Conor's back!

Pereira vs Jones is way more interesting than Jones vs Old Man Stippe

He was already back at 232lbs on Saturday morning so 235 sounds more than reasonable. That would be a 15% gain from weight-ins which is on the higher end but not crazy. At UFC 298 two months ago, 5 out of 10 main card fighters gained 15%+. Geoff Neil who didn't even look that huge went from 171 to 201. Pretty sure Pereira was never below 215-220 when he fought at 185.

As far as next fight, I think he has at least one more fight at 205 before challenging for the HW belt. For opponent, I guess Jiri - Rakic was sort of a little eliminator, they just didn't announce it as one because of the possibility of Hill beating Pereira? They'll let Ankalaev fight for the belt in Abu-Dhabi or Saudi-Arabia (or home county of the opponent) once Pereira is gone. Nobody in the US wants to see Ankalaev and there's zero reason to have Pereira fight him.

I doubt Jones is interested in that. Would be a way better matchup for him than Aspinall though. I don't think there are many people left who believe Jones is going to fight any serious heavyweight contender though. Also absolutely no reason for him to do that unless he really needs money.

But Pereira just KO'd Jiri so cant really do that

Wouldn't Jones just wrestle/grapple Pereiera? I think he would be very opponent to that at HW

Why can't they do that? Jiri is the #1 contender after yesterday. Hill was #1 but will drop, Jiri was #2 already ahead of Ankalaev before last night. Rakic would have been #1 with a win over Jiri.

Pereira - Jiri 2 is a pretty easy sell as a co main event in New York if they manage to get Jones - Stipe to headline there. Maybe I underestimate how much of a challenge Alex seeks but fighting Ankalaev makes zero sense from a business perspective and he's obviously in a position to just say "no". That's not a Pennington kind of champion who is going to get the Sterling treatment of "fair enough, you don't have to fight Kayla. We'll find someone else who wants to fight her for the title on that date".

The BMF fight ended in such a Gaethje way. With <10 seconds he could have taken the final bell but ended up flat on his face. It was going to be a loss either way.

I can't see Pereira doing well at HW. He'll just get ragdolled by anyone decent.

Kayla Harrison looks like a future champion to me. Although I don't follow women's UFC much.

I'd think Pereira is above co-main status at this point, atleast for now

he just KOd jiri like what, 6 months ago? i dunno, seems early but maybe it is light on options

yeah kayla should dominate, my guess is once she gets the title ufc tries to get nunes back in there since there isnt really anyone else to fight

Would be a year by that time. Alex is def. one of the bigger PPV draws these days but if rumors are true and they want to make Jones vs. Stipe in NYC as big as UFC 205 (still the biggest gate in UFC history) they need Conor or at least one more really big fight in addition to Jones - Stipe.

We won't know anything before the summer anyway because of Conor who might say he wants NYC if he beats Chandler. Also depends on if Islam takes as little damage as expected against Poirier and could headline a Abu Dhabi card in October. If not and they're doing Abu Dhabi anyway, they might be limited to Khamzat for the 185 title (needs to beat Whittaker first though) or Alex vs. Ankalaev. FWIW, Pereira even said that Ankalaev should be next. I just don't think his management and the UFC agree.

One of the huge advantages the UFC has over boxing is their flexibility in scheduling. Pereira vs. Hill was obviously supposed to headline UFC 301 in Brazil in 3 weeks but they were able to just pivot, put that fight on 300 and let Pantoja vs. Erceg (that most casual fans probably don't even know) headline Brazil.

In a weird development, Nunes kinda complained that Kayla didn't call her out. That's the only fight that makes sense I guess after Kayla beats Pennington for the belt. Women's 145 is obviously dead anyway and 135 barely existent. Kayla to the UFC served three purposes: 1. Dana holds grudges forever and didn't want for Cyborg to get a shot at Kayla. 2. Outside of Ngannou that also would have been the only PFL/Bellator fight to get mainstream attention. 3. Kayla probably watched her second fight against Pacheco on tape and decided that fighting Cyborg wouldn't be a great idea.

Harrison vs. Holm was basically the female version of Bo Nickal vs. Cody Brundage with the difference that Brundage at least looked like he was trying instead of forcing a clinch/grapple exchange.

Well he has been on the juice for 2 years I've heard. His test levles are gonna plummet. 40 year old woman levels. They are just never the same after that. I don't see how he can compete vs someone who has been in it and training this whole time. Feels like he is just gonna get smoked. And if it's not competitive I'd guess it would be his last fight. I could be all wrong, but either way he will ring the register one more time. At least 10 milly I'd bet.

I won't forget how he steamrolled everyone at featherweight. Tough weight to make, he looked like skeleton at weighins. Moved up and trouble brewed heh. But I'm not the biggest mma fan, still I like chandler -105, that is what espnbet has it.

Chandler is 1-3 last 4 fights. One nice front kick vs aged tony fergerson.

About to lose my coins.... again.

Chandler hasn't fought in 1.5 years and is going to turn 38 this week.

