UFC Thread

Given how many events the UFC runs now, it seems like a better idea to streamline all UFC related content into one thread rather than clutter the board with individual ones for each show.

So, discuss all the latest happenings UFC such as Jon Jones recent 1st round victory against rehab, whether or not CM Punk will actually make it to the Octagon for a fight, and the UFC's love for all things Conor McGregor.

There's a PPV this weekend, so let's start with that:



UFC 183: Silva vs. Diaz
Saturday, January 31, 2015
From the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada
Live on Pay-Per-View at 10 PM ET / 7 PM PT

Main Event: (5 Rounds)

Middleweight Bout: Anderson Silva (#1) vs. Nick Diaz

Main Card Bouts:

Welterweight Bout: Tyron Woodley (#3) vs. Kelvin Gastelum (#7)

Lightweight Bout: Joe Lauzon vs. Al Iaquinta

Middleweight Bout: Thales Leites (#11) vs. Tim Boetsch (#13)

Welterweight Bout: Jordan Mein (#13) vs. Thiago Alves

Preliminary Bouts: (Live on FOX Sports 1 at 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT)

Women's Bantamweight Bout: Miesha Tate (#2) vs. Sara McMann (#3)

Middleweight Bout: Ed Herman vs. Derek Brunson

Flyweight Bout: Ian McCall (#3) vs. John Lineker (#6)

Middleweight Bout: Rafael Natal vs. Tom Watson

Preliminary Bouts: (Live on UFC Fight Pass at 6:30 PM ET / 3:30 PM PT)

Featherweight Bout: Diego Brandao vs. Jimy Hettes

Middleweight Bout: Richardson Moreira vs. Ildemar Alcantara

Middleweight Bout: Thiago Santos vs. Andy Enz

Probably not gonna be able to catch the fight but I think Silva is back and kicks Diaz' ass.

They announced McGregor/Aldo for July 11 which should be super awesome.

I'll just get all this out of the way now.

- While I think Silva is going to KO Diaz in two rounds, I honestly wont be shocked with ANY outcome of this fight. We just don't know what to expect from either guy. I love silva, but I'll be watching with people who LOVE Silva and HATE Diaz and part of me really really wants to see them all cry.

- Jones drug stuff was such a joke. I hope Rumble takes his head clean off. I know he likely wont, but if he touches Jones' chin like Gus and DC were able to, Jones is dead.

- I thought McGregor was funny until he started talking about how many people died to make his clothes. I know it is all an act, honestly. I don't find stuff like that funny though so that is where I get prudish in most cases. I think Aldo will wreck him and I am pretty excited for it.

- My own response to those last two points is to promise that I am not anti fun.

Chris Weidman has to pull out of his scheduled title defense against Vitor Belfort (that was scheduled for UFC 184) once again due to injury. Ronda Rousey vs. Cat Zingano moves up to fill the main event slot of that card.

Vitor may still fight on that card (rumored to be against Lyoto Machida). If not, Holly Holm vs. Raquel Pennington will be the co-main event for that show. I know injuries to fighters have hurt this card (as fights have been cancelled or shifted to headline other shows), but since the UFC just confirmed that their recent PPV price increase will apply to all future events (now $60 per show), fights like that aren't going to cut it.

This also marks the third main event of all three UFC's February cards that has been cancelled (Matt Brown vs. Tarec Saffiedine and Rashad Evans vs. Glover Teixeira for separate UFC Fight Night events were the other two cancelled headliners).

Two fighters came in way overweight for today's weigh-ins: John Lineker was 5 lbs over and Kelvin Gastelum was a whopping 10 lbs over. Both fights will still occur, even though the Gastelum vs. Woodley fight probably shouldn't be given that Kelvin was hospitalized prior to weigh-ins.

As for my opinions on tomorrow's event, the FS1 prelims look better than most of the PPV line-up. If you don't watch the PPV, there's still plenty of good fights on the free portion. I hope Tom Watson utilizes some of the moves he saw at the Lucha Underground Temple (he and Erik Perez attended an LU taping I was at a few weeks ago).

Anderson vs. Diaz is a bit of a dream match. Both fighters have such entertaining and unique styles that shouldn't make for a dull fight. These are the kind of matchups I wish UFC would have been open to doing sooner, and I'm glad they're at least doing some of them now.

Anderson Silva tests positive for steroids, Nick Diaz tests positive for marijuana yet again:

http://mmajunkie.com/2015/02/ufc-confirms-anderson-silva-tests-positive-for-steroids-nick-diaz-reportedly-pops-for-marijuana-too

This sport is a joke.

CM Punk becomes champ and wins all his fights by forfeit

it really is amazing how fast UFC went from "Can't do anything wrong, every ppv gets 500,000 buys, suck it wwe" to "most shows are a disaster, everyone we employ is a deplorable person".

Insane. Think that was clearly Silva's last match if he was loaded with roids and testosterone.

