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Which PFL champion are you most looking forward to seeing this month? This poll is closed. |
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|---|---|---|---|
| Olivier Aubin-Mercier |
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1 | 3.85% |
| Larissa Pacheco |
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4 | 15.38% |
| Sadibou Sy |
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1 | 3.85% |
| Lance Palmer |
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0 | 0% |
| Nicco Montano |
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1 | 3.85% |
| Alexander Shlemenko |
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2 | 7.69% |
| Bobby Southworth |
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3 | 11.54% |
| Hardcore Holly |
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14 | 53.85% |
| Total: | 26 votes | ||
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kimbo305 posted:Gotta be Cody McKenzie. i think about the mckenzietine all the time hope everyone had a great weekend
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Nov 28, 2023 05:45
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Remember when Jones McKenzietined Machida
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Nov 28, 2023 07:27
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John Romero posted:i think about the mckenzietine all the time
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Nov 28, 2023 09:37
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Nov 28, 2023 15:31
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cody's off-the-rack basketball shorts with the price tag attached was so goddamned funny
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Nov 28, 2023 15:44
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kimbo305 posted:Gotta be Cody McKenzie. I was unaware that Cody had a highlight reel beyond destroying Koscheck's pet human and needing the tag on his shorts removed. The Edwards fight was good, though.
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Nov 28, 2023 22:11
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Snowman_McK posted:I was unaware that Cody had a highlight reel They keep diving for it! J/k, he was pretty good at hunting for them https://youtu.be/Mj9ez-Ts-N4?si=iAqWdf-E0rT_GT7o
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Nov 29, 2023 01:21
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If we're being honest with ourselves the bad fighter with the best highlight reel is Derrick Lewis, followed by a dozen other heavyweights
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Nov 29, 2023 01:30
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reeg posted:If we're being honest with ourselves the bad fighter with the best highlight reel is Derrick Lewis, followed by a dozen other heavyweights If you really think Black Beast is a worse fighter than Cody, you are not up in this ho.
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Nov 29, 2023 01:47
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kimbo305 posted:If you really think Black Beast is a worse fighter than Cody, you are not up in this ho. no. it's a bidirectional spectrum
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Nov 29, 2023 01:51
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Sweaty IT Nerd posted:Hendo beating Fedor was a feel good moment too i'll never forget reading pages of sherdoggers ferociously arguing that it was an early stoppage and fedor was doing the patented "unconsciously slide his face against the canvas" defence and that he was about to reverse hendo into an armbar. a buffet for someone who enjoys posts of people being incredibly wrong about things on the internet like me
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Nov 29, 2023 10:20
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Fun ad, but the apparel it's selling isn't noteworthy. Hope Alex gets paid
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Nov 29, 2023 13:56
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Why is he staring at Tito?
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Nov 29, 2023 13:58
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Josuke Higashikata posted:i'll never forget reading pages of sherdoggers ferociously arguing that it was an early stoppage and fedor was doing the patented "unconsciously slide his face against the canvas" defence and that he was about to reverse hendo into an armbar. I just went to watch that and found it really funny hearing the commentary say the fight is now likely going to go to decision, something like 20 seconds before fedor was out.
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Nov 29, 2023 19:59
