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UFC 70 open discussion
By Zach Arnold | April 21, 2007
Pre-show thoughts, during-show thoughts, and post-show thoughts go here. I’m setting this post up as I will watch the show on TV and do a recap later for the site.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 51 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Only interested in the Mirko fight so not getting the PPV. Gonna wath Cage Rage for free instead. I would love to see AA get beat but if he wins hopefully then Mirko can just kick his head off and finish his career for good.
Will watch CR for free and get UFC *somehow* tomorrow. Enjoy, folks.
I like Cro Cop a lot. I always root for the guy. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Gonzaga and Werdum win tonight a result that would be problematic for UFC.
Mirko needs to go at Gonzaga who is slow-footed. He should move laterally and work Gonzaga’s lead leg and body while looking for the head kick. If Mirko stands flatfooted Gonzaga has to potential to catch him with a superman punch or to charge him and get him down. The Mirko that showed up for the GP Finals last August finishes Gonzaga in under three minutes.
Werdum I think will finish off Arlovski on the ground with a leg lock toward the end of the first or early second.
I’m watching Cage Rage and it’s pretty much what I expected. It’s a little rough around the edges but still entertaining enough to be watchable.
Their announcer is pretty awesome.
UFC stream starts in 45 minutes woohoo!
RUMOR:
Dana White to announce Fedor signing on this PPV.
Not rumor:
Vadim Finkelstein is cageside.
HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT = shit for casual fans. I’ll be money that the huge announcement is UFC 72 in Ireland.
Bet money, even.
That Ireland card is shocking
PPV has been SHIT so far except for Bisping.
Zulu vs. Butterbean >> Werdum vs. Arlovski
I stand corrected on my Werdum prediction. Arlovski is obviously a better dancer.
There are no words for that. Wow.
HOLY FUCk…..I knew Gonzaga was good but…damn..and…..Mirko must of injured his leg…I hope to God that he’s okay…
Holy fuck…well I was wrong about everything today.
Oh My God…. Upset! Upset! Upset!!!
What a year! 2007!!! We can’t predict anything….
Oh my god.
That’s it, Im quitting. Never bet on a fight ever again.
Napao wins. Flawless victory!
I hope that shuts up all the people that doubted Napao since his debut last year…
Wes Sims to be UFC Heavyweight Champion by the end of 2008! You heard it here first! 🙂
Fedor is so ahead of everyone else its frightning
Ok. Akebono is going to end up beating Fedor AND Dana White by gogoplata in Bodog
Goddammit Johnathan, DO NOT POST THAT URL IN PUBLIC FORUMS. And the next big upset is going to be Sakuraba passing his medical exams. 😛
There are people on Sherdog who seem to think that Cro Cop should retire. Really? After one loss?
Talk about jumping the gun.
sherdog is full or tards. Cro Cop loses to a big brazilian, so what. I’m a big fan of Mircko and think he’s could have a lot of years to fight. Hell his lost to Fedor, Roid Rage Randleman, Mark Buffet Hunt and minotaro. If he “retires” hopefully he’ll pull off a couture and kick off sylvias head.
Personally, I would like to see Mirko take a break for a while. He’s always been very active and some rest might do him some good.
this is kind of random but Gonzaga looks exactly like my little 8 yrs old brother. Give my brother a couple years and he will be Gonzagas clone. Lets hope cro cop either takes a break or keeps fighting cause almost everyone of his fights is highlight worthy.
WOW….year of the upset. Up-is-down, left-is-right….
That was F*$&ing NASTY!!!!!
Hey Gaijin, that sounds like a description of Mirko’s ankle… Now THAT was nasty. I literally sat there with my mouth wide open for 5 minutes. Seeing his ankle twisted was all that turned my gawp into a grimace.
I was actually at a wedding all night tonight which was a bit boring but there you go… got to see it all eventually. I’ll be on the hunt for Cage Rage clips tomorrow – I wanna see how you get a TKO from a cut on a shin. 🙂
And the best part of all:
Sherdog.com gave the live spoilers. Awesome! 😀
that ankle was just fucked up! he seemed to be ok though, he was standing after the fight. now gonzaga has a highlight clip to his credit with the highlight king.
I actually predicted that Arlovski & Gonzaga would win.
Once again, the myth that the Pride Heavyweights were better is put to rest. I always laughed when people said that no UFC Heavyweights were in the Top 5. It was a joke.
Of course, I never expected a KO, but WOW.
And Bisping is the least impressive of the TUF winners so far. He is almost going down in skill level.
You could tell that when Mirko stood up before the KO, that he was mentally beat. It was the same look he had against Fedor & Hunt.
And those elbows…. For any fan that says they aren’t important to have in a fight, I will point to this fight. Cro Cop was getting beaten with elbows on the ground. This is why they need to be legal.
I’m actually in a good mood from that outcome. I’m happy for Gonzaga.
Just got back from watching the show. I would say holy damn whatever, but it has already been said.
45, good call. I always agreed that the whole Pride roster was overrated. Not that they weren’t good, just made to be a little too much more than they were.
