The Doctor's Stoppage MMA Blog

 UFC 283 really lived up to the hype and it was in large part due to the championship fights that capped off the night. The main event was kind of thrown together at the last second, but it was a fight that I was especially looking forward to. If you've been here awhile, it's not secret that I've been a Jamahal Hill fan (despite picking against him too often). While that took a hit due to his recent comments, I still feel good for the guy. He's been through a lot and has had a long road to this point. Seeing someone realize their potential and achieve their dream will always make me feel good, regardless of their opinions on other things. Unfortunately, that means Glover Teixeira had to lose, which no one wanted to see. Glover had taken on the role of MMA's favorite grandfather and we all knew it was coming eventually, but no one wanted to see him go. I'll get into it more, but I'm glad Glover got to go out on his own terms, even if it wasn't his best ni...

 The time for the first UFC pay per view of the year is upon us. We're coming off of a good first UFC card of 2023 and hopefully taking that momentum and building on it. Being in front of a crowd, especially a Brazilian crowd for the first time in a few years, should only help. We have two really great fights to end the night and the rest of the action should end up being pretty solid too in my opinion. I'm excited to get into this one, so let's not waste any time. 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. Official bets will be at the bottom. Bets are now being officially tracked at  BetMMA  as well. Daniel Marcos defeats Saimon Oliveira          Result: Marcos by KO (1-0)          A bit of a strange fight to start the night as I'm not entirely sure what I should make of either of these guys. Neither guy h...

 The first UFC event from 2023 is in the books and, all things considered, it was a pretty good Fight Night. Unfortunately, it got overshadowed by a lot of general MMA news. We now know that Jon Jones vs Ciryl Gane is scheduled to be the main event of UFC 285 on March 4. Part of me wants to be excited for it, but the other part of me will kind of believe it when I see it. The other part of that fight is that it's for the undisputed heavyweight title, meaning that Francis Ngannou is no longer holding the belt and is officially set to move on from the UFC. People are coming in with a lot of hot takes about who is right and wrong or who won and lost and I don't really think that's necessary, especially now. It's really impossible to say until we see what Francis does and where this decision leads him and the UFC's heavyweight division. I'm also not sure there needs to be a winner and loser. While someone may have "more success" (and that depends on how yo...

 The UFC will return to action and make it's 2023 debut and it is desperately needed. We haven't had much MMA over the last month or so outside of the Bellator vs Rizin card and combat in general has slowed. I guess we have the KSI boxing match to look forward to... The UFC normally likes to kick off the year with a little more of a high profile main event, but they didn't go that route this year. Originally, we were slated to see Nassourdine Imavov vs Kelvin Gastelum, but then Gastelum was forced to pull out with a pretty nasty looking mouth injury. Geoff Neal vs Shavkat Rakhmanov was scheduled as the co-main and we lost that one as well. The replacement main of Imavov vs Sean Strickland isn't a bad one, but the card has definitely taken a hit. As I'm sure you've heard and read from multiple people at this point, this card doesn't set up all that well for betting purposes. There aren't a ton of places I feel all that passionate about, but I'm sure a...

 I don't really think I have to say it, but I'm not and have never considered myself a real journalist. I've never claimed to be and likely never will. However, the failure of a lot of real journalists have put me in a strange spot. No one reads this blog or comes to me for the hard hitting news, but those that we do go to in these situations have dropped the ball in my opinion, so I feel like I have to do my part, regardless of how small that may be. I think the video dropped about a week ago now where we saw cell phone video of Dana White and his wife, Anne, trading slaps in a bar/club. This story has gone on a bit of a roller coaster ride in terms of media attention as it was put on the back burner after the horrible situation on Monday Night Football with Damar Hamlin. Luckily, Damar's condition has been improving and we even have a screenshot of him smiling on a facetime call now. That has allowed us to return to a sense of normalcy and get back to this story. It...