The MMA thread (mk1)

[TheFeniX]

Machida is a serious threat in the LHW division, and I was hoping Tito would pour some real pressure on him because, whereas Lyoto is dangerous anywhere, he's really only got knock-out power at range when you stand in front of him. I would have liked to see how Machida handled Tito's dirty boxing, but he would have nothing of it. His switch kicks were badass, but Tito really didn't do much about them.

I want someone in his face, pressuring him non-stop, and see if he comes out on top.

Personally, I never really gave Jardine a chance against Wandy. He just never seemed the kind of fighter to let losses affect his game that much and he was doing extremely well against Liddell. Something just finally gave Liddell a wake-up call and he actually showed up for the fight (unlike with Jardine where he seemed to be waiting for a one-punch KO). Could have been the fact that he didn't want to die in the Octagon.

3 losses in a row might be bad for your career, but at least it was against top-flight competition. As good as Jardine is (and hopefully he'll continue to improve), he's just not on that level yet. His game plan with Liddell paid off because a lot of Chuck's persona is based off fear. He goads fighters into playing his game and it pays off. Jardine didn't buy in and was able to scrape a decision together.

Wanderlei really isn't that kind of fighter. You've got to beat the man down. Unfortunately for Jardine, it didn't turn out that way.

[Zadius]

In addition to the stacked main card, I was very interested in the debuts of Dong Hyun Kim and Yoshiyuki Yoshida. Both are great additions to the WW division. Yoshida made quick work of Koppenhaver, slamming him to the canvas with a beautiful harai goshi and then choking him unconscious with an anaconda choke. Kim was no less dominant in his win over Jason Tan. He ground and pounded the shit out of him for two full rounds, and finished him with elbows in the third.

Keep an eye on these two guys, I think they have a lot of potential.

[TheFeniX]

Pretty busy weekend for MMA.

We have a pretty damn good WEC card where Faber and Pulver throw down. This fight delivered as did most of the other fights. Miguel Torres showed he's going to have the belt for a while.

Before that though, we had the broadcast premier of MMA on CBS. What followed was possibly the worst fight card in the vein of bullshit stoppages and lack of talent I think I've ever seen. The only fight worth watching (Lawler vs Smith) was a pretty damn good kick-boxing match. That was, up until Smith caught a finger in the eye and... lost the fight. Kudos to the doctor for examining the wrong eye for a good 10 seconds.

The first two fights were just big dudes throwing hands until someone went down.

Carano didn't make weight: way to convince fans female MMA fighters are legit. Why am I not supposed to think she's a joke? Because she's hot?

A sad fucking day for MMA. I won't even comment on the bullshit that ensued during the Kimbo vs Thompson fight. What a travesty.

The plus side? Phil Baroni got his ass kicked. It was almost worth watching just for that....almost.

[Big Phil]

Carano didn't make weight: way to convince fans female MMA fighters are legit. Why am I not supposed to think she's a joke? Because she's hot?

Perhaps because she half-assed her training, was completely unprepared for the fight, and still beat the shit out of Kaitlin Young, and Kaitlin isn't a pushover?

Whatever you think of her motivation and dedication, if you're going to argue that she's a joke you're going to have to point to something other than her last few fights. As far as not making weight, she shouldn't be fighting at 140. She should be fighting at 145 or 150, but isn't for some reason. Maybe the promoters don't want her to, maybe she doesn't want to.

Oh, and the Kimbo fight was a joke; that should have been a no contest decision if anything, not a win for Kimbo.

[Zadius]

I guess I'm the only one that enjoyed the Kimbo fight. Not because these two guys are good, but because it was hilarious watching that train wreck. Anytime Kimbo can be made to look pathetic in front of 4 million people can't be a complete waste of time, even though it didn't end with him getting the "L". His face after round two would make a great avatar. Yeah, I'm a hater. I'm just offended that Lawler/Smith wasn't made to be the main event.

BTW, Smith didn't lose. The fight was ruled a no contest. I hope they do the rematch on the next CBS.

[aerius]

Carano didn't make weight: way to convince fans female MMA fighters are legit. Why am I not supposed to think she's a joke? Because she's hot?

She's missed making weight in half her fights, she has the skills but I have to question her professionalism. Travis Lutter was chewed out bigtime for not making weight against Anderson Silva, but Carano gets slack for missing weight something like 3 or 4 times?

I guess I'm the only one that enjoyed the Kimbo fight. Not because these two guys are good, but because it was hilarious watching that train wreck.

Yeah, I guess it's kinda like watching a Chris Leben fight, not much technique, and you're basically watching it in the hopes of seeing Leben get his ass kicked. My god, I don't think I've seen 2 fighters with such shitty cardio, after the first couple minutes they were both sucking wind and practically moving in slow motion. It also had the most pathetic ground & pound I've ever seen, I mean christ, the guy had Kimbo nailed down in the crucifix position for nearly 2 minutes and all he could do was tap him in the forehead with pathetically weak elbows. The dude could barely lift his arm up to elbow him in the head.

[weemadando]

Carano didn't make weight: way to convince fans female MMA fighters are legit. Why am I not supposed to think she's a joke? Because she's hot?

She's missed making weight in half her fights, she has the skills but I have to question her professionalism. Travis Lutter was chewed out bigtime for not making weight against Anderson Silva, but Carano gets slack for missing weight something like 3 or 4 times?

Especially when Lutter missed it by 1.5 pounds and Carano missed by 4 pounds, in a weight division which had previously been created as a showcase cor her.

I guess I'm the only one that enjoyed the Kimbo fight. :lol: Not because these two guys are good, but because it was hilarious watching that train wreck.

Yeah, I guess it's kinda like watching a Chris Leben fight, not much technique, and you're basically watching it in the hopes of seeing Leben get his ass kicked. My god, I don't think I've seen 2 fighters with such shitty cardio, after the first couple minutes they were both sucking wind and practically moving in slow motion. It also had the most pathetic ground & pound I've ever seen, I mean christ, the guy had Kimbo nailed down in the crucifix position for nearly 2 minutes and all he could do was tap him in the forehead with pathetically weak elbows. The dude could barely lift his arm up to elbow him in the head. :lol:

That said, at least he's learnt enough to secure the crucifix position. The man is still too "monstrous" at the moment. Cut down on the excessive WWE muscle-age and get some more cardio, and maybe he'll do something. If only he'd been dragged into MMA years ago and trained properly...

[Tinkerbell]

I guess I'm the only one that enjoyed the Kimbo fight. Not because these two guys are good, but because it was hilarious watching that train wreck. Anytime Kimbo can be made to look pathetic in front of 4 million people can't be a complete waste of time, even though it didn't end with him getting the "L". His face after round two would make a great avatar. Yeah, I'm a hater. I'm just offended that Lawler/Smith wasn't made to be the main event.

BTW, Smith didn't lose. The fight was ruled a no contest. I hope they do the rematch on the next CBS.

Kimbo looks like he could take your face off with one good punch (cause he probably could), but the other styles of fighting are designed to immobilize your opponent, no matter how big they are. He needs to learn how to fight on the ground, rather than putting his weight behind his fist and relying on that to knock people out.

[Chardok]

Okay, so who saw Urijah Faber vs. Jens Pulver? That was frickin' epic.

[Zadius]

Okay, so who saw Urijah Faber vs. Jens Pulver? That was frickin' epic.

Loved it. The fight right before it, Torres vs. Maeda, was awesome too. I love watching the little guys fight, they're so fast and technical.

[Chardok]

Okay, so who saw Urijah Faber vs. Jens Pulver? That was frickin' epic.

Loved it. The fight right before it, Torres vs. Maeda, was awesome too. I love watching the little guys fight, they're so fast and technical.

I do, too. But, man, the pulver/faber fight was awesome. The whole fight, pulver knew he was outmatched. I loved how he kept smiling at Faber and I swear I saw him say "You got me" at one point. And the fifth round hug was just. It was awesome. At the end when pulver raised Faber's hand, that was just...just a good all-round fight.

(After that they replayed the Krokop-Gonzaga fight which was an excellent cap to my night. I will NEVER get tired of watching that. Falcon KICK! BLAMMO!)

[weemadando]

Faber v Pulver was awesome, as was Torres v Manaeda.

But Faber's style is so odd, his stance is so low and the way he throws that right - you can see it coming a mile off as he cocks it and tests range with the left, but somehow it still works.

[Zadius]

But Faber's style is so odd, his stance is so low and the way he throws that right - you can see it coming a mile off as he cocks it and tests range with the left, but somehow it still works.

It's partly because Pulver was expecting Faber to shoot on him. Faber was able to either shoot or punch very fluidly from that stance and he did both often enough that Pulver never knew what he was going to do next. Plus, Pulver was just too slow in comparison to Faber.

[weemadando]

Now, the TUF finale is this weekend.

CB looked like shit in his fight against Amir. What fight were the judges watching to have given him the first two rounds 10-9? Thank christ that Amir arm-barred the hell out of that cocky prick.

Jesse getting kicked? Shock horror. I was hoping that they'd bring back Tim Credeur and we'd have Amir v Tim for the finale. But sadly, CB got another shot and we get a rematch in the finale.

Coming out of this season I've got the following comments.
-Damn, I want to see more of Matt Brown, Matt Riddle, Tim Credeur and Luke Zacrich.
-Matt Riddle is going to make a goddamn fortune. He's 21, has good looks, great talent and a good attitude. If the UFC don't turn him into the poster boy of MMA then they're doing something wrong.
-Forrest and Rampage are both awesome at having rage-outs.

Now, onto what most will term ACTUAL MMA guff.

The Affliction card. Seriously. No. They're fucked. I hope those boys have deep pockets, because from what I've read and heard, simply to cover their announced fighter fees is going to require a PPV buy roughly an order of magnitude higher than any other non-UFC MMA PPV.

The Zuffa group and The-Promotion-Formally-Known-As-Pride are the big boys in the game. Until one of them fucks up horrifically (or in Dream's case fucks up again and gets bought by Zuffa again), then everyone else is pretty much sitting in "also-ran" status.

They need to learn to deal with that. Elite XC is going well with the network TV deal, but they're still in a massive economic hole.

The promoter's need to realise that the hardcore fans are either a) buying EVERY PPV out there or b) buying none and downloading them all, and as such, you don't really need to market to them, as they read Sherdog and all the other news sites and know what's on. They need to get the message out to the general public and draw in viewers. Something that the UFC and to a lesser extent Elite XC have done well.

I'll post some cards for discussion later, but right now I just needed to get that rant off my chest.

[Zadius]

Affliction will be lucky if they get 50k PPV buys. Or, that was before the UFC announced that they'll be having Anderson Silva fight in his 205 lb debut on Spike TV on the same night as Affliction. Now, I'm guessing they'll only get around 20k buys. They also have Megadeth performing during the event, so there's some more money they threw right down the drain.

If they get Trump or Sylvia and some of the other fighters on the late night talk shows in the next few weeks, maybe they can manage 30k.

That said, I love Megadeth and this is the most stacked heavyweight MMA card ever, so I'm going to love it. I just hope they last long enough for Fedor vs. Randy, Barnett vs. Arlovski, and Fedor vs. Barnett. Oh yeah.

[weemadando]

Yeah, Affliction has some potential to run some insanely good Heavyweight matches, but as it's been pointed out repeatedly across the net, Zuffa owns the vast majority of top prospects in all divisions except heavyweight.

And to finally have some real heavyweight competition will be awesome.

I mean the IFL's recent showing of Brad Imes v some gut-lord?

And lets not talk about Yamma.

[Zadius]

I mean the IFL's recent showing of Brad Imes v some gut-lord?

Haha. That gut-lord (Roy Nelson) is actually pretty good. I was at the live event when he fought Ben Rothwell, and truthfully he could have been given the decision.

[weemadando]

Yeah, Roy Nelson has talent, but I just can't take an MMA fighter with a guy seriously. I mean there's guys who don't have the six-pack/washboard abs, but are still clearly in shape, and then there's guys like Roy.

I have no doubt about his abilities, but his image is a problem for me.

[aerius]

Yeah, Affliction has some potential to run some insanely good Heavyweight matches, but as it's been pointed out repeatedly across the net, Zuffa owns the vast majority of top prospects in all divisions except heavyweight.

Yeah, but the problem is they front loaded all their good matches onto one card so after it's done it's pretty much all downhill for a while. I don't think they'll be able to put together a card as good as the first one for quite some time.

[weemadando]

Yeah, Affliction has some potential to run some insanely good Heavyweight matches, but as it's been pointed out repeatedly across the net, Zuffa owns the vast majority of top prospects in all divisions except heavyweight.

Yeah, but the problem is they front loaded all their good matches onto one card so after it's done it's pretty much all downhill for a while. I don't think they'll be able to put together a card as good as the first one for quite some time.

Well, seeing as this one card is do or die for them, I don't see that they really had any other option.

Sure, it's not the best plan, but it's about the only one they had.

[weemadando]

So it's UFC 86 this weekend.

Here's the card and my take on it.

Quinton Jackson vs. Forrest Griffin
-Too close to call for me. No one has a decided advantage and we know that both guys have the gas/heart to go the distance. My pick is Forrest picks up a late submission.

Ricardo Almeida vs. Patrick Cote
-If Cote doesn't knock him down in the opening minutes, then Almeida can take him down and destroy him. That said, I think that Cote has the slightly better odds.

Joe Stevenson vs. Gleison Tibau
-I've heard an interview with Stevenson and he seems focused, determined and has really bounced back from the BJ Penn loss.

Josh Koscheck vs. Chris Lytle
-I like Koscheck for this, he's been on a real tear and has been in frankly amazing form and just keeps getting better. Lytle will make for a great fight, but I don't see him winning.

Marcus Aurelio vs. Tyson Griffin
-Aurelio chokes him out. Not sure when, but that's my call.

Gabriel Gonzaga vs. Justin McCully
-McCully, because Gonzaga is yet to really pull out of his nose-dive and McCully has that special kind of hunger right now.

Jorge Gurgel vs. Cole Miller
-If Gurgel actually tries to take it to the ground, he wins. If he continues with his past stupidity of standing and trading, it's lose, lose, lose.

Melvin Guillard vs. Dennis Siver
-Silver on principle.

Justin Bucholz vs. Corey Hill
-Hill, because Bucholz is coming off a loss to Matt Wiman and is still really untested.

[Zadius]

I'm picking quite a few fights differently than you it looks like. Just goes to show how competitive a lot of these fights are. Alright, here's my picks:

Quinton Jackson vs. Forrest Griffin
-I predict this will be fight of the night. Should be high paced action, but ultimately I'm going to come down on the side of Jackson. 3rd round KO.

Ricardo Almeida vs. Patrick Cote
-Classic striker vs. grappler match-up. In this one, I point to Lutter vs. Cote and predict a similar outcome. Almeida by 1st round submission.

Joe Stevenson vs. Gleison Tibau
-This is the fight that I'm least confident with my pick, despite the fact that Tibau is a huge underdog. I'm going to pick Stevenson by unanimous decision, but Tibau is a very big lightweight and I wouldn't be that surprised if he managed the upset. I think he's better than people know.

Josh Koscheck vs. Chris Lytle
-Koscheck by unanimous decision. He'll take the fight to the ground, but won't be able to finish Lytle there.

Marcus Aurelio vs. Tyson Griffin
-Griffin by decision, if Guida vs. Aurelio is any indication. Tyson will keep it standing with his superior wrestling because Aurelio isn't that great on his feet.

Gabriel Gonzaga vs. Justin McCully
-McCully didn't impress me against Hardonk, so I think Gonzaga will submit him quickly in the first.

Jorge Gurgel vs. Cole Miller
-Miller by decision.

Melvin Guillard vs. Dennis Siver
-This one could steal the show. Siver looked good against Kotani, but I think Guillard is more well-rounded, quicker, and more athletic. So I'll say Guillard by KO round 1.

Justin Bucholz vs. Corey Hill
-Hill knocks him out, I'm going to say in the 2nd round.

[aerius]

Quinton Jackson vs. Forrest Griffin
-Too close to call for me. No one has a decided advantage and we know that both guys have the gas/heart to go the distance. My pick is Forrest picks up a late submission.

I don't think so, Rampage isn't exactly easy to submit as quite a few fighters in Pride found out, and I'd say he's got a huge power advantage over Forrest along with a more solid chin. Rampage doesn't get stunned or knocked out unless he's eating knees and stomps from Wandy or Shogun, and Griffin just doesn't have that kind of power. On the other hand, Rampage has lots of knockout power, a couple good punches and Forrest is out cold. I'd say Rampage holds advantages in pretty much everything except size & reach.

Ricardo Almeida vs. Patrick Cote
-If Cote doesn't knock him down in the opening minutes, then Almeida can take him down and destroy him. That said, I think that Cote has the slightly better odds.

Agreed. Cote sucks ass on the ground, get him down and he's in deep trouble.

Josh Koscheck vs. Chris Lytle
-I like Koscheck for this, he's been on a real tear and has been in frankly amazing form and just keeps getting better. Lytle will make for a great fight, but I don't see him winning.

I see this fight sucking, pretty much a replay of the Lytle Hughes fight from around a year ago.

[weemadando]

Quinton Jackson vs. Forrest Griffin
-Too close to call for me. No one has a decided advantage and we know that both guys have the gas/heart to go the distance. My pick is Forrest picks up a late submission.

I don't think so, Rampage isn't exactly easy to submit as quite a few fighters in Pride found out, and I'd say he's got a huge power advantage over Forrest along with a more solid chin. Rampage doesn't get stunned or knocked out unless he's eating knees and stomps from Wandy or Shogun, and Griffin just doesn't have that kind of power. On the other hand, Rampage has lots of knockout power, a couple good punches and Forrest is out cold. I'd say Rampage holds advantages in pretty much everything except size & reach.

Ricardo Almeida vs. Patrick Cote
-If Cote doesn't knock him down in the opening minutes, then Almeida can take him down and destroy him. That said, I think that Cote has the slightly better odds.

Agreed. Cote sucks ass on the ground, get him down and he's in deep trouble.

Josh Koscheck vs. Chris Lytle
-I like Koscheck for this, he's been on a real tear and has been in frankly amazing form and just keeps getting better. Lytle will make for a great fight, but I don't see him winning.

I see this fight sucking, pretty much a replay of the Lytle Hughes fight from around a year ago.

I can really see it sucking if they're both idle, but Koscheck has learnt his lessons and that lay-and-pray doesn't get the crowd going, nor does it really endear him to the promotion.

[weemadando]

OK, watching it currently.

Griffin v Aurelio - Aurelio just didn't have it all going. When he was on the ground it was non-stop submission attempts - but standing it was terrible.


[Announcement - Bisping v Leben? AWESOME. DESTROY HIM MICHAEL.]

The greatest Joe Rogan comment EVER:
"[a cut] the size of a goat's vagina."

That fight was bloody. Nasty bloody. For fuck's sake. It's not like he was even intelligently defending himself for the last 2 minutes. Just holding on. Then Yves Lavigne stands it up... This is crazy. Good on Yves Lavigne for breaking it up for inactivity a second time... Damnit - I thought Lytle was going to get hte KO with that final flurry, Koscheck looked like he was rocked. And a decision victory. Not shocking at all.


Stevenson by guillotine. Not shocking, but impressive enough. Though Tibau holding the omoplata set-up for 2.5 minutes was fairly impressive.

And Cote/Almeida goes to split decision win for Cote? Who the fuck saw that coming?

Holy shit. Griffin v Jackson was WAY better than I had hoped. And Forrest as champ? KER-RAAAZY.

Who's the no.1 contender right now?