Weidman broke his hand! He is out of the fight. Which means we get the closely contested WW title rematch earlier than planned.!
It's being suggested that Weidman may have fractured it during the Machida fight and it was misdiagnosed until it showed up during training. Seemingly more and more injuries now - symptomatic of increasingly intense training? Seems as if there's an 'arms race' with respect to how severe they can make the training camps. Wise? Necessary evil? Regardless, I was looking forward to Weidman/Belfort. Too bad.
I don't get the rematch so soon. I was not rooting for Hendrick's but IMO he had that fight well in his control for most of it. It wasn't a beat down, but it didn't seem particularly close to me either. Weidman seems to get injured almost as much as Pettis.
The first fight was really quite close for the first 4 rounds. If Lawler works on his leg kick defence then he's got a real shot.
Eh, I had no doubts who was winning throughout most of that fight - and it wasn't who I wanted to win. That to me, does not suggest a close fight.
Yes but I remember at the time you didn't seem to appreciate Lawler's standup defence which would have made you view the first two rounds excessively in Hendricks' favour. Lawler definitely won 3+4.
Stand up defense is nice, but isn't enough to win a fight. In a professional fight, you have to do more than that. That said, I hope Lawlor wins, because I don't like Henricks. I didn't like how he treated my favorite fighter, GSP.
Lawler absolutely tooled Hendricks on the feet in 3+4. The problem he had was he'd not been adequately defending leg shots, and when Hendricks shot in the 5th his mobility was gone. They'd probably got two rounds a piece up to that point.
I seem to think Lawler passed the "who would I rather be after the fight?" test better than Hendricks.
I like Hendricks, and I actually DISlike Lawler for one reason or another (think he looks like someone I fought before). Anyways, that being said I was heavily rooting for Hendricks in the last bout, and when lawler started to push back the tide and even began to dominate the war i got worried / scared/ upset . You name it, i felt it . So yeah, this rematch needed to happen. Lawler is at the tail end of a long career (correct?) I do know in his interviews he talks extremely slow like he took way too many punches already, even Bas made fun of him imitating his sluggish voice.