Last night (Sat., March 5, 2016), Ilir Latifi and Gian Villante went to war at UFC 196 inside MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. In a slow fight, Latifi won a clear decision victory. Find out how below! Ultimate Fighting Championsh…
Last night (Sat., March 5, 2016), Ilir Latifi and Gian Villante went to war at UFC 196 inside MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. In a slow fight, Latifi won a clear decision victory. Find out how below!
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Light Heavyweight sluggers Ilir Latifi and Gian Villante squared off last night (March 5, 2016) at UFC 196 inside MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Despite debuting with a short-notice loss, Latifi has since established himself as an extremely dangerous fighter. The muscular Swede hits hard and has solid grappling base, making him a tough test for most in the division.
On the other hand, Villante has been in the division for some time but has struggled to put momentum together. That said, a win opposite “The Sledgehammer” would be a very big moment for VIllante that could carry him to greater things.
Villante opened up the bout with some very hard kicks, but Latifi used those strikes as an opportunity to close the distance into a takedown attempt. However, Villante defended and eventually moved back to the center, where he returned to ripping his opponent with kicks.
Before long, Latifi countered one of those kicks with a heavy right hand and followed up with some more damage in the clinch. At that distance, Latifi seemed to figure out his game plan, as he began forcing his way into the clinch and landing hard shots on the break.
It was likely enough to win Latifi the round, but he also took some hard kicks from his opponent.
After about a minute or so of eating kicks at range, Latifi managed to secure a back clinch and take VIllante for a ride. However, the New Yorker quickly scrambled back to his feet, though that exchange seemed to drain both men of some energy.
With both men tiring, Latifi did his best to push a pace, even if it was a very slow one. He also landed another big takedown at the end of the round, which likely sealed it for him.
Still, an energy burst from either man could really change the momentum up, as neither man was really taking control.
Neither fighter threw much, but Villante accomplished the first successful act of the third round by defending a deep takedown attempt. If the pace was slow in the second round, things were dreadfully tepid in the final frame.
Villante continued to walk forward through his exhaustion, but Latifi was the more effective fighter in the last round. Latifi scored with a few big punches that seemed to stun his opponent, and he scored with another takedown near the end of the round that his opponent answered with his own brief shot.
On the whole, Latifi’s higher activity and bursts of offense won him this bout, and the judges recognized that.
This was an important win for Latifi, but it was a rather ugly one. While he won each round opposite the New Yorker, they were less than dominant, and Latifi appeared vulnerable at certain times.
Latifi’s big issue is that he has no weapons at range. He tried a few spinning attacks, but they were less than effective. As a short ball of muscle, Latifi is not effective with kicks nor quick enough to slide in with punches and/or takedowns.
Against Villante, it caused him to eat some very hard kicks. Against elite fighters, it will cost him the victory unless he can figure out a solution.
Villante may have lost but to his credit, he did fight with an intelligent game plan. He didn’t perform well enough to earn the victory, but at least he didn’t throw away the fight with some type of terrible mistake.
The reason that Villante lost is simple, and it has nothing to do with his fighting skill. Villante had the kickboxing and takedown defense to keep range and punish his opponent, and he was on his way to doing that in the first round.
However, his cardio failed him.
That’s not a new story for Villante, but it is disappointing. He has great athleticism and some solid skill, and he really should be a top 15 fighter at the very least.
Unfortunately, this is another step back from that goal.
Last night, Ilir Latifi outworked his opponent over three rounds. Where does the “Latdog” go from here?
For complete UFC 196: “McGregor vs Diaz” results and play-by-play, click HERE!
Conor McGregor got hurt and choked out by Nate Diaz. Holly Holm lost to the title to Miesha Tate. It’s 2007 again, except more fun. Breaking the fun down at UFC 196 in Vegas in six easy tweets…
UFC 196 wasn’t looking very good until the co-main event. Then it suddenly turned into a classic of grand guignol pugilism.
The champions were wounded, 2007 style. But in 2007, when Georges St-Pierre and Mirko Filipovic both got rampaged, or when Randy Couture overcame Tim Sylvia’s Stay Puft striking, and Keith Jardine mogged his way through Chuck Liddell*, the favorites had history. Rich history. Conor McGregor and Holly Holm, while certainly fighters with potential, simply do not.
The 2007 comparison is fitting since anyone’s top 10 list of 2007 upsets features Nate’s brother Nick. Who got hurt, blooded, but came back to win with an emphatic submission. To which Nate might have replied that night-
It’s rare that an underdog who doesn’t “move the needle”, as Dana Whtie once said, comes in, and basically replaces the needle with a middle finger and some punk rock pageantry.
When I wrote an article trying to awkwardly connect Nick Diaz in with Russian prohibitionism, I never had Nate in mind. Both are like minded the way only a Diaz brother can, but Nick has had the spotlight for a lot longer in more dramatic fashion. Nate’s personality has always been a little less aggressively quixotic like Nick, but it’s always been there.
And yet who can beat that quote? Who can beat that quote without self awareness or irony? I mention all of this to note that I can’t recall an underdog so dramatically stealing the spotlight. This was supposed to be Conor McGregor’s moment. Yet everyone will remember, remember, March fifth of surrender.
If you’re a true Conor fan, and I think most MMA fans are, then you should be able to take these memes documenting Conor’s crushed hubris in stride.
To be sure, Conor has plenty of fanboys scrambling to come up with excuses. Even Conor’s postfight interview fueled the language of his defense. He “took a chance” coming up in weight, and so forth, as if his opponent was your prototypical top 10 welterweight. But Nate is career lightweight. A career lightweight who never became part of the truly elite. And Conor projects to be at 155 in due time. This is not the hill to die on.
