Well, that depends on the direction they're willing to go. So far, they've pushed pretty hard to establish the brand as a compitetive athletic endeavor up there with all the other major sports. Objectively, that's not unreasonable. Public perception is somewhat fickle, though, and getting people to take the sport seriously is tough. Pushing a "non-standard bodytype" fighter as a serious heavyweight contender can work counter to the broader goal unless they're careful about it.

Lol, maybe you should, you know, actually watch some of his fights before criticizing him. The fighters on TUF have a brutal schedule of 3-4 fights in a six week period. Avoiding injury is a huge deal for them and Nelson had a big incentive to be cautious in his fights.

No offense intended at all, but are you relatively new to watching MMA?

zyrth,

My coach has that shirt. If he didn't I would definitely buy one. I'm going to CafePress the picture of Genki bowing to Royler after KTFO'ing him once I find a better quality version.

I agree Nelson is very easy to market, people love non standard fighters for sure (or persons/characters in general on tv)

I don't see how it's gonna be bad for the UFC's credibility if one "fat guy" has success.

True, but they also have a great incentive to put on good fights because first impressions are everything with sports/TV audiences. If you can fight and you come out of the show and people are fans, you're gold (look at Stephen Bonnar), if they don't, you wont last long.

Put another way, a professional fighter is going to get few precious opportunities to fight for an audience of millions. Even for the biggest fighters in the world, it's a ludicrously small number, and rare opportunity, when you think about it. So squandering your first 3 chances to do so under the rationale that you'll get people on your side later is a misstep imo.

Compared to most people itt? Yea.

Which, obviously, puts me in a much better position to evaluate the a fighter's ability to connect with casual fans. Nonetheless, I welcome your opinions.

I should note, in fairness, that I don't really like HWs as much as some, I much prefer wrestling/grappling/submission fights to striking ones, which certainly doesn't help my aversion to watching a fat man get punched for 15 minutes.

or really before it either.

the only boring fights he was in was the TUF fights. he acknowledged they were boring because he wanted to make it through the show without being injured... you know the smart thing to do.

him vs monson was pretty interesting technical battle. def boring to most though. nelson got screwed pretty badly there.

him vs arlovski wasnt a bad fight at all, he was threatening AA and coulda won if it wasnt for the worst standup ever. then AA just mauled him standing for 4 minutes and roys head exploded

havent seen much of his older stuff besides that though.

even if you havnt watched him before tuf...

in the ufc... two 1st round KO's and a great display of heart and chin against jds. never gave up and was landing on jds in the 3rd round which is impressive considering most people would of been dead.

no idea how you could say roy is bland unless you simply hate him because he's fat.

Shogun vs Shad likely march 18th in Abu Dhabi

" The UFC has planned their next trip to the Middle East and it will take place on March 19 in Abu Dhabi for UFC 128.

Multiple sources confirmed the booking to ************** on Wednesday, with the UFC making their return trip to Abu Dhabi for the first time since their debut show on April 10, 2010.

The event will be dubbed UFC 128 which means the promotion will have back to back major events overseas as UFC 127 is currently slated for Australia at the end of February.

While no fights have been confirmed for the card, sources indicated to ************** that the fight being considered for the main event is Mauricio “Shogun” Rua defending his light heavyweight title against Rashad Evans.

Rua has been sidelined following knee surgery, but his return status was recently rumored for March and the UFC 128 date would fit into those plans.

