Hardgains88

I fully understand that all rounds and points are equal in MMA, but in the real world they aren’t always. Its hard to deny obvious momentum that only the final bell would stop. Thats why it would have been hard for me to swallow jon jones, one of the most dominant champions in history, loosing his belt in his defense against Reyes. Regardless of what peoples opinion of him as a person, he’s got an unreal fight IQ, and seems to always be able to always figure out an opponent. Even if jones lost the first 3 (though not certain of that) he clearly won the final 2 frames and Reyes was fading. There’s little doubt the momentum was not going to continue to build if the fight went on.
I get that besting the champ does not require any more then having more points and that fights like tonights are just how it works put occasionally. Its just hard to think of a fighter As a winner after having won by having the timed things so the final horn sounded before the other fighters momentum build enough to finish you

He is taking advantage of a fighter who is showing classic signs if CTE. Alienation from friends, co workers, and family. Paranoid irrational behavior and an inability to maintain relationships. Hes going through divorce at the moment. His speech and communication are showing signs of Impaired mental function. Break with longtime camp.
Interesting, i dont know for sure< but i would bet that fabia is being paid, cumulatively for all the functions hes providing. He claimed to luke he is manager, trainer, nutritionalist et al. Is he taking a large portion of diego pay? Hes certainly not getting results

Mous does well when hes not in with aggressive power wrestlers that can grind him till he fatigues. Mous is a great grappler but isnt a huge 185 by todays standards and while his grappling is great, his wrestling isnt quite on par woth american wrestlers. Striking hes a beast so long as he isnt forced to fight defensively to avoid takedowns. Lima is awesome but i dont see him offering much more then Rory stylistically. Though i think it will be more competitive, it probably is similar outcome

But i agree totally that Khabib is nit in the same Discussion as Jon Jones!
jones unpopularity biasing some people enough that its like two different fighters Careers, the one the haters talk about and the one that actually takes place. The guy is absolutely the most dominant champ since GSP ( I’m not including mighty mouse because of the lack of depth @ 125)
He beat down smith and while not as one sided he clearly beat Santos, and this fight was a close fight but the challenger didn’t do enough. ;theres another factor besides jones slowing down that effects his fights. People forget how much of an advantage the hours of fight tape on jones is for challengers snd there coaching staff. This is one of the negative factors that start effecting top fighters / champs after a point: everyone is gunning for you, guys and camps start preparing years earlier, maybe not full time, but i have heard Coaches talk about working strategies and game plans to beat GSP, Silva, and jones years before a title shot.
He dtill has kept the belt snd in my mind only had one really close fight since GUS #1 so JJ is still "undisputed" in my book

I mean, he’s done some dumb shit, the running from police / hit & run being high on the list! The reality of the situation though is that a lot of the things that people get so upset about, the pico gram shit and the positive test for coke, really shouldn’t matter all that much. The presence of long term metabolites without short and mid term metabolites, is now a phenomenon we have seen in other fighters like seam omally and is Generally accepted by experts as virtually impossible to happen if the ingestion of the parent compound wasn’t very old and not from re ingesting the drug, another words his story checks out. The coke, while obviously not a merit badge, isn’t really our business. At the end of the day, i do not consider UFC fighters responsible or obligated to be role models for my kids! Thats my job, so as long as he doesn’t actively support a dictator that advocates killing and persecuting gays and other innocent members of there society… there all clear for me to cheer! Mostly im looking for my favorite fighters to be genuine bad assess when locked in a cage. Jon fits that bill well enough for me!

but anyone who writes that boxings mandatory title defenses are more fair or Actually merit based is Probably a combat sports newb jumping on the bash Dana & UFC bandwagon because its the cool thing to do. I have been following combat sports pretty close for 4 plus decades. The UFC’s matchmaking is Pretty damn spot on. They will throw together some money based title Fights here and there. At the end of the day, even these occasional popularity based challengers are Picked because the fans want the fight and will pay, so its servicing the Customer what they want.
In boxing, the number 1 contenders are manipulated based on promotors influencing the orgs and are rarely the best fighter or who the fans want so its the worst of both worlds. Thats why we’ve seen almost all the top talents in boxing mostly fighting guys you never heard of last year. Yea, we had some decent matches too but in the UFC very rarely is the title defense someone you havent heard of or a record padder

While being big in the muslim world may mean something to some people, from a business and money standpoint, its virtually meaningless. Its like being the most popular guy to the least important market. The countries hes popular in, other then the dozen or so leadsrs of these countries couldn’t rub 2 nickels together to buy a pay per view or subscription to save there lives….; so little value in the real world. Outside of some quickly drying up oil money, these are the least productive, least capable, least able markets / people on earth. Dana white and espn aren’t stayin up at night worrying about loosing khabib’s fans money… thats for sure!
The Irish, yea, they at least matter as a potential fan base. 1 billion people who only pirate streams illegally, Not a big deal to upset in reality. Hes got much less leverage then his delusions give the impression of.
In the end hell have to fight connor or forfeit the belt if thats what dana wants