But Conor himseld doesn’t need to be excused from the octagon table. He won the first round with excellent timing, and the kind of slick east/west movement we’ve come to appreciate him for. But he began to noticeably fatigue as Nate began to battle back, slipping punches Conor was overloading on. The Diaz brothers are rarely taken seriously as intelligent cage tacticians. They sort of bring it on themselves by smoking weed and wielding nunchakus, granted. But Nate’s punches were calculated efforts to swing the McGregor midrange pendulum, and he did so with 209 aplomb.
3. Pastry Parry
Miesha’s reaction to Dana saying that maybe she should retire, was “How Rude.” Heh.
Plenty of egg on Dana’s face last night. I said it in our preview, and I’ll say it again, but why is Tate ignored? Ok, she’s not. But for different reasons. Rather, why is her aptitude often ignored? I get that she has fumbled strategically in the past, and she’s probably not the best coach in the world, but on the whole, she’s been a steady, crafty presence in a division that has slowly grown into its own.
I compared her grappling to Rafael dos Anjos and the way he pursues submissions that combine technique with visceral pursuit. Tate has that attitude. The winning choke was a combination of staying with her position no matter what, and some brilliant positioning. In particular, Tate probably loses that choke when she gets flipped if she doesn’t intelligently keep her right hook on Holm’s thigh to roll rather than thud over. I don’t know that Tate has the ability to deal with elite challengers consistently, but she has the moxy for it. And now she has five rounds to prove it for as long as the belt’s hers.
I apologize for the pad puns, but years of checking out NHL boxscores has ruined me. Holm fought a solid fight, overall. I don’t think she took advantage of her striking the way she really could have, but Tate’s movement clearly gave her issues.
This is one of the things that made Holly look so dominant against Ronda Rousey; Rousey’s embarrassing entries. Rousey was just too predictable. She came in with a left hook followed by a right hand almost everytime, making Holm look more dominant than she was. This doesn’t take away from Holm, who is still elite, but it should put to bed any notions of Holm as a truly dangerous striker.
It’s hard to predict how Holm will bounce back. She has a little Melvin Guillard in her, trying too hard to power out of submission attempts. She got out after a 2nd round scare, but needs to work on positioning. I also think she threw too many low impact strikes. The side kicks are good for keeping out, say, Amanda Nunes, and maintaining distance. But Tate didn’t pose the kind of threat on the feet that would warrant her somewhat conservative selection of strikes. Just my opinion.
5. Mas O Menos
Shevchenko has a lot of tool I like. Strong clinch. Strong base. Solid striking from range. It’s just Nunes is a monster. #UFC196
Nunes began to decline as the fight wore on, which wasn’t all that shocking if you’ve followed her career. Something similar happened in the Alexis Davis scrap. But she’s brutal in top control. Frankly, this was just a really good performance by Shevchenko. Was she too conservative early? Yea. But the styles kind of dictated that. Rogan kept asking “where was this in round 1??” but Nunes was more of a presence. Opening up early against Nunes is a recipe for disaster. As for Amanda, it was a tough stylistic matchup. She’s still gonna style on more of her peers in the future.
Excellent win for Teruto, who has all of the assembled swagger of an Ocean’s Eleven. I was a little relieved with the Diego Sanchez fight. His health has been somewhat of a talking point, and it was frankly welcome to not have “The Nightmare” back. We got “The Dream” instead. Or something like that.
*I left out a few because why lose your readers with a listicle style intro, but is there an upset that looks worse with time than Sokoudjou over Medium Nog? At least Serra retired shortly after his rematch loss to GSP.
Conor McGregor got hurt and choked out by Nate Diaz. Holly Holm lost to the title to Miesha Tate. It’s 2007 again, except more fun. Breaking the fun down at UFC 196 in Vegas in six easy tweets…
UFC 196 wasn’t looking very good until the co-main event. Then it suddenly turned into a classic of grand guignol pugilism.
The champions were wounded, 2007 style. But in 2007, when Georges St-Pierre and Mirko Filipovic both got rampaged, or when Randy Couture overcame Tim Sylvia’s Stay Puft striking, and Keith Jardine mogged his way through Chuck Liddell*, the favorites had history. Rich history. Conor McGregor and Holly Holm, while certainly fighters with potential, simply do not.
The 2007 comparison is fitting since anyone’s top 10 list of 2007 upsets features Nate’s brother Nick. Who got hurt, blooded, but came back to win with an emphatic submission. To which Nate might have replied that night-
It’s rare that an underdog who doesn’t “move the needle”, as Dana Whtie once said, comes in, and basically replaces the needle with a middle finger and some punk rock pageantry.
When I wrote an article trying to awkwardly connect Nick Diaz in with Russian prohibitionism, I never had Nate in mind. Both are like minded the way only a Diaz brother can, but Nick has had the spotlight for a lot longer in more dramatic fashion. Nate’s personality has always been a little less aggressively quixotic like Nick, but it’s always been there.
And yet who can beat that quote? Who can beat that quote without self awareness or irony? I mention all of this to note that I can’t recall an underdog so dramatically stealing the spotlight. This was supposed to be Conor McGregor’s moment. Yet everyone will remember, remember, March fifth of surrender.
If you’re a true Conor fan, and I think most MMA fans are, then you should be able to take these memes documenting Conor’s crushed hubris in stride.
