UFC 166 - My Views

So on Saturday night we saw the trilogy between the current UFC Heavyweight champion Cain Valasquez and the ex champion JDS. We also saw an interesting under-card that delivered in every aspect.Im in a rush so will only discuss the main event!

• Cain Velasquez def. Junior dos Santos via TKO (strikes) - Round 5, 3:09 - to retain heavyweight title 

JDS After UFC 166

So the main event of the evening was much hyped and rightly so! A quick history on these two... They first met in November 2011 in the UFC's flagship debut on FOX. Cain held the belt and JDS took it with a 1.04 second KO of Cain. They next met in December 2012 and Cain manhandled JDS for 5 rounds beating him silly.

Alistair Overeem - UFC's biggest flop

So this last weekend saw UFC on Fox Sports 1. A big event that delivered on every level. Overeem the former K1 & Strikeforce heavyweight champion looked to redeem himself after being knocked out by Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva.

His opponent, Travis "Hapa" Browne was also coming off a knockout loss to Bigfoot Silva. Overeem was a huge favourite going into both of these fights and that prediction was not to far off with the dominance he brings at the start of a fight.

Horse Meat? Failed steroid test!

Against Browne he started viciously with huge knees, I personally thought the fight was going to be stopped as Browne absorbed some huge shots. Browne himself said his body was actually shutting down from the power of the shots.

Then the tide turned..... Browne started throwing a front kick to the head repetitively. Again and again he threw this kick as Overeem seemed to slow and plod forward heavy on his feet. Eventually boom the Reem hit the deck and took a couple of hammer fists before the fight was waved off in round 1.

So many questions about the Reem at the moment! Where now? He was truly dominant in both of these losses but his stock in the UFC has plummeted! The UFC wont cut him but with another loss I see him going. Roy "Big Country" Nelson has been touted as his next opponent on some forums. I see no other great option unless the feed him Kongo.

A fight between him and Nelson would be intriguing. Could he be the first to stop Big Country in the Octagon? Or would he simply become another victim of the overhand right? One thing is sure he cannot take as much punishment as allot of the other heavyweights. His jaw was susceptible in Pride when he fought at middleweight. Lets see what the UFC has lined up for one of their biggest flops.

UFC 163 - A Viewings Flop?

UFC 163 happens tonight in Rio, Brazil & features a featherweight title bout between Jose Aldo & The Korean Zombie. A $50 PPV event in the US and a new venture of BT Sports in the UK. How many people will splash money for the PPV or a new subscription in the UK is unknown but the card has been criticised on message boards as being particularly light on star power or meaningful bouts.

Aldo - Korean Zombie
An intriguing bout but one in which Aldo is expected to take with ease. The Korean Zombie is suprising and it seems at time unstoppable. Aldo on the other hand is a machine who tears through opposition. I don't see the Korean Zombie having much chance of walking into Aldo's kicks or punches all night and lean towards the champion for a stoppage victory. Aldo by clinical masterclass and TKO round 3.

UFC on BT Sport in UK

Lyoto Machida - Phil Davis
This fight has potential title implications for Machida and will throw Davis right into the mix with a win. Davis will not stand a chance on his feet against the Dragon and needs to get this to the ground pretty quickly. I think this is too much of a step up for Davis at this point. I see Machida stuffing the take downs and brutally KO'ing Davis in the 2nd.

Cezar Ferreira - Thiago Santos
I don't really know enough about these fighters as I never watched the Ultimatete Fighter Brazil. I am hugely confused why this is on the main portion off a PPV card when Ian McCall is on the prelims? I'm guessing its for the Brazilian fans. Anyway from what I do know about the two I would say Ferreira is the better all round fighter. I see him softening Santos up for two rounds before stopping him late in the 3rd with the overhand left. TKO / KO round 3 fr Ferreira.

Thales Leites - Tom Watson
Now I am a big Watson fan being British but I honestly feel he is going to come up short here. Leites experience wise has been in with the far better fighters and holds wins of Nate Marquadt & Jeremy Horn. Leites also took former middleweight champion and p4p great Anderson Silva 5 rounds in his quest to capture the UFC middleweight title. I see this potentially being fight of the night but feel Watson will lose a close decision. I see Watson gassing mid fight and losing a unanimous decision.

Me & Anthony Perosh

Vinny Magalhaes - Anthony Perosh
This fight I feel will be when Perosh receives his walking papers. An awful match up for him in my opinion. I feel Magalhaes can take this fight however he chooses. Second round submission for Magalhaes.

Ian McCall - Iliarde Santos
I am shocked where Uncle Creepy has been placed on this card. One of the more entertaining fighters in the UFC and in my opinion the only person to beat Mighty Mouse recently. I see McCall taking this fight with ease. Nice easy Unanimous Decision or late submission.

