Tag: Demetrious Johnson

The Situation With the UFC’s First ESPN+ Card is Officially Nuts

By on • ( Leave a comment )

Yesterday morning, I sat down at this very keyboard and wrote out what I thought was a solid blog regarding the next UFC Fight Night in Brooklyn, which also happens to be the UFC’s first card on ESPN+ as part of the new UFC-ESPN deal. Well, that blog got deleted instead of being sent to Red for publishing. Fuck. Fate seems to have intervened, as it does however, and a whirlwind of announcements have been made since. Hard to tell where to begin.

What I wrote about yesterday was the UFC insensitively booking Greg Hardy’s debut for the Brooklyn card when the only other fight scheduled (at.the.time) was Paige Van Zant vs. Rachel Ostovich. Ostovich, if you don’t know, is the fighter who came into the public consciousness recently for the worst reasons, having been the victim of a brutal attack at the hands of her husband, a fellow MMA fighter. I mean, he broke her orbital bone. Ghastly stuff. But she’s a fighter, and fighters fight, and she decided to stay on the card, So what does the UFC do? O, only books a guy convicted of beating, strangling, and tossing, onto a bed laden with guns no less, his girlfriend. Best case scenario this was just a massive missed communication – not a misspelling by the way, I don’t mean signals crossed, I mean signals missed altogether. Worst case the UFC went too far with their “everybody deserves a second chance” stance on Hardy and this being a big event, decided it shouldn’t matter who he fights alongside. What I think they might do, given the backlash, is move his fight to a different card. Make the guy wait and excuse yourself with an “aw shucks” shrug. That will be enough. No need for a gigantic, phony public apology. If Ostovich raises hell however they are going to be in quite the spot with the press and fans alike.

That was supposed to be it. The Hardy-Ostovich story. But noooope. This card curiously lacked a headliner. What did the UFC do? They only moved the biggest fight they currently have booked, the Champ vs. Champ 125lb Title Fight between Henry Cejudo and T.J Dillashaw, to the top of this card, taking it from an uncomfortable spectacle on paper to the makings of a barn-burner. I mean this fight is not getting 1/100 the attention it deserves. In Cejudo you have a guy that should be getting all the love in the world; someone who has been the best in the world at every stage in the game, from Olympic gold medalist to UFC Champion after dethroning long-time, immovable champion Demetrious Johnson. In T.J Dillashaw you have a true blue nightmare at 135lbs; another excellent wrestler who under the tutelage of Duane Ludwig has rebuilt himself into a shape-shifting, ultra slick, world-class kickboxer that just simply freezes people. This fight is going to be insane. (Side Note: This leave UFC 233 without a headliner. Cormier-Lesn……?)

To round out yesterday’s announcement The UFC shifted a pivotal  women’s flyweight division fight from UFC 233 to the Brooklyn card. This one pits Arianne “Violence Queen” Lipski, who has only met a couple of opponents she couldn’t finish, against fan favorite Joanne Calderwood, who has only met a couple coaches she couldn’t fuck. The winner of this one is probably neck-and-neck with or just below Jessica Andrade for a shot at Cashmeouside for the Women’s Flyweight Championship.

When all is said and done this Brooklyn/ESPN+ card has gone from kind of bizarre to almost a real UFC MMA card. It still, in my opinion, needs a solid fight or two to make it worth tuning into for more than Cejudo-Killashaw, but they are this close. Wild night indeed.

The MMA Apocalypse is Upon Us

By on • ( Leave a comment )

MMAFighting.com –  MMA history is about to be made with a shocking talent exchange.

ESPN reported Wednesday that the UFC and ONE Championship are in talks to trade former UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson for recently retired ONE welterweight champion Ben Askren.

Straight off the top, what is basically happening if you don’t feel like reading is that the two organizations are going to release their respective fighters so that the fighters can sign with the other organization. So it’s not really a true, blue trade, but it is the kind of thing that quasi-happens on occasion in the NBA around the trade deadline.

This makes the most sense for ONE and DJ. “Mighty Mouse” has never been able to break through popularity-wise as his PPVs have sold poorly and Fight Night cards have had low ratings compared to other headliners. In ONE, he’ll have the benefit of a fanbase that loves smaller, quicker, more dynamic fighters and will be able to reap the rewards of sponsorship opportunities

I can’t rate the UFC’s side of the deal without bias unfortunately. I hate Ben Askren. He is entitled and big-headed without, in my mind, deserving to be. Don’t get it twisted, he has been completely dominant throughout his career. But he has fought literally no one of note. His first fight in ONE was against an unknown career middleweight with I think 8 fights. Woopdy do. The UFC seems to be desperate to add another marquee name in the wake of another McGregor loss and Daniel Cormier retiring imminently.  Like a baseball team that doesn’t build its farm system, the UFC did not do a good enough job building future stars.

Either way, this is the most batshit thing I can possibly think of happening in combat sports. Shipping two fighters across the world in opposite directions is laugh out loud funny especially when you consider this is being done because neither organization knows what the hell to do with the fighter they have under contract. Stupefying stuff.

-Joey B.