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CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 83: THE GOOD OLD DAYS SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2 FROM THE MOODY CENTER IN AUSTIN, TEXAS PRELIMS 1 PM PST / 4 PM EST | MAIN CARD 4 PM / 7 PM Somehow, against all odds, we've made it to December. It's been an intensely long year of weird booking and abrupt title shots and the unpredictable return of Jon Jones and the incredibly predictable return of Jon Jones not making it to fights, and there's one less MMA organization in the world than there was the last time we talked, but by god, we're almost done. Three more UFCs to go, and then we're off for an entire month. But the UFC's spent the last couple years making their December-opening cards unexpected bangers, and on paper, this one gets pretty high marks. A whole mess of ranked fighters, two long overdue weight class-shifting tests, and a main event with honest to god contendership ramifications? For Lightweight? Hell yes. Sure, next week we're watching a half-cancelled card that doesn't start until the evening's already half over, but this week, we're eating good.  i really need to figure out my own card layouts during the winter break. MAIN EVENT: PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING LIGHTWEIGHT: Beneil Dariush (22-5-1, #4) vs Arman Tsarukyan (20-3, #8) A couple of months ago, when Rafael Fiziev fought Mateusz Gamrot, I wrote this: CarlCX posted:Lightweight is, and has always been, one of the best hotbeds of talent in the world. This is in no way untrue now. There isn't a single fighter in the top fifteen who's a step below world-class. Championship grapplers, star wrestlers and world-class kickboxers litter its ranks. They're all amazing. They're all killers. And not a single one of them can actually break through to title contention, because a combination of skill, timing and marketing means no one can break the iron loving grip four men have on the entire division: Islam Makhachev, Charles Oliveira, Justin Gaethje, Dustin Poirier. This legitimately very good fight contains two of the only men to threaten that hierarchical ceiling, and I am way the gently caress here for it. Beneil Dariush came closer than drat near anyone. Which, to be frank, remains surprising, because it took years for me to accept Dariush as a top Lightweight. At the end of 2018 Dariush was already four years into his UFC tenure and he looked like he'd found his ceiling. His last three fights were two violent knockout losses and a draw, his last two wins were two years prior, and even those were barely distancing him from getting choked out by Michael Chiesa and taking an incredibly narrow decision over Michael Johnson that won "Robbery of the Year" awards from the mixed martial media. Was he a bad fighter? Absolutely not. His wrestling was solid, his endurance was impressive and he secretly hit like a Buick. Did it seem like his contendership days were behind him? I mean, yes. When Alexander Hernandez nuked him in under a minute it felt like the closing of a very heavy door. Coming back from losing streaks is difficult, coming back from a losing streak that saw you get eaten alive by a hot young prospect is extremely rare. Resurfacing after drowning in Lightweight, the deepest division in the entire sport? Why, that's the kind of thing that takes years. Five of them, as it turns out. Eight-fight winning streaks at 155 pounds are really, really hard to obtain. Stopping guys like Drew Dober and Drakkar Klose on your way up is even harder. But finding your stride as a fighter when you're already 20 bouts into your career? That's just absurdly unlikely. In any other era of Lightweight, Dariush would've rode that streak right into a championship. Unfortunately, in this one, there were two fighters who'd made that statistically improbable comeback journey. Dariush got his crack at #1 contendership this past June and Charles Oliveira knocked him out in a single round. Five years of effort gone in just over four minutes. Right back to proving yourself. Arman Tsarukyan has been working tirelessly on proving himself. He brought his own years-long, twelve-fight winning streak into the UFC when he made his debut, but he had the misfortune of making said debut against Islam Makhachev, who was just a couple years away from becoming the undisputed best Lightweight on the planet. That loss ultimately reflected real well on Arman: As Makhachev rose up to the championship, Tsarukyan giving him one of his toughest fights and being one of just two people in the UFC to ever take him down turned into a particularly strong moral victory. That, of course, would have been meaningless had Tsarukyan not also been beating everyone he fought. He wrestled Olivier Aubin-Mercier right out of the UFC and over to make millions in the Professional Fighters League, he ground Matt Frevola into dust, he knocked out Christos Giagos and Joel Alvarez, and, suddenly, Arman Tsarukyan was on a five-fight winning streak and primed for contendership all over again. His fight with Mateusz Gamrot in the summer of 2022 wasn't just his first main event in the UFC, but his first real test as the future of the division. He and Gamrot were both highly-touted prospects with aggressive, grappling-heavy styles, both were looked at as future champions, and the fight between them felt like one that could easily happen again for a title one day. As happens with truly good contendership fights, it was exceptionally close, and as happens with mixed martial arts altogether, people are still grumbling about the decision a year and a half later. Tsarukyan landed more strikes, Gamrot had more control time; 68% of the media scored the fight for Tsarukyan, all three judges scored it for Gamrot. Mateusz Gamrot went on to a top contendership fight, which he lost--to Beneil Dariush. Arman dropped back down the contendership ladder. A year later and two victories later, he's got his momentum back and he's ready to climb the mountain Gamrot fell off. Which makes it difficult not to draw direct MMAth comparisons. If Arman struggled with Gamrot, and Beneil shut Gamrot down, does that mean Arman's in