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« | Home | »

Less excited about prospects of GSP vs. Rory MacDonald?

By Zach Arnold | July 27, 2013

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LATEST ARTICLE COMMENTS HERE.

Dana White has been spending the week touting the prospects of a future fight between Georges St. Pierre and Rory MacDonald. St. Pierre has a fight coming up with Johny Hendricks but it seems clear that the desire to get to a fight between the two Montreal teammates.

And then Saturday night’s semi-main event fight happened between Rory MacDonald and Jake Ellenberger. It was awful to watch. Instead of Rory looking like a beast like he did against BJ Penn, he put on a technical clinic without going for the finish.

Ellenberger put on a horrible performance. Rory showed great hips and an even better jab. However, if this is the fight that UFC wanted to use as a launching pad to get GSP/Rory… well, not so much. The only thing that fight will launch is a Dana White tirade about how Firas Zahabi is a sport killer like Greg Jackson.

Event: UFC on Fox 8 (Saturday, July 27th at Key Arena in Seattle)
TV: Fuel TV/Fox broadcast

There was some criticism about DJ being in the main event slot instead of MacDonald/Ellenberger. DJ in the main event turned out to be the right call.

Chris Weidman beats 3-to-1 favorite Anderson Silva

Event: UFC 162 (Saturday, July 6th at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas)
TV: FX/PPV

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 59 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

59 Responses to “Less excited about prospects of GSP vs. Rory MacDonald?”

  1. 45 Huddle says:

    I believe in Chris Weidman.

    The UFC 162 main card is fantastic. 5 really good fights.

    UFC on FOX 8 is solid. Not sure how it will do in the ratings, but all 4 fights are decent.

    • Megatherium says:

      I’ll cough up the $58 bucks for this one. Slim card but hey, it’s the Anderson!

      Want to see the Barbosa fight too.

  2. RST says:

    PeeWee/zag is a good fight. The kind of fight PeeWee should have been getting, but danajoel had to trash him to prove to 13 year olds that ufc is better. Can PeeWee pull it together after all the abuse? (Can we all?)

    Munoz / Boetsch? Hard to tell after a layoff and a loss. A good match. Swanson and Siver, formerly hot. Kennedy and gracie, meh. Leben/craig, meh. Edgar/oliveria, meh.
    Flamderon/newyorkperson, newyorkperosn.

  3. 45 Huddle says:

    And Zach is BACK…..

    Weidman by guillotine choke in the 1st round…. Silva will go limp.

  4. Zheroen says:

    Knocking out Mark Munoz and grinding out decision wins over Demian Maia and Alessio Sakara will take you pretty far in the eyes of the easily-deluded, it seems.

    • Zheroen says:

      Oh, and don’t forget the year-long layoff.

        • 45 Huddle says:

          And Jon Jones’ biggest victory was over Ryan Bader before he got his title shot.

          Both looked like future stars before their first title fight….

        • Nepal says:

          You can’t compare Bader and Jones. Jones was obviously a killer and Bader to anyone who didn’t nuthug Dana, was obviously never going to be anything beyond a lower tiered gatekeeper.

        • edub says:

          Comparison wasn’t to Jones. It was comparing the wins over Bader by Jones, and Munoz by Weidman. Bader and Munoz are easily comparable.

        • 45 Huddle says:

          At the end of the day, neither Jones or Weidman had the win needed to get the title shot. But both showed something special against the guys they did compete against and were talked about as being superior by everybody who trained with them.

          Not saying this guarantees Weidman wins. But this much talk about a guy doesn’t happen by accident.

      • Alan Conceicao says:

        45 can always just go to talking about what an amazing champion Silva is afterwards.

        • 45 Huddle says:

          I have never been a fan of Silva.

          Actually, I think I predicted that he would lose one of his next 3 fights…. And Weidman is #4 since that prediction. But I am not counting Bonnar since it wasn’t at Middleweight…. So Weidman is going to win and make my prediction legit…

  5. edub says:

    I find it funny that some feel Weidman is on the same level as guys like Okami, Marquardt, and MW Dan.

