MMA Thread 2011 edition: Death of a promotion

[weemadando]

You can always rely on Cali Ghetto Team to act entitled and fuck you over.

But hey, PPV numbers came in - only 400k. Well below what they'd want, especially considering they did a prime time to boot.

[Darth Fanboy]

Being unfamiliar with UFC's substance abuse policies (I assume they have little or no tolerance for performance enhancement abuse at least to the same degree as boxing) but is there precedent for a stiff penalty?

[weemadando]

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH

Precedent.

Let's go with the precedent for making jokes about rape. Where, if you are a TUF winning, PPV headlining guy, you can do it for months on end and have nothing happen when the media finally calls you on your fighters doing it. But if you're a former WEC champ who happens to be the example the media brings up, then you get shitcanned by Dana as an immediate reaction to the interviewer raising it.

Of course, you get rehired again a few weeks later after making donations to the right charities and doing some outreach, but that's the precedent: "If you make the UFC money, then they'll do everything to hook you up."

Remember that time that Quinton Jackson went on a rampage in his monster truck through LA? And then Dana and the lawyer squad flew in from Vegas on private jet and hooked him up, because he's a PPV draw and they couldn't afford for him to go to gaol and get suspended?

Or how about all the times that dude's who use PEDs and are money makers have their penalties vigorously fought against, go on the tour and media circuit while suspended for the UFC and have fights lined up for hte day their suspensions expire, while others who are either a) honest about using PEDs when busted rather than outright lying or b) don't make the UFC tons of money get shitcanned immediately?

Yeah. There's precedent for stiff penalties. Unfortunately, Nick Diaz makes them some money. So he'll skate on everything.

[Darth Fanboy]

I remember Jackson's thing because I was like 15 minutes away when it happened and it was a BFD for maybe a couple of days. But was not familiar with the rest.

[aerius]

Unfortunately, Nick Diaz makes them some money. So he'll skate on everything.

No kidding, I'll be surprised if he gets more than a 6 month suspension. I mean look at Chael Sonnen - he loses a title fight, gets busted for PEDs, then gets convicted of money laundering and real estate fraud while he's suspended. Not only is he back in the UFC, he got his suspension reduced and gets setup with high profile gimme fights to put him right back into title contention. So you have a PED using cheater who's also a convicted felon. But he knows how to run his mouth and makes a ton of cash for the UFC so it's all good.

[Zadius]

I'll be honest: I frankly don't give a shit if Diaz was smoking pot or what punishment he receives for it. I was in favor of Daley and Babalu getting canned, and I thought Rampage should have gotten canned as well for that incident, but pot smoking? Meh.... I'm just glad that crybaby isn't getting his rematch against Condit. Condit won; Diaz lost. Deal with it. I like watching Diaz fight, but for fuck's sake, I don't like immediate rematches that much even when the first fight was a draw, let alone when the right guy got the decision fairly. I'd love to see Diaz vs. Alves or Koscheck or Ellenberger or even Fitch. Any one of those would interest me. You lose, you move down the ladder. So, beat one or two of those guys impressively and then maybe we'll talk about Condit or GSP. Maybe.

Of course, we all know that if he loses a decision to Ellenberger or Fitch, he'll whine about the judges and threaten to retire again. What a loser.

[aerius]

So much for the Jake Ellenberger hypetrain, he KO's Jake Shields and a bunch of tards start saying he'll be the one to knock off GSP. If his fight with Sanchez is anything to go by he's got a long way to go before he gets there. He's just another wrestler with big power and not much technique, let's face it, Diego's standup sucks ass and Ellenberger still couldn't land at will on him & tool him. It's still a huge step down in skill from GSP, Condit, and Fitch to everyone else in the division.

[aerius]

MARK HUNT WINS AGAIN!!

Who woulda thought that Mark Hunt would go on a winning streak in the UFC?

[weemadando]

2012.

MARK HUNT TITLE SHOT.

Dana White has uttered the words: "In the mix".

I say we see Hunt v Carwin then the winner gets Overeem.

K-1 champ v K-1 champ for the UFC strap.

[aerius]

Can you imagine Mark Hunt as the UFC heavyweight champion?
That would be even crazier than when Matt Serra won the belt!

