Editorials – Page 98 – Fight Matrix

Match of the Day: Vasyl Lomachenko vs. Jorge Linares (May 12, 2018)

Posted on May 14, 2018 by Julianna Penya Simp

Lomachenko vs. Linares

Date: Saturday, May 12
Time: 8 p.m. ET
Location: Madison Square Garden — New York City

In front of 10,429 in attendance, Lomachenko survived a knockdown in round 6 to win via TKO in round 10 after a perfectly placed liver shot to claim the WBA (Super) and The Ring lightweight titles. In doing so he became the fastest fighter ever to win titles in 3 different weight classes (only 12 professional fights) shattering the previous record of 20 fights, which was held by Jeff Fenech.

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MMA and Online Gaming: What You Need to Know

Posted on April 16, 2018 by A. J. Riot

The Internet has had its impact on almost every industry out there. For gamers, it’s been a great way to experience gaming, allowing them to try out a different niche of gaming easily. With time, the concept of online gaming has changed too. We had those flash games around a decade back, taking up as little as a megabyte of space. Back in those times, internet speed was slow, and you couldn’t do much more.

Not anymore. And the games have changed as a result too. You could try out online gaming on all your favorite games, which includes the likes of PES, FIFA and even Counter-Strike. With download speeds often cross 50 Mbps, online gaming has taken on a new definition today.

Online gaming: Different Than Even Half a Decade Back!

The gaming sector has been largely influenced by the technological advancement all around. If you are into gaming, you must be aware how the online world has completely changed how people perceive gaming. First, gaming has become far more accessible than it ever was. You can sit on your drawing room sofa with your smartphone and play online till you are tired. You can play online pokies to your heart’s content, or try the more complex games. Either way, you will never be bored.

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Sakuraba and Josh Barnett’s submission grappling team “Survival Series” format airs on Fight Pass April 11

Posted on April 5, 2018 by Julianna Penya Simp

This new promotion is called Quintet. The first event will be called “Quintet.1” with the tag line “Team Grappling Survival Match” and features a host of notable names all across the MMA and combat sports scene. It’s stylized title may remind you of defunct Japanese MMA promotion Dream stylized titles. This event will be broadcast on UFC Fight Pass.

THE EVENT AIRS APRIL 11 530AM ET / 230AM PT

https://youtu.be/weTyy5Dk5W8

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One Championship – Weight Division Confusion

Posted on April 3, 2018 by Jason

Due to a weight cutting death, One Championship rolled out changes to their weigh-ins and divisional ranges at the start of 2016.

Although online literature suggests they still do weigh-ins, I can’t find any legitimate pre-event weigh-in results since they rolled out this new program. As far as I can tell, they come up with a fight-ready, perhaps slightly dehydrated weight for each fighter and put them in whatever division they fit.

What makes it more confusing is how they structure their ranges:

Division	OneFC Limit	Standard Limit
Heavyweight	265	265
Light Heavyweight	225	205
Middleweight	205	185
Welterweight	185	170
Lightweight	170	155
Featherweight	155	145
Bantamweight	145	135
Flyweight	135	125
Strawweight	125	115
Atomweight	115	105

The upper-limit of Heavyweight remains unchanged, while all of the other divisions are staggered by one, with the exception of Light Heavyweight, which basically equates to a “Light” Heavyweight. So, they tried to make the common naming convention “work” with their altered methods.

To incorporate a real-world example, Bibiano Fernandes is the promotion’s 145-pound champion. In a fight-ready, perhaps slightly dehydrated state, he probably is about 145 pounds and as far as I can tell, this is where he is expected to weigh under their strange conditions — so this is pretty clear so far.

To OneFC, he is a “Bantamweight”, but at where he’s expected to weigh, he’d be considered a “Featherweight” to the rest of the MMA world. However, in the rest of MMA, he would not be exempt from cutting an additional 10 or so pounds of water weight, so in all likelihood, he’d weigh-in at 135 prior to the event — a “true” Bantamweight.

As you may have noticed, our divisional limits are slightly higher than the standard limits, to accommodate for slight variances historically in organizations shifting things a bit, deciding to use the metric system and with another pound or two on top of that to allow for small weigh-in misses. However, they aren’t so much higher to allow for OneFC fighters to be slotted in their “true” MMA divisions without breaking our own rules and ignoring actual weigh-in results.

Hopefully this clears things up.

Can The Eagle Soar To A Title At UFC 223?

Posted on March 9, 2018 by A. J. Riot

“UFC Undisputed 2010” by Peiyu Liu (CC BY-NC 2.0)

When Khabib “The Eagle” Nurmagomedov takes on Tony Ferguson at UFC 223, their de facto world lightweight title fight will be between two fighters with one combined loss in UFC. With so much on the line, can Nurmagomedov keep his perfect record intact and earn a first UFC championship? Or will Tony Ferguson cash in and turn his interim championship into a real championship?

This fight between Nurmagomedov and Ferguson will be a battle of contrasting styles, thanks to Ferguson’s history of wins via submission and Khabib’s history of winning by knockout or decision. The Russian tends to control fights, waiting for his opponent to wear down to allow him to land the ideal combination to score a finish. If that opportunity doesn’t present itself, he is more than content to win by decision. Ferguson, meanwhile, takes the fight straight to his opponent, getting them out of their comfort zones to score submission wins.

