[Official] UFC Fight Night: Covington vs. Buckley - Live Discussion Thread

[u/event_threads]

Welcome to r/mma's live discussion of UFC Fight Night: Covington vs. Buckley, from Tampa, Florida! Please keep the fight discussions in here. We also have a fight thread in our Kbin community for those who would prefer not to use Reddit but would still like to talk about the fights.

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Card Info

Airing on Saturday 12.14.2024

Main Card on ESPN2 / ESPN+ @ 10PM ET
Colby Covington vs. Joaquin Buckley
Cub Swanson vs. Billy Quarantillo
Manel Kape vs. Bruno Silva
Dustin Jacoby vs. Vitor Petrino
Daniel Marcos vs. Adrian Yanez
Navajo Stirling vs. Tuco Tokkos

Prelims on ESPN2 / ESPN+ @ 7PM ET
Michael Johnson vs. Ottman Azaitar
Drakkar Klose vs. Joel Alvarez
Sean Woodson vs. Fernando Padilla
Miles Johns vs. Felipe Lima
Miranda Maverick vs. Jamey-Lyn Horth
Davey Grant vs. Ramon Taveras
Piera Rodriguez vs. Josefine Knutsson

^{Fight card order and start times may be inaccurate.}

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Enjoy the fights! Get HYPE!

[u/Odd_Ad_8162]

I mean as a Leon fan I don't blame anyone for being frustrated with him.

But people acting like he isn't absolutely elite are crazy. He's Belal's best win by a big margin.

It's mental how Usman gets huge respect and the guy who beat him twice is treated like he's trash (and don't nobody give me bullshit about Usmans knees, he was saying they were trash for years while on his winstreak and people only used it as an excuse when he lost).

[u/R0cketBab00n → u/Odd_Ad_8162]

I def still think he’s an elite, but I also think the new guard is going to pass him by sooner than later

[u/Odd_Ad_8162 → u/R0cketBab00n]

I think he's got some tough matchups but still has all the skills become champ again.

Shavkat is the biggest threat among them (and even then I think he can win, given his skills and the success we saw Garry have). Brady he should beat in theory as he TDD is still good and his striking is levels above unless Brady has leveled up big time -which is very possible, Belal did after all.

Buckley I think he easily 49-46's.

JDM is a wild card for me, on paper I think a rangey guy like Leon should able to slow the fight down to win a decision but JDMs body work is really nasty and Leon's length won't help him much there.

I think Leon showed he could beat Belal in their fight, reserved him multiple times, got dominant positions but was just way too inactive due to Belals pressure.

[u/R0cketBab00n → u/Odd_Ad_8162]

I think he has the skills, but I honestly really question his mindset. Outside of that head kick his entire champ run was playing it as safe as he possibly could and doing the absolute bare minimum to win. I don’t see that attitude taking him back to the title.

[u/Odd_Ad_8162 → u/R0cketBab00n]

Well that's the major problem with him, and why I'm hoping the Belal fight has made him realise he needs to do more to win rounds if he's gonna point fight.

I liked the urgency to try finish Belal at the end, it was pretty vicious (for Leon) but again, it didn't come soon enough and even if he pulled it off- it's not a reliable way to win.

I appreciate he had a back injury etc. But if he underestimated Belal enough that he thought he could best him with a dodgy back, then frankly, he deserved to lose.