UFC / MMA

Rembrandt

@Duluth My feelings exactly. Most annoying part is the stars have aligned and I have the house to myself so can finally watch one live.

Can't tell if Jones is just trolling everyone trying to get as much hype as possible for an eventual Aspinall showdown..or whether he really is just ducking.

MiketheSnow

@Duluth said in UFC / MMA:

The weakest PPV for a while with a couple of fights dropping off

I hate how the main event has held up the HW division. Any HW title fight should involve Aspinall

Jones should win, I'll be cheering for Stipe though. If Jones wins I hope he doesn't retire. He should fight Aspinall, and if he gets past him, fight Pereira. That would make an unbeatable record on paper

Chandler has been screwed over by waiting around for Conor. I assume Oliveira will be too good again

Nickal v Craig is the fight I'm most looking forward too. Craig, despite being on slide, is better than what Nickal has faced so far. Specialist wrestler v specialist BJJ. I hope Craig gets the upset but I think Bo gets a KO.. he's not subtle with his striking but he has natural power and Craig is really hittable

Can't argue with any of that

Oban Elliot on the early Prelims could be a good one. He's due a performance

Gall v Brahimaj is a good match up

Tybura v Diniz could be interesting. Big noise around Diniz but Tybura is canny

Miller v Jackson could be a barnburner. Come on Jim

Weidman v Anders could be Chris's last hurrah

Nickal will be too good for Craig

Oliveira too good for Chandler

A good young 'un will beat a good old 'un but would love Stipe to win

Jones is a brilliant fighter but the drug shit always rankles

MiketheSnow

Turns out it was a great card

Cracking finishes from Oban Elliot, Brahimaj, Tybura, Miller and Jones

Nickal needs to show more to fight for the belt

Charles v Mike was one for the ages

Jones picked Stipe apart

Duluth

@MiketheSnow said in UFC / MMA:

Turns out it was a great card

Cracking finishes from Oban Elliot, Brahimaj, Tybura, Miller and Jones

Nickal needs to show more to fight for the belt

Charles v Mike was one for the ages

Jones picked Stipe apart

Yeah some fun fights

The gap between Jones and Miocic was huge but Stipe was disappointing. He looked his age. Good decision from JJ to attack the body so much

Aspinall will be confident against Jones, he's considerably quicker and he's larger. I'm picking Jones will drag out negotiations and then try to talk up a Pereira fight.. I'm sure he could make that fight mostly happen off the feet

Charles was great but Chandlers resilience made that fight. The last round was an unbelievable effort

We know where Bo Nickal is at now. I thought he might be reluctant to take Craig down but I expected him to have more success with his striking. Unfortunately we had a kickboxing match between two limited kickboxers. The UFC have done Nickal no favours by talking him up so much.. who do they match him up against next? Maybe 15th ranked Michel Pereira?

MiketheSnow

@Duluth said in UFC / MMA:

@MiketheSnow said in UFC / MMA:

Turns out it was a great card

Cracking finishes from Oban Elliot, Brahimaj, Tybura, Miller and Jones

Nickal needs to show more to fight for the belt

Charles v Mike was one for the ages

Jones picked Stipe apart

Yeah some fun fights

The gap between Jones and Miocic was huge but Stipe was disappointing. He looked his age. Good decision from JJ to attack the body so much

Aspinall will be confident against Jones, he's considerably quicker and he's larger. I'm picking Jones will drag out negotiations and then try to talk up a Pereira fight.. I'm sure he could make that fight mostly happen off the feet

Charles was great but Chandlers resilience made that fight. The last round was an unbelievable effort

We know where Bo Nickal is at now. I thought he might be reluctant to take Craig down but I expected him to have more success with his striking. Unfortunately we had a kickboxing match between two limited kickboxers. The UFC have done Nickal no favours by talking him up so much.. who do they match him up against next? Maybe 15th ranked Michel Pereira?

Yeah Pereira would be a good call. Or Hermansson.

Duluth

The Macau fight night is tonight

Yan v Figueiredo has potential to be a good fight. I suspect Yan will be more in control the longer it goes.

Huge night for kiwi Carlos Ulberg. Oezdemir is a really dangerous opponent with plenty of power. The odds have Ulberg as a healthy favourite (3.1 v 1.32) I think it's closer than that. I'm picking Ulberg to make less mistakes and finish it with another KO

I don't think the UFC has much interest in Pereira going to HW so they are looking for fresh LHW opponents. A good win will have Ulberg close to a title shot.. maybe one more fight away. You can see how the UFC would market it "Adesanya's teammate vs.."

