Ultimate Finale Live

[Guest KingPK]

Damn, whatta card tonight. An ok opener with Florian totally outmatching his opponent followed by THREE fights that go the distance and were entertaining from the opening bell. I can't disagree with the decisions; Luke really didn't dominate any real portion of the fight as Joe kept it on the ground and Brad didn't take advantage of Rashad's fatigue (probably because he was tired himself) and Diego took care of Diaz (who did a good job being a complete prick). Sleazy D must be very happy right now.

 

My exposure is limited, but this has to be the best MMA show I've ever seen.

[Coffey]

Rudo and Curry are always shilling MMA over at TSM. In the past, they've recommended not watching wrestling because MMA was better. I've followed MMA for awhile but I've always watched wrestling for different reasons. If I'd never seen MMA before and Rudo and Curry shilled this show onto me, I'd forever be an MMA fan. It was that good.

 

That being said, this was the best MMA show I've ever watched. I've seen a lot of K-1 and even more Pride. To me, this tops them all. Three amazing fights. Two of which I felt I had an emotional tie to thanks to the Ultimate Fighter season. Just a fabulous night. It completely blew me away. I can't give the show enough praise. My only knock being that Spike TV showed way too many commercials. If this were PPV, it would've easily been worth fifty bucks.

 

I believe in two weeks is the next UFC PPV. After this show, I'll definitely be watching.

[Mad Dog]

I thought it was a great night. Diego proved himself to be a real contender in the welterweight division and it'll be interesting if he ever locks up with Stevenson. Luke and Brad both showed a lot of balls during their fights and I hope the UFC offered them contracts after the show. Brad has limitless potential as a fighter.

 

Stevenson will make a great addition to the UFC. He's a very experienced fighter. I have to think Rashad winning is a nightmare scenario because he'll probably drop right down to 205. They probably wanted a guy that would remain a heavyweight.

 

Florian was impressive. He looked a lot better than his previous fights. And if the rumors are true they probably want him around for when they bring the lightweight division back.

 

If you want to see the worst MMA has to offer, wander over to Sherdog and see the trolls there at work.

[Guest TheShawshankRudotion]

I wrote when sending feedback to Dave, "skin cuts, bones break, blood flows, but what makes MMA great is the heart of the fighters" and that's what tonights show was all about. Reshad and Brad, two guys who were written off during TUF, and whom everyone expected a piss poor fight out of, just DELIVERED. Not because they were the best, the fastest, the strongest... but because when they were in the octagon, they gave it everything they had and when they didn't have anything left, they didn't quit, they didn't slow down, they KEPT GOING.

 

Joe and Luke had the crowd doing a dueling chant the way dueling chants should be done. Not taking turns chanting each guys name, but with one set of fans trying to drown out the other fans and support their fighter the most. Who didn't want Luke to win? I mean, I'm a Stevenson fan and have been before the show even started, but Luke is a bit of a rare case in MMA and is unique. There were enough moments in this fight where I believed Luke was going to turn it around for the win. Edge-of-your-seat shit goin on there.

 

Diego vs. Diaz was nuts. Fucking nuts. So much going on on the ground. Crazy reversals and sequences. And a sense of hate that you just don't get very often. I thought it was pretty classless to fuck Diego over on the post fight promo. You ain't the Oscars, you don't have to do him in like that.

[Guest Cam Chaos]

My exposure is limited, but this has to be the best MMA show I've ever seen.

Get the PRIDE Bushido tournament from earlier this year and the MW GP from 2003. UFC 40 and 48 are good too.

 

I'm surprised Imes didn't win but it was a split decision.

 

Joe's experience and ground control seemed to be the deciding factors in their fight but Luke put in a good effort and so hopefully with time he'll improve and gain the inring confidence to be a champ.

 

Mad Dog, we're actually taking out trolls, banning people and and dubbing them for minor offenses all the time. I think we do a pretty good job considering their are a dozen of us active mods and admins dealing with 31000 members. The only folder that's kind of a write off is the MMA folder but that's due to the influx of TUF noobs who post old/repeated topics, don't have much knowledge of MMA and don't use the search engine. You have no idea how many "What should Fedor's nickname be?" threads appear in the space of a month. The Boxing, K-1 and training discussion forums are still top notch resources and you can generally seperate the worthwhile posters from the shitty ones without much effort, especially if the poster signed up before 2004.