To be sure, Conor has plenty of fanboys scrambling to come up with excuses. Even Conor’s postfight interview fueled the language of his defense. He “took a chance” coming up in weight, and so forth, as if his opponent was your prototypical top 10 welterweight. But Nate is career lightweight. A career lightweight who never became part of the truly elite. And Conor projects to be at 155 in due time. This is not the hill to die on.
But Conor himseld doesn’t need to be excused from the octagon table. He won the first round with excellent timing, and the kind of slick east/west movement we’ve come to appreciate him for. But he began to noticeably fatigue as Nate began to battle back, slipping punches Conor was overloading on. The Diaz brothers are rarely taken seriously as intelligent cage tacticians. They sort of bring it on themselves by smoking weed and wielding nunchakus, granted. But Nate’s punches were calculated efforts to swing the McGregor midrange pendulum, and he did so with 209 aplomb.
3. Pastry Parry
Miesha’s reaction to Dana saying that maybe she should retire, was “How Rude.” Heh.
Plenty of egg on Dana’s face last night. I said it in our preview, and I’ll say it again, but why is Tate ignored? Ok, she’s not. But for different reasons. Rather, why is her aptitude often ignored? I get that she has fumbled strategically in the past, and she’s probably not the best coach in the world, but on the whole, she’s been a steady, crafty presence in a division that has slowly grown into its own.
I compared her grappling to Rafael dos Anjos and the way he pursues submissions that combine technique with visceral pursuit. Tate has that attitude. The winning choke was a combination of staying with her position no matter what, and some brilliant positioning. In particular, Tate probably loses that choke when she gets flipped if she doesn’t intelligently keep her right hook on Holm’s thigh to roll rather than thud over. I don’t know that Tate has the ability to deal with elite challengers consistently, but she has the moxy for it. And now she has five rounds to prove it for as long as the belt’s hers.
I apologize for the pad puns, but years of checking out NHL boxscores has ruined me. Holm fought a solid fight, overall. I don’t think she took advantage of her striking the way she really could have, but Tate’s movement clearly gave her issues.
This is one of the things that made Holly look so dominant against Ronda Rousey; Rousey’s embarrassing entries. Rousey was just too predictable. She came in with a left hook followed by a right hand almost everytime, making Holm look more dominant than she was. This doesn’t take away from Holm, who is still elite, but it should put to bed any notions of Holm as a truly dangerous striker.
It’s hard to predict how Holm will bounce back. She has a little Melvin Guillard in her, trying too hard to power out of submission attempts. She got out after a 2nd round scare, but needs to work on positioning. I also think she threw too many low impact strikes. The side kicks are good for keeping out, say, Amanda Nunes, and maintaining distance. But Tate didn’t pose the kind of threat on the feet that would warrant her somewhat conservative selection of strikes. Just my opinion.
5. Mas O Menos
Shevchenko has a lot of tool I like. Strong clinch. Strong base. Solid striking from range. It’s just Nunes is a monster. #UFC196
Nunes began to decline as the fight wore on, which wasn’t all that shocking if you’ve followed her career. Something similar happened in the Alexis Davis scrap. But she’s brutal in top control. Frankly, this was just a really good performance by Shevchenko. Was she too conservative early? Yea. But the styles kind of dictated that. Rogan kept asking “where was this in round 1??” but Nunes was more of a presence. Opening up early against Nunes is a recipe for disaster. As for Amanda, it was a tough stylistic matchup. She’s still gonna style on more of her peers in the future.
Excellent win for Teruto, who has all of the assembled swagger of an Ocean’s Eleven. I was a little relieved with the Diego Sanchez fight. His health has been somewhat of a talking point, and it was frankly welcome to not have “The Nightmare” back. We got “The Dream” instead. Or something like that.
*I left out a few because why lose your readers with a listicle style intro, but is there an upset that looks worse with time than Sokoudjou over Medium Nog? At least Serra retired shortly after his rematch loss to GSP.
A popular and polarizing force in the UFC 155-pound landscape for many years, Nate Diaz finally earned a signature win when he capitalized on a huge short notice opportunity by submitting the favored Conor McGregor (watch the full highlights here) in the main event of last night’s (Sat., March 5, 2016) UFC 196. The Stockton bad
A popular and polarizing force in the UFC 155-pound landscape for many years, Nate Diaz finally earned a signature win when he capitalized on a huge short notice opportunity by submitting the favored Conor McGregor (watch the full highlights here) in the main event of last night’s (Sat., March 5, 2016) UFC 196.
The Stockton bad boy came into the awaited event from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, as a substantial underdog, and indeed the first round appeared to go to McGregor after Diaz was bloodied by a stinging series of patented left hands from the featherweight champ. But just when ‘The Notorious’ had seemingly taken over, Diaz came back with his own combos as he walked through the fading offense of the tiring Irishman to win with an electric choke.
The win has Diaz on the precipice of a lightweight title fight, yet there’s one problem in the way of that booking considering Diaz faced and was soundly beaten by current champion Rafael dos Anjos in December 2014. Diaz blamed an injury for the horrific performance after badly missing weight but it’s still hard to say if he would present any more of a challenge to the dominant but oft-injured champion.
No matter what he’s headed for a massive fight next, so if he doesn’t get ‘RDA’ as McGregor suggested last night, he could certainly square off with Anthony Pettis, with whom he has a long and well-documented beef with, Eddie Alvarez, or the winner of the upcoming Tony Ferguson vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov bout at UFC on FOX 19. It was even somehow discussed that he could meet welterweight champ Robbie Lawler for the 170-pound title.
The future is bright for the younger Diaz brother after shaking up the entire framework of the UFC. Whom do you think he should face next?
