The Official MMA Discussion Thread

[ampulator]

Which basically means it'll be amazing or total sh*t :-D

it's going pretty well so far. In any case... AA looks like he's done.

[Nephrinn]

I didn't know Nogueira was fighting [/aspiring Bloody Elbow writer]

 

Also yeah I mostly agree with your picks except if Bigfoot is able to bully Fedor to the ground he could do some serious damage. He's super slow but much bigger and has way more experience with a cage, if he gets extended periods of control against the cage or manages to land some ground and pound from top position it wouldn't shock me. Eventually Fedor will adapt as he does and Big Foot will run into an overhand right and get swarmed for a TKO though, probably in the second. Of course he'll break his hands and have to retire from the tournament.

 

This guy called it spot on! I'm a huge Fedor fan, but I think age has finally taken a toll on him. Big props to Silva too! I'll be rootin for him in the likely Silva vs. Overeem match.

[ampulator]

This guy called it spot on! I'm a huge Fedor fan, but I think age has finally taken a toll on him. Big props to Silva too! I'll be rootin for him in the likely Silva vs. Overeem match.

I don't think it's age... I just think he's been not fighting enough top guys enough before Werdum, and that he was always a small Heavyweight. When you don't fight top guys, your skills aren't polished as they are supposed to be. Plus, Bigfoot is better than everyone says he is. People knock on him from the Pyle fight, but they switched the fighter on him on short notice, AND he won that match.

 

The modern "Fedors" and "Crocops" all cut to 205 nowadays.

[Nephrinn]

I don't think it's age... I just think he's been not fighting enough top guys enough before Werdum, and that he was always a small Heavyweight. When you don't fight top guys, your skills aren't polished as they are supposed to be. Plus, Bigfoot is better than everyone says he is. People knock on him from the Pyle fight, but they switched the fighter on him on short notice, AND he won that match.

 

The modern "Fedors" and "Crocops" all cut to 205 nowadays.

 

I don't know, Arvloski, Tim Sylvia, and Rogers were all ranked top ten when he fought them. Fedor shouldn't have been caught so easily by Werdum after those 3 fights with Big Nog, one of the most dangerous BJJ guys in the world. Fedor made it look so easy back then.

 

Granted, it doesn't help that Fedor has only been fighting about once a year the last 3 or 4 years...

[ampulator]

I don't know, Arvloski, Tim Sylvia, and Rogers were all ranked top ten when he fought them. Fedor shouldn't have been caught so easily by Werdum after those 3 fights with Big Nog, one of the most dangerous BJJ guys in the world. Fedor made it look so easy back then.

 

Granted, it doesn't help that Fedor has only been fighting about once a year the last 3 or 4 years...

That's exactly my point. He hasn't been fighting enough top guys. He was definitely overprotected. This is what M-1 gets for doing this.

[Nephrinn]

That's exactly my point. He hasn't been fighting enough top guys. He was definitely overprotected. This is what M-1 gets for doing this.

 

Ahh, well maybe you are right then.

[ampulator]

Ahh, well maybe you are right then.

Just to add, he was 230... and not a FIT 230, a flabby 230. He clearly is a small Heavyweight.

[GatorBait19]

Just to add, he was 230... and not a FIT 230, a flabby 230. He clearly is a small Heavyweight.

 

Isn't it Fedor's fault then if he wasn't in shape. He's made his money and we have seen what has happened to people once they hit that 34 and over mark. Most can't keep it up. Fedor was a great HW and people will knock on him for never going to the UFC and challenging there, but Fedor had the most dominating run in the HW division ever. He has beaten the top contenders in the UFC HW class outside of a couple names. Fedor to me has nothing left to prove and mayber the fight is out of the dog.

[Daffanka]

Another good Strikeforce card, I didn't see the prelims but the heavyweight fights were thankfully short.

 

It'll be interesting to see what happens with Fedor now. Positionally he's never been dynamite and if nothing else I think this fight showed he wouldn't be able to hang with Cain, Overeem or Lesnar. I realize it's extremely hard to buck a man who's 40lbs heavier than you but Fedor looked really lost trying to defend Bigfoot's advances and getting out from under mount. And his striking looked much sloppier and telegraphed than it had in the past which is what let Silva get the double in the first place.

 

Just as a by the by, Silva is not a bad fighter. He's really slow and lumbering but he's got genuine KO power, a good chin, recovers very quickly and has some major artillery from top control. That said he's not an elite fighter, he's got big holes in his game and if you put him up against Cain or Overeem I think he'd come up short in a bad way.

 

Ideally Fedor would cut ties with M-1, find a proper training camp and fight Chad Griggs or someone. What probably will happen is he doesn't fight again in 2011 or maybe ever.