 

UFC have been capping fighters interview times after people complained all they did was thank sponsors. Now they get less time and aren't allowed to mention sponsors at all. As a result fewer sponsors are approaching fighters making it harder for them to train full time to be the best thet can possibly be. Dana White, "Support the sport.. and by that I mean the UFC! The fighters can support themselves. Buy Xyience!"

[Guest TheShawshankRudotion]

They should allow them to thank 2 or 3 sponsors. It's when they list a dozen that it's annoying. Cutting fighters off is uncalled for, and is quite frankly rude.

 

Brad got knocked down twice - there were two times when the ref could have legitimately stopped the fight in favour of Reshad. However, politically speaking, it would have been better to have Brad win simply because the purpose of the show was to create a heavyweight superstar, not another light-heavyweight.

 

For 2005,

 

1. Bushido: The Tournament

2. PRIDE Final Conflict

3. UFC 52: Couture vs. Liddell

4. PRIDE Shockwave (2004)

5. Ultimate Fighter Finale 2

 

And I _loved_ UFF2.

[Mad Dog]

Actually it has more to do with being on tv. You can't bring in advertisers when your fighters are giving away freebies on tv. That just one of those things, they probably still allow it on PPV.

 

As for Sherdog. I mostly go there to laugh at the posters. A lot of them are exactly the same type of smark that I can't stand where they say they want something and then when it's done they go and complain about it again. When I call them trolls it's not referencing an internet troll. More that you can't call 3/4 of them human.

 

Brad got knocked down twice - there were two times when the ref could have legitimately stopped the fight in favour of Reshad.

I was thinking the same thing but the more I thought about it I think the ref made the right call. The first time Brad immediately grabbed onto Rashad and I think he did the same thing the second time. That shows that he wasn't hurt that bad and the fight probably would've been stopped had he just covered his face.

 

But like I said it's a nightmare for the UFC because Rashad will drop to light heavyweight immediately.

[Guest Cam Chaos]

Actually it has more to do with being on tv.  You can't bring in advertisers when your fighters are giving away freebies on tv.  That just one of those things, they probably still allow it on PPV.

 

As for Sherdog.  I mostly go there to laugh at the posters.  A lot of them are exactly the same type of smark that I can't stand where they say they want something and then when it's done they go and complain about it again.  When I call them trolls it's not referencing an internet troll.  More that you can't call 3/4 of them human.

 

Brad got knocked down twice - there were two times when the ref could have legitimately stopped the fight in favour of Reshad.

I was thinking the same thing but the more I thought about it I think the ref made the right call. The first time Brad immediately grabbed onto Rashad and I think he did the same thing the second time. That shows that he wasn't hurt that bad and the fight probably would've been stopped had he just covered his face.

 

But like I said it's a nightmare for the UFC because Rashad will drop to light heavyweight immediately.

1st point: No, no the don't. No sponsors at all at any time. This came about due to the Lindland/Sportsbook incident.

 

2nd point: Sherdog was a better place before TUF caused a flood of tough guys, assholes and morons to come through. Nuthuggers and would be MMAthmeticians (fighter a beat fighter b who lost to fighter c so fighter a can beat fighter c) are the worst of them. The Ask The Fighters forum was accessible to all before every other newbie poster asked the same questions of the same people or came in and badmouthed them from the safety of their computer chairs. The MMA forum is good for stray news but for intelligent debate there are other forums not accessible or known to most posters save forum vets. The training forums are still valuable resources for the majority of posters who do more than just watch the PPVs.

 

It's not surprising that Rashad wants to drop down a weight class, everyone does it as it means you have a better chance of being stronger than someone that is that weight naturally. Matt Hughes cuts something like 25lbs over 6 weeks to get down to 170. Joe Riggs drops from 200lbs. Randy Couture drops drops from 220.

[Guest brian]

On the possible Brad stoppages, when he goes down his head is up, so he's obviously conscious. Guy who go down and are out won't support their head.

