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thesportssoundoff · 5 years

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“It’s not that bad and YET” UFC Fight Night: Sacramento Preview

Joey

July 9

The show AFTER the big July PPV always tends to have some sort of bad vibes attached to it and I guess this one isn't any different. In 2016, injuries took us from Michael Chiesa vs Tony Ferguson to John Lineker vs Michael McDonald (two guys no longer in the org). In 2017, the UFC loaded up their July PPV slate and gave us Gunnar Nelson vs Santiago Ponzinibbio the week after an injury (and sinus infection) cursed card from Vegas. Last year, the UFC gave us Blagoy Ivanov vs JDS and Sage Northcutt vs Zak Ottow after Miocic vs DC. This year's card after Vegas is either good or bad depending almost solely on how you feel about the main event. Fights 2-13 are your usual garden variety Fight Night mix of intriguing and irrelevant but the main event, a clash between Germaine de Randamie and Aspen Ladd, will likely determine whether it's the worst thing ever or a totally acceptable main event. I can kind of see the two sides at play here. WMMA title fights are acceptable main and co-main events but convincing MMA's audience that there's quality outside of the title fights is often met with chuckles, snickers and some derisiveness. MMA fans work in doses and drips and so foistering this main event upon the audience even years after the rise of WMMA requires some understanding that there's a chunk of fans who won't see this as a quality headliner. Aspen Ladd to my knowledge has never been on a main card and GDR has had one fight in two years. On the other hand if one had the ability to view both fighters objectively, this is a pretty damn good fight. Headline worthy? I mean why not. It's a pseudo #1 contender fight with a former champion and a rising prospect. Seems totally acceptable to me. Either way we got thirteen fights to talk about so let's just get on with it.

Fights: 13

Debuts: Brianna Van Buren, John Allan, Wellington Turman

Fight Changes/Injury Cancellations: 5 (John Phillips OUT, Wellington Turman IN vs Karl Roberson/Gian Villante OUT, John Allan IN vs Mike Rodriguez/Cynthia Calvillo OUT, Brianna Van Buren IN vs Livia Souza/Sara McMann OUT, Julianna Pena IN vs Nicco Montano/Martin Day OUT, Vince Morales IN vs Benito Lopez)

Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC): 8 (Urijah Faber, Josh Emmett, Beneil Dariush, Andre Fili, Julianna Pena, Nicco Montano, Darren Elkins, Cezar Mutante)

Fighters On Losing Streaks in the UFC: 1 (Darren Elkins)

Fighters On Winning Streaks in the UFC: 9 (Germaine De Randamie, Ricky Simon, Aspen Ladd, Beneil Dariush, Drakkar Klose, Mirsad Bektic, Livia Souza, Ryan Hall,Pingyuan Liu)

Main Card Record Since Jan 1st 2017 (in the UFC): 24-11-2

Aspen Ladd- 3-0 Germaine de Randamie- 2-0 Urijah Faber- 0-0 Ricky Simon- 3-0 Josh Emmett- 3-2 Mirsad Bektic- 2-1 Beneil Dariush- 2-2-1 Drakkar Klose- 4-1 Karl Roberson- 2-2 Wellington Turman- 0-0 Cezar Ferreira- 2-2 Marvin Vettori- 1-1-1

Fights By Weight Class (yearly number here):

Featherweight- 3 (33) Bantamweight- 3 (36) Women’s Bantamweight- 2 (12) Middleweight- 2 (23) Women’s Strawweight- 1 (19) Light Heavyweight- 1 (28) Lightweight- 1 (43)

Welterweight- (38) Heavyweight- (18) Flyweight- (8) Women’s Flyweight- (18) Women’s Featherweight- (6)

2019 Number Tracker

Debuting Fighters (18-40)- Brianna Van Buren, John Allan, Wellington Turman

Short Notice Fighters (16-25)- Brianna Van Buren, John Allan, Wellington Turman, Julianna Pena, Vince Morales

Second Fight (38-15)- Nicco Montano

Cage Corrosion (Fighters who have not fought within a year of the date of the fight) (12-26)- Urijah Faber (I could/should put him in the debut category but Faber was never cut and so I figure he's better suited here?), Nicco Montano, Julianna Pena, Marvin Vettori, Mirsad Bektic

