The Official MMA Thread

[Stickman]

**It was a night of big surprises at UFC 196 with a large number of underdogs coming through, the two biggest being Nate Diaz and Miesha Tate in the top two fights of the night. The results of each fight of the main fights provides a lot of interesting directions over a number of weight divisions and how the matchmaking will be affected when laying out UFC 200.

In the main event, Nate Diaz submitted Conor McGregor in the second round, in a fight that McGregor was winning before tiring in the second and Diaz swarming him with strikes and McGregor describing it as going “into panic mode”. McGregor went for the takedown and led to him being mounted by Diaz and then securing the back and fight-ending submission. There are many questions for McGregor and his plans after this loss, with McGregor indicating that going back to featherweight and defending his title is the likely scenario for his next fight, against either Jose Aldo or Frankie Edgar at UFC 200. McGregor had the easiest weight cut of his career, looked healthy all week and weighed in at 168 pounds, while Diaz was 169 pounds on short notice. McGregor was dealing with a larger opponent than he is used to fighting, but Diaz is not a traditional welterweight by any stretch and is a career lightweight, who simply couldn’t make that weight on the short notice.

There are welterweights that McGregor would match up better with, although the question becomes how much he is sacrificing in power when dealing with the larger weight class and his stamina was an issue on Saturday night by carrying the extra weight into the cage. McGregor at 145 pounds is not perfect because he cuts an extreme amount and looks awful come weigh-in day and lightweight is probably the best weight class from both a health and performance perspective. The upside being he hits very hard and accurate and a lot of the featherweights struggle with his power, whereas a larger fighter like Diaz was able to eat a lot of strikes and wait out McGregor’s cardio. McGregor did leave the idea of fighting again at welterweight open and stated he would hope to earn a lightweight title shot again in the future.

In the women’s bantamweight picture, Miesha Tate winning the title is hardly a problem as many fear this corrupts all the hopes for the rematch between Holly Holm and Ronda Rousey. Based on Dana White’s interview on FS 1 after the card, Rousey seems interested in fighting Tate for a third time. The combination of Rousey’s return from her first loss, going after the title as the challenger, the grudge element with Tate and her rival holding the title makes that third fight huge. It all depends on Rousey’s timetable and when she is willing to fight again and if Tate winning the title speeds up a return. Rousey was wise not to rush the rematch with Holm because that fight requires a sustained period of rebuilding for Rousey, whereas the Tate fight is one Rousey has the knowledge that she has beaten her twice, although Tate is significantly improved in her striking since the second fight.

**The announced crowd was 14,898 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena and a live gate of $8.1 million. The live attendance and gate were down from the UFC 194 card in December, which did a gate of $10.1 million. This show will still register as the second largest MMA gate in the history of Nevada, with McGregor responsible for the top-three MMA gates in the history of the state. Below are the results from last night’s show:
*Teruto Ishihara def. Julian Erosa by KO at 0:34 of Round 2
*Jason Saggo def. Justin Salas by TKO at 4:31 of Round 1
*Diego Sanchez def. Jim Miller by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Darren Elkins def. Chas Skelly by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-27, 30-26) – The first round was close but Elkins took over from the mid-way point of the first and dominated Skelly throughout the fight
*Vitor Miranda def. Marcelo Guimaraes by TKO at 1:09 of Round 2 – Miranda landed a head kick and followed with strikes for the finish
*Nordine Taleb def. Erick Silva by KO at 1:34 of Round 2 – Silva used a dirty tactic by trying to bump fists with Taleb in the middle of the fight, faked and went to punch Taleb and catch him off guard. Taleb going his rhythm in the second with a leg kick-right hand combination that was working, caught a kick and drilled him with a right to the forehead and put Silva down and finished him
*Siyar Bahadurzada def. Brandon Thatch by arm-triangle choke at 4:11 of Round 3 – Not a great performance from Thatch, who was very tired as the fight wore on and was easily taken down throughout the fight and then submitted in the third. Bahadurzada had not fought since December 2013
*Amanda Nunes def. Valentina Shevchenko by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-27, 29-27) – It was a close first round and then Shevchenko had her only success in the third and took that round. Nunes is a title contender but won’t get the fight if Rousey is ready or they opt for a Holm rematch
*Corey Anderson def. Tom Lawlor by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28) – Lawlor won the first round and rocked Anderson with a flurry so the 30-27 scores didn’t make a lot of sense. The second round was super close and then Anderson won the third round.
*Ilir Latifi def. Gian Villante by unanimous decision (30-27 all) – Latifi won all three rounds, threw Villante around with slams but this wasn’t the kind of fight that left you excited for whatever is next for Latifi
*Miesha Tate def. Holly Holm by technical submission due to a rear-naked choke at 3:30 of Round 5 – A great fight, Holm was ahead on the cards going into the fifth round and all three judges gave Tate a 10-8 for Round 2, so had Tate not finished her in the fifth it would have been a draw
*Nate Diaz def. Conor McGregor by rear-naked choke at 4:12 of Round 2 – Another great fight, McGregor won the first and did a lot of damage to Diaz’s face. Diaz absorbed a lot of damage in the second before McGregor slowed down and allowed Diaz to land his big shots and McGregor said he went into panic mode while Diaz was in “auto pilot” with his strikes coming at a high volume

