Metal Reviews

Speaking of injured champs...

Chris Weidman is hurt and out of the UFC 181 main event against Vitor Belfort. As of right now, the fight is put on hold. But, Johny Hendricks will return to defend his title in a rematch against Robbie Lawler to keep UFC 181 at 2 title fights.

Sucks for Weidman, but now pumped for Bigg Rigg-Ruthless II.

Nate Diaz returns this December to co-headline UFC on Fox 13 against Rafael dos Anjos. RdA has won 6 of his last 7, including wins over Donald Cerrone and most recently a 1st round KO of former champ Ben Henderson. His only loss in that span is to undefeated 22-0 Russian bear wrestler Khabib "The Eagle" Nurmagomedov. Diaz hasn't fought in almost a year where he KO'd Gray Maynard, which snapped a 2 fight losing streak (to Bendo and former Strikeforce champ Josh Thomson).

Bear wrestling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JD0jVRyIAs

In Soviet Russia, bear dances on you.

Thoughts on UFC 178? Cruz makes a successful return to the cage, Zingano gets one step closer to fighting Rousey, Cerrone manhandles newbie Alvarez, Mighty Mouse continues to dominate the flyweight ranks and McGregor backs up the bluster with a KO on Poirer. Big controversy on the Romero-Kennedy fight with Yoel padding his corner time between the 2nd and 3rd round. Big John docked him a point but others were calling for a TKO. Imminent rematch perhaps? Upcoming bouts could look like Cruz-Barao and McGregor-Swanson with the winner getting a title shot in his given division. Great night of fights.

Note: Just announced that Zingano will fight Rousey for the title in January. Hoping this will be more competitive than the last couple for RR.

Cat can't have a slow start against Rousey, she got taken down by Miesha multiple times and Nunes almost had her finished, Ronda will eat her for breakfast if she starts slowly. I like Cat, and think if she survives the 1st two rounds, she could make the fight interesting. Her striking and clinch game are both very good, as is her jiu-jitsu.

Dominick wants a 3rd fight with Faber, but he will be fighting Killashaw for the title next. My head implodes at the thought of these two going toe-to-toe for 25 minutes. Cruz looked better than ever against Mizugaki, and Mizugaki is no slouch.

Alvarez showed he belongs in the UFC, he's very tough and has powerful punches. His clinch work was very good, but Cowboy was just too big and too experienced against elite level guys. His knees and leg kicks were brutal. Alvarez could be at 145 sometime next year. Cerrone put something in the social media verse along the lines of "Got good news from the UFC. Back to work." That's not an exact quote, but could it be a rematch with Bendo? They've fought twice before in WEC (Henderson winning both). He said he'd like to rematch both Dos Anjos and Diaz, so he fights the winner of their matchup? Khabib Nurmagomedov (I can't think that would be good news)? Next in line for a title shot?

Kennedy has a legit argument, the fight should of been stopped due to fighter retirement, or TKO. Dana White says the UFC is to blame too, as they employ the cut men and in between rounds they put too much vaseline on Romeros cut. Thus adding to the confusion. The NSAC doesn't think Kennedy has a case.

And I guess we should start believing the hype. McGregor said 1st round KO, and that's exactly what he did. He's won 12 straight, 4-0 in the UFC with 3 first round KOs. He wants a title shot, but I think a top 5 guy should be first. If Edgar beats Swanson, then that sets up Edgar vs McGregor (if Cub wins he should get the next shot at the belt, it would be 7 straight wins), if Swanson wins then put Conor against the winner of Ricardo Lamas vs Dennis Bermudez. Both Bermudez and Lamas are elite grapplers and can test McGregor on the ground like no one else has, as could Frankie.

Jorge Masvidal improved to 4-1 in the UFC. He still hasn't shown that he could hang with the top 5-10 guys, but he's working his way there. Good boxing and good wrestling, he's a tough out for anybody.

Stephen Thompson looked like a mini-Machida against Patrick Coté. His karate style blitzes were too much. He has such a nice straight right hand, kinda like Machida. He's 31 so he needs to go on a run now, but he's still young enough to keep evolving. His only pro loss came against Matt Brown. Coté suffered his first loss since dropping to 170.

Sick card! Lived up to the hype. Feel bummed for Poirier, I like him. But he'll be back.

Fight Night 53 and 54 both next Saturday. Picks?

Forgot about Mighty Mouse... Ha. Well, he dominated as expected. Maybe had 2 leg kicks he had to eat, but went untouched otherwise. He wants to take some time off, so could set up to fight John Dodson like he was originally suppose to, or fight the winner of Lineker-McCall. Or if Formiga beats John Moraga then he could be up next too.

Nelson subs Story to a raucous pro-Nordic crowd and Rory Mac continues his climb up the welterweight ladder with a decision victory over Saffiedine.

