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thesportssoundoff · 6 years

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“Main card a dime, prelims are fine”The UFC On FOX Preview

Joey

December 10th

Fights: 12

Debuts: 2 (Pietro Menga, Julian Marquez)

Fight Changes/Injury Cancellations: 6 (Justin Scoggins OUT, Pietro Menga IN vs Tim Elliott/Antonio Rogerio Noguiera OUT, Jan Blachowicz IN vs Jared Cannonier/Sultian Aliev vs Nordine Taleb cancelled due to Aliev injury/Danny Roberts vs Sheldon Wescott cancelled due to Westcott injury; Roberts vs Taleb put together in its place, Vitor Miranda OUT, Darren Stewart IN vs Julian Marquez)

Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC): 10 (Robbie Lawler, Rafael Dos Anjos, Mike Perry, Glover Teixeira, Misha Cirkunov, Ricardo Lamas, Santiago Ponzinibbio,Jan Blachowicz, Tim Elliott, Erick Silva)

Fighters On Losing Streaks in the UFC: 3 (Jordan Mein, Oluwale Bamgbose, Darren Stewart)

Fighters On Winning Streaks in the UFC: 5 (Rafael Dos Anjos, Santiago Ponzinibbio, Ricardo Lamas, Mike Perry, Chad Laprise)

Stat Monitor for 2017:

Debuting Fighters (Current number: 44-38)- Pietro Menga, Julian Marquez

Short Notice Fighters (Current number: 24-36-1)- Pietro Menga, Darren Stewart, Jan Blachowicz, Josh Emmett

Second Fight (Current number: 32-39)- Galore Bofando

Cage Corrosion (18-15-1)- John Makdessi

Twelve Precarious Ponderings

1- #1 contender fights are basically suggestions. When I was studying to be a paralegal, they had an entire course (or what felt like it) on the term "reasonable expectations." #1 contender fights bend, twist and split the concept of a reasonable expectation. In boxing or kickboxing or MMA, the concept of the #1 contender is flexible since there's nothing binding to them. You can win an interim title and then never fight the champion OR you could win a #1 contender fight, become the mandatory challenger and then never get the fight. Or you could win the title fight and then move on with your life, we're talking about a reasonable expectation. Should the winner of this fight between RDA and Lawler have a reasonable expectation of a title show? Well.....

We can begin by setting the stage a bit. Who IS here and who ISN'T here as it pertains to the champion. Scratch our GSP and Nate Diaz, neither guy is getting this fight. Tyron Woodley is out for the foreseeable future with a shoulder injury. Before that point, Woodley bleeted about money fights and not thinking either fight did anything for him or so on so forth until death do us part. For one half of the equation, I can see the argument. Woodley beat Lawler and left no doubt----so hey! It might be fair to say "Look I beat Lawler and since then he's beaten two blown up 155ers (even if RDA is legit at 170 lbs), what else can I do?" It's not a knock to say that. It may be rude and unfair---but it's also kinda factual, am I right? Woodley doesn't GET anything from that fight. What's more, it could be genuinely argued that from a business standpoint, that fight is a hard sell unless Lawler KOs RDA in a fashion by which nobody expects.

For RDA though, it's a different situation. Dos Anjos is a fresh face at 170 lbs. He is a former champion at a different weight class. A win over Lawler establishes him as a genuine force at 170 lbs and RDA fights frequently (June to September to December) so it's not like Woodley would be in for a long wait. Dos Anjos would be beyond credible as a challenger and he'd be new to the picture. Also it's not RDA's fault that Woodley isn't a draw. One of the things that the UFC/MMA has stolen from its TRUE business model; the art of pro wrestling is that the heat is always on the B Side for not upping the numbers. When a Hogan feud didn't work or draw, the onus turned to whoever he was facing. When Mr. Perfect vs Hulk Hogan did poorly, they didn't blame Hogan (and why would they I suppose?) and it fell on Perfect. The Miz was punished for Rock/Cena vs Miz/R-Truth not doing big numbers. It's easiest to blame the #2 guy because why not? It's not RDA's problem that Woodley can't draw but if he wins, he's earned it. Why wouldn't he be the #1 contender? Woodley denying RDA would be foolish and incomprehensibly bad when he should be trying to get some positive publicity.

