Darren Till – Five Rounds with Emma

5 Fighters To Look Out For In the last quarter of 2022

Nearing the end of 2022, we’ve had exciting fight cards, we’ve had some big knockouts, and we’ve had some big upsets. The UFC has a massive roster and is home to some of the greatest mixed martial artists. In my opinion, I have come up with 5 fighters that we should watch out for in the last part of 2022.

Paddy Pimblett is a British UFC Lightweight fighter who’s burst onto the scene and taken the division by storm with all 3 of his fights resulting in finishes in the early rounds. Within a short time, ‘Paddy the Baddy’ has picked up a massive following, some even suggesting it mirrors Mcgregor’s starting UFC featherweight run. He holds a record of 19 wins and 3 losses, with almost half of his wins coming via Submission, which clearly reflects his 1st-degree black belt achievement. His dominating arrival in the division has seen him awarded Performance of the Night in each fight in the UFC. He also has taken a stand on promoting mental health awareness, as it is something he holds close to his heart, and upholding a “teenage” aesthetic to appeal to and essentially influence the younger generation. He has displayed great skill in his fights. He has overcome a lot of adversity in the fight world, with his ability to drop and gain weight, weighing as much as 205lbs almost a month after his last fight, gaining notoriety and attracting trolls. Paddy has a strong friendship with Molly McCann, also a British UFC fighter in the Women’s Flyweight division, and they are admired massively by the UK UFC scene.

My next fighter is Jiri Prochazka, a Czech Light Heavyweight UFC fighter, and after a win against former LHW Champion Glover Texeira, Jiri is now the current LHW champion. Jiri has a record of 29-3-1 and has dominated all his MMA fights, with 81% of his wins coming from the 1st round. He currently sits on an 11 fight win streak in MMA and dominates his first two UFC fights against two warriors, Dominick Reyes and Volkan Oezdemir, winning by KO in the 2nd round on both occasions. He has won Performance of the Night twice in both UFC fights and Fight of the Night against Reyes. He has had 25 KO’s to his name and 3 submission victories throughout his career. His main fight style is Muay Thai, and he highlights this massively as a creative fighter within the Octagon, and his record precedes him with numerous KO victories.

Following on from Prochazka, we move to Swedish UFC welterweight fighter Khamzat Chimaev 12-0, a wrestler who has amazingly burst onto the scene. Firstly, winning 3 fights in 66 days earned him his first award in the UFC; secondly, within his first 4 UFC fights, he showed the world how dominant and skilled he was as a fighter, as he threw 254 strikes and only absorbed two. He knocked out Gerald Meerschaert in 17 seconds. He won numerous breakthrough fighter awards in 2020 from different fight reporters. He also won the award for quickest consecutive wins in modern UFC history, set at 10 days. Chimaev was scheduled to fight Nate Diaz at UFC 279 on September 10th 2022; however, come weigh-in day, chimaev came in 7lbs overweight, so his fight with Diaz was scrapped, and Kevin Holland took Nate Diaz’s place. Chimaev went on to win in dominant fashion finishing Holland via a D’Arce Choke at two minutes thirteen seconds in the first round. His previous fight against Gilbert Burns, that is what set the standard for fans watching to see how Chimaev deals with pressure during a fight. Khamzat delivered perfectly, winning via unanimous decision against Burns, scoring 29-28. He trains alongside Gustafsson in Stockholm, where Gustafsson has stated that he hasn’t met such a tough fighter as Chimaev. Most recently, Chimaev has paired up with Darren Till, which was a big shock to the MMA world, but from what it seems, they are both trainings well and learning from each other.

