UFC 236

[Lord of The Curry]

Main Card (PPV)

Max Holloway vs Dustin Poirier- Interim LW Championship
Israel Adesanya vs Kelvin Gastelum- Interim MW Championship
Khali Rountree vs Eryk Anders
Alan Jouban vs Dwight Grant
Ovince St. Preux vs Nikita Krylov

Prelims (ESPN)

Jalin Turner vs Matt Frevola
Wilson Reis vs Alexandre Pantoja
Max Griffin vs Zelim Imadaev
Boston Salmon vs Khalid Taha

Prelims (Fight Pass)

Curtis Millender vs Belal Muhammed
Montel Jackson vs Andre Soukamthath
Lauren Mueller vs Poliana Botelho
Brandon Davis vs Randy Costa

 

[Lord of The Curry]

I love Max but Team Diamond all the way on Saturday. The way I see it Max is going to have at least one if not multiple chances at the LW belt in the future but I think for Dustin he's in a position where if he doesn't win he likely won't see another title shot again.

Which sucks on another level because I think with Max's chin, control of distance and cardio he's probably going to KO Poirier inside of three.

 

[Lord of The Curry]

Holloway vs Poirier has GOAT fight potential.

Come on dudes, we're better then this. Let's get some hype going.

 

[AA484]

I like Max but I'm just looking for a good fight. Sherdog seems to think Gastelum has a chance to KO Adesanya which is just what it is... a chance.

 

[Lord of The Curry]

I think Kelvin is a smart enough guy that he's not going to get lured into Izzy's game. He gave up four inches of height against Weidman and three against Bisping and got inside quick enough to drop them both, I wouldn't be shocked to see him do it here. For all of his kickboxing prowess Adesanya isn't a super fast guy but he controls range really well and uses angles very effectively. I want to see how he does against a guy who's going to stick to him inside the pocket and try and wear him out via the clinch and takedowns.

 

[909]

Max will win massively, Adesanya a bit less so.

 

[Lord of The Curry]

I don't know if overrated is the right word but Adesanya's best performance was against Brunson and that's a tough measuring stick to use. I think people expected him to blow Anderson out of the water and he was content to go shot for shot with him. This is a fight he needs to shine in. His debut wasn't anything special and even though I thought it was a joke that the fight was a split decision the Vettori fight wasn't amazing either.

 

[Mickey Massuco]

I give Kelvin a better chance than most. Adesanya is a hypejob, but Kelvin is a welterweight. Both are extremely hittable so there should be a lot of slugging, and I think Israel's chin is suspect due to years of kickboxing and being 30 years old. Izzy is only -170.

I don't believe in Dustin at all, I think Max should finish him and look good doing it. But I think it's funny that both of these interim title fights have fighters who have clearly accomplished less than others in their respective weight classes.

Having 8 cards in 9 weeks hurts the depth of this supposedly big PPV, jouban on a main PPV card in 2019? Meh.

 

[Mickey Massuco]

https://art19.com/shows/winging-it/episodes/7a82ebd3-a0dc-4fae-9b17-9f676166e79c

Vince Carter has a podcast with some other athletes and they interviewed Max Holloway. It's as good as you'd expect.

 

[909]

LIRL FIGHT OF THE YEAR

 

[Zetterberg is God]

Final two fights, holy shit. Very happy for the Diamond. A salon quality champion.

 

[909]

 

[Youth N Asia]

Very happy for Dustin. Been a fan of his for quite some time. People have been talking about Max moving up for a while now, but he looked way small in there tonight. His chin is amazing though.

Terrific main event.

 

[Mickey Massuco]

Totally wrong about Dustin/Holloway, but for all the good things about Izzy his defence is pretty bad. I knew they both had bad defence which is why I expected a slugfest but that was insane rock 'em sock 'em stuff.

The lesson last night though was that weight classes matter. I still don't think these guys are the best in their respective weight classes, but 185 is filled with old dudes now and suffers from the 'dudes this big play sports that pay real money' problem, so Izzy might look dominant depending on how much those Romero wars took out of Whittaker.

The Kelvin fight should have been stopped. I can understand why not given the circumstances but that really shouldn't matter. He was clearly not intelligently defending himself for the last thirty seconds. It was like Taylor vs. Chavez, should have been stopped before the final bell.

Seeing Rich Franklin get in extra punches on Chuck in that old highlight showed me how much worse they were with allowing extra strikes to a KO'd opponent back in the day, so I guess we have SOME progress. Speaking of which, I found it funny that they kept playing up how important it was for Rich to be a polite, respectful fighter. They wanted to have a certain perception in the mainstream, that is pretty much the complete opposite of how they promote their shows now. Now it's all about being an asshole who stirs up the most shit. It was surreal to watch that juxtaposition in real time, really made an era that's only a decade old seem like ancient history.

