Mixed Martial Arts Megathread

Those prelims were pretty rough to watch, let's hope for a better main card so getting up early wasn't an entire waste of my time.

EDIT: No one watching the early morning card? Sad.

Thoughts on UFCFairfax

• Boring card overall, just ugh
• Mendes is damn impressive, no one can tell me otherwise that if mendes/conor fight soon that mendes doesn't wipe the floor with him.
• Masvidal won the fight, Al was winging punches that all missed, classic Leonard Garcia strategy, BUT
• Al rage quitting the ring because the crowd was booing was great, dude has no class and hope he gets fined and punished by the UFC. You don't curse your fan base and walk out like a child because people thought you got your ass handed to you (because you did and they all saw).
• After all the UFC 186 promos, I couldn't be less excited for an upcoming card, Rampage fight could easily get pulled, MM against another unproven opponent and a possible Bisping v. Dollaway as the next best fight....ugh.
• I do look forward to that Fox card in two weeks, good stuff on there.

Found the main card to be decent, didn't catch the prelims.

Guida and Chiesa continue to just be awesome guys. Guida freely admits his fights are often boring and sloppy but the man gets wins and always fights hard. Chiesa looked great, needs work on his boxing for sure but he looked great on the ground.

Masvidal got robbed for sure. Al did land a ton of strong leg kicks and some decent shots to Jorge's head but every one of his takedown attempts were stuffed. Masvidal clearly took the first round, and the second and third were much closer but not decisive enough in my opinion to give Iaquinta the win.

Mendes looks really dominant right now. Tough to see him losing again against anyone but Aldo.

I present the facts on the Mas v. Al fight

I haven't seen any of the fights cause I unfortunately slept through the card :( but that Masvidal vs Iaquinta score seems kind of odd when you look at the fightmetric. I know the stats don't always tell the tale perfectly but I struggle to see how a guy can get outlanded in every round and attempt multiple TDs in every round but hit none of them and still win. Was he cage clinching Masvidal or something?

Also @nightriff for your graph, Iaquinta had the higher sig strike% in round 2 but you highlighted Masvidal.

@overnow: In my defense I pulled it from a post on sherdog, I didn't even notice the error on their behalf until I already posted, REGARDLESS Rnd 2 was the closest and could be argued for Al. And we see the land zero takedowns and get outstriked but the judges give them the nod all the time. I personally find it crazy that you don't get any points for defending takedowns, but a guy gets you on your back for 2 seconds technically counts towards winning the rnd. And most of the attempts felt like they were catching a kick trying to go for the legs and Masvidal kept getting out. Not to much wall and stall.

Really underwhelming card and a bullshit win in the main event.

I love Mcgregor, dude is entertaining. I agree though that sometimes that he takes the trash talk a little too far. But the fact is that the UFC is filled with a whole lot of boring guys with no personality that all say the same things. Connor is an interesting personality, love him or hate him which is something sorely lacking from most fighters. To top it off he has the skills to back it up.

I occasionally make mma highlights as a hobby, here's the last one I did if anyone's interested, also there are loads more on my channel I have done over the last few years.

If you watch video of Al Iaquinta when he dropped those F-Bombs on Fox Sports 1 it looked like Jon Anik got shot. Maaaan haven't heard a good post interview tirade since Brock Lesnar's infamous,

“I’m gonna go home tonight, I’m going to drink a Coors Light … because Bud Light won’t pay me nothing. I’m going to sit down with my friends and family … and, hell, I might even get on top of my wife tonight.”

Unfortunately I was working during today's fights. Sad to hear iaquinta's fight was bunk because he was really looking good his past couple fights.

Shame about Gray Maynard, was never a fan of his but I always thought the guy would be up there in the lightweight division with how his matches went with Frankie Edgar. I guess he could never get his shit together after the draw and TKO from Frankie. Then with the infusion of the WEC and Strikeforce fighters into the UFC the talent pool for that division got larger. With 4 losses in a row this might be the last time we've seen Gray Maynard in the UFC.

@i_stay_puft:

On FS1 in my area after he said "you booing me?" we just had zero audio, good job by the production crew, I'm guessing a delay?

Its crazy how quick Gray fell in his career. Dude was almost champion (twice mind you) but Edgar is just a fucking tough cookie to crack. Edgar Ko'd him, the weird Guida fight, then another 4 ko's. Tells ya how tough those championship fights were and how much of his career they took, JDS could be a similar case as Cain beat the shit out of him for almost 50 minutes and hasn't quite looked the same.

