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« | Home | »

Good news: Mark Hunt & Bigfoot Silva survive five rounds of zombie hell

By Zach Arnold | December 7, 2013

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Bad news: They took years off their lives and could re-match. Look at this heart-warming picture by Glover Teixeira of the men involved:


Click the picture to view the enlarged version on Twitter

The UFC Brisbane event was night-and-day better than last week’s Ultimate Fighter finale. The crowd was terrific & vocal. The veterans fighting let it all hang out. There was plenty of violence and good sportsmanship. This show likely won’t draw the TV rating that Ronda’s TUF Finale did last weekend, but this was so much better in terms of delivering the right finishes. The unfortunate downside is now that Shogun won, he’ll probably fight at least five more times before retiring. Fighters never seem to retire when they have a chance to go out with a healthy win.

UFC Fight Night at Brisbane Entertainment Centre in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Good momentum heading into next weekend’s UFC Fox 9 card at Arco Arena in Sacramento. Over 10,000 fans expected at the building. The original main event was Anthony Pettis vs. Josh Thomson. The “new” main event of Demetrious Johnson vs. Joe Benavidez is a big plus for the card. They didn’t have to fight in the empty Mandalay Bay and Benavidez will have huge crowd support. Plus it’s a very good fight.

The only bad news is that I hear a few big name Sacramento politicians are considering making their appearance known at the event. The same ones who helped push idiots in the Department of Consumer Affairs to run down the California State Athletic Commission. Wonderful.

The top matches on the Arco Arena card:

I did not list Carlos Condit vs. Matt Brown due to injury rumors & the fact that the fight isn’t being advertised (as of Friday night) on local Sacramento television unlike other fights.

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 20 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

20 Responses to “Good news: Mark Hunt & Bigfoot Silva survive five rounds of zombie hell”

  1. Megatherium says:

    Yes Zach, it would be cool if Shogun were to go out like this. Guy has taken way too much damage already. That main event was right out of a 1940’s boxing movie. FOTN doesn’t really do it justice.

  2. Diaz's cashed bowl says:

    thats FOTY my friend!
    …funny how they said “no losers in this one” before the decision was read.
    I thought it was a draw the first time but felt Hunt might have an edge. Just watched it again using the 1/2 point system and Hunt wins 48 – 47.5.

  3. 45 Huddle says:

    What a fight! Glad they both got their win bonuses and $50k bonuses. Guys like that deserve good paydays.

    This was actually a pretty stacked FN card. I think they know Australia brings a good crowd and wanted to reward them. That $1.7 Million gate was well deserved.

    ******

    Completely flying under the radar is the news that the WSOF will be on NBC 2 times in 2014.

    • Steve4192 says:

      “Completely flying under the radar is the news that the WSOF will be on NBC 2 times in 2014.”

      I wouldn’t get too excited about that just yet.

      Let’s wait until we hear what the financial details and the time slot will be. If they are live in prime time and getting paid, that is a big deal. If they are doing a late-night time buy like Strikeforce did back in 2007-08, then it doesn’t mean anything.

  4. Jonathan says:

    Why can’t we have MORE fights like that, or, why can’t EVERY fight be like that?

  5. king famous says:

    When mark hunt fights he really brings me back to the good old days. I was yelling for him to hit the body, and Bigfoot let it all hang out. Amazing fight. My wife got into it just as much as I did.

  6. David m says:

    This fight just showed once again how good Cain and Cormier are.

  7. King Famous says:

    True, Cain and JDS are younger could be a bit more evolved, but it is difficult to think of how good anyone else is when those two put on a show like that.

    On the phone with my father in law he says sarcastically “MMA sounds pretty interesting.” I told him for the most part it can be very boring, but once in awhile you see something special – it can be good technique, a display of heart – I happen to love how Mark Hunt boxes, he does things technically that not too many other fighters can do when it comes to stand up. And yes he gets hit – but he seems to be a fighter who at all costs will fight you until the bitter end.

    And Bigfoot again, was stellar – maybe saved by the ref? But he never gave up or gave in either. This fight is the reason I watch MMA and combat sports.

