GDT: UFC 230: Cormier vs. Lewis

[Avs_19]

Date: November 3, 2018
Venue: Madison Square Garden
City: New York City, New York
Time: 10pm ET/7pm PT
Viewing: PPV

MAIN CARD (PPV)

Heavyweight Championship bout: Daniel Cormier (c) vs. Derrick Lewis
Middleweight bout: Chris Weidman vs. Ronaldo Souza
Middleweight bout: David Branch vs. Jared Cannonier
Middleweight bout: Karl Roberson vs. Jack Marshman
Middleweight bout: Derek Brunson vs. Israel Adesanya

PRELIMINARY CARD (FS1, TSN 3)

Featherweight bout: Jason Knight vs. Jordan Rinaldi
Women's Flyweight bout: Sijara Eubanks vs. Roxanne Modafferi
Featherweight bout: Julio Arce vs. Sheymon Moraes
Welterweight bout: Ben Saunders vs. Lyman Good

PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass)

Lightweight bout: Matt Frevola vs. Lando Vannata
Featherweight bout: Shane Burgos vs. Kurt Holobaugh
Bantamweight bout: Brian Kelleher vs. Montel Jackson
Heavyweight bout: Adam Wieczorek vs. Marcos Rogério de Lima​

Click to read more...

 

[m9]

I know there was lots of talk about this being bad for a MSG PPV card, but I think this is just plain bad for a PPV in general.

I'll watch the main event but you have to like Cormier there pretty easily. Hoping Lewis can make it a fight, though.

Branch/Cannonier & Roberson/Marshman are not PPV worthy fights.

Weidman v Jacare is a good fight and I'm looking forward to seeing Adesanya, but aside from that this is a pretty weak effort.

 

[Sheppy]

Yeah, I won't be ordering this.

 

[pistolpete11]

I know there was lots of talk about this being bad for a MSG PPV card, but I think this is just plain bad for a PPV in general.

I'll watch the main event but you have to like Cormier there pretty easily. Hoping Lewis can make it a fight, though.

Branch/Cannonier & Roberson/Marshman are not PPV worthy fights.

Weidman v Jacare is a good fight and I'm looking forward to seeing Adesanya, but aside from that this is a pretty weak effort.

Definitely. I don't blame the UFC for this one, though. I'm 100% convinced they got Jon Jones off the hook for this card, but he wouldn't take the fight. They scrambled to give us DC-Lewis which is as good as they could have done in that situation. Then losing Nate-Poirier, Rockhold-Wideman, and Romero-Costa. They tried to stack this card, but everything went against them.

 

[m9]

Definitely. I don't blame the UFC for this one, though. I'm 100% convinced they got Jon Jones off the hook for this card, but he wouldn't take the fight. They scrambled to give us DC-Lewis which is as good as they could have done in that situation. Then losing Nate-Poirier, Rockhold-Wideman, and Romero-Costa. They tried to stack this card, but everything went against them.

The Jones stuff is just your opinion, there's really no evidence of it. I think most people hoped Jones would be fighting on this card but it was just that.. hope.

Besides, they shouldn't be waiting on a PPV main event until the last minute like that. The UFC also failed to get another fight that would work for Diaz once Poirier dropped out, and Romero-Costa was cancelled TWO months ago in mid-August. Lots of time to find another good fight.

 

[Avs_19]

Main and co-main events are both good but I'm most intrigued by the Brunson vs. Adesanya fight. It's a big test for Adesanya but he'll be in title mix if he wins.

This card only goes three deep.

 

[pistolpete11]

The Jones stuff is just your opinion, there's really no evidence of it. I think most people hoped Jones would be fighting on this card but it was just that.. hope.

Besides, they shouldn't be waiting on a PPV main event until the last minute like that. The UFC also failed to get another fight that would work for Diaz once Poirier dropped out, and Romero-Costa was cancelled TWO months ago in mid-August. Lots of time to find another good fight.

It's more than an opinion. Just about everybody in the industry was reporting they were targeting Jon Jones for UFC 230. If you Google "Jon Jones turned down UFC 230" there are quite a few articles about it as well. I know Chael said so on his show. One of the articles said Jon Jones even confirmed to ESPN that he was offered the main event but said he didn't have enough time to train....I don't blame the UFC for that. I blame Jones.

By all accounts, Nate has been very difficult to work with. I highly doubt he's going to accept Kevin Lee or someone like that on short notice. As much as I still like Nate, he's not the fight anyone, anywhere, any time type of fighter anymore. So we don't know. They could have offered him any number of guys, but Nate turned it down. They can't make him fight. So again, I can't blame the UFC.