Man. The state of Gray Maynard in 2015 is damned sad. I hope he's going to retire. No more interest in seeing him fight, he's just completely lost it, and dropped from a legit #2 LW at the point of the second Edgar fight. Kinda hard to remember how solid he was after a performance like that.

Clay Guida's post fight interview was bizarre. That was the standout highlight of the event until the co-main event. What a weird rant, I thought he was going to full Volkmann and then he sort of swerves away? I don't know if the President has executive authority to big up wrestling?

Chad Mendes. What a beast. He just makes Jose Aldo look even more scary. Mendes vs Edgar is a fight I would love to see, though I imagine an Edgar Aldo rematch would be next for Frankie (look at me dismiss McGregor's hopes out of hand!). Ricardo Lamas is a really tough dude and wow, he got

Also gotta say, totally understand Iaquinta's reaction. When you've just spent 15 minutes putting your heart into the Fight of the Night and you get booed when your hand is raised in a close fight, you've every goddamn right to raise your middle finger to a bunch of classless disrespectful punks. But I'm totally biased because I kinda hate MMA fans at large. Also I just thought his outburst was hilarious. Watched on Fight Pass so we got it uncensored and it was kind of perfect. Not enough people are willing to talk about how entitled and spoilt MMA fans often act, never mind the hundreds of other things that make them awful.

On the topic of that fight, I'll need to rewatch it but I scored it 29-28 Iaquinta live. I'll need to go back to the comments I made during the show to actually see why (I have a bad problem of actually remembering what happens in fights when I watch live unless they are something I go out of my way to make a mental note about), but at the time I could totally see why it was scored 30-27 by one judge, and hell, round 1 could even be a 10-8. Rounds 2 & 3, to me, were close enough to go either way or even be scored a draw. I'll rewatch the fight though seeing as it's turned out to be so contentious. But I've gotten dreadfully fed up with MMA fans who are all "this was a robbery" because it just wasn't. It wasn't close to a robbery. Close fight, judges disagreed with you, MMA judging is subjective. And stats don't tell the whole story. Or even half of it. Stats may well tell the story in baseball but in MMA they just don't.

I can't really remember anything else that happened. Oh, Poirier looked a natural Lightweight. There's that. And the Rampage interview. That was hilarious for a couple of reasons: the main one being there's still really little chance that fight actually happens, but the other was how utterly disinterested Rampage sounded as he talked about being excited. Oh UFC.

Mendes is a super athlete. He would even ragdoll lightweights imo. Well maybe except for Khabib.

@forkboy:

Depending on what happens between Jones vs. Rumble I wouldn't mind seeing a Rumble vs. Rampage fight in the near future albeit both are on a nice winning streak and show that their skills haven't diminished. I could imagine that fight selling.

I can't stand booing crowds. I can understand when fighters are *actually* not doing anything, spending half a round circling each other not even attempting a jab, or laying on the ground or in the clinch with no attempt at transitioning. What pisses me off, is when idiots boo because they don't understand ground game. Guys who basically just want to see a kickboxing match. But more importantly and more "on topic", crowds that boo after a fight. Unless the guy is being a complete dick, which practically never happens, you should cheer him, win or lose. He/she just fought to entertain you, literally getting punch and kicked in the face for your amusement (and a paycheck), and you're gonna stand there and boo him because he's not from the USA (which is another thing I hate, country specific chants), or because you don't think he deserved to win? If you don't think he should've won, just shut up and don't cheer, at least have some respect. The judges decide who wins, you have no reason to boo the fighter.

@forkboy: Yeah from what I'm hearing the 2nd and 3rd rounds were much closer than they look on paper. Still haven't managed to catch the fight yet unfortunately.

Also one kind of interesting thing to note. The one judge who scored it for Masvidal, and 30-27 at that, was Doug Crosby, who apparently has some sort of "history" with Ray Longo, to the point where it sounds like he probably should not be a judge for fights involving Longo's fighters, such as Iaquinta.

@strife777: It's so weird that MMA is so much bigger than kickboxing in America, when so many fights regarded by fans as classics end up being little more than sloppy kickboxing fights. I mean there were Maurice Smith & the Roufuses who were good, and now you have Joe Schilling, but compare that to the legacy of Dutch fighters like Schilt, & French guys like Le Banner.

On that note, did anyone else see Glory on Friday night? I was really disappointed in how Andy Ristie looked. Just came across flat. And Glory will be bummed by how Wayne Barrett did; that's him on a 3 fight losing streak now and any hope of him being a big draw is surely starting to fade away.

And I'm going to plug a blog a friend has put together now if you want to follow kickboxing, K1-Level Blogging. Which is obviously a name teasing the old Joe Rogan habit of treating K1 as if it was a black belt level qualification. There's only one post, a Glory 20 preview, but it's worth a read because he links to Youtube playlists he's curated for a bunch of the fighters and they are well worth watching. The bottom of the article has some recommended fights to watch as well.

