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Jessica Aguilar vs. Claudia Gadelha Should Have Been UFC 190’s Co-Main Event

UFC 190 comes to you from Brazil this Saturday with a seven-fight main card. Opening the pay-per-view action will be a possible strawweight title eliminator between No. 1-ranked contender Claudia Gadelha and No. 15-ranked Jessica Aguilar.
This fight sh…

This fight should have been the co-main event of the evening.

Outside of the main event title fight between Ronda Rousey and Bethe Correia, this is the only fight with any significance. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira would have had some significance two years ago, but in 2015, it is just two old veterans clinging to relevance. Heavyweights Stefan Struve and Minotauro Nogueira will square off as well, but they’re not viable top-tier fighters.

What two fights are after Aguilar-Gadelha? The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil finale fights. Like most, I’ll take a hard pass on that.

It isn’t surprising that this fight didn’t get the call to be a co-main event. The UFC has shown little interest in promoting its female divisions with any semblance of urgency outside of Rousey.

The first-ever strawweight fight, which involved Gadelha, was listed as the opening fight of a card via Fight Pass. As B/R’s Jonathan Snowden reported, there have only been 13 total strawweight fights in 2015, and only one more for the 135-pound weight class.

Of those rare fights, only two were co-main events (Esparza-Jedrzejczyk, Eye-Tate), and just two of the four PPV bouts were non-title.

Either Aguilar or Gadelha will quite possibly be the next contender at 115 pounds, and neither receives much promotion from the organization. They should be getting coverage as the co-main event, and they should have the platform to showcase their personalities. Both Aguilar and Gadelha have great personalities and are well-spoken.

Shogun and the Nogueiras are not PPV draws anymore, so that argument is null and void. Having them on the Brazilian card to help sell local tickets is fine, but they do not have to receive such high placement on the card to achieve that effect.

If this PPV card wasn’t seven fights deep, there is a good possibility the UFC would have chosen to have this fight on the preliminary card to begin with. They are fortunate enough just to be the curtain-jerking bout, but they deserve so much more.

Do any other top-ranked fighters get treated this way? Were Luke Rockhold or Johny Hendricks just lucky to get on a PPV event because they added more main card fights? Were they relegated as top contenders? No.

Aguilar is the former No. 1-ranked fighter in this weight class, and Gadelha is the top-ranked fighter in the UFC’s rankings. Their placement on this card would be justifiable if it were a stacked event like UFC 187 or UFC 189, but it’s not. It is a PPV being carried by Ronda Rousey.

There is no other fight on this card worthy of the co-main event over the strawweight title eliminator, and that is all the more reason to put Aguilar-Gadelha at the co-main event slot.

This could be a female-led PPV. 2015 is a year of revolution for women’s athletics. The UFC could have continued that trend by showcasing these title contenders at UFC 190. Instead, they are nowhere to be seen in the UFC’s promotion of the event.

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UFC 190 Preliminary Card Predictions

The UFC returns to Brazil on Saturday, as the anticipated UFC 190 comes to fans live on pay-per-view. Headlined by female bantamweight ace Ronda Rousey and top contender Bethe Correia, the card boasts a seven-fight main card that will bring extra actio…

Before that we have the preliminary card, which is strong on talent. Guys like former Strikeforce champion Rafael Cavalcante, UFC title challenger Demian Maia and rising star Warlley Alves all grace the undercard, making the prelims just as must-see as the main card.

Last weekend was not a great one for the prelim picks here, so this writer hopes to improve this time around. We are nearly eight months into the year, and we hope to push the winning percentage higher than it is.

With that, let’s examine the prelims and make some picks for this Saturday’s event.

2015 Riley’s Record: 93-58

Last Event: 3-5 (UFC on Fox 16)

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VIDEO: CagePotato Breaks Down Which UFC 190 Heavyweight Has the Brightest Future Prospects for ‘Owned Sports’

Believe it or not, there are actually sports entities out there who value — or are at least willing to put up with — our opinions on MMA-related matters. I know, right? I’m just as shocked as you.

In any case, CagePotato managing editor (and lone remaining member of the Old & New Dads Alliance™), Jared Jones, recently appeared alongside Erik Fontanez of MMA Hot Sauce/MMAWeekly and Tommy Messano of MiddleEasy to break down UFC 190, and more specifically, which of the four heavyweights competing on the main card have the brightest future prospects, as part of an ongoing series for Owned Sports. As you can expect, our taek was equal parts hot and nonsense.

Check out the video above, make fun of my hair/face/attire, and while you’re at it, swing over to OwnedSports.com for more videos on daily fantasy sports.

