CoutureLegend

<p>To be honest i don't really pay much attention to the Velasquez/Dos Santos fight or the result of it, because if that fight never had the whole pressure of being the UFC mainstream debut on FOX then both Velasquez & Dos Santos would have pulled out.</p><p> </p><p> Neither were in any shape to be fighting that night & were essentially forced to stay on the card because of the magnitude of the occasion.</p>

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Target Practice" data-cite="Target Practice" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="26660" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>As for the rest, yeah, Cung Le was a terrible fight for Bisping. If he wins, everyone's all "oh wow, you beat Cung Le. Big whoop". If Le lands one of those kicks and takes Bisping's head off, everyone points at Bisping and says 'wow, you lost to Cung Le. You're not even close to title contention." <strong>It's lose-lose for him really.</strong></div></blockquote><p> </p><p> To be honest i see the Boetsch fight as a lose-lose situation for Bisping as well! As impressive as Boetsch has been recently, he's beat Nick Ring & Kendall Grove, & was outclassed for 2 rounds by Okami. I suppose you can't really say he gains nothing from beating Boetsch because it's probably going to lead to a title shot, but i don't see it as a fight that Bisping gains anymore credibility for winning or any upwards movement in the mythical rankings.</p>

I wish Warren all the best in his attempts at qualifying for the US Olympic team next month. Hopefully the sheer incompetence of the referee hasn't cost him his opportunity. The long-term future of MMA is in serious trouble if athletic commissions continue to license incompetent officials like Jeff Malott! His actions could've caused serious harm or even killed Joe Warren!

Wow that pick didn't work out well at all!!

Theres alot of really good guys in TUF this year. I'm thinking Al Iaquinta, Myles Jury, Jon Tuck & believe it or not, Dakota Cochrane will do really well but i believe Jordan Rinaldi will win the show.

Speaking of high-level Judo, i'm picking US Olympian Rick Hawn to win the Bellator lightweight tournament. He'll be a beast at 155!

To be fair, Parisyan isn't really on Rousey's level when it comes to Judo. Sure when you watch him in MMA he puts together some really nice Judo techniques, especially when he first burst onto the scene in his early UFC days when nobody had ever really seen anyone do what he was able to do before. However in straight up Judo, he really isn't all that high level. Having said that, i'm sure you could find other examples of Judo guys losing in MMA to someone from another background, however mixed martial arts has evolved far beyond the days where an elite Judo practioner would be able to dominate the sport with that skillset alone. A perfect example is Satoshi Ishii who is one of the best Judokan's to ever transition into MMA yet he has had a fairly average start to his MMA career (albeit losing his first fight to another elite-level judokan in Hidehiko Yoshida) But could you imagine what Ishii would've done in MMA if he had been around in the early days? Female mixed martial arts is still in the infant stages which is why Ronda Rousey is able to dominate. She is basically doing with Judo what Royce Gracie did with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It's just a shame that Sara McMann is stuck in a contract with ProElite as that would be a true test of Wrestling vs. Judo.

I believed it before & now i guess it's official, Ronda Rousey really is on another level from anyone in WMMA right now. Very special talent, & well on her way to superstar status. Only girl i think stands a chance is Sara McMann.. And it's no coincidence that she, like Rousey, is an olympic medalist. If WMMA develops & evolves in the next few years then perhaps just having olympic caliber skills in one area won't be enough to get you to the top, but right now with where WMMA is currently at, there's nobody in the sport that can deal with that level of talent, not even Cris Cyborg.

Didn't McCall beat Da Silva a year or so ago? But yeah i'm surprised they haven't signed him already to be honest. The flyweight division has great potential, i just hope they don't get buried on the undercards (which i suppose isn't as bad as it used to be considering all the fights are on tv nowadays) but yeah, looking forward to some great fights in the flyweight division. Speaking of the flyweights, whatever happened to Pat Runez? His last fight was the incredible battle with John Dodson (check it out if you haven't seen it, awesome fight!) but that was back in 2009 & he hasn't fought since?

