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If you want to relive the joys of Chris Weidman removing a man's eyeballs, go back to March here. Welcome to the big month. On one hand, the UFC only has three events in the next four weeks; on the other, the PFL is back and the 2024 season is beginning; on the third, worst hand, it's UFC 300 this month, baby. Prepare for Bo Nickal. This month's title courtesy of LobsterMobster. If this is your first time here you should stop and say hi so we know it's not just the same couple dozen of us cussing each other out all the time, but you may want to start with The General Q&A Thread for the basic gist of mixed martial arts. Yes, I'm still doing the new one. If you want to talk about MMA or combat sports events that aren't included in this breakdown: Please do. In a world of Road FC and Rizin events that don't actually air in America and the WBC threatening to rank Jake Paul, there's space for everything. And if there's an event you want to make a GDT for, go right ahead, just make sure to link it here so everyone sees it and basks in the joy of violence. THIS MONTH'S PUNCHSPORTS EVENTS 
IS THERE ANY NEWS Yeah, it was a busy and somewhat unfortunate month.  The big, collective antitrust lawsuit against the UFC and its coercive business practices is over. An out-of-court settlement was reached for a grand total of $335 million, which is considerably less than the $1-1.5 billion the suit was addressing, and to rub salt into the wound, the TKO lawyers who announced the settlement made sure to note that it is, they believe, tax deductible. I'll excerpt Nate Quarry, UFC veteran and a key figure in the suit, who posted his thoughts on Reddit in the aftermath: quote:"No, we didn't get everything we wanted. Our goal all along was to change the sport. However, we had quite a few delays that we had to deal with. And to get injunctive relief, ie change the sport, we would have had to refile both lawsuits and combine them, go through discovery all over again, retake depositions, about a five year delay and then hope we get granted class action status again. We'd be looking at another ten years just to be where we are today with no guarantee of winning any punitive amount of injunctive change. And then, because he is a fighter, he devoted an equal-length portion of the comment to telling anyone who criticizes the settlement that they should do it themselves, including the unabridged length of the Teddy Roosevelt 'man in the arena' quote everyone in sports uses to remind you that your opinion is immaterial and every time I read it another part of my soul dies. I'm not going to tell anyone they shouldn't have settled and gotten paid. I get it. But this does represent the loss of maybe the only substantive chance to improve the industry, and however many quotes from dead racists you put on top of it, when 'maybe we can improve the sport' turns into 'lawsuit gets settled for a tax writeoff; TKO stock jumps almost 8%,' heartbreak is an entirely rational response. Congratulations to the plaintiffs getting some of the money they were owed from the UFC. You genuinely do deserve it. Sorry, everyone else.  On a note that started much scarier but ultimate turned out great, Mark Coleman got to be a goddamn hero. The first UFC and Pride Heavyweight Champion was roused in bed by his dog, who was alerting him to the house being on goddamn fire, and Coleman proceeded to carry his mother and father out of the house, one by one, before passing out from smoke inhalation. (He was trying to find said dog, Hammer, who unfortunately did not make it, and is also the real hero of this story.) Coleman wound up in critical condition in the hospital, the MMA community pretty quickly came together out of concern, Coleman made it out alive a couple days later, went BACK to the hospital almost immediately for pneumonia (which you'd think they would have caught before releasing him, but I am not a doctor), and was back in the gym a day later. Good on both Hammer the human and Hammer the dog.  My skepticism about the long-term health of the Professional Fighters League-owned Bellator is still strong, but I have to admit, they're getting off to a real good start. After spending the last years of its life struggling with distribution on Showtime and DAZN, March saw the official debut of Bellator as part of the new live sports section of  Bloody Elbow, one of the only MMA journalism outfits to ever really be worth a drat, is dead. They'd made no secrets about their financial struggles since the venture capital implosion of Vox Media and their attempts to go independent, but Google stapling their ad market shut spelled the end. Founder Nate Wilcox sold the site and its legacy officially came to an end. Well, for anyone who really cares, anyway. Bloody Elbow is still there, it's just run by a lovely British publisher with two employees and is now entirely about using the brand to churn out listicles and clickbait headlines and absolutely no attempt whatsoever to be even remotely oppositional. Or interesting. Or worthy of oxygen. I did not always agree with Bloody Elbow's coverage, but if you always agree with something, it's almost certainly a terrible source for journalism. I had many disagreements with Nate Wilcox (and, uh, still do), but I still appreciate that he made the thing exist in the first place. I absolutely believe the world of MMA journalism is worse off without it and has no replacement for it, and that is a terrible, terrible thing. But mostly I think it's hilarious that right around the time I finally got into doing public nerd journalism on the internet the entire market collapsed. Goddammit.  Also, we're doing this again. The answer to 'are they really going to rematch Alexa Grasso and Valentina Shevchenko for a third time' has turned out to not just be an obvious yes, but that they are in fact making it the centerpiece of The Ultimate Fighter 32 (jesus christ). The season will not even start airing until June, meaning it will not conclude until August, meaning if we are lucky, the Grasso/Shevchenko war will wind up only taking a year and a half. Unless Shevchenko wins, in which case we're stuck with this for god knows how long.  Oh, and the Francis Ngannou: Boxing Master story came to the only conclusion it probably could have. Francis made waves after stepping out of MMA and into boxing last year, arguably beating and inarguably flooring Heavyweight champion Tyson Fury in his first-ever boxing bout, and his March 8 showdown with Anthony Joshua was seen as his chance to cement his stature as a genuine Heavyweight contender. Unfortunately, reality reasserted itself. Joshua pretty effortlessly destroyed Ngannou, knocking him down once in the second round and twice in the second, the latter a straight-up knockout. It was about as definitive a shutdown as it could have been. The PFL says this is why Ngannou is coming back to MMA; Ngannou, of course, is quite certain he's not done with boxing, and I'm sure the exponentially larger boxing paydays do not help. WHERE ELSE CAN I TALK TO LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE ABOUT VIOLENCE? Any of the following hangouts:
DO WE HAVE OTHER COMMUNAL THREADS? So many.
WHERE ELSE DOES FIGHT CHAT EXIST? Our community output has grown enough that we've got a few other places things get posted:
 Disclaimer: These are unofficial offsites, somethingawful's rules and liability do not extend to them, and complaining about discord stuff is still offsite drama posting
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WHAT HAPPENED IN MARCH We started bright and early on March 1 with ONE 166: Qatar, ONE's attempt at The UFC got off to its start the next day with UFC Fight Night: Rozenstruik vs Gaziev on March 2. It was incredible before it even began, as the card the Saudi Arabian government rejected for being too crappy to participate in their sportswashing PR program had to be shoved into the Apex and run at 10 in the morning PST anyway, and the UFC's argument for its quality proved, uh, questionable. Loik Radzhabov knocked out Abdul-Kareem Al-Selwady, Ľudovít Klein effortlessly destroyed AJ Cunningham, Christian Leroy Duncan pounded out an overmatched Cláudio Ribeiro, Aiemann Zahabi ended Javid Baharat's undefeated streak in a genuinely great matchup, Vinicius Oliveira made his debut by concussing a Bernardo Sopaj who'd told his corner he couldn't fight anymore and was sent out for a third round anyway because everything is terrible, and Eryk Anders wrestled an immemorable decision away from Jamie Pickett. Your main card started great with Steve Erceg knocking out Matt Schnell, but it gradually petered out from there. First, Umar Nurmagomedov wrestled a 30-25 decision away from Bekzat Almakhan, a debuting Kazakhstani fighter who was visibly out of his depth abruptly fighting a top guy. Then, Muhammad Mokaev had a ton of trouble with Alex Perez and just barely scraped out a 29-28 that made both guys look less impressive than they were when they started. In your co-main event, Vitor Petrino abandoned his talents to take a tepid, motionless decision from Tyson Pedro, after which Pedro retired because despite having eleven UFC fights he was drat near broke and needed to move on. And in your main event, another Heavyweight prospect fell apart, as Shamil Gaziev gassed in a round and a half and got extremely slowly picked apart by Jairzinho Rozenstruik until the referee had to stop the fight before the fifth round after discovering he'd told his corner he couldn't see and his corner elected not to tell anyone about it. Christ alive. The month's big show, UFC 299: O'Malley vs Vera 2, came on March 9. To the UFC's credit it was a thoroughly stacked card, and for the most part, it delivered. On your early prelims: Joanne Wood got the rare feelgood exit from the sport, retiring on a split decision victory over Maryna Moroz, Assu Almabayev took a decision over a once again overweight C.J. Vergara, Heavyweight megaprospect Robelis Despaigne knocked out Josh Parisian in 18 seconds by wildly flailing his arms, Michel Pereira had a career-best performance after both doing a fun walkout dance and absolutely running through Michał Oleksiejczuk by submission in one minute, and Philipe Lins outworked Ion Cuțelaba to a decision, after which he was released anyway because the UFC hates him. On your regular prelims, Kyler Phillips made his third return to the sport by dominating Pedro Munhoz, Mateusz Gamrot beat a game but outmatched Rafael dos Anjos, Maycee Barber made herself a real contender by beating Katlyn Cerminara, and Curtis Blaydes ended the UFC's Heavyweight hype by knocking out Jailton Almeida. Up on the main, Petr Yan took a competitive but clear decision over Song Yadong, Jack Della Maddalena came less than ninety seconds away from losing his winning streak to Gilbert Burns only to score an incredible comeback knockout, Michael "Venom" Page made his UFC debut with a traditionally weird decision victory over Kevin Holland, and Dustin Poirier turned back the young barbarians by knocking out Benoît Saint Denis in two rounds. Your main event was a headscratcher, as Sean O'Malley defended the Bantamweight title against Marlon "Chito" Vera in a rematch that was considered deeply silly by most, and as he is inexplicably wont to do, Chito was barely active for the first half of the fight and only rarely effective in the second, to the point that he landed his best strike of the fight in the last second before the final bell. Sean O'Malley won a shutout, and immediately called out Ilia Topuria, because weight classes are for losers. We were back to the Apex beat immediately on the 16 with UFC Fight Night: Tuivasa vs Tybura. The whole thing was a big of a clusterfuck, with a rescheduled main, multiple mixed-up fights and three weight misses, but the show went on. Chad Anheliger spoiled Charalampos Grigoriou's debut with a decision loss, Thiago Moisés kicked Mitch Ramirez's legs to death, Jaqueline Amorim submitted Cory McKenna, Danny Silva squeaked by Joshua Culibao, Jafel Filho strangled Ode' Osbourne, Chelsea Chandler narrowly beat Josiane Nunes, and Mike Davis choked out Natan Levy to send off the prelims. On your main, Gerald Meerschaert won a mirror match against Bryan Barberena with a jaw crank, Macy Chiasson choked out Pannie Kianzad, Christian Rodriguez barely beat Isaac Dulgarian, Ovince Saint Preux won one of the least eventful fights of the year against Kennedy Nzechukwu, and Bryan Battle poked Ange Loosa's eye into a No Contest that almost turned into a post-fight brawl when Battle called Loosa a coward who was giving up, which is an awful nice thing to say to someone you just almost blinded. Your main event tilt saw Marcin Tybura choke out Tai Tuivasa in one round, which was a betting upset for reasons I will never understand. The PFL-owned Bellator era officially began with Bellator Champions Series 1, live from Belfast, on March 22. This was, despite the circumstances, the beginning of Bellator's best broadcast deal in a decade, as they officially began streaming live on Rizin took its swing for the month with Rizin Landmark 9 on March 23. As is tradition, it was large and mixed across MMA and kickboxing, but the latter was still fantastic, as a last-minute kickboxing match between Muay Thai legend Buakaw Banchamek and massive steroid cheat Minoru Kimura ended with Buakaw dropping him in two rounds. Over in mixed martial arts, Yuta Kubo narrowly beat Ryogo Takahashi, the sumo Takakenshin finally got a victory after knocking out Cory Jerabek, Yuto Hokamura beat Daiki Tsubota, and Yuya Shibata kneebarred Erson Yamamoto. In your main event slots, Rena Kubota took the nod over Shim Yu-ri, Naoki Inoue outworked Shoko Sato, Koji Takeda beat Kyohei Hagiwara, and in your non-title main event, Roberto de Souza kicked the poo poo out of Keita Nakamura in about a minute and a half. The UFC's penultimate show for the month came later that day with UFC on ESPN: Ribas vs Namajunas. This massively shaken-up card had a big, long night of prelims that included Mick Parkin winning a pretty dreadful match with Mohammed Usman, Darya Zheleznyakova just barely getting a decision over Montserrat Rendon, Jarno Errens beating seven shades of hell out of Steven Nguyen, Miles Johns outfighting Cody Gibson, Julian Erosa choking out Ricardo Ramos and Trey Ogden outwrestling Kurt Holobaugh, but more than any of that, they will be remembered for André Lima, who won his UFC debut by disqualification after Igor Severino bit him on the arm so hard it left a full imprint in his skin, which Lima promptly got tattooed on after the fight. On your main card, Fernando Padilla choked out Luis Pajuelo, Youssef Zalal made his return to the UFC by submitting Billy Quarantillo, Payton Talbott dismantled Cameron Saaiman to a two-round KO, Edmen Shahbazyan came repeatedly close to losing to AJ Dobson before knocking him out just before the first round ended, and Karl Williams outwrestled Justin Tafa to a clear if uneventful decision. In your main event, Rose Namajunas took on Amanda Ribas and ultimately won the decision, but it was, once again, not a particularly memorable fight for the former wrecking machine. We finally finished up the month with UFC on ESPN: Blanchfield vs Fiorot on March 30. It was a weird goddamn card with an unusual amount of weird poo poo on it. Down on the prelims, Caolán Loughran beat Angel Pacheco, Jacob Malkoun somehow knocked out Andre Petroski with his thigh, Ibo Aslan avenged his career loss by knocking out Anton Turkalj, Dennis Buzukja punched out Connor Matthews, Julio Arce TKOed a kind of sad Herbert Burns, Virna Jandiroba took a decision over a very game Loopy Godinez, and Nate Landwehr overcame almost getting knocked out in the first two minutes of his fight to instead knock out Jamall Emmers in the next two. The main card is weird things got screwy. Chidi Njokuani beat Rhys McKee by split decision, except it was so aggressively obvious a decision that the two agreeing judges had Njokuani pitching a shutout. Kyle Nelson took out Bill Algeo in a standing TKO. Nursulton Ruziboev stopped Sedriques Dumas, but it was thanks to an uncalled eye poke. One fight later, Chris Weidman knocked out Bruno Silva, except then the replays showed he had actually poked him in both eyes and that was what made him collapse (minding that Weidman had already poked him in the eye twice earlier in the fight!), but the fight was still ruled a TKO, and then, minutes later, changed to a technical decision even though it doesn't meet the rules for one. Jersey! In your co-main, Joaquin Buckley pounded out a Vicente Luque who just sort of seemed to shut down and stop fighting. And in your main event, Manon Fiorot took a 50-45 over Erin Blanchfield, after which the UFC immediately began wondering if she needed to fight another prospect before her title shot. WHAT'S COMING IN APRIL The PFL season is upon us once again, and with Bellator involved, it is actually sort of talent-rich. PFL 1 kicks the year off on April 4 with Women's Flyweight and Heavyweight. In the former, your season bouts: Chelsea Hackett vs Jena Bishop, Kana Watanabe vs Shanna Young, Taila Santos vs Ilara Joanne, Dakota Ditcheta vs Lisa Mauldin, and in a Bellator championship rematch, Liz Carmouche vs Juliana Velasquez. At the latter: Marcelo Golm vs Jordan Heiderman, Steve Mowry vs Oleg Popov, Blagoy Ivanov vs Sergei Bilostenniy, Daniel James vs Tyrell Fortune, Denis Goltsov vs Linton Vassell, and in your main event, Valentin Moldavsky vs Ante Delija. ONE is up next with ONE Fight Night 21: Eersel vs Nicolas