair. He faced Max Holloway--one of the greatest featherweights of all time and Volkanovski's greatest nemesis, the only man who'd come close to beating him in the UFC not once but twice--and Volkanovski shut him down completely and wholly, outboxing the scariest featherweight boxer in the sport. It was a career-best performance and an illustration of just how far ahead of the rest of featherweight Alexander Volkanovski really was. Which is why everyone agreed he could no longer be contained by its limit. Volkanovski fought Islam Makhachev, the best lightweight in the world, and he came shockingly close to victory. By the end of the fifth round Makhachev was getting dropped and looking beaten and exhausted--but he had done enough damage and banked enough rounds to take the decision, and with it, Volkanovski's undefeated UFC record. But not the featherweight title. Makhachev can barely make 155, he wanted nothing to do with 145. Alexander Volkanovski was the only one flirting with a new weight class. And that meant the UFC needed someone waiting in the wings--just in case he won. Featherweight is an incredibly talented division, but it has struggled to field contenders, and the fault for that falls solely on Max Holloway. The danger of having a weight class with multiple greatest-of-all-time candidates at once is one of them will, inevitably, beat the other, and that other will, inevitably, kill all of your contenders. Max became the 145-pound logjam: He simply couldn't beat Alexander Volkanovski, but he could beat everyone else. Calvin Kattar, Arnold Allen--Yair Rodríguez. Every one of them failed the Max Holloway test. But when Holloway lost the third Volkanovski fight and became essentially ruled out of title shots as long as Volk holds onto the belt, the UFC decided to pull from that roster of beaten contenders, and between the three of them there was a stark difference. When Max Holloway fought Arnold Allen he punched him to a comfortable decision and left the commentators--and Allen--pontificating about the levels of the sport. When Max Holloway fought Calvin Kattar he beat him so comically badly that he was, at one point, jabbing him and slipping punches while yelling at the commentators about the quality of his boxing. When Max Holloway fought Yair Rodríguez, he had to hang on for dear life. Max Holloway has eight takedowns in his entire 27-fight UFC career. Three of those eight came against Yair, and he attempted five. Yair's punching and kicking were so ferocious and so difficult to contend with that the greatest volume striker in the sport abandoned his striking and resorted to wrestling just to keep him under control. Yair lost, but of all the contenders, he came the closest to victory. And that was enough--particularly because the UFC has, to some extent, always wanted to see him get a title fight. Yair Rodríguez has been in the UFC for nine years. He was the winner of The Ultimate Fighter Latin America all the way back in 2014, and they've had Big Plans for him ever since. The company knew exactly what a treasure they had in Yair: A young, talented, deeply unique fighter who was throwing attacks out of cartwheels and knocking people out with flying switch kicks while most of the sport was still trying to figure out if calf kicks were a myth. He was unique, he was dangerous, and cynically, as a Mexican fighter he represented the Latin American fanbase the UFC desperately wanted to break into. He was a star in the making. And for years, for various reasons, they just couldn't quite get there. First it was losing to Frankie Edgar. Then it was contractual disputes, to the point that the UFC briefly fired him before realizing they absolutely did not want him showing up in Bellator and hurriedly re-signing him. Then he lost two years of his career thanks to disagreements with USADA--not over failing an actual drug test, but because Yair didn't like them having constant access to his location through their phone app. And then, of course, it was coming up just short against Max Holloway. There was always someone just a touch better, or there was always some circumstance getting in the way. Until, suddenly, there wasn't. Max's third loss blew the division open. Yair, who had just managed a victory over two-time title challenger Brian Ortega, was given a fight with Josh Emmett for an interim title as the co-main event of the Volkanovski/Makhachev card. At best, it would provide an insurance policy and a champion to take over if Volkanovski was suddenly too preoccupied with the lightweight division to return; at worst, it would leave no doubt as to who would be waiting to welcome Volkanovski home after he lost. Josh Emmett had not lost since 2018, and it did not matter. Yair Rodríguez kicked him. He kicked him in the legs, in the arm, in the body and the head. We just watched Josh Emmett deal with Ilia Topuria punching him in the head a hundred times over five rounds; after two rounds of getting kicked repeatedly in the chest Emmett wanted nothing to do with further striking and dumped Yair on the mat, where he was promptly choked the gently caress out. It was a career-best performance for Yair. It was the fight that finally solidified him as one of the best featherweights in the UFC; the fight that punched his ticket to a challenge for the world championship. And