Mixed Martial Arts Megathread

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forkboy

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#1  Edited By forkboy

I had a look for a Mixed Martial Arts megathread but I couldn't see anything from the last couple of months. And seeing how there's how for things as esoteric as anime and pro-wrestling, why not MMA? It's a growing sport, it's on network TV in the US, and in 2015 you can find events in most nations around the globe. Obviously things are focused largely on the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the market leader by some distance since they bought out the largest Japanese organisation Pride FC in 2007, but there are smaller groups we can talk about too! I won't list them all, I'd be here all year.

Last weekend we had UFC 184, a fairly weak card that seems set to cement Ronda Rousey's status as perhaps the biggest star in the sport today. She beat the last serious challenger in the division in 14 seconds and now she's going to go away to Hollywood for a while. In the co-main event the apparent Great White Hope Holly Holm was underwhelming in a decision win over Raquel Pennington. Elsewhere on the card there were good wins for Jake Ellenberger over a sadly depleted Josh Koscheck, Tony Ferguson over the tough Gleison Tibau, and on the prelims Tim Means won with violent elbow strikes over Dhiego Lima.

Other talking points include negligible refereeing leaving Mark Munoz completely unconscious after a choke for a few seconds longer than necessary, and the hilarious and awkward grappling between Derrick Lewis and Ruan Potts in round 1 of their fight. Heavyweight MMA at its most eye catching. Less funny was the corner of Potts not ending the fight when he told them "I'm finished" repeatedly between rounds. He spent round 2 just turtling up, wanting out but not wanting to quit because he's a fighter. Very unfortunate.

And outside the Octagon there was an impressive win for Cristiane "Cyborg" Justino, and fight of the weekend between Straweights Alexa Grasso and Mizuki Inoue on the Invicta 11 show, Bellator had the Light Heavyweight title change hands Brit Liam McGeary beat up Emanuel Newton over 5 rounds.

LETS TALK ABOUT FACE PUNCHING? Who do you like watching? What cool shit have you seen? How broken is Fight Pass's search function after over a year? How excited are you for UFC 185 and a chance to see star of Wheaties boxes Pretty Tony Pettis back in action? Plus Johny Hendricks against Matt Brown should be action packed madness, Carla Esparanza's first defence of the UFC Strawweight belt against Joanna Jedrzejczyk, a Heavyweight brawler between "Big Country" Roy Nelson and Alistair Overeem and a lot of cool undercard stuff too. On paper this blows 184 out of the water, so it's going to suck when it's not so successful. The most exciting undercard bout has Olympic gold medal wrestler Henry Cejudo attempting to cut to Flyweight again, up against Chris Cariaso who fought for the title last time out.

Thought it might be worthwhile putting up a list of what's on this weekend. If you have AXS TV then RFA 24 is on Friday 16th March at 10pm EST. And on Saturday and you are absolutely desperate for facepunching then there are 5 events available as iPPV on GFL.tv. But if you are sane you have better things to spend your money on.

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I_Stay_Puft

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#2  Edited By I_Stay_Puft

Yeah there was a thread way back but there was like 3 to 4 of us who'd comment frequently on it. It was tough keeping it active when fights happen a few weeks / months at a time.

I for one would like to hear more about the supposed Cyborg vs. Rousey fight. From what I've been hearing is that if the fight were to occur it would be a UFC / Invicta joint fight with it being ppv by UFC. Would be interesting but first Cyborg would need to move down to 135 which was the main issue and the reason she decided to move to Invicta since UFC still didn't have a class at her weight of 145.

I'd like to see more women's strawweight division. Joanne Calderwood aka "the whispering assassin" is probably my favorite female mma fighter right now her muai thai is on another level. From what I've been hearing on her twitter feed she might appear on the UFC card in Poland in April.

Other then that Pettis and Dos Anjos is coming up which will be pretty exciting but I think Pettis is on a different level right now. Would like to eventually see a Cowboy vs. Pettis rematch occur in the near future but Cowboy would have to clear out the rest of the top seeds to put himself at #1 contedership.

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theveej

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#3  Edited By theveej

Glad this was made I need a place to talk about some face punching arm breaking action.

@i_stay_puft: Cyborg fight is a wait and see thing. Rousey is not gonna budge, she will only fight cyborg at 135 (her belief is that Cybrog can make the weight if she isn't on any PED), which is interesting when you think about other dominant champions in MMA and UFC usually wanting to go up weight when they clean out their division. Cyborg definetly does not want to compromise her power by dieting and cutting a ton of water weight. Ideally they would make the fight at 140 but it all depends how desperate UFC will get and how much money they are willing to dish out to both fighter to make compromises happen on both side.