UFC featherweight contender Frankie Edgar produced one of the best reactions to Nate Diaz’s upset win over Conor McGregor at UFC 196.
The Answer was caught on video in the crowd, almost casually shrugging his shoulders the moment Diaz forced the Notori…
UFC featherweight contender Frankie Edgar produced one of the best reactions to Nate Diaz’s upset win over Conor McGregor at UFC 196.
The Answer was caught on video in the crowd, almost casually shrugging his shoulders the moment Diaz forced the Notorious to tap out with a rear-naked choke.
MMA Junkie’s Chamatkar Sandhu shared the footage:
Per the UFC’s official website, Edgar currently sits third in the featherweight rankings and could be in line for a massive title opportunity if McGregor decides to put an end to his failed experiment of fighting above his weight class.
The 34-year-old beat Chad Mendes in his last outing and is the division’s second-ranked challenger after Jose Aldo.
Edgar has won his last five fights since dropping a unanimous decision against Aldo early in 2013, per ESPN.com. With wins over the likes of Mendes, BJ Penn and Urijah Faber in that span, his resume certainly looks worthy of a title bout.
Per Damon Martin of Fox Sports, McGregor acknowledged his loss would likely be celebrated in the featherweight division, and he opened the door for a possible title defence, which would come against either Aldo or Edgar:
I know there’s a lot of people celebrating this in the featherweight division. There are many people celebrating another man’s victory. It’s something that I cannot understand how somebody not above can celebrate another man’s victory. At the end of the day, I am the featherweight world champion. I feel it is right to go back down and remind them of what I achieved and what I did to that division.
[…] I think next probably go back down and defend my featherweight crown.
Aldo probably presents the UFC with the best storyline and the biggest potential revenue. The Brazilian held the featherweight crown for years and hadn’t suffered a loss until his first meeting with McGregor in December, per ESPN.com.
He ran into a monstrous left hand and was knocked out after just 13 seconds, ending his reign and sending McGregor’s career to new heights.
Aldo immediately called out McGregor after his loss against Diaz via Twitter (warning: strong language), something the Notorious didn’t take kindly to, via Fox Sports: UFC:
That’s even more good news for Edgar, who would be the next in line in case McGregor refuses to give Aldo a rematch. Several fans and pundits would love to see the Irishman take on Edgar instead, including podcaster Brendan Schaub:
Like McGregor, Edgar has flashed shown one-punch power, most notably in his win over Mendes. The Answer has an intelligent ground game, but he’s far better on his feet and would make for a fantastic opponent for McGregor from a stylistic point of view.
Selling an Aldo rematch might be the easiest route to take for the UFC, but it shouldn’t be too hard to get fans excited for an all-out war between McGregor and Edgar.
Edgar has been waiting for a shot at the featherweight title ever since his loss against Aldo four years ago, and now would be the perfect time to hand the former lightweight champion another chance.
UFC lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos called out “soft” Conor McGregor on Twitter following McGregor’s submission loss to Nate Diaz on Saturday night.
Conor McGregor was supposed to fight lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos at UFC 196 on Saturday night. The potential for McGregor to become the first simultaneous dual-weight class champion in UFC history was scrapped due to RDA’s broken foot, and as you almost certainly know by now, McGregor fought and was submitted by Nate Diaz in a late-notice welterweight main event.
As you would expect, dos Anjos had a word or two (almost literally) to say about McGregor’s dramatic loss, and he went straight to the point by calling McGregor “soft” and noting that “this isn’t featherweight”, of which the latter is 100% confirmed to be true.
UFC lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos called out “soft” Conor McGregor on Twitter following McGregor’s submission loss to Nate Diaz on Saturday night.
Conor McGregor was supposed to fight lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos at UFC 196 on Saturday night. The potential for McGregor to become the first simultaneous dual-weight class champion in UFC history was scrapped due to RDA’s broken foot, and as you almost certainly know by now, McGregor fought and was submitted by Nate Diaz in a late-notice welterweight main event.
As you would expect, dos Anjos had a word or two (almost literally) to say about McGregor’s dramatic loss, and he went straight to the point by calling McGregor “soft” and noting that “this isn’t featherweight”, of which the latter is 100% confirmed to be true.
I thought it was possible that there may be one upset in one of the two showcase events at UFC 196 last night (Saturday, March 5, 2016) at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, but for both to go down was quite the alignment of stars.
First, I just want to talk about Conor McGregor’s first UFC loss and my thoughts about the man and the fighter. Because I think people know I’ve been hard on him for his apparent God Complex and wanton disrespect and disregard for his opponents.
If I wasn’t a McGregor fan headed into the fight, then I am now. Don’t get me wrong, I was always a fan of his abilities. But I couldn’t stomach his poor attitude, melodramatic descriptions, embellishment of his achievements, and seemingly delusional sense of belief in himself.
But, what made me a fan was how he handled himself in defeat. He didn’t hide behind a towel and refuse to acknowledge his loss until literally forced to get in front of a camera three months later on Saturday Night Live and say it. He didn’t wallow in self pity and go on the Ellen Degeneres show to say he was considering ending it all and needed to have kids “to survive.”
No, he took his loss like a man. He took his beating like a champion. He walked into the press conference, gave Nate Diaz his credit, admitted his shortcomings, and accepted his serving of crow.
And at the end of the day this is a man who had no reason to vacate the featherweight belt and jump up 25 pounds in weight to take on a fighter with no direct relevance to any title contention at any weight class. No, McGregor fought Diaz because he just likes to fight. No more complicated reason needed or given. Well, that, and it made him scads of cash.
