Elsalvajeloco Posted April 12, 2017 Author Share Posted April 12, 2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted April 14, 2017 Author Share Posted April 14, 2017 Marlon Moraes to the UFC is official. He is facing Raphael Assuncao at UFC 212. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twiztor Posted April 16, 2017 Share Posted April 16, 2017 about damn time. Assuncao is a good tough matchup to see how his skills line up in the big leagues. Very much looking forward to him making some waves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheVileOne Posted April 16, 2017 Share Posted April 16, 2017 Anxious to see how Marlon Moraes performs on the bigger stage. It's not just about skills though. Some guys just don't perform as well with all the extra attention. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted April 16, 2017 Author Share Posted April 16, 2017 2 hours ago, TheVileOne said: Anxious to see how Marlon Moraes performs on the bigger stage. It's not just about skills though. Some guys just don't perform as well with all the extra attention. I think Moraes will do just fine. Will he be UFC BW champion in the next 1-2 years? That's hard to say because at no point did he fight someone the caliber of a Dominick Cruz, Garbrandt, TJ Dillashaw, or even someone like Raphael Assuncao. I think fighting someone like Sheymon Moraes will prepare him for guys like Thomas Almeida due to a similarity in styles. Will it prepare him for the toppity top fighters? Probably not. If they sign someone like Justin Gaethje, then it becomes an intriguing situation because Gaethje has had perhaps years taken off his career already. The dude is having knock-down-drag-down fights with Luis Palomino and Luiz Buscape. Both aren't bad fighters, but are they even top 50-60 lightweights in the grand scheme of things? It seems like we get a quality lightweight discovered every other month in the UFC, and we ain't even counting inexperienced prospects who are probably fighting at 170 who will cut down to 155 eventually. Shit, how many guys at 145 can probably beat a good lightweight like Will Brooks as Do Bronx did last week? You can put a Marlon Moraes against Assuncao and feel good that Moraes has a pretty decent shot at winning, but putting Justin Gaethje against a legit top 15-20 LW is 50/50 at best. Durability has worked wonders for Eddie Alvarez, but that's not something I feel good about betting on everytime out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted April 18, 2017 Author Share Posted April 18, 2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted April 18, 2017 Author Share Posted April 18, 2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted April 19, 2017 Author Share Posted April 19, 2017 RIP WSOF Long Live IFL 2.5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheVileOne Posted April 19, 2017 Share Posted April 19, 2017 No wonder Moraes got the heck out of town after he claimed to sign a long-term deal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted April 19, 2017 Author Share Posted April 19, 2017 15 minutes ago, TheVileOne said: No wonder Moraes got the heck out of town after he claimed to sign a long-term deal. Moraes really didn't have an option. Who was he going to fight really? You can fight some UFC castouts and some random Russian/Dagestani fighters, but what does that do for the organization? This goes especially knowing that the WSOF was using the latter as guys to beat up other random fighters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted April 19, 2017 Author Share Posted April 19, 2017 Two new IFW fights: - Gray Maynard will be fighting Teruto Ishihara at the TUF 25 Finale. Yes, they decided to unleash Ishihara out on the streets of Vegas. - Curtis Blaydes will be fighting Daniel Omielanczuk at UFC 213. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twiztor Posted April 20, 2017 Share Posted April 20, 2017 re: wsof so it sounds like they're still going to be holding 4 more wsof events this year to fulfill network obligations? should be interesting to see how that goes (i.e. how many get cancelled) gotta be honest, i don't see the PFL doing great business. getting fighters to fight three times in a ten month period, plus tournament fights, seems like trouble. and good luck staving off injuries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted April 20, 2017 Author Share Posted April 20, 2017 10 hours ago, twiztor said: re: wsof so it sounds like they're still going to be holding 4 more wsof events this year to fulfill network obligations? should be interesting to see how that goes (i.e. how many get cancelled) gotta be honest, i don't see the PFL doing great business. getting fighters to fight three times in a ten month period, plus tournament fights, seems like trouble. and good luck staving off injuries. I think this just shows the lack of knowledge the new owners have in MMA. The IFL concept/model was fun (if you're a hardcore, hardcore fan) for maybe 4-5 months at most. Getting people invested in tournament MMA is going to be super difficult. Getting people invested in tournament MMA when you have only 3 top level fighters (who are average TV draws at best) on roster is pretty much impossible. The lightweight tournament they did as WSOF was fun, but that's because they didn't do tournaments before (or after) that and Bellator cease to do them several months before. Sinking literally millions of dollars into this when you aren't even guaranteed to have TV in 2018 is absurd. If you're going to spend money, you might as well replenish the roster (because they're likely to lose nearly everyone worthwhile before 2017 ends) with talented prospects and sign about 3-5 notable free agents. That way if you run an event every 6 weeks, you at least get someone notable in the main event and have quality prospects on the undercard. Even with the name change, since they didn't clean out the front office in the sale, they're still battling a bad image they created themselves. Who the hell is going to sign with them even with