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2019 Non-Event General MMA Talk Thread


Elsalvajeloco

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To follow up on my previous statement about MMA being full of absurd opinions, I have to address one of the more ridiculous MMA conversations that people just let slide.  Alexander Gustoffson didn't beat Jon Jones in his first fight...he wasn't robbed...he won at the very most two rounds of that fight.  I consume a lot of MMA media, because I'm a fan, I have a long commute, and I work in a boring ass office.  It is amazing how many so-called knowledgeable people who were saying they thought Alexander Gustoffson won their first fight.  I rewatched the fight, just to make sure I wasn't crazy, but Jon Jones won 3 of the 5 rounds pretty clearly, and I wouldn't argue if someone gave him a fourth.  Seriously, rewatch the fight, score every round like a judge and you'll realize Jones clearly won that fight.  It's a great fight, but Jon Jones clearly won 3 out of the 5 rounds.  Jones won the 1st, 4th and 5th, and I can see how someone would give him the 2nd.  Gustoffson won the 3rd and was on his way to winning the 4th before he ate that spinning elbow.  Jones then put it on him for the remainder of the round in a way that no one in their right mind would give Gustoffson that round.  

The worst part of rewatching that fight is the commentary.  There are a couple of instances when Goldberg starts running off stats, which are completely and totally untrue.  In the 4th round, Goldberg says that Gustoffson had landed over 120 significant strikes...except if you Google the fight stats, he only landed 114 total strikes in the fight.  Then in the 5th round he says that Gustoffson landed over 200 significant strikes...are we supposed to believe that he landed 80 strikes in that round?  According to FightMetrics, he landed 26.  Where did he get those numbers?  Why is he saying it on the broadcast?  Rogan is no better.  Going into the last round, he says that Jones probably needs to finish Gustoffson to win the fight.  He just watched Jones knock him stupid, and spend the last minute and a half battering Gustoffson around the cage.  When he says that, Gustoffson is clearly winded, just took a beating, and just had his legs cut out from under him as he was taking over the fight.  Gustoffson had fought a great fight, the toughest challenge of Jon Jones' career, but at that moment he is at best tied, but nothing in that moment should make anyone think he is winning.  The job of the play by play guy is to explain to the audience what is going on in a way that even the most casual fan can understand, except he is giving the audience terrible information.  The purpose of the color commentator is to give context to what is happening in the cage, but he's putting the fight into the exact wrong context.  He's telling the audience that the champion who just took control of the fight is fighting from behind.  He's telling the audience that Gustoffson, the fighter who ended the previous round on wobbly legs and is desperate need of a second wind, is in control of the fight. 

I understand why plenty of fans believe that Gustoffson won, because they are watching a fight as entertainment and not necessarily judging the fight.  There is no reason why anyone who is supposed to have any expertise should be saying that Gustoffson won that fight.  The 3rd round was definitively his, he probably eeked out the 2nd round, he was taking over the fight in the 4th before getting hit with a huge shot and clearly losing that round.  Jones clearly won the first, he outlanded Gustoffson, controlled the range, and was able to pop up from Gustoffson's takedown.   He won the 4th round, and could have finished him if he had an extra 30 seconds or so, and he won the 5th, because Gustoffson was completely spent.  It was a great fight, but Gustoffson only won 2 rounds, and one of those was the closest round of the fight.  His best round was a round that he ultimately lost.  When these things are documented, they should be documented correctly.  It would be like if people were going around saying that the Falcons beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl before giving up that 28-3 lead.  Sure there was a point of that fight where you could argue Gustoffson was winning, but when you tally the score at the end of the fight he clearly lost.  

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3 hours ago, supremebve said:

To follow up on my previous statement about MMA being full of absurd opinions, I have to address one of the more ridiculous MMA conversations that people just let slide.  Alexander Gustoffson didn't beat Jon Jones in his first fight...he wasn't robbed...he won at the very most two rounds of that fight.  I consume a lot of MMA media, because I'm a fan, I have a long commute, and I work in a boring ass office.  It is amazing how many so-called knowledgeable people who were saying they thought Alexander Gustoffson won their first fight.  I rewatched the fight, just to make sure I wasn't crazy, but Jon Jones won 3 of the 5 rounds pretty clearly, and I wouldn't argue if someone gave him a fourth.  Seriously, rewatch the fight, score every round like a judge and you'll realize Jones clearly won that fight.  It's a great fight, but Jon Jones clearly won 3 out of the 5 rounds.  Jones won the 1st, 4th and 5th, and I can see how someone would give him the 2nd.  Gustoffson won the 3rd and was on his way to winning the 4th before he ate that spinning elbow.  Jones then put it on him for the remainder of the round in a way that no one in their right mind would give Gustoffson that round.  