I’ll always be a McGregor fan now, long after the pseudonymous sock puppet bandwagon fans have quietly dumped their accounts and signed up with a Diazrulez2094life alias. Because in life people aren’t tested by victory. They are tested by how they rebound from defeat.
Trust me. I’ve learned this the past year myself.
Conor Bless.
There were a lot of things about this fight that really surprised me. First, that just as he said he would, Conor McGregor was fucking fast at this weight class. He looked much faster than Nate Diaz, snapping off brutal left hooks and uppercuts that, as he said in the post-fight press conference, usually make people “crumble”. As many opponents have learned against the Diaz brothers, they don’t often crumble, and they don’t often tire or slow down.
I was also surprised that Diaz was able to absorb so much punishment. Yes, I know I just said the Diaz brothers don’t fade in fights, but on 10 days notice I didn’t think he’d do as well as he did. My best case scenario for him was a lucky submission or a victory over the distance. Never did I think he’d clock, drop and stop McGregor in the manner he did. And I’m pretty much a Diaz fanboy.
What also surprised me was the extremely intelligent way Diaz fought this fight. Let me state that again. Intelligent. People think the Diaz brothers are stupid because they can’t string a sentence together without losing track of the topic and going off on sometimes irrelevant tangents. But inside the cage they are fairly good at calculating weaknesses, pressuring fighters when the time is right, and finishing when their opponent is rocked.
Diaz actually played counter puncher to McGregor in the first round, absorbing damage and getting busted up, but mitigating it by using a shoulder roll to throw the right jab and follow up with the left. Rather than pressuring McGregor, he allowed the cocky fighter to come to him, ate his best shots, waited for McGregor to tire and slow down in the second, and then popped with with some quick punches that led to the finish.
The thing about the Diaz brothers is that they may not be the best fighters in the UFC, they may not be devastating at any one skillset, and they may never sniff a UFC belt, but they are always dangerous. McGregor’s overconfidence, coupled with his disregard for Diaz’s power, was his downfall. Jesse Holland compared him to Anderson Silva in that both dropped their hands against dangerous opponents, and both suffered the terrible consequences.
The last word on McGregor. The man is phenomenally talented and I have every confidence he’ll be a force to be reckoned with for a long time to come. He’s still only 27 and we’re just getting started here. It’s a good time to be a UFC fan.
It feels weird to think of Miesha Tate as UFC champion. I mean, here’s a woman who was thoroughly dominated by Ronda Rousey twice, was battered and stopped by Cat Zingano, and won an uninspired four decisions en route to a title shot. I mean, everything about this fight screamed mismatch, especially since Holly Holm had brutally knocked out Rousey, who had dominated Tate.
But, that’s why MMA math doesn’t work. Shonie Carter beating Matt Serra beating Georges St-Pierre doesn’t make Carter the world champion. Styles make fights, as the cliche goes, and Tate was always going to be dangerous against an untested fighter on the ground like Holm, who likes to spend all her time on the feet where she’s dangerous.
I don’t want to take away from Tate’s miracle win in Las Vegas, but nor do I want to overblow it. This was essentially Anderson Silva submitting Chael Sonnen in the fifth round of a fight he was losing badly. This was Tate’s hail mary pass while down six points with seconds remaining. This was a make or break attempt to strangle the champion or go out on the scorecards.
Holm controlled most of this fight on the feet, which isn’t surprising for a former boxing champion. She easily won rounds one, three and four. It was round two where everything almost went awry, as Tate secured the takedown and nearly strangled her for the win. But Holm, like a true champion, survived. I didn’t think she’d make the same mistake again.
Tate had struggled to get Holm down all night long and other than that brief success in the second round, it seemed impossible she’d manage it again. When she did grab hold of a body lock, Holm showed her inexperience by trying to get back up instead of fighting the back take and surrendering guard. It was a fatal mistake and it cost her the belt. Of interest, had the round finished with Tate on top it likely would have been scored a draw.
The good news for Holm fans is that, like McGregor, she said at the press conference that she wants to get back in the gym right away. So don’t be surprised to see her back in the picture sooner than later.
I don’t know how anybody can train with an animal like Chris Weidman and still be as fat and lazy as Gian Villante. That was a dreadful performance. The only redeeming feature to Villante’s performance in this fight was that he was able to stuff Ilir Latifi’s takedowns most of the time, but without punishing the fighter for the attempts he really just gassed himself out in the process.
Villante is a bit of an enigma. Once a Strikeforce standout, the fighter blows hot and cold. Knockout Trevor Smith, gas out and lose to Fabio Maldonado. Knockout Corey Anderson, gas out and lose to Latifi. I mean, at what point does a treadmill factor into all of this? How do you gas yourself out defending takedowns?
As for Latifi, the performance was passable but boring. He constantly sought the takedown he couldn’t land, excepting a suplex that was kind of nice, and spent a lot of time looking for a knockout punch. Against a superior striker with equally good takedown defense, like Gegard Mousasi, he’d get picked apart. Oh wait, that already happened.
But there’s no need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. This was the Swede’s fifth win in his last six UFC fights and the shallowness of this division means it’s likely Latifi will get a stiffer test in the very near future. There are some positives to take away from his performance, such as the moments he used his kicks and his knees in the clinch. But he’ll certainly need to do better next time out, particularly against an opponent who doesn’t lumber around with the gait of a Frankenstein.
Let’s just get the obvious out of the way with first. Corey Anderson didn’t win the first round and the judges are imbeciles. Moving along.
