Daffanka

Incompetence let on by malfeasance. If he wasn't willing to break the rules he wouldn't have ballooned up to Bob Sapp weight before cutting down.

This one is worth it just for the story about Nogueira walking out with a spine full of painkillers against Fedor. Also Anthony Johnson is a POS who pulls this stuff because he knows his opponent can't/won't pull out.

Tell your sources to get me some tickets for that, Brashley. It's not exactly a numbered event but it's still really cool that UFC is coming here and that we have a guy legit bordering on the top of the division. When are the tickets usually released for these things? e: dug around, they're being released on Friday. There's no way I'm not going even if it's a cheap seat.

Fighter of the Year: Bon "Jones" Bones for the obvious reasons. Fight of the Year: In a vacuum it's Alvarez/Chandler but watching Henderson cap off 2011 by punching Shogun's head clean through the canvas several times for three rounds and then survive the proceeding two was thrilling. Knockout of the Year: Machida's crane kick wins for style points, Nogueira wins for tugging heart strings. Chan-Sung Jung's six second KO over Hominick deserves mention too given how startling it was. Submission of the Year: Frank Mir will always be fun to watch because of how spectacularly he either implodes or explodes. Probably the scariest guy in the UFC if he manages to grab hold of one of your limbs. Breakthrough Fighter of the Year: Michael Chandler. Went from a complete nobody to an undefeated champion who took out Eddie Alvarez in a classic. Watching him get savaged in the third round and surviving, then becoming Wolverine and tapping Alvarez out was really awesome. Comeback Fighter of the Year: Dan Henderson. It had already started in 2010 against Babalu but he's had an absolutely fabulous streak this year in three consecutive underdog fights. Round of the Year: Round 2 of Diaz/Daley. Absolutely nuts. Event of the Year: UFC 139. This is purely for personal reasons because Hendo rules and hearing Rogan shout "NO!!!!!" when Wanderlei stopped Cung Le made me laugh so hard.

Yeah that's what I meant, if Brock lands a hard clean shot I don't think Overeem's going to survive the ensuing gorilla onslaught.

My thoughts on Overeem/Lesnar is that Overeem should by all rights win the fight. He's a far superior and far more dynamic striker and his mean clinch game means that a badly shot double gets Lesnar pasted with knees or taken down. But then I remember the first few seconds of the Herring fight and am unable to come up with a reason why that wouldn't work on Overeem. Also the NYE DREAM card will probably be cool because it's got Lion Takeshi and Crusher in imminently winnable fights and there's no risk of Sakuraba getting knocked out. And maybe Kikuno explodes an anime with a crescent kick.

Guys I'm worried. Two really big guys are fighting soon but I'm way more excited about Cerrone/Diaz and Edgar/Henderson even though those guys are much smaller! Should I see a doctor about this?

You'd be surprised. Also in regards to this weekend's Strikeforce card, can anyone tell me where the people who think Melendez would beat Edgar are coming from? I try to think about the matchup and I just see Melendez hunting with lunging punches for five rounds and getting lit up. Essentially Thompson/Melendez 1 with less front kicks and more combinations.

You guys are all glossing over the real big news: FEDOR VERSUS SATOSHI ISHII FOR NEW YEAR'S EVE IN GLORIOUS JAPAN! Finally a real heavyweight fight amongst these roided out UFC gorillas (who would all lose to prime Fedor.) e: Also I don't need to see Vitor punch Wanderlei into retirement.

I don't think it's a particularly favorable match up for Bisping, although to be fair it's probably the most favorable out of any fighter that can reasonably be beat for a title shot.

I think Miller just got really caught up throwing dumb looping heavy punches instead of staying tight. He looked pretty horrendous but then so did Bisping and I still think he gets blown out of the water by Chael or Munoz or whoever he's fighting next.

<p>Honestly I think it's going to be really boring. Bisping is a point fighter in every sense of the word and unless he's cheating or fighting someone who lets him drop hammers from top position he won't finish anyone. He's also really good at reclaiming guard and getting to his feet. </p><p> </p><p> Mayhem's virtually impossible to finish unless you can soccer kick him and he's definitely the superior grappler, but I'm not sure he can get Bisping down reliably enough to take rounds decisively and if he gets him down he might get stuck in guard - he's not the kind of guard slicer Kawajiri or Hioki is.</p><p> </p><p> I don't watch TUF but I imagine both guys are looking real dumb and this isn't a fight I care about, either guy would get torn up by anyone who's anyone in that division.</p>

If you haven't seen Hendo/Shogun and Alvarez/Chandler from Bellator then close this thread and do so immediately. What a completely crazy night of great fights.

Mad excited about Cain/JDS for three reasons; 1) because it's probably going to be a great fight 2) because they're both swell dudes and I won't feel bummed if either guy wins 3) because they're both heavyweights so I really have no idea who's going to win.

<p>I didn't even mention his finishing skills; I said that his offense is stymied because he doesn't want to take any significant risks. Seven paragraphs about how he beat his opponents decisively and how their faces were busted up after the fight doesn't change that.</p><p> </p><p> e: for what it's worth I haven't rewatched any of his latest fights (shocker) but I seem to remember the armbar(s) coming after Hardy had already bucked GSP and it was the only gambit left. Once I'm off work I'll try to track down the Hardy and Alves fights to see if I'm wrong.</p>

