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UFC Fight Island (251) Usman v Masvidal

Usman or Masvidal?

  • Total voters
    36
  • Poll closed .
Carton

Carton

Member
Good job by Masdival. The short notice had a major impact on his gas tank, but he used it wisely: an explosive start for his chance of an early finish, and then later small bursts. Pretty disappointing Usman didn’t pour it on more given the obviously fatigued Jorge.
 
JimiNutz

JimiNutz

Banned
JimiNutz said:
Got my beers, weed, wings and nuts ready.
Gonna stay up until 5am to watch this, which I rarely do these days, but the card is absolutely stacked.

Expecting to win:

Usman
Volk
Yan
Rose
Ribas


Want to win:

Masvidal
Holloway
Aldo
Rose
Don't care
Click to expand...

So my expected picks were all 'right' in the end - although I definitely think Max won his fight so I don't consider it an accurate prediction on my part.

Was pleased to see Rose avenge her loss and although Aldo lost I think he can be proud of his performance against the younger, stronger Yan.

Disappointed for Holloway but think he comes back strong anyway as he knows he won that fight.

Masvidal did about as well as expected given the circumstances and Usman fought a very smart fight.

Goddamn it's 7am now lol
Time to go running with the dog to burn off some of this energy.
 
Yoboman

Yoboman

Member
Night.Ninja said:
Did you not see the body work lol
Click to expand...
The baby punches to the stomach? I saw

Its boring as shit. There is a reason boxing breaks clinches

Obviously MMA is different but if you are only using the clinch for point counting it is a bad precedent. If your clinch isn't advancing to a takedown attempt within a certain time it should be separated IMO
 
Night.Ninja

Night.Ninja

Banned
Yoboman said:
The baby punches to the stomach? I saw

Its boring as shit. There is a reason boxing breaks clinches

Obviously MMA is different but if you are only using the clinch for point counting it is a bad precedent. If your clinch isn't advancing to a takedown attempt within a certain time it should be separated IMO
Click to expand...

LOL baby punches, tbh I use to be like you captain casual but still

Go back to playing video games
 
StreetsofBeige

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Yoboman said:
UFC should break clinches if the fighter isn't looking to move position or takedown
Click to expand...
I agree.

Another thing refs should do is stop grappling when nothing's going on quicker. Refs do have discretion and will break them up, but it sure seems to take forever before the ref does that.
 
Yoboman

Yoboman

Member
Night.Ninja said:
LOL baby punches, tbh I use to be like you captain casual but still

Go back to playing video games
Click to expand...
Clinch punches are literally the lowest leverage, least damaging punches you can do. Usman literally had dozens and dozens of them and didnt stop his opponent

Have you been in a spar before? They are annoying, they can sometimes take your wind if you're not ready but more than anything they are just draining because you're constantly preparing your body against them.

And there is certainly no entertainment in watching it

They don't allow you to hold one position on the ground so Im not sure why they allow it on the fence
 
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Carton

Carton

Member
Yoboman said:
They don't allow you to hold one position on the ground so Im not sure why they allow it on the fence
Click to expand...

The issue I have with both of these is it rewards a passive opponent who makes no attempts to escape or mount an offence. In the guard, you can just close it and hug your opponent and beg the ref to stand it up, rather than open the guard and attempt some sweeps, submissions and escapes. Likewise, the clinch can be neutralised with aggressive defence and rewarding that with referee intervention removes incentive for offense. I’d rather a fighter have to take some risks and fight their way out which will then open up the game a lot more, and allow us to see more facets of MMA.
 
Yoboman

Yoboman

Member
Carton said:
The issue I have with both of these is it rewards a passive opponent who makes no attempts to escape or mount an offence. In the guard, you can just close it and hug your opponent and beg the ref to stand it up, rather than open the guard and attempt some sweeps, submissions and escapes. Likewise, the clinch can be neutralised with aggressive defence and rewarding that with referee intervention removes incentive for offense. I’d rather a fighter have to take some risks and fight their way out which will then open up the game a lot more, and allow us to see more facets of MMA.
Click to expand...
You make a great point

However I think its an overall better balance for the defender to shut down momentum of the clinch and wrestling and the attacker to be countering that, than the attacker being the one who wants to shut down momentum and hold a position. Afterall the attacker is already in the advantageous position
 
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carlosrox

carlosrox

Banned
Well that main event certainly coulda been more exciting.

