Hot Tweets: UFC 277 fallout, Dustin Poirier vs. Michael Chandler and Islam Makhachev’s title aspirations

It’s been a big week. UFC 277 happened, with several very significant results, then the UFC announced Dustin Poirier against Michael Chandler. So let’s talk about all of that, as well as a brief mention of UFC Vegas 59 tonight.

At UFC 277, Cara France lost to Brandon Moreno for the second time, being stopped in the third round by a hard blow. To make matters worse, the KKF has won the Tour so far and appears in good shape to avenge their 2019 loss to Moreno, until he catches a ball on the ground. This is the way MMA is, and it has left KKF in a difficult situation.

On the other hand, Cara-France is still relatively young and seems to have regained his peak form, and losing to the interim champion now doesn’t put him back much from his title aspirations. On the other hand, if Moreno goes on to reclaim the title unchallenged, he has two wins over the KKF, so the New Zealander will need a very impressive winning streak to break a third against him. In the end, that means there are two very obvious next steps for Cara-France: 1) Pray like hell that Deiveson Figueiredo remains the flyweight champion, and go fight Alexandre Pantoga.

Pantoja also fought at UFC 277 and had the best performance of the weekend, blowing the doors for poor Alex Perez. Pantoja now has three straight wins, in all ranked competitions, and in fact, “Xander Pants” deserves a title fight. He won’t get one because of the title situation, so the KKF should do their best to make this fight happen because if some things break, he could be back in the title picture sooner than many imagine.

While Pantoja gets a crude deal in headline talk, no one does worse than Ankalaev. Ankalaev has won nine fights in a row, and is the lightest heavyweight in UFC history not named Jon Jones. Think about it a little bit. In a marquee department like 205 pounds, Ankalaev did something only Jon Jones had done before. He also did something Jon Jones didn’t by stopping Anthony Smith in the second round (albeit with the help of an injury). By the most reasonable metrics, Ankalaev deserves the next title in Light Heavyweight, but he’s probably third behind Glover Teixeira and Jan Blachowicz simply because they were former champions.

Given how exciting Jiri Prochazka vs. Glover is — he’s lock-in for fight of the year, and rightfully in the conversation for the greatest fight of all time — I’m willing to accept that the UFC is going to bring him back. That really leaves only one option: He fights Ankalaev Blachowicz in a elimination match for the title. It sucks for Ankalayev, but that’s how it goes.

Amanda Nunes reclaimed her welterweight title at UFC 277, and also reclaimed the two-time champion status in the process, still being the queen of a non-existent division, at least not in the UFC. It’s very stupid for the UFC to continue this farce, but it doesn’t hurt anyone, so I guess it’s okay at the end of the day.

Here’s the truth: The UFC is not in the case of Kayla Harrison. To paraphrase Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg: “If they had been in the Harrison business, they would have been in the Harrison business.” The UFC was fortunate enough to sign Kayla Harrison on free agency, and they succeeded, perhaps because they didn’t want to offer more than their competitors. This tendency will not change for them. They will deliver what they think fits their bottom line – and Harrison just doesn’t. It’s a draw, but not a huge draw, and there’s one fight the UFC cares about. By the time Harrison becomes a free agent again, Nunes may not be around.

The UFC keeping the featherweight division sounds like a case that costs them nothing to do, it gives them another belt to label and promote, and it’s keeping one of their most accomplished fighters – a woman who’s been an entire businesswoman’s career – happy. Et c’est dommage, car le 145 féminin n’est certes pas une division profonde, mais il ya suffisamment de corps pour en faire un légitime si l’UFC voulait dépenser les ressources, et s’ils elayy investiraitient a time, . But this is not the UFC. They don’t build good things, they buy things when they get good. It is a successful business model and they will not give up soon.

In case you missed it, a light pop between Poirier and Chandler for the year-end PPV event has been confirmed. It’s a fight that grabs the headlines (as it should be) and is so important to the 155-pound division, and yes, unfortunately, it can be a title disqualification tool.

