Tag: UFC 194

UFC’s Awesome December Schedule Has Fans on Pins and Needles, Hoping It Happens

The UFC’s comeback tour is almost in the books.
As noted last month, America’s largest MMA promoter is on the verge of completing a full-scale turnaround after a tough 2014. With strong box office showings from new stars like Conor McGrego…

The UFC’s comeback tour is almost in the books.

As noted last month, America’s largest MMA promoter is on the verge of completing a full-scale turnaround after a tough 2014. With strong box office showings from new stars like Conor McGregor and Ronda Rousey, it’s possible this year might prove to be the UFC’s best on pay-per-view since the halcyon days of Brock Lesnar.

Hard to believe, but since the publication of that initial story, the fight company’s 2015 outlook grew even rosier. It bumped Rousey’s title defense against Holly Holm up from UFC 195 on January 2, 2016 to UFC 193 on November 15, thereby assuring itself something close to a million extra PPV buys (give or take a few hundred thousand) for this calendar year.

The rest of the UFC’s end-of-the-year slate also filled in, and it looks—in a word—awesome.

Fans will be on pins and needles just hoping it all happens as scheduled.

Assuming it does, December will feature three high-profile fight cards in nine days. There will be a trio of hotly anticipated championship bouts and as many as four potential title eliminators. It will be a wild ride and—if it all comes off as planned—will put an exclamation point on the end of the UFC’s return to form.

Spoiler alert: skepticism abounds.

Even though 2015 came off much better than recent years, memories of best-laid plans busted and broken are still fresh in the mind. Some observers still see a stellar future schedule as an opportunity to start calculating the potential for major letdowns.

They can’t get too hyped up about what’s in store without those four little words dancing in their heads: card subject to change.

Maybe there is good reason for concern here. Most of the biggest ticket fights on the December schedule include guys known to cause delays.

The unquestioned main event of the month is Jose Aldo finally meeting McGregor in a featherweight title unification bout at UFC 194 on December 12. The history of this star-crossed fight should be intimately understood by anyone whose eyes graced an MMA news website during 2015.

The UFC has been trying to put it together since January. The dominoes that toppled when Aldo pulled up lame just weeks before their first intended meeting at UFC 189 haven’t totally been cleaned up yet.

Chad Mendes stepped in on short notice, but he did as much to undermine McGregor’s claim to elite status as he did confirm it. The fight company scrambled to set the Irish phenom up with an interim title but then zagged him into a surprise coaching stint on The Ultimate Fighter—opposite Urijah Faber, of all people—in an overt attempt to use him to prop up one of its most hackneyed properties.

McGregor’s do-over with Aldo at UFC 194 on December 12 is our only chance to find resolution on any number of 145-pound questions. In classically over-the-top fashion, McGregor contends he’s still unconvinced Aldo will show up.

Fans too are nervy. Rightly or wrongly, they’ve come to see Aldo as snakebitten—a guy who could never stay healthy long enough to make good on the potential he enjoyed when the UFC brought him over from the WEC in 2011.

This time, the fight company has obviously employed dual insurance policies. Nobody wants to see any further postponements between Aldo and McGregor, but at least the UFC will have a couple of fallback plans if something unforeseen happens.

For starters, the promotion conveniently double-stacked title fights on the UFC 194 card, placing Aldo-McGregor on top of Chris Weidman’s middleweight championship defense against Luke Rockhold. So, if McGregor-Aldo gets called off again at the last minute, UFC 194 will still be able to boast it has some gold on the line.

Nothing beats slapping a UFC title on the poster.

The problem with that Plan B, of course, is that Weidman hasn’t been immune to unexpected detours himself. His title defense against Vitor Belfort was put off an entire year in 2014-15 due to a laundry list of factors.

In the interim, Weidman defeated Lyoto Machida at UFC 175, but also didn’t exactly earn a reputation as being Mr. Dependable.

In terms of hedging its bets on Aldo-McGregor, the UFC will have an additional emergency response option on the table as well.

Frankie Edgar and Mendes are booked to fight in another stellar featherweight bout at the TUF 22 live finale the night before. Either could step in if an injury sidelines the 145-pound title fight again, and Edgar says he’s already been told it will be him.

