z22
1621
I’m with you Rudy, this seasons TUF is worth watching both in and out of the cage. The juvenile house antics never did anything for me other than make me cringe. I enjoy seeing training sessions and hearing about the fighters lives. I couldn’t care less about spats and pranks in the house.
This may be one of the only TUF seasons after season 2 that might produce true contenders. MMA is so big now that most great talent is found and signed long before being considered for TUF. I feel they got lucky with this season. Most seasons will almost always have struggling fighters or very young guys just starting out.
It is SOO refreshing for Sonnen (who is definitely both a good coach and good TV) and Jones (also fun to get to know better, but seems like Frank Mir is doing most of the coaching) to actually be civil and polite to each other, and not go through the standard faux smack-talk parade (manufactured and/or retarded). I couldn’t take another season like the Rashad/Rampage one where they constantly just got in each other’s faces and loudly repeated the same 3 lines over and over again “you scared” “I ain’t scared, YOU scared?” “not scare, YOU scared?” Jesus, that was annoying.
Sonnen and Jones actually having a decent relationship with each other – and accordingly actually agree on what they think is best, etc., is so much more pleasant to watch. And Uriah Hall may be the first real superstar to graduate from the show – the only issues he seems to have are mental. He could use a couple of years training with GSP’s psychologists.
This is actually the 2nd season since they abandoned the “live fights” on the Ultimate Fighter. That was a single season gimmick that didn’t seem to help ratings and was incredibly punitive on the fighters, since it required them to remain in isolation for weeks longer, when the normal stint already makes them “Survivor-batty” by the end. Keeping people in isolation for 3 months would sooner or later lead to some awful side effects/drama.
The Fuel main event substitution might actually make it more interesting, in a Balboa kinda way.
Great final regular season episode of Ultimate Fighter - very happy with both wins. Won’t discuss more expressly in case people haven’t seen it yet out west or whatever.
Yo_Rudy
1624
A great end to a great season. If any of my friends express interest in learning about MMA, I know where I can refer them.
Ending
I think Uriah Hall is right up there with Roy Nelson and Mac Danzig as guys who probably should have just been fighting in the UFC instead of on TUF. I expect him to run through Kelvin pretty easily. I feel bad for the kid who fought Uriah in the prelim fights - he took him to a decision and probably would have done well in the tournament if he went against anyone else. I read that Chris Weidman has brought in Uriah to help him prep for his Anderson Silva fight too, which is really interesting as Weidman beat him in the regional circuit when they were starting out. I would love to see a rematch between those two guys some day in the UFC. Perhaps even for the title? Who knows…
I really hope Dylan Andrews wins his finale fight and gets some more UFC fights too - he seems like an incredibly nice guy and I thought his fight with Luke Barnatt was great and the fight of the season. The friendship he had with the Muay Thai coach was also adorable.
Overall, I think Chael’s coaching and speeches are what got his two fighters to the finale. If Uriah - with his confidence issues - or Kelvin - with his youth and inexperience - had been on Jones’s team, I don’t know if they would have done as well.
I think next season is going to be crazy with girls and dudes both in the house. There’s so much high level female talent out there though (what up Invicta) that I doubt there will any shenanigans - most of them will probably be too focused and professional. I hope Cat Zingano wins too, I think Miesha Tate is annoying and I don’t want to see her and Ronda Rousey argue with each other every week.
The Fuel card was okay. Mousasi played it safe with his striking (although it ends up has a pretty serious knee injury that will require surgery) and the other guy was probably just too exhausted from cutting 20-something pounds in four days to work his wrestling. Some good fights on the undercard - Pickett-Easton and Johnson-Madadi were both a lot of fun. If you haven’t seen the Conor McGregor fight you should DEFINITELY check it out, I think that guy is going to be a big deal in the next couple of years. I hope he can wrestle.
GSP as Batroc the Leaper in Captain America 2. That is…fantastic.
I have a friend that trains BJJ at Mjolnir (home to Gunnar Nelson) and John Kavanaugh comes by with McGregor a fair bit. My friend reckons he can wrestle pretty well and has a decent ground game. However, he will suffer from the ‘UK handicap’ when it comes to taking on some of the high-level wrestlers in the UFC, I would imagine.
