#ricky simon

[cloacacarnage]

[theanticool]

Raoni Barcelos takes UD over Ricky Simon in a BANGER of a fight!

Easily the best fight of the night. One of those true technical marvels you get between two vets of the sport that still have something in the tank but are clearly past it athletically so they have to lean heavily on their technique.

Barcelos' ability to fight hard for 15 minutes was crazy. Came out the gate looking to punish Simons in the pocket, attacking with the rear uppercut. Landed that upstairs, but also to the body with authority. Both guys were being defensively responsible. Lots of head movement. Active hands and pivots. Great stuff. Barcelos scored a takedown but immediately got reversed and paid for it as Simon rained down some nasty elbows. Barcelos rebounded from that in the 2nd with a straight boxing masterclass as he was able to continually extend exchanges by pivotting or stepping out and forcing Simon to turn. Then in the third he added some lovely knees as Simon was showing signs of ducking trying to get under the overhand right.

Just a really great fight between two vets. Had this pegged as the fight to care about and it delivered. Should have been the main event. Or co-main event.

[themsleeves]

Ricky Simon caught Raphael Assunção in round 2 with a nice right hook when faking the one-two @ UFC Fight Night: Lewis vs. Daukaus

[beautifulviolence]

UFC Fight Night Sacramento

[thesportssoundoff]

“Two title fights! Two title fights! Cub Swanson! Bethe Correia! CARE!” UFC 227 Preview

Joey

July  29th, 2018

Do you folks remember those movies where the mad scientist/business director/army general/warlord would shout something along the lines of "I don't want excuses, I want results!" before going on a tirade about how things aren't being done?

Welcome to UFC 227!

This card has two fundamental flaws that for better or for worse will prevent it from being viewed in any sort of positive light heading into it. The first part is that MMA fans are like the sort of folks I've run into working in office buildings and apartment complexes  in New York City. These people pay premium prices for a service and they expect said good or service to be delivered. They don't want to hear that you're short staff or that you've run out of something; they're paying for it so they expect it. They don't care that your "We're only human" excuse is perfectly valid. This card on paper started off with the promise or allure of GSP/Nate Diaz and Gustafsson/Rockhold among other things. I've discovered that the more the show has to change from its original incantation, the more and more the audience grows to reject it. To quote WB Mason, “Just is good is never ever just as good.” EVEN if TJ/Garbrandt II and Mighty Mouse/Cejudo II are perfectly acceptable high level MMA title fights that stayed the same, it's irrelevant to what we're NOT getting and so all of it matters nil in the grand scheme of things. The days of "At least the main event stayed together" or "Well kudos to them for saving the show!" are gone for this audience. MMA fans don't want your excuses, they just want your results. Once a card FEELS like it's being throw together in a slapshot fashion, you can't win them back. The excuses for UFC 227 are valid but the results are a pale withered birch compared to what we were assuming to be offered. The second flaw is that in MMA, unless it's REALLY special, you can't "Been there, done that" folks. My belief is that rematches can only sell when the element of surprise is at play. There's no real great high level excuse that either Cejudo or Garbrandt can rely on to convince audiences that things will be different. Cormier had the cocaine induced frenzy Jones was on for their first fight, Lesnar had the whole Steve Mazzagatti excuse and Conor (and Dana) offered up 1,000 excuses as to why Conor lost to Nate the first time. All we know on Cejudo and Garbrandt is that the champions of those title fights dispatched of them with ease. That doesn't get you excited for a rematch you have to pay premium prices for. Throw in the size-ism (this card has one fight above 155 lbs) and just the general fatigue from what was a very busy/very good July for MMA and we're limping into this show.

