GDT: UFC 220: Miocic vs. Ngannou

[Avs_19]

Date: January 20, 2018
Venue: TD Garden
City: Boston, Massachusetts
Time: 10pm ET/7pm PT
Viewing: PPV

MAIN CARD (PPV)

Heavyweight Championship bout: Stipe Miocic (c) vs. Francis Ngannou
Light Heavyweight Championship bout: Daniel Cormier (c) vs. Volkan Oezdemir
Featherweight bout: Calvin Kattar vs. Shane Burgos
Light Heavyweight bout: Gian Villante vs. Francimar Barroso
Bantamweight bout: Thomas Almeida vs. Rob Font

PRELIMINARY CARD (FS1, TSN5)

Featherweight bout: Kyle Bochniak vs. Brandon Davis
Welterweight bout: Abdul Razak Alhassan vs. Sabah Homasi
Flyweight bout: Dustin Ortiz vs. Alexandre Pantoja
Featherweight bout: Dan Ige vs. Julio Arce

PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass)

Featherweight bout: Enrique Barzola vs. Matt Bessette
Women's Strawweight bout: Maryna Moroz vs. Jamie Moyle
Lightweight bout: Islam Makhachev vs. Gleison Tibau​

Click to read more...

 

[Avs_19]

Really looking forward to the main event. Can't count Miocic out, especially if he can utilize his grappling, but there's no way I'm picking against Ngannou right now.

Oezdemir surprises me in every fight but I think DC will do what he does. He'll take him down and keep him there.

They did a really poor job of building the rest of the card. None of the other three fights are main card worthy.

 

[Kitten Mittons]

This card is pure trash. Are they going with the same strategy as last year - quantity > quality?

 

[Avs_19]

This card is pure trash. Are they going with the same strategy as last year - quantity > quality?

It's looking that way. They still have to fulfill their agreement with Fox so unless they cut down on PPV/Fight Pass events, we're probably going to see a lot of shallow cards again. As @m9 alluded to in the other thread, there's no need for these 2 events in a span of 6 days and they could've put together a pretty good main card if they combined them. I can deal with crap free events if the PPVs are good but now they're taking away from the PPV cards. There's actually a UFC event every weekend for the next 7 weeks so just imagine how some of those cards are going to look.

 

[MD thaivuN]

The PPV portion is pretty good, except for Villante vs Barroso. Kattar vs Burgos and Font vs Almeida are very good action fights. Any fight involving Barroso is subject to utter boredom.

 

[m9]

The PPV portion is pretty good, except for Villante vs Barroso. Kattar vs Burgos and Font vs Almeida are very good action fights. Any fight involving Barroso is subject to utter boredom.

Kattar v Burgos is a not a good fight for the #3 card on a PPV by any way you judge it. "Good action fight" is not enough to earn that spot. Neither guy is a ranked fighter, and most fans won't have heard of either guy.

Font v Almeida is okay. If that's that's the 4th or 5th fight on the PPV card along with 4 other quality bouts, I have no problem there. But it's probably #3 in terms of relevance on this card.

You also have an entire prelim FS1 card with ZERO name value. Not a single name most casual fans have heard of.

This is one of the worst managed cards I have seen from the UFC. You don't even have these young fighters going against "name" veterans to get any intrigue from fans. It's a regional card with two excellent title fights on top.

 

[Jasper]

Bigtime mismanagement imo.

Kattar v Burgos is a not a good fight for the #3 card on a PPV by any way you judge it. "Good action fight" is not enough to earn that spot. Neither guy is a ranked fighter, and most fans won't have heard of either guy.

Font v Almeida is okay. If that's that's the 4th or 5th fight on the PPV card along with 4 other quality bouts, I have no problem there. But it's probably #3 in terms of relevance on this card.

You also have an entire prelim FS1 card with ZERO name value. Not a single name most casual fans have heard of.

This is one of the worst managed cards I have seen from the UFC. You don't even have these young fighters going against "name" veterans to get any intrigue from fans. It's a regional card with two excellent title fights on top.

Totally agree with this. You have one of the best HW fights in ages, if not ever, and the two lead-up fights where I've got to look up the fighters to see if I know even who they are.

 

[Ivan13]

I hope Stipe knocks his block off. The amount of disrespect he is getting is astounding. You'd think Ngannou is the champ looking to secure a record breaking title defense in the HW division with how they treat him.

 

[1specter]

Opening fights may be crap but the top two fights are pretty solid and I'm quite excited to watch the heavies go at it. Really curious to see how Ngannou performs against the best.

 

[1specter]

I hope Stipe knocks his block off. The amount of disrespect he is getting is astounding. You'd think Ngannou is the champ looking to secure a record breaking title defense in the HW division with how they treat him.

