Lombard vs. Boetsch

This is the official discussion thread for Lombard vs. Boetsch. Let's see what you've got.

no. Melvin Guillard's got skills and he's awesome. Poison Dwarf is gonna get cut after losing to Amir Sadollah and DaMarques Johnson at welterweight lol.

Lombard has skills, but he acts like a dumbass sometimes.

Lombard has skills. He waits waaaaay too much sometimes and he payed for it this time, even though he really should have won the decision

Lombard has skills but he fell victim to either 1) "Octagon jitters", or 2) the Rampage syndrome, which means you can knock anyone out but don't do it for some reason. Forget playing it safe so that you don't get finished or make mistakes; if it's your best shot and you want that title, you use what your daddy gave you--fists! Lombard has killer Judo and power in both hands, and he used neither; the least he could've done is taken it to Boetsch (who is a really good guy in and out of the ring, btw) in the first two rounds and rest/avoid in the third if he gassed.

Rampage can't KO people because he's not good. Simple. His skills have diminished.

Lombard pretty much fought this fight like he does every fight when he has an actual dangerous opponent across the ring. He gets super passive in his striking tends to turn to a lnp fighter. I personally thought he would be able to lnp boetsch but he couldn't manage that. It's not really octagon jitters it's a simple increase in the level of competition.

good to see your wisdom again bigj!

I'm glad some people can actually admit that maybe....just maybe it wasn't jitters, nerves, poopy diaper or unexplainable phenomenon. Maybe Boetsch was just a little bit better than Lombard was that night.

Anik, i love you, but you are going to eat those words the next time we see Lombard fight. 

@mmapicker42: one can just as easily say if Boetsch hadn't broken his foot he would have been alot more aggressive in the final two rounds. I'm not much for "ifs" because there's always another if to throw in for a counter argument. I thought Lombard fought like alot of guys making there ufc debut do, with an excess amount of tension resulting from the enormity of being on the biggest stage in mma. If he'd fought a lower level guy who was scared of him he might have been able to overcome that, but Boetsch is an experienced guy and he was unable to do so. The experience level was the main reason I picked him to win the fight. Now Lombard has popped his cherry, and I expect we'll see a better performance from him in his next fight.

@ufcchick: yes Lombard is jacked and obviously hits the weights quite hard, but height and length are important. If it was all about being swoll Phil Baroni would never lose a fight. As for Boetsch, I thought he looked like he usually does. We should see what Roy Nelson has to say about all this....

@p4pgoat: look, secretly I just want to see how bad Silva would crush Bisping. I can't believe I'm defending him anyway. I just honestly don't get excited about who's going to fight Silva anymore. I get excited watching Silva make top level fighters seem like they don't have a clue. Weidman will stand and bang with him as good as anybody else so why not? At least he's dangerous, and that always brings out the best in Silva it seems.

Personally I felt Lombard won the split... not so much because I felt he as the better fighter (I love Boetsch), but I thought Lombard did just a little more.

With that said, this is taking me 10 to 20 minutes more than usual to type this out because I'm drunk as **** (thank you backspace button)... but I felt Lombard's counter striking was better (honestly, how many more "significant strkes" did Boetsch land?). I felt the fight was a draw, but I'm not disappointed with the decision... the only people who lost that fight was the fans.

I don't understand how any could have given the decision to Boetsh

I didn't.

Poison Dwarf deserved to lose and he got the loss. Sorry Bellator ****-riders.

You know what this means...if Poison Dwarf is that then Alexander Shlemenko must be REALLY bad.

Next time we see Hector fight, we'll know if it was a fluke, or if he is legitimately in over his head in this pool (no short-joke intended).

Some fighters come to the UFC with a ton of pressure on them.  Nick Diaz, Jake Shields, Hector Lombard, Alistar Overeem, Brock Lesnar.

I don't know how anyone here can know to what extent nerves play a part in how well or badly they do in their early fights in the UFC.

There are other fighters who just look like they should win all their fights, simply because their physiques are so exquisitely cut-up and ripped, like body builders.  Hector Lombard, Cheick Kongo, Rameau Sokoudjou, Alistar Overeem, Melvin Guillard.

They look so scary that it seems that they SHOULD win, just by intimidation alone.  I think that Dana White was extremely disappointed that Hector didn't do better.  Dana expected Lombard to be a beast and become an instant drawing card, in much the same way that Alistar Overeem was expected to upset the world.

When things didn't turn out that way, I think Dana couldn't hide his disappointment after the fight.  After all the injuries, he was so hoping for Hector to save the day and ascend to the heights of fan darling and new UFC marquee ornament.

Maybe it is not fair for so much pressure and attention to attach to a new UFC fighter.  Because if they do not dominate, everyone says they didn't live up to expectations.  They 'failed'.  

Lombard was hyped to be the new Overeem / Jon Jones.  Funny how things don't always go according to the form chart and hype fizzles.  We all could have used a new beast and monster name.  Never have enough of them kind of valued investments.

This loss to Boetsch is being blown way out of proportion.

First off it's only one fight.

Second Tim Boetsch is a top 5 mw in the world and has been fighting in the UFC for quite some time while Lombard was making his debut in the UFC.

Third it's not like Boetsch beat him up or dominated him. He won a SD that could have gone either way.

Overall Lombard's debut wasn't what some were hoping for but if he goes out and wins his next fight in convincing fashion all will be forgotten with this fight. People want to put so much emphasis on one fight or a small handful instead of looking at the big picture. Let Lombard get established with a few fights in the UFC and then we can call him legit or a bust.

Does it feel like Tim Boetsch is getting minimal bounce from his hard-fought win, or is it my imagination?  I sense scepticism in the air.

* Edited at 07.28.2012, 4:44 PM ET *