trouble all over again? ARMAN TSARUKYAN BY DECISION. This is an extremely competitive fight, but Gamrot's more traditional wrestling style--long shots at the legs and fisticuffs to make up the difference--played heavily into Dariush's strengths both as a puncher and a defensive wrestler. Arman favors his kicks, which will help disrupt Dariush's ability to maintain distance, and he likes to push behind them into trips, which plays well against Beneil's sprawling game. Over five rounds, I think Arman wearing Dariush down is more likely than Dariush shutting him down. And maybe, god willing, we can finally get some new blood in contendership and Lightweight title fights can move into a brave new world of--  God dammit. CO-MAIN EVENT: LAST MINUTE GLORY  LIGHTWEIGHT: Jalin Turner (13-7, #12) vs Bobby Green (31-14-1 (1), #13)This is a fight about exceptionally weird positioning. Somehow, despite the last-minute substitution, that hasn't actually changed. Up until two weeks ago Dan Hooker was booked in against Bobby Green, and Hooker's place as a living superposition of top ten/not top ten is a thing of legend. But Green has been racing to usurp him, and after a decade and a half in the business he's having what might be the weirdest year of his entire career, and for a guy who fought on an Affliction card, that's a goddamn statement. It took Green years to make it into the UFC's top ten, but by god, he got there--and then he gambled on himself, took a short-notice fight against Islam Makhachev (filling in for, funnily enough, Beneil Dariush) and got crushed in one round. Getting knocked out by Drew Dober at the end of 2022 didn't help. Rebuilding years are normal in mixed martial arts. Rebuilding years like the 2023 Bobby Green has had are not. He walked into a bout with Jared Gordon and got a No Contest after knocking him silly with an unintentional headbutt. He came back three months later against the rapidly decaying skeleton of Tony Ferguson and, having not recorded a submission victory in more than a decade, proceeded to choke out Ferguson, a man just a few fights removed from surviving Charles Oliveira on the ground. And then, just two months ago, Green took a fight against Grant Dawson, one of the scariest wrestlers in the division with an unblemished UFC streak six years long, and knocked him out cold in thirty god damned seconds. Wild poo poo. Wild poo poo! For the third or fourth time in his career Bobby Green has gone from looking done to knocking on the door of the top ten. Jalin Turner, in the meantime, is trying to prove he belongs there at all. Which is, itself, wild, because Jalin Turner is having both the best and worst year of his entire career. Turner's been exactly as scary as a 6'3" Lightweight can ever since dropping down from 170 pounds, but his 2019 loss to Matt Frevola meant the UFC chose to slow-walk him along the rankings. Which is not to say his victories have been in any way unimpressive--the list of people who can knock out Jamie Mullarkey is very short, and choking out Brad Riddell is cool as hell--but they've left fans questioning where exactly he stacks up against the real contenders of the division. Jalin's 2023 has been entirely about finding out, and the answers, unfortunately, have been mixed. He took a last-minute fight with Mateusz Gamrot and nearly won, which is impressive as hell and would have vaulted him right into the top five--but he couldn't stop Gamrot's takedowns and he didn't win, so it didn't take him anywhere. He got his originally-scheduled fight with Dan Hooker back, and it was a fantastic scrap that was ultimately close--but still a decision victory for Hooker, who outworked Turner on the feet. So Green's suddenly back in the top fifteen after a big upset, and Turner is trying to reverse a downward slope built out of his own harsher challenges. The fight, itself, is at least conceptually fascinating. Turner's an exceptionally dangerous striker with a big size advantage, but he has a tendency to overextend himself and pay dearly for it. Green's one of the sport's best defensive strikers and has made an entire career off making people pay for their mistakes, but he's been paying for his own, recently, and it's hard to tell if he's finally slowing down. But I picked against my own heart by picking Dawson to beat him and I paid for it then, and by god, I will not make the same mistake again. BOBBY GREEN BY DECISION. MAIN CARD: IN SEARCH OF CLASS BANTAMWEIGHT: Rob Font (20-7, #8) vs Deiveson Figueiredo (21-3-1, #2 at Flyweight)Rob Font is stuck being a gatekeeper, and that loving sucks. Font is, and has been, one of the best Bantamweights in the goddamn world for an entire decade, but "one of" is an unfortunately damning descriptor. He couldn't beat John Lineker in 2016, he couldn't beat Raphael Assunção in 2018, he couldn't beat José Aldo in 2021, and despite outstriking Marlon Vera by 100+ strikes in 2022, he still lost a lopsided decision because he couldn't stop getting almost knocked out in every round. He had hoped 2023 would be different--and blitzing Adrian Yanez was a great start--but this past Summer he had a main-event showdown with top contender Cory Sandhagen that was depressing in a number of ways, from Sandhagen completely shutting him down despite only having one fully functioning arm to Font getting outwrestled so badly that he scored 0 significant strikes in three out of five rounds, setting records for main-event inactivity in the process. He's still