I finally got around to listening to this and I must say I hope Matt Hughes gets his ****ing skull cracked open and is never able to fight again. I ****ING HATE THAT GUY. What a cocky pompous muther ****** who shows basically no respect for anyone. People like that deserve to get beat down in the worst possible way.

http://www.utubevideoclip.com/videos/Sport...Wanderlei_Silva

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdps9_mir...wanderlei-silva

Look at where Silva's hands are in both of the clips - he swings wildly with his chin way up in the air. Not a good thing to do against Liddell.

Also - the kick from Cro Cop that ended the fight was not a real devastating kick. It looks like Cro Cop's heel bone caught the top of Silva's head, which would explain the cut as well. Not the shin across the side of the face that usually knocks someone out.
-------------



Agreed - I'd just rather see Matt Serra be the one to do it.

The welterweight division is going to be good for at least the next year now. I think in Dana's dreams GSP wins this weekend, followed by GSP beating Serra in the rematch. We do a Serra vs. GSP rubber match, and then Serra vs. Hughes in a loser leaves town match. That's enough welterweight action to hold us until 2009, by which time hopefully the heavyweight picture is cleared up and Dana is able to establish a couple more lightweights to feud with Huerta.

---------------------

And if anyone hasn't seen Severn vs. Macias from UFC 4 for one of the coolest suplexes of all time:

http://myvideofight.com/video/ufc/ufc-4-da...as/index-2.html

Separated at birth?

Guy "Benyamine's BFF" Laliberte



Bas "el guapo" Rutten

That was by far the sickest slam I have ever seen. I am pretty sure Arona still doesn't remember what he had for breakfast that day.

For the small guys the closest I have seen is Hughes doing essentially the same thing to Carlos Newton while being semi-conscious. Doesn't have the same clean and jerk motion, but the downward momentum has the same effect.

Add new Iron Chef Michael Symon to Lebowski's post

Another reply by the insomniac - can anyone find the Matt Hughes vs. Frank Trigg fight from UFC 45?

And an edit: Bodog's offering bets on Fedor vs. Hong Man Choi on December 30. They're juicing the hell out of it, and offering Choi at +850 with Fedor at -1700. Anyone think Choi's worth a bet?

Yeah - me neither.....................................

Spider, I tried looking for it in this thread, but someone posted a while back a great site that pretty much has every fight imaginable. I couldn't find it, but have it bookmarked at home. I'll put it up on thurs/fri if you haven't found it yet.

Heh, Gerbasi's write-up on UFC.com about the main card. All of the answers have been straight yes or no.

Liddell vs Silva
Likely to go the distance? Absolutely not
Method of finish – KO

http://mmafightvideos.blogspot.com That's probably the link you're talking about, it's an awesome site but they don't have that fight...



On another note, I've been watching a bunch of videos, interviews and thought it through and pretty much decided that unless there's a huge change in the lines, I'm taking Lidell. In fact I probably wouldn't take Silva unless he's +115 or better. There are a lot of factors:

A- After watching the past two fights of both silva and lidell, I think Lidell actually looked way better. He got caught vs Rampage, plain and simple we didn't really get to see how they actually match up in an octagon. Against Jardine he came on a huge OFF day, after getting knocked out, and he probably didn't take Jardine seriously at all. That said, he still didn't look all that bad imo, won the first round (before he started gassing probably due to lack of training and excess partying), Got rocked in the second round but sprung right back up like a hard ass and actually had a little come back at the end of the 2nd where instead of pounding on weakness as usual he tried an unnecessary spinning backfist that only helped jardine regain his footing. The third round was closer than people made it out to be imo, but the kicks were more prevalent. I think that fight was determined by the leg kicks and that shouldn't be a problem against Silva.

On the other hand, Silva got demolished by both hendo AND crocop, and to be totally honest, I think cro cop is way overrated.

B- What I saw of silva during the TUF finale at the palms, was mind blowing to the point where as Silva passed by us Steve instantly looked at me and said "Im betting chuck" ....the whole place was talking about how silva looked, it was bad.

C- he's coming into an octagon for the first time in like 7 years or something..and it's been quite obvious that pride guys haven't adjusted well in the octagon, new rules, bigger than a ring, no repositioning etc...I can feasibly see wandy gassing after one round, like shogun did. The reason is that Wandy will chase chuck and chuck will probably back-peddle like crazy, as long as he doesn't get caught hard I don't think he'll have a problem surviving and come in with a little bit of an edge in the later rounds.