 

A bunch of other fights happened and they went mostly the way they should have, barring Griggs putting out Villante bad. Almost feel like he was helped by the ref again in this one though, the mouthpiece shouldn't have been put in RIGHT after Villante hurt him.

 

Good card, continuing the streak of them. Fedor losing means the chances of the tournament actually happening just multiplied by a thousandfold. Now if only Rogers could knock out Barnett.

[jesterx7769]

Prelims were good, I personally like to see good prelims but I don't know how much effect it has for SF and people subscribing to Showtime since they are on different channels.

 

Entertaining fights all night so they have to be glad of that. Del Rosario looked good against Johnson, will be interested to see him against better competition.

 

While I was rooting for Arlovski I thought Sergei would knock him out. AA did look good but Sergei was very aggressive in cutting off the cage, the ref even made him back up twice and once the bell rang he marched right across the cage to make sure AA wouldn't be able to just circle around picking him apart. Good strategy by Sergei. AA of course backed up like an idiot with hands down allowing him to get caught and unfortunately he went out like a light. A little dissapointed he didn't try for any takedowns. I know he is a good boxer but when you are going up against a heavy handed guy and you have been getting knocked the F out it might be a good idea to try to take it to the mat and use some of that sambo. I don't think AA retires, if anything because the money is too good. However he may take a serious step down in comp and if he gets KO'd again then I could see him being done.

 

Fedor and Silva was surprising of course. I thought if Silva was able to dominate on top Fedor might be able to catch him but that wasn't the case. I dont think Fedor looked bad in round 1, I thought he looked alot more aggressive and each were taking good shots. Round 2 was just brutal and I think if it was a match between no name fighters it could have been stopped sometime during that beating but the ref let it go

 

I don't know if Fedor retires, from Fedor's stand point I think he could. Winning this could have been his last big thing to try to shut up his haters but I guess bottom line is you either like him or you don't and nothing will change that. He has beaten 5 UFC champs and a PRIDE champ but he will always have haters that say he never fought the big dogs and aside from going to the UFC that will never change. I will still say he is the greatest HW in this early age of MMA, since if you say he isn't then who is? There isn't anyone with a comparable history besides Couture. I do think the size thing is finally catching up to him as well as bigger guys are now better than back in the day when they relied on size (Hello Timmy), Silva walked in at 285 last night 50 lbs heavier with actual MMA training unlike Tim or Choi, thats tough to beat.

 

As to why I don't see him retiring, M-1 and Vladim. Fedor has basically been the only reason M-1 has existed and they may "pep talk" him to fighting more in order to save their own butts. After all they've used him all along. If Fedor is done I doubt SF will put the SF and M-1 Present on their future cards. However I don't think he will fight again in '11. His eye was so bad he may have a broken orbital bone which would probably but him on the shelf for six months. Even if it isn't broken he probably needs/needed minor surgery/eye care which he needs to recover from and he probably wants time off. The only fight I can see him doing is against Werdum in December if Werdum doesn't make it to the final.

 

edit: Finally, I discovered I still hate Showtime announcers. They are pompous idiots and should just be talking out of their butts the whole time. Gus and Mauro are bad and Shamrock wouldn't be as bad if he didn't try so hard and the other two didn't refer to him as a legend every two minutes. Mauro was such an idiot at the end "That 10-8 is totally disturbing" (paraphrasing) to which Shamrock immediately responded "Not really you idiot did you not see Fedor's eye get bashed in stopping the match?" once again, paraphrasing. Still hate Mauro for trying to shove Shields out of the way when Johnson was interviewing just to get his last little line in. I wish they were on HDNet

[Gabbo]

It's easy to pick flaws in Fedor's game after a few losses so I won't bother.

 

I'm just glad he didn't sign with the UFC recently. If that was combined with his apparent recent decline then people would have crapped all over his legacy and stated had he joined the UFC years ago he would have been nothing more than a top 10 HW.

[Fantabulous]

That's exactly my point. He hasn't been fighting enough top guys. He was definitely overprotected. This is what M-1 gets for doing this.

 

I'm inclined to agree. When you only fighting average-to-awful opponents for so long you're abilities decline because they're not being tested. I think if Fedor had been allowed to face a higher level of fighter in the last five years, whilst there was a good chance he would have been beaten during that time, his ability wouldn't have declined so much. A Fedor coming off of five years of strong challenges would have had a much better chance against Bigfoot. The trouble is that, as pointed out, M1 and everyone else with a piece of the Fedor pie were so intent on protecting him as an investment that they neglected him as a fighter. A battle tested Fedor would probably still be one of the better Heavyweight fighters today but he wouldn't have had the aura that so many people were enamoured by and blinded them as to how good he really was right now. They still thought he was at 2005-levels when the truth was he looked great because he was mainly fighting sub-par fighters.

