Topic: The UFC Info and Prediction Thread - page 45. (Read 99731 times)

Food poisoning, injured, diarrhea, covid, and passport issues. All excuses he already used.
They're the ones being said over on Twitter, that's where Khamzat stays all the time since. Dana still books him, but having 1 or 2 replacements will be ready whenever the fight is near.  Or it should be the other way around, he should be the replacement. He won't have to train harder and get injured if he is just a replacement.

As Dana White himself said, whenever Chimaev goes to fight he gets extremely sick and he is never near the UFC doctors so they can check and this ends up being unfeasible because they cannot do their own analysis and need to trust the fighter.

^  Thanks for bringing it back to what we should be really be talking about...  The next event.  And yup, I'm really disappointed that it's not Chim vs Whittaker as I really think Whittaker has a good chance of winning.  Chim is good vs lower tier fighters.  But against the better ones like Burns and Usman, he doesn't bring a great performance.  It's almost like he's getting slowly exposed. 

Watch Chim vs Burns and Chim vs Usman again.  It could be that he isn't as good as we thought.  I even think Rakhmonov wins vs Chim.

Just a quick question about upcoming event - arent you guy missing Chimaev? Since 2022 and covid, his career became, I dont know how to tell better, a mess? First he was to face Diaz, but wasnt able to make weight, showed middle finger to everyone and fought Holland in catchweight. Next fight in 2023 against Costa. Costa got injured and Usman stood on short notice. Against who, honestly speaking, Borz was dominating all the time. Now Whittaker, and against problems when the fight is about to happen. I am missing SMESH EVERIBADI !

UFC 305 will be hosted at Perth, Australia which is near near New Zealand, Adesanya's country. Maybe there's a lot of money involved here. And Dana is not really religious about the rankings and who deserved the best but it's still about bringing the most money in his company.

Strickland just went into a dominating performance against Costa which further solidifies his claim of getting another title shot. Now Strickland has to fight again or wait for nearly a year of his title shot. Whereas Adesanya did not even make a single tune up since losing his belt. But somehow, I am more excited in this fight. I want Dricus to fully dominate or hopefully stop Adesanya and then rematch Strickland again.

Hardly a conspiracy theory. Disney have proved they will be pushing their homo/trans agenda onto kids even at the cost of their stock taking a nose dive (for some strange reason parents are not super excited for their children being openly indoctrinated by deranged corpo's CEOs). So no one should be shocked if they actually imposed some quiet ban on Strickland.
But let's face it, 90% of any hype is an effect of social media popularity, not legacy media coverage, so I don't think that would make any real difference.


I'm not a big fan of Izzy, but I don't mind him fighting DPP. They cannot allow situation when 2 same guys are consistently fighting each other, so they have to throw some other fighters in the mix. Whoever wins, will probably have to defend either against Strickland or Whittaker (if he goes past Aliskerov).

they didn't expect strickland to defeat izzy by any chance. only a few fans of strickland expect an upset that will happen but the majority predicted izzy. it was a one-hit-wonder strickland and lost in his first title defense. but it was a very close fight. but the one that strickland dominated badly takes the title shot. great decision by dana, and so UFC is becoming like boxing.

Du Plessis is more African than Adesanya.

About the title, I agree and Strickland really deserves more to fight than Adesanya, since, as you rightly argued, their fight was very close and Strickland has already beaten Adesanya.

Maybe for marketing reasons they don't want Strickland

^  Yup...  I really thought Strickland was gonna get his rematch.  It was a really close match between him and DDP, some guys even thought Strickland won.  Even Dana White thought Strickland won...  And he's just won vs a tough guy in Costa and they're giving the title shot to another guy who Strickland dominated?    

But I guess it also works in his favor.  If DDP wins, Strickland gets his rematch.  If Adesanya wins, he does what he did it all over again.

UFC Free Fight:  Whittaker vs Costa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Eg6VzMsWx8

UFC Free Fight:  Aliskerov vs Hawes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCKpMdqTQJ4

^  Who do you guys got in the main even this weekend?

The first comment (from the picture) is rather funny and discussible On one hand, Strickland would deserve a title fight, as his fight with DDP was close. On the other hand, Izzy already used his wild card for a title fight when he quickly got a rematch against Pereira. But if we look on the picture in general, Izzy has got enough achievements in middleweight to have this fight. Also, Who else should DDP fight? Everyone else from the top of middleweight got their fights recently, and for Izzy to have a third fight against Vettori (as he havent fought lately) is stupid.

