At least yours makes sense. I still have no clue what happened with mine, but it was worth it just to see chamber get tagged as cheezys dark (pun intended) apprentice.
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MMA |OT3| When you lose you're a can, when you win you're unstoppable.
- Thread starter Heel
- Start date
At least yours makes sense. I still have no clue what happened with mine, but it was worth it just to see chamber get tagged as cheezys dark (pun intended) apprentice.
You never know with Machida. Obviously, he's capable of finishing Bader but he's also capable of running for 2 1/2 rounds en route to a 29/28 split decision.
Fixed.
TheNatural
My Member!
Or the smart thing could have been done - you know, Shogun vs. Machida III for a national audience to decide #1 contender - since Bader and Vera have done a whole lot of nada.
But then again, that would have been too obvious ... and made too much ... sense. Not the UFC way.
But then again, that would have been too obvious ... and made too much ... sense. Not the UFC way.
Everyone in 205 is Zab Judah status. Capable of probably making interesting fights against each other but none of them have a snowballs chance in hell against bones. Speaking of boxing and depressing, apparently there's a rumor going around that Hatton is going to attempt a comeback.
parrotbeak
Member
I think Drake said it best when he described that thread as a bunch of kids standing in line for candy at the pedo van. He inexplicably still got in line.
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
I'm inclined to agree. This has Rampage vs. Machida written all over it.
bloodydrake
Cool Smoke Luke
I decided the risk was worth it for some candy.
parrotbeak
Member
It kinda worked out for you.
TheNatural
My Member!
True, but when someone clears out the division in a little over a year beating 5 top guys in a row, there's not much left that is new.
The only reason there are contenders for GSP is because of a year and a half layoff when it's all said and done. If Diaz wasn't a retard and GSP wasn't hurt, by now GSP could have cleared out Diaz, Condit, and Rory and we would be talking about the same thing there.
Divisions are always "shit" when someone clears them out, even if many are ex champs.
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
Hopefully both fights end as draws. Or at the very least controversial split decisions.
Hell, at this point you may as well have Jones fight all four dudes in one night.
GungHo
Single-handedly caused Exxon-Mobil to sue FOX, start World War 3
Don't know why people would go into someone's house and fuck with the person that owns the house and then get confused as to why they get kicked out?
We caint reed. Go tu KPOP.
Pretty sure the IOC would lose their shit if he Vas-ed it up.
You're not the medusa. I will not take your bait.
Either the father has one of those vibrating egg remote control things in his wife or she was possessed by the spirit of Joe Cocker.
bloodydrake
Cool Smoke Luke
Dana and the UFC Brass really have inadvertently bred a culture of caution and tentativeness into their fighters due to the fear of being cut once you start to rise in the ranks.
Jones excuse not to fight another champ really just shows that the fighters realize, in this organization you don't recover from taking chances.
Up and comers got nothing to lose.
Watching promotions like Invicta really reminds you how fun it can be to watch matches where they're really going all out.
On another note
Been re watching all the UFC's and Pride events in chronological order has been a real eye opener ..so many of the old events are distorted by rose colored memories.
I'm about midway thru 1998 now just finished UFC 17.. Funny how shaken Hendo was from blows in this event.. I'm not sure he's got the iron chin everyone thinks he does. Carlos definitely had him on stanky leg Blvd.
Still hoping Hendo pulls off the Cinderella Moment tho.
205 has been a stagnant division for years, friend. The talent pool in divisions like 155 and 170 are constantly being refreshed with new prospects so even while GSP was clearing out Fitch, Alves and Koscheck, you had a newer crop coming up containing Condit, Hendricks, and Ellenberger. Assuming St-Pierre wipes them out then you have Rory, Silva and Siyar up next.
Meanwhile at 205, Glover Teixeira gets one UFC win and people want him in a #1 contender fight. Even Bantamweight isn't that dire.
bloodydrake
Cool Smoke Luke
its weird wasn't it just 2 or 3 years ago that 205 was considered one of the deepest divisions?
