Essential The Official MMA Thread

OfTheCross

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Keeping my overhead low, and my understand high
He took three hard kicks square in the solar plexus in the first round alone. That sh*t kills unless you have abs of steel.


I just saw it again... That definitely took some wind out of him.

Even with that he controlled the fight in the ground in round 2...

Once the fight for back up he should've got on his bike for the last ten seconds
 
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The Last of the Outlaws
I thought he said he felt he was ready but he'd like to try it with a full camp. He mentioned it a couple of times, but it didn't come off as full blown excuse making.

Credit to him for stepping up tho'.

No doubt. Chad gets nothing but respect for stepping up on that short of notice. Hopefully he's not in that Rich Franklin purgatory now because he does have the ability to beat the champ (aldo or Connor)

I just didn't like hearing him verbalize the sentiment since it's now one of the talking point for people who kept moving the goal posts against Connor online the last two weeks, it wasn't pretty for him but he ultimately survived a really good wrestler.
 

The ADD

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I missed that part.. But you could tell he was a little gassed even in the first round
Physique wise he wasn't the same either. He looked the same from weigh-in to fight. He usually is much fuller. I doubt he had trouble making weight but his body composition didn't look as it has recently.
 

storyteller

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Yoel Romero could put weidman out. Ain't no need to be trying to match weidman up with any 205er let alone the greatest 205 of all time :skip:

There's plenty of dangerous opposition for weidman at 185

Souza, Romero, Rockhold and Weidman are all threats to each other. That division is really interesting.

I'm interested to see how WW plays out now. I'm not as hype about Hendricks vs Lawler 3 as most people. I'd rather see Condit v Lawler, Woodley v Hendricks and then Rory v Matt Brown.

Conor vs Aldo is obvious. I wonder if Franky v Mendes should happen, seems like a tough match up for Franky but there's such a gap between Conor v Aldo that it makes sense. Mendes deserves a chance to get back in the mix since he took the fight on short notice and did more damage to Conor than anyone has (thought I don't like the short camp excuse personally, Conor had two weeks to switch gears from training for a stand up fight to trying to defend against the best wrestler in his division so it's a two way street). The sleeper in that division is gonna be who comes out of Holloway v Oliveira, one of those dudes could make noise against top five opposition.

Gunnar Nelson vs Demian Maia would be a fun fight to watch. That's just a random thought.
 

The Infamous

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Mendez went from "I'm always in shape/I'm always ready" in the lead up to "if only I had a full camp" right away in the press conference

Of course, he's going to say that before a fight. His job is to promote the fight, say 'he's in shape, he's ready, injury-free, 100%' the usual. In reality he was in shape, but not 'fight shape'. He definitely wasn't at his peak and you could tell. Dude pretty recently went 5 hard back and forth rounds with Aldo. Last night, he gassed within a round.
 

The Infamous

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And I'm not saying that Mendes (with a full camp) would definitely beat Conor, I'm just saying that things would've unfolded differently.
 

The Infamous

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Souza, Romero, Rockhold and Weidman are all threats to each other. That division is really interesting.

I'm interested to see how WW plays out now. I'm not as hype about Hendricks vs Lawler 3 as most people. I'd rather see Condit v Lawler, Woodley v Hendricks and then Rory v Matt Brown.

Conor vs Aldo is obvious. I wonder if Franky v Mendes should happen, seems like a tough match up for Franky but there's such a gap between Conor v Aldo that it makes sense. Mendes deserves a chance to get back in the mix since he took the fight on short notice and did more damage to Conor than anyone has (thought I don't like the short camp excuse personally, Conor had two weeks to switch gears from training for a stand up fight to trying to defend against the best wrestler in his division so it's a two way street). The sleeper in that division is gonna be who comes out of Holloway v Oliveira, one of those dudes could make noise against top five opposition.

Gunnar Nelson vs Demian Maia would be a fun fight to watch. That's just a random thought.

