UFC 313: Well that was (mostly) shit
I only watched the main card and after being there for 3 hours to see only this portion of the event in Las Vegas I can honestly say that I am very happy that I was not there to watch the rest of it.
I don't know why I bother to get excited about these things when nearly half of the main card is just pure garbage. When I looked around the local bar most of the people weren't even looking at the screen during many of the main card events and this includes and was especially true for the main event with Pereira vs. Ankalaev.
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I am sure that whoever has to compile the highlights of this particular fight really had to work hard in order to find things that were even worth highlighting because essentially, nothing happened for 25 minutes. There was some leg kicks in the first round but very little else. I understand that fighters try to preserve energy for later rounds but I honestly expected a lot more from two very powerful fighters with very impressive histories.
Often in title fights I get the impression that the people involved aren't trying to win nearly as much as they are trying to not lose. Aside from some combos that lasted for just a few seconds, virtually nothing happened in the main event and by the time we got to the 4th round, one of the guys in the octagon realized that all he had to do in order to secure victory was lock up his opponent in order to get more "control time." Twice these hugging contest were broken up by the referee because Ankalaev wasn't even trying to do any damage, he was just locking up Pereira so that he wasn't able to do any damage in reverse.
This is a major flaw of the point system in MMA, you get given points for controlling the fight but the tactic of locking up your opponent so he can't hit you while not even trying to do any damage to him is a dirty tactic. It works though, and that is why people do it.
I think that Anakalaev is going to find himself in a bad spot now though, because there is exactly zero enthusiasm for him being crowned the new light heavyweight champion.
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You know that you haven't won over anyone when the fans all boo when you get the belt put around you. Ankalaev isn't fully to blame here though, Alex didn't go for big shots early either and instead was going for a style of hurting your opponents mobility by taking out one of his legs. This tactic didn't work though and while I commend Alex for successfully defending every single takedown attempt, I also don't believe that Ankalaev was actually going for them. He wasn't posturing for position, he was posturing to have "control time" which unfortunately the judges take into account when choosing a winner.
This wasn't even the worst fight of the night though. It was the most disappointing because everyone expected this to be a banger and it was far from that. When Ankalaev's had was raised as the new champion, neither fighter had so much as a small cut on them because nothing happened.
The worst fight of the night definitely goes to the only female fight that was on the main card.
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Now you would imagine that the job of someone doing immediate press releases is to capture the best moments of a fight and the above is the best you can come up with. Well the reason for that is because very little else happened in this fight. It consisted almost entirely of the two women leaning on one another and then hugging on the ground with almost no damage happening to either fighter. The cut on Lucindo's face was from an injury sustained in training camp. It was re-opened because of a very light and grazing shot that was one of the only strikes thrown in a stand-up fighting position for the full 15 minutes.
The crowd booed almost the entire time the fight was taking place because both of their strategies seemed to be more akin to wrestling or jiu-jitsu than an MMA fight. It was boring as hell.
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Thankfully, Justin Gaethje and Farael Fiziev put on an amazing show that was one of the best fights in recent history. Both guys were absolutely exhausted by the end of it because they truly gave it everything that they had. The other fights were either stacked in serious favor of one particular fighter, or the two people in the octagon looked like they had turned up for some light sparring.
It's been a while since I have felt like a pay-per-view event was a complete waste of my time.... and that is exactly how I feel about this event. I think for the next PPV, I am just going to sit it out and catch the highlights the following day.
Oomf, seems like MMA is loosing its excitement as the times go bye. The fighters are prone to more wrestling now than actually sparing and hits, while I can honestly respect that as the main goal is to win without sustaining damage, they are hurting the sport and viewers tend to lose interest hence the org looses money
The org still makes tons of money, but there are people that are starting to get frustrated. With a kind of boring champion in the one what we now have at light-heavyweight, the only big draw that will come from him defending the belt will be based on who his opponent is. That's not a great position to find yourself in.
Right.
I stopped following the UFC so much at the wake of the Russian grappling guys. It's all taken downs and wrestling at this point.
