UFC Fight Night 26: Shogun vs. Sonnen August 17th

UFC Fight Night 26: Shogun vs. Sonnen
Date: August 17, 2013
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Venue: TD Garden
Broadcast: FOX Sports 1, Facebook
MAIN CARD (FOX Sports 1, 8 p.m. ET)

• Mauricio Rua vs. Chael Sonnen
  
• Travis Browne vs. Alistair Overeem
  
• Yuri Alcantara vs. Urijah Faber
  
• Matt Brown vs. Mike Pyle
  
• Uriah Hall vs. John Howard
  
• Michael "The Menace" Johnson vs. Joe Lauzon
  

PRELIMINARY CARD (FOX Sports 1, 6 p.m. ET)

• Michael McDonald vs. Brad Pickett
  
• Max Holloway vs. Conor McGregor
  
• Mike Brown vs. Steven Siler
  
• Diego Brandao vs. Daniel Pineda
  

PRELIMINARY CARD (Facebook, 4:30 p.m. ET)

• Manny Gamburyan vs. Cole Miller
  
• Cody Donovan vs. Ovince St. Preux
  
• Ramsey Nijem vs. James Vick
  

Awesome card:

Switch Uriah Hall vs. John Howard with Michael McDonald vs. Brad Pickett and it would be perfect.

this card looks to be more than UFC 163

WTF is Michael McDonald on the undercard? That should be 1 guy that they're pushing.

sick card

Yeah this card is going to blow away that FOX card. I'm just interesting in how these new channels are going to shake out. Will I get them all?

Speed Channel = FS1
Fox Soccer = FXx

GDPofDRC wrote:

Speed Channel = FS1
Fox Soccer = FXx

I'm sure it's going to effect all the packages out there. I doubt they remain the same channel #s they are right now.

Mauricio Rua vs. Chael Sonnen- Shogun TKO in round 1.
Travis Browne vs. Alistair Overeem- Browne KO round 2
Yuri Alcantara vs. Urijah Faber- Faber UD
Matt Brown vs. Mike Pyle- Pyle sub round 2
Uriah Hall vs. John Howard- Hall UD
Michael "The Menace" Johnson vs. Joe Lauzon- Lauzon SD

I hope Overeem and Sonnen are brutally knocked out. One for being a lifetime cheater and the other for being the most annoying personality in MMA history. Reem is the Sammy Sosa of MMA. Got alot of fans when he was cheating his ass off but was nothing but average when he wasn't roided up. One got famous off his mouth and the other off a needle. Hate them both.

Is this card the best Free UFC card ever? UFC on FOX 7 is the only card in the discussion I can think of that is comparable.

GDPofDRC wrote:

Is this card the best Free UFC card ever?  UFC on FOX 7 is the only card in the discussion I can think of that is comparable.

Hendo vs Rampage alone make UFC 75 better for me. Blows all these fights away. CC vs Mirko at that time was bigger then Browne vs Overroiding all my life.

Also I think on paper Diaz vs Bendo, Shogun vs Gus, Rory vs BJ and Swick vs Brown is much better as well.

Then you also have Bendo vs Melendez card that smashes this one as well because that was such a huge main event IMO. Then you had Mir vs DC which is as big as any fights on this card as well. Throw in Diaz vs Thompson and that main card was much better for me.

But those cards were not only one fight.  This card is stacked top to bottom.  Not just two good fights then 9 fights that don't interest me.  I want to see all but maybe two fights on this.  I'd take this line up over two fights from UFC 75 or three fights from UFC on FOX 7 every day.

GDPofDRC wrote:

But those cards were not only one fight.  This card is stacked top to bottom.  Not just two good fights then 9 fights that don't interest me.  I want to see all but maybe one fight here a lot.  I'd take this line up over two fights from UFC 76 or three fights from UFC on FOX 7 every day.

If we are talking just the main card, this is probably not even a top 5 free card. The main card doesn't really have a fight relevant to any title except maybe Yuri vs Faber. No one else on the card is within 3 wins of a title shot. Shogun vs Sonnen is a joke of a fight. Why is Sonnen even headlining a card? Why is he even fighting a ranked LHW? Brown vs Pyle might be the 2nd most relevant fight on the card. I guess it has some interesting matchups but looking at this card doesn't get me as excited as many other cards do. It is more solid in the middle then most and that is it's best quality.

Pickett vs McDonald should probably be the co-main event.

Well I'm very much looking forward to this.  UFC 166 is the only planned MMA show left this year I am more interested in aside from what the New Year Show might turn in to, but I doubt it's as good as this free card.  All the other free cards are way way less enticing as this offering and all the PPV's with the exception of UFC 166 are gonna be big title fights with maybe a couple of other good interesting fights.  In writing, UFN 26 has card of the year material spattered all over it. This card is a lot more then a title fight or marquee, this shits gonna be good.

GDPofDRC wrote:

Well I'm very much looking forward to this.  UFC 166 is the only planned MMA show left this year I am more interested in aside from what the New Year Show might turn in to, but I doubt it's as good as this free card.  All the other free cards are way way less enticing as this offering and all the PPV's with the exception of UFC 166 are gonna be big title fights with maybe a couple of other good interesting fights.  In writing, UFN 26 has card of the year material spattered all over it.  This card is a lot more then a title fight or marquee, this shits gonna be good.