Undefeated Fighters (25-27)- Aspen Ladd

Fighters with at least four fights in the UFC with 0 wins over competition still in the organization (9-8)-

Weight Class Jumpers (Fighters competing outside of the weight class of their last fight even if they’re returning BACK to their “normal weight class”) (17-16)- Nicco Montano, Ryan Hall, Karl Roberson

Twelve Precarious Ponderings

1- It's only fair to start with what can only be described as an experiment of sorts by the UFC. We currently have on the calendar four WMMA main events and rumors of a 5th (I've heard some rumblings about Rose vs Nina Ansaroff in the late Fall) is out there. The UFC is clearly giving us more WMMA main events and taking some chances in the process. Part of this is clearly an ESPN design; you give them four shows a month more or less and you're less concerned about popping a number on a digital platform. The scheduling and the assembly line of "See UFC product, get UFC product" on ESPN+ allows you to be a bit more flexible. It's kinda cool that in a span of four weeks, we've gotten a massive HW fight, a big UFC PPV, this show with a credible WMMA main event and then a pretty solid San Antonio main event with RDA vs Leon Edwards. We get a little bit of everything and I'm glad Ladd vs GDR occupies a part of that. With less of an expectation to do a one off rating (Ladd vs GDR probably would've been the lowest rated show on FS1) then I hope we see more credible WMMA main events. In a vacuum, I'd rather see two top 5 fighters at strawweight headline an event than two big doughy guys at LHW or HW just because we're afraid the audience might not like it.

2- At the same time I have zero problems admitting GDR vs Aspen Ladd as a main event wasn't making me want to rush out and buy a ticket if it was in my town. The more I think about it though. the more intrigued I am about it. Maybe it's just the "it's coming to get excited!" aspect of an approaching card or what but I'm genuinely excited by this main event. Maybe it's because GDR could either be Amanda Nunes' next opponent or the ultimate 'Whatever happened to?" story. Germaine de Randamie's title shot was somewhat circumstantial at best but be it by hook or by crook, she DID win the UFC's first ever featherweight title. After pulling out of fights on and off for three straight years (and with wins over Anna Elmose and Larissa Pacheco of all people), Germaine was ushered into a fight with Holly Holm in a makeshift main event. She won the first three rounds in my estimation, lost the final two and in a fair and just world, probably loses the fight with points deducted for repeated shots after the bell in rounds 1 and 2. We don't live in an alternate universe, we live in a current reality and SO de Randamie beat Holm on points to become champ. What happened then? Well....de Randamie copped to a hand injury after the fact, hinting she wouldn't fight Cyborg. She came out a bit later and said she wouldn't fight Cyborg because Cyborg was a PED user. She was stripped of the belt, hinted at retiring, came back, got hurt, hinted at retirement some more and then finally returned in a one sided breeze vs Rocky Pennington. The point of all that is to say that GDR is either about to break out into the best version of herself with a dominant win over Aspen Ladd or she's going to just disappear for two years after this fight.

3- Is Aspen Ladd more or less rushed than when Sara McMann got a title shot off of beating Shayna Baszler and Sheila Gaff? Ladd's got some credible wins but she's still super green and like a lot of green WMMA prospects, she pretty much gets by on her ability to be aggressive and dogged in firefights. Offensively though she's so much fun to watch. This fight in tight with GDR's crisp powerful boxing vs Ladd's aggression, pressure and fearlessness could be a real treat. Also let's not forget that Ladd absolutely has the strength to just bowl over GDR the way Nunes did as well.

4- Fun question; would you prefer the winner of this fight vs Amanda Nunes at bantamweight or up 10 lbs at featherweight?

5- The total lack of hype from the UFC on the return of Urijah Faber almost makes it feel like they're embarrassed he's even trying this.

6- Karl Roberson's UFC run thus far has been pretty easy to figure out. He's had four fights and gone 2-2 with an easy enough pattern; guy gets him down? He gets subbed. Guy doesn't? He wins. He subbed Darren Stewart which is still a pretty impressive win in hindsight and beat up on Jack Marshman in November. He took a really short notice fight vs Glover Teixeira in January and was beating the shit out of him before Glover did as he do; got on top and subbed him out in the first round. Roberson gets the debuting Wellington Turman and it's going to be an interesting test to see if he can avoid getting taken down against a guy making his debut on short notice. I still think Roberson has high upside and is more or less a victim of some unfair rough matchmaking.

