The MMA/UFC Thread

[King Pietersen]

Originally Posted by Goughy

Only 2 fights Im interested in. Id like to see Bader take a step up and dismantle Jardine and Big Nog vs Velasquez looks interesting as it is a legit test for Velasquez as we dont know yet if he is for real or a manufactured product.

This card could be part of a Pride retirement tour which in itself could be pretty exciting but it isnt exactly a particularly relevant card. Certainly some good names and high profile fighters. Id be interested in what Wanderlei (and UFC) does if he loses. That would be 6 losses out of last 7 fights. Im not convinced this card is worth $50 to many people on PPV.

Wanderlei won't be going anywhere if he loses I wouldn't imagine. He's still putting on entertaining fights and is still a big PPV draw. I'd be amazed if the UFC let him move to Strikeforce to make them some money.

Probably good for Cro Cop that he's facing Perosh, should get an easy victory and hopefully a highlight reel finish. I was looking forward to seeing if working with Ivan Hippolyte and making changes to his camp would actually help him against a decent level of opponent. A LHK KO would still make the event for me though, Mirko's not been able to add anything to the highlight reel since Wanderlei Silva in PRIDE.

[duffer]

Flying out to Sydney in a couple of hours. So ridiculously excited excited about this it's not funny.

On Nog-Velasquez, Nogueira has taken so many brutal beatings and still come out on top, Velasquez will be facing a guy with the willpower he's never seen before and he's never faced a guy with the ability to attack from the bottom that Nog has. It's a matter of being mistake free for Cain as he is susceptible to being hit by good strikers and his gnp is very raw and loose at times. If he can tighten his all round game and still keep the fury and cardio he has then he'll win.

Still hoping Nog gets up though, goign to be an honour to see this guy live. Hope Wandy ktfo of Bisping though, and also hoping Sotiropolous can pull off the upset and Bader destroys Jardine.

As for Mirko, I recently saw Perosh get his ass handed to him by a guy on the undercard of this ppv in James Tehuna, he was never that good and he's now a shattered 37 year old. Honestly, if CroCop doesn't detroy this guy in a couple of minutes then he should hang it all up(probably should anyway). Perosh is the definition of a stiff.

[King Pietersen]

Awesome, awesome event. Most entertaining card for a long time. The Aussie crowd were fantastic, especially in the Sotiropolous-Stevenson fight cheering every transition. They seemed to be more educated on the sport than most the American fans who annoyingly seem to boo as soon as the fight hits the ground.

Cro Cop looked good against Perosh, as expected. Striking looked decent, defended the takedowns nicely and the elbow to cut Perosh open was vicious. Dana's said that we'll get to see Mirko vs Rothwell next, which is good, was looking forward to that fight. Hopefully Mirko'll put in a quick turn around and we'll get to see it soon.

Sotiropolous was seriously impressive against Stevenson. He was out-boxing Joe Daddy on the feet and looked technically very good, especially in defence showcasing some nice head movement. Then on the ground he dominated, ended up in a couple of tough situations but got out of them with ease and was all over Stevenson on the ground. He really is a top level Jiu Jitsu practitioner, a real stud on the ground.

Bader and Jardine was an OK fight, probably the least entertaining of the night. Jardine can't seem to find any momentum at the minute, and should he lose his next bout he could be on the way out. Bader's still undefeated, and the big combo to finish the fight was impressive. He'd be outclassed by anyone with technical striking and good TDD though, not convinced he'll be a top contender anytime soon. I expect Jones and Davis to be the 2 best young prospects in the division.

Bisping-Wanderlei was a close fight, but a disappointing performance from Mike. He'd changed his stance to more of a boxing stance, but it did not affect his power what-so-ever. He wasn't putting anything behind his shots, just pushing at Silva like he was sparring. I did have him out-pointing Silva in the fight up until that Wandy flurry though, and as soon as that happened Silva secured the round and had the fight 2 rounds to 1. Bisping seems to be the Monty Panesar of MMA, he's effectively fought the same fight 11 times in the UFC, doesn't appear to have advanced his game much at all.

The Main Event was awesome for Cain. His striking looked magnificent. He was technically very good, powerful and crisp, proving that the "pillow hands" tag was falsely attributed to him. He looks a serious prospect now, and just seems to be getting better and better everytime we see him. I would love to see Velasquez vs Dos Santos, but Cain has surely secured a title shot once Lesnar's done with Mir again (yep, I think Mir will beat Carwin, and in a convincing manner too). HW division is looking really good now. Lesnar, Mir, Carwin, Velasquez and Dos Santos all looking really good, just need to get Fedor in there.