Cybrog's next fight will be in July (during International fight week) look for UFC to make a bunch of high level female 135 matches during that time. A Jessica Eye vs Bethe Correia match would make sense for a number 1 contender bout (winner has no real chance), while the rest of Ronda' previous victims will battle each other till one remains. It's not ideal for UFC since they won't be able to reasonably headline with Ronda anymore, but she is their best co main eventer going forward (look for her to co main with pettis and weidman going forward).

Cowboy is fighting Khabib at the memorial weekend UFC, UFC 187, for number #1 contender fight if khabib is ready by that time. Should be a great fight fight but I don't see Cowboy beating a healthy Khabib or ever even touching Pettis (its a shame cause he is an outstanding fighter). UFC 185 is gonna be very deep and fun card. Great title fights (very excited for the female 115 championship fight), and a great under card (Full card here)

PSA:

If you have fightpass go and watch Alexa Grosso vs Mizuki Inoue from the last invicta card (it was the co main event). A) it is an excellent female straw-weight bout (Dana white has said he wished he would have had that fight on UFC 184 instead of Invicta) B) Alexa Grosso is one of the hottest prospect in the division and can be genuinine true Mexican star in UFC. Looking forward to seeing her make her debut in Mexico City UFC card later this year.

Also Bellator has its shenanigans with a Kimbo vs Ken shamrock match (which orignally was shceduled for the last Elite XC show, the infamous show where ken got hurt and Seth Petruzelli KO'd kimbo in less than 10 second with a jab as a late replacement.) Kimbo is 41 and Ken is 51, #EliteXCNEVERDIE.

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sumbog

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#4  Edited By sumbog

Most MMA fans get there kicks and shit on Sherdog (I post there despite it being garbage 90% of the time), and the UG (white background is terrible). MMA on giant bomb is like League of legends, there is something posters and the staff care about more (DOTA and wrestling). Like when they played that japense wrestling game on UPF all I could think about was all the famous MMA personalities on the roster like Funaki, Sakuraba and Takada.But if this thread shows growth I'd love to participatE, but adding onto current events I love discussing MMA history, etc.

Anyone else think Ken is gonna pull out of the Kimbo fight? He has a history of taking up front payment and then dropping out due to "injury".

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forkboy

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@sumbog: Yeah, I usually get my kicks on Bloody Elbow's comment section when it comes to talking shit about MMA. But when you spend that much time in one place you hear the same voices and opinions and it's healthy to branch out and hear other peoples views.

It was the fact that on the intro the new Alt F1 podcast Danny mentioned that he'd been thinking about an MMA podcast before deciding there was nobody there to play the "expert" role, I figured now is as good a time as any to talk about this wonderful, crazy, and sometimes awful sport. I did share your pain on the Virtual Pro Wrestling bit of UPF, I was just going all "IT'S SAKURABA, COME ON GUYS" and then remembering that normal people don't actually use Fight Pass to watch old Pride shows. Though they should. The old stuff is wild. Although some of it is complete garbage too. Pride 1 Kimo vs Severn. I feel like I should get a prize for actually sitting through that.

@i_stay_puft: Unfortunately I have just don't see how Cyborg can cut to 135 healthily, I heard a claim that she was walking around 2 days after her fight at 175lbs (source, Patrick Wyman of Sherdog). That's a huge cut for a male, never mind a female. If it happens it happens at catchweight, and only if the UFC pay Ronda enough to make it worth her while. Which is a huge if because I don't think they want to risk it until there is little left to milk as far as PPV sales go. And the early indications from Meltzer are that 184 did really well despite being a pretty unimpressive event on paper.

I actually think the best option for 135 while Rousey is away filming whatever she's filming is a Pride style Grand Prix. It instantly gives you a new challenger with a 3 or 4 fight win streak minimum (depending on if you want an 8 or 16 woman tourney). Right now Jessica Eye & Bethe Correia just haven't done enough but if they ran through a field of the top 16 women in the division then shit, that will get people hyped up. Plus the tournaments are just great fun. A lot of people bemoan how the Strikeforce HW GP went down, but that was hampered by the UFC acquisition rather than anything inherent to the format. And even with how it went down it really benefited Dan Cormier, who was an alternate.

Shamrock vs Kimbo is not a fight I can get excited for. But it'll do what it's meant to do, which is make people pay attention to Bellator, so credit to Coker for that. It's a goofy fight but Ken has pointed out that he feels he's earned the right to just go out and do a fight for fun and he's right enough. I can't grudge him this even if I'm not into it. I wasn't in to Bonnar vs Ortiz either but it did gangbusters for them.

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theveej

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@forkboy: DUDE BUT JUSTIN MCCULLY WAS THE MASKED MAN, fucking mma sometime man, puts pro wrestling to shame.

