Tag: General

Whoever Wins The Ultimate Fighter Loses To Demetrious Johnson Saturday Night

Yes, that’s an extremely flippant and dismissive ideology, but hear me out. The Ultimate Fighter tournament of champions has been one of the most entertaining seasons in the show’s history from a pure talent perspective. The flyweights featured this season showed exactly why they were champions in their respective organizations and why they belong in the UFC. Each of them is professional, scrappy, and are dead set on becoming the man to challenge flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson. Here’s the catch. None of them ever stood a chance.

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Yes, that’s an extremely flippant and dismissive ideology, but hear me out. The Ultimate Fighter tournament of champions has been one of the most entertaining seasons in the show’s history from a pure talent perspective. The flyweights featured this season showed exactly why they were champions in their respective organizations and why they belong in the UFC. Each of them is professional, scrappy, and are dead set on becoming the man to challenge flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson. Here’s the catch. None of them ever stood a chance.

Tonight is the final fight in the tournament that features the unpredictable Tim Elliott and the fairly predictable Hiromasa Ogikubo. Both men are tough and talented, each of them with their own strengths and weaknesses. Hiromasa has a great ground game, tenacity with his takedowns, and some serviceable striking on the feet. He’ll most likely be looking for the takedown on Elliott once again, but will have to be cautious in doing so. Elliott is a complete wild card and is just as likely to keep the fight standing as he is to take things to the floor. From a game planning perspective, Elliott will want to keep things standing, but the likelihood of that outcome is cloudy at best.

But whoever is shown to be the tournament champion tonight will have the unfortunate task of fighting for the flyweight belt. I say unfortunate because the man the winner must face for the strap has very few weaknesses. Elliott and Hiromasa both have clear weaknesses for the champion to exploit which makes defeating Johnson a tall task for either man. While this season’s format was certainly entertaining, by the end of it all it seemed that there was truly only one man who would have been capable of contending with Demetrious Johnson and that was Eric Shelton. Unfortunately for Shelton he was eliminated in a closely contested match with Elliott who himself thought had lost.

Elliott is perhaps the best bet to give Johnson a challenge because of his unique style, but he gets too wild and could likely end up on his back because of it. Hiromasa on the other hand doesn’t have the speed or style to deal with a fighter of Johnson’s caliber. While his ground game is tight and his striking decent, Johnson is blindly fast and adept at adapting on the fly, exploiting his opponent’s weakness and turning it into a strength.

In any event, the tournament experiment to produce a challenger for Demetrious Johnson proved to be thoroughly entertaining. The professionalism of the fighters, their backgrounds, and passion for competition made this a very watchable season of television. It’s just unfortunate that most of these combatants never stood a chance of giving Johnson a worthy challenge. What is fortunate is that viewers will be sure to tune in for the next season of the long running reality series. If the fights are exciting as the ones featured this season, how could you not be enticed to see more.

Do you think tonight’s TUF winner can defeat Demetrious Johnson?

Jonathan Salmon is a writer, martial arts instructor, and geek culture enthusiast. Check out his Twitter and Facebook to keep up with his antics.

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GSP and Star Studded Line Up Announce The Mixed Martial Arts Athletes Association

When GSP said he had a big announcement earlier this week, he wasn’t lying. The former welterweight champion along with Donald Cerrone, Tim Kennedy, T.J. Dillashaw, and promoter Bjorn Rebney held a conference call today to announce the official launch of the Mixed Martial Arts Athletes Association.

According to the active and retired fighters,

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GSP: “Even tho I know a lot of fighters are afraid, it’s time to step up and do the right thing. It’s time to join in.”

When GSP said he had a big announcement earlier this week, he wasn’t lying. The former welterweight champion along with Donald Cerrone, Tim Kennedy, T.J. Dillashaw, Cain Velasquez and former chairman and chief executive of bellator, Bjorn Rebney, held a conference call today to announce the official launch of the Mixed Martial Arts Athletes Association.

According to the all fighter board, this association is about fighters past and present, and plans to address issues in regards to wage gaps, pension, and healthcare. The association repeatedly urged current fighters to “join in”, as though the association may not be perfect, it’s the best chance they have right now.

The MMA Board will consist of 5 fighters

–GSP

–Cain Velasquez

–Donald Cerrone

–Tim Kennedy

–T.J. Dillashaw

–Bjorn Rebney (as advisor)

 

The resounding message of the association seems to be a safe place for fighters, that is run by fighters. They’re calling for basic rights that is afforded any other athlete in any other sport. In short they’re trying to legitimize MMA not only as a promotion but also as a sport – on both sides. While we don’t have the audio of the press conference, we do have a play by play of the major talking points via Twitter.