Beneath the Edgar-Mendes bout, matchmakers have lined up a 155-pound battle between Tony Ferguson and Khabib Nurmagomedov. If the world starts coming apart again, Ferguson vs. Nurmagomedov would be a serviceable TUF 22 main event.

You know, assuming that fight actually happens.

Nurmagomedov is only just now returning, after all, in the wake of a knee injury and a 20-month absence. He was once regarded as the obvious No. 1 contender, but his bout with Ferguson marks the beginning of his own comeback tour.

Can he keep it together long enough to make good on a title fight? Only time will tell.

But back to UFC 194, where the brightest spot on the undercard is also a redux:

Yoel Romero vs. Jacare Souza has been twice postponed already. The two were intended to meet at UFC 184 and then at UFC on Fox 15 before first a sickness to Souza and then a knee injury to Romeo pushed their bout back.

Both guys remain top 185-pound challengers, and the winner here is expected to be next in line for the winner of Weidman vs. Rockhold—if the tandem can stay healthy. Romero is 38 years old and Souza is 35, so neither can afford many more injury delays.

The UFC’s final event of the year will be UFC on Fox 17, mostly notable because it features a free lightweight title fight and for marking the first chance at UFC gold for fan favorite Donald Cerrone.

If there’s one thing we can say with almost complete certainty, it’s that the Cowboy will be ready and willing to fight Rafael dos Anjos on December 19.

The same has not been true of the new champion in recent months.

Dos Anjos hasn’t been seen since he took the 155-pound title from Anthony Pettis at UFC 185 in March. In the wake of that victory—for which RDA received a Performance of the Night bonus—he revealed he’d torn his MCL training for the fight and has been on the shelf ever since.

But wait, there’s more.

The co-main event of UFC on Fox 17 features a long-awaited heavyweight scrap between Junior dos Santos and Alistair Overeem. Neither of those guys has been all that active lately, either.

Dos Santos has not fought at all during 2015, owing to a hand injury. Overeem fought in March—a win over Roy Nelson—and has been idle ever since.

So, you see, there are still a lot of moving parts.

The downside, of course, is that we’ve learned the hard way that these highly anticipated runs can fall by the wayside for a multitude of reasons. On the bright side, the UFC’s December schedule looks too good to vanish completely.

We should be able to rest assured that at least some of this stuff will happen on time and as expected.

If it does, it will amount to the UFC launching a final flurry for just before the bell, necessary not only for convincing spectators it has emphatically won this round but for proving it’s still got a lot of fight left in it.

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Chris Weidman vs. Luke Rockhold Might Be Stacked UFC 194’s Best Fight

Over the last 10 days or so, I unplugged from the MMA world. I went to Tennessee and spent time deep in the woods in the middle of nowhere, where cellphone service was only an idea and not a thing that actually worked. And then I went to Gettysburg, to…

Over the last 10 days or so, I unplugged from the MMA world. I went to Tennessee and spent time deep in the woods in the middle of nowhere, where cellphone service was only an idea and not a thing that actually worked. And then I went to Gettysburg, touring the battlefields and absorbing history while remaining as disconnected as possible from MMA news.

Breaks are good, both for the brain and the soul.

I returned Wednesday night with the intention of catching up on everything I’d missed. There was a lot. But one thing really caught my eye: Even in its earliest stages, December’s UFC 194 card is already awesome.

The UFC’s new policy of stacking multiple title fights whenever possible, in order to guard against injury and—if everybody makes it to fight night—create highly anticipated supercards, is sublime. UFC 194 is the perfect example, and I am furiously knocking on wood in the hopes that the top three fights scheduled for the card actually happen.

First, there’s the main event. Jose Aldo vs. Conor McGregor is one of the most anticipated fights in UFC history. You know the story: It was scheduled for July, but Aldo pulled out with a broken rib, and then McGregor ended up facing Chad Mendes for an interim championship. The UFC rolled the dice by putting Mendes in the Octagon with McGregor; prior to that night, Mendes’ only career losses had come against Aldo, and he had had a mostly easy time with his other opponents.

