The MMA thread

I still back the UFC on that one though.
Thats the problem when you have a dominant champion, unless you have the same rematches over and over again you do have to go down the rankings for fights (realistically speaking) or you'll have fighters getting well beaten by Aldo walking into title fights after 1 comeback win.
Look at Woodley, Stipe and MM. 1 decent win gets you in the title picture tomorrow because there is nobody else.
 
George Owen said:
Nate Diaz back to action?

If Conor fights him before facing Ferguson... :mad:
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The Diaz Brothers have made a tactical career mistake by staying out of the game this long. I know they wanted to make more money by only doing big fights with the likes of Conor et al, and spend more time smoking weed at pool parties, but they are genuinely getting to the age in their careers where they are less attractive in terms of hyping them up to fight various opponents.
 
Raoul said:
This may be true to a degree but remember that UFC generally had better overall ratings before Conor arrived on the scene. Back then, the likes of Lesnar and Mir pulled very good PPV numbers and their non marquee cards were doing better than they are today.
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Sorry I’m catching up on this debate but Lesnar is a bit of an anomaly in himself and there is probably an elite group of 4 that could pull in numbers close to Connor and Brock is one of them. Although I’d imagine a Jones vs Brock fight would really challenge that Connor vs Diaz numbers.

As for that 30% thing on Connor sure that would be a loss but he takes in big numbers and with big numbers the UFC can take in big advertising numbers to compensate that. I do agree with he isn’t the be all and end all of the sport but there is no denying that in MMA he just has that thing the likes of Beckham and Bolt have where you want to watch him and he is more than just his sport.

Honestly I think Kahbib would destroy him and Ferguson might be intresting. I just think he lucked out with Eddie being the champ at that time as 155 is stacked with murderers.
 
Nucks said:
LOL. No, he didn't. The only top guy who fought who was top at the time was Chad "Mini Camp" Mendes, who was in Montana or something hunting when he got the call, and rolled into camp on 7 days notice I think?

Holloway certainly looks good on his resume, but he got Max before Max was great.

The top 5 when Conor was coming up, were

1) Aldo
2) Frankie
3) Mendes
4) Swanson
5) Lamas or Oliviera

Melendez was still in the mix then too, arguably top 5.

At the time Holloway was maybe 6. I'd rank Conor in that top 5 mind you, but other than Conor thats what your top 5 looked like 2-3 years ago.

He fought one guy out of the top 5, and the guy came in on a weeks notice. So no, he didn't run the gaunlet, let's see who he actually fought.

Marcus Brimage, who?
Max Holloway, great fighter now, but he wasn't ready then.
Diego Brandao, good win but the guy has never been top. 18-10 I think when he fought Conor. A good veteran, nothing more.
Dustin Poirier, good win, but the guy has never been top 5. Good eliminator fight.
Dennis Siver, he's a journeyman. Next.
Chad Mendes, the only top 5 guy he fought before Aldo.
Aldo, great win, but it didn't really tells us much about how they'd shake down without an instant flash KO, the way say, Max dismantled Jose exactly the same way in two fights.

No Lamas. No Edgar. No Oliviera. No Swanson. You run the gauntlet, you take out at least 3 of the top guys in the division.

I won't hold the 155 fight against him so much, because the UFC saw Eddie 'sloppy brawler' Alvarez had somehow stopped RDA, and saw an opportunity to build the hype around Conor even more. I don't think he was deserving of it, in a way that say GSP was deserving of fighting Bisping, but Bisping was the top fighter at 185 in much the same way Alvarez was. They were in the right place at the right time, got the job done, but any number of dudes at 155 and 185 would have smashed Alvarez or Bisping.
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Who was Aldo going to fight since he’d beaten pretty much everyone in the division? Some more than twice. That’s why Connor got the shot plus he was finishing people.
Also when Connor got Max it’s not like Connor was some 32 yr old who had had 15 fights. I’d like to see that fight happen again as Conner blew his knee out and both have improved and I’d imagine we’d get a proper throw down with fists flying. Also be intresting to see if Connors boxing has improved even more so from where it was when he last fought in the UFC.
 
