The Official MMA Discussion Thread

[Dustin]

he's talented but he has also lost to some good fighters. Karo, Sanchez, Riggs, and Sean Shark.

 

Now he has a nice winning streak here as of late, but (IMHO) dream and Strikeforce WW aren't anything compared to UFC WW

 

Diaz is excellent and has been on a good roll lately but hasn't faced any good wrestlers with sub defense. I would pick GSP, Fitch, Koscheck, Shields and maybe even Hughes to beat him. Alves also even though he is not a wrestler. I rank Diaz behind all of these WW's, number six.

[GatorBait19]

Diaz is excellent and has been on a good roll lately but hasn't faced any good wrestlers with sub defense. I would pick GSP, Fitch, Koscheck, Shields and maybe even Hughes to beat him. Alves also even though he is not a wrestler. I rank Diaz behind all of these WW's, number six.

 

Agreed

[brashleyholland]

I've got him 4th, based on his current run of form and the fact that my number 5, Alves (previously 3rd) hasn't fought in a year.

 

That said, there is nobody he can beat outside of Strikeforce that will ever make me rank him higher than that. He's supposedly improved so much since he left the UFC...lets see him against even a moderatelly skilled wrestler and find out. If Ben Askren wins Bellator, that might be interesting.

 

As for P4P...He's not there yet. His all-round skill set and willingness to fight from 155 up to 185 (Cesar Gracie has said that with the right money and opponent, they'd put him in at 205) counts for him. For me though, to be in the P4P list, you need to have beaten a couple of current/recent champions...that's what Diaz is lacking.

 

We'll see him in the UFC as soon as his contract is up anyway, so we might not have to wait too long to find out where he stands.

[RingofHonorGuard]

The Diaz of today would handle Sherk, Karo, and Diego pretty handily. He hasn't worked much on his wrestling, but he's worked extremely hard on his ground game, primarily off of his back with sweeps and submissions.

 

I'd have to agree with Brashley and put him at #4 on the list, and also agree that he can't achieve any higher than that unless some welterweights fall off the UFC bus and make their way to his neck of the woods. But I too believe we'll see him taping up the UFC gloves at Strikeforce's contract end.

 

Where I disagree is on Alves. I think that fight would be an absolute war. Alves is obviously going to land the more powerful shots, but Diaz will -always- land more overall strikes, and 9/10 his opponent is going to come out looking worse in a 3 round stand-up war.

 

Also, I'd give Diaz a better chance against GSP than I do Fitch. Styles make fights. Fitch is the kind of guy to lay in your guard and prevent you from moving your hips, and if you are able to move your hips his damn neck is so small that it's nearly impossible to sink any sort of sub on him. That alone makes him Nick Diaz' poison. I think St. Pierre is too active to win by LNP, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't. Just saying if St. Pierre tried all of those transitions on Diaz that he did on Hardy, he'd have probably gotten submitted by round five.

 

Hughes probably wouldn't even take a fight with Nick Diaz at this point, as he would lose it 9/10 times. Hughes biggest issue has been being unable to evolve in an ever-evolving sport. All the dude has at this point is wrestling, and his explosiveness has tethered immensely since his prime. His standup against Renzo looked like he just started training it a day before the fight, was terrible. I'd say Matt would get overwhelmed with strikes by Diaz early, and be on the defensive the rest of the round, probably mid-second round TKO from Pillowpunches Diaz.

[Daffanka]

I'm reserving judgement about Diaz' rankings until he fight another fighter who's got something close to a decent wrestling and top game. This is not Mach.

 

I think he still loses to mostly everyone he's lost to previously and I can't really see him doing well against any high level UFC welterweight.

[RingofHonorGuard]

I just started watching DREAM 14 again, and I missed something the first time around... "The Voice" referred to DREAM's "white cage" as legendary. I had to laugh, that's just ridiculous to say.

 

I'm not that big of a fan of "The Voice", especially commentating Japanese events. I really prefer Bas and Quadros or even Bas and Kenny Rice. I thought they were much more tolerable than Trigg... Think it's mostly Trigg. God I hate Frank Trigg. Also, they state Nick Diaz is Brazilian? Did I miss something? O_o

 

Must have just been a graphic error for Diaz. They just showed him a second time and it said USA. But at the beginning, he was totally rocking a Brazilian flag under his name.

