Jacare should have won that fight vs Gastellum.

[LukeSkyrocker]

Gastellum's chin held up well, but other than that he was getting pinged every minute of fight, except for the brief moment Jacare got knocked down.

Heck, Jacare landed 3-4 huge left hooks, at the end of the second round. Someone like Bisping, Rockhold would have dieded if they were at the end of those.

The third round was very close, but again Jacare had the better shots, got a couple of short take downs as well.

The first round should have been 10-8, if it was under the new rules. Second round was all Jacare until and even after the knockdown. Kelvin had like a couple minutes of good attack in the whole fight.

I think the image of Jacare slipping and sliding out of gassing out swayed the judges.

PS: I thought Kelvin's stand up was really good before - but I think he relies more on his chin than his boxing, someone like Stephen Thompson would destroy him, if he were to go down to WW. Whittaker also is far quicker than Gastellum, and will have a field day.

Jacare was 1/11 on takedowns, gastelum wins on this stat alone. What was the fight metric stats for striking ?

 

[markys00]

Meh Gastelum is mediocre at best.

Yet he beat jacare

 

[moogie101]

I had it Kelvin by a round but figured with it being in Brazil that might sway the very close third round towards Souza. Could have gone either way or a draw & been hard to complain but Kelvin was coming forwards more & Jacare was fading which I think might have decided the fight.

 

[tjumper78]

im just shocked that the american got the decision win in a close fight in brazil.

 

[mahavishnunj]

That's the problem with this scoring system. If round 3 was a toss-up like you say (and it definitely was), then it should be scored 10-10. You shouldn't have to arbitrarily pick a winner. 10-9 Jacare round 1, 10-9 Kelvin round 2, 10-10 round 3. 29-29, fight should be a draw.

There should NEVER be a split decision. That shit is as dumb as weight cutting. If round 3 ends without a clear winner, you do another round. Easy solution.

 

[Pilo]

Gastellum's chin held up well, but other than that he was getting pinged every minute of fight, except for the brief moment Jacare got knocked down.

Heck, Jacare landed 3-4 huge left hooks, at the end of the second round. Someone like Bisping, Rockhold would have dieded if they were at the end of those.

The third round was very close, but again Jacare had the better shots, got a couple of short take downs as well.

The first round should have been 10-8, if it was under the new rules. Second round was all Jacare until and even after the knockdown. Kelvin had like a couple minutes of good attack in the whole fight.

I think the image of Jacare slipping and sliding out of gassing out swayed the judges.

PS: I thought Kelvin's stand up was really good before - but I think he relies more on his chin than his boxing, someone like Stephen Thompson would destroy him, if he were to go down to WW. Whittaker also is far quicker than Gastellum, and will have a field day.

As much as I am a fan of Jacare and would have wanted him to win, I agree with the judges' decision. Round 1 was not a 10-8...Gastelum got tooled on the ground for a while, but Jacare took a bad decision and went all in with an armbar when he clearly did not have enough space (goddamn cage wall) to fully extend and get that the leverage he needed. It sort of stalled there, with Gastelum not really in danger and hanging on. Then Gastelum ended the round on top.

Round 2 was all Gastelum, dropped and almost finished a totally gassed out Jacare. To me this was as close to a 10-8 as the first round was (although I thought that was a 10-9 too).

And while the third round might have been a toss up, Gastelum looked fresher, probably landed more shots (they both landed good ones). Close fight. Was impressed by Gastelum's composure, disappointed with Jacare's cardio and fight IQ.

 

[Beerus]

 

[SilvaStud]

Gastellum's chin held up well, but other than that he was getting pinged every minute of fight, except for the brief moment Jacare got knocked down.

Heck, Jacare landed 3-4 huge left hooks, at the end of the second round. Someone like Bisping, Rockhold would have dieded if they were at the end of those.

The third round was very close, but again Jacare had the better shots, got a couple of short take downs as well.

The first round should have been 10-8, if it was under the new rules. Second round was all Jacare until and even after the knockdown. Kelvin had like a couple minutes of good attack in the whole fight.

I think the image of Jacare slipping and sliding out of gassing out swayed the judges.

