The MMA/UFC Thread

[duffer]

UFC has been trying to shake off their "bloodsport" image ever since John McCain called it human ****fighting and they were banned from PPV and cable. There's been a whole heap of emphasis about the strategy, commitment and respect the fighters have so Henderson's cheap shot and Brock's antics were I guess not the greatest thing to happen to the sport.

However, the overall vibe from the weekend was positive. Even just from people I know here in Melbourne they seem to have lot of new fans. In a way UFC 101 is their most important show, if they can build on this one and put together another brilliant night then you can solidify the support of many people.

 

[masterblaster]

I'm not the greatest fan of MMA/UFC because of the level of violence that there is in the sport. I can appreciate the strategy, the conditioning and the athleticism of the fighters but sometimes it's really tough to watch.

Pro wrestling is a bit different I guess as the goal there is to put on a show and to not hurt or injure your opponent, which certainly makes it a bit easier to watch. Boxing as well with it's rules that protect the fighters makes it good to watch as well. MMA just seems like anything goes sometimes and the blows to a guy when he's down and out of it seem a bit over the top. It must take a huge toll on the fighters from a health standpoint.

 

[duffer]

Nah it's very heavily policed now. Almost unrecognisable from UFC 1 in a lot of respects. UFC athletes goal isn't to inflict punishment for the sake of it, it's just competitive instinct and desire to win apart from the odd indiscretion which I believe is equatable to a pro wrestler working sitff.

 

[Majin]

I don't find UFC to be all that violent really. The most dangerous thing they allow in comparison to other MMA organisations are the elbows to the head. Other than that they are pretty safe. PRIDE for instance allows the jumping stomps to the head of a downed opponent and soccer kicks to the head of downed opponents. Those are extremely brutal, and on the line between good sporting competition and unnecessary violence for me. On one hand if the fighters are willing to fight under those rules then there shouldn't really be a problem, but the moves are so dangerous and stuff, I don't know if I like it or not. (then again i have to question the sanity of people who are willing to fight under those rules against people like Mirko Cro Cop. Must be ****ing mad.)

 

[duffer]

Just saw the Mac Danzig v Jim Miller prelim match.

I was wondering why the Octagon floor looked like someone performed emergency surgery on it for the Akiyama bout. Wow, just wow.

Three losses on the bounce for Danzig. A spell in the minor leagues beckoning now. Shame, hope to see him back some day.

 

[King Pietersen]

I'm not the greatest fan of MMA/UFC because of the level of violence that there is in the sport. I can appreciate the strategy, the conditioning and the athleticism of the fighters but sometimes it's really tough to watch.

Pro wrestling is a bit different I guess as the goal there is to put on a show and to not hurt or injure your opponent, which certainly makes it a bit easier to watch. Boxing as well with it's rules that protect the fighters makes it good to watch as well. MMA just seems like anything goes sometimes and the blows to a guy when he's down and out of it seem a bit over the top. It must take a huge toll on the fighters from a health standpoint.

MMA may seem more dangerous, but it's actually far safer than boxing. Ther'es not been 1 death or serious injury in the 16 year history of the UFC, whereas boxing averages between 10 and 11 deaths a year. The main reason for this is that in boxing, the sole purpose is trying to hit the other bloke in the head more times than they hit you, or before one of you is knocked clean out/unable to continue. MMA is far more than boxing + hitting eachother when they're on the ground. There are submissions, leg attacks and far less focus on just punching eachother in the head. MMA is surprisingly safe as far as sports go, and although it can look quite graphic at times, even American Football has more deaths per year than MMA.

Then there's the matter of the gloves, which this site describes perfectly:

The gloves in ultimate fighting are designed to protect the hand. In boxing the gloves are designed to protect the opponent from serious injury. Oddly enough this seems to have the counter effect. The gloves in ultimate fighting allow for quick knockouts and superficial injuries thereby decreasing overall strikes to the head. The gloves in boxing tend to allow for more “jarring of the brain” over time thereby producing a greater amount of strikes to the head. This can of course, lead to a great many long term repercussions

The rules in MMA protect the fighters far more than in Boxing, and although MMA looks notably more dangerous, it's actually far, far safer.

 

[duffer]

Must say, UFC 104 is shaping up as a stacked card. So far we have:

Machida - Rua
Carwin - Velasquez
Okami - Chael
Bader - Schafer
Yoshida - Johnson
Hardonk - Pat Barry.

Looking forward to seeing Efrain Escudero fight at 103 too. Easily my favourite TUF 8 guy. Griffin, Koscheck, Swick and Kampmann on that card too.

 

[duffer]

Oh dear, Josh Barnett with a positive drugs test. So much for Affliction's battle of the heavyweights. Fedor, come on down to the big leagues....

 

[Jarquis]

Just thought I'd say I've never seen Fedor fight so was doing a bit of scouting on Youtube.
YouTube - Fedor Emelianenko vs Hong Man Choi
They guy he's up against there is huge!

 

[David]

Haha, he made Fedor look tiny... Crazy.