**The Fight of the Night bonus went to Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor and the Performance of the Night bonuses went to Nate Diaz and Miesha Tate. They all received $50,000 for their respective bonuses and a whole lot more when all is said and done.

**The UFC doesn’t have another card until Saturday March 19th when they run Brisbane, Australia for a Fight Night with Frank Mir taking on Mark Hunt in the heavyweight main event. The show will air Sunday morning in Australia and Saturday night in North America.

**There was a preview of a sit down interview with Joe Rogan speaking to Daniel Cormier and Jon Jones to build up UFC 197. The full sit down will be running on Fight Pass in the near future. The clip they aired on the pay-per-view featured Cormier stating that he is “willing to die” in order to beat Jones. Jones acknowledged that he did lose his title (he was stripped) but that Cormier is not the real champion, which will be the main storyline of the rematch.

[AndySlash]

[Stickman]

**UFC strawweight Paige VanZant will be part of the next season of “Dancing with the Stars” with the news released today. VanZant will join such celebrities as Mischa Barton, Jodie Sweetin, Geraldo Rivera, Marla Maples and Doug Flutie on the 22nd season, which premieres on ABC on March 21st.

**The announce team is set for the UR Fight card on Sunday March 20th in Phoenix, Arizona. The promotion has announced that the team will consist of Jim Ross, Sean Wheelock, Quinton Jackson, Cyrus Fees and Jennifer Sterger.

**The UFC has released the latest episode of “Dana White: Lookin’ for a Fight” with Dana White, Matt Serra and Nick the Tooth:

[Stickman]

**Marc Raimondi at MMA Fighting reported today that both Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson and Ken Shamrock failed their pre-fight drug tests at Bellator 149. The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation oversaw the event and had already issued a 30-day medical suspension to Shamrock, coming off his TKO loss to Royce Gracie on February 19th. The commission will not disclose any records or comment on the suspensions to either fighter other than both have issued administrative suspensions. Bellator has not yet released a statement regarding the fighters.

**A statement was released today by the UFC that Felipe Oliveiri had failed a pre-fight drug test, ahead of his bout with Tony Martin this past January at the UFC on FOX card in Newark, New Jersey. Martin submitted Oliveiri in the fight and the penalty for his drug test failure is unknown at this time.

**UFC president Dana White was a guest on ESPN to discuss the events coming out of UFC 196. The topic getting the most discussion is White’s reaction to Holly Holm’s loss to Miesha Tate and the decision by Holm’s management to take this fight with Tate. White believed Holm should have waited for the rematch with Ronda Rousey because of how big that fight was going to be (and still would be if it was signed tomorrow). White stated that the meeting to set up the Tate fight was conducted without Holm present for the meeting and left to her management, with White believing they failed her. Holm’s manager, Lenny Fresquez, has since responded to ESPN and stated that Holm absolutely wanted the fight with Tate. White noted in his interview that Holm did make a lot of money for the fight with Tate and it’s hard to criticize the decision to take the fight. Holm is 34 years old, she has points on the performance of the pay-per-view and with the addition of Conor McGregor it was a slam dunk that this card was doing a gigantic number and Holm would share in that. On top of that, Holm likely would have missed a full year with Ronda Rousey unlikely to return until the end of the year for the Holm fight, so it left Holm with the option of making a lot of money and staying active or waiting on Rousey, which would benefit Rousey to delay as long as possible.

