The Doctor's Stoppage MMA Blog

 If you guys read my preview for Tom Aspinall vs Alexander Volkov then you know I'm writing this at 3 am, so I don't have time to mess around. I've been doing well with these picks, but this card is honestly kind of difficult for me to pick for some reason. If I have a terrible week, I'm blaming it on exhaustion.   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 do it. Muhammad Mokaev defeats Cody Durden                              Result: Mokaev by sub (1-0)           Mokaev is one of the most talked about prospects who has yet to debut and for good reason. He has shown a lot of skills that make a lot of people look at him as a future contender. However, he still has a lot of growing to do and all of the video we have is against very limite...

 Normally this would have come out Friday, but I had a bit of a hectic day, so this preview is coming out some time on Saturday and then my picks are coming out probably immediately after. This preview may be a tad shorter just because I'm working with limited time and it is already after midnight, so we'll see if I can give you guys at least something to work with for this fight. The main event of this of the return to London features the British fighter who may have the brightest future ahead of him in the form of Tom Aspinall. He's a young fighter in a division that is really looking for an infusion of some younger talent. Heavyweight is looking for someone to take them into the future and Aspinall, at the very least, has the potential to be that guy with his combination of size, speed, explosiveness, and technique. He'll face his toughest test to date in the veteran Alexander Volkov. I think Volkov gets more hate than he really deserves because he's not really s...

 We're only a few days away from a Fight Night event in front of a legitimate crowd outside of the apex, which feels weird to say, but its exciting. This card figures to be really interesting from start to finish as basically every fight on the card has some point of intrigue. What I think we have missed from these Fight Night events, besides the fan energy of course, is the themed events. The crowds are usually great because the location of the card usually dictates a lot of the fights. The UFC will try to put as many hometown fighters on the card as possible and that is what we see here. The UK fans will be behind all of their fighters and to see them get their moment in front of their home fans is something I am looking forward to quite a bit. The co-main event sets up to be maybe the best fight of the entire event and that is between Arnold Allen and Dan Hooker. This sets up to be Hooker's return to featherweight after a run at lightweight, which has drawn the concern of so...

 Outspoken former UFC title challenger turned media/YouTuber Chael Sonnen is no secret to headlines and that hasn't really slowed down too much even after his fighting career came to an end. You guys know I watch his videos, which I actually haven't been doing as much for whatever reason. I just went back and checked and I haven't watched any of his videos in the last 10 days for the purposes of transparency. Now, I'm not complete bozo, I understand the point of his videos. He's doing everything with the intent of getting clicks, views, and for people to write articles about him to keep himself as relevant as possible. Most people view that negatively, I really don't as much. It just is what it is. He's in the YouTube business and if he wants to succeed, then he has to play that game a little bit. It is just the nature of the beast to an extent. I'm not here to tell you that I know more about being a professional MMA fighter than Chael Sonnen because tha...

 The co-main event from Saturday may have actually been the fight I was most looking forward to. We saw long time UFC veteran and former title challenger Marlon Moraes pitted against young up and comer Song Yadong in what was promised to be a striking battle. It didn't disappoint in that we did see some striking, but it didn't last particularly long after Yadong was able to knock Moraes out with a solid right uppercut. This is a fight that sort of felt like what I talked about yesterday with what could be next for Thiago Santos. Everyone was sort of feeling that Moraes was nearing the end and the UFC wanted to build a name off of his back in Yadong and it played out as many thought it would. The future is up in the air for Moraes going forward and we'll get into that in little bit. The future however is very clear for Yadong as he is going to continue his rise up the bantamweight ladder and he should find himself in another pretty big fight next time out. I would normally a...

 Well, this weeks UFC event was the inverse of what we have largely seen so far this year. The formula for the cards up to this point was a lot of mediocre action that is capped off with a really good main event. This week we saw a really good and fun card basically from the very start end with a very lackluster main event. I saw some fans complaining that this wasn't a main event caliber of fight and whether that is true or not, I really don't have a problem with it. The UFC is putting on around 45 events a year and someone has to be the main event for those. Santos is a relatively known name, especially for that division, and they are trying to build Ankalaev for a future title shot. It wasn't the most interesting or exciting fight to watch, but Ankalaev is continuing his ascent to the top of the light heavyweight division and that was really the goal of this fight from the UFC's perspective. I do have a bit to say, but it is more about the specifics of each fighter, ...

This will be coming out right up against the deadline so, sorry about that up front. If anyone is in the north east, shoveling the snow this morning threw off the normal schedule of when I do these so, it will be a little late. Anyways, this is actually a pretty good card that I am looking forward to quite a bit. There's a lot of pretty fun matchups that should provide an interesting afternoon of competition. If you're a better, a lot of these fights are lined pretty closely, so even if every fight isn't extremely high level, they should be close, competitive, fun, or some combination of those.  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. I don't have time to screw around. Let's go. Tafon Nchukwi defeats Azamat Murzakanov                                    Result:...