It bores me tbh
i'm not going to disagree with that. When a Daegastani person is on the card, the place I am in watching it will let out a collective groan when they take it to the ground because we know almost nothing is going to happen for the rest of the round.
Gotta give credit to them still
tough Bastards
absolutely, no doubt about it. It is a winning formula but unfortunately it just isn't as entertaining as the promoters would like it to be. I think we are going to see un uptick in the amount of people "vacating" their belts so that someone exciting can have it. I believe a lot of the fights in UFC are rigged for ratings. Nobody really wants to watch the Daegestani version of MMA, they didn't really even like Khabib's fights unless he was against someone that WAS exciting.
Something funny just happened too. My browser's spell-checker keeps trying to change Daegestani to "decongestant"
Right. Agreed 💯. It's reminiscent of the story of "Demetrious Johnson". Dude was incredible, but was not a thrash talker or anybody that shit. He just fought and won. Reality, is the Dagestani fellas might need to add a bit of spice to their style if they still want to make the bag, because entertainment is what sells and promoters don't really care who wins, it's who bring the most bag.
The last part 😂😂
Keyboard understood the assignment
There has long been suspicions of UFC rigging the promotions and setting up fights that the stats don't support. It began with Chael Sonnen, who totally didn't deserve the championship fight with Anderson Silva but because he was an exciting fighter and really good on the microphone, they gave it to him anyway... twice. I often wonder if Silva was told to let him get a few strikes in to make it entertaining because both of those fights are legendary but if you know much about Silva, he didn't seem himself in either of them. Play for the cameras they say.
I remember Mighty Mouse very well. He was always overlooked as being one of the greatest fighters of all time because he is the size of my Aunt's 8 year old daughter. But he was something else at the right moments. Those really tiny guys normally fail to impress me (and most people) because even though they are very talented, you simply cannot put enough behind a punch or kick when you arms and legs are so tiny. Most of those fights did and still do go the distance. People don't like decision victories, even if the fight is fast-paced and close.
Does sound like you've been a big UFC fan for a long time. It's the only way, you'd know about the promotions, rigging and even the endless unearned title fights.
Right. A knockout sells more, and for me it's usually the fights that go the distance that I enjoy, but you could argue that the judges decisions can be really poor sometimes.
I would argue that the judges decisions are affected by things that don't really matter such as takedowns that dont' result in any damage. All fighters shoot for these because they know they count a lot on the scorecards and it is just really frustrating to see a fighter try to win on points using this strategy.
Fighting , agree, but I think takedowns should infact actually count for much. It takes a lot to take someone down don't you think?
Did you see the Usman vs Buckley match?
I think a takedown is a tough one to judge because a lot of fighters do it just because they know it scores points for them and not because they actually intend to do anything once they are down there. Takedown defense is of paramount importance for sure, but prevention of damage is ... importanter...
Fans tend to turn on fighters who takedown with no intention, and I suppose that is at least as bad or even worse than judges frowning on it. Many times I feel like takedowns are intentional time wasters as well and I was happy to see that officials are a lot more likely to stand the fighters back up if nothing is going on, on the ground.
I did see Usman v Buckley, that was a great war... everything about it was fantastic.
I see your thought. I think it's a fine line though. Because I think been able to defend a takedown takes great skill, so taking down it self should be huge, but staying down for too long of course would require a break off which makes sense.
I couldn't see the fight as I wasn't even in the no of the match, but I caught up and boy it's nice to see Usman get up to speed after that career destroying loss against Leon Edwards. Let's see how it goes from here
The reality is there are only so many fights one can put on in any one year so the majority will be mediocre at best. I know the top boxers do one or maybe 2 fights per year and have no idea how many a top UFC fighter will be expected to do. I guess Dana White must have this stipulated in their contracts.
Outside of whipping posts like Cowboy Cerrone it is normal for UFC fighters to do 1-3 fights a year, with 3 being quite rare. There are so many fighters that they don't really need to do more than that but once someone catches fire in the eyes of the crowd they get bigger paychecks and there is a lot of pressure on them to perform more frequently. I can't think of anyone that fought "as often as they were offered" that ended up doing well overall.