UFC Ongoing Thread (1 Viewer)

[Andres Munoz]

I think it's time we have a UFC thread here (searched but didn't find one).

I know it's been a few days but I just watched the UFC 64 PPV replay last night and I must say...that Anderson Silva is one bad motha!
I mean, Rich Franklin is a very tough dude but Silva went in there and just beat the crap out of him. He's got some knees and elbows. Franklin's nose was a mess! I don't think I've ever seen a broken nose like that.

On a related note, the Ultimate Fighter 4 is coming to an end soon. I think Matt Serra has a very good chance to win his weight class.

BTW, do you see anyone beating Matt Hughes? Frigging guy is unstoppable.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

Andres, you wanted to know why I hate Tim Sylvia.

I have watched 3 Sylvia fights this year and one was good. The fight where he took the title from Arlovsky in April was an exciting fight with a good finish.

I have seen both of his title defenses since then and they have been boring.

Sylvia strikes me as a fighter who fights until he believes that he has won the decision and then he just stops. The fight with Monson was a fight with 2 boring rounds, rounds 1-2, 2 good rounds 3-4 and 1 round that made me wish for the bordom of Round 2 which was round 5. The only highlight of Round 5 was watching Big John get pissed by them not doing anything and reminding them that they are in fact fighting.

He did the same kind of thing in the Arlovsky fight, once he had the decision he just stopped. He was too scared to make a mistake and lose because that would mean that he wouldn't have his belt anymore, which BTW, he sleeps with and I swear to God that's true they may have even mentioned it on UFC broadcasts.

I guess in theory its like a team in the NFL running out the clock late in the 4th quarter, accept this would be more like a team starting to take a knee with 6 minutes left in the game and up by 3.

Monson was finished, he was gassed out and tired but Sylvia refused to try anything to put him away and I hate it. I wish this had been Pride and his ass would've gotten a yellow card and he would've lost half of his winnings for that crap.

This is why I hope Brandon Vera defeats him in their match because Vera is someone I really like. Actually, Vera beating Sylvia is my second choice, my first would be Fedor Emelianenko coming over from Pride and whooping his ass for as long as he felt like doing so.

One other thing, Anderson Silva is the man~!

I hope that this explains a bit why I hate Sylvia. But, I will say this, I would rather watch Sylvia fight than Frank Mir.

 

[Andres Munoz]

To be honest, Tim Sylvia doesn't interest me much either. He's so tall and so not graceful, it's just ugly to watch him fight.

I second that. Right now he seems unstoppable. I don't know if Travis (the winner of Ultimate Fighter 4) has a chance against him.

Did you see the Silva - Franklin fight? I thought Franklin was the man in that division and he got manhandled!

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

Of course, I saw this fight. I've seen every UFC on PPV since UFC 58 back in march, and this was by far one of the better shows with Silva being very unfriendly to Rich Franklin's face and Sherk/Florian having an awesome fight between 2 guys who have nicknames that I loathe.

I loved how after Travis Lutter won his fight to get a shot at Silva in like a minute, Silva could not have looked less worried. He was probably thinking of which 1 of the 18 different ways he knows how to use to kill, he'd employ on Lutter come February.

 

[Andres Munoz]

I agree. As of right now, I can't think of anyone that has a shot at defeating Silva. The guys in that division really need to step it up.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

Franklin has a shot, apparently he wasn't feeling well the entire week leading up to the fight, and maybe in a rematch he'll stay out of the clinch, or then again maybe Silva will just whoop him again.

Speaking of Whoopings how about St. Pierre/Hughes? Rematch hopefully May or June with St. Pierre first having to whoop Matt Serra.

I know its early but any predictions for Ortiz/Liddell II?

 

[Andres Munoz]

Funny you mention that. I haven't watched the Hughes vs St. Pierre match from the last PPV. As a matter of fact, there's a replay of that PPV tonight and I'm hoping to have time to watch that.

I'll comment on it after I catch it.

Re: Franklin, that makes sense because he did not look like his usual self at all.

 

[Mikah Cerucco]

So far, I'm only a fan of one person in UFC -- Chuck Liddell. I'm catching up with some old fights via DVD, but it's all out of order and difficult for me to keep straight. I use this as my guide to try to keep things straight. Prediction for Liddell/Ortiz II? Liddell. Not because I know who is the better UFC fighter, but because that's who I like.

I was tired of hearing how Matt Hughes was unbeatable in that division. Nobody is unbeatable. Mike Tyson learned that from Buster Douglas. I've seen St. Pierre in a few other fights and he deserved the chance, and I'm not utterly surprised he won. My only wish for UFC is that I could see more of it without paying for PPV. It needs a deal with HBO or Showtime.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

I hope I didn't spoil anything for you, but you'll see a good show if you watch it with 1 noteable acception.

Mikah, a Liddell pick is frankly the pick I'd make at this point. As for deals with Showtime or HBO they were talking with HBO but nothing has come of it, Showtime is out of the question as that network just inked a deal to air shows produced by Rumble Promotions which is headed up by B.J. Penn's brother J.D.

There's always the Spike shows, we've got another fight night live on 12/13 with Joe Riggs Vs. Diego Sanchez and if Sanchez wins he's in line for a title shot down the line.

 

[Mikah Cerucco]

I've never watched any of the Spike Shows except the one big one last month or so. Even with Boxing, which I've watched forever, I tend to only watch the "big" mattches. UFC PPV events seem to fall into that category for me. I just wish we could see them on HBO or Showtime.