Rob loving Font, and the top ten just would not be the same without him, but his time fighting for contendership is, for the moment, over, and now he has to defend his position against the barbarians at the gates. Deiveson Figueiredo is, potentially, a hell of a gatecrasher. He was so ludicrously imposing as a Flyweight--massive power, horrifying chokes, and most importantly an outright aggression that made him drat near impossible to avoid--that the MMA world, and the UFC's marketing department, openly expected him to rule the 125-pound roost for years to come. But, somehow, it just didn't quite happen. He missed weight for his first title fight, requiring him to brutally murder poor Joseph Benavidez twice in a row, he managed exactly one title defense that was over in two minutes, and then he embarked on the mad, almost three-year long odyssey that was his quadrilogy of fights with Brandon Moreno. He went to a draw--which he would have won, easily, were it not for a point deduction--and then he got choked out, and then he notched a decision victory, and finally, breaking their perfect 1-1-1 series, he got his eye punched shut in the fourth match. Not only did Deiveson lose the series, he announced his intention to leave Flyweight completely: The weight cut sucked, he'd just fought the same guy four times in a row, he was ready to move onward and upward. And then he, uh, changed his mind, and announced he was facing Manel Kape for #1 contendership this past July, except almost three months before the fight he wasn't medically cleared, and rather than rescheduling the bout Deiveson just sort of disappeared. For months! And now he's here at 135 pounds after all. I cannot help feeling that weight change is the real story of this fight. At 125 pounds, Deiveson Figueiredo is a ripped, scary monster. At 135 pounds, he's the second-shortest fighter in the division. Rob Font is not a particularly large Bantamweight, but he's still got a sizable advantage in height and reach. At the same time, he is almost definitely Deiveson's most favorable fight in the top ten. He's got proven troubles with power strikers and physical pressure fighters, and Figueiredo fills those qualities out easily. But I keep thinking about Moreno jabbing Figueiredo up, and I keep wondering how he's going to adjust to someone even larger and crisper, and I keep remembering the way Chito Vera rattled Font a half-dozen times without actually putting him away, and boy, I just don't know if I believe in Figueiredo's chances at the class. ROB FONT BY DECISION, but if he can't keep Deiveson out of the pocket it could get very, very interesting. WELTERWEIGHT: Sean Brady (15-1, #9) vs Kelvin Gastelum (18-8 (1), #11 at Middleweight) I have so many concerns that this fight will not actually happen. Sean Brady's career has come to something of a screeching halt over the last twelve months, and it's a shame, because his brand of fighting--the ol' Mike Pierce special, hard-nosed wrestling with just enough fisticuffs behind it to enable him to take people down and score a late submission if you're lucky--won him every fight of his career, but it sure didn't win him much cache with fans or UFC management. He, instead, served as a stepping stone for perennially underserved #1 contender Belal Muhammad, who despite having not finished a fight with strikes since 2016 decided to switch things up and punch out the undefeated Brady in two rounds last year. And that's it, though not for lack of trying. Brady was supposed to take a fight against the incredibly dangerous Michel Pereira this past March, only to get nixed after tearing his groin; he attempted to come back against the equally dangerous Jack Della Maddalena in the Summer, but an infection kept him hospitalized. So now, working his way down the chain, he's got former #1 Middleweight contender Kelvin goddamn Gastelum. Kelvin, too, has been having a lot of trouble keeping his fights together. Gastelum came into 2019 as a top contender, and two years later he'd gone 1-5 and been more or less eliminated from contention altogether. He spent the FOLLOWING two years repeatedly trying to work his way back in, but fights with contenders like Dricus Du Plessis and Shavkat Rakhmonov kept getting scratched--mostly because Gastelum kept injuring himself. A busted tooth here, a skull fracture there, what can you do. When he DID fight he proved he still had it, as he went three ultimately successful rounds with Chris Curtis, but even that included Gastelum getting away with essentially knocking Curtis briefly unconscious with a headbutt. But the entire MMA world has spent the last nine years begging Gastelum to drop back down to Welterweight. Kelvin Gastelum, when he's on, is a world-class fighter with unnaturally fluid boxing and some seriously imposing wrestling. He's also 5'9". He was the shortest 185-pounder in the company and he's the second-shortest 170-pounder, and that poo poo adds up. KELVIN GASTELUM BY DECISION is the sensible choice. Brady's a solid wrestler, but his hands leave a lot to be desired compared to Gastelum's. That said, the actual most sensible choice here is this fight never happens. Gastelum misses weight like he used to, or Brady's legs fall apart while he's stretching in the locker room, or the lighting rig falls from the rafters and destroys the Octagon seconds before the bout begins--those are my betting favorites. I'll believe this goes down when the bell rings and not a second before. LIGHTWEIGHT: Clay Guida (38-23) vs Joaquim Silva (12-4) I'm not sure if you CAN get rid of Clay Guida anymore. Guida's been in the UFC since two thousand and god damned six. The main event of his debut card was Anderson Silva killing Rich Franklin for the first time. There are multiple people on that card who have been retired for more than a decade, at this point. And yet, somehow, Clay persists. Is he a contender? Heavens, no. His days of relevancy to the rankings are years gone. Is he knocking off prospects? No, not really. Actually, almost everyone he's beaten in the last ten years retired from the sport within a couple fights. His only victory over a still-active UFC fighter (aside from Joe Lauzon, who's trying but hasn't actually made it back yet) in the last thirteen years was Michael Johnson back in 2021, and Johnson is a spirit of interminability himself. Guida's just here. He was a carpenter for so long he's become part of the wood. He wrestles, he bobs his head and he loses every other fight, and it is as central to the UFC's existence as aggressively bad politics and fighters with childhood trauma. If he's anything, he's a testing mark for people the UFC isn't quite sure about. Thus: Joaquim Silva. Joaquim Silva had a fill-in co-main event against Arman Tsarukyan this Summer, and at the time, I was pretty unhappy about it. CarlCX posted:Lightweight has always been one of the UFC's best, toughest divisions, a shark tank where coming up through the ranks is akin to climbing a Mortal Kombat ladder full of dudes with metal arms and firebreathing skull faces, and we spent the last three years watching Arman Tsarukyan go through a murderer's row of a half-dozen talented fighters with a combined record of loving 100-16 just to get to the outer reaches of the top ten. But it would be much, much funnier if it still happened, and honestly, I don't know that Silva has the hands or the bottom game to make Clay pay for his attempts. CLAY GUIDA BY DECISION and we roll ever onward. MIDDLEWEIGHT: Punahele Soriano (9-3) vs Dustin Stoltzfus (14-5) No matter how many times I write some variation of 'this is a fight where someone might get fired' it never stops feeling disrespectful. Objectively, it's true. Punahele Soriano is a powerful brawler who's won most of his professional fights by simply punching his opponent's skull into the rafters. He's strong, he's mean, and he's landed exactly one takedown in six UFC fights. He's also 1 for his last 4. There's no shame in those losses--Brendan Allen's a top ten Middleweight, Nick Maximov's a hell of a wrestler and Roman Kopylov is just now getting the flowers he deserves as one of the division's best strikers--but none of that changes the cruelty of math. That math is even less kind to Dustin Stoltzfus. Technically, Dustin's best UFC win wasn't even in the UFC--it was his 2020 Contender Series victory over the now highly-hyped Joe Pyfer. Within the UFC itself he's 1-4 overall. It's been more than a year since last we saw him, and that was his worst appearance ever, as Abus Magomedov nuked him in nineteen seconds before embarking on one of the company's least sensible contendership failures. After a loss like that, I do not think taking a long break to think about things is in any way unwarranted. Honestly, I wish more fighters responded to devastating knockouts by giving their brains time to fully recover and regroup. Unfortunately, this is a hell of a fight to come back to. Stoltzfus has a grappling advantage here, but he's pretty definitively proven himself to be profoundly hittable, and Soriano is the kind of guy who only needs to hit you a couple times to get his point across. I'm kind of rooting for Dustin, but PUNAHELE SORIANO BY TKO seems much more likely. PRELIMS: BELLATO ACQUIRED BY THE UFC WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Miesha Tate (19-9, #12) vs Julia Avila (9-2, #13) That's right: We're doing the Miesha Tate thing again. When last we saw Miesha Tate it was mid-2022 and I was apoplectic about how she was still, somehow, ranked. It's now the end of 2023, Miesha Tate is 1-4 since 2016 and she's still the #12-ranked fighter at a weight class she hasn't seen in more than two years. But that's okay, now, because holy christ, Women's Bantamweight is a mess. Amanda Nunes retiring and Julianna Peña getting seriously injured left so massive a void at the top of the division that more or less all bets are off, now. If you can string together a couple victories, you, too, can be the Women's Bantamweight Champion. If you're Miesha Tate, one of the most popular women's mixed martial artists of all time? Just give them an excuse. Julia Avila would certainly love the chance, because she's had an absolutely terrible time just getting fights to loving stick. Avila signed up with the UFC all the way back in mid-2019, and in the four years since she has managed exactly four fights--and ten cancellations. She signed up to fight Karol Rosa four goddamn times. She was scheduled against Karol Rosa and Nicco Montaño six goddamn times in 2020 and each one fell through. We haven't actually seen "Raging Panda" and her aggressively forward-moving assaults since she beat up Julija Stoliarenko all the way back in June of 2021; a knee injury took her out at the end of the year and she's been on the shelf ever since. I'll give Tate credit: Her last two fights weren't easy, and this one's no better. Tate's hard-nosed wrestle-boxing style isn't a bad one for Avila's defensive