The worst part of rewatching that fight is the commentary.  There are a couple of instances when Goldberg starts running off stats, which are completely and totally untrue.  In the 4th round, Goldberg says that Gustoffson had landed over 120 significant strikes...except if you Google the fight stats, he only landed 114 total strikes in the fight.  Then in the 5th round he says that Gustoffson landed over 200 significant strikes...are we supposed to believe that he landed 80 strikes in that round?  According to FightMetrics, he landed 26.  Where did he get those numbers?  Why is he saying it on the broadcast?  Rogan is no better.  Going into the last round, he says that Jones probably needs to finish Gustoffson to win the fight.  He just watched Jones knock him stupid, and spend the last minute and a half battering Gustoffson around the cage.  When he says that, Gustoffson is clearly winded, just took a beating, and just had his legs cut out from under him as he was taking over the fight.  Gustoffson had fought a great fight, the toughest challenge of Jon Jones' career, but at that moment he is at best tied, but nothing in that moment should make anyone think he is winning.  The job of the play by play guy is to explain to the audience what is going on in a way that even the most casual fan can understand, except he is giving the audience terrible information.  The purpose of the color commentator is to give context to what is happening in the cage, but he's putting the fight into the exact wrong context.  He's telling the audience that the champion who just took control of the fight is fighting from behind.  He's telling the audience that Gustoffson, the fighter who ended the previous round on wobbly legs and is desperate need of a second wind, is in control of the fight. 

I understand why plenty of fans believe that Gustoffson won, because they are watching a fight as entertainment and not necessarily judging the fight.  There is no reason why anyone who is supposed to have any expertise should be saying that Gustoffson won that fight.  The 3rd round was definitively his, he probably eeked out the 2nd round, he was taking over the fight in the 4th before getting hit with a huge shot and clearly losing that round.  Jones clearly won the first, he outlanded Gustoffson, controlled the range, and was able to pop up from Gustoffson's takedown.   He won the 4th round, and could have finished him if he had an extra 30 seconds or so, and he won the 5th, because Gustoffson was completely spent.  It was a great fight, but Gustoffson only won 2 rounds, and one of those was the closest round of the fight.  His best round was a round that he ultimately lost.  When these things are documented, they should be documented correctly.  It would be like if people were going around saying that the Falcons beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl before giving up that 28-3 lead.  Sure there was a point of that fight where you could argue Gustoffson was winning, but when you tally the score at the end of the fight he clearly lost.  

This goes to the whole thing that I've brought up several times here and that's Emanuel Steward's belief of comparative rounds. The reason I say that is you mentioned the MMA media and the horrible commentary. When you compare the lead up to Jones/Gustafsson I and Rousey/Holm, there is an underlying theme to both. Before UFC 165, the MMA community tore apart the UFC's marketing of how Gustafsson had a longer reach than Jones. It wasn't just on the basis of it being a shitty way to market a fight, but the fact everyone believed Gus had not a chance whatsoever and if reach was his only advantage, he was going to face the same fate as all other Jon Jones foes. When they made Rousey vs. Holm and Dana basically stated Holly got the shot because simply she was next in line, people (including myself admittedly) thought she was going to get Judosized and it would look like something out of a Jim Kelly movie. The problem with that belief being so swayed in one direction is anything going in the opposite direction is a complete mindfreak. Hence, Emanuel Steward's commentary about comparative rounds and how judges may be affected by the fact that if one fighter who everyone believes is a supposed longshot overperforms or overachieves in one or more categories in one round as opposed to getting his ass handed to him in the other rounds, it's much easier to give that person that round. All the real scoring criteria goes out the window. Keeping that in mind, you had Holly Holm dominate the Rousey fight from the first second until Rousey laying on the octagon floor as a crumpled mess of lifeless limbs with a torso and head attached. Due to the fact that Mike Goldberg was rarely good at his job, he totally blew this historic night and what could have been his career defining call and made it sound like Rousey was just going to turn it on any second. However, you can't let Rogan off the hook just because his opinions were more in line with what was actually happening in the cage. He was freaking out like he was watching a random road rage fight compilation on Youtube all the while trying to convince Goldberg that Rousey was getting her face rearranged. The two commentators were both failing to contextualize the event that night, and thus, there was no one that had the ability to steer the ship back in the right direction or any direction anywhere near its destination.

Now when you rewind it back to September 2013 and Jon Jones is on the level of a Rousey, if they couldn't call a fight where the underdog is outright decimating the huge favorite, how in the hell would they be able to call a close nip tuck fight between similar roleplayers? If Gus stood upright by the end of the fight and had a modicum of success in multiple rounds, Gus was going to get the benefit of the doubt. That's the troubling thing about MMA whether you want to talk about the media, fans, and the commentators. When the narratives are heavily skewed in favor of one opinion or a few parallel viewpoints, you lose out on a lot when there is no one to redirect those narratives into something more realistic that can be readily discussed and also edifying at the same time. If everything is "X is going to get his/her ass kicked" or "wow, that's a shitty fight/mismatch"  or "fuck it, we want X vs. Y instead of X vs. Z" from the minute a fight is announced (not saying these feelings sometimes are always irrational obviously), what is the point of having fights two or three months out? You think about it when it's first made, give your crappy unfiltered first opinion, and don't think about it again until the weigh-in or night of the fight. And that's a very shitty way of consuming the sport. When the MMA media is largely awful and you have commentators like Goldberg and Rogan who as a tandem are MMA fan friendly but on an almost deceitful, carefully manufactured level that deprives you of lasting enjoyment, the way you consume the sport is going to be more and more dictated by your ability to navigate a space where actual analysis is deemed as out of sync or out of step w/ logic.

