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Reheat your November thread leftovers here. Welcome to the punchsports holiday cheer zone. See off the end of another hell-year with all your favorite punchfolks and friends. This month's thread title courtesy of kensei. If this is your first time here you should stop and say hi so we know it's not just the same couple dozen of us cussing each other out all the time, but you may want to start with The General Q&A Thread for the basic gist of mixed martial arts. WHAT'S HAPPENING THIS MONTH?
BUT WHAT OF RAGIN' AL IAQUINTA?  After his third straight loss, this one a one-sided drubbing at the hands of Bobby Green, Al Iaquinta randomly announced his retirement on a radio interview citing his lack of ability or desire to train like he used to. We wish him the best in his future endeavors of trying to sell all the real estate in Long Island. ET TU, KEVIN LEE?  After going 1 for his last 5 and failing to reach terms on a new contract, Kevin Lee has been released from the UFC. Safe bet Bellator or PFL will make a play for him so he can go talk about Michael Chiesa's mom some more. IS THERE NO GOOD NEWS?  Henry Cejudo is in negotiations to return in the hopes of an instant title shot at 145. So...no. No, there is not. WHERE ELSE CAN I TALK TO LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE ABOUT VIOLENCE? Any of the following hangouts:
DO WE HAVE OTHER COMMUNAL THREADS? So many.
WHAT IF I HATE FORUM SOFTWARE? Through the magic of instant messaging and 40 year-old technology, you have, at a minimum, two exciting options!
 Disclaimer: these places are not here and somethingawful's rules and liability do not extend to them and complaining about discord stuff is still offsite drama posting
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WHAT HAPPENED IN NOVEMBER Catharsis and exhaustion. The UFC got the stuff that mattered out of the way up front with UFC 268: Usman vs Covington 2, one of the biggest and most ultimately satisfying cards of the year. The MMA planets aligned and produced one of the most memorable nights of fights in a long while, to the point that recapping it is naming basically everything that happened--Chris Barnett's spinning wheel kick knockout despite being a squat heavyweight, Nassourdine Imavov destroying Ronda Rousey protege Edmen Shahbazyan, Bobby Green retiring Al Iaquinta in about two minutes, the flying knee debut of Adesanya-slayer Alex Pereira, the continuing demise of Frankie Edgar at the hands of Chito Vera--but it was mostly remembered for three things: The impossibly brutal, three-round murderfest that was Justin Gaethje's destruction of Michael Chandler, Rose Namajunas taking a razor-close decision in her successful defense against Weili Zhang, and Kamaru Usman dropping Colby Covington on his rear end twice and still getting the fight of his life en route to retaining his title. The whole card is worth watching. That violence managed to maintain its momentum through Fight Night: Holloway vs Rodríguez, which did a decent job of overdelivering on minimal promise. All but two of its eleven fights ended in some form of stoppage, many of which were the unfortunate stories of former exciting prospects having doors officially slammed in their faces: Rafael Alves' ninety-second guillotine of once-prospect Marc Diakiese who's suddenly 2 for his last 7, Andrea Lee scoring an all-too-rare corner stoppage over Cynthia Calvillo who went from having beaten everyone but a world champion to dropping three straight, former rising contender Thiago Moises getting elbowed to death by an overweight Joel Alvarez and Miguel Baeza, undefeated just one year prior, losing two in a row and suffering the first stoppage loss of his career at the hands of Khaos Williams. The co-main event saw the return of the once-promising Ben Rothwell, who was punched out in thirty seconds by Marcos Rogerio de "submitted by a forearm choke in 2020" Lima, and the main event saw Max Holloway defeat Yair Rodriguez in what was ultimately a much more competitive fight than most people expected--which is to say almost everyone agrees Max won, but Yair came close as opposed to getting smoked for 25 minutes. Aaaand