Non-threadworthy MMA Rumors/Quotes/Tweets/Etc., Vol. 5

Bernman · Post #661 » by **Bernman** » Thu Mar 21, 2019 8:01 pm

REDDzone wrote:Anthony Pettis on whether or not he will ever fight Ben Askren:

"I'll save myself the embarrassment."

Then why do you think he has no avenue against Wonderboy, when he picked the match-up? He's obviously not delusional seeing as though he willfully acknowledges he'd get wrestle-humped by a guy like the Funk.

I wouldn't put him as the favorite against Wonderboy and think the decision to fight him was kind of odd. But I see a bunch of potential avenues toward victory. Body kick to the orthodox fighter who isn't going to crowd him, two-piece punch combo kd and then either more punches or quick sub snatch, td and sub, force a scramble and sub, etc. Might be a matter of needing to be brilliant in a moment instead of controlling the action, but in most fights he's still been capable of that, including the last few.

He looks respectably sized and pretty solid at this class actually. I do think that was always over-played how naturally small he was for the '55 class. Just was more of a matter of not liking to cut much weight.

REDDzone · Post #662 » by **REDDzone** » Thu Mar 21, 2019 8:14 pm

He hasn't finished anyone by strikes or a strike in 6 years. This is MMA, anything can happen so I don't literally mean "there is zero possible way he can win" but I have the same feeling going into this fight that I did going into the Barboza fight. It's a tough matchup stylistically because Wonderboy is better at Pettis' strengths and has an advantage in the area where I think the fight will be contested.

Bernman · Post #663 » by **Bernman** » Thu Mar 21, 2019 8:37 pm

REDDzone wrote:He hasn't finished anyone by strikes or a strike in 6 years. This is MMA, anything can happen so I don't literally mean "there is zero possible way he can win" but I have the same feeling going into this fight that I did going into the Barboza fight. It's a tough matchup stylistically because Wonderboy is better at Pettis' strengths and has an advantage in the area where I think the fight will be contested.

He doesn't have to finish them directly off strikes. He's finished them multiple times indirectly off strikes in that time span, subbing them after they were softened. Wonderboy doesn't have Barboza's tdd, and I don't recall Pettis trying to take it down to the mat. Pettis was also in a substantially worse head space then and less recovered from injuries.

Just because you have an avenue or more than one doesn't mean you're equally likely if not more so to prevail.

REDDzone · Post #664 » by **REDDzone** » Thu Mar 21, 2019 8:40 pm

Bernman wrote:
REDDzone wrote:He hasn't finished anyone by strikes or a strike in 6 years. This is MMA, anything can happen so I don't literally mean "there is zero possible way he can win" but I have the same feeling going into this fight that I did going into the Barboza fight. It's a tough matchup stylistically because Wonderboy is better at Pettis' strengths and has an advantage in the area where I think the fight will be contested.

He doesn't have to finish them directly off strikes. He's finished them multiple times indirectly off strikes in that time span, subbing them after they were softened. Wonderboy doesn't have Barboza's tdd, and I don't recall Pettis trying to take it down to the mat. Pettis was also in a substantially worse head space then and less recovered from injuries.

I'm trying to recall who has successfully taken Wonderboy down outside of Matt Brown wayyy back in the day. I think Woodley dropped him and spent a round on top in their fight. Otherwise Wonderboy has had a lot of success staying long and keeping his distance versus guys like Rory and Hendricks.

I think Pettis should try to grapple, FWIW. I'm hoping this "I have a shocking striking gameplan" stuff is a smokescreen.

kimuradragon · Post #665 » by **kimuradragon** » Fri Mar 22, 2019 12:50 am

Justin Willis goes off on Curtis Blaydes on UFC Unfiltered. Gonna be a good fight at UFC Unfiltered. Good trash talk or cringe?

Watch on YouTube

cowboyronnie · Post #666 » by **cowboyronnie** » Fri Mar 22, 2019 3:24 am

Pettis angling for that BJ Penn fight. Their trajectories...it's gotta happen.

NZB2323 · Post #667 » by **NZB2323** » Fri Mar 22, 2019 8:14 pm

Headliner wrote:When is that fight? I had no idea it was made

UFC marketing at its finest

Tomorrow.

Rose and Pettis are the 2 fighters that I follow the closest. Rose is fighting Jessica Andrade in May 11th. This board doesn’t have as big of a hard on for Rose as we do for Pettis, even though she’s the female Showtime and is doing much better right now.

Post #668 » by **Headliner** » Fri Mar 22, 2019 8:15 pm

I love Rose, she’s a beast. It’ll be fun to see her against someone other than JJ.
Ready to see her C’s different styles.

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REDDzone · Post #669 » by **REDDzone** » Fri Mar 22, 2019 8:34 pm

Last time I heard Rose on Ariel's show recently it was such classic Rose. She couldn't get a word in edgewise over Pat Barry interrupting every single answer, and she reaffirmed that she has magical ESP powers. Pretty sure she recently used it to avoid a car crash or some sh*t.

