The MMA Thread

Ufc should do everything to hype up Tom now.

Forget about Jones because he's not taking the fight.

Market Tom as the current and future superstar while you have the chance. Great interviews/mic skills, all around likeable dude, he's got the look, ****ing get your marketing team to work on this.

UFC can push and market Tom all they want, but Jon is the only big matchup they can make with him. If you take Jon out the biggest remaining contenders are Ciryl Gane (who recently won via robbery), Volkov (who Tom has beaten) and Jailton Almeida.

The HW division is really weak overall as Derrick Lewis and Tai Tuivasa are still ranked as top 10.

UFC has suffered a bunch of bad results over the last several years and as a very casual watcher the product is a result of those results. Ngannou splitting, Izzy falling off, O'Malley losing, McGregor never getting back in it. They make stars but it feels like they don't maintain them. Agree Jones Aspinall needs to happen but the ranks of up and comers seem meh. I mean the guys who move the needle are dopes like Paddy who have to get gifted decisions to remain relevant.

Can’t help but think part of it is elite athletes who are smart know it’s a huge gamble that will never pay off like any other career. No idea how Dana doesn’t get more **** for how he treats those guys

Jones to submit Aspy. If they don't meet Aspy will get taken out soon. Lidell principle.

There's always been value in long term Champs. Tom to me is the best bet to hold the title for potentially years. Plus he's the most interesting and entertaining out of most of the champs.

If Tom simply smashes people who aren't on his level then people will still love it. GSP, Ronda, Silva, Amanda, they love extended reigns. We saw Alex almost get there and he's had the most hype out of anyone lately.

Let Alex smash and enjoy the profits imo.

Tom definitely has potential to be one of those long reigning champs that I could easily see breaking Stipe's title defense record and holding that title for a long time.

UFC is in a place where some of these champions are in positions to be very dominant and have long reigns.

There's really a lack of talent in some of the divisions. UFC need to poach some talent from other organisations and they really dropped the ball by losing Francis. At least the guy was active! But instead they'd rather throw money at Jones to cherry pick his fights against irrelevant fighters.

Leon got owned

all done as a contender given how stacked 170 is

He looked pretty lost once he got put on his back. Let's be honest though....his first win against Usman was a fluke.

Brady had an impressive performance. I'm not sure what a match with Belal looks like, all grappling and probably a dull spectacle if you're not into that.

I know Leon was top tier for a long time before getting the belt, between covid and the division being held up he had to wait awhile for a title shot but I do wonder if we're in this new era where 1-2yrs is like the tops for champs now. Primes getting shorter and shorter.

He went from champ to probably not top 5-6 in the division in the span of like 6 months.

It also depends on how much talent there is in the division. Looking at the division there's maybe only one person in the top 10 who may be a challenge for Makhachev. Other divisions are a bit more competitive.

We've also had people win belts because they had the right style to beat the champion albeit being very incomplete fighters (Pereira, Strickland) but weren't well rounded to compete with other challengers in the division.

Leon was kind of lucky to get that title shot with Usman in the first place as well. Let's not forget the NC eye poke with Belal. If that hadn't happened Belal may have won and potentially held the belt all these years.

Very good question, nobody has any idea how that fight might look like.

It's not like they already fought each other two years ago. I'm sure if they did that fight would have ended in a boring decision. Absolutely no way Belal finishes him in that one.

Fighters don't evolve and improve in over two years?

I've been absolutely hooked to the UFC the last couple of years, it's my #1 sports to watch. But I find myself losing interest the last couple of months. Cards just aren't that exciting anymore. Take a look at the upcoming cards....

Feel the same. Also, I've noticed since around the beginning of the years it's been a lot harder, sometimes impossible, to find the fights on the 'high seas'.

Don't know if it's a lack of interest, if Dana's cracking down on it, or could just be me...

I totally agree. THe biggest fight scheduled right now is Volk vs Lopes and I don't find it that exciting considering Volk has been KO'd two fights in a row and Ilia is leaving them with a second place prize to fight for.

The major fights in each division aren't scheduled. Although we did just get Pereira vs Ankalaev a few weeks ago.

The big fights we are all waiting for are:

-Tom vs Jon
-DDP vs Khamzat
-Ilia vs Islam

I think there are some other big fights like Belal vs Shavkat and Islam vs Arman, but these aren't as big as the first three I listed. Another major fight would be Islam vs a new 170 champion if Belal was to lose. If Islam won the 170 belt then he would be putting himself within top 3 all time status I'd say.

I think given the lack of star power in the UFC at the moment and lack of blockbuster matchups to make, I think it's a black eye on the UFC if they don't pay Jon enough to fight Tom. The Francis vs Tom matchup never happened and that was a shame.

It seems like the UFC is really focused on keeping fighter salaries low and not giving them precedents to use leverage to negotiate a bigger pay day in rare situations that come up.

The thing about having the big name matchups is that it doesn't guarantee a great fight. Some of the cards with less sexy names can put up some great fights.

On this past UFC London card I remember seeing a couple of fights with guys I've never heard of, but I was impressed with what I saw. Kavanagh vs Dos Santos was a good fight and Kavanagh looks impressive. I thought Fletcher vs Loughran was a good scrap as well.

But ya as far as big announcements, I think we are just playing a waiting game right now.

Yeah, fair enough. I must admit that even though I am a UFC fan/follower (and also train passionately), I have never watched a full UFC card before. I usually only watch the last 2-5 fights. So am definitely more on the casual side.

The Song v Cejudo card was pretty good last month, and I don't think it had a lot of star power. Started off with 7 straight fights that ended in a finish. Unfortunately things slowed down during the Main Card and the Main Event fell short after being called after the 3rd round.

Prelims are almost always more fun, action-packed fights. (Same with apparent ho-hum Fight Night cards.)

You're missing out.

Prelims are the ufc's version of the G League. I ain't watching those bums!

But really I'm silly and can't get invested to watch fighters I know nothing about.

Prelim fights on a stacked PPV card are of equal and sometimes better name matchups than alot of fight night cards. It really just depends on the card.

I'm 'bout that action, Boss.

Watch most all the BKFC cards too. (I'm never watching Power Slap tho, if there's no defense involved: it's not a sport.)