The MMA Thread

I know Omalley quit weed, social media, focused as ever for the fight. Knows this is probably his last chance at the belt for awhile if he loses but just seems like if he couldn't stop takedowns 9 months ago, he can't now.

Sports always go through a time when the fans miss the better days and are disappointed with the current product and these feel like one of those moments.

Amanda Nunez coming back is hype!

Other than that..still waiting on Jones to decide whatever he's going to do..not much else.

I'm sure O'Malley's life changes to remove useless distractions has improved his life overall. But the three main areas that would need to impact are his takedown defense, and the strength and cardio difference between him and Merab.

As far as I can tell, Sean still has a very tall and slim physique that lacks muscle mass relative to other MMA fighters in his division. Merab is a short/strong guy with a big gas tank. The take down attempts come relentlessly even if he may not get all of them. Merab has fought a tough opponent since their first match while Sean has not fought.

I have Merab by decision here in a similar fight to last September.

Go big or go home +14646

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if kayla beats nunes not even sure how long she is gonna stick around in the ufc for, that 135 cut doesnt seem very healthy for her

Merab just too good

seems like he is gonna hold the belt for awhile, hes already cleaned out most of the division

id rather see yadong or bautista get a shot over sandhagen

Didn't expect Usman to be so dominant. Which leads me to ask. I get that all fighters have their strengths and weaknesses. But why do there seem to be so many fighters that are terrible at grappling.

You'd think in a MIXED Martial Arts sport, they'd have some level of competency.

Highlights from yesterday's Glory 100. Main event was the King, Rico Verhoeven.

I recommend 55:20 in particular 😮

Wonder how bad cte is for these guys

nice win for Usman to derail the Buckley hype train but i think he is probably a fade in his next fight, caught the right matchup against a guy who didn't have the TDD

pretty much all the other fighters in the weight class have way better TDD than buckley and usman's wrestling wasn't very good against Leon 3 years ago. He might be 39 by his next fight.

Agree. Buckley's TDD was so bad and that shouldn't be the case with the other top contenders. Belal would keep the fight on the feet more. Garry, Shavkat, Brady would all perform much better than Buckley as well. I'm not sure what Michael Morales would be like with TDD but he isn't at contender status yet. Not sure how Prates would do vs a strong wrestling game as well.

Connor about to lose another chunk of change. Eejit!

saw a clip of Jones on the Nelk Boys pod, seems like him/Aspinall is dead

also seems like he is back on drugs but that is less newsworthy

Jones retiring.

Tom undisputed champ.

What a boner killer.

We deserve to see Jones lose.

I can picture Tom's legacy being a long time HW champ who will have cleaned out a weak division with a reign over 5 years, setting a new record for HW title defenses. At this point it seems like any HW who can beat Tom is someone who hasn't even arrived to the UFC yet.

At the start of 2025 there were 3 big fights I was hoping to see. Tom vs Jon was one of them and that's off the table now. Another was DDP vs Khamzat which will will get in August. The last was Ilia vs Islam which we won't be getting this year, and possibly never if Islam never comes back to LW. At Ilia's height of 5'7", I think he'd be way to small to fight at WW.

I don't even blame Jones, Aspinall just hasn't done enough in the sport for Jones to get excited about that fight

but yeah Aspinall could be champ for awhile, HW really sucks and he's young

I don't really see Ngannou coming back to UFC either

Thank god the fiasco has come to an end.

Jones is a disgrace and has wasted peak years of Aspinall's career and held up a division.

Jones has obviously done some good things in the octagon earlier in his career but this will definitely tarnish his legacy.

meh nobody told Aspinall to put his career on hold for a guy that had fought twice in the previous 4 years before that and clearly isnt reliable (how on hold was it anyway? he fought a year ago), if anything this has been good for aspinall id say...way more people know who he is now as "the guy who jones didnt wanna fight" vs if jones never moved to HW he would've just beat some bums and been another stipe

chandler with mcgregor i get his logic, because he wasn't really a contender anyway but in aspinall case he could've kept beating people up and made it a bigger fight vs jones

obviously big problem is HW sucks so there is no one credible to beat up to increase his profile too much

Aspinall wanted to be an active fighter. He was fighting a few times a year.

UFC were paying him to sit on the sidelines whilst trying to sort out the mess with Jones. Was Aspinall meant to keep defending an interim belt?!?

The only way it has been good for Tom is that he's been able to train more generally (rather than for a specific fighter) and improve his skillset.

The whole issue is that there were 2 belts in the division and usually it's something to get resolved ASAP.

Look at the Top 10 heavyweight. What a joke of a division. They need some new blood ASAP. Dana needs to swallow his ego and throw all the $$$ at Ngannou / PFL. Ngannou vs Aspinall would be a biggg fight

i think we're at the end game for both LHW and HW MMA where it just is going to be what it is

both divisions are going to usually be the worst 2 in the UFC mostly with guys that can neutralize all other aspects of MMA and turn it into bad kickboxing

you get a few elite guys like pereira, aspinall here and there and they rise to the top

my guess is the UFC has no interest in the chance Ngannou banks Aspinall in 1 rd and now they have to deal with him again, especially since he is almost 40 at this point.

I'd love to see Francis back. He left the UFC on top and destroyed a guy in his one PFL fight since that time. UFC needs him now that Jon stepped away and left fans missing out on a huge fight. Dana's got such a big ego and holds grudges though, so its unlikely that it happens. I'm sure Dana is pretty bothered that Francis walked away to make a few 20+ million dollar paydays, which is something no other fighter ever had the balls or the chance to do.

A slow and unsure retirement does not tarnish a legacy. It happens all the time in sports. Jones and Khabib in a dead heat for GOAT in my book. I wonder how to splice those two?? In the octagon.