Elsalvajeloco

With Cirkunov getting short circuited in less than 30 seconds, this performance and knockout win pretty much clinched the title shot for Gustafsson. He landed like every uppercut he threw against Glover. They can make Manuwa vs. Oezdemir for the 2nd spot behind Gustafsson.

Darren Till is definitely someone they could use frequently on UK and Brazil cards. He's very charismatic and a good, entertaining fighter.

Poor Marcin Held. He was winning the fight despite getting wobbled a couple times but then eats the well timed knee diving for the Imanari roll to start the final round.

I don't think Kell expected Spence to be that game and determined. At first, it looked like another Kell Brook welterweight title defense. Then, Spence slowly but surely got his bearings together and kinda stifled Brook with his pressure and hand speed. I mean Brook was landing pretty good punches for the first nine rounds or so, but Spence was giving it back more and more every round and not being all that affected by Brook's output. However, once Errol's work started showing up on Kell's face around round eight it was a wrap. Brook couldn't keep Spence off of him. The last two rounds were particularly brutal. Brook was getting beat up really badly. The fact that Spence took Brook's best punches and had a mature performance makes it that much more impressive. He never really had to show this before. In some fights, he showed he was a very good boxer. In other fights, he showed he was a puncher. The Algeri fight was the closest but Algeri didn't put up any level of resistance let alone arguably or clearly win the first three rounds like Brook did. For Groves vs. Jack? I'm pretty sure I had Badou Jack winning. Groves didn't fight a bad fight, but Jack was landing the cleaner, sharper, and more powerful punches.

Maybe it's because it's not my body, but I say take any fight that allows you to put yourself on the map when very few fighters stand out. I don't understand how you could be that confident on the way up and as you get to a certain level at the top and be so willing to take 15 steps backwards on a PR. That was what this whole charade was. I've been watching Germaine fight since she was just a kickboxer, and this is the first move inside or outside the cage besides taking a fight with Vanessa Porto with three weeks of BJJ training that had me completely befuddled. Just a complete PR nightmare. I was willing to give her a pass on the strikes after the bell at 208 because she doesn't have a history of being a dirty fighter in the ten years I've seen her fight. I will even give her the same pass on the interview after that fight just because post fight interviews usually don't occur in the most settings. People are trying to formulate coherent and cogent thoughts after just being concussed, semi-concussed, injured in some sort of way, and/or massive adrenalines dumps and highs. I'm not expecting the best you on the mic. However, post 208, it has been all downhill. It's like she has no idea what the circumstances are around her being champ. If someone is that willing to get stripped of a title even when in these times it comes off a prop, that's a completely different form of being shook. And to show I'm not just bashing Germaine, I will say Holm and Nunes have been similarly disappointing. I get people are alarmed about the possibility of a contemporary athlete cheating. That's not something that is hard to sympathize with in combat sports. That's why UFC 199 is special in my mind just because someone like Michael Bisping who spent his career going against repeat offenders got his moment in the sun. However, I am still disappointed on two fronts. First off, does the knowledge of USADA testing or the lack thereof inform either Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes of Cyborg's ability to pass and/or beat these tests? By that, I mean do they know for a fact that these tests are bad enough or unreliable enough that they feel confident that Cyborg is getting away with something. Like...can Amanda Nunes give me a legitimate argument against Carbon Isotope Ratio testing? Can Holly Holm tell me about the failings of using an Athlete Biological Passport in sport drug testing? If they can't, they're merely just going off a hunch and what Cyborg did previously (which I grant has to be taken into account). Using that as an excuse (or any other excuse) to not fight Cyborg now makes it look incredibly bad from a PR standpoint because these are the women who should be first in line to fight her. Moreover, very few people who spend money on tickets, PPVs, or to go to a sports bar to watch the fights gives a damn about who is cheating or not. The UFC is just going above and beyond for competition sake, which leads me into the second front. If you want to make the optimum level of money in the sport, you're going to have to take fights where the risk outweighs the reward. Combat sports isn't the place to take the safest fights possible most of the time unless it has been established that you are that person who stands all the way out. However, in that same vain, that's what makes it great that someone like McGregor was willing to fight an Eddie Alvarez. That is what makes the average PPV buyer respect that level of business acumen (even if they don't like McGregor on some weird personal level) more consciously or unconsciously because that is what he or she wants to see truthfully. It's as simple as that. If you use excuse #73 to say you won't fight someone like Cyborg, just because a select few random people on the internet agree with that assessment doesn't mean that's a good business idea as far marketing yourself. Most of the time it's a bad idea unless it's something like Bisping cutting a promo on Yoel Romero because that makes people want to see the fight. Otherwise, don't give a random excuse because you will never convince the people of that like you were when you legitimized that rationale to yourself. Five years of Mayweather/Pacquiao idiocy taught me that it doesn't matter why a fight didn't occur to fans because people will find someone to be at fault no matter if that reason makes sense or not. In the end, both of those parties were able to make exorbitant amounts of money. Amanda Nunes, Germaine de Randamie, and Holly Holm don't have that luxury. They need to be taking all the notable fights they can...the bigger, the better.