2 months notice isn't really that much time to put a fight together. That's a standard training camp. But with all the other fights scheduled, they had a full main card. Overbooked if you include Romero-Costa:

Main Event (Penciled in Jones, turned into DC)
Nate - Poirier
Rockhold - Wideman
Romero - Costa
Jacare - Branch
Stylebender - Brunson

That's a stacked card. One of those last 3 fights would have been the prelim main event, but all 3 are well worthy of being on the main card. So without Romero-Costa, they probably thought they had enough, which I completely agree with. I guess you could nitpick that they didn't have enough mid-tier guys scheduled for the prelims, but any PPV that loses the guys this one did is going to suffer.

 

[pistolpete11]

Main and co-main events are both good but I'm most intrigued by the Brunson vs. Adesanya fight. It's a big test for Adesanya but he'll be in title mix if he wins.

This card only goes three deep.

I agree. This is a big opportunity for Stylebender. First time on a PPV main card. Top 10 opponent. The trash talk leading up to the fight brings more attention, whether you like it or not. Brunson has a lot of one round fights (wins and losses). He could really catapult himself to the top of the division with an impressive win. If he loses or wins with a lackluster performance, it'd be a little bit of a setback for him.

Wideman-Jacare is really interesting, too. It's one of those fights that seems like it should have happened already, but didn't for some reason.

 

[m9]

It's more than an opinion. Just about everybody in the industry was reporting they were targeting Jon Jones for UFC 230. If you Google "Jon Jones turned down UFC 230" there are quite a few articles about it as well. I know Chael said so on his show. One of the articles said Jon Jones even confirmed to ESPN that he was offered the main event but said he didn't have enough time to train....I don't blame the UFC for that. I blame Jones.

By all accounts, Nate has been very difficult to work with. I highly doubt he's going to accept Kevin Lee or someone like that on short notice. As much as I still like Nate, he's not the fight anyone, anywhere, any time type of fighter anymore. So we don't know. They could have offered him any number of guys, but Nate turned it down. They can't make him fight. So again, I can't blame the UFC.

2 months notice isn't really that much time to put a fight together. That's a standard training camp. But with all the other fights scheduled, they had a full main card. Overbooked if you include Romero-Costa:

Main Event (Penciled in Jones, turned into DC)
Nate - Poirier
Rockhold - Wideman
Romero - Costa
Jacare - Branch
Stylebender - Brunson

That's a stacked card. One of those last 3 fights would have been the prelim main event, but all 3 are well worthy of being on the main card. So without Romero-Costa, they probably thought they had enough, which I completely agree with. I guess you could nitpick that they didn't have enough mid-tier guys scheduled for the prelims, but any PPV that loses the guys this one did is going to suffer.

So you start off by saying that it's not the UFC's fault that Jon Jones turned them down, even though he would only have 5 or 6 weeks of training for the fight. Then you say the 2 months time isn't enough to put a fight together as that's a standard training camp. So which is it? You can't just take whatever timeframe works for you.

Jon Jones was suspended and the UFC knew it. If they were banking on him getting cleared and being ready for his return fight on a few weeks notice without even talking to him beforehand, that's 100% on them for planning this card terribly.

Getting a replacement for Romero with two months notice should not be a problem. Often times fights aren't even finalized until two months out. I understand it's probably not a long list of guys who want to fight Costa, but I'm sure someone would have looked at it as a good opportunity. I'll let the Nate/Poirier/Rockhold stuff slide, those are more typical fighters dropping out.

I'm not going to make excuses for the UFC on this one - this is a pretty garbage card, especially for what is generally one of their bigger cards of the year.

 

[pistolpete11]

So you start off by saying that it's not the UFC's fault that Jon Jones turned them down, even though he would only have 5 or 6 weeks of training for the fight. Then you say the 2 months time isn't enough to put a fight together as that's a standard training camp. So which is it? You can't just take whatever timeframe works for you.

Jon Jones was suspended and the UFC knew it. If they were banking on him getting cleared and being ready for his return fight on a few weeks notice without even talking to him beforehand, that's 100% on them for planning this card terribly.

Getting a replacement for Romero with two months notice should not be a problem. Often times fights aren't even finalized until two months out. I understand it's probably not a long list of guys who want to fight Costa, but I'm sure someone would have looked at it as a good opportunity. I'll let the Nate/Poirier/Rockhold stuff slide, those are more typical fighters dropping out.