Cruz and Dillishaw would be like the Argentine Tango of MMA. A masterclass in footwork. I'm sure Faber would love to get back in the title picture and a win against DC would put him there. Tall order against a hungry, energized Cruz though.

Cerrone is a slow starter but has looked really good in his last several fights. His knees are just freakin' deadly. Cowboy-Bendo would be a really great match for both guys.

I forgot Swanson was fighting Edgar later this fall. Cub should definitely get the title shot if he wins. McGregor is a big featherweight with a ton of power, but a superior grappler would definitely test his all around game. I think he needs a big win against a top 5 guy to be a legit contender though. I'm not going to compare him to Sonnen but your hype factor shouldn't allow you to leapfrog over more deserving fighters. My opinion.

UFC 178 was a great card on both paper and reality, loved it. Sick comeback by Zingano, she was a tough MFer against Meisha Tate too. If she can avoid being submitted in the first round (big if) she's got as good of a good shot against Ronda as anyone.

Even though it's not a great card on paper I'm excited for another card in Sweden. I've been following many of the Swedish fighters for years before they entered the UFC so I'm always interested in seeing their performances. Niklas Bäckström is a really interesting fighter, I think his personality would be a lot of fun to follow in the UFC if he can get a couple of wins. He's a character and has talent, sort of in the same vein Conor McGregor and Gunnar Nelson are talented fighters and personalities too (though obviously in different ways). Some picks:
Nelson, Holloway, Latifi, Bäckström, Cedenblad

I put some money down on that and feel fairly confident, not great numbers though.

Swedes go 0-4 on the main card of Fight Night 53. Gunnar Nelson suffers his first pro loss, Story is on a 2 fight win streak for the first time since 2011. Peter Forsberg did not look impressed.

Watching UFN 54 right now, as I just got home from work a little while ago. The Canadians looking good so far. Too many decisions though...

Ugh, horrific. Would have been better off watching UFC 178 again instead.

Rory Mac the next 170 lbs champion. Question now is, who do I want to see him beat more, Hendricks or Lawler? A rematch with Lawler would be good so be can avenge that loss, which he will if it's a 5 rounder. But a beat down of Hendricks would be good too to shut up the naysayers who say Johny beat GSP.

All three of these guys are very close in ability, so it should be a great couple of title fights either way. All the pressure will be on Johny coming off his injury to face a determined Robbie Lawler out looking for redemption. Nice to see Rory get a KO as he hasn't had one in nearly two years. A GSP trait I'm sure he would like to avoid.

And I would have given Hendricks the nod against GSP in that fight. The significant strikes were clearly in his favor. He battered St-Pierre like nobody had ever done before. However, close decisions will typically fall towards the champ and unfortunately for Johny, that turned out to be the case. As they say, it you want to be the man, then you got to beat the man. Johny couldn't finish Georges. He left his fate up to the judges and came out on the losing end. I wasn't pissing and moaning about it like a lot of people were, but had that been a non-title fight, I think GSP loses the decision.

Holly Holm to make her UFC debut against Raquel Pennington at UFC 181. Holly has been a wrecking machine thus far in her MMA career and has the one-punch KO power that could topple Rousey if she tries to exchange with her. Urijah Faber and Francisco Rivera also added to the card. The Schaub-Browne fight is a real head scratcher to me as TB doesn't really gain anything by beating him other than picking up a paycheck.

They are former training partners that apparently have a grudge to settle. And when the fight was booked, most other HWs were also booked or just fought. The division is pretty thin.

Sure. I was thinking that Ben Rothwell or Josh Barnett would be better choices but Rothwell is already slated to fight Mitrione in December and Browne drubbed JB last year (forgot about that). Nice opportunity for Brendan to show he's still a viable HW.

Mitrione is fighting Gabriel Gonzaga and Josh Barnett just did a movie with Steven Seagal. Both Schaub and Browne have already fought Rothwell, Browne has already fought Barnett. Division is pretty thin.

Yeah, I checked MMA Junkie this morning and saw the match-up. ESPN lied to me yesterday, but when did Browne fight Big Ben? I checked his record and couldn't find the fight.

I for some reason had Kongo and Rothwell mixed up. I thought Rothwell is who Browne fought to a draw with. My bad, I was wrong.

Argh!! Fucking Cain Velasquez injured again! Mark Hunt to replace him at UFC 180 for the Interim HW Championship. As much as I love finally seeing Super Samoa in a title fight, this really stinks for both Werdum and the Mexican fight fans who were amped for the event. With Cain now out of the picture will they even be interested anymore? Interim title fights are a joke anyway. Even if you win the fight, you're still not considered the true champ. As I've said before, if a fighter is unable to defend the title within a calendar year then he or she should lose their belt outright. Goddamn Pettis better be ready to go in December.

Didn't realize that was an interim fight! Fuck.

Rousey and Zingano in the new year! I need to get out and see more fights, but I've just been lazy. As annoying as the UFC app was, when I had it on my old phone, it did keep me attentive to when events are.