UFC thread

[up_the_hampipe]

Brock vs Hunt was probably a bigger draw for the show anyway, no? This is still a big blow though, of course. Jones is a tit.

[mikeyg27]

Can't imagine Jones being given another chance should the positive test actually be confirmed.

I don't know. He is probably already on the shortlist of greatest MMA fighters of all time and I can imagine the UFC keeping him around purely to make sure somebody like Bellator doesn't sign him. Another promotion would definitely take the risk.

I'm sure he'll want to stay on the card and get some of that sweet, sweet PPV cut but I hope they pull Cormier off the card and compensate him accordingly. It would be dumb for him to have to fight someone new on less than three days notice.

[Viero_Berlotti]

I don't know. He is probably already on the shortlist of greatest MMA fighters of all time and I can imagine the UFC keeping him around purely to make sure somebody like Bellator doesn't sign him. Another promotion would definitely take the risk.

Yeah, a failed drug test in MMA doesn't really have the same gravity as it might in other sports. They're all at it, and getting caught is almost a badge of honour, he'll sit it out and do his time and make a comeback in 12 months time. Off the top of my head I can think of two big names in Alistair Overeem and Royce Gracie (arguably the biggest name in the development of the sport) who have failed drugs tests and it's not really effected their career or legacy. Overeem came back signed a new contact and is fighting for the heavyweight title in September.

Jones is more likely to damage his career by acting a prick outside the octagon, getting arrested again and doing jail time. Conor McGregor must be having a chuckle to himself, his UFC 200 headline fight cancelled over a silly disagreement over a fight publicity no show (which in fact caused more publicity for the event than if he did turn up for it), and now this. Dana White can be a pig-headed fool at times.

[Old Thrashbarg]

Brock vs Hunt was probably a bigger draw for the show anyway, no?

Possibly to the casual fan, but the promise of a proper resolution to Jones v Cormier was huge.

I don't know. He is probably already on the shortlist of greatest MMA fighters of all time and I can imagine the UFC keeping him around purely to make sure somebody like Bellator doesn't sign him. Another promotion would definitely take the risk.

Yeah, I was thinking with the timing and fucking up what should have been their biggest ever event they wouldn't look kindly on him, but he is that much of a draw that they probably will just keep bringing him back to avoid him going to a rival.

[greenman]

Jones does have the benefit that a lot of his appeal already is people who dislike him wanting to see him lose but if he's been caught for something serious it could mean a long ban rather than the previous 12 month(so effectively 1 fight missed on UFC timescales), he was caught with very low testosterone/blood ratio in the past that was greatly suspected but just within limits.

The show probably doesn't need a replacement in order to do well on PPV with Lesnar involved and several other decent draws on it but this will definitely hit its buyrate. It wouldn't be easy to get Cormier a short notice replacement challenger as all the top LHW fighters these days are big guys who cut a lot of weight, they could I spose move Mousasi from the undercard if they really wanted to have a Cormier title fight.

[mikeyg27]

Lesnar / Hunt is main-eventing to ensure it's a 5 Round fight, isn't it? I'm pretty sure only Title fights and main events are allowed to be 5 Rounds. Still feels a little weird to headline with the closest thing the UFC have done to a freakshow[nb]In that for Lesnar this surely has to be a one-off because of WWE commitments.[/nb] for a while when there are two other Title fights on the card.

[confettiinmyhair]

Yeah, a failed drug test in MMA doesn't really have the same gravity as it might in other sports.

In the past that was the case, but The United States Anti-Doping Agency don't mess around, and the UFC have brought them in to clean up their side of the sport. It's produced some interesting results to date. Not to mention the change in fighter's physiques at Weigh-ins and a few fighters looking shadows of their former selves.

[Carpool Dragon]

From the press conference it seems that he's going for the "tainted supplement" excuse, it's popular these days (Mir, Romero, Mendes). Also from watching it, I'm almost sure he's a legit sociopath. The PR woman getting up at the end to talk about what a nice guy he is was a laugh too.

Lesnar / Hunt is main-eventing to ensure it's a 5 Round fight, isn't it?

It's only 3 rounds, won't last past the 2nd anyway.

[greenman]

Lesnar / Hunt is main-eventing to ensure it's a 5 Round fight, isn't it? I'm pretty sure only Title fights and main events are allowed to be 5 Rounds. Still feels a little weird to headline with the closest thing the UFC have done to a freakshow[nb]In that for Lesnar this surely has to be a one-off because of WWE commitments.[/nb] for a while when there are two other Title fights on the card.

Any fight can be 5 rounds, its the promoters choice but I'm guessing this is staying with 3 that's more than enough anyway.