Despite that, I still like this card. It's not the sort of card I'd pay $60 solo for but it is absolutely a "If you can split the price" type card that will likely surprise you IF you order it. Henry Cejudo is the best fighter at 125 lbs not named Demetrious Johnson and earned the rematch with two definitive wins in a row, Cody Garbrandt was the logical choice above the likes of Dom Cruz (he beat Cruz who beat TJ) and Assuncao (We've seen TJ/Rapha twice now). Two title fights plus a tremendous featherweight fight as Renato Moicano tries to take the next step in his career against Cub Swanson who is now in that "I'm about to fall out of relevancy!" stage of his UFC career where he seems to rattle off six wins in a row. Moicano may be MMA's best fighter nobody really even knows about and he's the one dude who came the closest to solving the Brian Ortega riddle. Thiago Santos gets to potentially style on a good regional dude in Kevin Holland and JJ Aldrich vs Polyana Viana is...well it's on the show I guess. MMA's best weight class gets to shine as there's five bantamweight fights and all of them are tremendous quality. Jose Torres is back in business and he draws a tremendous fighter in Alex Perez in arguably one of those "Look back in five years and be shocked two dudes this good fought one another this early in their UFC runs" fights. Even Betche Correia is back and Betche vs Irene Aladana has some fun fight potential. I'm going to give this show until the end of the prelims to sell me on it, chances are I'm gonna wind up taking the plunge.

Fights: 13

Debuts: 3 (Kevin Holland, Montel Jackson and Matt Sayles)

Fight Changes/Injury Cancellations: 4 (Gus vs 8 people cancelled, Bharat Kandere OUT, Marlon Vera IN vs Wuliji Buren, BenitoLopez OUT, Montel Jackson IN vs RIcky Simon)

Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC): 6 (Henry Cejudo, Demetrious Johnson, Cody Garbrandt, TJ Dillashaw, Cub Swanson, Bethe Correia)

Fighters On Losing Streaks in the UFC: 2 (Cub Swanson, Marlon Vera)

Fighters On Winning Streaks in the UFC: 6 (Demtrious Johnson, Henry Cejudo, Cody Garbrandt, JJ Aldrich, Ricardo Ramos, Kyung Ho Kang)

Main Card Record Since Jan 1st 2016 (in the UFC): 27- 10

Demetrious Johnson- 4-0 Henry Cejudo- 2-2 TJ Dillashaw- 3-1 Cody Garbrandt- 4-1 Thiago Santos- 4-3 Kevin Holland- 0-0 Polyana Viana- 1-0 JJ Aldrich- 2-1 Cub Swanson- 4-2 Renato Moicano- 3-1

Divisional Breakdown:

Bantamweight- 5 (!) Flyweight- 2 Women's Strawweight- 2 Featherweight- 2 Middleweight- 1 Women's Bantamweight- 1

Too High Up- JJ Aldrich vs Polyana Viana

A fool would say Thiago Santos vs Kevin Holland is too high up. Santos is coming off a loss to David Branch and Holland is making his debut. Three casual reasons why you're wrong; 1) Thiago Santos has not been to a decision since 2015, spanning eight straight fights where he's either finished or been finished before the the end of the second round. 2) This card is so small in size and stature that for the sake of variety, bigger fellas are necessary. 3) Even if Kevin Holland isn't anything; I'd rather see him get a chance to prove what he is/isn't on the main card than if he was buried on the FX Prelims. For me, Aldrich vs Viana is a fight that has no point on probably any main card ever. That's no knock on both ladies as Aldrich is 2-1 in the UFC and Viana smelted Jamie Moyle in her debut. It's just not a PPV quality fight by any stretch of the imagination. Holland vs Santos probably isn't either BUT again, this card is so small in size that any "big" dude is getting the main card spot. 115 lbs is back in another one of their finishless ruts and this fight figures to not do anything to change that.

Too Low- Ricardo Ramos vs Kyung Ho Kang

Why is this on the FIGHT PASS prelims and not even the top fight either? Jose Torres vs Alex Perez is at least a tremendous fight with a dude who has been built up to the Fight Pass audience in Torres. Ricardo Ramos has wins over Michinori Tanaka and Aiemann Zahabi and the last one was a spinning back elbow KO in a tremendous fight. He should be higher. Kyung Ho Kang is coming off a triangle win over Guido Cannetti in a really good first round finish. These guys are at least televised prelim quality and DARE I say, I'd have no issue with them on the PPV main card either. Ramos is probably my new favorite Brazilian up and comer whose sole loss was a banana peel fight vs Manny Vasquez that Vasquez is still riding off of (and Vasquez is no slouch either!). Ramos should be off Fight Pass by now.

