Scott Coker recently announced a new MMA venture, and it comes with a fresh coat of paint. He also has some really well connected people attached to this promotion. Their first big move will be a 32 fighter Featherweight Grand Prix championship. This content is protected
Coker is going to bring this back. Dude is good at cultivating talent, but he usually lost the best talent to the UFC and Japan. Well, now the UFC is spiraling, and Coker is in a good position to build something genuinely good. Not that I expect him to rival the UFC at any point, but I do think he will able to create something that is the equivalent of ONE, at its best.
He hasn't got the financial backing to match TKO, who might steal his top talent, the UFC stole the top talent from every other MMA promotion and now TKO are planning the same with boxing, that's what these big companies do, that's how Vince McMahon destroyed every wrestling company in the old territories excect the NWA till Jim Crockett folded and Ted Turning bought his wrestling company.
The 1st fight was a fluke. Van and Pantoja could fight 100 times and that probably wouldn't happen again. Van narrowly defeated a 36 year old Flyweight who was out for a year due to a broken arm.
It happens. Hurt your hand, your feet from kick, fall wrong and hurt yourself. It is part of the fight.
People were saying him winning was a fluke win . It wasn't. He won both fight. How Pantoja injured himself, that is on Pantoja.
TKO isn't throwing cash at MMA talent tho, and the UFC is changing. Of course if Coker produces the next mega star like Ronda, the UFC will most likely gobble them up, but it wont take every talent from them this time. There are plenty of global talent that the UFC has underbid for and failed to get, and this is becoming more and more frequent. But like I said, I dont expect Ki to rival the UFC, I merely expect them to be able to take advantage of the UFC´s current trajectory. Arman is getting that title shot or what? This content is protected 39 year old Pitbull refuses to go quietly into the night; his UFC record is now L-W-L-W This content is protected 240lbs of Fine China This content is protected So... Despaigne enters MMA and looks like a god, one shotting bums on the regional scene, fights barely lasting 10 seconds. He then gets invited to the UFC and is immediately humiliated and takes back to back loses. UFC then cuts him. Despaigne signs with Karate Combat and starts flatlining guys in seconds again. Then Jake Paul offers him an MMA fight against the corpse of Junior Dos Santos on the Ronda Netflix card: Despaigne does a quick autopsy of Santos. The UFC then offer Despaigne another shot, this time against the biggest bum in the division: Tai Tuivasa on a 7 fight loss streak... and Despaigne barely beats him in a stinker. This content is protected Its kinda funny how good Despaigne is at KOing bums, but at the same time completely helpless against anyone half decent.