    This is the same guy that has been called a prodigy by pretty much everybody that’s been around him.

    Weidman may not win, but he is the toughest test of Silva’s UFC career.

  6. RST says:

    If I was me,
    I’d bet against me!

    But that looks like money to make…

  7. 45 Huddle says:

    Dana White was asked at the press conference how many tickets were sold for UFC 162. He said he had no clue and didn’t really follow those things anymore.

    My first instinct was that he was doing promoter speak and just playing dumb.

    Then later in the press conference he said he got those numbers (think somebody handed it to him). $4.26 Million gate with 12k tickets sold. Which means it is already #6 all time for UFC Events at the MGM Grand, and will definitely move up to #4 minimum.

    Also, Weidman is bigger then Silva.

    • The Gaijin says:

      Weird – i read they’d only sold 40% of the tickets. Methinks there’s a lot of “casino sales” going on…

      • edub says:

        Something really odd is going on. There are a plethora of reports right now stating that there are a lot of tickets not sold.

        Plus, ticketmaster shows right now that there area a bunch of tickets available.

    • The Gaijin says:

      Has there been a bigger disappointment than the UFC’s complete inability to make seemingly *any* new stars/draws since getting on this multi-faceted Fox platform with all of this broad exposure??

      Weidman should really be a breakout star…maybe this will be a kingmaking performance, but there’s no buzz on this guy outside hardcore fans trying to rally themselves into buying into him being “the guy to beat Silva”.

      Rousey seems to be the only “new” star/draw they have, but Strikeforce and Coker for all of their shortcomings did all the legwork in building up her star.

  8. 45 Huddle says:

    David Mitchell (1-3), Rafael Oliveira (1-3), & Dave Herman (0-4)…. Those are all of their records in the last 4 UFC fights. They should all be cut after this card.

    Seth Baczynski is 0-2 in his last 2 and probably should be cut as well.

    4 fights in so far, and with the exception of the first round of the Mike Pierce fight… It has been very good.

  9. Jonathan says:

    Man, Herman gave up smoking weed for that?

    And I am choosing Silva to win via finish of either KO or Sub.

  10. Jay B. says:

    That was fucking embarrassing by Silva…he should be docked for that pathetic showboating he put on, to get knocked out like that? Sorry.

  11. david m says:

    I HESPECT CHRIS

  12. 45 Huddle says:

    Anderson Silva has been a piece of sh!t for a long time.

    People quickly forgot about Abu Dhabi and the performance he put on with Maia. Or the performance he put on with Patrick Cote.

    He has been an arrogant little sh!t for a long time. It is only fitting that his title reign comes to an end while he was being arrogant.

    As for Chris Weidman…. When there is smoke, there is fire. Just like with Jon Jones…. There was too much hype around the guy from too many people to not believe he was the real deal.

    • david m says:

      He has been an arrogant little shit and a piece of shit? Tough words from a keyboard warrior.

      Chris Weidman is a great fighter and I hope to see a rematch. However, I think Anderson is going to retire. His ramblings post-fight did not make it sound like he was going to be re-appearing in the Octagon.

      • 45 Huddle says:

        How are they tough words? It’s the truth. He tried to clown his opponents and sometimes the paying public for his own amusement.

        Silva probably thinks he can demoralize his opponents and break them mentally by doing this. The problem is that he was doing it against a wrestler…. And most wrestlers are not easily broken mentally or physically.

      • Megatherium says:

        I sure hope so, he certainly doesn’t owe the scumbag mma set a damned thing. I thought he was probably going to lose, but that doesn’t make it any easier for me. He was my all time favorite mma fighter since his SHOOTO days, for what, the past 12 years I guess. Very disturbing to hear the no class bum fans booing him after the fight. But hey, worst fans, pound for pound, in professional sports today. What can you say.

        And with that, goes most of what was left of my interest in mma.

      • Steve4192 says:

        I won’t be surprised if Anderson ‘retires’, but I’ll be shocked if he RETIRES. If he does ‘retire’, I expect his retirement to last less than a year.

