The Doctor's Stoppage MMA Blog

 Because of the shocking nature of the main event, and just how great of a fight it ended up being, we really haven't seen as much discourse about the co-main event of the evening. Cyril Gane knocked out Alex Pereira in the second round of their interim heavyweight championship fight. Pereira was making his attempt to capture a title in his 3rd weight class after transitioning from kickboxing over to MMA not all that long ago. There were a lot of questions with how he would adapt to such a massive jump in weight and unfortunately, I don't think we got a ton of answers just because of the nature of Cyril Gane as an opponent and how the fight ended up playing out. It ended up being a solid fight while it lasted and then Gane quickly put an end to it to capture the interim title for the second time in his career. It wasn't as crazy of a back and forth battle like the main event was, but it was my most highly anticipated fight of te night and I think it was that way for most ot...

 What a time to return to writing because it was just in time for one of the biggest upsets we've seen over the last handful of years and, at least from a narrative perspective, of all time. I know betting odds wise it won't make any list of the biggest upsets we've seen, but from a general public perspective, it really didn't feel like there was anyone giving Gaethje more than a punchers chance in this one. Even finding someone saying "well you never know" was hard to come by. It was almost a forgone conclusion that Topuria would win, it was just a matter of what method and how long it would be. Gaethje flipped all of that on it's head with one of, if not the best performance of his entire career. It all culminated in what will be a fight of the year candidate when we look up in 6 months with both guys having their highs and lows before the fight being called off by someone in the Topuria corner. There is some debate as to who actually made the call and w...

 UFC San Antonio lost a little bit of juice after 3 fights fell of the card, but what we did get was a pretty solid event. There weren't really any awful fights. Njokuani vs Duraev was probably the worst of the night, but it's not like that was one of the big ones people were looking forward to. Holm vs Santos wasn't great either, but people were generally happy to see Holly do well. After I finished rolling my eyes are her "what about the children" speech, I was able to enjoy a really high level main event. Cory Sandhagen is one of my favorite fighters on the roster, so I was pulling for him, but you have to love Chito as well. I didn't enjoy seeing him lose, but it was a bit disappointing to see him never really get going. I think that a lot of that has to do with Sandhagen and the looks he was giving, but at some point, Chito should have tried opening it up more. I know that's easy for me to say, but Chito is one of the toughest guys in the sport and he...

 The co-main event of UFC 286 was billed as a fight that would feature a ton of violence and that is largely what we got. Justin Gaethje and Rafael Fiziev brought the heat and somehow made it to a decision despite each guy landing some really nice shots. It would have taken something really strange for this fight not to be a good one and I'm glad it was because the rest of the main card before it was a little...meh. Gaethje managed to just edge out Fiziev on the judges scorecards in what ended up being a really close fight. It was good to see Gaethje look good in a high level fight and I think Fiziev showed a lot too. I'm not sure exactly what direction I'll go with this to be honest and I don't have any solidified thoughts going into this, so let's see.  This is such a big win for Justin Gaethje and it has to feel really good. A lot of people, myself included, were starting to talk as if this was sort of the last stand for Gaethje as a true title contender, top 5 t...

 UFC 286 brought us the conclusion to the Leon Edwards vs Kamaru Usman trilogy. There were a lot of opinions as to how this fight would go, but I don't think I really saw anyone who predicted the fight that we actually ended up getting. We saw a fight that was largely controlled by Edwards on the outside with Usman unable to get much going outside of a few spurts. There weren't many big moments, which favors Edwards, but still felt a bit strange. I have a lot to say about this fight, but I don't want to do it all in the intro, so let's just get to work. We'll start with Leon and I really don't have a ton to say about him this time around performance wise. This was much more of a typical Leon Edwards fight. He was able to get to his game much better than in the last fight and then keep the fight there. I do think Leon looked a bit sharper in this one. He was more confident and decisive. His strikes were sharper and seemed a tick faster, especially his kicks. Leon...

