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UFC 217: Bisping vs. St-Pierre (11/4/2017) - New York, NY (Madison Square Garden)


Elsalvajeloco

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2 minutes ago, TheVileOne said:

Joanna suffered the Ronda Rousey I'm going to retire undefeated curse.

I don't think anyone will be freaking out about that unless Joanna drops two in a row.

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2 hours ago, J.T. said:

I don't think anyone will be freaking out about that unless Joanna drops two in a row.

I would be more worried about how fighters plan on approaching her in the future. Ronda following Edmond's hideous gameplanning was very much part of her undoing. How do Mike Brown and Katel Kubis rectify her basically getting clipped twice in the span of like a minute or minute and half? Because people won't have as much fear getting in on her as they did prior to this fight.

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13 hours ago, Rick said:

I think Supremebve is short changing not only Bisping but GSP a little there. Taking into account GSP's 4 year layoff, going up a weight class and clearly gassing in the second round to finish a highly regarded middleweight so cleanly is no mean feat. You can't deny Bisping anymore, he won 5 straight fights, he earned his calling as champion. GSP looked incredible in there all things considered. GSP doesn't finish fights but he finished this one in spectacular fashion.

I'm not trying to shortchange either of them.  GSP is probably the best MMA fighter to ever walk the planet, at the very worst he is the 3rd best of all-time.  He is better at all things MMA than Michael Bisping has ever been.  He was the smaller fighter after a 4-year lay off, and still was the better wrestler, better striker, and ultimately the better finisher.  That is extremely impressive.  Michael Bisping was the middleweight champion who won the belt with a once in a lifetime punch on a fighter who is better than him in every way.  Bisping took a fight against the champion on short notice, threw that punch, and knocked out the champion.  He deserves all the credit in the world for that.  He was the rightful middleweight champion of the world, but that didn't make him a different person.  He is the same exact dude who was getting tagged by Thales Leites, he's the same guy who got knocked unconscious by Anderson Silva, and he is the same guy who lost every big fight he was ever in before the Rockhold fight.  He won the title, was almost knocked out by a washed up Dan Henderson, didn't fight a single contender, but somehow we were fooled into believing he could win a fight against one of the best fighters of all time.  He earned the right to be called a champion, but there is no reason whatsoever that we should have believed he was a fighter of the caliber of Georges St. Pierre.  Michael Bisping has had a great career, I'm not taking that away from him, but he was a paper champion. He won the championship fair and square, but so did Matt Serra who may not have been one of the 10 best fighters in the division.  MMA is a sport where anyone can beat anyone else on any given day.  Michael Bisping beating Luke Rockhold, Matt Serra beating GSP, and Vitor Belfort beating Randy Couture all crowned champions.  None of those fights crowned a fighter the best in the division.   

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Bisping vs Anderson was a case of the better fighter losing to the man who fought best.  But Bisping didn't get the record for most UFC victories in a career by being mediocre, he got it by staying in the company (and staying in the top 10 of his division) for longer than anyone else could. And fighting lots of juicers.

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12 minutes ago, AxB said:

Bisping vs Anderson was a case of the better fighter losing to the man who fought best.  But Bisping didn't get the record for most UFC victories in a career by being mediocre, he got it by staying in the company (and staying in the top 10 of his division) for longer than anyone else could. And fighting lots of juicers.

I never said he was mediocre, I said he has never been an elite fighter.  He's been very good for a very long time.  He's not Jerry Rice, T.O. or Randy Moss.  He is Art Monk.  Played for a long time and put up a bunch of gaudy statistics, but there was not a single day in his entire career that he was considered the best in the world at what he did.   

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12 hours ago, TheVileOne said:

I would say the single day was the night he beat Luke Rockhold. 

If you were to make a pound for pound list that day, would you have put Michael Bisping on it?  

