Thiago Alves vs. Matt Hughes

The one upset pick of the evening comes in this matchup between the legend Matt Hughes and the up-and-coming talent in Thiago Alves. Much has been made about Hughes’s age and abilities in the cage recently, but I still believe his wrestling style can cause a lot of trouble for Alves. The only real problem for Hughes is that his standup skills are going to be far less dynamic than Thiago’s combinations.

Alves has devastating leg kicks that can halt Hughes’s ground game by weakening him to just standing instead of shooting for takedowns. If Hughes can manage a takedown, he’ll have to rely on his power to hold top control. It’s been questioned recently if Hughes still has that power, and this is the fight he needs to prove it.

Classic striker vs. wrestler in this matchup, and I’m going to take Alves via TKO. It’s a risky pick, but someone’s got to do it.

Leland’s Prediction: Thiago Alves via TKO/KO, Round 2
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Brandon Vera vs. Fabricio Werdum

I’ve flip-flopped my pick on this for quite some time now, and it’s time to put up or shut up. Brandon Vera will be my pick here for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, he’ll have the striking advantage on his feet with the added bonus of likely being lighter and having better footwork. He has some range to his strikes and being technically better will only help his stake at a win if it goes to the judges.

Secondly, I think Brandon Vera can avoid the submission on the ground if it goes there. While I think it’ll be tough for Werdum to get inside to take down Vera, Vera should be able to work some ground tactics himself to get the fight back to standing.

I’d love to pick Werdum here, but the striking war that could happen in this fight heavily favors Vera’s dynamic skillset in that department. He employs great combinations and kicks to keep his opponent guessing and off guard.

Leland’s Prediction: Brandon Vera via decision
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Marcus Davis vs. Mike Swick

As I stated in the past, I’m picking Marcus Davis in this fight. Swick has never impressed me with his gameplans or skillset in any fight. He’s a rangy striker with some power, but Davis will counter with a boxing background, awesome power, and the ability to work the ground game with his strength.

While I think Swick’s submission chokes have a shot at catching Davis trying to put Swick to the mat, Davis’s best attribute to counter would be the muscle he’s gained since moving into the UFC. I’m not inclined to believe Swick can catch him in a hold, and it would be more likely that Davis escapes to crush Swick on the floor.

In any case, I don’t see Davis having problems with Swick’s hands. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Davis could catch Swick with his heavy hands and put this one away quickly.

Leland’s Prediction: Marcus Davis via TKO/KO, Round 2
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Michael Bisping vs. Jason Day

I have a tough time picking Michael Bisping in almost every single fight I have to analyze featuring him. While I believe he possesses some solid MMA skills, I don’t think he will be able to compete near the top of the 185 pound division. I will, however, put my faith in his matchup for Saturday.

While Day has some great power in his hands, Bisping should have the all-around better skillset to defeat Day. Bisping will have more cardio, better technical standup, good takedown defense, and an uncanny ability to get himself out of horrible positions.

I expect Bisping to avoid Day’s power and work his technical boxing. I’m sure we’ll see Day try for an onslaught of strikes, but that could prove to be tough against Bisping’s range and Muay Thai training. Look for Bisping to pepper Day to a decision.

Leland’s Prediction: Michael Bisping via unanimous decision
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Quick Picks
Martin Kampmann vs. Jorge Rivera: Battle of two dynamic strikers, Rivera is coming off a win over Kendall Grove while Kampmann is finally making his return to the cage since defeating McFedries back in March of 2007. Kampmann will have some good striking as well as some slick grappling on the ground. He has an all-around toolkit to take care of Rivera. Kampmann via submission, Round 1

Nate Marquardt vs. Thales Leites: Huge step up in competition for Leites, and I don’t believe he can overcome the power of Marquardt. While both guys will be very good on the ground, I think Leites will have problems overcoming Marquardt’s conditioning and power. Marquardt via decision

Thiago Tavares vs. Matt Wiman: Thiago will have a much better ground game than Wiman, but Wiman probably has some better standup skills slightly. Wiman has never been impressive to me in his past fights, and he has a tendency to play defense late in the fight far too much. Tavares should be able to get this to the ground and to the submission quickly. Tavares via submission, Round 1

Jess Liaudin vs. Paul Taylor: I’m a bit of a fan of Taylor with his good striking skills and footwork in the cage. He also has a style that keeps coming forward, and he can take some punishment as well. Liaudin has never impressed me, and his chin is susceptible to the knockout. He has some ground game that could be dangerous, but Taylor should win this one. Taylor via decision

