re: UFC327: jiri vs ulberg

Jiri knew that if he were to finish off a wounded Ulberg, he would've disgraced the bushido code. Jiri would've had to commit seppuku if he became LHW champion.

great. how did that work out for him?

Up there with the Seahawks not handing the ball to Beast Mode to win the Super Bowl.

Jordan Speith putting bogeys in the water on 12, Danny Willett laughing like crazy knowing he had just been gifted a Masters championship.

Have to live with it for the rest of your life.

You're right. There is no one else currently viable to fight for a title except Ank. The UFC is going to have to get Jiri and Ank another fight quickly so that they can then match them up for a interim title fight. Maybe one of them against Costa?

So Ulberg will clearly have to give up the belt, but do they just have Jiri vs Costa for the interim title and then hold up the division for year and defend the interim a la Aspinal?

Sucks but I figure the kid will get stripped in a month or two and Costa will get a title shot. Just please get Ankalaev out of that mix.

Yeah has to be Ank and Jiri imo

Please no J Hill

Man I can’t get over how elite Costa looked. Has he finally put it all together? That champ fight vs Izzy 5 years ago was the biggest letdown ever.

quote:

---

Rewatching Blaydes vs Hokit. How the frick did Hokit survive the onslaught near the end of the first round.

---

Din Thomas said he spoke to the UFC doctors and they said Hokit had basically no damage from the fight, which is insane.

They think how he rolled with all of Blaydes punches was the reason.

Also did not know Hokit was a scholarship football player and also an AA wrestler at fricking 197lbs. He wrestled Nickal at the NCAAs and Nickal is a small 185er and now Hokit is a HW.

Hokit was also an UDFA for the 49ers and former teammates said he really is that crazy, but also an absolute animal.

He's a tiny HW, but he's also probably about the same size as Fedor was. Just clearly doesn't have the brutal KO power Fedor had for a guy that size. I still don't know how Blaydes didn't collapse in the 1st and 2nd rounds.

Belal vs. Gilbert Burns is an example of one guy clearly getting injured early and the fight going on. Belal did what he had to do to get the win after that.

One thing that makes Jiri's mistake extra awful is that he probably just needed to get to the end of the first round and the fight might have been called after that. I mean Ulberg's corner might have thrown in the towel for him even if Ulberg himself still wanted to fight. Or the doctors might have been called in to the octagon and Ulberg might have been deemed unfit to continue.

Would Jiri have won that fight if Ulberg hadn't gotten injured? I don't think he would have. Jiri lunges in with his hands down all the time. Seems likely that Ulberg would have caught him anyway at some point if it went 5 rounds. It turns out Ulberg did have enough power to KO Jiri, just like Pereira did.

I saw one video guy saying maybe they'd do Paulo vs. Big Ank for the interim title fight. I could see the UFC giving Jiri a chance to redeem himself and put this loss behind him by getting a shot at the interim title next, though.