Andersons Dietician said:
Who was Aldo going to fight since he’d beaten pretty much everyone in the division? Some more than twice. That’s why Connor got the shot plus he was finishing people.
Also when Connor got Max it’s not like Connor was some 32 yr old who had had 15 fights. I’d like to see that fight happen again as Conner blew his knee out and both have improved and I’d imagine we’d get a proper throw down with fists flying. Also be intresting to see if Connors boxing has improved even more so from where it was when he last fought in the UFC.
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Max was pretty green. Conor was pretty seasoned. Regarding Conor getting the title shot, you can pretty much thank Frankie Edgar for that, since he, along with Aldo cleaned out the division, and I am pretty certain the UFC brass thought Edgar was too high of a risk for Conor, to risk giving Edgar another automatic title shot at Aldo. Whatever the reason is, I was just stating that Conor did not run a gauntlet at 145. He very much was gifted his title shot without having to fight all the guys ahead of him.
 
Raoul said:
The Diaz Brothers have made a tactical career mistake by staying out of the game this long. I know they wanted to make more money by only doing big fights with the likes of Conor et al, and spend more time smoking weed at pool parties, but they are genuinely getting to the age in their careers where they are less attractive in terms of hyping them up to fight various opponents.
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They mistakenly think they are PPV draws, and deserve big money. Now, I think just about everyone in the UFC is criminally underpaid, however, Nate and Nick are certainly not big PPV draws, and no more deserving of getting paid more than any other journeyman level fighters. They've in effect, cut off their noses to spite their faces by being so inactive.
 
Andersons Dietician said:
Sorry I’m catching up on this debate but Lesnar is a bit of an anomaly in himself and there is probably an elite group of 4 that could pull in numbers close to Connor and Brock is one of them. Although I’d imagine a Jones vs Brock fight would really challenge that Connor vs Diaz numbers.

As for that 30% thing on Connor sure that would be a loss but he takes in big numbers and with big numbers the UFC can take in big advertising numbers to compensate that. I do agree with he isn’t the be all and end all of the sport but there is no denying that in MMA he just has that thing the likes of Beckham and Bolt have where you want to watch him and he is more than just his sport.

Honestly I think Kahbib would destroy him and Ferguson might be intresting. I just think he lucked out with Eddie being the champ at that time as 155 is stacked with murderers.
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This sounds an awful lot like Ronda Rousey hype. Conor is more than anything a PR invention. He was marketable for sure, and he has skills to back it up, but he isn't even close to the greatest fighter in the sport let alone his division. He isn't a transcendent sports personality. He's probably about as big as anyone other than Brock has been in terms of MMA, but MMA is still a tiny niche sport.

Conor will never go back to 145 I don't think, it was a real struggle for him to make weight when he was hungry for a title, and I think Frankie Edgar and Max Holloway would starch him now. I'd even like to see Aldo Conor II, because while Aldo is well past it now, I think him and Conor if one of them doesn't get flat lined in the first 5s, would be an absolute barn burner. Two brilliant aggressive strikers, who hate each other, that both start fast and fade by round 3.

At 155, I'd be shocked if he actually takes a fight. I'm not entirely convinced he will fight again anytime soon, if ever. I think more than anything, he wants to angle for another big money boxing fight. The only issue I see with Conor at this point is, he looks to be George Besting his money. He might HAVE to take fights to support his lifestyle, and additionally, he might have fooled everyone into the Floyd fight, but who wants to see him fight someone who is actually aggressive? Manny would probably hospitalize him. If he loses the ability to put on circus boxing mismatches for tens of millions, he's forced back to the UFC for pennies on the dollar, and the UFC is clearly losing patience with him. Conor pre-floyd was their golden goose, and he got some very favorable matchups leading up to his title fights. Post floyd? They might be fed up, and just start feeding him to wrestlers over and over again.
 
Nucks said:
This sounds an awful lot like Ronda Rousey hype. Conor is more than anything a PR invention. He was marketable for sure, and he has skills to back it up, but he isn't even close to the greatest fighter in the sport let alone his division. He isn't a transcendent sports personality. He's probably about as big as anyone other than Brock has been in terms of MMA, but MMA is still a tiny niche sport.

Conor will never go back to 145 I don't think, it was a real struggle for him to make weight when he was hungry for a title, and I think Frankie Edgar and Max Holloway would starch him now. I'd even like to see Aldo Conor II, because while Aldo is well past it now, I think him and Conor if one of them doesn't get flat lined in the first 5s, would be an absolute barn burner. Two brilliant aggressive strikers, who hate each other, that both start fast and fade by round 3.