gaps--the last time she lost, it was at the hands of a similar assault from Sijara Eubanks--but Tate doesn't have quite the same physicality in her game and she tends to walk into fire to get her takedown attempts, which is where Avila's offense shines. On paper, this seems like a real good first round for Miesha followed by getting picked apart for the rest of the fight. But Avila's also been rehabbing for years, and she's coming back against a tough, canny fighter, and it's anyone's guess how she'll look. I'm still leaning towards JULIA AVILA BY TKO but this fight is covered in question marks. MIDDLEWEIGHT: Cody Brundage (9-5) vs Zach Reese (6-0) Cody Brundage is a very, very lucky man. Heading into his September showdown with Jacob Malkoun, Brundage was 0 for his last 3 and very much fighting to keep his job, and after four minutes of being completely dominated, the pink slip appeared inevitable. And then, in the middle of very easily beating him, Malkoun smashed Brundage in the back of the head with an elbow. Disqualification: The best way a fight can end. On the plus side, Brundage and his heavy-handed wrestle-boxing lived to fight another day. On the minus side, the UFC clearly hasn't forgotten about the losing streak, because rather than a similarly known, weathered quantity Brundage is welcoming a shiny new Contender Series toy into the UFC. Zach Reese is, and I acknowledge the disrespect inherent to my appraisal, the living ideal of the Contender Series fighter. He's a 6'4" guy who showcases virtually no defense to the point that he got outboxed and dropped by a man half a foot shorter than he is during his Contender Series fight, he's undefeated with nothing but first-round finishes except almost all of his opponents were rookies or jobbers, and his outspoken ethos as a fighter is to push for finishes constantly with no regard for safety or points. I'd like to be wrong about Reese. I appreciate anyone who's still getting armbars off their back in 2023. But that dude carries his hands like it's still 2005 and he's about to fight Gideon Ray, and CODY BRUNDAGE BY TKO just seems so thoroughly easy to imagine. LIGHTWEIGHT: Joe Solecki (13-3) vs Drakkar Klose (13-2-1) Paths to the top are narrow, and sometimes when you pursue them you wind up moving sideways instead. Joe Solecki was on his way up the prospect rankings when he dropped a split decision to Jared Gordon back in 2021, and it was the kind of close that could easily have gone the other way had the judges felt a cool breeze on their faces that caused them to smile instead of frown, and Solecki has certainly tried to work his way back up, but boy, the universe hasn't allowed it. First he took another close decision over the soon-to-be-fired Alex da Silva--which would have been a split draw were it not for da Silva losing a point for cage grabs. Then he was supposed to fight the deeply impressive Benoît Saint-Denis--but an injury left him disposing of the less-regarded Carl Deaton III, another in the long line of Carls destined not to climb their fields. Drakkar Klose represents Solecki's chance to claw his way back into relevance. Klose has flown under the radar for years, half because his style just tends to not be particularly fan-friendly and half because he keeps taking poorly-timed losses that derail his momentum, but he's secretly been one of the UFC's most underrated Lightweight fighters for years. Klose is the kind of solid, sound fighter that gives the world hives--no big weaknesses, no tendency to overextend, just sound gameplanning and an approach so well-rounded that fighters just don't know how to disarm him. Main-event fighter Beneil Dariush is the only man to ever stop him, and the act of stopping Drakkar Klose was so sufficiently notable that it served as the point people realized Dariush might, in fact, be for real. If that effusiveness leads you to think I am in the tank for Drakkar Klose: You're probably right. But his grappling defense makes me wonder what Solecki really has for him, and how much damage Klose will put on him while he tries to get him down. DRAKKAR KLOSE BY DECISION. FEATHERWEIGHT: Steve Garcia (14-5) vs Melquizael Costa (20-6)Steve Garcia is trying as hard as he can. "Mean Machine" jumped into the UFC as a late replacement back in February of 2020--after having just knocked out current UFC prospect Chepe Mariscal barely a month earlier--and, like most late replacement contract fighters, he quickly went 1-2 and seemed like he was probably done. And then he knocked the gently caress out of UFC child soldier Chase Hooper in ninety seconds. At something of a loss, the UFC put him up against rising international star Shayilan Nuerdanbieke, and once again, Garcia obliged by nuking Shayilan in two rounds with body shots. Having recorded two fantastic, devastating knockout victories in a row that were unfortunately buried midway through the prelims, Steve Garcia is, uh, once again buried midway through the prelims. This time his dance partner is Melquizael "Melk" Costa, a fellow short-notice replacement fighter who's currently midway through his I-belong-here redemption tour. He lost his debut fight against Thiago Moisés, which is pretty understandable as Moisés is an absolute motherfucker to fight even with a full camp, but he made up for it by shutting out the ever-tough Austin Lingo in his sophomore appearance. The clash in their respective styles makes this a real interesting fight. Garcia has vicious power and he's