I think they can do a tourny just for the name, but in reality all of UFC matchmaking is tourney style. Winners vs Winners, Losers vs Losers. The only problem I see with a tourney (which I would love to see) is that there is a good chance that Cat/Tate/McMann will come out on top (most likely Cat) and no one wants to see that rematch (even though she would have earned it and I would be totally hip to it). Jessica Eye & Bethe Correia winner will at least be fresh (even though totally undeserving) and at least Ronda wants to really fight Correia for her weird revenging friends angle.

I really hope Ken leg locks the shit out of Kimbo for the lulz, but atleast the undercard will be solid. Guessing it will have some fun fights and some legit fights at 155 and 145.

Also there is a feature on Sakuraba on Fightpass which is alright, could have been a lot better if wasn't just Ariel Hellwani talking about Sakuraba and if they didn't just focus on the whole Gracie hunter thing and didn't totally neglect the sad end of his career and how he got murdered cause Pride matchmaker sent him to his doom against HWs (and the brutal Wandy fights). It's always nice going back and watching some Igor fights on fightpass and reminiscing about the good old days of Pride vs UFC. Also props on being on Bloodyelbow's comment section, I don't comment anywhere but those guys on the comment are usually funny and not terrible human beings.

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forkboy

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@theveej: Yeah, I miss a lot of Pride but the matchmaking, and the obsession of having little guys getting mauled by bigger people is one thing I do not miss. Pride were utterly irresponsible with Sakuraba. Hell, even having Wandy in the 2006 Openweight GP seemed to have really took some years off his career. I mean going against Fujita and then Cro Cop? Ugh. Shit was negligent.

I do agree that they try to do "tournament-style" matchmaking, but it doesn't always happen. And yeah, I just thinking if the UFC promoted it right it would go a little way to making 135 about someone other than Ronda for a little bit, which wouldn't hurt the future of the division. I'd also be absolutely OK with Zingano getting another title shot if she went on a 3/4 fight streak. Yeah, she got beaten in humiliating fashion and I still don't see how she wins, but she can put in a lot better effort a second time if she can just keep her head and not give in to the adrenaline of the moment.

That McCully stuff was...it's just weird. I don't mind a little spectacle in my MMA, but yeah, that stuff was weird. We don't need stuff that gives off a reek of "this is all fake so maybe the fight will be a work too".

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#9  Edited By hassun

I used to watch a lot of MMA during the Pride FC days. I was never a fan of the UFC with their whole "JUST BLEED" and this is so edgy, these guys fight in A CAGE image.

They have improved since but I still don't enjoy the whole "bro" and "this is so gritty" aspect of it. Even now that they have female fighters. In my opinion mixed martial arts should remember the "art" aspect of its name. The more it is like prize fighting/boxing the worse it is.

Fighters shouldn't be fighting in a pit or a cage, they should be fighting on a platform and honoured as masters in their craft.

Basically bring back the big white ring, hell I would even accept the white octagon from Dream. The Pride FC rule set was also a lot better than the UFC one.

I wouldn't mind to see some nice production values come back to the sport as well, we all know Japan is king at that stuff but I think it helps to increase the "show" aspect of it so even when a fight ends in 14 seconds the viewers at least got some production values and entertainment out of it. I especially appreciate how they presented the fighters on the card at the start of the event to the crowd.

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officialjack

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#10  Edited By officialjack

I assume we're all in agreement that Minowaman is the p4p GOAT?

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forkboy

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@officialjack: Naturally. Super Hluk Championship was the most prestigious in the history of the sport.

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Seriously. The best. Minowa is heaps of fun.

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nightriff

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I tried this 2 years ago, yeah no one commented and it was depressing. I would love to watch events and just comment in this thread with other GB'ers but to no avail I just stuck with commenting on Sherdog.

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forkboy

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#13  Edited By forkboy

@hassun : The thing is, while I'm for more spectacle, and totally agree about a lot of the presentation aspects, I don't think a ring is optimal for MMA. It was always incredibly awkward when they'd have to have refs clamber in to drag them back into the centre. Plus the cage is just an integral part of MMA strategy now, and I'm completely comfortable keeping it. I don't think the cage is the problem. There are things from Pride I do absolutely miss but the ring isn't one. At best it's six of one, half a dozen of the other to me.

The problem is the presentation. It's the continued use of nu-metal in every fucking video. It's how long it took them to get rid of that dreadful Gladiator video at the start of events. It's how they still use Face The Pain. How they have a lead commentary team who appear to do no research of the fighters they've not seen before (Joe Rogan is great with certain fighters, like Lyoto Machida. But I never need to hear him commentate on a prelim fight again. Meanwhile Goldie has no fighters he's good with, he's just a human soundboard, a walking cliché machine, and it still saddens me that he didn't end up going to the WWE.). How they fail to promote anyone as different unless they walk into people like Ronda, Chael or Conor McGregor. How every lower weight class title find ends up with Dana proclaiming the champion the #1 P4P fighter, until the next lower weight class champ fights. He's skipped from Aldo to Cruz to Barao to Dillashaw to Johnson so many times in the past couple of years it's making my ears bleed. And it's not as if Pride was much use with promoting the lower weight classes, it took them until 2005 to crown their equivalent of a Middleweight champion.

