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Which ghost of MMA still haunts you? This poll is closed. |
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|---|---|---|---|
| Nick Diaz |
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1 | 3.57% |
| Chuck Liddell |
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5 | 17.86% |
| Matt Serra |
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0 | 0% |
| Matt Serra |
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2 | 7.14% |
| Matt Serra |
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0 | 0% |
| Oh no you said his name three times |
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8 | 28.57% |
| Run |
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1 | 3.57% |
| RUN |
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11 | 39.29% |
| Total: | 28 votes | ||
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Man. Props to Volk for taking it, but given he wasn't even supposed to be done recovering from surgery until the start of September, taking the Makhachev rematch a month and a half later on ten days' notice is, uh. Well, it's exactly the kind of thing Alexander Volkanovski would do. Now let's wait for Paulo Costa to pull out of the Khamzat fight.
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Oct 11, 2023 03:54
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I'm sure volk will have unlimited access to the heal you faster than humanly possible poo poo so if he's signing to fight I believe he's g2g.
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Oct 11, 2023 04:10
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*pounds dinner table* six rounds! six rounds! six rounds!
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Oct 11, 2023 04:16
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I know this sounds crazy but i kind of wish it were non title? Just a true clash of the champs
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Oct 11, 2023 04:19
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STONE COLD 64 posted:I know this sounds crazy but i kind of wish it were non title? Just a true clash of the champs It'd be nice, but the UFC demands the marketing and I bet part of the scramble for this is, being a UAE event, you'd fuckin' BETTER have a title fight in the main event or they're gonna get real, real upset. Also how much does this suck for Mateusz Gamrot, who was just announced as the backup fighter like two days ago
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Oct 11, 2023 04:32
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STONE COLD 64 posted:I know this sounds crazy but i kind of wish it were non title? Just a true clash of the champs Imagine something in MMA being done for integrity and not to appease the dumbest possible viewer. Silly goose.
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Oct 11, 2023 04:36
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https://twitter.com/BloodyElbow/status/1711942081508258142 An eyebrow cut is a lovely way to lose a main event but doesn't seem like something that should keep Oliveira on the shelf for time at least
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Oct 11, 2023 04:43
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Fentry posted:https://twitter.com/BloodyElbow/status/1711942081508258142 If he needs stitches he won't be able to get cleared because that cut will blast open if someone sneezes at it for some time.
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Oct 11, 2023 04:45
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2 weeks notice is the best base for dethroning an mma champion.
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Oct 11, 2023 04:52
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Yeah, Costa is reportedly officially out. Marvin Vettori apparently turned down the short-notice fight so now it's scramble time to see who they can get to fight Khamzat in a week and a half.
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Oct 11, 2023 05:55
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CommonShore posted:If he needs stitches he won't be able to get cleared because that cut will blast open if someone sneezes at it for some time. Not gonna put it here cause it's gross but Oliveira posted pics now and he very, very much needed stitches
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Oct 11, 2023 06:22
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Volk owns, will definitely watch that fight replay as soon as it's up on something that doesn't give Dana White money
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Oct 11, 2023 07:22
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i am usually the last one to blame people who work with the fighters who make the ufc what it is but sparring without headgear this close to a fight is negligence. why are you even sparring this close to a fight. what the gently caress.
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Oct 11, 2023 07:36
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Marching Powder posted:i am usually the last one to blame people who work with the fighters who make the ufc what it is but sparring without headgear this close to a fight is negligence. why are you even sparring this close to a fight. what the gently caress. Particularly bizarre when your opponent is known for his elite wrestling, but chute boxe gonna chute boxe 
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Oct 11, 2023 08:32
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I think Oliveira's still real upset that the beginning of the end of their first fight, after all the preparation he did for wrestling, was Islam just loving braining him with a right hand. Also, you know who's gotta be really mad? Ilia Topuria. They were just about to announce his title shot for January and now who the gently caress knows when it happens.
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Oct 11, 2023 08:39
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I want to see Volk move up to 155 for real, i think he’d beat makhachrv if he wasn’t splitting divisions and bulked up a little. This is the opposite of that.