PS: I thought Kelvin's stand up was really good before - but I think he relies more on his chin than his boxing, someone like Stephen Thompson would destroy him, if he were to go down to WW. Whittaker also is far quicker than Gastellum, and will have a field day.

While you’re not wrong that jacare was landing more frequently, kelvin was landing harder and jacare was being backed up the whole time. Out of the two of them jacare was the one that was more worried about being finished and was closer to being finished. The means the kelvin was in control, and that if it had gone further jacare would have gone down eventually.

 

[ShinkanPo]

No man as I am Jacarre fan but that fight he really got busted up so sad. Maybe if he had better cardio he could have mauled that Gastelam guy.

 

[Ananth]

As much as I am a fan of Jacare and would have wanted him to win, I agree with the judges' decision. Round 1 was not a 10-8...Gastelum got tooled on the ground for a while, but Jacare took a bad decision and went all in with an armbar when he clearly did not have enough space (goddamn cage wall) to fully extend and get that the leverage he needed. It sort of stalled there, with Gastelum not really in danger and hanging on. Then Gastelum ended the round on top.

Round 2 was all Gastelum, dropped and almost finished a totally gassed out Jacare. To me this was as close to a 10-8 as the first round was (although I thought that was a 10-9 too).

And while the third round might have been a toss up, Gastelum looked fresher, probably landed more shots (they both landed good ones). Close fight. Was impressed by Gastelum's composure, disappointed with Jacare's cardio and fight IQ.

Bruh, please see the second round again if possible. Jacare was landing the better shots before the knock down. Jacare was backing up and looked tired, but was landing whenever he surged. there was a minute and a half where he got knocked down and was surviving, but Jacare was blasting him with hard shots in the last minute of the 2nd round. 3-4 hard left hooks landed - Gastellum has a god like chin.Similar shots rocked Mousasi.

Its Kelvin's round, but no way can you score that a 10-8.

 

[Smok3r]

Gastellum's chin held up well, but other than that he was getting pinged every minute of fight, except for the brief moment Jacare got knocked down.

Heck, Jacare landed 3-4 huge left hooks, at the end of the second round. Someone like Bisping, Rockhold would have dieded if they were at the end of those.

The third round was very close, but again Jacare had the better shots, got a couple of short take downs as well.

The first round should have been 10-8, if it was under the new rules. Second round was all Jacare until and even after the knockdown. Kelvin had like a couple minutes of good attack in the whole fight.

I think the image of Jacare slipping and sliding out of gassing out swayed the judges.

PS: I thought Kelvin's stand up was really good before - but I think he relies more on his chin than his boxing, someone like Stephen Thompson would destroy him, if he were to go down to WW. Whittaker also is far quicker than Gastellum, and will have a field day.

I wouldn't have been shocked had Jacare gotten the nod. KG really needs to work on his boxing guard/head movement.

 

[OrigFan255]

Jacare fans are the BIGGEST crybabies!

The damn fight was in his home country and the Brazilian judges STILL thought their homegrown boy lost.

I hear the same crap about the Yoel decision.

 

[Ananth]

Jacare fans are the BIGGEST crybabies!

The damn fight was in his home country and the Brazilian judges STILL thought their homegrown boy lost.

I hear the same crap about the Yoel decision.

I am no Jacare fan. If you want to know, my fav MW is Mousasi.

Judges gave more appreciation to reactions than actual damage. I just felt the decision was wrong.

 

[OrigFan255]

I am no Jacare fan. If you want to know, my fav MW is Mousasi.

Judges gave more appreciation to reactions than actual damage. I just felt the decision was wrong.

Become a judge.

 

[kflo]

Calling fighting for the UFC 'the minros' is intellectually dishonest. There is not a sports organization in the world that can sell for $4,000,000,000 that is considered a minor league. This is literally, too stupid to discuss further.

Minor league MMA exists in the form of local, regional and lesser national orgs.

Regarding 185/205/265: the lack of signed fighters, high average age and demonstrably low skill and athleticism is a sourcing problem. There are plenty of other suitably sized high caliber athletes in other sports, including the minors of each, but we can't find them in MMA.

As a thought experiment, ask yourself a question, and answer honestly - if the starting pay for a heavyweight signed to the UFC went from 12k to get your head punched in, to 500k guaranteed, would more men signup to try?

