yeah i can't see what else he could really do

there arent old name vs old name fights at 170 for him and he can't really move up in weight

not getting any younger

War Alex.

Time to save the card.

Pretty sure he would like to fight one of the older 155ers coming up, like Poirier or Oliveira. Not sure how realistic that is though and who might even be interested in that fight.

card saved

Alex is now my favorite fighter in recent memory by far.

Dude is just it.

Pereira needs to fight for the hw title, let him go for triple champ status.

could see jones fighting pereira after stipe

dont really think ufc wants to make pereira vs like aspinall/blaydes or even ankalaav

think they think his hype is probably getting derailed vs a real wrestler

I'd go for it.

He's basically emptied the 205 division.

If he won the HW title then I'd name him as the GOAT.

Though I agree with Stephen A Smith when he said Jones would wreck him. Jones would wrestle **** the **** out of him I'd bet.

But maybe not cause Alex is the ****ing man. Legend.

if Jones fights Stipe in november, who knows what the turnaround to fight Pereira would be

seems like Pereira vs Izzy could be more likely if Izzy wins in August

maybe they just scrap stipe and go with this?

I doubt Jones would be interested in that even though he obviously has a very legit chance at winning. Also not sure if they think it would be a good for the brand to have two different HW champions for 2+ years. Only realistic path I see for that would be Jones vs. Stipe falling through again and the UFC offering Jones to fight Aspinall or Pereira in November or to vacate the belt. Kinda feel like Jones wants another payday before heading out.

Super disappointed with Jiri. I know both hands down at all times is his "unconventional" approach to defending but Alex landed at a 80% clip and probably every single time Jiri came in and tried to get out again.

Hard to blame anyone on a card where the final 6 fighters were all late replacements and the UFC did whatever they could to save it after Conor cancelled but in hindsight they should have turned it into a fight night headlined by Garry vs. MVP and let everybody else have a regular fight.

Speaking of people who strictly block with their face, other than the Alex kick the highlight of the night was the cut above Bueno Silva's eye that she wanted to fight through.

I dunno how big of a deal 2 HW champions really is. It is HW, everyone knows it is a joke. People won't even remember Aspinall/Blaydes exist about 20 mins after their fight in a month.

Think a bigger issue is if Jones fights Stipe, who knows when he would fight again. You would have to do it somewhat quick, otherwise Pereira obviously has other ways to be used.


Not sure what else you can do with Pereira though? They're not gonna wanna kill this golden goose to some no name wrestler like Blaydes or Ankalaav or even Aspinall.

If Jones fights in November I'd be shocked if we saw him again before summer 2025 even if that fights is over within the first round.

He fought 8 times over the last 10 years. 2017 was the only year he fought more than once since 2013.

There are a couple options for a Pereira if he doesn't need an immediate title shot at HW. Most obvious one would be Volkov or Gane, if the latter doesn't want to be on the Paris card. Could be co-main event in NYC or headline a Brazilian card early 2025. Wildcard is the December Vegas card for which they probably try to book Conor but we know how that might end.

FWIW, if Jones is done after the Stipe fight or doesn't fight again at all, I'm pretty sure they're promoting Aspinall and at least in promo stuff will treat him as if he's been the champion since last year. They obviously couldn't strip Jones retroactively but there'd be no real need to talk about his HW title "reign" outside of mentioning he beat Gane for the belt and later gave it up.

Gane/Pereira would be a sick fight

just don't see them risking Pereira hype train being derailed against a guy that got owned in both his chances to win the title and has no star power

Taking a budding star and giving him like the toughest fight possible with the least benefit possible isnt really what the UFC does

I'm convinced Herb Dean has a secret career ambition to see someone die while he's refereeing. He'll retire immediately while a smirk on his face when it happens.

I thought the stoppage was fine, although it was about 2 punches too late.

Everyone complained that the first fight was stopped early so Herb probably had that on his mind.

Feels much longer because he fought 3 times since then but we're less than a year removed from Pereira fighting Jan Błachowicz who is a terrible matchup for him and was probably one move away from winning that fight instead of losing a split decision.

Re Gane, if you remove Jones/Stipe/Aspinall from the mix is there anyone with more star power at HW? Gane is also the perfect example for how the UFC tries to build stars. Started off with a couple fights on international cards against terrible opposition, Vegas debut vs. a washed up superstar (JDS), two more super favorable matchups against pure strikers and less than 2 years into his UFC run he fought Derrick Lewis for the interim belt.

At least stylistically, Gane, Volkov and also Pavlovich are all substantially more favorable matchups than Blaydes or Almeida. There are also not many other options unless they want for him to fight way down against someone like Tuivasa who has lost 4 straight including to all 3 names at the beginning of the last sentence.

guessing this is a first

https://www.espn.com/mma/story/_/id/...namajunas-bout

am I missing something with UFC 304? it starts at 10pm EST

havent the london cards always been on saturday afternoon? the main event isnt going to start until like 3am in England

5-6 am id think and I think only the Abu Dhabi ones have been starting early .

Conor was right

I can't see UFC letting Pereira fight Jake Paul, just seems way bigger risk than reward to have a champ lose to him but is it maybe more possible than it seems?

This would likely do big #'s and UFC would get a cut, whereas he basically cleaned out LHW and HW may be a bridge too far for him anyway...He's not getting any younger either.

Pereira should takes the Jones fight if it's offered.

While I get why they do it, having a UK event in the UK, then running it at some god-awful time feels a bit crappy imo.

They did this the first time the UFC came to the UK, but I think the second one was at a UK friendly time. It is very annoying. It's not like the US fans would have to go get at up at some ungodly hour to watch if the event started late evening in the UK.

It's crappy for the fighters as well, who have to adopt weird training and sleep schedules to ensure they're fresh when their fight starts.

Funnily enough the Abu Dhabi card next week is back to a reasonable time for UK/UAE - 8pm.