Tag: UFC 194

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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The Question: Is Aldo vs. McGregor the Biggest Fight in UFC History?

We finally have a date: December 12, 2015. That’s the day when UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo and interim featherweight champion Conor McGregor will finally step in the Octagon (knock on wood, etc.) and do the thing we’ve been waiting months to s…

We finally have a date: December 12, 2015. That’s the day when UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo and interim featherweight champion Conor McGregor will finally step in the Octagon (knock on wood, etc.) and do the thing we’ve been waiting months to see them do.

The hype train for Aldo vs. McGregor was deafening the first time around. The second time, after McGregor went in and beat Chad Mendes? The second time might be even bigger.

To discuss this, Jonathan Snowden and Jeremy Botter—Bleacher Report’s Bizarro World variation of Aldo and McGregor—meet up to ask and answer a simple question: Is Aldo vs. McGregor the most anticipated fight in UFC history?

Jeremy Botter: On the surface, this seems a fairly straightforward question. Yes, this is the most anticipated fight in UFC history. If you had to create a list of the most anticipated fights the promotion has ever run, the first scheduled go-round back in July would have been at or near the top of the list.

So it goes without saying that the second booking—after McGregor, in beating and finishing Mendes, did what many believed he could not do—will be even bigger come December 12. The UFC, being the gambler it is, rolled the dice, believing its “business partner” could hold up his end of the bargain by beating Mendes.

And then he did. And now the Fertitta brothers, Dana White, McGregor and even Aldo are going to sleep each night with grand visions of enchanted bank accounts dancing in their heads.

This is the biggest fight in UFC history, if it happens.

Jonathan Snowden: There are two ways to consider this. From a purely financial sense, this probably won’t end up being the biggest fight in UFC history. The UFC did big business for its last two shows, but the two of them combined barely top the granddaddy of them all, UFC 100.

But when it comes to the hardcore fans who keep this sport alive between mega-events, this is right up there with the most anticipated fights ever. The only thing that came close was the simmering feud between Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell. That one was an intense back-and-forth with the added benefit of both men speaking the same language and having real, rather than manufactured, feelings toward each other.

The sport, however, has grown by leaps and bounds since the early days of the Fertitta reign. More people are watching McGregor and Aldo do their thing. And let’s face it—McGregor is a more dynamic presence than either The Iceman or The Huntington Beach Bad Boy.

This fight is big. No one doubts that. But does it deserve to be? That’s a different, but related, question. I think it does. It’s everything I could have hoped for. Frankly, Aldo and McGregor have exceeded my expectations. What about you, Jeremy?

 

Botter: Yeah, it deserves to be this big. Maybe not the first time around, when plenty felt McGregor was being inserted into a position he didn’t deserve simply because he became besties with the Fertittas and White.

But now? It’s a different story. McGregor is absolutely deserving of the position he’s in. He has proved that he can make the leap from television to pulling great numbers (for 2015, anyway) on pay-per-view. UFC 189 did an estimated 825,000 buys, per MMAPayout.com. And he beat Mendes, which shows he can compete with the best his division has to offer. There is simply no way to logically discount what he has accomplished.

And make no mistake about it: All of this is due to McGregor. If Aldo had his way, there would be zero interviews and zero promotion, even dating back to the first World Tour. Aldo was a participant in the tour, but McGregor was both the engine driving everybody forward and the captain steering things the way they needed to go.

If this fight even comes close to approaching that UFC 100 number—and personally, I think it’s going to come closer than any fight the UFC has done since that date—well, it’s all on McGregor.

 

Snowden: When the fight was first announced the participants were the greatest featherweight of all time and a mouthy Irishman no one was quite sure could compete at a top level. And, despite the real questions about McGregor’s ability to walk the walk, it was still a big deal.

That’s the power of his indomitable personality.

Now we’ve all seen McGregor beat the second-best fighter in the weight class in devastating fashion. We’ve seen him emerge from adversity stronger and more intent on putting the hurt on his opponent than ever. We’ve watched him take it on the chin from a man with battle-tested knockout power and never flinch.

And we’ve seen him do all of that with a bum knee that he didn’t talk much about but that sources say was definitely slowing him down.

None of that means he’s going to beat Aldo. The champ is the only man to ever wear the featherweight strap because he’s made a career of taking fighters with incredible skill sets and making them look ordinary. He’ll give McGregor more things to worry about than Mendes managed, both standing and on the ground.

But I have a feeling, Jeremy—this is McGregor’s moment. There will be a second UFC featherweight champion by the end of the year. And that champion will do his celebrating in Dublin.

 

Botter: It’s good to see you finally coming around on McGregor. There was a little while when I thought we’d have to drag you into the McGregor Era kicking and screaming, but you did that all on your own. I’m proud of you.

I agree with you: We’ll have a new featherweight champion by the end of the year. Aldo is an incredible fighter. He is one of the best in MMA history. But he has a lot of miles on that body, and there’s just something special about McGregor’s rise to fame.

If it feels a little bit like destiny, well, perhaps that’s exactly what it is. I don’t know if you believe in such things, Jonathan.

But you can’t deny there’s some kind of special something in the air around this guy.

 

Jeremy Botter and Jonathan Snowden cover mixed martial arts for Bleacher Report. 

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