it's the fight most people are pointing to as evidence that he's going to lose. Yair Rodríguez is a fantastic striker with one of the most dangerous arsenals in the sport. He also tends to almost lose an awful lot of his fights. He was one second away from dropping a decision to Chan Sung Jung before destroying him with the best elbow knockout in the history of the sport. He was beating Max Holloway--until he wasn't. And even his second-round destruction of Josh Emmett followed a first round where Emmett dropped Yair with right hands. Yair has always had trouble with pressure. Be it Emmett pressing him with his hands or Edgar pressuring him with wrestling or Holloway forcing him to work at both, Yair is at his best when given space to move, aim and land his attacks at a distance and at his most vulnerable when people are in his face, roughing him up and making him uncomfortable. It does not escape the notice of most that Alexander Volkanovski roughs everyone up. The world just watched him make a champion who can barely make the lightweight limit profoundly uncomfortable. There's no shock that Alexander Volkanovski is the heavy favorite to win this fight. If anything, it'd be deeply perplexing if he wasn't. He's one of the smartest, toughest, most adaptable fighters the sport has ever seen. And that does not stop Yair from being one of his biggest threats. Navigating distance got Alex in trouble during the first two Max Holloway fights, and Holloway's distance was primarily earned behind his hands, which is what ultimately led to his repeated demise. Yair Rodríguez is a very different beast. One of Volkanovski's favorite approaches involves patiently gauging his opponent's speed, range and timing while softening them up with leg kicks until he's convinced he knows his way in. Yair is the one man in the division where this plan becomes a liability. He's bigger, he's rangier, and he's a much stronger, much more dangerous kicker. Every second Volkanovski is letting Yair work from his desired range is a second Yair is, in all likelihood, winning this fight. Which means we're almost certainly going to see the Alexander Volkanovski who beat José Aldo back in 2019: High-pressure, low-distance, and nothing but crushing power and weight. He survived Brian Ortega's guard and submissions, he's confident in his chances against Yair's, and every second HE spends punching Yair in the mouth while he's on his back or against the fence is another second Yair has none of his truly effective offense available. Yair has paths to victory. But honestly--even having written all of those paragraphs--if you told me Alexander Volkanovski was going to show up this weekend, out-kick the kickpuncher and walk away with his gold, I'd believe you. He outgrappled the scariest grappler in the division and he outboxed the scariest boxer in the division and he just came one round away from winning the lightweight title. He's earned the faith. And I don't think his time on top is done just yet. ALEXANDER VOLKANOVSKI BY TKO. CO-MAIN EVENT: THE FIRST FLYWEIGHT TITLE FIGHT WITHOUT DEIVESON FIGUEIREDO IN IT SINCE 2019 FLYWEIGHT: Brandon Moreno (21-6-2, Champion) vs Alexandre Pantoja (25-5, #2)Seriously, it's been a long loving time coming. There have, essentially, been two eras of flyweight: The Demetrious Johnson era and the Deiveson Figueiredo era. When Henry Cejudo vacated the title after just one defense back in December of 2019 the company needed a someone to pick up the banner, and between February 29, 2020 and July 7, 2023--1,224 days--there was not a single undisputed flyweight championship match that didn't have Deiveson Figueiredo in it. The UFC was certain he was going to be the top man at the weight class for a very long time, and they gladly put what little advertising they were willing to spare for the 125-pound division behind the big, angry stoppage machine. And then Brandon Moreno happened, and everything got weird. The UFC didn't expect a lot from Brandon Moreno. He'd washed out of The Ultimate Fighter 24, he'd dropped two in a row and been cut from the promotion in 2018, and he earned his title shot because Brandon Royval dislocated his shoulder during a scramble on the floor. Deveison was still The Guy: Moreno was the +300 warm body of an underdog they were putting in front of him while they waited for the next big challenger. As it turned out: Brandon Moreno was the next big challenger. In one of the most unlikely fight series in UFC history, Brandon Moreno and Deiveson Figueiredo fought each other four god damned times in two years. A foul turned their first fight into a draw, then Moreno choked Figueiredo out, then Figueiredo outfought Moreno and won a decision, and then Moreno punched Figueiredo's eye shut and earned a doctor's stoppage, in the process so thoroughly pissing off the Figueiredo-favoring Rio de Janeiro crowd that security had to rush Moreno to the back under a hail of beer cans and garbage. Brandon Moreno has thoroughly proven himself worthy of being the flyweight champion. But he hasn't had a chance to establish a reputation as champion independent of Deiveson Figueiredo. Starting down that road will, as it inevitably had to, go through Moreno's greatest remaining bogeyman: The guy who already beat him twice. Alexandre Pantoja is very, very good, but he's never made