[Viero_Berlotti]

In the past that was the case, but The United States Anti-Doping Agency don't mess around, and the UFC have brought them in to clean up their side of the sport. It's produced some interesting results to date. Not to mention the change in fighter's physiques at Weigh-ins and a few fighters looking shadows of their former selves.

Yes, I agree as the sport gets bigger and more accepted by the mainstream the culture will change, still a long way to go with that though. It is funny when you look back at the late 90s and early 2000s, there are noticibly less 'muscle Shark' types around these days. I do kind of miss those days though. Pride FC for all its faults, fixed bouts and sted head fighters could be a dangerously brutal spectacle on its day.

[greenman]

Yes, I agree as the sport gets bigger and more accepted by the mainstream the culture will change, still a long way to go with that though. It is funny when you look back at the late 90s and early 2000s, there are noticibly less 'muscle Shark' types around these days. I do kind of miss those days though. Pride FC for all its faults, fixed bouts and sted head fighters could be a dangerously brutal spectacle on its day.

You can a few obviously dodgy fighters(notable almost all Americans) like Sapp, Kerr, Randleman, Waterman, etc in Pride but actually I think the era with the most steroid use was likely the period post Pride before the current testing came in, most of the training switched to the US and went towards the culture of getting as big as you possibly can in a certain weight class.

[greenman]

One cheater for another as Anderson steps in to fight Cormier, not for the belt though.

[Viero_Berlotti]

Ha, yes I'd forgotten about Silva, another legend that shaped modern MMA that has tested positive at some point in his career.

[greenman]

One obvious negative for Jones with potential drug use for me is that a lot of his success has come from outlasting opponents, You look at the original Cormier fight for example and that was fairly even for the first half of it before Cormier started to tire in the second half, that was also the fight were Jones had a suspect low testosterone level.

[up_the_hampipe]

The Brock Lesnar of 5 years ago was amazing, the post-diverticulitis Suplex City Brock Lesnar has no business fighting competitively.

So I guess Mark Hunt really has no business fighting competitively now then.

[Ja'moke]

Lesnar looked at home. Seemed to enjoy himself too. Looks like he'll be sticking around if he can work out a new deal with Vinnie Mac.

[mikeyg27]

That was a mostly disappointing main card. Both the Lesnar-Hunt and the Cormier-Silva fights had the same problem of one guy being able to take the other down almost at will, but the other guy being savvy enough to negate any serious damage on the ground. The Aldo-Edgar fight was okay, but it became clear about halfway through that Aldo had Edgar pegged. At least Nunes and Velasquez showed up in destroyer mode.

The fight of the weekend was the Jedrzejczyk- Gadhela fight on Friday. Jedrzejczyk deserves all the plaudits from coming back from those opening two rounds, and Gadhela deserves plaudits for lasting to the end because she seemed spent in round 4.

[greenman]

That was a mostly disappointing main card. Both the Lesnar-Hunt and the Cormier-Silva fights had the same problem of one guy being able to take the other down almost at will, but the other guy being savvy enough to negate any serious damage on the ground. The Aldo-Edgar fight was okay, but it became clear about halfway through that Aldo had Edgar pegged. At least Nunes and Velasquez showed up in destroyer mode.

Lesnar didn't find it easy to take Hunt down but did threaten when he did so the match was competitive but very one sided both standing and on the ground. Not really an impressive performance from either man for me and doesn't make me think Lesnar is likely to get near the title unless he's gifted another shot.

I actually thought the prelims of the PPV were the best action of last night, Gastelum/Hendricks was very competitive and Dillashaw did a nice merger of Fedor, Crocop and Anderson standing.

[Carpool Dragon]

Crock of shite. Nice to see Cain back on form though.

So I guess Mark Hunt really has no business fighting competitively now then.

Well yeah, he's about 45 and past his prime, he's doing it for the paycheck at this point.

Speaking of which - #13 ranked Dan Henderson is getting a title fight. LOL

[confettiinmyhair]

There's no real standout contenders in the middleweight division, a whole host of them have losses in their last 3, including Jacare, Weidman, Belfort, Machida. Likely this will be Henderson's last fight either way. That fight makes sense because of the context of their last fight and that an argument can be made that Bisping deserves an input on his first defence after serving the company for so long.

It's very strange that the UFC has had so many detractors, but they are making a strong effort to be the cleanest sporting organisation in America, are openly welcoming of LGBT competitors and have the first LGBT world champion, and are very much pro-women athletes. A lot has changed in a few years.

[kitsofan34]

It's very strange that the UFC has had so many detractors, but they are making a strong effort to be the cleanest sporting organisation in America, are openly welcoming of LGBT competitors and have the first LGBT world champion, and are very much pro-women athletes. A lot has changed in a few years.