Johnson vs. McCall was a fantastic fight, shame it was ruined by a terrible error from the commission. Looks like rematch will take place in Sweden or at UFC 145. Can't see anyone beating JoeB at flyweight though, great performance & excellent fighter.

MMAJunkie has a really good article up right now with Dr. Johnny Benjamin discussing the issues of weight cutting where we makes a very interesting point of it being Henderson, & not Edgar, who is fighting in the wrong weight class. http://mmajunkie.com/news/27597/ask-the-fight-doc-why-are-you-opposed-to-frankie-edgar-fighting-at-featherweight.mma

I've not watched that fight for a long time but it definitely wasn't a clear-cut decision for Edgar, if anything alot of people thought Penn edges him out in that fight. Either way it was a razor-thin decision & in my opinion a closer fight than Edgar/Henderson. I also think that the reason BJ Penn got an immediate rematch, aside from the fact that there was a legitimate argument for him winning the fight in Abu Dhabi, but there was also nobody waiting in line for the next shot. I mean it was suppose to be Penn vs. Maynard at UFC 112 but they pulled him because of his performance against Diaz & Maynards next fight after that took place on the same card as Penn/Edgar 2 so if BJ Penn hadn't gotten a rematch with Edgar then really who else was there for him to fight?

The fight was really close, but i had Henderson winning 3-2. No idea how some people can say Edgar was robbed. Sucks for him that he probably won't get a rematch but when you have other guys waiting in line for there shot, then they should get there opportunity first. What i am really surprised by is the number of people who actually thought Akiyama beat Shields! I just don't see any reason how you can give that fight to Akiyama, unless you were influenced by Rogans biased commentary. You can't win a fight stuffing takedowns & landed a few flashy judo throws. Shields out-worked him & out-struck him all night, i had him winning 30-27 in a fight that wasn't even close in my book. Hioki was impressive & i thought Okami looked fantastic before the Boetsch comeback.

I really can't stand the mentality of the average North American/British MMA fan. The booing of fighters when they not active for more than 30 seconds & the booing of fighters post-fight because there favourite just lost really bothers me! I also can't stand referee's who pander to these people by standing up fighters or separating them from the cage just because of the idiots booing. The Japanese fans epitomize how an MMA fan should be. So respectful of the fighters & they really understand & appreciate the technical aspects of the various martial arts. Hopefully the tradition UFC fans were so used to hearing are nowhere to be seen or heard on saturday night. I do however disagree with you on the Johnson/Hardy fight. Brashley mentioned in a post above about how a striking matchup between Hardy & Ludwig is a toss up, & thats exactly what Rumble/Hardy would've been as well but instead Johnson found a way to dominate that fight & get the win without being in any danger whatsoever. I don't see how anyone can complain about that. The critisicm he received after that fight for not striking with Hardy like he said he would was pathetic (same people who are doing it with Condit no doubt)! Those are the kind of MMA fans i'm talking about! We really could be doing without them to be honest but i guess thats the kind of people you attract if you want to take the sport into the mainstream.

It's possible that he was getting beat up & just wanted out of there. Tough to tell from a few seconds of video.

I agree with the post in the comment section.. looks like a bit of a dive, albeit an embarrasing one. Highly unlikely he would knock himself out the way he landed.

You really think Diaz & Condit would beat Koscheck? As Brashley said, wrestling has always been Diaz' achilles heel so unless Koscheck tries to stand with him, i don't see Diaz getting much done in that fight. The Condit fight would be more interesting but still i'd expect Koscheck to beat him. I'm surprised anyone would pick Tate in the first place to be honest. I don't see any way that Tate can deal with the Judo ability of Rousey. Being an olympic-level judokan, she's light-years ahead of anyone in WMMA. Sure she has limited MMA experience but the level of competition she has faced in Judo is far higher than the level of fighter's Tate has faced in MMA so i'd be truly amazed if Miesha Tate beats Rousey.

