Masvidal vs Usman is the fight we all wanted but not the way we wanted it. Burns got COVID, and Jorge is replacing him on a week's notice. I can't imagine he'll be at 100%. Seems weird too, as Jorge was the breakout star of welterweight. He definitely could have waited for a more favorable situation than this.
Anything can happen but this doesn't look good.
Last edited by StyleTime on Jul 11th, 2020 at 12:55 AM
Jorge/Usman --- Yeah, I already spoke on this. Look, Usman totally was the favorite regardless, but still Jorge visibly stepped off the gas in rounds 2-4, as he wasn't sure of his stamina with only a week's preparation. He was quite effective when he did attack though, and stuffed a surprising amount of takedowns. Just have to wonder if he had a full camp, how would this fight change. Good work on Usman though.
Jose/Petr-- Near the end of his career, Jose remembered he has really good kicks. Unfortunately, he's just a step behind the elite guys now. He looked great while it lasted, but fighters like Petr are the future... and the new champ. I really wish Jose had tried moving up in weight rather than down. A bigger weight cut must be even harder as you age.
Rose/Jessica-- This was was a more advanced version of what we expected from the first fight. Rose being super technical and fluid and mostly neutralizing Jessica's power through movement. Jessica did land a massive shot in round 3 that nearly ended the fight though.
Holloway/Volkanovski-- Fights like this or Stylebender/Whitaker always pain me because I love both guys. It was a championship performance all around. Max utilized his full arsenal of kicks instead of just boxing like before, and got multiple knockdowns. Volkanovski showed his championship mentality by mixing in takedowns once the feinting wasn't yeilding the same dividends. It was a high level example of MMA striking that I'd recommend for anyone. Split decision for Volkanovski, and I'm not mad at the decision.
<3 Max though. Super young and already reached legend status, and greatest featherweight of all time. A rare technician who can also brawl when he wants. I see him still being a huge problem for the division, and easily capable of being champ again. Hawaii just produces badasses.
Paige/Amanda-- Paige needs to hit chicks with those warheads on her chest.
Shame it ended so early for her, but Amanda is a skilled girl. Considering the armbars we've seen Paige wriggle out of like a noodle, it's impressive Amanda snapped it on so quick.
Last edited by StyleTime on Jul 14th, 2020 at 02:06 AM
i agree, st pierre also comes across as a top bloke. He is a top geezer. For me his fight with Bisping cemented that coming back from retirement and fighting a very good fighter and making him look average. Class, interesting fact if you read Bispings autobiography, he has lots of stories over the years about what a top guy and fighter St pierre is.
Last edited by Old Man Whirly! on Jul 16th, 2020 at 02:51 PM
Whittaker vs Till was fun. It's another one where I love both guys, so it's hard to pick a side. I love that they were playful leading up to fight. No Conor shenanigans. No Jon Jones controversy. They were just there to test their skill and probably went out partying afterwards.
Darren is an interesting striker. If you break it down, he's a pressure fighter, but he's actually pretty low volume. Some labeled him a counter striker possibly because of that. In fact, he doesn't deal well with when people can put him on the retreat. All his losses were when people came at him.
Which is where Whittaker comes in. Robert has incredibly effective entries, even having success against Stylebender in moments. It was a good fight from both guys, but Whittaker's offense is just really intelligent and he's got a chin for when he does slip up. It was too much to handle in the end. You can even look up the fight stats. Whittaker's strikes were evenly distributed to the head and body/legs. Darren mostly head hunted, and got outlanded in all but round 1.
Definitely check out Max/Volkanovski at the very least. Petr vs Jose is important too, although depressing as Jose is clearly reaching his end.
Bisping is underrated. Before GSP, Bisping's losses were all pre-USADA, and he won his two rematches which were post-USADA. Not accusing anyone, but just sayin' lol. Especially Vitor.
Bisping has become a phenomenal analyst too. He's one of my favorites, along with DC and Cruz. I listen to his podcast some. He had a rep for being a douche during his early-mid career, but Bisping is actually pretty likeable. Doesn't take himself too seriously.
