MMA & UFC General - Featuring Bellator MMA & Rizin Fighting Federation

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easy said:
coming back to the discussion about scott coker running bellator into the ground like @Slimy Time was saying, i just wanna know, like, wtf went wrong with him? he used to run strikeforce, and strikeforce was fucking good. strikeforce had real fucking talent; the diaz bros, motherfucking DC, jacare souza, rousey, hendo, the list goes on.

is it really so simple as coker still running shit like it's 2009? there's more to it than that, no? strikeforce had good matchmaking as far as i remember; bellator is like,, it's fucking bellator man. and other than the pitbull bros, lima, mckee and (arguably) mvp, all their talent is just ufc almuni. why can't they get good new fighters? strikeforce was a goldmine for that shit. what went wrong?

idk man it just does seem truly cursed at times. they do occasionally put on a pretty comfy card, but those are really few and far between.
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Biggest problem is the dogshit advertising and promotion. There is the whole unlisted fight nonsense which requires you to go to their website to find a link to their fights, instead of using Youtube to push people to their site. They are awful on twitter or other social media apps to the point where big events are unknown until maybe a few days at best.

Coker also mismanages his talent imo. He's kinda treating it like a regional fight organisation where you can beat up cans. and get a win. One of his recent PPVs had a prelim show consisting of people with more losses than wins, including one Gracie who is 0-3. These are people who frankly should not be at Bellator, they should be doing regionals fighting and building up their records. Similarly, with homegrown talent like MVP, he's feeding him fucking cans to knock over, which does nothing to build up these fighters, because you look and who he's knocking out and you see him being a can crusher. Mousasi, an ex UFC alumni who they have turned into a Bellator name, is being fed fighters more well known for fucking hot women than they are for fighting, and he's being promoted as someone who would smoke Adesanya and Whittaker (utterly delusional).

Coker pays out of the ass for UFC alumni, to the point where the Nemkov-Anderson payment was revealed and his champion Nemkov was being payed 80k show-80k win while Anderson was payed about 250k-300k flat. He's paying out the ass for "stars" from the UFC or other organisations in the hope people turn up and watch them, because he's frankly incompetent at building up natural, home grown talent. Combine this with the above point, and Bellator has this reputation of having either old guys from the UFC or can crushers, and this overshadows any good talent they might have.

It also means their good talent kinda get away with nonsense that just doesn't work against good fighters. McKee for example got away with being horrifically inefficient in his striking, throwing himself completely off balance, not feinting at all, at times having his torso almost parallel to the floor past his feet. In the UFC, he would have eventually hit a wall where he can't get away with that (see Giga Chikadze's sloppy boxing and what happened to him). This again means that when you look at their genuinely good fighters, they seem inferior to the UFC product.

Then there is his insistence on using bad commentators. IDK why he wants Big John to commentate, but Big John is dogshit. He is the worst commentator for any major organisation I have seen. He has no idea what he's looking at, in spite his years of refereeing and his calls are completely wrong, in addition to always podcasting. Take the worst parts of Rogan's biased commentary and DC's fucking around talking about bullshit, crank it up, and make it every single fight. That is a major turn off. I don't want to watch Bellator because I have to listen to this drooling retard.

Just seems utterly incompetent and directionless in how they want to run things. It's supposed to be the next biggest US organisation to the UFC, but it feels like it's a glorified regional organisation in how it's run. PFL (formerly WSOF) is way more entertaining.
 
Slimy Time said:
PFL (formerly WSOF) is way more entertaining
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i've been meaning to get into this. was their event from last week fun? i missed it but i'm planning on following the season
 
easy said:
i've been meaning to get into this. was their event from last week fun? i missed it but i'm planning on following the season
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Yeah, was pretty good. They got a main event with UFC alumni Jeremy Stephens and Clay Collard. Collard boxed him up. Omari Ahmedov murdered someone in his PFL debut. OAM got a win which was nice and so on.

There is just something about PFL where even when they get UFC alumni, it's not as stupid as Bellator, probably because they match them well. Got some good home talent as well like Ray Cooper III.

Edit: Hit me why I like PFL more than Bellator. It has direction with their season and point format, as opposed to the directionless Bellator format. It's like watching any sports league, or the old tournament format at points. They don't really bullshit around with matchmaking too much. You aren't really going to see them put Ray Cooper III against some 3-1 Maths teacher and part time MMA fighter. You fight, you win points, you go into a knockout tournament based on points and that's it. You generally do get the best guys in that organization fighting each other, because it incentivises it.
 