Jason Lambert vs. Luiz Cane: While Cane still has some impressive knockout power, he’s going to have a tough time against Jason Lambert’s mauling style on the ground. Lambert was well on his way to victory against Wilson Gouveia until he showed some sloppy standup. I don’t think he’ll make the same mistake twice. Lambert via TKO/KO, Round 2

Roan Carneiro vs. Kevin Burns: Carneiro is a BJJ black belt and is currently training at American Top Team as of Jan. 14th of this year. Look for him to begin shaping his game up to defeat these lesser opponents that the UFC is feeding him. Carneiro via submission, Round 1

Antoni Hardonk vs. Eddie Sanchez:  An evenly matched fight between two heavyweights that likely won’t be making any waves anytime soon. Hardonk is coming off an impressive win over Colin Robinson in just :17 seconds while Sanchez won a war with Aussie Soa Palelei. Hardonk should have the better standup while Sanchez will have some wrestling to draw from. I still think Hardonk can outstrike Sanchez and finish this one. Hardonk via TKO/KO, Round 1

Yahoo! Sports columnist Kevin Iole provided us with some quotes from Matt Hughes this week regarding his fight with Georges St. Pierre and his upcoming battle with Thiago Alves that I found to be vintage Matt Hughes:

On Alves: “To be honest, I like the matchup,” Hughes said. “He’s a stand-up guy. On the ground, he’s not nearly as dangerous. I’ll be stronger, I believe I’ll be the better wrestler and I like the fact he’s kind of a slow starter. I think I can wear him out before he gets going.”

On St. Pierre: “I got into a couple of positions I wanted to be in and I didn’t pull the trigger,” Hughes said. “Walking away from the octagon that night, I said to myself, ‘That wasn’t me. Obviously, Georges is a tremendous fighter, but I had a real bad night at the same time he had a real good night. When that happens, you saw what the result can be. But I did get into some good positions and I saw some things, but I couldn’t do what I knew I needed to do.”

I want to ask this question… did Matt Hughes simply have a bad night in the Octagon or is St. Pierre just that dominating in the UFC’s Welterweight division? In my opinion, it wasn’t just a terrible night for Matt Hughes in the Octagon, but a different Georges St. Pierre.

Some people have claimed that St. Pierre has become gun shy in the standup game while others claim that his superior ground skills are the easiest way for him to win each fight. Regardless, it doesn’t really matter what you perceive to be the reason he has become a crushing force on the ground. He still wins fights in unbelievably impressive fashion against top competition. Matt Hughes found that out, and I’m hesitant to believe that a “bad night” was the culprit of such an embarrassing performance by Hughes.

For Hughes, that’s exactly what he has probably called it a thousand times… embarrassing. But was it really that embarrassing? He was clearly outclassed, outpowered, and outmatched in every aspect of that fight. Do we simply chalk it up to a poor gameplan and bad night for Hughes? I don’t believe so, and I think if it were to happen a second time, it’d be much of the same power and punishment by St. Pierre.

What about Thiago Alves? Does Hughes possess the wrestling skills to make it a hard night for Alves? He does in fact possess that skill, but his quote above rubs me the wrong way in a similar way to what Parisyan stated leading up to his fight with Alves. A lot of fans underestimate Alves’s potential, and luckily for me, I’ve always found his combinations to be truly devastating to any type of fighter in that cage. There is a reason he’s known as “The Pitbull”.

Hughes is correct in that Alves won’t be as dangerous on the ground, but his leg kicks are absolutely devastating in every fight he takes. He can literally make your lead leg mush within the first round of a fight, and his power is being underestimated by Hughes. Slow starter or not, Alves still has great Muay Thai striking that could create a huge problem for Hughes. Let’s hope Hughes doesn’t have another “bad night”.

Get ready, fans! This could very well be one of the most exciting cards put together by the UFC in quite some time. UFC Fight Night 13 will take place on Wednesday night from Broomfield Event Center in Broomfield, Colorado, and it will feature a highly anticipated matchup between Kenny Florian and Joe Lauzon. Thiago Alves will also make a step up in competition against Karo Pariysan, and the event will feature well known names such as Matt Hamill, Houston Alexander, Gray Maynard, Frankie Edgar, Din Thomas, Clay Guida, and recent TUF contestants George Sotiropoulous, Roman Mitichyan, Tommy Speer. This could very well be the “Stacked” event we've all been waiting for. Props to Fightlinker for pushing the idea of making this event a 3 hour live televised card. The UFC won't acknowledge it, but I will. Great job, FL.

Before we get to my picks and Joe's predictions, let me just say.. I'm crazy for picking the fights I did, but I felt that there were some solid upset picks in the bunch.