But the gamble paid off. McGregor won, and what was already a big fight became an even bigger one. I fully expect more than 1 million people to purchase the pay-per-view, and chances are they’ll be doing so to see this fight.

But I’ll be honest with you: While I’m looking forward to the main event, my most anticipated fight is Chris Weidman vs. Luke Rockhold for the UFC Middleweight Championship.

Weidman has steamrolled through everyone since winning the middleweight title in his first shocking win over Anderson Silva in July 2013. He defended the belt against Silva, defeated a good version of Lyoto Machida and then beat the brakes off Vitor Belfort. He is clearly one of the best fighters in the world, and he’s coming into his own as a personality, as well.

But he may have met his match. Rockhold is one of the most well-rounded fighters in the sport, and he appears to be getting better each time out. His only loss since 2007 came at the hands of a Belfort who appeared to be wholly aided by performance-enhancing drugs.

Rockhold has won four fights in a row. He beat Machida more emphatically than Weidman did. In short, this feels like Rockhold’s time to shine.

But that’s the beauty of this fight. These are two evenly matched fighters in every respect. Weidman’s wrestling is a game-changer, but Rockhold is a very good MMA wrestler as well. It’s nearly impossible to look at this fight and think that one man has a significant edge over the other in any area of the sport.

There’s also a bit of a grudge beginning to form. On Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, Weidman fired the first shot.

“I think he’s just insecure and I think he knows what’s coming. I think he’d much rather be fighting anyone else but me,” he said.

Rockhold responded in kind during an interview with MMA Fighting.

“I just don’t know what the hell’s going on in his head,” he said. “I don’t know if he’s psychologically convinced himself that we’re scared of him or something, but he’s not on the right page. I feel like he’s in for a rude awakening.”

By the time December 12 rolls around, things between Weidman and Rockhold should be at a fever pitch. There’s little doubt that the fight will deliver the kind of action we’re expecting to see.

And the UFC has issued itself an insurance policy by booking a bout between top middleweight contenders Yoel Romero and Ronaldo Souza on the same card—just in case, God forbid, Weidman or Rockhold gets hurt.

The thing about Weidman vs. Rockhold is that it’s a deep cut. That’s a music term to describe a song on an album that true fans of a band will enjoy. The masses will tune in for Aldo vs. McGregor, and rightly so. But mixed martial arts devotees might just look at Weidman vs. Rockhold and decide that, hey, that’s the UFC 194 fight they’re really looking forward to the most.

It’s a perfect fight, and it is a chance to see the two best middleweights in the world square off for a championship.

It might only be the co-main event on the night, but it can’t be overlooked.

 

Jeremy Botter covers mixed martial arts for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter. 

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UFC 194: Can Jose Aldo & Conor McGregor Catch Lightning in a Bottle Twice?

So now we know.
December 12 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. That will be the time and place for Conor McGregor and Jose Aldo to finally—knock on wood— settle the championship blood feud that has dominated the featherweight lands…

So now we know.

December 12 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. That will be the time and place for Conor McGregor and Jose Aldo to finally—knock on wood— settle the championship blood feud that has dominated the featherweight landscape and captivated fans since the UFC announced it in January.

This time, everybody just needs to stay healthy.

Did we already say “knock on wood”?

Best do it again, just to be sure.

The buildup to the first intended meeting between Aldo and McGregor was massive and insane, then largely ruined when Aldo pulled out with a broken rib just 12 days before the bout. McGregor still showed up and defeated short-notice replacement Chad Mendes for an interim title at an event MMA Fighting.com’s Dave Meltzer estimated sold more than 800,000 pay-per-view buys even without the actual champion on the card.

The do-over—now scheduled for UFC 194—is as essential a fight as the UFC has ever booked. Due to McGregor’s possession of that interim belt it also feels, at least at this moment, like it could be even bigger than the ill-fated original.

The question is: How to make sure it stays that way?

Nearly four months still have to pass before Aldo and McGregor get locked in a cage together—and we won’t be able to truly breathe easy until they do. If this fight’s first misfire taught us anything, it’s that things can still fall apart right up to the 11th hour.