Susan · Post #670 » by **Susan** » Fri Mar 22, 2019 10:46 pm

NZB2323 wrote:
Headliner wrote:When is that fight? I had no idea it was made

UFC marketing at its finest

Tomorrow.

Rose and Pettis are the 2 fighters that I follow the closest. Rose is fighting Jessica Andrade in May 11th. This board doesn’t have as big of a hard on for Rose as we do for Pettis, even though she’s the female Showtime and is doing much better right now.

Sorry but I only care about Anthony Pettis. Nobody else is a fan of his as much as me.

REDDzone · Post #671 » by **REDDzone** » Sun Mar 24, 2019 12:47 am

Is Tristar an elite MMA gym? I was recently listening to Rogan proclaim Firas as one of the GOAT MMA minds and it got me thinking. I think it's easy to conflate Tristar with GSP but the truth is GSP had a whole gang of coaches from Firas to Danaher to Roach to Greg Jackson. Rory is another but Rory came up with someone else and has recently started training more with his original coach (and the corner advice as Rory got destroyed by Mousasi was legitimately embarrassing, pretty sure it was remarked upon here).

Other than that what really is there? Carmont was a huge bust. I like Olivier Aubien-Mercier but he's on a losing skid. I can actually think of several fighters who moved to Tristar and immediately regressed or else saw more success once they left...I'm referring to Joanne Calderwood, Joe Duffy, and John Makdessi here. Joanne and Makdessi improved the second they left (post written before his fight on 3/23). A guy like Alex Garcia seems to have all the tools but just cannot put it together for whatever reason.

Guys like Misha Circunov and Tom Breese were hyped but haven't amounted to anything at this point. What am I missing (this is NOT a rhetorical question BTW)?

This is all completely tangential to GSP not believing in climate change and Firas thinking science is "woo". :-?

cowboyronnie · Post #672 » by **cowboyronnie** » Sun Mar 24, 2019 1:53 pm

REDDzone wrote:Is Tristar an elite MMA gym? I was recently listening to Rogan proclaim Firas as one of the GOAT MMA minds and it got me thinking. I think it's easy to conflate Tristar with GSP but the truth is GSP had a whole gang of coaches from Firas to Danaher to Roach to Greg Jackson. Rory is another but Rory came up with someone else and has recently started training more with his original coach (and the corner advice as Rory got destroyed by Mousasi was legitimately embarrassing, pretty sure it was remarked upon here).

Other than that what really is there? Carmont was a huge bust. I like Olivier Aubien-Mercier but he's on a losing skid. I can actually think of several fighters who moved to Tristar and immediately regressed or else saw more success once they left...I'm referring to Joanne Calderwood, Joe Duffy, and John Makdessi here. Joanne and Makdessi improved the second they left (post written before his fight on 3/23). A guy like Alex Garcia seems to have all the tools but just cannot put it together for whatever reason.

Guys like Misha Circunov and Tom Breese were hyped but haven't amounted to anything at this point. What am I missing (this is NOT a rhetorical question BTW)?

This is all completely tangential to GSP not believing in climate change and Firas thinking science is "woo".

This is interesting. A lot of his suggestions on Rogan seemed pretty progressive in terms of training, IIRC. Not jacking your nervous system up all the time. Not training heavy cardio for cardio's sake. And being really judicious with hard sparring. There are certainly a lot of camps making all of those mistakes. Plus, aside from anything Firas can offer, there's the simple fact that you have a lot of great talent there. That can't hurt.

His corner advice usually seems on point too.

What might be underwhelming, I have no idea. What do you think he might be lacking?

Post #673 » by **spykelee** » Tue Mar 26, 2019 6:28 am

Conner claims he's retiring on twitter.. I hope it's true... He seems to be going the Diaz way of just partying which is fine but hopefully he just moves on with life and we can stop seeing his pointless tweets everyday calling out somebody else he won't fight.

Sent from my LG-H873 using RealGM mobile app

Post #674 » by **Headliner** » Tue Mar 26, 2019 3:09 pm

The UFC with terrible management here. He's most likely retiring because they aren't offering him mainevent PPV points.

He should probably retire though because his head isn't in it and when your head isn't in it, you end up like BJ the latter part of your career.

REDDzone · Post #675 » by **REDDzone** » Tue Mar 26, 2019 3:13 pm

cowboyronnie wrote:This is interesting. A lot of his suggestions on Rogan seemed pretty progressive in terms of training, IIRC. Not jacking your nervous system up all the time. Not training heavy cardio for cardio's sake. And being really judicious with hard sparring. There are certainly a lot of camps making all of those mistakes. Plus, aside from anything Firas can offer, there's the simple fact that you have a lot of great talent there. That can't hurt.

His corner advice usually seems on point too.

What might be underwhelming, I have no idea. What do you think he might be lacking?

I watch his youtube videos discussing technique sometimes and he's definitely a thoughtful dude. I don't really have any constructive feedback (or would presume to know enough to offer it even if I did). Just a trend I noticed with Makdessi/Calderwood/Duffy that got me thinking more into it. All camps go through skids though, Jackson's looked dead awhile back and are back now and as good as ever.