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Scott Coker is a fucking hack.

Strikeforce was a lot of fun but even back then, you could tell Coker was a fucking retard. The insistence of using Rich Chou as matchmaker for the majority of his time as promoter for both Strikeforce and Bellator was utterly disastrous. Finishes are cool and all but kind of lose their luster when it's always favoring whatever fighter is in the red corner. Too much reliance on regional Fighters too when they should be on your opening bouts at most and should at least have winning records.

There's a lot of critics for Bjorn Rebney but I can easily say I had a lot more fun watching Bellator when he was still in charge. Bjorn always did a great job in bringing over lesser known Russian talent and the guys that were entertaining in Japan like Marlon Sandro, etc. The one problem you could have is the non-title fights and the long wait for actual title fights but outside of that, I still made sure to tune in every week of the season.
 
Goyaanisqatsi said:
Scott Coker is a fucking hack.

Strikeforce was a lot of fun but even back then, you could tell Coker was a fucking retard. The insistence of using Rich Chou as matchmaker for the majority of his time as promoter for both Strikeforce and Bellator was utterly disastrous. Finishes are cool and all but kind of lose their luster when it's always favoring whatever fighter is in the red corner. Too much reliance on regional Fighters too when they should be on your opening bouts at most and should at least have winning records.

There's a lot of critics for Bjorn Rebney but I can easily say I had a lot more fun watching Bellator when he was still in charge. Bjorn always did a great job in bringing over lesser known Russian talent and the guys that were entertaining in Japan like Marlon Sandro, etc. The one problem you could have is the non-title fights and the long wait for actual title fights but outside of that, I still made sure to tune in every week of the season.
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Did you know that Yoel Romero is fighting next week on the 6th of May? No? That's Bellator for you. One of the hottest, fairly recent and relative UFC fighters that they purchased and... Nothing. Their promotion sucks at advertising.
 
Slimy Time said:
Biggest problem is the dogshit advertising and promotion. There is the whole unlisted fight nonsense which requires you to go to their website to find a link to their fights, instead of using Youtube to push people to their site. They are awful on twitter or other social media apps to the point where big events are unknown until maybe a few days at best.
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Man, this discussion about Bellator's shitty promotion really reminds me of ONE Championship and how good their promotion is at the moment. While Bellator is cranking out mediocre interviews with boring titles, ONE is taking full advantage of YouTube by posting fight highlights with eye-catching titles and thumbnails. I think that's the key here, honestly. People don't want to watch interviews or even full fights; they want compilations of the most impactful moments during fights, which then tempts into buying PPV's.

On top of all this, I currently think that ONE has objectively better talent than Bellator, which helps with promo as well. With all of the above in mind, ONE is pretty much the only solid competitor to the UFC.
 
naffatune said:
On top of all this, I currently think that ONE has objectively better talent than Bellator, which helps with promo as well. With all of the above in mind, ONE is pretty much the only solid competitor to the UFC.
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In terms of entertainment, without a doubt. In terms of making money? No. It's pretty much an open secret that ONE is a laundering operation who do all sorts of shady things and seem to go through money like water through a sieve. 2020 they reported a LOSS of $48M, but that's perfectly fine when someone makes a convenient donation of $400M. It's a laundering scheme for SEA and China. That's also not getting into things like having weigh ins behind doors, accusations that top stars (Lee siblings especially, who are really there as some kind of pro Singapore propaganda) missing weight and them ignoring it, trashing unsold tickets and writing them off as sales, and so on.

Do I care? Nope, because it's fun as fuck to watch. But they really aren't a competitor to the UFC. Their MMA glove kickboxing and Muay Thai is really fun to watch.
 
Was lurking around Wikipedia and came across this guy named "Justin Baesman", who's a fighter with a pretty brutal record. Seems like he's used as a tomato can for the up-and-coming talents. I will say that he does have solid leg kicks, but that's pretty much it. It seems so weird for someone like him to be dusted repeatedly by guys that don't even have Wikipedia pages.

Justin baesman record.png
 
Jesus, Font just had to live through the Aldo fight all over again. He wins minutes on the clock by clearly out striking his opponent in numbers, and then his defensive issues crop up, or his opponent finds the gap and fucks him up badly, to the point where he's in survival mode and loses the round. Two back to back fights across 9 rounds this has happened, so it's likely a defence issue for him. His best wins have also had the issue of ageing like milk in the hot sun. Moraes and Garbrandt. Really makes you think that if Cody didn't have all the defensive issues, or worked with a proper boxing coach and not Mark Henry, he could have found those spots and chalk outlined Font. Still feels like it's again a fight that Font could have won had he not gotten cracked in those moments.