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Oct 11, 2023 13:18
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it's gonna be volk vs max 2 all over again, i believe
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Oct 11, 2023 18:19
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Looks like Usman is being lined up as a replacement for Costa. I don’t think a card has ever failed upwards like this before.
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Oct 11, 2023 19:17
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https://x.com/BloodyElbow/status/1712170616227258678?s=20 First UFC show in KSA next year. Just a fight night which is weird but I guess they will just throw a title match on it anywys
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Oct 11, 2023 19:21
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blue footed boobie posted:Looks like Usman is being lined up as a replacement for Costa. I don’t think a card has ever failed upwards like this before. UFC 279 also featuring Khamzat
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Oct 11, 2023 20:10
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Before we move on completely to next week's wild clusterfuck, we have one more week of Apexing to deal with. CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 78: KICKING AGAINST THE PRICKS  SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14 FROM THE SCREAMING QUIET OF THE UFC APEX PRELIMS 1 PM PDT / 4 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 4 PM / 7 PM VIA ESPN+ It's another week and we're still here, in the Apex, having fights for nobody. I feel like this event has barely gotten marketed, to be honest. Even last week's Dawson vs Green got SOME attention, but we're here in fight week and thus far even the UFC's Youtube channel has a thirty-second teaser and a three-minute Yusuff/Barboza preview and buddy, that's it. Their eyes are already on next week's pay-per-view. We are here to die in silence. But we will die together. And hey, this card only has one fight above 155 pounds on it, so that's pretty cool.  boy all the drama for next week sure is making it hard to focus on this MAIN EVENT: HE'S RIDING HARD TO CATCH THAT HERD BUT HE AIN'T CAUGHT 'EM YET FEATHERWEIGHT: Sodiq Yusuff (13-2, #11) vs Edson Barboza (23-11, #13) This is a hard luck story. This is an unfortunate booking story. This is a story about the intersection of favoritism and kicking people as hard as you loving can. "Super" Sodiq Yusuff has been very good for quite awhile. He got picked up off the Contender Series back in 2018, right around when we all began accepting the unfortunate inevitability of its place in the sport's future, and he was, for a time, one of its top prospects. He punched like a truck, his wrestling was decent if not great, he was a strong, solid all-around fighter. And the UFC really wanted to push Contender Series veterans to the top, and they saw a top ten star in Yusuff, and they wanted him to prove it. So they booked him against Edson Barboza. It is important to put Edson Barboza in perspective. Once upon a time, Barboza, too, was seen as a top prospect in the sport. He had some of the fastest, most violent Muay Thai kicks in the sport, he was shutting people off with leg strikes, body strikes and head strikes sometimes in sequence, he crushed Terry Etim with the most famous wheel kick in the history of the sport--he was signed to the UFC at 6-0, which was, at the time, almost unheard of. But that time was 2010. Ten years later in 2020 Barboza was 20-9 and had lost five of his last six fights. Sure, two of those were universally derided split decisions, but the other three were vicious, one-sided beatings from top lightweights. Barboza wasn't the shining star he used to be. Normally, this is where the UFC tries to rehab you if they can. Edson Barboza, unfortunately, had two things working against him: He was enough of a name to hold value, and he was enough of a problem to be on management's bad side. Edson famously--publicly--asked the UFC to release him from his contract in early 2020. It was the culmination of years of struggles with the UFC: His unhappiness with his matchmaking, his low pay, and the persistent feeling of being set up to lose. Seeing how people like Gegard Mousasi and Ryan Bader and Kyoji Horiguchi and Demetrious Johnson were flourishing in other organizations, Edson wanted to go ply his trade somewhere--anywhere--else. And then he re-signed. He got his money, they kept a marketable fighter, and they immediately threw Dan Ige