the good vibes end there. The short month concluded with Fight Night: Vieira vs Tate, one of the most lamentable cards in UFC history. This time only one of eleven fights escaped a decision, and most of those decisions were decidedly viewer-unfriendly. Cody Durden got less attention from outwrestling Qileng Aori than from his weirdly racist post-fight promo about sending him back to China (and his response to criticism being that criticism is only valid from anyone who can beat him up), "Loopy" Lupita Godinez continued her quest to fill the UFC's Cowboy Cerrone slot by fighting for the third time in two months and winning a slow but admirable decision, Adrian Yanez and Davey Grant had the best fight of the night and Yanez took the win and likely a ranked opponent for his next bout on the back of a four-win streak, Rani Yahya is somehow still outgrappling people in 2021, Sean Brady outwrestled Michael Chiesa to become maybe the most successful, undefeated, 5-0 at welterweight in the UFC fighter you've still never heard of, and in the main event the UFC's marketing plans re: the Miesha Tate comeback tour went up in smoke as Ketlen Vieira jabbed her in the face for half an hour to an inexcusably close decision. WHAT'S COMING IN DECEMBER We're ringing out 2021 with the final three UFC cards of the year, and for once, they're all pretty promising. We kick off the month this coming weekend with UFC on ESPN: Font vs Aldo on December 4. Perennial rising contender Jake Matthews returns from his most recent derailment, Louis Smolka and Vince Morales will have what should be a real fun fight, grappling ace Leonardo Santos meets Clay Guida for what should just be a wonderfully stupid thing one way or another, Alex Morono is somehow going from main eventing and a two-fight win streak to battling the inexplicably still present Mickey Gall, Jimmy Crute and Jamahal Hill will fight to see who stays at the outskirts of the top 15 at light-heavyweight, Brad Riddell and Rafael Fiziev will have a striking battle for the ages, and in our main event, Rob Font and Jose Aldo will meet for what could, hilariously, wind up being a title eliminator. The big swing for the month comes the following week: UFC 269: Oliveira vs Poirier on December 11. The UFC has traditionally tried to end the calendar year on a blowout card, and despite the unfortunate loss of Edwards/Masvidal this still more than qualifies. Ryan Hall is back from his trouncing, Eryk Anders will continue to try to justify his paycheck, Miranda "The Maverick" Maverick tries to stop Erin Blanchfield's rise, Augusto Sakai and Tai Tuivasa will have what should be a fun brawl, Dominick Cruz is back and is getting beat for the prelim headliner by Josh Emmett and Dan Ige, which is hilarious. The main card sees Sean O'Malley get another attempt at bolstering his marketing against former flyweight Raulian Paiva, Cody Garbrandt making his flyweight debut against Kai Kara-France, Geoff Neal and Santiago Ponzinibbio battling for renewed contender status, and a championship double-header as Julianna Peña becomes the next contestant on the Amanda Nunes murder tour and, after two years of waiting, we finally get to the Dustin Poirier fireworks factory as he meets Charles Oliveira to finally determine the undisputed lightweight champion. ...and then we're ending the year on the less neat but still probably fun Fight Night: Lewis vs Daukaus on December 18th. 3/4 of the fights on this card aren't even officially confirmed yet, but you can expect the return of Raphael Assunção against the rebuilding Ricky Simón, Raquel Pennington's attempt to justify another championship beating by defeating Julia Avila, Sijara Eubanks fighting to keep her record above 50:50, the return of the ultra-promising Raoni Barcelos, Belal Muhammad rebounding from his eye injury against Stephen Thompson, Cub fuckin' Swanson trying to defeat the undying machine Darren Elkins, and the UFC's Christmas present to everyone is the gift of main event Black Beast Derrick Lewis against the quickly-rising Chris "I Am A Cop, Root Against Me" Daukaus. The winner of this fight could be next in line for a championship match, because heavyweight is the dirt worst.
