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UFC 240: Holloway vs. Edgar (7/27/2019) - Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (Rogers Place)


Elsalvajeloco

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UFC 240: Holloway vs. Edgar 
July 27, 2019
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

UFC Featherweight Championship: Max Holloway © (145vs. Frankie Edgar (145) (third defense) - Holloway, DEC (unanimous)
Cristiane Justino (146) vs. Felicia Spencer (145) - Justino, DEC (unanimous)
Geoff Neal (170.5) vs. Niko Price (169) - Neal, TKO (punches), R2 (2:39)
Olivier Aubin-Mercier (155.5) vs. Arman Tsarukyan (155) - Tsarukyan, DEC (unanimous)
Marc-André Barriault (184.5) vs. Krzysztof Jotko (185.5) - Jotko, DEC (split)

ESPN2 Preliminary Card:
Alexis Davis (125) vs. Viviane Araújo (125) - Araújo, DEC (unanimous)
Hakeem Dawodu (146) vs. Yoshinori Horie (145.5) - Dawodu, TKO (head kick), R3 (4:09)
Gavin Tucker (145) vs. Seung Woo Choi (145) - Tucker, SUB (rear naked choke), R3 (3:17)
Alexandre Pantoja (125) vs. Deiveson Alcântara (126) - Alcântara, DEC (unanimous)

Fight Pass Preliminary Card:
Gillian Robertson (125) vs. Sarah Frota (125) - Robertson, TKO (elbows and punches), R2 (4:13)
Erik Koch (170.5) vs. Kyle Stewart (170.5) - Koch, DEC (unanimous)

Event Bonuses ($50,000)
Performance of the Night: Hakeem Dawodu
Performance of the Night: Geoff Neal
Fight of the Night: Alexandre Pantoja vs. Deiveson Alcântara

Attendance: 12,144
Gate: $1.45 million
Buyrate

Cancelled Bouts:
Mara Romero Borella vs. Lauren Murphy - Bout Moved to Another Card
Tanner Boser vs. Giacomo Lemos - Lemos Failed Drug Test
 

Edited by Elsalvajeloco
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3 minutes ago, twiztor said:

man, this card takes a nose dive in name fighters after the top few.

Agreed. The main event is where it's at as I'm a fan of both fighters more so Frankie Edgar. Last fight on Cyborg's UFC contract, right? Cyborg's first fight since Amanda Nunes smashed her inside a minute.

Edited by The Natural
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13 minutes ago, twiztor said:

man, this card takes a nose dive in name fighters after the top few.

The top two fights on the ESPN2 portion are good (I'm high on Araujo and Horie vs. Dawodu should be a slugfest) and Neal vs. Price is a decent fight. Pantoja vs. Figueredo should be fine. Everything else, not including what I mentioned and the main and co-main, is fodder.

10 minutes ago, The Natural said:

 Last fight on Cyborg's UFC contract, right?

Yeah and it doesn't sound like talks to get a new deal are going very well. From what I can put together, Dana is basically trying to goad Cyborg into fighting Amanda again for less money than what Cyborg wants in a new deal. 

If Cyborg beats Spencer, she has a bit more leverage. If she doesn't, Bellator will probably give her a big offer (and probably PFL as well) but it also sounds like Cris wants to do stuff besides MMA. 

Edited by Elsalvajeloco
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On 7/23/2019 at 5:52 PM, Elsalvajeloco said:

Yeah and it doesn't sound like talks to get a new deal are going very well. From what I can put together, Dana is basically trying to goad Cyborg into fighting Amanda again for less money than what Cyborg wants in a new deal. 

If Cyborg beat Spencer, she has a bit more leverage. If she doesn't, Bellator will probably give her a big offer (and probably PFL as well) but it also sounds like Cris wants to do stuff besides MMA. 

Thanks for the confirmation, @Elsalvajeloco. The talks over a new contract between the UFC and Cristiane Justino don't sound promising. Even before Cris Cyborg signed with the UFC, it was quite frosty between her and Dana White. Be a shame if we don't get the rematch between Cyborg and Nunes. I see the same result again. That's one of my favourite MMA fights ever. Fucking worth waking up in the early hours for.

Edited by The Natural
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You want finishes? Book like six or seven squash matches with fighters that don't even have wikipedia pages. Edgar's my all-time favorite but that logic extends to the main as well.

Edited by John E. Dynamite
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On 7/22/2019 at 11:37 AM, The Natural said:

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I fancy Frankie Edgar to finally win the UFC Featherweight Championship.

I'll have to disagree on that. However, more interesting to me is Dana's attempt to rebuild Cyborg for another go at Amanda. No one has ever accused Cyborg of being a particularly bright woman, but just what kind of thought process would make her think that there would be a different result fighting Amanda again? I'll admit that I'm a huge mark for the Lioness and consider her far and away the greatest female fighter who has ever lived, but I'm struggling to see why she would even be interested in punting Cris around the cage again.

