Tag: ufc mma

Should Georges St. Pierre Really Come Back To MMA?

It’s been nearly three years since we’ve seen Georges St. Pierre compete inside the Octagon and dominate the 170-pound division he once ruled, as his last bout saw him taking home a controversial split decision win over Johnny Hendricks at UFC 167 back in November of 2013. Many people watching the five round war between

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It’s been nearly three years since we’ve seen Georges St. Pierre compete inside the Octagon and dominate the 170-pound division he once ruled, as his last bout saw him taking home a controversial split decision win over Johnny Hendricks at UFC 167 back in November of 2013.

Many people watching the five round war between ‘GSP’ and Hendricks gave the winning nod to ‘Big Rig’, however, the Vegas judges scorecards saw it otherwise and handed the Canadian his ninth straight successful title defense in five years.

During the time of their title bout clash Hendricks was viewed as the ‘next generation’ of fighter, as his impressive combination of elite wrestling ability and vicious knockout power concocted perhaps the perfect formula to defeat the longtime reigning Canadian champion.

Johny Hendricks..Now Hendricks, who was once a longtime title contender, finds himself outside of the top five welterweight rankings and coming off a first round knockout loss to current title contender hopeful Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson.

With speculation running rampant surrounding the possibility of a return to action for ‘GSP’, is now the best time for the 35-year-old to make his highly-anticipated return to the Octagon? If ‘GSP’ had a difficult enough time hanging in their with Hendricks back in 2013, how do you assume he’ll fare with the evolved athletes that surround the stacked 170-pound division?

The welterweight division is currently ran by the hard-hitting ‘Ruthless One’ Robbie Lawler, who has been on a tear since winning the title back in 2014.

Lawler has engaged is some absolute wars in his past two title defenses, including the 2015 bloodbath that took home Fight Of The Year honors in which ‘Ruthless’ downed challenger Rory MacDonald in the fifth round, by shattering the Canadian’s nose.

Robbie Lawler 1That spectacular performance would be followed up by yet another Fight Of The Year candidate to kick-off 2016, as Lawler would put on an absolute spectacle of a contest against Carlos Condit at UFC 195 in January. The back-and-forth bout would ultimately end in a successful title defense for Lawler, who took home the better end of a split decision.

Lawler is an incredibly gritty and powerful fighter who is prepared to bite down on his mouthpiece and throw everything he has at you, taking everything you have for him in the process.

‘GSP’s’ best hope for victory against Lawler would be to simply take down the champion and grind out a decision win as he has done countless times before in his storied career, however, Lawler is incredibly difficult to be taken down and one small mistake that the champion capitalizes on could mean the end of St.Pierre’s twelve-fight win streak.

WonderboyTKOSHendricks2Sitting just under Lawler in the welterweight rankings is the surging ‘Wonderboy’, who many believe has the best chance to put an abrupt end to Ruthless’ violent title reign. ‘Wonderboy’ possesses some of the most dynamic and explosive striking the 170-pound division has ever seen, while remaining extremely technical at the same time given his extensive and impressive undefeated kickboxing career.

If ‘GSP’ were to step into the Octagon with Thompson today, the Canadian would definitely be faced with some problems as he has never competed against a striker of Thompson’s caliber before.

Thompson is coming off of a completely dominating unanimous decision performance over former title challenger MacDonald, who just so happens to train extremely close alongside St.Pierre at Tristar Gym in Montreal.

St. Pierre’s best days are most likely certainly long behind him, and if the Canadian does wish to make a blockbuster return to the sport of mixed martial arts (MMA), he may not get the glorified result he is hoping for against the evolved upper echelon in the welterweight class.

 

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Should The UFC Let Conor McGregor Fight At UFC 200?

After all is said and done, hasn’t McGregor put in a ton of work already? UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor is unique in many ways. He has a natural talent for both fighting and selling events for the promotion, something the UFC is not used to at this level. So grand is McGregor’s gift of

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After all is said and done, hasn’t McGregor put in a ton of work already?

UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor is unique in many ways. He has a natural talent for both fighting and selling events for the promotion, something the UFC is not used to at this level. So grand is McGregor’s gift of the gab that many argue he has began to surpass the promotion itself in popularity, something that UFC president Dana White is clearly not happy with. All this has led to a week of constant McGregor and UFC 200 headlines, each of which stemmed from this single Tweet.

Conor McGregor’s retirement Tweet this past Tuesday set in motion a set of highly unexpected happenings, and eventually led to the highly entertaining UFC 200 press conference last night, at which ‘The Notorious’ was not present. Although he had swiftly un-retired just days after that first announcement, the damage was apparently already done. The beef seems to have come from McGregor’s reluctance to attend the first week of media obligations for his scheduled UFC 200 rematch with Nate Diaz, something the promotion was not willing to accept.

ConorMcGregorMoneySign3

Dana White confirmed that McGregor was being pulled from the July 9 mega fight with Diaz, in a strange twist of circumstances. We all sat back and witnessed the Irish star rise to prominence in just a matter of years under the UFC banner, and suddenly he is throwing a spanner in the works in the form of his pseudo retirement and refusal to commit to the media tour. So how/why has this happened? Well, assuming that the facts thus far are accurate, this seems to be a kind of phallic comparison between McGregor and the UFC brass.

During the UFC 200 presser last night (April 22, 2016) McGregor sent out another Tweet, this time pointing out how much he’d made the UFC in his last eight month/three fight stretch…

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Shogun Rua & Anderson Silva React To Keyboard Warriors

Mixed martial arts is an ever growing sport, and has evolved massively since the early days circa the 1990’s. With the introduction of the internet and social media, promotions like the UFC have learnt to harness the power of the web to help expand their product to never before seen levels of success. But with

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Mixed martial arts is an ever growing sport, and has evolved massively since the early days circa the 1990’s. With the introduction of the internet and social media, promotions like the UFC have learnt to harness the power of the web to help expand their product to never before seen levels of success. But with this widespread use of the internet comes a freedom of speech, a freedom that some abuse to often criminal extents. With their identity safely hidden behind a generic username, the keyboard warriors can be extremely spiteful, especially in MMA.

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Two prime examples of when the internet was used to bash UFC fighters recently? Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor. After experiencing their first UFC losses, the two top level stars were also served with a barrage of insulting memes and comments from internet tough guys. It seems that in mixed martial arts, more so than in any other genre, the fans can be extremely unforgiving. Of course you can argue that the UFC itself put these hard feelings in the back of the fan’s minds with their relentless promotion of ‘Rowdy’ and ‘The Notorious,’ but it still doesn’t justify the hate they received.

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Two legends of the sport in Mauricio Shogun Rua and Anderson Silva have heard enough, and they blasted the keyboard warriors in recent interviews. Here was Rua’s take on the trolls, as per Combate and translated by BloodyElbow:

“It’s the price you pay when the sport starts to grow. There’s more criticism, more people bugging you. I’m going to give you a pornographic example. I don’t want to generalize, because only a few fans do that.  Some people feel good when they go on the internet to criticize. They are like a virgin guy who watches porn all his life and thinks he knows everything about boning, but never had sex. It’s the same thing. Most fans support me. When someone is your fan, they like you as a person and an athlete. Brazilian are fans of results, though. This example goes to that small amount of fans.  The virgin who thinks he knows how to bone.  They are keyboard warriors.”

So what did former UFC middleweight Anderson Silva make of the criticism he’s received lately?

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