Daffanka

It's going to blow up because women's MMA is still on the level where a female Royce Gracie easily dissected her contemporaries by doing one thing really well. Physiological differences aside, any female fighter today would get massacred in the UFC. Also Ronda is a weirdo and I really don't think the general public will gravitate towards her.

Frankie Edgar could well be 4-0 in his last four and he fought two guys who've each been knocked out once in their entire career, one as an amateur and the other by his own slam. Also he's cool and good and if he keeps his cardio at 145 he's going to put Aldo through a grinder in the last three rounds.

Machida flatlining Bader was cool but Bader's exactly the kind of opponent he chews up so I don't have a lot of faith in him for the Jones rematch.

The reason the UFC doesn't support WMMA is because a woman became the best fighter in the world using the Royce Gracie shuffle. 23 million Brazilians watched him take Mendes' head off, I'd call Aldo a star in Brazil.

Bibiano got a bigger money offer from ONE FC but he's holding off on weighing the pros and cons until his wife gives birth. It's either more money in ONE FC or more exposure and guarantee with the UFC. Bibiano in UFC would be cool because he's a good fighter but at the same time I wouldn't mind a match with Crusher or someone else ONE FC has under contract.

Lots of guys survive without brilliant chins at heavyweight, they're just not inclined to head butt punches. Bigfoot just got destroyed by a fatter, smaller, worse Cain, so I don't fancy him much either!

He's so Athletic and Explosive that he leaps into heavyweight punches and dies, I don't think it's strictly a chin issue.

But Brendan Schaub is Athletic and Explosive, there's no way he'll lose to Ben Rothwell!

$20/month was it? Insane. I honestly think you're right and it's been slightly uplifting but mostly humorous to see all the fans streaming out of the woodworks to cheer him on.

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Fantabulous" data-cite="Fantabulous" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="26660" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div><p> I picked Mir over Velasquez for a number of reasons. Mir is probably not quite a top-level fighter, but he's dangerous enough that he can beat any guy who isn't top-level or smart enough to work the perfect gameplan. I don't think Mir gets the credit for how good he is because he got destroyed by Lesnar, a poor style match-up for him, and he couldn't finish off Nelson, who himself is a fighter who doesn't get the credit his abilities deserve. Mir can take some serious shots and still be a threat as well, which adds to what he brings to the table. With Velasquez, and this might just be a hunch, but I'm not convinced he's overcome what I call the Hamed Effect, the effect that first loss does to your psyche. Some guys go undefeated, sometimes for a long time, and when they take the first big loss is just breaks them. They just can't handle defeat and they're never the same. I'm not saying Velasquez has it as bad as Naseem did, but I'm not sure he's sufficiently overcome it, especially when it comes to facing a guy like Mir who will put him under a lot of pressure. I think Mir is going to shock a lot of people and finish Velasquez in the second or third round and I'll go one further and pick Mir to beat Dos Santos/Overeem for the Heavyweight title.</p></div></blockquote><p> </p><p> I don't Mir is as much "good" as he is "dangerous". He's got a really nasty set of skills that let him, given the right circumstances, end a fight very quickly. But certain kinds of fighters - Pe De Pano, Lesnar in their second fight, Carwin, in my opinion Velasquez - don't give him those opportunities because of Mir's inability to control his opponent and recover from a good shot.</p><p> </p><p> And Velasquez is probably the last fighter I'd think would be broken after a loss.</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>Interesting that you picked Mir over Velasquez. It's a really interesting fight that - both guys have potentially suspect chins, Velasquez has the kind of fight-ending power in his hands to ruin Mir with GnP, but we all now how nasty Frank's guard is... I genuinely can't decide which way this one goes.</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> I think it's a really terrible fight for Mir. Velasquez's chin isn't particularly suspect considering he took huge shots from Kongo and it took a massive overhand and a dozen daggers from half guard for dos Santos to end him. He's a smoother kickboxer than Mir and, critically, Mir's never been a great positional grappler. He's absolutely terrifying if he can grab a submission but considering virtually all of his losses have come about because he gave up position and let guys punch him in the face I'm not really fancying his chances against someone like Velasquez.</p><p> </p><p> That doesn't mean he can't win but I think it'll take 1) Mir's best performance to date 2) Velasquez having a brain fart for Frank to walk out with the win.</p>

There's also different types of good chin. You can be a guy like Lesnar or Miller who take a ton of punishment but don't necessarily recover well, or you can be someone like Misaki or Alvarez who get dropped and hurt a lot but bounce back in seconds none the worse for wear. Or you can be someone like Hunt or Diaz who can take tons of punishment and recover at the drop of a hat, making them virtually impossible to KO unless you unload a machine gun flurry the second you drop them like Jeremy Jackson or you punch with the force of a million exploding suns like Manhoef.