 

 

 

While this all sounds perfectly reasonable, the real question is how many current fighters will actually join. We all know UFC rules with an iron fist, so it’s easy for the “healthy and wealthy” GSP to tell other fighters “don’t be afraid” – this is their livelihood on the line. Another concern is the “all fighter” board. While it sounds great in theory, does the beer swigging Mr. “I didn’t write a speech. Fuck, I wish I had.” have the capacity to head a new Association at such a volatile stage. Being one of the most active fighters in the UFC, does he even have the time?

One things for sure, the UFC will come down harshly and threats will be made. If this Association doesn’t work you can be sure Dana White will extra diligent in stomping out any revolution in the future.

Let us know what you think about the new fighter association and if you think it stands a chance.

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“She’s Back…” – New UFC 207 Rousey vs. Nunes Promo Video

We all know where we were on November 15th, 2015. As much as you want to deny it, we were all obsessed with the brass, outspoken, and ever confident Ronda Rousey. Whether you wanted her to win or lose, your eyes were glued to the screen during the main event of UFC 193 in Melbourne, Australia. Then, the unthinkable happened.

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One last try

We all know where we were on November 15th, 2015. As much as you want to deny it, we were all obsessed with the brass, outspoken, and ever confident Ronda Rousey. Whether you wanted her to win or lose, your eyes were glued to the screen during the main event of UFC 193 in Melbourne, Australia. Then, the unthinkable happened.

Whether you cried tears of joy or tears of defeat, we all felt something that day, as we secretly knew the women’s bantamweight division would never be the same.

Fast Forward to Present day. Within a year the coveted bantamweight title has changed hands twice since then, and you would be hard pressed to find someone who would’ve predicted current champ Amanda Nunes to be in the position she’s in right now. But after a very public breakdown, and admitted thoughts of suicide, the once former queen is “back”, and she clashes with stone cold striker in Amanda Nunes on December 30th.

“It’s my time” – Amanda Nunes

What’s great about this video is that it shows us how we got here. From Ronda, to Holly, to Tate, and now Nunes. What it didn’t show was the training, as we all want to see if Ronda has much improved hands from her last showing. She’s going to need them.

The real question however, is she really back? Does the former Alpha female still have what it takes physically, and more important, mentally to compete with the supremely confident Nunes. While I have no doubt Ronda is as dangerous as she wants to be, I just don’t see her being able to stand with the former strikeforce brazilian. My prediction is Nunes will punch her face off in a 50 hit combo likened to a Mortal Kombat finishing move. But, if Rousey can get her to the ground, as Miesha did when she was running of fumes in the first round, it could be armbar city.

Hit us up with your fight predictions and comments below!

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WOW: Crazy Illegal Head Stomp End’s Match

So there’s a reason certain moves have been deemed illegal in the MMA handbook. It’s easy to do some major damage in a fight by just simply tweaking your ankle or shifted the wrong way and pulling something. And yes, the punches, kicks, knees, and elbows certainly help to do some major damage as well, but all of those blows require a certain level of finesse. Then there are soccer kicks and stomps.

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So there’s a reason certain moves have been deemed illegal in the MMA handbook. It’s easy to do some major damage in a fight by just simply tweaking your ankle or shifted the wrong way and pulling something. And yes, the punches, kicks, knees, and elbows certainly help to do some major damage as well, but all of those blows require a certain level of finesse. Then there are soccer kicks and stomps. They look awesome in terms of spectacle, but you have to wonder when, if ever, is it cool to use those attacks in a professional MMA match.

Road FC featured a bout that ended due to one of those illegal techniques. Here’s a reminder of why stomps are so frowned upon.

What’s your thoughts on this illegal technique?

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Fallout: Derek Brunson’s Gaff, Conor McGregor Stripped Of Featherweight Title

So for any of you paying attention this weekend, there’s been a major shake up in the featherweight division. The UFC has decided to strip Conor McGregor of the featherweight title and upgrade the interim champion Jose Aldo to full fledged undisputed champ. It wasn’t that the move by the UFC was the wrong one, but the way it was done certainly left people scratching their heads. But that’s not all that happened this weekend.

