Tag: Yoel Romero

UFC 213: Nunes vs. Shevchenko 2 Fight Card, TV Info, Predictions and More

If Amanda Nunes wants to be more than the woman who likely retired Ronda Rousey, she’ll need to defeat Valentina Shevchenko in the main event at UFC 213. 
The women’s bantamweight title will once again be on the line as the Lioness looks to defend…

If Amanda Nunes wants to be more than the woman who likely retired Ronda Rousey, she’ll need to defeat Valentina Shevchenko in the main event at UFC 213. 

The women’s bantamweight title will once again be on the line as the Lioness looks to defend her title for a second time against a familiar foe in Shevchenko. 

The champion and challenger have met once before. Nunes rode a hot start to a unanimous-decision victory in her first bout with the challenger, but a five-round affair has the potential for a different dynamic between the two. 

The main event is good, but the co-main event gives it a run for its money for best fight of the night. Yoel Romero and Robert Whittaker meet in a battle for the interim middleweight title. 

It’s a card with plenty of intrigue as the two title fights are near toss-ups, and they set the tone for the rest of the card. Here’s a look at the complete lineup along with predictions for the biggest fights on the card. 

      

Main Card (PPV at 10 p.m. ET)

  • Amanda Nunes vs. Valentina Shevchenko (for Women’s Bantamweight Title)
  • Yoel Romero vs. Robert Whittaker (for Interim Middleweight Title)
  • Curtis Blaydes vs. Daniel Omielanczuk
  • Alistair Overeem vs. Fabricio Werdum
  • Anthony Pettis vs. Jim Miller

Prelims (Fox Sports 1 at 8 p.m. ET)

  • Thiago de Lima Santos vs. Gerald Meerschaert
  • Chad Laprise vs. Brian Camozzi
  • Travis Browne vs. Oleksiy Oliynyk
  • Jordan Mein vs. Belal Muhammad

Prelims (UFC Fight Pass at 6:30 p.m. ET)

  • Rob Font vs. Douglas Silva de Andrade
  • Cody Stamann vs. Terrion Ware
  • Trevin Giles vs. James Bochnovic

         

Predictions

Valentina Shevchenko is the New Women’s Bantamweight Champion

Nunes has looked like an unstoppable force in her last two fights. After submitting Miesha Tate in the first round to become the champion, she scored the biggest win of her career by brutally finishing Rousey in just 48 seconds. 

But the rules of engagement when fighting Nunes seem pretty clear at this point. She’s one of the best finishers in women’s MMA, but if a fighter can survive the opening salvo, she’s got a shot. 

Shevchenko is already one of the prime examples of that in Nunes career. In their first encounter, the Lioness easily won the first round and blitzed Shevchenko in the second, but  the latter started to gain some traction in the second round before outstriking Nunes 17-3 in the final frame, per Fight Metric. 

Even more concerning for the champion is that her bout against Shevchenko was her best performance in a fight that got out of the first round. Her other bouts that went past the first five minutes are knockout losses to Alexis Davis and Cat Zingano and a decision loss to Sarah D’Alelio. 

One thing to keep an eye on is just how many takedown attempts Nunes will attempt. In the first fight she did most of her damage on the ground but went 0-for-4 on takedown attempts in the final round. 

If Shevchenko can hang on through the opening round or two, her high-level striking should take over in the later rounds. It was her ability to generate power in the clinch that turned the fight in their first bout:

Nunes cardio may be improving, but Shevchenko still took over the fight in the final round of the three-round fight. She could easily be added to the list of first-round victims for Nunes, but if she isn’t, it’s her fight to lose. 

Prediction: Shevchenko via fourth-round submission.

        

Yoel Romero Takes Control of the Middleweight Division

With Michael Bisping clinging to his middleweight championship belt for dear life while sitting out for all of 2017 thus far, the UFC’s distinction that this is an interim title fight actually carries some weight. 

Whoever wins this fight all but guarantees they’ll be the first in line to fight the champ when he gets off the sideline. The winner of this fight will likely be favored when Bisping does make his return. 

The fight itself is an intriguing matchup. Whittaker has proved that he needs to be taken seriously when it comes to anyone in the middleweight division. Since moving up to middleweight from the 170-pound division, Whittaker has ripped off six-straight wins. 