D- as much as I've been reading I haven't heard any rumors of Chuck partying and it seems like everyone thinks he's actually very serious about this fight.

E- the Dana argument, I think Dana wants chuck to be in the UFC with a shot at the title as long as he can have him, he knows if chuck loses he's done, he also knows that he can't just give him some chump to fight so he has to give him someone *legit* that doesn't have that big of a shot according to Dana. I think he had a sit down with chuck and knew he'd train hard and fight like he did a year ago, and knows wandy will be the one huge attraction that Chuck is able to beat at the moment.

That said I'm kinda worried about age, but to be honest with you I think Wandy looks a lot older than he is. He looked extremely beat up the time I saw him.

Anyone agree/disagree with the points I made?

I've stated before that I think Chuck will win this fight.

I can't see Chuck losing three fights in a row.

Here are a couple of X factors.

While I'm sure that Dana wants Chuck to win this fight, Chuck is making a TON of money for this one. I don't know that for sure, but I assume he has to be. So even if he loses, he can retire and comes out ahead. At least to a certain degree.

I guess my biggest concern is how much influence Randy has had over Vanderlei in preparing for this fight. I still like the way that Chuck matches up against the old Vanderlei. Randy's gym does have a cage, so Vanderlei could me more prepared than previous Pride fighters.

Having said all of this, the fight boils down to Chuck imo. If Chuck really wants to win, I believe that he will.

*Intersting sidenote.

I've come to the conclusion that I have a hard time betting on people that I don't feel will win regardless of what the odds are. Obviously betting Silva at +300 would be a good price. And on paper, +170 would be mathematically correct for me to bet on as well.

But if I know both fighters. And have a strong opinion, it's tough for me to put money behind someone that I don't BELIEVE will win.

Styles make fights. If I've done my homework, I should be able to pick the winner. Should is the key word.

I do want to say that I greatly appreciate once again everything that everyone in this thread has provided. For the first time in a long time I have quite a bit of background on various fighters. So making the decisions is much less of a crap shoot now.

Thanks for the link - I'm probably going to spend most of the day poking around there instead of doing work.

This is exactly my reasoning for picking Liddell - Jackson's just a tough opponent who for some reason seems to hold over Liddell. On the other hand there's no way Dan Henderson should have been able to outstrike Wanderlei...that's not a good sign.

Brag post



Let's not forget that Wandy wasn't that good in the octagon when he was in there 7 years ago. Ortiz and Belfort both had little trouble with him back in the day.

He looked really focused in the interview I saw with him. Should be a really bad sign for Wandy.



*nods*



Chuck's style doesn't lend itself to aging especially well. His knockout power won't go away with age, but it's one of those things where losing a tenth of a second in his reaction time could be a huge problem against a tough striker. The thing is that I think Wanderlei's striking is so wild and awkward that it shouldn't be a problem. We'll revisit this when we see Liddell/Jackson 3 because that's where I think it'll be a problem.

I become less and less confident in my Hughes pick as we get closer to the fight, but I'm becoming more confident in my Liddell pick.

I'm not sure how strong of a coach Randy is. I have a memory of Randy's fighters being surprisingly unprepared, although I'm not sure where it's from. In Randy's favor, he knows Chuck Liddell as well as anyone out there and is one of the best strategists in MMA. A point against Randy is that I can't imagine how helpful he'd actually be in training a wild striker like Wanderlei? I forget who the kickboxer is at Xtreme Couture (other than Gina Carano ), but it's not as if Randy's wrestling abilities are going to come in very handy in this fight.

This is an interesting way of thinking about it, and I think the correct one. That makes me more confident in Chuck's chances - it's Chuck's fight to lose and I really don't think he will.




I'm still struggling with betting fights based on lines, it's a weird concept to me. If I get all my money in with AA vs. KK I win 80% of the time - that's a fundamental truth that does not change. But let's say you can find a line with Silva at +300 - does he really win the fight more than 1/4 times? I don't know - I tend to think the best fighter wins 9/10 times regardless of how close the matchup is. But is that true?

Also, if AA beats KK one time, it still has an 80% chance of winning the next time. But in fighting the "true" probability changes after every fight - fighters adapt, they learn from the last fight, they gain/lose confidence, the get older, etc.