        I don’t think he will retire though. Once Anderson gets home, talks to his family, and gets his mind right, he’s going to want another crack at Weidmann. He’s too much of a competitor to want to go out on that note.

  13. king famous says:

    Showboating is one thing. Straight up clowning gets you knocked out. The rematch is going to do great business. I was picking Silva but when I did in my mind he actually was fighting. If he has been training martial arts then he would know to never underestimate his opponent. Weidman deserves a better fight than that.

    • 45 Huddle says:

      Weidman got the same Silva that went 16-0 in the UFC. The difference is that he capitalized on it.

  14. King Famous says:

    Weidman was open more then a cuu-cuu clock at high noon on that last offensive. We all have seen Silva with razor thin precision and accuracy counter punch. And it was nowhere to be found.

    • 45 Huddle says:

      He is 38. When fighters get older, one of two things happens:

      1) If they are flashy fighters like a Roy Jones Jr, they lose enough speed and they don’t have good technique to not get KO’d all of the time. This is where Silva falls. Fedor was the same way.

      2) If they are a technical fighter… Like Couture or Hopkins, the loss of speed doesn’t matter as much and they can fight much longer.

      If Silva continues to fight, his career will end like Roy Jones Jr or Fedor Emelianenko. The drop off against top talent will be quick and severe.

  15. King Famous says:

    Even if Anderson lost some speed, he still had plenty of time to land a counter strike. Power is the last thing to go, so I know he still has that. Accuracy doesn’t go either. I’ve watched enough Sumo, Kickboxing, Pro Wrestling and MMA to know that Silva’s heart was not in that fight and I know first hand acting like a clown gets you knocked out.

  16. Jay B. says:

    LOL Roy Jones Jr has sucked for awhile though. There are guys who age well and can defy time. Silva is technically still one of them if he isnt clowning around and putting on a shitty display.

    Comparing him to Fedor is kinda weird and Jones Jr is even more of a joke. Jones Jr hasnt bee relevant for a decade plus now.

    • 45 Huddle says:

      Correct. RJJ has stunk for a while now.

      RJJ went from unbeatable…. To losing a fight in under 2 rounds. And then could never beat a top guy again.

      Fedor went from unbeatable…. To losing a fight in under 1 round. And then could never beat a top guy again.

      They both were flashier fighters who were never considered pure technical fighters. They took short cuts while competing and because of their speed they were head and shoulders above the competition. But as soon as that chin gave out a tiny bit… And the speed slowed down a tiny bit….

      They went from unbeatable to non-contenders basically overnight.

      Silva is very much like those guys. Amazing speed and doesn’t showcase perfect technique.

      He will never be back on top.

      • Megatherium says:

        Correct. His speed has diminished over the past couple of years. And like Roy Jones, speed is everything with Anderson. He won’t be back.

        • Steve4192 says:

          I think Anderson is technical enough to do fine even with a little drop off in his speed. The problem is, he’ll probably have to revamp his style and fight more conservatively to compensate for that loss in speed, and I’m not sure he’s motivated enough to do that at this stage in his career.

  17. Jay B. says:

    I guess Dana isnt going to lambast Silva for this performance, only when he wins and showboats.

  18. King Famous says:

    The only time I saw Silva get excited was on a pre-fight ESPN interview then the announcer asked him about Roy Jones. Silva jumped out of his skin and actually looked awake.

  19. Jonathan says:

    Everyone has to lose sometime. I’m not THAT surprised by the defeat.

    Silva still has claim as the GOAT.

  20. 45 Huddle says:

    The media at the post fight press conference is overly negative. Not sure what is in the air there…. But it’s almost like they are pouting…

  21. Mark says:

    It’s funny. For years Silva was the scourge of Zuffa for being a pain in the ass to do business with. Now Zuffaites realize how important he is to the biz since you’ve got zero superfights left beyond Jones/Velasquez or the longshots of Cyborg/Rousey or Carano/Rousey. Don’t know what ya got til it’s gone and all of that.