Chito pretty much did what many people thought he would do. Drop the first round, find those big moments and win them in a violent, brutal fashion. Knees and hook kicks. His toughness and defence seemed good. Either getting the shots on the high guard or seeing them and moving. Need to rewatch later but I remember his jab and low kicks were doing good work.

Edit: Clips



 
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Slimy Time said:
Jesus, Font just had to live through the Aldo fight all over again. He wins minutes on the clock by clearly out striking his opponent in numbers, and then his defensive issues crop up, or his opponent finds the gap and fucks him up badly, to the point where he's in survival mode and loses the round. Two back to back fights across 9 rounds this has happened, so it's likely a defence issue for him. His best wins have also had the issue of ageing like milk in the hot sun. Moraes and Garbrandt. Really makes you think that if Cody didn't have all the defensive issues, or worked with a proper boxing coach and not Mark Henry, he could have found those spots and chalk outlined Font. Still feels like it's again a fight that Font could have won had he not gotten cracked in those moments.
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I think we need to give Vera some credit here for his defense. Rob did exactly what I expected him to; he pressed forward and threw jabs, crosses and uppercuts. However, it was the high guard, rolling with punches, and iron chin of Vera that saved him in the opening rounds.

It seemed like Marlon knew that Rob would just press forward and throw first, so he just relied on his defense and chin to avoid damage and make Rob tired. Once Rob started getting tired from pressing forward and not landing, he would back off and create distance, which allowed Marlon to throw hard kicks and knees that would put Rob down. That being said, Rob did keep the pressure on during the 4th and 5th rounds, showcasing his heart and more-than-decent gas tank.

To conclude, it looks like I underestimated Marlon's defense here. For a guy with long arms, he has a really tight guard, and blocks with his forearms and elbows, which is something I don't see from a lot of fighters. Next time though, he can't let a guy wail on him for that long, even if the shots aren't that hard; he should develop some head movement and counterpunch as his opponent is moving in.
 
naffatune said:
I think we need to give Vera some credit here for his defense. Rob did exactly what I expected him to; he pressed forward and threw jabs, crosses and uppercuts. However, it was the high guard, rolling with punches, and iron chin of Vera that saved him in the opening rounds.

It seemed like Marlon knew that Rob would just press forward and throw first, so he just relied on his defense and chin to avoid damage and make Rob tired. Once Rob started getting tired from pressing forward and not landing, he would back off and create distance, which allowed Marlon to throw hard kicks and knees that would put Rob down. That being said, Rob did keep the pressure on during the 4th and 5th rounds, showcasing his heart and more-than-decent gas tank.

To conclude, it looks like I underestimated Marlon's defense here. For a guy with long arms, he has a really tight guard, and blocks with his forearms and elbows, which is something I don't see from a lot of fighters. Next time though, he can't let a guy wail on him for that long, even if the shots aren't that hard; he should develop some head movement and counterpunch as his opponent is moving in.
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Defence definitely held up. Rob's defence on the other hand when on the back foot was not great. He really is a guy who needs to be on the front foot to see everything coming. Even going back to the Aldo fight. Round 1, caught backing up on the reset. Round 2, on the reset/stance switch, Round 5, backing up. His defence on the back foot is really not great. I'm looking back through all the moments he was rocked in both fights and I'm noticing he has this defensive reaction of shelling up and ducking his head down when backing up, likely taking his eyes off the opponent and looking at the floor. If you are looking at the floor, you see nothing that's coming at you. That second knockdown against Vera (the knee), Font basically flings his face right into Vera's knee. Vera didn't pull his head down, or clinch, or anything like that. He threw the knee as Rob ducks right into it.

Really looked like Rob was initially going to run away with the fight until right at the end of round 2 by getting ahead and either making Chito do stupid shit trying to get back into it or just shutting him out in competitive rounds that he was winning. Instead he had the last fight happen to him all over again. Really feel bad for him at what has to be the lowest point of his career.
  • Misses weight for the first time in his career and loses 20% of his purse,
  • Relives the last fight and is violently fucked up, likely re-breaking his orbital and getting horrifically mangled,
  • Wins the FOTN award, but is ineligible for it and all of that money is going to his opponent,
  • Lost his top 5 at 34, probably never getting back there again,
  • Best wins have aged terribly.
Can't help but feel bad for the guy.
 