very good at using it to fight long, with particularly severe body kicks, but his defense tends to suffer for it. Melk likes to sling slapping headkicks and throw fun spinning poo poo, but he picks his spots and tries to keep himself defensively covered between his attempts. What I can't get out of my head is watching Costa smack Austin Lingo upside the head with a half-dozen kicks without putting him down, though, and compared to the opportunistic power Garcia carries, STEVE GARCIA BY TKO doesn't feel out of the question here. LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Ihor Potieria (20-4) vs Rodolfo Bellato (11-2) Ihor Potieria drank the blood of the ancients and now he is cursed for life. His entire 19-3 career before 2023 is void, because in January of 2023 he ended the mixed martial arts career of Pride FC legend and former UFC champion Mauricio "Shogun" Rua by entirely-too-predictably blitzing him in a single round, and for daring to commit such a crime as defeating an opponent, his name has been written in the book of death. Carlos Ulberg knocked him cold four months later and now, one fight from retiring a legend, Ihor is struggling not to go 1-3 in the UFC. That's where Rodolfo "Trator" Bellato comes in, and if you guessed that Bellato won a Contender Series contract within the last couple months, you get absolutely no points. It's not because you're wrong--you're right!--it's because correctly yet automatically assuming it means your heart has been colonized by the dark and terrible forces that run our abominable sport. Don't worry, it's a rite of passage for becoming a mixed martial arts fan. We call it The Hollowing. Anyway, RODOLFO BELLATO BY TKO because Ihor Potieria likes getting hit in the head too much. WELTERWEIGHT: Wellington Turman (18-7) vs Jared Gooden (22-9) In my head, for some reason, Wellington Turman has been around the UFC for a very long time and he's run up a seasoned veteran's record. In reality, it's only been four years and he's 3-5 and one of those victories was inexplicably needing a split decision to beat Sam Alvey. Turman's always been a skilled fighter--his striking's sound and his grappling's solid--but putting it all together consistently in the cage seems to give him fits, and the UFC booking him against killers like Andre Petroski and Randy Brown is decidedly unhelpful. Tonight, thankfully, he's got Jared "NiteTrain" Gooden instead. When last we checked in with Jared Gooden this past March, he had just returned to the UFC after a year and a half on the regional circuit, and I summed up how bizarre it was thusly: CarlCX posted:He beat former contender Curtis Millender after Millender broke his leg and collapsed on a leg kick, he got knocked cold by the inexplicably released Impa Kasanganay, he beat Doug Usher after Usher somehow broke his own hand punching Gooden in the chest, and he beat Damarques Jackson when Jackson got so tired and hurt that he knocked himself down throwing a haymaker. It's the kind of bizarre poo poo that happens on the regional scene, but hey: It got Gooden back to the mothership. Nine months and an actual training camp can make a lot of difference, and Gooden's got a reach and power advantage, but I just do not believe in the man. I'm not convinced he'll have the punches to keep Turman off him, or that he'll be able to stop his grappling if the fight goes there. WELLINGTON TURMAN BY DECISION. WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Jamey-Lyn Horth (6-0) vs Veronica Hardy (7-4-1) Here, starting the card, we have a story of surprises. Jamey-Lyn Horth's UFC debut wasn't supposed to be her night. The UFC had heavily invested in Contender Series winner Hailey Cowan, to the point of having marketing rolling out for her before she'd even officially fought in the company, but her debut had been repeatedly scratched by scheduling issues and illnesses. So the UFC brought in Canada's Jamey-Lyn Horth to fight Cowan on a month's notice with the intention of giving Cowan a landing pad. Instead, Horth outworked her and won a close, but clear, decision. Which is great! But the UFC doesn't tend to like it when you ruin their plans. This is part of why Horth is curtain-jerking the prelims against Veronica Hardy, who's two steps into her comeback tour. Veronica--back when she was still known as Veronica Macedo, before she married the eternally-threatening-to-unretire Dan Hardy--had a deeply unfortunate 1-4 run in the UFC that ended in 2020 when she retired after being very understandably spooked by persistent concussion issues. Three years was enough of a rest to give her brain another shot at glorious trauma, and she made her grand return to the sport and the UFC this past March where, in all honesty, she looked better than ever. She completely dominated The Ultimate Fighter 30 (jesus christ) champion Juliana Miller, landed an astonishing 82% of her strikes, went 4 for 4 on takedowns, and completely controlled her on the mat. Here's the thing, though, and I say this as an irresponsibly big Juliana Miller fan: Juliana Miller's defense is profoundly bad. Horth presents a much different set of challenges. She's fast, she throws some drat hard kicks, she was able to deal with Cowan's grappling. Cowan, in fairness, doesn't have Hardy's grappling chops, but she does have a big size and strength advantage that didn't do her any good. I'm leaning towards JAMEY-LYN HORTH BY DECISION, but I'd really like to see the Veronica Hardy train keep rolling.
