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UFC 199: Rockhold vs. Bisping II (6/4/2016) - Inglewood, CA (The Forum)


Elsalvajeloco

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UFC 199: Rockhold vs. Bisping II 
June 4, 2016
Inglewood, CA (The Forum)

UFC Middleweight Championship: Luke Rockhold © (185) vs. Michael Bisping (185) (first defense) - Bisping, KO (punches), R1 (3:36)
UFC Bantamweight Championship: Dominick Cruz © (135) vs. Urijah Faber (134.5) (first defense) - Cruz, DEC (unanimous)
Max Holloway (146) vs. Ricardo Lamas (145.5) - Holloway, DEC (unanimous)
Dan Henderson (185.5) vs. Hector Lombard (184.5) - Henderson, KO (head kick and elbows), R2 (1:27)
Dustin Poirier (155.5) vs. Bobby Green (155) - Poirier, KO (punches), R1 (2:53)

Fox Sports 1 Preliminary Card:
Brian Ortega (145) vs. Clay Guida (146) - Ortega, KO (step-in knee), R3 (4:40)
Beneil Dariush (156) vs. James Vick (155.5) - Dariush, KO (punch), R1 (4:16)
Jessica Penne (115.5) vs. Jéssica Andrade (115.5) - Andrade, TKO (punches), R2 (2:56)
Cole Miller (146) vs. Alex Caceres (145.5) - Caceres, DEC (unanimous)

Fight Pass Preliminary Card:
Sean Strickland (171) vs. Tom Breese (170.5) - Strickland, DEC (split)
Jonathan Wilson (205.5) vs. Luis Henrique da Silva (205.5) - Da Silva, TKO (punches), R3 (4:11)
Kevin Casey (185) vs. Elvis Mutapcic (185) - DRAW (majority)
Polo Reyes (155) vs. Dong Hyun Kim (154.5) - Reyes, KO (punches), R3 (1:52)

Event Bonuses ($50,000?
Performance of the Night: Dan Henderson
Performance of the Night: Michael Bisping
Fight of the Night: Polo Reyes vs. Dong Hyun Kim

Attendance: 15,587
Gate: $2.17 million
Buyrate: 320,000

Cancelled Bouts:
John Makdessi vs. Mehdi Baghdad - Bout Moved to Another Card
Evan Dunham vs. Leonardo Santos - Injury to Santos 
Evan Dunham vs. James Vick - Injury to Dunham 
BJ Penn vs. Dennis Siver - Injury to Siver 
Luke Rockhold vs. Chris Weidman - Injury to Weidman (Neck)
B.J. Penn vs. Cole Miller - Penn Flagged for USADA Violation for IV Usage

Edited by Elsalvajeloco
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I watched one of those hype shows on Faber-Cruz, and they do such a great job of hyping those fights that I'd love to see it, even though I have a feeling that Cruz will easily win. Correct assessment?

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51 minutes ago, jstout said:

I watched one of those hype shows on Faber-Cruz, and they do such a great job of hyping those fights that I'd love to see it, even though I have a feeling that Cruz will easily win. Correct assessment?

Even though Rivera has improved his wrestling and Saenz is kinda a trap fight at 135, it's clear Faber has lost a step or two. I think if this fight was four or five years ago, it's another pick em fight. I think in the Dillashaw fight, Cruz was able to work off lots of the rust. Plus, Dillashaw is a very quick fighter. Much quicker in terms of striking than Faber ever was. I think Faber isn't really able to take advantage of being a good grappler against talented fighters anymore because some of that explosion he once had is missing. Plus, the middle tier of bantamweight has gotten slightly better. I think Faber can steal beast on certain opponents, but it's clear it is going to be versus bottom rung bantamweights. The problem is he isn't facing those guys. So that leaves two options really: get blown out by top level bantamweights or start fighting top 15-20 bantamweights closer than what would be the case a few years ago. If Cruz hasn't lost a step himself, this is going to be 50-45 x3 all the way. Faber is going to need a knockdown or quick takedown early on to get Cruz second guessing. I just don't see that happening. Hell, the latter might work against him. The last thing you want to do is gas out your arms fighting for one takedown against someone who will be able to fight the remaining 20 or so minutes strong.

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Watching the Embedded episode, Rockhold is still a gigantic man for middleweight. He's damn near the same size as Cain. Hard to believe that Cain was whooping this dude's ass in training only a few years ago.

Also, in the post Anderson Silva murderdeathkills everyone world, there is a middleweight who is 6'2" or taller that isn't just some dude in the division. Five years ago in the UFC, it was Anderson and Okami and then like Jason MacDonald, Ed Herman, and Kendall Grove. I mean you still have those dudes, but there is a wider array of those fighters. You can have your Jake Colliers and Chris Camozzis, but you have a stud like Rockhold who can be more than just a semi decent, lanky dude and doesn't have to be like the best MMA striker of all time to be excellent.

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Love this lineup, stacked card with several of my top favorite fighters in Bisping, Cruz, and Penne. Plus always dig Henderson even if I don't see that ending welll and Dariush/Vick sounds like a good one.