I tend to basically only bet underdogs who I think will win/have a fairly good shot at winning. The only fight I'm thinking of betting where I think the other guy will win is the Fedor fight - 8:1 is too much to pass up. It's a lottery ticket, but I'm not sure it's not a +EV one. I'm still kicking myself for not betting on Gonzaga vs. Cro Cop at 12:1...

Edit: Is Randy Couture still posting his UFC picks anywhere? He's the only guy who had a good year with fight picks last year - he picked Gonzaga over Cro Cop, himself over Sylvia (lol), and one other huge upset. Worth checking out if he's still doing it.

Unless they have completely revamped this site in the last 3 or 4 days the one I use is different, but this one looks just as good.



I would have to guess Dana either wants to see Chuck win or Silva KHTFO. If Silva wins a boring decision it doesn't make his draw any better. It sure hasn't helped Jardine's image.

I liked the rest of the analysis. As far I can remember Wanderlei has looked like a beat up rag doll so I am not sure if I would give much credence to that.

I just started reading off topic over at 2+2 so I'm not sure if Performify usually posts his picks there, but here they are:

Performify's UFC79 picks

Performify picks Guillard:



He's betting on Dean Lister as a HEAVY favorite. I'm not super confident that Radev wins, but I am super confident that he's the better bet than Lister at -350.

He's also picking all the favorites...they're the favorites for a reason, but at the same time I think he's not giving Sokoudjou enough credit.

My one real point of contention with his logic is the idea that Silva will win by a 3rd round TKO. The Liddell/Horn fight showed me that Chuck gets better as the fight goes on. Horn was winning early in the fight, but you could see Liddell setting him and and getting ready for the knockout. Even though Horn was outpointing him, Chuck always had 100% control of the fight.

http://www.fun-on.com/Chuck_Liddell_videos.php

His picks are definitely worth reading though - thanks for the link.

in what way did silva look bad? I'm just curious cause its been mentioned a few times. fat? scarred? meth binge?


edit: :please be meth binge, please be meth binge, please be meth binge...:

weight cutting 101 FTW?

Not sure if this is really MMA, but from WO.com today:



There don't seem to be any big New Year's MMA shows this year...is K-1 doing anything this year?

A couple REALLY good MMA links:

Article about Sokoudjou:

http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news;_ylt=AlAb...o&type=lgns

Dave Meltzer's Yahoo! MMA Archive, with some absolute 100% must-read articles for anyone wanting to learn about the business of MMA and get a unique perspective on the landscape of current and historical MMA:

http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/expertsarchive...or=Dave+Meltzer

An absolutely fascinating article by Meltzer on the origins of MMA:

http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news?slug=dm-e...o&type=lgns

Performify always posts his picks, and I've hated them since I started reading his stuff. I hear he's made a decent amount though and he probably understands the game/sports betting better than I do. Ever since the Lidell v Rampage fight he's blown his balls betting huge on Favs to win very little when they're probably more of a coinflip... Most of his picks that I've chosen the other side on, have gotten crushed, Lidell v Ramapge, Cro Cop against Kongo, Alexander Vs Thiago, I think he picked Shogun to beat Forrest too.... In either case he goes totally against my strat of betting the dog, this dude bets nearly every paper favorite and chooses no bet on everything else.

Maybe I've been struck by the variance monster but I've never really lost money in a card so I'll continue to bet whats working for me....picks of his that I don't particularly like are:

Melvin Guillard

not playing the Gambuyrian fight (I'd bet tiny on the nate mohr and hope Manny gets his shoulder seperated)

and I think betting dean Lister at -350 is dumb. I'll bet tiny again on the +280

From the lines he posted, assuming they won't change (they will) My bets will probably go as follows:

$500 on Chuck

- I have 500 already on Hughes at +160, so 500 to win 800, I bet this assuming the line would drop closer to even the day of the fight....I still think it will, and am hoping to get GSP as a small fav, in which case I'll bet big to guarantee myself a small loss or a decent win.

Soku I don't know about, right now on bodog they're -125 machinda and -105 Soku....I wouldn't bet that if that is the final line on fight night...

I'll probably bet my biggest on Clementi, I have a feeling +200 is way too good to pass up....I'll bet somewhere between 1k and 500...probably $800

I'll bet Palelei as long as Sanchez is worse than +150 $300....