The beauty of the sport at the UFC level is that everyone is good enough to beat anyone on any given night.  With that sad, there are clearly guys who separate themselves from the pack.  I am a fan of Michael Bisping and was excited when he knocked out Luke Rockhold.  I just see it as a great moment in time where a guy overacheived and beat a better fighter.  I don't see that as an indication that Bisping is a superior fighter than Luke Rockhold.  It kind of reminded me of the time Kevin Randleman knocked out Mirko Cro Cop at Pride Total Elimination 2004.  Kevin Randleman was a really good fighter who was a step down from Cro Cop, Big Nog, and Fedor, but if you put him in the ring with any of those guys he'd be competitive and had the ability to win.  He wasn't a better fighter than Cro Cop in 2004, but that didn't matter when his fist hit Cro Cop's chin.  That was the last great moment in Randleman's career and a moment that fans from the time will never forget.  That matters.  He'll live forever in the minds of thousands of fans who never thought he'd be able to knock out Cro Cop.  Why is that not enough?  Michael Bisping is a guy who has been very good for over a decade, but there were multiple fighters in his weight class better than him his entire career.  He knocked out the champion, and got to carry around the most prestigious 185 lb. championship in the world for over a year.  That is fantastic for him and for his fans.  We also should be able to look at these things and separate these great moments from the overarching narrative of the division.  Michael Bisping is a really good fighter who had the night of his life, and we should respect that.  We also shouldn't give it more credit than what it deserves.  

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20 hours ago, supremebve said:

Michael Bisping was the middleweight champion who won the belt with a once in a lifetime punch on a fighter who is better than him in every way. 

Obviously Rockhold was not better in every way, otherwise he'd have won the fight.

21 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

I would be more worried about how fighters plan on approaching her in the future.

I would be worried also.  First order of business for Joanna and her trainers would be to go back to the drawing board.

Watch film of that fight and previous fights to see if perhaps there is some physical cue that Rose picked up on that allowed Rose to optimize her striking capability.

Rose didn't fight with a normal fighter's confidence; she was in a zone beyond good and evil.  IMO, you don't maintain that unflappable level unless you have some keen insight into the performance of your opponent that you are prepared to exploit.

Good poker players pick up on the tell of others, so Joanna has to figure out what her tell is and how Rose figured out what it was is so that she can weed it out of her muscle memory via lots and lots of training..

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I'm guessing Trevor Wittman saw something in the fight on last year MSG's card where Karolina dropped Joanna hard that would help Rose if it wasn't the knockdown itself.  Usually, when fighters and/or trainers say they see something they can exploit coming into a fight, the fighters and/or trainers either don't have the skill or expertise to really execute those strategies. Rose and Trevor Wittman reminded me so much of Miesha and Robert Follis coming into UFC 196 against Holly Holm. They clearly saw something to be that confident, which is why I was adamant that Follis might be pivotal in helping Tate get over some physical and tactical disadvantages she was obviously going to have in that fight.

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1 hour ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Rose and Trevor Wittman reminded me so much of Miesha and Robert Follis coming into UFC 196 against Holly Holm. They clearly saw something to be that confident, which is why I was adamant that Follis might be pivotal in helping Tate get over some physical and tactical disadvantages she was obviously going to have in that fight.

Well, Follis didn't have to look that hard for answers. 

He already had the Rousey / Holm fight as the blueprint for what not to do when you are an elite grappler facing off against an elite counterstriker..

99% of Miesha's winning strategy for the Holm fight was not forgetting that she was a really good wrestler.

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13 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

I'm guessing Trevor Wittman saw something in the fight on last year MSG's card where Karolina dropped Joanna hard that would help Rose if it wasn't the knockdown itself.  Usually, when fighters and/or trainers say they see something they can exploit coming into a fight, the fighters and/or trainers either don't have the skill or expertise to really execute those strategies. Rose and Trevor Wittman reminded me so much of Miesha and Robert Follis coming into UFC 196 against Holly Holm. They clearly saw something to be that confident, which is why I was adamant that Follis might be pivotal in helping Tate get over some physical and tactical disadvantages she was obviously going to have in that fight.