it quite to title contention on his own. He reached the semifinal round of TUF 24, but couldn't beat Hiromasa Ougikubo. He got signed, won two fights: Couldn't get past Dustin Ortiz. Three fights: Beat down by Deiveson Figueiredo. Knock out Matt Schnell: Get controlled by Askar Askarov. Pantoja's scary power and even scarier jiu-jitsu kept getting him to the top ten, but they couldn't carry him to the top itself. But some wins age better than others. In 2016, submitting Brandon Moreno was an Ultimate Fighter footnote; he hadn't even fought in the UFC itself yet. In 2018, outgrappling Moreno was a given; Moreno had already lost to him once and he was cut from the company immediately thereafter. But suddenly, in 2022, being the man who had beaten Brandon Moreno twice was a very, very big deal. And a three-fight winning streak meant all he had to do was wait to see if Moreno emerged from the Figueiredo series triumphant. If Deiveson had won, well, that's tougher: Pantoja had just lost to him in 2019, and another contendership match would be necessary. But if Moreno escaped with the belt, no one could deny Alexandre Pantoja, the man who'd already defeated him twice, deserved the first crack at his championship. Moreno can't credibly establish a lineage without beating his nemesis. Pantoja has already beaten him twice and sees no reason today should be any different. Has the theory of this fight changed any since the last two times we've seen it? Well--yes. Obviously. Not just in terms of personal skillset, but preparation. Brandon Moreno has better resources, better preparation, and much, much better gameplanning than his wild-eyed 2018 approaches. His game has expanded considerably, and his both strangling and punching out the scariest man in the division provides all the evidence one could neat. Alexandre Pantoja, by contrast, has never really stopped being Alexandre Pantoja. He swings hard right crosses, he shoots for fast takedowns and he crushes people on the ground. He hasn't grown his arsenal the way Brandon Moreno has. Of course, he also hasn't been fighting one man over and over like Brandon Moreno has. Four of Moreno's last five fights were all against Deiveson Figueiredo, and the only one that wasn't, an interim title fight with Kai Kara-France, took place almost entirely on the feet. Can Moreno stop Pantoja's takedowns and top control? Or does this fight end with Pantoja stretching Moreno on the ground like he's already done twice before? BRANDON MORENO BY DECISI0N. I do not believe this fight is by any means a sure thing, and I will be gritting my teeth for its duration, but at this point in his career I have come to believe in Brandon Moreno, and I think his speed, his growing grappling abilities and his much faster hands will spell the difference between a Pantoja fight now and a Pantoja fight five years ago. MAIN CARD: PREPPING A RERUN MIDDLEWEIGHT: Robert Whittaker (24-6, #2) vs Dricus du Plessis (19-2, #5)Championship trilogies are pretty rare in the UFC, and it's impressive that this card somehow rotates around three of them. Robert Whittaker is the second best middleweight of this generation. His UFC tenure started down at welterweight back in 2012, an aggressively silly weight cut that actively harmed his career, and then in 2014 he moved up to middleweight and promptly beat everyone they put in front of him. In a better world, Whittaker would've been regarded as the second-best middleweight champion of all time: He beat most of the top ten, he knocked out Jacaré Souza back when that was still rare and exceptional, and he beat Yoel Romero twice. But he was overshadowed by the Michael Bisping/Georges St-Pierre drama, and his record was marred by Romero missing weight, and he ultimately went into the history books--despite multiple successful title fights--as a champion without a single recognized defense. He's just the transitional bridge into the Israel Adesanya era. Which is deeply unfair, because Robert Whittaker has beaten every single middleweight he's faced other than Adesanya, and he came shockingly close to unseating him the second time around before Alex Pereira ever had a chance. Whittaker is, unquestionably, the top contender, but being a top contender who's already lost two title shots is treacherous ground. You don't get a third shot unless you prove one of your replacements doesn't deserve it. Dricus du Plessis is trying to prove he deserves it, and he needs to, because the jury's still out. His questionable position is based on two things: For one, du Plessis has an unbeaten, five-fight winning streak at middleweight and has more than earned his spot in the top ten, and for two, Du Plessis still hasn't actually fought a real contender. His last three fights came against Brad Tavares, who, much as I adore him, has never been a top guy, Darren Till, who is one for his last six and decided to go on hiatus from the sport altogether immediately afterward, and Derek Brunson, who mauled Dricus in the first round before gassing in the second and contemplating retirement while du Plessis beat him insensible. His relevance to the title picture is also based on two things: For one, a lot of attention-grabbing idiocy about du Plessis, a white South African, declaring himself a real African as opposed to Israel Adesanya, who was born in Nigeria