The 300’s Official UFC 227 Preview

By on • ( Leave a comment )

Happy Diaz vs. Poirier Day! BUT CONCENTRATE. This weekend we have a fantastic card on our hands ladies and gents. We have two title fights and a lot more beautiful violence to cover so if you don’t mind, I’m not gonna be about the bullshit today.

The Main Event

T.J Dillashaw (C) vs. Cody Garbrandt – Bantamweight (135lbs) Title Fight

When you really sit back and think about it the first and last time T.J Dillashaw and Cody Garbrandt fought was a perfect encapsulation of who they were then as fighters.  Garbrandt was a slick as hell boxer with a cannon of a right hand and who had probably gotten just a little too cocky for his own good. That said, if you had grown up on the wrong side of the poverty line in Nowhere, OH and had risen to be the undefeated Bantamweight Champion of the UFC, you might have too.

Tyler Jeffrey Dillashaw was (and is) a world-class MMA kickboxer and had on his side the confidence that he never really lost his title, despite what the UFC and Massachusetts State Athletic Commission said.

Dillashaw won fight 1, as we all know. After getting knocked down by a Garbrandt sledgehammer, overhand right and potentially saved by the bell at the end of RD1, “Killashaw” came back to make “No Love” pay for his arrogance, ending his night with a head kick not long after.

All of the above makes this fight REALLY tough to pick, especially when you finally acknowledge, in the 4th paragraph of a blog, the animosity between these two guys. I’ve never believed an MMA feud more than this. They hate each other. So did that blind Garbrandt the first time? Will it Dillashaw this time? It’s a really hard aspect of this fight to quantify.

What makes this an even harder one to call is that, in my opinion, both guys are equally skilled at what they do. It is not like a great wrestler vs a great striker fight where you can try and guess which cancels out the other. “No Love” is a slippery-as-they-come boxer with great wrestling to boot while the reigning champ is pure poetry-in-motion with his stance changing-heavy style of Muay Thai. Oh and he is an excellent wrestler too.

So who wins? Who takes this one? For this underappreciated by his boss blogger, it is a battle of head vs. heart. My heart says Garbrandt via RD1 thud. He won’t get as cocky, he is a lot more focused, and he got all the treatment he could find for his ailing back so he’ll get the best of the champ this time. However, my head says the champ. T.J is – Godfuckingdammit I’m talking about him again – Conor McGregor-esque in his confidence. He simply doesn’t see himself losing. He doesn’t recognize it as a reality. He has probably been through every last scenario this fight might throw at him in his head.  So that’s it. I love to watch both these guys fight but I have to take the champ.

Official Pick: T.J Dillashaw retains his title by KO (RD4)
Co-Main Event

 

Demetrious Johnson (C) vs. Henry Cejudo – Flyweight (125lbs) Title Fight

This is why I get paid the big bucks. To talk about snoozers like this. I’d love to pick the upset. I’d love to say Cejudo is going to pull a Rocky and beat the longtime flyweight champ, but alas. Cejudo is ultra talented. He is an Olympic wrestler who has developed a great kickboxing game and  has still-improving but impressive hands. With that said, apart from Wilson Reis, a grappler first and second, Cejudo hasn’t finished anyone since 2013. Before knocking out Reis and decisioning Sergio Pettis, he had been beat on points by Joe B in one of the most lackluster fights the division has ever seen. I’m not trying to dump on Cejudo, but my point is I would have needed to see him DESTROY a few opponents in a row to give him a shot against D.J, who, like him or not, loves to win fights.

Official Pick: Demetrious Johnson retains his title by submission (RD5)

 

Additional Fun Fight

Pedro Munhoz vs. Brett Johns (Bantamweight fight)

In case anyone has forgot BRETT JOHNS WON A FIGHT BY CALF SLICER! CALF SLICER! LAST YEAR! That just does not fucking happen. Including that win, the scrappy, scrawny 135er from Wales won his first three UFC bouts and was undefeated before running into the Funkmaster in his last fight. That would be a wake up call to a lot of up and comers. But I think he needed that to keep progressing and should be using it as motivation going into this tussle with Munhoz.

“The Young Punisher” has gone 5-3 in his UFC tenure, but that belies the fact that his three losses were to Rafael “No one has noticed I’ve been in the top-3 for 10 years” Assuncao, Jimmie Rivera, and John Dodson – three big name, top flight guys at Bantamweight. He is a black belt in a BJJ and has a particular affinity for latching onto a nasty guillotine.

Basically, someone is getting tapped.

Official Pick: Pedro Munhoz wins by submission (RD2)

Notes

– Cub Swanson fights in the third-to-the-top bout of the night. He is one of the reasons yours truly got into MMA and always brings a boxing-heavy, fun, complete style of mixed martial arts to the cage. He fight Renato Carneiro who is a savage in his own right.

– There is a LOT of talk coming from both main event participants as well as D.J that the winner of the 135lb title fight will drop down and fight “Mighty Mouse” for his title in a superfight. We’ll see if that get’s done. Here’s betting Johnson’s gigantic sense of self-worth that it won’t.

Enjoy the scraps.

-Joey B.