the lure of a million dollars? If they're hemorrhaging money three events in as one would expect, they might not make it into this "playoff" portion of the season. They already had trouble getting ton of folks fights to fulfill their contract...why amplify that and create an even worse atmosphere after the re-branding? I mean if they cancelled and postponed several events this year and last year, I don't expect that trend to end next year just because they have new owners. It's going to be a struggle to sell tickets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted April 20, 2017 Author Share Posted April 20, 2017 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted April 25, 2017 Author Share Posted April 25, 2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted April 25, 2017 Author Share Posted April 25, 2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted April 26, 2017 Author Share Posted April 26, 2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Natural Posted April 27, 2017 Share Posted April 27, 2017 10 years ago this month, Matt Serra caused the biggest upset in MMA history beating Georges St-Pierre for his UFC Welterweight Championship by TKO in the first round at UFC 69. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted April 27, 2017 Author Share Posted April 27, 2017 6 hours ago, The Natural said: 10 years ago this month, Matt Serra caused the biggest upset in MMA history beating Georges St-Pierre for his UFC Welterweight Championship by TKO in the first round at UFC 69. Speaking of GSP, it looks like GSP/Bisping isn't making the 213 deadline and the UFC is looking to have Woodley defend his title. Who that would be against is a mystery. The Maia/Masvidal winner would have a tight turnaround. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig H Posted April 27, 2017 Share Posted April 27, 2017 26 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said: Speaking of GSP, it looks like GSP/Bisping isn't making the 213 deadline and the UFC is looking to have Woodley defend his title. Who that would be against is a mystery. The Maia/Masvidal winner would have a tight turnaround. They could always move Lawler from the Cerrone fight to a rematch against Woodley. Or do they see what they have with Gunnar? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted April 27, 2017 Author Share Posted April 27, 2017 50 minutes ago, Craig H said: They could always move Lawler from the Cerrone fight to a rematch against Woodley. Or do they see what they have with Gunnar? Looking at the rankings, I'm thinking Gunnar would be the backup if it's not Maia/Masvidal. Scrapping Lawler/Cerrone wouldn't make sense because both are coming off bad losses and Lawler in particular is a bad loss, a layoff, and switching teams. Plus, why get rid of a fight everyone wants to see on a card that's definitely going to need it with no absolute money fight. The whole reason it's a Woodley defense and not anyone else (in the case of Nunes, she is taking time off FWIW) is the Wonderboy rematch did better than expected on PPV. Not sure if the quality of that fight is going to affect whether it headlines over the BW title fight or the buyrate, but having Lawler/Cerrone helps sell the PPV in addition to a WW title fight. I'm not a big fan of breaking up quality fights in favor of desperation title bouts especially if no injury/drug test failure has happened yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig H Posted April 27, 2017 Share Posted April 27, 2017 Those are good points and I agree with you. It all makes sense. The only thing with Gunnar is that he only has the one recent victory after a long layoff. As a backup though, I guess that would be ok. Here's a question...If Gastelum doesn't fuck up, AGAIN, does he take on Woodley for the title? Does UFC roll the dice again on Gastelum making weight and not being a fuck up? He and Woodley would sell the hell out of that fight. I sure as shit would buy it. It's just that as far as risk goes, that's about the biggest risk you could take with that fight actually happening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted April 27, 2017 Author Share Posted April 27, 2017 8 minutes ago, Craig H said: Those are good points and I agree with you. It all makes sense. The only thing with Gunnar is that he only has the one recent victory after a long layoff. As a backup though, I guess that would be ok. Here's a question...If Gastelum doesn't fuck up, AGAIN, does he take on Woodley for the title? Does UFC roll the dice again on Gastelum making weight and not being a fuck up? He and Woodley would sell the hell out of that fight. I sure as shit would buy it. It's just that as far as risk goes, that's about the biggest risk you could take with that fight actually happening. You can't bet on Gastelum for a main event especially for a fight that would still seem out of left field. He would be an option if there were no other options. In addition, they already fought once and it didn't exactly knock everyone dead. There is no reason to let Gastelum blow weight against Woodley again and having another poor performance when his stock is higher than it has been in several months. The wildcard option is Nick Diaz, but I don't think either Diaz brother really has a passion to fight anymore. They have money, and I don't think either side wants to drag out a long process of trying to make a fight far from being relevant just to pop a PPV buyrate. Plus, getting off the couch to fight makes sense when you're the B side as it relates to possible PPV success and not the A-side. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted April 27, 2017 Author Share Posted April 27, 2017 According to Ray Sefo, Justin Gaethje is negotiating with the UFC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted April 27, 2017 Author Share Posted April 27, 2017 1 hour ago, Elsalvajeloco said: According to Ray Sefo, Justin Gaethje is negotiating with the UFC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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