UFC 157: Rousey vs. Carmouche

[John Hancock]

http://punchdrunkgamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/ufc-157-banner.jpg

 

February 23rd

Honda Center

Anaheim, California

 

Rondy Rousey © vs. Liz Carmouche

Lyoto Machida vs. Dan Henderson

Urijah Faber vs. Ivan Menjivar

Court McGee vs. Josh Neer

Josh Koscheck vs. Robbie Lawler

-

Brendan Schaub vs. Lavar Johnson

Michael Chiesa vs. Anton Kuivanen

Dennis Bermudez vs. Matt Grice

Sam Stout vs. Caros Fodor

-

Kenny Robertson vs. Brock Jardine

Jon Manley vs. Neil Magny

Nah-Shon Burrell vs. Yuri Villefort

 

[video=youtube;FQ2F5otLh1Q]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ2F5otLh1Q

Edited February 21, 2013 by John Hancock

[The Beltster]

That's a pretty deep card, prelims and all.

[John Hancock]

I was thinking the same thing, looks like the UFC learnt their lesson from last year.

 

Also, is Liz Carmouche the first openly gay fighter in UFC history? I know everyone says Nick Ring's gay, but that was never confirmed, where as Carmouche is open about it.

[Chris2K]

I'm going on record: NO FIRST ROUND ARMBAR HERE. She'll win with a different first round submission.

 

If I had to guess I'd say that the UFC made sure to stack the rest of the card as a fallback in case Rousey didn't draw as a PPV headliner. If that is the case then I'm not sure how much we can read into how much of a draw Rousey is from this card.

 

The ticket sales haven't been promising, and that got Dana upset with Meltzer when he had the audacity to report it. What a silly journalist, reporting factually accurate news.

 

EDIT: Just watched the preview video, it's very strange that the UFC spliced in commentary from Goldberg and Rogan from another fight pretending they were commentating on one of Rousey's previous fights...

Edited February 4, 2013 by Chris2K

[John Hancock]

Dana does that every time Meltzer reports bad news, he did it for the FOX ratings too, he's obviously a pretty weird guy.

[The Beltster]

I was thinking the same thing, looks like the UFC learnt their lesson from last year.

 

Also, is Liz Carmouche the first openly gay fighter in UFC history? I know everyone says Nick Ring's gay, but that was never confirmed, where as Carmouche is open about it.

If Nick Ring is gay, what an unfortunate surname he has.

 

The ticket sales haven't been promising, and that got Dana upset with Meltzer when he had the audacity to report it. What a silly journalist, reporting factually accurate news.

That's not really the full story though is it...Ticket sales weren't great, but as White said, they hadn't done any advertising for the show when tickets went on sale, they were still heavily into the advertising and promotion of the two shows that were happening at the time. So basically, ticket sales weren't flying, but they were also not bad and that was with almost zero advertising and promotion, and as he said, once they kick it into high gear, they fully expect ticket sales to pick up.

 

Makes sense to me.

Edited February 4, 2013 by The Beltster

[John Hancock]

Or what an awesome surname he has!

 

http://outsports.com/jocktalkblog/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/nickring22.jpg

[Frank Botch]

[video=youtube;gCLJY8kvHVU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCLJY8kvHVU&

 

Last Primetime. These are good shows.

[John Hancock]

I'm not big on Ronda sex-wise (she's no Erik Silva), but, scary man-back aside, she looked fine as shit at the weigh-ins today. She keeps whatever she's been doing up and maybe I'll start answering her calls. I said maybe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

PS: Josh Neer looks like the third Diaz brother, and he has goofy tattoos.

[Frank Botch]

That would be the one weigh in I've missed in months, I must go and seek some pictures of Rousey. For research purposes.

 

[video=youtube;iZj189MZp6c]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZj189MZp6c&

 

There you have it.

[John Hancock]

Most ridiculous winning streak ever.

[ViciousPrism]

Just watching the Hendo/Machida fight and I'm realizing, I f*cking hate Machida. His style is that of a cocky little sh*t. Kinda like Roadrunner. Maybe it's just because I always wanted Wile E. Coyote to kill him till he's dead.

 

EDIT: Boring fight. F*ck a Machida.

Edited February 24, 2013 by ViciousPrism

[John Hancock]

Yeah, Machida sucks mega-dicks, especially in that fight.

[ViciousPrism]

Annnd just finished the PPV. Wasn't as boring as the last one I saw which was a while back. Some great fights, especially the main event. Thought Carmouche had that choke sunk in, but she didn't really. Replays showed that she basically had it over the mouth, not under the chin. That armbar though. Damn.

 

Good shit.

[Chris2K]

ROUSEY~!

 

I didn't like the Machida/Henderson fight but I had no problem with Machida's tactics. If someone's not engaging with you then you have to change your gameplan and Henderson didn't. The last few minutes of the third round Henderson just stalked him and barely threw a punch, for that alone he deserved to lose the decision.

 

Matt Grice v Dennis Bermudez was an awesome fight, check it out if you can.

[The Beltster]

How Grice stayed up I dont know, I think the cage held him up under the barrage of uppercuts he was eating near the end there.

 

I thought Liz had her, I was marking out. Then that f*cking arm bar made an appearance.