on April 6. Yet again, this is a Lumpinee Stadium card and thus half kickboxing and Muay Thai and I am not qualified to tell you if Vladimir Kuzmin or Suablack Tor.Pran49 is a better Thai fighter, but both of the Ruotolo brothers will have grappling matches including Tye defending his incredibly prestigious grappling championship against Izaak Michell, Jeremy Pacatiw and Wang Shuoi will do the MMA as well Hiroyuki Tetsuka and Valmir da Silva, Ben Tynan and Duke Didier will be big heavyweights at each other, and your main event will have Regian Eersel defending his Lightweight Kickboxing championship against Alexis Nicolas. The UFC's last stop before MMA wrestlemania comes later that evening in the form of UFC Fight Night: Allen vs Curtis 2. Not gonna lie: It's not great. It's very clearly a 'the PPV is next week, just throw whatever on there' sort of card, to the point that the most interesting fight of the night, Norma Dumont vs Germaine de Randamie, is stuck on the prelims while Łucasz Brzeski is main-carding it up. Alexander Hernandez is 1 for his last 4 and Damon Jackson is on a two-fight losing streak, and they are co-main eventing anyway. But special sympathies for Brendan Allen, who was originally facing the #5-ranked Marvin Vettori and is now, instead, facing the #14-ranked Chris Curtis. PFL 2 hits on April 12. This kicks off the Lightweight and Light Heavyweight seasons, and if you're wondering which is more important, remember that big boys always get their way. Your inaugural 155 matchups for the season include Jay Jay Wilson vs Adam Piccolotti, Gadzhi Rabadanov vs Solomon Renfro, Bruno Miranda vs Brent Primus, Mads Burnell vs Michael Dufort and Clay Collard vs Patricky Pitbull. At 205, you've got Dovletdzhan Yagshimuradov vs Jakob Nedoh, good ol' Shoeface Antônio Carlos Júnior vs Simon Biyong, Sadibou Sy vs Josh Silveira--if you're going 'wait, wasn't Sadibou Sy fighting 30 pounds down at Welterweight' you're correct, weight classes are meaningless--Impa Kasanganay vs Alex Polizzi, and Rob Wilkinson vs Tom Breese. And then, on April 13, it's the big one. UFC 300 has loomed for months, and for better or worse, we are finally here, and for how anticlimactic the actual main event turned out to be, it is, still, a ridiculous card. Your early prelims: Deiveson Figueiredo vs Cody Garbrandt, Bobby Green vs Jim Miller, Jéssica Andrade vs Marina Rodriguez and Jalin Turner vs Renato Moicano. Your normal prelims: Sodiq Yusuff vs Diego Lopes, Holly Holm vs Kayla Harrison, Calvin Kattar vs Aljamain Sterling, Jiří Procházka vs Aleksandar Rakić. Your main card: Bo Nickal vs Cody Brundage (one of these things is not like the other), Charles Oliveira vs Arman Tsarukyan, a fight for the increasingly silly BMF title featuring Justin Gaethje vs Max Holloway, a Women's Strawweight Championship defense with Zhang Weili vs Yan Xiaonan, and a Light Heavyweight Championship defense as Alex Pereira faces Jamahal Hill. I'll inevitably complain, but boy, it's a hell of a card. And the UFC's taking a week off for the first time in months! God bless. Your only MMA for the next week is PFL 3 on April 19, which will start the year's Welterweight and Featherweight brackets. Your 145-pound matchups: Tyler Diamond vs Otto Rodrigues, Timur Khizriev vs Brett Johns, Ádám Borics vs Enrique Barzola, Bubba Jenkins vs Kai Kamaka III, Gabriel Alves Braga vs Justin Gonzalez, and Brendan Loughnane vs Pedro Carvalho. At 170 pounds, which hilariously does not currently include last year's champion: Romain Debienne vs Thad Jean, Zach Juusola vs Luca Poclit, Don Madge vs Brennan Ward, Laureano Staropoli vs Murad Ramazanov, Goiti Yamauchi vs Neiman Gracie, Logan Storley vs Shamil Musaev, and in your main event, Andrey Koreshkov vs Magomed Umalatov. That much-needed UFC rest comes to an end on April 27 with UFC on ESPN: Nicolau vs Kape 2. I kind of love this card just for how 'gently caress it, UFC 300 just happened and we're tired, throw poo poo into a blender' it is. Austen Lane just finished his unsuccessful 0-1 (1) UFC debut duology? Have him fight Heavyweight kickboxing champion Jhonata Diniz. Rani Yahya is still around? I dunno, put him and Victor Henry together and see what happens. Joel Álvarez is successful and height differences are hilarious, so have him fight Mateusz Rębecki, who is eight goddamn inches shorter. Wait, Tim Means is still here? Send in Uroš Medić. Ryan Spann and Bogdan Guskov! MOGGLY BENITEZ AND MAHESHATE. Ariane Lipski vs Karine Silva should loving rule, though. Oh, and fresh off Manel Kape blowing a weight cut and ruining a fight they're giving him a main event, because honestly, why not. Rizin closes out the month on the 29 with Rizin 46. It's...fine. You get the sense Rizin is holding back for something coming down the pipe, but it's still fine. Yang Ji-yong vs Kazuma Kuramoto should be fun as heck, Sora Yamamoto vs Ilkhom Nazimov and Yoshiki Nakahara vs Viktor Kolesnik will be interesting, Shinryu's back for a tune-up against Jung Hyun Lee, who has 1/4 his experience and could not be more clearly a sacrificial lamb without being chained to a pole in a T-rex pen, Juntaro Ushiku will face the similarly inexperienced Shinobu Ota, Taichi Nakajima faces Kim Soo-chul to hopefully finally get his goddamn Nintendo Switch, and in your main event, Chihiro Suzuki defendthe Rizin Featherweight Championship against the 41 year-old Masanori Kanehara, who is, despite that sentence, a legitimate top contender.
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CURRENT UFC CHAMPIONS Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs   Jon Jones - 27-1 (1), 0 DefensesVery few things in combat sports reach the crossroads of awe-inspiring and unfathomably frustrating as Jon Jones. In 2020, Jon Jones notched the third defense of his second light-heavyweight championship reign after an exceedingly contentious decision against Dominick Reyes, only to abdicate the title because the UFC wasn't paying him enough, and he was bored of 205 pounds and wanted to move up to heavyweight like he'd been planning to for nearly a decade, and he needed more time to cement his place as not just one of the sport's greatest pound-for-pound fighters, but one of its biggest pound-for-pound pains in the rear end. On September 23, 2021, Jon Jones was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame; on September 24, 2021, he was arrested (for the fifth time!) after his daughter called the police on him for beating her mother, during which he antagonized the police and, inexplicably, headbutted a police car. Because this is Jon Jones, of course, the primary charges were dropped, he paid $750 for the hood of the police cruiser, and got a stern warning to stay out of trouble, young man, because there is a money-powered reality-distorting field around Jon Jones whereby nothing matters. After a year of rumors, and after the unconscionable firing of heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou, the UFC gleefully announced Jon Jones vs Ciryl Gane to fill the vacant heavyweight throne. Did it matter to the matchmaking that there were more deserving candidates? Of course not, because it's Jon Jones: He deserves the spot for his earlier success. Did it matter to his public appearances that when last we saw him he was arrested for beating his fiancee? Of course not, because it's Jon Jones: He was, if anything, more up his own rear end with self-righteousness than ever before. Did it matter to the fight that he hadn't competed in more than three years and looked terrible at the time? Of course not, because it's Jon loving Jones. Ciryl Gane looked too nervous to use footwork let alone throw anything, and he should have been, as Jones effortlessly threw him to the canvas and choked him out in two minutes. The longest-running, most dominant and yet most persistently annoying show in mixed martial arts is back. And in the most predictable thing possible, some bullshit happened, he got injured, he's going to be gone for at least eight months, and the UFC is not only not stripping him of the title like they've done to everyone else, they've already gotten out ahead of themselves and made clear that when he comes back, he will be fighting Stipe Miocic, not whoever the interim champion is at the time. Funny, that. Interim Heavyweight Champion   Tom Aspinall - 14-3, 0 DefensesThe UFC's Heavyweight division got itself into a weird spot in 2007. Randy Couture was the rightful, reigning, defending champion, but he and the UFC had a dispute that stretched out more than a year. The UFC couldn't strip him--it would have made it easier for him to get out of his contract--so they made an interim title. By the time Randy came back they had already made big plans for him and Brock Lesnar, but the interim title had gotten wrapped up in The Ultimate Fighter 8 (jesus christ) and it, too, had to be defended, meaning there were two championships being defended simultaneously: The Undisputed Championship, which was the 'real' belt despite being held by a guy trying to leave the company and contended for by someone with only two victories in the sport, and the Interim Championship, which was being fought over by the actual, legitimate top contenders. At UFC 295 on November 11th, 2023, Tom Aspinall, the rightful #4 contender, fought Sergei Pavlovich, the rightful #2 contender, for a new interim championship. And he won. On two weeks' notice! Aspinall's been one of the most promising heavyweight prospects in the world for years, his only loss in the UFC came from his knee tearing itself apart fifteen seconds into a fight, and he went toe-to-toe with one of the scariest punchers in the history of the sport and knocked him flat in just barely over a minute. He is, indisputably, the real deal. And now he gets to be the interim champion of a Heavyweight division in which the real champion, Jon Jones, is going to be out injured well into next year and, the UFC has made clear, will be returning to defend his title against Stipe Miocic, who by that time will have been on the shelf for 3+ years and will be going on 42. So congratulations, Tom. You're the real Heavyweight champion. I hope you get some credit for it. Light-Heavyweight Champion, 205 lbs   Alex Pereira - 9-2, 0 DefensesConflicting things can be simultaneously true in this sport. It is true that Alex Pereira was brought into the UFC as a 3-1 rookie based on his history as a kickboxer rather than his accomplishments in the sport. It is true that he was fast-tracked to a title shot against the primary focus of that history, megastar Israel Adesanya, after beating just three fighters, none of whom had any hope of testing his grappling. It is also true that he rendered that discourse ultimately irrelevant by not just beating but stopping Adesanya in his title shot anyway, in the process becoming the fastest Middleweight to go from debut to champion since Anderson Silva. It was more or less an open secret that he wasn't going to stay there: Being bigger than most Heavyweights in the UFC, the weight cut to 185 was always a short-term thing. Luckily for the UFC, he got knocked out by Adesanya and gave him the title right back on his way up to 205. Once again, he got fast-tracked, this time by happenstance. A split decision victory over Jan Błachowicz made Pereira a top five contender, and when Jamahal Hill was forced to vacate his title thanks to an ankle injury--and the previous champion, Jiří Procházka, was back from his own title vacation and injury--Pereira was slotted right back into championship place. They met at UFC 295 on November 11th, and after two back-and-forth rounds, Pereira punished a Jiří who dared to grapple by elbowing his skull until he briefly stopped moving. The commentary and audience thought it was an early stoppage, but Jiří Procházka didn't, so gently caress 'em. It is true that Alex Pereira has fought seven UFC fights without having to fight an actual grappler, and that was an intentional choice by matchmaking. It is true that getting the chance to win championships in two weight classes within just two years and seven fights in the UFC is not a thing that happens to most fighters. But it is unavoidably true that Alex Pereira is a two-division champion and no one can take it away from him. After none of the UFC's other ideas worked out, they announced Alex Pereira will attempt his first title defense against former champion Jamahal Hill in the main event of UFC 300. Middleweight Champion, 185 lbs   Dricus du Plessis - 21-2, 0 DefensesMiddleweight's loving wild, man. Generally when a belt changes hands repeatedly in a short period of time you can blame injuries and strippings and title vacations, but recent history has simply been a case study in how goddamn weird things can get at 185 pounds. As of this writing (February 1, 2024) we've had five separate Middleweight champions in less than fifteen months. Divisional king Israel Adesanya dropped the belt to his nemesis Alex Pereira, Adesanya dropped Pereira himself in an immediate rematch, and in one of 2023's bigger upsets, Adesanya lost his belt to human exclusion zone Sean Strickland. But that shot, initially, didn't belong to him: It belonged to Dricus du Plessis. Dricus joined the UFC in 2020 as one of the international scene's best prospects--a two-division champion in his native South Africa's Extreme Fighting Championship, a Welterweight champion in Poland's Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki, and a finishing machine who'd never gone to a decision in his life. The spotlight of the UFC gave him two new reputations: For one, as an exceptionally awkward-looking fighter who could appear shaky and exhausted and still easily knock anyone out, and for two, as a guy with real uncomfortable feelings about his homeland. Shortly after his debut Dricus du Plessis began making comments about becoming the first "real" African champion in the UFC, citing the way fighters like Kamaru Usman, Israel Adesanya and Francis Ngannou had left the country, and, boy, there's just no way to get around the topic that isn't gross as hell. But du Plessis knocked #1 contender Robert Whittaker dead, so it didn't matter. He was in pole position. And then he lost it, because he wanted more than a month to prepare for a world championship fight and the UFC decided that just wouldn't fly. A fully-trained du Plessis stepped into the cage against his replacement and now-champion Sean Strickland on January 20 at UFC 297, and after a close fight and a split decision, du Plessis brought the belt back to South Africa just like he promised. The UFC would really like to make good on their initial du Plessis/Adesanya plans, but we'll see if they can work it out. Welterweight Champion, 170 lbs   Leon Edwards - 22-3 (1), 2 DefensesIt took half a decade to get the world to notice, but everyone sees Leon Edwards now. "Rocky" came from the kind of circumstances sports movies are made of--a poor kid from Jamaica who moved to England, lost his father to gang violence, nearly lost himself to it as a teenager and found a healthy outlet for his anger in mixed martial arts. Edwards made his debut in 2011 as a prime example of the modern generation of fighter, cross-trained from the beginning in every discipline, and in just three years he was the welterweight champion of Britain and off to the UFC. Entering 2016, Leon had suffered the first true loss of his career--he was 10-3, but one of those losses was a DQ for an illegal blow and the other a coinflip decision that could easily have gone either way--at the hands of the newly-crowned Ultimate Fighter 21 winner, Kamaru Usman, making his debut as an official UFC competitor. It took ten fights without a loss for Leon to get his rematch. The UFC seemed especially resistant to his title contendership, pushing him down in favor of the ostensibly more marketable UK star in Darren Till and booking him against numerous other contenders and gatekeepers while repeatedly elevating less deserving fighters to the championship. He wouldn't have gotten it at all, in fact, had Jorge Masvidal not gotten arrested. On August 20, the UFC acquiesced and granted the clear #1 contender his shot at the championship, and at revenge against Kamaru Usman--and after getting dominated for three and a half out of five rounds, with the commentators openly opining on the likelihood that he had given up, with just fifty-six seconds left in the fight, Edwards uncorked a headkick that shocked the world and knocked Kamaru Usman out for the first time in his career. The rubber match was inevitable, and once again, Edwards opened as an underdog, and once again, he proved everyone wrong. Instead of a last-minute comeback Leon simply shut Usman down for the majority of the fight, stuffing eleven of his takedown attempts, outstriking him in four out of five rounds and landing an absolutely wild 75% of his strikes in the process. It was an incredible performance against one of the greatest welterweights of all time, marred only by Leon losing a point for fence grabs. The decision was unquestionably his, and now legitimized as the champion of the world, Leon found himself dealing with the UFC's bullshit insistence that his first defense came not against the top contender, but rather, the UFC's favorite bigot, Colby Covington. Edwards dominated him and sent him away 4-1, finally ending the bullshit. At which point he, immediately, brought the bullshit back by talking down a fight with #1 contender Belal Muhammad, after naming him repeatedly as the man he should be fighting instead of Colby. Lightweight Champion, 155 lbs   Islam Makhachev - 25-1, 2 DefensesDestiny