  22. Tomer says:

    Silva basically pulled a Nate Campbell against Robbie Peden (in their first fight) – you play with fire, sometimes you’re going to get burned. What a maroon, though.

  23. RST says:

    Hehehe… Lol. I forgot the fight was this weekend. Best MMA news I’ve heard in years. I can almost taste all the flamderson fan tears. And really its long over due.

    • RST says:

      Sounds like flamderson was just being the same flamderson as usual. He’s a bully. Who was satisfied intimidating and beating up on a weak division for years. So he tried to intimidate Weidman, becasue thats half his shtick. But eventually a bully meets someone who isn’t gonna be intimidated so easily. And thats the day they get their ass kicked.

  24. […] This comment kind of sums up my feelings on where things stand right now: Has there been a bigger disappointment than the UFC’s complete inability to make seemingly *any* new stars/draws since getting on this multi-faceted Fox platform with all of this broad exposure?? […]

  25. RST says:

    Well I’ve finally seen this fight. I think anderson HAS gotten older/slowed down. When he was pulling his head bobs and counter punch routine, he wasn’t landing any of the counters. And he was getting tagged. When he pulled that on other guys like belfotrt and Griffen, they couldn’t touch him and he landed every counter.
    I’m looking and I dont think Weidman is all that super fast, what he did was stay focused and not get spooked. Which brings me to my next point (or is it my previous point), that half of andersons game for awhile now has been spooking guys. Yes, he’s half amazingly talented also, but half of it has been intimidation for a few years. (And a weak division). And the reason that anderson wasn’t interested in the weidman fight, mentioned something about injuring his rib in training, and then went so crazy with his spook act halfway through rnd 1, was becasue he knew he wasn’t going to intimidate his was out of this one.
    He could tell that Weidman was way to serious and had the tools to beat him fairly and physically. And going balls to the wall with the spooky act really was his only chance.
    For those who say that anderson beat himself, you’re saying that anderson was never that good. Becasue that has been half his skill for years.
    I agree with that to a point.
    But Weidman is the one who was strong enough to beat that were no one else was. Weidman would have won that fight whatever anderson did, we all thought he was going to sonnen him. And he would have if he had to.
    Anderson was the one who was intimidated this time.
    You could say that Weidman beat anderson the same way anderson beat his last 6-7 opponents.

    But without the clown act.

  26. spacedog says:

    Man, I have not been posting much lately but 45 can sure pick a dog, he’s done this several times before. Dude knows the fight game no matter what else you may think about him.

    • 45 Huddle says:

      I do have a good eye for talent. People might think my opinions on the sport are slightly crazy sometimes, but I do have a good eye for it.

      I was the same way when I used to be a Pro Wrestling fan. I was predicting guys like Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart would be future main event guys while they were still in The Rockers & Hart Foundation respectively.

      The weird thing is… I only have a good eye for talent on TV. When I go to events live, it is completely lost. Not sure why that is.

  27. […] Chris Weidman beats 3-to-1 favorite Anderson Silva | FightOpinion … […]

  28. 45 Huddle says:

    UFC on FOX 8 was very solid except for MacDonald/Ellenberger. What a complete disgrace that fight was.

    It was nice to see Johnson get the finish at the end of the fight. People have been calling him a point fighter for a while now. He went for the finish throughout that fight. It is just hard to finish guys when you are facing top talent AND you don’t have KO power.

    I would love to see Johnson/Benevidez 2 on FOX 9.

  29. Megatherium says:

    They keep putting on events like this and they’ll cure me of my mma addiction yet. Man was that some dreadful.

  30. The Gaijin says:

    Sheesh – the ratings for this were pretty awful…though I guess that’s what happens when you put guys you know won’t draw ppv buys on free tv on a Saturday. I did see that it barely beat the replay of Cops from the previous week in that time slot.

    I didn’t see the breakdowns, so perhaps they still score big in the desired demos, but not great news and Rory x Ellenberger probably didn’t do anything to keep people around for the main event, especially one featuring a guy criticized for going to decisions all the time.