I'm not going to make excuses for the UFC on this one - this is a pretty garbage card, especially for what is generally one of their bigger cards of the year.

That's the part I don't buy. He snitched to get a reduced sentence. They didn't just throw that deal together at the hearing and everyone agreed on the spot. It was in the works for a while and Jon had to be involved. He knew he was going to be available to main event UFC 230, he knew the UFC wanted him to main event UFC 230, but he still wasn't prepared. That's on Jon.

That's completely different than finding a replacement for Romero on short notice who had no idea they'd be offered a fight against a Brazilian monster who most people still don't even know.

 

[m9]

That's the part I don't buy. He snitched to get a reduced sentence. They didn't just throw that deal together at the hearing and everyone agreed on the spot. It was in the works for a while and Jon had to be involved. He knew he was going to be available to main event UFC 230, he knew the UFC wanted him to main event UFC 230, but he still wasn't prepared. That's on Jon.

That's completely different than finding a replacement for Romero on short notice who had no idea they'd be offered a fight against a Brazilian monster who most people still don't even know.

This just comes off as someone who doesn't like Jon Jones and has made up their own story so that he comes out the worst. Blaming Jon Jones for this poor card is completely irrational. Obviously there had been discussions on the suspension timeframe leading up to the date it got announced, but you don't know at what point Jones knew he was going to be able to fight in time for UFC230.

Dana White came out immediately after the ruling and said that Jones wasn't fighting on UFC230. Unless in your scenario Jones told him the entire time he was fighting at UFC230 and then changed his mind the day of the ruling? I guess that fits your narrative, so that must be it.

I don't know how you can say it's unreasonable for someone to fight Costa on "short" (2 months) notice but it's reasonable for Jones and an opponent to prep for a 5 round main event in even less time. What does Jon Jones have to gain by rushing back? Gus was coming an injury as well, so nobody even knows if he was available.

Just because you expected something to happen and it didn't happen doesn't make it Jon Jones fault. This was the worst-planned PPV card the UFC has ever done and they deserve all of the blame. Waiting on the previous card a few weeks earlier to see who wins so they can get a headliner is bad enough, and waiting on a suspended guy so that they can potentially beat the system by a few days is even worse. Lets not even get into the Shevchenko/Eubanks nonsense.

 

[pistolpete11]

This just comes off as someone who doesn't like Jon Jones and has made up their own story so that he comes out the worst. Blaming Jon Jones for this poor card is completely irrational. Obviously there had been discussions on the suspension timeframe leading up to the date it got announced, but you don't know at what point Jones knew he was going to be able to fight in time for UFC230.

Dana White came out immediately after the ruling and said that Jones wasn't fighting on UFC230. Unless in your scenario Jones told him the entire time he was fighting at UFC230 and then changed his mind the day of the ruling? I guess that fits your narrative, so that must be it.

I don't know how you can say it's unreasonable for someone to fight Costa on "short" (2 months) notice but it's reasonable for Jones and an opponent to prep for a 5 round main event in even less time. What does Jon Jones have to gain by rushing back? Gus was coming an injury as well, so nobody even knows if he was available.

Just because you expected something to happen and it didn't happen doesn't make it Jon Jones fault. This was the worst-planned PPV card the UFC has ever done and they deserve all of the blame. Waiting on the previous card a few weeks earlier to see who wins so they can get a headliner is bad enough, and waiting on a suspended guy so that they can potentially beat the system by a few days is even worse. Lets not even get into the Shevchenko/Eubanks nonsense.

I never blamed Jones for the poor card. I said I don't blame the UFC. They tried stacking this card, but a number of things didn't work out for them. Jones is only one of those things.

The main event was a fiasco. Jones could and should have been the solution to that, but even though it took a while to get there, they ended up with a pretty decent main event and a stacked card:

DC - Lewis
Nate - Poirier
Wideman - Rockhold
Jacare - Branch
Brunson - Stylebender

Everyone was looking forward to that. It wasn't until they lost Piorier, Nate, and Rockhold that it got labeled as a bad card.

 

[LSCII]

Just when I didn't think Lewis would ever top his "my balls was hot" answer, he does. f***ing hilarious. Dude needs to have his own show on TV....

