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

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dick brain said:
It can't be worse than last night.
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You'd be surprised. Those early Pride events have a number of lay and pray matches that just seem to go on forever, and then they end in a fucking time limit draw because there are no judges present. Renzo Gracie has a match against some jap at Pride 2. There are no judges and UNLIMITED ROUNDS at 15 minutes a piece. It goes on for 75 fuckin minutes before there's a finish. It's torture to sit through. There are also a handful of fake fights on those early cards, but I guess those are at least entertaining, albeit for the wrong reasons.
 
My favorite era of UFC is the mid-2000s. I’m going to list some fights I really liked off the top of my head, but I’ll need to really think about it. There was a lot of real good stuff going on back then.

Matt Hughes vs Frank Trigg II (UFC 52 – 2005)

You’ve seen replays of this. Awesome moment. Trigg decks Hughes in the groin and nearly chokes him out, then Hughes just deadlifts him in response, carries him across the octagon, dunks his ass, then chokes him the fuck out.


Forrest Griffin vs Stephan Bonnar I (The Ultimate Fighter Finale – 2005)

The fight that saved the UFC and brought it into the mainstream. Again, you’ve seen the clips. Watch it.


Rich Franklin vs Anderson Silva I (UFC 64 – 2006)

Franklin is one of my favorite fighters of all time. Silva brutalizes him in this fight. Very entertaining.


Georges St-Pierre vs Matt Hughes II (UFC 65 – 2006)

GSP is the shit. This was a “passing the torch” moment where it was becoming necessary to be a well-rounded fighter to compete versus just possessing insane strength like Matt Hughes did. Hughes gets fucked up bad in this fight.


Diego Sanchez vs Karo Parisyan (UFC Fight Night 6 – 2006)

God damn I miss Diego Sanchez. What an entertaining fighter back in his day.


Chuck Liddell vs Wanderlei Silva (UFC 79 – 2007)

UFC versus PRIDE. Both dudes are clearly out their prime, but this fight is very exciting. Great exchanges. The crowd was electric.



Shout out to Silva vs Sonnen at UFC 117. Basically add any Robbie Lawler fight on your watch list during that era if you want violence. Old fans might think this list is pedestrian, and it is, but it’s very solid. The 2000s were an exciting period for MMA in general. Gonna sit down, think on this some more, and add some more must see fights.
 
Karamanlis said:
You'd be surprised. Those early Pride events have a number of lay and pray matches that just seem to go on forever, and then they end in a fucking time limit draw because there are no judges present. Renzo Gracie has a match against some jap at Pride 2. There are no judges and UNLIMITED ROUNDS at 15 minutes a piece. It goes on for 75 fuckin minutes before there's a finish. It's torture to sit through. There are also a handful of fake fights on those early cards, but I guess those are at least entertaining, albeit for the wrong reasons.
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Gracies fights were always into some bullshit in Pride, they asked for new rules and all sorts of ridiculous crap to favor them, so much that they even had a fight with Sakuraba that lasted 90 minutes.


And of course, most of the fight is clinch or half-guard ground game.

But that is MMA, it is part of the sport.

Look, I don't like wrestlefuckers anymore than you, but the efficiency of take down and pulling guard is way too much of an advantage for figthers to not take advantage, and when done well, it can be a surprise game changer in a fight, which is one of the reasons why I like mma, fortunes can change in a instant all the time.

But that also means we can have borefests when neither guy wants risk, and they end up in a stalemate hugging in the ground, and that was ALWAYS a issue.

Even monsters of violence like Wanderlay Silva had plenty unremarkable fights on the ground.

And to give thee Dagis a break, they didn't invent this style of fight, they took what was efficient about it and built their entire gameplan around it, that is why you will never see a guy like Islam ever strike inside the pocket without level changing to set up a TD. They fight safe, and they fight to get the W, getting the k.o or subs is not a priority for them.

It works, the fans might not like, but it works.
 
Bolo_the_Second said:
Gracies fights were always into some bullshit in Pride, they asked for new rules and all sorts of ridiculous crap to favor them, so much that they even had a fight with Sakuraba that lasted 90 minutes.
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Royce wanted every match in the entire tournament to have unlimited rounds, but Sakuraba was the only one to agree to it. There was a logic to what Royce wanted. He said if he has to fight guys that are double his size (like Kerr and Coleman), then you have to give him unlimited rounds to work, otherwise they're just gonna hold him down until the 15 minutes is up.

Regarding everything else you said, I personally like wrestling and I have sat through every single Pride event. But the guy I was talking to is looking for a fun alternative to current UFC, and I don't think lay and pray stalemates would fit the bill.
 
Karamanlis said:
Regarding everything else you said, I personally like wrestling and I have sat through every single Pride event. But the guy I was talking to is looking for a fun alternative to current UFC, and I don't think lay and pray stalemates would fit the bill.
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The best alternatives here would be the asian promotions ONE and Rizin.

