The Ultimate Fighter / UFC thread

[mephisto]

Agree with comments about Dana. top 5 makes no sense for either Bisping or Evans. Agree with comment that Evans is no contender for the belt.

Another thing about Dana, he just looked so disingenuous when he shook the hands of both bisping/evans and told them how great of a fight he thought it was. I also noticed how he told Evans to keep his comments positive.

About the houston/silva fight, houston look overwhelmed by the situation before he even got to the ring, he looked nervous from looking into his eyes. Pretty disappointing result for him. Imo, Silva would destroy both evans and bisping. Wonder how many fights he would need to win to become a contender.

[MikeyPatriot]

A contender for the title? If he can beat two of Jardine, Griffin, Chuck, Tito, etc., I think he'll be given a shot. The LHW division is really crowded right now.

[mephisto]

I agree that he needs to fight a couple of fighters that stand in his way before Dana gives it to him. Even though the LHW is crowded right now, guys like Tito, Jardine, Evans, Bisping, and Chuck are guys who are either not worthy of ever getting a title shot or guys with careers clearly heading the wrong direction. Who knows if even Silva still got what it takes after coming off two loses.

[mephisto]

Here are the Yahoo MMA rankings for the LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION (205-pound limit)

1. Quinton Jackson
2. Mauricio "Shogun" Rua
3. Dan Henderson
4. Chuck Liddell
5. Wanderlei Silva
6. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou
7. Keith Jardine
8. Forrest Griffin
9. Ricardo Arona
10. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira

Discuss.

[gehrig]

i really hate how rankings are always retrospective instead of predictive

[MikeyPatriot]

[ QUOTE ]
i really hate how rankings are always retrospective instead of predictive

[/ QUOTE ]

Meh. I don't mind if that's the goal set out by the rankers. For instance, would you put B.J. Penn in the top 10 lightweights in the world, even though he's only fought in the weight class once in the past 4 years?

[MikeyPatriot]

I'll just post my own completely subjective rankings instead of trying to critique Yahoo's.

1. Quinton Jackson
2. Wanderlei Silva
3. Dan Henderson
4. Mauricio Rua
5. Forrest Griffin
6. Keith Jardine
7. Chuck Liddell
8. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou
9. Ricardo Arona
tT. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira
tT. Lyoto Machida

Even though Jardine beat Griffin, he's lost to Alexander and lost to Bonnar (a guy Griffin beat twice). I also think Forrest victory over Rua was more impressive than Jardine over Chuck. I don't drop Rua below Griffin because I still subjectively think that Rua beats Shogun more than 5 out of 10, though I really wouldn't mind flip-flopping them.

Wanderlei and Henderson could flip flop, but Henderson just lost a 5 round decision to a guy Wanderlei beat twice, handily. Again, though, I wouldn't mind flip-flopping these two either.

I almost considered leaving Nogueira off and putting Machida at 10. If Machida gets by Sokoudjou, I think he moves up to 9 and Sok probably falls off my top 10.

I've also been working on a project similar to beatpaths.com for MMA. I'm still trying to work out some things (like how far back I should consider and stuff like that), but I might be able to put up a sample of the middleweight division in the next week or two if anyone's interested.

[MikeyPatriot]

Here's two more rankings from Sherdog and MMAweekly, respectively:

1. Quinton Jackson
2. Dan Henderson
3. Wanderlei Silva
4. Keith Jardine
5. Forrest Griffin
6. Mauricio Rua
7. Chuck Liddell
8. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou
9. Ricardo Arona
T. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira

1. Quinton Jackson
2. Mauricio Rua
3. Dan Henderson
4. Chuck Liddell
5. Wanderlei Silva
6. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou
7. Keith Jardine
8. Forrest Griffin
9. Ricardo Arona
T. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira.

[lapoker17]

i just bought the 9.99 a month thing on ufc.com and have been watching tons of older fights. pretty sweet deal.

longtime ufc viewers pls discuss the following:

1. bruce buffer needs to die.

2. mike goldberg seems like a nice guy, but he's just a huge loser. he's been a 4th rate announcer for a long time in the sports world. really surprised they can't do better. they should pay jim lampley a ton to move over. he could be an mma expert in like 6 months and his play by play would really elevate the broadcast (even bob papa would be a huge upgrade and i'm sure he would do it). mike goldberg should do pro wrestling.

3. rogan rules.

[MikeyPatriot]

lapoker,

True on all accounts.

I actually think the UFC On Demand deal isn't as sweet as I first thought. It's cool to have all those fights, but 1) you can get them through "other" means and 2) they've hardly added any Pride fights since I signed up (almost 4 months ago I think). I'll probably resubscribe just for the prelim fights, but I think it's lacking a bit. Also, having to redownload fights (unless you know how to remove the DRM protection [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]) every 2 or 3 months is ridiculous.

Edit: Lampley would never do MMA, at least not for an amount of money that the UFC would pay. He's been very vocal about being anti-MMA on the HBO boxing shows. I think my dream commentating group would be something like: one of: Mauro Ranallo/Stephen Quadros, Max Kellerman as the color guy, Randy Couture as the former athlete analyst, and Rogan doing post-fight interviews.