Still in shock though at the way it happened.
One big suggestion….yellow cards!…Dana was dissapointed in the fights. Well, yellow cards might be a good way to stop some of the stalling.
Oh, i agree. Still a very talented bunch those Pride guys were. I just always found it funny when MMA Weekly (and the majority of hardcore fans) would fill up their Top 10’s with 75% Pride Fighters. It was such a joke. It was closer to 50/50 at any point over the last 2 years. The diehards were just too blind to see it.
I don’t think ANYBODY predicted that Gonzaga would KO Mirko.
Keep in mind that the Machida fight wasn’t even shown. Makes me think it was a boring fight.
The Arlovski fight reminded me of the last Koscheck fight. Neither fighter wanted to actually fight. I don’t expect these guys to have an all out slug fest. but the fans came to see a fight, not 2 fighters running scared for 15 minutes.
I’m completely shocked.
MMA is every sportsbook’s worst nightmare, because with those tiny gloves and so many different ways to win/lose, no fight is a lock, even with the best fighters.
I am not sure why Mirko waited for Gonzaga to throw about 20 punches before he even attempted a kick of his own, which got him promptly taken down. Mirko should have used his speed advantage and made Gonzaga pay for all of those easy to predict 1-2 combos that Gonzaga was throwing early. By sitting back, Mirko was letting Gonzaga gain confidence, which probably led him to throw that kick at the end.
I’m also convinced that Mirko is going to have to go to hands and low kicks more than body kicks. One of the reasons Chuck has been so successful is that he doesn’t kick much anymore, even though he has nasty kicks. When you kick, you can get taken down and beaten up with elbows. Mirko should have been throwing the low kick and his hands, but a part of me thinks he didn’t want to fight in the pocket with Gonzaga, who seemed much larger physically and to have heavy hands.
The only problem with yellow cards as they were dealt with in PRIDE was the 10% purse reduction. If the 10% was being kept by the organization, there was always the ‘incentive’ by the referees to keep in good graces and toss out a random yellow card so their bosses could happily pocket their money. Now, if the purse reduction was going to the athletic commission operations fund (to fund testing, medical staff and equipment, etc.) or simply given to a charity (of the fighter’s choice?), I wouldn’t mind it as much.
But yeah, there should be a stronger push for more activity in fights. KO/Submission and Fight of the Night bonuses are nice but you gotta discourage the guys from being a shell. Fans would prefer to see a .500 guy who keeps them standing all fight long (see: Gatti, Arturo) than some technically gifted fighter who prefers to lay on his opponents or jab on the outside for 15-25 minutes and get the “W”.
We were actually saying that watching the fight tonite too David…Gonzaga was noticably larger than Cro Cop.
45 I think the main thing that lead to the thought that PRIDE > UFC talent-wise was based mainly on (and fairly imo) that the divisions were a lot deeper. The guys at the top of the heap in both are very much competitive and interchangeable…but I feel for the most part justified in saying that the depth (up until around 2006ish) PRIDE was vastly superior. I’m open to being corrected however…
Tomer,
maybe the solution will be found when Silva really does start relegating boring fighters to the undercard and seriously rewarding guys who go all out.
I hear the Machida fight was boring, but I also heard it was exciting but one sided. The Griv\ce fight was fun though. I have senn three of his fights now. He will be a force.
The problem is that sometimes the generally not-so-exciting fighter may be the more marketable one (Tito Ortiz) or the successful one (Ricardo Arona) and end up setting themselves up for an imminent title shot or other televised fight by virtue of rankings. Just because a fighter has a stinky style doesn’t mean they don’t earn the big fights, it just means that many fans will be pissed off having to potentially see 25 minutes of a guy taking down the opponent, throw a few punches and get the UD. The only real way to correct the problem, as such, is to penalize inactivity in the fight itself so they’ll realize that laying there or being timid and throwing 2-3 shots on the outside isn’t what the sport wants to see.
As an addendum, a few Boxers that are currently active that fight the description of ‘forced themselves into the spotlight’ are: Bernard Hopkins, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Ronald ‘Winky’ Wright. Talented fighters for sure, but even for hardcore Boxing fans they more often than not induce yawns with their defensive-minded/countering style. As a result, they are not really drawing cards in the sport and get the big fights as a result of getting the “W” and forcing themselves onto the drawing fighters such as Oscar De La Hoya.
With established fighters who are both successful and boring, there isnt much you can do. But lets start with the up and coming young guys.
I am stil so shocked i dont think I am going to get to sleep tonight.
Cage Rage was awesome. It was better than UFC.
My major problem is that neither Josh Koschek or Andrei Arlovski deserved to win. I would have prefered to see both fights be double disqualifications and both guys lose. Since neither fighter deserved to win. Arlovski shouldn’t go anywhere in the rankings off that fight and neither should Josh off his win over Diego.
UFC needs to be proactive about figuring out a way to stop that type of fighter philosophy where a guy plans to go out and just barely out work his opponent. That is something that helped to kill boxing. I think PRIDE’s yellow cards really helped PRIDE have more exciting fights. UFC needs a similar solution.