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Dec 1, 2021 19:30
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CURRENT CHAMPIONS Heavyweight Champion, 265+ lbs   Francis Ngannou - 16-3, 0 DefensesFrancis "The Predator" Ngannou is the current standard of the world's time-tested favorite kind of heavyweight: A giant, 6'6" block of terrifying muscle who almost never wants to grapple and is content to throw punches that tend to look technically awkward but are so unimaginably powerful that it does not goddamn matter. Every one of his 16 wins have come by stoppage, with his most recent being a terrifying knockout over the statistically best UFC heavyweight champion in history, Stipe Miocic. One would think, in theory, that having just crowned a marketable, terrifying knockout machine as their heavyweight champion the UFC would gleefully do everything in their power to boost and promote him. Unfortunately, after the biggest fight of his life, Dana White wanted him to defend the title for the first time just four months later. When Ngannou's camp asked for a date three weeks later, the UFC promptly went to the press, announced that Ngannou Doesn't Want To Fight, and made quite possibly the most bullshit interim title fight they've ever done. Interim Heavyweight Champion   Ciryl Gane - 10-0, 0 DefensesCiryl Gane is, objectively, an amazing fighter. A 31 year-old, 6'4" kickboxer who went 13-0 in his sport, retired as the champion of France's biggest Muay Thai organization, switched to MMA, entered the UFC after just three fights and soundly dominated every single person he's fought. Gane is the stylistic other side of the Ngannou coin; measured, multifaceted and technical, content to use his kickboxing skills to poke, counter and chip people down to nothing, as evidenced best in the way he broke Derrick Lewis down over three extremely one-sided rounds. Unfortunately, that fight was for an interim heavyweight championship no one wanted. Lewis and Gane were both worthy contenders, and it's absolutely not Gane's fault that he has the title, but an interim championship being made as a negotiation-pressure strategy just four months after a new champion was crowned when the champion was prepared to fight less than a month later is one of the most ridiculous moves the UFC has ever made. Ngannou and Gane are booked to unify the titles at UFC 270 on January 22. Light-Heavyweight Champion, 205 lbs   Glover Teixeira - 33-7, 0 DefensesMost folks did not see this one coming, and I was definitively one of them. Glover Teixeira is MMA's new old-man punching champion, a fighter with 20 years banked in the sport who won his first world championship just two days after his 42nd birthday. Teixeira was actually first scouted by the UFC back in 2008, but illegal residency meant having to return to Brazil for three years while awaiting a work visa. He made his UFC debut in 2012, immediately rattled off five dominant wins thanks to heavy hands and a terrifying top game, and promptly got his poo poo hosed all the way up by Jon Jones. He settled into a role as a reliable, aging gatekeeper--a win over OSP here, a mauling by Alex Gustafsson there--but in the smoking crater that is the post-Jones, post-Cormier light-heavyweight division he put together a five-fight winning streak that included breaking former title challenger Anthony Smith's teeth and choking out Thiago Santos, and despite being a +300 underdog, he shocked the world by dominating and submitting standing champion Jan Błachowicz in just two rounds. He's expected to face genuine madman Jiří Procházka sometime in mid-2022. Middleweight Champion, 185 lbs   Israel Adesanya - 21-1, 3 DefensesIsrael "The Last Stylebender" Adesanya is both MMA's biggest new star and a cautionary tale about becoming a big new star. A multiple-time, multiple-weight kickboxing tournament champion with something like a 75-5 record, Adesanya's transition to MMA was seamless and his rise meteoric: He entered the UFC in 2018 at 11-0, and within a year he was 17-0 and an interim champion, followed by an undisputed champion, followed by a defending champion. His striking skills, his charisma, his implacable nerdery and his occasionally being kind of a shithead were all the right catalysts to make him a star, and the UFC pushed him to the moon. After two defenses, they decided to capitalize on Izzymania by pushing him straight to a champion vs champion match against the just-crowned 205-pound kingpin Jan Błachowicz, wholly intent on throwing even more promotional weight behind their most marketable new fighter--and Błachowicz beat him in a competitive but clear decision that forced the Adesanya marketing back down to Earth. He recorded another victory against Marvin Vettori, and is now expected to meet former champion Robert Whittaker again at UFC 271 on February 12. Welterweight Champion, 170 lbs  Kamaru Usman - 19-1, 4 Defenses"The Nigerian Nightmare" had to work harder than anticipated in November. Usman/Covington 2, a rematch very few people outside of the UFC's top brass wanted, seemed at first like the one-sided beating most people had hoped for, but Colby Covington's shitheadedness is matched only by his toughness and he was able to give Usman serious trouble in the back half of the fight. Usman won a hard-fought but clear decision, and now stands as unquestionably the UFC's greatest male champion, an incredibly tough, well-rounded and cerebral fighter who now holds the second-longest reign in welterweight history, but what comes next is unclear. The 19-3 Leon Edwards