Prior to UFC 189, the fight company pulled out all stops promoting Aldo vs. McGregor. It sent both fighters on a highly publicized world tour. It produced numerous documentary films and bankrolled one visually stunning, big-budget commercial that felt a world away from anything the UFC had done before. It even gave the 145-pounders top billing over Robbie Lawler’s welterweight title fight with Rory MacDonald.

It can’t do all that again.

Can it?

Should it?

Early reports indicate the organization may try. We already know Aldo-McGregor will take the UFC 194 headliner spot while Chris Weidman’s middleweight defense against Luke Rockhold gets relegated to the co-main event. And while a second 12-day world tour doesn’t appear in the offing, UFC President Dana White has promised he and co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta will make sure this fight card feels bigger than UFC 189.

“Me and Lorenzo have already talked about it,” White said, via MMAFighting.com’s Marc Raimondi. “We’re gonna spend even more money than we did this time. We’ve gotta try to top the last commercial and all that s–t.”

Mission impossible? Maybe, maybe not.

It’s early yet, but so far this bout feels as though it’s inspiring a little less enthusiasm than the first time around. Aside from some scuttlebutt about possible venue changes, the official announcement of the date and location stirred precious little buzz. 

At UFC 189, Aldo vs. McGregor felt larger than life. As part of UFC 194, it merely feels like another fight on what figures to be an overall stellar card. 

Maybe people haven’t gone gaga for it only because we knew it was coming. No reason to get excited about “breaking news” we guessed would happen the moment Aldo got injured two months ago.

Or maybe, having been burned once by the oft-injured champion, people are taking a wait-and-see approach. Nobody relishes the thought of getting their hopes up only to be burned again.

Then again, perhaps the slightly reduced fanfare is a sign of something bigger. The sequel is almost never as good as the original, after all, even when the original didn’t make it off the launch pad. MMA fans are no doubt still hyped to finally see this matchup, but it remains to be seen if mainstream media and casual viewers will buy in again.

Given the full-scale madness of the first wave of hype, you couldn’t blame some observers if the thought of doing it all over again feels a bit less than. If we spend the next few months watching Aldo and McGregor reprise those exact roles, it could feel like a poor photocopy of the original.

It might actually start to be somewhat tiresome, and nobody wants that leading up to this most anticipated fight.

Perhaps the most interesting task, then, will fall to the UFC’s PR and marketing departments, who will have to figure a way to stage another long and contentious promotional push without it coming off like a less novel version of the first.

Certainly McGregor and Aldo have an odd kind of chemistry together. McGregor’s nonstop, over-the-top antics are the perfect foil for Aldo’s cold burn. By the time their first world tour reached its climax in Dublin in March, McGregor was having the time of his life. Meanwhile, Aldo appeared to be stoically plotting his murder.

There were some truly iconic moments—McGregor grabbing Aldo’s belt off the dais will live on highlight reels forever—as things built more or less organically to a boil. Toward the end, however, the whole thing started to feel a bit repetitive, a bit contrived.

And that was just the first showing.

Getting McGregor and Aldo’s special brand of lightning back in the bottle for the redux will be a fascinating challenge.

Obviously, the principals will do everything they can to cooperate. Aldo and McGregor appear to legitimately despise each other so it’ll be no trouble at all getting them at each other’s throats again, if that’s what the organization wants to do. Basically, just put them in the same room together and let the cameras roll.

In this case, however, I wonder if a slightly lighter touch is what’s required. Subtlety has never been the UFC’s strong suit, and it’s never been a particularly tried-and-true method of selling fights. But do people really want to see a firework show after a firework show?

Will that only have a counterproductive effect, making us feel like Aldo and McGregor are being crammed down our throats?

Or will the five-month delay between the first date and the second be enough to make their bad blood feel fresh all over again?

Does McGregor have any more tricks up his custom-tailored sleeve?

And this time can Aldo actually make it to fight night in one piece?

All these questions seem valid as the thunder and lightning start to build around this fight all over again.