 

Arlovkski is a fighter I almost feel sorry for. He still has a lot of talent and skill but his one weakness is so detrimental that he'll never get to where his talent should take him. He isn't a top 10 fighter but Arlovski would probably make a great gatekeeper to test a fighter on the rise to see how good he is. But Arlovksi isn't a fighter who you need a well rounded game to beat; you just need to hit hard and not give him time to take a breather.

[ampulator]

I'm inclined to agree. When you only fighting average-to-awful opponents for so long you're abilities decline because they're not being tested. I think if Fedor had been allowed to face a higher level of fighter in the last five years, whilst there was a good chance he would have been beaten during that time, his ability wouldn't have declined so much. A Fedor coming off of five years of strong challenges would have had a much better chance against Bigfoot. The trouble is that, as pointed out, M1 and everyone else with a piece of the Fedor pie were so intent on protecting him as an investment that they neglected him as a fighter. A battle tested Fedor would probably still be one of the better Heavyweight fighters today but he wouldn't have had the aura that so many people were enamoured by and blinded them as to how good he really was right now. They still thought he was at 2005-levels when the truth was he looked great because he was mainly fighting sub-par fighters.

 

I think less due to his decline (he has, but under what reasons?), but Heavyweights today ALL train some form of submissions grappling, several forms of grappling, boxing, several forms of kickboxing, a whole host sklls unique to MMA (ground and pound, transitions, etc.), modern weight cutting techniques. On top of that, a lot of fighters these days can qualify as decent, if not good or great, athletes as well. He's fighting in a pool of fighters that are possibly better athletes, do weight-cutting, are good skills unique to MMA, and are trained to multiple modern martial arts. Training mostly in one discipline doesn't work anymore.

 

That being said, Fedor's grappling background (Sambo) helped him longer than others, but these days, all modern "Fedor's" and "Crocops" fight at 205.

 

Arlovkski is a fighter I almost feel sorry for. He still has a lot of talent and skill but his one weakness is so detrimental that he'll never get to where his talent should take him. He isn't a top 10 fighter but Arlovski would probably make a great gatekeeper to test a fighter on the rise to see how good he is. But Arlovksi isn't a fighter who you need a well rounded game to beat; you just need to hit hard and not give him time to take a breather.

I think a bigger issue is Arlovski's chin, his poor poor recovery, poor striking, and for some odd reason, STILL not used to getting hit. All related problems.

[SolidDavidGold]

Just going to throw my 2 cents in here on Fedor. The greatest heavyweight thus far in the history of the sport. However, he hasn't fought any top tier fighters since PRIDE. The game has evolved and has passed Fedor by. The heavyweight division is now run by the giants who have to cut to 265 but have great skills to go with the physical attributes. Look at the great fighters besides Fedor who have been rolled over by the changes in the division. Cro Cop, Big Nog, Mir, Couture. If you're not at least an in shape 240, you don't stand that great of a chance in the modern heavyweight division. Fedor found that out last night. Perhaps another weight class is the answer. 225 or 230 perhaps. Either way, smaller heavyweights are SOL now. Cut to 205 or don't bother fighting.

[The Shape]

For me the argument about size and weight cutting is kind of nullified by the fact that Cain Velasquez is UFC champion.

[ampulator]

For me the argument about size and weight cutting is kind of nullified by the fact that Cain Velasquez is UFC champion.

Except that Cain Velasquez is 244. So, no, it hasn't been nullified. Anyone that weights less than 240 need to think about weight cutting. In fact, a guy like Forrest, who is 244, cuts to 205 (!!!). Cain isn't a small dude by any means... AND he's fit. Plus, Big Foot, is a decently skilled, if slow and plodding heavyweight. He would have given any Heavyweight smaller than him huge problems. Hong Man Choi, he isn't.

[PoisonedSuperman]

Why in MMA are most of the weight division only a few pounds off (15-20 I think) and Heavyweights 60 pounds?

[ampulator]

Why in MMA are most of the weight division only a few pounds off (15-20 I think) and Heavyweights 60 pounds?

That's not in MMA... it's also in boxing, but also in several other combat sports, I believe. May also be true in other non-combat sports that have weight classes, but don't quote me on that.