7- Julianna Pena is back after taking a year and change off and it's surprising just how little fanfare her return is getting. Pena's last fight was on Fox in the headline spot vs Valentina Shevchenko in a fight she lost by armbar in the second round. Before that though, she had beaten the likes of Jessica Eye and Cat Zingano and looked to be on her way to maybe becoming something in the post Rousey landscape. The fact she's sort of just slipped into the picture as a late notice replacement for a filler prelim fight is so weird. Pena is just 29 and even if her striking was really rough to watch, she's the sort of fighter who has enough in her arsenal as a strong (yet clunky) wrestler that I can't rule her out in what remains at 135 lbs. We've seen the likes of Rocky Pennington get title shots and Nunes is close to cleaning out the division so maybe Pena (or even her opponent Nicco Montano) has a shot at creeping back up in the title picture quickly.

8- Casual reminder that Nicco Montano was the first ever UFC women's flyweight champ. Kinda gets forgotten given how things played out with her.

9- So are we officially off the Mirsad Bektic hype train now?

10- Ryan Hall vs Darren Elkins is such a weirdo fight on paper that I can't help but want to see how it plays out. At the very least we know (hope) Elkins won't take any significant damage via strikes.

11- Sheymon Moraes vs Andre Fili is a really good fight that almost feels misplaced as a prelim fodder fight but will be worth your time if you search it out. A damn good fight between two solid mid level FWs.

12- Does any card better encapsulate the collapse of TAM like this one does?

#MMA #UFC #GDR #Aspen Ladd

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chwrpg · 5 years

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thrills…

What’s summer without a trip to the amusement park? And this weekend, the characters of CHW will get to enjoy everything all that comes with a trip to the amusement park.

The excitement of getting on those all too terrifying rides, those ridiculously great fried foods you can only find at amusement parks and the excitement of beating out strangers at those carnival games.

All things these characters deserve after everything they’ve gone through, but of course, not everyone will get to go through this event without some happenings.... happening. And for what that means?

Just look below as everything will be explained further.

chills, and spills…

Based off of iconic carnival rides; several characters will find themselves in some very interesting situations.

Below, you’ll find the ride and what exactly this experience will entail for your character.... and what characters will go through what !!!

The Ferris Wheel;

Your character will be stuck on the top of the Ferris Wheel with another. With this comes conversations between cast members that haven’t been seen interacting often.

Austin Rapp & Keaton Chadwell

Axel Baldwin, Jamie Geary & Patton Addams

Cassandra Maston & Leland Palmer

Chase McCarthy & Emory Jeffers

Chuck Daniels & Knox Overman

Diego Cruz & Perrie Cruz

Gordon Wallace & Wyatt Saugis

Kit Cruz & Lennon Caroll

Layla Marks & Ray Garcia

Presley Miller & Woody Lim

Odessa McCarthy-Saxton, Teagan Parkinson & Valentina Von Stefan

2. The Tunnel of Love;

Your character will find themselves in the Tunnel of Love. With that comes sparking up love connections... or having to come face to face with a scorned lover.

Aggie Stewart & Nixon Peters

Casey Saunders & Jade Rodriguez

Cole Ortiz, Kendall Myeong, Mollie Fitzgerald, Percy Finch & Schmidt Stifler.

Donald Barnes & Kennedy MacPherson

Greg LaChance & October Addams

Gerald Pitts & Tom Andwood

Hailey Van Buren & Leo Jackson

Mason Devereaux & Ram Sweeney

Penn Orville & Sage Barnes

3. The Fun House;

Your character will find themselves in the all too terrifying fun house. With that comes having to experience a terrifying encounter with a character yours needs to have some words with.

Brooks McDonough & Stefan McKibbon

Bunny Chadwell & Sabrina Floyd

Chanel Horowitz & Cristiano De La Renta

Colette Mendez & Genevive Young

Dulcie Hernandez & Zella Hartdale

Jasper Hutchinson & Miles Walsh

Poppy Montenegro & Tinsley Chadwell

MORE INFORMATION;

This event will begin tonight, Friday, July 26th at 8PM EST. It’ll run all the way until Wednesday, July 31st.

If you have any questions, what so ever, please feel free to bring them up to us.

And I can’t stress this enough, have a ton of fun my loves and enjoy yourselves !!!!

#event #event: thrills chills and spills

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