Tom Lawlor was attempting to follow up an extremely impressive second round knockout against Gian Villante by taking on the man Villante knocked out in Anderson. UFC matchmakers often seem to enjoy doing this, and it makes sense since it pairs guys up who are seen as being relatively close on the invisible ladder beyond the top 15 official rankings posted on their website.
Despite starting the fight great with excellent punching and countering, including a moment Lawlor clearly hurt Anderson, the “Filthy” one faded away as the fight dragged on, allowing Anderson to fight his game and get the victory. “Beastin’ 25/8” uses his range effectively and is a fairly good technical striker, as we saw during most of the three rounds he was lighting up the aforementioned sloth Villante.
But Anderson has proven his chin can be cracked and Lawlor nearly verified that in the first round again. Sadly, Lawlor didn’t adjust to the changes made in the second and third rounds, eating too many shots by his opponent, and never really finding a third gear to put the pressure on Anderson and cause him to wilt. When you give Anderson space and range he’s usually going to pick you apart. Lawlor needed to do a bit more of the wade and trade and bit less of the one punch wonders.
Photo by Rey Del Rio/Getty Images
Amanda Nunes may have issued one of the lamest callouts for a title fight in the history of the UFC after essentially running her car on fumes to the finish line against Valentina Shevchenko. Nunes looked good early on in the fight, but she finished terribly, getting dominated in the third and put in dangerous situations that made her look extremely vulnerable and not at all like somebody who had won a fight convincingly.
The first two rounds were a whole other story. Nunes took Shevchenko down, beat on her, and nearly submitted her. The second round was arguably a 10-8 as she came very close to wrapping up the fight. But Shevchenko gutted it out and then turned it on in the third round as the Brazilian began to fade. The Muay Thai champion’s striking really began to shine, but by then it was too late.
Considering Nunes faded so badly in a three round fight it’s hard to argue she deserves a five rounder against Miesha Tate. But the crazy thing about women’s MMA is that I’m not sure she wouldn’t mop the floor with Tate. MMA math is particularly tricky when it comes to the women, since it seems one of those “Any Given Sunday” rules apply lately. And who’s to say that Nunes losing the third round was more about a poor performance and less about Shevchenko just being really good?
If Nunes does get a title shot it’ll probably be because Ronda Rousey isn’t ready to fight. The rumors are that she won’t be ready to go again until November, so you’ve got to imagine the UFC will be booking Tate for something for the interim. Then again, they might not. Every time they gamble with a filler fight something insane comes along and screws up all their future plans. Such as Rousey vs. Holm 2, for instance, ruined last night by Tate.
Quick Hits From The Undercard
How the hell do you get to be an MMA fighter for eight years and still have the takedown defense of a baby lamb? Brandon Thatch (F) shat the bed last night before tapping out Sage Northcutt style against Siyar Bahadurzada (B-). I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a fighter so talented be unable to utilize his gifts because he can’t stay off his back. As for Bahadurzada, this guy has a crazy chin.
Remember when Erick Silva (F) was supposed to be the next big thing in the UFC? But he came in wild and kept getting knocked out? Now he comes in tentative and still gets knocked out, by Nordine Taleb (A+). Sucks to be him. Also, can I say something for the record here? Some people were arguing with me on Twitter because I called him a Canadian even though he was born in France. Look, he moved to Tristar in Montreal in 2007, lives and trains there, and represented Canada at TUF Nations. So, chill out. He’s Canadian.
Vitor Miranda (A) made me a very happy camper by knocking out the horrendously untalented Marcelo Guimarães (D), who you might remember as being half the recipe in candidate for worst UFC fight of all time against Dan Stittgen. Thank you, Vitor.
Darren Elkins (B+) really surprised me with how strong his wrestling was against Chas Skelly (D), who really disappointed me after making such a phenomenal comeback in his last fight against Kevin Souza. Elkins may be fairly one dimensional, but he’s effective.
Much like the Godfather 3, every time I think he’s out, he pulls me back in. Diego Sanchez (B) put together a surprisingly technical fight against Jim Miller (C-), who is a guy who looks like needs to make 145 pounds or bust at this point.
Jason Saggo (A) was very impressive in his handling of Justin Salas (D), who unwisely decided to take a high level Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt to the canvas early. He only gets a “D” because he was supposed to lose, so it’s hard to fail a kid who did what everybody expected.
Teruto Ishihara (B+) is a very intriguing prospect at the age of 24, dispatching Julian Erosa (C-) via knockout in the second round. The only thing I didn’t like about the fight was the bitch move he pulled by hitting Erosa off a glove tap.
Well, folks, that’s a wrap. If it sucked it’s because it’s, like, 5 in the morning. See you kids in two weeks for FRANK MUUUUUUUUUR, who just won’t retire.
Wow. Well, that was unexpected.
I thought it was possible that there may be one upset in one of the two showcase events at UFC 196 last night (Saturday, March 5, 2016) at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, but for both to go down was quite the alignment of stars.
First, I just want to talk about Conor McGregor’s first UFC loss and my thoughts about the man and the fighter. Because I think people know I’ve been hard on him for his apparent God Complex and wanton disrespect and disregard for his opponents.
If I wasn’t a McGregor fan headed into the fight, then I am now. Don’t get me wrong, I was always a fan of his abilities. But I couldn’t stomach his poor attitude, melodramatic descriptions, embellishment of his achievements, and seemingly delusional sense of belief in himself.
But, what made me a fan was how he handled himself in defeat. He didn’t hide behind a towel and refuse to acknowledge his loss until literally forced to get in front of a camera three months later on Saturday Night Live and say it. He didn’t wallow in self pity and go on the Ellen Degeneres show to say he was considering ending it all and needed to have kids “to survive.”
