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UFC 65 Sacramento card line-up
By Zach Arnold | October 24, 2006
Nine fights are scheduled. Here are the fights announced so far:
- Welterweight Title Match: Matt Hughes vs. Georges St. Pierre
- Heavyweight Title Match: Tim Sylvia vs. Jeff Monson
- Brandon Vera vs. Frank Mir
- Alessio Sakara vs. Wilson Gouveia
- Brad Imes vs. Antoni Hardonk
- James Irvin vs. Hector Ramirez
- Nick Diaz vs. Gleison Tibau
- Joe Stevenson vs. Dokonjonosuke Mishima
- Jake O’Brien vs. Josh Shockman
Topics: All Topics, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 16 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Hope Monson ties Sylvia into a pretzel and then makes him eat the belt.
Hughes vs. GSP is going to be great. After watching the last TUF, I totally understand why GSP wanted to smack talk to Matt after his fight with BJ. He totally deserved it. Whadda penis!
Speaking of penises, Antoni Hardonk… can I get an LOL?
I’m just joking.
But a trend with the UFC seems to be have one huge match supported by a bunch of crummy ones. Even Pride’s first US show had a more solid undercard than this. Actually, looking closely, Sakara vs. Gouveia should be good.
I dont see monson being fast or expolsive enough to overcome the massive physical difference.
Matt Hughes vs. Georges St. Pierre – looking forward to this. I’d like to see st peirre get the belt. I dont think i’ve there has ever been a harder road to a title shot. He has cleaned out the division aside from sanchez.
It’ll be interesting to see if mir has recaptured any form. Sees more like the ufc is trying to build vera with this match.
Then there are 3 other meaningless matches.
Sakara/Gouveia sould be a very good stand-up fight.
Bah, its shaping up to be a great card. I’d pay $50 to see GSP vs Hughes, throw in another title fight & Mir vs Vera…I’m sold.
I’ll buy this just on GSP/Hughes. I really want to see GSP win. Then there is a freak show/meaningless Sylvia/Monson and a “Superstars of Wrestling” match to get Vera over so he can fight Sylvia or Liddell next.
Don’t be surprised if Sakara/Gouveia and the rest of the under card sucks. The UFC keeps bringing in these green wrestlers then letting them fight in a cage. No wonder you get all these fights that go to a decision and are nothing more than a few takedowns and 2 guys laying next to the cage. I’ve never heard of Hector Ramirez. Hopefully he’s the type of can that will just stand there and let Irving KO him.
GSP/Hughes- great by any standards. The rest of the card looks much like past cards with predictable outcomes, but as in the past there will undoubtedly be a few nice (and a few not so nice) surprises . We can only hope that the good outweighs the bad because we will all get this one based on the ww championship fight.
I’m interested in knowing what kind of card the UFC has to put together in order to impress some people. Two title matches (one of which is one of the most anticipated matches of the year) and a #1 contender match is not too shabby of a card.
Are you honestly excited about Sylvia/Monson?
How’s this for a card.
GSP/Hughes
Franklin/Silva
Mir/Vera
Fischer/Lauzon
Throw in another fight.
Roadblock, I thought the UFC were promoters not Doctors / Magicians. Anyway, wouldnt you slag them off for having “another rematch” so soon after the first Franklin vs Silva match?
Personally I think its a good card. I also hope Sylvia wins. People might think he is a plank and not a great fighter but at least his fights are pretty exciting on the whole (barring AA #3, which was boring because Andre screwed his knee).
If you look at my post again you should notice I took 2 fights from UFC 64 and 2 from UFC 65 and made a decent card out of them. That’s my point. UFC doesn’t have the roster to do 12 good PPVs per year. I’d like them to do 6. Or 8. And put the rest of their fights on Spike.
Sure people are going to say “UFC is getting tons of people to watch PPVs” or “just don’t watch if you don’t like it” or “their popularity is soaring”.