He thought a video tape of bullying the homeless and impaired was funny. Kadrayoff, the weird man boy leader who himself looks to be unsure of his sexuality, who kabib personally aligns with, Legalizes killing gsys & lesbians and those who follow non muslim faiths. The other people he surrounds and aligns with, like his manager a known muslim terrorist who turned states evidence and the Saudi princess’s who are known violators of international child labor laws, he’s always bragging he supports, put hi, at the very bottom of acceptable ethical standards. His morales and integrity make him quite possibly the most ethically challenged major athlete in Spirts today. So yea, hes a great fighter but lets not forget he is the one dude that actually makes connor the "good guy" in a fight.

Reyes has a very Possible path of victory, getting through the JJ armor in the first 10 minutes with a death ray shot. Thats the window with jon, if you haven’t done something Significant enough to diminish the champ by then theres very little to stop the inevitable-damage of jons offensive pressure. By the 3rd most fighters are Altering there game plan to staying conscious for the full 25 minutes. Its interesting that jon doesn’t throw a lot of long combos or string together long chain wrestling offense… he just finds the holes, manages the distance and lands consistent damaging shots. Not much of a double up on the jab one two to the body type of fighter, Its more elbow, pause, head-kick, pause, take down attempt, pause Hook pause, teep pause… without breaks or stops every round. Dishing it out while taking little Little damage yourself is a hell of an effective strategy for a 5 round fighter. Dominik is quick, powerful, and dangerous but still smaller, less rangy, Less endurance, less fight iq. So unless he can connect often and hard enough in the 1st 10 minutes to cause enough damage to jon that it disrupts the rhythm of damage jon gets going i dont see anyone winning a war of attrition with jon.

unless the author was privy to additional information not made available to the general public, the deal had no front loading at all. Actually, from what was released, it was quite the opposite, was an incremental deal where reebok increases there payments annually.
The UFC uses the majority of the money to pay the fighters, administer the program et. The UFC’s benefit is as mentioned by others, uniformity and corporate appear, the dollars werent signoficant after paying the fighters out

Very much agree, jorge has the skills, hes had a tough time executing effective game plans and overall consistent offensive output in some of his past fights, but no one ever bests him up. He seems to have put things together. Possible hand issues in the past may be responsible for hi switching up to a defensive posture in the later rounds. I hope some of the improved performances are from managing his hand issues. Either way, the man has a ridiculously well rounded skill set and not only great chin am defense but is very good at limiting damage. Rolls with shots well et. Usman has a favorable style but i would not call this fights outcome a forgone conclusion

But i looked into it a year or 2 ago when the USADA cases where getting overturned Originally, ala joel romero, but i found out you USADA must also test other sealed samples of the same lot of supplement and find the banned substance before ruling the violation due to contaminated supplements. So you spike a bottle with it and You then would have to somehow distribute other contaminated samples into stores to be confirmed.
What does make sense though, and though involved, would work perfectly, is to test beforehand for contaminated supplements, then take the banned compounds you find in supplements. This sounds unlikely in reality because of how many tests you would need, but theres ways to limit the potential ones to test. Starting with limiting testing to supplement companies with the worst records of known contamination and then supplement categories that are most likely to get spiked. So for example, testing a dozen supplements from the top 3 most frequently contaminated brands of supplements, then testing there "mass builder or test boosting" supplements. I am pretty sore you would come up with a few that where contaminated. Then list one on your usada survey snd when your caught for the violation, look, smoking gun… USADA could verify and the same contaminated banned substance would show up in that lot of that supplement. Thats the way a big budget cheating program would work, at least in terms of allowing lower level PED’s since ostarine and these other similar compounds are not nearly as anabolic as even the mildest steroid.

Really? You think that would be a good idea? Thats super limited shortsighted thinking. It would be disastrous… fir promoters, fighters, fans. How many fights where are there warnings for fouls? 1 out of 4? So 25% of fights are stopped and the offender disqualified. The fans would rebel, who wants to by tickets when a quarter of the fights are disqualifications? Shot, even if it helped reduce the number to 10% of fights where theres a disqualification it would damage the sport tremendously.
What would be worse though is your idea to use replay and other technology and have it decided by majority of 5 judges! In the middle of the action, ref just breaks the momentum, they get the commission, ref, judges huddled together to rewatch the Play… from the 6 plus cameras, theres got to be clear discussion between commission and ref on what the offense was, then commission to judges on what constitutes offense. Then watch and vote, Lets say they get it down to 5 minutes. I don’t think they would in reality, but just f0r the sake of argument, that changes the coarse of the fight if its not a disqualification.