Full reports from all going, please. You're lucky to get a main event title fight. I've been to 2 UFC events live and Rampage headlined them both one in Columbus and one at Palace in Auburn Hills.
This is a fairly big weekend. Saturday will be a long day with a Bellator card from Italy in the afternoon and UFC at night.
Friday
5pm - (Fightpass) - TKO 38
Not bad by local promotion standards. This is a Canadian promotion, and there are no world ranked fighters on the card, but almost everyone is local-ranked top 10.
Saturday
2pm TV - (Spike) - Bellator 176
Average by Bellator standards. Main event is for the Bellator Middleweight title, for whatever thats worth. They are following this up on Spike with Bellator Kickboxing, which you may also want to watch if you don't have fightpass.
7pm TV - (5:15 pm Fightpass/7pm FS1/9pm PPV) - UFC 210 Cormier vs Johnson 2
This is a pretty good PPV. Not incredible, not bad or average, just pretty good on paper, with a main event and co-main that I really want to see. 4 of those 5 fights are good and interesting. I'm fine with women's MMA in general on a main card when it makes sense, but man that 3rd fight really doesn't belong on PPV, but whatever its a break in the middle I guess. [Reply]
Originally Posted by kstater:
Gastelum decided to one up himself. Got popped for pot today.
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and it was a USADA in-competition test. The threshold is high enough that to fail you basically have to smoke or consume edibles on the day of your fight. [Reply]
Originally Posted by alnorth:
and it was a USADA in-competition test. The threshold is high enough that to fail you basically have to smoke or consume edibles on the day of your fight.
I'd imagine he gets axed soon. He's likely looking at another suspension.
A lot just happened today, and the UFC narrowly avoided total disaster for this weekend. With the weight cutting and high-profile fights dropping out, part of our big dumb sport now involves seeing the weigh-ins on mmafighting.com on Friday morning. (instead of the ceremonial weigh-in on TV thats only for show)
7 minutes till the deadline everyone weighed in except one of the strawweights on the PPV (more on her in a minute), and the main event. Both DC and Rumble were waiting to the last moment. The strawweight comes in, they bring out the hoop of shame, she hits 116 and now there's only two left.
DC comes in, with the towel, and steps on the scale with 4 minutes left: 206.2. Holy shit, disaster, the fight's probably off, and the belt can't be contested. With literally 1 minute left DC wants to try again which seems like a stupid waste of time because there's nothing else to take off.
205, everyone cheers, Rumble comes in and weighs in at the deadline 203.8, fight is on. Then they check the tape, and the media noticed that DC pulled off an old weigh-in trick and the commission missed it. DC was pushing down on the towel that was stretched in front of him, he only needed a pound so he didn't have to push hard. The guy running the weigh-ins shrugs, is clueless (or playing dumb), and says everyone made weight, and thats that.
Then the strawweight fight on the PPV card was cancelled. Why? That strawweight who weighed in at the last moment had breast implants (probably disclosed it on a medical form or something?), and New York does not allow them. The UFC is pissed, they get their doctors and lawyers together, look at the regs, and point out the stupid rule is for boxers, and their MMA rules say nothing about implants. Eventually the NYSAC caves in, and that fight is back on as well. [Reply]
Originally Posted by alnorth:
Alternative theory is scale fuckery. DC was over by 1.2, minutes later he's at 205. Then Johnson weighs in, and he's under by 1.2
I think this is more plausible. Johnson did not look of the mindset that he was a lb under when he stepped up .
Cormier insisted that he was on weight, and the scale upstairs had him at 205. He thinks the scale just randomly glitched his first try (really? That can happen?)
When he went backstage after the first attempt, he was told that the rule in NY for a championship bout is that he can re-weigh and if the scale still says he's over, then he'll have 2 hours to cut. At that point he was confident and knew he could cut a pound. He didn't really expect the scale to say 205, he thought he was going to go back to cutting. [Reply]