First time he is subject to out of comp testing too. He didn't get tested this way for either Weidman fight. This is also the 3rd fighter from his camp to get popped for roids in 7 months. I am sure he will say it was because of the injury and he never did this before, but it doesn't matter. The cloud is over his head now. It is unfortunate. I liked Silva, but it is what it is.

I was more or less done with the UFC before this. I am sure a few fights here and there will get my attention. I will watch Rumble vs Jones and probably Aldo vs McGregor, but that is really only because i dislike guys in those fights. My actual give-a-fuck is way down, even for that. The UFC is a joke. 2015 is about to be a lot worse than 2014 I suspect.

The fact that there has been three positive out-of-competition drug tests within the main events of the first two PPVs of the year, yet the fighters were still allowed to compete, shows how desperate that the UFC is to keep their events together.

Granted, the fighters definitely deserve plenty of criticism for their choices as well, but the UFC could saves themselves a lot of trouble had they not expanded their schedule of events so much. I feel that if they weren't running 45 or so shows a year, incidents like this would be occurring less often. Then again, the UFC enables this type of behavior for the top guys, and the Nevada commission is clearly assisting them in these matters, so I don't truly believe they would have any more incentive to punish these fighters anyway.

I'll still watch most of the fights, but I clearly care far less than I used to. The product has become very stale and repetitive, and has become far more expensive to follow than it used to be. That has made me far more selective about what PPVs to order, as I now willingly skip some; something I would never consider doing a couple of years ago.

There's been a few Fight Nights that I skipped over the past few weeks, but this weekend comes a PPV which is fairly important, at least at the top of it. The undercard got decimated after fighters pulled out due to injuries (including the original Weidman vs. Belfort headliner) and other fights got rescheduled for shows that needed headliners.

But what's notable here is that it is the first UFC card to feature female fights in the top two headlining roles, including the co-main event which features the UFC debut of fomer boxing world champion Holly Holm.



UFC 184: Rousey vs. Zingano
Saturday, February 28, 2015
From the STAPLES Center in Los Angeles, California
Live on Pay-Per-View at 10 PM ET / 7 PM PT

Main Event:

UFC Women's Bantamweight Championship: Ronda Rousey (c) vs. Cat Zingano (#1)

Main Card Bouts:

Women's Bantamweight Bout: Holly Holm (#13) vs. Raquel Pennington (#14)

Welterweight Bout: Jake Ellenberger (#11) vs. Josh Koscheck

Welterweight Bout: Alan Jouban vs. Richard Walsh

Lightweight Bout: Tony Ferguson vs. Gleison Tibau

Preliminary Bouts: (Live on FOX Sports 1 at 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT)

Middleweight Bout: Mark Munoz (#13) vs. Roan Carneiro

Bantamweight Bout: Roman Salazar vs. Norifumi "Kid" Yamamoto

Welterweight Bout: Dhiego Lima vs. Tim Means

Heavyweight Bout: Derrick Lewis vs. Ruan Potts

Preliminary Bouts: (Live on UFC Fight Pass at 7 PM ET / 4 PM PT)

Lightweight Bout: James Krause vs. Valmir Lazaro

Featherweight Bout: Masio Fullen vs. Alexander Torres

Really upset that I have to work through a Rousey fight but I had to take the next weekend off so I had to sacrifice it.

GUYS! There's a fight night like 10 mins from my house. Someone just confirm for me that spending $50+ to see this show is not worth my time/money.


It's the one at the Patriot Center in Fairfax VA.

That one's supposed to be an afternoon show (I think there's a scheduling issue that night on FS1 so UFC is on early that day).

I personally prefer going to UFC's earlier in the day, a common occurrence on the west coast, but it's not for everyone.

Forgot all about this, but there's a very good UFC PPV tonight. The prelims are on FX right now. Check it out:



UFC 185: Pettis vs. Dos Anjos
Saturday, March 14, 2015
From the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas
Live on Pay-Per-View at 10 PM ET / 7 PM PT

Main Event:

UFC Lightweight Championship: Anthony Pettis (c) vs. Rafael dos Anjos (#1)

Main Card Bouts:

UFC Women's Strawweight Championship: Carla Esparza (c) vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk (#1)

Welterweight Bout: Johny Hendricks (#1) vs. Matt Brown (#5)

Heavyweight Bout: Roy Nelson (#8) vs. Alistair Overeem (#9)

Flyweight Bout: Chris Cariaso (#10) vs. Henry Cejudo

Preliminary Bouts: (Live on FX at 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT)

Lightweight Bout: Ross Pearson vs. Sam Stout

Middleweight Bout: Roger Narvaez vs. Elias Theodorou

Lightweight Bout: Daron Cruickshank vs. Beneil Dariush

Heavyweight Bout: Jared Rosholt vs. Josh Copeland

Preliminary Bouts: (Live on UFC Fight Pass at 6:30 PM ET / 3:30 PM PT)

Flyweight Bout: Ryan Benoit vs. Sergio Pettis

Lightweight Bout: Joseph Duffy vs. Jake Lindsey

Women's Bantamweight Bout: Germaine de Randamie (#15) vs. Larissa Pacheco

Watching this show on a whim. Just saw Carla Esparza get assaulted for 9 minutes.

