The Doctor's Stoppage MMA Blog

Alright, I admit this is me going down the route of Chael Sonnen's youtube videos, but it was a question that I legitimately asked myself. I'm actually hoping he doesn't put out a video on this between now and when I have this go live. It's currently 9:40 pm on Monday night and I'll have this life sometime Tuesday morning, so let's hope. Anyways, this all stems from an interview that Khabib Nurmagomedov did with ESPN. In this interview, he stated that Islam Makhachev and Beneil Dariush are the two best lightweights in the world, better than Justin Gaethje and Dustin Poirier. I don't think he meant it this way, but in a round about way, Khabib almost diminished his own legancy in MMA. Now, I'm not a complete moron, I realize that Khabib's legacy within the sport is solidified for the rest of time. However, I just want to talk about what he said and what is starting to get a little annoying if I'm being honest. For anyone who is already furious, I ...

 Alright guys, I'm back and the posts are back. Honestly, I was tired, I used the week off of school to sort of chill out and reset. I think we all needed it. I didn't watch the Triller Triad thing this weekend or the boxing, so I have nothing to say because I didn't see any of it. I did read that Mike Perry won his fight, so good for him. I could have continued the MMA Thanksgiving series, but I felt like I was going to end up repeating myself a lot, so I just opted to relax and let everyone enjoy their Thanksgiving week without my nonsense. Now that we're back and this article will being going out late, let's jump right into things. I don't remember what day it was, but within the last few days, we got an announcement that I first saw come from Brett Okamoto that Islam Makhachev will return to the octagon in a main event on February 26 against fellow top 5 lightweight contender Beneil Dariush. Obviously, this sort of clears the path for Justin Gaethje to get t...

I really don't have enough to say about last weekend's main event to make an entire post about it or really the card as a whole, so I'm not going to waste your guys time. Since it is Thanksgiving this week in the United States, I figured I would do a series of posts of things we are thankful for in MMA. MMA is a sport where we complain a lot and there's a lot of things that need altered, fixed, or changed in some way, but we all still love it for what it is. In this series I'll go over the fight I'm thankful for, male and female fighter I'm thankful for, and I'll figure out some other things for later in the week. I'm going to keep this focused mostly on this year, but I'm not necessarily limiting myself to just this calendar year because I don't want to make it a yearly awards or anything like that because I'll do that in late December or early January. This addition of MMA Thanksgiving will focus on the fight that I'm most thankful ...

Alright, this is the week we get back on track. Today is the day of UFC Vegas 43 with Miesha Tate vs Ketlen Vieira serving as the main event. This is my standard, scheduled weekly post where I make a pick for every fight on the card and the last two weeks have been mediocre. I'm staying over .500 every week, but the expectation is higher than that. I feel decent this week and my record definitely needs it. I always say this isn't a betting guide per se as there's no odds taken into consideration when I make my picks and there's no props or anything of the sort. However, if you're looking to just bet on each fight outright, then this is what you're looking for. Just to be clear,  my picks will be in the bolded font , and  the real results will be listed next to it in italics  after the fight is official. Let's get into this weeks card. Luana Pinheiro defeats Sam Hughes                          ...

This Saturday's main event will see former UFC and Strikeforce bantamweight champion Miesha Tate face fellow ranked bantamweight contender Ketlen Vieira. This fight figures to be pretty even and the current betting lines suggest as much. Due to the dominance of champion Amanda Nunes, a win, especially for Tate, could potentially provide her with enough momentum to get the next title shot, assuming Nunes is able defeat Julianna Pena in their December bantamweight title fight. This fight has some interesting dynamics going into it. Vieira has 13 career fights with a record of 11-2, with 7 of those fights coming in the UFC for a 5-2 record. Unfortunately for Vieira, both of those losses have come in 2 of her last 3 appearances. For someone who doesn't have a lot of fights under their belt and especially not a lot of losses, we'll see how her confidence is effected when she steps into the cage with someone with the name recognition of Miesha Tate. On the other hand, Miesha has ...