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UFC: Seven under 30

Posted on March 7, 2018 by Oleg

Did you think based on the title that this article would be about seven hot UFC prospects under 30 years of age? Nope. I am talking about the seven fighters with 27 or more UFC fights to their name – guys who are within three fights of reaching the record of 30 official bouts in the UFC Octagon. So who will be the first to achieve this record? Here’s the list of candidates, in the order of probability (in my opinion of course).

But first, a few notes:

While for most purposes we ignore No Contests (i.e. treat them as if the fight never happened), for the purpose of this record they are considered as valid fights. Once the Octagon doors close and the referee signals the start of action, it’s a fight – no matter if it’s eventually ruled a No Contest. This gives a one-up to Jim Miller and Gleison Tibau (questionably – more on that later).
‘The Ultimate Fighter’ house fights – generally termed “pro-exhibition bouts” are not counted. If they were included, TUF alumni Diego Sanchez and Michael Bisping would have three and two additional fights each, respectively.
Though Tito Ortiz and Frank Mir both have 27 UFC bouts, they are not included in this list as the probability of either fighting in the UFC again – let alone three more times – is infinitesimally small.
The ‘Average Fights Per Year’ calculation does not include any fights which took place in 2018. The year of fighter’s UFC debut is included in the calculation only if the fighter fought two or more times in their first calendar year; any fights in other promotions in the same year but prior to the fighter’s UFC debut are not inocluded.

That said, here’s our magnificent seven:

[#7 MW] Michael Bisping
Age: 38
UFC Fights: 29
UFC Debut: Jun 24, 2006
Current Streak: L-2
Average Fights Per Year: 2.41

While the current record holder for most fights in the UFC will never be in consideration for one of the ‘GOATs’, he is guaranteed a future spot in the UFC Hall of Fame, and his accomplishments in this sport cannot be denied. For most of his UFC career, ‘The Count’ scrapped with the elite fighters in his weight class, but was never quite able to cross that threshold himself – he was good but not great, and seemingly always lost the fights that mattered the most. After a period between 2012 and 2014 where Bisping alternated wins and losses, he has had a late career resurgence, winning five straight in a streak that included capturing and defending the middleweight title, as well as scoring a decision victory over the former 185 lbs king Anderson Silva, and avenging two of his three stoppage losses at the time.

A victory over Georges St. Pierre would have been the crowning feather in Bisping’s countly headgear. Alas it was not meant to be, as Bisping was chocked unconscious in the third round, losing the middleweight title which GSP then promptly relinquished. Motivated by the loss, Bisping decided to get back in the cage as soon as possible, taking on the rising prospect Kelvin Gastelum a mere three weeks after the GSP fight. This proved to be disastrous for The Count, who suffered a brutal knockout loss in the very first round. It might have been the perfect opportunity for him to retire, but not many athletes can admit that it’s time to walk away from the sport they love – especially coming off a bad loss. Bisping has mulled retirement since then, but all signs point to him fighting at least one more time. More than a few middleweights threw their name in the hat to play the role of Michael’s final opponent, and it seems that Luke Rockhold trilogy is the matchup that interests Bisping the most. Should this fight happen some time in the near future, Bisping will almost certainly become the first UFC fighter to step into the Octagon for the 30th time.

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Project Spearhead, the newest “Fighter Association/Union” to pop up, shows a clear plan to better fighters

Posted on March 2, 2018 by Julianna Penya Simp

So here’s a bit of the the backstory, at the 2017 UFC Athlete Retreat the UFC had brought out special guest speakers to give their own little “Ted Talks”. One of those guests was Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers, and one of the UFC athletes to attend was Leslie Smith (currently 2 fight win streak since fighting Cris Cyborg, exploded ear, 5 FOTN bonuses – 4 in Invicta – 1 in UFC). And Leslie Smith asked him about Unions.

What They Are Fighting For whether or not they unionize:

“The UFC can choose to either pay into our needs and respect us as employees with a say in all decisions affecting us.”

“Treat us like the independent contractors that we are being called and lighten up with the USADA supervision, uniforms and restrictions.”

“We need to have either the autonomy of being independent contractors like the UFC claims we are or we need to get benefits and a seat at the table as employees since the UFC treats us like employees.” – http://www.projectspearhead.com/

All this can be found on their website neatly under the “Why Associations” tab.

Next, is the process, which is also concisely explained and outlined on the website for Smith’s fellow fighters.

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What Are Fantasy Sports

Posted on February 16, 2018 by A. J. Riot

Although most people have heard of fantasy sports, millions of people actually play it. But you may be one of the few who has no idea what it really is, and that’s why we’re here today – to help you out in understanding the fantasy sports mania.

You may know that it involves putting together virtual teams that are based on real players. And then that you judge the performance on those imaginary teams based on how the real players do on the field. Sure, that’s the basics of it.

The entire thing began as a fun game that used to be played among friends. But nowadays, it’s turned into a multi-billion-dollar industry that even has influence on actual sports. And how it works is, the fans pick their favorite players in an online selection process, also known as a draft, in order to assemble a fantasy team. Then, the real-game statistics of those players are compiled and compared in order to see whose fantasy sports team has done the best job.

Since it involves payments and rewards, some deem it on par with actual sports betting, while others claim that fantasy sports require more skill than luck.

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