Last edited by StyleTime on Jul 31st, 2020 at 08:43 AM
Damn, I missed the Till vs Whittaker fight card and just today realized it. Would have liked to see the striking matchup of Till vs Adesanya (provided he gets past Costa) but oh well. I did see Holloway vs Volkanowski fight, thought Max won it but also didn't think it was highway robbery like a lot online seemed to. Usman did his thing against Masvidal, no surprises there.
Bisping did have an underrated career. I'm glad he ended up winning the belt and cementing his legacy. That made him a slam dunk Hall of Famer, even though he would have been without winning the title.
I love the banter between him and Cruz. Bisping always calls Dom a midget and Dom always comments on Bisping having one eye. I remember one time Cruz told a story about how Bisping started getting mad at him in a bar and was talking shit to him or something, and Cruz just frowned and looked around and was like "Are you talking to me? Or the guy behind me?" looooooooooooooooool so funny.
Cruz and Bisping are great. Lol. Definitely check out Till/Whittaker though.
As for the recent fights, I must admit I totally wrote Weidman off. Round 2 was rough, but he had a return form for the rest of the fight. He used his wrestling to dominate, and I think had a control time of a little over half both Round 1 and 3. That said, I do wonder about the future. Ahkmedov is ranked #11, so Chris could theoretically break into Top 10 again.
5 of his last 7 fights were knockout losses though. Even if we subtract Reyes for being a weight class above, 1 of his wins was against Gastelum. I love Gastelum, but let's face it: he's a welterweight and is steadily falling down the MW rankings. If someone loves fighting, then have at it. I doubt we'll ever see Chris in title contention again though. He's already lost to a few current top 10ers like Yoel, and I see Weidman getting knocked out by guys like Stylebender/Till/Whittaker/Costa/Cannonier. All the top guys of MW basically.
For Derrick Lewis though.....THE BLACK BEAST!!!! I love that he's taking this seriously now. His cardio is on point. His wrestling is wildly improved. His striking is a little more refined. Great KO win for him, although he was in a precarious spot at the end of round 1. He could have escaped, but it is interesting when the bell rings when one guy is applying a submission.
Yeah, Stipe has been the most consistently underrated heavyweight ever. Which is strange because he is the greatest HW of all time aside from maybe Fedor.
Still, great fight. Both DC and Stipe made multiple adjustments to account for each other's game, so it went to decision this time. Stipe had more answers for the clinch this time and DC was better prepared for the outside kickboxing stuff. It's a shame about the eye pokes though.
I do wish DC had fought his entire career at HW. He was already basically unstoppable despite being an older guy. I'd imagine he would have been a nightmare had he spent his prime years there. It's a shame he moved down for Cain's sake, then Cain gets plagued by injuries that ended his career prematurely.
Still, DC is an easy Hall of Famer and possibly the GOAT analyst. And never tested positive for PED's unlike Jones.
....also, I'm going to be bold and say that I think Jon Jones will look mighty vulnerable going up to heavyweight. People look at the DC fight, but it's just different styles. All Jones's controversial split decisions were against dudes with similar reaches. I foresee that problen getting magnified at heavyweight, especially against someone like Stipe.
Last edited by StyleTime on Aug 26th, 2020 at 09:55 PM
I wonder if Woodley will hang up the gloves soon or not. This is the 3rd loss in a row, and he doesn't strike me as the type to want anything less than the belt again. I just don't see it happening. Colby dominated him, with or without the eye poke. Kamaru. Burns.
Chimaev's quick KO looked sick. I will refrain from early hype though, as we see young prospects get derailed all the time.
Johnny Walker had an exciting performance as usual, and fought out of some real adversity. He was almost done there for a second. Wasn't the most technical performance as Cruz noted, but it was pretty volatile for the time it lasted.
Mackenzie Dern is just a ju jutsu diety. I'm blown away that Randa willingly went to the ground, especially so eaarly in the fight. She had no reason to follow Dern after Dern slipped. I know I'm being a keyboard warrior here, but I'm sure that was frustrating for her corner to watch. Randa showed good defense while it lasted, but Dern is something else.
It will be interesting as Dern starts to face top 10ers.
Last edited by StyleTime on Sep 21st, 2020 at 06:10 AM
I'm going with Stylebender. I'm a Stylebender fanboy though so lol.