and Sodiq Yusuff at him in the hopes of continuing to build their young new stars. But Yusuff had to pull out with an injury, and that cancellation sent both men down an entirely new trajectory. Edson Barboza wound up meeting and dismantling popular, up-and-coming prospects like Makwan Amirkhani and Shane Burgos. The wins breathed new life into his career. Sodiq Yusuff wound up meeting Arnold Allen, one of the best featherweights on the planet. Allen ended Yusuff's winning streak and killed his momentum on the spot. Yusuff has been struggling to get that spot back for the last two and a half years. He beat Alex Caceres, but it wasn't a hugely memorable fight and barely moved the needle. He was promised a big showdown with Giga Chikadze, only for Chikadze to withdraw and leave Sodiq fighting "Shameless" Don Shainis, a regional fighter who'd been up against the 16-104 Jay Ellis just a few months prior--so Yusuff popping his head off with a guillotine in thirty seconds meant so little that Yusuff was visibly angry about it afterwards. Barboza, meanwhile, was given a chance to shine--a huge, flashy, striker-vs-striker matchup with the UFC's newest kickboxing featherweight, Giga Chikadze--and Chikadze destroyed him. The UFC, ever-sympathetic to Edson and in no way holding his contract negotiations against him, followed it up by immediately resuming booking him into fights with power wrestlers he stood no chance of defeating. Bryce Mitchell turned him into a pretzel with almost no effort. They weren't done, either: They planned to once again feed Barboza to an up-and-coming star, this time Ilia Topuria, an even better wrestler with even more dangerous hands, but Edson was saved by blowing out his knee in training and needing half a year to return to competition. I mean, "saved" may be the wrong word, but pick your poison between a knee injury or Ilia Topuria sitting on your chest and caving your skull in. So, almost three years to the day they first scheduled this fight, we're giving it one more try. Sodiq Yusuff wants to fight someone more important than Don Shainis; Edson Barboza, having just finished kneeing Billy Quarantillo's face off this past April, wants to string two wins together for just the second time since March of 2017. Can he do it? This one's tough. Sodiq's much physically stronger than Barboza and his gameplan revolves around similar tactics--kill the leg with kicks, sling the headkick when you've got it, hit the body when you've gotta get someone's hands either up or down to put them where you want them--but Barboza's longer, faster, and much more technically sound. That said, Yusuff can and will pick him up and throw him on the loving ground if he needs to. He's done it to better wrestlers before. I'm choosing to believe in Barboza's speed ultimately making the difference and, ultimately, chipping Yusuff out of the fight. EDSON BARBOZA BY TKO. CO-MAIN EVENT: SUPPOSE THE ELEVATOR GUY SHOULD FORGET TO CLOSE THE DOOR WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Jennifer Maia (21-9-1, #9) vs Viviane Araújo (11-5, #11) This is maybe the purest #10 or #10-adjacent fight the UFC has ever made. Really, both of these women are in extremely similar positions. They both came in as women's champions in other promotions--Jennifer Maia as the flyweight champion of Invicta, Viviane Araújo as the strawweight champion of Pancrase--and they both lost their prominent winning streaks within their first few UFC fights to former title contenders, with Liz Carmouche outworking Maia and Jessica Eye decisioning Araújo. They both rose up the ranks! They both beat Roxanne Modafferi! And immediately after beating Roxanne Modafferi, they both got kicked back down by the inevitable fighter of blondes, Katlyn Chookagian. Their last couple years are close, if time-displaced. Jennifer Maia took her turn first: After getting an exceedingly silly title shot at Valentina Shevchenko and rebounding by beating Jessica Eye, she took two contendership losses in a row--first, once again, to Katlyn Chookagian, and second to potential next title challenger Manon Fiorot. She's rebounded by taking out Maryna Moroz and Casey O'Neill, but she's not back up the ladder yet. Viviane Araújo came back from her Chookagianing by outfighting Andrea Lee, but then she, too, dropped a pair of contender fights, this time to future champion Alexa Grasso and persistent contender Amanda Ribas. Just to put a loving exclamation point on the alternate universe reality iterations of each other these two women are, Viviane was, just like Maia, supposed