After winning The Ultimate Fighter in December, Diego Brandao is ready to return to the Octagon for a bout against Darren Elkins at Saturday’s UFC 146. Undefeated in his past four official fights, the 24-year-old Brandao is beginning to hit his stride …
After winning The Ultimate Fighter in December, Diego Brandao is ready to return to the Octagon for a bout against Darren Elkins at Saturday’s UFC 146. Undefeated in his past four official fights, the 24-year-old Brandao is beginning to hit his stride and could be a future force in the featherweight division.
Meanwhile after dropping down to the 145-pound division Elkins has defeated Michihiro Omigawa and Tiequan Zhang. Though not considered a title threat, Elkins has a way of dragging opponents into his type of fight and will look to use his experience against the young and emotional Brandao.
As of late, The Ultimate Fighter has produced few winners capable of making an immediate run at the top of their respective divisions. With his first step toward becoming a featherweight contender less than one week away, let’s take a look at Brandao’s chances of earning a fifth straight win.
UFC 146 is unlike anything else in the long history of the UFC. Never before has the promotion considered filling a card with heavyweight fights.The major reason it’s never happened is due to the lack of quality heavyweights in the UFC’s biggest weight…
UFC 146 is unlike anything else in the long history of the UFC. Never before has the promotion considered filling a card with heavyweight fights.
The major reason it’s never happened is due to the lack of quality heavyweights in the UFC’s biggest weight class in the past. Just a few years ago, the division had a few top contenders and a rash of guys who were as far away from title shots as you can possibly get. It’s hard to fill up a pay-per-view card when you have Tim Sylvia, Andrei Arlovski and not much else to speak of.
That’s no longer the case. The UFC’s heavyweight division has grown by leaps and bounds, and it’s now deep enough that a card of this nature could finally be created. The top of the division is more stacked than ever, with guys like Cain Velasquez, Frank Mir, Fabricio Werdum and the suspended Alistair Overeem all close to title contention. Rising young stars such as Travis Browne and Stefan Struve are filling out the middle of the division.
And that’s not even counting Daniel Cormier and Josh Barnett, who will make their way to the UFC after each fighting once more in Strikeforce.
Point being, the UFC’s heavyweights are ready for a showcase like the one they’ll get on Saturday night. Whether or not they’ll deliver exciting fights is a different story.
Hardcore UFC fans know that the Ultimate Fighting Championship has changed drastically in the last 10 years. Not only is MMA now a mainstream sport, but the look and style of the UFC’s promotion materials have slowly evolved from bright neon-colored fi…
Hardcore UFC fans know that the Ultimate Fighting Championship has changed drastically in the last 10 years.
Not only is MMA now a mainstream sport, but the look and style of the UFC’s promotion materials have slowly evolved from bright neon-colored fight posters to stylish TV commercials and YouTube videos. Even though mixed martial arts will never really shake elements like heavy metal and cheesy voice-overs, it is a welcomed change.
Still, it is fun to remember the UFC’s past style—one can’t help but laugh at Zuffa’s most recent YouTube masterpiece, “SATURDAY, SATURDAY, SATURDAY!” to see that the promotion’s marketing department is, as usual, amazingly on-point.
Before the big heavyweight bash this weekend, let’s take a look at some of the UFC’s most memorable “fan made” and official viral videos, from their most recent work to trailers from a few years ago.
MMA is about much more than the action in the cage. The best fighters, or at least the most popular ones, understand that what happens outside the Octagon is just as important as anything that takes place within. Fighters are entertainers. As we’ve lea…
MMA is about much more than the action in the cage. The best fighters, or at least the most popular ones, understand that what happens outside the Octagon is just as important as anything that takes place within.
Fighters are entertainers. As we’ve learned, they are competing for ever-tightening entertainment budgets, not just with boxers and other athletes, but with blockbuster movies like The Avengers. To make MMA competitive with the best video games and television shows, you have to do more than show up and fight.