 

[duffer]

Strikeforce doesn't really win with Fedor tbh. Yes he'll bump up their viewership when he's on, but more or less any Strikeforce show without Fedor will be viewed as second rate by the casuals. Does a great disservice to a lot of the solid talent that they do have.

Wish them well though but UFC has about 80% of the top fighters in the sport under contract, picking their fighters off when they lose a few fights in the UFC is not a way to build a promotion.

 

[King Pietersen]

Not posted in here for a while, so thought I'd just add a few of my thoughts:

UFC 101 this evening. Already got my ESPN subscription set up, so UFC in HD will be mine this weekend =] £9 a month is rather cheap, especially given we get an HD channel included in that, and don't need to pay extra for other rooms like Setanta. <3 the UFC going with ESPN and not Sky Box Office! I'm backing Florian and Forrest, but can see them both losing annoyingly. I'd love Forrest to beat Anderson Silva, I like Silva, he seemed like a really cool guy on the UFC All Access show, but Forrest is a brilliant guy, would be great to see him win.

Fedor's an absolute bell-end. Was offered an incredibly good contract with the UFC, which would have made him the highest paid fighter in the world, but he (well his idiotic M-1 team) turned it down, because the UFC wouldn't co-promote with M-1. They offered him Sambo, offered him everything he could have wanted, but he still turned it down. No-one really wants to see Fedor vs Overeem or Rogers in Strikeforce, we all want Fedor vs Lesnar, Fedor obviously not willing to give the fans what they want.

BJ Penn's also a complete douche. Come out with some more idiotic comments about GSP taking steroids and HGH because he doesn't get fat after a fight. I did have some respect for him before those comments, but that's gone now, and I'm hoping Florian pulls off a victory. Can't see it happening, but I'd love to see BJ get hammered again like he did against GSP, shame he won't let that happen, he's been training real hard.

I knew Affliction was going down the pan as well =] Even without Barnett ruining the Trilogy Main Event they'd have gone out of business, were shelling out way too much money and getting themselves into serious debt. They've now given up the promotion business and are back to selling over-priced t-shirts with skulls on, and are now one of the UFC's main sponsors again.

The Affliction collapse has been good for the UFC in more than 1 way as well. Has allowed the UFC to snap up some very solid talent in the form of Vitor Belfort, Paul Daley, Ben Rothwell, Chase Gormley, Dan Lauzon and Rafaelo Oliveira (and it's rumoured there will be a few more additions as well, pretty sure there are a couple of HW's coming in, Paul Buentello was mentioned somewhere, think he may have signed.) Belfort has immediately been thrown into a Main Event fight at 103 against Rich Franklin, replacing Dan Henderson who will be next in line at Anderson Silva, after Silva's fight against Forrest Griffin on Saturday.

Tito Ortiz and Dana White have kissed and made up as well, with Tito returning to the octagon, probably by the end of the year against Mark Coleman. He's not fought since his loss to Machida, and has since had back surgery, but he's now back in training. Working on his boxing with Freddie Roach, and been doing some BJJ training as well. Looking forward to seeing him fight again, he sounds keen to give it a go at chasing the title.

Talking of the LHW Title, I'm really looking forward to Shogun vs Machida. I think Shogun, if he's back fit and at his best, could really give Machida a run for his money. I'm a big Shogun fight, especially having seen his Tournament win in the Middleweight tournament in PRIDE in 2005. I'd love to see him beat Lyoto and set up a fight between him and either Rampage and Rashad.

 

[King Pietersen]

Wow. That is one word to sum up Anderson Silva's performance last night. Forrest was embarrassed. Anderson was just playing with him, and making a mockery of Forrest's stand-up by keeping his hands down and just counter punching, and counter punching with tremendous power and accuracy. Was a stunning performance, and proved for me that he's the #1 P4P fighter in the world. After he beats Henderson again he should seriously consider moving up to LHW for good. He handled Forrest with ease and I'd love to see him in there with Machida, Rashad or Rampage.

Was pretty disappointed by the undercard, the 2 main events were excellent fights, but the Undercard was full of some nothing fights really. The Sadollah fight was ruined by a ridiculously early stoppage, the Grove fight was pretty dull and I'm not a fan of his anyway, and the Pellegrino fight was very meh. The 102 Undercard is looking far more promising, with Jardine-Alves, Maia-Marquardt and Leben-Rosholt.

BJ Penn was impressive as well. Looked to have much improved cardio, and wasn't worn down by Florian pressing him against the cage. As soon as the game went down to the ground it was over really, and it looked even more of a formality when BJ secured control of Kenny's back. Who's next for BJ Penn? Diego Sanchez?

 

[duffer]

My 101 thoughts:
Silva-Griffin

Crazy, he is just so damn good. Took the complete piss out of Griffin and out of all his haters by the style an swagger he showed on Sunday. Forrest running out of the building so quickly was a bit of a bitch move, but he was thoroughly embaressed out there he probably was ashamed of himself there.

Hendo looks like he's getting another shot at him but he'll get slaughtered imo. Machida - Silva would be an incredible match, but they've both stated it would never happen as they were such good friends. Shame.

