Anything MMA, except thumb wrestling

[artmonkforHOF]

My support of Belcher has nothing to do with twitter or anything else, my wife actually a friend of his wife so I started following him a long time ago. He's been as solid as anyone in the 185lb division and his only significant loss to Okami was questionable at best. He rolled with Palhares and ended up TKO'ing him. None of this has anything to do with twitter and OBTW, Bisping got one of the worst knockouts in UFC history! Belcher has been paying his dues for a while now, why let Boetsch, Bisping, Wiedman or Lombard jump to the front of the line?

Nothing against Belcher, i think he is a great fighter, but why I put Wiedman and Lombard ahead of him is because Wiedman is undefeated and Lombard is a champion from other organizations with only 2 loses in closee to 40 fights. Even though Belcher's loss was a close one, it's still a loss, go ask Martin Kampmann if you keep your contender spot after a questionable decision lost, it's happened to him twice. Not saying Belcher is not deserving, he is, but based on how the UFC picks contenders, he is at best 3rd in the current pecking order. Belcher has 4 wins since his last loss, and guys like Bisping had 4 wins after their last loss and still needed to fight Chael to see who gets a shot at the belt. And I didn't place Bisping or Boetsch ahead of Belcher, I grouped them all together as the group of next best after what I think are the top 2 current contenders. If Lombard loses to Boetsch I don't even put Tim in the top two with Wiedman, unless he destroys Hector, but even then I still think you need to have a few of those second tier guys fight it out to see who is the best between them.

[d0ublestr0ker0ll]

In my opinion the shot should be given to the fighter with the best recent performance of the 3 big title contender fights.

Alan Belcher vs. Paul Harris: Belcher survived 85% of MMA fans' biggest fear, having their feet eaten by the Brazilian Gorilla, for what seemed like forever. He handled such extreme pressure, displayed amazing jiu jitsu skills, and proceeded to smash Rousimar's face with relative ease.

Weidman vs. Munoz: Munoz has had the worst time transitioning his wrestling skills to MMA. Weidman looked like GSP out there, staying one step ahead constantly. Standing elbows that drop your opponent is all sorts of win. The finish was hellacious, maybe we should give Rosenthal the shot, dude wants to kill someone in the octagon. I think Weidman is still a tad green, would like to see Belcher over him.

Lombard vs. Boetsch: Wouldn't be surprised if Boetsch causes a 300 car train accident, but what if Lombard comes out and goes Taz all over The Barbarian? Say KTFO in 30 seconds. I think it depends on how much footage they can show of Lombard. They can show the CFC stuff, but I'm not sure about his Bellator highlights. That's just talking business though; if Lombard beats Boetsch and gets the shot, I'm not complainin'.

Here's a question, has a wrestler with a pedigree like Mark Munoz' ever had it translate so badly to MMA? Hendo isn't exactly a world beater in that department after being an Olympian, but Munoz doesn't seem like a wrestler at all in there.

[StillUnknown]

I want Weidman to have one more fight before challenging Anderson. He's looked good in most of his fights, but he still hasn't fought a good striker. I don't like him going from not fighting a good striker to fighting the very best MMA has ever seen.

I say give Lombard the shot if he looks good against Boetsch, and have Weidman fight Bisping or Belcher in a #1 contenders bout.

Weidman is young, he's going to be around for a long time, it will do him well to face a more seasoned striker before challenging Anderson.

[#98QBKiller]

I say give Lombard the shot if he looks good against Boetsch, and have Weidman fight Bisping or Belcher in a #1 contenders bout.

[artmonkforHOF]

I say give Lombard the shot if he looks good against Boetsch, and have Weidman fight Bisping or Belcher in a #1 contenders bout.

Weidman is young, he's going to be around for a long time, it will do him well to face a more seasoned striker before challenging Anderson.

Completely agree with your thoughts on Lombard & Weidman, only thing I would change is replace Bisping with Boetsch as possible opponents for Chris, and let Bisping fight whoever Wiedman doesnt fight when he gets back from injury & if Bisping wins then he is in the next contender fight. Tim is not as good of striker as the count, I just dont like the idea of giving Bisping 2 contender fights in a row, especially since he lost the last one and is coming off an injury.

[styx491]

They can probably sell Lombard vs Silva more than Weidman vs Silva, and they'd have better luck selling Weidman if/after he's beaten a top contender like Bisping. Poor Alan Belcher... I don't think Weidman can beat Belcher as much as he can beat Bisping.

[StillUnknown]

They can probably sell Lombard vs Silva more than Weidman vs Silva, and they'd have better luck selling Weidman if/after he's beaten a top contender like Bisping. Poor Alan Belcher... I don't think Weidman can beat Belcher as much as he can beat Bisping.

I think Weidman beats both, but he'd have more trouble with Belcher.

[d0ublestr0ker0ll]

Really good fight between Marquardt and Woodley. What a sick KO combo, like a bobblehead doll.

[Dr. Do Itch Big]

I feel like Woodley could be so much better. Marquardt hit Woodley real clean on the chin to ko him

[d0ublestr0ker0ll]

I feel like Woodley could be so much better. Marquardt hit Woodley real clean on the chin to ko him

It seemed like every few times Woodley decided to go after Marquardt he connected. I thought he could have finished Nate if a fire were to become lit in his head. Instead he stayed outside most of the fight, constantly eating that right hand Marquardt loves to throw all the time where he slides in fast and throws it straight down the pike. The Maia KO punch, it just kept landing. You're right I think, although this was quite a step up in competition, it's easy to forget Nate is actually very damn good.

He looked enormous tonight. To the point where it made Woodley look like he could drop down to 155

[Dr. Do Itch Big]

Agreed Nate looked huge. I agree completely about Woodley, dude just needs to pull the trigger cause when he did it obviously worked.

[d0ublestr0ker0ll]

[#98QBKiller]

^---That's a badass Hector Lombard highlight.


I just saw the Rockhold/Kennedy card last night. Marquardt and Woodley definitely stole the show...what an awesome fight. And next time he fights, Tyrone Woodley needs to leave his mom at home. Goddamn she was annoying.

btw, who had the better elbow:

Weidman:


or

Marquardt:

[d0ublestr0ker0ll]

Weidman timed that elbow perfectly as Munoz tried to take his head off.

I just realized Nate threw two elbows back to back there. Thought that second one was the only one, dang. Extremely slick, would love to see more of these standing elbows in MMA. What a vastly underrated element.

To answer your question I'd pick the Weidman 'bow. It was just pretty, like a Ken Griffey Jr homerun swing or (ahem) Robert Griffin III longball.

[#98QBKiller]

Extremely slick, would love to see more of these standing elbows in MMA. What a vastly underrated element

We can thank Jon Jones for making standing elbows popular

I think I agree that the Weidman elbow was a little nastier, although that Marquardt uppercut kind of made his elbow seem not as vicious as it really was.