 

Could you guys imagine the UFC with the pro-wrestlingesque show of DREAM? It's not going to happen under the Zuffa banner, Dana's pretty much already said that. But if someone bought UFC, like say the McMahons, you -know- DREAM wouldn't even be the #1 flashy promotion anymore.

[brashleyholland]

 

Could you guys imagine the UFC with the pro-wrestlingesque show of DREAM? It's not going to happen under the Zuffa banner, Dana's pretty much already said that. But if someone bought UFC, like say the McMahons, you -know- DREAM wouldn't even be the #1 flashy promotion anymore.

 

They tried it at UFC 40 for the Ken/Tito fight (and a more toned down version for - I think - Liddell/Couture 1)...They had a pro-wrestling ramp, fighter specific videos playing as they walked to the cage and some crazy laser thing going on with their entrance music.

 

Didn't care for it myself, too 'pro-wrestling' and not in a good, Japanese way Apparently the cost of the set-up was prohibitive for all but the biggest of fights and they wanted a uniform presentation across all their events. UFC 42 only did 35,000 buys, not enough to warrent spending six-figures on production.

 

I'm sure they could do it now...but I'm not a fan. Leave that stuff to the guys that will do it properly, like this dude...

 

[RingofHonorGuard]

How awesome would Sakuraba have been if drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, who knows what other vices, and Wanderlei Silva never happened to him?

[brashleyholland]

How awesome would Sakuraba have been if drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, who knows what other vices, and Wanderlei Silva never happened to him?

 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_rANVY8iAyLU/SdGnciKFp4I/AAAAAAAAAY0/7xu7i7DDgCY/s400/awesome.gif

 

At least twice as awesome as that.

 

He's the only man who even comes close to Sudo for awesome entrances...with Gono a respectable third :-D

[Daffanka]

Apparently UFC 114 did about 925k buys which is above the predicted 850k.

 

I can't even imagine what kind of numbers 116 will do.

[Dustin]

Apparently UFC 114 did about 925k buys which is above the predicted 850k.

 

I can't even imagine what kind of numbers 116 will do.

 

That's a good number. I think 116 will be the biggest one since UFC 100 and probably only second to UFC 100. Hopefully they get Primetime behind it for maximum potential.

[RingofHonorGuard]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_rANVY8iAyLU/SdGnciKFp4I/AAAAAAAAAY0/7xu7i7DDgCY/s400/awesome.gif

 

At least twice as awesome as that.

 

He's the only man who even comes close to Sudo for awesome entrances...with Gono a respectable third :-D

 

Minowa vs. Sakuraba rematch should happen. I just want Saku to avoid anymore brain bashers like Wanderlei and Manhoef.

 

Also Sudo does the robot better than any human being should be able to, so it's no wonder he retired. Dude's probably creating moves for those goofs on Dancing with the Stars. I can't figure out if that one attire he was wearing if he was supposed to be Genghis Khan or Atilla the Hun.

 

I still laugh to the point of tears when I watch his fights with Ludwig and Butterbean. I love how he's just guard walking with his back to Ludwig and Lud is just like "UH, WTF?" Genki's ability to mess with his opponents' heads and entertain were second to none, for sure... Plus the dude can throw a serious dropkick, bell clapper, and wheel kick.

[brashleyholland]

Minowa vs. Sakuraba rematch should happen. I just want Saku to avoid anymore brain bashers like Wanderlei and Manhoef.

 

I'd really like to see him fight Frank Shamrock. Purely because it never happened and they're both about the same amount of battle worn.

 

'Back in the day' I'd have sold my own grandmother to see Sak vs Randy and Tito. Late 90's/early 00's.

[brashleyholland]

So....Fedor is running for some form of govenment possition in his native Russia.

 

The accompanying rumour is that he will retire at the end of his Strikeforce contract, which has two more fights on it.

 

It's only a rumour, but honestly I'm not massively surprised. He's nearly 34 (the beginning of the end for most fighters), he's been competing in MMA for over a decade and was competing in Judo and Sambo since the age of 10...that's a lot of wear and tear. It'd be nice to see a professional fighter go out on top for a change. I don't want to see Fedor as a 40-year-old Russian Chuck Liddell; punch drunk, broken down and slurring his words after getting railed by a new generation of athletes that he can't compete with.