The Ulberg fight should start around 12:45am

MiketheSnow

Oezdemir is dangerous and back on the up

Want Ulberg to win but can easily see the opposite

Should make for a great fight

MiketheSnow

UFC 310

On paper not a bad fight all night

Lots of old dogs in the mix

From the bottom

Nzechukwu
Hooper
Chiesa
Van
Anders
Battle
Evloev
Luque
Smith
Landwehr
Mitchell
Volkov
Rakhmonov
Pantoja

Duluth

@MiketheSnow said in UFC / MMA:

On paper not a bad fight all night

A very deep card. The early prelims could almost be a fight night

MiketheSnow

Some very good fights and a couple of daylight robberies

Smith needs to retire
Was sad seeing him lose

Choi was excellent

Mitchell impressive

Volkov was robbed

Shak v Garry was excellent
Toughest fight both have had

Pantoja was magnificent

Duluth

Navajo Stirling makes his UFC debut this weekend.

I'm confident this guy will have a good career. Another quality kickboxer but according to Bareman he's more advanced as a grappler than some of the other CKB fighters were when they first arrived

Here's his KO in the Contender series

UFC on Sky was mostly about him this week

Also Ulberg is fighting Blachowicz in March. The winner likely gets a title shot

2025 might be a very good year for Kiwi fighters. Not saying all of this will happen but:

KKF probably has the next title shot v Pantoja
Ulberg is probably one win away from a title fight
Adesanya is probably one win away from another title fight
Hooker might be one win away from a title fight (prob needs an impressive finish though)

Duluth

Cool to see these guys training together. The chances of them fighting again is slim.

Makes sense for Whittaker to spend some time with CKB too. He's been talking about moving up to LHW and there's a couple of quality LHW's at the gym to compare himself with

Duluth

Rembrandt

Finally got around to 311. Merab / Umar and Jiri /Jamahal were pretty awesome. Others although finishes just seemed kinda forgettable, not entirely sure why. Aside from Holland didn't really know of any of the others and even he's lost so much its hard to be excited about his fights. Great to see Pereira / Ankalaev announced after what looked like on social media that it wasn't going to happen..starting to think they might have been planning to milk Pereira with weaker easier style-fits while they can rather than against an actual threat.

MiketheSnow

Merab took him to deep water

Rembrandt

Rumours are Kai Kara-France will be facing Pantoja for the title at UFC314...no idea how accurate rumours are but surely he's the most likely candidate left

Duluth

@Rembrandt said in UFC / MMA:

Rumours are Kai Kara-France will be facing Pantoja for the title at UFC314...no idea how accurate rumours are but surely he's the most likely candidate left

It's almost certain. KKF has been talking about that date recently. Hopefully we get the official announcement at the event this weekend

It's a big few months for CKB

This weekend - Adesanya v Imavov
A tricky fight. I'm interested too watch Izzy's cardio, Bareman was critical after the last fight. He was in control against DDP then made an error that Bareman blamed on tiredness. We're at the stage where age might be becoming a factor. Maybe a change in tactics and he'll go for a stoppage earlier?

If Adesanya wins he'll probably fight the winner of DDP v Strickland for the belt

March 8th - Hooker v Gaethje (UFC 313)
5 rounds. I expect Hooker to get a title challenge if he wins. This fight should be fun

March 22 - Ulberg v Blachowicz (London)
Ulberg might get a title challenge if he wins. He probably needs to do it in style though

April 12 - Probably Pantoja v KKF (UFC 314)
For the title

Maybe Volk in April too?

Rembrandt

@Duluth good few months but outside of maybe Izzy the kiwi fighters will be pretty significant underdogs. Be interesting how Ulberg handles a wrestler, Pereira only just scraped past him.

Cracking interview with Hooker here, can see why he is such a fan favourite.

Duluth

@Rembrandt

Yeah Hooker not a huge underdog though. I think the odds are wrong on that one too.. Gaethje is very popular and that clouds opinions

Re Adesanya, I see Hooker was saying he’s leaned up again. Perhaps he had too much muscle on and that was affecting the cardio? I’m guessing he was thinking of moving to LHW and now has decided to complete his career at MW

Duluth

Adesanya got caught at the beginning of the 2nd. Striking was looking sharp but he’s getting hit more often than he used to.. he also got hit by an upper cut in the first too.

Will be interesting to see what he does now. I wouldn’t be surprised if he retires as he always talked about not staying around too long

Maybe he should’ve taken the break for the eye poke? No real complaints about the stoppage, maybe one punch early but he was rocked

Imavov v DDP would be great. Despite the previous result I think Imavov would get past Strickland relatively comfortably

The Silver Fern

UFC / MMA