Your Paragon of Virtue

Just out of curiousity, how do Slayer and FFMS know each other? Did you know each other before messageboarding, or meet through the board? I ask because I always read about how you guys are friends in real life yet don't know what started that.

That's not what I imagined either. Then again, I don't imagine what he looks like. I think this is the first time Matt Young posted a pic from Myspace that he actually expected us to make fun of.

All the HW save for Imes and Seth would probably drop to LHW. Yes, that includes Whitehead, according to Tim Sylvia. I think his head alone pushes him into HW category.

That's true about styles making fights, but Diego is skilled enough and savvy enough off of his back to defend himself against tough GnP, so I don't think he would be too fazed by Fickett reiging blows on him. I would pick Fickett to win, since I think Kos is better than Diego, but I think Diego would do well against Fickett too. I know he's a weird dude, but Diego, from what I've seen, only seems to bounce back when faced with adversity, he doesn't fold. Compare his performance against Koscheck to Leben's. He was very active off of his back and caught him a couple of times, not to mention showed the same tenacity throughout three tough rounds even when being slammed to the mat. This leads me to believe that there is a good chance that he could weather the storm Diaz' punches might give him and take the fight to the ground. I'm not sure how good his chin is, but when Koscheck landed that sucker shot he didn't seem fazed at all but just questioned the ref. Hell, the fact that Diego tooled Koscheck on the ground yet one judge gave the fight 30-27 to Koscheck leaves me with little faith in UFC judging. If you go on IF, there's an article about how this fight should really play to the Latino fanbase. Do you feel a special connection to this bout LT?

Fickett is better than all of those guys, and you said it yourself that Diego is better than Koscheck. Look at what happened when Koscheck faced off against Fickett. Yeah, Fickett won, but Koscheck dominated that fight and looked like a better fighter overall. The fact that he lost had to do with a mental mistake, rather than anything regarding skills. I would actually say Karo is better, but Diaz lost that fight. Karo has arguably better submission skills, but I don't think it is to the point that he outclasses Diego. Also, while his Judo takedowns are probably better, the point is that both of them are better than Diaz at takedowns, who has apathetic defense since he himself says he prefers to work in his guard. Diaz is also a much better striker than both anyway, so that's not too different either. Like I said, Diaz should win, but if Diego works on his conditioning (from what I can tell he already seems very tough) he should be able to either GnP or LnP to a decision. Keep in mind that UFC Judges would probably award the decision to Diego, as no matter how active Diaz is off his back, he is still on his back. Refer to Charuto/Hughes.

Diego's only saving grace in this fight will be that he's a tough guy to put away, with a decent chin and good submission defense. The problem is, pretty much everything he does Nick can do better, and Diaz has been in there with guys who: - are superior wrestlers to Diego - are better strikers than Diego - have better submission skills than Diego I see Diaz more or less having his way with Diego aside from a moment or where he tries to work from the top. Diaz via JD. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> But has Diaz ever beaten a fighter as good as Sanchez overall? Facing guys that are tougher in one aspect doesn't necessarily mean as much when they aren't as good at others, not to mention the intangibles. The first question is not rhetorical by the way, I'd like to hear what you think.

MAYBE Nazis.

The Pit is not a CE board so much as a Young Republican Forum. Is there anything worse than a Young Republican?

He's a fan of TUF so I can't dislike him.

Hey, I posted that in the MMA Discussion thread bitches, along with a synopsis on why I don't think people are giving Diego enough of a chance. Although I also mentioned how hilarious I thought the streetfighter line was. Vagrant hair? Are you a sixty year old white woman If Rashad Evans manages to beat Keith, would that vault him into the top ten HW rankings? I'd say that makes his resume more impressive than Vera's.

Pretty funny, as usual from Diego: http://www.ufc.tv/articles/news/articleFul...ticleMainID=325 My favourite line has to be "He fights like a street fighter". Still, I don't know, I kind of think Diego says a lot of stupid things, but I have to agree when he says that Diaz can't stop the takedown. Diego has a much better chance in this than most are giving him credit for. He's adequate enough on the ground to defend what Nick Diaz might throw at him, so I can easily see him wearing him down for a JD. Of course, I don't think his cardio is on par with Diaz, so perhaps he might get caught with that looping hook or submitted because of that. We will see.

Ouch.

How do you think he matches up with Melendez or Menjivar? Menjivar seems just as well rounded, if not more so than he. Also, I was watching some earlier UFC's, and it was kind of surreal to see them acknowledge guys in other promotions as contenders. They showed a contender's chain and Randy Couture was at the top with Noguiera below him, or Anderson Silva challenging Matt Hughes. Nowadays, they seem pretty WWE-ish with their complete ignoring of other companies and fighters. Hell, they talked about Wanderlei Silva challenging Tito at one point, like that was ever going to happen. Seeing them pimp Coleman so hard even after he lost to Nog was the weirdest. Not only will I say that Alexander Emilienenko would have looked much more impressive against Scherner than Vera did, probably knocking him out in the first round, I will go so far as to state that he would probably be the second best heavyweight in the UFC were he to fight there.