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="OldStingberg" data-cite="OldStingberg" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="26660" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>That's so incredibly ridiculous. Since winning the title, GSP has had eight 10-8 rounds, and that doesn't include the BJ Penn fight since I didn't see the scoring for that fight on Wikipedia. And that's even with the absurdity that all the judges scored the Koscheck fight 50-45. That's a serious chance GSP has had the most 10-8 rounds in the UFC in the last three years.<p> </p><p> And hell, that's not even the easiest thing to dispute. His offensive output is meager? Do I seriously need to post the pics of Fitch, Alves, or Koscheck after those fights? Or remind you that he made one of the best fighters ever, BJ Penn, quit on his stool? I'm guessing GSP bored him into wanting out of that fight, even after BJ said he'd fight to the death against a quitter like GSP?</p><p> </p><p> I figured the answer to my question would be the more ambiguous, bullshity "he fights safe" thing with maybe a reference to the Hardy fight. In the fights where he's stood up with guys recently, he's physically destroyed them. He didn't finish most of them, granted, but he tore them all up with the exception of Shields, who GSP could barely see thanks to Shields throwing every punch with his hands open (and even that fight saw GSP throw roughly three dozen overhand rights looking for the KO). Those destructions just can't be disputed, and it's a pretty laughable amount of biased revisionism to try and say otherwise.</p><p> </p><p> The reason I asked the question because I wanted to make this point about the Hardy and Alves fights, GSP's most "boring, lay-and-pray" fights. Watch those fights again, seriously, and count how many times GSP gives up position going for a sub. When GSP injured his groin against Alves, it was immediately after giving up <em>full mount</em> and going for an arm bar. And not in a dumb "there's five seconds left, I'll go for a flying guillotine" sort of way. And when he didn't get the arm bar, he wound up underneath Alves and tore his groin getting free.</p><p> </p><p> Against Hardy, it was seriously almost insulting how often he gave up position going for subs. He didn't score 11 takedowns and 26 passes in that fight because he was sitting in Hardy's guard holding him down. He'd take Hardy down, pass to side control or mount, dive for arm bars or kimuras, fail to get them and lose position often ending up on the bottom, and then getting free and repeating the whole process.</p><p> </p><p> There's serious, legitimate criticisms to be leveled against GSP. He doesn't have high-end power on his strikes. He's also not great at finishing subs. Those two things, combined with his level of competition and the fact that guys get more leeway in title fights, are the reasons he doesn't finish guys as much anymore. </p><p> </p><p> But this idea that he's a blanket that squeaks out decisions is just absurd. And the thing that drives me nuts about it is it's almost always from those elitist internet fans that look down on the live crowds that boo when there's not enough action on the ground.</p></div></blockquote><p> </p><p> Woah there confrontational guy, I didn't say he was a blanket that squeaks out decisions, I said that he's a fighter who fights very safely to the detriment of his offensive output.</p><p> </p><p> The Fitch fight was an absolute shellacking because GSP could mercilessly pound on him with virtually no risk. Against BJ he didn't open up with significant offense until BJ was gassed and had nothing to offer. The Alves fight was a lot of control and short bursts of offense; enough to win him clear 10-9 rounds. Hardy, even less offense, and he either didn't properly finish his submissions or chose not to because it would've carried the risk of giving up position. Koscheck, enough to win clear 10-9 rounds, but he wasn't exactly taking Koscheck to town for being a cyclops. The Shields fight was something of an anomaly given the third round eyepoke but before then his work rate was pretty anemic with him doing enough to win 10-9 rounds, not exactly throwing three dozen overhand rights.</p><p> </p><p> Seriously, I'm not saying GSP is a bad fighter, a boring fighter or that he won't beat Diaz. I don't really care that he's not finishing guys. Calling his offense meager probably was been a misnomer, it's more like GSP's offense is meager when compared to what it should be given how good he is at top control and what his opponents' defense leaves to be desired.</p>

His offensive output is meager. e: To expand on this, he fights safe. Very, very safe. To the point of hamstringing his offense. He'll only do as much as is needed to win a round 10-9 and even when he's got a guy on the ropes he doesn't open up - E.G. Dan Hardy when GSP didn't properly apply the kimura because there was a slight chance it would've cost him position.

No Hunt no buy.

If the women get p4p spots then I think you should start looking at the super heavyweights too because the level of competition is roughly the same.

Sherk only lost to Hughes and GSP, BJ went 1-1 with Hughes and had a super close fight with GSP which isn't what I'd call unsuccessful. The consensus top of the FW division was Brown who's been floundering and maybe Urijah. I don't think either of those guys stack up against Penn or Maynard. Florian was the biggest win of Aldo's career. I'm not discounting LHW and WW because they have dominant champions, I'm discounting them because they don't have the vast amount of very good, well rounded fighters that lightweight does. Both of those divisions get murky after the top 5-10 whereas you could feasibly make a top 25 lightweight list without running out of good fighters. It's impossible to rise up as a lightweight without being very good because you're fighting very good fighters on such a regular basis. I really think they do, I'm not going to pick apart any specific example but all the guys you listed from those divisions apart from Fitch and maybe Rashad have fairly clearly defined weaknesses. Whereas apart from Guida it's hard to pick holes in any top lightweight. e: This post came off as way too confrontational. Sorry about that!

Aldo's been beating up guys who couldn't hack it at 155 in the UFC though. I mean, I get your point, he's looked like the physical manifestation of violence in most of his fights but I think competition counts for something and Edgar's fighting in the toughest division. Pound for pound rankings are pretty silly and, yes, Edgar is the champion on most brittle ground but that's because of how ridiculously good lightweight is, not because he's less of a fighter than Aldo. If Edgar does get beat I really, really want to see him drop down and fight Aldo because that fight would be awesome.

Frankie Edgar's thousand year reign as invincible champion continues tonight!

What an absolutely horrible idea, he'll be back to kickboxing in a year at most. Glad Saki gets to beat him on his way out though.

Mark Hunt is going to win!

Hasn't Overeem been with de Jong since his teens? Super surprised at the split.