has come. When Islam Makhachev made his UFC debut in 2015, Khabib Nurmagomedov, considered by most to be the #1 contender and soon to be the best in the world, swore up and down that Makhachev, not him, would be the best lightweight champion of all time. Coming from him, the praise made sense: Khabib and Islam have trained together since they were children growing up and learning to wrestle in Makhachkala. Islam learned under Khabib's father, trained with Khabib's team and even made the pilgrimage to America to join Khabib at the American Kickboxing Academy. And then, two matches into his UFC tenure, Islam got knocked the gently caress out in the first round by the little-known Adriano Martins, who hasn't won a fight in the six years since. Even as Makhachev racked up wins, the memory of his loss and his wrestling-heavy approach to his fights let people cast doubts on him. Sure, he's good--but he lost, so he's not as good as Khabib. Islam Makhachev, as his trainer tells it, never wanted to be Khabib. He loves fighting, but he doesn't love the spectacle or the glory or the attention. So when, after ten straight wins, Makhachev was picked to challenge Charles Oliveira for the vacant title he never truly lost, a lot of folks just weren't quite sure what to think. Sure, he was an incredible wrestler, but Charles Oliveira is a submission wizard, and sure, he's on a ten-fight streak, but he hasn't fought a single person actually IN the top ten, and Oliveira represents a huge, dangerous step up as a man who's been destroying some of the most accomplished lightweights in the sport's history. Analyst opinion was split right down the middle; the fight, as it turned out, was nowhere near that competitive, and the only analyst who was entirely correct was Khabib. Islam demolished the former champion, outstriking him, taking him down at will, controlling him in the grappling, and ultimately dropping him with punches and choking him out in the second round. His first defense was a different story. Islam faced featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 284 on February 12th in a rare best-of-the-best, champion vs champion match, and this time, his team's prediction of domination was thoroughly incorrect: It was a pitched battle that ended with Makhachev visibly exhausted and Volkanovski pounding on his face. Islam took an extremely close decision and the divisions will remain separate, but his aura of invulnerability has been thoroughly punctured. Or, at least, it was. In one of those funny moments of sport deterioration, his title defense against Charles Oliveira got scratched thanks to Oliveira busting his eyebrow in training, and on less than two weeks' notice the UFC ran Makhachev/Volkanovski 2, and with no hype, no marketing and no time to prepare, a visibly depleted Volkanovski got dropped by a headkick in the first round. Having now abruptly vanquished his rival, Islam Makhachev is...calling out the winner of the Leon Edwards vs Colby Covington welterweight title bout. God dammit. Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs   Ilia Topuria - 15-0, 0 DefensesThe king is dead, long live the king. Everyone paying attention knew Ilia Topuria was a special sort of prospect all the way back in 2020, but it wasn't until he destroyed Ryan Hall that the rest of the world noticed. A man who is equal parts German, Georgian and Spanish, Topuria established himself immediately as a force to be reckoned with: An undefeated wrecking machine with a strong wrestling game, a thoroughly solid grappling game, and the combination of terrifying knockout power and the sheer confidence to use it that can only come from having never lost a fight. Which was tested, thoroughly, when Topuria went up to Lightweight on short notice, fought a man in Jai Herbert who was half a foot taller than him, nearly got knocked out twice, and proceeded to recover, regroup, and fold Herbert in half with a punch in the second round. Suddenly, his prospect status was proven. Not only was he good, he was capable of dealing with adversity. Within the year he'd become the first (non-exhibition) fighter to ever beat Bryce Mitchell after ragdolling him and choking him out, and by the end of 2023 he'd dominated Josh Emmett, proving both his place at the top of the Featherweight contendership ladder and his ability to go five full rounds without falling over. His ascension couldn't have come at a better time. Alexander Volkanovski, one of the greatest champions in UFC history, was finally beginning to show signs of wear--somewhat unfairly, as those signs came from an incredibly inadvisable last-minute fill-in 155-pound fight against Islam Makhachev--but getting knocked out is getting knocked out, and when you've only been beaten once in a decade, getting knocked out in one round makes people ask difficult questions about your age, longevity, and durability. When Volk and Ilia met at UFC 298 on February 17, almost every question people had was, in fact, answered. Can Volk outwork Topuria? Absolutely; he won the first round handily and was dancing around him. Can Ilia keep himself in check? Completely; knowing just how good Volk was, Ilia was uncharacteristically patient and measured and didn't get himself in any real trouble in the first round while he figured out what he wanted to do. Can Alexander Volkanovski stand up to Ilia Topuria's punching power? Buddy: No one can. Three and a half minutes into the second round Topuria successfully trapped Volkanovski against the cage with his footwork, and one combination later, Volkanovski was on the floor. Ilia Topuria's destiny has come. He's the Featherweight champion. And he has, of course, already sworn to try to become a double champion within his next two fights. Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs  Sean O'Malley - 18-1 (1), 1 DefensesThe house always wins. I have spent years being mad about Sean O'Malley. Very few people get the red carpet rolled out for them without having some other previous success to draw on, but Dana White seemingly hand-selected Sean O'Malley as The Guy back in 2017 when he won a contract on the second-ever episode of the Contender Series, and from the second he first stepped into the octagon, he was treated like a Big loving Deal. His matchmaking was favorable, his marketing was endless, and even when he hosed up--getting his leg broken against Andre Soukhamthath, pissing hot for ostarine and missing a year, getting knocked out by Marlon Vera--the UFC was there to pick him up and keep pushing him up the ladder. He went from fighting regional fighters and flyweights to a top ten matchup, and when that match ended with him poking out Pedro Munhoz's eye, he was catapulted into a title eliminator against the #1-ranked Petr Yan, and when he got one of the year's worst decisions against Yan, he was allowed to sit on his hands for almost a year to wait for a title shot against a champion who was given three months and no injury recovery time to prepare. Is it fair for me to dislike Sean O'Malley for decisions the UFC made? Absolutely not, and I don't blame him for them whatsoever. Fortunately for me, Sean O'Malley also has a great love of making public hot takes like "here's my power ranking of my female coworkers by how fuckable I think they are" and "publicly avowed rapist Andrew Tate is a great guy I want to co-promote and advertise with" and "convicted child molester Tekashi69 is my homeboy" and "I have an open relationship with my wife where I get to bang other people but she doesn't because I'm the man" that make me feel deeply, thoroughly at peace with disliking him for other reasons. But none of that means he isn't a hell of a fighter or he didn't absolutely loving flatten Aljamain Sterling with a picture-perfect counterpunch in their title fight. Did he deserve the shot? Not even a little. Did he prove he belongs at the top? Undeniably. However much of a shithead he may be, he's the champion of the goddamn world. Just in case his status as a marketing favorite had not been made abundantly clear, the UFC announced he will have his first title defense not in a rematch with Sterling, or a meeting with top contender Merab Dvalishvili, or even a bout with the streaking Cory Sandhagen, but--of course--a rematch with Marlon "Chito" Vera, the #6 contender on a one-fight win streak who knocked O'Malley out back in 2020. O'Malley dominated him, won a clear shut-out, and then called out Ilia Topuria, because weight classes are for chumps. Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs  Alexandre Pantoja - 27-5, 1 DefenseSometimes, you just have someone's number. Brandon Moreno spent years fighting through a quadrilogy with Deiveson Figueiredo, and unfortunately for him, he had another trilogy waiting for him the second it was over. Alexandre "The Cannibal" Pantoja was Moreno's personal bogeyman, a man who'd fought and beaten him twice. But one of those fights was an exhibition on The Ultimate Fighter, and the other was against a Moreno with five less years of evolution and growth. Surely, a third fight in 2023 would be different. And it was--unlike the previous, one-sided dominations it was a fight-of-the-year candidate that took both men to their limit and led to a split decision--but its ending was not. Alexander Pantoja scored a third victory over Moreno, and with it, after sixteen years of competition, he finally became the clear, unequivocal best in the god damned world. Which was made even more poignant when he used his post-fight interview to ask if his absentee father was proud of him--and was made even more irritating when he also revealed that despite having eleven fights in the UFC at the time, he was paid so little that he'd been part-timing as a Doordash driver just to make ends meet right up until 2022. The idea that one of the absolute best fighters on the planet, after years and nearly a dozen fights in the world's biggest, most profitable fighting organization, would need to take on a gig-economy job to make money is outright offensive, and in a better world, it would have launched a furor. In this one, all we can do is be happy he's got the belt and will, hopefully, make some actual loving money. His first title defense came against Brandon "Raw Dawg" Royval as the co-main event to UFC 296 on December 16th, and it was a wild affair with a couple scary moments, but Pantoja emerged victorious and notched the first successful defense of the title in three years. His next contender is, in all likelihood, the winner of the Brandon Moreno/Amir Albazi fight this February--or it would have been, until Albazi got injured. The UFC promoted a Moreno/Royval 2 showdown in hopes of scoring a Moreno rematch, but Royval won, so the UFC decided to forget the whole goddamn thing and book Pantoja against the #10-ranked Steve Erceg on May 4. Sure. Whatever. Women's Bantamweight, 135 lbs  Raquel Pennington - 16-8, 0 DefensesThe throne is once again full. Amanda Nunes left a gaping void in the world of women's mixed martial arts when she retired last Summer, and it took the UFC seven months to do something about it. The Women's Featherweight title? That's just gone, man. The patient could not be resuscitated. There's still life in Women's Bantamweight, though, and with Nunes gone and Julianna Peña injured, there was only one sensible match to make. Raquel Pennington should have gotten her title shot more than a year ago. "Rocky" is one of the UFC's longest-tenured women, at this point--her debut came more than a decade ago as a runner-up on The Ultimate Fighter 18 (jesus christ)--and the millstone weighing down her championship aspirations was the fact that more than five years ago she had a title fight, and it saw Amanda Nunes just beat her to a pulp. Despite being on the division's longest winning streak at the start of 2023, this loss was commonly cited as reason enough to deny Pennington the shot, and given that she's a generally affable, no-nonsense fighter with a grinding wrestling style, she is, categorically, the UFC's least favorite kind of person, which meant getting passed up over and over and having to settle for serving as a backup challenger for Irene Aldana--whom Pennington had already beaten. But with the top prospects out and Aldana having just gotten beaten even worse by Nunes than Raquel had, there was nowhere left for the company to hide. Mayra Bueno Silva had established herself as one of the division's most dangerous fighters after tearing apart Lina Länsberg's knee and nearly popping Holly Holm's skull out of her head with a ninja choke, and there were quite a few hoping she'd stop Pennington in her tracks when the two met at UFC 297 on January 20, but they were gratifyingly incorrect. Pennington outwrestled Silva, escaped her submission attempts, outstruck her 265 to 96, and finally, on a night where the UFC loudly celebrated bigotry, sexism and homophobia, took the belt home to her wife. Raquel's the first post-Nunes champion, and godspeed to her. The UFC is almost certainly waiting to see if either Peña gets healthy or the newly-signed Kayla Harrison beats Holly Holm to figure out what's next for Raquel. Women's Flyweight, 125 lbs   Alexa Grasso - 16-3-1, 1 Defense, Sort OfEvery once in awhile someone gets to shock the combat sports world, and in 2023, it's Alexa Grasso. The UFC has been high on Grasso since she left Invicta for her company debut back in 2016--she's been one of the most consistently featured fighters in ANY women's division, be it her time at strawweight or her move up to flyweight--but her two bids at the top of the mountain at 115 pounds met with disaster, once in Tatiana Suarez handing her the only stoppage loss of her career and once in Carla Esparza outwrestling her to a decision, and watching her manhandled by 115-pound fighters left the world doubting her 125-pound chances. But thanks to her solid boxing and her ever-improving ground game she ran up a four-fight winning streak, and when the UFC announced that she'd be taking on divisional queen and one of the greatest of all time in Valentina Shevchenko, the collective fan reaction was a unanimous "sure, okay," because Valentina disposing of people was a generally accepted phenomenon and she needed a warm body. The first round was a slight surprise, with Grasso stinging Shevchenko on the feet, but as so often happens, by the fourth round Valentina had taken over the fight, was ahead on every judge's scorecard and looked poised to cruise to her eighth title defense. And then, she was struck down by the bane of the sport: Spinning poo poo. Backed into the fence, Shevchenko did what she does entirely too often--a spinning back kick--and in the half-second she was turned away Grasso leapt to her back, dragged her to the floor, and became the first person to ever submit Valentina Shevchenko. Alexa Grasso, after years of work, is the Women's Flyweight Champion of the World. A rematch was inevitable, and it came at UFC Noche on September 16th, and, like everything does, it ended in controversy. After an incredibly close fight that the media had split almost cleanly down the middle, the judges ruled the contest a split draw. Which wouldn't be crazy--were it not for said draw hinging on Mike Bell, who is typically one of MMA's most reliable judges, giving Grasso a completely, utterly inexplicable and inexcusable 10-8 score in the final round, without which Valentina Shevchenko would have won a split decision. So Grasso did not win, in the end, but she did defend her title, technically. But good news: We’re running it back again. Grasso and Shevchenko are the coaches of The Ultimate Fighter 32 (jesus christ), so this Summer, it’s fight #3. Women's Strawweight, 115 lbs   Zhang Weili - 24-3, 1 DefensesAre you really surprised? There's a long tradition of underestimating unlikely champions in mixed martial arts, particularly when they're not the fan-friendliest in style or personality, from Michael Bisping to Frankie Edgar, only to have those demeaned champions remind the world that they didn't reach the peak of their divisions by mistake. Many of the wise, studied scribes of the sport warned the foolish masses against assuming the same about Women's Strawweight Champion Carla Esparza: She was no pushover, they said, and Zhang will have real trouble. And then, come fight day, we unwashed masses pulled them from their ivory towers and forced them to run in the streets amongst the mud and filth so they, too, could feel the unburdened joy of being, because Zhang Weili, as basically every fan had assumed, did, in fact, beat the absolute tar out of Carla. It wasn't particularly close: Carla got outlanded 37-6, hurt several times on the feet, and choked out just a minute into the second round. The inexplicable, season-long Cookie Monster subplot is over, Zhang Weili is now a two-time world champion, and things are back as they should be. What comes next, however, is tricky. Carla was blown out, so a rematch is out of the question. Rose Namajunas, the only person in the UFC to beat Weili, is a likely candidate--but after her disastrous performance against Carla, it remains to be seen how much faith the UFC has in her. Jéssica Andrade has a claim, but she's splitting time between 115 and 125, and probably needs to pick a weight class if she wants a shot. So the UFC solved the problem by picking Amanda Lemos. In a surprise to no one, Zhang absolutely dominated Lemos, outstriking her 296-29, smashing her to the tune of multiple 10-8 rounds, and winning a very, very wide decision. The next step is a China vs China championship showdown against Yan Xiaonan at UFC 300.