@forkboy: It's even weirder that boxing's popularity in america isn't as big of a presence as it once was compared to the 80's and 90's. Except for maybe Pacquiao and Mayweather there aren't really any other fighters people can name off the top of their head that are still active. Most of the blame has got to due with the fact that before this year you could never find any fights on network television, only ppv. They've fixed that somewhat with NBC now broadcasting some prelim type fights on Saturday / Sunday afternoons but even still it's kinda a little late with MMA on a rise. Boxing might make more money when guys like Pacquiao or Mayweather fight but in terms of relevancy boxing I feel is on it's last leg. It'll never go away but there needs to be some changes in the way boxing handles their business.

PBC is bringing boxing back I think. It just needs less PPVs and more fights on network TV so people actually get a chance to grow attached to fighters. It's inherently an easier thing for people to understand, two guys smashing each other in the face without the complexity of grappling, which a lot of people, dumb as it is, dismiss as being "gay".

Rampage has been pulled from 186. Who didn't see that coming....

EDIT: Also Paul Felder (you may know him from the spinning backfist KO on Danny Castillo) had surgery and his fight with Jim Miller has been canned. So far this morning stinks in terms of MMA

Have to wonder what the PPV numbers for 186 will be like now, it already didn't seem like that big of an event even before Rampage and Dillashaw had to drop out. Benson Henderson and Masvidal seem to be trying to get the UFC to put them together for 186 at 170 lbs. Gotta love Smooth's constant badgering of the UFC to put him in any event that needs a fighter.

Well, Johnson vs Chris Cariaso did 205,000 buys. Johnson vs Bagautinov did 115,000 buys. So you'd figure that this comes in somewhere between 120k & 200k. (The Bagautinov card was much better than 186. MacDonald vs Woodley, Bader vs Cavalcante, Arlovski vs Schaub).

If they don't bring in someone like Bendo then I really can't see how any sane person could justify buying UFC 186. I love watching DJ more than most, I find him an utterly fascinating fighter to watch and he's just so damn good and ultimately I love elite level MMA more than anything else in sport, but him against a guy who is being rushed into a title shot 12-18 months too early, CB Dolloway vs Michael Bisping & an interesting prospect in the shape of Almeida, it's not enough to warrant $65.

But hey, before this shit show there's another one entirely as the UFC goes to Poland for the first time. With a card headlined by Gonzaga vs Cro Cop II. You thought the first time they fought was depressing, well you ain't seen nothing yet! Also notable for there being a woman with a 1-0 record on the card (Aleksandra Albu), and a guy with a 3-0 record (Rocky Lee). That's their MMA records, not their UFC records, just in case there was any confusion.

On the other hand, Manuwa vs Blachowitz should be fun, and is a relevant fight at LHW, and Joanne Calderwood should crush a poor defenceless Ukrainian girl at Strawweight, so that should be a blast.

Bummer about the Rampage ruling. I'm actually surprised, simply because the UFC seems like a company that would not go out and grab Rampage while he was still under contract unless they seemed pretty confident that they had a case for breach. I think this will significantly impact their buyrate if they cannot get a new, interesting co-main in the next 20 days. Bisping vs Dollaway probably won't cut it. According to some articles I've read the UFC plans on going through with the card as planned (meaning with Rampage on it). The event is up here in Canada, I wonder if that has any baring on things for this specific event. Does anyone have any insight into why Bellator filed their injunction with the new Jersey Superior Court specifically?

Also sucks to hear about the Felder injury. Dude looked great in his last fight.

@forkboy I really wish kickboxing was bigger. I don't think I enjoy it quite as much as MMA but I've definitely enjoyed what I've seen of it. I was super bummed that I wasn't able to watch the last Glory event. I looked around a bit to see if I could find it anywhere but I wasn't able to :(

Krakow prelims just started, who do you guys have for the main event.

My Picks:

Gonzaga over Mirko: Decision

Minuwa over Blachowicz: Decision

Pawlak over Westcott: TKO

Calderwood over Moroz: TKO

Wow Moroz taps Calderwood with an armbar in the first round then proceeds to call out Joanna Jedrzejczyk for her belt. Love it, sucks that Jojo lost though.

These last few cards have been so incredibly boring. So much fence clinching, endless, endless fence clinching.

Wow Mirko with the TKO on Gonzaga.

