UFC Fight Night: Kara-France vs. Albazi

The official Tapology discussion thread for the event!

Nice I'm good rained earlier but we need that to keep forest fires down, Alaska summer is under way had 80f other day!

good to hear, it's storming where I'm at but I'm hanging out with family so it's all good 

I'm driving to claymont Delaware for nightshift at the train station. You live near there?

Yea, Northern Delaware. 

**** the police 

**** lobsters 

Just FYI because it's kinda funny.

The origin of JRs story is because he gets all his picks wrong and gets obsessed with absolutely trash fighters who he is absolutely convinced are the next Jon Jones or Khabib. So he gets trolled for that which is funny.

But I don't get the actual antagonism towards him. He is mildly annoying like an itchy rash, but he is not a bad dude. 

And...... Tartara misses the point as usual 

How the hell did Da'Mon Blackshear open as a -230 favorite against a guy who arguably just beat Cody Stamann?!? What were the bookies thinking with that line?

this might be a hot take here but IMO it's because neither of them are particularly anything special

lacerda's striking is a very basic, one dimensional muay thai style of striking that lacks the appropriate activity on the feet to concretely sway the judges in his favor. he will give you a couple of different looks with his kicks to the body and he's really slick with the switch kick that I really like but that's pretty much it. 

other than that, his hands offensively are not good at all. his boxing lacks the proper technique and it doesn't look aesthetically pleasing which in result makes his punches not look snappy at all. his striking defense I also don't really like at all. he leaves himself open on many occasions, primarily open to counters over his kicks and open to counters over his jab. lastly, it's very obvious his fighting ability decreases dramatically when hes not the one engaging the striking exchanges first, it's almost as if each time his opponent is the one to engage first, he shells up and waits to reset instead of having the proper fight iq to be able to slip incoming stuff and look for counters (this is a typical Muay Thai trait that the fight with Stamann proved that the judges don't really value that much)

as far as the grappling goes, both lacerda and da'mon have very very slick bjj and i'm not sure i'm fully convinced that lacerda's wrestling is good enough to consistently get da'mon down and hold him there long enough to advance positions.

the real questions in this matchup are 1) will da'mon's conditioning and cardio hold up? and 2) has da'mon improved enough in this short turnaround and is he overall good enough to exploit lacerda's striking defense enough before he gasses out to edge out a decision? I don't know the answer to those questions but it will be very interesting to find out. It's also worth noting that da'mon has left jacksonwink (a camp that i don't rate highly at all) and has moved to florida to get different looks at different gyms all over there (including American Combat Gym and Kill Cliff) and additionally he has been spending a lot of time with Muay Thai world champion Greg Wootton.

to close this off, I don't know if this is the fight in which Lacerda gets exposed as I think pick/odds wise this fight should be close to a pick'em but i'm 100% sure that even if Lacerda wins here, I will be fully fading him when he faces an actually good fighter

* Edited at 05.23.2023, 4:50 AM ET *

Sirs, who is excited to see guram return?

* Edited at 05.23.2023, 4:48 AM ET *

Sir baremaras, what is your source of information for fighters moving camps and so on? 

fighters and camp/team instagram pages, comment sections and mostly interviews the fighters do leading up to fight week with various mma podcasts/shows/youtube channels

for example, I found out about da'mon leaving jacksonwink from an interivew he did on youtube:

* Edited at 05.23.2023, 4:56 AM ET *

Sirs, just been catching up on the comments. I’m quite surprised to see people say kai is overrated, if anything he is underrated. why/ how is he overrated? 

@baremaras Thankyou sir for your response, and dropping the video. I will be starting to add this into my tape study, sir.

You will see exactly why KKF is over rated in just about 10 days

can u people see how many times y'all have been suspended in ''my stats'' or something? ahhaha.

would like to see who's breaking records on this one.

please refraim from spamming the ufc thread with random images and random posts unrelated to both MMA and the current event at hand. 

don't make me report you, thanks in advance.

* Edited at 05.23.2023, 7:11 AM ET *

awww, looks like you spent a lot of time making this one. how cute! 

thanks, tartarini. one love.