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UFC 218: Holloway vs. Aldo II (12/2/2017) - Detroit, MI (Little Caesars Arena)


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1 minute ago, Oyaji said:

Lamas is no slouch and went 0 for 6 in his takedowns on Holloway. I see Holloway as a newer, better version of Frankie Edgar at least in terms of footwork, defense, and boxing. Obviously, he's not the wrestler, at least offensively, that Edgar is. Could be a good one but I'd put Max down as a significant favourite.

I think I would only have Holloway as just the slight favorite just because Edgar is far and away the best wrestler Max would have faced. Lamas is alright but he doesn't have the quickness of Edgar or the same setups. I can't see Frankie being inclined to let Max just box from the outside and stick the jab in his face.

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amazing card.  more of this, please.
more thoughts:

missed the Fight Pass Prelims. bummer.

Drakkar Klose was frustrated because he didn't know how to deal with an opponent who knew how to use range to his advantage. I'm ok with Herb Dean issuing a warning, because it made for a better fight, but Klose really needed to force Teymur into his kind of fight but didn't have the experience to make it happen. 

Yancy Medeiros vs Alex Oliveira. what a fight. FOTY contender, if not the favorite. not sure what happened on the ground that lead to the stoppage, but wish we would've seen it in replay. i felt like Joey Styles because i said "oh my god" so many times over 15 minutes. It doesn't get much better than this.

Alvarez vs Gaethje. i said before the fight that Gaethje had this, because he'd lure Alvarez into a brawl and get the better. Please allow me to eat my words. Alvarez showed composure and know how and really took the fight to Gaethje. He made better adjustments and used the body shots and composure to show that he is still an elite fighter.

Cejudo vs Pettis. it was still too early for Pettis to take this fight. who gets the next flyweight title shot? DJ has beaten everyone in the top 5 except Jussier Formiga, who recently lost to Cejudo and Borg. not looking forward to those two (DJ/Cejudo) in a rematch, but it probably happens soon.

Ngannou vs Overeem. that uppercut scared me. it was like something from Soda Popinski in its brutality and finality. I've seen the Reem KO'd before, but never like that. Hol. Eee. Shit.

Aldo vs Holloway. Aldo looked good early, but you could tell he was fading even after Rd 1. Once Max turned up the aggression in Rd 3 it was all over. Better strikes, better positioning, better angles. Aldo should have no excuses. Aldo's been teasing/threatening retirement for a while now, it is probably time to step away.  He will never be the top dog again, and i feel that he's not OK with being second best.  Not a fan of Frankie Edgar, i hope Holloway is able to put him away next.

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So Stipe Miocic vs. Francis Ngannou and Max Holloway vs. Frankie Edgar are the fights I'm most looking forward to next year. Holloway vs. Edgar especially as I'm an Edgar fan so either me or twiztor be disappointed. This be Frankie's third shot at becoming UFC Featherweight Champion.

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I feel like that's it for Aldo at 145. Tough, tough weight cut and tried his best to conserve his energy against a fighter who wasn't planning to do that himself. It's basically another Barao situation. Why try to make weight again and again when you can only fight a max of six to seven minutes? He didn't lose as much snap to his strikes as Barao did in his final days at BW, but those strikes in the barrage of the third round were basically arm punches compared to Aldo in years past. 

As I brought up in the MMA Talk thread, what is going on at Nova Uniao is basically putting Aldo's career at an interesting crossroads. NU (especially with Jair Lourenco training fighters stateside and no Kimura team involvement) is basically a high level business with an MMA team as the front for that business. The last time an entity was really going on in Brazil like that was Gracie Barra Combat Team with Babalu being the notable fighter and that was a little over ten years ago. That worked for like a few years at most and then imploded. The most notable fighter that came in the wake of that was Rafael dos Anjos but that was when he was like 25 percent of what he is now and getting gift decisions over Takafumi Otsuka.

I don't think Aldo is going to be the same guy with Emerson Falcao and Giovani Diniz as his de facto trainers who aren't named Andre Pederneiras and especially after being on the wrong end of two brutal back to back fights. If we only got a limited time left to watch Jose Aldo, I would rather it be at a weight class he doesn't have to kill himself to get to and with a team that he can actually build his strengths back up.

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7 hours ago, Casey said:

How realistic is a UFC event in Africa? I love the cards that are overseas in places you wouldn't expect.

I think it depends on the depth of talent, logistics, cultural understanding, and the UFC's willingness to invest in a place where MMA is only popular among certain pockets of people. I mean the UFC could have ran South Africa a long time ago, but what's the point exactly? First, you don't have many South African fighters and the ones they got from EFC Africa (the biggest promotion in Africa) like Ruan Potts and Garrett McLellan (in addition to the guy on the TUF Champions season) weren't good at all. Second, running South Africa is basically a copout because it's like running a show in Macau and claiming you did a show in China. You did but you didn't. I mean you're going to have "Africans" there but a good majority ain't going to look like Francis Ngannou. I can't think of anything more counterintuitive than having a black champion who came from abject poverty fighting in front of a crowd of upper class white people who can afford those high ass ticket prices. You might as well save money as an organization and just have him fight in front of U.S. crowds like he's doing now. It's virtually the same thing.

Moreover, Cameroon is in West Africa and extremely far from South Africa. Africa is a giant continent. So if they did a show in Cape Town or Johannesburg, it would be the equivalent of running a show in Guadalajara and claiming it was a hometown affair for Demetrious Johnson or Michael Chiesa. For that matter, claiming it for Ryan Janes or another current UFC fighter from BC. Even going into Canada, that's STILL not as far away as the distance between Cameroon and South Africa.

Boxing is barely surviving in Africa as is and the history is much more richer. You got shows in Namibia, Ghana, Nigeria, and a handful of other nations, but a lot of that is in makeshift indoor arenas and gymnasiums once you get past the South African casino resort shows for fighters like Hekkie Budler and Ryno Liebenberg. African nations are producing actually world champion boxers but none of them are stars enough to have big fights in their home countries besides the females who cater to a small group of hardcore fans and the white Afrikaan boxers above. I mean there is a interim WBO 122 pound title fight coming up in Africa, but that's only because the champion got hurt for a fight that was going to happen on ESPN weeks back and the number 1 contender now has to go to the Africa to fight the number 2 contender instead. Otherwise, most of the time, the black African champions and top contenders are on the road if not emigrating to other countries like Ngannou did.

With all that said, the UFC could experiment and see what happens because no one combat sport has a foothold on the continent. If Ngannou ends up as champion one day, I'm seeing if I can do a stadium show in Cameroon somehow.

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