is a seemingly clear contender, but the UFC's palpable distaste for him has been a continual thorn in the side of his title aspirations and the loss of the Edwards/Masvidal fight this month puts his contendership hopes in jeopardy. Vicente Luque has been building a case, but lacks a top-tier win to cement it. The UFC would, of course, love to catapult Khamzat Chimaev into contendership, but arranging top-class fights for him has proven difficult. Usman is most likely to enjoy a vacation while the UFC figures out what the gently caress it's doing next. Lightweight Champion, 155 lbs  Charles Oliveira - 31-8 (1), 0 Defensesloving Do Bronx. Charles Oliveira won a world goddamn championship after eleven years of being in the UFC, and that's not a thing that happens. A BJJ specialist with an extremely tricky, aggressive style, Oliveira was seen by many as a future champion at the start of his UFC tenure and was securing top-card PPV berths after just two fights--and then the inconsistence and lack of focus that would define his career for most of a decade set in. He'd pull off incredible victories, vault back toward contendership, and get hosed up by gatekeepers like Cowboy Cerrone or Cub Swanson. He'd take down incredible grapplers like Hatsu Hioki one minute, then get guillotined by Ricardo Lamas the next. Around 2018, as Oliveira entered his tenth year of fighting at the wizened old age of 28, he apparently figured out his poo poo: He's won his last nine straight fights, culminating in violently knocking out Michael Chandler to win the Khabib-vacated lightweight championship. As of now, he has the most submissions in UFC history, the most FINISHES in UFC history, the highest finishing ratio in UFC history, and his name in the books as the best in the world. The asterisk to that is Dustin Poirier, the man who would almost certainly be the champion right now had the UFC not instead pushed him into two back to back Conor McGregor fights in the desperate hope of getting their money plane to fly again. The two are booked for a showdown at UFC 269 on December 11. Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs   Alexander Volkanovski - 23-1, 2 DefensesFeatherweight, in its decade of existence, has been one of the biggest divisions for the UFC. Out of four champions in total, three were almost mythical figures in the sport: Jose Aldo, the poor kid from the slums who slept in his gym and became the best fighter on the planet, begat Conor McGregor, the biggest star in the history of the sport, whose poo poo-talking was second only to his ability to back it up (until the cocaine years), begat Max Holloway, a force of nature so prolific in his violence that it broke the UFC's striking differentials. Alexander Volkanovski, by contrast, isn't an insanely talented kickboxer, or a swaggering racist counterpuncher, or the best volume striker in the sport's history. He's just really, really loving good at mixed martial arts. He's rock-solid in every aspect of his game, so much so that the only loss in his career came four fights in--at welterweight. He broke down Aldo, he turned away Max Holloway twice--though some disagree with the second time--and just last week he had an absolute war with Brian Ortega that showcased maybe the scariest aspect of his game: The way that, when put in bad positions like chokes that would finish almost anyone in the sport, he finds his way out of trouble, adjusts his tactics, and gets bloody, painful revenge. Holloway and Yair Rodriguez are expected to fight in a title eliminator in November; Volkanovski is almost certainly going to be taking some richly deserved vacation time until the winner is ready. Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs   Aljamain Sterling - 20-3, 0 DefensesAlright, this one's gonna be kind of a Thing. Aljamain Sterling is an exceptional fighter. After rifling off five straight wins at bantamweight he earned a shot at Petr "No Mercy" Yan, the undisputed king of the weight class. Sterling made a good accounting for himself, and was actually up on one judge's scorecard heading into the fourth round, but he was also visibly fatigued and getting the poo poo kicked out of him. Unfortunately, Petr Yan is an enormous jackass, and threw a grounded knee at Sterling's face that was as illegal as it was hilariously intentional. Having been cracked in the head by one of the best fighters in the world Sterling was deemed unable to continue, and in doing so earned the ignominious honor of becoming the first person to ever win a UFC championship by disqualification. The entire internet very quickly decided the problem wasn't the trained world champion throwing illegal strikes, but the 20-3, decade-tenured fighter who was actually a huge coward who should be ashamed of himself, because the internet makes you stupid. Interim Bantamweight Champion   Petr Yan - 16-2, 0 DefensesYan and Sterling were supposed to have their rematch at UFC 267 this past month, but when Sterling pulled out over medical issues, Cory Sandhagen stepped in for an interim championship bout. After a grueling fight of the year contender, thanks to his riduclous toughness and even more ridiculous boxing, Yan emerged victorious. UFC ring announcer Joe Martinez pointedly left out the "interim" when pronouncing him the two-time bantamweight champion. Yan and Sterling immediately resumed jawing on twitter, and the rematch is presumably inevitable. Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs   Brandon Moreno - 19-5-2, 0 Defenses"The Assassin Baby" is a really, really good nickname. Brandon Moreno is another star the UFC almost missed out on; an extremely well-rounded fighter out of Mexico who made a name for himself on the regional circuits in Tijuana, California and Arizona, he was picked up by the UFC for the last good season of The Ultimate Fighter, Tournament of Champions, lost in the first round, but was brought up to the UFC proper for a shot at the big leagues--and was then abruptly released after going 3-2. He'd be back in the UFC a year later after just one fight outside the organization and continued to go without a lot of attention until an exciting win over Brandon Royval got him a shot at the recently-crowned Deiveson Figueiredo. Deiveson was an absolute monster, a 20-1 champion who had finished all but two of his fights despite being a flyweight and was pegged to hold the belt for years, and Moreno unexpectedly took him to a draw. Had that not already been enough, Figueiredo had lost a point for a groin stroke and would likely have won without it, so a rematch was ordered as soon as possible. This time, Moreno shocked the world by not just beating Figueiredo, but definitively choking him out. The UFC attempted to book a third match between the two for December, but it has since been shoved off to UFC 270 on January 22. Women's Featherweight, 145 lbs  Amanda Nunes - 21-4, 2 DefensesWomen's Bantamweight, 135 lbs  Amanda Nunes - 21-4, 5 DefensesAmanda "The Lioness" Nunes is, unquestionably, the best champion in the UFC. She holds belts in two divisions simultaneously, has shifted back and forth between defending them seamlessly for the last half-decade, and most often does so in almost comically one-sided fashion. She is aided, of course, by the fact that the women's featherweight division isn't exactly real, and lest you think I am being unfair, this is the UFC's official rankings page for women's featherweight as of the time of this writing, placed next to the bantamweight rankings for emphasis:  Featherweight is basically a superfight division, in that there aren't enough fighters to actually handle rankings, so fights and contenders are just sort of arbitrarily picked. This in no way makes Amanda Nunes or her UFC run any less insane. The question of how you measure divisional dominance has always been a difficult one in mixed martial arts, but Nunes has the easiest possible case: She's beaten the absolute poo poo out of every other 135+ women's champion. Every woman who ever touched gold at women's bantamweight or featherweight in the UFC has been not just beaten but stopped by Amanda Nunes. She choked out Miesha Tate, headkicked Holly Holm and punched Ronda Rousey out in under a minute. Half the reason women's featherweight is seen as such a joke is the way Nunes dismantles every 145-pound fighter they put in front of her: Only one has lasted to a decision, and multiple 10-8 rounds were involved. Her combined 7 title defenses is the fifth-most in UFC history, which puts her at pace with Jose Aldo. She was supposed to earn bantamweight defense number six this past July against Julianna Peña, but COVID-19 delayed the fight to mid-December. Most people are already looking well past the fight, under the feeling that, despite their having already mixed it up twice, there's only one fight left for Nunes at the moment that makes sense. Women's Flyweight, 125 lbs   Valentina Shevchenko - 22-3, 5 DefensesValentina "Bullet" Shevchenko has multiple news articles and interviews about denying that she is a spy. She has multiple black belts, holds national titles in boxing, kickboxing, muay thai and judo, speaks four languages, has been personally recognized by the President of Kyrgyzstan, and is an excellent dancer, motorcycle enthusiast and trained pistol marksman who was knocking out adults at 12. But she is definitely not a spy. She is, however, a problem for the UFC. Valentina Shevchenko is an exceptionally good fighter. She has always been an exceptionally good fighter, and she has only gotten better. The UFC established women's flyweight as a marketing engine for The Ultimate Fighter, ultimately stripped its inaugural champion after she refused multiple fights and was physically incapable of cutting weight, and Valentina immediately won the vacant belt, and that was 1,025 days ago and she has shown no sign whatsoever of letting it go. Her game is so well-rounded and her technique so well-executed that she has opened a gulf so wide between herself and her challengers that they've entered sacrificial lamb territory. She's already successfully defended the title against half of the top ten of the division, and the other half have been beaten by the people she smashed. With no contenders on the horizon, most of the internet is calling for an extremely rare thing: A trilogy fight where one fighter already won twice. Shevchenko has only lost twice in the UFC, and both losses were against Amanda Nunes, but the second had scorecards from judges, media and fans alike split down the middle. On one hand, it'd be crazy to tie up two and a half divisions with just one fight; on the other, the gently caress else are you going to do, at this point? Women's Strawweight, 115 lbs  Rose Namajunas - 10-4, 0 Defenses"Thug" Rose Namajunas is still on top of the world. Her UFC 268 rematch with Weili Zhang was controversial both in conception and execution, and Zhang's strength and wrestling consistently gave the champion trouble, but Rose's versatility and adaptability ultimately won her a split decision victory and the first successful defense of her new