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NOTABLE CHAMPIONS ACROSS THE WORLD ONE Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs   Anatoly Malykhin - 14-0, 0 DefensesONE Light Heavyweight Champion, 225 lbs  Anatoly Malykhin - 14-0, 0 DefensesONE Middleweight Champion, 205 lbs  Anatoly Malykhin - 14-0, 0 DefensesNothing is real, and we are all a part of the great dream. Anatoly Malykhin, a Master of Sport and international champion wrestler, took to MMA in 2016. Five years later, at the tender professional age of 8-0, he was in ONE. Two fights later, he was the interim Heavyweight champion. ONE's mixed martial arts divisions have always been slim at best and ephemeral at worst, but above 185 pounds, the air got real, real thin. Arjan Bhullar, the actual 265-pound champion, was having contractual issues with ONE and didn't want to fight. In another universe, Malykhin fought other Heavyweights and carried the torch for ONE's big boys. In this one, he dropped to 225 pounds in 2022 and just beat the absolute poo poo out of double-champ Reinier de Ridder, taking his title in the process. But he was still the 265-pound champion, and he still wanted to unify the belts, and thus, in June of 2023, he mauled a finally-present Bhullar to become the undisputed Heavyweight champion. In another universe, he defended either of these titles, lending credibility to ONE's divisional depth. In this universe, ONE didn't have any divisional depth, and thus, on March 1, 2024, Anatoly dropped to 205 pounds to, once again, beat the poo poo out of now single-champ Reinier de Ridder. ONE immediately began astroturfing as much marketing as they could behind the idea of having the first major triple champion in mixed martial arts history, and like all good marketing, that is, technically, true. But he got there by beating the same guy twice, once at a weight class recognized by no other major organization on Earth, and now rules over three divisions with almost no one in them. Anatoly Malykhin is a legitimately good fighter, but it's a shame there's no one who can help him prove it. ONE Welterweight Champion, 185 lbs   Christian Lee - 17-4, 0 DefensesONE Lightweight Champion, 170 lbs  Christian Lee - 17-4, 0 DefensesIt took three tries, but by god, Chatri gets what Chatri wants. Christian Lee, the male half of the first family of ONE Championship and its homegrown golden boy, was very mad about losing his lightweight championship in a controversial decision to Ok Rae Yoon last year. He demanded the decision be reviewed and overturned and his championship reinstated. Unsurprisingly: This did not happen. After months of complaining and just shy of a year of waiting, the two had their long-awaited rematch and Lee left nothing to chance, knocking Yoon out in six minutes to reclaim his belt. Having finally retrieved his title, Lee, being a responsible champion, proceeded to immediately challenge ONE'S 185-pound champion, Kiamrian Abbasov, for his title, a move that was definitely in no way influenced by ONE's repeated attempts to get his sister Angela Lee double-champion status. Fortunately for Christian, Abbasov horribly botched his weight cut: He came in overweight, lost his title on the scale, and was visibly depleted in the fight. Which is particularly lucky, because Abbasov beat Lee senseless in the first round to the point that a standing TKO would not have been an unreasonable stoppage. But whether from his failed weight cut or simply from punching himself out, Abbasov was exhausted by the second round, and Lee mounted a gutsy comeback and ultimately stopped him with ground-and-pound in the fourth round. After three attempts, ONE has succeeded in getting two belts on a Lee. Unfortunately, it was followed by tragedy. After the passing of his younger sister Victoria, Christian took the whole of the year to, understandably, grieve. ONE planned his comeback for February of 2024, but, y'know, that clearly did not happen. ONE Featherweight Champion, 155 lbs  Tang Kai - 16-2, 1 DefenseTang Kai has been flying under the radar for some time, and in hindsight, that was clearly a mistake. He made his professional debut as a 20 year-old collegiate wrestler and won a rookie featherweight tournament in China's WBK (after investigating, we THINK it's World Battle Kings), but his stylistic limitations became apparent when he moved up to Kunlun Fight--and stopped fighting rookies. Dominant decision losses to ACA standout Bekhruz "Ong Bak" Zukurov and Road to UFC runner-up Asikeerbai Jinensibieke made Kai's weaknesses too apparent to ignore, and he made the tough call to commit to his dream, pack up his life, and move away from home to start training with real fight camps, most notably Shanghai's Dragon Gym and Phuket's legendary Tiger Muay Thai. It's worked out quite well: He hasn't lost a fight in five years. Three knockout wins in China's Rebel FC got ONE's attention, and since debuting with the organization in 2019, Kai has soundly defeated everyone in his path. He claims his wrestling base makes him impossible to take down and he proves it by using it almost entirely defensively, vastly preferring to bludgeon his opponents on his feet. His fight against Thanh Le, while blistering and difficult, was proof: He evaded every takedown attempt, widely outstruck him, dropped him with punches and leg kicks alike, and took the belt he's held for two years. And then, absolutely nothing else happened. It took ONE almost a full year to book another match for Tang Kai, and it was just an instant rematch with Thanh Le with no fanfare, and it was delayed by eight full months thanks to an injury. So after more than a year and a half without a fight, Tang Kai finally fought Thanh Le again, and this time, he knocked him out in three rounds. Congratulations, Tang Kai: You are back at square one. ONE Bantamweight Champion, 145 lbs  Fabricio Andrade - 9-2 (1), 0 DefensesThe second time was the charm. When Fabricio "Wonder Boy" Andrade joined ONE Championship back in 2020 he was a virtual unknown in the mixed martial arts world, a 20-3 kickboxer but only a 3-2 mixed martial artist who'd been fighting out in the regional circuit of China. His association with Tiger Muay Thai put him on ONE's radar, and his visible striking skills despite being just 21 at the time made him interesting enough for a developmental contract. Said contract proceeded to develop into Andrade going on a five-fight winning streak that only got more dominant as he met tougher competition, and three straight first-round knockouts punched his ticket to the championship picture. His first appearance in the spotlight, unfortunately, went a touch awry. First, bantamweight champion John Lineker lost his title on the scale after missing weight, meaning only Andrade was eligible to become champion, and he was well on his way to doing so before hitting Lineker with an errant strike to the groin so hard it shattered his cup, and with the fight not yet halfway complete, it had to be rendered a No Contest. It took four months to get to the rematch, and it was much more closely contested, but after four rounds Lineker threw in the towel, his face having been punched too swollen to continue. Fabricio Andrade is 25 and a world goddamn champion. He promptly skipped away from MMA completely and faced Jonathan Haggerty for ONE's Featherweight Kickboxing Championship on November 3rd, where he was immediately destroyed. Haggerty wants an MMA fight next. ONE Flyweight Champion, 135 lbs  Demetrious Johnson - 31-4-1, 0 DefensesThe king has returned. Demetrious Johnson's 2019 debut with ONE Championship was essentially scandalous. "Mighty Mouse" had long been a fan favorite of the lighter weight classes, a 5'3" combat machine who had been going the distance with world champions like Kid Yamamoto and Dominick Cruz while still working a day job in a warehouse, but it was only in 2012 when he dedicated himself to mixed martial arts as his full-time job that he became a star. He won the UFC's flyweight tournament and became its inaugural champion, and his talents are the reason a division that has existed for a decade has only had five champions--three of whom came in the last two years after he left. By 2018, Johnson had one of the longest winning streaks in the UFC, was the all-time recordholder for championship defenses in the UFC and had recorded some of the most outstanding finishes in the history of the UFC. By 2019, he was out of the company. Johnson and the UFC never got along--or, to be blunt, Johnson was one of the few publicly calling the UFC out on its bullshit. When he won the flyweight title and became a world champion while only getting paid $23k/23k he let it be known, when the UFC cut sponsorship money in the Reebok era he noted the raw deal it gave the fighters, and when Dana White tried to force him to take fights up at bantamweight by threatening to kill the flyweight division if he didn't, he told the world. After Henry Cejudo beat him in a razor-close coinflip decision and took the bargaining leverage of his championship away, it was over in a heartbeat. Dana White personally disliked him enough that he traded him to ONE Championship in exchange for their welterweight champion, Ben Askren. Johnson proceeded to immediately win ONE's flyweight grand prix, but took the first stoppage loss of his entire career in his shot at Adriano Moraes and his world championship and engendered a thousand MMA thinkpieces about if his time as a top fighter was over. A year and a half later, he got his rematch, and on August 27 at ONE on Prime Video 1 he returned the favor, handing Moraes his own first stoppage loss after knocking him out with a flying knee. The trilogy match was inevitable, and on May 5th, Johnson beat Moraes by a comprehensive decision, ending the story--and maybe his career. He says he's not sure if he's coming back yet. Fingers crossed. ONE Strawweight Champion, 125 lbs   Joshua Pacio - 22-4, 0 DefensesIt's been a difficult couple of years for Joshua Pacio. "The Passion" stands as a true veteran of ONE Championship, having made his debut--and his first, unsuccessful attempt at winning the Strawweight title--all the way back in 2016. Pacio established himself as both a fan favorite and a solid promotional favorite for the company, and when he lost his second bid for the title against Yosuke Saruta in 2019, ONE, in a trick they'd become very friendly with over the years, gave him an instant rematch anyway. Pacio knocked Saruta out in the rematch and became easily the greatest 125-pound champion in ONE history, ultimately defending the title three times--including a trilogy match against Saruta. By 2022, Pacio was a crown jewel for ONE's lineup. Which is when he promptly got wrestled into paste by UFC cast-off Jarred Brooks. Rather than having him defend the title, ONE booked Brooks into grappling matches, and in the meantime Pacio fought and defeated undefeated prospect Mansur Malachiev to earn himself a rematch. Multiple delays ensued, but on March 1, the Brooks/Pacio rematch finally came. Fifty-six seconds in, Pacio attempted a standing kimura on Brooks, who hoisted him off the ground, suplexed him, and knocked him out. Unfortunately, this was a problem. Under ONE's ruleset, slams that land headfirst are illegal. ONE has been regularly criticized for this--less for the rule itself as for ONE's tendency to selectively enforce the rule, using it to benefit fighters they would like to succeed. ONE, of course, denies this vehemently. However you draw your own conclusions, at the end of the day Jarred Brooks was disqualified, and thus, by DQ, Joshua Pacio is now a three-time Strawweight champion. Congratulations. ONE Women's Strawweight Champion, 125 lbs  Xiong Jing Nan - 18-2, 7 DefensesXiong Jing Nan dreamed of lifting weights. She'd enjoyed sports as a child, and when China started its national push for Olympic supremacy she began training heavily in hope of joining the national weightlifting team. But then she met aspirants for its boxing team and fell in love with the idea of living out a martial arts movie and getting to hit people for fun and profit and she never looked back. She turned pro in 2014 and immediately became a standout, going 9-1 in China's Kunlun Fight promotion with wins across three separate weight classes. What made her truly dangerous wasn't one-punch power, but the ability to break her opponents with constant pressure striking, scoring TKOs with combinations stretched out across dozens of consecutive, unending strikes. The story was no different when she moved to ONE in 2017, and she was strawweight champion within two fights. ONE's women's MMA divisions have been its most stable, each having had exactly one champion, and they were so dominant that they inevitably had to fight each other--and, hilariously, traded wins back and forth in the process. 115 lbs champion Angela Lee went up to 125 to challenge for Xiong Jing Nan's belt but Nan stopped her with body kicks in the fifth round, and half a year later Nan dropped down to 115 to challenge for Lee's belt only for Lee to choke her out with twelve seconds left in the fight. Xiong has notched three successful title defenses since, which set her up for her greatest challenger yet: Angela Lee, again, apparently. Despite ONE's best attempts, Xiong successfully defended her title against Lee again, nearly finishing her in the first round and ultimately winning a decision. An entire 364 days later, she had her next fight: A special rules match, with MMA gloves but only punches and no takedowns or clinching allowed, against Muay Thai champion Nat "Wondergirl" Jaroonsak. Half a year later, her next fight was finally announced, and it is, of course, defending her title against ONE postergirl Stamp Fairtex as the company attempts, once again, to make a double champ at Xiong Jing Nan's expense. Why are we even pretending anymore. ONE Women's Atomweight Champion, 115 lbs   Stamp Fairtex - 10-2, 0 DefensesIt was slightly awkward when Seo Hee Ham and Stamp Fairtex were booked to meet at ONE Fight Night 14 in an interim atomweight title match, given the longstanding rumors of Angela Lee's retirement, and boy, it didn't get any less weird when ONE, which clearly knew what was going on, had Angela Lee announce that retirement just minutes before said match, which was promptly changed to an undisputed championship bout. But that's just part of how ONE rolls, as is their blatant attempts at favoritism, and boy, Stamp Fairtex is their most successful case study thus far. ONE signed her back in 2017 as a Muay Thai stadium champion, and within one fight in ONE she was their Atomweight Kickboxing Champion, and within two fights she was their Atomweight Muay Thai champion. Is this a statement about how quickly they push people they want or how thin their divisions can be? The answer, as always, is Yes. But none of that stopped Stamp from being really loving good at fighting, and as she transitioned to mixed martial arts she ran up a great record--with the sole exception of a two-fight series with Alyona Rassohyna, where she tapped out in the first and attempted to deny it, then won a real close split decision in an immediate rematch. ONE did not feel the need to book a rubber match, for some odd reason. Stamp won the 2021 Atomweight Grand Prix, got her shot at Angela Lee, and got choked out for her troubles, but a year and two wins later, she was good to go for another championship showdown. It wasn't easy--Seo Hee Ham dropped Stamp in the second round and, for some mysterious reason, when recapping the round, ONE chose to highlight Stamp's offense and not show it--but she stopped Ham with body shots in the third round, and in doing so became not just the undisputed champion, but the first person to ever actually knock Ham out in a fight. (Before you say it: No, Ayaka Hamasaki doesn't count, that was a corner stoppage.) ONE has their new star, and she's a hell of a striker. Her first defense will come against Denise Zamboanga on June 7, and--win or lose, apparently--she is also booked to fight Xiong Jing Nan in a (maybe?) champ-champ affair in September. Christ alive.  Rizin Lightweight Champion, 156 lbs  Roberto de Souza - 16-3, 2 DefensesRoberto "Satoshi" de Souza is trying to become the new Gegard Mousasi. On April 17 he had the chance to avenge the only loss of his career, a half-knockout half-injury against "Hollywood" Johnny Case back in 2019, and he succeeded in emphatic fashion, climbing Case's back, locking him in an inverted triangle choke and eventually forcing an armbar. He's now 14-1 and inarguably one of the best lightweights outside of the UFC, but unlike most of the other fighters to bear that title, he has made it clear he has no interest in changing that. Where the A.J. McKees and Michael Chandlers of the world want to test free agency and notoriety, Roberto de Souza is happy in Japan, both because his Rizin pay is fairly lucrative and his entire family jiu-jitsu business is based in the country. This is admirable, but it's also a little unfortunate: Rizin really only has around a dozen lightweights under contract, and "Satoshi" has already beaten a third of them. He may be waiting for a Spike Carlyle or a Luiz Gustavo to work their way into contention, but the Rizin ranks hold few surprises for him at this point. It was thus of particular interest when the main event for the New Year's Eve Bellator x Rizin card was announced as Roberto de Souza vs AJ McKee--a test of where Souza ranks with the rest of the world's competition. Unfortunately for him and Rizin, the answer was "under them." He positionally threatened McKee and was able to land some solid strikes in the final round, but was otherwise controlled and lost a decision. On May 6th, Satoshi beat Spike Carlyle in a fantastic fight--but it was a non-title fight, because Japanese promoters are still real scared of their own belts. Satoshi fought Patricky Pitbull at Bellator x Rizin 2 on July 29th--in another non-title fight, naturally--and took the first definitive beating of his career, getting utterly outclassed and ultimately stopped on leg kicks in three rounds. He fought Keita Nakamura at Rizin Landmark 9 on March 23 and put in one of the best performances of his career, battering K-Taro to a TKO in just 1:43--but because this is Japanese MMA it was, of course, a non-title fight, so it doesn't count as a title defense. Rizin Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs   Chihiro Suzuki - 12-3 (1), 0 DefensesChihiro Suzuki has had a very fortunate year. Suzuki rose to Rizin's notice not through MMA, but after winning Japan's KNOCK OUT Super Lightweight Kickboxing championship. He made his Rizin debut six months later--and got knocked out in twenty seconds. He spent the next two and a half years simultaneously rounding out his MMA game and annually defending his kickboxing gold, and by 2023, he was one of Rizin's top Featherweight contenders, more than ready for his shot at Kleber Koike Erbst's Rizin championship. And--he got armbarred in three minutes. However, hilariously enough, Erbst lost his belt on the scale after missing weight, meaning the title was vacant and the fight, by Rizin rules, was a No Contest, so Suzuki didn't even technically lose. He then proceeded to get the biggest break of his career. At Bellator x Rizin 2 on July 30th, 2023, despite having just lost a five-round fight to Sergio Pettis a month prior, Patrício Pitbull was thrown onto the card against Suzuki on four days' notice--and Suzuki not only beat him, he became the first person to ever knock out Bellator's GOAT. Rizin immediately booked Suzuki in against new champion Vugar Keramov for their debut in Keramov's home country of Azerbaijan, and Keramov looked poised and powerful and was in the process of ragdolling Suzuki like he does everyone else--and Suzuki caught him with an upkick on the jaw and punched him the rest of the way out from his goddamn back. Chihiro Suzuki, you are Rizin's new star. Hold onto it as long as you can and pray they don't book a Kleber rematch. He’ll make his first title defense against Masanori Kanehara on May 6. Rizin Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs  Kai Asakura - 21-4, 0 DefensesRizin's Bantamweight title is snakebitten as hell, and, somehow, so is Kai Asakura. Kyoji Horiguchi was the first man to win it back in 2018, and a year later he gave it up, having been too injured to compete--in part thanks to fighting while injured and being defeated by, in fact, Kai Asakura, but only in a non-title fight. Asakura was a lock and a favorite to win the vacant belt that December--so he got immediately knocked out by Manel Kape. Manel Kape left Rizin for the UFC, leaving the belt once again vacant, and Kai won it after knocking out Hiromasa Ougikubo, meaning Kai was not only the champion, but he also got his rematch with Kyoji Horiguchi--only this time, Kai was defending his belt, and could finally show Horiguchi it wasn't a fluke! And then Horiguchi knocked him out in three minutes, and then the belt went into torpor for two whole years, after which Horiguchi gave it up to go be a Flyweight instead. Luckily, Rizin knew this was coming, so they booked a Bantamweight Grand Prix to crown a successor, with the explicit intention of crowning Kai Asakura. And he made it to the finals! Where he got revenge-stomped by Hiromasa Ougikubo, who then went on to lose badly to former Bellator champion Juan Archuleta, who became Rizin's first American titleholder. Archuleta was oddly at home in the pomp and circumstance of JMMA, and he promised big things for his future, and then he came into his New Year's Eve match sick, missed weight by six pounds, lost his belt on the scale, and thanks to Rizin's rules, was left with a fight where not only was he ineligible to win the title, he was ineligible to win the fight. And as sick as he was, he probably shouldn't have fought anyway! But he did, and Asakura dropped him in two rounds. Thus, for the second time, Kai Asakura is the best Bantamweight in Japan. I beg him not to walk under any dangling pianos. Rizin Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs  Kyoji Horiguchi - 32-5 (1), 0 DefensesWell, this was a long time coming. Before Rizin even existed, Kyoji Horiguchi was the consensus #2 Flyweight fighter on the planet. He'd won Shooto's 125-pound title, he'd come to America half to face the best in the world and half because Japan's MMA scene was in a real, real bad place at the time, and by mid-2015, he was 15-1 and ready to fight for a world championship. Unfortunately, said championship was held by Demetrious "Mighty Mouse" Johnson, the best Flyweight of all time. Johnson dealt Kyoji his second-ever loss and first-ever stoppage, and it stopped Horiguchi's dream of being the best, but it also opened him up to becoming a star. A year later he was out of the UFC, back home in Japan, and, immediately, one of Rizin's top attractions. But Rizin didn't have a 125-pound division--so he settled for just winning is 135-pound belt instead. When Rizin began cross-promoting with Bellator, he went and took their belt, too, just for good measure. But his strength of schedule and his own injuries caught up with him: He ultimately vacated both belts without ever recording a title defense. By the time he came back in 2021, things had changed. He'd been knocked out for the first time in Kai Asakura back in 2019, but he was fighting hurt and on short notice, so that was excused. When Sergio Pettis knocked him out in his 2021 return fight, it was a warning; when Patchy Mix dominated him in his first match in the Bellator Grand Prix of 2022, it was a sign. Horiguchi needed to be back at 125. Bellator opened a Flyweight division more or less just for him, and at Bellator x Rizin 2 in the summer of 2023, Horiguchi faced Rizin star Makoto "Shinryu" Takahashi to crown the company's inaugural champion--and the fight ended in a No Contest after Horiguchi poked Shinryu in the eye twenty-five seconds into the first round. And then Bellator got sold and stopped operating as an independent entity. Whoops! Rizin decided to just make the goddamn belt themselves, and on New Year's Eve of 2023, Horiguchi and Takahashi had their rematch, and this time, Horiguchi choked him out. Eight years after his first attempt, Kyoji Horiguchi has a Flyweight world championship. Now, let's see Rizin give him some competition. Rizin Women's Super Atomweight Championship, 108 lbs  Seika Izawa - 13-0, 1 DefenseAll hail the new queen. After years of reigning as Japan's best atomweight, the legendary Ayaka Hamasaki fell not once but twice to the rookie Seika Izawa. A 24 year-old who was pushed into judo as a child by a frustrated mother who was tired of her constant fighting with her brothers, Izawa discovered a love for grappling that led her to win junior championships in judo, wrestling and sumo alike. She would still be pursuing judo had the pandemic not shut down much of its competitive scene, but fortunately, mixed martial arts is a terrible sport run by monsters who don't care about things like deadly diseases, which made it a tempting professional prospect. Four months after her formal MMA training began Izawa was winning fights in DEEP, less than a year after that she was DEEP's strawweight champion, and one year later she was dominating one of the best women's fighters in history on Rizin's New Year's Eve special. As Japanese organizations tend to do, frustratingly, the fight was a non-title affair, meaning Izawa had to come back and do it again on April 17. After a scary moment where Hamasaki almost stole an armbar, Izawa resumed her wrestling domination and formally took Rizin's atomweight championship. As entirely fresh blood, the world of Rizin's talent is open to her--but that also means she's got a real, real big target on her back. Rizin's Superatomweight Grand Prix was both a big coming-out party for Izawa and a series of opportunities to look shockingly mortal: She had a fair bit of trouble with Anastasiya Svetkivska in the semifinals before ultimately submitting her, but her berth in the finals against former rival Si Woo Park proved the toughest fight of her career, ending in a split decision victory she easily could have lost. Seika was supposed to face Miyuu Yamamoto at Rizin 42, but after Yamamoto had to pull out with an injury, Izawa was instead scheduled to face...the last person Yamamoto beat, the 5-3 Suwanan Boonsorn, at DEEP Jewels 41 on July 28. Izawa choked her out, shockingly. It took more than an entire year, but Izawa finally had a title defense against the 8-4 grappler Claire Lopez, and Izawa scored the fastest championship victory in Rizin history, choking her out in just barely one minute. Seika scored one more win on New Year's Eve, choking out Miyuu Yamamoto in her retirement bout, and while it was an honor, it does sort of emphasize the problem with Seika's position. She's unquestionably the best Atomweight in the world, but the last real top fighter she faced was more than a year ago. Will Rizin bring her real competition, or are they trying to simply build a star? And what IS real competition at Atomweight? She choked out Si Yoon Park at DEEP JEWELS 44 to add yet another win and belt to her credit, but the Rizin title wasn't on the line, so she's still only got the one defense.
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THE BELLATOR CHAMPIONSHIP GRAVEYARD Bellator Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs  Ryan Bader - 31-8 (1), 3 DefensesRyan Bader is the greatest Bellator Heavyweight Champion of all time, and on a dairy farm somewhere in Wisconsin, Cole Konrad feels a pang of regret. Bader made his name as the winner of The Ultimate Fighter: Nogueira vs Mir all the way back in 2008, but his UFC career proved to be one of Sisyphean torment and humiliation that included, somehow, impossibly, being the only man to lose a UFC fight to Tito Ortiz during his last six years in the company. Bader left for free agency and Bellator in 2016 and became its light-heavyweight champion on his first night with the organization, and just two years later he became its first-ever simultaneous double-champion after knocking out the legendary Fedor Emelianenko and taking the heavyweight title. Bader would go on to lose his 205-pound crown, but Fedor never forgot his 35-second drubbing at the American wrestler's hands, and for his retirement fight, he demanded a rematch. Thus it was that the entire mixed martial arts community watched with bated breath as on February 4th, 2023, Fedor Emelianenko walked into the cage one last time and promptly got the absolute crap beaten out of him again. Ryan Bader remains undefeated at heavyweight. He was to defend his title against Linton Vassell at Bellator's series finale-sounding Bellator 300, but Vassell got injured and, as Bader himself put it in a reddit post, Viacom is done with Bellator and didn't want to pay for a replacement. Ryan Bader is the best heavyweight champion outside of the UFC, and it's anyone's guess if he'll still be champion of anything by January. He also, unfortunately, got his poo poo completely wrecked by Renan Ferreira in thirty seconds, making him the one and only Bellator fighter to lose at PFL vs Bellator. Bellator Light-Heavyweight Champion, 205 lbs  Corey Anderson - 18-6 (1), 0 DefensesCorey Anderson has been passed over by the sport so many times, but now, finally, his day has come. His success as a college wrestler led him to Ben Askren, and Ben Askren actually tricked him into trying mixed martial arts, and getting outsmarted by Ben Askren might still be the worst loss of his career. Anderson burst into the UFC as the champion of The Ultimate Fighter 19 back in 2014, and as a big, strong, undefeated 5-0 wrestler, he looked like a genuine championship threat. He was, of course, immediately knocked out by Gian Villante, and if you do not know or remnember who that is: That's the point. This sort of derailing became the story of Anderson's career, and by 2017 he had been knocked out twice in a row and was considering retirement. Instead, he launched into a fantastic, four-fight winning streak that included effortlessly destroying the UFC's big hype project Johnny Walker, giving Anderson a #5 ranking and a title eliminator against Jan Błachowicz, whom he'd beaten back in 2015. Unfortunately, this time Jan knocked him out--and despite being 4 for his last 5 and unequivocally one of the best 205-pound fighters in the world, the UFC released him because they didn't want to market a wrestler. Anderson went to Bellator, joined the 2021 Light Heavyweight Grand Prix, knocked out Ryan Bader in less than a minute and made it to the tournament final against reignning, Bellator-undefeated champion Vadim Nemkov--and he almost won. But at 4:55 of the third round, an inadvertent headbutt busted Nemkov's eye, and a doctor ruled him unable to continue. If the fight had lasted five more seconds it would have gone to a technical decision, and Anderson would have won the $1 million tournament purse and his first world championship. Instead, he got nothing, and Nemkov beat him in a rematch seven months later. It took a year and a half and Nemkov's own move up to Heavyweight for Anderson to get another chance, but at the first-ever PFL-owned Bellator Champions Series event on March 22, 2024, Corey Anderson wrestled Karl Moore for five excruciating rounds and won that god damned belt. His future as a titleholder will depend on PFL's commitment to the Bellator brand. Bellator Middleweight Champion, 185 lbs  Johnny Eblen - 15-0, 2 DefensesThere's an old combat sports tradition whereby a champion isn't really a champion until they defend their title. Gegard Mousasi has been established as the best middleweight outside the UFC that, despite the one-sided nature of their fight, Johnny Eblen's victory over him was treated as an aberration rather than the passing of a torch. It didn't matter that Eblen was undefeated, widely considered one of the absolute best by his cohort at American Top Team or that he'd dropped Mousasi on his face with his bare hands, the world needed verification. On February 4th at Bellator 290, they got it. Fedor Emelianenko's team was intending to pull one big, beautiful night of success out of the ether for their leader's retirement fight, but it was not to be: Vadim Nemkov had to pull out of the card thanks to an injury, Fedor himself was crushed for the second time by heavyweight champion Ryan Bader, and middleweight hopeful Anatoly Tokov was competitive for the first couple of rounds but was subsequently washed out by Eblen's overwhelming assault. Johnny Eblen is a defending champion now, and as things always seem to go, the conversation changed overnight from his being overrated to his being better than everyone in the UFC. This mindset only grew again after Bellator 299 on September 23rd, as Eblen faced Fabian Edwards, knocked him out in the third round, and nearly got into a post-fight brawl with his brother, UFC champion Leon Edwards. Eblen admits he has no idea what his future is or if Bellator will still be around, but he's considering a move to light-heavyweight with Vadim Nemkov leaving the division wide open. Eblen had a scare against Impa Kasanganay but ultimately won his PFL vs Bellator bout. Bellator Welterweight Champion, 170 lbs   Jason Jackson - 18-4, 0 DefensesGetting in right before the buzzer is one of the best times to get in. Jason Jackson does not win any points for having "The rear end-Kicking Machine" for a nickname, but his successes speak for themselves. Jackson actually had two run-ins with the UFC early in his career--since he got his start training with the short-lived Blackzilians team, he was part of The Ultimate Fighter 21 (jesus christ): American Top Team vs Blackzilians, where he was choked out in the second round. He didn't get invited to the UFC, but two years later he was on the third episode of the Contender Series, which saw him spend the first round mostly cage-clinching before breaking his ankle out of nowhere twenty seconds into the second round. He was in Bellator a couple years later losing a decision to Ed Ruth, and that was about the point the world decided to ignore him. As it turns out: A mistake. His path through Bellator was slow--to the point that he's only had one fight a year for the last three years--but by this year he was on a six-fight winning streak and a sensible opponent for Yaroslav Amosov. Very few people gave him a chance, but having not knocked anyone out since mid-2018, absolutely no one expected him to knock Amosov, the best Welterweight outside of the UFC, the gently caress out in the third round. Jason Jackson is, officially, the Bellator Welterweight Champion. He defended Bellator's honor by kicking Ray Cooper III's leg in half at PFL vs Bellator, and he'll make the first defense of his title against Ramazan Kurmagomedov on June 22. Bellator Lightweight Champion, 155 lbs   Usman Nurmagomedov - 17-0 (1), 2 DefensesIf there's a single, developing throughline of mixed martial arts in 2022, it's the growing power of the Dagestani wrestling brigade. Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov built an army of ultra-grapplers, and after his passing the American Kickboxing Academy's Javier Mendez and Adulmanap's son and protege, the now-retired Khabib Nurmagomedov, unleashed them on the world. Usman, Khabib's cousin (as well as the younger brother of Umar Nurmagomedov, undefeated and ranked UFC bantamweight), took to Bellator in April of 2021 and proceeded to burn an undefeated path through the Manny Muros and Patrik Pietiläe of the world. His style was a little more eclectic--lots of spinning kicks, lots of stick-and-move jabs and stomps to the leg--but the resemblance became uncanny once he inevitably, and easily, ragdolled his opponents to the canvas and generally choked them out in short order thereafter. When he was announced as the #1 contender to Bellator's lightweight title, I was somewhat miffed: He hadn't beaten any top contenders, Bellator had already held a title eliminator and it was won in a crushing thirty-second knockout by Tofiq Musayev, the whole thing smacked of a pathetic attempt to glom onto some of Khabib's mainstream attention. I at no point said that he wouldn't very, very easily win. At Bellator 288 on November 18th, Usman very, very easily won, defeating Patricky "Pitbull" Freire at every aspect of the game and leaving him sans both his championship and one eyebrow. Usman's first fight as champion was both a defense and an entry into the first round of Bellator's Lightweight Grand Prix on March 3rd at Bellator 292, where he met, crushed, and retired former UFC champion Benson Henderson, handing him just the third submission loss of a 17-year, 42-fight career. He faced fellow tournament semifinalist Brent Primus at Bellator 300 on October 7th, and it was as one-sided and yet uneventful as you can imagine. Until Usman failed his drug test. Bellator says it was for medication rather than PEDs and thus he won't be stripped, but the fight's a No Contest and they need a rematch, which seems awfully selective. And then the company got bought, so it was all forgotten anyway. He'll now face Alexander Shabliy on May 17. Bellator Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs  Patrício Pitbull - 36-7, 2 DefensesPatrício Pitbull had a weird goddamn 2023. Pitbull has long been the GOAT of Bellator, sometimes to the company's open chagrin--there were definitely times they would have vastly preferred a Pat Curran or a Michael Chandler to carry their banner, and Patrício had this unfortunate habit of not just beating them but making them look like poo poo. By mid-2021, he was Bellator's dual featherweight and lightweight champion, he was on a seven-fight win streak, and he was a finalist in their Featherweight Grand Prix. And then undefeated rising star A.J. McKee dropped him and choked him out in two minutes. Bellator, clearly, felt they had hit the jackpot and were going to be riding the McKee train for some time, as by their rematch ten months later, McKee was the centerpiece of all of their advertising. It was somewhat awkward when, as he had done to so many before, Patrício took him to a victorious decision that made McKee kind of look like poo poo, neutralizing his offense in the clinch, jabbing under his range, and grinding away the clock. Bellator pushed for a trilogy, but McKee, pissed off, tired of cutting weight and worried about having it happen all over again, declined and moved up to lightweight. Instead of a big-money rematch, Patrício was left to face top contender Ádám Borics, and the match, while hard-fought, was not particularly entertaining or memorable. Pitbull's next fight was the rare cross-promotional bout, facing Rizin's featherweight champion Kleber Koike Erbst on the New Year's Eve Bellator x Rizin special. It was the only fight on the card that wasn't particularly competitive: He shut Kleber down completely and won a wide decision. There is only one featherweight king outside the UFC--and it's one who had a two-fight losing streak, with one of those fights being a bantamweight loss to Sergio Pettis and the other a lightweight knockout to Chihiro Suzuki that he took on four days' notice, because MMA is silly. Pitbull did, however, become the first Bellator champion to canonically defend a title under their new PFL ownership: He fought Jeremy Kennedy at Bellator Champions Series 1 on March 22 and mauled him in three rounds. Bellator Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs  Patchy Mix - 19-1, 0 DefensesIt took a long goddamn time, but Patchy Mix is finally getting the credit he deserves. Fans had already singled out Patchy as a uniquely talented fighter by 2019, when he signed to Bellator as the 10-0 King of the Cage Bantamweight Champion who'd submitted almost everyone he faced, but it wasn't really until he choked out Yuki Motoya at Bellator's first co-promotion with Rizin that people really paid attention. Which was unfortunate, because his next fight was a shot at Juan Archuleta for the vacant Bellator Bantamweight Championship and Archuleta schooled him on their feet, ending both Mix's title hopes and his undefeated streak. It didn't help matters when, two fights later, he blew his weight cut for a big Dublin match against James Gallagher. But Mix kept winning, and when he entered the Bantamweight Grand Prix and promptly stormed the bracket by beating Kyoji Horiguchi and choking out Magomed Magomedov, suddenly, people paid attention again. When he fought interim champion Raufeon Stots and knocked him out cold with a knee in less than a minute and a half, people began wondering if maybe he was the real champion and Sergio Pettis, who'd been out for a year and a half and returned to a vanity fight with Patrício Pitbull, wasn't the fake. The two met at Bellator 301 on November 17th, and Mix left no doubt: He outwrestled Pettis and choked him out in the second round. Patchy Mix is, finally, the undisputed Bellator Bantamweight Champion. He'll defend his title against Magomed Magomedov on May 17. Bellator Women's Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs  Cris Cyborg - 27-2 (1), 5 DefensesYup. It's 2024 and Cris Cyborg is still out there. For those who don't know, Cris Cyborg was the canonical women's featherweight fighter, a Muay Thai wrecking machine who didn't just beat but brutalized essentially all of her opponents, including ex-Star Wars Gina Carano, and her popularity as a destroyer of humans is the only real reason women's featherweight even exists as a division, to the point that the UFC added it when she was the only actual fighter at the weight class they employed. She was 20-1 (1) when she passed the torch to Amanda Nunes, who slew her in just fifty-one seconds. She took one more fight in the UFC to complete her contract, but left for Bellator almost immediately afterward with uncharacteristic cooperation from the UFC itself--after all, they'd gotten what they wanted out of her. Her first Bellator fight was a one-sided destruction of their featherweight champion, and she's defended it three times since. At this point in Cyborg's career the problem isn't her or her fighting or her age, but simply that there's no one in Bellator for her to fight--after just five fights she's already hitting rematches, having just recorded her second one-sided bludgeoning of a very game but outmatched Arlene Blencowe. Cyborg decided her next fight would be a boxing match, and on September 25 she faced Simone da Silva, a jobber to the stars coming off twelve straight losses who had been knocked out just one month prior. Undeterred, she had her second boxing match on the undercard of December 10th’s Crawford/Avanesyan card, taking a unanimous decision over Gabrielle “Gabanator” Holloway, who is 6-6 in MMA and 0-3 in boxing. After a year and a half of inactivity, Cris Cyborg returned to MMA to defend her title against Cat Zingano at Bellator 300 on October 7th. It lasted four minutes. Cyborg has been open and public about her lack of communication with PFL, and despite being one of Bellator's biggest names, those fences do not appear to be mending. Bellator Women's Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs  Liz Carmouche - 20-7, 3 DefensesIt took more than a decade and some controversy, but Liz Carmouche got her flowers. "Girl-Rilla" was just as present a figure in establishing women's MMA in the mainstream, but she's the most consistently forgotten because she was the losing fighter in all of those establishing moments. She was a challenger for the early, pre-fame Strikeforce Women's Bantamweight Championship, and was winning on the scorecards before Marloes Coenen choked her out. She was a central part of the inaugural Invicta FC card, and was planned as a title contender before the big show came calling. She became one half of the first women's fight in UFC history, and at one point had Ronda Rousey in a nearly destiny-defying neck crank, but was ultimately submitted in the first round. She's one of two women to ever defeat Valentina Shevchenko, but when given a second chance at the now-UFC champion Shevchenko, she fell short. Despite her powerful wrestling and submission skills, she was eternally denied the top of the mountain. So it was both particularly appropriate and particularly cruel when she finally won a championship on April 22, 2022--in a way that displeased everybody. Standing champion Juliana Velasquez was winning on every scorecard, but Liz Carmouche got her in the crucifix position and landed a number of, respectfully, small elbows, but referee Mike Beltran called a TKO to the immediate chagrin of the entirely safe ex-champion. The controversy made a rematch all but mandatory, and it took Bellator most of the year to do it, but the two met in the cage to run it back at Bellator 289 on December 9, and this time there was no controversy, as Velasquez submitted to an armbar two rounds in. The weirdness didn't stop there: Liz's next title defense against Deanna Bennett also hit the skids, as Bennett missed weight and was thus ineligible to win the championship. Carmouche put it on the line anyway, and fortunately, she choked Bennett out in the fourth round. She defended her title against Ilima-Lei Macfarlane at Bellator 300 on October 7th, and it was one of those fights where friends don't really want to hurt each other--until Ilima got kicked enough that her leg collapsed in the fifth round. Her status as champion is questionable, though--of all Bellator's titleholders, Liz is the only one taking part in this year's PFL season. She'll kick it off by rematching Juliana at PFL 1 on April 4. What that means for her title reign, I have no idea.
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Apr 1, 2024 20:53
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Eye pokes reign supreme and cheating is the best base for mma
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Apr 1, 2024 22:11
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I keep instinctively navigating to Bloody Elbow, remembering what it is now, and immediately closing it. A sad habit to have to break.
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Apr 1, 2024 22:20
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i did the same with cage potato way back in the day it helps to have the best mma news and views writers here now, so 
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Apr 1, 2024 22:31
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With bloody elbow gone, where can you get quality mma journalism?
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Apr 2, 2024 13:40
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mariooncrack posted:With bloody elbow gone, where can you get quality mma journalism? https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4057613
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Apr 2, 2024 14:03
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this thread, lol, or podcasts (jack slack, heavy hands, probably others). nate wilcox's newsletter is good (https://www.themmadraw.com/). twitter is also unfortunately good for tape studies - miguel class is good, https://twitter.com/9h6st21_mma is good (can never remember how to spell that - this person did scouting for weili zhang though, they're legit). karim zidan is the only mma writer who writes about politics that i trust. there's probably some others but it's hard to find because the modern UFC fandom is genuinely the worst in the world, and it's full of bad faith actors trying to farm engagement for their blue tick paychecks by calling GSP overrated or whatever. and the state of MMA journalism is somehow even worse. the pond is definitely shrinking.
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Apr 2, 2024 14:16
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Foul Fowl posted:https://twitter.com/9h6st21_mma is good (can never remember how to spell that - this person did scouting for weili zhang though, they're legit) You mean as a paid role in their training camp?
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Apr 2, 2024 14:37
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yeah they were in her camp for the lemos fight
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Apr 2, 2024 14:38
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Foul Fowl posted:yeah they were in her camp for the lemos fight Sick; how did they report on what they did, if at all? After the fact?
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Apr 2, 2024 14:40
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https://twitter.com/9h6st21_mma/status/1693146660631957725 you gotta click on it to view the whole thread. you may need a twitter account for this. i’m sorry.
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Apr 2, 2024 14:45
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Au contraire mon frere https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1693146355236306976.html Looks like he still took down some of the training camp vids that were approved after the fact. Is he also the oz13msx2mercurius in a lot of the embedded vids? From how he was using the 3rd person, makes it seem like there was a lot of scouting in place already that he was consulting on.
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Apr 2, 2024 15:09
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kimbo305 posted:Au contraire mon frere oh amazing, i always use twitter on my phone and i forget the thread reader app is a thing. i'm not too familiar with the specifics of the situation - i think they were brought in as an outside scout, and i'm assuming the instagram account is theirs, but i thought it was a really interesting look at how fighters prepare for very specific things. given that she mashed up lemos it clearly worked.
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Apr 2, 2024 20:09
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Looks like oz13msx2mercurius is meant to be a private shared repo of scouting content for her team specifically, which seems laughably but expectedly poor opsec. That account's bio mentions analysis by @phm_thief96, which afaict, renamed to this account: https://www.instagram.com/boringbreakdowns/ I don't have a broad view of how many camps spend this much effort with studying film. They absolutely should, but outside of tidbits revealed here and there, there's no real visibility into it. I do feel that it's much less structured and integral compared to other elite tier sports, probably cuz there's no money in it for the staff 
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Apr 2, 2024 20:57
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Reminder that you can choose to support Carl's excellent monthly summaries and fight breakdowns with dollars here - https://www.punchsport.report/. You also get them in your email!
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Apr 2, 2024 21:09
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“Beginning with UFC FIGHT NIGHT this Saturday, April 6, athletes who compete on cards at UFC APEX will receive four (4) seats for friends and family to watch their fight only,” Campbell wrote. “Following the bout, your guests will be escorted out of APEX. This practice will be in effect for all events at UFC APEX going forward.
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Apr 2, 2024 23:25
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Hotswapping the friends and family seats lmao. Just make them sign a contract that says they have to stay above 70dB at all times, drat.
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Apr 3, 2024 00:27
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coathat posted:“Beginning with UFC FIGHT NIGHT this Saturday, April 6, athletes who compete on cards at UFC APEX will receive four (4) seats for friends and family to watch their fight only,” Campbell wrote. “Following the bout, your guests will be escorted out of APEX. This practice will be in effect for all events at UFC APEX going forward lmao come to vegas! take in the sights! pay your own way and enjoy the bonecrushing action only the ufc can provide!* *limited to the 15 minutes your "friend" or "family" competes in The Octagon (tm), then you must vacate. two drink minimum, and accepting these seats means TKO entertainment cannot be sued and all legal issues must be brought forth in binding arbitration in the state of nevada
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Apr 3, 2024 00:34
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The UFC's weird nickel and dime approach is the funniest and most awful thing.
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Apr 3, 2024 06:40
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coathat posted:“Beginning with UFC FIGHT NIGHT this Saturday, April 6, athletes who compete on cards at UFC APEX will receive four (4) seats for friends and family to watch their fight only,” Campbell wrote. “Following the bout, your guests will be escorted out of APEX. This practice will be in effect for all events at UFC APEX going forward. The best part of this to me is schedules being fluid because of knockouts and stuff means they have to hang around outside/in the lobby for indeterminate amounts of time before someone shows up and goes "it's time" like it's an execution or something
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Apr 3, 2024 10:27
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coathat posted:“Following the bout, your guests will be escorted out of APEX. What's the actual thought process behind this though? Are they selling the place out and just really don't want to give away those extra seats? And what's the deal for non-APEX fights?
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Apr 3, 2024 10:36
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Bucky Fullminster posted:What's the actual thought process behind this though? Are they selling the place out and just really don't want to give away those extra seats? MMAJunkie posted:UFC fighters typically receive four complimentary tickets for events on the road. However, tickets were not typically guaranteed to the athletes at the UFC Apex prior to this policy implementation. According to numerous people with knowledge of the procedures, family and friends often purchased premium-priced tickets to in order to attend, though comps were occasionally given on a more rare, situational basis, as well.
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Apr 3, 2024 10:55
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Christ 
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Apr 3, 2024 11:13
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CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 97: BEFORE THE STORM SATURDAY, APRIL 6 FROM THE EMOTIONLESS PIT OF THE UFC APEX PRELIMS 12 PM PDT / 3 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 3 PM / 6 PM We're pretty close to the end of the road, here. UFC 300 is next week, the UFC has put together about as good a card as it is currently capable for the occasion, and we've gone several months without missing a weekend, and that means we're at the 'people who haven't won a fight in four years are on the main card' level of booking on this latest trip to the wonderful Apex. Will it be fun? Honestly, yeah. There are some solid on-paper scraps to be had. Will you recognize most of the people on it? Almost certainly not. But that's okay. Everyone's just sort of holding their breath for 300 anyway. Enjoy the hors d'oeuvres.  you can tell i had to hurriedly add a section this morning because this screenshot is in day mode MAIN EVENT: LOWERED EXPECTATIONS MIDDLEWEIGHT: Brendan Allen (23-5, #6) vs Chris Curtis (31-10 (1), #14) Climbing the ranks just ain't like it used to be, man. Let's get the big point out of the way first: This was supposed to be a different fight. This was, initially, Brendan Allen vs Marvin Vettori. At this point Vettori is more or less the division's retroactive championship gatekeeper: Too good to fall out of the top five, perpetually turned away by champions and top contenders. The UFC really wanted the fight as a way to potentially legitimize Brendan Allen as a top contender. Which feels like an awfully weird sentence. Brendan Allen's on a six-fight winning streak, the second-longest in the division* behind current champion Dricus du Plessis, and he's finished his last four opponents in particularly impressive fashion. Why on Earth would a guy like that not be pretty thoroughly legitimate already? *You could count Khamzat Chimaev, but you really shouldn't. Well, here's the thing about that winning streak.
Is it about the numbers? Outside of the absolute sickos like me with structural fetishes, no. It's about the way the numbers reflect the actual investment the UFC has made in its fighters. Brendan Allen isn't #6 because he won his way to it, he's #6 because the UFC started investing in him and, in turn, asking the fans to invest themselves in him. But because the UFC handles their matchmaking with all the restraint of a child facing down Christmas presents, and because the Middleweight division is in its hot potato phase, Allen's one fight away from title contention but has yet to fight anyone the fans really care about. André Muniz was a fantastic win, but peripheral to the top ten. Bruno Silva was a warm body. Paul Craig had some popularity, but he was also one fight deep into the Middleweight division after getting wrecked at 205. Marvin Vettori was their credibility man. But Vettori can't make it. So instead, we have unfinished business. Chris Curtis is the last man to beat Brendan Allen. This is the UFC's primary justification for the replacement. (You could also say that Sean Strickland is pitching a fit about not getting his title rematch, Israel Adesanya's the next contender, Robert Whittaker just beat Paulo Costa and Jared Cannonier is on the mend, but that's less fun.) When they fought on the Rob Font vs José Aldo card back in 2021 Allen took the first round with kicks and some brief success in the clinch but Curtis punched Allen out midway through the second. It is, easily, the best win of his career. But that didn't seem like the path Chris Curtis was on. Midway through 2022, Chris Curtis seemed all to hell like the next big Middleweight contender, much moreso than Allen. He punched out Phil Hawes, he punched out Brendan Allen, he made Rodolfo Vieira look silly, he'd gone eight fights without a loss and his capacity for violence seemed incredibly, thoroughly promising. I was real, real high on his chances and I was looking forward to what he could bring to the top ten. He never quite got there. He fought Jack Hermansson as a fill-in replacement less than a month after the Vieira fight, he lost, and things never righted themselves. He beat Joaquin Buckley, but only after getting battered for a round. He fought Kelvin Gastelum in a bout that controversially included Gastelum getting away with a big ol' unintentional headbutt, but he was losing the fight regardless. He was a round and a half into getting outworked by Nassourdine Imavov when another unintentional headbutt ended the affair on a No Contest, causing Curtis no small amount of consternation. On the plus side: When we last saw Curtis in January, he won! On the minus: It was against the 5-6 (1) Marc-André Barriault, and it was an extremely close split decision. To once again be succinct: Chris Curtis has two wins in his last five fights, one of them was a contentious decision against a journeyman and the other a victory over a man who immediately dropped to Welterweight. For how definitive their first fight was, these men have taken entirely different paths since. However unlucky it is for Allen to lose his shot at the top five is precisely as inversely lucky it is for Curtis to go from fighting fringe top fifteen fighters to a shot at the top of the ranks by way of a man he already knocked out once. And it is, frankly, an interesting fight. There's an argument to be made that the fortunes both men have received are thanks as much to their skills as their respective opponents. Brendan Allen, whose greatest strength is his grappling, has been largely fighting opponents who are either submission-prone or submission-oriented, either of which is a natural fit for his gameplan; Chris Curtis, as a brawl-friendly counterpuncher, has been dealing with a procession of cleaner, more well-rounded fighters capable of outworking him. Curtis has been exceedingly tough to take down and, more importantly, keep down. It was Allen's inability to ground him in their first fight that forced him to exchange, and it's those exchanges that ultimately doomed him. Has he improved enough since to either get Curtis off his feet or keep him too uncomfortable standing to really land? Middleweight could desperately use a submission-oriented contender: Is Allen the guy? I'm not sure if I'm really judging this fight for the realities of the fight or simply rooting for chaos, but: CHRIS CURTIS BY TKO. This still reads like a bad style clash for Allen: I don't see him getting Curtis down any more than he did the first time around, and I haven't seen much improvement in his standup since, mostly because he really hasn't needed to use it. The last time Brendan Allen had to engage in a lengthy standup battle he went 50/50 with Muniz; going 50/50 with Chris Curtis gets you hurt. CO-MAIN EVENT: UFC 300 IS NEXT WEEK, IT'S FINE FEATHERWEIGHT: Alexander Hernandez (14-7) vs Damon Jackson (22-6-1 (1)) Two fights from the top of the prelims there's a ranked bout between Norma Dumont, who was on deck to fight for the Women's Featherweight Championship before they killed it, and Germaine de Randamie, a former world champion with victories over three other UFC champions, and our co-main event tonight is a battle to see which man who recently lost to Billy Quarantillo is the least bad. I like both of these men. I do! At one point in time I thought both of them had genuine contendership prospects. But Alexander Hernandez got hosed all the way up by Donald Cerrone and Damon Jackson was firmly rejected from the top fifteen by Dan Ige. Now we're closing in on mid-2024, Jackson is on the first official losing streak of his career and Hernandez is 2 for his last 5, 4 for his last 10, and hasn't managed back-to-back wins since 2018. But this is our co-main event, because that, my friend, is the power of the UFC Apex. God bless this hole. Alexander Hernandez was supposed to be a thing, man. He was this big, powerful Lightweight wrecking machine who barnstormed Beneil Dariush and outworked Olivier Aubin-Mercier in his first two UFC fights, both of which have aged astonishingly well, and no one knew at the time that he'd already hit his peak in the company. It's entirely too easy and entirely too unfair to play armchair analyst as to what went wrong--losing to Cerrone hurt his confidence in his power and pressure, swimming in deeper competitive waters made him drown, when he reached his late twenties the FOXDIE virus accelerated his aging--but, objectively, he never quite recovered. His 2022 drop to Featherweight was an attempt at rejuvenating his contendership chances, but he's 0-2 at the weight class thus far, so, uh, it's not going great. Damon "The Leech" Jackson had the inverse experience. His first UFC run all the way back in 2014 was catastrophic: He went 0-1-1 (1) and got fired in just seventeen months. He got picked up again on a short-notice replacement contract in 2020 and--aside from getting knocked out by some recently-debuted guy named Ilia Topuria, whoever the gently caress that is--he established himself as a bit of a spoiler. In just two years he went 5-1, including rather dramatic derailings of well-regarded prospects like Kamuela Kirk and Dan Argueta, and his one-minute pounding of Pat Sabatini gave Jackson the chance to finally see if he was a top fifteen Featherweight. The answer, unfortunately, was an extremely clear No. Dan Ige knocked him cold in two rounds, and seven months later Billy Quarantillo took a decision away from him, and now, after all his work, Jackson is back to square one. It's hard not to read this as a battle of who you believe in less, at this point. When he's on, focused and confidence, Alexander Hernandez is still scary as hell. His punching power is significant. But he gets hit more often than he lands, and his backup plan is clinching and grinding on the cage, and Damon Jackson's opportunism in the clinch is where he does his best work. DAMON JACKSON BY DECISION. MAIN CARD: 75% OF THESE FIGHTERS DO NOT HAVE WIKIPEDIA PAGES FEATHERWEIGHT: Morgan Charriere (19-9-1) vs Chepe Mariscal (15-6 (1)) Morgan Charriere has had a considerable change in schedule. "The Last Pirate" made his UFC debut last September as part of the public works program for French fighters surrounding their big corporate return to Paris, and he made the most out of it, showcasing his striking-centric gameplan by thoroughly thrashing the unbelievably Italian Manolo "Angelo Veneziano" Zecchini. It wasn't even remotely close--Charriere made Zecchini whiff on almost 80% of his strikes and put him down with an exceedingly painful kick to the body in just one round. It may, in fact, have been too good, because the UFC matched him up with Seung Woo Choi, who is not only an exceedingly tough prospect in his own right but a good 4" taller and much bigger. When Choi pulled out, there was likely some level of relief at the likelihood that a fill-in opponent would be a little easier. But it's not, because they gave him Chepe goddamn Mariscal. Mariscal has upset the UFC's apple cart twice, at this point. Last June he was pulled up from the regionals on real short notice to face the UFC's newly-minted brawling machine Trevor Peek, and Mariscal pulled the upset, outwrestling, outworking and even straight-up outbrawling him to take the decision. Two and a half months later he was in Australia as a +200 underdog against rising star Jack Jenkins, and after a tough first round Mariscal threw Jenkins so fast and hard that Jenkins snapped his arm trying to break his own fall. Suddenly the last-minute replacement guy is on a two-fight winning streak thanks primarily to a wonderful mixture of a well-rounded gameplan and an absurd level of grit, and if you have ever read any of these before, you know that makes him one of my instantaneous favorites. He is, however, the betting underdog again, and I get why. Chepe's hittable, his defense tends to be More offense, and that style's gotten him knocked out repeatedly on the regionals. The success Jenkins was having picking away at Chepe in the first round combined with Charriere's striking clinic against Zecchini makes it easy to see Chepe taking a fall. But I believe in the power of grit more than I believe in the power of kickboxing. CHEPE MARISCAL BY DECISION. LIGHTWEIGHT: Ignacio Bahamondes (14-5) vs Christos Giagos (20-11) It's time for round three of the Ignacio Bahamondes arc. Ignacio got a lot of hype coming off his 2020 Contender Series win, but that hype pretty quickly dissipated when he made his UFC debut five months later, missed weight, and got comprehensively outfought by John Makdessi, despite Bahamondes being 12 years younger and 7" taller. Unlike far too many of his peers, Bahamondes went back to the drawing board and learned from his mistakes. His wrestling improved, his distance control improved, and his control over his own offense improved dramatically, and that led him down a three-fight winning streak that had people all bubbling about his prospects again. Up until last summer, when Ľudovít Klein shut him out. Back to start, yet again. Christos Giagos has had a tougher run of things. Once upon a time his 6-7 record in the UFC could be chalked up to his aborted run back in 2014, but in the last three years Giagos has gone 1-3, and boy, it's been rough to watch. Half of this is because of an absurd strength of schedule. Those three losses came against Arman Tsarukyan, who is right on the precipice of title contendership, Thiago Moisés, who reminded everyone just a few weeks ago that he's a factor in the division, and Daniel Zellhuber, one of the most promising prospects the Contender Series has fielded in years. Not only did he lose to all three, but all three finished him, which is a bad, bad look. He would have been in pink slip territory already were it not for his 2023 knockout over Ricky Glenn inbetween the losses. But Bahamondes is around a -350 favorite, and it's not hard to see why. Giagos has been getting hit more, hurt more and submitted more, and Bahamondes has been proving himself more than capable of all of those things--and he's also still almost half a foot taller, meaning Giagos will have a much, much tougher time pressuring and bullying him in the clinch to get out of trouble. IGNACIO BAHAMONDES BY SUBMISSION. HEAVYWEIGHT: Łukasz Brzeski (8-4-1 (1)) vs Valter Walker (11-0) Every week I have something unkind to say about the Heavyweight division, and baby, I'll stop doing it when they stop giving me so many goddamn reasons. Łukasz "The Bull" Brzeski has been one of the UFC's bigger Contender Series busts, to the point that the win that got him his contract did not, legally, happen, thanks to his pissing hot for clomiphene. But hey: He's a Heavyweight, sign him anyway. And then he managed to lose a split decision to Martin Buday--which he probably should've won, but it's much funnier this way. And then he got outwrestled by Karl Williams in a fight where he gassed to total exhaustion about seven minutes into the fight. And then he got knocked out by Salsa Boy. It's 2024, Łukasz Brzeski is 0-3 (1) during his time with the company, and they are, officially, tired of him. Which is why he's welcoming Valter Walker to the fold. "The Clean Monster" is another of those living testaments to the big boys of the sport. He's undefeated! He's got tons of finishes! He's a regional champion! And the majority of his victories came from guys who, respectfully, aren't that great. His championship victory came against Alex "The Spartan" Nicholson, who is an accomplished Heavyweight, a two-time PFL season competitor, and best known for washing out of the UFC as a Middleweight. But Valter Walker is not only an undefeated crusher of regional Heavyweights, he is the younger brother of everyone's favorite self-injuring knockout machine, Johnny Walker. He is, in fact, ever so slightly smaller than Johnny, but Johnny called Light Heavyweight when they were kids, so what can you do. It's the Nogueira Brothers for a new generation. VALTER WALKER BY TKO.  LIGHTWEIGHT: Trevor Peek (9-1 (1)) vs Charlie Campbell (8-2)This is going to be really, really stupid, and I mean that as the highest form of flattery. One of the best parts of having been a mixed martial arts fan for so long has been charting the evolution of the sport and its level of technique. Trevor Peek is an aberration in this pattern. Trevor Peek slipped into an arctic crevasse during a Spike TV marathon of Stripperella in 2004 and was reconstituted from a block of ice made out of pure Axe Body Spray. Trevor Peek sprung fully-formed from the forehead of Eric "Butterbean" Esch as the rightful champion of the intergalactic toughman league that never was. Trevor Peek learned to throw punches by watching remorseful fishermen throw marlins back into the sea in a desperate attempt to save their families from the wrath of Poseidon. Trevor Peek exists out of step with time and space, and he is working his way back into it one wide, sweeping bolo strike at a time. Charlie Campbell is close, though. He showed up on the Contender Series in 2022 as a hopeful prospect out of the Ray Longo/Chris Weidman anti-eyeball camp, but his plan of throwing all caution to the wind and furiously windmilling his way towards victory ultimately got him knocked out by Chris Duncan. But don't worry, kid: Dana White appreciates your moxie, and he's gonna keep you on the shortlist of people to call up for short-notice last-minute replacement contracts for minimum wage. Hey, look at that! It's a year later and you're in the UFC. Campbell welcomed Alex Reyes back after six loving years away from the sport, and Reyes learned the hard way that fighting at 30 is a lot easier than fighting at 36, particularly when you've been out of pratice the whole goddamn time. Campbell polished him off three and a half minutes and it was not at any point competitive. This is a real, real good fight for Campbell. Peek's going to engage him in exactly the manner Campbell wants to be engaged, Campbell's got a healthy size advantage that should allow him to kite Peek around the cage at will, and a few good counters is all it takes for Charlie Campbell to end any man's night. This should be open and shut, and it shouldn't take long. So, of course, I'm ignoring all of that. TREVOR PEEK BY TKO. I respect and honor the old ways. PRELIMS: MATCHES YOU'D THINK WOULD HAVE HAPPENED ALREADY WELTERWEIGHT: Court McGee (21-12) vs Alex Morono (23-9) Court McGee has been an institution of the sport for so long, and watching his career seemingly come to an end just has a sense of melancholy to it. McGee's got 14+ years with the UFC, he's just one loss out from a 50/50 record, he's shared the cage with three separate world champions and he even beat one of them. His tough, scrappy, energizer-bunny strategy towards fighting has carried him through drat near two dozen fights on the biggest stage in mixed martial arts. But talent improves, chins crack, and the problem with being known for your toughness is the damage you accumulate eventually catches up with you. Between his debut in 2007 and the dawn of 2022 Court McGee was stopped only once, and it took one of the sport's biggest punchers in Santiago Ponznibbio to do it, and even then McGee wasn't out, just unable to defend himself. Court McGee has fought once every eleven months since then, and that's because in his last two outings he's gotten loving flattened in a single round. The good news is Alex Morono isn't really much of a power puncher; the bad news is he's far enough above McGee's present league that it makes this matchup downright baffling. Morono's an ultra-solid wrestleboxer who's been drat near ranked at Welterweight twice. Where McGee has struggled to scrape together wins to the tune of going 3-7 since 2016, Morono has been a divisional gatekeeper for drat near that entire time. His only losses in almost four years came from Joaquin Buckley, the newly-minted #11 in the world, and a knockout loss to the same Santiago Ponzinibbio who put McGee down--except Morono had beaten him for two and a half rounds before finally falling short. And Buckley couldn't even stop him! Morono may have fallen off the precipice into the chasm of gatekeepers, but he's still a hell of a gatekeeper. In short: ALEX MORONO BY TKO. In some respects McGee's a tough style matchup for Morono, as he's just as much of a hard-nosed pressure machine, but I just don't think he's got enough left in the tank. WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Norma Dumont (10-2, #11) vs Germaine de Randamie (10-4, NR) CarlCX posted:Of all my tired catchphrase schticks--from The Ultimate Fighter (jesus christ) to dramatically overabusing 'Unfortunately,' and ', of course,' to my perpetually incorrect fight picks--none of them are as tired as my constant complaints about the bad booking of the women's divisions, because it's actually, genuinely infuriating. I wrote that a week ago. I wrote that a week ago. I know I spoiled that I was going to complain about this already, but come the gently caress on, man. In another reality, this was a championship bout. Norma Dumont was the next title contender at Women's Featherweight, she's 6-2 and she's been successful enough that the UFC ranked her at a weight class she's never made under their banner. Germaine de Randamie was the first-ever UFC Women's Featherweight champion, she was hilariously stripped of the belt for refusing to fight Cyborg Santos at the weight class made specifically for her, and she's making a career comeback after taking three and a half years off to deal with injuries and have a baby. Norma only has two losses in her entire career; Germaine has victories over three separate Women's Bantamweight champions and, just for good measure, PFL's champion at both Lightweight and Featherweight, Larissa Pacheco. Both of these women are fantastic, top-class, best-in-the world fighters at a weight class that no longer exists. Which is even more baffling, because Holly Holm, herself a former Featherweight title contender, and Kayla Harrison, who's spent almost her whole career at 155 pounds, are fighting next week. Both of these things could have easily been used to reignite Women's Featherweight! The UFC, which is currently so precious with its championships as to promote a brand new fake BMF title fight twice a year, could have put a belt on either Kayla Harrison, their first big women's signing in a decade, Holly Holm, whom they are inexplicably obsessed with putting into title matches, Germaine de Randamie, one of the only other women they have that anyone might have heard of, or Norma Dumont, who is, at the very least, extremely credible. Instead everyone's getting shoved into Women's Bantamweight and a fight like this is down on the prelims of a card with an Alexander Hernandez co-main event. poo poo sucks, man. GERMAINE DE RANDAMIE BY DECISION, but that obviously depends highly on how three years on the shelf and having a goddamn child treated her. BANTAMWEIGHT: Victor Hugo (24-4) vs Pedro Falcão (16-3)Victor Hugo is making it into the UFC with all the grace of an angry horse trying to land a Sopwith Camel. When he tore up a man's knee on the Contender Series he seemed all to hell like one of the better prospects the show has managed to field: Well-rounded to the point that his KO/Submission/Decision ratio is a near-even distribution, undefeated since 2014, and while some of his fights are unfortunate regionals, he's proven himself against some real, legitimate competition. Which is why it was deeply unfortunate when he blew weight for his UFC debut in November and got the fight cancelled. To some extent I blame the UFC for this--his Contender Series fight was almost exactly one month beforehand, and asking a fighter to fight, win, go home, recover, cut weight and fight again in four weeks is tough--but he signed the contract and suffered the consequences. His rebooking here was supposed to see him fight Alatengheili, but he got scratched during fight week, and on Wednesday morning, on 72 hours' notice, Pedro Falcão stepped up. "Pedrinho" had racked up a wholly respectable if unspectacular record as a beater of journeymen out in Shooto Brasil when the UFC tapped him for the Contender Series in 2021, but despite pounding out James Barnes and earning his obligatory violent stoppage, Dana White was not pleased, and signed every person that night except Pedro. Pedro more or less threw up his hands and left the sport for two years, but a regional win got him back on the radar last November and the insatiable need for fill-in fighters got him here. Congratulations on making it, Pedro. This is, in theory, actually a very good fight. Both men are genuine prospects and both are good just about everywhere, and I'm tempted to pick Pedro for the big upset here, given how solid his grappling is and how much of Hugo's best work comes from aggressively hunting submissions. But a three-day turnaround is a big, big ask in a situation like this. VICTOR HUGO BY SUBMISSION. WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Cynthia Calvillo (9-6-1) vs Piera Rodriguez (9-1) I have been a Cynthia Calvillo fan for a very long time, and if I'm being really, truly honest, I'm kind of astonished she's still here. Cynthia was a real successful fighter at Women's Strawweight, but difficulties with the weight cut led her to bump up to 125 pounds, and, boy, it really did not work out for her. Even after dropping back down Cynthia's on a five-fight losing streak, which might actually be a company record for the women's divisions, and her last two losses may have been split decisions, but boy, they really shouldn't have been. After three loses I figured losing to Nina Nunes would get her cut, and after four losses I thought losing to Loopy Godinez would get her cut, and after five losses, I realize she is here specifically to lose to people the UFC likes. Piera "La Fiera" Rodriguez was a 2021 Contender Series baby and they dutifully booked her into real advantageous matchups right up until, after two wins, Gillian Robertson pretty easily outgrappled her and scored an armbar and a verbal submission. Rodriguez still says she didn't tap, but for one, her defense seemed a bit dubious, and for two, she was getting completely mauled on the ground anyhow. Calvillo's still not an easy out! She's still tough, and while those last couple of fights shouldn't have been splits, she did stay competitive for three full rounds in both. I'm still going with PIERA RODRIGUEZ BY DECISION, but counting Calvillo out entirely is a mistake, even at five straight losses. BANTAMWEIGHT: Jean Matsumoto (14-0) vs Dan Argueta (9-1 (2))Sometimes it's not even remotely subtle, and honestly, I've come to appreciate it. Jean Matsumoto is one of the most promising prospects to come through the Contender Series in awhile. I know this is ordinarily where I say withering things about bad competition and stand-and-bang fighting styles and every other thing I have become aggressively tired of complaining about, and I have the week off, because by god, this is the rare instance of the Contender Series actually succeeding at its goal. Matsumoto is one of the best Bantamweights out of Brazil and a genuinely fantastic prospect. He's got an extremely well-rounded gameplan that alternates between chopping leg kicks and quick, powerful takedowns, he manages to move both his head and his guard, and he's not just undefeated, but undefeated against some actual competition. It's a miracle! The sacrificial fight is not. Dan Argueta ain't no fortunate one. Despite being an LFA champion Argueta was not a talent-scouted fighter, he was a late-replacement fighter. The UFC booked him on short notice to keep Damon Jackson on a card, Argueta dutifully lost, Argueta got his revenge against his own short-notice replacement five months later, and since then it has been nothing but legal chaos. Last June saw Argueta fight Ronnie Lawrence and submit him with a guillotine in just two and a half minutes--except Lawrence was actually completely conscious and the referee hosed up, so it was a No Contest. Three months later Argueta got pretty handily outfight by Miles Johns, but Johns failed a a drug test, so that, too, became a No Contest. Dan Argueta is four fights deep into his UFC tenure and half of them didn't technically happen. It's a complication the company does not want to deal with. Dan Argueta is a wholly capable fighter and he is here to put over the new guy, and, in all likelihood, he will. JEAN MATSUMOTO BY DECISION. MIDDLEWEIGHT: Dylan Budka (7-2) vs César Almeida (4-0) I sure am glad I said all those nice things about the Contender Series, because man, gently caress the Contender Series. Dylan Budka--"The Mindless Hulk," which, admittedly, is at least a level of directness I appreciate--is a regional guy who vacillates between winging rear-lead uppercuts and clinching for dear life. He has lots of word tattoos, he was fighting a 2-5 guy just two weeks before his Contender Series appearance, and when I did tape research on him the first strike I saw him land was a punch to the dick. César Almeida has four fights. To be clear: He's an accomplished kickboxer in his native Brazil. He won a bunch of kickboxing fights. But in MMA he's 4-0, two of his opponents were 0-0, and his last fight prior to the Contender Series was against professional jobber Danilo "Guerreiro" Silva, who is 6-33-1, with just a whole bunch of suspicious first-round losses on his record, often within days of each other. But by god, we need our strikers. Can't get enough of those strikers. I am resorting to the hope of the mindless. Save me, Budka. Save us all. DYLAN BUDKA BY SUBMISSION. WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Melissa Mullins (6-0, #15) vs Nora Cornolle (7-1, NR) Are we at the point where talking about the tire fire that is Women's 135 is passe? Melissa Mullins (née Dixon) is a talented British grappler who's 1-0 in the UFC, and that one victory was over Irina "Russian Ronda" Alekseeva, who was herself 1-0 in the UFC after beating the extremely unranked Stephanie Egger in a fight where Irina missed weight by five pounds. For beating a 1-0 woman who didn't even make the Bantamweight division, Melissa Mullins is now the #15 Women's Bantamweight in the world. Nora Cornolle is a French striker who made her own debut in Paris last September, and she, by contrast, beat the 4-2 Joselyne Edwards. Edwards had also missed weight in her last two attempts at making 135, but she was, to her credit, on a three-fight winning streak, and Cornolle won what could, arguably, be called a hometown decision, but for one the media scorecards were pretty evenly split between either competitor, and for two, Edwards had just been the beneficiary of one of the biggest robberies of the year in her last fight, so no one was sympathetic. And this is our ranked fight. This is the hole they're trying to dig Women's Bantamweight out of. It's going to take years to repair the damage left by their complete mismanagement of the roster and their inability to promote a single goddamn person, let alone fill in the structure beneath them. MELISSA MULLINS BY SUBMISSION.
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Apr 3, 2024 22:27
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ilmucche posted:The best part of this to me is schedules being fluid because of knockouts and stuff means they have to hang around outside/in the lobby for indeterminate amounts of time before someone shows up and goes "it's time" like it's an execution or something Dana comes out, "it's time", leads you to your seats, your son eats a flying knee to the chin on start, they hustle you out before Bruce reads the results.
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Apr 3, 2024 22:31
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Gumball Gumption posted:Dana comes out, "it's time", leads you to your seats, your son eats a flying knee to the chin on start, they hustle you out before Bruce reads the results. I prefer to think they're going to hand out little buzzer light up things like you get at Panera. They can each have a little speaker that has Bruce yelling "IT'S TIME" when it's your turn to sit there.
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Apr 3, 2024 23:50
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sorry, carl B-League Round-Up PFL 2024 1: Thursday, April 4. 6PM ET, ESPN+ PFL is back for 2024. Things kick off with Heavyweights and Women’s Flyweight. The card has already had some shakeups a week out, so let’s figure out who’s allegedly fighting before any more changes gunk things up. The main event sees 2022 PFL winner Ante Delija take on former Bellator interim champ Valentin Moldavsky. Delija is fairly well-rounded with good power and decent grappling. Moldavsky has had issues on the ground, losing to Ryan Bader’s wrestling attack by decision, and having gotten elbowed into paste by Linton Vassell’s ground and pound. The co-main features Denis Goltsov taking on Linton Vassell. Goltsov lost in the PFL championship finals last year to Renan Ferreira. Vassell has lost in two attempts at the Bellator Light Heavyweight title. Which perpetual runner-up will get the win and move one step closer to finally achieving championship gold? My guess is Goltsov, since Vassell is a 40-year old English wrestler, and that’s just a severely unfortunate combination of words. Also on the main card, Bellator 125lb champ Liz Carmouche meets former champ Juliana Velasquez for the third time, but this bout is three rounds and it is inside the PFL SmartCage! Since moving from UFC to Bellator, Carmouche has won 7 in a row, with 3 wins by TKO and 3 by submission. Velasquez hasn’t fought since the end of 2022, when she lost the rematch to Carmouche. WIll Liz continue her winning ways? Will Juliana have accumulated an insurmountable amount of cage corrosion? The main card opener sees Dakota Ditcheva face off against Lisa Mauldin. Ditcheva is undefeated at 10-0, including going 5-0 in PFL over the last two years. Granted, she was competing in the Euro series in 2023, and those 3 opponents are currently a combined 13-13. Mauldin is 6-3, with 2 wins last year in non-season PFL bouts. Down on the prelims, we’ve got Marcelo Golm versus Daniel James having a rematch from last year in Bellator that saw James knock out Golm in the third round. But this time, points are in play! Also on the prelims, Blagoy Ivanov is replacing Bruno Cappelozza in a clash with Sergey Bilostenniy. Blagoy hasn’t won since 2022, hasn’t won two in a row since 2019, and hasn’t won by stoppage since 2017, back when PFL was still called World Series of Fighting. Bilostenniy does cool stuff like win by spinning back kick, or get disqualified for hitting his opponent in the brain stem. So expect Ivanov to clinch Sergey against the cage for fifteen excruciating minutes. Former UFC title challenger Talia Santos meets Ilara Joanne, my dude Tall Steve Mowry faces Oleg Popov, while Kana Watanabe takes on Shana Young, and Chelsea Hackett is matched up with Jena Bishop. Santos has lost her last two, a split decision to Valentina Shevchenko and a unanimous decision to Erin Blancfield. Apparently coming up just short against top contenders in the division isn’t good enough to keep your job in this modern, cutthroat UFC. Mowry is tall and I am apparently dumb enough to let that sway me. I am unabashedly a Steve Mowry fan, even though he had a lackluster fight last time out and did precisely zero things en route to a decision loss. Kana Watanabe is cool, I hope she does well. On the prelims without season points at stake, Lucas Brennan faces Dimitre Ivy in a Featherweight bout, while we kick things off at Bantamweight when Bryce Meredith puts his 5-0 record on the line against Ty Johnson.
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Apr 4, 2024 01:26
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LobsterMobster posted:Mowry is tall and I am apparently dumb enough to let that sway me. I am unabashedly a Steve Mowry fan, even though he had a lackluster fight last time out and did precisely zero things en route to a decision loss. Back when we both lived in Pennsylvania (gotta be almost 13 years ago) I was one of Steve's regular training partners as I was one of the few people close to his size. He's a good guy, it's wild to see where he's at now
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Apr 4, 2024 01:42
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I'm usually a fight night defender, but I know like 5 of these fighters and 2 of them are Norma Dumont and GDR
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Apr 4, 2024 02:54
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COPE 27 posted:I'm usually a fight night defender, but I know like 5 of these fighters and 2 of them are Norma Dumont and GDR Yeah I was about to post something along these lines but got distracted by GDR fighting at all, didn't think we'd ever see her again.
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Apr 4, 2024 02:59
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Genuinely can't believe she's fighting
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Apr 4, 2024 03:32
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I know it's his name and it might be a little rude but the idea that a guy named "Victor Hugo" is fighting made me chuckle a little bit
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Apr 4, 2024 07:32
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ilmucche posted:I know it's his name and it might be a little rude but the idea that a guy named "Victor Hugo" is fighting made me chuckle a little bit ? !
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Apr 4, 2024 08:11
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Lobmob you ain't never gotta apologize for art. I am actually kind of excited for the PFLator season and I cannot wait for Liz Carmouche to destroy everyone and reign supreme.
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Apr 4, 2024 09:18
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kimbo305 posted:? A poet known for writing romances is his name sake. P sure he wrote hunchback of notre dame and les mis.
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Apr 4, 2024 09:58
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ilmucche posted:I know it's his name and it might be a little rude but the idea that a guy named "Victor Hugo" is fighting made me chuckle a little bit This reminds me of the moment that truly felt like I was living in some Demolition Man cyber future 
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Apr 4, 2024 14:01
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