219 replies to this topic

[Noel Luperon]

GREAT fights tonight, I can't remember being this excited for an entire event before. Minotauro, Shogun and Silva made my night, I did not expect that from Minotauro, and thought Forrest would be more of an obstacle to Shogun, glad the Brazilians came out proud and won them all.

Anderson Silva is a living legend. It's watching Ali or Roy Jones Jr. in their prime, it's a crime to miss his fights, and he only has so much to go. Great times.

[Will]

Lesnar vs Overeem for UFC 141.

I hope it's a good fight, but Overeem's going to kill him.

[Noel Luperon]

Jesus! Guys!

Yesterday was awesome MMA-wise for me.

Let's start with, yes, LESNAR vs OVEREEM. Will is right, I think Overeem is going to hit Lesnar until diverticulitis seems like a fun trip. But they've both gassed quickly in their last fights. If it's not over in the first round, it's going to quickly become a pillow punch, lay-n-pray fest.

Not as huge, but for that FOX inaugural UFC show (you guys know the UFC is going to be broadcasting FOX-exclusive cards, the first show headlined by VELAZQUEZ vs DOS SANTOS, right?) is the fight between GUIDA and BEN HENDERSON. Those guys NEVER stop in a fight, they have ridiculous stamina, that's going to be a lot of fun.

Finally, I was watching "The MMA hour" with Ariel Helwani, and Chael Sonnen was on. I made a comment about how cool that was on Twitter, and the fella called me! He asked for my phone and we got to talk, he thanked me for my support, we talked about my move to the US and his camp for Brian Stann, pretty friendly guy!

I hope to make it to the UFC Fan Expo in Houston this coming October. Will post pics!

[Nicholas Taggart]

Let's start with, yes, LESNAR vs OVEREEM. Will is right, I think Overeem is going to hit Lesnar until diverticulitis seems like a fun trip. But they've both gassed quickly in their last fights. If it's not over in the first round, it's going to quickly become a pillow punch, lay-n-pray fest.

Overeem gassed in his last fight (and many other fights in his career) but Lesnar didn't. He just got finished. Lesnar has finished three guys in the second round. He easily went three rounds with Heath Herring where he was beating him up the whole fight. Who knows what kind of condition he is in now but there really isn't any previous evidence that Lesnar needs to finish in the first round from a cardio standpoint. He has extremely impressive cardio for someone his size.



Nick Diaz no showed a bunch of UFC events this week so he is out of the GSP fight. GSP is fighting Condit instead. Nick's trainer Cesar Gracie says that Dana is completely in the right to drop him and that Nick is hiding somewhere and no one can find him. Seriously.

Edited by Nicholas Taggart, 07 September 2011 - 10:10 PM.

[Noel Luperon]

The Diaz situation is something out of a movie. It's a CHAMPION vs CHAMPION fight of the highest caliber, the dude sneaks out of Cesar Gracie's own house through the back and goes MIA when he is supposed to do press.

WTF?!

And I think you're right Nick, Lesnar has been finished, but hasn't gassed per se. How fast he can take Overeem down and nullify his gargantuan striking skill advantage is going to decide how this fight is going to go, if he can avoid Overeem's knees of death or his murderous guillotine choke.

[Nicholas Taggart]

I have seen people saying that UFC are overreacting by pulling Diaz from the fight but they have to. GSP fights are too big to risk them on a guy who disappears in the lead up and won't do any press. When a guy does that they just have to assume this guy isn't reliable (something everyone already knew) and can't be counted on to show up on the night of the fight.

Nick Diaz seems to have a knack for getting away with saying he will fight guys or picking fights then not going through with it. Most guys would have a rep for ducking fights if they did it as much as he does.

[Mike Collins]

Wow had no idea about Lesnar vs. Reem. I think if Lesnar can take him down it gets interesting. If Reem stays on his feet and strikes I think it could be a tough night for Brock. Brock really grew on me during Ultimate Fighter and I feel for him with the diverticulitis. My wife has it too. Not sure why he's going to keep fighting.

Nick Diaz is a straight up moron. From the lousy attitude to the drugs to being unprofessional can we just say goodbye to him now?

[Noel Luperon]

The Twitter chatter suggests he is still UFC, but... he's finally graced us with his presence, with no real apology about "missing the beauty pageant":

[Nicholas Taggart]

What a flake this guy is. Given how many times he has done stuff like this it is amazing that he even got the GSP fight in the first place, and he completely blew it.

He hasn't helped himself by posting a characteristically paranoid rant on Youtube about a conspiracy against him to protect GSP. Seems like it will greatly increase his chances of being cut. Messed up the biggest fight of the year so far and blames everyone else for it.