I can see that.  Rose is also a different fighter in the first round when she is fresh and executing her trained gameplan than she is once she tires and has to adjust to what her opponent is doing.  She was winning against Karolina until Karolina started clinching with her and throwing knees.  Rose went from looking like she was going to cruise to a victory to looking like she had no answers for Karolina's offense.  MMA is my favorite sport to watch because we never know what is going to happen.  Rose, who is still very young, has been a bit of an underacheiver for her career.  She is the type of fighter who feasts on fighters below her level, but hits a wall once she steps up in competition.  I'm a huge fan of hers and I'm glad she made it over that hump.  I still wonder how she'll do against a fighter like Claudia Gadelha or Jessica Andrade who are going to tough enough to take her punches and force her to adjust to their pressure.  Strawweight is one of the most competitive divisions in the sport and is full of really young talented fighters.  I want to know if this is a changing of the guard where Rose is coming into her own as a fighter or if the top of this division is going to just turn into a meat grinder and the belt is going to trade off among the top 3-5 women in the division over and over again.

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27 minutes ago, J.T. said:

Well, Follis didn't have to look that hard for answers. 

He already had the Rousey / Holm fight as the blueprint for what not to do when you are an elite grappler facing off against an elite counterstriker..

99% of Miesha's winning strategy for the Holm fight was not forgetting that she was a really good wrestler.

I think doing the opposite of Ronda is good for neutralizing Holly Holm but how do you actually win the fight? Because I mean some of the girls Holly Holm fought in Jackson Fight Series, Legacy FC on AXS TV, and Bethe Correia all did that early on. That just made for what looked to be really boring fights. Then, they eventually got into Holly's range and soundly got head kicked for their troubles. Granted none of those girls were good grapplers, the assumption (right or wrong) is you at least have to offer some offense to setup a takedown. Otherwise, you're going straight into the woodchipper.

I think for Miesha at least, she didn't over commit on too much to where Holly could pounce on a mistake. Plus, she didn't gas herself being ferocious on every takedown attempt. If they rematched right after that, I don't think Miesha would've been able to replicate that because Holly would know she is planning for two or three quality Hail Mary attempts. Therefore, Holly would try to shrug off takedowns and stay away for most of the fight.

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18 hours ago, AxB said:

Bisping vs Anderson was a case of the better fighter losing to the man who fought best.  But Bisping didn't get the record for most UFC victories in a career by being mediocre, he got it by staying in the company (and staying in the top 10 of his division) for longer than anyone else could. And fighting lots of juicers.

That last bit is VERY important. Most of his losses came to drug cheats and TRT patients (care to guess why those guys needed that).

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1 hour ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

I think doing the opposite of Ronda is good for neutralizing Holly Holm but how do you actually win the fight? Because I mean some of the girls Holly Holm fought in Jackson Fight Series, Legacy FC on AXS TV, and Bethe Correia all did that early on. That just made for what looked to be really boring fights. Then, they eventually got into Holly's range and soundly got head kicked for their troubles. Granted none of those girls were good grapplers, the assumption (right or wrong) is you at least have to offer some offense to setup a takedown. Otherwise, you're going straight into the woodchipper.

I think for Miesha at least, she didn't over commit on too much to where Holly could pounce on a mistake. Plus, she didn't gas herself being ferocious on every takedown attempt. If they rematched right after that, I don't think Miesha would've been able to replicate that because Holly would know she is planning for two or three quality Hail Mary attempts. Therefore, Holly would try to shrug off takedowns and stay away for most of the fight.

Yes, I totally agree with the strategy that a fighter should offer some sort of feint in order to set up your takedowns as you change levels; otherwise you are going to allow your opponent to prepare to sprawl and stuff you or (even worse) counter you with a knee as you're shooting.

The other part of the riddle of Holly Holm that Follis solved was that dragging Holly into deep water would probably pay huge dividends as Holly has often complained about how weight cuts hurt her performance. 

Shevchenko and de Randamie used different strategies better suited to their own fighting styles in order to beat Holly, but all of those wins have the common thread of forcing Holly to try to win a five round war of attrition and really testing Holly's stamina and resolve.