For me the win was a bit diminished by the short notice opponent and how the fight ended up going. Like of course it's gonna be easier to tire a guy with no training out by playing that pressure game with no real damage.

I understand why, but that was a way safe win. Masvidal basically didn't have a chance to match that pressure game.

Nothing against Usman but it was pretty boring.
 
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Carton

Carton

Member
Yoboman said:
You make a great point

However I think its an overall better balance for the defender to shut down momentum of the clinch and wrestling and the attacker to be countering that, than the attacker being the one who wants to shut down momentum and hold a position. Afterall the attacker is already in the advantageous position
Click to expand...

I see your point. I must admit my opinion is biased by my particular interest in grappling and my preference for fights and their outcomes to hold true to old school MMA/Vale Tudo that were without or had longer rounds. Rounds have provided free stand ups and breaks from the clinch, so additional interference by refs, who have been in the past been over-zealous with them from my perspective, risks deviating further from the roots of the sport. It may mean less entertaining fights, but some of it can be countered by incentivising action as mentioned and also better scoring i.e. a takedown is rewarded, but hanging out on top in guard and doing nothing is no more favoured than a guy chilling out defensively from the bottom, so both fighters had better work.
 
mekes

mekes

Member
Only watched the last 3, in reverse order which I think ended up being a good choice.

Usman is boring. Honestly the most boring champion to watch since Tim Silvia.

Max won. What in the world? Poor result to a good fight.

First time watching Yan. I like him, solid fighter. I can’t believe Aldo is only 33, I thought he was at least 5 years older. Ref should be embarrassed with that stoppage, poor reading of that situation. Feel sorry for Aldo having that ref.
 
McCheese

McCheese

Member
Glad I didn't stay up for that Usman performance. 25 minutes of hugging and foot stomps is almost Woodley levels of boring.

Holloway deserved the win, but if your the challenger you have to dominate those middle rounds so can't blame the judges for keeping the status quo.
 
Irobot82

Irobot82

Member
MaestroMike said:
Strikers are usually more entertaining, but I think its very interesting seeing top-level strikers get neutralized by wrestlers and burning their gas tank.
Click to expand...

I think most people's complaints weren't them getting neutralized but the fact that Marty couldn't do much with it. Like Askren used to do at One and (the other place) or Khabib. Neutralize and then have their way with them. Khabib is the best at this. Once he has in his grasp it's game over, you are getting stomped. Marty wasn't doing much more than foot stomping like Jones used to do.
 
GymWolf

GymWolf

Member
MaestroMike said:
lol jorge only got cut from some headbutts and stopped plenty of takedowns and kept getting back up when he got taken down. other than that neither fighter looked damaged
Click to expand...
it was still a pretty dominant performance by usman, and jorge did absolutely nothing during the standup were he was supposedly the better man.

jorge said himself during the post fight conference, it was a pretty shitty performance and he knows it.
 
MaestroMike

MaestroMike

Gold Member
GymWolf said:
it was still a pretty dominant performance by usman, and jorge did absolutely nothing during the standup were he was supposedly the better man.

jorge said himself during the post fight conference, it was a pretty shitty performance and he knows it.
Click to expand...

actually now that I think about it jorge's toes must be pretty sore usman did like 1,000 toe stomps lol
 
GymWolf

GymWolf

Member
Perfect visual representation of halloway not winning the title saturday night

eyqh3dt39ka51.jpg
 
highrider

highrider

Banned
GymWolf said:
it was still a pretty dominant performance by usman, and jorge did absolutely nothing during the standup were he was supposedly the better man.

jorge said himself during the post fight conference, it was a pretty shitty performance and he knows it.
Click to expand...

No, not dominant at all. He showed he couldn’t stand with a Jorge early on and naturally magnetized towards the crotch and foot stomps. That will be the last PPV you see in the UFC where he’s the top card. Universally has been called a trash performance. Nobody even wants to see that dude fight. It really says something when you have 3 and 4 ranked fighters that are much bigger draws than the champ.
 