At 155, I'd be shocked if he actually takes a fight. I'm not entirely convinced he will fight again anytime soon, if ever. I think more than anything, he wants to angle for another big money boxing fight. The only issue I see with Conor at this point is, he looks to be George Besting his money. He might HAVE to take fights to support his lifestyle, and additionally, he might have fooled everyone into the Floyd fight, but who wants to see him fight someone who is actually aggressive? Manny would probably hospitalize him. If he loses the ability to put on circus boxing mismatches for tens of millions, he's forced back to the UFC for pennies on the dollar, and the UFC is clearly losing patience with him. Conor pre-floyd was their golden goose, and he got some very favorable matchups leading up to his title fights. Post floyd? They might be fed up, and just start feeding him to wrestlers over and over again.
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On the he didn’t run the gauntlet agreed he didn’t work his way to number 2 in the division, I think he was 5th. But then the UFC is a buisness and most of the guys in the top 5 had had two cracks at Aldo and lost, makes sense to go to Just keep repeating the same show over and over again and none were pulling up trees. You have this outspoken, entertaining guy finishing people the title shot had to go to him as really that division had gone stale. People can say it was Hype but then he backed it up by Knocking him out in 13 seconds.

As for Max being green he’d had 5 UFC fights to Connors 1 when they met. He’d had 11 career fights and yeah Connor had more at 15 but that is hardly a massive difference. They were both of a similar fight experience. Poirier was until recently wiping out 155 pounders also and was 5th in the division I think when Connor beat him.

Also nothing like Rousey hype, Connor can actually fight, and I’ve not said he is the greatest fighter, but to say he is a manufactured product isn’t really true. He beat a guy who hadn’t lost in 10 years who was the P4P at the time. I would like to see him and Holloway at their natural weights which is 155 as Holloway struggles to make 145 also. Granted not as bad as the junkie looking near death Connor but it’s close.

Oh and as for transcendent, the man has his own whiskey, fashion line, movie offers, boxing match offers because he is a huge draw he’s making serious money and it’s his character that takes him beyond the sport.

On the Manny thing I would have thought the same but I was speaking to some of my mates who are boxers and they were mentioning Manny hasnlost it now and they think Connor might win that. Was a shock to me, as it was evident in the last boxing outing he doesn’t know how to punch in gloves but Manny losing to the teacher and supposedly now having a glass jaw they reckon he is punch drunk and a light grease will blow him over.

Edit: Tony Ferguson won a belt fighting a guy 8th in the rankings.
 
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Andersons Dietician said:
On the he didn’t run the gauntlet agreed he didn’t work his way to number 2 in the division, I think he was 5th. But then the UFC is a buisness and most of the guys in the top 5 had had two cracks at Aldo and lost, makes sense to go to Just keep repeating the same show over and over again and none were pulling up trees. You have this outspoken, entertaining guy finishing people the title shot had to go to him as really that division had gone stale. People can say it was Hype but then he backed it up by Knocking him out in 13 seconds.

As for Max being green he’d had 5 UFC fights to Connors 1 when they met. He’d had 11 career fights and yeah Connor had more at 15 but that is hardly a massive difference. They were both of a similar fight experience. Poirier was until recently wiping out 155 pounders also and was 5th in the division I think when Connor beat him.

Also nothing like Rousey hype, Connor can actually fight, and I’ve not said he is the greatest fighter, but to say he is a manufactured product isn’t really true. He beat a guy who hadn’t lost in 10 years who was the P4P at the time. I would like to see him and Holloway at their natural weights which is 155 as Holloway struggles to make 145 also. Granted not as bad as the junkie looking near death Connor but it’s close.

Oh and as for transcendent, the man has his own whiskey, fashion line, movie offers, boxing match offers because he is a huge draw he’s making serious money and it’s his character that takes him beyond the sport.

On the Manny thing I would have thought the same but I was speaking to some of my mates who are boxers and they were mentioning Manny hasnlost it now and they think Connor might win that. Was a shock to me, as it was evident in the last boxing outing he doesn’t know how to punch in gloves but Manny losing to the teacher and supposedly now having a glass jaw they reckon he is punch drunk and a light grease will blow him over.
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I'm a fan of McGregor but Pacquiao would end the fight a lot quicker than Floyd did. He probably won the fight vs. Horn (the teacher you're referring to) and is a much harder hitter than Floyd. Mayweather was hitting McGregor from all angles, if Manny had the same kind of freedom (which he would) it'd be a very early night for McGregor. The Floyd fight worked for him for various reason. Floyd isn't a big hitter anyway and is far more tactical, Floyd would put on more of a show in the build up and obviously generates more buys than any other boxer and it wouldn't surprise me if Floyd was happy for it to go in to the later rounds to possibly entertain the notion McGregor was doing alright in the fight. Manny would do none of them things. He wouldn't really be bothered about any build up, he has more power than Floyd and I'd guess he'd be perfectly happy to end the fight as early as he wanted.
 
