UFC 100 Predictions

On the eve of the greatest single card in the history of mixed martial arts, UFC 100, I've decided to put in my two cents and try my hand picking winners. After spending roughly $2,000 of my hard earned money on pay per views and consuming as much MMA as one can possibly ingest over the last four years, I feel qualified to at least speculate on this weekend's winners. Please feel free to let me know if you disagree with me. After all, that's part of what makes the sport so much fun. Anybody who steps into the octagon has a chance to win at any time.

I'll refrain from picking the undercard matches, although I am very interested in almost all of them. Hopefully, we'll see some quick endings in some of the televised fights and get an opportunity to catch a couple of these "dark" matches. Stephan Bonnar vs. Mark Coleman is a match up of two guys both fighting to stay relevant and maintain their UFC contracts. Jon Jones(vs. Jake O'Brien) and C.B. Dollaway(vs. Tom Lawlor) are two young rising stars looking to continue climbing the ranks while Ultimate Fighter 6 champion, Mac Danzig, will be hoping to get back on track after consecutive losses in the underrated UFC lightweight division to Josh Neer and Clay Guida. He'll be facing off against another tough and relentless submission fighter Jim Miller. T.J. Grant vs. Dong Hyun Kim has the potential to be very entertaining while the Matt Grice/Shannon Gugerty fight is ostensibly a throw away.

As far as the televised card, each and every one of these fights should be highly entertaining. Leading off will be American wrestler/muay thai fighter Jon Fitch against the undefeated Brazilian, Paulo Thiago. Thiago dispatched Fitch's American Kickboxing Academy teammate, Josh Koscheck, with a surprising first round KO in his last fight while Fitch got right versus Akihiro Gono at UFC 94 after losing a certified war to 170 lb. UFC champion Georges St-Pierre eleven months ago. My opinion is that Jon Fitch is still no worse than the number three welterweight in the world(behind only St-Pierre and Nick Diaz) and he should hand Paulo Thiago his first professional loss in a three round decision, controlling the match with his superior grappling.

Match two is between middleweights Yoshihiro Akiyama and Alan Belcher. Both fighters claim a victory over Denis Kang in the last two years and both were by stoppage, KO for Akiyama and submission for Belcher. In terms of skill, I believe Akiyama is the better of the two fighters. However, ring rust(he last fought 10 months ago) and a long history of fighters from Japan coming over to the UFC and struggling leads me to favor Belcher in this one. I look for him to outwork his older opponent, taking advantage of his octagon experience, and, in a bit of a surprise, submit Akiyama in the second round.

Fight number three on the main card is HUGE and could be a headliner on many UFC shows. Former PRIDE middleweight and light heavyweight champion Dan Henderson finally faces off at 185 with the great British hope, Michael Bisping. I say finally because both men coached the last installment of The Ultimate Fighter and it seems like this one's been building forever. I just don't see Bisping standing a chance in this fight. On the feet. On the ground. It doesn't matter where this one goes, "Hendo" should have the adavantage. Expect to see that big right hand of Henderson's on display in a first round knockout for the American.

Now for the co-main event. The aforementioned Georges "Rush" St-Pierre taking on Thiago "Pitbull" Alves. The all around French-Canadian UFC champ vs. the #1 ranked Brazilian challenger. It's not too often that St-Pierre steps into the octagon as the physically smaller man. But in this fight, that's exactly the case. Alves is a stocky beast who, by fight time, could weigh as much as 190 pounds. He'll be looking to stand up with the champ and attempt to use his size advantage in the "ground and pound" when the fight goes to the mat. Ahhh, best laid plans. There is a reason why St-Pierre is viewed as possibly the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. His game has no holes and he has seemingly been stronger than every man he has ever faced. As a wrestler, he may be the absolute best the UFC has to offer, despite having no formal competitive background in the sport. Add it all up and you get a champ so dominant in his division that his next fight, barring a Fitch rematch, could well be a catchweight fight with UFC middleweight champion Anderson "Spider" Silva. My prediction for this one, however, is that Alves comes out too aggressive, wears himself down and gets stopped by St-Pierre either by TKO or submission in the second round.

Finally, the heavyweight main event. The rematch between UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar and interim heavyweight champion Frank Mir. Both of these guys have looked unstoppable since their last match up and have done plenty of talking leading up to this one. On paper, you have to like Mir because of his experience and his high level jiu jitsu. Brock Lesnar doesn't fight on paper though. Lesnar is a man who was put on this Earth to fight. Nothing else. He's an annihilator of men who, Joe Rogan stated correctly, would be the alpha dog regardless of what era in mankind's history he existed. It just so happens that he exists now and, just as it was for future UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture, that's a bad thing for Frank Mir this Saturday in Las Vegas. I see this fight going much the same as their fight at UFC 81, with one major difference. This time Lesnar finishes what he started and doesn't sloppily leave himself open to another one of Mir's submissions. Don't blink during this one, folks. Otherwise, you could miss the human tidal wave known as Brock Lesnar knocking out Frank Mir in the first round.