Calderwood losing to Moroz was a really shitter. Big fan of her, and clearly she's had some personal turmoil going on that distracted her. Full credit to Moroz for a brilliant win though. But aye, that card was shite. Cro Cop winning with some seriously nasty elbow strikes was cool, and Stevie Ray winning was great, but that was a sub-KSW event. Seriously. They'd never do it, but if the UFC is going to run somewhere like Poland or Russia they should really be co-promoting with the premiere local promotion. Be that KSW or M-1 (seriously, I just want M-1's knight fights to open a UFC event). Would have been a perfect event to introduce Mamed Khalidov but hey, they UFC just low-balled him instead. Poo.

At least this weekends Fox event should be a blast, even with Yoel Romero vs Jacare being shitcanned because of injury (again). The headliner is going to be fucking awesome, Machida vs Rockhold is brilliant stuff (almost as good as Jacare vs Romero from Joe Silva) , Max Holloway vs Cub Swanson will be wild, Jim Miller vs Beneil Dariush is great, Brandao vs Hettes could be fun, and Mizugaki vs Sterling should be a good vet vs prospect contest. And Sterling is a Serra-Longo guy and I love getting to hear Serra & Longo yelling catchside in their thick Long Island accents.

After that the next 3 events pretty much farts, UFC 186 has Thomas Almeida fighting (how cool is it to see a legit prospect coming out of Chute Boxe in 2015?) and Demetrious Johnson and little else to get excited about, a Fight Pass show with Mark Hunt vs Stipe Miocic and then lots of mediocre Aussies, then there's the Philippines event with 2 good fights in Edgar vs Faber & Mousasi vs Philippou (oh, and there's the UFC return of The Next Anderson Silva™, Phillipe Nover, and Royston Wee who is a running joke and not even the worst guy in the UFC anymore). But hey, UFC 187 after that at least.

Phil Davis signing with Bellator.

@i_stay_puft:

I hope he's happy.

I hate to say it but even with his world class wrestling "Mr. Wonderful" striking never really improved. I remember when Jon Jones and Phil Davis were both coming out everyone envisioned one day that both would finally meet at some point for the belt. Hopefully Phil Davis can dominate at his new promotion and somehow form a strike game that he's missing

@i_stay_puft: It's one of those rare deals that ends up being good for everyone involved. He's boring as hell and beats challengers so UFC getting rid of him is fine, despite being top 10 LHW. Bellator get both a name and top 10 talent, even if it's at one of the shallowest divisions in the sport. And I'd assume Davis is getting compensated pretty fairly.

UFC on FOX 15 Main Card (8 p.m. ET)

• 185 lbs.: Lyoto Machida vs. Luke Rockhold
• 185 lbs.: Ronaldo Souza vs. Chris Camozzi
• 145 lbs.: Cub Swanson vs. Max Holloway
• 115 lbs.: Felice Herrig vs. Paige VanZant

UFC on FOX 15 "Prelims" Card (6 p.m. ET)

• 155 lbs.: Jim Miller vs. Beneil Dariush
• 205 lbs.: Ovince St. Preux vs. Patrick Cummins
• 205 lbs.: Corey Anderson vs. Gian Villante
• 135 lbs.: Takeya Mizugaki vs. Aljamain Sterling

UFC on FOX 15 "Prelims" on UFC Fight Pass (4:30 p.m. ET)

• 170 lbs.: Tim Means vs. George Sullivan
• 145 lbs.: Diego Brandao vs. Jimy Hettes
• 185 lbs.: Chris Dempsey vs. Eddie Gordon

Was really looking forward to seeing Souza take on Romero but Romero had to pull out due to injury. The rest of the card has some pretty good fights for a nationally broadcast UFC fight. The prelims look pretty stacked as well.

This Card is a gamblers dream tonight, I think I saw one guy that had 100 dollars down to get 20K on a parlay, with the only risky bet imo being Max Holloway. You got Machida at underdog, Felcia at underdog, and Mizugaki as well.

Disappointed that Romero had to pull out, but I guess we get to see Jacare put on a show (or look silly).

My picks are:

Machida-Souza-Cub-Felice-Miller-Preux-Mizugaki-Means-Brandao (But I wanna hettes to win, hope he can grind Brandao down)-Gordon.

Welp... Rockhold just put the worst beating on Machida that he's ever had to take. Thought Rockhold would win but not like that. He's damn good. Too bad he seems like a douchey meathead outside the cage because he's fun to watch inside it. Think it will be Rockhold vs Jacare for the MW title in not too long.

Also looked like he was thinking about doing Jacare's gator crawl at the end but thought better of it... haha.

Wow that was just the worst way to go for Machida. As Rogan pointed out he was likely concussed at the end of the first round, then seemed to just give up once he hit the mat in the second.

