MMA/UFC Discussion Thread MMA • Page 55

Here we go

 

That's a big time fight. Curious to see what Weidman has left.

 

High risk fight for Weidman, Mousasi is a beast.

 

Absolutely. My first thought as well. But if Weidman wins this, he propels himself back in the discussion.

 

A year or two ago, I would have said no way in hell Mousasi beats him, but now that Weidman looks human, it feels like an evenly matched fight.

Don't really know how much Weidman will have for him on the feet, and Mousasi's takedown defense is pretty great nowadays. Should be interesting.

 

Gut reaction is that I don't think Weidman is going to stand much of a chance, but I'll let that marinate for a bit.

 

Rooting for Weidman

 

Wait, why is Tito Ortiz fighting again? He's having concussion issues, but thinks this is a good idea. lol okay.

 

Sonnen should paste Tito. As far as Bellator tent pole events go, this one isn't super egregious.

 

Tito by submission

 

I forgot there was a tape delay for Bellator on the west coast so ignore the prediction lol, but man that main event seemed fishy.

 

That fight looked like such a work....just looked strange.

But now that flying knee by Semtex? Good god.

 

My literal text to a group thread of friends before the fight: "Tito has an underrated submission game which is Chael's weakness. That's the only thing I'm leaning towards". Hoping that was just a good call and not the result of a work, but sometimes with Bellator I can't tell...

 

Tito is just a real big dude with good grappling skills. Chael was coming off a multi-year layoff and has atrocious submission defense, not surprising to see it play out like it did.

Can't see a company like Bellator, with multi-billion dollar funding, fixing a fight. Which leaves Tito and Chael, which doesn't make logical sense.

Give me Daley vs. MVP, but a fight with Rory would be fine too.

 

Though I'm not sold at all on it being fixed, it also doesn't make any logical sense for a company "with multi-billion dollar funding" to do a fight like Dada 5000 vs. Kimbo Slice where both nearly die in the ring (then one pops for steroids and dies shortly after). They just have a history of funky main events and bizarre endings is why people are quick to jump to that accusation.

Shamrock vs. Kimbo, Shamrock vs. Gracie, Kimbo vs. Dada 5000, etc. Usually attributed to those being "freak show fights", so it's not all that surprising that they end weirdly, but still.

 

IMO, if there was an organization to fix a fight---it'd hands down be Bellator. They love all the shit shows and the pub that comes with them.

 

Except it's a felony to fix fights. People would go to jail, Bellator would lose their ability to promote and the company would be done. That's not something anyone would risk on a retiring Tito Ortiz and an over-the-hill Chael Sonnen.

 

I'm sure it wasn't fixed....but it just looked strange to me. Chael just giving up that choke for no real reason just didn't really mesh with me.

But as the guy before me said, Bellator loves circus type shows so while it wasn't necessarily fixed---it certainly also was not a fight that had any real reason for it to happen. Well, except $$$.

 

Exactly. Not necessarily that I thought the fight was fixed, but if you have circus act events, you're going to get circus act results.

And like I said, Bellator has done it to themselves by holding shady fights in the past anyways. Their reputation has already been slightly tarnished enough where people will even consider a fixed fight a possibility. That doesn't happen with the UFC. It also doesn't help that some fighters who have been involved in "fixed" fights in the past have recently fought under the Bellator banner (Seth Petruzelli/Kimbo Slice).

Also, a lot of the same logic can be applied to why they shouldn't have let two medically unfit "athletes" in Kimbo and Dada compete last year, but that didn't stop them.

 

I work in an ER here in Vegas and one of the docs I work with is also one of the docs for UFC and other promotions. He's told me so many awesome/interesting stories about things the fighters do to prepare for fights, and how they used to get around drug tests. He also told me a lot of shady things go down in that business. He has said there have been fixed fights before but didn't tell me which fights specifically and didn't seem to be imply that it happens often. He also didn't specify which promotion had a history of some fixed fights.

Take that for what it is, but that is a guy I 100% believe in anything he says. By far the smartest doc I've ever been around and he's not a bullshitter.

 

I would say that there is a spectrum of what constitutes as a "fixed" fight, anyway. Example I used before was Seth Petruzelli vs. Kimbo Slice. They didn't pay Seth to take a dive and lose, but they told him to avoid taking the fight to the ground, assuring that they wouldn't have a snooze fest since Kimbo has no ground game (didn't work out for them). I would not doubt it if things like this happened to different degrees with some of these freakshow fights. They don't necessarily have to script them out like WWE for them to be a hoax.

 

He said "I've seen guys take extra cash to get choked out".

 

Now THAT is sketchy.

 

Weren't the old early PRIDE days reknowned for the fix?

 

Man, Tyron Woodley just pulls me in so many different directions. He brings up a lot of good points about dealing with racism, but then those points get lost on people by his nitpicking and need to be offended. Complaining about people calling you a "freak athlete" because you think it implies you don't work hard....I don't even know how to argue that.