I'll bet like 200 on James Irvin at +160

I'll bet $200 on Mohr at +350 ( I know Manny prob wins but theres literally 0 shot that I ever bet anyone at -500 unless the card says "Anderson "The Spider" Silva VS Justin "Looshle" Pechie" )

$500 on Radev at +280 this will be my heavy dog bet for the night, going by what spider guard said and the fact that the line is so unreal that I think Radev is definite value here.

I'll bet on Carneiro as long as the line stays how it is on bodog -130 on Carneiro Even on De souza ...probably bet 390 on him

Im torn on the Bocek or whatever fight, I don't know anyone, Boceck seems like he has the edge but he's -130 on bodog, but Evans is at +105 and it seems like it's a very close fight, I might bet 285 on Evans,

As it stands I'm pretty much throwing approx 1500 on 3 big dogs, as long as Clementi or Radev book the upset I win money or break even on those, if mohr wins and clementi and Radev lose I only lose a little bit however if I can book wins on 2 out of the 3 dogs (seems more possible than usual this time) I'll win huge, and probably lock up a win for the night. I don't mind my Hughes bet, but I don't like it either knowing he's going at +190 now when I thought the line would go the other way..,..however if Hughes goes above +250 I might even put more money on him if it goes backwards to where GSP is somewhere around -130 I'll bet huge on GSP, this can feasibly happen on Fight night at Mandalay. So pretty much as of now I'll bet around $3700 on this card ...If I can lock up one of the two main fights, that is between 1k-1.3k payed back to me, If I can pull through in one of my 2 big dog bets (Clementi or Radev) that is about 1900-2400 back depending on which one wins. so as long as one of each win I pretty much freeroll the rest of the night. The ideal situation would be to see Clementi AND Radev both win and then I freeroll my balls off on everything else. I actually really like my picks here, I'm hoping the lines don't change for the worse, so I'll probably go lock up the ones that I think will change tomorrow night at Mandalay. I'll wait till the day of the fight for the GSP, Chuck, and Soku fights see if I can get some sicko odds.

What do u guys think?

yeah, I looked back at the last 4 or 5 UFC for Performify and I haven't worked the numbers, but I think a few underdog winners have made him a winner overall. I don't recall his overall record being fantastic.

$500 on chuck? meh...what did you get him at? I think this is just on the Silva side of a coinflip so I don't mind this one if you got a good price

I don't like Hughes at any price, but I am not so sure I like GSP at -250 or whatever it is at either

I think your only hope with Mohr is if Manny does dislocate his shoulder again

I was really surprised at that Radev line...i like that line.

I really, really like that line on Carneiro

I still like that Clementi line.

I hope all of these articles coming out on Soko move that line to favor Machida. I think there is really good value there.

I think this might be one of the hardest events to handicap in quite some time. There are quite a few newcomers with not much action and even some of the UFC vets haven't fought in a while.

I like your bets JC. The one I don't like is Mohr over Gamburyan, but I get the logic.



QFT x 1000

The combination of a bunch of newcomers and some razor thin fights in the main events...great great card. And it's only getting better for the UFC, which is good after the last insanely disappointing one.

I think the line's going to shift toward Machida the closer we get to the card. He may even end up as a slight underdog the night before...if you think he's going to win you'll get a good price. On the other hand I think just about any line you're going to see is a good price on Sok

For those of us who hate Matt Hughes, it gets even worse:

I'm having some trouble with the Machida fight. "Sok" has won his last two fights very quickly, similar to how Matt Lindland lost to that guy from the Caesar Gracies camp. Ugh, can't remember his name right now. But then the guy fought Tanner in a similar fashion. Tanner weathered the storm.........got in top position and punished him until the ref stopped the fight. David Terrell, that's the guys name. Obviously if Sok can win this fight quick, that's good. But if it goes the distance, I give the edge to Machida in a big way. There is also the Pride vs. UFC thing. First time in oct. etc. I'm going to have to see what the final odds are for this fight.

I'm a big believer in training camps.

When JC and I went to the TUF finale I would constantly say who has this guy been training with between the time the show finished and now. Whenever a kid would show up with another kid around his own age with long hair and a goofy hat on backwards in his corner, I put the ticket into the other pocket. Meaning, I kind of knew that we had made a mistake.

