2018 Non-Event General MMA Talk Thread

[Jiji]

They're in the same weight class?! At first glance, I feel like Casey's physicality could be too much for Waterson.

[Elsalvajeloco]

1 hour ago, Oyaji said:

They're in the same weight class?! At first glance, I feel like Casey's physicality could be too much for Waterson.

I'm starting to think they might add a 105 belt/division just to keep Waterson around. Casey is inconsistent, but she's a giant strawweight.  

Speaking of former Invicta champs, Jennifer Maia has signed or is close to signing with UFC.

[DreamBroken]

10 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Speaking of former Invicta champs, Jennifer Maia has signed or is close to signing with UFC.

Wow, the last Invicta champ remaining before every title will be vacant now.

[Hail Sabin]

I think Waterson will beat Casey and if they do a 105 champion we know they will do it on a season of TUF which would be cool even cooler if they had female champions as coaches. 

[Elsalvajeloco]

Yeah, I can understand why people would turn that fight down.

[Jiji]

There are some really exciting prospects in UFC and he may be the most complete.

[Elsalvajeloco]

 

[Elsalvajeloco]

I tried to tell you the North region of Brazil is still the Wild Wild West for MMA. Well...

 

[Elsalvajeloco]

 

[Elsalvajeloco]

 

[Jiji]

I fully expect Claudia to ragdoll Esparza.

[DreamBroken]

Awesome fight potential. Crazy that was originally supposed to headline Invicta 4 back in 2013 but Claudia broke her nose in training, then Claudia was Carla's replacement at Invicta 6 and their fight was rescheduled for Invicta 7 but Claudia was hospitalized after the weigh ins. 5 years in the making.

[Elsalvajeloco]

 

[Elsalvajeloco]

Another MMA team bites the dust: Academia XGym (former stomping grounds for Anderson Silva, Jacare, Rafael Feijao, Erick Silva, Alan Patrick, and Warlley Alves) is basically no more and been sold as of last year. With Jacare moving to Orlando, that would mean Alan Patrick and Warlley Alves were basically the last two fighters repping the team. I'm guessing those two probably slide over to Team Nogueira or one of those offshoot teams.

[Elsalvajeloco]

Speaking of Jacare

 

[Elsalvajeloco]

 

[Elsalvajeloco]

 

[supremebve]

You know what the worst part about the WME era of the UFC is?  They are putting on great, well-matched fights, but no one gives a fuck because no one knows who the fighters are any more.  Those two fights are both phenomenal fights, but Jimmie Rivera, Marlon Moraes, Edson Barboza, and Kevin Lee could walk into a room full of casual fight fans and they may recognize Edson Barboza and ask why is Kevin Lee is dressed like that.  Most of them wouldn't know any of those great UFC veterans by name.

[Elsalvajeloco]

1 hour ago, supremebve said:

You know what the worst part about the WME era of the UFC is?  They are putting on great, well-matched fights, but no one gives a fuck because no one knows who the fighters are any more.  Those two fights are both phenomenal fights, but Jimmie Rivera, Marlon Moraes, Edson Barboza, and Kevin Lee could walk into a room full of casual fight fans and they may recognize Edson Barboza and ask why is Kevin Lee is dressed like that.  Most of them wouldn't know any of those great UFC veterans by name.

To be fair, plenty of people were saying that between the Lesnar era and McGregor era. That's solid four years of people shitting on Zuffa's inability to make stars. As for those guys, Moraes has been pretty noteworthy so far on the prelims and that's coming off a WSOF run where only Justin Gaethje and a dude with only one full arm got publicity. Lee-Chiesa did a pretty decent number and you can even say very good because it's Kevin Lee and Michael Chiesa on a Sunday night. Shit, they basically did DOUBLE what Matt Mitrione and Roy Nelson just did and that was on Paramount (fka Spike) with a shitload of promotion. They're pushing Jimmie Rivera and given him quality matchups on TV. He's still in the middle of that process so it's kinda hard to judge him right now. So they're doing a pretty good job all things considered, but the other half is the fighter's ability to make themselves into stars. When you're in a saturated market, you have to make yourself stand out. If you let the promotion do all the legwork, you're up shit creek. 