to fight Casey O'Neill last month. But an injury means these matter-and-antimatter versions of one another must collide. I, along with most of the world, am picking JENNIFER MAIA BY DECISION. Araújo has the stronger punches, but she rarely gets the chance to really uncork them. Maia's distance strikes tend to be cleaner and her body kick is a weapon Viviane's going to have trouble with. If they do wind up on the floor, it'll get interesting very fast. MAIN CARD: SIXTEEN TONS  BANTAMWEIGHT: Jonathan Martinez (18-4, #13) vs Adrian Yanez (16-4, #14)This is my favorite fight on the card, but it also feels a bit unfair to Jonathan Martinez. "Dragon" is currently on the hottest streak of his career. After half a decade of going back and forth in the UFC he's finally on a two-year, five-fight winning streak and he's finally got a number by his name, thanks to winning the two biggest bouts of his life. One year ago Martinez welcomed superstar Cub Swanson to the 135-pound division by immediately ejecting him right back out of it after a second-round leg-kick TKO. He was promptly served up as a sizable underdog to Said Nurmagomedov, who was getting the hard push from the company, this past March--and he won an incredibly close coinflip of a decision after gritting out multiple near-finishes. But he did it. He made it into the top fifteen the hard way. I'm still, admittedly, a little lost on how Adrian Yanez made it into the top fifteen. That has nothing to do with Yanez as a fighter--I'm a huge fan. He punches like an absolute motherfucker, he's got fantastic timing on his counterpunching, and he rattled off a five-fight win streak between his post-Contender Series debut in 2020 and this past April. He's great! But four of his five UFC victories came against people who got cut anywhere from 3 to 0 fights after Yanez beat them. None of them have winning UFC records. None of them were anywhere close to ranked. But somehow, by beating them, Adrian Yanez suddenly became the #12 bantamweight in the world. That put him in the perfect position for the UFC, as they could throw him against the flagging, two-losses-in-a-row Rob Font in the hopes of getting their exciting new knockout artist in the top ten. And Font flattened him in three minutes. It's a bizarre juxtaposition. Both men had to win five straight fights to get ranked, but Martinez, y'know--beat ranked people. Even as a fighter I love watching fight, Yanez is a reminder that the rankings are more like commercially viable suggestions. JONATHAN MARTINEZ BY DECISION. Yanez is still one of the scariest power-punchers in the division and if he gets in close and uncorks a right hand at the right time this fight could be over in seconds, but Martinez is clean and solid enough at distance management that I think he keeps him at the end of his kicks for three rounds. MIDDLEWEIGHT: Michel Pereira (28-11) vs Andre Petroski (10-1) Michel Pereira has been having a very difficult time. How difficult? This difficult.  Pereira is--was--one of the best welterweight fighters in the company, but by sheer dumb luck he just couldn't get the fights going to prove it. It took years to finally make his way into a bout with perennial almost-contender Stephen Thompson, and then it took months of waiting and a full rescheduling to get there, and when the moment finally came to, after four years, prove that he belonged with the top contender at 170 pounds, Michel Pereira...blew his weight cut by four pounds. Didn't even come close. Stephen Thompson, the rare fighter who understands his worth, politely exercised his right to decline the fight. The UFC is still withholding his pay. Pereira got banished to the middleweight division for his crimes. He was supposed to be making his debut against Marc-André Barriault, a pleasantly brawly Canadian with a 5-5 UFC record. Barriault got hurt. Now, he gets Andre Petroski. Andre Petroski is 5-0 in the UFC. His only professional loss (not counting getting tapped out by Bryan Battle on The Ultimate Fighter 29 (jesus christ)) came against Aaron Jeffrey, a top contender in Bellator. Petroski fought the never-submitted Nick Maximov, choked him out in one minute, took on grappling champion Wellington Turman, mounted him and punched him stupid, met the absolute titan of wrestling that is Gerald Meerschaert and barely scraped a split decision from him because MMA is very funny. He's a great grappler with a monstrous top game and great, opportunistic chokes. I don't like this as a middleweight debut for Pereira. We haven't seen him fight at the weight class, he was