Also, it is prize fighting. I don't know what to tell you. They aren't fighting for honour, they are fighting to put food on their families plates. It was the same at UFC 1. Do you think Mark Coleman took a dive against Takada at Pride 5 for the beauty of the martial arts? Or because they made it worth his while?

I also didn't like how unimportant the titles were in Pride. Fedor defended his title 3 times. That's crazy, he was champ for 3 years, and healthy for most of that time. That said, I would be inclined to agree on some Pride rules. We need the return of knees to the head of grounded opponents, I'd like soccer kicks too but I have doubts that that visual would ever be acceptable to regulators which is a shame. Fun when you see them broken out during One FC cards.

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theveej

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@hassun: The ring is the WORSE. Yah the white cage is dope and I prefer that but cmon man a ring is made for boxing/kickboxing pro wrassling it has no place in MMA. I don't know how many times I watched Pride and Dream fights and just shook my head when a sea of ref were trying to hold two giants dude in the ring when they got close to the ropes. It sucks for camera production and ground work, plus wrestling in a ring is a nightmare, you need some boundaries and unfortunately the YAMMMA PIT will never ever be used again.

Pride rule set is obviously good (but cmon you need elbows, and don't get me started about the whole "elbows only cut" we saw in the last UFC they resulted in two brutal KOs that involved no blood) and I really wish we had knees to the grounded opponent but that won't get implemented cause the commission in the US are too lazy to actually change anything (specially when it involves them "working"). Stomps will never be implemented, they look too brutal but I wish they did.

I also agree on better promo packages before fights Pride style, I'm so tired of Goldberg saying "fighter A is on a meteoric rise and he is facing fighter B who is looking to make his octagon debut", cut to both fighters saying how they want to "bang bro" cut to terrible walkout song picked by Dana.

@forkboy: nah man it will always be Danny Lafever or THE MYTH HIMSELF VIACHESLAV DATSIK as the best EVER

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I_Stay_Puft

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@gaspower: I like sports talk, especially where i don't have to read "they should of run the ball" on every comment feed.

@nightriff: Good times man.

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hassun

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#16  Edited By hassun

@theveej: @forkboy: Then how about not making it a cage? I understand the issues with falling out of a ring but I don't see why it should be a cage either. Hell you could make the sides out of transparent plexiglass for all I care. And like I said the Dream white octagon was fine too. That didn't use a cage either. I think the cage actively hurts the presentation/image of the sport.

And the Pride rules were better. I agree elbows should be allowed but then what about kicks to a downed opponent? Or knees? But most of all I want to see the will to finish a fight get pushed more. That was the best aspect of that rule set.

I'm not going to sit here and defend Pride FC either, it folded for a reason and there were plenty of things wrong with it but it feels like they threw out the baby with the bath water.

As for the prize fighting comment I didn't mean they weren't fighting for money, I meant that MMA should definitely not try to emulate boxing and how boxing works. The UFC is in a good position to prevent that but I'm not sure they are doing their best at actually doing that.

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I_Stay_Puft

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@hassun: You forgot Yuichiro Nagashima with crazy entertaining entrances to the ring.

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hassun

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@i_stay_puft: Oh yeah there are plenty of them. Japan's entrance game is the best in the world.

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#19  Edited By forkboy

@hassun: But the Dream cage was still a Cage. The only differences were the colour, and the fact it was a hexagon instead of an Octagon. And white is just as opaque as black. Plexiglass was actually considered by SEG way back before they settled on the Octagon design but there serious concerns about how it would hold up to one huge guy charing another guy into it. It was bad enough when two guys burst through the cage door because the lock was pretty insignificant. What I would change is that I would like them go to the smaller WEC sized cage more regularly. The times they use it there are more finishes. It's not a coincidence. There is less room to run.

Ultimately a lot of the Unified Rules are still relics of the "human cockfighting" John McCain hate wagon of the late '90s. To get back on PPV they needed to get regulated, and to get regulated they needed to remove a bunch of techniques. That started at UFC 16 when they banned some things like headbutts, and it continued with knees and soccer kicks to ground opponents all getting removed. I really don't know how to get soccer kicks legalised again in North America. Even if the UFC wanted to it's not in their hands, it's down to the ABC. And the visual of it is too much for some people, whether that's right or wrong.

Don't get me wrong. I would love to see knees on the ground. It would be an absolutely positive rule change to encourage action and massively disincentivise wrestlers who go for half-hearted and easily stuffed takedowns. And I definitely see it as a more likely rule change. I hope so at least.

