UFC Discussion

[M2]

Anyone watching the current Ultimate Fighter?

It's amazing how much better of a coach Matt Serra is than Matt Hughes. Hughes thinks every fight is about him and he's got his entire stable twisted between the ears. Meanwhile Serra's guys are walking in loose and ready to throw.

I don't think I realized how bad of a coach Hughes was in UF2 because he was up against Rich Franklin, who was every bit as bad as Hughes was. Basically everyone inside that house languished with Hughes and Franklin running things. We now know Rashad Evans and Keith Jardine had plenty of talent and heart, they just needed the proper training. Joe Stevenson, Luke Cummo, Marcus Davis and Josh Burkman have all thrived since UF2, but the first three guys took about a year before they really progressed like we've seen others do from other seasons (Kendall Grove, Josh Koscheck).

I'm gaining a real appreciation for Serra's ability to give something to a group of kids who someday may be kicking his tail. It seems like Hughes needs to assert his alpha male status every 10 seconds.

[Javy Pornstache]

And the scary thing is Hughes has splintered off from Miletich and started his own full-time training team away from the show, alongside Robbie Lawler and Marc Fiore. I think one of their first fighters in the stable is Corey Hill, the 6'4 giant (by lightweight standards) from The Ultimate Fighter 5 season.

[M2]

Originally Posted by Javy Pornstache

And the scary thing is Hughes has splintered off from Miletich and started his own full-time training team away from the show, alongside Robbie Lawler and Marc Fiore. I think one of their first fighters in the stable is Corey Hill, the 6'4 giant (by lightweight standards) from The Ultimate Fighter 5 season.

Hard to think of a worse advertisement for their gym. They look like a bunch of knuckleheads who'd wreck your career in no time.

IIRC, didn't Tito Ortiz gain a ton of respect and business off of the positive work he did in TUF3? I'd think Jens Pulver (another Miletich guy) carved out a training future for himself in TUF5.

And here's the big question, are Hughes, Fiore and Lawler handling Hughes' training for the Serra matchup? If so, Serra might be looking at another upset victory.

[Javy Pornstache]

Originally Posted by M2

Hard to think of a worse advertisement for their gym. They look like a bunch of knuckleheads who'd wreck your career in no time.

IIRC, didn't Tito Ortiz gain a ton of respect and business off of the positive work he did in TUF3? I'd think Jens Pulver (another Miletich guy) carved out a training future for himself in TUF5.

And here's the big question, are Hughes, Fiore and Lawler handling Hughes' training for the Serra matchup? If so, Serra might be looking at another upset victory.

Yeah, I think the timing of it all is very bad, this season of the show is not doing Hughes any favors at all in spreading goodwill about his new team. I'm sure he won't be hurting for students just because of his fame, but as far as actual name, competitive, full-time fighters looking for a gym, this might be where he's hurt.

You're correct, Ortiz did definitely get an increase in respect off his stint on the show... you could hardly find anyone with a good word to say about him before it.... but especially now with the explosion of popularity in the sport, people who didn't know Tito before that show probably have no idea of his previous reputation.

I would imagine Hughes is still training for the Serra fight at the MFS gym. With his own fight team being so new, I think he'd still be training with the Miletich crew for this fight, especially since his gym still is affiliated with Miletich's. As bad as Serra has made Hughes look from a coaching standpoint, I just can't see him pulling off another victory. Hughes is plainly and simply the better fighter, though we know he's not a better coach. Similar to how we saw the blow-off on Penn vs. Pulver from last season.

Then again, with all the upsets in 2007........

[M2]

Originally Posted by Javy Pornstache

As bad as Serra has made Hughes look from a coaching standpoint, I just can't see him pulling off another victory. Hughes is plainly and simply the better fighter, though we know he's not a better coach. Similar to how we saw the blow-off on Penn vs. Pulver from last season.

Then again, with all the upsets in 2007........

Yeah, hard to ignore the upsets. The sport has progressed an incredible distance in three years time and I wonder if a top dog like Hughes has been motivated enough to keep up with the pace of change (figuring everyone else has to catch him).

I doubt Serra's being complacent about this one. A win against Hughes and he's got a legacy. A loss and he's a one-hit wonder. Plus, you know he wants revenge for Gracie. Serra put on great bouts with Penn and Parysian. He's no slouch. Hughes' main advantage is that Serra really should be fighting at 155 instead of 170.

[Cyclone792]

UFC 79 is in six days ...

