UFC 178 (9/27): Johnson vs. Cariaso (Jones/DC off)

[REDDzone]

Luv how nobody gives cowboy any respect ever. As if his game just can't possibly have evolved from five years ago. Well done once again Mr. Cerrone. That's a statement W


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

I feel like if Gil beats Pettis, people will be a lotttt more excited about your boy Cowboy.

[Bernman]

How many situations would there be in the real world where two people were beating their brains in for 15-25 straight minutes without them being broken up somehow?

In some kind of horror situation where that did occur, the person with the initial control who felt exhaustion setting in I'd imagine would start getting desperate and resort to tactics we don't see in an MMA cage. If you get a person on the ground and start stomping their head, that fight is not lasting 15-25 minutes. Not that I want that rule to be legalized as a result. You can do some serious damage then, and in civilized society, that would make you a loser.

MMA fights as they stand are fair representations of what would happen if these two people met and duked it out in the real world today. The interpretation of who actually won after what transpired is the bigger issue with MMA to me, as well as sometimes the ref's subjective application of the rules. Not the rules themselves.

[REDDzone]

How many situations would there be in the real world where two people were beating their brains in for 15-25 straight minutes without them being broken up somehow?

In some kind of horror situation where that did occur, the person with the initial control who felt exhaustion setting in I'd imagine would start getting desperate and resort to tactics we don't see in an MMA cage. If you get a person on the ground and start stomping their head, that fight is not lasting 15-25 minutes. Not that I want that rule to be legalized as a result. You can do some serious damage then, and in civilized society, that would make you a loser.

MMA fights as they stand are fair representations of what would happen if these two people met and duked it out in the real world today. The interpretation of who actually won after what transpired is the bigger issue with MMA to me, as well as sometimes the ref's subjective application of the rules. Not the rules themselves.

The point is that its a REALITY that cardio is so imperative to fighting, whether you like it or not. Its not debatable. So to try to minimize it artificially takes away from the purity of fighting.

Your point about not wanting to change things is subjective and I have zero issue with that. But to try to state that artificially controlling that aspect of fighting somehow gives us the "true" better fighter just doesn't make sense.

[REDDzone]

I'm just watching this event right now and just saw the Cruz fight.

MY GOD THIS DOUBLE LEG BY CRUZ. Whoa!!!

Dom said after the fight that was all just pent up aggression from years on the shelf. God, you almost get the idea that it didn't matter who was in the ring with him that night.

[Bernman]

Whao, are all of Bellator's fighters fighting a division or two up?

Well I don't think Chandler is quite as small as Alvarez. He appeared discernibly bigger in their fights.

But the answer to your question is that many are, due to the tourney format. And they'd ideally drop a division in UFC. Pitbull for example I think is ideally a bw, and a boss one, in UFC. Shlemenko as is needs to drop to ww in Bellator, and he may even be a lw in UFC.

However, others haven't seemed to care and would make the frequent large cuts. I remember Lloyd Woodard disclosed he fought at 180 during the lw tourney. As far as relevant fighters go Lima, Koreshkov, Curran, Straus, Dantas, etc. would be big even for UFC.

[REDDzone]

Well I don't think Chandler is quite as small as Alvarez. He appeared discernibly bigger in their fights.

But the answer to your question is that many are, due to the tourney format. And they'd ideally drop a division in UFC. Pitbull for example I think is ideally a bw, and a boss one, in UFC. Shlemenko as is needs to drop to ww in Bellator, and he may even be a lw in UFC.

However, others haven't seemed to care and would make the frequent large cuts. I remember Lloyd Woodard disclosed he fought at 180 during the lw tourney. As far as relevant fighters go Lima, Koreshkov, Curran, Straus, Dantas, etc. would be big even for UFC.

You would know better than me but I feel like Chandler has gotten smaller over the last few years. I remember thinking he was huge when he first fought Alvarez back in 2011 (and I kind of thought his gas reflected that), but he doesn't seem quite as big to me now.

[REDDzone]

Continuing the event. As much as I love her going for the kill with those submission attempts, and as much as I admire how good her hips are and how quickly she can create angles, Zingano needs to tighten her defense up from the bottom. Taking wayyyy too many shots on the bottom, and on the flip side, good accurate GnP by Nunes. Glad to see Zingano win though, one of the best matches of the night for sure.

Also watching this Kennedy fight now, Romero was DONE for, then saved by the bell. He was out on his feet and would have fell backwards if not for the cage. And that's even before Romero sitting on the stool for an extra 30 seconds. God what a bunch of bullsh*t. Regardless of the vaseline or whatever, why does he get to just sit on the stool. Pretty much demonstrates everything I've been saying the last few pages, fight was all but over until the bell artificially saved a fighter's ass. Hate that.

My number one choice is to see that be a no contest and Kennedy to get a rematch. Since that won't happen my second choice is to see Jacare or Weidman bounce Romero's head like a basketball for that bs.

[cowboyronnie]

Eddie has too many people in his ear. One of his coaches is telling him to wrestle.

Brozillians

[cowboyronnie]

Cerrone is a contender in the sense he could get a title shot against someone. But it won't be Pettis for a while, and whoever he does fight for the title I don't think he's much of a threat still. I just think the UFC knew what they were doing when making the Cerrone-EA match-up. EA is elite....at featherweight. He lost both fights to Chandler in reality and doesn't translate as well as him or Brooks to LW because he's smaller. But he may do better at FW than them at LW. Who knows, we'll see in time I guess. Also let's not lose sight of the fact that this was one night and of an octagon debut.

I have to admit, I'm surprised he's 5 into a win streak. I'd always figured Cowboy's redneck identity will mean he never re-evaluates skills and methods thoroughly enough that he'll put together a hot streak in the UFC. He'll never listen to cityboys sorta thing. But I guess he has put a run together, and seemed to incorporate at least a little head movement. Still think too stuboorn and an unwillingness to abandon methods.