Jacare's BJJ looked great as usual, looking forward to seeing a good breakdown of the transitions he used.

@sumbog: Holy shit, I hope you didn't put big money on those picks.

I'm so fucking bummed out with how Lyoto lost. He's one of my favourites, an all time great, but he was either injured or age is catching up with him. Not to take away from what Luke achieved, he's the one who smashed up Lyoto. Never seen anyone handle him like that.

On more positive news, Max Holloway is fucking incredible. Just such an enjoyable guy to watch and he's pretty active too which is a bonus (& still only 23). Good night for the young 'ins all round, Aljo Sterling didn't necessarily steal the show but he was good in a big step up against a long-time top 10 Bantamweight, Paige Van Zant ran roughshod over Felice Herrig, and Beneil Dariush continues to improve at a scary rate (those Rafael Cordero fighters).

Oh and good night for college footballers between OSP & Gian Villante (2 guys I picked to lose)

Rockhold looked fantastic, good for him. Souza did what he should've done but god I can't talk myself into saying he deserves Weidman next, it was fucking Camozzi! Holloway shocked me, he looked awesome. He is one of the best in the division easily and might even make McGregor rematch close if it were to happen, he is still way behind Aldo, Mendez and Edgar of course.

All in all it was a fun event for the most part except for me fucking up the pizza we made. Onto the next event and that looks practically unwatchable...

And what Jones did to Machida is still the worst he's taken. Jones dropping him like a sack of potatoes was scary as hell. Rockhold was just playing with his prey in the 2nd. Fight should've been stopped really, Machida was stumbling all over the place and it was scary watching that.

@forkboy:

Haha ya I`m glad I didn`t put anything on those picks, because I think I went 3/10.

I've been studying all day so I have only kept up through twitter, but it seems like a pretty good night of fights all together. I'm quite interested in the Paige fight, because I hear that was a beating. Also I am excited for Hollaway, I'm always happy to see new talent breaking through the old guard of divisions.

Oh, I forgot about it last night but how shit were the judges in the Eddie Gordon Chris Dempsey fight? MMA Decisions has almost every member of the media scoring it for Gordon, and almost every fan. Miserable judging.

I disagree as well but I'm assuming from the refs viewpoint point Gordon gets round 1, round 2 was kinda a toss up with significant strikes being close, and round 3 was won cause Dempsey cause 2 consecutive takedowns towards the end of the round. It would suck if those were the defining factor to Dempsey winning the fight cause Gordon got right back up after the first one.

So Rampage is back on the UFC 186 card.

Because that really changes anyones view on this poor card. Shitty for Bosse as well getting told he's being kicked out a few days before the event.

A good day for MMA today between the One Championship (featuring Amir Khan (not that one) & Ben Askren (yes, that one)) event and then later on we have Invicta, whose Strawweight title is on the line. I am looking forward to TJ DeSantis having to repeatedly say the champs name. I can't even spell it, bloody Finns.

There's a BAMMA card getting shown on Spike in the UK on Saturday night too, so that's fun. I've got the DVR set to record it. And we have the UFC 186 card which isn't great but honestly, I'm looking forward to seeing Demetrious Johnson again. My picks for that event:

Johnson is ever improving, so is Horiguchi but he's also really not ready for this fight. If there was any depth and Flyweight I'd have had him at least another 18 months before a title shot unless he was absolutely wrecking dudes. Essentially fuck you John Lineker for first missing weight again and getting punted up to 135, and for then beating the next best contender in Ian McCall. Though I feel that Jussier da Silva has been skipped over, I can't remember if he's hurt or not.

Jackson Maldonado, I have no fucking idea. Apparently Quinton is the reasonably sized favourite here and I'm not sure why, he only squeezed past Mo Lawal with a dodgy decision. But I just went with the flow as I've not strong feelings either way.

Picking Dolloway is maybe a surprise but I think The Count has really dropped off, and I've managed to convince myself I'd overrated him all along. I'd knew that he'd never gotten a win over a top 5 guy, but turns out that using Fight Matrix's rankings (because they are the easiest to go back through old events, even though sometimes they are of a questionable nature sometimes) he's never beaten a top 10 fighter, and he's only beaten one guy who was top 15 when they fought, Brian Stann. He's beaten people who WERE top 15 previously like Belcher & Leben, but hey, where you are when you fight is what matters.

Almeida vs Jabouin should be good, even though Goldie & Rogan will murder Jabouin's name 3 different ways during the entrance and fight. Thomas is a legit bluechip prospect at 135 and it will be a blast getting to see him do his thing.

I don't know what Askren was complaining about, it's his fault the fight got called.