The MMA fan bubble is shrinking all around (that Bellator # on Friday night is proof positive it's just not a UFC thing). People wanted to go back to the good ole days. Welcome back!

[supremebve]

1 minute ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

To be fair, plenty of people were saying that between the Lesnar era and McGregor era. That's of solid four years of people shitting on Zuffa's inability to make stars. As for those guys, Moraes has been pretty noteworthy so far on the prelims and that's coming off a WSOF run where only Justin Gaethje and a dude with only one full arm got publicity. Lee-Chiesa did a pretty decent number and you can even say very good because it's Kevin Lee and Michael Chiesa on a Sunday night. Shit, they basically did DOUBLE what Matt Mitrione and Roy Nelson just did and that was on Spike with a shitload of promotion. They're pushing Jimmie Rivera and given him quality matchups on TV. He's still in the middle of that process so it's kinda hard to judge him right now. 

People were saying this during the Lesnar era, but the McGregor era is kind of the start of the problem.  McGregor is the kind of personality that allows the UFC do the bare minimum and still make millions.  They seem to have forgot how hard he was pushed before he became the loudmouth crazy person.  They need to push Kevin Lee like that, he's about as crazy of a personality as they have and he dresses like the lost member of Jodeci.  Seriously, for the 10-25% of their audience who watch everything, Kevin Lee is a potential star, but to that other 75-90% they kind of recognize him for talking about someone's momma.  Barboza has multiple highlight reel knockouts, and has been in the UFC forever, but he's just another guy to most of the fan base.  The two bantamweights might as well be two random dudes off the street.  If Jimmie Rivera walked into a bar that was showing the UFC fights, how many people do you think would recognize him?  I'm thinking its less than 5.  That dude is right in that sweet spot between blue chip prospect and top contender entering his prime.  He should be someone people other than the two of us know.  All of these guys are a win or two away from a title, they should have a higher profile.  

[Elsalvajeloco]

1 hour ago, supremebve said:

 They need to push Kevin Lee like that

The thing is with lightweight being the shark tank that it is and perhaps the biggest shark not even having the belt yet, do you really put all your chips on Kevin Lee? I mean he's charismatic and he tries even though he may try a little too hard. However,  the problem is he already fought for one version of the belt, was unsuccessful, and how many people see him beating the winner of Ferguson/Khabib? If this was boxing, a promoter would already have their bets on Kevin Lee and he would already have one of the alphabet titles. I mean look at Adrien Broner. Kevin Lee is more talented as an MMA fighter than Broner is a boxer. Broner hasn't done jackshit (the knockdown of Emmanuel Taylor was cool looking I guess but it's pillow fisted Emmanuel Taylor) since he outgrew 130 pounds and somehow became a worse boxer over time. It's the complete opposite of Floyd leaving 130 and legitimately over time proving he's the best P4P in the world. Also, on that flip side is Emanuel Steward's last protege Tony Harrison who has that whole swagger about him. Again, another case of more charisma than actual talent though. If this was four or five years ago before the Charlo twins won their belts and someone asked who has more talent and upside at 154/160 between the Charlos and Tony Harrison, it would not be crazy for someone to say Tony Harrison because he had the Emanuel Steward pedigree and walked over everyone before Willie Nelson ate his lunch in what was suppose to be a showcase fight. Now one Charlo twin could have a super competitive fight with either Canelo or Golovkin without it being out of the realm of possibility, and the twin brother they called the lesser fighter found his KO power in a big way. He might be the best junior middleweight in the world.

With fighting you can't really forecast guys making that type of improvement (or decline). However, the much safer bet is Khabib Nurmagomedov or a Tony Ferguson.

1 hour ago, supremebve said:

Barboza has multiple highlight reel knockouts, and has been in the UFC forever, but he's just another guy to most of the fan base. 

He also has the losses, and I'm one of the most lenient people when it comes to the losses. They tried but you have to win the fights. They got behind Ngannou and Gonzaga and a whole host of the dudes who had HL reel finishes. Lando Vannata was about to be pushed HARD and then he lost to David Teymur (on commentary, they tried hard to put him over in that fight when Teymur was clearly winning). Now Teymur is probably going to get that push. That's the way it is.