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hassun

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#20  Edited By hassun

@forkboy: If I'm not mistaken the sides were made of netting and not a metal fence for the Dream octagon. And yeah I know the rules stuff is not directly in UFC hands but as they and MMA in general grows bigger I would hope they could start putting some pressure and influence on the lawmakers. I'm just not really sure they are willing to do it at this point.

Rewarding attempts to finish the fight is definitely my #1 request for MMA. I don't think it would be very hard to implement either. Wouldn't mind the longer/fewer rounds too.

Also, ref cam god damn it!

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forkboy

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#21  Edited By forkboy

Honestly, I want more rounds. Any fight involving top 10 fighters should be 5x5min rounds at the very least. I just want to see more of the guys who are good at fighting and less of the Ruan Potts of the world.

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hassun

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@forkboy: But if the total length is the same would you prefer more, but shorter rounds or fewer but longer rounds?

AKA 5x5 or 2x10+5 if necessary. I think the idea behind fewer but longer rounds is solid. Basically you'd want the entire fight to happen with as few interruptions as possible.

On the other hand if you go 5x5 you get more interruptions but you could gain in explosiveness because more breaks allow fighters to catch their breath more often.

For that reason I wouldn't want the fewer but longer rounds system without the extra incentives to finish the fight. Otherwise you would create even more "lay and pray".

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theveej

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@hassun: +100000 couldn't agree more.

@forkboy: Ref cam would be awesome. And yah I love seeing knees and stomps and its not even the UFC not wanting it, its the commissions being so lazy to ever do anything that requires them to do additional work (people inside the UFC want knees to the grounded opponent just not enough to go out of their way and make their lives hard by pushing the commissions). I don't think there is anything wrong with judging criteria just terrible judges. The top 2 criteria are effective striking and grappling, which 99% times should result in the right person winning (and result in fighters trying to finish and not stall). The whole judges giving rounds away for takedowns at the end of rounds / clinching against the fence / walking down opponents is a thing that dumb judges who are not educated thought was "winning" a round and has become the norm unfortunately (and commissions refuse to let go of incompetent judges because they are government run entities which are good ol boys networks + mark ratner ufc's commission guy used to be head of nevada commission and is too tight with these commission to ever push for change). There should be more 10-8 and 10-10 rounds and that will also help push fighters to be more active and try for the finish (which judges never give out cause they are terrible). The major thing they need to change is ref stand ups. There are always terrible and result in the fighter in the bottom becoming completely inactive and just holding on for dear life and hoping for a stand up. It's really hard to do anything from top control when the person on the bottom is just holding on to you and not trying to do anything. That is the only thing that I think really needs to be changed ASAP.

My problem with pride judges was pretty much every single Dan Henderson decision, he would get schooled for the first 10 min, then get a takedown or a big punch in the last 5 mins and win a terrible decision, again there is a middle ground for sure here but I don't think the current criteria needs any changes persay.

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forkboy

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@hassun: I generally am quite happy with 5 minute rounds. Because I don't know how uneven round length works with the 10 point must system. And I also think that judges already have problems remembering what happened in the first 2 minutes of a 5 minute round, so they'd be even worse with a 10 minute round.

Anyway. I'm going back to watching Pride 3 now. The Stephen Quadros/Bas Rutten commentary is really hyperbolic in a way that is weird. They keep talking about how Shoji vs Matsui has been exciting, and the grappling exchanges have been fun, but neither man knows how to strike so they just circle each other, Matsui occasionally throws a half-hearted legkick and then he rushes in with either a swarm of strikes and gets tripped by Shoji or else he goes for a poor takedown attempt and then it's easily stuffed. It's definitely low-level MMA.

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hassun

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#25  Edited By hassun

@forkboy: Like early UFC, Pride FC had a wide range of people. From nearly joke matches between people who knew nothing about fighting at all to people who could only fight one style to absolutely masterful MMA fighters. It's all over the place.

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forkboy

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@hassun: Oh yeah. Fortunately the next match, when I decided to save for when I wasn't falling asleep, is Carlos Newton vs Sakuraba. Which is probably my favourite match of the entire early years of MMA. I don't think they throw a single strike in over 15 minutes but the grappling is just so exciting, high aggression, high intensity. Really exciting.

And yeah, I've been going through Fight Pass watching all the old shows (I have a bad blog. I won't even link it because it's overly long-winded and I'm still working on editing my shit down to readable lengths) so I am watching and comparing them to themselves rather than modern MMA. There were absolute moments of fun in Shoji vs Matsui, but I just found the disconnect between the commentary and the limited action (especially the striking, which was what you'd expect when a jiu-jitsu guy went up against a pro-wrestler) a little funny and a bit distracting.

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I_Stay_Puft

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@theveej said:

@hassun: +100000 couldn't agree more.

