The UFC’s return to big FOX is upon us and they’re bringing a fight that could headline a pay-per-view card, but putting it on free television instead. The top two active bantamweights on the planet will meet again for supremacy on a card th…
The UFC’s return to big FOX is upon us and they’re bringing a fight that could headline a pay-per-view card, but putting it on free television instead. The top two active bantamweights on the planet will meet again for supremacy on a card that features a number of other contender fights in most of the lighter weight divisions.
Will Dillashaw reign supreme again or is Barao going to get the belt back? I answer these questions and more with my predictions for Saturday’s fights.
When: Saturday, the four-fight Fight Pass card starts at 4:15 p.m. ET, the four-fight FOX undercard starts at 6 p.m. and the four-fight FOX main card kicks off 8 p.m.
In re-watching the first fight, it just seems like Dillashaw and Duane Ludwig had perfectly read and prepared for Barao’s attacks. They knew him better than he knew himself and had an entire arsenal of responses ready. Barao was just a sitting duck. The key is, can Barao make new adjustments and change the way he competes in some respects to throw Dillashaw off? I doubt it. Dillashaw will control range because of his takedown threat. Either he’s allowed to kick on the outside or he’ll force Barao into boxing range. From there, Dillashaw has been shown to be susceptible to getting hit if he stays in the pocket too long, but he showed a lot of movement and angles from that range the last time he fought Barao. There’s also the takedown threat once they meet in closer quarters for the American.
Barao’s got a big enough punch to hurt Dillashaw if he can bait an exchange and maybe he can make thorough adjustments, but I just don’t find him winning the most probable outcome.
Eye’s well rounded, but I’m really liking how Tate’s game is coming along under Robert Follis’ direction. The strategy is getting better and interweaving of different forms of offense much cleaner. I also generally like Tate’s pressure and wrestling to put Tate on the defensive. I don’t think Tate dominates en route to a stoppage (although anything is possible), but between better use of control positions and more patient offense when striking, I like her chances.
Well, this one’s going to be insane. If you have a pick for Barboza, I take no issue with it. It’s not at all difficult to cobble together a case for the guy. His leg kicks are utterly devastating, he packs a huge punch, his speed is blinding and so on and so on. Barboza is a terror. That said, Felder seems unintimidated in the pocket, blends hand-and-feet combinations seamlessly, and most importantly, he makes quick adjustments with better creativity than most. It’s not just that he substitutes in one conventional attack for another when the original isn’t working. It’s that he adjusts with the unexpected. For a guy like Barboza who is accommodating in terms of being willing to strike against a guy like Felder who isn’t as powerful but sneakier, that could badly backfire.
Gomi still packs a big punch and Lauzon’s been in some grueling fights over a long, distinguished career, but I still like the American’s chances. Gomi’s defensive wrestling isn’t what it once was and Lauzon’s ability to quick weave in submissions from a huge variety of positions is too much for Gomi to handle.
UFC women’s bantamweight fighter Holly Holm believes she’s finally getting into a groove, slowly, but surely. The boxer-turned-MMA fighter is coming off of a successful effort against Marion Reneau at UFC Fight Night 71 in San Diego from las…
UFC women’s bantamweight fighter Holly Holm believes she’s finally getting into a groove, slowly, but surely. The boxer-turned-MMA fighter is coming off of a successful effort against Marion Reneau at UFC Fight Night 71 in San Diego from last Wednesday, winning easily via unanimous decision.
This marked Holm’s second appearance in the Octagon, one where she says she’s feeling more and more at ease with everything.
“Absolutely, it was a little more comfortable in a lot of ways,” she told Ariel Helwani on Monday’s The MMA Hour. “Obviously, everyone saw the hype before the first one, but I’ve said it a lot already. I’m sure people are sick of hearing it, but coming off of two really big injuries was really a lot of my nerves for the last fight. Of course, it being my first UFC fight and then they bumped us to the co-main and then it kinda kept getting bigger and bigger, there were a lot of nerves.