but moved to New Zealand in his twenties, and for two, the fact that there just isn't anyone loving else. Adesanya's beaten almost everyone in the top ten already, and unlike Whittaker, no one else looked like they could have done any better in a rematch. Dricus looks kind of sloppy and awkward and he hasn't beaten a top contender, and it doesn't matter, because there's no one left to do the job. Do I dislike weird crypto-racism, especially when it's done in that mealy-mouthed 'nooo, I NEVER said anyone was a fake African or that I was MORE African than anyone, I just said I breathe African air and live in Africa and am African and they're not, the media's twisting my words' way of cowardice where people want controversy but not consequences? Totally. Do I mentally wall off the part of my brain that knows Robert Whittaker is into Jordan Peterson? Every day. Do I struggle to believe in du Plessis after seeing him get the poo poo both kicked and wrestled out of him by Derek Brunson one fight ago before Brunson abruptly remembered he's about to turn 40 and his hips started aching? Extremely. It's not an unwinnable fight for du Plessis, he's impossible to count out, but ROBERT WHITTAKER BY DECISION is awful hard to avoid. LIGHTWEIGHT: Jalin Turner (13-6, #10) vs Dan Hooker (22-12, #11)Jalin Turner came so, so very close to getting leapfrogged into title contention on account of this fight. These two were supposed to meet back in March to determine the true tall lightweight king, but Hooker broke his hand a month before the fight and, of all people, the #7-ranked Mateusz Gamrot took the fight on short notice as a gamble. It paid off, but only barely: Turner hurt Gamrot repeatedly and Gamrot scraped by on a split decision that infuriated legions of people who still think wrestling shouldn't count in mixed martial arts judging. Having just violently crushed five unranked lightweights in a row, honestly, going toe to toe with a future contender in Gamrot looks pretty loving good on Turner's resume, even if it did expose some holes in his wrestling defense. Dan Hooker is still trying to recover from encountering the dangers of relevancy. A slow rise up the divisional rankings led to a big couple years for Main Event Dan Hooker, and those years were, largely, extremely unkind. Going to war with Dustin Poirier and surviving, even in loss, was enriching for Hooker's career, but it also led to his getting thrown into main event where he was much more furiously dissected. Michael Chandler knocked him stupid, Islam Makhachev tore his arm off, and after an incredibly ill-advised attempt to return to the featherweight division last year Hooker ended in Arnold Allen elbowing his skull apart Hooker moved back to lightweight for good. He overcame an early scare against Claudio Puelles last November and stopped him on body shots to get back in the winning column, but being a big name means big fights, so one bout later, we're right back in the danger zone. Not gonna beat around the bush on this one: JALIN TURNER BY TKO. Hooker's best weapons are his size, his toughness and his ability to mix wrestling into his striking: Turner's bigger, he hits both harder and straighter, and we just watched him make one of lightweight's best wrestlers whiff on 2/3 of his takedown attempts. Hooker gets clipped in almost every fight he has, and getting clipped by Jalin Turner is bad for your health. MIDDLEWEIGHT: Bo Nickal (4-0) vs Valentine Woodburn (7-0) This got interesting, all of a sudden. Bo Nickal is one of the UFC's pet projects, a super-wrestler who banked three national championships, one world wrestling championship and a truly insane 120-3 record in the NCAA before turning to mixed martial arts. The UFC, never one to pass on a chance to do something stupid for sake of marketing, made Bo fight on Dana White's Contract-Begging Extravaganza twice: The first time he choked out an opponent in sixty-two seconds and, after being told he didn't have enough experience, the UFC rebooked him for a second Contender Series fight six weeks later, which he also won, thus proving everything's totally fine. He drew the 2-5 Jamie Pickett for his debut this past March, which, shockingly, he also won easily, and he was supposed to fight the 1-2 Tresean Gore on this card, but Gore tore his wrist in training and had to be replaced at the last minute and, as they always do, things got very, very silly. The UFC has 60-70 middleweights under contract. Most of them are comparably unsuccessful. The UFC did not pick any of them to fill in. They picked Valentine "THE ANIMAL" Woodburn, the 7-0, 5'8" champion of the prestigious COMBAT NIGHT PRO, one of the many, many regional organizations that helps young fighters puff up their records by feeding the rookie prospects of the world a steady diet of professional jobbers named Ramon Butts with 1-15 records. Just so we're clear, that's not me putting funny words together: Ramon Butts is real, and he's really 1-15, and he really lost to a 1-0 guy on Woodburn's last fight card. Woodburn himself is coming off a decision victory over Luis "Sergio Junior" Melo, a 42 year-old veteran with a 1-7 record in mixed martial arts over the last decade who hadn't competed in the sport in four years. Before that? The 17-11 Wesley Martins, who scored 16 of those victories over people with