@forkboy: Ref cam would be awesome. And yah I love seeing knees and stomps and its not even the UFC not wanting it, its the commissions being so lazy to ever do anything that requires them to do additional work (people inside the UFC want knees to the grounded opponent just not enough to go out of their way and make their lives hard by pushing the commissions). I don't think there is anything wrong with judging criteria just terrible judges. The top 2 criteria are effective striking and grappling, which 99% times should result in the right person winning (and result in fighters trying to finish and not stall). The whole judges giving rounds away for takedowns at the end of rounds / clinching against the fence / walking down opponents is a thing that dumb judges who are not educated thought was "winning" a round and has become the norm unfortunately (and commissions refuse to let go of incompetent judges because they are government run entities which are good ol boys networks + mark ratner ufc's commission guy used to be head of nevada commission and is too tight with these commission to ever push for change). There should be more 10-8 and 10-10 rounds and that will also help push fighters to be more active and try for the finish (which judges never give out cause they are terrible). The major thing they need to change is ref stand ups. There are always terrible and result in the fighter in the bottom becoming completely inactive and just holding on for dear life and hoping for a stand up. It's really hard to do anything from top control when the person on the bottom is just holding on to you and not trying to do anything. That is the only thing that I think really needs to be changed ASAP.

My problem with pride judges was pretty much every single Dan Henderson decision, he would get schooled for the first 10 min, then get a takedown or a big punch in the last 5 mins and win a terrible decision, again there is a middle ground for sure here but I don't think the current criteria needs any changes persay.

Totally agree, I think a major issue with judging mma fights at the moment is that most of the judges come in with a background in boxing not in MMA. I remember hearing discussions about possible training or implementing more former MMA personnel to become judges. I always hear don't leave it in the judges hand but at the same time put in judges who can effectively score a match if it doesn't turn out into a striking match.

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Another injury announced for the UFC Fight Night 46 card being held in Rio in 2 weeks time. 'Killa B' Ben Saunders is hurt so currently the UFC are panicking trying to find a new co-main event. If they can't find a short-notice opponent for Erick Silva then this is going to be co-headlined by Leonardo Santos vs Tony Martin. With Demian Maia vs Ryan LaFlare the main event. But Benson Henderson has come out on Twitter claiming he wants Silva. If the UFC give him it then he's basically turned into Donald Cerrone at Welterweight, which is great fun.

It's not even funny how badly this card has been ravaged with injuries, Raphael Assuncao was supposed to face Urijah Faber in the main event but his ankle injury didn't heal up quick enough, so they took Faber off and moved him back to the May 6th show in Manilla. Since then Matt Wiman, Josh Thomson and now Saunders have all gotten hurt. Could've been a fun event if it got to go ahead as originally planned but right now it looks eminently skippable. At best I'll record it and watch it the next day.

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It sucks that there are so many injuries on that one card but at least it isn't a big PPV getting decimated like that.

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#30  Edited By forkboy

Oh totally. I just love watching Saunders fight. Aggressive grappling is a lot of fun. (I just watched Kazushi Sakuraba vs Carlos Newton on Thursday. Been a few years since I last watched it, and I'd forgotten how brilliant and exciting it was for a fight where less than 15 strikes were thrown in over 10 minutes)

And hey. The UFC have announced their replacement for Ben Saunders. Josh Koscheck, fresh off getting choked out by Jake Ellenberger last weekend. To say I am not a fan of this is an understatement.

Anyway, here's this weekends fight card.

UFC 185 (PPV, 10PM EST)

Anthony Pettis vs Rafael dos Anjos (Lightweight Championship)
Carla Esparza vs Joanna Jedrzejczyk (Strawweight Championship)
Johny Hendricks vs Matt Brown (Welterweight)
Roy Nelson vs Alistair Overeem (Heavyweight)
Henry Cejudo vs Chris Cariaso (Flyweight)

Prelims (FX, 8pm EST)

Sam Stout vs Ross Pearson (Lightweight)
Elias Theodorou vs Roger Narvaez (Middleweight)
Daron Cruickshank vs Beneil Dariush (Lightweight)
Jared Rosholt vs Josh Copeland (Heavyweight)

Prelims (Fight Pass, 6:30pm EST)

Sergio Pettis vs Ryan Benoit (Flyweight)
Jake Lindsey vs Joseph Duffy (Lightweight)
Larissa Pacheco vs Germaine de Randamie (Women's Bantamweight)

For prelims to keep your eye on, obviously Stout vs Pearson should be fun. Daron Cruickshank is someone I think is often enjoyable. Sergio Pettis isn't ever going to be as good as his older brother but he's still liable to be entertaining, and Joseph Duffy is notable as the last man to have beaten Conor McGregor, back in 2010 with the Cage Warrior organisation.

