UFC 328 Roundup

What a great card for the fans, before taking a closer look you could have been forgiven for thinking that the car card was a little lackluster but on further inspection the skillsets were nicely matched up leading to some extraordinary competition right across the board.

Green vs Stephens- I really thought both of these fighters were on the way out, i must admit i was at least completely wrong on the side of King Green who proved he still has a lot to offer the sport. Stephens unfortunately looked like has slowed down a lot which i kind of expected from Green, who in fact looked the complete opposite - yes he fought in his typical low guard loose style, yes he still sh#t talked all the way through but he looked sharp, out striking his Stephens almost 10-1 and getting himself a sub finish in the first. I wonder what is next for him!?

Brady vs Buckley - it would be remiss of me not to mention how good brady looked both in his style and man those tatts were popping! Brady smothered Buckley who seemed to have absolutely no answers for Brady's ground game, even in the striking Brady was far superior while he didn't manage to get the finish he was working that head and arm a few times throughout, ultimately winning by a unanimous decision - Well earned! Keen to see him up against a more well rounded fighter.

Volkov vs Acosta - This was the first controversial outcome of the main card, i had Acosta going into the fight although i was aware that you can never count Volkov out. To be honest i really thought Volkov had 2 & 3 and Acosta 1 and 5 i think it came down to 4 which i think went to Acosta, but to be fair you can't blame a judge for going the other way. I know a lot of people rooting for Volkov thought the opposite and if i had to guess why? Those leg kicks must have paid dividends as far as points go. Great win for Volkov by Dec!

The Fight of the Night!! Van vs Taira - Man what a great start to the fight, i had it called for a r4 sub by Taira, and in the first round that looked like it might happen early with Taira having a dominant first round with his ground game. I think Van's corner got onto this quick and made sure that Van was not going to engage on the ground and from that point on Van outclassed Taira with his striking. Taira's low guard cost him big time, but Van did look susceptible to the wrestling. Taira ended up taking too much damage, in r4 he was so close to getting 2 subs but just missed out. The ref finally decided that Taira had enough and called in in r5 winning it for Van by TKO! Great performance by both, Taira proved he has more heart than most! All though IMO this does raise some decisions for how Van would have gone against Pantoja if he didn't have that injury, given Pantoja is well rounded and superior in both grappling and striking than Taira! - Food for thought if he ever returns!

And finally... Chimaev vs Strickland - Man what a strange fight that was! So many people (including myself) thought Chimaev was going to roll through Strickland, R1 that seemed like it could be the case but we really saw some chinks in Chimaev's armour. Strickland's grappling defense was fantastic and we saw that once Chimaev runs out of steam he becomes a little hesitant to empty the gastank with more wrestling. After R1 it seemed like he changed his strategy to wear down Strickland with striking and then move back to some wrestling in the later rounds. On that it was clear that Strickland had the slight edge on the striking, but not in an overwhelming way. Honestly i thought that Chimaev had 1,4 and 5 and thought that Chimaev's grappling would have given him an edge on the scorecards, but if you let it go to decision you can't blame the judges so fair play to Strickland who took it by Decision - Far from decisively - No doubt we will see a rematch here!

Very entertaining card as the last main event before UFC Freedom! Now onto the Fantasy results!

FR019 - Escape Taratarus - Winners

We had phenomenal uptake in this competition with 568 people making all of their selections. I was extremely interested to see how the previous winners would make it and whether we would see them on the leaderboard. Throughout the event i did see a few familiar names make it up there - Arame the Goat (6), sargissargsyan2312 (26), Karver (28), ratnakshtyagi (44) got into the top 50. The rest of us not fairing quite as well.

To add to this, a massive thanks to our Sponsor JD Sports who put up $1000 worth of vouchers for us to give to our winners! So good to have someone onboard to help us grow and help keep it exciting for all the Realmers!!

Massive shoutout to all of our new players and to our new top 10's many of which this is was your first! Eb, Jxcob, Just, Shevy, NedricLamar2006, Poubear dylandonalt648 xdtsmbbqzh and Ren! - Well done for making the top 10!

On to the results. There was some chatter on the leaderboard about who won, before the bonus came through and i started to worry that the bonus was going to displace the top positions, unfortunately for Shevy, this is true - but not for Just!

The only bonus that came through for the main card was FON to Taira and Van, earning 40 points for whoever chose it!

Going into the bonus we had:

1. Eb (345)
2. Jxcob (345)
3. Shevy (308)
4. Poubear (288)
5. MXDLAS (270)
6. Jones (270)
7. Just (270)

Unfortunately for Shevy they didnt choose Taira as a FON, but Just down in 7th place did jumping him up to 3rd place with the final leaderboard being:

• 1 & 2 - Eb & Jxcob - 🥇 🥈
• 3 - Just - 🥉

Now unfortunately we didn't consider what we would do with vouchers given a tied first and second position, no doubt we will figure out how to split evenly! At least 3rd place is nice and easy! Benny Pacquiao will be in touch with how to claim your prizes!

What's Next

For those of you who have been around for a while, you've probably seen a huge amount of changes happening that we have been working on tirelessly in the background. There is more coming! Our first release of the App is on the app store, albeit with a few bugs that we are fixing up, as soon as that is done we will make sure we get a message out to everyone to download and of course leave a glowing review!!

We also launched the message board and the live chat which will be improving over time and of course groups which will be developing over the coming months!

We will do our best to give updates as we go, we got a bunch of stuff to get ready for UFC 250 Freedom! So stick around, get involved, the more engagement we can get across groups, message board and chats the better it will be for upping the prizes and awarding more places across the leaderboard while putting up group prizes and more!!

Help us make Fight Realm the #1 Fan engagement platform for Fight Sports!

If you are keen to support, here are some things you can do:

• Consider Subscribing - Every subscriptions helps us build this bigger and better every week, while providing some awesome features with more on the way. Subscribe now to get your Founding Member badge and help take this to the next level!
• Create a Group - Head over to the groups section, create your group and invite your friends to compete in the next competition. Nothing better than winning with your mates and against your mates, but most of all having some skin in the game when you watch makes it THAT much better
• Invite your friends - Whether you have a group or not, everyone competes in the sitewide competitions, so invite your friends and get involved!
• Post and engage on the Message board - Help get the conversation started, post anything related to MMA, fight analysis, news, feedback you name it! We want this to become the go to site for MMA chat and social competitions, every bit of content and engagement helps us get there!
• Follow us and engage on your favorite socials Facebook and Instagram

UFC 250 Freedom is upon us! Get in early make your picks, post your opinions on the message board! If you want to get more involved reach out to us either via PM or info@fightrealm.com and lets chat!

Every bit helps us take this to the next level!

Stay in touch on the message board and until next time!