The MMA Thread

Belal is from Chicago. (And Pennington is US born, too).

O'Malley getting outwrestled in a rout was the opposite of the decision UFC wanted.

Wrestling is back.

Which sucks cause it is by far the most boring mma.

What was the deal with Herb in the main event. Yelling at everyone lol.

Man shouldnt'a done that kissin'

That was fine.

But Herb yelling work at the dude when he was on top was weird.

Was it this thread when someone said "they should never stand them up"?

Cause that's one of the jew Joe Rogan points I agree with.

If a dude can lay on you for 25 mins and you can't get up then tough **** that's a loss.

yeah herb was telling them to keep working when merab was circling omalley up 3-1 or 4-0 in the 5th like he knew omalley losing was bad for the brand as well

bizarre stuff from him

Every round starts on the feet, no kicks or knees to the head are allowed against a grounded opponent (albeit the definition of 'grounded' is changing soon) and the referee will stand them up if not much is happening. The rules are already weighted in favour of strikers.

The MMA meta will keep changing. O'Malley discovered too late that front kicks to the body work well against Merab. Future opponents will target Merab's midsection, he'll get winded and not look so tireless, the knockout will come.

I'm not sure I'm willing to say "discovered too late front kicks work vs Merab"

Would be like saying Leon "found out head kicks work vs Kamaru"

He was terrified of throwing kicks early on in the fight for threat of the takedown. It was not part of the game plan.

It's a lot easier to find success and get going on the feet when your opponent is up multiple rounds and coasting. Especially vs a wrestler who may be doing risk analysis of shooting in the final round and walking into a knee or guillotine.

Rountree for the upset against Alex?

I feel that Alex is very untested on the ground. He has some good BJJ people in his camp but we've never seen it put to the test.

Rountree does have some power in his hands but i'm not convinced he's got an edge in a striking battle. Really depends whether Rountree decides to keep it on the feet or not.

I might chuck a little money on the underdog.

Rountree is strong AF

That grip strength is crazy.
Some recorded ones - https://grippermania.ru/gm150/ranking#m-...
Obviously mainly Russians/Eastern Euros but gives an idea.

Didn't Eddie Hall break the grip strength test?

Either way, a strong grip doesn't translate to winning in MMA.

so they both pull roughly on par with a top ranked 75kg woman?

Cool

Let's ****ing go Alex.

Win this. Win another at 205. Win the Hw title.

Then he's in goat conversations.

CHAMA!!

That was one of the most brutal endings I've ever seen.

Roundtrip just wouldn't go down.

Even Rogan said how the ref told him "when he hits someone it makes a special ungodly sounds".

Alex is the man. Pay that man more money.

Dana must be so hard after the last few Main Event duds we've had.

Props to Khalil for lasting as long as he did and staying aggressive the whole time.

Khalil was in that fight and had some good moments although his leg was compromised from early in the fight.

One thing I don't get is that these guys know Alex is a good striker and decide to stand there for 20 minutes without trying to take him down and just trade blows with him.

It's basically the reason Adesanya had so much success. These guys seem mesmerised and stand there engaging in a firefight with superior strikers. Shoot for a take down? Make it a wrestling match and dump them on their back?

Alex is still very untested in that respect and I don't think we learned anything new from this fight. I'll be backing a grappler / wrestler against Alex.

I'm guessing a lot of guys want to play to their strengths, and the majority of top ranked LHW are pure strikers.

The only 2 guys I see that favor wrestling is Jan and Nikita. Alex beat Jan last year by split decision in a 3 round right. Although it sounds like a lot of people though Jan should've won. A 5 rounder would be interesting.

If he did try to go up, Big Tom would be one of the worst people he could fight.

Jan was 40 then? Let's be honest....that's well beyond prime and in the twilight of his career. If the fight had happened a few years before then Alex would have been ragdolled and dominated.

How does #8 rank get a title shot and #2 Ankalaev is left on the sidelines?

[quote=thethethe]If he did try to go up, Big Tom would be one of the worst people he could fight.[/quote]

I feel this is accurate. The only niggling feeling I have about Tom is his fights have been so short that we've not really seen how he deals with adversity!

In the Blaydes fight he managed to land one or two heavy punches which seemed to briefly stun Aspinall. Maybe he's a bit open and susceptible to getting caught but it hasn't happened yet.

Is that a serious question? FWIW, Ankalaev is not on the sidelines.

not that anyone cares about women's bantamweight but pennington won rd 1 and thus won that fight

some horrible judging on this card

The referee (Dave Seljestad) in the Cesar Almeida and Ihor Potieria was horrible. About 4 eye pokes and not a single point deducted. When the fighters clinched against the cage he broke it up within seconds.

Hopefully he never works for UFC again.

I was listening to Rogan interviewing Izzy just before I watched it. They were both saying it was mad that the gloves don't just have like a covering over the fingers that wouldn't impact grabbling, but would prevent eye pokes.

Izzy also said said getting kicked by Pereira is just something else.