No, he took his loss like a man. He took his beating like a champion. He walked into the press conference, gave Nate Diaz his credit, admitted his shortcomings, and accepted his serving of crow.
And at the end of the day this is a man who had no reason to vacate the featherweight belt and jump up 25 pounds in weight to take on a fighter with no direct relevance to any title contention at any weight class. No, McGregor fought Diaz because he just likes to fight. No more complicated reason needed or given. Well, that, and it made him scads of cash.
I’ll always be a McGregor fan now, long after the pseudonymous sock puppet bandwagon fans have quietly dumped their accounts and signed up with a Diazrulez2094life alias. Because in life people aren’t tested by victory. They are tested by how they rebound from defeat.
Trust me. I’ve learned this the past year myself.
Conor Bless.
There were a lot of things about this fight that really surprised me. First, that just as he said he would, Conor McGregor was fucking fast at this weight class. He looked much faster than Nate Diaz, snapping off brutal left hooks and uppercuts that, as he said in the post-fight press conference, usually make people “crumble”. As many opponents have learned against the Diaz brothers, they don’t often crumble, and they don’t often tire or slow down.
I was also surprised that Diaz was able to absorb so much punishment. Yes, I know I just said the Diaz brothers don’t fade in fights, but on 10 days notice I didn’t think he’d do as well as he did. My best case scenario for him was a lucky submission or a victory over the distance. Never did I think he’d clock, drop and stop McGregor in the manner he did. And I’m pretty much a Diaz fanboy.
What also surprised me was the extremely intelligent way Diaz fought this fight. Let me state that again. Intelligent. People think the Diaz brothers are stupid because they can’t string a sentence together without losing track of the topic and going off on sometimes irrelevant tangents. But inside the cage they are fairly good at calculating weaknesses, pressuring fighters when the time is right, and finishing when their opponent is rocked.
Diaz actually played counter puncher to McGregor in the first round, absorbing damage and getting busted up, but mitigating it by using a shoulder roll to throw the right jab and follow up with the left. Rather than pressuring McGregor, he allowed the cocky fighter to come to him, ate his best shots, waited for McGregor to tire and slow down in the second, and then popped with with some quick punches that led to the finish.
The thing about the Diaz brothers is that they may not be the best fighters in the UFC, they may not be devastating at any one skillset, and they may never sniff a UFC belt, but they are always dangerous. McGregor’s overconfidence, coupled with his disregard for Diaz’s power, was his downfall. Jesse Holland compared him to Anderson Silva in that both dropped their hands against dangerous opponents, and both suffered the terrible consequences.
The last word on McGregor. The man is phenomenally talented and I have every confidence he’ll be a force to be reckoned with for a long time to come. He’s still only 27 and we’re just getting started here. It’s a good time to be a UFC fan.
It feels weird to think of Miesha Tate as UFC champion. I mean, here’s a woman who was thoroughly dominated by Ronda Rousey twice, was battered and stopped by Cat Zingano, and won an uninspired four decisions en route to a title shot. I mean, everything about this fight screamed mismatch, especially since Holly Holm had brutally knocked out Rousey, who had dominated Tate.
But, that’s why MMA math doesn’t work. Shonie Carter beating Matt Serra beating Georges St-Pierre doesn’t make Carter the world champion. Styles make fights, as the cliche goes, and Tate was always going to be dangerous against an untested fighter on the ground like Holm, who likes to spend all her time on the feet where she’s dangerous.
I don’t want to take away from Tate’s miracle win in Las Vegas, but nor do I want to overblow it. This was essentially Anderson Silva submitting Chael Sonnen in the fifth round of a fight he was losing badly. This was Tate’s hail mary pass while down six points with seconds remaining. This was a make or break attempt to strangle the champion or go out on the scorecards.
Holm controlled most of this fight on the feet, which isn’t surprising for a former boxing champion. She easily won rounds one, three and four. It was round two where everything almost went awry, as Tate secured the takedown and nearly strangled her for the win. But Holm, like a true champion, survived. I didn’t think she’d make the same mistake again.
Tate had struggled to get Holm down all night long and other than that brief success in the second round, it seemed impossible she’d manage it again. When she did grab hold of a body lock, Holm showed her inexperience by trying to get back up instead of fighting the back take and surrendering guard. It was a fatal mistake and it cost her the belt. Of interest, had the round finished with Tate on top it likely would have been scored a draw.
The good news for Holm fans is that, like McGregor, she said at the press conference that she wants to get back in the gym right away. So don’t be surprised to see her back in the picture sooner than later.
I don’t know how anybody can train with an animal like Chris Weidman and still be as fat and lazy as Gian Villante. That was a dreadful performance. The only redeeming feature to Villante’s performance in this fight was that he was able to stuff Ilir Latifi’s takedowns most of the time, but without punishing the fighter for the attempts he really just gassed himself out in the process.
Villante is a bit of an enigma. Once a Strikeforce standout, the fighter blows hot and cold. Knockout Trevor Smith, gas out and lose to Fabio Maldonado. Knockout Corey Anderson, gas out and lose to Latifi. I mean, at what point does a treadmill factor into all of this? How do you gas yourself out defending takedowns?
As for Latifi, the performance was passable but boring. He constantly sought the takedown he couldn’t land, excepting a suplex that was kind of nice, and spent a lot of time looking for a knockout punch. Against a superior striker with equally good takedown defense, like Gegard Mousasi, he’d get picked apart. Oh wait, that already happened.