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Yoel Romero vs. Jacare Souza Joins Already Stacked UFC 194 Card in December


(There’s probably a fight happening somewhere in this picture, but I’ll be damned if I can see anything but Mike Beltran’s awesome beard. Look at how it flows with the wind, Nation, like a field of wheat or those giant rubber wipers at a carwash that you would always pretend were octopus tentacles when you were a kid. Remember being that age, your mind full of wonder and excitement? Now there is only cynicism. Cynicism and self-loathing……………………………

…………………………………………….I’ve completely forgotten what I was talking about.)

We know that declaring any UFC card in today’s era as “stacked” is all but the kiss of death, but you guys, UFC 194 is stacked. That it only has three fights booked so far is a testament to how stacked it is, and unfortunately also a testament to how doomed it is to lose at least one of those fights within the coming weeks.

But for now, the December 12th-scheduled card will feature a pair of title fights in Conor McGregor vs. Jose Aldo and Chris Weidman vs. Taylor Swift’s BFF. As if that wasn’t enough, the UFC announced earlier today that another key middleweight matchup will take place on the card as well: 4th-ranked Yoel Romero vs. 3rd-ranked Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza.

The post Yoel Romero vs. Jacare Souza Joins Already Stacked UFC 194 Card in December appeared first on Cagepotato.


(There’s probably a fight happening somewhere in this picture, but I’ll be damned if I can see anything but Mike Beltran’s awesome beard. Look at how it flows with the wind, Nation, like a field of wheat or those giant rubber wipers at a carwash that you would always pretend were octopus tentacles when you were a kid. Remember being that age, your mind full of wonder and excitement? Now there is only cynicism. Cynicism and self-loathing……………………………

…………………………………………….I’ve completely forgotten what I was talking about.)

We know that declaring any UFC card in today’s era as “stacked” is all but the kiss of death, but you guys, UFC 194 is stacked. That it only has three fights booked so far is a testament to how stacked it is, and unfortunately also a testament to how doomed it is to lose at least one of those fights within the coming weeks.

But for now, the December 12th-scheduled card will feature a pair of title fights in Conor McGregor vs. Jose Aldo and Chris Weidman vs. Taylor Swift’s BFF. As if that wasn’t enough, the UFC announced earlier today that another key middleweight matchup will take place on the card as well: 4th-ranked Yoel Romero vs. 3rd-ranked Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza.

Romero and Souza were originally scheduled to fight at UFC 184 last February, but thanks to a particularly nasty bout of pneumonia, the latter had to withdraw from the event. The bout was then rescheduled for UFC on FOX 15 in April, but then it was Romero who went down with IBS a torn meniscus, forcing the UFC to once again sacrifice Chris Camozzi to the Alligator Gods. So we’re sure that everything will work out just fine this time around.

Still undefeated in his UFC career, Romero last competed at UFC Fight Night 70, KOing Lyoto Machida with some BRUTAL elbows from the top early in the third round. Souza is similarly undefeated thus far into his UFC career, having picked up five straight over the likes of Gegard Mousasi and Francis Carmont among others. The two share a common opponent in Derek Brunson (pictured above), whom Souza scored a quick KO over back in the Strikeforce days and Romero elbowed into oblivion back at Fight Night 35. Brunson, believe it or not, actually decided to stick with this whole fighting thing and has since gone on a three-fight win streak. Good for him.

Predictions, please.

The post Yoel Romero vs. Jacare Souza Joins Already Stacked UFC 194 Card in December appeared first on Cagepotato.

Yoel Romero vs. Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza Booked for UFC 194

As if UFC 194 wasn’t great already, another huge bout has been announced. According to Adam Hill of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Yoel Romero and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza will face off December 12 in a critical bout for the middleweight division:

BREAKI…

As if UFC 194 wasn’t great already, another huge bout has been announced. According to Adam Hill of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Yoel Romero and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza will face off December 12 in a critical bout for the middleweight division:

The fight is almost guaranteed to be a top contender’s bout at 185 pounds.

Romero is an impressive 6-0 in the UFC, with five of those wins coming via knockout. In his most recent fight, he scored a huge ground-and-pound victory over former light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida.

Souza hasn’t received as much attention of late, but the former Strikeforce champion has an impressive resume. Undefeated since 2011, Souza is riding eight straight wins, a run that includes a brutal knockout of Yushin Okami and a submission of Gegard Mousasi.