It's all about marketing. Ngannou is a great story and easy to market with the African village rags to riches, homelessness, started MMA later etc. story line. Stipe doesn't give a shit about marketing and gives very bland interviews to reporters on purpose so they don't really care to promote him. It's sad though because if you watch UFC embedded Stipe is actually hilarious and seems like a really cool guy. Also is a firefighter..UFC could totally market him better if he was up for it.

This promo was also pretty pathetic, as if Stipe is 'hiding' lol

 

[Avs_19]

UFC goes overboard at times (PVZ/Sage) but in this case I can't even blame them. Stipe is a great fighter but he almost goes out of his way to be as boring as possible or just avoids media all together. He has no interest in promoting himself and the UFC can only do so much on that front. It's not like they're pushing some mediocre fighter either, Ngannou is an exciting HW who has star written all over him.

 

[kurt]

Featherweight bout: Calvin Kattar vs. Shane Burgos
Light Heavyweight bout: Gian Villante vs. Francimar Barroso
Bantamweight bout: Thomas Almeida vs. Rob Font

PRELIMINARY CARD (FS1, TSN5)

Featherweight bout: Kyle Bochniak vs. Brandon Davis
Welterweight bout: Abdul Razak Alhassan vs. Sabah Homasi
Flyweight bout: Dustin Ortiz vs. Alexandre Pantoja
Featherweight bout: Dan Ige vs. Julio Arce

PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass)

Featherweight bout: Enrique Barzola vs. Matt Bessette
Women's Strawweight bout: Maryna Moroz vs. Jamie Moyle
Lightweight bout: Islam Makhachev vs. Gleison Tibau​

Has there ever been a shallower PPV after the main and co-main? Wow.

 

[Sheppy]

If this was a UFC in 2004-2005 this fight would open the main card...

Crazy how there's no depth on PPV cards with 100 cards a month.

 

[Avs_19]

Has there ever been a shallower PPV after the main and co-main? Wow.

I'm not sure but even if that's the case, it won't last for long. Go take a look at next month's UFC 221 PPV card. It's ugly.

 

[Rocko604]

I'm not sure but even if that's the case, it won't last for long. Go take a look at next month's UFC 221 PPV card. It's ugly.

UFC has 9 events in the first quarter of 2018. 6 of which are UFC on Fox/Fight Night cards. I don't see them all of a sudden slowing down in Q2, 3, or 4. I think weak depth on PPV cards is going to last for the remainder of the Fox TV deal.

 

[member 51464]

When is that deal up?

 

[darko]

I like Ngannou but hoping Miocic beats him.

 

[BGDDYKWL]

DC needed the towel again. Man that guy struggles with his weight. I see Ngannou taking this. Stipe has been hittable, and I'm certainly not using the small sample of MMAth as an example, but Reem caught Stipe and almost finished him, and Reem looked terrified against Ngannou. I'm not sure if Stipe has the type of wrestling good enough to wear Ngannou down and/or keep him down.

DC seems like a lock here but given his age, potential lack of motivation and letdown from the Jones saga, nothing left to prove, no interesting title contenders, etc., eventually he's gonna get finished by an underdog and my guess is ride off into the sunset.

 

[zombie kopitar]

I love Stipe. I've basically watched every Ngannou fight and he's a bad man. But I'm still leaning Stipe at those odds.
It's really similar to Rumble vs DC.....I like most though Rumble was going to murder him, but the more rounded fighter took over after the initial fury.

Good card, been waiting for weeks for this one.

 

[Deen]

I wouldn't buy it, but i'll watch I guess. Ngannou and "the Vulcan" have punchers chances. I don't see either winning though. Cormier is just too dominant of a wrestler and Stipe beats Ngannou everywhere but power. I am watching to see if one of those punches connect, which I guess is supposed to be the appeal to the event.

 

[dss97]

The PPV portion is pretty good, except for Villante vs Barroso. Kattar vs Burgos and Font vs Almeida are very good action fights. Any fight involving Barroso is subject to utter boredom.

The wall n' stall king.

He's literally the most boring fighter in the UFC, been rooting for him to lose since his epic snooze fest against Jimmo (RIP) years ago.

 

[darko]

Mohasi got knocked the f*** out. Vicious uppercut.

 

[MD thaivuN]

Cruz sure loves that ineffective outfighting from Bochniak. Not surprising considering their styles

 

[zombie kopitar]

**** yeah Rob Font winning me some money. KO him like 3 times lol.
Almeida so overrated.

 

[Jasper]

I'm enjoying listening to Goldberg again on Bellator card.