Overall the card is good if your a hardcore fan. For me I would never me any UFC event regardless of price but that's me. I have a feeling viewing figures worldwide will be low for this in comparison to recent PPV events. I shall be watching reluctantly on BT Sport.

Tito Ortiz - Quinton Rampage Jackson - Bellator PPV November 2?

I started to see news of this announced fight bouncing around the Internet late last night and was not all too surprised it has been booked. I am shocked Bellator have opted to screen this on PPV though.

Tito has recently stated he needs to return to the cage due to money problems. These problems are all linked to Tito's colourful love life and failed relationship with porn star Jenna Jameson. The ex Huntington Beach bad boy & now "Peoples Champion" has had a pretty in fact very poor showing in the cage over the last few years. After beating Ken Shamrock back in 2006 he has been on a downward spiral besides beating Ryan Bader in an upset of the year performance in 2011. Since beating Bader he has lost to Rashad Evans, Lil Nog & Forrest Griffin. Tito does not belong in the UFC anymore that's for sure and Dana White has been vocal about Tito never fighting in UFC again.

An then we have Rampage - a pioneer of the sport from the Pride era and aggressive brawler with great take down defence. Rampage has been painful to watch over the last few years. Many argue that his heart is no longer in fighting after starring in a movie. Rampage seemed set to face Roy Jones Jr in a boxing match before his fight with Tito was announced. The man who unified the Pride & UFC light heavyweight titles is currently on a 3 fight losing streak including a failed title big against Jon Bones Jones. Rampage left the UFC of his own accord and doesn't seem to have the money problems Tito is suffering.

Tito

I have seen allot of negative stuff posted about both of these fighters recently regarding this fight. I totally understand the negativity when it comes to it being a PPV event but some of the criticism of these two I feel is uncalled for and from fans who clearly have no idea what these two fighters did for the sport. People seem to forget that Jon Bones Jones has only just matched Tito's record of 5 title defences at Light Heavy Weight. Tito brought so much interest to the sport with all his trash talking and actions towards the Lions Den & the Shamrocks personally. Tito is also a UFC hall of famer and rightly so. He was incredibly dominant in his prime!

Rampage made slamming people unconscious cool back in his pride days. One of the most aggressive and brutal fighters in his day Rampage has put it all on the line for years. It seems to me he has lost a fair bit of interest in fighting. Either that or something is going wrong in his fight camps as he always looks gassed after the first round. Maybe Rampage just didn't evolve with MMA? Either way to unify the UFC and pride titles is not an easy accomplishment and hats should be taken off for that alone.

Me personally I wont be paying to watch this fight but I will be interested in the result and viewing figures. I do feel Bellator have dropped the ball in putting this on PPV and I imagine Dana is laughing smugly at that choice. If this was on free to air TV I honestly believe the viewing numbers could have been tremendous and a great platform for Bellator to work off.

UFC not on ESPN in UK - BT Sport takes over

I was slightly disappointed and saddened when I went to see if this was true on my TV guide. The only reason I have ESPN is for UFC and sadly for ESPN subscribers BT Sport  is the new home for UFC. BT sport are even opening their UFC coverage on Saturday night with "The UFC so far" - a documentary on the history of UFC.

My lovely gloves

So my to-do list of the day has changed to cancel ESPN with immediate effect and subscribe to BT Sport. Easy enough I suppose. Okay so I find the BT site, now how much will BT sport be? Well if you have BT broadband its free and if your order before the 1st of August you get HD free, thats great apart from the fact I don't use BT Internet as I find the service slightly retarded. I wont go into my gripes with BT now!

Okay so with an existing Sky package BT sport is a measly £12 a month - pretty damn good. Oh I must not forget the £15 "one off" connection fee (as it costs £15 to push a button to activate the service?). I should not really moan as UFC is incredibly cheap here in comparison to the US where this weekends UFC 163 featuring a featherweight title fight between Aldo & The Korean Zombie is only available on PPV for $50.

One thing I do hope BT Sport do is get the timing correct for the events and put a bit of care in. ESPN often allowed other shows to over-run thus clashing with UFC events and spoiling everything. Also the timing of commercial breaks was appalling at times. I will give my predictions on UFC 163 later during the week.

Paul Semtex Daley - Most exciting fighter not in UFC!

Paul Daley's name has been on peoples tongue this last week after he was released from Bellator. The news came shortly after he stopped Lukasz Chlewicki in Liverpool via Doctor stoppage. Bellator stated that Daley had lied about his brush with the law and had actually been convicted of two offences in the UK. As far as I was aware these charges were dropped? I have yet to see proof of him being convicted or not. Regardless Bellator let him go along with Maiquel Falcao (correct decision).