The two have been scheduled to face off twice before, at UFC 184 and UFC on Fox 15. On both occasions, however, the fight was scrapped, first because of a Souza bout of pneumonia, then because of a Romero knee injury. Hopefully, the third time will be the charm.

UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman is set to face off with Luke Rockhold in the UFC 194 co-main event, but both Souza and Romero have reasonable claims to a title shot already. Whoever wins this bout is almost certainly going to be next in line to challenge for the title.

As if those two matches weren’t enough, UFC 194 is set to be headlined by the biggest featherweight title fight of all time: Jose Aldo vs. Conor McGregor. The sure-to-be-stacked card is set to go down December 12 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Who do you think will take this one, fight fans?

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‘McGregorMania’ Reaches New Heights with Nutty Bettings Odds for Jose Aldo Fight

The entire MMA universe seems to have lost its mind over the upcoming UFC featherweight title unification bout between Jose Aldo and Conor McGregor.
Promoters have become fans. Fans have become zealots (Warning, NSFW Language). Fighters have becom…

The entire MMA universe seems to have lost its mind over the upcoming UFC featherweight title unification bout between Jose Aldo and Conor McGregor.

Promoters have become fans. Fans have become zealots (Warning, NSFW Language). Fighters have become sideshows (Warning, NSFW Content).

The greatest testament to how wild McGregorMania is running, however, is that bookies have become seemingly marks. That’s what the opening line for the upcoming Aldo vs. McGregor bout would suggest, anyway, with the challenger, yes the challenger, opening as almost a 2-1 favorite over the champion (+155 vs. -190, to be exact, via OddsShark.com).

To say this is a surprise would be an understatement, of course. 

Aldo is pegged by many as the top pound-for-pound fighter in the sport today. Some even made that claim before the UFC indefinitely suspended Jon Jones. His steely takedown defense and safe-but-devastating striking style make it incredibly difficult to take a single round off him, never even mind three of five. 

Making this even more perplexing is how the Aldo vs. McGregor line has practically flipped in the months since UFC 189.

Aldo opened as a moderate favorite ahead of UFC 189 (-140, via BloodyElbow.com) but, as all fans remember, a rib injury forced him off the card, McGregor instead faced off with top-five mainstay Chad Mendes, taking a TKO victory in the second round.

While it was an impressive victory, it failed to provide any moments that would suggest his chances against Aldo have improved in any way. On the contrary, the well-established flaws with McGregor’s striking game — his willingness to lunge in on opponents, and his disinterest in using his reach for anything but unrelenting offense — were present and accounted for. His increased willingness to let opponents test his chin is also cause for concern, as BloodyElbow’s Connor Ruebusch spelled out:

Let’s be honest: Conor didn’t fight particularly smart. He walked into counter punches almost at will. He spent a good portion of the fight on his back taking hard punches and elbows from a powerful hitter. He didn’t seem capable of adapting to the various threats that Mendes presented. A gamble does not become smart simply because it pays off in the end.

 

Oh, and the questions about his ability to handle wrestlers? Those were answered with an emphatic “yeah, his takedown defense isn’t good.”

This isn’t to say McGregor can’t beat Aldo, mind you (yours truly even picked McGregor to win at UFC 189). The champ still tends to look shaky against multifaceted strikers, and he has never been forced to work with his back to the cage for a prolonged period of time.

Aldo is a wonderful matador when he has the center of the cage and controls the pace of the fight, but McGregor has thus far proven himself to be an absolute expert at choosing where, when and how the fight will happen. If McGregor can impose his will and drag Aldo out of his comfort zone, we could see a new UFC featherweight champ.

Do those last two paragraphs, however, read like something written about a -190 favorite?

Sure, this is still MMA betting we’re talking about. Absurd lines have never been especially uncommon (remember, these are the people that had Matt Brown as a substantial underdog against Erick Silva). This, however, represents one of the rare moments where betting sites throw conventional wisdom to the wind and make the kind of moves a fan would make.

The +155 line on Aldo will likely shift, of course. That’s too tempting to pass up for any avid, savvy bettor. The fact this conversation even exists, though, shows how truly absurd MMA has become in this McGregor era.

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