Main Event: Joe Lauzon vs. Kenny Florian

This is a battle that I've been waiting for since it was announced. Kenny Florian's last seven battles have featured the former TUF contestant against some formidable opponents as he progressed up through the ranks. The climax was his loss to Sean Sherk at UFC 64, but he honorably took the fight to decision against a full load in Sherk. After the loss, he defeated Dokonjonosuke Mishima, a tough and explosive Alvin Robinson, and was putting the elbows on Din Thomas before he suffered a blown knee. Riding a three-win streak, Florian will be looking to stop the up-and-coming Joe Lauzon, and potentially win himself a title shot against BJ Penn.

Lauzon has been on a tear recently. He's won his last six fights in finishing fashion with a huge knockout win over former UFC lightweight champion Jens Pulver. The only real problem that Lauzon has had is that the level of competition he has faced has been subpar since Pulver. Melendez wasn't suited well against Lauzon's grappling, and Reinhardt's record was padded with horribly lopsided competition. Lauzon has the striking power in his hands and some excellent boxing skills, but Florian can counter his grappling and has some decent boxing himself. Florian is also very well versed in using his elbows in the ground and pound, and he's as tough as they come. This should be one exciting battle.

Without letting my biased get in the way too much, I'm admittedly a big Joe Lauzon fan. IT geek turned MMA fighter, who doesn't love it? On a purely analytical basis, Lauzon is great in most areas of mixed martial arts. He has great standup, good ground and pound, and can be controlling on the ground. Florian also has similar skills, and I don't believe Lauzon will be able to completely control him. The x-factor here is Lauzon's training at BJ Penn's facility in Hilo, Hawaii. Could it potentially have improved significantly enough to nullify the ground game? I think Lauzon has some ways to end this fight in which Florian may not be able to unless he can catch Lauzon in a submission.

Leland's Prediction: Joe Lauzon via submission, Round 3

This is an extremely close match-up between two above-average fighters. Florian has the better stand-up, but Lauzon has the better wrestling. Lauzon isn’t great at any one thing, but he is good at everything. Lauzon has decent striking, some decent power, good wrestling, and some ferocious ground-and-pound. Florian has good Muay Thai, and is a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-JJitsu. I think Joe will stand with Kenny for a while until he sees an opening to take a shot. From there he will look to work his ground-and-pound, but he will need to avoid Florian’s submissions. I think Joe’s training with BJ Penn will help him on the ground en route to a unanimous decision.

Joe's Prediction: Joe Lauzon via unanimous decision

Karo Parisyan vs. Thiago Alves

Karo has a bit of a task ahead of him in this one. Parisyan has been known recently for winning some weak decisions that were fairly uneventful. Parisyan has some big problems in this fight though, and it's evident if we look at his track record. Parisyan hasn't faced huge power in his last few fights, in fact, his last nine fights haven't featured overwhelming striking. Lytle and Serra could have been seen as potential forces in the standup game, but Serra is mainly a big puncher who hopes for the lucky blow while Lytle was winning his way to decisions back when Parisyan took him on. This will definitely test Parisyan's abilities to avoid the big shots.

Alves has unbelievable Muay Thai strikes, devastating leg kicks, and great striking even when he's backpedaling from danger. I'm going to pick Alves in the upset because of his destructive striking. He finishes fights in crushing fashion, and if Karo allows the fight to go into the later rounds, he has much less of a chance of defeating Parisyan.

Leland's Prediction: Thiago Alves via TKO/KO, Round 2

Alves has done something that is nearly impossible to do: he stopped Christ Lytle in his last fight. However, I don’t think he’s ready for “The Heat.” Karo is extremely durable and brings a relentless attack throughout the fight. In fact, he has only been stopped twice in his career, both by former lightweight champion Sean Sherk. Alves doesn’t have the wrestling to control Karo, and Karo will use his wild stand-up to close the distance and unleash his unique judo game. Fortunately for Karo, I think this is a fight he can actually finish. Expect a submission late in the fight, most likely by kimura.

Joe's Prediction: Karo Parisyan via submission, Round 3

Tim Boestch vs. Matt Hamill

After a long weekend of uneventful MMA news, a log fell off the wagon that is the UFC. On Friday, Matt Serra was announced as sustaining a herniated disc injury that would keep him from defending his UFC welterweight title against Matt Hughes on December 29th. From an exclusive interview done by MMAWeekly, it was confirmed today that Serra did sustain two lower back herniated discs and will be out for quite some time with an injury of that magnitude.