either 1 or 0 wins. This was the problem with CM Punk and Mickey Gall, and it's only becoming a bigger problem as the Contender Series claims ownership of more and more roster space. The UFC wants to get fighters young, half to maximize the amount of time they have with them, half to get them for minimum wage before they have leverage. But when you bring in fighters at certain levels of inexperience--as the UFC openly advertised with Nickal--you run headlong into the UFC not being a developmental league. What do you do with those fighters? You feed them the worst-performing fighters on the roster--and when you don't have any available, you import 5'8" middleweights from the Contender Series. Maybe Val Woodburn overturns the apple cart. It'd be nice. But I don't think we live in that timeline. BO NICKAL BY SUBMISSION. PRELIMS: HOLD ON, I'M GOIN' WELTERWEIGHT: Robbie Lawler (29-16 (1)) vs Niko Price (15-6 (2))Boy, the UFC has really not been giving people pleasant retirements lately. "Ruthless" Robbie Lawler is a god damned legend with one of the best Cinderella stories in the sport: He made his UFC debut all the way back in 2002, ultimately fell out with the company after going 4-3, left for the independent scene and wound up becoming a star for upstart companies EliteXC and Strikeforce! Except he went, uh, 3-5 there. By the time the UFC bought Strikeforce and folded him back into the company in 2013 Lawler was 19-9, entering his thirties, and overlooked as a relic of the past by the MMA media. A year later, he was the world goddamn champion. It didn't last--it never does--but for three wonderful years, Robbie Lawler was one of MMA's best fighters, a living violence elemental with one of the best highlight reels in the sport whose fights were guaranteed barnburners every single time. And now it's 2023, and he's 1 for his last 6, and that one was an even sadder, older Nick Diaz in a fight that exceptionally should not have happened. But it also would've been a better retirement fight than this. Niko Price is one of the UFC's wildcards, a talented, powerful, thoroughly dangerous fighter who's scary enough to knock a man out with hammerfists while laying supine on the mat, but not scary enough to stop Geoff Neal from punching his face in. He can't break the top ranks, but he can't get ruled out, either--he has, in fact, managed to go without consecutive wins OR losses for the last five loving years. He wins, he loses, he upsets, he underperforms, and once every three years he gets a win deducted from his record because it turns out he smokes too much weed. In other words: I don't know what we're doing here. The UFC doesn't really do dignified retirement fights, but after the career he's had, seeing Robbie Lawler off into the great hereafter by way of a preliminary fight with Niko Price just feels wrong. And I'm sure he'll probably lose--getting punched out by Bryan Barberena doesn't give me a great deal of faith--but if this is my last chance to pick a Robbie Lawler fight in the UFC, I'm not going to waste it on faithlessness. ROBBIE LAWLER BY TKO. WELTERWEIGHT: Jack Della Maddalena (14-2, #14) vs Josiah Harrell (7-0, NR) You know that whole 'competition plucked from the regional circuit' conversation we just had? We're having it again. Congratulations! Jack Della Maddalena is quite possibly the single best thing to come out of the Contender Series, an Australian wrecking machine who stands as one of the few mixed martial artists whose boxing is actually, genuinely smart and effective, as Randy Brown's face and Ramazan Emeev's liver can attest. He's blazed a four-fight winning streak through the welterweight division, forced his way into the top fifteen, and was scheduled to face Sean Brady, the eighth-best welterweight in the company. And then Brady got a staph infection. And the UFC, with their near-hundred welterweights, picked Josiah Harrell, the Muscle Hamster, the welterweight champion of the Ohio Combat League, which is a drat fine accomplishment when you realize five of Harrell's seven fights were, in fact, not at welterweight. Harrell's biggest MMA achievement isn't even winning, it's getting a few thousand views on Twitter for double-legging Mike Roberts through the cage door at the Legacy Fighting Alliance last month. Great clip! Really funny! Mike Roberts is a 9-9-1 lightweight. Josiah Harrell seems like he could have a lot of promise. He's a strong wrestler with a good top game, he's only 24, he's got a world of potential. He's also about to fight one of the UFC's best strikers on four days' notice with a significant size disadvantage. I hope they give him a fight with a really bad lightweight to make this sacrificial lamb act up to him later. JACK DELLA MADDALENA BY TKO. WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Yazmin Jauregui (10-0) vs Denise Gomes (7-2)The UFC's hopes for Yazmin Jauregui are very, very high. She came out of Combate Global as an undefeated regional standout, a midpoint somewhere between a volume-heavy brawler and a defensively solid grappler who had overwhelmed almost all of her opponents with punches, elbows and knees. She was an easy pickup for the UFC--they didn't even need to subject her to the Contract Farm Club--and she has yet to disappoint, winning a stellar contest against Iasmin Lucindo last August and following it