Costa winning is definitely possible though. He packs immense power, and is willing to trade hits in order to land. Stylebender is the more decorated and skilled kickboxer, but he's not really a power striker. If they trade blows, Costa would conceivably do more damage on individual hits. Stylebender has been KO'd before, but it was back in kickboxing and against Alex Pereira... who is the greatest middleweight kickboxer in the world. And he was winning up until the KO tbh.
Against Costa though, Stylebender has the more comprehensive game. His defense is lightyears ahead of anything we've seen from Costa, and his offense is more nuanced. Large variety of kicks and punches. Feints. Accuracy. Movement. Likely better stamina. He's probably the best kickboxer we've ever had in MMA, or at least top 3.
The only grappling likely to occur is in the clinch. I doubt either will go for takedowns, so it's a striking match. Even if it does go to the ground, Stylebender has shown he can threaten pretty quickly from bottom to create scrambles to get back up.
Of course, this is all on paper. Anything can happen on the day. Only thing that is relatively certain, is that it will be an intense match. Costa is pretty aggressive and Stylebender seems to match his opponents pace.
Last edited by StyleTime on Sep 24th, 2020 at 08:54 PM
The hate is mostly because of his last fight, with Romero. Most folks found it really boring.
It was boring, but I think it was mostly Romero's fault. Not Stylebender's.
If you watch, Israel is the only one approaching. He'd throw feints. He'd throw probing punches. He threw low kicks. He was doing all kinds of stuff to get a reaction out of Romero, but Romero just stood there in a defensive shell. No counters. No offense. No movement. Nothing. What do people expect Stylebender to do in that situation? Romero is turtling so just run in and get knocked out? Why would the champ take silly risks like that? The only thing we could maybe criticize Stylebender for, is not using more low kicks. Stylebender himself pointed that out.
Romero deserves like 75% of the blame though. He's the challenger and is unlikely to get another title shot. Why would he be so passive?
Last edited by StyleTime on Sep 26th, 2020 at 03:58 AM
Stylebender won even more quickly than I expected. The gap in their kicking game is just so wide. I don't think Costa checked any of those low kicks and when he got frustrated and tried to come in, Stylebender landed beautiful counters, getting the TKO in Rd2. Good stuff. I see Stylebender reigning for quite a bit. His striking is too high level and his defensive grappling improves by leaps and bounds everytime we see it. In rematch, maybe Whittaker can pull it off. Unlikely though, even though I love Whittaker too.
Also, Jan Blachowicz is the new LHW champ. He's underrated but I didn't expect him to finish Reyes so early. You can say early stoppage but Jan was pretty throroughly winning that fight regardless. His striking has really become top notch for the division.
Last edited by StyleTime on Sep 27th, 2020 at 06:55 PM
I don't watch much MMA, but I did watch this weeks UFC. Eesh. When even a graze to the temple makes a man's legs buckle, I feel like I felt it myself. That Polish guy is a ****ing monster though.
Yeah. Their fight was only 6 minutes, and Stylebender landed 26 out of 27 low kicks. He has anime level accuracy and timing.
By comparison, Uriah Hall and Bamgbose only threw 5 against Costa in the same time frame. Just goes to show how elite a kickboxer Izzy is. The fact that he arguably got robbed against Pereira and Jason Wilnis in kickboxing is a testament to that. I had to hammer this home talking with some guy who thought Costa "didn't show up." He didn't understand that Costa tried to pressure but Izzy's kickboxing is just too nuanced.
Here's a humorous, short video with captions during key moments, to show how Izzy was shutting down the pressure.
Even in the clinch, where Costa was presumed to have the advantage, Stylebender is the only one to land any strikes. Costa got thoroughly outclassed.
Yeah, Jan is really good. He had an inauspicious start when he first came to the UFC, but he really hit his stride recently. People have slept on him for too long.
On a side note, that makes him the 2nd ever Polish champ. Joanna Jędrzejczyk being the first. At the time, the also Polish Karolina, was the number 1 contender too. Poland has put out some beasts.
Last edited by StyleTime on Sep 30th, 2020 at 04:48 AM
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Jul 11th, 2020 12:50 AM
Pretty much up to date with everything, seriously, how good is Stipe?
