It was a pretty clear 2 rounds to 1 in favor of Chimaev. Incredible performance by Burns though.

I gave gilbert the last round for that flurry and I gave him the fight. That was awesome.

I didn't have the best quality feed however. And really I found myself rooting hard for Gilbert. I am thinking now Chimaev probably won. But yeah that was a fun fight.

Chimaev / Burns - I'm conflicted on this. In a way, it showed Chimaev has a bit more to his game other than some first round highlight reels and can go 3 rounds. But on the other hand, he got clipped a lot by Burns and looked beatable. If Burns had better cardio he would have taken Round 3 and beaten Chimaev.

Burns is a tough guy but he looked pretty tired. Which I guess is a testament to Chimaev to be able to push a #2 fighter to that. Chimaev didn't get to wrestle much and dominate Burns. Chimaev is a big guy and could fight at the division above too if he put on a bit more weight, or lose a bit and go down - 3 weight divisions are open to him. In my opinion this fight knocked a bit of the hype off Chimaev (for me). If he ends up in the octagon with Usman i'll be betting on Usman to win every time.

Sterling / Yan - the first fight was very....unsatisfying. Yan was dominant in fight 1 and well ahead before throwing a silly knee (which didn't really connect) and Sterling made a meal out of it and managed to win a championship from it.

Fight 2 was quite frustrating. Round 1 nothing happened. Round 2 / 3 Yan gives up his back and spends most of the round trapped in a triangle. These could easily have been scored as 10-8 to Sterling. Round 4 / 5 was frustrating because Yan had a clear striking advantage over Sterling and tried to engage with Sterling on the ground. Sterling looked beatable in the last 2 rounds and Yan didn't capitalise on it. Dana didn't look impressed by the decision before it was read out.

The decision didn't leave as bad a taste in the mouth as Fight 1 but i'd still bet on Yan if there's a third fight

ya if burns wasn't completely gassed he prob wins, khamzat seemed shook

How does Khamzat do vs Colby?

I was reading the past few posts and had the thought if I’m Colby..I don’t want to fight him. Colby doesn’t have the power that Gilbert has.

yeah I don't see Colby taking that fight unless the UFC really makes it worth his while

if Yan/Aljo fight again, Yan is probably like -250 but **** happens, better fighter doesn't always win. Aljo squeezed it out with those 2nd-3rd rounds when Yan fought stupidly. Once he corrected it, he was back to dominating.

Yan was like -400 last night lol

Khamzat nailed it in the post fight, he was just going for the knockout and I think he would have dominated if he jabbed more or wrestled more. He said he was overly jacked up which is rly easy to believe and he threw way too many haymakers (while ignoring the counters). Pretty amazing that he basically didn’t even care whether or not Burns tagged him. The man just loves to scrap.

I think this is good for him in the long run and we see a tighter and more focused Khamzat going forward. I too have doubts for him vs. Usman but think I’d still bet on Chimaev

Sure would love to see him murk Colby in the meantime though

Burns is probably best of his back in the entire WW division, Khamzat was definitely aware of that. I don't think he'll mind pressing the wrestling vs others.

Cejudo coming back? 2 years off a long time at his age/weight class and he ran good to get to where he was anyway. Seems like an obvious fade.

I thought that was 1 - 4 - 5 Yan

Nothing much really happened in 1 for either fighter. Yan could have edged that round perhaps.

But the argument for a 10-8 round could be made for either rounds 2 & 3 as Yan spent the majority of it on his back in a triangle trying to defend the choke.

I rewatched 1 and think Aljo won it, Yan had the cage control/pressure but Aljo def landed the better shots, was close to 5050 rd tho

I just rewatched the first round and I'd say that is a clear round to Yan. It's the exact type of round where "octagon control" is supposed to come into play. After watching the first half of the round I was thinking that Sterling was winning the round despite ceding octagon control to Yan and despite landing very little of significance. The only reason he was winning was because Yan landed next to nothing in that first half of the round. However, in the 2nd half of round 1 Yan outstruck Sterling and landed some significant shots himself. Overall, both fighters landed shots, but neither did much of significance. One could argue that the most significant shot of round 1 was a leg check by Yan. I say that just to emphasize how very little was done by either fighter.

In close rounds like that, Octagon control is used to determine the winner. Sterling went 0 for 2 on takedown attempts that round and more importantly Yan had center control like 90% of the round. Sterling had his back to the cage and was moving away from Yan (rather than engaging with him) the vast majority of the round. If this was a point fight match, then Sterling would win because he landed a higher volume of shots. That's not how the UFC is scored though. The UFC is supposed to replicate a real fight, and generally in a real fight if someone is moving backwards their getting their ass whooped. Specifically in the UFC when standing, the goal is to get center control. If a round is close and you fail to get center control then you lose. Most likely if Sterling had engaged and fought for center control more he would have gotten his ass whooped. So yeah, it makes sense that Sterling was fighting the way he was but it also makes sense that he lost the round.

FWIW, I picked Sterling to win that fight but I have to give that round to Yan. Maybe back in the "Machida Era" of 2009 that should go to Sterling, but in 2022 it seems pretty clear to me. You want to win a fight, then fight, don't run.

Here is the Weasle's breakdown of Sterling/Yan round 1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50b7ftyvXGs&t=5s

Regardless of where you fall on this, this fight is a clear example of why round by round scoring and the 10 point must system suck. Technically 10-10 rounds can exist but frankly I can't remember the last time a UFC fight had a round scored 10-10 (if ever). Pretty much every round is scored with a winner and loser even if the round were exactly even.

Didn't like that breakdown at all. He's essentially scoring it like a point fight which goes against the entire spirit of the sport. The biggest point of contention I have is "effective striking." I don't see how one could say with any level of certainty that Sterling's striking was more impactful than Yan's. Neither one was very impactful at all. This is the entire reason you have other things to judge a round on besides effective striking/grappling. The next criteria is aggressiveness and then after that control. Yan clearly won both of those criteria but the guy in that video is arguing that Sterling's striking was more impactful, but he also has the luxury of being able to review the tape in hindsight to find very slight differences whereas a judge is making a decision on the fly and doesn't really have the ability to split hairs about whether this # of light strikes are as impactful as this many heavy strikes. It's just impossible for a judge to say. In these rounds where neither fight shows very effective striking then aggression and control should matter.

AJ McKee v Patricio 'Pitbull' Freire 2 later. McKee is 18-0 and Bellator's pound-for-pound number one.

interested in Nemkov/Anderson as well

winner gets 1M

umm.....thats maybe the worst decision ive ever seen?

WTF?

I wasn't watching closely but two of the three sherdog "judges" gave it to Pitbull and one of them had the same 49-46 score.

****ing killed me betting wise tonight. I had a big single bet on AJ as well as had him on every parlay.

13 out of 16 media members as well as 70% of the fans scored the fight in favor of Pitbull.

Is Bellator always this farcical?!