Stat Monitor for 2018: Debuting Fighters (Current number: 19-23):  Kevin Holland, Matt Sayles, Zhang Weili and Montel Jackson

Short Notice Fighters (Current number: 20-10): Marlon Vera, Montel Jackson

Second Fight (Current number: 29-21): Ricky Simon, Polyana Viana, Wuliji Buren, Sheymon Moraes, Jose Torres

Cage Corrosion (Current number: 15-26):  Bethe Correia

Undefeated Fighters (Current number: 22-17):  Jose Torres, Montel Jackson

Keeping An Eye On But Not Really:

The UFC Win Check Test The records of fighters who have 4 or more UFC fights (or three full calendar years in the organization) but 0 wins against people still in the UFC:

Twelve Precarious Ponderings

1- So what necessarily can each losing fighter do to give themselves a better chance to come out on the right end of their respective title rematches? Cody Garbrandt's biggest change I suppose would be to temper his aggressiveness and fight smarter. No, he's not going to outpoint TJ over the course of 25 minutes given their respective styles. At the same time, we know Dillashaw CAN be hit (and Cody CAN hurt him) so it's not a matter of IF he can hurt him. Garbrandt completely abandoned what worked in the Cruz fight and what he did share in both fights was an at times willingness to style a bit too much. It works vs a dude like Cruz who can't hit you hard enough to back you off or make you pay for it. It's not going to work against Dillashaw who hits really hard. Cody's walk em down and flurry for power can work in spurts but he needs to pick his shots better. For Cejudo? I got nothing. Cejudo's improved by leaps and bounds with his hands but we've seen this before. Against Dustin Kimura, he looked like an all world striker----and then he went back to being a clinch happy potshotter who was frustrated by the quality of takedown defense by the likes of Chico Camus and Jussier Formiga. The only guys who can beat Mighty Mouse are the guys who are a) bigger than him (check for Cejudo), b) make him pay for when he gambles on exchanges or poor exits with pressure (???) and c) do NOT think that the best way to beat him is to try and sucker him into a grappling exchange. It's like when everybody figured that beating Anderson Silva would come down to trying to smother him for five rounds. If Cejudo thinks he can beat Mighty Mouse just because Sergio Pettis was happy to give him his legs and play guard then he's in for a world of shit.

2- This is without question the biggest test of Cody Garbrandt's career. Cody's obviously been through plenty tougher in his personal life but this isn't just a situation where you see a young prospect have to bounce back from a loss. Garbrandt got finished by a guy he considered a friend in violent fashion on the biggest show of the year when 11 months prior he had basically stated his case to be the UFC's next Urijah Faber. Garbrandt was humiliated and nothing is more hurtful than when the humiliation is from someone who knows you. After running through a bunch of dudes, Garbrandt's ego has been checked and while we've seen TJ recover (his first UFC fight was a loss), the onus falls on Garbrandt to bounce back similarly. He'll have to figure it out and get back on the right track in another pressure cooker.

3- Marlon Moraes, Dominick Cruz or Raphael Assuncao for the winner?

4- Whatever you do, don't snooker yourself into believing that we're getting DJ vs the winner of this fight next. Be surprised rather than disappointed for once.

5- The key to all Henry Cejudo fights is basically the same to all Mighty Mouse fights; Just how long is it before they seem to get bored? The difference is that a bored Mighty Mouse seems to check in while Cejudo seems to check out.