FWIW, Conor has been back in the testing pool since the end of last year so he's probably going to be "clean" for 6+ month if we don't count coke.

When Conor - Chandler first hit bookmakers roughly 2 years ago, Chandler opened as a -155 favorite with McGregor at +135.

No idea about Conor's pay but it's probably going to be mostly from PPV points. It's obviously almost guaranteed to be the biggest PPV of the year (unless Conor fights again) and most likely at least the biggest since UFC 264 but no idea if they're going to reach that number or at least UFC 246 (Conor vs. Cowboy).

Thx madlex. Couple of great points about him being already tested and chandler not active. I looked him up and thought it was 6 months ago he fought. But your right, 2022, not 2023. Seems like he has been stuck in limbo waiting for this. Maybe not such a good bet... Still gonna bet it, but lightly. The damage of being on juice and coming off really tempts me.

13 Brazilians fighting tonight in Brazil.

Feels like just picking everyone of them to win would show a profit.

The prices for UFC 303 in Vegas for June are fracking outrageous, starting at a min of 1.2k . Any way around this (cheaper sites to buy from, tricks...) or are the prices simply going to get worse closer to the date? Help a noob out (I have never assisted a UFC event), thx folks

Majority of them are solid favorites, including everyone on the main card except for Jose Aldo.

Obviously a card for Brazilians. Only way to get more international attention would have been to have headline Pereira but that fell through when they needed him for 300. At that point they already had set this event for Brazil though. They got a little lucky that Aldo is interested in finishing his contract to be free for other options otherwise nobody would care about the card at all. Would have been more interesting to see him fight Cruz but he's just always injured.

That's their biggest card of the year unless Conor wins and they have him fight for a title in the Fall in NYC. Pretty sure UFC is going for their all-time highest gate which still is Conor vs. Alvarez in NYC in 2016.

I doubt prices will go down much unless something undesirable happens to Conor or the card.

clay guida is still fighting and in ufc? he must have the dirt on dana
read his wiki, die hard dead fan. my man

ufc since 2006

yeah I doubt prices go down for that either, possibly last time Conor ever fights. Tons of pent up demand for him since he hasn't fought in 3 years

man this card tonight is awful

not a big fan of the june 1st card with poirier getting a title shot either

If they don't put Islam on that card he's out until Abu Dhabi at the end of October.

Poirier is the best available opponent. Would have been Gaethje's shot with a win over Max. Next in line would have been Oliveira with a win over Tsarukyan, but that also didn't happen. They probably offered the fight to Tsarukyan (even though that would be a much better fight for Abu Dhabi) but he obviously declined. That basically left them with Poirier or maybe Gamrot. One of the two is a star in the US the other one is mostly unknown. The UFC knew that could happen if they make two big 155 fights at 300 and decided to prioritize that over a better fight for Islam.

1.5 hours and 3 fights into UFC 301 we've had a total of 10 minutes of fight time.

https://www.espn.com/mma/story/_/id/...ght-class-move


Thoughts on Suga moving up to 155 to fight Conor (assuming Conor doesn't lose and retire after his next fight)?

Everyone in MMA wants to fight Conor. Doesn't matter if you're a 125er in the UFC or a 265er in PFL. Kinda doubt Conor wants to go back down to 155 but maybe? O'Malley certainly would be one of the more fun options out there.

The one thing from that ESPN article that I thought was much more interesting was the following:
The 165lbs part is something that has been talked about in the media but never in the context of a "catchweight" and I have no idea why Conor would be interested in that. Much more likely is that if they make that fight at 165 it's going to be for an inaugural title in that weight class. With bigger 155er moving up and smaller 170er moving down that would actually be a fun weight class. In that case they obviously would change the current 170 to 175.

But maybe it's just wrong info in that article?

I get that he's got that "knockout power", but a 39 year old Derrick Lewis being -170 feels all kinds of dumb.

It's been nearly 4 years and 9 fights since he's been a favorite and won.

5 round heavyweight main events are almost always a terrible choice anyway unless they feature the couple top guys in the division.

Can't remember the last time there was a great 4th or 5th round in any of those fights.

Visiting my parents tomorrow. I'd like to show my dad a few good fights on YouTube.

Any recommendations? I like Jones UFC 100 and whichever Edwards and Usman fight where Leon made that comeback and KO out of nowhere in the final round.

That was Usman vs. Edwards 2.

If you're looking for another 5th round comeback in a title fight, Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen.

Best Jon Jones fight was the one against Gustafsson that's often in the conversation of greatest fight of all time along with Lawler vs. McDonald 2 and the one that started it all for the UFC as a mainstream business, Griffin vs. Bonnar at the first season of The Ultimate Fighter.

Also can't go wrong with McGregor vs. Diaz 1 and 2, basically everything that Gaethje was in or most Chandler/Poirier/Hooker/Holloway fights except for the ones against Volk.

If you want to pick a female fight, there's no discussion that Weili vs. Joanna is the best ever by a decent margin.

Well. that was nice