Then there are the three outsiders who could steal the title shot. Kamaru Usman is one, Colby Covington is another and Darren Till is the last. Usman PROBABLY is far off from a title fight for various reasons; some his fault and some not his fault. Darren Till would be an interesting story but one win over Cerrone probably isn't enough. Colby Covington, unfortunately, is the winner of this fights biggest threat. He has the big name win over Maia and he built an angle for himself, as tawdry as it may be. Covington's attitude attracts attention and while it's primarily the wrong kind, this is the fight business and not the "Do the right thing" business. Even so it feels like Usman vs Covington is in the works so why would Covington jump the line at this point? Wonderboy vs Woodley III needs to be a total non-starter.

So what, pray tell, is our reasonable expectation here as it pertains to a title fight for the winner? I'm not betting on it. Woodley is far, far, far away from being healthy and I can totally see him throwing a stink at whoever the winner is. As much as people might not wanna hear this, it's almost as likely that the UFC strikes while the iron is hot and rolls with Covington as it is that the winner of this fight gets a title shot. What's more, given that the UFC needs to fill up February soon-ish, why would they rush to conclusions anyways when you could probably get Lawler or RDA to fight again soon anyways?

2- Keep a VERY close eye on Lawler in rounds 2-5. Robbie's reputation in five round fights can be summed up as such; when it's going well, he's engaged for twenty five minutes with the occasional pauses in action. When he's just not firing, rounds 2, 3 and 4 are rounds where he seems incapable of turning up the jets and going.

Against Hendricks 1 and Rory-- He was always in the fight, laughing during exchanges and being a generally all around wild human being.

Against Condit, Hendricks 2 and Matt Brown- He came out fast and firing early----and then slowed. Now he did score a big knockdown in the second round vs Condit so in that fight it was more about him just being mentally asleep for the middle portion of the fight. Now 5th round Lawler is a thing because he takes those rounds off BUT rallying vs a tremendously durable guy in RDA might be a tough ask.

3- I hope RDA understands that Lawler is hard to take down and even harder to keep down so his usual technical leg kicks into the clinch aren't going to work this time.

4- Dana White talked about Frankie Edgar as the #1 contender and he left the door open that Holloway COULD fight before Edgar is ready to fight again. That combined with Ricardo Lamas staying n the co-main spot despite a more attractive fight in Ponz-Perry, leads me to believe that there's a slight chance Lamas could sneak his way into a title fight with Holloway soon.

5- Does the fact that Ricardo Lamas' last three wins all lost their next fight make it harder to buy into him as a top 5 featherweight?*

So @theanticool corrected me and pointed out that Diego Sanchez beat Jim Miller (which I forgot about) and Oliveira beat Will Brooks. I’ll leave this here because I like laughing at my dumbness but will instead rephrase point five: Does the fact that Lamas’ top wins recently have all basically flamed out make it harder to make the argument that he’s a top 5 featherweight?

6- So much of what makes Mike Perry work is his aggressive approach backed by his one hitter quitter-esque power and sterling chin. Perry lives to create 50/50 exchanges where he believes his one will trump your two or three. He isn't entirely out of his element on the ground but it's clear what his gameplan is. His secret weapon are knees, be it in the clinch or out of the plum set up. Mike Perry is not the walking gimmick some people believe he is---but Santiago Ponzinibbio is one of those fighters who is always different in his approach going into each fight. Against Gunnar Nelson, he had a good idea how to attack Nelson even if it meant eating fire on the way in. Against guys Nordine Taleb and Zack Cummings, Ponz just outworked them with pressure, volume, versatility and power. Ponzinibbio can still be hurt by strikes and he isn't always the most intelligent survivor (the two times I remember him being most hurt, he just seemed to throw caution to the wind and fire back despite having no base of support on the feet) BUT he's one of those guys who doesn't need much to get going on offense. His footwork, movement and ability to turn the pressure on and off at a moment's notice makes him a serious threat for Perry who has struggled with those kinds of guys in the past. If this gets into a firefight in the pocket though, I think we'll ALL be winners.

7- So what do we make of Misha Cirkunov? Cirkunov is 4-1 in the UFC and he just turned 30 in a division devoid of youth. He is a prized commodity for sure and his last fight went by so quickly that it's hard to even know what went wrong. It seems everyone not named OSP falls victim to the Volkan Oezdemir dim mak. At the same time, Misha Cirkunov has one win over someone still in the UFC and he's so rigid and stiff on the feet that it's fair to wonder just how high is upside really is. He and Glover Teix is a great match up that'll test what Glover has left and whether Misha can beat a top 10 LHW. This division really needs Misha Cirkunov to be everything people think he can be.