1 hour ago, supremebve said:

All of these guys are a win or two away from a title, they should have a higher profile.  

Winning and the generic UFC hype machine isn't really the most proven combination. So it's based on what? Jimmie Rivera ain't exactly mid 80s Dusty Rhodes or anything like that. The UFC coverage landscape vacillates between this really hot thing with one or two specific star(s) with something unique about them (GSP, Lesnar, JBJ, Rousey, Anderson Silva, Conor, Kimbo, the Liddell/Couture/Ortiz triumvirate, and maybe Fedor for non UFC) and this weird niche sport where you might see or hear something that's sorta exciting. Been like that almost two decades now. Everything that happens in the middle of that is pure luck. 

[Elsalvajeloco]

Nunes vs. Pennington for UFC 224 is now official. It was suppose to be Cyborg vs. Nunes, but when the Holloway thing happened, they began immediately working on that fight instead since Pennington is now healthy.

[Elsalvajeloco]

 

[supremebve]

17 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

The thing is with lightweight being the shark tank that it is and perhaps the biggest shark not even having the belt yet, do you really put all your chips on Kevin Lee? I mean he's charismatic and he tries even though he may try a little too hard. However,  the problem is he already fought for one version of the belt, was unsuccessful, and how many people see him beating the winner of Ferguson/Khabib? If this was boxing, a promoter would already have their bets on Kevin Lee and he would already have one of the alphabet titles. I mean look at Adrien Broner. Kevin Lee is more talented as an MMA fighter than Broner is a boxer. Broner hasn't done jackshit (the knockdown of Emmanuel Taylor was cool looking I guess but it's pillow fisted Emmanuel Taylor) since he outgrew 130 pounds and somehow became a worse boxer over time. It's the complete opposite of Floyd leaving 130 and legitimately over time proving he's the best P4P in the world. Also, on that flip side is Emanuel Steward's last protege Tony Harrison who has that whole swagger about him. Again, another case of more charisma than actual talent though. If this was four or five years ago before the Charlo twins won their belts and someone asked who has more talent and upside at 154/160 between the Charlos and Tony Harrison, it would not be crazy for someone to say Tony Harrison because he had the Emanuel Steward pedigree and walked over everyone before Willie Nelson ate his lunch in what was suppose to be a showcase fight. Now one Charlo twin could have a super competitive fight with either Canelo or Golovkin without it being out of the realm of possibility, and the twin brother they called the lesser fighter found his KO power in a big way. He might be the best junior middleweight in the world.

With fighting you can't really forecast guys making that type of improvement (or decline). However, the much safer bet is Khabib Nurmagomedov or a Tony Ferguson.

I don't think we're talking about the same thing.  There is a very good chance that none of these dudes ever become champion, but that doesn't mean they can't be marketable fighters who the UFC can't make money pushing.  Kevin Lee is a really good fighter and a fun personality.  He could very easily be pushed like a lightweight Chael Sonnen as a brash loudmouth who is entertaining as hell whether he wins or loses.  All four of the guys who we are discussing are fighters who you can push as legitimate contenders who matter.  If they win, they are supposed to win, if they lose the person who beat them has a win that matters.  Daniel Cormier is the only light heavyweight anyone cares about.  Tyronn Woodley is a champion who doesn't have a single contender anyone cares about.  Talentwise, the UFC is a deep as it has ever been, they've just lost sight on how to make that talent matter to the audience.  Chael Sonnen, Kenny Florian, Nick and Nate Diaz, Chad Mendes, etc.  all guys who never won a title, but all guys that the audience cared about and were invested in their careers.  The UFC doesn't really have any of those guys right now.