 

Yes, I'd have loved to see him fight Brock. Carwin and Cain I could care less about to be honest...I they'll be elite level fighters in a year's time, no doubt, but I fail to see what Fedor has to prove to Velasquez (whose biggest wins thus far have been Ben Rothwell and a man Fedor smashed twice half a decade ago) or Carwin (Mir, Gonzaga and Neil Wain...) at this point. A year or two, yes, right now, no.

 

The Lesnar fight is more of a magnitude thing than anything else.

 

Here's a thought...Let's assume that he beats Werdum. Will Strikeforce give him a title bout against Overeem (a bout he'd be the odds-on favourite to win) if he's going to retire straight away?

[Daffanka]

When has long term planning ever been something Strikeforce considered?

 

Overeem - Fedor is kind of a lose - lose situation anyway. Even if he wins it'll just be "oh Fedor five years ago would have beaten him."

 

And even if Strikeforce gives the go-ahead I don't think Fedor/M-1 are going to accept the fight because it'll be much better for M-1 if Fedor retires undefeated. He'll probably fight Mondragon or someone like this.

 

All that said, I don't think it's fair to dismiss Velasquez beating Big Nog as somehow an inferior accomplishment to when Fedor did it. Nog was pumped up with painkillers in the first fight and got wrecked, the second was close until the headbutt and the third was decisive but by no means the kind of one sided beatdown the first fight was.

 

I mean Nogueira is a guy who has significantly deteriorated because of the beatings he's taken, but this has more to do with him losing his chin (which was an extremely important part of his game) than actually getting a lot worse at fighting.

[Dustin]

Fedor beating Werdum and then fighting Overeem in his last fight would be the perfect ending IMO. It would also be cool to see it happen in Japan where they both had most of their fights.

[RingofHonorGuard]

When has long term planning ever been something Strikeforce considered?

 

Overeem - Fedor is kind of a lose - lose situation anyway. Even if he wins it'll just be "oh Fedor five years ago would have beaten him."

 

And even if Strikeforce gives the go-ahead I don't think Fedor/M-1 are going to accept the fight because it'll be much better for M-1 if Fedor retires undefeated. He'll probably fight Mondragon or someone like this.

 

All that said, I don't think it's fair to dismiss Velasquez beating Big Nog as somehow an inferior accomplishment to when Fedor did it. Nog was pumped up with painkillers in the first fight and got wrecked, the second was close until the headbutt and the third was decisive but by no means the kind of one sided beatdown the first fight was.

 

I mean Nogueira is a guy who has significantly deteriorated because of the beatings he's taken, but this has more to do with him losing his chin (which was an extremely important part of his game) than actually getting a lot worse at fighting.

 

His chin, and his overall being are lesser now than what they were when he fought Fedor. The thing is, UFC hasn't been kind to him at all. He's always been the kind of guy to take punishment and come back, but with a withered chin and father time creeping up on him(34 is old whenever you've been through the kind of taxation on the body that he has). I would say battle wise Nogueira is turning the corner on 40, if not older. He's looked slower(than usual) against everyone in the UFC with the exception of Couture. Heath arguably TKO'd him, Sylvia outboxed him and was winning that fight until Nogueira pulled the sub, Mir TKO'd him, Velasquez KO'd him. See what I'm getting at? You can lessen Velasquez' win in comparison to Fedor, because Fedor fought Nog in his prime. Velasquez KO'd a withered shell of a man.

 

As far as Fedor retiring is concerned, seems like a smart move to me. There's always going to be doubters out there. But there are still people that call out Michael Jordan and say he'd have nothing on [insert Top NBA Player Here]. Always gonna happen, but at this point what does Fedor have to prove? He's not at the top of his game anymore, and I really don't want to see him take the Cro Cop approach to training in working a full time office job and then training when he can.

 

That being said, he'll beat Werdum, and after that who knows? I can't see Strikeforce seriously giving him a title shot if he's going to retire at the end of his contract. However, I think he ends his career with a fight in Japan against Josh Barnett.

 

Plus, not to mention Fedor was able to lay in Nogueira's guard and pound the bejesus out of him, essentially beating Nogueira at his own game. Cain wouldn't have been able to do that, even fighting Withered Nog.