preparing for a different, less-specialized fighter, and he hasn't had to fight a wrestling-specific fighter since Diego Sanchez. Pereira's got great takedown defense, but he's been using it against fighters who aren't great at taking people down. ANDRE PETROSKI BY DECISION feels like the coda to Michel Pereira's no good, very bad year. FLYWEIGHT: Edgar Cháirez (10-5) vs Daniel Lacerda (11-5) Boy, this is fun. This is an instant rematch--like, an instant rematch. They fought last month, and at the time I wrote this. CarlCX posted:Sometimes, you get a great matchup for your UFC debut and you get to flourish in the spotlight as you dispatch your competition with style and ease. Sometimes, you get served up to a monster. Edgar Cháirez is a good, solid flyweight with quick striking and real aggressive chokeholds, and that ultimately meant nothing, because his debut came against the undefeated Tatsuro Taira, one of the most promising prospects in the entire division. It's a credit to Cháirez that he gave Taira his most consistently competitive fight in the UFC thus far, but that wasn't enough to stop him from dropping a 10-8 round and losing a decision. He did, however, come back from that 10-8, win the third round, and almost choke Taira out, which is even more impressive. Daniel Lacerda, unfortunately, has not impressed. After two years he's 0-4 in the UFC, and not only has he lost every fight, he's been stopped every time. In his last appearance this past March he looked poised to finally end the losing streak, dropping C.J. Vergara with a spinning wheel kick and almost choking him out, but Vergara survived the round and Daniel was dead tired in the second and incapable of making it to a third. He's fast, and he's powerful, and he's athletic, and he just can't seem to control himself well enough to win a fight in the UFC. But, uh. I already predicted this fight and it basically ended the way I thought it would, the ref just messed it up. My math on this hasn't changed. EDGAR CHÁIREZ BY SUBMISSION. Again. BANTAMWEIGHT: Christian Rodriguez (9-1) vs Cameron Saaiman (9-0) Sometimes, the UFC gets mad at you and punishes you for ruining their plans. Christian "CeeRod" Rodriguez was a 1-1 fighter with a visible vulnerability for power-grapplers and he was supposed to be a nice, solid victim for Raul Rosas Jr., the UFC's youngest hype project and Dana White's personal child soldier, an undefeated 18 year-old that is 100% inexhaustible wrestling all the time. First, Rodriguez pissed the UFC off after missing weight by two pounds, and second, he laid an absolutely uncomfortable beating on their teenaged wunderkind. By the end of the fight Rosas had whiffed 13 of his 16 takedown attempts, landed 0 strikes in the first two rounds, and ultimately been outstruck 83 to 2. Raul Rosas Jr., of course, is still a marketing darling, which is why he got a primetime television slot at Noche UFC last month against the does-not-belong-here, brought-in-to-lose Terrence Mitchell. Christian Rodriguez is curtain-jerking the main card of an under-advertised Apex fight night against the UFC's favorite South African, Cameron Saaiman. Saaiman has had his own difficulties within the UFC, but it's not for lack of talent or success--as you can see, he's undefeated overall and 3-0 in his UFC fights thus far. The problem is he keeps fuckin' cheating. He almost lost his UFC debut by disqualification and did eat a point deduction after blasting Steven Koslow with an illegal knee, and in his follow-up fight with Mana Martinez he only won a majority decision--thanks to losing ANOTHER point after repeatedly kicking Martinez in the groin. He could easily have lost a second for poking Martinez in the goddamn eye in the third round, too, but we don't do that, I guess. It wasn't until his last UFC fight that he finally scored a simple, un-controversial first-round TKO. Of course, that required a change of opponent, as his originally scheduled opponent withdrew. Who was that, again? Oh, right, it was Christian Rodriguez. Who did Saaiman wind up mauling in three minutes? Terrence Mitchell. How truly odd. CAMERON SAAIMAN BY DECISION. PRELIMS: FOR I WILL BE THE FIRST ONE THAT YOU'LL SEE FEATHERWEIGHT: Darren Elkins (27-11) vs TJ Brown (17-10) Darren Elkins, your candle burnt so bright. "The Damage" built an entire career on the back of repeatedly getting the poo poo beaten out of him and winning regardless, because when you're near-impossible to knock out and you've got the gritty wrestleboxing necessary to punch people stupid after they've exhausted themselves