Brandon Vera's stock should have dropped after how Whitehead performed on the show. I used to think that Mike Naimark was a good MMA guy, but I just read through a thread where he went over reasons as to why Royce Gracie would beat Matt Hughes if they were to fight (which is an actual rumour). I now think he's crazy of course. It leads me to believe that there are many who just look at fights as "Who has better striking, submissions and wrestling" and then fitting in the pieces. To me, this seems to be way too simple and rarely works that way. A few examples include Lindland-Militech, Henderson-Busta, and GSP-Hughes. To think that Royce, even in his prime, could beat Matt Hughes is just so...weird. That would be a beating and a half, and it makes me believe that some people overstate what Royce did in the first UFC's. Anyway, Kid Yamamoto is truly the best P4P fighter in the world, but due to the fact that he fights out of his weight division that will never be known. It's akin to Dan Henderson going from P4P nobody at that place to a top ten ranking, you have to actually be successful in more than one weight division to warrant a spot. It makes sense, but sometimes due to certain situations (like the lack of a division) it stops more promising guys from getting a spot. Some bad news about the Hughes fight with Parisiyan: Welterweight Karo Parisyan (Pictures) puts his chances of fighting UFC champion Matt Hughes (Pictures) at 70 percent, he told Sherdog.com sunday evening, after the 170-pound UFC No. 1 contender pulled a quadriceps muscle while grappling in his Huntington Beach training camp. The injury, which Parisyan described as a "strain," has forced him out of the gym the since Monday, Oct. 17. Parisyan will test his injured leg tomorrow for the first time in a week, and based on how it feels he will inform the UFC of his status for the November 19 fight.

He fought Serra at 170, which is why Serra moved down eventually because he was too small for the weight. Pulver wants back, the UFC does not. They wanted to pay him less than other LW, that's a sign right there. THey thought he was boring, especially after the Hallman fight which I couldn't even finish. Pretty boring. PRIDE's LW division is way more stacked now anyway, Pulver isn't really a true LW, Serra has never been a threat at LW anyway, and it's hard to promote more than four divisions. Hence, the one with the least talent gets thrown away.

Shonie Carter can't move down, he's a big welterweight. Edwards considers himself a PRIDE fighter now, as Pulver is as well. Maybe Thompson is too, he certainly isn't a UFC fighter. The UFC didn't sign pulver when he was practically asking to come back anyway.

Mayhem is actually a really big welterweight, he fought recently at 195(not a typo) lbs. I heard he might actually move *up* to Middleweight.

Tanner's probably the least intelligent fighter, he should have matched up very well with Franklin and been able to take him down at will, pounding out a victory. But he just doesn't gameplan well. This is another point I have wanted to make; the MW division is the most watered down of any. There's no clear cut favourite, as well as the fact that it's highly possible that anyone from 15 down could probably beat the number one guy. It's probably the worst in MMA. Almost everyone has a bunch of flaws that could be exposed by any other fighter. If BJ Penn REALLY wanted to solidify his P4P legend (because it's not like he's gonna solidify his stomach anytime soon) he could probably step into the UFC, pudgy 185 and all, and beat Franklin. I like Franklin, but his lack of wrestling and the fact that I don't think that's a good weight for him leads me to believe that he'd probably be beaten by BJ.

After moving into Montreal and training with Fabio Holanda, I no longer mark out for fighters like celebs or treating them as such. I mean, when you first walk into the gym and your first No Gi BJJ class has Patrick Cote, GSP, and a bunch of other UCC pro fighters in it, with Loiseau showing up later, you tend to see that it's no big deal really. Hell, I went to see the UFN event this past week at Champs, and hung out with Ivan Menjivar. Montreal is to Canada for MMA as SoCal is to the U.S.

This shows how Mirko injured Barnett's shoulder. His leg apparently turned his arm into a sort of americana. Also, Josh said the injury happened when his arm got tangled with Mirko's leg on the way down, so this seems to be the most logical explanation. Mirko is like WWF Ken Shamrock, just cranks his submissions till something breaks. Still though, I don't know many people that can pull off an americana with their legs, he's definitely a wizard.

I KNEW Hughes was gonna send him over because: a) Hughes is smart enough to send over the weakest fighter (which JVF probably is) b) He has stitches and was in a brutal fight, of all the guys to let go he is the smartest choice as he is pretty much hurtin'. Matt knew what he was doing, and really eliminated two guys from Franklin's team in that fight. I can't see Von Flue getting past Stevenson, or even Sammy Morgan. I still want to see Sammy fight, he would have creamed that guy in the first episode I thought.

Is that good or bad? Diego wouldn't be able to get Fickett down in the first place. He'd get GnP'ed himself.

And what pussification do you speak of? No strikes to the back of the head?

Koscheck is BETTER than Diego. Diego would probably get killed by Fickett. I went to see the fight at Champs last night, they marked out huge for each elbow thrown out by Loiseau in the guard. When he said something like this is for all the people at Champs at Montreal, the place went nuts. I heard Hieron's fight was disgusting, so I want to see it naturally.

Forgot about Mach, definitely Comeback Fighter of the year. Fighter that's fallen the most is probably Frank Trigg unfortunately. I heard he had a blown ankle for GSP though. Maybe Rampage too, if he loses to Yokoi then he definitely takes this "award". Fighter you predict to break out next, whether the end of this year or next? Paulo Filho. Wins over quality MW but still under the radar in terms of getting fights with top guns. Definitely has the skills to do it. I imagine he will be matched up with Baroni soon enough, whom he'll probably destroy and make a name for himself. Best card is obviously Bushido The Tournament, with UFC 52 in a solid second place.