But there’s no need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. This was the Swede’s fifth win in his last six UFC fights and the shallowness of this division means it’s likely Latifi will get a stiffer test in the very near future. There are some positives to take away from his performance, such as the moments he used his kicks and his knees in the clinch. But he’ll certainly need to do better next time out, particularly against an opponent who doesn’t lumber around with the gait of a Frankenstein.
Let’s just get the obvious out of the way with first. Corey Anderson didn’t win the first round and the judges are imbeciles. Moving along.
Tom Lawlor was attempting to follow up an extremely impressive second round knockout against Gian Villante by taking on the man Villante knocked out in Anderson. UFC matchmakers often seem to enjoy doing this, and it makes sense since it pairs guys up who are seen as being relatively close on the invisible ladder beyond the top 15 official rankings posted on their website.
Despite starting the fight great with excellent punching and countering, including a moment Lawlor clearly hurt Anderson, the “Filthy” one faded away as the fight dragged on, allowing Anderson to fight his game and get the victory. “Beastin’ 25/8” uses his range effectively and is a fairly good technical striker, as we saw during most of the three rounds he was lighting up the aforementioned sloth Villante.
But Anderson has proven his chin can be cracked and Lawlor nearly verified that in the first round again. Sadly, Lawlor didn’t adjust to the changes made in the second and third rounds, eating too many shots by his opponent, and never really finding a third gear to put the pressure on Anderson and cause him to wilt. When you give Anderson space and range he’s usually going to pick you apart. Lawlor needed to do a bit more of the wade and trade and bit less of the one punch wonders.
Photo by Rey Del Rio/Getty Images
Amanda Nunes may have issued one of the lamest callouts for a title fight in the history of the UFC after essentially running her car on fumes to the finish line against Valentina Shevchenko. Nunes looked good early on in the fight, but she finished terribly, getting dominated in the third and put in dangerous situations that made her look extremely vulnerable and not at all like somebody who had won a fight convincingly.
The first two rounds were a whole other story. Nunes took Shevchenko down, beat on her, and nearly submitted her. The second round was arguably a 10-8 as she came very close to wrapping up the fight. But Shevchenko gutted it out and then turned it on in the third round as the Brazilian began to fade. The Muay Thai champion’s striking really began to shine, but by then it was too late.
Considering Nunes faded so badly in a three round fight it’s hard to argue she deserves a five rounder against Miesha Tate. But the crazy thing about women’s MMA is that I’m not sure she wouldn’t mop the floor with Tate. MMA math is particularly tricky when it comes to the women, since it seems one of those “Any Given Sunday” rules apply lately. And who’s to say that Nunes losing the third round was more about a poor performance and less about Shevchenko just being really good?
If Nunes does get a title shot it’ll probably be because Ronda Rousey isn’t ready to fight. The rumors are that she won’t be ready to go again until November, so you’ve got to imagine the UFC will be booking Tate for something for the interim. Then again, they might not. Every time they gamble with a filler fight something insane comes along and screws up all their future plans. Such as Rousey vs. Holm 2, for instance, ruined last night by Tate.
Quick Hits From The Undercard
How the hell do you get to be an MMA fighter for eight years and still have the takedown defense of a baby lamb? Brandon Thatch (F) shat the bed last night before tapping out Sage Northcutt style against Siyar Bahadurzada (B-). I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a fighter so talented be unable to utilize his gifts because he can’t stay off his back. As for Bahadurzada, this guy has a crazy chin.
Remember when Erick Silva (F) was supposed to be the next big thing in the UFC? But he came in wild and kept getting knocked out? Now he comes in tentative and still gets knocked out, by Nordine Taleb (A+). Sucks to be him. Also, can I say something for the record here? Some people were arguing with me on Twitter because I called him a Canadian even though he was born in France. Look, he moved to Tristar in Montreal in 2007, lives and trains there, and represented Canada at TUF Nations. So, chill out. He’s Canadian.
Vitor Miranda (A) made me a very happy camper by knocking out the horrendously untalented Marcelo Guimarães (D), who you might remember as being half the recipe in candidate for worst UFC fight of all time against Dan Stittgen. Thank you, Vitor.
Darren Elkins (B+) really surprised me with how strong his wrestling was against Chas Skelly (D), who really disappointed me after making such a phenomenal comeback in his last fight against Kevin Souza. Elkins may be fairly one dimensional, but he’s effective.
Much like the Godfather 3, every time I think he’s out, he pulls me back in. Diego Sanchez (B) put together a surprisingly technical fight against Jim Miller (C-), who is a guy who looks like needs to make 145 pounds or bust at this point.
Jason Saggo (A) was very impressive in his handling of Justin Salas (D), who unwisely decided to take a high level Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt to the canvas early. He only gets a “D” because he was supposed to lose, so it’s hard to fail a kid who did what everybody expected.
Teruto Ishihara (B+) is a very intriguing prospect at the age of 24, dispatching Julian Erosa (C-) via knockout in the second round. The only thing I didn’t like about the fight was the bitch move he pulled by hitting Erosa off a glove tap.
Well, folks, that’s a wrap. If it sucked it’s because it’s, like, 5 in the morning. See you kids in two weeks for FRANK MUUUUUUUUUR, who just won’t retire.
UFC featherweight contender 
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6150235/addtext_com_MDQzMTU1OTc5MDA.0.jpg)
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6150239/addtext_com_MDQ0NTEzOTIxMjI.0.jpg)
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6150253/addtext_com_MDQ1NTMyOTI2NDE.0.jpg)
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6150265/addtext_com_MDUwODExOTEyOTM.0.jpg)
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/6150275/addtext_com_MDUxNjIzMTAxMjQx.0.jpg)