Yo_Rudy
1627
BAM! UFC on Fox finished. More knockouts than you can shake a fist at. Things of note I took away from it:
- First time a Diaz has been legit finished by strikes in over ten years (and the first time ever for Nate). Thomson looked great and is a new contender at 155.
- Matt Brown probably has a permanent spot on all future UFC on Fox cards. Every fight he has is pretty much awesome. I figure he’ll get a top ten guy, get grappled a bunch and lose, then return to his role as gatekeeper and bonus-taker.
- Melendez-Henderson was way more competitive than I thought it’d be; I didn’t think Melendez could hang with UFC top fighters, but it was incredibly close and I’d have to re-watch it before I could make a decision on who I thought won. The crowd boo-ing while Bendo proposed to his girlfriend was kind of a bummer. I’d like to see Melendez fight Eddie Alvarez, if they can figure out a way to get Eddie into the UFC soon-ish.
- Cormier should drop to 205, he is probably carrying around enough body fat that he could make weight without having to cut (he has kidney issues from wrestling and cannot safely cut weight). He looked okay against Mir (his silly flying spin kick thing was funny though). I guess his gameplan was “avoid going to the ground”, which meant a lot of fence clinching. I could see him grinding out a win against Jon Jones.
- All the Team Alpha Male guys had really good and aggressive striking, which is probably a direct result of having Duane Ludwig as your head coach. That’s a camp filled with great fighters who are going to get even better. If Pettis beats Aldo, Chad Mendes should probably get the title shot first.
UFC 159 has some interesting fights, and is right in my backyard (Prudential Center in NJ!). Unfortunately, the cheapo tickets (all that I can afford) sold out immediately to UFC Fight Club members. Does anyone have any experience buying tickets from one of the online resellers? My hope is that by Friday, or even Saturday, people will be dropping the prices low to just try and get rid of them and I can swoop in and get them under face value.
RickH
1629
How satisfying to watch a dick get hit in the face while in the act of being a dick.
I know people are saying it’s a valid strategy to “get in the head” of the opponent but I never saw it as anything but disrespect for the opponent, the sport, and the audience.
Even though he got caught, it’s amazing how agile Anderson Silva is for a 38 year old. Most fighters seem to be just plodding along once they hit their early 30s.
Great card, top to bottom. UFC’s July 4th and New Years Eve cards always seem to deliver.
UFC on Fox 8.
Blegh. Rory McDonald. Or maybe Jake Ellenberger. I dunno which one of them to blame that stinker on. I’m leaning towards McDonald. It reminded me of the Josh Koscheck vs Diego Sanchez fight from a few years ago. Plenty of hype between too great fighters, with abysmally lackluster performance.
But all the other fights I saw were very good. Too bad the co-main event had to be such a stinker.
Boring fight, but but Mcdonald put on a clinic just using his jab and movement. Ellenberger could do absolutely nothing to counter. Very smart fight out of Mcdonald.
Yeah, I agree with Haavok1 – a disappointment that Mcdonald fought such a cautious fight instead of really highlighting his creativity and versatility, but Ellenberger is a very dangerous guy. And it was still so much more interesting than the main event. That weight class needs to vanish.
What is it you don’t like about 125? I found the fight pretty compelling overall, even if I didn’t care much one way or another for either of the fighters.
I agree that McDonald is skilled, but I hate seeing such tentative fighting from such well regarded fighters. McDonald used a solid gameplan. I was waiting for him to use a good round kick the entire fight. He kept on feinting a kick by twitching his hips. Just that twitch alone made it look like he understands how to deliver a round kick better than most fighters in the UFC. But instead he just jabbed away. Can’t really blame the guy for trying to avoid getting his leg caught and getting taken down.
I think maybe what was so frustrating is that both of those fighters have had such exciting fights in the past.
If I were a judge I would have judged the fight a draw. Neither one of them really DID anything. I know its hard to get away with draws in the 10 point must system, but screw it. I would have given the first two to McDonald 10-9, and the last one to Ellenberger 10-8 and told them both to go home.
You’re crazy to think that was a draw. It may not have been satisfying, but it was an utter massacre in terms of point scoring. McDonald slapped Ellenberger around and reduced him to complete impotency, even if McDonald didn’t do a ton of glamorous striking. That said, I agree it was one of the most disappointing fights in a long time - I thought it had a good shot at being of the year’s best fights.
