The Doctor's Stoppage MMA Blog

Well, I apologize for not previewing the main event yesterday. I ended up getting a short notice interview and it just took way longer than expected and I wouldn't have put out the preview until probably 8 pm Friday night without having even started this post. Luckily, I think the main event sort of sets itself up to be a bit more simplified, so I don't think you'll be losing anything in the condensed version I'll be writing for this. This should in all likelihood be the card of the year. The main card is obviously great, but the prelims are also great and very deep. There really isn't a fight that I'm not interested in at least a little bit. I would be pretty surprised if this doesn't end up being the best PPV of the year and it couldn't come at a better time. The last few events haven't been all that hype worthy, so it's nice to have an event to actually be excited about. We have a lot of fights, so let's not waste anymore time. Just to be ...

 Moving on with our previews of UFC 281, we'll be going over the co-main event, which is for the strawweight championship. Carla Esparza is set to defend her title for the first time in her second run as champion after she upset Rose Namajunas in one of the strangest and most uneventful title fights I've ever seen. She'll be taking on former champion Zhang Weili and I don't think we have to worry about a staring contest in this one. This fight is sort of flying under the radar as the other two big fights on this card are getting a ton of attention (rightfully so) and neither of these women really talk a big game. Weili only speaks a little bit of English, so her promoting this fight isn't really an option, at least to the American audience, and Carla just isn't the person to come out and talk a big game. Carla also just doesn't have too much of a fan base, partially due to her lack of public persona and also due to a grappling heavy style that the more casua...

 We've made it through a bit of a slog of Fight Nights and now we're truly in the home stretch of 2022. The UFC likes to load up these last couple of PPVs of the year and it's much needed. While UFC 280 from a few weeks ago was one of the best main cards of the year, this week's UFC 281 may be the deepest event of the year. From the first fight of the night until the main event, we'll be in for a fantastic night of competition. I'll be previewing the last three fights of the card and that starts with Dustin Poirier vs Michael Chandler. With Islam Makhachev capturing the title, that opens up all of the potential title contenders that Oliveira had defeated for another opportunity. Poirier and Chandler are two of the marquee names in the division and a win could potentially vault them into a title fight. I have thoughts on if that is actually what I want to see, but we'll save that for when the time comes. This fight has some heat on it as well since these two ...

 UFC Vegas 64, on paper, was on the worst Fight Nights in awhile and was looking like it could potentially be the worst UFC event of the year. The final two fights of the night were basically all that the card had to promote (using that term loosely in today's MMA landscape) and they were pretty interesting. Luckily, the card turned out to be a lot closer to an average Fight Night than a truly awful one, even if the names on the card were very uninspiring. The last two fights lived up to the marginal hype they had as well. Neil Magny vs Daniel Rodriguez was pretty fun and it was good to see Magny look much more like himself than he did in his previous appearance. The main event was a bit slower than we expected, but it ended up being an ok fight and a reasonable end to the night. It isn't a card that we'll be remembering forever, but I don't really think it's a card we'll be remembering for being horrible either, and that is probably the best case scenario for t...

 Last week, we got back on track with our bets, but the picks really just fell off a cliff. We're going to have to get that back in order. Unfortunately, we're getting one of the worst cards in awhile. You guys know that I'm usually one who can find the best in an event whether it is a couple of fights, a notable prospect or two, an interesting style dynamic here and there, or just some general entertainment value. This card is very, very thin on all of those outside of the top two fights on the card and another spot here or there. This card also doesn't lend itself to a ton of interesting bets either, but we'll get to that in time. While I do wish this event was better, this is the price we have to pay to get some of these loaded up cards for the stretch run of 2022, so I'll live with it. I do kind of wish we could've gotten just a fight or two from next week to make this one a bit more tolerable though. Even the Julio Arce vs Montel Jackson fight would...