The Doctor's Stoppage MMA Blog

 To most neutral parties, the White House event was about as much of a success as the UFC could have hoped for. They ended up having to cancel the prefight coverage and had a short delay due to weather, but after everything actually started moving, the weather held off. It didn't seem like the humidity really played any part in determining the outcomes, mostly because only the main event extended in any meaningful way. The fights themselves were all action for the most part and all ended inside the distance, which meant the casual fans stayed engaged. The only real thing that isn't a complete knit pick in my opinion is the Josh Hokit comment. I'll have more on that tomorrow so, stay tuned if that topic is something that interests you. There's not too many fights left to go over now that I have done the two title fights the last couple of days, but we will quickly run through everyone left and give a quick evaluation of their performance and take a look at some options f...

 We had a busy weekend in combat sports, but there really wasn't any single story that stood out enough for me to write an entire piece on it. Instead, I figured I would get out some thoughts on a lot of different things. We had Jake Paul vs Tommy Fury, the return of Yaroslav Amosov, Brendan Allen picking up a huge win, and a few other things. I just want to quickly get some thoughts down and give all of those their credit. I guess I'll start with Jake Paul and Tommy Fury. I don't really have any grand takeaway from this fight. It wasn't especially fun to watch, which is really nothing new for these influencer cards, but this one felt a little worse. I think this one was missing the novelty of the previous ones. The other ones were fun at least a little bit because it had someone we know (we as in people my age and younger) in Jake Paul fighting either Anderson Silva, Tyron Woodley, or Ben Askren. It was at least moderately entertaining just because it was weird. This o...

 Normally my weekly UFC round up post is in regards to the event that we just saw, but I don't really think that was necessary for this week. The event wasn't particularly interesting and a lot of people didn't even watch it, so me putting forth the effort to dissect it just isn't really there. Instead, I want to briefly touch on a few topics floating around the MMA world for the last week or so. First, I have to give props to Serghei Spivac for collecting the biggest win of his career. It is becoming evident that Derrick Lewis isn't the guy he once was, but that's a win that still carries some weight to me. Spivac did exactly what he needed and was able to avoid the big right hand that a lot of people, including myself, thought would be his undoing. He was able to ground the fight and submit Lewis pretty quickly. Spivac has himself set up pretty nicely for a big opportunity going forward. Also, shoutout to Devin Clark on a big win. Clark is a guy that is hard t...

 This past Saturday's UFC card certainly wasn't the best MMA event of the year and it lost a lot of it's luster when we lost the main event, Derrick Lewis vs Serghei Spivac. This was probably one of the most uninteresting cards of the year for the UFC without that fight, but this is what happens when we get those super stacked PPVs. The surrounding events tend to suffer. We have the week off for American Thanksgiving this weekend, but we'll be back the following week with a great event leading into UFC 282 on the 10th. With that said, we have to put this card to rest and give everyone involved their due.  I actually didn't get to watch the opening fight of the night, but I did see the highlight of the finish. Natalia Silva seems to have a pretty decent ceiling in the UFC so far. She's very young and already really talented. Her striking is fairly solid and she's only going to be getting better with more time in the gym. She picked up a great finish in this o...

 UFC 281 was probably the best card in MMA all year. The first event that the UFC did in London in March was great, but I think the actual competition was better this past weekend. So many of the fights were fun matchups, important for the future of their division, or both. There weren't too many fights that didn't provide at least a little bit of intrigue and the atmosphere matched it. There's a lot of fighters to talk about since I need to get to some of the losers here as well, so let's not mess around. Carlos Ulberg kicked off the night with a bang. It was a mixed bag for CKB on the night, but Ulberg looked tremendous. I had my issues with Carlos and I'm not ready to say he's on the path towards a title shot, but this was the best he's looked in my opinion. Negumereanu was a guy who could pose an interesting style matchup for him, but he had no issues at all. Neg has also been very durable historically, but the power of Ulberg put him out quickly in this...

 Because my life just can't seem to settle down lately, I watched the prelims of UFC Vegas 63 on my phone while in the passenger seat. It wasn't the best or my normal viewing experience, but I thought it ended up being a decent enough night, at least from an entertainment perspective. There was only one decision on the prelims, so even if you weren't that into a fight, it didn't last too long and we were able to move on to the next. The main card had it's moments as well. The Jared Vanderaa vs Waldo Cortes-Acosta fight started to drag a bit, but it still wasn't that bad. Unfortunately, the Calvin Kattar injury ended the main event prematurely and kind of left the whole event feeling a bit hollow, but being a few days removed, it was still a fun night of competition. Let's get to the winners. First up is Christian Rodriguez. He ended up taking on a short notice replacement and dealt with him accordingly. Rodriguez was seemingly able to do whatever he wanted a...

 It's a Friday with no full preview, but I wanted to get through the rest of this card. Since I do the picks and betting on Saturdays before the event, I know I'll be able to say everything I need to there for Calvin Kattar vs Arnold Allen. UFC 280 got off to a bit of a slow start as the prelims lacked a bit of excitement, but it really picked up heading into the main card. There were a few fights that were pretty important for their weight classes, so there's a lot to say as some of these fights need to cover both the winner and the loser. Let's not waste any more time. The first winner of the night was Karol Rosa in a bit of a strange fight. Rosa came in as a heavy favorite against an aging Lina Lansberg and didn't always look as good as we expected. The first round was pretty close as Rosa got dropped with a right hand early, but she bounced right back up and controlled the rest of the round. She was winning the second round until she got a point deducted due to ...

 Despite being kind of a weird card on paper, UFC Vegas 61 ended up being a pretty interesting watch. There was a lot of weirdness surrounding the Mark Zuckerberg stuff, but I think the action ended up being the thing that most people were talking about after the event came to an end. We got a lot of good fights even though most of the main card went to decisions. I do have some things that I want to say, so I'm just going to get right into it. Guido Cannetti picked up another win, this time in a much tougher matchup. Cannetti is getting up there in age, but he's still turning in solid performances. He's a bit limited at this point, but he's finding a way to win as long as they give him opponents in his own tier. His kicks still looked powerful and once he got in dominant position after Randy Costa slipped, he finished the choke pretty quickly. As an aside, that was a really bad look for Costa, but it doesn't take away from what Cannetti did well. Some opponents tha...

 UFC 279 ended up working out as a pretty solid night after the card got shuffled around. If you didn't read my write up for the main event yesterday, I'm not so into the idea of giving the UFC all of this credit for making a better card when they were the one's responsible for making the initial, lesser card in the first place. What I do give them credit for is having the ability to get everyone on the same page and actually get the contracts agreed to for the updated card, but not for the matchups they chose because everyone knows that should've been the initial layout the whole time. The card as a whole was just ok. It probably didn't really ever feel like a PPV, but it was a pretty standard card. As a PPV, it will be on the weaker ones of the year, but overall, it was just another event. It ended up being special because the main event felt like it should. It should have always been a celebration of Nate's run in the UFC and that is what we got. Tony Ferguso...