Whittaker has got the job done with a pressure game that forces opponents to fold and enough power to put fighters away. He has scored back-to-back finishes in his last two fights and will look to continue that streak by fighting the fight on his terms. 

“My strength is definitely my stand-up ability; my stand-up ability helps me control the fight,” Whittaker said, per Darren Arthur of ESPN. “I definitely want to get in there and hopefully use that on him and push the fight to my angle and my edge and my advantage through my striking.”

However, pushing the pace also opens up holes for reactive takedowns. That’s something that Romero is more than happy to throw into the mix as an Olympic wrestler. The mat is definitely a place that Whittaker will be looking to avoid. 

Once on the ground, Romero’s size and power could be too much for Australian. 

Prediction: Romero via third-round TKO

       

Alistair Overeem Takes the Rubber Match Against Fabricio Werdum

Alistair Overeem and Fabricio Werdum are more than just a little familiar with each other—they just can’t seem to get enough of fighting one another. The two aging heavyweights will square off for the third time on the main card, with the series all knotted up at one apiece. 

This fight might not have much of an impact on the title picture—both fighters have lost to current champion Stipe Miocic, but don’t tell Overeem that. He plans on pushing for a rematch with the champion after taking care of business against Werdum. 

“After I get my hand raised, I’m going to grab that mic, and I’m going to challenge Stipe Miocic for the heavyweight championship belt,”  the former Strikeforce star said, per Fernanda Prates and Ken Hathaway of MMAjunkie. 

With Overeem, the possibility of a knockout loss is always just one good strike away. Ten of his 15 career losses have come by way of knockout, but Werdum hasn’t knocked anyone out since Mark Hunt in 2014. 

It appears that Overeem is both motivated and has just a little more punch left in him than Werdum. That should be enough to make the difference in a bout between two of the biggest names in the division who have a score to settle. 

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Video: UFC 213’s Co-Main Event Gets EA Sports UFC 2 Simulation Treatment

Before Yoel Romero and Robert Whittaker do battle, a simulation via EA Sports UFC 2 has been released. EA Sports UFC 2 is a video game currently available on the PS4 and Xbox One. It was released back in March 2016. Romero and Whittaker are playable in the game. They’ll compete in the real world […]

Before Yoel Romero and Robert Whittaker do battle, a simulation via EA Sports UFC 2 has been released. EA Sports UFC 2 is a video game currently available on the PS4 and Xbox One. It was released back in March 2016. Romero and Whittaker are playable in the game. They’ll compete in the real world […]

Georges St-Pierre Calls Out Michael Bisping For Massive Fall UFC

It’s been a long, confusing saga concerning longtime former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre’s octagon return. The legend, whom many consider to be one of the top three of all-time, has been out of fighting since he vacated the belt in the aftermath of a controversial split decision win over Johny Hendricks in the main […]

The post Georges St-Pierre Calls Out Michael Bisping For Massive Fall UFC appeared first on LowKickMMA.com.

It’s been a long, confusing saga concerning longtime former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre’s octagon return.

The legend, whom many consider to be one of the top three of all-time, has been out of fighting since he vacated the belt in the aftermath of a controversial split decision win over Johny Hendricks in the main event of November 2013’s UFC 167.

“Rush” teased a return repeatedly over the next four years, but that potential was seemingly realized when the French-Canadian superstar unveiled his intention to come back and face middleweight champion Michael Bisping at a weight class he had never fought at before.

A press conference, where Bisping played the perfect part of a drunken heel to St-Pierre’s usual clean-cut superhero fan favorite, was set up and given to fans days prior to March’s UFC 209. But while the UFC wanted the fight to go down this month, St-Pierre repeatedly insisted he couldn’t fight until after October at the earliest. When he did so publicly online, UFC President Dana White was quick to say that they would now pit Bisping against Yoel Romero.

