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UFC 232: Jones vs. Gustafsson II (12/29/2018) - Inglewood, CA (The Forum)


Elsalvajeloco

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On 12/24/2018 at 5:14 AM, jaedmc said:

I dunno man the scientists say it's possible and that this kind of "pulsing" happens. And it also sounds like they don't believe he could have gotten any benefit from this.

I'm choosing to just go with whatever the experts say because a) I don't know much about the science of drug testing and b) I don't actually care about PEDs in sports and don't think less of people who take them. Take 'em all, I say  

What scientists? UFC has said "world class scientists" told them, but not named any of them from what I have seen, which basically sounds like a Trump quote.

As for "pulsing", please explain how after 18 months the result is actually HIGHER than it was originally? His original failure was 20-80 and now it's somehow 60?

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I dunno, Frank Mir and Tom Lawlor both have points that they were never given this much leeway. Not saying they are both innocent, but seems like they've gone out of their way to give Jon Jones loopholes or outs. 

I can't believe Jon Jones is clean anymore. Something is clearly going on here. He's clearly either cycling or using something to mask or clean out his system. 

I don't trust any fighter who claims they are clean. 

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12 hours ago, Norwegian Rudo said:

What scientists? UFC has said "world class scientists" told them, but not named any of them from what I have seen, which basically sounds like a Trump quote.

As for "pulsing", please explain how after 18 months the result is actually HIGHER than it was originally? His original failure was 20-80 and now it's somehow 60?

A bit off topic but

Dude, where in the blue hell did you come from? (That's a rhetorical question)

The UFC can put on fun card after fun card and I see the usual people post about it. Even with McGregor, it is folks I recognize that might drop a reply here or there. Ever since the hit and run, whenever Jon Jones does something, random people post here that I never seen post in this particular forum in 10+ years of being here. Hell, Naimark even came back briefly for some passive aggressive racism.

If Ace needed anymore proof that Jon Jones is a draw on his own, I offer him no better evidence than this. I don't expect this same level of engagement for say Douglas Silva de Andrade vs. Petr Yan on Saturday and the latter may be a future UFC champ in the not too distant future.

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Maybe it's due to the garish tattoos (especially on his back) and being able to go up to 265, but Mir came back looking bigger fight after fight in an era where dudes were shrinking left and right. He was just a little bit too bold. Didn't help him one bit which makes that particular case sadder. He cheated and still couldn't stop the rapid deterioration and erosion of his skills. 

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8 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Maybe it's due to the garish tattoos (especially on his back) and being able to go up to 265, but Mir came back looking bigger fight after fight in an era where dudes were shrinking left and right. He was just a little bit too bold. Didn't help him one bit which makes that particular case sadder. He cheated and still couldn't stop the rapid deterioration and erosion of his skills. 

I definitely believe Mir was juicing. He was exposed as a TRT user in 2012. So figure, he's 32-33 when he's fighting Junior dos Santos. The prominent belief is that TRT is used to compensate for low testosterone after abusing steroids. 

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15 minutes ago, TheVileOne said:

I definitely believe Mir was juicing. He was exposed as a TRT user in 2012. So figure, he's 32-33 when he's fighting Junior dos Santos. The prominent belief is that TRT is used to compensate for low testosterone after abusing steroids. 

If Pezao was still allow to be on TRT and if Duffee wasn't Todd Duffee and get himself KO'd, Frank Mir realistically would be 0-10 in his last 10 fights.

Usually, I don't do "X wouldn't have lost to Y six or seven years ago". He got washed by Javy Ayala with his young daughter cornering him. He is going to end his career as a sub .500 fighter, whether he cheats or doesn't cheat.

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1 hour ago, TheVileOne said:

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He's lucky there's no testing in Bellator.

My point is, USADA has been massively lenient to Jones whereas they threw the book at Mir and Lawlor.

I was editing my other reply but I may as well make a new one (so cont.)