Gotta wait a while until the next event unfortunately. March 21st we've got the Vera vs Jones Versus card with UFC 111: St-Pierre vs Hardy 6 days after that. A fairly long wait, but 2 cracking cards to look forward to. Can't wait for Vera vs Jones, JDS vs Gonzaga, GSP vs Hardy, Mir vs Carwin and Fitch vs Alves.

[duffer]

Wow, just got back from Sydney and I don't know how it played on TV but live it was absolutely incredible. Crowd was more or less jam packed and hot right from the first prelim fight where Tehuna came through in a great fight with Pokrajac. Lytle and Bonner/Soszynski were also very well received too.

On the Main Card, Mirko got a huge huge pop and we were all waiting for a head kick to land but it wasn't to be. Peetered out to a lame finish but decent enough start.

Bader-Jardine was actually pretty good live, thought Jardine was goign to trouble Ryan as he wasn't looking like a takedown after the initial round but the last go to sleep knockout was sick and the crowd went off.

Then we came to the Sotiropoulos fight. The roof was close to blowing off during the entrance and anouncements and Stevenson's **** eating grin coming out to that Black Eyed Peas ****ery did him no favours either. The roar after the first round well and truly blew the place apart. We all wanted him to go in and compete but no-one truly expected it and to see him school Joe in the first round made us all go crazy. It's like the whole place believed afterwards and the "Georgie" chants were deafening from then on in. Great ground battle though, I thought Stevenson was going to steal it with when he locked onto that leg but Sotiropoulos' bjj was nothing short of top tier and the ease in which he turned defence into attack was incredible.

I know Stevenson didn't think it was a 30-27 decision but I thought it was right, Sotiropoulos even after being taken down looked the far more damaging and likely to end the fight. Great decision.

Wanderlei-Bisping was awesome live, I thought Michael fought a decent if pussy fight. For all the talk of him dominating he kept so much distance apart from when he tried to takedown that it looked like he was scared. Towards the ends of the rounds when Wandy pushed forwards he scored big each time. Just wished he'd done it more often, his hands still look lighting and hasn't lost too much power from the weight cut. He looks back to being competitive again and a possible Akiyama-Wanderlei fight is mouth watering to me. They both want it, please make it happen Dana.

I'm still in shock over the ME though. Everyone in the building was rooting for Big Nog tonight and were hot for the guy but once the fight started Velasquez just looked incredible. Purely incredible. That has to send shockwaves through the heavyweight division as we've never seen him strike like that(or try to tbh, he was always so ridiculously aggressive on the takedown) but now we all know.

Crisp, quick and with heat were how his strikes looked. Technique wise it was the Mintauro of old but he just doesn't have the speed to deliver against a guy at this level anymore. He was just miles behind whenever a punch came through to him and couldn't react. The way Velasquez came in and finished with that insane flurry of shots to the head was mind numbing though. We were all so shocked that it was near pindrop silence when the fight was stopped. A wave of sadness just came over us seeing Nogueira looking like that. Just really heartbreaking.

Cain can officially be called a badman now though. Purely mind blowing performance from him and echo Kp's call for a JDS (a Nogueira prodigy) number contenders match with him. Heavyweight division is all of a sudden looking a bit exciting.

All in all an incredible card, thought evreryone there did Australia proud and the UFC would be complete spackers not to give us more cards in the future(hopefully with a title fight on it). Melbourne next please so I won't have to make this trip again. All in all incredible, hope it looked that way on TV too.

[SirBloody Idiot]

I'll post some thoughts later, but Victoria have actually got to sanction fights in a cage for that to happen. They'd be mad not to IMO.

[Burgey]

Had my first cage-fight on the weekend.

Budgie didn't stand a ****ing chance.

[Goughy]

Originally Posted by Burgey

Had my first cage-fight on the weekend.

Tell us all about it

[Burgey]

Originally Posted by Goughy

Tell us all about it

The budgie's cage was dirty. I went to clean it and he arked up. I smashed him

[King Pietersen]

Been quite abit of news recently. The main news has probably been the UFC's signing of professional boxer James 'Lights Out' Toney. Toney's been stalking Dana for months, and he finally managed to get Dana to give in and sign him. It's been reported that he's going to be training with Juanito Ibarra, former trainer of Quinton Jackson in preperation for his first fight, and I am personally quite excited to see who he's given for his first fight. There's been talks that they want to get him in for his 1st fight in June, and potential opponents at the minute include Kimbo Slice, Forrest Griffin, Randy Couture and James McSweeney. I'd say the most likely at the minute would be McSweeney or Slice. I seriously doubt the commission would sanction a fight between an MMA newbie and an experienced fighter like Couture or Griffin. If Toney was to get badly hurt then who knows what would happen. Going to be interesting to see if Toney can get in shape, and more importantly learn some MMA skills. If he can develop some sort of ground game, or TDD he could be a serious force, there's no-one in the UFC with hands as good as James Toney.

