Arena Let's get it on!: The Mixed Martial Arts Discussion Thread

Ronda definitely not fighting at 205.

Hope she does come back and return to form at some point, hopefully before too much time has passed.

 

Cowboy Cerrone just resigned with the UFC for an 8 fight deal.

 

Which should take him through the end of the year.

 

The move to WW has been great for Maia. The guys at MW were just too big and took too much effort for Maia to take down. The WW division is good, but doesn't seem as good as when GSP was champ. Still, GSP is old, has been through a lot of five round fights, and has been away too long. I'd definitely recommend he stay retired.

I've always liked Maia, for a number of reasons. When he first came to the UFC, he talked about how BJJ is the soft art, and wanting to show people that you can defend yourself without hurting people....and he really meant it, it was genuine, not some bullshido. He was a fighter, but he really didn't want to hurt anyone. I found that a very interesting paradox. If you remember his early fights...he hardly threw any strikes. He didn't want to beat people up. That actually held him back a little, because he was unwilling to do damage to his opponents. Rani Yahya was similar. They're both a little too soft for the UFC, too nice. They're not mean enough, and that will always hold them back a bit. Well, Maia has realized this, and has gotten just a tad meaner over the last few years, willing to throw nastier strikes when in a dominant position. That willingness has gone a long way for Maia.

I've always liked Condit for his unique all around game.

Maia beat Condit by throwing five total strikes. He beat Sonnen with seventeen total strikes. In his UFC debut, he beat Ryan Jensen with eleven total strikes. These are total strike attempts, not landed, and not significant strikes. Many of these are just equivalents of slaps used as distractions.

In his last four fights combined, Maia has been hit with only thirteen significant strikes.

Condit is pretty damn good at submission grappling. He's got one of the more dangerous guards in MMA.

Maia just made him look like an amateur...which I suppose he is, in comparison to Maia.

Did you see how fluidly he just rode Condit?



I don't see Maia being successful against Woodley. I don't think he'd be able to avoid that right hand for very long, and I think he'd have a hard time getting Woodley down. Maybe he can if he can survive until Woodley gets tired. I don't see that fight going well for Maia, though. Taking down Woodley will be much harder than taking down Condit was.

Probably has a better chance against Wonderboy. Still, instead getting put to sleep by a flashing right hand, he might get put to sleep by a kick Chuck Norris would envy.


I haven't really been following PVZ, because I don't care that she's pretty, but that was a nice kick.

In other news I'm sure you've already heard, Rory MacDonald has signed with Bellator.

 

That VanZant/Rawlings fight was really weird. I didn't understand what VanZant was trying to do in round 1. I'm thinking she's going about it all wrong. The one place where she's really good is in the clinch and she was happy for the most part to throw funky kicks from really far away. What happened in round 2 showed me haha. Rawlings looked really good until that head kick landed. She looked much improved in her last fight and she looks to have gotten better since that fight. Then that head kick lands. Rawlings looking good and VanZant looking pretty bad up until then is all forgotten and that's fair enough.

Condit's saying that Maia rocked him a bit on the mat. Looking at it again, it would have been just before Maia got to his back and finished the fight. He lands the punch and then within a few seconds he's passing and getting the tap.

Condit relies on his chin a lot, so this could be really bad for him if he fights again. It was a decent punch, but it seems like something Condit would have laughed at before. It could just be that he didn't see it coming and anyone can get hurt like that. I'm thinking it's probably that his chin has finally cracked, at least a bit. His chin is/was unreal. One of the very best in the sport. 99% of WWs would have been knocked out by a lot of the shots he's taken in his career.

Condit's talking about retiring and that would be a smart thing to do. He's going to get brutally KO'd at some stage if he sticks around. It sucks if he goes out like this though. He's been in a lot of tremendous fights and won with some amazing finishes. It'll be sad to see him retire if that's what he does but he's got nothing to prove to anyone after his brilliant career.

It certainly does seem like brutal fights with Robbie Lawler change fighters. Hendricks went through 10 rounds of it and he's looked really bad since. Part of it is probably that he's been cutting weight poorly for so long though. MacDonald's nose got destroyed and he hasn't been able to fix it. And Condit's amazing chin might have finally been cracked in that brutal last round against Lawler.

 

Joe Silva leaving the UFC.

This is going to hurt the company more than the stars themselves leaving.

 

Josh Barnett beat Arlovski via rear naked choke in Germany yesterday.

 

^Apparently he lost his debut match.

This looks like it was a good fight:

 

Edit: BTW, Mickey Gall (who beat Punk last night) called out Sage Northcutt after the fight. Northcutt apparently wants the fight.

 

Now of course, every time I step in an elevator I'll think of this.

 

This is why I liked to take stairs at the mall.

 

Sonnen signs with Bellator.

 

Judo vs Boxer....Gene Lebell!

 

"Judo" Gene LeBell.

Rule to live by:

Never get into a fight with a guy whose first name is a martial art.

 

If I ever become a mummy, I'm going to have it so when somebody opens my lid, a boxing glove on a spring shoots out.


-- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey

 

Woodley vs Wonderboy at MSG!

 

Rumor = Rousey vs Nunes UFC 207

 

what an absolute monster of a shot in the main event on the weekend. but seriously the taunting after it was uncalled for and disrespectful ok your camps don't get on and all that crap but two warriors went into the cage and thought you end up knocking the bloke out with a monster punch then you taunt him not a great look made him come across as a flog

 

Johnson did apologize for that in the post show on FS1 afterwards.

 

Cro Cop is doing well in his comeback.

 

Cyborg was Cyborg. That was brutal. Her opponent was really tough, so I hope she gets a fight against an actual human next time.

Thiago Santos upset by Eric Spicely. I honestly couldn't believe they were even fighting, it seemed like they just wanted to hand Spicely a beating and send him home. After looking really bad against Sam Alvey, I thought Spicely was in over his head, and not long for the UFC. Good for him, I guess.

 

Is Big Country going to get in trouble for kickpushing John McCarthy after he beat Bigfoot Silva last night?