Lawlor got caught when USADA was in witch hunt mode (in which most MMA fans online seem to be cool with at the time), which I discussed as being a potential problem in one of the older USADA/Class Action Lawsuit/NY regulation threads. They gave no quarter and arbitration didn't really mean anything other than a fighter wasting his or her money and time just to get the same sanction they were going to get anyway. In the time since, they has been an overcorrection of sorts when honestly they should have been more diplomatic (obviously not to the point where every fighter gets a mea culpa and fight after six months) from the get-go. They would have pissed some folks off, but there would have been more consistency. There were too many instances early on where it was no name fighter gets caught and then gets punished for a year or two years. The problem was you would have some folks with the ability to fight the positive and be absolved but it would go under the radar or fans look at it as another person looking toward tainted supplements. The rest would seemingly admit guilt in some fashion or just not attempt to fight it all, just go away, and mysteriously come back. There have been several times in the USADA era where I made an event thread and been wondering why someone has a year or so between UFC fights (or if they ever fought in the UFC before like a handful of fighters who were suspended before ever fighting in the UFC).

So when you have a polarizing figure like Jon Jones who is prone to screw up, you (meaning USADA) can't ever fuck up which is a bit bizarre because since the beginning it's been about how they would handle big names. They can suspend random Brazilian female fighter who is probably a fringe UFC fighter for however long. Therefore, Lawlor was always expendable because very few people know who he is. They fumbled with Josh Barnett, but at the same time, Barnett was the first big drug cheat in MMA to the point where he put a whole company out of business. They were way too hard on Josh Barnett, but apparently not hard enough on Jon Jones. Based on how this hasn't affected what has happened in terms of overall fan support over the last few years, I am more and more of the mind that online fans and those from social media don't accurately reflect who attends these events and buy these PPVs. So when Corey Anderson has this emotional plea or Mark Hunt goes an IG tangent about PPV sales and ticket sales, the first question that comes to my mind about those two bringing up that point: Why does Jon Jones bring all to the table to the UFC when he has done the things that he has done? Either this dude is Mayweather 2.0 where he is that polarizing or this man is the best heel in combat sports history to the point where even non MMA fans want in. McGregor is drawing from old fans who dropped off during the transition from Spike to Fox and Ronda was getting women to watch. Jon is on this different level where people are more interested in his antics and therefore his fights almost become case studies for me. What person is going to show up to write a college thesis about how Jon Jones about fucking up and then disappear into the ether until the next go round? I am so intrigued everytime it happens now.

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Ultimately, I blame the fans and media for this. UFC was basically harangued into bringing in USADA because of all the pearl clutching over testing and TRT beforehand. When people started hearing about TRT, the general tone in the media was "Why is this allowed? These are PEDs! They should be illegal!"

Now you have Luke Thomas all of the sudden proclaiming there's no correlation with steroids and performance and wanting to see "excellence" when there's a UFC event. 

You wanted a "clean" sport. You can't have it both ways. Pandora's box can never be closed. 

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On 12/23/2018 at 9:05 PM, Elsalvajeloco said:

Light Heavyweight has always been star or at least notable name heavy. His three lowest were OSP on three weeks notice (322k), Gustafsson I (310k) and Glover (350k). That's basically high end Manny Pacquiao or Floyd numbers pre De La Hoya so I would consider that a success. He did 450k with Belfort. Is he a mega draw? Yeah, in a big grudge match against DC. Is he a bigger draw on PPV than anyone currently active not named McGregor and Canelo? Yes. Just below him is Cyborg, Cormier, Khabib (on the strength on that Brooklyn show overperforming), Dillashaw (on the strength of 227), and now Holloway (on the strength of 218 and 231). Whittaker did a solid number in the Romero rematch so he maybe on the cusp. Everyone else is an anti-draw especially Nunes and Woodley now that DJ is gone. I would put Cejudo, Valentina, and Rose in the undecided category.

If they can somehow break a couple of those guys out of the middle of the pack and get them into the 400k-500k range, the UFC would make an absurd amount of money on top of the absurd amount of money they will get for the ESPN TV deal. Hence why it's extremely important for them to get off on the right foot on ESPN. If they negotiate for a bigger cut of the PPV like what was rumored to be happening then it's game over. I think even if the new cut was 60-40 in favor of the UFC, they would be happy with that. I think 70-30 would only happen if Canelo stayed on DAZN and there was no hope for Mayweather-Pac II. Plus, the earliest a potential Joshua-Wilder fight could take place is the summer of 2020. Even then, they would be careful schedule around Canelo's Cinco de Mayo fight and the Tokyo games.

