The Ultimate Fighter / UFC thread

[MikeyPatriot]

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All,

Back to some TUF discussion.

Wow, how wrong was I about Serra's coaching? Definitely seemed like he at least got his guys to stick w/ the plan and stay motivated better than Hughes did.

I was pretty impressed by the farmer guy being able to keep fighting through the choke attempts at the start. Especially impressive was when he got out, it seemed like he had tons of energy left, no real recovery time needed at all.

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Hughes got really unlucky that J-Roc had to fight George. George, J-Roc, and Mac are the clear top guys in this group. Everyone else has potential, but are extremely inexperienced. I often forget that at this point, these guys have only been on the show for 3 or 4 weeks or something. It's gonna be really hard to get people to be on the same page and listen to you from the corner, when they may only have 2 or 3 fights under the belt.

I've only watched all of season 1, so I can't compare this to many of the other seasons, but the show has been pretty "meh" so far. There hasn't been much house drama (apparently Dana actually came by the house one day and said these guys were the most depressing group TUF's ever had), which is fine by me because I don't really care to see a bunch of meatheads get hammered and breaking [censored]. I mean, some of the most drama-filled scenes include Barrera's crazy girlfriend and George not waking up his teammates.

The fights haven't been that great either. We've seen a couple exciting brawls, but it's very clear that none outside of the big 3 are really worthy of being in the UFC right now. Again, tons of talent and potential, but a lot of guys need polishing.

The ratings for the show have continued to slide since season one until it's hit a baseline that I don't think will get any worse. If they want to make the show interesting for the next couple seasons, they should scrap the traditional reality show formula of getting a few guys that they are interested in and filling out the rest of the cast with personalities. Just go out and get some good fighters and let them fight. Maybe even scrap the house concept and just have guys stay in Vegas, get their back stories, show them training, etc.

[El Diablo]

Mikey,

The fights have definitely been weaker this season in comparison to previous seasons.

[MikeyPatriot]

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do you actually think that the Fertittas and Dana White would even risk having their champ possibly lose to someone that isn't under contract to them?

Randy will most likely come back to teh UFC. It's a spat between him and the top brass and he's still under contract to them.

Some of the stuff he cited as reasons for being mad have been refuted by Dave Meltzer who was able to show that Couture had a very handsome PPV bonus along with other promotional stuff that he got paid for by the UFC.

Some of the per fight garuntees are higher for other fighters, but Couture's PPV bonus is pretty huge(it's on a tiered system and I can dig out this past week's WON and break it down) and he's made as much money as any other fighter since UFC got massive.

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Randy isn't coming back unless he gets a fight with Fedor. The ONLY way I see him coming back is to get his two fights out of the way to go fight Fedor in M-1.

Could you provide a link to what you're describing. Because this is my understanding of the money dispute:

-Randy asked for a signing bonus when he came back to fight Sylvia.

-UFC said no.

-Randy persisted.

-UFC said we'll give you half of your standard "shower room" bonus now ($250k) and the rest after the fight (another $250k)

-Randy then did not receive a "shower room" bonus after the Gonzaga fight.

-Randy has received his PPV bonus and he hasn't complained about or disputed that.

Now...at Randy's press conference, he brought up the signing bonus issue, saying he asked for one and never received it. Dana came back and said, "Look, we have this check here showing we gave him a bonus." To me, this look like Dana being able to use the opaqueness of his financial dealings to spin the signing bonus issue his way.

[KDawg]

I forgot when Kang signed, but I do remember something from the Observer basically saying that Kang was never all that interested in being in the UFC

with lindland, I think if the UFC had wanted to keep him in the first place, they would've worked something out like they did with Brandon Vera. They were fine with dropping him and haven't made an attempt since to get him back

[MikeyPatriot]

Pretty good interview with Mac:

http://thefightinglife.wordpress.com...th-mac-danzig/

[El Diablo]

All,

Anyone else watch the EliteXC show on Showtime?

Kimbo Slice knocked out some chump in 19 seconds. Actually, he tapped as soon as he got dropped, before Kimbo had even really started attacking him on the ground. First time I've seen a tap due to strikes in a long time, and definitely haven't seen a tap that quick after getting hit. Kimbo had Bas Rutten in his corner. Hard to say how good Kimbo is based on that fight.

Nick Diaz lost to KJ Noons due to fight being stopped because of cuts over his eyes. Diaz was VERY pissed. Noons did a pretty impressive job of takedown defense and avoiding Diaz. The main thing he got Diaz with was a knee to the head on a takedown attempt. I'm really surprised that isn't more common when fighers shoot low.

Overall, some pretty entertaining fights.

[Runkmud]

Can't wait til Kimbo gets in with some decent fighters, last night was really no test of his training or lack there of.

I was pretty upset that the Diaz fight was stopped, surely it could have gone on for at least another minute. Diaz looked way less than impressive though, his shots seemed really slow and telegraphed to me. Usually I enjoy watching Diaz fight, but his last two have been was sub par. He seems intent on fighting a stand up game, when his ground work is far more impressive. While I give his pitter pat boxing style some credit, he really doesn't have the defensive skills necessary for a competent striker.

[MikeyPatriot]

Watched the EXC show.

Like you said, we don't really know anymore about Kimbo than we did before the fight. Cantrell looked like he was just there to get a paycheck, and ended up looking like a bitch as a result.

re: Diaz and the stoppage

Don't know how you can argue against it. Diaz had already been checked on for a cut in the round, then was cut again on the nose and above his other eye. Diaz is a game fighter, evidenced by the Gomi fight, but there's only so much you can allow. Even if the fight goes on, I would have given Noons a 10-8 round, so Diaz would have had a huge battle uphill.

I think the biggest thing to come out of that card last night was Antonio Silva showing up at 265 and showing he can make that weight and fight in the normal HW division. Bigfoot is one of the few fighters that could run the division a la Fedor based on his size, athleticism, and ability.

The show was disappointing overall, but that had more to do with the cut stoppages and Cantrell bitching out. It was a good show on paper, and if EXC can continue to put on shows like that, they're gonna do well.

Bill Goldberg needs to go though.

Don't know if anyone else saw this, but Mark Cuban's HDNet has a pretty solid show on Dec. 15th (not sure if this is being shown live):

Jason "Mayhem" Miller vs. Sean Salmon
Frank Trigg vs. Edwin Dewees
Yves Edwards (who was in the EXC prelims last night) vs. Alonzo Martinez
Srysztof Soszynski vs. Robert Villegas
Pete Spratt vs Tristian Yunker

The matchusp are "meh", but if Cuban can bring in more guys like Miller, Trigg, and Edwards, HDNet's gonna have some good fights in the future.

[cpitt398]

watched the Kimbo fight online.

I would like to believe that the body shot destroyed Cantrell a la De La Hoya v Hopkins, but he sat up way too quick afterwards for that to be the case, so who knows why he tapped so quick.

I have high hopes for Kimbo, hopefully they can get him back into the ring pretty quickly. I don't like when people talk down about Kimbo bc he is a street fighter. They are really not giving him enough credit just bc of his lack of professional experience. His boxing is far superior to MMA/UFC levels.

I know it takes more than boxing to succeed in MMA but he is a threat to anyone. I dont think anyone in MMA can stand with him for any significant period of time. And the way his stance is set he has the ability to take someone's head off with an uppercut if they try to shoot on him.


I showed my friend who is a very smart boxing fan his videos and he agreed that his boxing skills are very legitimate and in line with people that are equated with being prefossional

[MikeyPatriot]

cpitt,

The only thing you can say about Kimbo is that he probably hits hard. We still have no clue how his standup will translate in a "real" MMA fight.