Main card is all pretty great. Jedrzejczyk is one of the most aggressive fighters in the division with some great striking, won't be shocked if she ends up crowned the new champion at 115. Pettis is one of the most exciting men in MMA right now and always worth watching. And it'll be fascinating to see if Olympic gold medallist Cejudo is able to successfully make the cut to Flyweight. He won his medal at 121lbs, but that was in 2008 so he's obviously grown since he was 21. If he makes it he's automatically one of the hottest prospects in the weight class though, behind Kyoji Horiguchi.

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So not only did Emanuel Newton lose his Bellator Light Heavyweight title to Liam McGeary 2 weeks ago, he's now tested positive for marijuana in his post fight doping control and been suspended for 3 months. MMA sure is a sport filled with stoners.

In unrelated news, MMA writer/podcaster Mike Fagan annually runs his March Madness inspired MMA Tournament of Bad, and it's that time of year again. So if you want to take part in a little silly thing which celebrates the things in MMA which are goofy, dumb, cringeworthy, or just plain horrible, have a read of the categories and the vote here for the runoff round before the tournament proper begins on Monday. It's just meant as some dumb fun, so don't take it too seriously and get mad at how he must hate MMA.

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@forkboy said:

So not only did Emanuel Newton lose his Bellator Light Heavyweight title to Liam McGeary 2 weeks ago, he's now tested positive for marijuana in his post fight doping control and been suspended for 3 months. MMA sure is a sport filled with stoners.

In unrelated news, MMA writer/podcaster Mike Fagan annually runs his March Madness inspired MMA Tournament of Bad, and it's that time of year again. So if you want to take part in a little silly thing which celebrates the things in MMA which are goofy, dumb, cringeworthy, or just plain horrible, have a read of the categories and the vote here for the runoff round before the tournament proper begins on Monday. It's just meant as some dumb fun, so don't take it too seriously and get mad at how he must hate MMA.

And Jon Jones gets a day of rehab for coke... That's just how it goes when you're on top.

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@i_stay_puft: Yeah, but Jones tested positive in an out of competition test for a substance that isn't banned out of competition. NSAC shouldn't even have tested his sample for coke. Incidentally, marijuana isn't banned OOC either. But you can't have metabolites in your piss on fight night. It'd be better if they also took a blood test, as that is much better at determining how recently you last got high, but ultimately the athletes should know by now it stays in your body a long time, and most commissions don't do blood tests as it's more expensive.

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@i_stay_puft: to be fair Jon Jones never did anything wrong by the book of the law. He was tested a month before his fight out of competition and should have never been tested for recreational drugs. Legally he has a lot of right to straight up sue the commission for damaging his "brand" with a test that should have never tested for coke. Post fight drug test is different because recreational drugs are included.

Don't get me wrong you're absolutely right, and obviously I personally don't give a crap if fighters are getting high off weed or skiing before their fights, just wanted to point out that by the book of the law one guy was completely in the clear (jon jones). Also there is a larger question of how well a piss test can determine how long THC has been in your blood, it should be no THC 12hours before the fight. There is a good chance that Newton did not actually smoke any weed for last few days before his fight and still popped positive because piss test are really inaccurate for that kind of thing.

@forkboy: how do you think the main card fights will play out? Also Larissa Pacheco vs Germaine de Randamie should be a great fight, I have a soft spot for Randamie because she was such a beast in kickboxing for so long but her MMA career has been kind of meh. Pacheco is a decent prospect I think. I'm having a hard time thinking of how Dos Anjos will approach Pettis, he is a really good game planner so I am hoping for a competitive fight but I just don't know how he is going to beat Pettis. I'm gonna compile my thoughts and post them before the ppv.

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I expect that Rafael Cordero will have RDA trying to replicate Gil Melendez's first round from the last LW title fight. But I don't think dos Anjos can keep that up for 5 rounds without making a mistake and giving Pettis the chance he needs to do something special. I play on an MMA predictions website, MMA Playground and I have Pettis by 2nd round KO right now. Could easily see him finishing with a submission on almost-finished opponent again though.

I keep going back and forth on the Strawweight fight. Right now I have Esparza winning over 5 rounds, but part of me believe in Jedrzejczyk. She's got a meanness to her, and her kickboxing is pretty good, she could finish. Still, dealing with Esparza's takedowns could be hard. Think the UFC would prefer Jedrzejczyk to win, Carla isn't the personality they want.

I think Johny Hendricks should handle Brown comfortable over 3 rounds, but I'm also really looking forward to it anyway. Brown has a great clinch game, but Johny could actually be stronger there. Still, Brown is a hard bastard, difficult to imagine him letting himself get finished.

(I'd write more but the space bar on my keyboard is working intermittently right now so typing is obviously a pain in the bum)

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Seattle's part-time superhero Phoenix Jones aka Ben Fodor signs with WSOF. Hopefully they can sign that dude who shot that youtube clip declaring himself Phoenix's arch enemy as well so they can have them duke it out.

