2015 UFC/MMA Discussion Thread - Page 29

Anthony Pettis did not look good in the fight with Gilbert Melendez. He looked slow and took a lot of punches from Melendez. I was kind of torn though. I wanted a Wisconsin fighter to win, but I knew Dos Anjos would be all up in his grill the whole time. My hope was that Pettis would be able to grind out a win, but I felt very iffy about it.

I totally got this wrong. All the top-ranked fighters from Invicta - Tecia Torres, Rose Namajumas, Jessica Penne - she fought all of them and dominated every fight. I could tell she was scared to fight Torres, but did it anyway, and won despite being battered in the fight. The way she has been able to smother every opponent gave me the impression that Esparza would take the fight to the ground and pound on Jedrzejczyk for five rounds.

Once Esparza got the takedown in the first round right away, I was pretty convinced that I was right, but after that, Jedrzejczyk ran away with the fight, and I've never seen Carla Esparza get completely and utterly shut out like that. I don't know if Esparza was in the right mind-frame or if her cardio was suffering, but she didn't seem like herself during the fight. I would question how well she prepared for this fight, but that's a question only she and her coaches know the answer to.

I really thought Johny Hendricks would use his much-improved boxing to land a big punch and knock out Matt Brown. But nah. Didn't happen that way.

A few fighters walked into that Nelson right hand and paid for it in the past. But then Stipe Miocic gave every other fighter a blueprint on how to defeat Roy Nelson by taking advantage of his general lack of mobility. Nelson can move fast, but only in very short bursts, and when he does, it's usually straight forward, so anyone stepping laterally to their right would be able to easily avoid getting punched by Nelson's power hand.

Overeem is a weird kind of hit-and-miss fighter. Sometimes he does well, other times, not so much. I did not believe he would simply walk right into a right hook from Nelson though. On the other hand, Nelson has taken a beating to the face from other heavyweights and has been notoriously difficult to knock out. Overeem is the type of fighter who seems to gas after every first round, so I didn't expect him to have the energy to put Nelson away, but could skate his way to a decision, and I WAS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT.

I just didn't know much about Cejudo. I wasn't really interested in the fight until I saw it take place, and then I realized how good Cejudo was. I kind of just picked Cariaso out of pure favoritism.