Two years ago Liddell vs. Silva would have been the biggest MMA match in history. It's still pretty big, but with both fighters coming off some recent losses it's lost a bit of its hype. The fight is a bit of a tossup for me, but I'm leaning toward Liddell.

Here's my fight predictions ...

Liddell over Silva
St. Pierre over Hughes
Machida over Sokoudjou
Guillard over Clementi
Sanchez over Palelei
Irvin over Cane
Gamburyan over Mohr
Lister over Radev
DeSouza over Carneiro
Evans over Bocek

[gilpdawg]

I think Chuck is washed up, and I think Hughes will beat GSP, because GSP took the fight on somewhat short notice.

[danken12]

Originally Posted by Cyclone792

UFC 79 is in six days ...

Two years ago Liddell vs. Silva would have been the biggest MMA match in history. It's still pretty big, but with both fighters coming off some recent losses it's lost a bit of its hype. The fight is a bit of a tossup for me, but I'm leaning toward Liddell.

Here's my fight predictions ...

Liddell over Silva......I think this one's too close to call. First one to land flush wins.
St. Pierre over Hughes...... GSP, when mentally ready he's a monster.
Machida over Sokoudjou...... I like sokoudjou via KO.
Guillard over Clementi........Guillard via KO.
Sanchez over Palelei..........don't know.
Irvin over Cane..........I like Irvin as well.
Gamburyan over Mohr.....Gamburyan, I think he's going to do well, despite his size.
Lister over Radev.......Lister
DeSouza over Carneiro........not sure
Evans over Bocek

Put my predictions next to yours.

Should be one of the best UFC's in sometime. There are three great matchups, possibly more. I'm very excited to see what Sokodjou does in the UFC. I think he could be a force, but his inexperience kind of worries me.

[Javy Pornstache]

I'll add my predictions for UFC 79:

-Hughes over St. Pierre (I'd like to see GSP win and you can't deny his dominating win last year, but I just have a hunch that Hughes is gonna be a different fighter for this one. Plus even though GSP swears it means nothing, I think the much more time Hughes has been in training camp matters.)

-Liddell over Silva (the luster is certainly not what we once thought for this fight, but it's still intriguing. I think Wanderlei is further from his prime fighting shape than Chuck is. I could be wrong, but I think Liddell just got beat by a guy that has his number in Rampage, and had a bad gameplan versus Jardine whereas Wanderlei hasn't looked like the same fighter in several fights, particularly his last two KO losses. Plus you can't argue the PRIDE-to-UFC transition hasn't been kind, and a lot of the former PRIDE fighters have looked "soft" in the body.... maybe the Mitchell Report overlooked them.)

-Machida over Sokoudjou (Interesting matchup on paper, but I see Machida gutting out another of his standard decisions by frustrating Sokoudjou.)

-Clementi over Guillard (Melvin could catch him and KO him, but until he rises above white belt jiujitsu level, he has a real chance of being subbed by Rich.)

-Palelei over Sanchez (Soa is a super tough Samoan-Hawaiian, with a Mark Hunt-style granite chin. Sanchez has more big-time experience, but I like Soa to win this.)

-Lister over Radev (should be an easy sub win for Dean.)

-Gamburyan over Mohr (Mohr's pretty tough, but Manny is a little pit bull in there and I see him controlling a decision win. I'd like to see Gamburyan drop to 145 and fight in the WEC's featherweight division, he's a very small 155.)

-Carneiro over DeSouza (the grappler in me REALLY likes this matchup, and while it's nowhere close to being a marquee fight on a card such as this, I think stylistically, on paper, it has a chance to be fight of the night. Two awesome grapplers, and it's a Nogueira protege against a Penn protege, so that's very cool. I think Roan wins a close fight.)

-Irvin over Cane (tough call here, I'll go with Irvin with much more big fight experience, but this should be a real slugfest.)

-Bocek over Evans (Mark Bocek is possibly the best pure grappler in North America. Of course, that doesn't always translate to MMA, but with Evans being a wrestler first and foremost, I can see Bocek trapping him off his back and catching him with a sub.)

