Biggest surprises in the UFC for you this year?

[Marko Polo]

Khabib retiring and the death of Abdulmanap. Still seems a little surreal.

 

[Dog Gynecologist]

Men's Flyweight becoming slowly a really exciting division. It's not on Bantamweight or Featherweight level yet, it's more like StrawWeight, where any match within the top 5 could be an absolute banger

 

[Gio]

Cejudo retiring in early 2020
Khamzat 1 punch KO
GSP growing and styling his hair
Conor vs Dustin 2 actually happening when it was supposed to be a "charity" fight

 

[MichaelT]

Woodley actually threw a few punches against Colby, I didn't expect that

 

[2004 account]

Nothing surprised me in 2020, nothing surprises me anymore in general. This is the final phase and I expect anything, and I'm not just talking about the ufc, but the real world and elite behind everything.

 

[Ingjr]

Poster Ali Ali having 8 posts in a row on page two was a shocker to me.

 

[Hatorade]

DC losing the trilogy to Stipe. I mean, I know the dude is like a hundred years old, but in no way, shape, or form is Stipe better at MMA than DC...........Yet he beat him twice.

DC just looked lost out there. I feel like DC could have wrestle-fucked Stipe for 75 minutes over 3 fights but didn't for some reason. Even past prime washed up and clean Jones will absolutely wreck Stipe if they ever fight. I hate using the term exposed when a great fighter (Stipe is great) finally gets destroyed, but it's going to be the truth.

 

[Prologue]

Izzy should be careful in his fight against Jan otherwise he will feel the polish power and his shine will fade

Indeed.

Fighters keep sleeping on Jan. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if Izzy gets into the Rockhold "I don't lose to people like Jan Blachowicz" mentality, gets caught with something unexpected, and gets finished. Also won't be surprised if Izzy gets caught with something, doesn't get finished, but then gets too tentative and the fight ends up looking like Izzy vs Romero.

How crazy would it be if Jan finished Izzy, then ended up dropping the title to Glover? It's not out of the realm of reality nowadays.

 

[snackgod]

I'm sure there's many better ones but one that pops off to me was the bounce back Brian Ortega had in the KZ fight. I was expecting at best a slight fall off and he looked better than ever. Other good ones?

for me it was how much of a diva jorge become.

 

[snackgod]

Ferguson getting brutalized on the feet only to get manhandled on the ground in back to back fights
A flyweight and WMMA fight being in the talks for FOTY
Masvidal stepping in to fight Usman in no time
Ciryl Gane actually getting to fight
Romero cut
UFC actually putting on events so early in the pandemic

Shit ton of suprises this year

really jorge loses was a big suprise for you?

 

[snackgod]

Conor not fighter of year.

1 .40 fight in a set up fight doesnt prove anything.

 

[Finding Deebo]

really jorge loses was a big suprise for you?

Where you getting that he was talking about Jorge losing?

 

[2sk]

paula costas beatdown surprised me just because of all the talk prior to the fight i was expecting a good fight and it was such a loop sided victory for izzy...

 

[Safton]

Definitely the two FOTY contenders.

That and possibly Kevin Holland fucking up Jacare off his back.

DC losing the trilogy to Stipe. I mean, I know the dude is like a hundred years old, but in no way, shape, or form is Stipe better at MMA than DC...........Yet he beat him twice.

DC just looked lost out there. I feel like DC could have wrestle-fucked Stipe for 75 minutes over 3 fights but didn't for some reason. Even past prime washed up and clean Jones will absolutely wreck Stipe if they ever fight. I hate using the term exposed when a great fighter (Stipe is great) finally gets destroyed, but it's going to be the truth.

If he could have done those things, he would have rather than getting punched repeatedly to a TKO and Decision loss (respectively). DC was in the wrong side of 40 with years of abuse from combat sports training and competition on his body going up against one of the greatest Heavyweights the UFC has ever seen. Him dropping two in their trilogy isn't anything to be ashamed of. He still has the 1st round KO in their initial meeting and arguably the superior P4P legacy, he just wasn't the same competitor he used to be and wasn't able to bottle the same magic against Miocic in their subsequent meetings in which Stipe was the better man. Blame it on youth, eye pokes, or whatever else you want. At the end of the day there's no shame in it.

Inventing fantasy scenarios or bringing Jones into the discussion is a red herring, but if/when the latter happens I guess we'll see. I hope to watch it myself.

 

[snackgod]

Where you getting that he was talking about Jorge losing?

so you though jorge was gone beat usman. so it shocked you when usman won with not much trouble.

 

[DatSamboKid]

I try to avoid reading the comments to not be influenced. It’s a difficult question to answer. A lot of surprises this year, but I’ll go with Justin Gaethje’s dominant performance against Tony Ferguson. He was methodical and technical with his approach, far from the sprawl and brawler from back in the days.

 

[vlz]

dana thinking conor-cerrone was fair

 

[Finding Deebo]

so you though jorge was gone beat usman. so it shocked you when usman won with not much trouble.

That's 100% not what he said, he said he was surprised Jorge took the fight on short notice, nothing about the outcome...

 

[fightfan70]

suprised the ufc and the bald goof were able to pull off so many events. it was a great thing during this time.

how easily costa was beaten, how easily jan handled reyes, how easily glover handled smith

how easily sherdog turned on tony, how easily khabib quit fighting, and last of all.

how easy it is to trigger some of my sherbros

 

[Eternalwarriorking]

I hate contributing to the overall Khamzat hysteria on here, but with that said:

Gerald Meerchaert sounded like the voice of reason leading up to this fight, enumerating carefully the reasons why Khamzat was a hype train. He even openly admitted that he might lose. But he was certainly going to do EVERYTHING possible to ensure the Zat wouldn't make it to his second fight in time. My expectations about Khamzat were tempered by what seemed like a realistic assessment of the situation.

Fight's on. Gerald gets flat-lined in 40 seconds by one punch, by the guy whose stand-up is largely untested in the ufc. ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS