The MMA/UFC Thread

[karan_fromthestands]

Khamzat v Colby makes sense, but Colby will duck that and his focus is on taking all of Masvidal's money in court.

I think they will(or already have) settled things behind the doors. Jorge is Dana's cash cow, he has very few stars left especially with Nate gone and Francis leaving soon. Pretty sure UFC might just go out of their way to ensure that Jorge is out of this.

And I don't think Colby would duck Khamzat. The thing is, as good as Khamzat is, he does mindless **** at times and that won't work against fighters like Usman, Colby, etc. who are elite wrestlers with good striking. The way he just ran at Holland and started to wrestler will not work with Colby/Usman or even someone like Nate.

I actually felt bad for Holland, hope he might have negotiated things the right way and asked for a rematch clause or something. He was training for a striker and had to face Khamzat.

I actually want to see Costa vs Khamzat, but I am pretty sure that'll not happen and they'll try to give him favourable opponents to build him up more and make more money off him.

 

[karan_fromthestands]

he ended up getting a much easier match which he won and probably got to hold up Dana for more money!

He and Ferguson are totally washed though, that was a painful main event, both lads would have been murdered by their initial respective opponents.

plenty of fun finishes but it felt like a glorified Fight night, LOL at the Americans who paid big bucks for it!

Hehe, Nate's stock rises no matter what coz of his anytime/anyone attitude. But I still wanted to see him against Khamzat.

People really underestimate his wrestling and experience. The Conor that Nate had beat was a different beast altogether, Conor was unstoppable at the time. His last fight was also not bad, he almost beat the best WW currently, wish he had tried to finish him instead of showboating.

 

[Niall]

Yeah peak Conor was great fun, the trash talk was vulgar and childish but some of it was funny and he was genuinely compelling.

Nate will probably fight Jake if he beats Silva in boxing and make plenty, he'd get destroyed but wins and losses don't really affect him to much as he will always have a solid following.

Khamzat's push will be slightly slowed down, I doubt Dana was hugely impressed, it will be a few squash matches which is fine as the punters love that and it's easy money all round.

Holland will be fine, I assume he got some extra money and like Nate he doesn't need to win every fight to stay over, he can talk, pop a crowd so will always be an attraction and looked after.

Praying the next card does not have any cancellations , so hyped about the main event event!

 

[karan_fromthestands]

Yeah peak Conor was great fun, the trash talk was vulgar and childish but some of it was funny and he was genuinely compelling.

Nate will probably fight Jake if he beats Silva in boxing and make plenty, he'd get destroyed but wins and losses don't really affect him to much as he will always have a solid following.

Khamzat's push will be slightly slowed down, I doubt Dana was hugely impressed, it will be a few squash matches which is fine as the punters love that and it's easy money all round.

Holland will be fine, I assume he got some extra money and like Nate he doesn't need to win every fight to stay over, he can talk, pop a crowd so will always be an attraction and looked after.

Praying the next card does not have any cancellations , so hyped about the main event event!

All of Ali Abdelaziz's fighters getting more attention and faster route to the championship is BS in my opinion.

Islam has no personality, the same issue was with Colby before he turned heel and they were ready to cut him despite winning fights. This stupidity needs to stop. Either go by pure skill or skill+personality, but keep the rules consistent for all.

 

[Niall]

One more sleep lads for the banger that is UFC 280

Want Charles to win but fear Islam will contain him for the 1st 2 rounds and after that Goodnight Vienna sadly.

Yan and maybe TJ?

 

[Niall]

Charles?

Totally outclassed sadly, Islam holds that belt for as long as he wants although from all accounts he plans to be pretty active.

Dariush hopefully gets a shot next year, dominated a killer that is Gamrot.

Yan got robbed , elsewhere the highlight was Belal getting it done yet again. Poor effort from the bookies to make Brady whose best win was Chiesa fav against him.

 

[RiderJake]

Charles?

Totally outclassed sadly, Islam holds that belt for as long as he wants although from all accounts he plans to be pretty active.

Dariush hopefully gets a shot next year, dominated a killer that is Gamrot.

Yan got robbed , elsewhere the highlight was Belal getting it done yet again. Poor effort from the bookies to make Brady whose best win was Chiesa fav against him.