Would a larger talent pool interested in heavyweight MMA produce a deeper division? Of course.

You haven’t addressed how they were able to get old fighters who are good but not younger ones. Has pay gotten worse?

And again, the ufc could cut their roster in half. Those guys would then be in the minors and few would notice. Just because they expanded their roster over the years doesn’t make everyone worthy of top pay. They’re not. There’s financial reward for the top but you have to put in years to get there. Not just sign up. Not just make the prelims.

Again Floyd makes more money than any athlete but it doesn’t mean everyone is lining up at boxing gyms. It’s a long slog to get good. Just like it is to become a baseball player. Or basketball player. Or hockey players. Or soccer player. You seem to want to hand out fat checks for guys to sign up to fight.

 

[rjmbrd]

You and I can just agree to disagree. Athleticism is a word that has different meaning to different people. You saying "the NFL is filled with Jon Jones" is your opinion and likely hyperbole. Jones admitted he wasn't good at football. Now does that mean he wasn't athletic enough? No. I guess Michael Westbrook and Johnnie Morton weren't athletic enough for MMA. Athleticism is not some universal term where no matter what, a guy can excel.

Do you think LeBron James would be a good hockey player? As someone who played for a long time I can tell you no. His size makes it impossible to have lateral quickness on the ice and he has a very high center of gravity so he would be getting cut down constantly. There are very few guys in the NHL 6'8". It's just an example of how not everyone who is a good athlete can translate to another sport.

The fact that dad bod Josh Barnett could pin any NFL player down, put his nuts in their face, and there is not a single thing they could do to stop him could be my definition of athleticism. He is literally imposing his strength, skill, stamina, speed on them all. But just because it's not yours doesn't mean the NFL is the Holy Grail of athletes. It's a subjective term.

There are so many misguided thoughts here its too much to unpack. I'll start simply with Barnett.

DC wrestled 184lbs as a 5th year senior in college. He was a fat - literally fat - heavyweight, with only 9 career fights in MMA, when he casually RAN OVER Josh with complete impunity.

DC is now old, but as a young man he was an elite athlete, runner up All American out of OSU and two time Olympian. He could smash a world class veteran like Josh because the athleticism gap between them is cartoonish.

There are literally thousands of guys like DC that can smash Josh, they aren't interested in MMA because the pay is so bad. We crown 8 other All American heavyweights in Division I NCAA each year. They don't enter MMA because the pay sucks.

 

[Squall10]

If what you were saying were true, then why would anyone play football? The NFL doesn't guarantee contracts and the average career length is 3 years. Sure we hear about the stars making a lot, but John Doe who makes $500K for a year or two then gets cut, is SOL. $1 million is garbage money for the rest of your life not to mention the head trauma that comes with it.

I think MMA has plenty of elite athletes. It's just American like to think only basketball and football players are athletes, wonder why.....

Outside of Yoel Romero, who would you argue as an elite athlete?

 

[Squall10]

The UFC shat the bed with HW. It just stopped caring outside of Randy and Bork. All the middling talent hit the bricks while the rest just kept aging. Putting up even a little effort to promote Stipe-Ngannou is the most the UFC has done lately.

It's also hard to find skilled big guys just because there are fewer big guys. But yah, it's fucked. Nobody with two brain cells to rub together is enticed by fucking Reebok money.

The UFC's own model is what keeps it fringe and chills real talent. HW is just the most obvious example. But if you poke into any division you'll see the same shit.

Greg Hardy will save it.

 

[CrimsonFan]

Being completely honest i knew the result before i watched.

I scored it for Jacare. Kinda crazy 2 judges gave Kelvin round 3.

I like Kelvin and he clearly has alot more upside than a 40 year old Jacare. So its all good.. But that was a very questionable decision. Fights like that need to be draws.

How does a guy who gets taken down twice in a round get the nod? Striking was close

Round 1 was domination. Thats just not a good decision

 

[george14]

Outside of Yoel Romero, who would you argue as an elite athlete?

Seriously? How about Stipe? D1 wrestler and baseball. Mitrione played in the NFL. Conor is insanely athletic.

They not dark skinned enough?