Just thought it may be an interesting discussion point.

AirCanadaMouse · Post #676 » by **AirCanadaMouse** » Tue Mar 26, 2019 11:44 pm

NZB2323 wrote:
Headliner wrote:When is that fight? I had no idea it was made

UFC marketing at its finest

Tomorrow.

Rose and Pettis are the 2 fighters that I follow the closest. Rose is fighting Jessica Andrade in May 11th. This board doesn’t have as big of a hard on for Rose as we do for Pettis, even though she’s the female Showtime and is doing much better right now.

Because Rose is annoying and fake as hell.

AirCanadaMouse · Post #677 » by **AirCanadaMouse** » Tue Mar 26, 2019 11:48 pm

REDDzone wrote:Is Tristar an elite MMA gym? I was recently listening to Rogan proclaim Firas as one of the GOAT MMA minds and it got me thinking. I think it's easy to conflate Tristar with GSP but the truth is GSP had a whole gang of coaches from Firas to Danaher to Roach to Greg Jackson. Rory is another but Rory came up with someone else and has recently started training more with his original coach (and the corner advice as Rory got destroyed by Mousasi was legitimately embarrassing, pretty sure it was remarked upon here).

Other than that what really is there? Carmont was a huge bust. I like Olivier Aubien-Mercier but he's on a losing skid. I can actually think of several fighters who moved to Tristar and immediately regressed or else saw more success once they left...I'm referring to Joanne Calderwood, Joe Duffy, and John Makdessi here. Joanne and Makdessi improved the second they left (post written before his fight on 3/23). A guy like Alex Garcia seems to have all the tools but just cannot put it together for whatever reason.

Guys like Misha Circunov and Tom Breese were hyped but haven't amounted to anything at this point. What am I missing (this is NOT a rhetorical question BTW)?

This is all completely tangential to GSP not believing in climate change and Firas thinking science is "woo".

Misha used to train with me at Xtreme Couture in Toronto, he was never at Tri-Star. He's now training at the Xtreme Couture Vegas location.

REDDzone · Post #678 » by **REDDzone** » Wed Mar 27, 2019 1:13 am

AirCanadaMouse wrote:
REDDzone wrote:Is Tristar an elite MMA gym? I was recently listening to Rogan proclaim Firas as one of the GOAT MMA minds and it got me thinking. I think it's easy to conflate Tristar with GSP but the truth is GSP had a whole gang of coaches from Firas to Danaher to Roach to Greg Jackson. Rory is another but Rory came up with someone else and has recently started training more with his original coach (and the corner advice as Rory got destroyed by Mousasi was legitimately embarrassing, pretty sure it was remarked upon here).

Other than that what really is there? Carmont was a huge bust. I like Olivier Aubien-Mercier but he's on a losing skid. I can actually think of several fighters who moved to Tristar and immediately regressed or else saw more success once they left...I'm referring to Joanne Calderwood, Joe Duffy, and John Makdessi here. Joanne and Makdessi improved the second they left (post written before his fight on 3/23). A guy like Alex Garcia seems to have all the tools but just cannot put it together for whatever reason.

Guys like Misha Circunov and Tom Breese were hyped but haven't amounted to anything at this point. What am I missing (this is NOT a rhetorical question BTW)?

This is all completely tangential to GSP not believing in climate change and Firas thinking science is "woo".

Misha used to train with me at Xtreme Couture in Toronto, he was never at Tri-Star. He's now training at the Xtreme Couture Vegas location.

Oh sh*t, my bad!

I didn't even know you trained btw. Sweet.

AirCanadaMouse · Post #679 » by **AirCanadaMouse** » Wed Mar 27, 2019 6:08 pm

Hardly anything like you guys, just a hobby really. Only a blue belt in BJJ but Misha helps out with the beginners, he's a true stand up guy. A bit chinny as a fighter, and the hype train was derailed a long time ago, but he deserves all the respect he gets in the gym. As for your Tri-Star assessment, you're definitely right. We can even add Randa Markos to that list, especially after her last performance. They do have some bright spots for the future though, Bektic and Nasrat look like future contenders. Bektic may already be solidified as one.

REDDzone · Post #680 » by **REDDzone** » Wed Mar 27, 2019 6:46 pm

AirCanadaMouse wrote:Hardly anything like you guys, just a hobby really. Only a blue belt in BJJ but Misha helps out with the beginners, he's a true stand up guy. A bit chinny as a fighter, and the hype train was derailed a long time ago, but he deserves all the respect he gets in the gym. As for your Tri-Star assessment, you're definitely right. We can even add Randa Markos to that list, especially after her last performance. They do have some bright spots for the future though, Bektic and Nasrat look like future contenders. Bektic may already be solidified as one.

Can you clarify the Randa comment, was she at Tristar then left or...?

If you train with her, I'm sorry for saying she sucks. I was actually a fan of her on TUF. She has just been so up and down since then for whatever reason. I've trained with a lot of guys who put their heart and soul into this sport so I know how reading some hamburger eater sitting at a computer screen flippantly remarking about how they suck can be annoying. Especially after a tough loss.