MMA Combat Critique

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...

Today I wanted to highlight some of my own previous UFC related blog posts from the past few months that I think are relevant today or will remain relevant in the future.  UFC 313 Pereira vs Ankalaev prediction Even post UFC 313, I think this post is still very relevant for the future. Firstly, I outlined some things that came to pass once the fight occurred a few weeks ago. All three of the things that I outlined that led me to make the prediction that I made all ended up being major factors in the fight going the way that it did. I also think that with a rematch almost certainly being the next fight for both fighters, all of these things will likely hold true or prove to be places where Pereira can look to improve going into a rematch. What is wrong with the UFC rankings? Unfortunately, I think that this post is going to remain relevant for a long time, as I do not see the UFC doing anything about the rankings and their problems. Dana White has mentioned involving AI to create a ...