 

[Mickey Massuco]

also the visual of a 5'9 dude built like a spark plug somehow landing a left leg almost-cemetery on a 6'4 kickboxer should inspire underdogs forever.

 

[KOAB]

I doubt Whittaker will be back to form. Chin cracked by Yoel, body literally falls apart while training and he can't even make the cards they built in his backyard. Oh well it'll be great to read the excuses from more crybabies who can't move on from the old era and the fighters back then as more of the "new generation" rise up.

 

[Brooklyn Zoo]

I thought Holloway adjusted well after the first round but he took so many shots. I hope Dana doesn’t ruin his career having him go back and forth between featherweight and lightweight. Either he stays at FW for the foreseeable future or he gets some easier fights at LW to let his body acclimate and get used to the punches.

 

[KOAB]

Poirier's guard was immensely impressive that fight for two and a half rounds before he gassed and gave Max a lot of problems. Max struggles to land much cleanly at all simply due to Dustin's guard. He even tells his corner at one point "he's blocking weird". If Max didn't have Homer Simpson defense and a little more power he could've ripped the body more.

I'm also never going to forget Kelvin rocking Israel towards the end of the 4th with a headkick and instead of doing what he should've done he goes for a pathetic takedown attempt to "take a break" and ends up gassing himself out even more.

 

[909]

I think Adesanya doesn't have bad defense, actually. It's just the facts of what happens when you start fighting better guys. Everyone gets hit no matter who they are. The difference is that top defensive fighters in the past never fought someone with these kinds of weapons, Anderson being the prime example of said defensive fighters. We have a lot of evidence that Kelvin would demolish almost everyone Anderson faced even in their primes, the only thing that really thwarts him is a bad gas tank, and that's why he lost to the Chris. If someone could wait him out I guess they would win. But anyway going back to what I said about Adesanya having decent defense, there's no shame in getting blasted in the face by Kelvin Gastelum, he's going to do that to everyone. You also have to put it into the context of Adesanya knowing that guys are going to try to wrestle him even though his takedown defense is really good, that threat diverts his attention.

When you think about it, this run by Adesanya is insane. He was still kickboxing regularly until March 2017 and only truly committed to MMA after that, you know how insane that is? He's only been in the UFC for 14 months. I listened to his interview yesterday and he said that he only started training how to use a guillotine choke IN THIS TRAINING CAMP. That kind of aptitude, I don't even know dude. This guy is just scratching the surface of what he could become, I've been on the train from the start and I'm not jumping off. This guy has no athletic background in martial arts that should suggest he's this good, he's just an incredible athlete who his camp has molded into what they wanted him to be. Being a good kickboxer is just one piece of the puzzle, but he only started doing that when he was 18 and he mostly fought bums.

Yoel doesn't really wrestle with guys like this so I think he'd get knocked the fuck out, but that's the fight we need. Kelvin is the only guy at this weight who could take all those shots, he was also getting cracked regularly earlier in the fight when Adesanya was switching stances, but Joe seemed to be ignoring it for some reason. This definitely isn't a hype job, at least it isn't anymore, because people just don't fight like that. As soon as he made Brunson look that bad, that was a wrap for me, I was convinced he would win the title.

 

[AA484]

Adesanya would be my hero forever if he were to knock Romero out.

My big knock against Adesanya is that he leaves his chin way out there. His upper body movements are Matrix-like but if midget-Kelvin can catch him with a slow ass head kick then someone else can hit him with something bigger. Who that is right now, I don't know. Someone like Mousasi could give him problems but he ain't in UFC. But it's definitely something that may bite him in the ass at some point a la Silva/Weidman.

 

[909]

The thing that I'd be worried about going forward with Adesanya is that his performances against orthodox and southpaw fighters are massively different. Against an orthodox fighter it looks like he can't be touched, that changes against southpaws.

 

[Lord of The Curry]

Poirier's guard was immensely impressive that fight for two and a half rounds before he gassed and gave Max a lot of problems. Max struggles to land much cleanly at all simply due to Dustin's guard. He even tells his corner at one point "he's blocking weird". If Max didn't have Homer Simpson defense and a little more power he could've ripped the body more.

I'm also never going to forget Kelvin rocking Israel towards the end of the 4th with a headkick and instead of doing what he should've done he goes for a pathetic takedown attempt to "take a break" and ends up gassing himself out even more.

Kelvin's clinch will sit in the Bad Decisions in A Title Fight HOF alongside Weidman's spinning wheel kick and Shevchenko's head and arm throw.