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34 minutes ago, OSJ said:

what kind of thought process would make her think that there would be a different result fighting Amanda again?

the fight lasted less than a minute.

a rematch could go a hundred different ways. if Cyborg started with a bullrush and a flurry the result could be the complete opposite. now don't get me wrong, i would easily favor Nunes if they ran it back, but in no way is it a foregone conclusion. i could EASILY see how Cyborg thinks if she just makes one or two adjustments how the fight could go very differently

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55 minutes ago, OSJ said:

 However, more interesting to me is Dana's attempt to rebuild Cyborg for another go at Amanda.

I wouldn't say he is trying to rebuild Cris seeing as he is doing this reverse psychology/Jedi mind trick of talking about how Cris doesn't want to lose again so she can sign a new deal for the price the UFC wants to pay.

Second, I think it's in the interest of Nunes and the UFC to keep any and all momentum that Amanda Nunes has. Plus, if it wasn't made evident by the post fight presser of the last PPV, Dana now has a big fucking personal vendetta against Darren Rovell for saying that Amanda Nunes beating Ronda Rousey was terrible for the UFC a few years back. He is going out of his way to make the biggest possible fights for Amanda. The only one currently that gets anywhere close to that is another fight with Cyborg. So if anything, Dana is trying to build Amanda Nunes. Even if that (nonexistent) feud and grudge Dana has is extremely stupid, as a promoter, part of his job is to capitalize on situations that can grow the popularity of his fighters. Now going back to burying Cyborg like it's 2014 and 2015 doesn't work and definitely counterintuitive, but when it comes to putting his champion over (which Dana has had immense trouble with in the recent past), he is doing a fairly good job.

Something good that unintentionally came out of UFC 239 being a home run for ESPN+ and ESPN is that a lackluster Jon Jones performance highlighted Amanda's win over Holly. With no Conor McGregor and it growing likely day by day Cyborg is on her way out (a person who did better than decent numbers on PPV w/ Holly Holm and an unknown Yana Kunitskaya), Amanda Nunes is your number 2 star in the entire promotion. Getting Cris to sign a new deal and another fight w/ Amanda works for everyone. It's the biggest fight between any of the women you can make. Second, if Cris wins, you can easily do a trilogy. Third, Cris would probably get the money or close to the money she wants so she's happy and that's someone the UFC doesn't have to worry about losing in free agency. She isn't a game changer, but very few are. Like I said, she has done buyrates that roughly 90% of roster couldn't do. You can't say that about any of the guys that went to Bellator or One whether it's DJ, Eddie Alvarez, Ryan Bader, Phil Davis, Rampage, or Gegard Mousasi. She also did 1.11 million (average) viewers with the Lina Lansberg fight on FS1. Cris is a proven commodity. Will the loss hurt her starpower? Probably, but losses don't exactly mean your business stays down if it does go down in the first place. And as far as Amanda goes, who else is she going to fight that's going to bring the same attention? I'm only interested in the rematch with GdR because Germaine's takedown defense was horrible then and she wasn't really fully committed to MMA at the time (Germaine was struggling to find her footing at AKA and wasn't generally interested to be there in the first place). Both (especially Amanda who was at MMA Masters at the time) are certainly and markedly better fighters in the six years since the first fight. Other than that and maybe another fight with Cyborg, I struggle to find any particular matchup that piques my curiosity. If I am Amanda, I want to the biggest fights as possible as well. Ketlen Vieira ain't that. Unless Felicia Spencer can pull off another upset on Saturday, she isn't that. Neither is Julianna Pena. IMO Amanda has two fights. If it's not Cyborg, it has to be Germaine. If it isn't Germaine, it has to be Cyborg. It's not that hard. Pick one.

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1 hour ago, twiztor said:

the fight lasted less than a minute.

a rematch could go a hundred different ways. if Cyborg started with a bullrush and a flurry the result could be the complete opposite. now don't get me wrong, i would easily favor Nunes if they ran it back, but in no way is it a foregone conclusion. i could EASILY see how Cyborg thinks if she just makes one or two adjustments how the fight could go very differently