Today I'm reminded of how utterly retarded MMA fans are, the same morons who were saying that Edgar didn't do enough to win the belt off BJ are now crying about how Bendo didn't do enough to win the belt from Edgar. Really? The only round I can score for Edgar is round 3 and that one was damn close. Bendo busted up Edgar's eye in the first round, beat him the striking in the 2nd before getting taken down, then creamed him with the upkick at the end. Bendo almost got the sub in the 4th and hit Edgar with hard kicks a bunch of times, the 5th was pretty close until Edgar got ragdolled and pounded at the end. 49-46 Bendo, just like 2 of the judges scored it, perfectly good decision.

Rampage, man, wtf. Comes in 6 pounds over the limit and other than the slam he looked pretty out of it. Rumour has it he had some kind of injury, but still, getting beaten by Ryan Bader is pretty sad. Dude, you lost to a guy who got finished by Tito Ortiz. Think about that. That's just shameful.

And of course the highlight of the night, Mark Hunt!
And Cheick Kongo trying to single-leg Herb Dean.

[weemadando]

That Edgar v BHendo fight (disclaimer - I'm yet to see it) sounds like a solid fight where the MMA folks I follow were pretty much split on scoring. Some had it Edgar, some had it Hendo. But that LW belt has been tied up for SO FUCKING LONG that we need to go crazy with it's matchmaking now, which is why Pettis/BHendo II fight is a great play.

BUT MARK HUNT.

Rampage - the talk coming into the weighins was that there was an injury in training that prevented him doing cardio training. I like to call this "injury" Being Quinton Rampage Jackson as he's always had a terrible history with training camps - injury or not and there were many rumours that win or lose, he'd be retiring. I think now, he has to seriously consider his future and whether or not it's time for the retirement tour. Just make sure he doesn't face any TUF winners (Griffin, Evans, Bader). The best part of that whole thing though? Apparently Bader's 20% of Rampage's purse was more than his whole paycheque.

MARK FUCKING HUNT.

Re-make Gomi v Sotiropoulos, that's still a great "styles make fights" thing - Sots with average striking and suspect chin, but blazing good jits v Gomi with good striking and amazing power, but terrible ground game.

MARK HUNT IS 3-0.

What to do with Edgar? Everyone wants him to move down to featherweight - this is an option. I want to go with the troll option that's been put forward - go up to WW and see how poorly lots of those guys deal with that kind of speed and inability to be stopped. Not to mention that not having to cut weight and possibly having even more mass? JEEBUS.

MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRK HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNT!

Seriously, Hunt v Carwin needs to happen. It can be the new Frye v Takayama.

[weemadando]

One thing that I find hilarious there. The UFC introduce sudden death rounds in order to avoid a draw situation.

And then the decision goes to Johnson.

But it didn't. Turns out it was a draw and the commission fucked up the addition of the cards.

So not only is it now a draw again, but we don't get the sudden death round.

BOO FUCKING HISS.

[aerius]

I read about that this morning, how the hell did they manage to fail junior school arithmetic? They're adding 3 numbers, the largest of which is 10. And they dicked it up. Really?

Also, Thiago Alves handing Kampmann a free guillotine choke in the last 30 seconds of the fight after beating him up for the entire fight. I gotta wonder at the thought process behind it, he's up 2 rounds, has him rocked, and he leaves his neck out while going for a takedown with half a minute left. Genius!

[weemadando]

Having seen a photo of the scorecards it took me a good 30s to spot the error. Some guys 8 looked EXACTLY like a 9.

Thiago going to Thiago? I mean I was expecting Kampmann to do his usual thing of throwing away a win, but considering he was way down on points, clearly that bad idea made its way over to Alves.

HOW DOES ANTHONY PEROSH KEEP WINNING? It's like he has some psychic power to scrub his opponent's minds of gameplans and knowledge of takedown defence when he gets in there with them. He's calling out Lyoto and Shogun and has absolutely no business with them, but considering the way he fights and the way his opponents tend not to, I can actually envision him winning those fights. THIS SCARES ME.

James Te Huna put on a showcase of violence. That boy wants to be All-Violence Team this year. The fact that he was up against Rico Rodrigues II kinda helped. As someone put it - that's the closest the UFC can come to rigging a fight without writing a script.