The next fighter is none other than Islam Makhachev. This Russian lightweight UFC fighter has annihilated his competition, holding a 10-fight win streak, with most of the fights lasting going into the later rounds, proving his durability and having 10 submission victories in total. Training with Khabib and the Dagestani team, they all prove their durability through their intense training methods up in the mountains. Islam trains at AKA, with notable fighters such as Cain Velasquez, Daniel Cormier and Khabib. Overall in his UFC fights and in UFC history, he has the least absorbed significant strike rate per minute at 0.77, meaning his defence and skillset is top level, and the next lowest rate is 1.04 per minute. He has won Submission of the Month twice and won Fight of the Night once. He is the potential next contender for a title fight, facing Charles Oliveira. However, Dana White wants Islam to face Beneil Dariush to cement his confidence in giving him the title shot. [Although Islam Makhachev vs Charles Oliveria has been slated for October 22nd 2022, at UFC 280].

Talking of Oliveira, he is my last fighter to keep an eye on in 2022. Charles Oliveira, a Brazilian Lightweight fighter, has just come off a big submission victory over Justin Gaethje; however, it didn’t come without controversy, as Charles missed weight and relinquished the belt. However, he remains in the championship picture as the No1 contender. He holds a 33-8, with an 11-fight win streak. He has the record for the most submissions in UFC at 16 victories via Submission. He also has numerous other records, such as the most finishes set at 19, the 3rd longest LW winning streak set at 11 fights, and he holds 12 Performance of the Night awards, and the list continues. His last 3 fights have been against the top 3 LW ranked fighters, and they have grandly dominated them, submitting two and winning via TKO with the other. However, he shows great determination as he recovers quickly from knockdowns or wobbles and manages to clutch the win. He fights out of Chute Boxe in Curitiba, with previous notable fighters such as Anderson Silva, Cris Cyborg and Mauricio Rua, who will go down in the history books. His next fight has been confirmed against Islam Makhachev on October 22nd 2022, at UFC 280.

This concludes my article, and we shall see how the rest of 2022 plays out and see if any of the hype continues.

What is your thought?

georgegough999

“Cage Warriors is the show where I’m going to make my comeback and win the welterweight title.” – Tom ‘Kong’ Watson

Originally posted on 8th April 2019

Born and raised in Southampton, England, Tom Watson first started in combat sports at the age of 16, when he took up boxing. A three-time ABA Southern Counties Champion and being awarded ‘Amateur boxing standout of the year’ in 2006 was his introduction into mixed martial arts.

Watson made his professional mixed martial arts debut on 19^th February 2006 for a local show at the Copthorne Hotel and Resort in London. On ‘ZT Fight Night 1’ where he won via Guillotine choke in 71 seconds, he returned on the show’s second instalment on June 25^th the same year where he won via decision.

In 2007, Watson competed in five fights for UK promotion Cage Rage gaining a record of two wins and three losses. From 2008 – 2012 Watson fought a further twelve times for promotions Cage Rage, AFC, UCMMA (formerly Cage Rage), MFC and BAMMA. With his sole loss to Jesse Taylor at MFC 26, Watson picked up the inaugural UCMMA middleweight title along with the BAMMA middleweight title when he fought Jack Marshman at BAMMA 9.

With news that Watson has signed to elite European promotion Cage Warriors and will be facing Aaron ‘King’ Khalid at Cage Warriors 104 on April 27^th, 2019 in Cardiff, it was only fitting that I should re-introduce ‘Kong’ to the world.

You’d be forgiven if you are not familiar with Tom ‘Kong’ Watson as of late, with his last competitive fight being on August 8^th, 2015 for the UFC. Spending three years with the world’s number one promotion in the UFC, Watson had two wins and five losses (with those losses coming by way of decisions) for the UFC taking his overall record to 17-9.

Watson was not done with competing and was still actively seeking opportunities to fight in the UFC. Having no success, Watson was released by the UFC and continued to explore roles outside of the UFC, doing some commentary jobs here and there. It was at this point that promotion BAMMA contacted Watson regarding doing some presenting and commentary jobs for them. They also wanted Watson (who had been with BAMMA since their first event up until he signed to the UFC) to compete again for them. This news was music to Watson’s ears as he had not hung up his gloves and retired as many people thought due to his 3-year absence from the sport.