[cowboyronnie]

Not sure how what to think of the Kennedy-Romero fight. It had all the drama and momentum swings that made up a classic match-up but the controversy really left a bad taste in my mouth.

Every second you get to recover counts, especially when you're completely gassed and have had your brains scrambled at the end of the round. Nobody is allowed more than a minute between rounds and Romero, apart from being saved by the bell, gets an extra 29 seconds to get off dream street and recuperate.

It was blatant cheating by his corner and the result should probably be changed to a NC. If McCarthy was in control, it might have actually been a TKO for Kennedy given the fact that his opponent wasn't able to answer the bell.

Apparently it wasn't even necessarily gamesmanship by his corner, and he wasn't failing to answer the bell, because the inspector instructed Romero needed to be wiped off before the round restarted. And that was the cause for most of the delay. Whether or not it was a tactic by his corner, I don't know. But even if it were it'd be a point deduction or something to that effect. It's not a fight stopping event. He got up not too long after he was told he had to.

Dana is following this line, pretending like the only issue was the vaseline. There was a commission dude screaming bloody murder for him to get off the stool, Romero knew what was up. And he said after the fight, in the ring, something to the effect of "I needed a little extra wind, my corner told me to stay on the stool" (did I hear that right?).

Dana apparently wants the division (Romero) to move on rather than be marred by a re-match here. I actually expected him to take a stand and ask for suspensions or bans for the cornermen, my mistake. That old MFer in Romero's corner...a snake.

It is fight-stopping. You have to answer the bell. You don't get to opt for an extra 15-30 seconds. I have seen refs interpret that as the guy conceding. Certainly if a guy gets counted out in boxing if he can't off the canvas in 10, you not being able to get off the stool in 20+ ought to count as a KO.

Someone at the presser said it was 28 seconds.

[REDDzone]

Wow, Robin Black posted on the UG that Kennedy was grabbing Romero's glove during those uppercuts when he almost finished Romero. It looks like he may have actually had his fingers inside Yoel's glove and pushing away his hand. Interesting. For some weird reason this makes me feel a little better about Romero winning. Is that the beginning of the combo that almost finished Romero? Or the middle?

Look again at the gif.

[cowboyronnie]

You'd want to see the previous second, I think. Did he reach for it or did he find his hand their advantageously after a parry & hang on?

[REDDzone]

You'd want to see the previous second, I think. Did he reach for it or did he find his hand their advantageously after a parry & hang on?

You can see Yoel try to raise that hand to block the second shot but couldn't due to Kennedy holding on to his glove (speaking of random artificial aspects of mma cough cough). In your opinion does it matter if he grabbed for it intentionally or just landed there and held on intentionally? Not sure it makes a difference to me.

Edit: And looking at it even more closely not only was he raising that hand to block, he was also trying to circle out but (possibly) couldn't create space because of the glove hold.

[cowboyronnie]

Yeah, if it's something you train for or if it's something that you have experience in exploiting cos it happens often (I don't know if it does), it's much more morally damning. Cos I could see you just sort of feeling the effect of having the leverage to pull his hand away while focusing on throwing those blows as viciously as possible and not really realizing that it's a **** thing to do. Real time, that is about a second of action. So quick. Amidst a round that is 300 seconds in a cage with a **** fast-twitch mad dog.

I sound retreaded or a mark. I sort of like Tim Kennedy but also don't worry about him because he participated in that whole thing with the destruction of another society.

[cowboyronnie]

looking again, he holds on through a fair bit of movement. maybe cheap.

[Bernman]

And then Kennedy was incredulously chastising Romero afterward. lol

Not answering the bell is a fight-ending event, but at first the issue the inspector had was indeed the vaseline as he waved over Romero's body, and after that the ref should give a fighter a clearly defined time limit as to how long he's allowed to stay on the stool. He shouldn't be able to say get up, but then dq him after an unspecified amount of time. He should have to give a brief count. Otherwise, that opens up fighters to be wronged by misunderstandings and ref's abuse of power.

[REDDzone]

Its funny that DJ basically finished the fight with a straight armbar but the ref missed the halfhearted tap so he finished him again with a kimura lol. Beautiful yet classic combination.

[Jasen777]

Continuing the event. As much as I love her going for the kill with those submission attempts, and as much as I admire how good her hips are and how quickly she can create angles, Zingano needs to tighten her defense up from the bottom. Taking wayyyy too many shots on the bottom, and on the flip side, good accurate GnP by Nunes. Glad to see Zingano win though, one of the best matches of the night for sure.

Well to be fair, no woman has so far, but Zingano really has nothing for Rousey.

[NZB2323]

Dom was closer to the camera than Chandler. Chandler's shoulders and back were much bigger than Dom's.

[REDDzone]

Cruz winning in such dominant fashion just accentuates the ufc's ineptitude in regards to the handling of their 135 division and more generally their strategy of giving every losing champion an immediate rematch regardless of the extent of the beatdown they received.

Assuncao already deserved a title shot. He is 6-1 in the ufc and even deserved TJ's shot more than TJ did since he had beaten TJ. Then Assuncao was the obvious guy after TJ destroyed Barao but of course the ufc has to put Barao in there just a few short months after that brutal beatdown and KO and it falls through horribly. Now Assuncao is fighting again in 6 days time and if he has an impressive performance against Caraway will be 7-1 in the ufc and more deserving that ever.

Obviously Cruz is just as deserving and that's a much more marketable fight. Just crappy for Assuncao and could have easily been avoided and Assuncao should have been fighting TJ last month instead of Joe Soto lol.