I feel that the camp that you train with not only gets your prepared physically, but mentally for the fight. The corner is also very important. These are things that a lot of people don't consider when betting, or picking fights.

I'm not sure if Guillard is training with Top Team right now, or Team Punishment. I would also like to know where Rich Clementi is training.

If we can get these printed all over Vegas, I can get a great price on GSP. I can only hope.

He was moving like an old man, limping around, looking straight down at the floor, very slow and didn't look well at all....I'd compare his physical movements to that of a drunk Bob Stupak.

This is what it said on Wiki



PS Spike is airing the "inside the mind of Lidell and Wandy" thing after unleashed, they'll show the training and all that shit, they'll also show hughes and GSP, I think this will be informative as far as betting goes. just fyi

I just wanted to respond and say that I hated David Terrell. I'm not sure why, but I hate both him and Nick Diaz. Also, I have a hard time keeping the two straight in my mind, which probably explains why I hate both of them.




This is one of my favorite posts in the thread. Training camps say a lot - specifically it says how seriously you take the game. MMA is filled with two kinds of people: tattooed thugs who were the toughest guy in their hometown and the guys who train seriously, take care of their diet, etc... Look at Mac Danzig and George Sotiropolous in the TUF house vs. the guys shitting in the upper deck of the toilet, painting the walls and themselves, and whining about wanting to see their girlfriends. That's the difference between an Ultimate Fighter and a cage brawler.

So the final verdict on Melvin Guillard - I have no clue. Sherdog says that he's training with Team Punishment, and Wikipedia cites Sherdog in them saying he's part of Team Punishment. But his official website says nothing about any team, and his afterparty is being sponsored by a clothing company that's NOT Punishment Athletics. So I'm skeptical.

Clementi on the other hand is training with "Team Voodoo" - decent roster, but no real top level guys other than Clementi.

http://www.sherdog.com/fightfinder/fightfi...ion=Team+Voodoo

Maybe he was doggin it in public so Chuck wouldnt take it to seriously and keep goin to clubs till dawn.

Just watched the show where they displayed the training camps of the main card, and I will give my thoughts.

Vanderlei Silva- Yes he is in Vegas and training at Randy's gym, but I didn't see Randy anywhere. That could obviously be because of the current disputes. Having said all of that.....I was not at all impressed with the way that Vanderlei looked. His "team" didn't look like the brightest tools in the shed. If Vanderlei was smart he would be working out with guys like Forrest Griffin who are already at the gym. Maybe he is, who knows. But at the end of the day, he STILL looked tired, worn down, old and beat up.

Chuck Lidell- I thought Chuck looked great. He is still training at the Pit, and his regimen seems great. Two things that I noticed. The first was a bad thing. His coach was looking at tapes of Vanderlei and couldn't find any weaknesses, so he said he would focus on Chuck's strengths. I would say that Vanderlei losing a stand up battle to Henderson is a pretty big weakness. Maybe he was just being polite, but Vanderlei is aging quite a bit. The second thing I noticed was them bringing in Tony Robbins, this is a good thing. I have never really talked about this before. But Tony Robbins has been one of the most influential people in my life. If any of you are looking to improve your poker game, or your quality of life in general, I cannot stress how important it is to either go to a Robbins seminar, buy books, cd's, etc.

Matt Hughes- Training in a make shift gym at a hospital. Hmm. I'm sure that his wrestling will be very good. Aside from that, I think he is in serious trouble. His decision to leave Millitech should come around to bite him in the ass. He will be lacking a strong corner, and his sparring will be sub-par at best. I was not impressed with Hughes training at all.

GSP- George looked great in training. He went back to Canda and is training at a variety of places. This is a HUGE mistake imo. I liked the idea of him training at Greg Jacksons camp in New Mexico. If he was in New Mexico he would get to spar with Jardine, Evans, etc. This would be very good for him. In addition, he would have a strong core behind him. It appeared that GSP was getting top notch training, but he was going all over the place to get it. This is something that Rich Franklin has also done. And I think it's a hole in his game. I don't know who is cornering GSP yet. I can only hope it's someone good.

I still pick Chuck to beat Vanderlei, and GSP to beat Hughes.

This is actually exactly because of the current disputes. I didn't watch the special, but Meltzer reported in the WO something about Dana not allowing mentions of Randy Couture or Xtreme Couture. Maybe KDawg or someone with a subscription to the newsletter would be able to fill in the details, but basically it sounds like Dana's getting ready to bury Randy if he won't re-sign.

