The Doctor's Stoppage MMA Blog

 This really isn't the type of post I normally do on here. This is much more of a Chael Sonnen YouTube video topic, but this one struck me as being especially noteworthy. We're also without any UFC for another weekend and the Bellator card really doesn't carry enough intrigue for me to write up a full post on Ryan Bader vs Valentin Moldavsky. I'll be watching, but I might actually watch some of the Royal Rumble too. I haven't been too much into WWE since I was a kid, but the Royal Rumble is always a little bit different. Anyways, it has been in the news cycle the last few days about how Jiri Prochazka is preparing for his upcoming UFC title fight against Glover Teixeira with the help of Jon Jones and Henry Cejudo. This story really caught my eye for a number of reasons, which in this slow week without many topics, I thought was worthy of a post. Using Henry Cejudo as a coach carries a little more weight than it would have even a few months ago. I'm not sure if H...

 In a recent interview, welterweight champion and consensus P4P king Kamaru Usman said he considered the possibility of moving up to make an attempt at double champ status. Given the weight that carries and the fact that he's attempting to catch Georges St. Pierre as the greatest of all time, that makes a lot of sense. It does contradict what Usman has said before though when he said he has no interest in moving up because the champion above him, Israel Adesanya, is one of Usman's good friends and he has no interest in fighting him. The interview keeps going and then Usman says when he thought about moving up, it wasn't for Adesanya, but rather to skip middleweight and go all the way to light heavyweight and challenge then champion Jan Blachowicz. This made it's rounds pretty quickly and I think a lot of people sort of missed the point and that's why I wanted to give my point of view on the matter. There's two separate, slightly different questions, that I think...

 Alright guys, try not to kill me on this one. I know the UFC commentary team is always a hot topic with fans and its something I never really comment on. I've been a die hard fan of other sports longer than I've been a die hard in MMA and I believe the UFC consistently has the best commentary overall. Jon Anik is absolutely fantastic at his job in my opinion and shouldn't even be considered part of what I am talking about in this post. I don't see many people who suggest otherwise either. I think Anik is basically as well liked and appreciated as anyone in the MMA "media", if you want to call him media. A lot of the fan contention comes in when its time to discuss the analysts for the show. Of course, that means the presence of former double champion Daniel Cormier and long time UFC analyst and podcaster/comedian Joe Rogan. There's a lot of people who want Joe Rogan removed from the broadcast because of his politics and while I don't agree with everyt...

 Paddy Pimblett, despite only having 1 fight in the UFC, is one of the most talked about fighters in the sport. He has everything the UFC is looking for. He brings his own fan base from the UK in a way that I can only compare to Conor McGregor. Now, nothing for as long as this sport exists will compare to the rise of Conor McGregor and the way the Irish fans were behind him before he even made his way to the UFC, but it has a similar feel, just not to that extent. After a banger of a debut that saw him knock out Luigi Vendramini in the first round after Vendramini had Paddy hurt earlier in that fight. The exciting nature of his performances only adds to the star power that Paddy holds so early in his career. Everyone has been sitting and waiting for the announcement of Paddy's next opponent for awhile now. Ever since the rumors of the UFC's return to the UK on March 19 started circulating, everyone targeted that date for Paddy's next appearance. That date has since been con...

 If the heavyweight main even was the main course, the flyweight title fight in the co-main was the best appetizer you've had in awhile. A third fight between Brandon Moreno and Deiveson Figueiredo gave us a second close decision, with Figueiredo regaining his title. I personally had the fight scored 48-47 for Moreno, but I can't disagree with almost any score. The only round that was universally agreed upon was the second round for Moreno. This fight felt weird to watch. It felt extremely high level, but it also felt like either guy could have definitively gotten the win with just a minor adjustment. Let's just talk about the fighters now. I'll go back to my normal format of talking about the winner first. Deiveson Figueiredo looked so much better this time around. First and foremost, he got his weight situation in order and that might have been the most important aspect for him. We all knew Figueiredo had the skills to compete with Moreno, but his weight situation las...