8- Speaking of LHWs, Jared Cannonier gets a chance (again) to join the big boy lunch table when he draws Jan Blachowicz as the prelim fight headliner. Cannonier since dropping to 205 lbs has gone a tidy 2-1 with the loss being a fight where Glover Teixeira simply had too much for him in the grappling department despite Cannonier occasionally landing hard shots on the feet. Cannonier was expected to get a big name in Antonio Rogerio Noguiera but instead draws a tougher test in Jan Blachowicz. Jan's coming off his first UFC win in about 9 years and 28 fights but he showcased a lot of the stuff that made him such a highly regarded LHW to begin with. It's worth pointing out that Blachowicz has only lost to ranked opposition (Gus, Manuwa and Cummins) so if Cannonier wants to take a step up, this is the right opponent to try it against.

9- The Dana White Tuesday Night Contender Series has delivered onto us some dandy fighters, would you not agree? Thus far, fighters who have competed on DWTCS in the UFC are 4-3 thus far BUT there are some caveats inside those numbers. Two of those fighters were short notice additions who were NOT offered contracts during the show (Mike Santiago and Azunna Anwanyu) and another one was Allen Crowder who was signed by virtue of just being big. On the other hand, Benito Lopez, Alex Perez, Karl Roberson and Sean O'Malley have all had exciting fights and wins in the organization. Julian Marquez will be the latest DWTCS guy to take to the cage and I'm....torn. I discovered Marquez while watching him fight in Combates Americas vs Matt Hammil. At the time a typo had me thinking he was older than he really was, like 10 years older. At just 27 years old, Marquez is already an interesting name and I think he can be something although he was very adamant that cutting to 185 lbs was really hard for him on the Contender Series so I can't imagine that being a cut he'll want to take more often. He takes on short notice Brit Darren Stewart at 185 lbs.

10- Is it a lock that Darren Till winds up facing the winner of Ponz vs Perry?

11- Danny Roberts has a 3-1 UFC record but it hasn't been easy outside of his debut vs Nathan Coy. Roberts is one of those guys who is winning until he loses and losing until he wins. Vs Mike Perry, Roberts won a ton of exchanges---except for three. The one that dropped him in the first round, dropped him in the 2nd round and then finished him in the third. He was getting lit up by Bobby Nash before he iced and finished Nash in the third. Roberts has that sort of talent where he's always in a fight no matter what the odds or the scorecards say.

12- Aye leggo Pietro Menga! New flyweight on the block!

Must Wins

1- Glover Teixeira

Once upon a time, Glover was in the position of needing a must win to really save his spot in the division. He rallied from that with three straight finishes over OSP, Patrick Cummins and Rashad Evans. NOW he's back in the same spot after a 1-2 run since that Evans finish. He was blasted by Rumble, beat Cannonier while looking shaky on the feet and then got beat up and battered by Gus. Glover is an old man in an old division which means that so long as you don't lose it all overnight, you've got a chance to be relevant. Still at this point you're left wondering just how relevant Glover can be. He's lost to the elite of the elites (Jones, Davis, the aforementioned Rumble and Gus) but a loss to Misha Cirkunov would officially close the door on him. This is a must win for both dudes if ya think about it.

2- Santiago Ponzinibbio

Ponz is one of those fighters who deserves a ton of credit for wall walking his way up the rankings. After losing to Lorenz Larkin, he's racked up five wins and three of those by finish. He's not just eating up on jabronis either with wins over the likes of Gunnar Nelson, Nordine Taleb and Court McGee. He's a damn good fighter who is improving every single performance he has. The problem is that Ponz is not the most marketable WW even if he's action packed and capable of speaking multiple languages. Ponz is the guy who should be a bigger force but alas alack. He's gotta beat Mike Perry to really secure his spot in the 5-10.

3- Ricardo Lamas

In the world of "all things are connected", Ricardo Lamas is competing vs not just Josh Emmett but also the likes of Brian Ortega, Frankie Edgar and etc etc down the line. Lamas has done a lot of good recently---but look at his wins at 145 lbs. We just saw Moggly Benitez eat up Jason Knight over three rounds, we've seen what's happened to Diego Sanchez recently and Charles Oliveira, while very credible, is not the sort of win that gets you talking title shot. He's got a short notice opponent he's being expected to run right through but Josh Emmett is no joke with how hard he hits.

Top 5 Must See Fights

1- Robbie Lawler vs Rafael Dos Anjos

2- Santiago Ponzinibbio vs Mike Perry

3- Jared Cannonier vs Jan Blachowicz

4-Chad Laprise vs Galore Bofando

5- Darren Stewart vs Julian Marquez

#MMA #UFC #Main Card #FOX #Lawler #Dos Anjos #Ponz #Perry

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