If you want Cyborg as a UFC fighter, you have to keep it. As far as the future, it depends on the UFC's faith in Megan Anderson and more importantly her faith in herself. It seems like she isn't too focused on fighting Cyborg right now. Personally, I say that's very justified because nothing I see from her gives me any feeling she has a decent shot at beating her. Unless the move to Missouri elevates her to an entirely different level of skill, she is going to be just another opponent for Cyborg. I think as is, she is a prototypical work(wo)man fighter like a Tonya Evinger and very tough with some skills like decent power and good movement that would allow her to be probably the best fighter at 145 not named Cristiane Justino (if she isn't already) until someone comes around to usurp her as best non-Cyborg featherweight fighter. I am never the strip the title person, but Germaine pretty much gives the UFC very little choice especially since the division wasn't going to be built around her. First, it was the hand injury, then some bizarre bullshit about a police academy, possible personal problems, and potential retirement. All that to get to she just didn't want to fight Cyborg. They only made that GdR vs. Holm fight so that the winner could fight Cyborg. The title was just a necessary evil to get to that. Despite winning the belt, Germaine found a way to ghost the entire division. If people don't want to catch a fade that bad, they have no other choice but to make it the "Feed Cyborg" division. Make Cyborg vs. someone who is willing to catch that L for the vacant belt at UFC 214. Get that exposure from Cormier vs. JBJ II and go from there.

Spence won a great back and forth fight. PBC has to build towards Thurman vs. Spence.

FWIW Brook vs. Spence Jr. is about to start.

I'm guessing Pirates is coasting by on past glory, and it will be diminishing returns if they keep putting them out until it is just another IP. I don't know why they decided to do it for $230 million. That's kinda baffling.

I said he would be a top 10-15 fighter. That's not what I'm disputing.

Yes, when you're starting off a division those are some good fighters but we're more than half a decade removed from that. An undersized guy like Benavidez is going to have success in a division that's in its infancy. That's the case in every division. You do not have a slew of 5'9" middleweights or 5'5" welterweights just killing the game like you did in 2001-2007. Things hit a natural evolution in MMA. Someone like Benavidez can be a top 9-15 bantamweight just due to speed, toughness, and youth. However, he isn't breaking that ceiling in the same way Renan Barao couldn't break that ceiling at 145. At 125, Joseph can guard the door for a title shot because he has traits that allow him to continue to be the #2 guy. At 135, he doesn't have that luxury because he is facing other established fighters with many relatively new and coming up fighters. There is nothing wrong with being a top 10 fighter up a weight class where you are very small, but that's not an great indictment for the legitimacy of the division you just came from. Also, that's not a good indictment of why you should just do Garbrandt vs. Dillashaw. That was just saying WEC was entertaining, which everyone knows.

I don't know if legit is the right way to describe it since nobody he beat is still in the UFC except Neil Seery who is about to retire. He beat some decent dudes and looked like he had made some strides joining ATT when he fought Bagautinov. He never had a performance then that made you feel like "oh shit, this dude is the future of 125". He didn't fight Dodson when he was still at FLW, didn't fight Formiga, didn't fight Benavidez, or anyone else of that caliber in that small group of known guys. He was still very much a prospect in the making who decided to leave in free agency. The problem with being a prospect in a very thin division is you challenge for the belt when you shouldn't. That's what happened to him. He was a top bantamweight when bantamweight was as shallow as flyweight. There was no Cody Garbrandt, TJ Dillashaw, Jimmie Rivera, Raphael Assuncao, Thomas Almeida, Aljamain Sterling, Tom Duquesnoy, etc. He can beat the old guard of bantamweights as I said above that never moved past a certain level (Wineland, Eduardo, Gamburyan, and probably Dodson) because he has quickness, but the division has gotten so much better since WEC. Yeah, you can't create chaos in a division where there is one legitimate contender in Joseph Benavidez. You just have DJ fight for the title again because he is clearly better than everyone else. Everything else will fall into place because those guys who shouldn't have been fighting DJ get a chance to gain more experience and perhaps turn the corner as a contender in the interim. That solves that. You can also do Cody vs. Cruz again or Cody vs. DJ or Cody vs. any bantamweight who earned a title shot if DJ wins. Dillashaw is still talented enough to win his way back to the title shot. He isn't going to forget how to fight overnight. Plus, that fight wasn't a really big money fight either. You can always remake it down the line. It's two really young fighters. So saying it's not worth it is very questionable at best.