reign. Her next defense seems like it should be obvious, as Carla Esparza is #2 in the UFC's rankings, on a five-fight winnning streak, knocked out previous top contender Yan Xiaonan in her last fight and holds a 1-0 record against the champion, but unfortunately for her, Dana White personally hates her for daring to do things like 'wrestle' and 'not look like a supermodel' and 'talk about how the UFC doesn't pay its fighters enough.' The UFC was very much hoping for Mackenzie Dern to be on deck as a contender, but she was dominated by Marina Rodriguez in October, who herself is 12-1-2, with that loss being a controversial decision against Esparza. Dana White has vowed Esparza isn't getting the shot and they have another option they're choosing not to disclose; the general assumption is they're negotiating with former champion Joanna Jędrzejczyk to return to 115 for what would almost certainly be another instant title shot despite being 2 for her last 6 and 0-2 against Rose herself.
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Dec 1, 2021 19:30
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https://twitter.com/MMAjunkie/status/1466182251960487939 I'm mostly posting this for this section of the article: quote:“We got back on Saturday. On Sunday, I cold plunge and steam every day,” White said. “So I get out of the cold plunge and steam, and I spray the eucalyptus and I was like, ‘What the hell?’ I couldn’t smell anything. So I opened the bottle and start sniffing the bottle of eucalyptus, and I couldn’t smell and I was like, ‘I know what this means.’ I literally got out of the steam and got on my phone and called Joe Rogan. dana white ate the horse paste
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Dec 2, 2021 00:22
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Felicia Spencer has also apparently decided to retire for mental health reasons, which means the UFC's women's featherweight roster now consists of four people not named Amanda Nunes, and only two of them have winning records, and one of them already beat the other.
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Dec 2, 2021 19:28
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https://twitter.com/MMAjunkie/status/1466542968983023617 geoff neal absorbed mike perry's spirit through his fists
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Dec 3, 2021 01:50
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He's, like, the absolute entry-level gatekeeper, in that no one he's beaten is still in the UFC with the technical exception of his most recent win over Jordan Williams, who is now 0-3 in the UFC and probably not long for this world.
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Dec 5, 2021 21:02
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BlindSite posted:Whenever I head Schiavello I wish I was born deaf and Bellator has been pretty bad lately. the UFC team - any team is still the best of a bad bunch imo. The greatest condemnation of MMA commentary is not the UFC team's issues, it's the experience you have anytime you listen to a non-UFC commentary team.
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Dec 10, 2021 02:53
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DoombatINC posted:The early preliminaries started with a tap to an RNC one second before the buzzer after the submitted party tried and failed to gouge her attacker's eye out with her thumb twice and it pretty much didn't let up from there Neal/Ponzinibbio is a little disappointing and Blanchfield/Maverick is really one-sided, but even those still weren't BAD, exactly. If you're gonna skip a couple those are the best choices, but everything's pretty worth watching for various reasons.
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Dec 12, 2021 18:14
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Kragger99 posted:I can't remember who it was (maybe Matt Hughes when he lost the title to GSP), but they said that the night they lost their title, they had a huge sense of relief. They no longer had the target on their back, and they could focus on fundamental training or IRL stuff instead of everything about "being champ". Anderson Silva. He even said he was never going to seek a rematch or title contention again, which, y'know, obviously didn't last. Fighters are mercurial when contracts are involved. I think Nunes fell victim to the superfight curse. After talking about how silly it was and how it would never happen for a year, Kayla Harrison's suddenly in the front row on camera being hyped as the sport's biggest free agent and two hours later, Amanda Nunes is dead. Someone posted a video of all the fighters in the VIP section reacting to the win and Kayla is visibly dismayed and yelling "FUUUUCK" repeatedly less like someone who is surprised about a fight and more like someone who is angry her superfight just went up in smoke. https://twitter.com/espnmma/status/1469898727892660226 also early in that video you see Michael Chiesa suddenly sprinting towards the cage and apparently he got hosed up
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Dec 12, 2021 19:04
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The "should Cody retire" thing is also an unfortunate factor of weight class. It's not like it's 170+ where once you reach a certain level of compromised veterancy there's an Ed Herman/Sam Alvey level of competition you can still hang around and have good fights in, even the lower ends of 125 and 135 are shark tanks with Brian Kellehers and Khalid Tahas waiting to kill you.