To me, this fight highlighted how good of a ref Jason Herzog is, by letting Rob Font stand up by himself after the rounds he got knocked down in. Made me immediately think of the Volkanovski/Ortega fight where Herb Dean allowed Ortega's cornermen to help him up while he was pretty clearly done for.
 
Smooth Operator said:
To me, this fight highlighted how good of a ref Jason Herzog is, by letting Rob Font stand up by himself after the rounds he got knocked down in. Made me immediately think of the Volkanovski/Ortega fight where Herb Dean allowed Ortega's cornermen to help him up while he was pretty clearly done for.
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Herzog imo is the best ref, in spite the wanking of Rogan for "gold standard" Herb Dean. Almost always on point, and when he isn't, he owns up to it (Smith-Teixeira. Herb has never conceded that he fucks up). I like that he's getting more high profile main events to referee. He's one of these referees where you don't really notice that he's there. Key thing is he never seems uncertain about his calls or flustered about the calls he should be making. He just does the job.

The Costa-Vettori call is a great one. Warns Costa twice. Once in the fight and the other in between rounds. First eye poke by Costa, deducts point. He doesn't wait for 2 eye pokes before pulling the trigger.
 
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Slimy Time said:
Defence definitely held up. Rob's defence on the other hand when on the back foot was not great. He really is a guy who needs to be on the front foot to see everything coming.
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It held up for sure. This clip basically summarizes how well Marlon was defending attacks from Font.



Also, being on the back foot is a bad thing altogether, unless you're really good at timing counters. Rob's fighting philosophy of "pressure at all times" is one that I think all fighters should have, but I do think he could improve his methods for implementing that. For example, Rob needs to work on angling off while throwing combos and avoiding overcommitment on punches, but I could could say that for a lot of guys, even the best boxers in the promotion like Poirier, Holloway and Yan.

Rob can also benefit greatly from throwing counters as the opponent attacks, which not a lot of fighters do, except Yadong and some others.

Speaking of Yadong, I'd love to see a rematch with him and Marlon. I think a fight with Font is more likely to happen atm tho, lol.
 
Quick thought: I'd love to see Rob Font at featherweight. I think the matchups with him at that division are more than obvious.
 
East_Clintwood said:
So the UFC appears to have accidentally leaked their potential line up for International Fight Week:
View attachment 3246071

Pretty decent all things considered, and appears to be real since Barbarena has confirmed his fight with Robbie. Interestingly there's another picture for UFC 277 which shows Jones vs Miocic headlining.
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Confirmed quite a few I believe. O'Malley-Munhoz in both a step up in competition and yet another favourable matchup for Sean, Strickland-Pereira I think also confirmed. I think Diaz is unconfirmed.
 
Slimy Time said:
Confirmed quite a few I believe. O'Malley-Munhoz in both a step up in competition and yet another favourable matchup for Sean, Strickland-Pereira I think also confirmed. I think Diaz is unconfirmed.
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I can't stand O'Malley. Such a cringey douche.

East_Clintwood said:
Interestingly there's another picture for UFC 277 which shows Jones vs Miocic headlining.
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Stipe vs Jones is interesting. I'd heavily favor Jones normally but who knows how he will be 40 lbs heavier
 
Hollywood Hulk Hogan said:
I can't stand O'Malley. Such a cringey douche.
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Very creepy as well. In one of these open relationships iirc. He's in one of these positions where you can see the potential for him being very good, but then it's wasted on fighting cans. He's a bit like Paddy Pimblett except if he was good, but then instead of pushing him up the rankings they just kept feeding him cans and hyping him up.

You look at him and compare him to someone like Khamzat or Aspinall, yeah, I want to see how this guy does against the top of the division, but instead of doing the big push, they are giving him another pretty favourable matchup imo. Can't even say he's new and developing, he's had 7 fights already in the UFC. Would be funny if Munhoz just kicked his legs off.

Pimblett is another one I dislike, and it's not just because he's the annoying Bong stereotype. He's treated like O'Malley, except he's clearly not good, and this is after he's spent years on the regionals developing, so that's not going anywhere. This fucker is going to plague all the British cards being very annoying and clearly not very good struggling against other not very good fighters. They just cut the two guys he beat.
 
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