up by pounding out the blood sacrifice that was Istela Nunes in December. The UFC is stepping up her competition, this time in the form of Denise Gomes. I had "Dee" pegged as a soft target for Bruna Brasil, a--try to be shocked--Brazilian Muay Thai champion who made her UFC debut against Gomes back in April, but Gomes turned out to have improved following her loss to Loma Lookboonmee the previous year, and ultimately walked Bruna down, staggered her with heavier, more consistent punches, and stopped her halfway through the second round. Was it what the UFC wanted? Maybe not, but honestly, they're both Contender Series winners in the same division with similar styles and I'm pretty sure management is just fine either way. And she presents an interesting challenge for Jauregui. Both of these women are at their best when they're controlling the flow of a fight, Yazmin with volume and footwork, Gomes with forward pressure and power. Gomes has definitely demonstrated more stopping power than Jauregui. But the versatility in her attack, and Gomes' tendency to work out of more of a flat, straightforward style, is, I think, going to cost her. YAZMIN JAUREGUI BY DECISION. LIGHT-HEAVYWEIGHT: Jimmy Crute (12-3-1, #14) vs Alonzo Menifield (13-3-1, NR) The idea of what constitutes a great fight operates on a sliding scale. If you're a featherweight, your idea of a great fight is an Aldo vs Mendes II or a Poirier vs Zombie: Exhibitions of incredible skill and athleticism where fighters at the top of their game do and survive amazing things that leave you hungry for more. If you're a light-heavyweight, it's Jimmy Crute vs Alonzo Menifield 1 from this past February, a fight where a striker is too tired from beating up his opponent to compete and ultimately gasses too hard to stay upright and a grappler is too beaten and rusty to utilize his skills and ultimately whiffs on a bunch of takedowns and can't complete a submission on someone who can barely move. The fight would, in fact, have simply gone down in the books as an obvious Menifield win had he not grabbed the fence in the third round, which, contrary to the usual warnings-upon-warnings standard, necessitated the immediate loss of a point. Which I'm fine with! I think fouls should be punished more harshly. But boy, it's annoying as poo poo when some fights have three eyepokes and two groin kicks and eight fence grabs with nothing but a vaguely stern warning and others are immediately altered. But it was a draw, and by 205-pound standards it was great, and that means we get to and/or have to see it again. Here's the thing, though: Menifield did basically win that fight. Has Jimmy Crute become a much better wrestler in the last four and a half months? Probably not. Has Alonzo Menifield spent more time on an exercise bike? I hope so. ALONZO MENIFIELD BY TKO. EARLY PRELIMS: A COME TO JESUS MOMENT FLYWEIGHT: Tatsuro Taira (13-0) vs Edgar Cháirez (10-4)Good lord, Tatsuro Taira is out of the curtain-jerking slot! And it only took three wins! Fantastic. Every few years us aging, jaded fucks on the MMA internet get excited about a Japanese prospect who looks like a possible title contender because somehow, despite being one of the canonical countries of origin for mixed martial arts, we have yet to see a Japanese champion in the UFC, and if ever it happens we all get to briefly think about Pride and Kazushi Sakuraba and feel young again for a split second. Taira is the latest beneficiary: A Shooto champion turned UFC prospect with razor-sharp submission skills and a deeply underrated right cross who been easily dispatching everyone the company throws at him. Taira was supposed to meet Kleydson Rodrigues a few weeks ago, but Kleydson blew his weight cut and it got scratched, and the UFC, once again, pulled from their endless pile of Contender Series hopefuls awaiting fights. This time, it's Edgar "Pitbull" Cháirez, a Fury FC refugee who, like so many regional fighters, is in the Schrodinger's Cat position of being real difficult to gauge. He's quick, he's one of the rare martial artists who's decent at fighting off his back foot, he's got a blistering outside leg kick and a really, really fast flying knee that he likes to throw repeatedly as a counter to approaching opponents. It's cool! However, most of the tests of his skills have been regional can crushers, and his one brush with the UFC was a 2022 Contender Series appearance where he gassed after the first round and got outworked for ten minutes. Edgar could surprise people here, but I don't think Taira's going to fall victim to random jumping knees. TATSURO TAIRA BY SUBMISSION. LIGHT-HEAVYWEIGHT: Vitor Petrino (8-0) vs Marcin Prachnio (16-6) The last time Marcin Prachnio fought I wrote a lengthy historical treatise on the up-and-down nature of his career, and how bizarre it is to go from a #1 contender in ONE to completely destroyed by Sam Alvey. It was an attempt to contextualize the sheer weirdness of his combat sports trajectory. And it turned into the horrible incantation that gave us one of the worst performances in UFC history, as Prachnio found himself opposite a William Knight who spent most of the fight leaning against the fence and landed a grand total of eight strikes in fifteen minutes. While that isn't Prachnio's fault, his inability to dispose of an essentially