We are here now. Entertain us. These are the 25 who’ve done it best. Disagree? Entertain me in the comments!
The commercials promoting UFC 146 have been running for weeks now, and after showing Junior Dos Santos knocking out Cain Velasquez and winning the UFC heavyweight belt, the same question is asked. Who can beat this guy? Dos Santos has been a one-man wr…
The commercials promoting UFC 146 have been running for weeks now, and after showing Junior Dos Santos knocking out Cain Velasquez and winning the UFC heavyweight belt, the same question is asked.
Who can beat this guy?
Dos Santos has been a one-man wrecking machine ever since entering the Octagon back at UFC 90, taking out top contenders like Fabricio Werdum and Shane Carwin before he was able to put his right hand on Velasquez’s temple last November.
“Cigano’s” 68-second destruction of Velasquez has fans wondering if he will become the dominant heavyweight champion the UFC has sorely needed over the last decade, and his first title defense will be his chance to prove to the world that he’s as good as advertised.
After his original opponent, Alistair Overeem, was forced to drop out of the bout after being suspended by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, Dos Santos drew former world champion and Brazilian Ju-Jitsu expert Frank Mir as his first challenger.
Mir was certainly the most deserving replacement, having rattled off a nice set of victories over big names like Mirko Cro Cop and Roy Nelson over the last couple of years, and he is riding a ton of momentum after snapping Minotauro Nogueira’s arm in a kimura last December.
However, even the biggest Mir fans know that Saturday’s fight against Dos Santos is possibly the toughest of his career.
When a guy with heavy hands gets thrown into a fight where he is obviously over his head, we as fans hype the fight ourselves, giving everyone a “puncher’s chance” at winning a fight.
Unfortunately for Mir, he doesn’t even have that.
The odds that Mir will able to hang with Dos Santos on the feet are slim to none, and unless he is able to drag “Cigano” to the mat he won’t have much of a “grappler’s chance” either.
This is MMA, where upsets seem to happen twice as often as most of the other major sports, but the favorites are called favorites for a reason. Maybe Mir will walk into the Octagon and find a way to grab one of Dos Santos’ limbs and try to rip it off, or maybe he’ll land a big right hand and put the champion to sleep.
Just don’t count on it.
Dos Santos hasn’t shown any real weaknesses thus far, and now that’s he’s taken out a handful of the best fighters in the division the UFC is asking the right questions.
Who can beat this guy?
Maybe it’s Overeem, or maybe Velasquez just needs another chance.
The UFC is loved in part because it’s “real” and has a sense of humor, unlike the other major sports leagues. Case in point, take their newest UFC 146 promo—a hilarious throwback to the UFC’s days in the early ’90s.The video depicts the typical 1…
The UFC is loved in part because it’s “real” and has a sense of humor, unlike the other major sports leagues. Case in point, take their newest UFC 146 promo—a hilarious throwback to the UFC’s days in the early ’90s.
The video depicts the typical 1990s colors, the old UFC logo, explosions, cheesy old-school graphics and footage of the old ring girls, and is paired with over-the-top narration that only excuses viewers from buying the PPV if they’re in jail or dead (although the narrator demands that you break out if you’re in jail).
The funny promo comes at the perfect time. The UFC 146 fight card was scheduled to be an epic one, but circumstances had other plans for it.
First, the main event between UFC heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos and Alistair Overeem fell apart, only to be replaced by a less interesting matchup between Dos Santos and Frank Mir.
That caused the whole card to get shuffled around and then there were even more changes because of injuries!
This video is important because it’s sure to garner lots of web traffic and therefore interest in the UFC 146 fight card. Curiously, the video still advertises an appearance by Mark Hunt, yet Hunt was recently confirmed to be injured and therefore out of his fight was Stefan Struve.
Nevertheless, it’s a fun video to watch and is sure to get people talking about the fight, which is always a good thing.
The commercials promoting