Strikeforce have announced their next card too, and it is stacked with 3 title fights. It's going to be main evented by Jake Shields defending his belt against Dan Henderson. Then you've got Gegard Mousasi defending the LHW belt against King Mo Lawal as well as Gilbert Melendez defending against Shinya Aoki. 3 massive fights, and a card I am seriously looking forward too. Also rumoured that Cung Le could be fighting on the card too, if that was to happen then this card would have some serious pulling power.

They've also signed Andrei Arlovski to a multi-fight deal, and he's due to take on Antonio 'Bigfoot' Silva at Strikeforce 24. That event is set to be pretty stacked too, with Alistair Overeem finally returning to the organisation, and it's looking likely that he'll defend his belt against Brett Rogers, although it's been rumoured to be a non-title fight too. Fedor's also set to fight on this card as well, with a fight against Fabricio Werdum looking likely. Frank Shamrock and Pat Miletich have apparently verbally agreed to fight on the card as also. Strikeforce really are pulling out some serious fights and giving the UFC some healthy competition. Should be some really exciting fights in the next few months, very good time to be a MMA fan.

Early predictions for the UFC on Versus and UFC 111 card too, as I'm bored

UFC Live: Vera vs Jones

Brandon Vera vs Jon Jones
Junior Dos Santos vs Gabriel Gonzaga
Cheick Kongo vs Paul Buentello
Alessio Sakara vs James Irvin
Clay Guida vs Shannon Gugerty
Eliot Marshall vs Vladimir Matyushenko

UFC 111: St-Pierre vs Hardy

Georges St-Pierre vs Dan Hardy - as much as I'd like to vote with my heart and go Hardy, I have to go for GSP.
Frank Mir vs Shane Carwin
Ben Saunders vs Jake Ellenberger
Jon Fitch vs Thiago Alves
Jim Miller vs Mark Bocek

Nate Diaz vs Rory Markham
Ricardo Almeida vs Matt Brown

Can't wait for those 2 events!

[duffer]

Aoki-Melendez?
Moussasi-Mo?

Wow, wow, wow, wow,wow,wow,wow!

[duffer]

Have I mentioned wow? Seriously, what the ****? Incredible.

[King Pietersen]

'Wow' sums it up pretty nicely. Scott Coker confirmed it on MMA Live last night, can't wait for the card. 3 title fights on 1 card is just crazy, especially when they're as good as Shields-Henderson, Mousasi-Lawal and Melendez-Aoki. Just a shame that Lawal is effectively the last worthy contender to Mousasi's 205 crown in Strikeforce, except possibly Henderson. I'd like to see Mousasi beat Lawal, tool Henderson and then come to the UFC. Quite excited for Strikeforce though, their roster is just growing in strength. The HW division looks particularly good with Fedor, Overeem, Rogers, Arlovski, Silva, Werdum and Lashley.

[duffer]

Overoids and Rogers really are struggling to get much love from me until they can actually get sanctioned to fight in America. Can't give them any credibility unless they can deliver after passing some drugs tests. On paper it looks very nice though.

But yeah, incredible three fights. Mo and Gegard are both top contenders and Aoki and melendez I've both mentioned my love for on here before. Very exciting.

[Bracken]

I'm sure I read that Mousasi only has one fight left on his Strikeforce contract. Now that he's left M1, I'd bet betting the farm that he'll be on a UFC contract the minute his Strikeforce contract is up. The lack of 205lb challengers in Strikeforce might turn out to be moot.

Strikeforce definitely has Dana's attention, though. The story going around is that dana signed Toney as a way of killing a Toney-Walker fight that Strikeforce was discussing. Dana has also already announced that the UFC will run a live card on the same night as the Strikeforce card, and Coker has hinted that they'll be shifting the Strikeforce card forward by a week in response.

I wouldn't be too worried about the commission not approving a Toney fight. His boxing record will count for a lot, especially if (as I suspect) the UFC feeds him a can for his first fight in the hope that it'll turn his second fight into a huge money fight. If I was to take a guess, I'd assume that the UFC will build to Couture-Toney as Toney's second fight, probably on the year end card. If built right, the boxing-v-MMA angle could sell a card of UFC 100 proportions.

Besides, if they run into any issues with getting a Toney fight sanctioned, they'll just do it in Nevada. Zuffa accounts for a huge amount of the NSAC revenues now, so it'll take a major mismatch for the NSAC to say no to them.

[Goughy]

Originally Posted by duffer

Moussasi-Mo?

Wow, wow, wow, wow,wow,wow,wow!

That will be an exciting fight. Looking forward to it already.

and if there is a card with Andrei Arlovski vs Antonio Silva, Brett Rogers vs Alistair Overeem and Fabricio Werdum vs Fedor Emelianenko then holy ****. That is uber-stacked.