ONE had kickboxing and Muay Thai matches alongside MMA if you just want striking action, and Rizin also has kickboxing with MMA.

If you like Pride, Rizin is pretty much it's successor minus Yakuza money (but not really, 🤫). The good thing about Rizin is that they use boxing ring instead of the cage, so it is harder for grapplers to use the fence to force TDs, and the mentality is still very much bat shit insanity.

Rizin might not be the freak show that Pride was, but some of that spirit still lives on.

And to be fair, and not to sound like much of a pompous faggot, but UFC is commodity fight, it is a very acceptable product for masses, and a good entry point for combat sports, but if you wanna see violence for violence's sake, look at east promotions or regional scenes in places like Brazil or Russia.
 
Karamanlis said:
You'd be surprised. Those early Pride events have a number of lay and pray matches that just seem to go on forever, and then they end in a fucking time limit draw because there are no judges present. Renzo Gracie has a match against some jap at Pride 2. There are no judges and UNLIMITED ROUNDS at 15 minutes a piece. It goes on for 75 fuckin minutes before there's a finish. It's torture to sit through. There are also a handful of fake fights on those early cards, but I guess those are at least entertaining, albeit for the wrong reasons.
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I think that was the famous Sakuraba fight. Typical Gracie where it’s a fucking tournament format but because Sakuraba had been owning his relatives he wanted special no time limit and it’s 75 90 minutes of this favela fuck being dogshit. Sakuraba wins, and then immediately has to move to do the rest of the tournament and fight Igor Vovchanchyn, who was one of the earlier stand and bang fighters and gets knocked out.

Same Brazilian shitbag later avenged the loss to Sakuraba in Dynamite USA and then popped for anabolic steroids, but for reasons I don’t know, that didn’t get overturned.
Bolo_the_Second said:
The best alternatives here would be the asian promotions ONE and Rizin.

ONE had kickboxing and Muay Thai matches alongside MMA if you just want striking action, and Rizin also has kickboxing with MMA.

If you like Pride, Rizin is pretty much it's successor minus Yakuza money (but not really, 🤫). The good thing about Rizin is that they use boxing ring instead of the cage, so it is harder for grapplers to use the fence to force TDs, and the mentality is still very much bat shit insanity.

Rizin might not be the freak show that Pride was, but some of that spirit still lives on.

And to be fair, and not to sound like much of a pompous faggot, but UFC is commodity fight, it is a very acceptable product for masses, and a good entry point for combat sports, but if you wanna see violence for violence's sake, look at east promotions or regional scenes in places like Brazil or Russia.
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RIZIN ruleset as well is anti stall from grapplers, so even if you get a strong wrestler like one of their current champs is Shaydullaev, your caucuses wrestler, he is fucking people up and getting a 100% finish rate.
 
Karamanlis said:
Regarding everything else you said, I personally like wrestling and I have sat through every single Pride event. But the guy I was talking to is looking for a fun alternative to current UFC, and I don't think lay and pray stalemates would fit the bill.
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I'm the guy you were talking to and I also like wrestling/grappling/BJJ but specifically when they're working toward submissions rather than points or running out the clock. I find grappling fascinating. Anyway there's nothing stopping me from skipping around if/when shit gets boring. I've heard enough good things about Pride that I'll stick it out and find the good shit.

Bolo_the_Second said:
The best alternatives here would be the asian promotions ONE and Rizin.
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I've seen ONE but not Rizin. ONE was a bit hard to follow because they kept changing the sport/ruleset every fight but I had fun. If Rizin is modern Pride I'll just save it for when I run out of Pride.

Thanks to everybody else for the recs, I'm bookmarking your posts but deliberately not reading them because I don't want the fights spoiled lol
 
My bad. I spoiled like every single one of the recommendations I made, but they’re 100% still worth watching.
 
Looney Troons said:
Forrest Griffin vs Stephan Bonnar I (The Ultimate Fighter Finale – 2005)
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I know most of us are pretty disappointed in how the UFC has been lately, but watching all of these classic clips… I totally forgot what had happened in June of 2007 that really shook up every contact sport. CTE became a hot topic, and huge faggots like John McCain made it a talking point to say that MMA was akin to human cockfighting. As much as the product can suck, I’m glad we have it and its alternatives.
 
Looney Troons said:
Forrest Griffin vs Stephan Bonnar I (The Ultimate Fighter Finale – 2005)
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I’ll be honest, I just don’t watch many sports (not a fan of tv) but even I know that fight.
Absolutely fucking legendary, I’ll still put it on now and again because it’s just a work of art. That shit was straight out of legends, even today with how far fighting has come it’s a special kind of fight.
Anyways, how was the White House fights? Was as a bad as the dudes at work were saying it was going to be or was it alright?
 