That's what's so frustrating. The fanbase are pure scuuuuum, booing any kind of strategised mat based fighting [nb]what kind of madman is going to stand up with Anderson Silva?[/nb] and going fully erect whenever fighters drop any pretense of pre meditated forethought and just start throwing haymakers recklessly at their opponent's head. That's not even mentioning the "USA" chants. Gotta support our boyz!

Also the UFC can be as welcoming to LGBT competitors as they want, but they might wanna' have a word with their fighters who continue to use homophobic language. [nb]http://www.si.com/mma/2016/06/05/michael-bisping-calls-luke-rockhold-homophobic-slur-after-fight
http://mmajunkie.com/2016/07/donald-cerrone-uses-homophobic-slur-to-describe-cormiers-performance-vs-silva-at-ufc-200[/nb]

[greenman]

There's no real standout contenders in the middleweight division, a whole host of them have losses in their last 3, including Jacare, Weidman, Belfort, Machida. Likely this will be Henderson's last fight either way. That fight makes sense because of the context of their last fight and that an argument can be made that Bisping deserves an input on his first defence after serving the company for so long.

It's very strange that the UFC has had so many detractors, but they are making a strong effort to be the cleanest sporting organisation in America, are openly welcoming of LGBT competitors and have the first LGBT world champion, and are very much pro-women athletes. A lot has changed in a few years.

It makes sense giving a title fight to someone who might retire? after years of the middleweight division being relatively poor they finally have a clutch of quality fighters yet all of them are being sidelined for a short term sideshow.

The UFC were very negative towards womens MMA(White claiming it would never feature them as recently as 5 years ago) and it was only its success under other promoters including Rouseys earlier career that caused them to look to jump on the bandwagon when it was shown to be a money maker.

[Carpool Dragon]

According to Chael Sonnen[nb]reliable source, I know[/nb], Jones popped for two different oestrogen blockers. That's a maximum penalty of 4 years suspension (and USADA does like to make examples out of high profile offenders). Can't really explain it away with tainted supplements either, he's fucked.

[Viero_Berlotti]

Tee-hee now Brock Lesnar in trouble:

http://m.uk.ufc.com/news/UFC-Statement-on-Brock-Lesnar-071516?utm_campaign=UFC&utm_medium=social&utm_source=sprout&utm_content=1468622385

Mark Hunt furious:

http://www.foxsports.com.au/ufc/mark-hunts-furious-reaction-to-brock-lesnars-flagging-by-usada-ahead-of-ufc-200-fight/news-story/5415e4bab6edc2c16911501f1f9c139c

[Repeater]

UFC have a big problem, still, with the culture they cultivate in spite of trying to appear inclusive. You have ring girls, constant domestic violence accussations, homophobic slurs (Bisping, Cerrone in the last 2 months alone), Mike Tyson... Big problems. They can wear the rainbow all they like but it's all transparent lip service until they do something tangable above the above issues, for a start.

[Bacon]

Lawler vs Woodley this weekend, should be a good fight. Woodley will struggle if it turns into a 5 round slog, which is what I'm hoping for, Robbie Lawler is a machine, he seems happy to take hits as long as he can give em

[Repeater]

I do jujitsu

[mikeyg27]

Lawler vs Woodley this weekend, should be a good fight. Woodley will struggle if it turns into a 5 round slog, which is what I'm hoping for, Robbie Lawler is a machine, he seems happy to take hits as long as he can give em

A flawed strategy, it seems. If you play with fire you'll get burnt at some point.

The only belts that haven't changed hands this year are Featherweight, Light Heavyweight (McGregor and Cormier haven't defended them this year), Strawweight (Jędrzejczyk wasn't that far off dropping it either) and Flyweight (Mighty Mouse is definitely the P4P king now, no doubt about it).

[greenman]

There is I think still a bit of a tendency to overestimate peoples striking ability at 170lbs, for years it was a wrestler dominated division and whilst things have obviously improved I wouldn't say Lawler represents the peak of MMA striking, he has depended on his chin a lot in his recent run and that's always going to catch up with you in the end.

I was looking forward to Lawler/Thompson though, I spose it could still happen but I think the latter deserves the next title shot now.

[kitsofan34]

The Perez/Rivera fight was going so well. Two interesting round, with Perez increasingly looking more and more impressive. But ohhh no, we couldn't possibly have that, so the two fucking idiots come out round 3 and just start absoloutely laying lefts and rights at each other's faces until Rivera just collapses in a heap. Because apparently this isn't a martial art, this is human cockfighting. If I wanted to watch two idiots chuck fists at each other without wanton consideration for their safety, I'd go down to my local on a Saturday night. The loudest the fans got all night too. The primitive fucking bloodthirsty apes.

Kowalkiewicz/Namajunas was a great fight though, very enjoyable. Kowalkiewicz clinch game was bruuuutal!

McGregor/Diaz 2 and the UFC debut of CM Punk in the next two events!!! An exciting time, for sure.