[Daffanka]

Plus, not to mention Fedor was able to lay in Nogueira's guard and pound the bejesus out of him, essentially beating Nogueira at his own game. Cain wouldn't have been able to do that, even fighting Withered Nog.

 

That was the first fight though, when Nog was pumped on painkillers but fought anyway because lol Pride. The other ones weren't nearly the same kind of ludicrous beatdowns.

 

The rest of your post makes sense and I got a bit carried away (I love Velasquez you see.)

 

Also apparently Fedor retiring was a fake story

[RingofHonorGuard]

That was the first fight though, when Nog was pumped on painkillers but fought anyway because lol Pride. The other ones weren't nearly the same kind of ludicrous beatdowns.

 

The rest of your post makes sense and I got a bit carried away (I love Velasquez you see.)

 

Also apparently Fedor retiring was a fake story

 

Yeah, he's still doing politics though, which means one or the other is going to take a backseat, or he's going to half-ass both of them... Either way he'll probably still dominate the remainder of his career, barring the fight with Overeem happening or him going to the UFC(so yeah, he'll dominate the rest of his career).

 

I'm with you on Cain Velasquez, a borderline nut-hugger. I spiked my soda on the floor, and pumped my fist when he knocked Nog out because it at least showed that he's developing all aspects of his game. I wanna see him go to war with Junior dos Santos.

 

-----------

 

I've been watching some old UFCs today. Watched 7, Ultimate Ultimate, and 8. I would love to have seen Randy Couture get started earlier and fight Frye in his prime. Fyre was -way- ahead of his time with his clinch work, really the first fighter in the tournament style to really implement every aspect of the game effectively. You can say what you want about the Shamrocks, namely Frank, but Frye was a monster at 8.

 

Also, anyone who wants to say anything bad about Goldberg or Rogan go check out Jeff Blatnick. This dude, at times, believes you can choke someone out when they're on top of you by putting your thumb in their throat... lol, seriously? You know Don Wilson wanted to be like "Dude, you might know how to wrestle but seriously, stfu." Noticed Stephen Quadros was a judge at UFC 8, so that was interesting to see as well. I didn't even know who Stephen Quadros was the first time I saw this years ago.

 

Marco Ruas looks like Don Muraco and Donkey Kong had a baby, and he has the cold-blooded stare of Richard "Night Stalker" Ramirez. Remco Pardoel probably crapped his pants when Ruas was in his guard and they had their epic guard staredown.

[Antithesis]

Ahh Blatnick isn't too bad, as far as general knowledge goes. I've read in several places that Meltzer credits Blatnick in large part for coming up with the unified rules for MMA in North America, which is what saved it from being blacklisted all over the country as 'human ****fighting' and allowed the UFC to go mainstream.

[RingofHonorGuard]

Ahh Blatnick isn't too bad, as far as general knowledge goes. I've read in several places that Meltzer credits Blatnick in large part for coming up with the unified rules for MMA in North America, which is what saved it from being blacklisted all over the country as 'human ****fighting' and allowed the UFC to go mainstream.

 

Blatnick learned a lot about the sport as he went along, but my issue with him is he acted like he knew it all along. He didn't. He would constantly call something that wasn't even close to happening. He always openly rooted for any wrestler fighting, to the point you just wanted him to have a seizure so he'd shut up.

 

I will admit that he got considerably better over time, and his work outside the sport was unquestionable. But as an announcer he sucked. The only time he ever got excited was when a wrestler was doing well. Say what you want about Rogan going crazy over BJJ guys, but it has nothing on Blatnick's bias.

 

You can't really credit any one person with the unified rules, but yeah he was apart of it. A lot of guys were. McCarthy and Quadros were both very essential in the process as well. And also... If you think Jeff Blatnick and the unfied rules is what caused MMA to become mainstream, you're pulling the wool over your own eyes... Money and big name investors(Fertittas) are what brought MMA to the mainstream. It was pretty much blacklisted all over the country anyway until the Fertittas stepped in and bought it.

[Antithesis]

If you think Jeff Blatnick and the unfied rules is what caused MMA to become mainstream, you're pulling the wool over your own eyes... Money and big name investors(Fertittas) are what brought MMA to the mainstream. It was pretty much blacklisted all over the country anyway until the Fertittas stepped in and bought it.