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Nov 29, 2023 20:12
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Kragger99 posted:Why is he staring at Tito? The moai head is way smarter than Tito
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Nov 29, 2023 20:14
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goddamn, ol clay guida is still at it, huh? dude always had more stamina than brains, that's for sure
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Nov 29, 2023 20:16
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I'm excited for Julia Avila's return, she's a monster
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Nov 29, 2023 20:32
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Veronica Hardy’s descriptions of her post concussion symptoms were scarier than Chris Holdsworth’s. I hope it’s worth it.
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Nov 29, 2023 21:02
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kimbo305 posted:Veronica Hardy’s descriptions of her post concussion symptoms were scarier than Chris Holdsworth’s. I hope it’s worth it. Where can I see/read these
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Nov 29, 2023 21:18
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Clay Guida  Remember when he took his gloves off? What a guy
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Nov 29, 2023 21:46
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beep by grandpa posted:Where can I see/read these Yeesh, I got her concussion symptoms confused with those of the woman who beat her, Bea Malecki: https://cagesidepress.com/2022/02/13/bea-malecki-reveals-scary-details-brain-health-suffering-concussions
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Nov 29, 2023 22:18
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Haven't watched in a while and took a glance at a sad puppy walking down Izzy in a most tepid decision and Tom Aspinall looking kinda athletic, and Jon Jones missed a fight there is a god. I also miss the lioness and likeable fighters to root for.
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Nov 29, 2023 22:23
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Meadowhill posted:I also miss the lioness and likeable fighters to root for. Clay Guida is fighting this weekend
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Nov 29, 2023 22:37
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all my homies root for bobby green
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Nov 30, 2023 01:46
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I like Bobby Green.
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Nov 30, 2023 04:44
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It is me. I am the goon who enjoys watching Clay Guida fight.
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Nov 30, 2023 07:23
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Freudian slippers posted:It is me. I am the goon who enjoys watching Clay Guida fight. that used to be all of us. he used to be a widely loved fighter, then he got tired of that and became a widely hated fighter. now it's just amazing and dangerous that he's any sort of fighter.
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Nov 30, 2023 07:27
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I want clay guida to fight one last time as wild clay guida then ride off into the sunset on a raft he built himself
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Nov 30, 2023 09:58
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Imagine not being a Zhang Wei Li superfan
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Nov 30, 2023 11:15
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Somehow I'm a lot happier that Clay Guida is still fighting than I am that Tony Ferguson is, despite him having 14 more losses and fighting 5 more years.
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Nov 30, 2023 12:52
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ilmucche posted:I want clay guida to fight one last time as wild clay guida then ride off into the sunset on a raft he built himself That just sounds like wishing him off to meet Evan Tanner.
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Nov 30, 2023 16:10
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ONE finally got around to booking a fight for Takeru so he's got a 5 round kickboxing fight against Rodtang on Janurary 28th in Tokyo.
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Nov 30, 2023 18:29
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Marching Powder posted:that used to be all of us. he used to be a widely loved fighter, then he got tired of that and became a widely hated fighter. now it's just amazing and dangerous that he's any sort of fighter. the emotional weight of being related to Jason Guida would have broken weaker men far sooner, tbh
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Nov 30, 2023 18:36
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Posting this out of nostalgia, I suppose, as Duncan really liked this sport when I last posted about it in the kickboxing thread. A couple weeks ago, the amateur sanda world championships happened in Fort Worth Texas. In the heaviest 90kg+ division, this one Chinese guy, Ye Xiang, has been dominant for several years. Part of why Duncan was entertained was that Daniel Ghita went up against him and got dominated cuz of the throwing game. Have a slightly different take on the fat heavyweights brawling stereotype. This is the gold medal match between China and Kazakhstan. Ye is extremely good at uhh, taking punches to the head. He's really good at fighting to the ruleset, converting on throws and threatening pushing off the platform Very fast kicks, but absolutely no concern for punches, especially given that his own punches are really powerful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp1z2bR7MNs&t=29s
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Nov 30, 2023 20:36
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because i am sicko number 1, i have written 4000 words about bellator https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4048505
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Dec 1, 2023 00:01
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Tom Clancy is Dead posted:Somehow I'm a lot happier that Clay Guida is still fighting than I am that Tony Ferguson is, despite him having 14 more losses and fighting 5 more years. Being Clay Guida, while dumb, is not inherently self destructive. Being Tony Ferguson is to annihilate yourself in as many dumb ways as you can
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Dec 1, 2023 08:58
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Guida at least really likes fishing. Feels like Ferguson has put all of himself into the fight game.
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Dec 1, 2023 09:18
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Friday Fights Woo! https://www.youtube.com/live/NPxzIzFiIhE?si=nsllYoB7BASv_z26
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Dec 1, 2023 14:00
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Digital Jedi posted:Friday Good morning and good luck, fighters. I'm tuned in
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