[John Hancock]

I realised for the first time yesterday that Rousey does a really, really weird armbar, and it's an armbar only a girl could get away with. First of all, she crosses her feet, which is a big no-no when you're fighting anyone with serious upper body strength, because they'll just roll over and squash you, and, secondly, she doesn't pinch her knees together, so, if she was a man, she'd be elbowing herself in the balls, so there's two stages of setting up an armbar (spreading the feet and pinching the knees) that she doesn't have to worry about. It's made me start wondering if there's any other moves which are easier to do depending on what gender you are.

 

Anyway, some post-fight news and opinions and talking points and stuff from Dana & Friends;

 

- If Machida/Henderson had been the main event like lots of people thought it should have been, it would have "stunk the place out", and people would have been "p*ssed".

 

- The event was a sell-out and the UFC made more money on tickets than they did for Velasquez/Dos Santos I, which was in the same venue.

 

- If the show gets more than 125,000 buys, (which it almost certainly will) it's the biggest pay-per-view headlined by a women's fight in combat sports history. That record was set by Laila Ali vs. Jackie Frazier-Lyde in 2001.

 

- Depending on the pay-per-view buy-rate, Ronda Rousey will "probably" become the highest paid female fighter in history for this event.

 

- Tito Ortiz's requests for a 145lb fight for Cyborg mean "nothing" to Dana, and she isn't part of the UFC's future plans for women's MMA. Dana thinks Ortiz "over negotiated". "Nobody knows who Cyborg is". The only way Ronda/Cyborg will happen at 145 is if Ronda wins a few more fights and then specifically requests it.

 

- There's the possibility of 145lb and/or 125lb women's divisions in the future, but not for a long time.

 

- Jose Aldo is refusing to fight Anthony Pettis, saying he doesn't believe Pettis deserves the fight. Dana doesn't care, he's fighting Pettis anyway. Dana hinted that Aldo's scared. "He's going to fight Pettis, or he's not going to like how this turns out".

 

- Machida/Henderson "sucked" and "was terrible". Machida's still the number one contender though. It'll be the winner of Jones/Sonnen against Machida, then "who knows".

 

- There's no plans for when Rousey's next fight will be, this was a bit of an experiment with no future plans, but the experiment "went well". Ronda's a "star" and "people love her". Dana called himself women's MMA's biggest neigh-sayer, and that the women have proved him wrong.

 

- The current UFC women's roster is Ronda Rousey, Liz Carmouche, Alexis Davis, Germaine de Randamie, Sarah Kaufman, Julie Kedzie, Sara McMann, Amanda Nunes, Miesha Tate and Cat Zingano.

 

- Gina Carano is welcome in the UFC, but the UFC isn't chasing after her. Carano's "interested" in coming back. Dana believes that Rousey/Carano would probably be the biggest women's fight ever. However, Carano would have a lot of trouble making 135lb, seeing that she missed 145lb a few times.

 

- Dana White believes he knows when MMA will be legalised in New York, but won't say when or really talk about it, because it might "f*ck it up".

 

- Nate and Nick Diaz missed some interviews last week, leading to the UFC coming "really close" to cancelling GSP/Diaz for the second time. Dana said the behaviour of the Diaz brothers and Cesar Gracie was "not cool" and disrespectful. The missed interviews cost the UFC about $50,000 in production costs. Nick made up for it at a future date, but Nate still hasn't. Nick won't be punished if Nate messes up.

 

- The UFC will never cut a fighter coming off a win outside of particularly unusual circumstances.

 

- Bermudez/Grice is an early contender for fight of the year.

 

- The old Strikeforce fighters are "hungry" and are raising the bar for the UFC fighters.

 

- Anderson/Weidman will be the next Middleweight Title fight, and will take place over the weekend of Independence Day.

[Frank Botch]

Never thought about the armbar like that, interesting. Also, always handy to have all the notes here from all the interviews etc, saves me watching them, much appreciated.

 

Meltzer was saying that (very) early indications have this at over 400,000 buys. Will be interesting to see how far away, or near, the final number is to that. Anyway, loved the main event and the Bermudez fight was awesome as well. That Rousey fight though, pretty amazing how dramatic it was, really though Liz had it with that neck crank... whatever it was. On the Henderson deal, it was a boring fight alright but, as Chris says, I wouldn't do anything different if I was Machida. Henderson came across pretty badly calling him a ''pussy'' in his corner, he's a pussy who kicked the hell out of you and avoided you easily for 15 minutes. Diaz ''he won't fight my fight'' type shit.

[Chris2K]

Seeing as every fighter from the semi-main downwards is basically fighting for their jobs I'm amazed there were so many fights where people were being more like Bermudez/Grice and less like Machida. Now's not the time for losing exciting fights, that's not going to save you from the mass culling.

[John Hancock]

I think the exact opposite. If you have exciting fights, Dana will keep you around forever, if you're boring, the UFC are waiting for an excuse. Dan Hardy has exciting fights, lost four in a row and didn't get any shit about it, Akiyama has won one of his five UFC fights, and he's still going strong, then Jon Fitch, a guy notorious for boring fights, loses one fight and he's done.

 

History has shown that, in the UFC, losing good fights will give you a longer career than winning bad ones.