I've noticed there's been alot of talk around who is next in line between Ellenberger or Hendricks/Koscheck.. Seems like people are forgetting the Alves/Kampmann fight in a few weeks. Winner of that one surely has to be in contention alongside those guys.

In my opinion the biggest problem with the welterweight division is that there's really not a whole lot of guys that would beat Koscheck. If your ranking the fighters based on form then Koscheck would probably be around 4/5 considering he lost to GSP fairly recently, but i think if your ranking on ability then Koscheck has to be the #2 guy in the division. Not that i'm writing Hendricks off, or saying Koscheck would definitely beat guys like Condit & Ellenberger, but i know where my money would be if those fights happened. Will be interesting to see how they go about things if Koscheck beats up all the contenders, because we know he ain't getting another shot at GSP.

I think the interim title was necessary giving the length of time between title defenses for Georges St. Pierre. I do however agree that it's rather bizarre & frankly stupid that the interim champion has the option of sitting out for 10 months whilst he waits on GSP. I fully understand #1 contenders being afforded the option of waiting on the champion (Evans, Hendo) but the whole point of an interim title is that the person holding the belt is the champion of that division, until such time that the 'real' champion returns, so Condit really should have to fight the top contenders until St. Pierre is active again.

I believe Dos Santos also mentioned the same thing several months ago when he split from Black House. I guess if the UFC are doing all these things for the fighters, then i can fully understand why they wouldn't feel the need to have a manager.

Do you even know who Carlos Condit is? I'm going to assume last night was the first time you have ever seen him fight, because Condit is a savage! He fought an excellent fight last night, very disciplined performance & got the job done over a really tough guy in Nick Diaz. So it wasn't the 'fight' that everyone was anticipating but to say Condit isn't a warrior or a 'real fighter' is just uneducated stupidity!

Watson has said on twitter that his next fight won't be in BAMMA. However Watson is scheduled to announce his next fight this week, Marshman has said he's waiting to announce who he's fighting but can't just yet & BAMMA are also hyping something big for BAMMA 9 so i'm not sure whether your just putting 2 & 2 together & assuming there going to fight each other, or whether you have heard something from someone but either way if that's the big fight there hyping, it would be a little bit of a disappointment to be honest.

Hendricks also outwrestled Brenneman when they fought a year or so ago. My point is that an outstanding college wrestler won't necessarily be of the same level in MMA. If i asked you to name 5 fighters in the UFC with better collegiate credentials than Koscheck, you would struggle to name 3 let alone 5, yet he was outwrestled by St. Pierre, who has no wrestling credentials at all. I used to find it crazy when people used to talk about how great Brock's wrestling is. I mean there's no doubt Lesnar was an outstanding college wrestler... 10 years ago! He would get soundly outwrestled by someone like Ryan Flores or Zach Rey. I agree that Rashad is the biggest test for Davis in terms of wrestling but again Ryan Bader was able to deal with Lil' Nog easier in terms of wrestling than Davis did. For the record, i'm not slating Davis' wrestling at all, i think he's very good but i don't see any evidence to suggest he's much better than Rashad.

Collegiate yes, but there's not much evidence to suggest that Davis' MMA wrestling is better than, or even as good as Rashad's. Davis was an outstanding college wrestler, infact there's very few guys in the UFC that can match his credentials as a wrestler, but in MMA, with the addition of strikes, that collegiate standard doesn't always crossover. Example being Johny Hendricks, one of the best college wrestlers of all time & the most decorated wrestler in the UFC, was outwrestled by Rick Story. The lil' Nog fight really sticks out to me as a fight that showcased Davis' flaws in his MMA wrestling. He's very explosive, but Rashad has done an excellent job at mixing his strikes with his takedowns, which is the main reason why he's considered the best wrestler in the division, alongside Jones. I expect the vast majority of this fight to stay standing, with Rashad's power strikes being the difference.