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GymWolf

GymWolf

Member
highrider said:
No, not dominant at all. He showed he couldn’t stand with a Jorge early on and naturally magnetized towards the crotch and foot stomps. That will be the last PPV you see in the UFC where he’s the top card. Universally has been called a trash performance. Nobody even wants to see that dude fight. It really says something when you have 3 and 4 ranked fighters that are much bigger draws than the champ.
Click to expand...
And even with that in mind he was still absolutely dominant because he completely nullified masvidal, i don't care if it was boring, it was not the point in discussion.
You can try to move the goalpost, doesn't change the fact that usman did what he want with masvidal and he was NEVER in danger not even for a second, if this is not the definition of dominant i don't know what to say.
It's masvidal fault if he can't keep usman away from him, look at volkanosky or jones trying to takedown holloway and reyes, they didn't had any success because their opponent had giod tqkedown and grappling defense, you can clearly see the difference in their defense compared to masvidal.

Don't be fooled by masvidal having an explosive first round, he still did nothing in term of damage.
Watch the 4th round, between the graplling usman was the one who threw the most clear punches during the entire fight, masvidal almost never hitted usman clean in 25 minutes except for a couple of body kicks (and usman returned a couple of them as well)
Even pillow punch colby did more damage to usman lol...
 
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highrider

highrider

Banned
GymWolf said:
And even with that in mind he was still absolutely dominant because he completely nullified masvidal, i don't care if it was boring, it was not the point in discussion.
You can try to move the goalpost, doesn't change the fact that usman did what he want with masvidal and he was NEVER in danger not even for a second, if this is not the definition of dominant i don't know what to say.
It's masvidal fault if he can't keep usman away from him, look at volkanosky or jones trying to takedown holloway and reyes, they didn't had any success because their opponent had giod tqkedown and grappling defense, you can clearly see the difference in their defense compared to masvidal.

Don't be fooled by masvidal having an explosive first round, he still did nothing in term of damage.
Watch the 4th round, between the graplling usman was the one who threw the most clear punches during the entire fight, masvidal almost never hitted usman clean in 25 minutes except for a couple of body kicks (and usman returned a couple of them as well)
Even pillow punch colby did more damage to usman lol...
Click to expand...

Usman at least traded with Colby, every time there was any extended stand up Masvidal was piecing him up, and Usman wisely used his strength to hug it out, I get it . It’s a smart move and I take nothing away from his ability. But dominant performance?! I don’t know what Nebraskan/Nigerian weed you were smoking when you watched that fight 😂
 
GymWolf

GymWolf

Member
highrider said:
Usman at least traded with Colby, every time there was any extended stand up Masvidal was piecing him up, and Usman wisely used his strength to hug it out, I get it . It’s a smart move and I take nothing away from his ability. But dominant performance?! I don’t know what Nebraskan/Nigerian weed you were smoking when you watched that fight 😂
Click to expand...
It was piecing nothing lol..,exactly like conor disn't pieced anything against khabib, just look at usman face after the fight.

But i get it, you are one of those people who like mma only when it's really a boxing or kick boxing match inside an octagon, not everyone loves wrestling and grappling.

I was extremely pleased by usman making masvidal his bitch for 25 minutes after all the shit talk 🕺
 
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highrider

highrider

Banned
GymWolf said:
It was piecing nothing lol..,exactly like conor disn't pieced anything against khabib, just look at usman face after the fight.

But i get it, you are one of those people who like mma only when it's really a boxing or kick boxing match inside an octagon, not everyone loves wrestling and grappling.

I was extremely pleased by usman making masvidal his bitch for 25 minutes after all the shit talk 🕺
Click to expand...
GymWolf said:
It was piecing nothing lol..,exactly like conor disn't pieced anything against khabib, just look at usman face after the fight.

But i get it, you are one of those people who like mma only when it's really a boxing or kick boxing match inside an octagon, not everyone loves wrestling and grappling.

I was extremely pleased by usman making masvidal his bitch for 25 minutes after all the shit talk 🕺
Click to expand...

No I appreciate entertaining grappling. Not hugging it out and foot taps. Colby said it best, UFC, Ultimate Footsie Championship.
 
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