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Fight Opinion Radio: As real as it gets? Decline is a choice & UFC has some tough decisions to make
By Zach Arnold | July 12, 2014
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Time length of this week’s show: 30 minutes (14 MB MP3)
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Get a hold of us by messaging Judge Jeff on Twitter (@whaledog) and Zach on Twitter (@fightopinion).
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Show preview
In July & August of 2014, the UFC is running 10 shows in 8 weeks. It’s beyond overkill. However, defenders of UFC’s hectic global schedule point out that you don’t have to watch all the shows. It may be worth it if UFC wants to sell the company to a mega-global conglomerate down the road but there is a domestic price to be paid for all non-major UFC events. The fact that Lorenzo Fertitta had to do damage control on Fox Sports 1 over the canceled UFC 176 Staples Center show says it all. And yet amidst the non-stop crazy calendar that UFC has created, very few women’s fights on the card. They’ve signed Holly Holm. They are considering Cyborg next for Ronda. Why are any of the foreseeable opponents for Rousey going to be stronger than 8-to-1 or 10-to-1 underdogs? They’re not. And part of the reason is that the UFC hasn’t booked enough female fights to develop prospects that can come close to fighting Ronda. At this point, the only one who has a chance of stopping Ronda is her roommate, Marina Shafir, and she’s at 145 pounds.
After UFC 175, Zuffa has a chance to hit the reset button and move on from the major names in the recent testosterone plague. However, it seems that Chael Sonnen will never go away and Vitor Belfort is next in line to fight Chris Weidman. Every time reality hits UFC in the face, they seem to double-down and press forward. They got lucky that nobody knows who Ali Bagautinov is (and the 100,000 PPV buys he drew with Demetrious Johnson for UFC 174) or else the headlines would be blaring about a second UFC fighter getting busted for EPO in the last three weeks.
There are a million unanswered questions right now that are exacerbated by the UFC’s non-stop meat-grinder of a schedule. And this week’s edition of Fight Opinion Radio covers all of those issues in-depth and with perspective.
Special thanks
To Zack Nelson for his past & present support of Fight Opinion Radio.
Topics: Fight Opinion Radio, Jeff Thaler, Media, MMA, podcasts, UFC, Zach Arnold | 10 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Zach, talking out of your ass isn’t something you do often…but when you do it, woooooooah boy. Cyborg may have lost to Jorina Baars but there isn’t a woman in MMA (including Holly Holm) is one 50th the striker that Baars is. It’s Daniel Ghita to Diego Sanchez. Losing to Baars in Muay Thai has about as much relevance to how Cyborg would do as Rousey losing to Floyd Mayweather in a boxing match would have to how she’d do against Cyborg. You can think Rousey takes Cyborg, but basing it on Rousey tooling a blown up 125er that lost to Jessica Eye and Cyborg losing to perhaps the best female striker on planet earth is a pretty stupid reason.
Styles make fights. I would never compare Ronda to Jorina Baars as a striker. That would be foolish.
But tell me the path to victory for Cyborg against Ronda. I would not be surprised if, at the minimum, she is a 5-to-1 underdog or worse.
I am sort of shocked at the people who think Cyborg has a chance against Rousey.
Did anybody see Cyborg vs. Carano? Cyborg’s grappling is horrible and she will be taken down easily by Rousey. And she will be submitted in the 1st round as well.
Cyborg has to land a hard shot within the first 20 seconds of the fight or it is over.
**********
If people notice…. The UFC has gone all in on getting “credible” opponnets for Rousey moving foward. When I say credible, I mean bigger names.
The reality is that these match-ups are not based on quality of competition. They are based on the “unknown” and “star factor”. Look at the 3 fighters they are trying to set her up with next:
Gina Carano – Hasn’t fought in a long time, lost her last fight, and was never a champion. Has no business getting a direct title shot. Not to mention she has horrible grappling.
Cyborg – Never even competed at Bantamweight despite being a huge Featherweight. Really just manhandles her opponents with raw strength. Doesn’t have the grappling to compete with Rousey.
Holly Holm – Completely unproven in MMA. And her grappling is completely unknown.
Hard to get excited about this stuff….
Gina vs Cyborg was 5 years ago and Cyborg has been training ever since, including putting in lots of time with one of the best grapplers on the planet Andre Galvao. If you don’t think she has improved leaps and bounds in those 5 years, you’re a complete moran.
Mike Chiappetta announced that he is taking a break from covering MMA.
The UFC is even burning out the journalists covering the sport….
Even Dave Meltzer said he was happy a few weekends back that the UFC did not have a show, and that was a first for him.
1) Chiappetta leaving FS1 wasn’t voluntary — who quits a job in this economy with nothing lined up??
2) I suspect Dana got tired of having a real journalist asking tough questions and wearing the Fox logo.
Killings is correct. Chiappetta was laid off. Solid journalist, but has a behind the scenes reputation for being difficult to his editors. He was also laid off by NBC years ago.
Mike had no problems with his editors at MMA Fighting that I’m aware of and when he was laid off by NBC it was because they stopped covering MMA.
Chiappetta might not have been laid off because he was “difficult”…maybe they’re cutting back on coverage of UFC also? How many guys do you really need covering the sport if all you plan on doing is apologizing for drug positives and reciting press releases?
Cyborg has no grappling?
Then fix her wiki page because it says she won a bronze at an ADCC and twice she won the gold at bjj worlds.
She must have some grappling skills it seems to combat that complicated judo newaza.
Thanks for sharing your grappling expertise.