The UFC keeps rolling out interesting cards and this weekend is no exception. The co-main even will feature ranked welterweights Michael Chiesa and Sean Brady. This is a typical UFC pattern as we'll see a veteran who took a step back against a rising prospect. This will also be a grappling heavy fight as both fighters prefer that the fight takes place on the ground rather than stand up, which will be a good change of pace from most of the fights that take place within the rankings. Typically, we see a striker versus a grappler or two strikers, but grappler versus grappler doesn't happen very often anymore, especially within the top 15. Just because it will likely be grappling heavy, doesn't mean it will be boring because I don't expect to see either guy just working for control and position. Both guys will go for submission attempts as Chiesa has 11 submission wins and Brady has 4 in only 14 career fights. Michael Chiesa represents the veteran side of this matchup. He h...

The short answer to that is, not yet. Georges "Rush" St. Pierre is one of the greatest mixed martial artists of all time and for many, he sits atop that list by himself. It goes without saying then that he is also considered to be the greatest welterweight of all time and in UFC history. It is pretty big news then when a welterweight does enough where people start mentioning his name in the same breath as GSP, but that's the territory we have entered with Kamaru Usman. He's not there yet, he's not, but he's going to really start making this a conversation if he keeps up his current pace for another 2 years, which of course is easier said than done. I just want to take the time to really give them a close look and see how much Usman has to do in order to catch Georges and maybe some places where he already has surpassed him. Just to be clear, I'm not discussing a theoretical fight between the two because I'm not that type of analyst and don't have t...

 I know, I know. The first time I get to do something creative in basically two and a half weeks and I resort to writing about Conor McGegor. I've actually never made a full post on McGregor, so you know I had to at some point. If I'm being completely honest, I haven't really thought much about Conor the fighter in awhile, but when he had a back and forth with Max Holloway in the lead up to his main event against Yair Rodriguez this past Saturday, I started thinking about Conor as an actual competitor. I wanted to try to dive into what we actually know about Conor versus what we speculate about him in terms of whatever the future of his career looks like. I'll take a few sentences now to address his personal life because that's not really something I enjoy doing, but in his case, it can't be ignored. Conor has had his fair share of issues outside of the cage and at some point, now or later, it will catch up to him if he keeps it up. I don't really understand...

For the third week in a row, we've been treated to a really good weekend of fights, especially in the main events. This week featured number 1 ranked featherweight contender and fan favorite Max "Blessed" Holloway up against number 3 ranked contender Yair Rodriguez, who was coming off of a two year absence. Having not seen Yair in the cage for so long and him also having had COVID, it was hard to know what to expect from him. We knew he was an elite talent, but given the expected rust, a matchup against Max Holloway seemed like way too tall of a task for him to overcome given the circumstances. At this point, when Holloway fights, anything short of excellence is disappointing and I don't think we saw the very best version of Max Holloway on Saturday, but he was still plenty good. The first round started with Rodriguez largely getting the better of Max in a lot of the exchanges. One of Max's best attributes is his durability and that really helped him get through t...

 Another Saturday means another week of fights and while it's not the title defenses we've gotten in each of the last two weeks, it still is a pretty nice looking main event. We get Max Holloway vs Yair Rodriguez and there's some other decent matchups to go along with it. This is the post that comes every week where I will make my pick for every fight and serve as some basic version of a betting guide, but no props or anything like that. I'll keep track of my record each week and then a total record for the year. Last week I was 8-6, which makes me 18-10 for the year. Just to be clear,  my picks will be in the bolded font , and  the real results will be listed next to it in italics  after the fight is official.  Kennedy Nzechukwu defeats Da Un Jung                                        Result: Jung by KO/TKO (0-1)          ...

Guys, this main event is really flying under the radar isn't it. I feel like I'm saying this on a weekly basis at this point, but this week features another one of my favorite fighters. I'm not really sure why, but I just feel like MMA has a greater volume of really likable athletes than other sports. There's really not that many fighters who I don't like, and even out of those guys, I still respect most of them. I don't feel the need to say their names because 1. I don't know any of them to say that I actually don't like them and 2. even though I'm not a true "journalist", what's not to say that I couldn't be at some point and if that's the case, there should be some level of professionalism and respect for all athletes regardless of personal opinions. With that said, it's hard to not find yourself rooting for Max Holloway. Max is a favorite amongst many fans because he is just one of us. He's just a guy who likes to la...