 

The reason is, weight matter less and less as you go up in weight, as the weight difference matters less and less. At the higher end, beyond 200 lbs, you get some really well, "fat" fighters. It's happen less and less, but some of these guys can work out to go low weight class. Joe Riggs is famous example. The guy use to fight at 265. Now he fights at 170. An out-of-shape 265er is nowhere as dangerous as a genuine big fighter, ala Carwin, Lesnar, or Big Foot.

 

This is why I always prefer any weight class below around 200, simply because you will almost get fit fighters.

[brashleyholland]

Why in MMA are most of the weight division only a few pounds off (15-20 I think) and Heavyweights 60 pounds?

 

Amp is right, but there's also another reason...when you get above the 230lbs range, there simply aren't that many exceptional athletes, in relative terms. If I'm 250lbs, fast, fit and athletic, point me to the NFL tryouts. If I'm 6'8 and 265, show me to the basketball court.

 

For the time being at least, there simply isn't enough depth to have a split in the 206-265lb division. Hopefully that will all change in time though, as it becomes easier to make big bucks in MMA.

[jesterx7769]

Wrestling is also 211-264 (absurdly close), Boxing is over 200 lbs, ADCC's is over 218.

 

Basically when they regulated MMA they clearly looked at what the other combat sports were doing and decided on the weight limit (265) instead of going unlimited (like Pride) they put the cap on it. It should be noted that it is defined by the Nevada Athletic Commission and not the UFC who decides it.

 

And like BH said there were not/ are not (becoming arguable) enough big guys. Your big guys were like Bob Sapp fighters, you didn't have 250+ huge athletic skilled HW's. Just look at a list of the former UFC HW champions and only Sylvia and Lesnar are huge. I do think it may change it 5/10 years tops now that you have maxed out HW collegiate/olympic wrestlers getting into MMA. Or everyone else will just be forced to cut.

[Self]

Watched Strikeforce. Struggled to get into the mise-en-scene of the show itself, and having an all-heavyweight show was kinda off-putting, but I enjoyed every fight. Quick ass-whoppin's one and all. Cool knockouts. Decent submissions. A main event that went longer than the undercard. Dug it.

[brashleyholland]

It should be noted that it is defined by the Nevada Athletic Commission and not the UFC who decides it.

 

 

Nothing to do with Nevada. The weight classes recognised by the Unified Rules (and indeed, the rest of the Unified Rules) were drawn up in California, then codified by New Jersey. The first event of note to use the Unified Rules was UFC 28, but they didn't implement any weight class changes at that time. UFC officials worked with the NJSAC to redefine their current weight classes, which were officially used for the first time at UFC 31 in NJ. The UFC didn't promote an event in Nevada until the disaster that was UFC 33.

[brashleyholland]

Watched Strikeforce. Struggled to get into the mise-en-scene of the show itself, and having an all-heavyweight show was kinda off-putting, but I enjoyed every fight. Quick ass-whoppin's one and all. Cool knockouts. Decent submissions. A main event that went longer than the undercard. Dug it.

 

Rewatched it this morning after spending yesterday crying to my Fedor t-shirt, drinking gin and listening to The Smiths :-p

 

Very, very fun card, one I'll definitely be recommending to friends who aren't huge MMA fans, but want to see some good fights. I will however be telling them that the Arlovski/Kharitonov was the main event and turning it off at that point, much like Phoebe's mom in Friends stopped her watching Old Yeller before the dog gets shot.

[ampulator]

Amp is right, but there's also another reason...when you get above the 230lbs range, there simply aren't that many exceptional athletes, in relative terms. If I'm 250lbs, fast, fit and athletic, point me to the NFL tryouts. If I'm 6'8 and 265, show me to the basketball court.

 

For the time being at least, there simply isn't enough depth to have a split in the 206-265lb division. Hopefully that will all change in time though, as it becomes easier to make big bucks in MMA.

 

When that time comes, someone is going to be clamoring for NEW weight classes. Heck, people are already doing it. Some (hardcore fans) complain that there should a stop-gap classes bertween 155 and 170, a stop-gap class between 185 and 205, and a stop-gap class between 205 and around 235. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

 

And to add to that, Fedor weight cutting might not bring the advtanges it may see. He will fighting fighters of his size, sure, but he's also fighting a more skilled pool of fighters. The only guy I see him defnivitely beating is Rampage at LHW, just mainly because Rampage gameplanning. if Rampage had a good gameplan, I can see even him beating Fedor.

[Fantabulous]

I don't know if they're actually making the claim or it's being speculated they might, but there is talk that Brandon Vera's camp want, if Thiago Silva's second test does come back positive, the result of their fight be ruled a no-contest and Vera be rehired by UFC. The reason being that he was cut as a result of the loss to Silva but if the result is now a no-contest, there isn't the reason for him to be cut.