But anyway, I would say yes that Jon is draw by himself. However, like everyone else, it is best to have the proper dance partner. Nothing would compare to the business of a third fight with DC.

Thanks kindly for laying it out for me. 

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6 hours ago, TheVileOne said:

Ultimately, I blame the fans and media for this. UFC was basically harangued into bringing in USADA because of all the pearl clutching over testing and TRT beforehand. When people started hearing about TRT, the general tone in the media was "Why is this allowed? These are PEDs! They should be illegal!"

Now you have Luke Thomas all of the sudden proclaiming there's no correlation with steroids and performance and wanting to see "excellence" when there's a UFC event. 

You wanted a "clean" sport. You can't have it both ways. Pandora's box can never be closed. 

I think the largest issue was the original discussion of whether or not IC should be subject to a drug testing agency to begin with. I say that because with MMA fans, we would reach a "now, since we are here..." phase.

This is why I was so uncomfortable (granted I know some of the context behind it, i.e. Floyd's connection with USADA) with Lampley and Kellerman singing the praises of VADA and Margaret Goodman. What was VADA actually cleaning up? Because I mean since that time (or post Mayweather Pacquiao), there hasn't been a bunch of failures let alone failures that change the course of boxing. Outside of Alexander Povetkin, who has had their career altered? People are now outright skipping VADA tests all together and it doesn't really matter. Like at all. And I don't believe for one second that just everyone is clean in boxing except for five people. There are people on PEDs in MMA but everyone in boxing is just doing road work. Yeah, no.

Even if the fighters were employees, the problem with a drug testing agency is once they become an extension of the commissions, you get the good and the bad. Maybe I'm biased since I don't like most of the people on these commissions, but commissions come with a lot of bad (New York can't seem to have a trouble free UFC show). So I'm not shocked that Jones can get leniency. If the people in Nevada weren't on vacation (which doesn't make sense when you have your biggest MMA show of the year at the same time), he would be granted leniency there so DC should slow his roll before saying Nevada is cool. You don't need collusion when everyone has something invested in the pot.

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The commissions are government bureaucracies at the end of the day. The government can't even run the post office efficiently. 

Independent contractors. It's not my call, but why can't UFC work out some sort of deal so fighters are no longer considered independent contractors if that would make things easier? Before someone says it's impossible, Dana White used to claim some sort of year-round random drug testing policy would also be impossible. 

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As for the NSAC being on 'vacation.'

I think they are not tossing softballs to the UFC anymore after McGregor fiasco, which has yet to have a hearing.

 

1 hour ago, TheVileOne said:

Independent contractors. It's not my call, but why can't UFC work out some sort of deal so fighters are no longer considered independent contractors if that would make things easier? Before someone says it's impossible, Dana White used to claim some sort of year-round random drug testing policy would also be impossible. 

Insurance reasons.  Easier to unionize.  They would be responsible for herding a bunch of cats, I mean fighters, with respect to random drug tests and other stuff.  In other words, less responsibilities and less overhead.  If they pay someone to do it and something goes wrong, it is out of their hands.

 

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33 minutes ago, evilwaldo said:

As for the NSAC being on 'vacation.'

I think they are not tossing softballs to the UFC anymore after McGregor fiasco, which has yet to have a hearing.

They haven't had a meeting yet because (at least on Khabib's side) Nevada is trying to work out a deal. Jon might be in front of Nevada before they (Conor and Khabib) are.

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13 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

They haven't had a meeting yet because (at least on Khabib's side) Nevada is trying to work out a deal. Jon might be in front of Nevada before they (Conor and Khabib) are.

Either way that's pathetic on their part.

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2 hours ago, TheVileOne said:

Either way that's pathetic on their part.

They did have a lot more footage to go through.  They have the Arena's security footage in addition to all of the PPV feeds.  Khabib will just stall until he gets the same deal as Conor.

In any event, I don't think the NSAC is on a best friend basis with the UFC until everything is settled from Conor/Khabib.  This is something they would have swept under the rug until after the fight previously.  Now, someone stood up to Dana so instead of swapping out the main he ran to LA.  The question becomes was this Dana's call or the new owners?

At this point, the Jones fight is tainted like his sample.  If he wins, everyone will be all over his drug test and Dana will stand up there making excuses.  The best thing would be for Jones to back out of the fight but they pot committed to the move in order to placate Jones.

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