There you are. Those are my bold predictions for what we can only hope will be the most awesome night of mixed martial arts we have ever collectively witnessed. UFC 100 may or may not live up to all that hype but, either way, I appreciate the job that both Dana White and Joe Silva have done in putting together this card. It's one for the ages and we'd expect no less from the best guys in the business.

It's Time for Two Greats to Hang 'em Up

In honor of UFC 100 this Saturday in Las Vegas, I decided to give you guys some good old fashioned mixed martial arts. And, before you get cranky and dismiss this post out of hand because of the headline, I want you all to understand how difficult this one is to write. Matt Hughes and Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell are two of my favorite athletes, not just MMA fighters. They have both been pivotal figures in bringing mixed martial arts, the Ultimate Fighting Championship in particular, into mainstream culture and have helped grow the sport to the point that it can now reasonably claim a popularity on the level of anything short of football here in North America. But the time has come for both of these UFC icons to say goodbye. For the sake of their legacies and their own personal health.

Compared to the average human, Matt Hughes and Chuck Liddell(at ages 35 and 39 respectively) are still far superior in terms of physical conditioning, toughness, and fighting ability. However, when you compare both fighters to many of their peers they have now begun to fall short on ability. The fitness is still there and they may both be tougher now than they've ever been, but Hughes and Liddell have both shown tangible signs that age is catching up with them while the next generation of MMA fighters has closed the gap talent-wise and turned mixed martial arts into one discipline. No longer do the best fighters specialize in one particular aspect(striking, wrestling, and jiu jitsu) but, rather, the sport has become an amalgam of all three. Basically, the skill set of MMA's rising stars is now greater and more well-rounded than that of most of the sport's aging greats and, as such, it is becoming more and more dangerous for these older stars to continue their careers.

Matt Hughes doesn't owe anyone a single thing. Not Dana White. Not the UFC. Not even his fans. He has, in his illustrious fifty fight career(43 wins, 7 losses), taken on all comers and and dispatched them with equal aplomb via submission and knockout. A quick look back at his resume shows victories over the greatest fighters that mixed martial arts has had to offer in the welterweight division. Gracie. Sakurai. St-Pierre. Penn. Newton. Serra. And the list goes on. But we've seen a decline. Ever so slight, but a decline nonetheless. Hughes seems to lack the supreme confidence he once beamed with. To watch him as he approaches the octagon these days is like watching a man trying to convince himself that he is still Matt Hughes and he is still the greatest ever at 170 pounds. Sadly to no avail. With three losses and two lackluster performances in his last five fights, Hughes has shown that all those punches, all those kicks, and all those rounds have taken their toll. His instincts and fierce competitive nature carried him through the first round of his last fight with long-time rival Matt Serra and allowed him to return to his wrestling roots just enough in the second and third rounds to pull out the victory. It wasn't impressive like Hughes had wanted and it was, instead, a glaring example of why Hughes should call it quits and focus on his family, his god, and his MMA school.

Known worldwide as "The Iceman", Chuck Liddell has also had a storied career. His larger than life persona gave the UFC a crossover superstar upon whom they could build their brand and garner the kind of exposure it takes for a sport to go from being considered "underground" to selling approximately 5 million pay per view buys in 2008. At $54.95 a pop, that's a pretty penny for the Fertitta Brothers and Dana White and millions upon millions of eyeballs on the sport of mixed martial arts every month. Liddell, just like Matt Hughes, has taken on anyone who dared step into the cage with him and, in spite of losses in four of his last five, sports a 21-7 career record. A junior college wrestler prior to first stepping into the octagon at UFC 17, he has been a dominant stand-up fighter for years. A counter puncher par excellence whose style has always been a crowd pleaser. Knockout victories over legendary tough guys like Randy Couture, Wanderlei Silva, Tito Ortiz, and Babalu Sobral cemented his status as one of the most feared men in the world. Chuck reveled in his image and even played it up in television(HBO's Entourage) and movie appearances. Critics will say that his partying lifestyle and his rise to megastardom led Liddell to this crossroad in his career. I choose to disagree. I believe that regardless what you do, time stands still for no man. Not even an "Iceman." Given the vicious knockouts he has suffered versus Shogun Rua and Rashad Evans in his last two fights, it looks likely that Chuck Liddell just doesn't have it anymore. The visceral fan in me longs for the excitement of another Liddell victory like the one at UFC 79 versus Silva. But the practical fan in me can't stomach the thought of another nauseating knockout loss for one of my all-time faves when he is clearly past his prime.

Matt Hughes will be remembered for his incredible dominance over so many years and evolution from wrestler to high level submission fighter. Chuck Liddell will always be "The Iceman." A man with rare one-punch knockout acumen in both hands and unmatched marketability who carried his sport to new heights of popularity. Both men were champions and both should always be on the short list of the best fighters all-time in their weight classes. There should be a special place in the UFC Hall of Fame for Mr. Hughes and Mr. Liddell when they are finally done. Sooner or later. We should all just hope that it comes sooner because later may be too late.