from physically harming you, you can go real, real far. Well, you can go pretty far. You can go about as far as the edge of the top fifteen. Once upon a time Elkins actually made it into the top ten, but that was half a decade ago. In the present Elkins is 3 for his last 9, none of those three victories came against people who are still employed by the UFC, and he's at the stage of his career where both cagey veterans like Cub Swanson and rising prospects like Jonathan "JSP" Pearce are eating him alive. "Downtown" TJ Brown exists in the gray space between those two categories. He's not a prospect, exactly--he's in his mid-thirties, this is his eighth UFC fight in four years, he's 3-4, he just finished GETTING finished by Bill Algeo back in April. He's not young, he's not old, he's not a nobody nor is he established. But he, too, is a wrestleboxer, and he, too, succeeds by being too tough for his own good, whether it's winning a fight despite Charles Rosa nearly kicking his legs to pieces or elbowing Erik Silva's face open. But you know me. If you give me an option, I prefer original recipe. DARREN ELKINS BY DECISION. WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Tainara Lisboa (6-2) vs Ravena Oliveira (7-1-1) When last I wrote about Tianara Lisboa, it was for her UFC debut back in May. I was a bit perplexed by her signing--perplexed as to why, with all the women out there the UFC could sign, they were chasing down a 5-2 kickboxer who was fighting 1-4 and 0-1 and 0-0 people. Where exactly the UFC saw her fitting into the roster somewhat mystified me. She proved my prediction wrong: After struggling a little with Jessica Rose-Clark's clinch-wrestling she shut her down, outstriking, outgrappling and ultimately submitting her in the third round. Which is great, not just for showing she belongs, but as a demonstration of how well-rounded her skillset really is. Unfortunately, the "where does she fit into the roster" thing seems to still be a problem, because she's had two opponents on this card and neither of them works here. She was originally scheduled to welcome Russian prospect Darya Zheleznyakova to the UFC, and when Darya couldn't make it, rather than pulling out any of their bantamweight roster, the UFC pulled Ravena Oliveira out of her job as the flyweight champion of Brazil's Livramento Kombat Championship. If you're afraid you've missed another major MMA organization, don't worry: It's yet another in the seemingly endless procession of record-padding institutions, where 1-0 rookies fight 4-22-1 jobbers. It's now Ravena Oliveira's turn--her nickname is "Kenoudy" and by god I refuse to find out why--to be the baffling roster addition. Until her last fight, which would be her ninth professional contest, Ravena had fought exactly one person with a win on their record. Not a winning record--a single win. Only one of Ravena's opponents, in fact, has gone on to win a fight. And it's the one who beat her. So what do you really say? Ravena swings big right hands and clinches aggressively on the fence, but how do you gauge the skills of someone who's fighting people with minimal resistance? Let's start here: That one woman I mentioned Ravena fighting and beating who had more than one win? Her name is Simone da Silva, and this is the record of her last twenty professional combat sports bouts.  You may, subtly, notice a pattern. It took Ravena almost three full rounds. TAINARA LISBOA BY SUBMISSION. LIGHTWEIGHT: Terrance McKinney (14-6) vs Brendon Marotte (8-1) Oh, Terrance McKinney. I've gone through quite a journey with you. At one point I thought Terrance McKinney was jetpack-to-contendership material, and the UFC clearly agreed, and they very nearly got there when he almost punched out Drew Dober. But he overcommitted, got winded, and lost. And then he did it again. My faith in McKinney fell to the point that, when he fought this past July against a seemingly overmatched Nazim Sadykhov, I predicted thusly: CarlCX posted:Doctor stoppages are perfectly legit. Getting hosed up by Evan Elder for two rounds is slightly more concerning. TERRANCE MCKINNEY BY TKO, based on just how many strikes Sadykhov was taking to the face in that fight, but if he can make it out of the first round McKinney's slowing down will be a big problem for him. Marotte seems like a perfectly respectable bread-and-butter fighter. Single-legs, right hands, very little head movement, the way you live on the regional circuit. Do I think he's a bad fighter? No! He seems fine. Do I think he's above the you-must-be-this-tall-to-get-out-of-round-one-with-Terrance-McKinney