125 is just too damn light. It looks like midget wrestling, while they hit each other with Q-tips. I prime example is the bunch laid on Johnson in the 4th (think?) round – we ran face-first into a punch that was delivered while the other guy was also moving forward, and he got fantastic torque in the blow – in any other weight class, the fight would have been over immediately, guaranteed KO of the night. In any class above Welterweight, the champ would have likely been hospitalized – it was the “perfect” punch. In this flea-weight class, the q-tips just bounce off with a shrug.
I have despised every fight in that weight class - they are almost assured to go the distance too, which just adds to the pain, and there is no depth of talent whatsoever - the challenger went from being on the facebook card last bout to being the headliner, which is ridiculous. Not to say these guys aren’t incredibly talented - their speed is beyond belief - but I find it really arduous to sit through a match, despite loving MMA.
Oh yeah I get that it wasn’t a draw, but I would have ruled it a draw out of spite. It was one of the most boring fights I’ve seen in a few years, and the fighters did more damage by touching gloves before the fight than they did while actually “fighting” in those three rounds. Also, I wouldn’t go as far as to say Mcdonald “slapped Ellenberger around” although I agree he did basically reduce him to complete impotency. I don’t consider a bunch of non-damage dealing jabs to be the equivalent of “slapping somebody around”. I think slapping somebody around is more like Velasquez-Dos Santos 2.
What do you think of women fighting in MMA? All of your arguments against 125 I pretty much find apply to women’s MMA, even the “best” that the UFC offers. (Personally I really like women’s MMA because it is necessarily a completely different style of fighting than men.)
Oh, also, purely for the sake of curiosity, who is your favorite fighter of… ALL TIME?
Desslock, I think you have more of an issue with Mighty Mouse’s style of fighting than flyweights. Benavidez, Moraga, and Dodson have all won recent fights by KO - they hit hard and can finish guys, despite their size. Johnson just has a solid chin (Dodson hit him pretty hard in their fight too and he walked it off) and a Cruz-ian way of running arond a lot. You either dig what he does or don’t - a lot of people don’t (I love it).
The division is definitely super shallow right now, but - just like every other weight class - as light wrestlers start graduating from college and see fighting as a viable career, they’ll start popping up.
Women’s MMA has grown leaps and bounds in the last, like, three years. I’m actually really looking forward to the next TUF for a number of reasons. I’m pretty sure Ronda is kind of a nutcase (they released a preview video a few days ago and it looks like Miesha makes her cry due to meanness) so it’ll be crazy to see her trying to coach other female fighters, many of whom are already veterans in the sport and have been fighting since she was a teenager. It’s going to be a weird dynamic in the house too - I expect a professional demeanor from all the women (ala TUF 4) while the dudes are still probably going to be goofy kids. Combine all that with the new production values and style of the show means it should be good TV!
Tate made Rousey, who broke Tate’s arm, cry? By being mean?
Hey, sticks and stones… er… wait…
I was initially pretty lukewarm, at best, to women’s MMA in the UFC prior to it being featured – but so far while I’m not quite converted, I think it’s proven that it has evolved sufficiently that I could grow to like it. I agree that it’s actually different in feel/style to mens’ MMA and that could make it a cool sport on its own – it’s not as mature, obviously, so techniques like arm bars are more effective now than they likely will eventually be (similar to the way the UFC went through iterations of BJJ and wrestling dominance before reaching its current state where fighters have to be well rounded and different styles can certainly win). Main problem with it so far is there the lack of depth of talent, but that’s something that seems to be progressing fairly quickly.
Here’s a question for UFC fans - although I love even the circus “no rules” days of the UFC, I’m increasingly wondering if the sport would be better if it did not allow elbows to downed opponents – in part, seeing women get elbowed in that position has shifted my thinking, but it’s a viewpoint that has been evolving for a while because of the bloodsports that elbows to grounded opponents create – probably 80% of the ghoulish blood scenes could be avoided with that rule change, as well as stoppages to opponents because of bad cuts when they still have lots of fight left in them. I guess that’s similar to Pride back in the day.
I do like standing elbows, and knees, which also cause probably the majority of the rest of cuts (and Michael Bisping headbutts) and feel those are core MMA/traditional martial arts techniques, while elbows to a grounded opponent are something, like headbutts, that may be core to fighting but doesn’t necessarily need to be in the sport. Its deletion could be considered the anti-Jon Jones rule, however.