 I'm writing this around midnight on Sunday and I'm still not really sure exactly what I saw a little less than 24 hours ago. In a time when we saw Amanda Nunes lose to Julianna Pena, I still found myself shocked and speechless at times watching last nights main event. If you're new around here, in these posts, I typically go over the performance for each guy and then sort of lay out what their next options are or could be. What will be a little different for returning readers is that I don't normally like to talk about the loser of the fight, especially a title fight first. However, given how complicated things are for Francis and how long his section will be, I want to put his last. Having a whole post about Francis and then throwing in one paragraph about Ciryl Gane at the end would seem a little odd. Let's just start it then. Ciryl Gane worked his way up as the favorite to defeat reigning champion Francis Ngannou in his first title defense. In only his 11th care...

 We kicked off 2022 with a bumpy start for last weeks card, but I'll honestly take 6-4 on that card without complaining too much. That was a card that wasn't a whole lot of fun to pick and if it wasn't the first card on in a month, probably wouldn't have been a whole lot of fun to watch either. I'm not someone who complains about cards very often like so many fans love to do. Of course there are cards that are better than others, but most weeks, I can just appreciate that I have something to look forward to every week. Last week and this week however leave a lot to be desired. We were spoiled with the last couple of pay per view cards last year being absolutely stacked. This week's UFC 270 is sort of like a fight night card with 2 title fights tacked on at the end. With that said, I do think this weeks will be better than last week by a bit outside of the main and comain. Michel Pereira is a lot of things, but boring isn't one of them. Said Nurmagomedov vs C...

 To some degree, all of us MMA fans can turn off our brains and just enjoy a fight for what it is. We'll turn on Dana White's Contender Series and watch two fighters we've never heard of who have a combined 3 professional fights and watch them beat the hell out of each other for entertainment and sleep soundly at night. Unless you've been watching since the dark ages, which some of you out there have been, you probably don't need the most compelling storyline to sell a fight for you. Put a belt on the line or a just risk someone's spot in the rankings and that's usually good enough for us, even if we have a pretty good idea of who is going to win. However, when a fight does have actual stakes with a storyline that is so compelling it almost doesn't seem real at times and that's when you'll see even the long time hardcore fans get really excited. That's what we have staring us in the face for Saturday night. Francis Ngannou vs Ciryl Gane fight...

 It seems that we're finally getting the finale to this trilogy. I say that it seems that way because with Figueiredo you can never just assume he'll make the weight. We've seen on social media in the last few weeks that Figueiredo looks to be in tremendous shape. He's always in great shape, but he looked noticeably shredded this time around. I hope that's a good sign for the weight situation, which we'll know for sure in the coming days. These guys have fought each other in their last 2 appearances, so if you follow hockey and know what a "natural hat trick" is, this is a "natural trilogy" so to speak. I can't say I'm a particularly huge fan of it to be honest. There's something about having the break in the trilogies that build the tension and the anticipation. When you have fighters who are 1-1 against each other and they're sitting at or towards the top of the division, everyone pretty much knows that trilogy will be compl...

 Yesterday I did the women's pound for pound, so if you're coming across this for the first time, then check that out. Today, we'll be doing the men's rankings. Fortunately for fans, but maybe somewhat unfortunately for someone making a list like this, the men's divisions are deeper and there's just more of them, so this one is a little more difficult to put together. If you didn't read the women's rankings, then I'll go through the rules again here. To be eligible to be on my list, a fighter had to have a fight booked in 2021. That doesn't mean they had to actually appear, they just had to be on the schedule at some point. This is my way of not punishing anyone for the constant schedule changes and drop outs and rebookings caused by COVID, but enforcing some sort of rule on activity. So for my list, that means no Jon Jones or Henry Cejudo. I think those are the only guys who don't fit the criteria who otherwise would have had an argument to ...