More details about the Abu Dhabi card will be forthcoming in the next few weeks, but as of now the UFC will head back to the Ferrari World Arena where they held UFC 112 last year. "

I would agree with this regarding some fighters, but not in this case. Nelson was a huge favorite going into the show which meant the TUF contract was his to lose and he had no immediate upside to take additional risks. When it comes time to renegotiate it's his actual UFC fights that are going to matter. It's only been about a year since TUF and every person in this thread that has seen his UFC fights has enjoyed them.

well as a comparison i think kongo is basically surviving on his physique.

what did he do that lead to him getting a co main event matchup with mir? beatup on buentello?


obv i think roy is good and that he can be marketable if ufc goes at it right, they seem pretty deadset on this roman warrior marketing **** that roy doesn't quite fit into.....literally and figuratively badoom chaaaa.



velasquez on o&a today.

pretty boring interview, he gave a lot of props to fedor tho and said that he considered him the best in the world for a long time (paraphrasing, but i think it was past tense)

qf stupidity. gotta smash myself here

had timeline of mir/buentello backwards, looking over his record he was doing fine till back to back losses against cain/mir.


carry on, ****** back into his hole.

Mikey,

Lots of haters gonna hate lately from you on BE.

Rogan isn't bad. There has to be a mix between knowledge, delivery and enthusiasm in broadcasting.

Marv Albert isn't the GOAT NBA guy because he's the most expert at the sport. Rogan is good at what he does because he has a solid base of MMA knowledge mixed with good voice/delivery/love of the sport. Complaining about Rogan on a broadcast is real nitpicking.

I realize your point is more about Goldberg, but he's not neeeeeeeeeeeeear as bad as Joe Morgan.

UFC booth is fine imo

+1

*Nelson should be marketed as indestructable iron shin after the JDS fight. Just don't give him Carwin and he can keep up this marketing image

*I loved Rogan more when I was more of a UFC noob than today(reading this thread and a little bit elsewhere pointing out flaws) but his enthousiasm during the fights makes them more exciting to casual fans. I think it's fine to get some criticism on Rogan so he keeps his focus/doesn't get lazier but I think he's doing a fine job. Well we all know what goldie is like but I think the duo delivers allright imo.

I really can't see Nam going anywhere in the UFC. Brookins is going to demolish him. I think Nam is way too tentative and lacks a killer instinct. He could've done so much more damage earlier in the fight with Cody. I'm surprised he even went for the kill when he finally had him super wobbled.

Is there something I don't get about Boetsch vs. Davis? I agree Davis is a fave, but >80% chance to win? +450 @ Bodog, +435 at Pinny. Seems like he will probably outwrestle Boetsch, but Davis has shown some holes in his technique that make me think the Barbarian has a chance to knock him out or end up on top and end it with strikes. Davis probably has the better camp, since I have heard of AKA, but Barbarian Fight Team are little more obscure.

Is there a little value in the underdog play here?

Is there any reason why Matt Hammil still hasn't learned to strike? I don't think I've ever seen him **** back and throw a powerful punch that he setup to land. He pokes and prods with his hands moving at 2MPH, starting from an already half-extended position.

It drives me nuts watching him do that ****. He hits softer than FoGriff.

phresh, frogriff? lol.


is it bad that i havent watched any tuf this season?


pretty excited for nate vs okami, i think okami gives nate the sonnen treatment.

Some people have said it's their favorite season in a long while. I still think it's rubbish. You aren't missing much.

He also holds his hands a foot below his hips while he plods forward.

Well yeah, until someone throws a punch and they're glued to his face. I always just kind of figured that his striking would improve as he went along and that his wrestling would always overshadow it. Now he seems to never want to wrestle and his standup is worse than ever.

But he knocked out Mark Munoz!!!

TUF has been good this season, I love watching GSP and his coaches. Some interesting fighters too

GSP + team are great coaches but I think they kind of dropped the ball with Cody. I mean he has 10-0 record plus 2-0 on TUF all by very early guillotine. That has to be what he's trying to go for in the fight against Nam. Of course everyone is going to be looking for it, and of course you need to teach Cody to be a more well rounded fighter, but you're not going to do that overnight so he pretty much had to dance with his date.

Brookins aka "The Armenian Killer", on the other hand, looked great. I think he'd run over Nam in the next round if they're paired up.

Brookins has looked great but I think he matches up better with english/leeroy than Nam, still think he beats Nam fwiw.