Photo by Joe Camporeale – USA TODAY Sports

There was a big problem with that plan, however, as Bisping was still healing from the knee surgery he had in the months after his first title defense, a close decision call over then-No. 4-ranked arch rival Dan Henderson. With a vast part of the MMA world calling for Bisping to defend his belt against the rightful challenger Romero, his injury paved a path for this Saturday’s Romero vs. Robert Whittaker interim title fight at UFC 213. White went on record again to say that St-Pierre would fight the winner of this month’s Tyron Woodley vs. Demian Maia bout at UFC 214.

We can take that with a grain of salt, of course, and it’s clear Bisping is holding out to not only get his knee healed up, but also to hang on to that elusive monster payday that comes with fighting St-Pierre in his return bout. He’s admitted as much, and as a prize fighter who’s paid his dues arguably more than any other UFC athlete in the promotion’s history, he deserves that. The timing is just bad, because he makes it seem like he’s ducking Romero – or maybe Whittaker – which, in a sense, he may be.

Today, news has come that he may just get his wish. According to a information from MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani, “GSP” texted both “The Count” and White issuing a challenge to battle him at the UFC’s planned pay-per-view (PPV) event at Madison Square Garden on November 4:

“Michael, you should man up and fight me 11/4 in NY,” St-Pierre wrote. “I’m coming out of retirement to retire you. Dana [White], please make it happen.”

Regardless of if you agree with how St-Pierre has behaved during his comeback, he does have a strong point in that he is a legend coming out of retirement for what he thought was a fight versus Bisping, even if it is just because he views the longtime vet as the easiest path to becoming a two-division champ the quickest.

The UFC promised him and Bisping that fight, and no matter how many fans complained about it, they would obviously pay to watch what would be a monstrous title bout in a year when MMA and the UFC needs one more than perhaps any year in recent times. The mistake came when the promotion’s new ownership may have realized it and announced it with a presser early in the year even though St-Pierre had apparently told them he had an eye injury that kept him out of sparring until late fall.

Either way, however, the payday still looms and a fight with Romero or Whittaker just doesn’t have the same luster as facing an all-time legend – and a proven PPV superstar – in his long-awaited return. Are you ready to see this fight booked again?

Do you want to?

The post Georges St-Pierre Calls Out Michael Bisping For Massive Fall UFC appeared first on LowKickMMA.com.

UFC 213: Nunes vs. Shevchenko 2 Odds, Tickets, Predictions and Pre-Weigh-in Hype

Saturday just can’t come soon enough for many UFC fans as UFC 213’s fight card is full of exciting fights, particularly the co-main event between Yoel Romero vs. Robert Whittaker and the main event featuring bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes vs. Valen…

Saturday just can’t come soon enough for many UFC fans as UFC 213’s fight card is full of exciting fights, particularly the co-main event between Yoel Romero vs. Robert Whittaker and the main event featuring bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes vs. Valentina Shevchenko.  

It’s been a long and tumultuous road for Romero, the UFC’s No. 1 contender in the middleweight division, as he has been brushed aside for a title shot by champion Michael Bisping, who is currently recovering from a knee injury after a failed attempt to fight the returning Georges St-Pierre.

With the interim 185-pound title on the line Saturday night in Las Vegas, the “Soldier of God” will be looking to take out the fast-rising Kiwi, Whittaker, to set up a date with Bisping for the undisputed title.

As for Nunes, she is looking to defend her belt for the second time against Shevchenko after dismantling Ronda Rousey last December.

Shevchenko is looking for revenge after losing to Nunes in a three-round bout back in March 2016 in a fight where she began to takeover in the third round before it was too late. This time around, however, their fight is five rounds so things might shape up a little differently than before.

Here’s a look at the complete card with odds from OddsShark, ticket information and predictions for the co-main and main event at UFC 213. 