[Elsalvajeloco]

49 minutes ago, supremebve said:

I don't think we're talking about the same thing.  There is a very good chance that none of these dudes ever become champion, but that doesn't mean they can't be marketable fighters who the UFC can't make money pushing.  Kevin Lee is a really good fighter and a fun personality.  He could very easily be pushed like a lightweight Chael Sonnen as a brash loudmouth who is entertaining as hell whether he wins or loses.  All four of the guys who we are discussing are fighters who you can push as legitimate contenders who matter.  If they win, they are supposed to win, if they lose the person who beat them has a win that matters.  Daniel Cormier is the only light heavyweight anyone cares about.  Tyronn Woodley is a champion who doesn't have a single contender anyone cares about.  Talentwise, the UFC is a deep as it has ever been, they've just lost sight on how to make that talent matter to the audience.  Chael Sonnen, Kenny Florian, Nick and Nate Diaz, Chad Mendes, etc.  all guys who never won a title, but all guys that the audience cared about and were invested in their careers.  The UFC doesn't really have any of those guys right now.

I don't think they lost sight as much as you have to convince MMA fans now you're the real deal, and that's growing harder and harder because the talent level is so high. Remember when the argument was that UFC > boxing because you get more bang for your buck and boxing only has two fights per card in many cases. Well, boxing is now reaping the benefits of that and UFC and MMA in general is faltering because you can't sell everybody as a killer or some brash personality. You can't bullshit the fans anymore. You wanna know why Top Rank was able to have a phenomenal year on ESPN last year. It's because they took most of the talent HBO was using the last couple years because HBO was only singularly focusing on those guys. Pacquiao has been a star for almost ten years, but Bud Crawford and Lomachenko ascended to superstardom in terms of ratings gold because HBO didn't have five or six other fighters to focus on their undercards. Granted HBO had many shitty cards before Top Rank took their guys to ESPN, but HBO placed their bets on only a handful of fighters at that moment (Ward, Pacquiao, Kovalev, GGG, Roman Gonzalez, Canelo, Gilberto Ramirez, Crawford, and Lomachenko).You had a whole slew of fighters who were "contenders" because HBO didn't really put their full weight behind those guys because it's fruitless to a big extent. The UFC has a problem in that have a ton of good fighters, but none of them stand  out in any sort way to casuals like a GGG or Bud Crawford. Kevin Lee or whatever guy you can name is meaningful to us (meaning hardcores) because we can properly contextualize him in the space of fighting as well. You wanna know why Conor got the super push? Because he had a big fanbase before and coming off the Brimage fight. The UFC didn't built that fanbase. They just realized it existed much like Dave Meltzer contacted the UFC after they buried PVZ vs. Curran on the prelims. The people who had been watching Cage Warriors had been telling them to sign McGregor forever. ESPN in 2017 didn't do anything special to get those huge ratings. They just realized those fighters had fanbases that were already crafted.

And thing is....if you see those guys fights, what more do you need to see as a fan? People saw the Barboza's KO of Etim and that was still around the Spike era. So it's not like Edson Barboza is this new fighter straight from LFA who has a few fights in the UFC under his belt. The folks who have seen him fight know he's a very good fighter, but they don't need to rush home to see him fight. If you can see the Dariush KO on Twitter and not really need to know the context or even who the hell is in the clip, you saw what you needed to see. The thing is, as a casual fan or a former hardcore fan who veers in and out of the sport, was that enough to invest you in checking out not only the fight but investing in the UFC product? For a lot of people, that's a no because they don't wanna have to watch every card to pick out what's what and who is who. On Spike and the early Fox run, they really hadn't burned people out. The reason the contenders aren't bigger than what they are is if the fans don't want to invest in them even when they KNOW this guy is good or can talk, the UFC isn't going to be motivated to do anything on their part to get more behind them. That's been the UFC M.O. since TUF blew up and that was almost a decade and a half ago.

If the fans were able to meet the UFC halfway like they were when you were only a half a dozen seasons into TUF and only doing a select number of shows, then it would be a much different story. The UFC wasn't doing anything special to built up CB Dollaway or Ross Pearson. The circumstances around what the UFC was and how their platforms were already solidified were much different. HBO Sports has had a ton of changeover in the last several years, but what they've engineered works in a certain way because it's reliable even when they struggled to create stars for very long stretches and had a boatload of awful/mediocre fights. You can also say the same for Showtime. The UFC never had that crash pad to fall back on because their cards only got bigger and even in many cases, more bogged down. So in this era of MMA, to gain any foothold or traction with the fans, it needs to be a special fighter. If it's the case with boxing, it is certainly going to be the case for MMA.