one-legged man offering no offense whatsoever in return is somewhat disconcerting. And that's presumably why the UFC has him fighting Vitor Petrino, the Contender Series winner and knockout artist whose debut against Anton Turkalj--yes, that would be THE PLEASURE MAN, thank you for asking--was also pretty loving weird, as what seemed like a dominant performance by Petrino in both swinging haymakers and repeated ground control was stymied by constant fence grabs and even a groin shot that all went without a point deduction. In some ways, Petrino's a good match for Prachnio. Prachnio is at his best when he can hang around on the outside, slice leg kicks and jabs into the middle distance, and avoid close, prolonged exchanges, and Petrino's tendency to chase could play right into that. I acknowledge this. I also acknowledge my refusal to ever pick anyone who lost to Sam Alvey after 2014. VITOR PETRINO BY TKO. BANTAMWEIGHT: Cameron Saaiman (8-0) vs Terrence Mitchell (15-2) Cameron Saaiman fought this past March, and at the time, I said this. CarlCX posted:I had Cameron Saaiman picked to easily win his UFC debut back in December; he wound up in the toughest fight of his life and scraped a last-minute standing TKO together to save himself from what was probably going to be a draw. Was that stage fright, or are there just levels to this game and Steven "Obi Won Shinobi The Pillow" Koslow is higher level than anyone thought? I hope we never have to find out, because every time I type his nickname it takes two minutes off of my life. I haven't really been impressed with Cameron Saaiman, and I'm not sold on the hype train he's somehow still riding, but I'll tell you, I'm much less sold on Terrence Mitchell. CAMERON SAAIMAN BY DECISION. FLYWEIGHT: Shannon Ross (13-7) vs Jesus Aguilar (8-2) We're always guaranteed one potential housecleaning fight, and this is the one. "The Turkish Delight" Shannon Ross wasn't really supposed to be here. Ross had a Contender Series fight in the summer of 2022 and, despite a solid struggle, was knocked out in the second round. And then he started involuntarily convulsing in his hotel room the next day, because it turned out he'd ruptured his appendix and was dying of sepsis! (High five, fellow almost-died-from-undiagnosed-appendicitis buddy.) When the UFC heard about this they offered him a contract, which was definitely a thing they did out of the goodness of their hearts, and definitely had nothing to do with attempting to ameliorate the fallout from almost killing a person on their dumbass prospect show. Ross's UFC debut ended with Kleydson Rodrigues kicking his nonexistent appendix and then knocking him out with a flying rear end to the face in under a minute. So the UFC is doing the only thing that makes sense: Booking him against Jesus Aguilar, another flyweight Contender Series veteran. Aguilar actually won his bout and his contract, which is great! But then he lost his debut after drawing Tatsuro Taira, one of the best submission artists at the flyweight division, and thinking, 'The correct thing to do to this man is jump a guillotine and put myself on my back.' He was submitted in short order and now he is here, with the UFC attempting to see if his aggressive kicking habits can in any way equal Kleydson's aggressive kicking habits. And, uh, probably not, he's not that good at kicking, but he is good enough to badly hurt Shannon Ross. Ross likes engaging behind the same sort of calf and knee kicks that Aguilar does in place of jabs, but Aguilar's better at it and he traditionally hits quite a bit harder. JESUS AGUILAR BY DECISION. FEATHERWEIGHT: Kamuela Kirk (11-5) vs Esteban Ribovics (11-1) Kamuela "The Jawaiian" Kirk suffers the permanent curse of willingly going by "The Jawaiian" as a professional moniker, and it has haunted him for years. In 2021, Kirk earned his spot on the UFC's radar by winning an LFA main event against Daniel Swain--when Daniel Swain retired from mixed martial arts altogether on his stool between rounds. Less than a month later, Kirk made a successful UFC debut and took a decision over Makwan Amirkhani--a decision 93% of media outlets scored against him. After almost an entire year's layoff, Kirk came back against Damon Jackson--and his grappling expertise got him submitted for the first time in his career. It's been an entire year and a goddamn half since then, and Kirk has resurfaced to experience his curse once again, this time at the hands of Esteban "El Gringo" Ribovics, the Argentinian bruiser and Contender Series baby who had the deep misfortune of getting matched in his UFC debut against THE TAJIK TANK, Loik Radzhabov, and boy, it's impressive how putting "The Tajik Tank" in quotes makes it sound like a nice, sensible martial arts nickname but just writing THE TAJIK TANK in all caps in the middle of a sentence makes me feel as though I'm going to be called into the principal's office for grade-school racial stereotyping. Ribovics is a student of the most modern of mixed martial arts mentalities: Being genuinely good at a bunch of stuff and ignoring all of it completely to swing heavy punches at people because that's where the goddamn money is. ESTEBAN RIBOVICS BY DECISION. I can't pick you, Kirk. I cannot. I know your dad gave you the nickname, don't change it just for me, but a curse is a curse. I'm sorry.