Well it's impossible to tell how entertaining these cards will be. Who would have thought Vera vs Shogun card would be the most entertaining card to ever be on FOX? That card far outperformed expectations. This fight isn't bad by any stretch but it also doesn't have much that really sticks out. You are right it's a solid card from top to bottom but it doesn't have that 1 fight that really excites me. Overall I guess I'd take a solid top to bottom card but it is missing that little extra that a big fight provides. There is no fight on this card I would consider a big fight.

This card has 10.5 fights that excite me.

GDPofDRC wrote:

This card has 10.5 fights that excite me.

I'm not near as high on it. Out of everyone on the card I'm really only a fan of Mayday and I like Shogun. Other then that I'm rooting hard for the 2 guys fighting the 2 guys I can't stand. Solid fights, no great fights. It lacks that top fight or guy I'm a super fan of to get me too excited. It's a very solid card but doesn't have that cherry on top. I prefer the main card of Bellator 96 to this cards main card. I'm making it sound worse then it is because I want to see these fights but like I keep mentioning non of them really grab me as can't miss. It's like a report card of straight Bs. But I guess that is better then the A+ mixed with come Cs.

GDPofDRC wrote:

This card has 10.5 fights that excite me.

Only fight I don't really care about is the opener. Pumped for everything else

A few takes:

Winner of Pyle vs Brown should be universally considered a top 10 WW, not just on my sheet.  I think it will be good, these guys since their last defeat are a combined 9-0 with 7 knockouts, good math.

McDonald vs Pickett is at minimum as relevant as Brown vs Pyle, Overeem vs Browne, and Shogun vs Sonnen.  McDonald is gonna steal Brad's nickname, you can't be called One Punch if the only guy you have KO'd in the past 5 years is the only 2nd KO in your entire career, the first being form a body shot.  Michael is the real "One Punch" at 135 pounds.  Time flies also, McDonald isn't the youngest fighter on this card.

McGregor is overrated.  Doesn't mean he can't crush young Max Holloway, but I'm hoping Max makes a fight out of it and I can see more elements of McGregor's game.

Hall vs Howard on the main card is better then Ricci vs Fletcher on the main card, but not by much.  It has potential for better action, but is every bit as significant as Ricci vs Fletcher.

Steven Siler is going to spoil MTB's welcome back party.

There is a new cable channel on tv I noticed last night, MAVTV.  They were playing old King of the Cage.  Had the KotC All Stars fight with Bibiano Fernandes and Faber, good stuff.  That's all I guess, I am glad another channel has fights.  I don't think it will be easy, but Faber should find a way to win or finish.  But his ceiling is reached, peak come and gone, unless Alcantara stumbles hard, I think signs will begin to show of it.

For all of Overeems talent, he doesn't put it all together very well in difficult fights. The phrase, "gets better ever time we see him" applies to Browne more so than most other fighters imo. He has come a very long way since beginning his UFC campaign.  This is still Overeem's to lose and if he does the failure of it will be equal to that of his prior loss to Bigfoot.

Put this in you're pipe and smoke it:  Every fight Shogun has lost, he knocked out his next opponent.

I think the new channel thing might hurt ratings. Might not reach 1 million.

GDPofDRC wrote:

I think the new channel thing might hurt ratings.  Might not reach 1 million.

Yeah I don't think it will hit the million mark for just that reason. I think it will be more like 650-800K viewers.

Winner of Pyle vs Brown will not be top 10.

My interest....


Must See
1 Shogun vs Sonnen - All time favorite fighter against disliked fighter
2 McDonald vs Pickett - Big McDonald fan, should be on main card instead of Howard vs Hall imo.
3 Brown vs Pyle - FotN darkhorse
4 Browne vs Overeem - Expect some big things, and a finish
5 Faber vs Alcantara - Another, one of many, fights I could see being FotN

Interested
6 McGregor vs Halloway - Hoping Holloway makes a good fight out of this so McGregor has a chance to further build upon and justify the existing hype.
7 Lauzon vs Johnson - Expecting Joe to do some brilliant things here.
8 Gambuyan vs Miller - I can see Manny cracking Miller hard in this one.
9 Howard vs Hall - Should be exciting at least.

Lukewarm
10 Siler vs Brown - Not expecting great things from Brown.
11 Brandao vs Pineda - Brandao will smash then sub Pineda, maybe even just smash and walk off.

Indifferent
13 St Preux vs Donnavan - Actually a pretty good job of matching guys up here, these guys just don't spark huge interest though right now.
14 Vick vs Nijem - Funny, half the fights on most cards these days are as intriuging as the fight I find least interesting on this card.


My Picks...


Mauricio Rua vs. Chael Sonnen
Travis Browne vs. Alistair Overeem
Yuri Alcantara vs. Urijah Faber
Matt Brown vs. Mike Pyle
Uriah Hall vs. John Howard
Michael "The Menace" Johnson vs. Joe Lauzon
Michael McDonald vs. Brad Pickett
Max Holloway vs. Conor McGregor
Mike Brown vs. Steven Siler
Diego Brandao vs. Daniel Pineda
Manny Gamburyan vs. Cole Miller
Cody Donovan vs. Ovince St. Preux
Ramsey Nijem vs. James Vick

Weigh ins about to start