UFC 193 Fan Feedback

Hi Dave,

I was at Etihad Stadium for UFC 193 today and saw the whole show from the first fight.  A long day and the Struve fight took the wind out of the sails, but everyone left buzzed after the main event.

Thumbs up, even without the historical main event.

Best Fight: Ronda & Holly

Worst Fight: Struve & Rosholt (although at times this looked more like training and sparring)

Prior to the main event I wasn’t sure what I thought he best fight was, as there were several goods ones and several impressive performances, particularly from Nguyen, Matthews and Whittaker.  The co-main event was also very good, although there was a mexican wave during round 4 for some reason.

Holly’s performance was stunning and near faultless.  To see it unfold, see Ronda start to succumb to damage and fatigue and culminate in the KO was amazing.  At the end of round 1 it looked like Ronda was in big trouble, but you still never bet against a champion with a reign like hers.  Holly winning felt like a feel good moment too and the place erupted.  This was a fight we won’t be forgetting.

Crowd reactions were good all day, although there were a few flat spots, so will be interesting to see how that translated to TV.  Ronda got the biggest reaction for the day, but the biggest overall reaction was the finish to the main event and then the start of Holly’s interview.  We couldn’t hear what she was saying at first.

Daniel Arnephy

UFC 193

Thumbs Up. This event didn’t have a classic back-and-fort fight but from a historical standpoint (first show on that part of the world, massive attendance, and the end of Ronda’s streak) this was a classic show. Saw the event at a local bar and like Ronda’s last few matches the place was packed with more women than ever. She, Floyd Mayweather and maybe Miguel Cotto, are the only ones who moves the needle that way, and the other two don’t draw as much young-single women. As for the future I think that UFC just hit the lottery; instead of just having Ronda vs. Cyborg as the next big fight, now they have all kinds of potential ones: Rousey vs. Holm 2 (UFC 200 with Ronda talking more than ever), Rousey vs. Cyborg (who now looks like the biggest idiot because of all the wasted opportunities to make the weight and face Ronda), and Cyborg vs. Holm, plus all the future combinations out of those matches. Fedor, Silva, Barao, and now Ronda; Aldo next?

Best Fight: Holm vs Rousey. Just because of the result. The reaction to that result was like when Lesnar beat Undertaker at Mania, total disbelieve. As to why it happened is anyone’s guess. Holm played her plan perfectly; Ronda walked into Holm’s forte instead of insist on her clinch and ground game strength. Also, and this is just trying to find out something where there is nothing, on the weigh-in Ronda looked skinnier than ever and in the fight she looked bigger than ever; maybe that weight change has something to do with her less than stellar performance. Again, Holm fought the perfect fight, so she deserves all the credit. 

Best KO: Holm. Her name is Holly and she’s “The Preacher’s Daughter”, so maybe it was a miracle; we’ll see at the rematch.

Leonardo II Mendez

San Sebastian, PR

Dave,

I’m not going to get into details about the fight itself but Rousey didn’t look like herself.

However this was the first UFC PPV I have ever purchased and my wife was just as pumped as I was.

Thanks

Craig Staunton

Thumbs sorta down. Kinda lackluster card, even with the upset. Usual shitty homie local yokel officiating (and production work on this one. Lotta indy mistakes.)

Best fight: Matthews-Arreola, except the finish.

Worst fight: Walsh-Kennedy & Rosholt-Struve

Best performance: Holm

Worst performance: Rousey

KO:  Holly (HM to Moontasri)

Sub: Nguyen by default

Ben Nguyen remains impressive blowing away Ryan Benoit with a clean quick KD, mount, backtake and RNC. Late sub Anton Zafir gasses doing 1stR top control and James Moontasri coming up from 155 to 170 takes him out with a SBK/SBF combo that breaks some bones. Patrick Walsh and Steve Kennedy go three almost comically inept rounds that have the Ozzie crowd booing both homies. Kennedy loses. Dan Kelly dominates Steve Montgomery early and late and should take a 29-28 and does on all cards. 

Danny Martinez just too strong for Richie Vaculik and takes a competitive but clear 30-27. Very easy night for Gian Villante, paint job on Anthony Perosh, who suffers his second consecutive quick KO and at 43 might wanna rethink things. Kyle Noke blows Peter Sobotta away, dropping him quickly with a front kick to the floating rib and finishing with G&P. In a smelly finish to the most dramatic and competitive fight of the night, veteran Akbarh Arreola drops local phenom Jake Matthews with a HK in the 1st and has him in trouble but Matthews survives and finishes the round on top. Matthews gets the early TD in the 2nd and busts Arreola up with elbows till the bell. The Ozzie cut guy doesn’t use the Enswell and the Ozzie doctor stops the fight in the corner with Arreola clearly still able to see out of the eye.