The timing of his release has however proved rather interesting. After Robbie Lawler put on a beautiful display of striking at UFC on Fox 8 at the weekend everyone is wondering who he will face next. UFC is visiting Manchester (UK) later in the year and shouts for Lawler against Daley have been coming from many heads and I'm not just talking fans.

Daley would have no visa issues fighting in Manchester but the real question is would Dana White let it happen? Dana has made many outrageous statements in the past and gone back on them eventually but will he allow Daley to fight in the UFC again? Only time will tell! All I know is a fight between Daley and Lawler would be absolutely epic. Never have I seen Daley in a boring fight (besides when Kos held him down for 3 rounds) and I would like to see where he ranks in the Welterweight division. Gareth A Davies has been calling for this fight on twitter and here's to hoping if enough people call for it, it will happen. Does Dana listen to fans? We will find out when the UFC visits Manchester and Paul Semtex Daley is either on the card or he is not.

Me & Gareth A Davies

 

UFC on Fox 8 - Correct Predictions

Well I got all the predictions I made for UFC on Fox 8 correct. When it came to the actual fights I was pretty far off the ball when it came to predicting where the action would be.

Carmouche GnP beat down of Jessica Andrade    
This fight did not suprise me result wise but the dominance shown by Liz was shocking. Once on the ground Andrade looked totally out of her depth and was easily mounted and eventually finished through GnP in the 2nd. Where does this leave Carmouche in a still under developed ladies UFC division? Only time will tell but I don't think she should be fighting Rousey again anytime soon.  

Lawlor looking evil
I had a feeling Robbie Lawlor would beat Bobby Voelker but I certainly did not think he would do it so well. Gareth A Davies tweeted mid first round he sees Lawler as a dark horse at Welterweight and with his last stoppage performance (Koscheck TKO Feb 2013) he could be right. Lawlor had it his way completely and was literally sizing Voelker up for the finish towards the end of the first round. The writing was on the wall for a stoppage and it arrived in devastating fashion. A lovely Head kick followed up by a casual finishing punch on the ground and it was over all of 24 seconds into the 2nd round. I feel he was unlucky not to get KO of the night But Melvin Guillard scooped that with a great one punch KO earlier in the night.


Co-Main a lacklustre affair
In the fight I expected to be the barn burner of the night we saw nothing but a game of chess. Both fighters have drawn criticism from fans and Dana White. Rory MacDonald defeated Jake Ellenburger by unanimous decision.I believed Rory would have thrown Ellenburger about for two rounds before stopping him - I was wrong wrong wrong! What we saw was a very cautious MacDonald who worked his jab well using his reach to keep Ellenburger at range. It was evident Rory knew Ellenburger had the power to hurt him early and kept him at range before feeding him his iron jab repetitively. I personally think Rory did what he needed to do, he beat a very dangerous striker. It may have been a dull fight but the decision was clear. Will a title shot be on the cards for Rory now? And where does Ellenburger go from here?

Mighty Mouse Demetrious Johnson Destroys "no name" Moraga
The title may sound harsh but believe me its pretty accurate. Moraga was sold as being the biggest challenge Mighty Mouse had seen because of his vicious stand up and brilliant wrestling. That brilliant wrestling was not so effective. Mighty Mouse took him down at will constantly and completely dominated on the ground. Every time I see Mighty Mouse fight I like him more. Its not that Moraga was rubbish its that Mighty Mouse is so good. Moraga eventually tapped to arm bar in round 5. If people are still complaining about the flyweight division after this great show of technical skill they really don't understand MMA. I was suprised to see how empty the arena was for the flyweight title fight.

UFC On Fox 8 - Co Main the real main?

This weekend we see the flyweight title on the line - The question is will Mighty Mouse bore the casual fans again with a tecnical masterclass? Im almost certain! Moraga is a complete unknown to casual fans and many hardcore fans are actually unaware of him. I see a standard 5 round points win here for mighty mouse while displaying superior speed to any human on earth.

Now the Co-Main with Rory MacDonald & Jake Ellenburger or should I say "real main". This fight is interesting in the fact that if Rory dominates Ellenburger (which he will) then a fight between hiom and GSP is one step closer. If GSP gets past Hendricks later in the year there is no contenders left besides Rory. GSP will either have to hang them up of go after super fights if he wont fight Rory. I predict Rory getting the title within the next year through GSP chasing a super fight. I believe Rory will be a more dominant champ than GSP. Anyway enough for now. More predictions to follow!

Me & Bruce Buffer