    That was just an awful semi-main and I really blame Ellenberger’s awful game-plan or lack thereof. He seemed completely perplexed that Rory didn’t want to stand in the pocket and fight the one way Jake had a real distinct chance of winning the fight. Some of these camps…

    • 45 Huddle says:

      MMA Logic pointed out on The UG that the ratings for this show were slightly under what MLB does in Saturday Prime Time during the season… And were better in the target demographics. So while the ratings are down, it isn’t end of the world type of stuff.

      But don’t get me wrong…. It isn’t a good sign for what the UFC can draw in the middle of the summer with a Flyweight Title Fight.

      I know the UFC probably wants to dominate the MMA landscape. Not give anybody else even a slight chance to get a foothold into the sport. That means having every single weight division possible in both the men’s and female divisions.

      But when you have a champion who can’t draw on PPV AND hurts your ratings on FOX… at what point is having these divisions actually hurting the UFC?

      Personally, I am bored with Bantamweight & Flyweight. The only fighter I enjoy in these weight divisions is Urijah Faber. Featherweight and higher seems to be the most enjoyable to watch as a fan. Which isn’t a shock since the Featherweights today are basically the size of Lightweights from 5 years ago. Anything smaller, and it feels like watching kids fight who lack power.

      • The Gaijin says:

        I guess the issue I am seeing is that we’re in year 2 on the Fox/FX/Fuel(now FS1) platform and we’re not seeing ANY growth in ratings that was trumpeted. In fact, we’re seeing a decline in year-over-year numbers…and it’s only the 2nd year of the deal.

        For all the reasons you pointed out above – this isn’t the end of the world, but it’s certainly nowhere near what anyone envisioned when this big deal got signed up. Essentially, we’re now moving our goalposts and saying, “Well ratings aren’t growing, but look at target demos – we’re doing well there!”…and that’s good, it’s just not really optimal. Perhaps we’ll see the switch to FS1 by the catalyst in driving the ratings up going forward, but as I’ve noted in past posts…this is just water-treading and the lack of luck in creating new stars is becoming a problem. You can’t blame them for having someone like Rory come in and s*** the bed when he could have made a big statement, but it’s still a problem.

        • 45 Huddle says:

          The slight decline is probably due to 3 reasons:

          1) FOX – Having the majority of the content on FUEL TV has not helped. This will be mitigated with FOX Sports 1 being started. It is impossible to know where the UFC can do on this new channel, but as long as they are doing at least 1 Million per show, it won’t kill their business. My personal guess is that shows will average 900,000 to 1.1 Million within 6 months of being on the new channel.

          2) Peak is Over – The UFC had a huge popularity boost around UFC 100. This is now over. Nothing anybody can do about this.

          3) UFC & Weight Classes – Sort of to my point earlier… When you have 9 weight classes, it is impossible for casual fans to follow the sport. The rankings they have fixes this problem slightly, but it is still very difficult. The one good thing about the WEC is that it split the smaller guys away from the UFC. I think this made the UFC easier to follow.

          As a hardcore fan, I have a speadsheet with fighters UFC records and such. But I am not the normal fan. I can’t imagine how a casual fan follows the sport.

          The UFC needs to do 2 things: a) Reduce the number of weight classes back down to 6. b) Have fight cards that only contain TWO weight classes. So for example if a card only has Middleweight & Welterweights…. The fans can see 5 to 6 fights for each division and much more easily paint a picture of how things are flowing together.

          Where the UFC failed in late 2012 was with Showtime. It would have been perfect for the UFC to have turned Strikeforce into the new WEC. Had Bantamweight, Flyweight, & Females on Showtime. They could of had enough money to pay these fighters decently without having to hurt the UFC by adding all of those weight classes. And Showtime would of had the best fighters in the world in a few weight classes and could easily sell that… It was impossible for Showtime to sell being the 2nd tier to the UFC….

  31. RST says:

    dana seemsw like a creep for his fixation on being able to force teamies to fight each other.

    Its almost like some sort of perverted fetish for him.

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