Was there any ESPN coverage?
re: Pride/UFC superiority/inferiority, here is what I posted on the UG:
Were Pride fighters inferior? Some people are saying that now. I think there may be some truth to it (except, so far, in the case of Fedor and Nog – at heavyweight, anyways), but I’m more interested in how the whole “Pride has superior fighters” argument came about.
Was it because of the drastically different ways that Pride and the UFC marketed their fighters? Pride built these epic video packages with orchestral music, special effects, etc. that made their fighters and champions look larger than life. In contrast, the UFC stuck to relatively simple ways of hyping their fighters/fights: trash talking, some training footage, some background on the fighter, etc..
To illustrate: Mirko is a former shooter in a counterterrorist special operations unit. He is calculating, stoic and he often brutally KOs guys (who are more often than not lesser fighters than he is). Andrei Arlovski is a hairy dude who speaks broken english, wears flashy suits and jewelry, started training in sambo and kickboxing and later picked up BJJ. He KOs guys too.
Based on those descriptions, who do you see as the better fighter?
You can do this with a lot of guys. Wanderlei is The Axe Murderer, the unstoppable pitbull of a fighter from Brazil who only promises violence. Chuck Liddell is a biker-looking guy who wrestled at Cal-Poly and started training kempo when he was younger. He wins most of his fights by KO because his opponents can’t take him down and he has a monster right hand.
Basically, Pride fighter = larger than life character, UFC fighter = just an athlete.
Xenos is so right and I think the UFC could learn a lot from the Pride production.
And I will call it right now…Shogun will lose to the first UFC fighter he faces be it Lambert, Liddell, Tito, Rashad, or Jardine.
And if it is Fedor and Randy at the Super card, I pick Randy. I really believe that.
I think that’s a pretty unrealistic/biased comment. You may want to call a lot of the PRIDE fighters “overrated” but that’s complete F&#*ing blasphemy to try to say that with a straight face.
Shogun’s resumer *IS* a who’s who of the MMA world at LHW. His one blemish (outside a FREAK injury at HW) is to Babalu in what I believe was his 4/5th fight. The guy is legitimately as good if not better than Liddell and has fought and beat a better level of opponents over the last three years.
Say what you will, Arona, Lil Nog, Overeemx2, Nakamura etc etc. is a very strong pedigree..not to mention he completely ANNIHILATED the next #1 LHW title contender.
To say Tito, Lambert etc are going to beat him is preposterous. The guy’s standup and ground game AND overall game is up there with Fedor…lay down the bong.
Xenos writes:
“Were Pride fighters inferior?”
Actually, UFC fans have been saying that for so long that eventually they would be “right”.
Lets take a look at some fights:
Herring? He wasnt and isnt one of the best in pride. His wins or losses are irrelevant for this kind of disscusion.
Werdum vs AA was ridiculous. There was no real winner in this fight. Both were very tentative.
CC vs Gonzaga. Lets see gonzaga fight frequently (that means more than twice a year) if he wins, then ok, i guess it wasnt a fluke. Consistency is very important here.
UFC fighter = As Barnett said, Joe Blow.
“Chuck Liddell is a biker-looking guy who wrestled at Cal-Poly and started training kempo when he was younger.”
Chuck fights twice a year, does he become a better fighter by not fighting and letting other top fighters lose to each other?
Randy becomes champ by taking sylvia to a decision. Gonzaga is still just a contender by RHKing CC into next week. Great logic. Randy will now be champ for 6 months since he wont fight anybody, and therefore cant lose.
Thank god UFC champs arent being protected.
Yes, people bought into the hype of Pride. What I am going to say I have said before, so this is no revolutionary history:
Just look at Cro Cop’s Grand Prix win. People used that victory as reason for him being the #2 Heavyweight in the world. Yet people forgot how he won the tournament. He beat Ikuhisa Minowa, Yoshida, & Wanderlei Silva. Not one of those guys is a Heavyweight. Then he beats a completely exhausted Barnett, and people start calling him the #2 Heavyweight in the world. It was a joke then, and it is still a joke now. You have to look at the fights, not the fact that the guy won a tournament.
Shogun is one of the few legit guys. When he won his tournament, he beat Rampage, Noguiera, Overeem, & Arona. A huge accomplishment. Yet, because Silva was still the champion, the fans still ranked Silva higher. Once again, the Pride hype machine was in full effect.
The same thing happened time after time. The Pride guys would be given scrubs to look invincible, and the American audience bought into it.
In all seriousness…. If a guy like Gonzaga runs through Cro Cop (and maybe Noguiera in the future), it will bring serious doubt as to if Fedor is now the #1 Heavyweight in the world. Some of the hardcore fans will deny it because Fedor was around first. But did he build his reputation on a bogus division? And more importantly, will Fedor crumble on the ground due to elbows like Cro Cop did. Should be interesting to see how things unfold.
The great thing is that all these questions will be answered in the next two years 🙂