Steve - do you ever watch the show Tapout? They did an episode where the guys were allowed inside The Pit, and it was probably 30 minutes of watching Chuck Liddell's roommate train under Hack. Great great stuff...try to find the episode on torrent somewhere if you haven't seen it, I think you'd really like it.

Sometime can you talk about Tony Robbins and how he's helped your poker/life? If it's personal I completely understand, but it would be interesting to hear if you don't mind sharing sometime.

what does he do? Is he just a motivational speaker or hypnotist or whats the deal?

So I looked at the UFC 80 card, and it might even be harder to handicap than this one. Should be another fun few weeks of discussion in this thread.

On UFC's website they made an interesting point about Liddell needing to circle away from Silva to create space to effectively throw his strikes. Cro Cop is the same way, an was able to do it effectively against Silva, but his lateral movement is FAR stronger than Liddell's, especially at 37 (or however old Chuck is).

Also - Rogan's doing standup at the Mandalay Bay on Friday for those of you going to Vegas. If you're there, but read this check it out.

This was literally the only piece I saw. I found it odd that Matt Hughes just kept saying "I'm really concentrating on getting in the best shape of my life". Say it once fine, but he said it quite a bit which leads me to believe he thinks his only chance is wearing down GSP and taking it to him in the 4th and 5th rounds. At least on paper it seems to be a better game plan than trying to stand with GSP.



Rocky IV FTW? The only thing missing was the snow.

Spider, here's that site I've been getting older fights from, but I don't see Hughes v Trigg I on there either.

http://www.mmalinker.com/

And Fedor

Thanks for the link - I'll check it out.

I just got +120 for chuck and bet 800 on him I think thats the best the line will get, if he gets to over +150 I'll probably bet another 800 on him...I also bet 700 on clementi at +180 (I'm upset I didn't bet him at +200)....the rest of the lines went really bad so I'll see about that tomorrow.

Also I saw a friend that's betting 24k on GSP, which I thought was ridic.

Betting big on most of these fights makes me nervous, let alone 24k on either of the main events.

Good to see the line shifting toward Clementi...makes me less nervous about my pick.

GL, and enjoy the show tomorrow. I'm thinking I'm going to have to do a house party and watch the PPV instead of the sports bar - not sure if any sports bars are going to do anything that's not the Patriots game tomorrow night.

(Anyone have video of the weigh-in? Apparently Chuck and Wandy almost killed each other...Wandy made a move at Chuck, Chuck stepped back and flipped Wandy off and there was a pull apart. Good stuff)

Yea I just saw the weigh in on UFC.com, they have the video....Chuck looked meaner than ever, seems like he lost a little of the beer gut and looks more cut than I remember him. The stare down was sick between both of them Wandy fakes the head but and Chuck gives him the finger, they had to separate them...zoooooomg I can't wait.

Doesn't Chuck always look good at the weigh in after cutting the weight? Then he rehydrates and has the water retention belly?

I saw Wandy's training last night. Scuba gear and ice baths FTW? That training looked so sick....and so unconventional?

Definitely looking forward to the card more so than the last few. I said a while back I didn't have near the interest in Chuck/Wandy fight as I would have if it were for the title and to a certain degree I still agree with that, but I am def pumped up for this one...thanks in large part to all of you.

Meltzer's last minute analysis of the show made me feel better about my picks:

And...



Anyone know this story?

You know, I have been hearing about what a bitter battle Clementi and Guillard will be as well, but I heard nothing of the incident of which you speak or any other incident for that matter.

I am interested to hear "the real story" behind the incident involving Tito Ortiz and Lee Murray that Matt Hughes supposedly details in his new book. I know Pat Miletich has said "Lee lit him up like a christmas tree, and kicked his head like a football".

off topic, but I"ve just started watching this stuff and I really like it. I watch all the freebies in all the different associations and will be buying tonights fights, but one of the best fights/fighters I've seen this year is Urijah Faber. He's a featherweight (I think, around 135 or 145) and he just recently beat some guy from the UFC named Jeff Cullen (Curren?) That kid, The California Kid, is pretty sick.

That's all I've got for now. Be back with next time with solid facts and insight. Ok, no I wont, but lets get it on.