The post VIDEO: CagePotato Breaks Down Which UFC 190 Heavyweight Has the Brightest Future Prospects for ‘Owned Sports’ appeared first on Cagepotato.

Check out the video above, make fun of my hair/face/attire, and while you’re at it, swing over to OwnedSports.com for more videos on daily fantasy sports.

The post VIDEO: CagePotato Breaks Down Which UFC 190 Heavyweight Has the Brightest Future Prospects for ‘Owned Sports’ appeared first on Cagepotato.

UFC 190: What Cruel & Unusual Punishment Does Rousey Have Planned for Correia?

Ronda Rousey is mad at Bethe Correia.
You might not have noticed right away, since Rousey seems to be mad at everyone all the time, but the women’s bantamweight champion has said UFC 190 is personal for her. She’s insisted she’ll teach…

Ronda Rousey is mad at Bethe Correia.

You might not have noticed right away, since Rousey seems to be mad at everyone all the time, but the women’s bantamweight champion has said UFC 190 is personal for her. She’s insisted she’ll teach Correia a lesson when the two fighters meet Saturday in the main event of an otherwise lackluster pay-per-view card.

“I’m not going to be nice to this chick,” Rousey said earlier this month, per MailOnline’s Justin Feck. “She is going to have a very long painful lesson that night. I’ve never looked forward to beating up someone more in my entire life. This is the only time I will say I will purposely drag a fight out to punish someone.”

So, yeah, that’s disquieting.

Rousey has dominated the UFC women’s 135-pound division with such extreme prejudice since her arrival in 2013 that it’s difficult to imagine her suddenly finding an extra gear. Among other things, she’s breezed to 5-0 in the Octagon (10-0 overall), become arguably the UFC’s biggest star, published her autobiography at age 28 and dispatched her last three opponents in 14, 16 and 66 seconds, respectively.

If she’s secretly been taking it easy on everybody this whole time, well, that’s crazy.

So, what to make of this claim that the champion has some cruel and unusual punishment planned for Correia? Is it all just a marketing gimmick? Maybe.

Rousey knows she’s the heavy favorite in this fight and that her recent bouts have come under fire for being so brief they were barely worth the price of admission. Perhaps she knows that promising an extended beatdown is the best possible sales pitch for UFC 190.

Monday’s media conference call supported this notion, when she appeared to give herself an out for another quick and easy finish:

Then again, Rousey is exactly the kind of fighter who might plot something especially gruesome for an opponent she believed overstepped her bounds, and Correia may have gone a bit too far with some of her trash talk.

In May, a brief public relations firestorm flickered over the 32-year-old Brazilian’s quip in her interview with Spanish website Combate (h/t MMA Fighting) that she hoped Rousey wouldn’t “commit suicide” after losing her title. The media bristled, calling the comment out of bounds because Rousey’s father took his own life when she was a child.

Correia apologized for the gaffe and said she was unaware of Rousey’s family tragedy. Still, the champion is known to declare personal vendettas over much less inflammatory statements.

Even before the suicide remarks, their feud was a bitter one, though Correia’s only crime to that point was beating Rousey’s cohorts, Shayna Baszler and Jessamyn Duke, during 2014. To date, she has also been one of the few athletes at 135 pounds who has made a point of getting in Rousey‘s face.

“Ronda, you’re not the superheroine you think you are,” Correia said on a recent episode of Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour. “You are a farce, and I’ll prove it on August 1.”

It has been a good strategy for Correia, and it helped catapult her from complete unknown to No. 1 contender after just three fights and a year-and-a-half in the UFC. She’s on the verge of headlining a PPV opposite one of the sport’s biggest draws and will receive the $30,000 Reebok sponsorship bonus now standard for title challengers.

But at what cost? It would actually be tempting to say Correia had already won here—if didn’t seem like she was about to receive a terrible beating.

People expect Rousey vs. Correia to be a mismatch of fairly epic proportions. The UFC has even gone as far as already booking the champ’s next fight, a third meeting with arch nemesis Miesha Tate sometime later this year.

“(Tate) has worked her way back to Ronda Rousey,” UFC President Dana White declared last weekend during a press conference (via Bleacher Report’s Steven Rondina) after Tate defeated Jessica Eye in a title eliminator at UFC on Fox 16. No mention of Correia. No mention of the fact the women’s bantamweight title will be on the line this weekend.

Still, it’s hard to blame UFC executives for looking ahead.

For all the positive things Correia has accomplished during her UFC run, she shapes up as a deeply flawed opponent for Rousey. As of this writing, she’s going off as an 11-to-1 underdog, according to Odds Shark, and even those numbers might turn out to be charitable.