**FOX Sports reported today that Mauricio “Shogun” Rua has suffered an injury and is off of the April 16th FOX card in Tampa, where he was scheduled to fight Rashad Evans. Evans will now be fighting Glover Teixeira in his place on the same card. Shogun and Evans was an attempt to put together a fight that was originally scheduled for March 2011 at UFC 128 for the light heavyweight title. In that instance, Evans was injured and then-teammate Jon Jones stepped in and defeated Shogun for the title.

**AXS TV has announced that Mauro Ranallo will be the new co-host of “Inside MMA” alongside Bas Rutten. The popular news show began in 2007 with Kenny Rice serving as the co-host with Rutten up until this point. Ranallo has to be the busiest man in combat sports broadcasting as he will now be calling WWE Smackdown, Showtime Championship Boxing, GLORY kickboxing and now adding Inside MMA to his duties, alongside his weekly podcast with Rutten. Rice will remain on the program as a special correspondent, as will reporter Ron Kruck. Ranallo’s first episode will air on Friday March 25th at 12:30am ET / 9:30pm Pacific.

**The return of Chris Leben has been stopped and it is possible he will never fight again. Last month, Bellator announced they had signed the former UFC fighter, who had been released from his UFC contract and had not fought since December 2012. It was reported by MMANYTT out of Sweden that Leben was suffering from a serious heart ailment and wouldn’t be able to fight with Leben confirming that he does have a heart issue to MMA Fighting.

**The UFC 196 preliminary card averaged 1,843,000 viewers this past Saturday with Siyar Bahadurzada and Brandon Thatch headlining the prelim portion and also going up against a replay of Bellator 149 on Spike. The FS 1 pre-fight coverage did 767,000 viewers leading into the prelim fights and the post-fight coverage averaged 377,000 viewers after the pay-per-view ended.

**This past Saturday night, Spike ran a replay of the Bellator 149 event with Royce Gracie vs. Ken Shamrock and Kimbo Slice vs. Dada 5000. The show went head-to-head with the last hour of the UFC 196 preliminary card and the first hour of the pay-per-view. The Bellator replay averaged 549,000 viewers.

**UFC heavyweight Ruslan Magomedov has suffered a knee injury and is out of his fight with Gabriel Gonzaga, which was scheduled for April 10th in Zagreb, Croatia. That show is headlined by Ben Rothwell taking on Junior dos Santos.

[Stickman]

**Below are the main card results from the World Series of Fighting 29 card on Saturday night from Denver, Colorado and airing on NBCSN and Fight Network:
*Kris Hocum def. Josh Cavan by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
*Louis Taylor def. Coru Devela by technical guillotine submission at 0:29 of Round 1 – Taylor locked on a standing guillotine and Devela was out on his feet from the submission
*Josh Copeland def. Mike Hayes by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Justin Gaethje def. Brian Foster by TKO at 1:43 of Round 1 – Gaethje attacked the leg and stopped him with leg kicks as Foster couldn’t stand on the bad leg

**If you missed the Prestige FC 2 card from Saturday night in Regina, there was a great main event between featherweights Kurt Southern and Nick Rhoads for the promotion’s featherweight title. The first round was just outstanding and one of the best rounds I’ve seen this year. Rhoads got the submission win in the third and it was an outstanding fight. On the same card, Charmaine Tweet defeated Jessica Miele with a unanimous decision victory.

