Former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold returns to the Octagon this Saturday at the PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh to face another former champion, who’s trying to work his way up the middleweight rankings in David Branch. Rockhold, also a former Strikeforce middleweight champion, hasn’t fought since losing the UFC middleweight title at UFC 199 to Michael Bisping. That was more than a year ago, but it seems more like five. So much has happened in the division since Bisping’s shocking knockout of Rockhold, so it may have been easy for some to forget his short reign as champion. Despite the elapsed time, Rockhold is still ranked No. 3 in the division and still one of the most dangerous fighters at 185 pounds. Before losing to Bisping, …show more content…
He’s a former simultaneous weight-class title holder in WSOF (World Series of Fighting), defending his middleweight championship three times and light heavyweight championship one time. His last loss was in 2012, which puts him on an 11-fight win streak. Branch made his return to the UFC in May with a split decision victory over Krzysztof Jotko. It was an uneventful fight, but Branch showed that he’s capable of being explosive. He has a 21-3 record and is ranked No. 9 in the middleweight division. Both fighters are big and powerful for the division, which makes this an interesting fight. Branch is known to use his size and power to grind out victories, while Rockhold has great kickboxing and holds the grappling and submissions advantage. The ultimate question is: how long will Rockhold keep the fight standing? The other question is: which fighter will be the aggressor? There will likely be a feeling-out process for both fighters, so who has the better gameplan may show more signs of life later in the fight. The two fighters have had plenty of opinions about each other. “Branch is a good fighter, I think he just questions himself,” Rockhold said last month on The MMA Hour. “You can’t question yourself at this …show more content…
I’m going to push him to that breaking point, and he’s going to feel the pressure. He can’t keep up with me. You can’t think you’re going to do something. You have to know. I see Branch, he questions himself. He’s good everywhere, he’s a third-degree black belt, he’s a decent boxer, but there’s questions in his head, and it’s time for me to go make those a little more doubtful as the rounds go on.” Branch didn’t hold back earlier this week on The MMA Hour. “He’s going to come out and try to establish his dominance,” Branch said. “He’s going to try to run his alpha male shit on me, and I’m going to shut that shit down, obviously. But I think in that fight with Bisping, the motherfucker slipped up. “You can’t go out there and take anybody lightly…He’s a tough opponent. I respect him enough to have trained for him the way I trained for him. And that’s about the most respect this motherfucker is going to get from me. He’s not getting no more respect. I already gave him enough respect by training for him as hard as I have. That is respect enough. When I go in there, I am going to be very, very disrespectful to him.” Both fighters think a win puts them at the front of a long line of fighters who also believe they are next to get a shot at taking the title from Bisping, who is fighting Georges St-Pierre at UFC 217. A dominant win by either Rockhold or Branch certainly puts them close to the front of that
The first thing I 'd like to discuss is how these sports structure their fights. Both boxing and MMA are scored using a ten-point must system. This
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* After learning some of the history, some of the major rules, and the organizations associated with MMA I hope that you will be watching my favorite fighter George St. Pierre defend his title on December 11, 2010.
This is a fight that UFC fans have been dreaming about the second their first match ended.
Even though he is just 3-3 in his last six bouts, Berto promises to knockout the undefeated champion. "I am coming to kick Floyd's ass on September 12th. Best believe that I plan to bring it to Floyd and I'm not concerned about what forty-eight other fighters have been unable to do," Berto body stated. He continued,"Somebody is getting knocked out, and it won't be me. You don't want to miss this."
“That was the first time I wrestled him,” Miller said. “I beat the snot out of him, really bad. He was shocked. Afterward he was freaking out. He was like, ‘That’s the worst I’ve ever been beat.’”
Sandoval. Jesus was getting more and more boxing matches and was getting closer to going pro.
Alvarez and GGG will be the biggest fight of the year and perhaps the biggest fight since Mayweather-Pacquiao. They’ll likely have catch weight in the 160-pound range that is comfortable for both fighters. At this moment, Canelo holds the momentum as Golovkin is coming off a slouch performance against a tough Daniel Jacobs, who seemed to get the better of Golovkin at times.
Less than one month later, Oscar knocked-out Cliff Hicks to improve his professional record to 2-0. Oscar continued his busy schedule over the next few years, fighting a total of eighteen times. He made positive progress in 1993, as he quickly climbed the ranks and turned into as a top boxing star. His biggest victory came against former champion Troy Dorsey, with a knock-out in the first round.
"This is a great matchup between two veteran heavyweights who can show a lot of the younger kids how it's done," said Oscar De La Hoya, president and founder of Golden Boy Promotions. "I'm really looking forward to this one and as far as picking a winner, it's a toss-up."
Rousey is, however, taking a a different kind of opponent in Holm and it will be interesting to see how she tackles this new challenge. Ronda will no doubt be the favorite, but this fight has a different dynamic.
"In the event that I have one hand or two hands, you can't deny that I'm the best on the planet," said Wilder said amid his post-battle meeting. "I'm going to in any case offer it to you whether I have one hand or two hands. I won't stop. As a champion it's my obligation to continue going regardless of what I'm experiencing. Torment ain't nothing to me. I got a high resilience on agony."
Now, it’s officially official. There’s no competition for UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey, who knocked out Bethe Correia in 34 seconds Saturday night at UFC 190. No, Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino shouldn’t be factored into the discussion because she has yet to set foot in a UFC ring, or prove she can fight at 135 pounds. Most fight fans want to see a dream bout between Rousey and Justino, but smart money would be on the same result as the rest of Rousey’s (12-0) other fights.
Time limits, protective gloves, banned techniques lists, and many more were added in order for society to accept it and this allowed the UFC to advertise more as a sport instead of a blood-sport. The only problem after the UFC and MMA became legal in many states was attracting attention. In the early days the sport was not profitable due to the ban in almost all U.S states so the original owners sold the company. Dana White, Frank, and Lorenzo Fertitta “…spent $2 million to buy the Ultimate Fighting Championship…” (Anderson). White and the Fertitta brothers were millions in the hole trying to make the company profitable and were ready to sell but, than they came up with the idea of the Ultimate Fighter. The Ultimate Fighter was a reality show where a group of athletes were all put in one house where they would only focus on fighting. This show allowed people to view how the fighters trained and learn the various personalities each athlete had. The finale of this show is what resurrected the sport. The contest between Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar was a “three 5-min. rounds of compelling intensity” ( Chua-Eoan et al.). In this fight both contestants put everything on the line which resulted in a brawl than an actual technical fight. This however attracted viewers for as the fight went on, viewers started tuning in. This Fight is regarded as the most important fight in UFC history (Mannion). This led to
and won all two of his fights by knockouts. In recent years, in American football there have been more