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Originally Posted by Donny77 This year has been touted as teh year of the upset, but im beginning to think its more the year of exposure. Starting with Ace on saturday. He always looked real good against guys b/c he knew a bit more standup then them and that made him look alomost unstoppale. Until he fought a worldclass striker.
THenwe have Randy captain America where we unfortunatley discovered that father time finally caught up with him. Royce, the sport has passed him by.
We found out that Shogun can be beat (fluke or no fluke) As too Wandy can still be KOED.
AA got beat twice by big Tim by being a smart fighter.
If Chucky was fighting a WC striker for his next defence, I could see losing his title this year too. Unfortunatley I dont see him fighting a WC striker for awhile! |
everyone can lose at any given point in time, the only fighter that seems untouchable is Fedor but Cro Cop rocked him in their first fight and could very easily catch him with a high kick or punch and it would be over. It is possible but just not likely as Fedor us the most well rounded fighter in the game.
Wand did it to himself by deciding to gain weight for the Cro Cop fight. He had nothing to gain by increasing his weight because he already had KO power so in doing so, it decreased his speed and really hurt his recovery time. He would've done much better had he stayed at his normal 205 weight, those extra 10-13 lbs really hurt him.
Franklin had not fought anyone, not only strikers, he just han not fought anyone period. tanner the 1 dimesional wrestler so you know he doesn;t have standup, The Crow was OK but never world class and was very passive in that Franklin fight. When Franklin did fight a great fighter it was Lyoto who only had 6-7 fights on his recrod (though over very impressive names) and he easily controlled that fight and then KOed Franklin. They were the same weight so anyone who tries to make excuses about Lyoto being the heavier fighter is WRONG, they were both 205, nice try though.
Royce we all knew was going to lose, you don;t make a return to the octagon and fight Hughes, it's just a bad move. When Royce has been fighting in the past 4-5 years he faces cans that he can dominate, his last great opponent was the world class Sakuraba and that was a fight that lasted 1.5 hrs and Royce was completely dominated. No surprise that Hughes dominated Royce, you can't just be a BJJ practitioner (as we all wittnessed in Lister's last fight where he gassed and almost lost as he has 0 standup skills).
Chuck would be heavily tested and I strongly beleive that if he fought a striker it would be the end of his belt. Even when you look at his impressive resume it is over world class wrestlers, only 1 win over a decent striker and that was belfort but Vitor was a very streaky fighter, sometimes he was great and other times he would not show up to fight and his performance against Chuck was very poor. When you make a title defense against Vernon White with a 24-27 record, it is obvious that your caoch/UFC president is pulling the strings and has been evident as Chuck has only fought wrestlers and grapplers. Silva, Shogun, Arona, Nog, Igor, Rampage or Manhoef would all give Chuck a HUGE test and he would likely lose to the majority of those names including Manhoef and Arona and Arona is a grappler.
Shogun certainly can be beaten, that was proven once and the Snake would've proved it again had Shogun chosen to stand with him. That is the difference in the UFC and Pride, UFC gets Kongo and Pride gets fighters like Kang, Cro Cop, Hunt and the Snake. World class K-1 strikers whereas the UFC picks up the rejects that show SOME-VERY LITTLE potential and are not even going to develop their skills for anouther 4+ years and then they will try and market the fighter like he is goign to be the next big thing and is ready for the HW title.
It's all politics, Pride claims they have the best fighters and UFC claims they have the best fighters but we all know who is telling the truth and who is the liar.
This year has been great for MMA with the highlights of the year being the OWGP Finals (which will bring us fedor vs cro cop II), A. Silva destroying Franklin with absolute ease, Hughes proving Royce is human and is just an ordinary man and Arlovski losing the belt to a sloppy fighting juicer who wears his belt to every UFC event and the grocery store.
2006: the year of exposure 
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