“For me, personally, I’d say a lot of it was I was coming off of having my broken arm and having an herniated disc in my neck. I hadn’t fought since then and it just happened to be on the biggest stage I’d ever fought in in my first UFC fight after all this hype and anticipation and expectation. So yeah, the first fight had a lot more nerves behind it, but I’m always nervous for a fight,” she says. “But definitely I was more relaxed and a little more comfortable in there.”
Holm believes the fight’s relatively smaller stature on a smaller card actually helped her. Whereas some fighters want maximum attention and spotlight, this time she was happy to fly under the radar.
“I loved it,” she says of the fight not getting much publicity. “In L.A. [her UFC debut], we were doing interviews from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. some days, between the interviews and photo shoots and all the media. This was, I had three things a day, so I could actually get up and go for a run. We were staying by the bay, so I just went and ran by the water, kinda had a little bit of mental time for myself. It was great. I loved it.
“It was sandwiched between some really big fights, which some people feel maybe they didn’t get enough attention for it, but me personally, I think I just really want to go out there and fight. I don’t really want to do it for all these other reasons. It was a perfect time for me to fight and a perfect way it all panned out. I really had a good week last week.”
Still, while the smooth sailing continues, nothing takes place without some measure of criticism. Holm was dominant, but the fight was not action packed. Holm says she’s the first person to acknowledge she could’ve done more.
“I’m happier with my performance this time than last time, but I’m a little upset with myself for not going forward a little sooner. I think I could’ve stopped her early. Part of our game plan was to feel her out and see what she was going to be doing. We always assume they’re going to be coming trying to shoot or take me down or clinch to take me down.
“She had a lot more forward pressure in her past fights. Our plan was to kind of keep her at a kicking range and go when I wanted to. Yes, our game plan panned out perfectly to what we had planned for in the fight.”
Yet, Holm admits she wishes she had “pulled the trigger a little sooner,” but is generally pleased with the overall effort.
That doesn’t mean, however, everyone else is as thrilled. Critics of the fight say it was boring at best, proof she has nothing for Ronda Rousey at worst. Holm says she’s aware of the negative views, but can’t bother to acknowledge them much.
“People are always going to be negative,” she argues. “I honestly feel like the people that write negative things on Twitter, the Internet and all that, are people that don’t do our job. It doesn’t really ever bother me. I don’t really care. I know what was put in. I know what’s behind the scenes. I know what game plan was put together and one thing for me that is a positive thing I take away from this fight is she’s never been dominated like that in a fight before. So, I take that as a positive thing for myself and our hard work paid off.
“There’s a lot of ways to look at it from the outside that a lot of people don’t understand and I really don’t let it bother me because I don’t want to get in there and think, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve really gotta show what I’m worth to all these people who are sitting behind a computer on Twitter.’ I don’t even think about that before a fight. I think about a victory and what I need to do to get a win.”
Holm also says her progression is important. She’s inching her way towards the place where she wants to be. She’s not there yet, but she’s glad her progress is gradual rather than sudden.
“Each fight, I definitely want to improve. My first fight in the UFC, if I had the best knockout of my entire life that night, that would’ve been worse because then it would’ve been a letdown after. I’m glad that I keep improving, I’m glad that I keep showing a little bit more each fight. Do I want to be more impressive? Yes, but that’s what keeps me striving to go to the gym and to just get in there and have confidence in myself and go forward.
“It’s a work in progress and I’m definitely learning as I go, getting better as I go,” she confesses. “My plan is just to keep showing a little bit more each fight and eventually they’ll maybe be happy with it, but not everyone will ever be 100 percent happy.”
In fact, Holm points to her days in boxing as preparing her for this. Even in that sport, she says, her style of movement didn’t always garner the most fan support. It’s something she’s used to, yet still believes the arguments against her are misguided.
“Even the whole time in my boxing career, I always have done a lot of footwork and a lot of movement. That’s part of my style. Everybody has their own style. Even in boxing, sometimes they would call me a runner because I wasn’t there to get hit. Yet, I was landing all the punches and that is the whole point of a boxing fight, to hit and not get hit,” she notes.