 

I was thinking before the fight that if they had an exciting fight, Brad would be better off winning because Rashad had alread won three fights in TUF and also could drop down in weight.

 

The problem with Sherdog forums is the polarization of posters, which you can't really get rid of, and the cclosed-mindedness that emits from it. Alot of PRIDE guys refuse to acknowledge UFC and vice vera, and it gets really old, really quick. And so there are alot of thread dedicated solely to bashing.

[Mad Dog]

So where does the UFC go next for the heavyweight division. Arvloski doesn't appear to have any challengers left until Frank Mir's ready and that could be never. Do they serve up a TUF loser like Mike Whitehead for him to destroy? Do they go to him and the Maniac or just import some talent for him?

 

I guess I shouldn't bash Sherdog too much. I've bounced around all the bigger MMA sites and all are just as bad.

 

I'm also thinking about getting a few UFC DVDs when I get the 1st season of TUF. Are 50 and 51 worth my time?

[Guest brian]

None of the big MMA sites have very good message boards. But if you look at sites that have MMA talk going on (here, TSM, DVDVR), the boards are all good.

 

I think they'll give Sylvia a second chance, but that can't turn out too well.

[Mad Dog]

That reminds me. I had UFC 49 in the other day and they had a replay of Mir snapping his arm. Sick....

[Guest brian]

It's funny though, because once everyone realizes what happened (well, Herb knew ahead), Rogan just keeps on showing the replay. He must have shown that clip like six times.

[Mad Dog]

I think my first reaction was to grab my arm. Just thinking about it makes me want to rub my forearm a bit. I don't know which I'd take for sickest moment it or the Marvin Eastman cut.

[Guest brian]

I think watching Saku break Renzo's arm is up there.

[Mad Dog]

There's one I've seen, not sure from where. The guy breaks his shin on another guy's leg and it just collapses under him and he falls back on it.

[Guest Famous Mortimer]

I was watching Bas Rutten's career DVD set and he has a fight with some chap who breaks his shin on Bas's body, then tries to kick with it again and just collapses. Ouch.

 

This sounds like a damn good night's entertainment, I'll have to try and get hold of it (curse my UK-ness).

[Guest KingPK]

This sounds like a damn good night's entertainment, I'll have to try and get hold of it (curse my UK-ness).

From Meltzer:

 

--The recently completed season of Ultimate Fighter will air starting on 12/5 on Bravo in the U.K. The show airs nightly, Monday through Friday, at 11 p.m., with new episodes each day for three weeks. It appears last night's show will be broken up into three different one hour shows that air 12/21 to 12/23 (thanks to Ian Hamilton)

[Mad Dog]

I was watching the Unleashed that had Lawler/Diaz. Robbie Lawler reminds me of Chris Leben. A great striker with no ground game and Leben will probably fizzle out like Lawler did.

[Guest brian]

You're underestimating Leben. Leben has a good armbar if you underestimate him, as I've seen him catch a couple of guys. He also has very good sub defense and an iron chin.

 

Lawler didn't really fizzle. He ran into two very good opponents, really. One was Diaz, who outstruck him, because Diaz had better boxing (and psychologically beat him as well). And then there was Tanner, who's a lot stronger on the ground than he was. And now he's back on track, with his win in SuperBrawl over Vitale.

[Mad Dog]

As far as UFC goes he fizzled out. The times I've seen Leben he hasn't impressed me. He's too careless but that will get better with experience. But he's a total headcase and I think he'd be gone if he ran into a couple of losses because of how he freaks out.

[Coffey]

Is there anyone in UFC that doesn't have a good armbar? Is there a such thing as a bad armbar? You either get it or you don't. Now, some guys are better at slappin' that bitch on than others, is that what you mean?

[Mad Dog]

Some guys have better ones than others (Frank Mir snapping Sylvia's arm like a twig for starters).

[Guest brian]

It's a matter of moving up your guard to hook it in. Some guys don't have ground game. Leben has a good guard, not extremely active, but it's a defensive guard, and if you take it for granted, he can get that arm-bar in.

 

It'd take a bus to knock him out.

[goodhelmet]

I found it funny that when the cameras were focusing on Leonardo DiCaprio, he kept trying to light up his cigarette but his buddy pointed out to him that he was on camera.