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UFC 177: Dillashaw vs. Soto (8/30/2014) - Sacramento, CA (Sleep Train Arena)


Elsalvajeloco

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That was expected, except not in that length.

 

Joe Soto was such a huge underdog that they were pushing any strikes he landed in highlights in between the rounds.

I thought all things considered, Soto looked pretty good.  His strike defense was really good, until it wasn't, but he needed to throw more if he wanted to win.  For a guy who made his debut in one of the strangest circumstances ever, he handled himself well and is forever in the good graces of the UFC.  That is just a hell of a fight to get thrown into with barely any warning.

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Damon Martin @DamonMartin 7m

Renan Barao and Henry Cejudo won't get paid after missing weight and missing fights. Jorgensen and Birchak paid show and win money #UFC177

 

I thought Soto looked pretty good all things considered. He went from fighting the MFC champ to the UFC champ after already fighting three weeks ago.

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Honestly, I have no complaints on the card tonight.  Not a lot of star power, but the fights were good and I love watching Dillashaw fight.

 

Soto put on an impressive, gutsy performance.  He gave Dillashaw a better fight than Barao did in the first one.  Now I'm not saying Soto is a better fighter, but sometimes MMA is about match-ups and the fight was changed at 24 hours notice.

 

Everyone rose to the occasion and it was a fun card.  Was it worth $60?  Probably not.  But I just went to a bar and watched it and paid for like $6 worth of food and had a good time.  I just like watching MMA.

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Ronda told Dana she wanted Bethe next and Dana said no and that she gets Cat if she wins her next fight.

Sucks. I just love Bethe and want her to get a title shot even if she loses.

Joe Soto will be held at the same height of Ilir Latifi and Fabio Maldonado so he'll be around for a while.

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I just wonder, does Soto's performance put him the rankings at all?  I know he lost, but he put on a gutsy performance and gave Dillashaw a tough fight.  Sometimes good performances even in a loss raise fighters' standings in official rankings.  Just saying.  Not saying he should be in the top 5, but somewhere just outside the top 10 maybe?

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Looking at spots 13-15, you're not going to get a whole lot of arguments about him being there. If you're going rank Cruz (#12) at all, I am not sure why he would be several spots below someone who just got blew out by Johnny Eduardo (Wineland is #6). But that's whatever.

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Based on...

 

Edit: I'm asking because it's not as if TJ won that fight with a single lucky punch.  It was a complete domination in every aspect.  Since that fight TJ defended his title and Barao passed out from cutting weight and had to pull out of the fight, so neither guy has done anything to make anyone think things would be different.  

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So is there a solution to this weight cutting deal?

 

Rogan's interview with Barao at the end of the FS-1 card made it sound like UFC's gearing up to do something about this. It's for the safety of their promoted main events, not for the safety of the fighters, but the fighters will benefit, so that's good.

 

Do you have weigh-ins a week or two before the fight to make sure people aren't cutting 20 pounds in the last week before the fight? Do you tell a fighter they're not fighting at a certain class because their bodies say they need to be a class higher?

 

I know Cormier made the light heavyweight limit, but he's the first person I think of when I think "trapped between weight classes." He may be too big to be a light heavyweight, but not big enough to be a heavyweight. 

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So is there a solution to this weight cutting deal?

 

Rogan's interview with Barao at the end of the FS-1 card made it sound like UFC's gearing up to do something about this. It's for the safety of their promoted main events, not for the safety of the fighters, but the fighters will benefit, so that's good.

 

Do you have weigh-ins a week or two before the fight to make sure people aren't cutting 20 pounds in the last week before the fight? Do you tell a fighter they're not fighting at a certain class because their bodies say they need to be a class higher?

 

I know Cormier made the light heavyweight limit, but he's the first person I think of when I think "trapped between weight classes." He may be too big to be a light heavyweight, but not big enough to be a heavyweight. 

Wouldn't it make more sense to have weigh-ins the day of the event to encourage fighters to wrestle in the weight they actually are?  If the weigh-ins were a week or two before hand it would just give them even more opportunity to fight at 25 pounds higher than their weight class.  Which would beat the purpose of having weight classes in the first place.

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So is there a solution to this weight cutting deal?

 

Rogan's interview with Barao at the end of the FS-1 card made it sound like UFC's gearing up to do something about this. It's for the safety of their promoted main events, not for the safety of the fighters, but the fighters will benefit, so that's good.

 

Do you have weigh-ins a week or two before the fight to make sure people aren't cutting 20 pounds in the last week before the fight? Do you tell a fighter they're not fighting at a certain class because their bodies say they need to be a class higher?

 

I know Cormier made the light heavyweight limit, but he's the first person I think of when I think "trapped between weight classes." He may be too big to be a light heavyweight, but not big enough to be a heavyweight. 

Wouldn't it make more sense to have weigh-ins the day of the event to encourage fighters to wrestle in the weight they actually are?  If the weigh-ins were a week or two before hand it would just give them even more opportunity to fight at 25 pounds higher than their weight class.  Which would beat the purpose of having weight classes in the first place.