 

 

You're conflating MMA (as a whole) with the UFC. Dana likes to harp on the idea that Zuffa made UFC main stream, and he isn't wrong, per se. But without weight divisions and rules which allowed it to be viewed as a sport, as opposed to being just a bunch of bloody brawls, the UFC (as a company) would have never moved out of the half filled arenas in Biloxi and Alabama.

 

Once they could call it a sport, they get Congress off their backs and open themselves to legitimate sponsors and enables them to broadcast programming on cable stations, allowing for increased revenue. All of which was only possible because of the formation of the rules.

 

I think people forget how bad it was getting for the company prior to Zuffa taking over. Some PPV providers wouldn't carry them, and the athletic commisions in some markets were outright banning it. Without rules, that trend only increases.

 

So I guess maybe I should have worded it better. I give Zuffa nearly all the credit for making the UFC mainstream. But they didn't save MMA in North America... Unified rules did.

 

As for Blatnick's bias, its been years since I watched those shows but I remember it more as him favoring the grapplers (Royce, Severn, Shamrock, Oleg, Frye, Coleman) over the strikers. Which really wasn't bias, if you consider that those were all the guys that won back in the day.

[RingofHonorGuard]

As for Blatnick's bias, its been years since I watched those shows but I remember it more as him favoring the grapplers (Royce, Severn, Shamrock, Oleg, Frye, Coleman) over the strikers. Which really wasn't bias, if you consider that those were all the guys that won back in the day.[/Quote]

 

Yeah but he would always say something like "that's wrestling right there, pure wrestling". He would always be putting over the style of wrestling, even if the hold being applied was clearly from a different art. There were several times where he referred to basic jiu jitsu locks such as armbars and kimuras as "wrestling holds" or "maneuvers" on later shows. It wasn't that he was biased for the wrestlers, although he hugged Schultz nuts so hard when he debuted against Goodridge it was almost unbearable to hear. It was the fact that everything was wrestling, EVERYTHING. "Punch to the face! CLEARLY WRESTLING GAVE HIM THAT STRENGTH!"

 

The thing is that was okay in the beginning, BUT by the time UFC 5 and 6 rolled around most of the fanbase back then were pretty hardcore. They knew the fighters, and all of these arts that these fighters used were becoming popular... So people watching these fights KNEW what the holds were, and to sit there and hear Blatnick attribute it to wrestling it's clearly inane.

 

I'm not bashing on him as a person, I appreciate anything he's done for any sport associated with martial arts. But the guy sucked as an announcer, and that's my argument.

 

Going a different route... I'd like to point out that the fanbase of MMA back then and now is different. People watching it back then were pretty relative to the early fans of the cult promotion ECW... You had to go out of your way to get those shows at times. Most of the fans back then knew a lot about the sport, because the UFC didn't try to hide the fact that other organizations existed. Hell, they even put over Pancrase time and again, and even told people to buy their pay per view. So people were a lot more educated to the sport back then. And unfortunately when MMA hit the mainstream the fans who followed it before when it fell didn't all hop back on the bandwagon, because it was totally different than what they remembered. ZUFFA made no mention of other organzations, and when they did they often found themselves slapped in the face(PRIDE mainly, but they still won that in the end). That's the major problem. They've diluted the minds of the fans, and left it to them to find out what's going on out there. A lot of them find their way to sites like this and more commercial MMA sites, but none the less there is a vast majority of stupid people out there that would do well and probably order MORE fights if they were informed of Dream, or even HDnet. It wouldn't harm the UFC at all, as they're always going to have the brand. They're the WWE of the MMA world, and they're always going to be ahead on money. Money wins out in most cases.

[Daffanka]

Hey man don't be dissing the manta position.

[brashleyholland]

Blatnick learned a lot about the sport as he went along, but my issue with him is he acted like he knew it all along. He didn't. He would constantly call something that wasn't even close to happening. He always openly rooted for any wrestler fighting, to the point you just wanted him to have a seizure so he'd shut up.

 

Hang on a second...

 

Rogan learned a lot about the sport as he went along, but my issue with him is he acted like he knew it all along. He didn't. He would constantly get high and talk about something that wasn't even close to happening. He always openly rooted for any BJJ player fighting, to the point you just wanted him to hit the bong so he'd shut up.

 

Oh look, it's Joe Rogan!