OOOH!! MMA finally legalized in New York? Have to guess UFC 200 at MSG has to be a strong possibility now.

http://www.foxsports.com/ufc/story/u...e-sport-032216

UFC 200 will be held at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas in July.

I think the first MSG event will be in Oct/Nov.

I'm really wondering whether the hate on JDS / hype on Rothwell has gone a bit too far - I mean they're at close to pick 'em, which doesn't feel right to me. Rewatched the JDS-Overeem fight the other night and I don't think JDS looked that bad. Certainly not "gonna get creamed by a guy like Rothwell" bad?

Line is factoring in a hell of a lot of uncertainty about Jones. There's no way you take the same two guys who fought before, change Cormier's game plan, and expect him to get there 25% of the time in a 5-rounder.

Couture

BJ Penn after the Frankie Edgar fights?

And it'll take a while for it to play out and be confirmed one way or the other, but I suspect we may be seeing the same thing with Anthony Pettis after the RDA loss

Def. Penn.

I don't think Pettis had his soul crushed... I think the lack of roids and his Achilles heel was exposed. He can't fight off the fence and he can't keep good grinders from putting him there.

bestfightodds.com Machida ITD is -159

Obviously ITD is more likely than decision but not as much more likely as the odds suggest imo

Also Cruz vs Faber odds out, Cruz -5xx, so not the -300 I was hoping for. Might consider playing Cruz minus 5.5 or 9.5 points if the line is reasonable

I wonder what the Gonzaga sub line will be vs Lewis... and Lewis KO for that matter since Gonzaga doesn't have a chin anymore

Good news with MMA being legalised in NY, I assume the next Jones title defense will be there after he beats Cormier, I guess Rumble?

It'd pretty much have to be Rumble wouldn't it? I don't see how Gus gets himself back in contention any time soon, though Jones has said he wants a do-over on that one so I guess anything's possible... but even then I could only see it happening if Rumble was injured or something

Penn is weird because he got jobbed in the first fight and then looked broken in the second fight. But then he went up to 170 and smoked Hughes, was beating Fitch (when Fitch was good) and gassed, was beating Nick Diaz and gassed, and then retired. That felt like standard BJ. Then he started on his Jordan Wizards thing.

I was thinking Mir eating Big Nog's soul but not sure.

I feel like it's mostly just Big Nog's body that's given out on him, not his fighting spirit.

Yeah big nogs body just doesn't work the way he wants anymore after the Nelson and struve fights it's 100% clear he can't compete at the top level anymore but put him in Jon Jones body and I'm sure he'd be fine his problem is physical not mental. Liddell was the same he could still go but his chin just gave out on him eventually

alright life has kept me busy and annoyed but now im back to give you folks winning vets for the next card

velickovic by sub this likely wont be close his opponent is an italian can crusher who hasnt even gotten through a 12 pack yet while serbian steel looks like a fringe top 15 guy

asker by sub via knockdown into rnc he looks like the more well rounded of the 2 and cannonier is a year plus removed from being ko by jordan

whiteford by dec im not sold on this but i think martins gasses trying to pour it on and then gets outworked

pejic by decision local fighter gets the crowd going

entwhistle by sub he's good perez has a handful of sub losses and almost lost to 1 legged scott jorgensen

taisumov by ko taisumov smash

dalby by dec 4 weeks notice for cummings plus long travel

moroz via armbar close matchup i think moroz wins the ground battle

blachowicz by tko i mean he ko'd latiffi that's more than enough for me

johnson by tko i think tybura might be worse than ruan potts was

ngannou by ko he looks like legit talent which hw desperately needs

disclaimer
the following pick may be more heart than brain and could cause loss of money
gonzaga by guillotine lewis seems like he would get caught by that working near fence

rothwell by ko jds is done

gl porkchop - fire me a PM when you get a chance with an update of the stuff we were discussing

I agree with Moroz via SUB might fire that if line is good
Agree on Gonzaga sub, although he may also get KO'd Lewis has zero skill but Gonzaga doesn't have much heart or chin left despite being technically better everywhere by a lot

Rothwell JDS i'm torn if JDS was juicing which seems likely; if not he will beat Rothwell even as a shade of his former self but if USADA has ruined him then he may be done so I probably won't bet this one.

Fired my first bet of the Khabib/Ferguson card since Khabib is steaming wanted to get it pre move and it hadn't moved on 5d

1.2u Khabib -175

Pretty sure he either decisions or grinds out Ferguson I think his ground game is good enough to not get caught in a sub and his takedowns are good enough to get it to the ground before Ferguson can KO him standing. I expect round after round of Khabib on top with GnP until Ferguson either gets finished or it's 50-45, with a small chance of Ferguson grabbing a sub but nowhere near enough. Pretty sure Khabib is more like -300 here if he's the same Khabib we saw vs RDA, and even with the doubt that the injury took something out of him I might say -200. I think he's mentally strong like Cruz and shouldn't show much ring rust.