 

Sure, that would work fine. No idea why I didn't think of that.

 

What I meant by a weigh-in a week or two before the fight was one to make sure you weren't cutting 20 pounds in a week and then still have the traditional weigh-in to make sure you make weight.

 

It's just that guys are going to be more likely to be able to make weight if they're only cutting 10 pounds in a week as opposed to 20.

 

UFC needs to find a way to help these guys make weight without gaming the system. I think they should be more proactive in saying "dude, you're no (insert class here), you've gotta move up a weight class or we're giving you no more fights."

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UFC needs to find a way to help these guys make weight without gaming the system. I think they should be more proactive in saying "dude, you're no (insert class here), you've gotta move up a weight class or we're giving you no more fights."

 

 

The problem is you can't do that in the same way you can't make teammates fight teammates. When you're talking about guys like Henry Cejudo, whose short career has been plagued by being undedicated and unprofessional, you can give him ultimatums because he hasn't made the company one red cent. However, when you're talking about two guys (Aldo and Barao) who technically never missed weight in the UFC, you have to be careful on how to approach it. They're never going to fight each other, so I dunno if you wanna head down that road. The last thing the UFC needs is another Diaz contract dispute with fighters at Nova Uniao when they have so many shows to run. Even though those guys aren't big names, you need them around to fight.

 

As for the same day weigh-ins, the problem is you are still going to have people cutting crazy amounts of weight. And the very last thing you want happening is what happened this past Friday going down the day of the event. At least the UFC had time to recut and edit some of their video packages for television (Dillashaw also stayed up late to redo interviews).

 

One of the ideas I saw brought up on Twitter is the first weigh-in X amount of days before the real weigh-in. They already do this in boxing for the WBC championship fights (not sure if they still do them because I haven't seen weights for recent title fights) where the fighters are only allowed to weigh a certain % (10 percent usually) of the agreed upon weights four weeks out. For example, for a fight at the junior middleweight limit of 154, a fighter could not weigh in more than 169.4 pounds thirty days before the fight. That would be an idea I would favor, however, I agree that you might run into the problem of guys doing another insane weight cut before that.

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One of the ideas I saw brought up on Twitter is the first weigh-in X amount of days before the real weigh-in. They already do this in boxing for the WBC championship fights (not sure if they still do them because I haven't seen weights for recent title fights) where the fighters are only allowed to weigh a certain % (10 percent usually) of the agreed upon weights four weeks out. For example, for a fight at the junior middleweight limit of 154, a fighter could not weigh in more than 169.4 pounds thirty days before the fight. That would be an idea I would favor, however, I agree that you might run into the problem of guys doing another insane weight cut before that.

 

 

That is what I'd love to see happen.  Remember when Anthony Johnson would cut 60 pounds to make 170?  

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Making weight is a fighter's responsibility, so what can the UFC really do?  It's like, how is your employer supposed to make sure you show up to work on time?

 

It is not safe and it is not healthy, but that is because fighters do crazy shit to cut weight and they just basically try to drop 30 pounds in two days.

Fighters need to be more responsible about their weight cuts.  They should not be trying to drop all that weight in four days.  It should be more like two months.

 

Is Barao going to be MMA's next Rousimar Palhares case?

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One of the ideas I saw brought up on Twitter is the first weigh-in X amount of days before the real weigh-in. They already do this in boxing for the WBC championship fights (not sure if they still do them because I haven't seen weights for recent title fights) where the fighters are only allowed to weigh a certain % (10 percent usually) of the agreed upon weights four weeks out. For example, for a fight at the junior middleweight limit of 154, a fighter could not weigh in more than 169.4 pounds thirty days before the fight. That would be an idea I would favor, however, I agree that you might run into the problem of guys doing another insane weight cut before that.

They might do an insane weight cut to get to that first weigh-in 30 days before the fight, but guaranteeing they only have to cut 10-15 pounds in a month would ensure them time to rebound from any insane weight cut beforehand and probably ensure they'll make weight.

 

UFC's gonna do whatever it has to do to minimize the chances of their main events falling apart the day before the show, it's just good business sense. And sure you can tell them "move up or get no more fights." What are they gonna do, go to Bellator?

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Yeah, they used to weigh in the day of the match and there were some kids that died from excessive weight cutting and they changed the rules for weighing in.  I still feel like the more time you put between the weigh-in and the fight, the more inclined a person is going to be to try to make a lower weight because they know they have that time to let their body recover before the fight.  What Elsa was talking about earlier- having an additional weigh-in at a set time before the final weigh-in is an interesting idea.    

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I'm not really sure what the best solution to the weigh-in issue is because fighters are killing themselves with the weight cuts.  Having a secondary weigh-in and putting a limit on how much weight a fighter can lose or gain sounds sensible, but will it really stop fighters from messing around and doing ridiculous things to make the weight?  

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I don't know the science of it all, but if you have a 1-week weigh-in where you can only 15 pounds over and then the normal 1-day weigh-in, can't the fighter just cut down for the 1-week check and then gain the water weight back and cut down again the day before the fight?  Or is that too much stress on the body to put it through that and still be able to fight?

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