You put a concentrated effort into marketing the fight, you can make it. DJ isn't 100% at fault for the numbers he has drawn. He was never against a murderer's row of established names. When you're the A side and not a draw, you have no idea what is the ceiling for when you're fighting someone on a comparable level. Cruz-Dillashaw did a good number on Fox and had pretty solid build. You market it as the best fighter in the world against a former bantamweight champion in a fight where history is contingent on DJ winning, you can do business comparable to most of what these PPVs are landing at right now. There are different ways to make it work. If you're lazy and market it as just another PPV, yeah it's not going to do business. However, the enthusiasm the UFC has for making this fight kinda tells you they're not going to put it on autopilot and at least make a concerted effort in spite of DJ's lack of marketability and Dillashaw kinda being bland jock bro-ish. No, I'm saying quite clearly Dillashaw is ready for Mighty Mouse. It's Mighty Mouse to prove he is ready for Dillashaw. Dillashaw has competed in a division where you have at least 3 or 4 quality fighters other himself and you have 3 or 4 guys on the way up where they could be the future of the bantamweight division. There is no one I feel could be a top 7 bantamweight who currently competes at flyweight. I love Louis Smolka's fighting style, but he got beat by a very green Brandon Moreno (mind you, the FIFTEENTH ranked guy on that season of TUF). Elliott is a hell of a scrapper, but he's not really on the level of a top 5 bantamweight. Wilson Reis has always been a solid fighter, but that's his ceiling really. He would get smoked by a somewhat decent bantamweight. His time in Bellator pretty much proved that. Horiguchi was a good fighter, but he's only a banger for 125. He would have significant trouble at bantamweight. Bagautinov just got smoked outside of the UFC by perennial journeyman Tyson Nam. Pettis and Borg aren't really polished enough yet and they're on the verge of getting a title shot. Moreno is green as hell and had trouble in his last fight against Dustin Ortiz, who is solid but at this point he is there to test people. Moreno is probably 1-2 years away from being close to his prime legitimately. Benavidez could become a top 10 bantamweight but he is tremendously undersized. He could beat an Eddie Wineland, John Dodson, or Johnny Eduardo. That's kinda it. I wouldn't be confident he can beat people higher than that. Ian McCall hasn't had a fight in forever. Formiga is a solid fighter, but he isn't even close to the expectations people had for him coming out of Brazil and Shooto. If Montague didn't flop and McCall wasn't cursed w/ some really bad juju, Formiga would be the biggest disappointment at flyweight even with his wins outweighing the losses. Cejudo is very good but he really didn't have that breakout win prior to fighting DJ. How impressive is it beating Chico Camus? The less said about Chris Cariaso getting a title shot, the better. That's the flyweight division that DJ has dominated. They are good relative to a young division where a former, undersized bantamweight who was already a great fighter came down and utterly dominated. This division has improved, but it's still going exactly how everyone thought it would go post tournament. If DJ goes to up to 135 or someone like TJ or Cruz goes to 125, it's no longer a man among boys. DJ is automatically a top 3-5 bantamweight but the tradeoff is either of those guys is automatically no worse than the second best flyweight with zero flyweight fights. If someone like Tom Duquesnoy could make 125, it would be sheer ugliness because very few of those guys matchup that well with him and he is a bantamweight prospect who probably isn't in his prime yet. Because there isn't a strong core nucleus of fighters like 135 or 145, extremely young fighters like Moreno, Pettis, and Borg in addition to people who already fought DJ like Cejudo and Horiguchi are rushed to the title way before they should be challenging for it. If these guys can't get multiple wins over an established fighter (Benavidez hasn't lost to anyone but DJ at 125), how the hell is anyone going to believe they can beat DJ let alone be interested in watching that fight? DJ-Dillashaw would be pick em odds in most places. That's way more enticing than, "Hey, should we watch this -425 underdog face a guy who is outrageously more talented in every facet of MMA than said underdog? Naw, I will just catch the highlights." You want to break up that monotony and also put history on the line, the clear best bet (and the bet UFC is willing to make) is Johnson-Dillashaw. The responses I've seen on social media have been nothing but positive (not counting Ray Borg of course). Everything else is more of the same, and that would be undercutting the importance of someone defending their title that many times. If DJ had two or three legit contenders ready to go, I would feel much differently. However, that's far from the case. So the worst case scenario in making the Dillashaw fight is you give three really good prospects who need ALL the experience in the world before fighting Mighty Mouse a temporary stay of execution. Best case scenario, you get a half decent to good buyrate if you market it effectively and you get easily the most notable flyweight fight in MMA history. In addition, you can probably leverage that into getting Demetrious fights at 135 and opening flyweight up for a new king on the throne.