Islam will still hold that belt because he can do it

 

[social]

Watching McGregor:Notorious

Pretty interesting with regards to mindset of a champion

Might have been a top MMA fighter but unlikely to be top 50 in boxing in his weight class

Difference between his striking & a guy like Hearns (follow him on Instagram) is massive

Floyd cherry-pick

 

[cnerd123]

Reyes and Frankie

Prorier vs Chandler has absolutely delivered. Amazing fight.

 

[cnerd123]

Izzy

 

[Adorable Asshole]

Pereira is a monster.

 

[Niall]

Those weight cuts he does are crazy though, not sure how much longer he can stay fighting in this division. Izzy fought a pretty good fight, but Pereira simply to big and powerful. A rematch obviously but don't give Izzy much chance.

Rest of the card was very good, sad to Edgar go out like that and yeah Reyes is also done sadly.

Chandler v Dustin was the obvious highlight.

A little odd that Molly was built up really well in the UK and then fed to a killer but ah well.

 

[Niall]

rumble ?

 

[cnerd123]

**** man he was only 38 wtf

 

[kilansri]

Watching McGregor:Notorious

Pretty interesting with regards to mindset of a champion

Might have been a top MMA fighter but unlikely to be top 50 in boxing in his weight class

Difference between his striking & a guy like Hearns (follow him on Instagram) is massive

Floyd cherry-pick

Khabib has the ability to humble him at any given moment.

 

[duffer]

rumble ?

What in the actual feck man?

Nooooooo

 

[Arachnodouche]

Stephan Bonnar passed a few weeks ago. I watched that fight live all those years ago and TUF I in its entirety too; was hands down the best season of reality TV ever, if such a thing exists. Great coaches, great characters, but Griffin and Bonnar always stood out. Dry wit, easygoing demeanor, and seemed like a genuinely good guy in a sport full of showboating assholes. 45 is way too young to go.

 

[Niall]

Fk it the man is dire, but quite excited about the return of Jones.

I think Gane has all the advantages, he is active while Jon is moving up and not done much bar act a **** for years but heh what a fight.

Francis made a good call, he will be useless in boxing but should make great money in PFL killing scrubs.

 

[Teja.]

All of Ali Abdelaziz's fighters getting more attention and faster route to the championship is BS in my opinion.

Islam has no personality, the same issue was with Colby before he turned heel and they were ready to cut him despite winning fights. This stupidity needs to stop. Either go by pure skill or skill+personality, but keep the rules consistent for all.

The truth is that MMA is, at its core, prizefighting which is fundamentally different from organised sport. Prizefighting at the highest level has always primarily been about two people agreeing to fight for pre-agreed financial terms in an event run by a shady exploitative promotor taking a cut and not a serious league run by a commissioner. This becomes more and more true as fighters go up the ranks. Due to this, who 'deserves' the championship shot in prizefighting is mostly decided by the champion based on the contender who can make the most money for him.

The promoter, who is no angel obv, pretends to be a fake tough asshole but is actually the frontman for all the lucrative fighters when he publicly calls a fighter boring or berates him for being too passive. It's a dogwhistle that "I've tried and the top guys don't want to fight you, change up your **** to get some buzz going". Obviously you can replace non-defending champions but that is a brutally expensive affair in terms of the sunk cost in promoting the champ all this time and the massive hit to the prestige of your belt to have a non-defending champion for ages who leaves for somewhere else and then have a new champion who didn't beat the last one yet claims to be the best.

It doesn't matter that Islam is not M. Ali on the mic. His team have marketed him using the Khabib ladder into mythic status using the same template of being the extremely good outsider from another culture that the Americans can love to hate, a tried and tested strategy in the business. The entire public halo around a fighter matters more than the spoken lines. For example, Chael Sonnen is one of the best promos/personalities I've seen in all entertainment. He's also a damn good fighter. He'll never be as marketable as Brock Lesnar because of the 'WWE steroid gorilla destroying your skilled champions' association which had nothing to do with Brock's personality or relative skill when he entered the UFC but contributed the most to his stardom.

 

[karan_fromthestands]

Khabib has the ability to humble him at any given moment.

I like Khabib, but McGregor post-boxing was just not the same. Conor had been saying it for years, his main motivation was getting rich and giving all the luxuries to his family, once your ultimate goal in life is achieved, there's no way you can wake up in the morning and go through the grind and work as hard as you once did.

I wish we saw a pre-Mayweather Conor vs Khabib, that would've been some fight. Not that the one we got was anything short of entertaining.