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Dec 13, 2021 02:02
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If Conor wants to continue having any degree of relevance--not that I think he's exactly an OH NO, MY CREDIBILITY kind of guy, just in terms of marketing ability--then the next fight almost has to be Nate. He's got hype again based on twenty seconds out of a 5-round rear end-beating, he's still Nate Diaz and thus an entirely winnable fight for him, and there's a very good chance any of the other money matches, particularly Masvidal, lead to Conor getting smoked for the third time in a row. Either it's the Nate rubber match, or they have him fight fuckin' Clay Guida or Jeremy Stephens or Cub Swanson or something, a recognizable name that he would stand a very good chance of beating, or they just don't give a poo poo anymore and they drag Matt Hughes out of his physiotherapy classes and have Conor beat him and give him a title shot for it.
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Dec 13, 2021 23:42
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https://twitter.com/NickBaldwinMMA/status/1470924171676893186 This is a good policy that will most definitely not lead to any bad things happening.
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Dec 15, 2021 05:35
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CommonShore posted:Thanks again to everyone in the thread who read and commented on my breakdowns. I enjoyed doing them, but no posting series lasts forever! They've been awesome and you are awesome, and thank you for the many days of excellence. If no one else feels like taking a crack at it I'll give it a shot in the new year, I already have to do pseudo-previews anyway.
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Dec 16, 2021 07:39
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DO YALL WANT A BOXC posted:had a Pride video pop up on YouTube and was curious who the last fighters to have fought in Pride are who are still in the UFC. I'm pretty sure it's Nick, robbie, and Shogun. which means Nick vs Robbie was almost certainly the last fight between two Pride guys to happen in the UFC, and I'm guessing it'll be Robbie or Shogun who will be the last to have a fight. unless I'm missing someone? Yeah, with Overeem gone and Rogerio retired it's down to those three. Maybe if Mousasi comes back to the UFC before he retires, but otherwise it's pretty much over.
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Dec 17, 2021 09:08
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History has been made https://twitter.com/MikeBohnMMA/status/1471916920320393220 sijara eubanks and macy chiasson also missed
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Dec 17, 2021 20:43
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https://twitter.com/DamonMartin/status/1471934063019765764 Well, that abruptly sucks.
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Dec 17, 2021 21:10
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 Since we have a couple weeks of nothing happening before the new year, the time seems good for community polling. Community format was a thing Mekchu was mulling over before he wisely decided to go have a life, and since I am now the lifeless one, I wanted to see how people felt about it. When SAS got sick of our poo poo and put MMA in a subforum we split everything off into its own thread because the UFC thread was getting 2000-4000 posts a month and things like Bellator and Strikeforce and DREAM/Sengoku/etc. had enough interest to attract conversation but not enough to not get completely drowned out and kickboxing not only still existed but had actual TV deals and dunc fooled us all into getting emotionally invested in it. It is about to be 2022, the UFC thread gets about a dozen pages a month, the B-league thread gets about one page a month, the kickboxing thread is on page 5 and sumo roams the Earth. Which is unfortunate, because there's still some cool stuff out there--PFL has been making moves, Rizin still does cool poo poo, Khabib is trying real hard to push Eagle FC into the spotlight, Fight Circus is out there whether I like it or not--and it tends to go entirely under the radar. So, the question: Being as this is essentially the only MMA thread that anyone reliably reads, should we start doing a monthly UFC + general MMA thread in the hopes of getting eyes on more events, or is it just sort of shuffling deck chairs? Is this a thing anyone would care about?
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Dec 20, 2021 01:29
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kensei posted:Twitter has killed the MLB GDT and it seems as if it is also killing the MMA threads. I personally think professional wrestling and MMA are too incestuously entwined for it to make sense to separate them, which is hilariously on the nose when Dan Lambert is still an AEW regular.
