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« | Home | »

Verdict on first UFC double-header: insufferably long

By Zach Arnold | May 31, 2014

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Results from the main fights on Saturday…

Berlin card at O2 World Arena (8,000 in attendance)

Sao Paulo card at Ibirapuera Arena (sparsely attended at beginning, quiet at the end):

Fabio Maldonaldo looked like he wanted no part being in the cage with Stipe Miocic and it showed. Very soft as a small heavyweight and the second he got tagged by Miocic, he was backtracking. A clean right and Maldonaldo was done.

Antonio Carlos Junior won his TUF Heavyweight fight and the yellow “Team Wanderlei” shirt was the only reference to Wanderlei at all during the program tonight. Chael Sonnen was in the audience. Mixed reaction, at best, from the tired and fatigued Brazilian crowd.

Demian Maia had full mount for the majority of his fight and did nothing with it.

The UFC sent the wrong mat canvas to their Berlin event. They’re running so many shows, nobody can keep track of what is going on. Perfect symbolism.

Today was the first time that I saw advertising on TV for UFC 164 (the mystery Vancouver PPV headlined in two weeks by Demetrious Johnson). I feel very badly for DJ in terms of the promotional end of the stick. I have serious doubts that this card can draw over 125,000 PPV buys. That is extremely low for UFC but I think it is an entirely possible scenario.

The UFC and Bellator will be going head-to-head on Friday night in early September in Connecticut. UFC FS1 event from Foxwoods and Bellator at their strong-hold in Mohegan Sun. The Mohegan Sun events genuinely bring the best energy of all the Bellator crowds. If UFC is going to run more cards head-to-head against Bellator, that will be quite a statement of paranoia.

The boxing two-step with Felix Sturm losing and Carl Froch beating George Groves was more interesting to watch.

Topics: Brazil, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 9 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

9 Responses to “Verdict on first UFC double-header: insufferably long”

  1. klown says:

    One of the winners (the TUF winner? I’ve no idea) mentioned Wanderlei in his post-fight interview. He said, “I know a lot of people are angry with Wanderlei right know but he deserves respect because of his history in the sport going back to the PRIDE days” or something to that effect. It was unintentionally kind of sad.

    I thought the Maldonado stoppage was a tad late by Yamasaki. The outcome of the fight was clear from the first moment, as Zach points out. I would have stopped it right at the knockdown (which I think was the 2nd knockdown of the fight). There was no need to watch Maldonado absorb those last few grounded hammerfists.

  2. rst says:

    I LOVED Gegerds afterfight speech.

    He admitted to rasslin!

    Thats all I wanted to hear!

    He’s smart enough to do the rest!

  3. diaz's cashed bowl says:

    I had a full weekend of mma without UFC. I started watching one fc at 4am but fell asleep at 7 when I realized it had another 3 hours to go, woke up later in the day and watched Askren crush that sambo champ. Real good show for what I watched.
    Then I checked out some Bodog usa vs Russia the one with that awesome Shlemenko kick ko, and Taktarov’s return against Marsh.
    I was going to watch road fc 15 but unable to find a stream I went ahead and watched heros final battle 2007 for some Minowaman at his prime.
    Passed on both clinker ufc shows and just watched Mousasi destroy Munoz on an aftermarket site. Maybe now he will be ranked in the top 10?

  4. 45 Huddle says:

    Have to decide which Connecticut card to go to. Will depend on quality of the card and ticket prices. The Mohegan Sun is a great venue for fighting. Never been to Foxwoods for a fight.

    As for the double header. It is insane and pointless. Too many no makers on the cards now. Impossible to follow or care.

  5. Nepal says:

    I’m starting to wonder how long I can keep up with my intensity in watching MMA/UFC. There were 4 fights out of 20+ that I wanted to see. I realize they want to build new stars but that was a pile of fights with a lot of guys I’d never heard of.

    They’re doing another double header with James Te Huna vs Marquardt headlining if you can believe that and Cub Swansen vs. Jeremy Stephens headlining the other event. These are the headliners??? I wonder what the pre-headliners might be? Will I really want to watch this?

    • 45 Huddle says:

      The next double header has 23 fights. I think there around about 4 interesting fights on both cards combined. Not even fights I care to see, just fights that are even remotely interesting.

      If I am FOX, I am PISSED OFF about this. It is bad enough that the UFC is taking talent off of FOX for Fight Pass. It is even worse that they are putting some of those cards on the same day and potentially having viewer fatigue where less people watch the shows on FS1 because of it.

      I don’t have Fight Pass but I did have the FS1 show on in the background while doing something else. I didn’t recognize basically any of the fighters and I wasn’t really paying attention.

      The UFC has done a great job of killing interest in their own company by their “expansion”. Even MMA Journalists are talking about fatigue. Nobody is happy about the 2014 version of the UFC.

  6. David Lebold says:

    Re: UFC174
    It was weird to have a press conference before UFC 173 to promote UFC 175 with no mention of 174.
    I think Ali Baugotinouv(sic) may be having a hard time being licensed in British Columbia. They have new legislation that was adopted in May regarding doping in combat sports. From my reading his suspension in Russia would disqualify him from a license in B.C.

    (f) if the applicant has been disciplined by another regulatory authority in
    relation to an authorization issued by the regulatory authority for boxing,
    MMA or a martial art, the circumstances giving rise to the discipline and the
    sanction imposed;

    That is from section 5, license applications
    http://www.cscd.gov.bc.ca/bcathleticcommission/

  7. David Lebold says:

    http://www.cscd.gov.bc.ca/bcathleticcommission/docs/announcements/BCAC_Anti_Doping_Policy1.5.pdf

    Nice to see language like: British Columbia has adopted the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) – Prohibited List as the list of substances and methods prohibited for BCAC professional combat sport competitions in British Columbia (BC).

    Now cheating by drug use will always occur it is nice to see some new legislation adopting the highest standards.
    I believe that MMA has a great chance to rid itself of this. Successful doping for an athlete who is out of competition tested regularly is expensive and needs a sophisticated team of people helping, ie. Lance Armstrong.
    The UFC is a major league but few of it’s athlete’s make major league money. It is my opinion that fighters in the UFC would be unable to use successfully because they just could not afford it, if there were testing other than end of the night urine samples. The process to cheat would just be too expensive.

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