Correia is primarily a striker but hasn’t displayed the sort of dynamic power it would take to surprise Rousey with a one-punch KO or an early stoppage. She prefers wars of attrition, and seven of her nine career victories have come by decision. Even when she defeated Baszler via second-round TKO at UFC 177, the end came from a steady accumulation of blows and after Correia likely lost the first round.

She doesn’t appear particularly mobile.

She doesn’t appear to be the sort of athlete who can steer clear of Rousey’s Olympic-level judo skills.

She doesn’t appear to have the size or strength to stay on her feet if the champ does get ahold of her.

In other words, though Rousey is a nightmare matchup for everybody in her weight class, Correia’s skill set feels particularly ill-equipped to deal with her.

And now Rousey is vowing to make it extra ugly.

She’s sworn to “embarrass” Correia and “discipline” her, per FoxSports.com’s Damon Martin, to change the trajectory of her entire career.

Maybe those are just empty promises.

Maybe it’s all just puffery, designed to make fans believe this is one Ronda Rousey fight that will give them their money’s worth.

But maybe not.

If Rousey actually wants to go out there and hand out a demoralizing 25-minute beating, there might not be anyone besides the referee who can stop her.

Least of all Correia.

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Bethe Correia Seeking ‘Justice’ Against Ronda Rousey

Justice is in the eyes of the beholder.
Ronda Rousey doesn’t mind being the villain, which she’ll likely become when she steps on South American soil on Saturday at UFC 190. She plans on prolonging the beating she hopes to hand down to Braz…

Justice is in the eyes of the beholder.

Ronda Rousey doesn’t mind being the villain, which she’ll likely become when she steps on South American soil on Saturday at UFC 190. She plans on prolonging the beating she hopes to hand down to Brazilian contender Bethe Correia. If everything goes according to plan, justice will be served for the reigning UFC women’s bantamweight champion.

On the other hand, Correia is also looking for justice when she steps into the cage against a champion many consider the baddest woman on the planet. Much has been said between the two fighters, and Correia believes her name is being unfairly sullied as a result.

During an interview with Globo Esporte (h/t Bloody Elbow), Correia vowed to leave the HSBC Arena in Rio on Saturday with gold wrapped around her waist:

I’m thirsty. I’m hungry to fulfill my dream of being the champion. I’m hungry for justice, because Ronda is trying to denigrate my name. I’m hungry because of everything I went through these past few months. The real champion is coming. I will come back home with the belt around my waist. Ronda can’t even wonder what waits for her here in Brazil.

Correia got a lot of heat back in May after making controversial comments directed at Rousey during an interview with Combate, per MMAFighting.com. She said she hoped Rousey didn’t “commit suicide” when she loses at UFC 190.

Rousey, whose father committed suicide when she was younger, responded with this tweet.

Correia claimed she had no idea how Rousey’s father died when speaking to the Brazilian media, per MMAFighting’s Guilherme Cruz. She called her comments a knee-jerk response to being publicly humiliated by Rousey.

“She said I would have a meeting with Jesus, that she would humiliate me inside my house. So I responded talking about her history,” Correia said.

Fortunately for everyone involved, the time for talking is over. Correia will come into UFC 190 a heavy underdog against the undefeated champion. Rousey has finished her last three opponents in less than two minutes combined.

Correia, who is also undefeated, enters this fight with a lot of question marks. She has never beaten a top-10 fighter, and now she is tasked with toppling arguably the greatest female fighter in MMA history.

Fans should expect to learn a lot about Correia on Saturday.

Jordy McElroy is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. He also is the MMA writer for FanRag Sports and co-founder of The MMA Bros.

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UFC 190: Best DraftKings Fantasy Picks for Ronda Rousey vs. Bethe Correia Card

Ronda Rousey is going to beat Bethe Correia, but you shouldn’t draft her in a UFC 190 DraftKings contest.
There’s almost no conceivable way Correia can beat the UFC women’s bantamweight champion—even with the event taking place in the challenger’…

Ronda Rousey is going to beat Bethe Correia, but you shouldn’t draft her in a UFC 190 DraftKings contest.

There’s almost no conceivable way Correia can beat the UFC women’s bantamweight champion—even with the event taking place in the challenger’s home country of Brazil. But there’s two major reasons why Rousey isn’t a smart pick in a DraftKings contest.

First off, her DK salary is about as high as you’ll ever see for one fighter at $12,200. That makes it virtually impossible for you to draft any of the other favorites.