Here’s the deal: UFC is going to burn the market. UFC is hot now. UFC is almost as hot as wrestling got from fall 1996 to Summer 2000. Is wrestling still hot? No. It’s dead in the U.S. Sure Vince still makes money but it is a stale product that can’t create new stars and is no better off than boxing.
For better or for worse UFC is essentially the guardian of MMA in America. Right now they are the standard bearer for the majority of Americans who are or who are becoming familiar with MMA. Instead of cultivating a knowledgeable fanbase that will appreciate the various striking and grappling arts that make MMA what it is, UFC is using Spike to drive interest in one or two fights per card. The rest of the card is the MMA equivalent of the stuff that fills sausage casings. That’s not a bad way to make money. And you might make money for 2, 3, 5 years like that. You might make hundreds of millions of dollars. But you’re not going to hold onto the audience. Casual fans are going to get onto the next big thing at some point (have a look at recent UFC live gates they aren’t so good). And if you didn’t cultivate a large enough audience of hardcore fans when you were hot the business is going to stop growing when the casual fans tune out. If the business stops growing you won’t attract great athletes to the sport. You’ll have something marginally successful akin to boxing or Pro Wrestling.
I understand UFC needs a way to showcase new guys and get fans into them. But use the Fight Night specials. Have them fight in one PPV match and on the prelims. If a prelim fight is good, show that instead of an advertisement for Saw III.
I like UFC. I want it to grow. I want better fighters to come to UFC and fight there and more fans to support it and for MMA to flourish in the U.S. Boxing was immensely popular for 100 years in the U.S. It’s really only been about the past 10 years that it has suffered. There is no reason that if MMA is promoted the right way here that it can’t find a similar level of success.
I thought you meant Joe Lauzon… I couldnt see why you’d view the fight that just happened as one to put on a top card.
Anyway, I know what you’re saying. Honestly though, if I were the UFC (and I was taking the income home), I’d do exactly what they are doing now.
They flood the market (basically with more MMA than most people can handle), meaning that casual fans have NO desire whatsoever to go and search out more MMA to get their fix. That makes it very hard for other orgs to grow and guarantees the short term and long term dominance of the UFC – Long term too because a. new orgs will frequently fold and b. it builds brand loyalty through familiarity, even when people realise that other orgs are just as good.
It might seem like a short-termist strategy to most people but in many ways it guarantees their future dominance too…
I agree with absolutely everything you say in terms of what would make the product better but that isnt what makes the most money and to be honest, MMA fans arent even the UFC’s target audience, as rediculous as that sounds.
Definitely an imporvement compared to their last three or four PPV cards. And The 66 card is shaping up nicely too. Good stuff.
The other rumored bouts are:
Nick Diaz vs. Graison Tibau
Joe Stevenson vs. Dokonjonosuke Mishima
Joe Stevenson vs. Dokonjonosuke Mishima
Intrigued by this one, Mishima is good…
Guys, I just found out the guy I sit next to here in cubicleville is GSP’s cousin. So you can guess who the office here is rooting for. Most of us think Matt is an asshole anyway for the way he obnoxiously rags out people for no reason.
I rather like the card. Tim is dumber than a bag of hammers, and I think he sleeps with that belt on, man. But I don’t think Monson has enough explosion in him to topple him. Should go at least three rounds, and Sylvia should take it. Not easily, however.
I am going to enjoy seeing where Imes has gone with his skills since TUF2, so I like that fight.
Hope that rumour is true about Joe…should be a good fight.
Also, I think sentimentality wants Mir to do well. We all remember where he was, and it’s sad the way he lost the title. However, I think the truth is that he’s not ever going to be the same, and Vera is for real. I think it’ll be Vera via submission or by ground-n-pound in the 2nd round. Agreed with whoever earlier said this is more about building Vera up, not so much about Mir’s comeback.
Outside of that…hey, bring on the other fights…I’m game.