Mendes had to switch gears as well. Go from not fighting anyone to fighting one of the best and most unorthodox strikers in the division. That plus the fact he had a very short training camp put him in a more difficult situation than Conor.
 
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storyteller

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Mendes had to switch gears as well. Go from not fighting anyone to fighting one of the best and most unorthodox strikers in the division. That plus the fact he had a very short training camp put him a more difficult situation than Conor.

That's essentially why I say it's a two way street. He gets short time to prep but Conor has two weeks to get ready for his absolute worst style match up in the division. Both took a big risk accepting the match. The fight would definitely unfold differently if they both had a full camp to prep for each other, but the advantage could go either way.
 

The Infamous

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That's essentially why I say it's a two way street. He gets short time to prep but Conor has two weeks to get ready for his absolute worst style match up in the division. Both took a big risk accepting the match. The fight would definitely unfold differently if they both had a full camp to prep for each other, but the advantage could go either way.

Both took a risk, but Chad was clearly at a bigger disadvantage going into this fight.
 

storyteller

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Both took a risk, but Chad was clearly at a bigger disadvantage going into this fight.

Only after he lost. Look at the lead up and a majority of fighters were picking Mendes because of the style advantage which left Conor no time to prep. Here's a good example

http://www.foxsports.com/ufc/story/...-conor-mcgregor-is-terrified-right-now-070715

"Every fight Conor has had has been a great matchup for him. This is the first fight where you're like, 'Oh....' You're talking about the No. 1 ranked guy in the world, and there's a reason why Conor McGregor leapfrogged him for a title shot. Chad Mendes is a nightmare for him," he said

It's a two way street. Conor was really wise to go heavy on the body kicks knowing the situation, but that game plan had a lot to do with Mendes gassing so quickly.
 

The Infamous

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Only after he lost. Look at the lead up and a majority of fighters were picking Mendes because of the style advantage which left Conor no time to prep. Here's a good example

http://www.foxsports.com/ufc/story/...-conor-mcgregor-is-terrified-right-now-070715



It's a two way street. Conor was really wise to go heavy on the body kicks knowing the situation, but that game plan had a lot to do with Mendes gassing so quickly.

Both of their situations were not ideal, but Mendes was at a bigger disadvantage going into this fight. If you can't see that, I don't know what to tell you.

The body kicks did have an effect on him (did contribute to him gassing), but you could also see that he clearly wasn't at his best. Aldo dropped/hurt him (I believe) 3 times in their fight and Mendes still recovered, came forward and returned fire. His conditioning, speed, power, fluidity, striking combos, etc were on point in that fight.

A lot of fighters/fans/media were talking about the fact that Conor has had a full camp to train, while Mendes has had 2 weeks and how that could play a big role in the fight.
 

storyteller

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Both of their situations were not ideal, but Mendes was at a bigger disadvantage going into this fight. If you can't see that, I don't know what to tell you.

The body kicks did have an effect on him (did contribute to him gassing), but you could also see that he clearly wasn't at his best. Aldo dropped/hurt him (I believe) 3 times in their fight and Mendes still recovered, came forward and returned fire. His conditioning, speed, power, fluidity, striking combos, etc were on point in that fight.

A lot of fighters/fans/media were talking about the fact that Conor has had a full camp to train, while Mendes has had 2 weeks and how that could play a big role in the fight.

You can say Mendes would have been sharper, but Conor could just have easily stuffed more takedowns with a full camp. But heading in, the vast majority picked Mendes because of his stylistic advantage.

http://mmajunkie.com/2015/07/who-ya-got-fighters-predict-conor-mcgregor-vs-chad-mendes-at-ufc-189

The common thread is that Conor won't be able to handle wrestling, and on two weeks notice that advantage is even more pronounced. It's a wash and I think whoever lost was going to get away with this "he only had two weeks" excuse.
 
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