[M2]

St. Pierre over Hughes, Georges owns that egomaniac
Chuck over Wanderlei, Silva was overrated and the sport has progressed beyond him
Machida over Sokoudjou, experience defeats physique
Guillard over Clementi, Melvin will connect hard with Clementi's head
Sanchez over Palelei, in boxing Palelei would be the classic big guy expected to fall hard
Cane over Irvin, it goes to the ground where Irvin's useless
Gamburyan over Mohr, Manny's got something to prove in the wake of the TUF 5 finale (which he'd have won but for the injury)
Lister over Radev, Lister took this one as a resume padder
DeSouza over Carneiro, based solely on facial hair preference
Bocek over Evans, Evans has no chin (literally, not figuratively)

[Mario-Rijo]

Originally Posted by M2

St. Pierre over Hughes, Georges owns that egomaniac
Chuck over Wanderlei, Silva was overrated and the sport has progressed beyond him
Machida over Sokoudjou, experience defeats physique
Guillard over Clementi, Melvin will connect hard with Clementi's head
Sanchez over Palelei, in boxing Palelei would be the classic big guy expected to fall hard
Cane over Irvin, it goes to the ground where Irvin's useless
Gamburyan over Mohr, Manny's got something to prove in the wake of the TUF 5 finale (which he'd have won but for the injury)
Lister over Radev, Lister took this one as a resume padder
DeSouza over Carneiro, based solely on facial hair preference
Bocek over Evans, Evans has no chin (literally, not figuratively)

Silva was a beast over in Pride, I am not ready to admit that just yet. Liddell however better figure out what the problem is and fast if he loses this one it'll be back to square 1 for him.

"My gut says"
Hughes over GSP - Submission
Liddell over Silva - KO
Sokoudjou over Machida - KO
Guillard over Clementi - KO
Sanchez over Palelei - Ground and Pound TKO
Irvin over Cane - KO
Gamburyan over Mohr - Submission
Lister over Radev - Unanimous Decision
Carniero over DeSouza - Split Decision
Evans over Bocek- KO

BTW in case some haven't heard it will be Forrest Griffin and Rampage Jackson as the coaches for the next TUF season. Which frankly cracks me up as I am not sure I see either as a viable "coach".

But for the fight afterwards between the 2 I gotta go with Rampage unless he get's too comfortable/lazy and isn't ready for a war.

[Javy Pornstache]

Originally Posted by Javy Pornstache

-Hughes over St. Pierre (I'd like to see GSP win and you can't deny his dominating win last year, but I just have a hunch that Hughes is gonna be a different fighter for this one. Plus even though GSP swears it means nothing, I think the much more time Hughes has been in training camp matters.)

Ok, so I may have to amend my own statement after seeing clips of St. Pierre's INSANE training camp. While I still think that the pure time of the training camp matters, there is a HUGE difference in the Olympic-style training camp with all the specialists that St. Pierre is taking part in, versus Matt Hughes throwing down some mats on a basketball court while waiting for his gym to be completed (as earlier discussed in this thread). He's not even training with the Militech crew for this without his gym being open. It could work against Georges, too - Hughes could just be winding down his training (the most intense training is generally over a couple weeks before the fight) while St. Pierre has taken a crash course Olympic style camp to get ready for this.

In other news, I didn't see it, but heard there were some real fireworks in the Liddell-Silva weigh-in earlier tonight. This is going to be a really interesting show, hard to argue a better double main event than this (losing streak or not for Liddell and Silva) in a while, and some good, under-the-radar prelims that are gravy on top of this.

[gilpdawg]

Liddell/Silva was a pretty good one.

Spoiler warning.......






















































Chuck won by unanimous decision.

Hughes/GSP coming up next.

[Cyclone792]

Originally Posted by gilpdawg

Liddell/Silva was a pretty good one.

Yep, Liddell/Silva was a good fight that thankfully lived up to much of the hype. It also went pretty close to how I thought it would go in being a slugfest that tipped in Chuck's favor, though Silva also landed some nice shots.

St. Pierre absolutely dominated Hughes, and that submission was simply beautiful. I think Georges is taking the welterweights to a new level, and it may be awhile before somebody knocks him off; I think Serra's win over him was a fluke. I fully expect St. Pierre to knock Serra off in the rematch.

Machida got a nice submission win and should be moving up the ladder to contend for the belt.

Overall good card, IMO.

[Javy Pornstache]

Machida has been deserving of a title shot for sometime, but it'll especially be hard to deny him now. I know Sokoudjou had quite a bandwagon going and "Houston Alexander" treatment, but not at all surprised that Machida put an end to his hot streak.

Problem for Lyoto is that they are locked into Rampage-Forrest, which won't be happening till late spring/early summer probably, and even after that, you can make a strong case for Jardine getting the next title shot, what with wins over Forrest and Chuck among his last three fights. I do think Liddell-Machida as a top contender fight does make an awful lot of sense. And Wanderlei against either of the aforementioned Sokoudjou or Alexander would be nice too, and a good rebound win for whoever takes it. I can't believe how loaded the 205 division is compared even to this time last year.