In every Diaz interview I have ever seen he has gone on and on about needing to make more money. And then he goes and throws away the golden ticket. According to Dave Meltzer he was going to make more than 2 million dollars for this fight. He isn't going to make that getting beat up in boxing matches.

Edited by Nicholas Taggart, 08 September 2011 - 09:19 AM.

[Mike Collins]

What a flake this guy is. Given how many times he has done stuff like this it is amazing that he even got the GSP fight in the first place, and he completely blew it.

He hasn't helped himself by posting a characteristically paranoid rant on Youtube about a conspiracy against him to protect GSP. Seems like it will greatly increase his chances of being cut. Messed up the biggest fight of the year so far and blames everyone else for it.


In every Diaz interview I have ever seen he has gone on and on about needing to make more money. And then he goes and throws away the golden ticket. According to Dave Meltzer he was going to make more than 2 million dollars for this fight. He isn't going to make that getting beat up in boxing matches.

Just like how he wss going to have a boxing match against a seen better days Jeff Lacy.

Diaz is a guy who for whatever reason keeps shooting himself in the foot.

[Nicholas Taggart]

Rare to see GSP this pissed off

[Nicholas Taggart]

Very enjoyable Strikeforce show last night. Some good fights and I'm very interested in seeing the finals of this tournament. Assuming it happens.

Edited by Nicholas Taggart, 11 September 2011 - 09:14 AM.

[Mike Collins]

Really stoked to see Cormier flatten Big Foot like that. He was so much faster than him it wasn't even funny.

[Nicholas Taggart]

A lot of people seem to have been really shocked that Cormier did that to Silva, but I can't say I was. Mike Kyle nearly did the exact same thing. Cormier looked amazing though. It made for an interesting contrast with Fedor's fight against Silva. Like night and day.

[Mike Collins]

A lot of people seem to have been really shocked that Cormier did that to Silva, but I can't say I was. Mike Kyle nearly did the exact same thing. Cormier looked amazing though. It made for an interesting contrast with Fedor's fight against Silva. Like night and day.

I was surprised at how hard Cormier seems to hit. I knew he was fast from that last Strikeforce fight. he's got superb handspeed and is just unorthodox enough to have people wary about where the shots are coming from but I didn't expect him to be carrying that much pop in his fists.. And this is from a two time Olympic wrestler. Should be really interesting to see him and Barnett throw down.

[Nicholas Taggart]

I think Barnett set up a great storyline going into that fight, the pro wrestler vs. the Olympic freestyle wrestler. I like Barnett saying that he is going to be taking down an Olympian and Cormier saying that isn't going to happen. Very intriguing.


Cormier obviously has the advantage as far as pure ability to shoot in and take someone down goes. Barnett is more about using various tricks and trips to get guys down. Actually on the ground though I have to think Barnett has the advantage. His ability to ride his opponent then take advantage of some split second mistake is pretty unreal. I think even Cormier would struggle to get Barnett off of him, and Barnett is vastly more experienced as a submission grappler.


On the feet the speed of Cormier seems like it would be a challenge for Barnett to deal with.

[Nicholas Taggart]

The season premiere of the Ultimate Fighter was fantastic. Lots of great, great fights. Most of the guys who were being eliminated before they could get into the house actually seemed better than the guys who have been winning most of the recent seasons.

Thank goodness for the lower weight classes.

[Noel Luperon]

I've never watched TUF, but look forward to the Mayhem vs Bisping finale.

VERY excited about Jones vs Rampage this weekend. My dislike of Jones aside, he's fun to watch, and Rampage will be on his face.

[Will]

Jefferson, please predict a Kos win over Hughes.

[Nicholas Taggart]

I've never watched TUF, but look forward to the Mayhem vs Bisping finale.

In recent (and even not so recent in many cases) the actual talent competing on the seasons has been very poor for the most part. The early seasons had loads of talented guys because there was so much talent out there that wasn't already in a major company. But that well has run dry and anyone who is any good will just get signed to a contract rather than having to go through TUF. So really the only appeal of the show has been whether or not the coaches have a good dynamic. But not this season. Since the lower weight classes are so new in UFC there are still loads of great unsigned talents. Purely from an in-ring action standpoint that was probably the best night of fights of the year so far. It was great. I fully expect the fighter who wins this season to actually be a force in their division in the future.

VERY excited about Jones vs Rampage this weekend. My dislike of Jones aside, he's fun to watch, and Rampage will be on his face.

I am kinda expecting Jones to walk through him. We shall find out soon.

I'm not all that excited about the main event but there are a few fights I am looking forward to.

Edited by Nicholas Taggart, 23 September 2011 - 03:15 PM.