Penn-Florian
I thought Kenny's game plan wasn't too bad tbh, he did a decent job at managing the distance needed and tried the GSP approach of trying to slowly wear down Penn by using smart weight distribution and trying to be elusive. He wanted to test Penn's suspect cardio but this time he looked studly fit. BJ probably got the better of the clinches and the dirty boxing but it wasn't a huge dispariyt until they got to the groung in round 4 where he was a different class in all honesty. Question for Team Hawaii would have to be "what took you so long to take him there?" Kenny arguably won the second round but never looked like lasting the distance.

Lightweight is so stacked right now, plenty of good fights for BJ out there. Miguel Torres going down badly in the WEC did disappoint me though.

Rest of the card mixed the good with the bad. Pellegrino was very impressive, Grove-Almeida I scored 29-28 to Almeida. Have no idea how the judges had it at 30-27. Sadollah-Hendricks was a joke. Aaron Riley was also very impressive, Nelson has been going downhill and fast recently. Goodbye for him. Great to see the Aussie George Sotiropolous get a solid win for himself too.

102,103 and 104 are where it's at for me though. All three cards are stacked, especially 104. Definitely buying all three of them.

 

[King Pietersen]

Apparently Forrest ran out because he had a dislocated jaw and couldn't hear out of 1 of his ears, so ran out to get medical attention. That's the strongly suggested rumour anyway.

 

[Majin]

Watching it as we speak, and holy crap, I was never the biggest Forrest fan but even I wouldn't have wished that on anybody. He got made a complete and utter fool of. Was definitely not expecting the fight to go anything like that, I expected Silva to win by KO but no way did I think it would be that easy or that quick. Still, before taking too much away from Forrest you have to say, damn Anderson is a badman. That last little part where he dropped his hands down, just used swaying to let Forrests punches skim his nose and then pick out the perfect time to just casually throw a counter out like that, got such ridiculous skill. And let's not forget you don't have to hit hard with counter to do someone in like that, all about timing and Forrest looked like he was throwing that punch that got countered pretty forcefully as well. Inclined to agree with the commentators and think he must have been messed up before that to go down, but I didn't see where it was that he got hurt the first time.

Now to watch BJ and "Ken-Flo" (worst nickname in the history of MMA imho. edit: or any combat sport for that matter. although upon reflection i'd say it's tied with "The Muscle Shark" )

 

[King Pietersen]

I didn't understand the criticism aimed at Anderson Silva after his last 2 fights though really. He had a belt on the line, and he did what he needed to do to pick up the win. He fought a clever fight, especially against Thales Leites. He seems like a genuinely awesome dude as well, from watching UFC All Access anyway. Dropping his hands and swaying Forrest's punches with such ease was just incredible, and does show how good he really is. He practises his swaying with his trainer, throwing a bouncy ball at him with Anderson stood against the wall, and it seems to have paid off. Was a ridiculously good performance from Anderson, embarrassing for my favourite fighter, Forrest, but that was all down to Anderson Silva's performance, was like an exhibition fight for Anderson, just showing off his skills. What a fighter he is, best P4P fighter in the world in my eyes. Silva > Fedor.

 

[duffer]

I didn't understand the criticism aimed at Anderson Silva after his last 2 fights though really. He had a belt on the line, and he did what he needed to do to pick up the win. He fought a clever fight, especially against Thales Leites. He seems like a genuinely awesome dude as well, from watching UFC All Access anyway. Dropping his hands and swaying Forrest's punches with such ease was just incredible, and does show how good he really is. He practises his swaying with his trainer, throwing a bouncy ball at him with Anderson stood against the wall, and it seems to have paid off. Was a ridiculously good performance from Anderson, embarrassing for my favourite fighter, Forrest, but that was all down to Anderson Silva's performance, was like an exhibition fight for Anderson, just showing off his skills. What a fighter he is, best P4P fighter in the world in my eyes. Silva > Fedor.

He's foreign, doesn't speak English and he doesn't take unnecessary risks. All the excuses your average moron fan needs tbh.

Such a shame that arguably the best fighter in the world is such a poor draw as far as PPV goes. An indictment on a lot of the audience itbt.

The criticism he got from the Hendo fight shocked me really. He gave Henderson a complete schooling, psyched him out and once he got him on the ground just waited for the mistakes to accumulate before ending it with ease. He's ****ing brilliant.

Machida is my favourite fighter along with Sanchez but I can't see a Silva-Machida fight happening, neither of them want to do it and it would be incredibly anti-climactic if they were forced into it.

 

[Bracken]

Thales Leites will be hoping that Strikeforce didn't spend ALL of their cash on signing up Fedor...

Pretty quick fall from grace. A few months ago he was the guy people thought might be able to take out Silva. Two crappy fights later and he's out of a job.

 

[duffer]

Watched his Silva fight again a few days back. Lold pretty hard at Rogan hyping him up as the perfect matchup for Anderson. Shame once the fight started it looked like he crapped himself every time Silva came forward.