It's always been the glamour division and had the most name value but I've always thought it was a shallow division.
http://www.fightmatrix.com/historic...ated-historical-rankings/?Issue=63&Division=2
Even 3 years ago, you've got 5 or 6 guys in the top ten who traded wins with one another and it's basically the same guys now. Compare that with the 170 top 10 back then and it's completely different.
probably more like 5 or 6 years ago when Pride collapsed and there was supposed to be a huge influx of talent into the UFC with Rampage, Shogun, Wand, Arona, Little Nog, Sokodju, etc...
Yeah, prior to zuffa buying pride it was chuck punching babalu, handy and tito for 2 years.
TheNatural
My Member!
Again, the #1 contender is like that because Jones - who is practically new, a little over a year ago was a prospect vs. prospect matchup vs. Bader - has cleared out the entire division in a little over a year.
List the 5 top contender in every division and have your champ in that division beat them all by August 2013. Then they all have recent losses and the same thing could be said about anything.
bloodydrake
Cool Smoke Luke
ya thats what it was right around 2007 to 2008
Again, Welterweight cannot be cleared in a 10 month span. People have saying GSP cleared out 170 since the Alves fight but there's always new people for him to fight. Even Anderson has someone to fight if he actually gets off his ass.
205 and 265 are the only divisions that shallow.
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
1) Belts fucked everything up.
Say Jones gives in to the demands to give the LHW division "breathing room" and temporarily jumps to HW. Do people really think he's going to be getting superfights with JDS? Or maybe even guys like Cain or Overeem? He'd probably get a dude like Struve, Kongo or Mir. Basically because no champion in their right mind would risk losing and thereby cheapening their title and losing their justification for calling themselves the champion. And tell me what potential No. 1 Contenders have to gain by potentially losing to a guy in a lower weight class? And I don't blame them for this attitude, because it's just a result of playing the game.
2) The lack of the UFC dictating what actions quantify a title shot fucked it up even more.
After Machida getting a shot after going 1-2 in his last three fights and this new bullshit over who's the next No. 1 Contender, next year I expect Dana White to put guaranteed LHW title shots in random boxes of Frosted Flakes.
Bellator's system at least addresses the main concern here. But there's so many risks involved with hosting tournaments in high-level MMA that Dana White would never consider it at all for anything outside of "hey y'all, we need to crown a champion for our new 55lbs division." That and I can see the allure in having more "free-flowing" divisions compared to a "sorry Jones, you're going to have to wait for this tournament final that's been delayed due to injuries/had to have a rematch before you can fight again" scenario.
TheNatural
My Member!
If GSP was healthy it could have been. you list guys like Condit and Hendricks, but you don't seem to understand if a champion is fighting a very heavy schedule and those guys get shots, that's time they're NOT using to build themselves up into the current contenders they are.
They're only contenders because they've had the time to build themselves against other fighters. I mean Condit has been around years, its not like he was a new fighter or anything.
Plus they don't seem to be fighting one another very often. While at LHW you have Dan vs. Shogun, Evans vs. Rampage, etc, etc - Condit was building himself to be in the interim title fight by beating Dan Hardy and Dong-Hyun. Rory beat Mike Pyle and Che Mills. And Ellenberger beat Shields and Sanchez before losing to Kampmann. And Diaz has been in Strikeforce racking up his own pool of wins.
So maybe that's what Dana is trying to do with this weird Shogun vs. Vera and Machida vs. Bader card. Since you're saying the division is weak because guys are fighting each other and beating each other up, maybe it's time to "build" it like the Welterweight division by having all the top guys not fight each other.
If guys were eliminating each other by constantly fighting one another like in LHW, combined with an extremely active year by a dominant champ, the same thing would happen anywhere.
Maklershed
Member
And this is part of why it drives me crazy that the TUFs keep skipping these divisions. It seems like there has been too much focusing on developing the 155 and lower classes.
Maklershed
Member
I say abolish 125. Nobody wants to see kids fight.