The UFC marketing department must be dreading Joanna Polish name winning the title because that name must be a nightmare to print on posters and other promotional material. That being said, she came off like a very charismatic star at the weigh-in and her post-fight interview after taking that title from Carla Esparza, so she's got some star potential.

Now the complete opposite result occurred in the main event, since the UFC put all of their eggs in the Anthony Pettis basket for this PPV (despite the strong undercard). Dos Anjos quietly dominated the division (including wins over Cerrone, Bendo & Diaz) en route to becoming the new champ, and he did that again by dominating Pettis to win the belt. However, as good as he is, he just lacks anything remotely interesting from a marketing perspective.

The undercard was pretty interesting. Hendricks dominated Matt Brown. He should have never lost the title to begin with, and he showcased his dominance in this fight.

Nelson vs. Overeem was rather fun for what it was. Overeem fought much smarter than usual with his improved defense. That was insane how Nelson almost got the finish at end of Round 3. That was one of the most competitive 30-27 fights I've ever seen.

Henry Cejudo could be the UFC's first true superstar at 125 if he manages to win the title. As an Olympic Gold Medalist and former Golden Gloves boxer, he's definitely got the skills to quickly become a top fighter in the division. Cejudo just steamrolled the most recent challenger for the title in Cariaso, so he's ready to face the top 5 at Flyweight.

Last weekends show was the best in some time. I love Jedrzejczyk, who I have taken to calling the Polish Raptor. She is charming and really fun to watch. To echo Slayer, I am sure the UFC hated the title changes. Esparza is probably easier to market (pretty, clear English, etc). Pettis was clearly their chosen one to be a crossover superstar. Not only were they both beat, they were both beat pretty cleanly. No one wants to see a rematch of either match right now.

So this past weekend's PPV was totally glossed over (I didn't order it as I was at a concert), mostly because Might Mouse headlined it, and the whole legal mess with Rampage where Bellator put an injunction that originally prevented him from competing. That is until the UFC got it overturned days before the show.

By all accounts, UFC 186 was a more entertaining show than expected for those that watched it. Mighty Mouse even set the record for latest finish as he submitted Horiguchi at literally the last second possible of the 5th round (4:59).

However, the big news as of late involves Jon Jones getting himself into trouble once again. There was the story of him being involved in a hit and run accident over the weekend. This article sums it up quite well:

http://www.sherdog.com/news/news/Video-Jon-Jones-Released-from-Custody-Runs-from-Reporters-at-Detention-Facility-85397

jones has been stripped of the title and suspended indefinitely

Gotta admit UFC is taking this more seriously than i expected. I figured this would kind of just be brushed off.

Jon Jones...dude....

This video never stops being useful!

Just a heads up, there's a pretty sweet fight tomorrow morning between Frankie Edgar and Urijah Faber on FOX Sports 1. These two have been rumored to fight each other for quite a while, but it's finally happening tomorrow, in the Philippines of all places.

I'm not going to post the full card, partly because it starts at 7 AM PT / 10 AM ET (and I also don't know who most of the fighters on it are).

The UFC's putting on their annual Memorial Day weekend card, and they'll be doing so with 2 title fights. A new Light Heavyweight Champion will be crowned following Jon Jones being stripped of it.

Here's the full loaded card for tomorrow:




UFC 187: Johnson vs. Cormier
Saturday, May 23, 2015
From the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada
Live on Pay-Per-View at 10 PM ET 7 PM PT

Main Event:

UFC Light Heavyweight Championship: Anthony Johnson (#1) vs. Daniel Cormier (#3)

Main Card Bouts:

UFC Middleweight Championship: Chris Weidman (C) vs. Vitor Belfort (#3)

Lightweight Bout: Donald Cerrone (#3) vs. John Makdessi

Heavyweight Bout: Travis Browne (#3) vs. Andrei Arlovski (#8)

Flyweight Bout: Joseph Benavidez (#2) vs. John Moraga (#5)

Preliminary Bouts: (Live on FOX Sports 1 at 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT)

Flyweight Bout: John Dodson (#1) vs. Zach Makovsky (#9)

Welterweight Bout: Dong Hyun Kim (#8) vs. Josh Burkman

Middleweight Bout: Uriah Hall vs. Rafael Natal

Women's Strawweight Bout: Rose Namajunas (#4) vs. Nina Ansaroff

Preliminary Bouts: (Live on UFC Fight Pass at 6:30 PM ET / 3:30 PM PT)

Welterweight Bout: Mike Pyle vs. Colby Covington

Lightweight Bout: Islam Makhachev vs. Leo Kuntz

Flyweight Bout: Justin Scoggins vs. Josh Sampo

UFC 189 was INSANE! All 5 main card fights were at least fun and the two before Conor's were freaking incredible

and the main event was such a spectacle, like main event of Wrestlemania type stuff, and Conor wins, Mendes was kept strong and this was a gigantic win for UFC, and the atmosphere was incredible

I loved this show so much