UFC 224: Nunes vs. Pennington Discussion Thread

The fighters are weighed in and everyone but Dern hit the mark. (She missed by 7 lbs this time.)

This card has flown under the radar, but it's growing on me by the hour. Maybe it's just because there's been a dearth of quality cards in the last couple months. 

Prelims kick off on UFC Fight Pass at 615pm ET before switching to FX at 8pm. 

The PPV main card, as always, touches down at 10pm. 

Enjoy!

* Edited at 05.11.2018, 11:14 AM ET *

To be honest if she really wanted out, she could've told the ref or signalled to him at some point. Great performance by the lioness. 

This very good article by Chuck Mindenhall on MMAFighting.com 

You know what a grown-up is!?

No they made her take unnecessary damage when she was exhausted outclassed and 4 rounds in the whole. She couldn’t just say I quit her corner are suppose to protect her from that embarrassment by saying that themselves. There is no shame in losing to nunes.

Blandest vs milstead comes to mind. Your losing either way but do you want to lose and bounce back in 4 months or do you want to lose and spend the next year out injured unable to put the loss behind you 

Lol.

MAYBE I'd have been ok with her corner talking her into giving it a try at the beginning of the 5th IF they'd had the towel in hand and immediately thrown it as soon as Nunes landed the 1st elbow after the td. MAYBE

@massabruce 
Nice picks this event. But I have to disagree with you on her corner telling her to continue fighting. She lost Rounds 1,3and 4 very convincingly. Round 2 could've gone either way. 

Please don't take this as me bashing you, we can agree to disagree on things and Pennington suffered the most damage in the 3rd/4th Rounds. Her nose was broke. She knew she had nothing left. She needed to finish Nunes for a W. Not only was her nose broke, at that point in the fight She was mentally broke as well. Her strikes offered very little to Nunes so she wasn't going to Ko her. Nunes was more superior on the ground so she wasn't subbing her. I see no problem with a 4th Round (5:00), technically that would be ruled as R5 Tko Corner Stoppage. I believe I can come up with 2 other fighters that have done this before and there was no backlash. Ex. 1 Nate Marquardt at the end of I believe R2 called it off against Gastelum. Not sure, I vaguely remember the details but that was at the UFC in Mexico City so he may have just been gassed out.
Ex.2 Chris Leben stopped the fight at the end of the 1st. I remember this one in great detail. It was UFC 168 when Anderson broke his leg on a checked kick by Weidman. But anyways Leban has always been a tough SOB, not great but tough/Banger you know. He's been known as a kill or be kill type of fighter. Not  .d his ammy or TUF Exhibition fights he is 22-11. 22 W's 17 finishes @ a 77% rate. His 11 L's, prior to his final fight was finished 5 times and Decisioned 5. He was on a 3 fight losing streak, loser of 4 of 5. And Uriah Hall totally had him outmatched in every aspect. Giving him his 6th professional Loss of his 11 total L's. 

While I kind of agree that the corner should have stopped the fight, I can see why they didn't.  It's a slippery slope, you care about your fighter and you want to always do what's best for them but it isn't always clear what that is in the heat of the moment.  They know their fighter better than us, and perhaps realized that in the long run quitting the fight would hurt more than going out for one more round and getting finished.  Maybe they made the wrong choice, but I don't doubt that they were trying to do the best thing for her.  

The corner of a fighter really shouldn't necessarily be relied upon to save their fighter anyway, that is ultimately the job of the referee or the doctor, who can make that decision without any bias and base it solely on the safety of the individual fighter.  The choice to get up for round 5 was ultimately Pennington's choice alone, and she probably slept better than she would have if she hadn't stood up.  Maybe not, though, maybe her nose hurt too much, but you know what I mean.  She gave it her best, no regrets.