To her credit, Miesha did not over commit to her techniques and forced Holly to expend a lot of energy trying to counter Miesha's grappling.  Holly grew more and more demoralized as the fight went on and the rest was history. 

Obviously, Follis called it right because you could see the light leave Holly's eyes the longer her fights lasted with Shevchenko and de Randamie.

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9 minutes ago, sabremike said:

That last bit is VERY important. Most of his losses came to drug cheats and TRT patients (care to guess why those guys needed that).

OK, I know for a fact that Wanderlei Silva, Dan Henderson,  Vitor Belfort and Chael Sonnen were TRT guys, but was Tim Kennedy?  Everything I found online was him talking shit about dudes who were on TRT.  Tim Kennedy 

I think Michael Bisping is probably better than Old Ass Wanderlei, Vitor Belfort and Chael Sonnen if they aren't on the TRT juice.  Wanderlei was way past his prime and but then again Bisping wasn't quite at his peak for their fight.  Vitor was a guy who was an elite talent with the confidence of a 8th grader who just got beat up by the class bully.  He should have been an all-time great, but he didn't get there based mostly on his inability to deal with adversity.  Chael Sonnen is about as one dimensional as any fighter who has any success in the modern era of MMA.  He can wrestle his ass off, but is a terrible striker and has some of the worse submission defense in the entire sport.  Those guys in the same boat as Michael Bisping though.  They were good enough to be contenders, but probably wouldn't get over the hump when it mattered.  Dan Henderson probably still smashes him without TRT him and Tim Kennedy is probably the worst match up possible for Michael Bisping.  Bisping is the only one of those guys who won a UFC title in the current era(Vitor cutting Couture's eyelid doesn't count in my book.  That should have been a no contest).  He's closer to this class of guys than he is to the elite fighters in the sport.  

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1 minute ago, supremebve said:

OK, I know for a fact that Wanderlei Silva, Dan Henderson,  Vitor Belfort and Chael Sonnen were TRT guys, but was Tim Kennedy?  Everything I found online was him talking shit about dudes who were on TRT.  Tim Kennedy 

I don't think Kennedy was a TRT guy but he did look gassy and I don't mean like Pepsi and Taco Bell gassy. But if he got that physique naturally, good for him and the genetics he got from his parents.

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16 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

I don't think Kennedy was a TRT guy but he did look gassy and I don't mean like Pepsi and Taco Bell gassy. But if he got that physique naturally, good for him and the genetics he got from his parents.

Tim Kennedy looks like he should be competing at heavyweight, and is a huge blowhard so I don't take his steroid denials seriously.  He's also someone who couldn't stay healthy after a while and got out of the sport after getting knocked silly by a overweight middleweight in his first fight after USADA testing.  None of those things mean he took steroids, but they don't make me overly confident that he didn't.  

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33 minutes ago, supremebve said:

Tim Kennedy looks like he should be competing at heavyweight, and is a huge blowhard so I don't take his steroid denials seriously.  He's also someone who couldn't stay healthy after a while and got out of the sport after getting knocked silly by a overweight middleweight in his first fight after USADA testing.  None of those things mean he took steroids, but they don't make me overly confident that he didn't.  

The whole aura around him during fight week for the Gastelum fight was pretty weird. Just weeks before you had the whole fighter's league or association thing and then that fell apart the week of 206. You had people like Cerrone, who obviously was on that card too, walk stuff back. Kennedy had the duty of playing the PR guy to make it sound like the house wasn't going down in flames. Tim Kennedy, the guy who has never been afraid to say how he felt and spent most of his hiatus hunting a man who has been dead for the better part of 70 years, tried to play publicist for a fighter's association that never even got off the ground. That was a very strange media week for the fighters mostly due to that. I think Kennedy took the Gastelum fight to see if he had anything left and he didn't. That's going to be an odd footnote in middleweight history.

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Georges St-Pierre

Posting this photo with the news about Georges St-Pierre vacating the UFC Middleweight Championship with health issues. Health is wealth. Health is crucial. Great if he returns and if he doesn't, to jump up a weight class after a four year absence to win the UFC Middleweight Championship is a fine way to go out.

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