I don't know enough about the scene (the players, etc.) to understand the impact of what you're saying about Showtime's recent deal with Rumble Productions, but I'll take your word on it.

I've sampled some other MMA, specifically PRIDE and K-1, but for whatever reason, I still find UFC more entertaining so far.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

The only real importance to that news is that several companies had been angling for that spot and Rumble got it which takes Showtime out of the market for UFC. As I said they did talk with HBO but nothing happened.

I think you should watch more of the Spike shows as you are quite often missing some of the best fights of the year. The 2005 fight of the year was a fight that aired on Spike between Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonner. The season finale to Ultimate fighter 2 last November was 1 of the strongest shows up and down in MMA history. I've seen 3 fights on Spike this year that go in the category of awesome: Ed Herman Vs. Kendall Grove from Ultimate Fighter 3, Karo Parisyan Vs. Diego Sanchez and most recently Scott Smith Vs. Pete Sell from the Ultimate Fighter 4 finale that had what is by far the most awesome finish to a fight that you are ever going to see. In fact, see it here 10 thumbs up for this and 100 thumbs up for YouTube itself.

So definitely these shows are good ways to get a fix and to get more familiar with some of these fighters. Anderson Silva debuted for UFC on a SpikeTV show knocking Chris Leben into next year and got a Middleweight title fight out of it and we all know how that worked out.

On another note, I'm glad to have more people to talk about this stuff with, I'm so pumped for the 2 UFC shows in december that I can't wait!

 

[Matt^Brown]

Liddell will knock Ortiz out. I know they are always talking about the great conditioning of Ortiz but if that guy doesn't put you out in the first two rounds then he runs out of steam. I think Chuck can hold him off for that long.

As far as the GSP vs Hughes fight. I look forward to talking about that tomorrow after Andres gets caught up.

 

[Mikah Cerucco]

You know, I'm going to take that advice. It took me awhile to get into UFC as it seems like a really brutal sport upon first glance. It is a brutal sport, but it isn't quite like hitting each other with baseball bats and seeing who falls first (about what I equated it to at first). My only exposure to watching fighting previously was 30 years of watching Boxing.

I've since come to realize that while bad things can happen (I saw a fight where a guy's forearm bone broke during a submission attempt -- and he wanted to keep fighting), essentially they don't just throw a hapless unskilled person in there to have his eye socket caved in by an elbow or knee (another thing I initially felt).

With all the different fighting styles, there's a lot of skill going on there. Real wrestling (not the WWE/WWF/whatever style), martial arts, boxing, etc. As a person who used to do some of these things in my younger days, I'm hooked.

BTW, I love Liddell's stance. Before he's hit and before he strikes, I always see in him, "I'm going to get you, but I respect you as a fighter and I know anything can happen." It's at once very cautious, but also aggressive.

 

[Andres Munoz]

Mikah, the UFC kinda used to be like this in the beginning. They did have basic rules but pretty much everything was fair game. They had no time limit and they had no weight division. It was great to see a small guy like Royce Gracie (about 170lbs) fight guys over 250lbs and submit them in a matter of seconds.

However, a lot of people complained about the brutality of the sport and it was banned in a lot of states and dropped from a bunch of PPV distributors. That's where the UFC that we know today came from. They had to implement weight divisions and more rules in order to comply with state athletic commissions.

But even with the added rules, the sport is a lot more organized and a lot more compelling and it's just fun to watch. I also used to watch a lot of boxing but I'm sad to say, that's going nowhere.

UFC is where it's at today.

 

[Andres Munoz]

BTW, I still can't believe GSP beat Matt Hughes! Hughes seemed unbeatable. And from what I read and heard, GSP destroyed him.

Hughes had it coming though. He's a great fighter but an arrogant prick that pisses off a lot of people. GSP must have been hungry!

The rematch (you just know there's going to be a St. Pierre - Hughes 3) is going to be amazing.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

This is where I brag a little bit. Some friends and I write up a predictions column before every UFC, Pride, WWE and TNA show. In our column for UFC 65 I was the only 1 of the one's who participated that picked GSP to win that fight.

Yes, there will be a rematch, they're trying for May or June and UFC would like it to be in Montreal. If they could some how have this fight in Montreal that might be the most awesome site to behold given it would be GSP's home town and given that Hughes is so good at getting people to hate him.

 

[Andres Munoz]

Yeah, the crowd reaction would be huge in Montreal.

I read that next in line for the title was Diego Sanchez. He's good but I don't know if he's at the level that GSP or Hughes are.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

I wouldn't say that Diego is next in line as the next fight is Matt Serra Vs. GSP due to Serra's winning of Ultimate Fighter 4.

Then will likely come the Hughes rematch with Diego getting a shot at the winner. This is assuming that Diego Sanchez can get past Joe Rigs on 12/13.

 

[Matt^Brown]

I was a Hughes fan and I have rooted for him in every fight he has fought in except the two GSP fights. The first time I saw him fight GSP I told all my buddies that GSP would beat him the next time they fought. GSP is amazing for his age and that is what impressed me so much about him the first time. I think the guy was only 23 the first time they fought and he was well composed for such a young guy fighting such a seasoned pro. Yes I know GSP lost that first fight but he still showed me that he had talent.

 

[Andres Munoz]

You're right. I forgot about Serra.