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Dec 20, 2021 06:50
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Brut posted:So I'm a little confused about the logic, if people want to post about b-league events putting them in what would essentially be the UFC thread (since that's what people are posting about, even if we rename it) seems like it would be even more discouraging since every time someone would be forced to shove a new conversation in the middle of existing ones. I don't think we have enough foot traffic for this to be a problem, honestly. All of the fast-paced posting goes into the gameday threads, the UFC threads themselves are basically news updates, yuks and gifs, and given that we're at the point where a single page in the thread will sometimes last us 3-5 days there isn't really much density of conversation to disrupt. And this holds especially true for the b-league thread, as you pointed out: Brut posted:It's actually a contributing factor to the problem for non-bookmark forum viewers, since there's a new thread basically for every single wrestling event, of which there are a bunch every week, threads like the b-league one just end up on page 2 like, within hours of a post happening in them. There isn't really a great way to fight that on its own; the b-leagues have some points of interest but it's not common enough or followed enough as is to stay afloat in the forum. Like, as of now there's one Bellator and one Invicta event for the entirety of January, PFL probably won't be starting up until the spring, Eagle FC has their US debut but most people haven't even heard of it let alone how to watch it. So even if people do post about b-league events in the dedicated b-league thread it's still going to fall off the first page, and that kills most opportunity for both people who don't know about those events finding them to discuss them in the first place and the subsequent casual, organic discussion about b-league stuff. Having people pop into the UFC thread, link to other threads and then ceasing all discussion here in the hopes that people have lively discussion in the other thread feels to me like adding a hop most people won't bother doing, and with a community that's contracted as much as this one it seems ultimately self-deflating. That's my take, anyway. I'm 100% with you on rebooting the Q&A thread, though, it's woefully out of date. I'll work on that for January.
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Dec 20, 2021 08:36
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DO YALL WANT A BOXC posted:that said, please keep the gambling and kickboxing threads alive because those are all timers Even aside from just being different sports and topics I think threads like gambling and boxing and sumo and such have their own thread culture and community and smashing those together would bum a lot of people out. and the kickboxing thread is an everlasting memorial to a dead sport, like, I would love it if we could spin up kickboxing community again because kickboxing rules but K-1 hasn't even updated their own english website since mid-2017
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Dec 20, 2021 20:16
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Also in the middle of this, somehow: https://twitter.com/DamonMartin/status/1473000911777808397 I wonder who blinked and on what.
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Dec 20, 2021 20:40
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I still want to see the reality where he held out another 30 seconds, the fight was stopped between rounds because Jones was missing a toe, and Chael Sonnen was the light-heavyweight champion of the world.
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Dec 22, 2021 04:17
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Merry Christmas to everyone on this boat, the best punchboat in the great punching sea.
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Dec 26, 2021 01:44
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threeagainstfour posted:good mcgregor analysis I think this is all pretty good but I think it's dangerous to say Conor/Nate 3 would be a tune-up fight. Conor at the peak of his power couldn't put Nate away and wilted towards the end, and Conor has noticeably declined since then, while Nate is still as Nate as he ever was. It's a money match and it's definitely winnable for Conor, but I wouldn't say it's in any way safe for him. The Sam Alvey thing is just baffling. At least once upon a time he was a reliable slang and banger you could stick on the undercard for a reliable brawl, but he hasn't been that guy in awhile and he's been around long enough that he gets like $90k a fight so he's not even one of their cheap options anymore. also saying "$90k isn't cheap" for a professional fighter in the UFC makes me feel filthy and I hate this sport sometimes
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Dec 27, 2021 21:44
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duckdealer posted:Isn’t there a Rizin FF show in a few hours? Don’t think there are any major freak show matches on the card though. Gomi is fighting kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa in a two-round boxing match on six days' notice with a 20-year and 30-pound disparity and Rizin's best young heavyweight prospect is fighting a 5'9", 48 year-old heavyweight named Shrek who is notable only for getting brutally hosed up by Brandon Vera a few years ago. Starts in 45 minutes. Pride never die.
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Dec 31, 2021 04:44
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 00:46 |
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 New year, new thread. Enter the cyberpunk future with us here.
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Jan 1, 2022 19:29
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