More to the point, Holm says, is her style is good for her health and career longevity. Banging it out on the feet might be fun for the fans, but she thinks it’s a terrible way to go through her professional career.
“Every fighter has a different style and that’s just been a style that works for me. I feel in boxing or MMA, regardless of what i’ve done, I feel like I’ve been able to have a good, successful career because you kinda take a gamble when you go in there and just bang with someone. Sometimes it feels good because you’re hitting them. It always feels good to hit them, but you’re taking shots in return and I feel like a lot of people are just wanting Fight of the Night.”
And that is the benchmark Holm says she hopes she never gets. Yes, she wants to dazzle audiences. Yes, she wants to get better and believes she is. Yes, winning UFC gold is important, but there’s a way she wants to do all of those things and that means not winning a certain award.
“I tell people all the time I don’t ever want Fight of the Night because that means I took too many shots,” Holm says. “I want Performance of the Night. I want Knockout of the Night or Submission of the Night, but I do not want Fight of the Night because that means you don’t even know who won. That means it’s too close to tell. I want a dominating performance. That is me, personally.”
Welcome to the Promotional Malpractice Live Chat.
Another week in MMA, another crazy set of circumstances to deal with. For starters, there’s another fight this weekend because of course there is. The UFC bantamweight champion T.J. Dilashaw finally…
Welcome to the Promotional Malpractice Live Chat.
Another week in MMA, another crazy set of circumstances to deal with. For starters, there’s another fight this weekend because of course there is. The UFC bantamweight champion T.J. Dilashaw finally rematches Renan Barao on big FOX. The card has a set of interesting fights as well as made-for-TV fun like Joe Lauzon vs. Takanori Gomi. We’ll break down every aspect of the card.
Then there’s all of the controversy. According to Jacob ‘Stitch’ Duran, he was fired from UFC as a cutman for negative comments made about the Reebok deal. This has caused quite the uproar and while it’s been compared to the Burt Watson situation, it’s actually much deeper. We’ll explore this.
On this week’s edition of the Monday Morning Analyst, we take a look at the two UFC Fight Nights from the week (UFC Fight Night: Mir vs. Duffee and UFC Fight Night: Bisping vs. Leites) with a special spotlight on the Fighter of the Week: Joe Duffy….
On this week’s edition of the Monday Morning Analyst, we take a look at the two UFC Fight Nights from the week (UFC Fight Night: Mir vs. Duffee and UFC Fight Night: Bisping vs. Leites) with a special spotlight on the Fighter of the Week: Joe Duffy.
Bellator MMA has put together a picture rendering of what their Dynamite show will look like. The event features both a kickboxing ring and mixed martial arts cage. Dynamite plays host to both GLORY kickboxing bouts and Bellator fights, the …
Bellator MMA has put together a picture rendering of what their Dynamite show will look like. The event features both a kickboxing ring and mixed martial arts cage. Dynamite plays host to both GLORY kickboxing bouts and Bellator fights, the latter of which includes a four-man light heavyweight tournament featuring Muhammed Lawal, Phil Davis, Linton Vassell and Emanuel Newton. The Dynamite card is headlined by a light heavyweight Bellator title fight between Tito Ortiz and champion Liam McGeary. Paul Daley will compete on the GLORY side of the card against an unnamed opponent.
Bellator Dynamite takes place at the SAP Center in San Jose, California on September 19th. The main card will air on Spike TV.
Michael Bisping managed to get it done against Thales Leites at UFC Fight Night 72 in Glasgow, Scotland, but just barely.
On two judges’ scorecards, Bisping earned the nod, taking scores of 49-46 and 48-47. On those scorecards from Mark Coll…
Michael Bisping managed to get it done against Thales Leites at UFC Fight Night 72 in Glasgow, Scotland, but just barely.
On two judges’ scorecards, Bisping earned the nod, taking scores of 49-46 and 48-47. On those scorecards from Mark Collett and Howard Hughes, Bisping lost the third round, but won the first, second and fourth. The third judge, Paul Sutherland, only gave Bisping the first and fourth, awarding the bout 48-47 to Leites.