6- Irene Aldana's UFC run has been....interesting. Compare it to Alexa Grasso's run where it feels like Grasso is getting the bare minimum out of her time to Aldana who is 1-2 but has at least showcased what she's capable of in each fight. Against Leslie Smith she seemed ill prepared for Smith's boxing chops until it was far too late. Against Kaitlyn Chookagian, she got outworked in a fight where I feel like she took it pretty convincingly. Against Talita Bernado, she was pretty much on point early and then coasted late. Aldana has showcased some really good work and this division probably needs her to be really good really quickly. Her kicking game comes and goes, she still looks weaker than everyone she faces but her takedown defense and her boxing chops are really good. There's still upside here in a division where Cat Zingano and Sara McMann are still quality capable 135ers. EVERYONE who has beaten Bethe in the UFC has either been a champ (Holly Holm and Ronda Rousey) or gone on to fight the champ (Rocky Pennington). What's more Bethe is the sort of fighter who will give Aldana every opportunity to stand and trade with her. IF Aldana finishes Bethe, it's going to open up a ton of eyes.

7- Cage Warriors Brett Johns chose to show up at the worst time possible vs Aljamain Sterling.  Against an opponent he couldn't outmuscle or outathlete, Johns looked woefully out of his depth. To Johns' credit, Sterling on his top game tends to do that most guys. Brett Johns gets a reset vs Pedro Munhoz who is in a similar spot of "Okay now what?" In many ways this is where the bantamweight division has its big problem; there are so many fighters in similar spots of "Okay now what?" because everybody is good and everybody is in this clogged artery where 10-15 great fighters like Brian Kelleher, Aljamain Sterling, Brett Johns, Pedro Munhoz, Iuri Alcantara, Jon Dodson, Rob Font and Douglas Andrade are all beating one another to try and create a pecking order outside of the top 5. Everytime a guy wins, he gets knocked off by a guy who lost to someone else so the snake is always eating its tail. This is another one of those fights.

8- Renato Moicano has more relevant wins in the last three years than Cub Swanson does. Jeremy Stephens and Calvin Kattar trump Hacran Dias, Kawijiri, Choi and Lobov.

9- TheAntiCool in the past has talked about how Moicano is the sort of guy who needs a lot of breathing space and distance to operate. Swanson is normally very good if nothing else at being able to fight both forwards and backwards. He and Greg Jackson made the switch really quickly on Doo Ho Choi once they felt he couldn't keep up going backwards and I imagine the gameplan is going to be similar unless he just wants Moicano to tactically work him over with his howitzer jab and leg kicks. Also keep an eye on the body work from Swanson because the most underrated aspect of Ortega vs Moicano was that Brian Ortega made a conscious decision to go after Moicano's body once he got pieced up in the first round.

10- I wonder how many people who hopped off the Jose Torres bandwagon will come hopping back on when he (probably) finishes Alex Perez?

11- This UFC stretch of fighters making weight has now extended to three events with this passing Calgary card. Can we make it four in a row?

12- Chris Curtis not getting a contract got some folks really mad/sad on twitter but to me the real miss of the Contender Series was Montel Jackson not getting a deal. Jackson pretty much dominated Rico Discullio en route to a third round stoppage and I believe the only reason he didn't get signed was because he lost points due to excessive fouling. He's rough around the edges but also tremendously gifted from an athletic POV and he flashed so many raw intangibles that I'm really excited he's getting this short notice opportunity vs Ricky Simon.

[theanticool]

Song Yadong vs Ricky Simon

Song Yadong (21-8-1) finds himself in a precarious position. At 27 years old, he has been fighting professionally for well over a decade. And while he's been making obvious improvements in his game and is a physical presence at 135lbs, he has come up short when he has taken that step up to fight the elite fighters in the division. Most recently, he lost to a Petr Yan who was coming off a 3 fight losing streak. You only get so big a window in MMA and even if he's young, the shark tank that is 135lbs is only going to preserve so many opportunities.

Yadong will get another shot at a big name with this Saturday (Feb. 22) when he faces off with Henry Cejudo (16-4) in the main event of UFC Fight Night Seattle.

Also on the card will be Ricky Simon (20-6). Simon finds himself on the downturn. He's lost 3 straight fights to up and comers looking for significant wins. Not a great sign for a 32 year old trying to fight his way to contention after being in the UFC for like 7-8 years. He will be facing off with Javid Basharat (14-1).

[cloacacarnage]

[theanticool]

Jack Shore vs Ricky Simon being this low on the card is crazy. Should have held it off til next week in UK.