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
Am I the only one who thinks that the current HW division is in good condition? Let's look at a potential title fight map for the next year or so.
JDS vs. Cain 2.
JDS/Cain vs. Overeem
JDS/Cain/Overeem vs. Werdum
JDS/
Etc, etc.
As long as they avoid gratuitous rematches then I think the division is in good shape.
And then you have currently-unstoppable wildcards like Travis Browne and Stipe Miocic whom if they live up to the hype and potential may shake things up even more.
However, if JDS lives up to the hype and storms right through everyone then we may have a problem by 2014.
I just think the talent pool really is that shallow. For those weight classes 205+, the call of other sports is just too hard to ignore.
We saw what happened when they made a HW season.
I already addressed this. Let's say St-Pierre fights Condit at UFC 137 and Diaz at 143, he still has either Kampmann and Hendricks to fight in November. Name another division, ANY DIVISION, where TWO guys coming directly off a loss fight in #1 contender matches.
And that's the problem. How many elite prospects really come up in the higher weight divisions? Every once in awhile there's a Jones or Dos Santos but not as often as an Erick Silva or Rory MacDonald in lower divisions. MMA is a small man sport, folks. If you're a 6'4" super athlete, are you going to go with MMA or football? 9 out of 10 people will probably pick football. I'm tired of Lightweight TUF seasons too but you saw the talent level when they tried Heavyweight.
TheNatural
My Member!
And Jones after beating Bader fought Shogun, beat Shogun, beat Rampage, beat Machida, and then beat Evans - and now has Henderson who is on his own streak.
In the same timeframe GSP beat Shields, and that's it. Kampmann and Hendricks are fighting in an 'eliminator' now. If GSP and Diaz fight originally went through as planned, Condit would have fought BJ.
I mean maybe I'm hallucinating, but wasn't it EXACTLY this time last year we were all saying before GSP got hurt and Diaz spazzed out how ridiculously lean Welterweight was because BJ could possibly get a third shot at GSP? Hell, I even remember dream posting a wall of text essay talking about after GSP beats Diaz there are no options for him and how ridiculously unwarranted a third fight with BJ would have been, which is what it would have been had he fought Condit and won.
It's amazing how much opens up when an injury happens and Dana makes several #1 contender fights and labels them all #1 contenders without them actually FIGHTING one another.
Natch, in the time span that St-Pierre would have obliterated Diaz and Condit, Johny Hendricks beat former #1 contenders Fitch and Koscheck in succession and Martin Kampmann beat Alves and Ellenberger who was on his own 5 fight win streak. Ellenberger himself was considered a viable title contender after he destroyed Shields.
What people were saying in between UFC 129 and 137 is rendered moot since it didn't take too long for more viable challengers to emerge. Is Jon Jones so good that he prevents 25 other fighters from putting together a win streak?
What people were saying in between UFC 129 and 137 is rendered moot since it didn't take too long for more viable challengers to emerge. Is Jon Jones so good that he prevents 25 other fighters from putting together a win streak?
TheNatural
My Member!
You realize Jones beat 5 top contender in like 13 months right? GSP beats Shields, Diaz, Condit, Hendricks, and Kampmann in the same time frame the same exact way, who's left? Rory, who is on the rise, similar to Gus, but still has a couple wins to go.
Also, Kampmann was given somewhat of a token shot, ALA Vera, and won. I don't remember if he was a replacement or not for someone else - but think about at the same time Shogun and Hendo were in a war that Shogun lost and made him less of a contender. If Dana booked WW like LHW then the obvious title eliminator would have been Ellenberger and Hendricks, which is what people were calling for. So one would have been eliminated in the process of GSP beating Condit, and Kampmann wouldn't have had the horsepower win to vault himself into veteran contender status at the same time, probably would have fought Koscheck as a lesser fight. So Kampmann and a Hendricks/Ellenberger title eliminator loser wouldn't have been considered contenders in this hypothetical scenario, and that's one less contender.
You have to put all this into consideration. Less title eliminators = more potential "hot" challengers and a perceived tougher division, but it also gets rid of the pure true #1 contender spot and fights among the top contenders people would have wanted to see.