Also, given how massive Sonnen was next to Bonnar yesterday, is there any question that he's juicing so hard? Or, given how massive and bloated his head was, is anyone here supportive of my theory that he's turning into MODOK?

Finally, I'll leave you with this: https://twitter.com/#!/weemadando/statu ... 9232445440

[Edward Yee]

*sees the ending of Tate vs. Rousey, promptly taps out*

[weemadando]

From my facebook : OH GOD. WHY WOULDN'T YOU TAP? WHY WOULD YOU ROLL *THAT* WAY. OH MY GOD. WHY DO YOU HATE YOUR GODDAMN ELBOW SO MUCH?

[hongi]

Rousey by armbar, first round. Expected. Still painful in every way.

[aerius]

I thought Tate was going to get her arm snapped for sure on the first armbar, she got lucky once and that was it for the night. I still have to question what she was doing trying to mix it up in the clinch with Rousey, that's just asking to get judo thrown on the ground and armbarred. Rousey still has pretty questionable standup, don't clinch with her, keep the range open and strike.

Oh yeah, Paul Daley getting beat up on the feet. You could practically see him shitting himself, he couldn't land clean on Misaki and kept getting nailed with clean counters, it was so bad that Daley had to go for takedowns so he wouldn't get knocked out. Daley getting walked down and punched in the face, it was golden.

Best fight was Sarah Kaufman and Alexis Davis throwing down in the prelims. Kaufman finally opened up with her striking after being overly cautious for her last few fights, I guess she was pretty pissed about a)not getting to beat up on Tate, and b)getting left on the prelims.

[Edward Yee]

From my facebook : OH GOD. WHY WOULDN'T YOU TAP? WHY WOULD YOU ROLL *THAT* WAY. OH MY GOD. WHY DO YOU HATE YOUR GODDAMN ELBOW SO MUCH?

I get the impression that Tate was attempting the escape that Dan Hardy used against Georges St-Pierre, but unfortunately for her Rousey had the thumb to the sky despite not having wrist control, the opposite of GSP.

Technique question: Wouldn't Rousey's preventing Tate from rolling through make that a moot point anyway though, or is the thumb to the sky the more relevant factor here?

Oh yeah, Paul Daley getting beat up on the feet. You could practically see him shitting himself, he couldn't land clean on Misaki and kept getting nailed with clean counters, it was so bad that Daley had to go for takedowns so he wouldn't get knocked out. Daley getting walked down and punched in the face, it was golden.

Just to check... if they weren't Daley and Misaki, would you as a ref/doctor have stopped the fight on the cut?? (Let's ignore the "giving Daley the TKO cut win" part.)

[weemadando]

Thumb to the sky is the most reliable method I've learnt of ensuring an armbar stays on as it increases the pressure experienced. If Rousey had kept her knees together (but don't cross your feet) and used her legs to flatten out Tate, then we would have seen something even more brutal.

Here's a massive breakdown of it (which I haven't watched yet, but hey, they're usually OK).

[Edward Yee]

While interesting in breaking down the sequence and it definitely revealed some points that I don't think most know regarding armbars (i.e. going north for defeating a grip and using wrist control instead of pulling straight back and elbow control), I would have been interested in a breakdown of how Rousey's first armbar attempt was loose enough for her to decide "welp it's not going to happen".

[aerius]

Just to check... if they weren't Daley and Misaki, would you as a ref/doctor have stopped the fight on the cut?? (Let's ignore the "giving Daley the TKO cut win" part.)

Probably not. It was a bad cut but it wasn't pouring straight into his eye so I would've let it go till the end of the round then rechecked it as needed.


In other news, I heard Roy Nelson put out a bet where if he got 100k likes on facebook he'd drop down to LHW. I'm told it's currently sitting at just over 70k, looks like he'll be giving up those cheeseburgers soon. Roy Nelson without a giant belly, man, I don't know if I can picture that.

[weemadando]

http://theclassical.org/articles/the-queen-of-elbows

READ IT

[Edward Yee]

BJJ Revolution (Arizona?)'s Daniel Grippaudo's first opponent in the 7th Arizona Brazilian Jiu JItsu International open/absolute brown belt this past Sunday, BENDO himself:

... unfortunately, now it's going to be Henderson vs. Edgar II.

[weemadando]

And so we will have the absurdity of three years, six title fights, four men.