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Bisping's own son is picking Rockhold to win. I'd love it if Bisping won though. I don't see any way in which he can, but it would be great if he did.

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Seems unlikely. There were a bunch of reasons why Silva fought that way, and Rockhold isn't 42 years old and coming back from a series of career threatening injuries. And given he was training for Weidman for most of his camp, he won't have been preparing with the mindset of 'This guy sucks, all I have to do is show up and I'll win for sure".

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Poor Uriah Faber.  If this were six years ago in the WEC, it would be anyone's fight, but the California Kid's job in the UFC is to test the mettle of up and coming contenders.  Faber has lost a step and Cruz is more elusive than ever.

Cruz will talk shit about KOs and Subs but he will point fight and puff punch his way to another UD or SD.  I will probably hate the main event.

I hope Rockhold smashes Bisping.

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4 hours ago, AxB said:

Seems unlikely. There were a bunch of reasons why Silva fought that way, and Rockhold isn't 42 years old and coming back from a series of career threatening injuries. And given he was training for Weidman for most of his camp, he won't have been preparing with the mindset of 'This guy sucks, all I have to do is show up and I'll win for sure".

By training at AKA, Rockhold doesn't really do that. For their faults as a camp, that's not something you're going to run into often anyway.

As for Bisping's chances, I think I would feel better if he was a more consistent fighter. Even in the fights I think he is winning handily, he leaves tiny little openings that could potentially become huge ones. Even if Bisping is winning a round on the feet, Rockhold can always toss him to the ground, get his back, and eventually get his neck. When someone is that dynamic as a fighter, they can knock down that house of cards easily. If Rockhold achieves mount on Bisping, there is no way he survives that unless there is like 15 seconds left in the round.

I think on three weeks notice, his only chance is to remove any type of physicality from the fight and hope Rockhold continues to overthink himself for 25 minutes. The problem is Bisping is the type of fighter who runs straight into that physicality. Even if it is 2-1 or maybe something wild occurs where it is 3-0 Bisping heading into the championship rounds, you still cannot feel good about Bisping to pull the victory out in the end. Something could offset that entire thing.

 

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Thing is, after Sunday, Faber's ex protege and one of his current ones may be way better at fighting Dominick Cruz than him. You don't have to be unbeatable to beat this iterration of Urijah Faber. Faber probably trained super hard to defeat his great foil and fighters really try to rise to the occasion when everyone is betting against him, but in a lot of those cases, those fighters are in their physical prime or close to it. Recently, you had Barberena vs. Alves and the two big bantamweight fights last Sunday. Faber trying to be competitive with Cruz wouldn't have been a problem...five years ago. Style matchup wasn't that difficult. Now, we most likely have reached a point of this fight showing how good Dillashaw is now.

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Everyone expects that. Not all of us want it, but it's fairly inevitable. They're building this card as a grudge match show because they know that selling it as 'Epic fights! Possible title changes! Legend vs Legend!' isn't credible.

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1 hour ago, AxB said:

Everyone expects that. Not all of us want it, but it's fairly inevitable. They're building this card as a grudge match show because they know that selling it as 'Epic fights! Possible title changes! Legend vs Legend!' isn't credible.

To be fair, before Weidman got hurt, they were pretty much billing the original main event rematch as a grudge match rather than the top two middleweights fight again.

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It just struck me watching the hype show that they've been keeping Faber busy with nobodies kinda like they were stalling for this fight. If Faber lost a few times in a row, no one would care about the fight. So he wasn't in with the big names. Faber seems to be a middle-of-the-packer while Cruz is champ.

Cruz basically said as much - the hype show was Cruz basically saying "dude, you suck" and Faber saying "oh yeah?"

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Faber is nowhere near the fighter he used to be and I still expect Dominick to win this rubber match, but Cruz's shit talking is unconvincing. 

That UD win he has over Faber did not quite wash away the shame of tapping out to Faber's GC in their first fight.  That loss still bother's Cruz since it's his only defeat.

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1 hour ago, jstout said:

It just struck me watching the hype show that they've been keeping Faber busy with nobodies kinda like they were stalling for this fight. If Faber lost a few times in a row, no one would care about the fight. So he wasn't in with the big names. Faber seems to be a middle-of-the-packer while Cruz is champ.

Cruz basically said as much - the hype show was Cruz basically saying "dude, you suck" and Faber saying "oh yeah?"

I don't think they were stalling for this fight. After the loss to Barao, there wasn't much they were able to do with Faber. It didn't help that Dillashaw was still with TAM when he won the belt. So, we had that whole thing. Hence, the random superfight between Faber and Edgar. They wanted to do Dillashaw vs. Faber because Cruz wasn't healthy yet and neither was Assuncao. This only came back along because a Dillashaw rematch with Cruz probably wouldn't draw as many eyeballs as the rubber match between Cruz and Faber. Plus, you can line that up should Cruz take care of business on Saturday and Dillashaw beat Assuncao in their rematch.

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