Unfortunately, due to issues out of Watson’s control, BAMMA was no longer a viable option as a promotion to make his long-awaited come back on. Instead, elite European promotion Cage Warriors signed Watson in the welterweight division (Watson previously competed in the middleweight division) in January of 2019.

Watson trains predominately at his state of the art gym called ‘Analysis’ which is located right next to him in Southampton, and with the occasional odd trip back to California to train. Watson is already preparing hard for his upcoming bout for his Cage Warriors debut.

Deciding to cut down to welterweight was an easy decision for Watson. He stated that “quite a few people had told me that I should have been a welterweight when I competed in the UFC as I never really cut any weight. When I look back on my career I do wonder if 170lb was the weight, I should have been competing at, so this is an attempt to test out that theory.”

Not content with winning a UCMMA (formally known as Cage Rage) and BAMMA title, Watson has made it very clear that the aim is to win the Cage Warriors welterweight title stating “I’m not coming here to have a bit of fun or have a couple of fights. I’m coming here to pick up another title to add to the two other titles I have held. I don’t know if there is anybody that has all of those titles, so that is my goal.”

With his first love being boxing Watson is in the middle of applying of getting his trainers license as he has a few guys who are looking to make their pro boxing debut so he can be in their corner.

/With the legalisation of Bare Knuckle Boxing, Watson has a couple of guys that he trains. Watson stated “it is not something that interests me, I do like the idea of fighting without gloves more than with gloves, I think gloves are probably less safe, and bare-knuckle is safer. It’s a big misconception that people think Bare Knuckle Boxing is more dangerous. I’d say it is a lot safer as you can’t do much damage as you break your hands more and you don’t have this protection and mould on your fist to keep punching the shots away. I will say though on bare-knuckle when they wear the wraps; I think it’s like wearing gloves and its worse, so to me, bare-knuckle boxing should be basically without wraps or anything.”

Going back to his time with the UFC, Watson stated “ I competed against the best in the world, and I have never got finished by any of them, only losing by decisions. Quite a few were controversial decisions at best for me. Fighting is fighting and if you are losing a decision sport contest– well I’ve said it before, in the UFC I don’t really see that as losing, just the system and the setup. For instance, if we changed the UFC fight to a no time limit would of I lost any of those fights? I doubt it. It is what it is, that’s the rules you play by. Strategy wise I probably didn’t fight too smart. If you look at the earnings of the people in the UFC, I’m still relatively high up there, and I didn’t win many fights, so, on that basis, well it was smart – possibly.”

For those of you that have followed Watson’s career from the beginning, you will recall Watson enters the cage wearing a gorilla mask, hence why he has the nickname ‘Kong’. As Watson made his last appearance for the UFC in 2015, a new British fighter in the name of Darren ‘The Gorilla’ Till was making his debut for the promotion. “I’m not bothered by Darren Till” Watson states, “I believe Dan Hardy gave him the nickname ‘Gorilla’, it is what it is. I think everyone knows ‘Kong’ more than Darren Till’s ‘The Gorilla’.

“Darren Till is a great fighter, but I don’t think he is synonymous with a Gorilla.”

“Cage Warriors is the show where I’m going to make my comeback and win the welterweight title.”

With his debut for his Cage Warriors bout being dubbed ‘King’ vs ‘Kong’, there will only one way to find out if this is the start of a resurgence for Tom ‘Kong’ Watson by tuning into Cage Warriors 104 on April 27^th live on UFC Fight Pass.

Who will be The Baddest Motherf*cker – Diaz vs Masvidal UFC 244?

On Friday, November 2, 2019, the Ultimate Fighting Championship will be making their 500^th live event at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York for UFC 244.

Headlining the event will be a welterweight bout between Jorge Masvidal and Nate Diaz for the newly created ‘Baddest Motherf*cker’ in the game belt.