Diaz has fought the exact same way his entire career and he's never adapted or changed because all of his losses are somehow robberies in his mind. Riggs wrestled him, Sherk boxed him, Condit kicked him; doesn't matter, he totally won those fights, just look at his opponent's face bro (except Condit.) There's absolutely no reason to think he'll fight any differently. Condit's going to beat him again and his contingent of Fedor/BJ-esque fans will cry robbery again. e: also the rematch is garbage matchmaking but that's prevalent in any and all combat sports so there's not much you can do. Kinda sucks that someone like Ellenberger won't get to step up though. Beware of the Torres gambit!

"Pushing the pace" shouldn't be scored at all, MMA is such a weird aberration because in no other combat sport is just walking forward rewarded. It's so completely odd to me that being the aggressor apparently cancels out landing way less offense than your opponent.

I'm fiercely enjoying the contingent of EDUCATED INTERNET FANS who are complaining like crazy that Condit fought an incredibly smart fight and figured out Diaz's style without going for takedowns.

I think the fight exists in the same negative zone as Machida/Shogun 1; one guy's supposed to get stomped so all his offense is overvalued.

1) Mates 2) Beer 3) Crisps 4) Kickboxing All you need for a perfect evening!

Pay on their site and you get the entire card for €10 even though it only lists the last six fights, it's live now.

In about an hour the It's Showtime card kicks off on their website if you're willing to pay €10, you get all 12 fights. If you have HDNet they start broadcasting the main card at 3PM Eastern, the only thing of note you're missing out on is the Melvin Manhoef/Tyrone Spong fight, bafflingly put on the undercard. This is really cool card, headlined by Badr Hari's "retirement" fight against Gokhan Saki. Hari's an offensive powerhouse with a weak chin who's looked very sloppy recently, Gokhan Saki is a small heavyweight who's incredibly fast and throws really slick, fluid combinations. Co-main is Hesdy Gerges vs. Daniel Ghita 2 for the It's Showtime heavyweight title, which means it's five rounds. It was a spectacular fight last time, marred by horrible refereeing that saw Gerges come out with a decision win when the fight should've gone to extension rounds. There's also Robin van Roosmalen who was the breakout star of 2011, Errol Zimmerman who's gotten fatter but also had three awesome KOs, Chris Ngimbi who throws awesome flying knees and, of course, Manhoef and Spong on the undercard (???)

After playing some more Undisputed I've concluded that body shots and leg kicks are still ineffective and there's no point to using them when you could throw everything at their head. Even in simulation.

Even with his dismal performances against Overeem and Cain I have absolute confidence that he'd pound Fedor into paste and I'm really, really sad we never got to see that materialize. Dan Henderson kind of made up for it, though.

It might've been because I played against the AI but it felt like the transitions were very unresponsive and it was impossible - even more so than last year - to keep anyone on the ground for any appreciable amount of time. I was still stood up from mount and half guard, posturing up was pointless because I got off at most one strike before I was kicked off, dominant positions were all but useless since it seemed like everyone had the side control bottom > takedown transition, or could get back to full guard without much trouble if I tried to open up with strikes, and Anderson could even sweep from mounted to full guard top which is absurd. Again, against the AI it felt like the ground game was more unresponsive and even less meaningful than last year. It's unbelievable that standups from mount are still in the game.

The Undisputed demo feels real, real bad to me. Seems like they mucked with the ground game and made it even worse, and the improved striking is useless because hooks are just as fast as straight punches so you're best off doing Wanderlei rock ape flurries.

Tapping someone in practice is very different from tapping someone in competition. Also I'm 1-0 in shoot fighting!

Palhares is cool because he's got such a dynamic submission game and isn't scared of doing things like pulling reverse mount in order to get the tap but he spent about 14 and a half minutes closing the distance against outside striking specialist Dan Henderson, if the fight with Silva happens it's going to be Abu Dhabi all over again.