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Yeah, they talked about him on the Sherdog Cheap Seats podcast this week. Specifically they talked about how his brother is perhaps not particularly proud of him for the whole crime fighting thing. Which is only notable because his brother is Caros Fodor, who has fights for Strikeforce and the UFC under his belt and is now with One FC in Asia. Publicity for WSOF though and they need any help they can get. Any time you look at someone's record and see they've fought for SFL, well, it makes me cautious. (On a side note, I kinda hate that SFL are now running in the US. I miss the time when their events were mostly bad Indian guys facing even worse people from Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh, with Bob Sapp or Bobby Lashley in the headline spot. Shame that Bollywood dude was linked to the extremists who did the whole attack on Mumbai a few years back)

On the UFC front, everyone has come in on weight except for Daron Cruickshank. My twitter feed was full of people saying he looked in a bad way. He has 2 hours to drop 1.5lbs, wonder if he's got in him if he's looking that bad. Nobody wants a replication what happened to Barao last year. Cejudo made it, so that's great news for Flyweight. And no one fighting for a title has pulled a Travis Lutter so that's a relief.

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#39  Edited By handlas

Pettis over dos Anjos

Esparza over Jędrzejczyk

Overeem over Nelson

Cejudo over Cariaso

There are my picks for tonight's main card :). The only one I go back and forth on is Overeem and Nelson. Obviously Overeem doesn't take a punch well these days especially from a power puncher like Nelson but Nelson has proved to be a one-trick pony in the UFC... run in and throw an overhand right.

Woops missed maybe my favorite fight on the card...

Hendricks over Brown (though I kind of want Brown to win even though I like both guys)

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@handlas:

Pettis

Esparza

Nelson

Cejudo

I'll take Nelson, he'll take Overeem down and submit him.

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  • Pettis by 2nd Rnd Submission (rooting for RDA but Pettis is just to good for anyone in that division, even my favorite Bendo)
  • Jedrzejczyk by Decision (Esparza has been extremely bitchy and whinny the past few weeks so hope she actually gets KO'd, but doubt it)
  • Big Country by 2nd Rnd TKO (Big Country will land a shot, stun an already exhausted Reem and finish him)
  • Hendricks by Decision (Big Rig is just too much for Brown, wish it was a 5 rounder instead)
  • Pearson by 2nd Rnd TKO
  • Cruickshank by 3rd Rnd TKO
  • S. Pettis by Decision
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@nightriff: I've quite enjoyed Esparza actually talking out about the UFC's shitty lack of even an attempt to promote the Strawweight title and the person holding that title. I just think she needs to tune it up a little bit into a little more anger and she can actually get people interested in her. That said, I still hope she loses because Jedrzejczyk is just a bad ass. Something about the understated menace she has.

If you're looking for a piss break fight, it's Rosholt vs Copeland. Rosholt win it very easily by decision, but it'll be an ugly, grinding decision. Anyway, my full predictions, just for fun.

No Caption Provided

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#43  Edited By overnow
  • Pettis rd 3 sub
  • Esparza decision
  • Brown rd 2 T/KO (I know it's unlikely but I'm going with my heart here)
  • Overeem rd 1 T/KO
  • Cejudo decision

For the prelims I'm just going to go with the winner cause I don't really have the time to take a closer look at the match ups right now.

  • Pearson
  • Theodorou
  • Cruickshank
  • Roshalt
  • Pettis
  • Duffy
  • de Randamie
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what time do the early prelims start?

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Those fight pass prelims were pretty freakin good. Duffy looked slick, wasn't up against the best competition, but still you can't fake that hand speed, and those combinations. Germaine didn't even seem tested which is kind of disappointing, I cannot wait for WMMA to progress to a point where you have those Cyborg-esc slaughters. In addition what can you say about that Pettis fight, my gosh.

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#46  Edited By forkboy

So far this event has been living up to my hopes. Everything that should have been good was good, Rosholt vs Copeland was as ugly and slow as the 2 men involved.

Bummed about Mini-Pettis, kind of hope he's able to drop back to the regional scene for a while to get more experience against lower level competition. He's clearly not ready yet. de Randamie was even sharper than I'd anticipated, And boy, Dariush has come on leaps and bounds in the striking department, and the way he took the back for the finish, woah, beautiful grappling. And his analysis with Rogan was great too.

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The card so far tonight has been kind meh so far. Roy v. Reem could've been better but far from a bad fight. Hope the final 3 fights are electric.

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@nightriff: All the fights so far have been pretty one sided. Roy Nelson had a few shots in on Overeem and could have capitalized further but his stamina just wasn't there for him. Cajudo and Hendricks dominated their fights and showed impressive wrestling to negate anything their opponents could muster.

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That fight was great, so damn impressive, congrats to Joanna J. On winning the belt.