After a three-year hiatus, Nate Diaz returned on August 17^th, 2019 at UFC 241, with a winning performance over Anthony Pettis reminding us (those that needed reminding), why he is regarded already as one of the ‘Baddest Motherf*ckers’ in this sport by hardcore fans.

Watching cage side was Jorge Masvidal, who by all accounts wasn’t that impressed with Nate’s performance, so when Nate called out Jorge, it was music to his ears.

Coming off a five-second win via knockout of Ben Askren, Jorge Masvidal has of late been surging through the welterweight division this year with back to back violent knockout wins, and in the process, gaining more casual MMA fans due to his aggressive winning style.

The fans and the whole MMA community were begging for this matchup to be made, and to everyone’s delight, it was confirmed that Nate Diaz would face Jorge Masvidal for the Baddest Motherf*cker belt on November 2^nd, 2019 at Madison Square Garden.

With both men having similar losing records Diaz (20 wins), 11 losses, one knockout, one submission, nine decisions, and Masvidal (34 wins) 13 losses, one knockout, two submissions and ten decisions, it comes down to who is the real BMF in this sport.

Although some fans will see this fight as a submission artist in Diaz, having had 11 of his wins come via submission, and knockout artist Masvidal having had 15 of wins come via knockout – a grappler vs striker fight, this couldn’t be further than what it seems on paper.

With official early betting odds coming in as Jorge Masvidal being the favourite over Nate Diaz, with odds ranging from -165 to -179, as stated by Sascha P from Sports Betting Dime, it was only fair that I asked a few other people who they thought would win the BMF belt.

“The American Psycho” Stephan Bonnar – TUF 1 finalist and UFC Hall of Famer says:

“I’m leaning on Masvidal because he’s been wrecking guys.”

Matt Bailey – The MMA Bible and superfan says:

“Masvidal has shown explosive skills recently, however, I feel Diaz will be all too familiar with this, opting to keep distance early on but will close the distance as the fight goes on. I expect this to be a stand-up affair but feel that Diaz will look to turn to his grappling in the latter stages of the fight, and it may well hit the canvas. I’m expecting a lot of clinching and cage work in this fight with Diaz getting the better of Masvidal in these exchanges. Both fighters have exceptional stand-up skills in which I see it being a very fast-paced chess match style. With all of the above said my official prediction is – Nate Diaz via decision.”

Mark Baldwin of FightPost says:

“It’s a difficult fight to pick a winner. Masvidal, after a career slump, is riding into this fight after highlight-reel knockouts of Darren Till and Ben Askren. Masvidal is on the verge of a title shot. A win over Diaz should give him that chance sometime in 2020. The odds slightly favour Masvidal, and that’s the way I see it also. There is every chance Diaz could be too busy, and for me, he has more ways to win. But I think Masvidal gets it done, probably on points, although a late stoppage in his favour can’t be ruled out.”

And as for me, well, if Masvidal can get it done within three rounds he can win, otherwise, as Nate is known as a slow starter and comes alive more as the rounds go on, I see Nate taking it over the five rounds and wins via decision.

Darren Till Vs Nicolas Dalby added to UFC Dublin Card on October 24th

Undefeated welterweights Darren Till and Nicolas Dalby will square off on October 24th after being added to the UFC Fight Night: Poirier Vs Duffy card in Dublin, where someone’s ‘0’ has gotta go.

Britains Darren Till is originally from Liverpool, England, who holds a professional unbeaten record of 13-0-0 and is coming off a TKO victory over Wendell Oliveria at UFC Fight Night: CONDIT vs ALVES in May of this year.

Denmark’s Ian Dalby, who holds a professional unbeaten record of 14-0-0 and was also in action at UFC FIGHT NIGHT: CONDIT vs ALVES where he gained a decision victory over Elizeu Zaleski Dos Santos.