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Jul 5, 2023 21:53
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Bluedeanie posted:Do you think he was just genuinely never there and let his coaching staff handle everything, or was he there but so hosed up constantly the production team could only use a fraction of the footage they got of their biggest star? Not sure which is funnier/more pathetic LobsterMobster posted:Apparently his team is 0-6 and that includes his special boys he demanded to be included at the expense of kicking off guys that had already been cast. So at least everyone is getting something good out of this season, including the coach fight that will certainly happen and won't be canceled because Conor still hasn't submitted a peepee sample
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Jul 5, 2023 22:10
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I believe if this is Lawler's last fight, no more fighters on the UFC roster have had a fight in Pride. End of an era Carl great write up as always I'll actually be in Vegas for vacation tomorrow and always pumped for a good time out there. I won't be attending the fights but still catch it somewhere.
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Jul 5, 2023 22:34
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Shumagorath posted:The Apprentice managed to edit around trumq; conor can’t be that much worse. This good post just stunlocked me in a way that's hard to describe
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Jul 5, 2023 22:42
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Even with the last minutes substitutions this card is fire.
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Jul 5, 2023 22:43
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TUF talk because I'm a TUF nerd, but Conor is so much better this season than his one with Faber. He's much more present than he was back then. That said he looks thick in a way that makes sense that he couldn't piss clean for a fight with Chandler. Chandler is still obviously the much more engaged and better coach. I'm not sure if I'm the only one that's rewatched every season multiple times because I guess I actually like trashy reality shows despite what I say to my wife when she makes me watch 90 Day Fiancee.
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Jul 5, 2023 23:28
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TUF peaked at GSP-Koschek.
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Jul 5, 2023 23:39
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is jean-charles sarbowski (sp) still around? someone get his drunk french rear end back on TUF
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Jul 6, 2023 00:22
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MassRafTer posted:This might already be known but I hadn't heard this before and it cracked me up. lol that owns. I still crack up every time GSP posts a pic of himself at some fancy restaurant with Danaher in another rash guard. e] imagine the strength of will it must take to feel Elon tapping and not just sink the choke deeper tho Radical 90s Wizard fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Jul 6, 2023 |
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Jul 6, 2023 00:38
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Eat This Glob posted:is jean-charles sarbowski (sp) still around? someone get his drunk french rear end back on TUF Too busy dealing with domestic abuse accusations (just kidding, no one in combat sports cares about that)
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Jul 6, 2023 00:52
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There's a lot of holy poo poo piss!!! In that write-up. Tempted to put money on brutal Bob's last fight
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Jul 6, 2023 00:54
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STABASS posted:Too busy dealing with domestic abuse accusations (just kidding, no one in combat sports cares about that) ugh, gross. i like my wanton violence consensual and fun and no other kind
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Jul 6, 2023 02:29
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Radical 90s Wizard posted:
Just imagine him or zuck's security trying to stop Palhares after he locks in the heelhook...
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Jul 6, 2023 04:30
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Lid posted:https://bloodyelbow.com/2023/07/04/alistair-overeem-retires-weight-loss/ well that didn't last quote:Dutch combat sports outlet Main Even NL, has reached out to Overeem's management after mainstream media picked up the news a couple days ago, to confirm that the Dutch legend will not retire. While he does indeed plan to leave combat sports soon, likely to promote his new lifestyle and perhaps work in the health industry, he still plans to fight one or two more times.
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Jul 6, 2023 06:23
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Eat This Glob posted:ugh, gross. i like my wanton violence consensual and fun and no other kind I, eh, googled Skarbowsky domestic violence and the results I got, were uh, not good.
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Jul 6, 2023 06:48
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Jul 6, 2023 06:55
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Freudian slippers posted:I, eh, googled Skarbowsky domestic violence and the results I got, were uh, not good. god loving drat it. his tuf appearance easily qualifies as art and as such death of the author should be considered and ultimately discarded because 'confused, violent drunk' describes both things.
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Jul 6, 2023 08:35
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Reddit (for what it's worth) also seems to think that he killed his neighbor some years ago, and another person years before that. Which is... not something I saw coming. E: To be fair, I can't find anything else to back that up.
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Jul 6, 2023 09:43
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Freudian slippers posted:Reddit (for what it's worth) also seems to think that he killed his neighbor some years ago, and another person years before that. Which is... not something I saw coming. They're actually talking about a different Muay Thai guy, Pornsanae Sitmonchai. Muay Thai: Not even once.
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Jul 6, 2023 10:35
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Thanks for clearing that up, Carl and stellar preview as always!
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Jul 6, 2023 11:13
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