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7 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Due to the fact that Mike Goldberg was rarely good at his job,

I believe it is the 2nd Chuck/Tito fight, where he says something like, "90,000 people are on their feet."  The attendance that night in the MGM Grand Garden Arena was 13,761.  

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4 hours ago, supremebve said:

I believe it is the 2nd Chuck/Tito fight, where he says something like, "90,000 people are on their feet."  The attendance that night in the MGM Grand Garden Arena was 13,761.  

You're not counting the backstage staff and the people working in the arena, sir.

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52 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

You're not counting the backstage staff and the people working in the arena, sir.

If I had more free time, I'd go back and watch all the Goldberg commentated UFCs and take notes on every factual inaccuracy.  Goldberg held onto that job so much longer than he deserved, it is insane.  His commentary on the Jones/Gustafsson fight was just plain irresponsible.  Seriously, I went back and looked at the fight metric numbers to see if I remembered the fight incorrectly.  The numbers pretty much confirmed what I remembered from the last time I watched it.  Then I started watching the fight and it was playing out exactly how I remembered.  Then Goldberg started rattling off statistics and they clearly weren't based on anything I was seeing.  I honestly want to know where he got those numbers from because they aren't anywhere close to what the actual statistics.  Not only are they wrong, they don't actually make sense in the context that he was stating them.  If Gustafsson landed 120 strikes in the first 3 rounds, that would be an average of 40 strikes, which isn't out of the question, but it also isn't true.  Then he says at the beginning of the 5th that Gustafsson landed over 200, which would mean he landed about 80 strikes in the 4th...when he pretty much didn't land anything in the last minute and a half of the round.  The fact that he can't see that those numbers are wrong is kind of insane.  I'd be willing to bet that no light heavyweight has ever landed 80 strikes in a round.  Max Holloway, who throws as much volume as anyone in the entire sport and is 50 lbs. lighter, has only landed 80 strikes in a round twice.  

I need to watch the first BJ Penn/Frankie Edgar fight one day, because I remember the commentary (and possibly the judging) not matching up very well with what was actually happening in the fight. 

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7 hours ago, supremebve said:

I believe it is the 2nd Chuck/Tito fight, where he says something like, "90,000 people are on their feet."  The attendance that night in the MGM Grand Garden Arena was 13,761.  

He is just channeling Jim Ross when he claimed Mick Foley fell from 60 feet when it was really 25 or 30 feet. 

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1 hour ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Contingent on Jones being cleared in Nevada, UFC 235 will feature Jon Jones vs. Anthony Smith for the light heavyweight title.

The co-main event is suppose to be Woodley vs. Usman.

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2 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Contingent on Jones being cleared in Nevada, UFC 235 will feature Jon Jones vs. Anthony Smith for the light heavyweight title.

 

1 hour ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

The co-main event is suppose to be Woodley vs. Usman.

 

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Dana White still hasn't announced where UFC 233 was moved to. 

I hope Anthony Smith gets that fight. I don't think he beats Jones in a million years, but that doesn't really matter. Never would've expected he'd have turned it around and make it to the contender level in UFC. 

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58 minutes ago, TheVileOne said:

Dana White still hasn't announced where UFC 234 was moved to. 

I hope Anthony Smith gets that fight. I don't think he beats Jones in a million years, but that doesn't really matter. Never would've expected he'd have turned it around and make it to the contender level in UFC. 

If you mean 233, I'm guessing just another card in SoCal in the summer just like 208 at Staples turned into 214 at the Honda Center. With 232 happening at the Forum, that complicates it a little. They may decide that 232 was the makeup show for that and go to a different market. I think it all depends on the locales of the other cards in the spring. I think if they go to San Jose, Oakland, Sacramento, Bakersfield, or somewhere else in that time, that pretty kills any chance of them going to Los Angeles or Anaheim a month or two later. Also, you would want to a quality main event and/or card to go along with it.

 

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3 minutes ago, TheVileOne said:

In other words the event was cancelled, not moved. 

Then why did you ask? It's January 7. The news came out weeks ago. It was made apparent then that Whittaker vs. Gastelum was the first PPV card. I also posted the event schedule along with the scheduled dates for the April, May, and June cards. You didn't see that card on there, correct? You should probably read through the thread or the previous threads before you start asking questions.

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20 hours ago, twiztor said:

i hope we get UFC 233 in like July or something. keep the same numbering just to mess with everybody.

I was always partial to the .5 the one time they did it. UFC 233.5 would as be real as it gets.

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Woodley vs. Usman is official.

The Wichita show will have Tim Boetsch vs. Omari Akhmedov, Anthony Rocco (fka Tony) Martin vs. Sergio Moraes, Beneil Dariush vs. Drew Dober, and Marion Reneau vs. Yana Kunitskaya.

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