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So for any of you paying attention this weekend, there’s been a major shake up in the featherweight division. The UFC has decided to strip Conor McGregor of the featherweight title and upgrade the interim champion Jose Aldo to full fledged undisputed champ. It wasn’t that the move by the UFC was the wrong one, but the way it was done certainly left people scratching their heads. But that’s not all that happened this weekend.

So before we get into the main topic of the article, there’s no way I can simply gloss over the UFC Fight Night 100 main event clash between Robert Whitaker and Derek Brunson. It was a battle between two highly touted prospects who have a bright future ahead of them at middleweight, but as of now only one man is moving forward while the other has to return to the drawing board. The latter in this equation is mister Brunson who had a peculiar performance to say the least.

Brunson has been on a high as of late, finishing many of his opponents by knock out in the first round. He tried to continue that trend against a more polished counter striker in Whitaker who remained patient, survived a barrage of punches, then clipped Brunson with a well timed left hook. There’s no way to excuse it. Brunson was sloppy. His head was far forward past his front knee, a big no no in high level striking, and eventually was reaching for Whitaker with every punch. Brunson’s display of sloppy striking makes you wonder how he was able to get this far in the rankings. Brunson certainly has the skills to go far in the UFC, but at this level of the game you have to be patient and controlled with a game plan in order to reap success.

Switching gears, the UFC stripping Conor McGregor unceremoniously on a Fight Night card was pretty peculiar. Sure, the event may have had a good number of eyes on it, but it just seems so strange to randomly say “hey, by the way, Conor McGregor is no longer the champion at featherweight, Jose Aldo is now” will only have the effect of throwing people off. Yes, UFC 206 needed a big fight to replace Daniel Cormier versus Anthony Johnson. Yes, upping the stakes with a championship level match does make things more enticing. But even a small press conference or press release would have been more professional.

Now, we can argue whether or not McGregor should have been stripped of the 145 lbs belt, but at this point it’s fair to say that the masses expect a certain level of professionalism from the biggest mixed martial arts promotion in the world. It’s shoddy work to say the least and we expect more.

Do you think the UFC handled the Conor McGregor situation well?

Jonathan Salmon is a writer, martial arts instructor, and geek culture enthusiast. Check out his Twitter and Facebook to keep up with his antics.

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With Rashad Evans Out of UFC 206, Who Should Tim Kennedy Fight Next?

Tim Kennedy has his hands tied. After opponent Rashad Evans was denied licensing by the New York and Toronto commission – due to brain injury – Tim Kennedy was left fishing for a partner, again. With UFC 206 fast approaching Kennedy has taken to twitter to call out anyone that will listen, even Brock Lesnar.

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“Hello, is there anybody out there?”

Tim Kennedy has his hands tied. After opponent Rashad Evans was denied licensing by the New York and Toronto commission – due to brain injury – Tim Kennedy was left fishing for a partner, again. With UFC 206 fast approaching Kennedy has taken to twitter to call out anyone that will listen, even  Brock Lesnar.

 

 

 

 

But let’s face it, Brock Lesnar is freakin HUGE and besides being a behemoth, he’s also suspended due to a doping infraction. Patrick Cote, while a native Moose jockey (canadian), is supposedly out due to an elbow injury…so where does that leave us?

 Kennedy vs. Silva

Anderson Silva has become a journeyman of some sort. While we still believe in his voodoo magic, his last fights have been  a wonky last minute fight at light heavyweight against Daniel Cormier, and before that a razor thin lost against the count Michael Bisping. With a pulled fight against Uriah Hall, it seems he’ll take on whoever poses a challenge, so why not Kennedy? Despite his age you never really know what Anderson will do next, and with a tough well rounded fighter like Kennedy, sparks could fly.

Kennedy vs. Vitor Belfort

Though usually a 205′er Kennedy has already said he would fight at a catchweight to compensate for Vitor’s “dadbod”. This is an interesting matchup because though Vitor’s the bigger man, at 6’0 he’s not exactly a large light heavyweight and has fought at middleweight in the past. While Vitor can dish out a beating in the first round, Kennedy can definitely take one (check out his strikeforce match with Luke Rockhold) and keep on ticking. I predict this fight is won in the third round.

While these two seem the most likely with Gegard Mousasi looking for a big fight, Derek Brunson, and Whittaker tied up this weekend, and Kelvin Gastelum suspended for missing weight, who do you guys want to see Kennedy fight?

Be sure to like us on Facebook and leave your comments on who should step into the cage next with Tim Kennedy.

 

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