**Tyson Kidd was in attendance at the Prestige FC 2 card on Saturday night.

**The Courier Mail out of Australia reports that Damien Brown is going to take the empty slot at next weekend’s UFC Fight Night event in Brisbane and fight Alan Patrick on a week’s notice. Patrick’s original opponent was Chad Laprise, who is now fighting Ross Pearson on the show after Abel Trujillo was pulled due to a visa issue.

[Stickman]

**Sherdog was the first to report that the UFC is attempting to put together a middleweight bout between Anderson Silva and Uriah Hall for the UFC 198 event in Curitiba, Brazil. The pay-per-view card will take place from the Arena de Baixada, which can hold over 40,000 people and Silva’s addition will be a big boost for the card. It was also reported by Ariel Helwani on UFC Tonight that the UFC is looking at possibly adding Cris “Cyborg” Justino to the UFC 198 card. Justino is under a Zuffa contract but has only been fighting on Invicta FC cards because of her inability to get down to the bantamweight division.


**David “Tank” Abbott is off of this Sunday’s UR Fight event, where he was scheduled to fight Dan Severn in a mixed martial arts fight. Following an initial report from Michael Stets, it was confirmed on Thursday that Abbott was not licensed by the Arizona Boxing and MMA commission to fight. The UR Fight promotion is searching for a last minute replacement. Abbott is 50 years old and last fought in April 2013 and has lost 9 of his last 11 pro fights dating back to 1998.

**Renan Barao is expected to make his UFC featherweight debut on a yet-to-be-announced UFC Fight Night card on May 29th in Brazil and fighting Jeremy Stephens. Stephens sent out a graphic for the fight following a report from Combate out of Brazil. Barao has not fought since July of last year, where he was finished by T.J. Dillashaw in their rematch for the bantamweight title.

**Bellator has added a heavyweight bout between Dan Charles and Alessio Sakai to the Bellator 155 event on May 20th in Bosie, Idaho. That same card will feature a middleweight title fight between champion Rafael Carvalho and Melvin Manhoef and a featherweight fight between Pat Curran and Georgi Karakhanyan.

**Below is an interview with UFC women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate, following her win over Holly Holm at UFC 196:


**The UFC Fight Night card from Brisbane, Australia this Saturday night will feature the main card airing on TSN2 in Canada at 10pm Eastern and the televised preliminary fights on Fight Network at 8pm. The Fight Pass prelims air at 7pm Eastern and will feature Ross Pearson vs. Chad Laprise for the streaming fights.

**New York appears closer than ever to a bill being passed to allow for professional mixed martial arts in the state. Newsday reports that the long awaited bill is not only expected to be passed, but will finally be voted on with enough support on the Democratic side alone to pass it. Newsday has the story at http://www.newsday.com/sports/mixed-mar ... 1.11579175.

**The UFC has added a light heavyweight bout between Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and Corey Anderson for the UFC 198 card on May 14th in Curitiba, Brazil. Shogun has lost four of his last six fights but is coming off a decision victory over Antonio Rogerio Nogueira last August. Anderson recently defeated Tom Lawlor by unanimous decision at UFC 196 earlier this month.

**The Rizin Fighting Federation will hold their second event on April 17th in Nagoya, Japan and have announced that Kazuyuki Fujita will be fighting on that card against Jiri Prochazka. Rizin has also announced a flyweight bout for the card between Allan Nascimento and Yuki Motoya.


**Bellator announced today that they have signed heavyweight free agent Matt Mitrione. Mitrione’s deal with the UFC ended after his last fight with Travis Browne in January and an offer was made by Bellator, which the UFC did have the right to match. Mitrione is a former NFL player and entered the UFC after competing on the Ultimate Fighter Season 10 in 2009. Mitrione is 37 years of age and has a professional record of 9-5 and coming off losses to Ben Rothwell and Browne.

[LoathedVermin72]

Pretty excited for Hunt/Mir tomorrow night. That should be a battle.

[Stickman]

Pretty excited for Hunt/Mir tomorrow night. That should be a battle.

I'm givin it to Mir.