    • The Gaijin says:

      I don’t think he was trying to slight either guy or the fight, but the fact is the Cain and Cormier just WRECKED Bigfoot, and someone like Hunt that is a fringe top-5/7(??) HW and is a total killer who puts guys away when they can be put away had to go to the brink and still couldn’t finish him. Then you consider the fact that Bigfoot has beaten some top/highly ranked HWs as well (Browne, Overeem, Fedor, Arlovski) and you see what he’s getting at.

      • 45 Huddle says:

        I agree. At Heavyweight there is basically Cain, Cormier, & JDS…. And then everybody else. And the gap is big. Now that Cormier is down to LHW, we are left with just Cain & JDS…. And they already had a trilogy.

        Unless Cain gets caught with something…. His next big challenger might not come for a few years when Jon Jones goes up in weight.

        • david m says:

          I really hope Werdum either beats Cain or at least puts up a credible challenge for that reason.

  8. 45 Huddle says:

    Anybody following this Holly Holm and UFC contract talk?

    1. Female fighter pay needs to increase. Some of it will naturally happen over time when the division is more experienced.

    2. I get the impression that Holm really doesn’t want to fight anything but cans. She really needs to fight at least one partially legit opponent before she can expect to get bigger paydays.

    • david m says:

      Why does female fighter pay need to increase? Other than Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano, there are no female mma fighters who could sell out a living room, let alone a stadium. Watching them fight is awful. They are so unathletic.

      • 45 Huddle says:

        Females really don’t sell tickets but they do help with TV ratings.

        And just from experience alone, fighter pay should increase. Right now every single UFC Female fighter is on their first contract. In 5 years there could be some females with 10 UFC fights and coming to their 3rd contract. From that alone, their fighter pay will increase.

        As for the talent level…. There is probably about 10 or so females that are decent at 135. The rest are definitely awful. Right now they have 22 females signed to contract. It is way too much based on the fight level.

        Hopefully more females from wrestling and Judo will cross over.

        • david m says:

          Do they help in ratings? I am not saying you are incorrect, I just don’t know either way. Do you have some evidence to back that up? I would be interested in seeing it.

          The problem with women’s mma, as I said before, is that they are terrible at fighting. It is hard enough getting people to sit still to watch men’s mma, but to watch a group of girls who are awful fighters, is just painful.

          Rousey is watchable because she is such a badass and has so much charisma, both as a hottie and as a total bitch. She snaps everyone’s arm and is a real beast. Other than Cyborg, the rest of the women are all the same. They are all slow and weak and horrid to watch.

  9. 45 Huddle says:

    If you remove the UFC Debute show from the equation (it was an outlier)…. The UFC has had a total of 11 Prelim / Fight Nights on FOX Sports 1 so far. Here is the list:

    UFN 27 – 824k
    UFC 164 – 809k
    UFN 28 – 539k
    UFC 165 – 722k
    UFN 29 – 638k
    UFC 166 – 628k
    UFN 31 – 641k
    UFN 32 – 722k
    UFC 167 – 998k
    TUF 18 – 1.13 Million
    UFN 33 – 755k

    The average is 764,000 viewers. So the UFC\’s goal over the next 8 months needs to be to at least get that average up by 236,000 viewers.

  10. rst says:

    I wasn’t too happy with the Bigfoot/Hunt fight when it was announced.
    It seemed like joe silva trying to trash one of two good HW’s and nice guys like he did to Bigfoot when he threw him under Cain too soon or the Shogun/Hendo fight that I still dont care for.

    But the outcome was the best possible scenario.
    They actually both came out winners in every way possible.

    I’ve got mixed feeling about Shoguns “comeback”.
    Its nice that he got a win, with a little help from a journeyman slugger who stood with him and left himself pretty wide open for the counter.

    It didn’t seem like it at full speed, barely saw what happened but the replay displays Tehuna wide open on the right while he lunges for that left.

    Although I love Shogun I was kinda rooting for Tehuna to just get the Shogun drama over with.
    Okay lets drag it out a little longer and see what happens.

    Fun card though.
    Better then a lot of the PPV’s.

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