I’ve been in my soapbox for a while on this, but I hate what’s going on in lightweights now (or, more accurately, in the last year and a half). Both of the biggest names in the UFC rankings have earned a title, failed and are now battling each other. The fights are great, so we’re fine with that, but the bottom line is that the sport’s best and deepest division is stagnating due to the few players sitting in their rankings. For God’s sake, Conor McGregor is still ranked! He hasn’t gained any weight since 2016!!!! There are a number of incredibly talented light weightlifters, who are putting in great performances and slowly climbing the ranks, but they are still years away from the title shot because Poirier and Chandler would take them on Poirier’s back with a victory over Conor. McGregor and Chandler defeat Tony Ferguson. ! I can’t really imagine how players like Matthews Jammrow and Raphael Viziev would feel, knowing that they might crush Poirier next, but they won’t stand a chance unless they take 12 wins together.

Now to bring Volkanovsky. This, more than any other reason, is why I am so opposed to Volkanovsky for the lightweight title, because the division has to sort itself out. Volkanovsky has his own department that controls it, and as big as it is, the truth is that he hasn’t cleaned up a featherweight by any means. He beat Max Holloway three times, then Brian Ortega. He is two men in the top 5 players. Volkanovsky should spend the next year cleaning up his weight class, allowing the lightweights to get some hull semblance, and then he can try his hand at champ status.

yes. definitely. That’s why he will win the light belt quite easily.

Charles Oliveira is a great fighter and a dangerous wrestler, but sometimes I think mixed martial arts fans have collectively lost their minds due to the danger he poses on the field. Many fighters descended to the ground with Chaki’s olives and lived to tell the tale. These fighters are not as good as Islam Makhachev.

I feel this fight the same way I’ve always felt Khabib Nurmagomedov against Tony Ferguson: it’s one-sided. Oliveira is the most dangerous striker, but much of his effectiveness on his feet comes simply from his desire to fall on his back. When Guethje or Pourier injured him, Oliveira fell and had time to recover because they were too afraid to play in his keeper. Makhachev will either hit him hard in the head and then follow him to the ground and hit him, or he will just deal with him and go to work. If Paul Felder could sit in the bouncer and elbow Oliveira in his face at a hamburger, I Think Makhachev could do the same.

It’s too early to tell, but there’s a good chance it could. was nical elite A collegiate wrestler, the only reason he’s not competing in an Olympic race is because he wrestles with the same weight as David Taylor, the man who won the gold medal in 2020. If Nichal wanted to dedicate the next 10 years to wrestling, he would make at least a US national team, possibly a medal in place What. But instead, he wants to fight, and we’ll do our best.

Add responsibility. Gross incompetence is not recorded, and until it is, judgment will never improve. This is the bottom line. I’d like to see a complete overhaul of the grading system because I think it doesn’t do what we want but 99 times out of 100 issues with judgment are not due to open grading or rating criteria or something else. It’s just that the judges are not feeling well and nothing happened as a result.

Because the fun fights don’t affect the scores at all. You and I are going to watch anyway. Ratings are paid for by regular fans, and regular fans don’t search for Fight Night cards before logging in to make sure it’s something they care about. They just change the channel, and they see Thiago Santos fighting, and then they remember the time Jimmy Manoa blew up or something, and they say, “Sure, that can be fun.” If the UFC were better at promoting, they could sell people in some of their amazing fights as main events, but that’s not what they do anymore. They just dump the content and let the brand do the rest. That’s why Thiago Santos, who hasn’t enjoyed himself in three years, got another 25 minutes of downtime tonight. Let’s all pray that somehow Jamal Hill can bring back Marietta’s fun.

Thanks for reading and thanks to everyone who tweeted! Do you have any burning questions about things that are at least somewhat related to combat sports? Then you are in luck, because you can send your hot tweets to me, Tweet embedI will answer them! It doesn’t matter if it’s objective or nonsense. Send it to me and I will reply to the ones I love the most. Let’s have fun.