I dunno if I would say a hundred different ways because both are known quantities and you only need it going one other way for the result to change. In hindsight, given what Cris has said about that fight, it makes me believe that Jason Parillo isn't that guy to reel Cyborg in. I think he did a very good job at getting her to a certain place because she had plateaued at Chute Boxe and I don't think she would have gotten much better at Arena MMA in San Diego when she was still married to Evangelista. I think Parillo getting Bisping to a title and elevating Cyborg's game is a credit to him and gets him out of that glorified hypeman/MMA's Angelo Dundee spot that Greg Jackson has occupied for over a decade now. However, based on his success with others who went to RVCA mma or been through the numerous MMA hotspots in SoCal (Reign MMA, Kings MMA, Punishment/HB Ultimate, Colin Oyama's gym, Millennia MMA with Romie Aram, 10th Planet, etc.), I don't have much faith he can get past that ceiling. Granted, he inherited BJ Penn well past his prime, there is nothing in his coaching and training that makes me believe he can solve Amanda Nunes. So then, it falls on Cyborg because it's her judgement she implemented in the first fight with Amanda and it's her judgement that help make her lose (Amanda's fists carried her the rest of the way). If she only has faith in herself, why should I have faith that even with the best of conditions and working in tandem with Jason Parillo or Rob Emerson that she can make it work in the rematch? She is just going to do what she wants to do even if she knows better. So the fight can't go a hundred different ways. Moreover, I think we're seeing a fighter who is far from her prime now at least in terms of the punishment she can absorb. If Germaine hit Cyborg with the same punch Germaine hit Aspen Ladd with in Sacramento, it would be no question in my mind she would be asleep on the mat. Her reaction to Amanda's punches were that of someone with a faded chin. Maybe she could get to Amanda before Amanda got to her (again), but the likelihood of her brain getting shut off only goes up as she gets older.

Therefore, this fight with Felicia Spencer is going to be either a confidence booster since Felicia isn't a striker at all or it's going to be indicative of something bigger with Cyborg.

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Yeah, Cyborg's comments following the Nunes fight were a huge red flag for me. I thought if she kept that same measured approach she had against Holm then she had a really good chance. Keep it as technical as you can and pick spots, especially with how Nunes' gas tank was still somewhat questionable at that time as was her ability to stay level headed. Even then, Nunes has the hand speed advantage. Either way, none of that was remotely what Cyborg was talking about, so while I would love for a rematch to go the other way I see Nunes as a pretty heavy favourite.

Has Cyborg had to eat a lot of strikes throughout her career? Had she demonstrated a sturdy chin previous to the Nunes loss?

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19 minutes ago, Oyaji said:

Yeah, Cyborg's comments following the Nunes fight were a huge red flag for me. I thought if she kept that same measured approach she had against Holm then she had a really good chance. Keep it as technical as you can and pick spots, especially with how Nunes' gas tank was still somewhat questionable at that time as was her ability to stay level headed. Even then, Nunes has the hand speed advantage. Either way, none of that was remotely what Cyborg was talking about, so while I would love for a rematch to go the other way I see Nunes as a pretty heavy favourite.

Has Cyborg had to eat a lot of strikes throughout her career? Had she demonstrated a sturdy chin previous to the Nunes loss?

Besides against Holly and before she fought Amanda, the only person who got some offense against Cyborg is Marloes Coenen (I'm thinking the second fight moreso than the one in Strikeforce). I think the thing is for whatever was landed against her, she always walked through it. 

Going back to what I touched on briefly in the 239 thread when Dana made those comments about Holm after the card and how Holly probably needed to think retirement over. If you compare that fight to Nunes-Cyborg, it's like comparing Pacquiao vs. Hatton to Pacquiao vs. De La Hoya or better yet Pacquiao-Morales III since that only went 3 rounds. Neither Holly or Cris are spring chickens, but there is a difference between getting hit with one great shot and reacting like everything you get hit with is pure dynamite. This could just be me, but Cris looked like someone who had been fighting for 13 and a half years at that point.

I mean Roy Jones Jr. never took a significant amount of punches before Tarver II, but if you go back and look at all those fights especially at ones that went longer than a couple rounds before then, he would get popped with one or two good shots at least even if he BARELY got touched the rest of the fight. Whether people want to speculate it was PED usage (he failed a test for androstenedione against Richard Hall from a tainted supplement which also strangely and coincidentally found its way into Hall's system as well) or working with Mackie Shilstone around the John Ruiz fight that caused his physical decline, Roy still had good punch resistance PRIOR to his first ever real loss (not counting the Montell Griffin DQ). If he had a shitty chin, he would have at least one or two additional losses in the fifteen years between his pro debut and the second Tarver fight. I don't think Lennox Lewis had a glass jaw, but he still lost to Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman and damn near lost to Shannon Briggs.

I am not saying Cyborg is prime Minotauro Nogueira or anything like that, but even against a powerful puncher like Amanda Nunes, your whole body doesn't move and look like it's being swept away like a lawn chair in a category five hurricane if you can take punches like someone in their physical prime. Somebody like Ronda doing it is fine because she doesn't react well to being punched/hit and she literally never did get touch in her prior MMA bouts. Somebody like Cyborg doing it...I'm wondering if that person is shopworn.

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