UFC FIGHT NIGHT: POIRIER vs. DUFFY marks the UFC’s return to Dublin, following a sold out event, headlined by “The Notorious” Conor McGregor, in July 2014. With tickets to the 2014 event selling out in under an hour, fans are advised to secure their tickets to this year’s event at the earliest opportunity.

This year’s fight card will be headlined by a five round lightweight bout between Ireland’s Joseph “Irish” Duffy and top 15 ranked Dustin “The Diamond” Poirier.

Also featuring on the fight card are Dublin’s Cathal Pendred, who faces English newcomer Tom Breese, Northern Ireland’s “Stormin” Norman Parke, who meets Sweden’s Reza “Mad Dog” Madadi, England’s Scott Askham who faces off against Poland’s Krzysztof Jotko and South African Garreth “Soliderboy” McLellan who will face American Bubba “The Fighting Texas Aggie” Bush.

Tickets for UFC FIGHT NIGHT^®: POIRIER vs. DUFFY will go on sale to UFC FIGHT CLUB^®members at 10:00 a.m. IST on Wednesday, September 2, with Sun+ subscribers also getting priority access from 12:00 p.m. IST on Wednesday.

Tickets will become available to UFC Newsletter subscribers on Friday, September 4 at 10:00 a.m. IST with general sale taking place from 12:00 p.m. IST.

In order to avoid disappointment, fans are encouraged to register their interest via this LINK for UFC FIGHT NIGHT: POIRIER vs. DUFFY to receive information and reminders about the ticket sale.

UFC Fight Night 67 Results: Carlos Condit defeats Thiago Alves in a Vicious Bloody Battle

UFC Fight Night 67 came from Goiania in Brazil last night where “The Natural Born Killer” Carlos Condit defeated Thiago Alves in what turned out to be one bloody battle.

Although it was not the finish any fighter would want to end any fight, but when you’ve suffered a severe broken nose for which part of the bone ends up popping out near your eyebrow, the doctor has to make the right call, for which he made at the end of a vicious and bloody round two.

In the co-main event it was Charles Oliveira who won yet another thrilling back and forth fight against Nik Lentz via a super slick guillotine in the third round.

Here are the full results:

Main Card

Carlos Condit Def Thiago Alves Via TKO (Doctor Stoppage) 5.00 Mins Round Two

Charles Oliveira Def Nik Lentz Via Guillotine 1 Min 10 Sec Round Three

Alex Oliveira Def K.J. Noons Via RNC 2 Mins 51 Secs Round One

Francimar Barroso Def Ryan Jimmo Via Unanimous Decision 30-27, 30-27, 29-28

Francisco Trinaldo Def Norman Parke Via Split Decision 29-28, 28-29, 29-28

Darren Till Def Wendell Oliveira Via KO (Elbows) 1 Min 37 Secs Round Two

Preliminary Card

Rony Jason Def Damon Jackson Via Triangle Choke 3 Mins 31 Secs Round One

Jussier Formiga Def Wilson Reis Via Unanimous Decison 29-28, 29-28, 29-28

Nicolas Dalby Def Elizeu Zalesk Via Split Decision 29-28, 28-29, 29-28

Mirsad Bektic Def Lucas Martins Via TKO 0.30 Secs Round Two

Preliminary Card Fight Pass

Juliana Lima Def Ericka Almeida Via Unanimous Decision 30-27, 30-27, 30-25

Tom Breese Def Luiz Dutra Via TKO 4 Mins 58 Secs Round One

BONUSES $50,000 EACH

POTN

Charles Oliveira

Rony Jason

FOTN

Charles Oliveira

Nik Lentz

UFC Fight Night Goiania: Condit vs. Alves full weigh-in results

UFC Fight Night comes from Goiania in Brazil which airs live and free on FOX Sports 1 in the states and BT Sports in UK.

In the main event we see the return of Carlos Condit for which he is set to face Thiago Alves and Featherweight contenders Nik Lentz and Charles Oliveira will battle in out in the co-main event.