To be fair Latifi got caught with a body shot. I think if they fight 10 times Latifi wins 7+ times. I am not saying it was lucky but on other occasions Jan doesn't look impressive. I still like Jan to win as Igor when in the UFC had 4 straight losses.

I think we will find out in this fight if JDS really is done. JDS was on MMAhour with Ariel and he talked about how tough his loss to Overeem was for him mentally. JDS also said that he thinks this fight with Ben is actually a tougher fight for him which is interesting. I think Ben wins but this could be close.

Are you guys expecting much movement will happen on khabib ferguson line coming up to fight and if so In which direction?

There is a lot of support on both sides very early in the Khabib line. I still expect more action to go Khabib's way by then end.

I think it closes something like -220/+190 if I had to guess

I just didnt see hendricks getting KO'd by thompson, while SwoopAE , who seems to know his stuff quite well, was pretty open to the idea. So its to some surprise and dismay that I read he is most likely betting the bank on khabib when I was slightly leaning towards ferguson as my pick.

i think hands down, khabibs most impressive win is his win over dos anjos. dos anjos camp has a plethora of excuses for losing that fight, some of which may true, but who knows (vegetarian diet, injury's,etc). khabib hasnt fought in 2yrs so its really hard to say if hes going to be the same one that beat rda and ferguson is about as tough as it gets for a welcome back match, besides the obvious 5 round title fight with the current champ. assuming khabib wins (which is a big if) I would love to see a rda/khabib rematch and I am sure rda would as well because he was rendered pretty uneffective in that match.

alvarez, sucks to be you, but i hope he does not get a title fight.

I've been on Ferguson in a lot of his fights (I believe all of his last 7 fights except Castillo where he was a decent fav and it went to a close decision) and at the end of the day I just think Ferguson doesn't match up well with Khabib. Ferguson will pounce on any opening to finish but if he doesn't find one in the first two rounds, spending 10+ mins on his back with Khabib ragdolling and GnPing him will sap his power and I just don't see him winning by anything except if Khabib makes a mistake on the ground

I just personally think Khabib's wrestling is just too good. The gameplan to defeat Khabib is elite TDD with elite striking, Tibau came close when Khabib was greener but I think he's improved since. A lot depends if the injury has taken anything out of Khabib if he's the same guy he wins here and could easily take RDA's title. The way to beat Khabib is a flash KO (which is possible but I think a guy like Conor is a better candidate for that) or sprawl and outbox him for 5 rounds and I just don't think Ferguson's TDD is good enough.

If Ferguson wins it'll be a flash KO in the first two minutes or a darce choke/triangle if

Khabib can win via GnP, sub (probably rnc or arm triangle) or 50-45 which is probably the most likely - if I have to pick a specific outcome it'd be 50-45 or 49-46 Khabib depending how quickly he gets a TD in r1

I agree that if khabib came back his former self he would be huge favoirite and grind him out but that is a big IF for somebody who has never been In a 5 round fight and I need to rewatch but im pretty sure he gassed out in third round of dos anjos fight (although I could be mistaking for another fight). Só he is Being asked to enter his first ever 5 round fight after back and knee injuries and then have the conditioning to grind out one of the best In the world for 5 rounds, na I dont like it. His only finishes In ufc are against jabronis who have moved down to featherweight since. I know I was big backer of Cruz coming off injury into dillashaw fight but Cruz already had a 5 round proven track record, had already showed the ability to comeback from devasting injuries to beat top 5 guys In 90 secs.

Some AXS TV action tonight. Schnell lost to Mai in 2014 via guillotine choke in the second round, but won five straight since then including four via stoppage and one by DQ so I think it's fairly close fight. And Webb told Frank Trigg in his MMA Oddsbreaker interview that he thought Soriano's wrestling was his weakness so he wanted to exploit that.

Legacy FC 52 Risk $200.00

Matt Schnell (+145) vs Klayton Mai $100.00 for $145.00
Thomas Webb (+185) vs Sean Soriano $100.00 for $185.00

Horrible price now but I switched to Sean Soriano for $450.00 to win $150.00 minus the original stake of $100.00 on Webb meaning $50.00 net if Soriano wins and $185.00 minus $450.00 or negative $265.00 if Webb pulls it off.

Ferguson didn't start training MMA until he was 24 years old and he's going to be fighting a guy that's literally wrestled bears since he was 6. The line should probably be at least -240 Khabib.



From UFC rankings site:


"When and why did you start training for fighting?"


"I moved away from Michigan when I was 24 in pursuit of finding happiness and finding myself. What I found was an opportunity to keep competing after college wrestling and to put some extra change in my pocket."