#lineker

Gary Lineker called for Israel to be banned from International Football.

Do you stand with Gary Lineker?

However, Gary Lineker is popular, the government are not.

Joey

June 20th

How to describe this card. Hmm. Pointless feels almost too harsh. Inconsequential? Whatever word you choose to describe 12 fights of nothin' I'd suggest you use it to your hearts content. This card is a mix of pointless yet fun action fights and just plain pointless fights. This card by and large is just a collection of fighters either coming off a win or having snapped a losing streak all doing stuff. There's little to no name value and it's just a collection of fights. At the same time being fair TO the fights, some of these have big action quality on paper. The main and co-main event are great fights and beyond that you have a few interesting fights at women's flyweight, Luis Pena's return to 155 lbs against a returning Matt Wiman, a welterweight action fight throwdown and some interesting stuff at middleweight. It's a meaningless filler fight card but it's got potential to be worth your time should you sit in for it. Ready?

Fights: 12

Debuts: Deron Winn, Eric Spicely

Fight Changes/Injury Cancellations: 3 (Markus Perez OUT/Bruno Silva IN vs Deron Winn/Bruno Silva OUT, Eric Spicely IN vs Derron Winn/Cody Stamman OUT, John Lineker IN vs Rob Font)

Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC): 4 (Renato Moicano, John Lineker, Korean Zombie, Kevin Holland)

Fighters On Losing Streaks in the UFC: 1 (Syuri Kondo)

Fighters On Winning Streaks in the UFC: (Dan Ige, Kevin Aguilar, Montana De La Rosa, Andrea Lee)

Main Card Record Since Jan 1st 2017 (in the UFC): 23-17

Korean Zombie- 1-1 Renato Moicano- 3-2 Rob Font- 2-2 John Lineker- 3-2 Randy Brown- 1-2 Bryan Barberena- 2-2 Kevin Holland- 2-1 Alessio Di Chirico- 2-1 Montana De La Rosa- 3-0 Andrea Lee- 2-0 Ashley Yoder- 1-2 Syuri Kondo- 1-2

Fights By Weight Class (yearly number here):

Bantamweight-  2 (30) Featherweight- 2 (28)) Middleweight- 2 (20) Women’s Flyweight-  2 (18) Women’s Strawweight- 1 (16) Lightweight-  1 (39) Heavyweight- 1 (16) Welterweight- 1 (34)

Light Heavyweight- (22) Women’s Bantamweight- (8) Women’s Featherweight- (6)

Flyweight- (7)

2019 Number Tracker

Debuting Fighters (15-37)- Deron Winn, Eric Spicely

Short Notice Fighters (15-20)- Eric Spicely, John Lineker

Second Fight (36-9)- Anderson dos Santos, Ariane Lipski, Jair Rozenstruik

Cage Corrosion (Fighters who have not fought within a year of the date of the fight) (12-22)- Matt Wiman

Undefeated Fighters (21-25)- Deron  Winn, Jairzinho Rozenstruik

Fighters with at least four fights in the UFC with 0 wins over competition still in the organization (8-8)-

Weight Class Jumpers (Fighters competing outside of the weight class of their last fight even if they’re returning BACK to their “normal weight class”) (16-13)- Luis Pena

Twelve Precarious Ponderings

1- So who needs the win more in this main event? Both guys are coming off losses and both guys are giving ground in the 145 lbs division that's actually kinda sorta in need of some new faces. After Volkanovski and Zhabit, Max Holloway doesn't have much remaining and Frankie Edgar, should he win the title, probably isn't long for the MMA scene either. Both fighters were finished in their last fight but both have interesting in roads to the title. Renato Moicano has a low key solid resume with wins over the likes of Calvin Kattar, Jeremy Stephens, Zubair Tukhogov and Cub Swanson and as one of the rare young-ish upside-ish Brazilians with some steam, he may not be too far away from a title shot. Conversely the Korean Zombie remains a sneaky popular fighter (when FS1 numbers started tanking toward the end of the deal, the Korean Zombie vs Yair and Bermudez did reputable numbers) who is always in exciting fights. Injuries and a military assignment might've taken away his prime but he's probably still good enough to be in the mix as they say. It's worth remembering he probably beats Yair Rodriguez if he doesn't get hit with the hail mary elbow. That said, ya can't rewrite history so what we're left with is a really fun action fighter who has had two fights since 2013 and one of his wins was over a guy who wound up eventually retiring in 2018. Not exactly a resume for success in 2019. So who needs this more? The Brazilian fighter who has twice failed in his "step up" fight (subbed vs Ortega, TKO'd vs Aldo) or the Korean Zombie who may have seen his title window violently closed vs Yair Rodriguez?

2- Trying to think of how the featherweight fights down the stretch shake out, I wonder if the winner of this fight gets Zhabit in September and the runner up gets Ortega.

3-I've referred to this as a "Let's See Who's More Broken?" fight and while that may be harsh, I can't act like one of the bigger question marks about this fight isn't trying to figure out who is more cracked.

4- If Renato Moicano has a weakness; it's that he lulls defensively and tends to struggle when he's forced to handle pressure. Brian Ortega beat him by wrecking him to the body and never giving him space to breathe despite Brian Ortega eating a ton of shots. The Korean Zombie's career has been earmarked by wars upon wars and you'd have to assume that in terms of PRESSURE (not movement or footwork but just pressure), he can replicate Ortega's gameplan while hitting a lot harder. The question is whether he becomes too predictable offensively because Moicano's fight processor runs at high speed and he has great vision.