They have their taste of wickedness there and the Dagis are also dominating in the other FCs.
Found out that Taira wasn't the first to have executed this takedown. Someone on social media pointed this out. Tatsumitsu Wada another Japanese from ONEchamp also did it against Demetrious Johnson - |https://youtu.be/Hdm32AInJO8?t=114  DJfortunately survived and won.


https://www.instagram.com/p/C8UB0T-t10u/
Izzy is back on 305 by the way. He also posted this on his Insta. The King of Africa vs the China man  

They will really have a hard time getting fans in Asia. Because without someone to represent or take the lead spontaneously, they won't achieve much. And on top of all that, the fighter needs to be good.

Uh, dunno...  I'm thinking about it judging from their record and not from who's mouth is open.  So it's more likely that the Taira could fade at R4 imho.  But I guess we'll never really know. 

Next main event looks like it will be another sketchy one.  If Whittaker loses here then I think he won't be give another crack at the title.

Date:  Saturday, June 22
Main Card (ESPN/ESPN+):  3:00pm EST
Preliminary Card (ESPN/ESPN+):  12:00pm EST
Venue:  Kingdom Arena, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Live Streams:



Main Card (ESPN/ESPN+)
Middleweight:  Robert Whittaker vs Ikram Aliskerov   
Heavyweight:  Sergei Pavlovich vs Alexander Volkov
Welterweight:  Kelvin Gastelum vs Daniel Rodriguez
Featherweight:  Muhammad Naimov vs Melsik Baghdasaryan
Light Heavyweight:  Johnny Walker vs Volkan Oezdemir

Preliminary Card (ESPN/ESPN+)
Middleweight:  Sharabutdin Magomedov vs Joilton Lutterbach
Lightweight:  Nasrat Haqparast vs Jared Gordon
Welterweight:  Rinat Fakhretdinov vs Nicolas Dalby
Bantamweight:  Kang Kyung-ho vs Muin Gafurov            
Light Heavyweight:  Magomed Gadzhiyasulov vs Brendson Ribeiro
Bantamweight:  Xiao Long vs Lee Chang-ho

We can say that Tatsuro Taira is built differently but that eye poke is really consistent I really don't know if it was intentional or if Alex Perez was making the other eye pokes an alibi from that 1st initial eye poke because there is an angle that Taira's finger didn't really touch Perez's eyes, but that body triangle was initially the reason why Perez knee snaps from carrying the weight of Tatsuro Taira and that lean back was the time when his knee was injured and for sure Taira has used the gravity on his side to win this fight, Taira was like Naoya Inoue in the MMA industry.


Yup! That 1st eye poke was a legit eye poke but those other eye pokes I really don't know if that really connects or if Alex Perez making it up because there are angles on the fight that it seems that the fingers were too far from Perez's eyes this is just what I have seen from the footage that I have watched and initially, it seems that Perez is just making excuse for him to take a breather but yeah Tatsuro Taira was really something that body triangle was really something and he is not letting go of Perez at all while Perez is still standing up Taira cling for dear life and that is when the snap was heard by the ref as they are going down the canvas and yes even though Taira was exceptional he isn't ready for a title shot I agree on that,

That UFC Fight Night Saudi Arabia that we are having this week is like a Main Event The fight card was really stock of great fights and if not for Khamzat Chimaev's illness this would have been really an incredible fight but maybe this is what he needed his last fight against Kamaru Usman was not that great and I think that he should have done even better but maybe because of this illness his cardio was really affected by it, Said Nurmagomedov also withdrew from this card, but for me, this is really a stock card.

Dont forget that Taira eye poked several times. It was 2 or 3 of them. Why dont ref gave him a warning? Even if the fight goes full distance, Taira must have got -1 point for that, and it would be 10-8 first round or draw in second. It was going to split win for Perez. It looks like Taira is not #5, hope he wont get a title fight as a next fight, because eyes pokes and a win due to injury - imho that should not give a greed light for a title fight.

So bad that Chimaev is out. Now Aliskerov is facing his first opponent from top15, and suddenly a #3, former champ. Aliskerov must have fought agains Muniz last weekend, instead got Whittaker on short notice. Yes, I call it short notice, because he trained for Muniz who has 15/24 wins are by sub, now his opponent is totally different.

