MMA Combat Critique

These are my reactions to the UFC Atlanta main card and noteworthy prelims. Kamaru Usman vs Joaquin Buckley Prediction: Buckley KO in round 4 Result: Usman by decision I initially picked Usman to win this fight but in the past few weeks I changed my mind and went with Buckley. This mostly came down to how long of a layoff Usman was coming off, his age, and the fact that Buckley is explosive enough to catch Usman on the feet especially when he's likely past his prime. From this point forward I won't put any weight on layoffs, because it is so inconsistent whether or not it actually effects a fighter or not. Jack Della Maddalena came back from the longest layoff of his career and an injury and looked the best he's ever looked, while Patchy Mix came back from a year long layoff and looked even worse than when he last fought. In this case, Usman looked very good. He only shot 4 takedowns in the first 4 rounds and got them all, and I was surprised that Buckley had zero success w...

 I was motivated to write this post after seeing Julianna Pena after her loss to Kayla Harrison a few days ago call for the winner of the eventual fight between Harrison and Nunes. The comment section was full of people calling her delusional saying she doesn't deserve the opportunity, but not one comment was saying who should get it instead. I completely agree that she is in no way deserving of an immediate rematch against Kayla, or a third fight against Amanda who destroyed her in their last fight. But in the eyes of the UFC Julianna is the only person in the division who has any name value (because she beat Nunes) and will sell the fight with trash talk. They have given people title shots off much less than what Pena has done, so it's not out of the question that she gets a completely undeserved rematch. This raises the question: Who should face the winner of that fight? Apparently, the contenders in the division don't have the answer to that question, as they have been ...

This Jon Jones saga seems like it is never ending, and although Dana has finally given some more information about what is going on, the fight is still not announced. Let me make my view clear from the start: This fight will never happen, and Jon Jones should have been stripped not long after UFC 309 because it was very apparent that he would not fight Tom. I understand taking the Stipe fight from his perspective, but it was so clear that he was never fighting Tom that he should have been stripped long ago. exactly what I feared would happen after 309 is happening now, that being Jon sitting out and giving the UFC enough hope that he will fight so that they don't strip him, but not enough hope to convince the fans or Tom Aspinall that the fight is happening. Jon is likely to become the longest reigning heavyweight champion in UFC history with only one title defense against a Stipe who is one of the greatest ever at heavyweight, but he was not the interim champion, he was coming off...

Editor's note: This blog was created for a school project and therefore was subject to a bunch of requirements surrounding the content on it such as all the promotion of products (ignore all of those, I will eventually remove them). That project is finished, so now everything posted on here is subject to no restrictions. Expect a lot more opinion and less formality. Same general content with predictions, reactions, etc. with less of a focus on my own training (as I am still terrible). Everything posted before this is only being kept up as an archive for my own sake, it can just be ignored. I am now doing this for fun instead of for a grade which will hopefully lead to me doing this for a while longer. I will be discussing the main card of UFC 316 and some of the prelims and give my reactions to each fight. Merab Dvalishvili vs Sean O'Malley Prediction: O'Malley KO in round 3 Result: Dvalishvili submission in round 3 Merab finally got another finish. I was under the impressi...

It has been well over 400 days since Tom Aspinall was crowned the interim UFC heavyweight champion after Jon Jones vs Stipe Miocic was cancelled due to Jones getting injured. Interim champions are essentially just a guarantee that you will challenge the champion when they are able to fight again, but in this case that does not seem to be true. A year after Jones vs Miocic was cancelled, Jon Jones returned to the cage to face Miocic instead of Aspinall. In the meantime, Aspinall defended his interim championship, something that has been incredibly uncommon across the history of the sport. Now we sit 4 months after the Jones-Miocic fight and the question "is Jon Jones avoiding Tom Aspinall" has come back up again. In this post I want to open up the floor for a debate on this topic, because this still is an issue that has people on both sides. Firstly, those on the side of Jon not avoiding Tom have some valid points. The Stipe fight was already booked and was a fight between two...

As a major fan of Alex Pereira, I was really hoping he would win at UFC 313 against Magomed Ankalaev. That did not end up happening, but I thought it would be fun to talk about what I think would have happened regarding the 205-pound weight class and Alex Pereira had he won that fight and retained his championship. Now, with a rematch against Magomed being all but officially confirmed, it is actually still possible that much of what I think would have happened could actually come true if Alex wins that fight, so I think this hypothetical post could turn out to be even more relevant than it will be initially. Firstly, had Alex won he would have been done at 205 pounds. A win would have made 313 his fourth title defense, and with Magomed defeated he would have passed his toughest test in the division. The desire to see Alex move up and try to become the first ever three division champions at heavyweight has been growing amongst fans, and I think if Alex and his team was in favor of the m...