Oggmonster said:
I'm a fan of McGregor but Pacquiao would end the fight a lot quicker than Floyd did. He probably won the fight vs. Horn (the teacher you're referring to) and is a much harder hitter than Floyd. Mayweather was hitting McGregor from all angles, if Manny had the same kind of freedom (which he would) it'd be a very early night for McGregor. The Floyd fight worked for him for various reason. Floyd isn't a big hitter anyway and is far more tactical, Floyd would put on more of a show in the build up and obviously generates more buys than any other boxer and it wouldn't surprise me if Floyd was happy for it to go in to the later rounds to possibly entertain the notion McGregor was doing alright in the fight. Manny would do none of them things. He wouldn't really be bothered about any build up, he has more power than Floyd and I'd guess he'd be perfectly happy to end the fight as early as he wanted.
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To be honest for me Manny of 5/6 years ago would pretty much be a death sentence for Connor, same if he got in there with Canello right now. Mayweather was hitting him from shots all over the place from the 6th round onwards and at the end he couldn’t miss from tiredness. Pretty sure even the most Connerwashed fans figured that is how it was always going to be however Manny isn’t that sort of fighter and jumps in which is something Connor would like, but this is the thing if Manny still has that power or speed, Connor often takes a hit to give a hit and with Manny, well that could be the end right there. Does he still have that power or have the shoulder injuries caught up, does he still have that speed because he isn’t a defensive fighter and he’ll be there for Connor to hit.

It’ll be intresting to watch as I would imagine there will be a finish in that fight and honestly I haven’t watched Manny in years, I was going off of what my mates were telling me about him and both are professional boxers so I’d hope they know what they were speaking about. Saying that you read some stuff from pundits on sky sports and I’m left wondering if they ever actually played football so.....

Has anyone else seen that Manny has taken up Taikwando? I saw a picture of Manny sparring in a cage months ago and I thought nothing of it but I wonder if he’s considering it. That would be hilarious.
 
JP77 said:
UFC show flown under the radar for tonight. Couple of nice fights.
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Finally get to see Emil Valhalla Meek again!
Our only guy in the ufc.
Tough fight though.
 
George Owen said:
Elkins vs Jonson next

should be a banger
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I looked away when it happened, but i heard the commentator said something like...
"he got hit under the belt, but he's in no position to complain about it."
Did anyone see it?
 
Finally Emil Meek, can't wait!
Been waiting for this one for months!
We don't have any other noggies in the UFC, so hope he does well.
That said, i am not very confident today. He's beat some tough opponents like Palhares, but i am still not very confident in his style.
I think he often goes in with his head first while punching, and leaves his face open.
Hope i am wrong, he's a tough guy, and i know he's dedicated.
 
Raoul said:
Usman has fought well but I don't see anything in his game that suggests he's Champion quality.
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He is 7-0 now in UFC... without loosing one round. the guy is definitely champion quality.

hopefully he get a top 5 next, but no one wants to fight him in the top 10.
 
George Owen said:
He is 7-0 now in UFC... without loosing one round. the guy is definitely champion quality.

hopefully he get a top 5 next, but no one wants to fight him in the top 10.
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Possibly because he's been fighting minnows. Let's see how he fares against a known fighter.
 
What a cnutish post match interview by Usman.
sure you won, you want a tough opponent or title fight, but respect your opponent.
I officially hate Usman as a fighter and person, and hope Wodley smashes his face if they ever meet.
 
George Owen said:
hardly minnows. Pretty much all of them with good records in UFC, and this guy just dominates them.

hopefully he gets a Ponzinibio or Colvington next.
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Haven't even heard of most of them. Like i said, let's see how he progresses against known fighters. Maybe he should fight an aging Lawler next.
 
Sad to see Paige lose.
She doesn't look like a fitghter at all, but she always impresses me.
That girl can take alot of beating before she's out!
Too bad she hurt herself with the spinning backfist.
 
Great TKO bye Stephens, and very good stoppage from the ref.
Class act in the interview, compared to the scum Usman.

Too much humping in tonights fights, good thing the last two matches were good, made up for boring ones earlier.
 
Grylte said:
Great TKO bye Stephens, and very good stoppage from the ref.
Class act in the interview, compared to the scum Usman.

Too much humping in tonights fights, good thing the last two matches were good, made up for boring ones earlier.
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Really bad night for Choi considering he was hoping to get a title shot to avoid military service! Prob puts an even bigger downer on his night.

He's awful on the back foot and has been exposed twice with it now.
 
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