Jared Rosholt plop and schmops Stefan Struve for 2R then Struve sort of wakes up and probably wins the 3rd. The joint with great force is stunk out. 29-28 UD. Dreadful.

Uriah Hall steps in late again this time with nothing to gain and everything to lose, having just beaten a much higher profile guy in Mousasi and Robert Whittaker being no gimme. Whittaker keeps Hall off balance most of the fight. Uriah makes a few too many mistakes than you can with this guy. Hall gives his best shot to pulling it out in the 3rd but too little too late. 30-27 or 29-28 and it’s 2 column from A and 1 column B.

Bigfoot Silva looking visibly aged and Mark Hunt looking comparatively lean, for him. WAY anticlimactic after their war a couple years back as not much action for 3+ minutes then Hunt scores a KD with a right to the temple and the Ozzie ref VERY quick to jump in and stop it. Feh.

Valerie Latourneau more competitive than expected with Joanna J and stays in the fight all the way. Doesn’t come close to winning but shows JJ may not be as all that as she looked the last couple times out (against smaller fighters, Valerie is bigger.) I had 50-47 (3-0-2 in rounds), cards were 49-46 x 2, 50-45 (VL appeared to at least draw the 1st.)

The main has already been beat to death so here’s the 20/20 hindsight.  Like I and many others said going in, Holly Holm was the right style to trouble Ronda Rousey. Like was obvious, Ronda wasn’t her usual self mentally or physically. And obviously Holly’s MMA cred was a big question mark. But here’s what the key turned out to be: the assumption going in was was the the question was, has Ronda’s striking improved to the point where she could neutralize Holly’s enough to impose the clinch or ground game where she would have an overwhelming advantage, or rather how long would it take. It turned out that the answer was Holly’s grappling was more than good enough to neutralize Ronda’s and that the overwhelming advantage was Holly’s on the feet, or it was last night anyway. Ronda’s gotten away with that stupid side headlock on everybody else (except McMann blocked it and it didn’t matter anyway). Holly was the first one to use the basic counter every wrestler knows, the Greco Roman Backdrop, successfully. Edmund was no help and Ronda needs better wrestling, better Muay Thai, and somebody in the corner who’ll tell her that she just got her ass kicked when she did, not that she ‘did great’, and that if you’re getting countered to STOP FUCKING LEADING. Bad part for business is obviously that Holly has the personality of Wonder Bread but oh well.

Crimson Mask

First…I LOVE HOLLY HOLM!

Now, onto business… What do you do if you’re UFC? Putting on my Promoter/Fantasy Booker hat for a minute…

The plans, as I understood them, was to do Rousey V Cyborg at UFC 200 in July. That’s now out the window. So now, it’s the Holly v Ronda rematch/ Scrap that too, and do THIS instead…

HOLM v CYBORG -and- ROUSEY v CARANO

–Gina “retired” with 1 loss. Rousey has 1 loss. 
–Gina was the absolute darling of MMA. But left before the explosion. UFC, open your pocket book/do whatever it takes to compel Gina to come back.
–Ronda: chance to rehabilitate your holier-than-thou attitude.
–“Embedded” –and the media of course– could build THIS fight
to be bigger than an immediate rematch of Rousey v Holm could ever be
–On the same card, the “indestructible” bad guy (well, bad girl) Cyborg invades to attempt to destroy the now also-seemingly-indestructible-but-everyone’s new darling Holly Holm.
–The winners face one another later in the year. And oh yeah, now that Rousey is no longer the call-all-the-shots-boss, if weight is an issue –for any of these ladies– go to catch at 140lbs., which is probably better for all 4 anyways.
–Now, you have a division with real depth and fan and media appeal. And that’s BEFORE you get to Zingano and Meisha (which –all due respect Dana– feels lackluster at this point)

You’re welcome Dana. If you wanna throw me 10 cents for each PPV buy, I won’t turn it down.

 Rick Bassman

Good show overall. For what it’s worth the place I watched the fight at tonight had close to about 300 people packed in. Would say 3/4’s of the crowd stood and cheered the finish of the Holm fight. Very few left with their heads down. Hall/Whitaker was my favorite fight aside from the main event 

Ken Phillibaum