UFC / MMA
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I haven't watched the Chael/Smith footage in context but have listened to Chael on both Good guy/Bad guy and Ariel's show and he was fully defending Aspinall claiming the context of the earlier comments were in regards to how part of their training was to fight with one eye to try and replicate this potential situation. Could be just back tracking now due to the reaction of course, immediately I thought we was just doing his 'I'm the badguy' routine. Haven't heard anything from Gane but that would be a shocker, it is interesting that there really isn't a downside to rake guys eyes in the ring. You might (but likely won't) get a point taken off and your opponent is more often than not to severely injured to have a chance at beating you and in most situations will resume fighting for ego or whatever. I do think immediate point loss for eye pokes is the way to do this, maybe 2 and its a forfeit, something like that.
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Huuuuge card this weekend!
Naturally the Mrs has organised some meetup with her family to coincide with the maincard..quietly cheering on my daughters developing cough which might see me babysitting at home - fingers crossed.
My picks:
Wellmaker
Blanchfield
Kopylov
Nickal
Saint Denis
Prates
Brady
Weili
JDM(A few coinflips there and maybe some bias for the main-event)
Cannot wait, hoping like hell I can watch it live.
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Borshchev
Susurkaev
Kline
Sabatini
Daukaus
Haddon
Blanchfield
Rodrigues
Nickal
Dariush
Prates
Brady
Shevchenko
Makhachev -
Borshchev
Susurkaev
Kline
Sabatini
Daukaus
Haddon
Blanchfield
Rodrigues
Nickal
Dariush
Prates
Brady
Shevchenko
Makhachev -
@MiketheSnow Oh we're going deep with our picks aye,
Alright:
Camilo
Susurkaev
Kline
Mariscal
Daukaus@Rembrandt said in UFC / MMA:
@MiketheSnow Oh we're going deep with our picks aye,
Alright:
Camilo
Susurkaev
Kline
Mariscal
DaukausWould love to know the accumulator on 14 fights
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What an awesome event. Clearly high on hopium for the main events on my picks. 8/14...So much of this event was decided on size. Ridrigues dwarved Kopylov, Morales dwarved Brady, Valentina/Weili..and even Islam looked bigger than JDM.
How good was the Ewing/Wellmaker match? When they said it was a late notice call-up (48 hours) I'd assumed they just paid the local janitor $10K to get knocked out my the the hype machine Wellmaker.
Nikal looking quality, RDR loss has aged well, guy has a lot of potential still.
How good was the non-main events on the main card?! Some absolute monsters coming through. Masterclass by the Valentina and Makhachev..kinda sucks for the welterweight division. Like we have so make absolutely awesomely skilled highly entertaining athletes coming through..but really do any have even half a chance against islam? Also can't see Tuporia coming up..well at least I hope not, dude is way too small.Maybe Morales might be the best of the lot, guy is an absolute giant with a solid grappling background that I'd previously been unaware of..still give Islam an 80% of a win though
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10-3 for me (one fight didn't happen)
Agree, the Ewing win was tremendous
Nikal could be the real deal. Huge improvement. He's one of the best post-fight interviewees too
Shev and Makh so, so dominant
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Well now that the appetiser is out of the way its time for the real main event of the year
https://www.ufc.com/event/ufc-fight-night-november-22-2025
Hooker's path to UFC gold is clear...assuming Dana doesn't go back on his word. Super important welterweight fight too
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I see Kai Kara-France is taking a year off. He's still contracted to UFC and has fights on his contract.
Seems similar to Brad Riddell who also took a break while still under contract.. 3 years later and I assume that became a retirement
The path to the belt looks difficult for KKF, maybe that improves in the next year? Cynics will note that he's dropping out of the testing pool.
I hope it's not related to the bad concussion he had a while ago
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I see Kai Kara-France is taking a year off. He's still contracted to UFC and has fights on his contract.
Seems similar to Brad Riddell who also took a break while still under contract.. 3 years later and I assume that became a retirement
The path to the belt looks difficult for KKF, maybe that improves in the next year? Cynics will note that he's dropping out of the testing pool.
I hope it's not related to the bad concussion he had a while ago
@Duluth Kinda weird how he or the UFC didn't announce it before hand. Everyone suddenly just saw the flyweight rankings shift massively despite no fights. All sorts of rumours were flying.
Glad he is still about but yeah very tough spot for title aspirations, will be interesting where he moves to in rankings on return, plenty of fighters go for over a year without fights anyway and remain in rankings. Hell you get fighters moving up the rankings regularly without even fighting (Pimblett #8 to #5) for example
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Probably my favourite kiwi athlete at the moment
https://twitter.com/mmhmmMMA/status/1990834087662125287?s=20 -
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Bit of a shame with the result, he was talking abit about using 'offensive grappling' as opposed to the defensive grappling he used against Gamrot..just not a good idea with someone at Arman's level. Good to see Arman giving him his flowers for fighting, was a real life-line to Arman's title chances.
https://x.com/RedCorner_MMA/status/1992365161064329322 -
Great evening of MMA
Some fabulous finishes
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A shame the Hooker fight went as expected. It’s easy to be wise after the fact, but going for a couple of guillotine attempts didn’t seem like the best tactic. Arman’s striking looked very slick too especially in the first round
Volk v Lopes II is underwhelming
Either the UFC really wants the marketable Lopes to be champ or the other contenders didn’t want to travel to Aussie. Both reasons aren’t great
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Weird matchups alright. Would love to know what is going on behind the scenes. No guarantee Lopes will win..so a loss then volks retirement surely wont see Lopes fight for the title a 3rd time. Cant imagine other contenders refusing a title shot either, doesnt make sense.
Also mental having interim lightweight fight between #4 and #8 ranked fighters (I know Pimblett is 'officially' #5 but they've been pushing him up the rankings from #8 without fighting.