[Stickman]

**Ariel Helwani at MMA Fighting is reporting that the UFC is attempting to put together a rematch between Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz for the main event of UFC 200 on July 9th in Las Vegas. Helwani reports that it would be a non-title fight at welterweight once again and would delay McGregor’s return to featherweight to defend his title. The two most discussed options for McGregor’s next fight were title defences against either Jose Aldo or Frankie Edgar and always the chance of a Diaz rematch. The business that UFC 196 generated on pay-per-view with Dana White citing 1.5 million buys for the show, would lead one to believe that the Diaz rematch is the biggest business fight and that would probably be accurate. McGregor vs. Aldo at UFC 194 did do a larger gate number, but that fight also had the benefit of a full promotional build and the Diaz fight came on short notice with the injury to original opponent Rafael dos Anjos.

**Below is the card for the UFC Fight Night show in Brisbane:

MAIN CARD
*Frank Mir vs. Mark Hunt
*Hector Lombard vs. Neil Magny
*Jake Matthews vs. Johnny Case
*Antonio Carlos Jr. vs. Dan Kelly
*James Te Huna vs. Steve Bosse
*Seohee Ham vs. Bec Rawlings

PRELIMINARY CARD (8pm ET on FS1 and Fight Network in Canada)
*Brendan O’Reilly vs. Alan Jouban
*Mark Eddiva vs. Dan Hooker
*Leslie Smith vs. Rin Nakai
*Viscardi Andrade vs. Richard Walsh

FIGHT PASS PRELIMS (7pm ET)
*Ross Pearson vs. Chad Laprise
*Alan Patrick vs. Damien Brown

**The UR Fight promotion has announced that there will not be a replacement for David “Tank” Abbott on Sunday’s show and it appears Dan Severn will no longer be fighting. In its place will be a mixed martial arts bout between Shannon Ritch and Mavrick Harvey. Ritch is 45 years old and has a pro record of 45-79 and four no contests. Harvey had a record of 8-4-1 and hasn’t fought since 2007. These two have fought twice in the past with Harvey defeating Ritch by TKO due to an injury in November 2005 and then winning by TKO in April 2006 for Valor Fighting. The card is scheduled for Sunday night at 9pm Eastern at URFight.tv and will be called by Jim Ross, Sean Wheelock and Quinton Jackson with former WWE announcer Justin Roberts serving as the in ring announcer.

**The featherweight bout between Renan Barao and Jeremy Stephens that is scheduled for May 29th is going to be for a card in Las Vegas, Nevada and not Brazil, according to a post from Stephens.

[Kaius]

Pretty excited for Hunt/Mir tomorrow night. That should be a battle.

If Mir is in fight shape that is.

[Rangi Guy]

Pretty excited for Hunt/Mir tomorrow night. That should be a battle.

If Mir is in fight shape that is.

Hunt all the way!

[Kaius]

Pretty excited for Hunt/Mir tomorrow night. That should be a battle.

If Mir is in fight shape that is.

Hunt all the way!

I think Hunt wins. Either knocks him out standing or on the ground.

[Zantac Junkie]

Pretty excited for Hunt/Mir tomorrow night. That should be a battle.

If Mir is in fight shape that is.

Hunt all the way!

I think Hunt wins. Either knocks him out standing or on the ground.

Mir has looked noticeably softer since the enhanced testing began. And his wrestling has always been his achilles heel, so I don't think he can drag Mark to the ground. Not that Hunt's grappling is anything special, but his takedown defence has improved by leaps and bounds over the last three or four years, and his striking is world class. Hunt by second round KO.

[LoathedVermin72]

Jesus, Lombard is insane.

[LoathedVermin72]

This is a great fight

[LoathedVermin72]

Man, that was nuts. Hunt and Mir are gonna have to put on quite a show to follow that.

[LoathedVermin72]

Welp. That was disappointing.

Mir looked a bit out of shape.

[LoathedVermin72]

Hunt is such a badass, though. Just walks away like nothing.

Mir really performed like a chump.

[Stickman]

Yeah, over a bit quick. Still, Mir should have known better than to stand and trade. His ground game is so much better than Hunts.

[LoathedVermin72]

Was it just me or did that knockout hardly look like a knockout? He never even went limp or anything. Just kinda fell over slowly. Weird.