 

[Neutrinos]

Makes no sense to me that you'd have Diaz vs Poirier as the co-main event instead of 2 former champions squaring off in Rockhold vs Weidman

 

[m9]

Makes no sense to me that you'd have Diaz vs Poirier as the co-main event instead of 2 former champions squaring off in Rockhold vs Weidman

Nate Diaz is the most popular fighter out of the 4 and it made complete sense to have him in the co-main for promo, on the poster, etc.

 

[pistolpete11]

Makes no sense to me that you'd have Diaz vs Poirier as the co-main event instead of 2 former champions squaring off in Rockhold vs Weidman

Nate Diaz is the most popular fighter out of the 4 and it made complete sense to have him in the co-main for promo, on the poster, etc.

Plus they probably had to offer Nate a spot like that (co-main at MSG) to get him to even agree to a fight. Whether they should or not, the UFC is usually going to give in to guys that bring as many eyeballs as the Diaz brothers.

 

[m9]

Plus they probably had to offer Nate a spot like that (co-main at MSG) to get him to even agree to a fight. Whether they should or not, the UFC is usually going to give in to guys that bring as many eyeballs as the Diaz brothers.

For sure. If there's no title fight, the co-main should be the fight that has the most interest of the fans as it's placement is just to sell the card.

 

[Neutrinos]

Nate Diaz is the most popular fighter out of the 4 and it made complete sense to have him in the co-main for promo, on the poster, etc.

You can't go wrong with Luke Rockhold on a poster either. He's sooooo dreamy!

But I really think Diaz gets overrated in terms of his drawing power. Yeah, sure, he's a name, but his fights aren't must-see-TV

I just don't think many people are dropping coin on a PPV because Nate Diaz is on the card

 

[m9]

You can't go wrong with Luke Rockhold on a poster either. He's sooooo dreamy!

But I really think Diaz gets overrated in terms of his drawing power. Yeah, sure, he's a name, but his fights aren't must-see-TV

I just don't think many people are dropping coin on a PPV because Nate Diaz is on the card

I agree with you a bit that he doesn't have some massive drawing power. He definitely got a large boost because of the Conor fights though, and for that reason it makes sense to have him in the co-main over the other guys. He's also fighting a top ranked guy in Poirier too, which helps.

Just for some perspective, there were lots of people who thought Diaz v Poirier should be a 5 round main event, and I thought that was ridiculous. Diaz isn't a main event, PPV draw in a non-title fight. Co-main, sure that works for me.

 

[Avs_19]

This likely means nothing because of the talent and skill difference but Lewis appears to be in great shape and I don't think he even had to cut weight for this fight. Meanwhile, DC is coming in the heaviest he has ever been for a fight at 250+ lbs. It could be strategic because of Lewis' size and a lot was made of DC's weight prior to the Stipe fight as well and that turned out fine. I'm sure he'll be fine in this one too but I think the only way he can lose this fight is if he's not taking Lewis seriously or looking past him.

Eubanks missed weight by a pound for her fight. Not a great look after everything that has happened leading up to the event.

 

[pistolpete11]

This likely means nothing because of the talent and skill difference but Lewis appears to be in great shape and I don't think he even had to cut weight for this fight. Meanwhile, DC is coming in the heaviest he has ever been for a fight at 250+ lbs. It could be strategic because of Lewis' size and a lot was made of DC's weight prior to the Stipe fight as well and that turned out fine. I'm sure he'll be fine in this one too but I think the only way he can lose this fight is if he's not taking Lewis seriously or looking past him.

Eubanks missed weight by a pound for her fight. Not a great look after everything that has happened leading up to the event.

Fight night is here. I still fully expect DC to win, but it always blows my mind the size difference in HW fights. Fans, myself included, always talk about the size advantage in other weight classes. But DC and Lewis weighed in over 20lbs apart. And still, I expect DC to get it done.

People blasted Eubanks for saying she deserved the title shot because her record is 3-2 in MMA or whatever it is. For me it was most laughable because she already had her title shot, but she missed weight. This was an opportunity to show everybody that doubted her why they were wrong and to secure a title shot. And she missed championship weight by 2.5lbs. If she's trying to be the heal, I'd say it's working. Unfortunately for her, she's probably going to have to move up to 135lb where there's a much longer and better line to fight for the belt.

 

[Neutrinos]

I'm hoping for a Lewis win by 1st round KO

 

[member 51464]

Any word on black beast's back?

 

[Jasper]

Interested to see Cormier's strategy here. Easy win if he takes Lewis down or does he decide to just box.

 

[Sheppy]

Roxanne Modafferi creeps me out. Seriously.