^ 3 Judges gave R1 to Perez. The knee injury just sealed it though. If it didn't happen, I think the fight would go up to 4th round, and eventually, Perez would gas out, he started to open his mouth at R1 already. Body triangle and then bent backward while Taira lifts Perez's leg to take him down, haven't seen that before.


Oh no. It's possible. And Dana couldn't do something about it. He badly needs the marketing now that PFL and OneFC are increasingly grabbing fans. UFC even needs to find someone to replace The Korean Zombie's popularity. We'll see if Trump is on UFC 303, if not then something is going on.

^  It's possible cos why does he even want to come back and fight in the cage again?  He has done everything that needed to be done in the UFC...  Fame, money and winning a couple of belts.  He prolly gets an itch to get back from time to time but when it's time to actually do it, he flaked out...  Just like he did Chandler.

Anyway here are the results...  Perez clearly won R1 and it was unfortunate that he blew his knee in R2.  It would've been 1 - 1 going to R3 imho as Taira was riding Perez's back for most of the minutes in R2. 

Tatsuro Taira def Alex Perez  Injury R2
Miles Johns def Douglas Silva de Andrade  UD
Lucas Almeida def Timothy Cuamba  UD
Brady Hiestand def Garrett Armfield  SUB R3
Asu Almabayev def Jose Johnson  UD
Adam Fugitt def Josh Quinlan  SD
Nate Maness def Jimmy Flick  UD
Gabriella Fernandes def Carli Judice  SD
Westin Wilson def Jeka Saragih  SUB R1
Melquizael Costa def Shayilan Nuerdanbieke  SUB R3
Josefine Lindgren Knutsson def Julia Polastri  UD

Shame that McGregor will not fight soon, I was looking forward to seeing him in The Octagon are such a long absence.

Part of me is a bit suspicious of his claims of injury, we will never know but his lifestyle outside of The Octagon maybe brings a question about how hungry he is to resume his fighting career. We’ll never know as he won’t admit it.

Have you noticed that Sean Strickland has disappeared from the radars? He used to be all around, specially after beating Izzy. I remember it was 4-1 by rounds against Izzy. Which means it wasnt a lucky win. Then he lost to Dricus, but it was a split win by Dricus. And Dana told it was 3-2 Strickland if he was a judge. (and it would be fair to have a rematch). The Strickland won Costa. Where is Strickland now? Rarely we see him on media today.

Found such conspiracy theory Strickland isnt very smart when he talk. He blame all that LGBTQ stuff for example. Now take a look where UFC fights are often aired. ESPN. ESPN is owned by Disney mostly. Wiki say that The Walt Disney Company has been criticized for making purportedly sexist and racist content in the past, putting LGBT+ elements in their films, and not having enough LGBT+ representation.. So there is a theory, that Disney ordered to shut Stricklands mouth Otherwise UFC might get some troubles.

^  I still don't know how some people rate McGregor higher than Chandler.  But the match was supposed to be in 170, so maybe McGregor has a slight advantage.  But with the three year lay off, dunno...  And he's been partying a lot.  Lol.

But yeah...  Time to move on.


Oof that's nasty bro.

Anyway, here are the weigh in results.  All fighters made weight except one which was cancelled.

Alex Perez (126) vs Tatsuro Taira (126)
Miles Johns (135) vs Douglas Silva de Andrade (136)
Lucas Almeida (146) vs Timmy Cuamba (145)
Garrett Armfield (135.5) vs Brady Hiestand (135)
Asu Almabayev (125.5) vs Jose Johnson (126)
Adam Fugitt (170) vs Josh Quinlan (169.5)
Tagir Ulanbekov (129.5)* vs Joshua Van (125.5)
Jimmy Flick (126) vs Nate Maness (125.5)
Gabriella Fernandes (126) vs Carli Judice (125.5)
Jeka Saragih (145) vs Westin Wilson (146)
Melquizael Costa (145) vs Shayilan Nuerdanbieke (145.5)
Josefine Knutsson (114.5) vs Julia Polastri (116)

*Missed weight

UFC Fight Night:  Perez vs Taira Weigh Ins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3wvZpPyIMU

UFC Fight Night:  Perez vs Taira Face Offs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d603LO7r6b4