There should be serious concern as to whether you’ll be able to tab other winners from the card, and it just about eliminates the opportunity to draft other favorites.

Secondly, there’s some belief that Rousey wants to punish Correia. That could mean Rousey will allow the fight to last more than one round so that she can inflict more damage. That might score some style points, but it will diminish the amount of fantasy points Rousey earns for your lineup.

Rousey‘s a lock to win, but due to the dynamics of the UFC 190 card, it’s best to avoid picking the most dangerous unarmed woman in the world.

Here’s my optimal lineup for UFC 190:

Soa Palelei ($10,600) vs. Antonio Silva

This pick is as much about who Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva isn’t any longer as it is who Soa Palelei is as a fighter. The latter is a big, strong, powerful striker and accomplished submissions fighter. He’s dangerous against most heavyweights.

Silva has been in his share of huge fights and even pulled out some big wins over the likes of Alistair Overeem and the legendary Fedor Emelianenko. That said, Bigfoot is spent.

The 35-year-old Brazilian hasn’t won a fight in three years and has lost five of his last eight bouts. Palelei hasn’t been stopped since 2010 when he submitted to Daniel Cormier from punches when the two were with XMMA. Palelei has lost just one fight in that time span, and all 22 of his wins have come by stoppage (18 KO, four submissions). If he’s winning, it’s not going the distance.

Palelei will win this bout in smashing fashion, and it won’t last beyond the first round.

Patrick Cummins ($10,600) vs. Rafael Cavalcante

Ryan Bader dominated Rafael Cavalcante with his wrestling and top control in their bout back in April 2015. Expect Patrick Cummins to utilize the same game plan when he takes on the Brazilian.

Cummins is a two-time Division I All-American from Penn State. His ground game is among the best in the sport, and fighters with that skill level can dismantle him as long as they don’t attempt to stand and trade punches.

Cavalcante owns wins over established wrestlers such as Yoel Romero and Muhammed Lawal, but the mistake Romero and Lawal made was to try and win a stand-up battle. Cummins won’t make that mistake. He knows who he is and won’t deviate from his best plan of attack.

A ground-and-pound finish is possible, as is a second-round submission.

Stefan Struve ($10,800) vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira

This fight is somewhat similar to the Palelei vs. Silva battle. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira is a Brazilian legend, but recent history suggests the 39-year-old is way past his prime. He’s lost his last two fights with each loss coming by way of stoppage.

Roy Nelson knocked him out in August 2014 and Fabricio Werdum submitted him in June 2013. There’s a good chance Nogueira is just about done winning in the UFC unless he’s given a cookie in his last fight a la Mark Munoz.

Stefan “The Skyscraper” Struve is in no way an elite heavyweight. The 7-footer has good power, incredible length and a ton of heart, but he’s easy to hit and his chin has given way in six of his seven losses. The only issue here is that Nogueira isn’t known for his punching power.

Just three of his 34 wins have come by strikes, which means he’ll likely have to take the tall timber down to get the win. At Nogueira’s advanced age, that’s a risky proposition. It seems far more likely that Struve catches Nogueira with a big shot that sets up a KO victory for the Skyscraper.

Neil Magny ($9,000) vs. Demian Maia

Normally, any fighter facing Demian Maia is at a huge disadvantage when it comes to grappling. However, in this matchup, the Brazilian jiu-jitsu master won’t have as big of an edge over his opponent. Neil Magny is perhaps the most improved fighter in the promotion over the last three years. The 27-year-old veteran has won seven fights in a row and is a legitimate contender at 170 pounds.

Magny‘s ground game has become formidable, as evidenced by his last two wins (against Hyun Gyu Lim and Kiichi Kunimoto). Magny used his long 6’3″ frame to control his opponents on the mat, securing a TKO and submission victory in the bouts, respectively.

Magny may not be equal or superior to Maia on the ground, but he’s good enough there to hold his own. His length and superior athleticism give him an edge in striking and the inside track on an upset.

Antonio Rogerio Nogueira ($8,900) vs. Shogun Rua

Like his twin brother, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira has been through his share of wars, and there’s unquestionable wear on his pugilistic treads. That said, he’s probably in better shape than his opponent.

Mauricio “Shogun” Rua has lost seven of his last 11 fights, and four of the defeats have come by stoppage. Even some of his wins in that time have been brutal back-and-forth scraps.

Ovince St. Preux and Dan Henderson viciously stopped Rua in his last two fights. If there’s ever been a legend who needs to hang up the gloves, it’s Rua. Despite the fact that Shogun has a higher DK salary, this looks like a fight he could lose and ultimately put a firm stamp on the end of his fighting career.

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