        

UFC 212 Fight Card and Odds


Main Card: PPV at 10:00 p.m. ET

  • Amanda Nunes -105 vs. Valentina Shevchenko +125
  • Yoel Romero +105 vs. Robert Whittaker -135
  • Daniel Omielanczuk +475 vs. Curtis Blaydes -750 
  • Fabricio Werdum EVEN vs. Alistair Overeem -130
  • Anthony Pettis -240 vs. Jim Miller +190

Prelims: Fox Sports 1 at 8:00 p.m. ET

  • Travis Browne -200 vs. Aleksei Oleinik +160
  • Chad Laprise -600 vs. Brian Camozzi +400
  • Thiago Santos -155 vs. Gerald Meerschaert +125
  • Jordan Mein +135 vs. Belal Muhammad -165

Early Prelims: UFC Fight Pass at 6:30 p.m. ET 

  • Rob Font -325 vs. Douglas Silva de Andrade +250
  • Cody Stamann -280 vs. Terrion Ware +220
  • Trevin Giles -305 vs. James Bochnovic +235

 

 

Tickets: Score Big

      

Co-main event: Yoel Romero vs. Robert Whittaker

After knocking out Chris Weidman at UFC 205 with a brutal flying knee, Romero cemented himself as the top contender in the UFC’s middleweight division. It seemed as though Romero was to be given the next title shot, but the return of GSP got in Romero’s way and caught Bisping‘s attention.

When that fight fell apart largely to GSP‘s inability to fight earlier than November of this year, UFC president Dana White scrapped the fight and was going to give Romero the next title shot. But then Bisping claimed that he would not recover from his knee injury in time, so the UFC put up an interim belt for Romero and Whittaker to fight over.

Whittaker is in a position that not many people saw coming so soon. When he finished Jacare Souza back in April, every fighter at 185-pounds was put on notice. A new threat emerged in the former rugby player with fists of stone, and he was awarded with a bout against one of the most physically-gifted fighters the UFC has ever seen.

Just check out how impressive he looked during his open workout Wednesday, courtesy of MMAjunkie:

Saturday’s co-main event is an interesting fight for a number of reasons. Whittaker showed good takedown defense against Souza, but Romero is a whole other animal. An Olympic silver medalist, Romero’s wrestling is far beyond the skill-level of any fighter in the UFC, regardless of weight classes. 

Romero will look to use his wrestling and explosiveness to get Whittaker on the ground and maul him. As for Whittaker, the gameplan is simple: stay on your feet at all costs.

Whittaker has proved he can hang with the big guns of the middleweight division with wins over Uriah Hall, Derek Brunson and the aforementioned Souza, but it’s hard to imagine that he can finish, let alone win against a fighter of Romero’s pedigree.

Romero truly believes that he is on a mission from God to win the title, and it’ll take a lot more than a good right hand from Whittaker to knock him off course. Look for Romero to take control of the fight from the get-go with his superior grappling skills and wear down Whittaker to earn the stoppage in the third round.

Prediction: Romero wins interim title.

          

Main event: Amanda Nunes vs. Valentina Shevchenko

There’s no nice way of putting this: there is bad blood between Nunes and Shevchenko.

Their beef doesn’t necessarily date back to Nunes‘ victory back in 2016, but it certainly added fuel to the fire as Nunes and Shevchenko began trash-talking just moments after Shevchenko finished Julianna Pena inside back in January. 

That trash talk escalated until the fighters squared off just a matter of weeks ago, where it appeared that Nunes took a shot at Shevchenko during their stare down when the challenger got a little too close for Nunes‘ liking. 

The first fight between “The Lioness” and “Bullet” was dominated by Nunes for the majority of the first two rounds. But in the closing moments of the second round, it appeared that Nunes was beginning to run out of gas as Shevchenko began to dictate the pace of the fight. The third round went to Shevchenko, but Nunes had done enough in the first 10 minutes of the fight to earn the victory on the judges’ scorecard despite ending the fight in bad shape.

In fairness to Nunes, she didn’t have to train for a five-round fight, but that might be the weakness that Shevchenko will be looking for on Saturday. A muay thai artist who has proved more than capable of competing on the ground, Shevchenko will look to keep Nunes‘ at a distance. The last thing Shevchenko wants is to get caught by one of Nunes‘ nasty combinations early in the fight. 

In order to upset the champion, Shevchenko has to bring Nunes into the deep end, meaning this fight has to go into the championship rounds in order to have a shot at getting her arm raised by the referee. She won’t be able to finish Nunes, who hasn’t lost or been finished since 2014 to Cat Zingano, but she can win by effective striking and Octagon control, giving her the points on the scorecards.

For Nunes, she has to fight the only way she knows how. And that’s by moving forward.