line? I am afraid not. TERRANCE MCKINNEY BY TKO. WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Irina Alekseeva (5-1) vs Melissa Dixon (5-0) It was a bit of a mixed debut for "Russian Ronda" Irina Alekseeva. On one hand she walked into the octagon this past April, took on one of the division's better grapplers in Stephanie Egger, and tore her knee apart in roughly two minutes. High marks! Unfortunately, on the other, she made said octagon walk after blowing her weight cut by five pounds, or half an entire weight class. Which is especially dangerous now that the UFC doesn't even have a featherweight division they could banish her to if they wanted. Being a genuinely dangerous grappler is great! Making weight is unfortunately also necessary. Melissa Dixon is something of an obligatory pickup for the UFC--as stated above, they were bringing in Darya Zheleznyakova, so it would've been a bit weird not to bring in the only woman to beat her. Great feather in your cap! Sure, Darya was beating the crap out of her on the feet, but honestly, that just makes it more impressive that Dixon toughed it out, got her in the clinch, chucked her and punched her until the fight ended. Dixon's big coming-out party on the international stage, unfortunately, was not to be: In a karmically appropriate moment for this fight, her big Ares FC championship match with Gisele Moreira got cancelled when Dixon missed weight and Moreira took her bag and went home. So I hope both women have their weight cuts in hand now, because boy, this could be a very fun fight. Alekseeva's a very creative grappler and we've seen just how quickly she can end a fight; Dixon's a tough, tricky wrestler with some real good trips out of the clinch. I hope this hits the ground and I hope we get a fun grappling match out of it. Ultimately, though: IRINA ALEKSEEVA BY SUBMISSION. BANTAMWEIGHT: Chris Gutierrez (19-4-2, #15) vs Alatengheili (16-8-2)What the gently caress are we doing down here? Chris Gutierrez was on a four-year unbeaten streak (it included a draw against Cody Durden he probably should have won) until this past April, and not only was he winning those fights, he was stopping people half the time. Hell, the UFC decided in its infinite wisdom that after his hall of fame-worthy career, Frankie Edgar's very last appearance as a professional fighter should be getting knocked into infinity by Gutierrez in front of a deeply unhappy Madison Square Garden crowd. But they did it! They gave him that rub! And then Gutierrez loses a decision to Pedro Munhoz, a guy who came a coinflip away from beating next title contender Marlon Vera, and boom, all the way down to the bottom of the preliminary barrel with you. We're only here at all because Gutierrez was supposed to fight Montel Jackson last week, and Jackson couldn't make it, and Alatengheili, the "Mongolian Knight," was supposed to fight our old WEC friend Rani Yahya here, and Yahya couldn't make it. Does it make a lot of sense to have a top fifteen bantamweight fighting Alatengheili at the rear end end of a TV card in the Apex? Of course not. Does it matter? You know as well as I do that the first rule of the internet is nothing matters. CHRIS GUTIERREZ BY DECISION. WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Ashley Yoder (8-8) vs Emily Ducote (12-8) Ashley Yoder. By god. Ashley Yoder showed up in the UFC all the way back in 2016 on The Ultimate Fighter 23 (jesus christ), where she beat Jodie Esquibel, who ultimately retired at 6-7 a couple years ago, and lost in the second round against Kate Jackson, who somehow never made it to the UFC and wound up in Bellator. Over the course of almost eight years in the UFC Yoder's gone 3-7, and those three victories, respectively, were against Amanda Cooper, Syuri Kondo and Miranda Granger, all of whom wound up cut shortly after. If you happen to be a professional wrestling nerd and you find yourself going "wait, like the Joshi wrestler Syuri Kondo?" the answer is, yes, that is the same person. It's been a real fuckin' strange career. Emily Ducote's time in the UFC has been a lot more conventional--win a title in Invicta, immediately trade it in for a bus ticket, score a win over an old veteran (in this case, Jessica Penne), immediately get fought to decision losses by the inimitable decision queens of the division, Angela Hill and Lupita Godinez. We're looking at two grappling-type Pokemon, here. Yoder has a real size advantage, but admittedly, I can't help thinking that's the only advantage she has here. EMILY DUCOTE BY DECISION.