In Box Office news, both Pirates 5 and Baywatch will debut lower than expected thus continuing the legacy of films disappointing in holiday weekends. Pirates 5 will end up around $75 million and Baywatch will be less than $30 million. So the crappy reviews probably took both down a lot.

There would be vastly more intrigue than any of the flyweight fights. Demetrious is clearly the best flyweight ever, but the guys he is competing against don't have records that hold a candle anyone competing in divisions above 125. Everyone besides maybe Benavidez is hovering around being slightly relevant in terms of having a meaningful resume. So it isn't matter if Dillashaw is ready for DJ but the inverse since Dillashaw is competing in a division where he isn't the only historical relevant and proven fighter. When the division orbits around you as the only achieved fighter by leaps and bounds, yeah you're going to look like Jesus Christ. Going tit-for-tat in a fight with someone who decisively beat DJ is pretty incontrovertible in proving that you're ready. You can do test cuts and Dillashaw isn't that big of a 135er anyway. They were going to give a title shot to someone who had missed weight several times at 125. Cejudo and Borg have a history of not making weight. One already got a title shot and the other is on the brink of getting one. Beggars can't be choosers. That's no indictment against it. Nobody is drawing big numbers this year. 250 to 300K is still a much bigger number 115-120K and that's why the UFC wants to make that fight. They can get it to that level based on curiosity.

You would think the guy who had a back and forth title fight with the last guy to beat Demetrious would be the one. That's why you would want someone like Dillashaw. Sure, it can be one of those Andre Ward vs. Chad Dawson situations where the heavier weight champ destroys his body to fight the lighter weight champ in the latter's division and gets clowned in the fight. However, you run that risk with people who actually fight in that division. If he can make it safely and feels like he can, I'm all for it. The thing is...DJ gets all that flack for not drawing (which I'm not sure really matters anymore because hardly anyone else does either) but he doesn't want to fight any superfights despite people always bringing that up. I have to agree with what Meltzer said on Observer radio earlier this week. If you don't want to market yourself or take any notable fights, how can you expect to be a draw? The annoying questions from the media are going to keep coming especially if you're fighting people who have no shot at beating you, everyone knows that, and hardly anyone tunes in. DJ could easily go on a run where he could fight Dillashaw, Garbrandt, Cruz, and any fighter they could line up and easily cement himself as one of the top 5 P4P ever at any weight. If you beat those dudes in a relatively close vicinity of each other, people are going to take notice. That's how you make money.

I don't think Moreno, Pettis, or Borg would be ready to fight Demetrious at this point or even be remotely competitive. I think at best, the Pettis vs. Moreno winner gets a title eliminator against Benavidez. Does anyone see any of those three prospects beating Benavidez? So if the answer is no, why throw them in with DJ who is way better than Benavidez? The reason I would back a Dillashaw fight is the next defense of the title would be the record breaking title defense. Fighting a prospect who has no chance at winning is not a fight you make for a historic recording breaking title defense. With the Reis fight, the rating was down clearly because it's Wilson Reis and the result was a foregone conclusion. Dillashaw, if he can make 125, gives you another name fighter and it's not clear cut who would win. Plus, Dillashaw would be the best name on DJ's resume.

Germaine de Randamie is refusing to fight Cyborg so I'm thinking that's going to lead to her getting stripped, and Cyborg and whoever Cyborgs fights going for the vacant title. For Michael Bisping, the cheater thing might work. When the division is literally you and the person you refuse to fight, that's going to end badly for you.

Renato Moicano vs. Brian Ortega has been added to the UFC 214 card.

I think both films are solidified around the range they're going to be at. Baywatch is going to be around 17-20 and Pirates is going to be around 29-32.

Yes. She took a very long hiatus after that. She came back, had a local fight, and then signed with Invicta a few years ago. She got injured before she could fight there and hasn't fought since IIRC.