Against Shevchenko the first time around, Miesha Tate and Rousey, Nunes came out as the aggressor and was able to take care of business early and often. If she’s not able to finish Shevchenko in the opening rounds of the fight, she has to be able to pace herself in order to survive, otherwise Shevchenko’s muay thai strikes to the body will empty out Nunes‘ gas tank before she knows what hit her.

Even though Shevchenko will go into this fight full of confidence after consecutive wins over Holly Holm and Julianna Pena, she won’t have enough to take down Nunes, who will continue to enjoy her time at the top of the division that is in desperate need of stability after Rousey‘s fall from grace.

Anticipate two fighters displaying high-level striking before Nunes catches Shevchenko with a combination in the second round, sending the Kyrgyzstani-Peruvian to the canvas. Nunes will take this fight to the ground and look for the submission via rear-naked choke en route to her third consecutive title defense.

Prediction: Nunes cements her legacy as one of the division’s best-ever champions.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

The Complete Guide to UFC 213: Nunes vs. Shevchenko

International Fight Week has returned.
The UFC’s annual summer event is often dubbed their version of WrestleMania. Historically, it is one of the biggest events of the year, with thousands of fans from across the world descending on Las Vegas for five…

International Fight Week has returned.

The UFC’s annual summer event is often dubbed their version of WrestleMania. Historically, it is one of the biggest events of the year, with thousands of fans from across the world descending on Las Vegas for five days of fights and fun, culminating with a stacked pay-per-view card on Saturday night.

This year, things are a little different.

The UFC is presenting just two fight cards instead of the usual three, and Saturday night’s PPV event is, by any logical measure, just not up to the same kind of quality level we’re used to.

It’s a good fight card, for sure, but any fan in their right mind is already looking past Saturday night toward UFC 214 and its otherworldly bill on July 29. And the best fight of the week might be the Friday main event between Michael Johnson and Justin Gaethje.

Still, we’ve got two title matches on this card and one of those will be violent. So let’s take a look at those fights, plus the rest of the card, and figure out what we should be looking forward to on Saturday night.

Begin Slideshow

Interim Belt Aside, Yoel Romero vs. Robert Whittaker Will Decide World’s No.1 MW

The Michael Bisping era in the UFC middleweight division hasn’t exactly been a model of consistency.
By the time Yoel Romero and Robert Whittaker fight for an interim championship at UFC 213 Saturday in Las Vegas, it will have been nine months since th…

The Michael Bisping era in the UFC middleweight division hasn’t exactly been a model of consistency.

By the time Yoel Romero and Robert Whittaker fight for an interim championship at UFC 213 Saturday in Las Vegas, it will have been nine months since the 185-pound title saw the light of day. Even longer since anybody who might rightly be considered a top middleweight contender got a sniff at the gold.

To find the last time a 185-pound title fight featured arguably the Octagon’s top two middleweights, you have to go all the way back to October 2015, when Luke Rockhold beat Chris Weidman at UFC 162.

Six months later at UFC 199, Rockhold‘s reign ended with a shocking first-round KO by Bisping.

That win not only made Bisping one of the most unlikely titlists in UFC history, it also created that rarest of situations in the Octagon: One where the champion isn’t necessarily regarded as the best fighter in his own weight class.

With any semblance of 185-pound order smashed, Bisping set about marking his own course. He ignored a gaggle of contenders clamoring for his gold in favor of picking and choosing his own matchups. He rematched the legendary Dan Henderson at UFC 204 and then began chasing an on-again, off-again booking against returning former welterweight titlist Georges St-Pierre.

In the process, normal business at middleweight has essentially ground to a halt.

Honestly? It hasn’t been all bad. If nothing else, it has been interesting.

It was initially considered a feelgood story that Bisping became champion. After a career spent as an important and influential draw for the UFC, it was like watching a well-liked coworker rip the wrapping paper off the gold Rolex at his retirement party.

It’s been nice to see “The Count” get a little time to bask in the limelight before calling it a career. On the other hand, his reign has ushered in a noticeable competitive drought in what should be one of the UFC’s most competitive and interesting weight classes.

To make matters worse, after negotiations for the St-Pierre fight bogged down, Bisping revealed he’s still recovering from knee surgery and may not fight again until the end of the year.