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Oct 11, 2023 20:40
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In other news, Conor’s back in the USADA testing pool, and USADA is done working with the UFC as of January 1st, 2024. https://x.com/aaronbronsteter/status/1712211650839757109?s=46&t=0EhSfm9xZ5dBcjTEKTOqzw
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Oct 11, 2023 22:02
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finally pride is back
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Oct 11, 2023 22:14
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Vince McMahon is a genius. Can’t wait to see a three way super heavyweight battle royale between Jon Jones, Conor, and Paulo Costa where they’re all so juiced they look like a bunch of thanksgiving day parade floats throwing out hogan leg drops and doing the peoples elbow.
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Oct 11, 2023 22:16
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We're one month into the TKO era and the biggest title rematch in the company is happening on a week's notice as a late replacement fight, Khamzat Chimaev is fighting Kamaru Usman for a top ranking at middleweight, the UFC is preparing to enter Saudi Arabia and strict drug testing is dead.
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Oct 11, 2023 22:31
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lmao what the gently caress. Sigh, alright what can I say, just gonna have to roll with it and see how it affects the quality of the product.
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Oct 11, 2023 22:39
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brock lesnar's time has come back around
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Oct 11, 2023 22:50
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https://twitter.com/KevinI/status/1712210085555093648 it just gets better
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Oct 11, 2023 22:52
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQl1JbuYrLk
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Oct 11, 2023 22:54
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folks combat sports is so back
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Oct 11, 2023 22:55
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Is Connor gonna make Chandler meet him at 185 or
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Oct 11, 2023 22:56
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Does Overeem unretire with this news?
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Oct 11, 2023 22:56
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Dana dropped USADA for Conor goddamn. Lol what an insane week. “Jeff Novitsky was never my friend” coming at the next press conference. FishBowlRobot fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Oct 11, 2023 |
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Oct 11, 2023 22:57
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kensei posted:Is Connor gonna make Chandler meet him at 185 or full gas, 205 I want fat head conor doing the arm waddle walk after a victory before his career is over
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Oct 11, 2023 22:58
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USADA was just for legitimacy purposes in preparation to be accepted into the mainstream and bought by a huge conglomerate like the Reebok deal right? Now that that is all done the sport can return to the state of 'clean' we accept from the NBA, NFL, and pro wrestling.
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Oct 11, 2023 23:17
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FishBowlRobot posted:Dana dropped USADA for Conor goddamn. It's so blatant. lol
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Oct 11, 2023 23:23
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Marching Powder posted:USADA was just for legitimacy purposes in preparation to be accepted into the mainstream and bought by a huge conglomerate like the Reebok deal right? Now that that is all done the sport can return to the state of 'clean' we accept from the NBA, NFL, and pro wrestling. Unironically fine by me.
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Oct 11, 2023 23:24
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leftist heap posted:Unironically fine by me. same, pretty much. i'm fine with ped usage in competitive fighting so long as people know that if they choose to neglect ped's for ideological / religious reasons, then they are choosing to fight against mutants. the ufc doing this with usada is pretty much that declaration so i'm cool with it.
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Oct 11, 2023 23:40
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individual865 posted:In other news, Conor’s back in the USADA testing pool, and USADA is done working with the UFC as of January 1st, 2024. https://x.com/aaronbronsteter/status/1712211650839757109?s=46&t=0EhSfm9xZ5dBcjTEKTOqzw  they torpedoed the entire drug testing program so their special little gremlin could do steroids, loving incredible
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Oct 11, 2023 23:52
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mewse posted:they torpedoed the entire drug testing program so their special little gremlin could do steroids, loving incredible
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Oct 12, 2023 00:10
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