 There was a lot of discussion about how this main event could and would play out, with most people coming down on the side that Petr Yan would probably win. I don't think even Merab Dvalishvili's biggest fans imagined what we saw was a real possibility. I went against my fandom, like I have with Jamahal Hill far too often, and used what I thought was my head instead of my heart. What we learned is that Merab was able to do to Yan what he's done to everyone else he's fought. It was an incredible display of endurance for 25 minutes. Merab broke the record for takedown attempts in a fight as the mentioned during the broadcast, but it was actually more impressive than it sounds. His ability to really shut down almost all of Yan's offense was both unexpected and impressive. This really should put Merab on a short list of candidates for a title shot, but we'll get into that in a minute. It was a great way to cap off what was really a great event from start to finish....

 Somehow, Jon Jones returning to action and becoming heavyweight champion by submitting Ciryl Gane in 2 minutes wasn't the most shocking thing that happened this weekend in combat sports. Alexa Grasso stepped up in the biggest spot of her career and took down one of the most dominant champions that the UFC has seen in the modern era. Valentina had more questions surrounding her than usual because she had a down performance against Taila Santos and she was finally dethroned by Grasso. It wasn't a similar fight to the Santos one though for Val, so seeing her struggle in the ways she did was more surprising than anything. I'm still sort of processing this one myself, so I guess you'll see me come to some conclusions in real time instead of the more natural ones that I already have in place when I begin. Let's lay it out there. I guess what's interesting about this fight from the perspective of both fighters is that neither one really did anything that was completel...

In his first fight since 2020, Jon Jones looked better than he had in his last few fights at light heavyweight. I guess we shouldn't really be surprised, but somehow he still manages to pull of things that no one really sees coming. We all had so many questions about how the layoff, the age, and the weight would effect his ability to perform at a championship level. Unfortunately, we didn't really get an answer to most of those questions, but the one he answered emphatically is that he is still a championship caliber fighter. He definitely looked reinvigorated after some uninspired looking performances against Thiago Santos and Dominick Reyes (and Even Anthony Smith to a degree). I feel like I have to bring it up every time I talk about him and it's honestly getting a bit tiresome. I think I've been very clear on how I feel about Jon and his history, I'm not going to rehash it every time I talk about him, so go find those other times if you need to. Let's get in...

 While UFC Vegas 69 wasn't the sexiest event ever, the main event had some hype going into it, especially after Jessica Andrade was the woman to step in on short notice after Taila Santos was forced out. It was a chance for us to get a new breakout star in Blanchfield and man did she deliver. I don't know that even her biggest fans saw this coming. I've been pretty impressed with her brief UFC run and thought this may have been biting off a bit too much too soon. Going from Molly McCann to Jessica Andrade is a serious step up and she looked phenomenal. Everyone is really excited about her immediate future coming out of this and rightfully so, in my opinion. This is also what I was talking about when I said the UFC needs to start making more main evens like this to build stars, but I won't say I told you so. I don't want to say too much in the intro, so I'll just get to it. Erin Blanchfield looked nothing short of incredible. Seeing her having grappling success w...

 That was awesome. That was so much fun. I'm on record saying that was my most anticipated fight of 2023 and it even exceeded my expectations. We're like 6 weeks into 2023 and that may very well be the fight of the year. That's as into a fight as I've been in awhile. I was almost emotional in a weird way over the last few days. I've said this before about something, I think maybe it was Luke Rockhold's return fight, but I sit here today proud of what both Islam Makhachev and Alex Volkanovski did on Saturday. I understand that is a weird thing to say and a strange feeling to take away from a fight, but it's true. Maybe I take it too seriously and care too much, but I can't help it. That was an amazing fight and it's nights like Saturday that will keep me coming back to MMA for decades, despite all of the nonsense. There's so much to potentially take away from this fight that I'm afraid I'll start rambling, so I'm going to try and keep ...

 The UFC's first ever quadrilogy is now in the books and I would say that, as a whole, it delivered. It would have been unfortunate for the first one to have fallen short. While the ending was more anticlimactic than you would want in an ideal world, it was clear the way that fight was going. Moreno winning was probably the better thing for the promotion as well since he has a longer future at flyweight ahead of him. Regardless, this rivalry between Brandon Moreno and Deiveson Figueiredo has left the division in a much better place than they found it. There won't be any talk of folding the division for quite awhile now and that is a good thing. Brandon Moreno looks poised to hold onto this belt for awhile, especially if he can get past his next defense or two. Let's just get into it. This final chapter gave us the clearest picture of these two fighters in my opinion. Brandon Moreno has shown himself to just be the better flyweight at this juncture. The weight cut and age ha...

 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...