The whole situation has caused no small amount of unrest among fans, as well as the 185-pound rank and file. In May, Rockhold essentially advised his fellow middleweights to go on strike until matchmakers could install a workable plan for the weight class.

This week, the former champion made an even more dire pronouncement.

“The division is f–ked,” Rockhold told MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani. “No interesting fights.”

With all due respect to Rockhold, however, it’s possible Romero vs. Whittaker has the potential to un—uhh—screw the 185-pound division in one fell swoop.

For starters, this bout finally gives two elite fighters a crack at winning a version of the title. Even with the interim tag looming, that’s a very good thing.

Second, it’ll be our best chance in a long time to anoint someone the consensus No. 1 middleweight on the planet.

An originally crowded herd of contenders that included Weidman, Rockhold, Romero, Gegard Mousasi and Jacare Souza has thinned a little bit at the moment. That leaves the door open for the winner of this fight to seize the throne atop the world rankings.

Third—and perhaps best of all—this fight shapes up as a scintillating matchup of styles between two of the division’s most compelling figures.

The 26-year-old Whittaker is as aggressive inside the cage as he is affable outside it. Currently riding an impressive seven-fight win streak, he made his bones as a legitimate title threat with a second-round TKO over perennial contender Souza three months ago.

But if Whittaker is a relative newcomer to the championship picture, it doesn’t make him any less dangerous. His five stoppages in nine UFC wins attest to that.

“I’m going to control this fight,” Whittaker said this week, via MMA Junkie’s Fernanda Prates and Ken Hathaway. “I think it’s going to be a smart fight … [but] I just see me putting too much hurt on him.”

Meanwhile, Romero has already been waiting for this opportunity for a long time.

The 40-year-old former Olympic wrestler has been ticketed as a potential title contender from nearly the moment he arrived in the UFC in 2013. With his outstanding amateur credentials and comic book physique, he certainly looks the part of a fearsome MMA destroyer.

After jetting to an 8-0 record in the Octagon, Romero has made good on that obvious potential. After looking a bit green during early UFC appearances, his most recent bouts have shown what the finished product might look like for him—and results have been scary good.

After edging Souza via split decision at UFC 194, he authored a 2016 knockout-of-the-year candidate with a flying knee on Weidman at UFC 205. By stacking those wins back-to-back, it’s hard to make a case anyone deserves a shot at the title more than Romero.

But that doesn’t mean he’s overlooking the up-and-coming Whittaker, either.

“All opponents are dangerous,” Romero said this week, via MMA Junkie’s Mike Bohn and Hathaway. “He’s a young fighter, he’s hungry. These things always make your opponent dangerous.”

There has been some controversy to Romero’s UFC run, however. In between the Souza and Weidman wins, he was suspended six months for a positive drug test later determined to be the result of a contaminated dietary supplement. Though Romero’s claim that he’d done nothing wrong appeared to hold up, some people weren’t going to let him off the hook so easily.

One of those people is Bisping, obviously. The current champ has mocked Romero as a steroid user and waffled on whether he would deign to give the consensus No. 1 contender a title shot.

This week, however, the champion sent the clearest signal he may be open to fighting the Whittaker-Romero winner—even if his intent was merely to put more pressure on GSP.

“Georges, you’ve got until Saturday,” Bisping told Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour (via Fansided’s Mike Heck). “Because on Saturday, I’m going to be on the FS1 post fight show and one of those two, tune in, Whittaker or Romero will be joining me at the desk, so you know that will have fireworks. If I can’t say I’m fighting GSP by then, then I have to say that I’m fighting Whittaker or Romero.”

UFC President Dana White also told MMAJunkie in an exclusive interview that Bisping‘s next fight will be against the winner of Romero-Whittaker, making it feel as though we’re tantalizingly close to getting the middleweight division back on track.

The first step toward that goal happens this weekend, when either Romero or Whittaker will leave T-Mobile Arena with a UFC belt around his waist.

The guy who holds that interim title may well hold the key to getting the weight class moving again.

With all due respect to the standing champion, they’ll also be regarded as the best 185-pounder in the world until Bisping gets his chance to prove that ranking wrong.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com