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VeteranOfTheRetardWars said:
Anyways, how was the White House fights? Was as a bad as the dudes at work were saying it was going to be or was it alright?
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Not terrible, but also nowhere near what they originally promised(tbf Trump stuck them with the "6 or 7 title fights" thing that was never going to happen). The title fights are good, but the undercard sucks, its a bunch of Dana White privilege guys(O'Malley, Chandler, Bo Nickal, Lopes) matched up with fighters you only know if you watch all the smaller events. I was hoping for a few bigger names at the end of their careers and/or title eliminators(technically O'Malley Zahabi is one but both of them get whooped by Yan/Merab in a 5 rounder).

The UFC have no one to blame other than themselves for the lack of US stars. Talented young athletes would be crazy to focus on MMA rather than go to school and get paid more money to play college sports. Best case they transition to mma as a backup plan after flunking out of what they actually wanted to do(Nickal, Gable Steveson). Meanwhile Dana is content throwing 12/12 contracts at regional bums and foreigners on DWCS and the Ultimate Fighter, the later which hasn't been relevant in a decade.
 
Osama Bin Laden said:
I usually agree with MMA Guru's takes and i like him when he's racist, but I can't bring myself to like this card. every time i see UFC or some MMA news outlet promoting the white house card, it feels like sour grapes
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I actually agree with Guru on card. 2... 1½ title fights are fine, and no piss breaks (women's division) on the main card. On paper, it's a good card already.

The problem I think comes from the bullshit stipulations matchmakers and the company in general have and had self-imposed. Trump's a big fan of fighting, but a casual, so anything could've gone well. We could've had American vs. American (Sean O'Malley crushing a foreign can is perfectly fine for TOTAL AMERICAN VICTORY, but Sandhagen just gets ranking progress in the division out of the way). We could've had more foreigner vs. foreigner fights too; don't know why we're canning Garcia to Diego Lopes (they really have to give up on the Mexican market dream, ffs). An Openweight fight for Derrick Lewis would be fun to craft too

Definitely would've pulled for Wonderboy (would be a treat for Thompson to retire there and then) regardless if Colby was in or not. Wonderboy vs. Holland II being a psuedo-BMF in them just striking the whole fight again would be kino. Conor vs. Chandler is right there too (finally gets it out of the fucking way), but according to Mac, they use him to double up the money after big events, even if he's stoked and ready for a specific big event. Bo Nickal should be fighting Adesanya there instead of Pyfer, who's coming up for Izzy soon.

RIP my dream of seeing Khamzat screaming "ALLAHU AKBAR! I lay and pray everybody!" on the WH lawn, but we move on. Btw, love Reddit/idiots online shitting on the concept of the card before it was revealed for some niche decorum reason that was the most obvious [POATAN] reasoning ever. "The White House isn't meant for this! It's like Idiocracy! Those rich people watching aren't real fans! It's purely gladiatorial!" says the fan of the promotion that started with "Two men enter, one man leaves" and is now too expensive to watch in the arenas themselves, and are now filled with celebrities and... rich people, who are there to take flicks for the Gram.
 
Punished Derich said:
I might become a boxing fan.
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Boxing is great. Best case scenarios, the fight you’re watching sucks, but boxing is so corrupt that it’s worth watching up to the decision, or the fight rules.

A lot of the higher profile fights as of recent in boxing have been lacking too. Canelo vs Crawford immediately comes to mind. Few exciting moments, but Crawford was basically keeping Canelo at bay, then decided to open up a bit in the 12th.

The best way to enjoy combat sports nowadays is to explore the options made available to you. UFC sucks? Go check out ONE or RIZIN. Not interested in Muay Thai or kickboxing rules? Check out LFA, Cage Warriors, Fury FC, and several of the other small yet reputable organizations.

You don’t need big names to enjoy MMA. A lot of great fights come from these smaller circuits with dudes trying to prove themselves. It rules.

Don’t let UFC sucking dick turn you off from MMA/fighting. There’s plenty of it in all forms all over the place.
 
Looney Troons said:
I know most of us are pretty disappointed in how the UFC has been lately, but watching all of these classic clips… I totally forgot what had happened in June of 2007 that really shook up every contact sport. CTE became a hot topic, and huge faggots like John McCain made it a talking point to say that MMA was akin to human cockfighting. As much as the product can suck, I’m glad we have it and its alternatives.
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VeteranOfTheRetardWars said:
I’ll be honest, I just don’t watch many sports (not a fan of tv) but even I know that fight.
Absolutely fucking legendary, I’ll still put it on now and again because it’s just a work of art. That shit was straight out of legends, even today with how far fighting has come it’s a special kind of fight.
Anyways, how was the White House fights? Was as a bad as the dudes at work were saying it was going to be or was it alright?
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Figured you guys would appreciate this one.
 
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