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
The only thing a legit ranking system would do is create a system that takes all the internet bullshit about who's the best, who's cans, who's who, etc and set it in stone. It's bad enough seeing the Sherdogian reactions to their listings without it being enforced by the Word of God.
How would it be regulated? Would it be like a soccer/football league system where you get three points for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss? Would it be hopelessly complicated with multipliers if you beat a guy ranked higher than you? I would see any sort of this just end up in promoting can crushing and/or Jackson Gameplanning overload.
At the end of the day, unless the UFC wants to use the Bellator model then they're stuck with the current Dana White Having A Bad Hair Day system of deciding who gets what and when.
TheNatural
My Member!
The tags? consider yourself lucky. With a name like Heel, you could have ended up with a 'shoehorn stuck up my ass' tag. Drunk bishop knows no bounds.
You'd have Rory vs. Ellenberger in a viable contender match-up since Jake legitimized himself with the Shields win.
And Bader wasn't a top contender, fyi.
Welterweight has not had any title eliminators since GSP left the division. They had a nice little tournament going instead.
Fitch/Hendricks
Pierce/Koscheck
Alves/Kampmann
Ellenberger/Sanchez
becomes
Hendricks/Koscheck
Kampmann/Ellenberger
becomes
Kampmann/Hendricks
If Jones left 205 for a year would you have any confidence that he wouldn't come back to a division that was just Shogun, Rampage, Henderson, Rashad and Machida again? Because that's been the division since Chuck died in 2007.
EDIT - I'm late to work. :/
They gotta figure something out. If it WAS going to be based on points they should rankthe dudes who're finishing fights higher and then pit them in some kind of a semi final eliminator to at least build some excitement. How would that be worse than giving Vera or Mak a title shot simply because there's no one left? At least that would feel more justified than putting joe silva in a closet with a bottle of yeager and a dartboard.
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
I would go a step further. Any fight that's a non-finish is a draw.
If you modify the business model to discourage Greg Jacksoning the sport would change drastically. Imagine a ranking system where Fitch got cut after his first 3 fights. If that wouldn't send a message i dont know what would. Obviously you wont get a finish sometimes, but the bullshit coasting game plans would be rendered obsolete. If you wanna win on points go play basketball.
Well Jerry's in the tag fishing thread crying he didn't get hit.
TheNatural
My Member!
We're going in circles here, but what I'm saying is Kampmann probably wouldn't have gotten a shot had Dana scheduled fights as aggressively as he has for LHW. I mean the guy is 3-2 his last five fights, he's been considered a solid vet but not anything contender status until he beat Ellenberger.
If Dana took the top two candidate for a shot, Hendricks and Ellenberger, and put them in a fight, one would have eliminated the other. Kampmann and Koscheck would have fought basically an irrelevant fight that wouldn't have put either at contender status.
So much of how strong or weak a division is, is completely shaped on how dominant the champion of the division is, how often they fight, and how aggressive Dana is at booking the guys to fight one another.
Shogun would have totally been in rebound rematch contender status IF Dana didn't put Dan vs. Shogun last year. Dan comes from Strikeforce and faces the best good guy left in a war that he wins. Diaz comes from Strikeforce and beats up Baby J who won 1 of his last four fights before that.
I mean if Dana fed Dan a Bisping fight again or something, and then had Shogun beat up Vera or Rampage or whoever, then you have Dan getting the shot and Shogun making the claim for a rematch with Jones with all wins since losing to him off a year layoff.
Then you got some hype, momentum, and built two contenders instead of making Shogun less of a legitimate one.
That's all I'm saying. Dana didn't put Hendricks and Ellenberger in a fight to eliminate one another, he did it with Shogun and Hendo, and he keeps going it with the LHW's just to make big fights.
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
Too many wrestlers would complain and/or boycott the new rules. And that's the price we pay for the most fundamental part of MMA being a sport where the object of the game is to just hold someone down indefinitely.
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