Faber sure looks special from what I've seen of him. Tough son of a bitch with an incredible amount of talent.

I'm worried about them throwing him up against Jens Pulver in his next fight though - Pulver's been at the top of the game for a long, long time. It'll be a great test for Faber, but I'm not sure that he's ready yet. I'd like to see them build up the fight a little bit and making it more special.

Ok, so I broke down and threw $100 on Bodog through MMAJunkie to get the 10% plus $25 bonus.

Here are the bets for tonight:

Georges St. Pierre -205
Risk US$ 20.00 to win US$ 9.76

Rich Clementi +170
Risk US$ 20.00 to win US$ 34.00

Lyoto Machida -115
Risk US$ 20.00 to win US$ 17.39

Eddie Sanchez +155
Risk US$ 10.00 to win US$ 15.50

Roan Carneiro -150
Risk US$ 40.00 to win US$ 26.67

Reiterating Spider's Late Night MMA Picks (without reasoning):

Matt Hughes vs George St-Pierre - Hughes


Chuck Liddell vs Wanderlei Silva - Liddell

Lyoto Machida vs Rameau Sokoudjou - Sok


Rich Clementi vs Melvin Guillard - Clementi

Sao Palelei vs Eddie Sanchez - Palelei

Luis Cane vs James Irvin - Cane

Nate Mohr vs Manny Gamburyan - Manny

Jordan Radev vs Dean Lister - Radev


Roan Carneiro vs Tony Desouza - Bocek

Highlight for spoilers.

Bocek beats Doug Evans by decision.

Carneiro beats DeSouza.

Lister beats Radev

Gamburyan beats Mohr.

Spoilers at http://www.wrestlingobserver.com/wo/news/h...t.asp?aID=21688

Edit: I'm headin' out - gl all in your bets (Except for Lebowski whose bets directly contradict mine in a couple cases)

Good stuff. Two top fights lived up to the billing.

I'm not spoiling anything.

Also, I think Faber needs to fight Pulver, there is nobody else left in that division, I think.

Ship the boomsauce. Parlay the Titans tomorrow?

JC, how bad was the knee that caused Irvin to quit?

Also, the only bet I was kinda sketchy about was the Sanchez bet because I had never laid eyes on Palalei and he looked pretty fricking stacked. As soon as he took a completely unnecessary amount of time to recover from that phantom knee to the groin I knew I was golden. You could easily tell that guy did not want to be in that fight.

I really wish they had time to show that Carneiro fight. From MMAJunkie's pbp it sounded like it was complete domination.

Very good card. GSP looked so dominating he has to be a close second to Silva(Anderson) as a top pound for pound. He threw the wrestler around like a rag doll. Lidell looked solid tonight and I gotta say that Silva has a solid chin and alot of heart. That upercut the broke Palelei's nose was gruesome on the replay you could see his eye almost instaly swell up big time. I loved it when Clement tapped out Guillard and Guillard then decided to act like a tough guy, funny stuff. Soko looked like shit. The next fight that I am really looking forward to is Silva/Henderson. Of coursr I will deffinatly also be intrested what Lesnar looks like as a MMA fighter before the Superbowl.


Edit: Did yopu get that Liddel/Silva going the distance bet in JC?

I shit the bed on Hughes and Sok, hit on Clementi as a huge dog and Liddell as a small dog...not a bad night, not a great one either.

I have NEVER seen a fighter look so demoralized as Sok did before the 2nd round started. He wanted a way out of the fight, Machida gave it to him. When was the last time we saw a finish via side choke in the UFC? Pathetic, pathetic display.

Then Palelei comes out and shits the bed again for Team Quest...both those fighters looked incredibly scared and neither tried to really do much of anything. Absolutely pathetic night for Team Quest.

I hope JC put some money down on the Silva/Liddell prop bet- he's the only one who seemed to think that was a good bet, and he was obviously right.

Liddell had a strange game plan in that fight, but a very effective one. In the 2nd and especially the 3rd round he initiated the wild swinging matches, connected a couple times early, and then retreated so Silva could flail away at the air instead of trying to finish. Then added the takedowns to steal the 2nd round and the 3rd if needed on the scorecards. Very interesting, and very smart.

Edit: I think I just decided to put some serious money on Anderson Silva over Dan Henderson...Hendo looked super bored in both fights and did little to motivate his guys other than dropping the F bomb a bunch of times...meh.