With nearly every end of the year card comes the anticipation of a great night of great fights. This was definitely the matchup that many fans wanted to see and the UFC needed to repair the lost luster. Initial reports had Thiago Alves and Jon Fitch in the mix, but the spectacular announcement that Georges St. Pierre would take the bout created the rubber match that Hughes would eventually have to fight if he had retaken the belt. Without a doubt, this is also a fight that would line up St. Pierre for a title shot, but without the lengthy layoff that he had been anticipating.

A bit more backstory to the announcement revealed conflicting reports on how the matchup eventually happened. Hughes stated on his website that he requested Pierre because he wanted to avoid a matchup in front of Pierre's fanbase in Canada. Hughes will also have a training advantage in that Pierre has around 4-5 weeks to train, with a week of downtime toward the fight date. Dave Meltzer over at Yahoo! Sports stated that Pierre had initially called the UFC to stick his name into the mix of potential fighters. Fitch was the first to come up, but he had too much weight on at the moment to drop the weight before the bout. Fitch's camp suggested Koscheck, but the UFC skipped on that and decided to put Pierre back in the mix. Whether Pierre or Hughes convinced the UFC to create the matchup, it shortens the time considerable for a rubber match that many people felt would have happened anyway.

Interim Titles?

When the Georges St. Pierre vs. Matt Hughes fight was announced on Saturday evening, the "interim" title was tagged onto the event and uproar ensued. Why is this an interim title fight? Is Matt Serra going to be out for that long? Is the injury so bad that it could stop him from fighting? The immediate possibilities coming out of the announcement were everywhere. The truth of the matter is much more beneficial to the fans that most people think.

What is one of the biggest things that we've seen coming from some of the recent main events in the UFC? Close decisions. Case in point, UFC 78 had the TUF Alumni matchup in Rashad Evans and Michael Bisping that needed to be longer in order to decide who clearly won the fight. My intuition makes me believe that Evans would have completely gassed with two more rounds declaring Bisping the winner if he worked any kind of boxing at all. These more lengthy bouts could cause many big name fights to avoid the dreaded draw or controversial decision. By the regulations of most commissions, non-championship bouts are required to not exceed more than 3 rounds. How can you solve that problem? Slap a "Interim Title" tag onto the fight and your problem has been solved. Tell the commission that Serra's back injury is too risky to keep the belt in limbo and create the interim bout. This will allow for the end of the year rubber match between Hughes and Pierre to be a 5 round battle.

To be honest, this is actually a good decision. Although I hate the interim title tag on this fight, I do agree that this fight needs to be 5 rounds. I also want to make the case that all main event fights should be five rounds, although that would take some dealing with the commissions to make happen. This is a chance to see an epic battle between two great competitors, and nobody should be mad about the title tag on the fight. Enjoy it because the UFC somehow managed to get us 2 extra rounds of action.

The Ever-Changing Welterweight Picture

With Serra possibly out for 3 or more months without training, we could see Serra out for about 6+ months if he can't do much for the first 3 months with the injury. Add in time for training to get his strength and technique back, and then add in the training for a matchup, it could be quite some time before we see the "Interim" champion against the "Real" champion. Who else is in the picture?

Certainly, all the names that were mentioned as replacements must be in the mix. Karo Parisyan is the one name not mentioned due to his recent victory over Ryo Chonan. Parisyan won the fight despite walking into the matchup with a broken hand. Parisyan has been waiting for a title shot since his title shot last November in which he got injured during training. He has since been sitting on the shelf awaiting his next chance at the title and it looks as if he may get it soon enough.

Other fighters in the mix are Jon Fitch, Josh Koscheck, and apparently Thiago Alves. Fitch has been on a tremendous tear, winning 14 straight fights with his most recent over Diego Sanchez. I think Fitch still needs another top contender fight and with Josh Koscheck on a recent loss to George St. Pierre, Fitch vs. Koscheck seems like a possibility as well. The UFC is rumored to have both fighters on the UFC 82 card, but against separate opponents. Thiago Alves's name came up as a late replacement as well, but he just recently defeated Chris Lytle in UFC 78 in a controversial fight that had many fans scratching their heads as to why the fight was stopped due to a cut that didn't appear to be that bad. Alves has been fairly impressive, but hasn't faced a top 5 contender yet. He will surely be tested in his next fight. The possibility that he may be one of the mystery opponents for UFC 82 is there as well.

Matt Serra should be back!

Let's be honest, if we polled the MMA community on the outcome of the upcoming card, the lopsidedness of the Serra vs. Hughes matchup would be fairly obvious. Many fans attribute Hughes's legendary status, wealth of experience, and overall brute strength as big keys to his success in the cage and to the success of a win over Matt Serra. I'm still not convinced that Serra is an easy matchup for Matt Hughes, and that was mainly the reason why I was a bit bummed to hear the Matt Serra had become injured.

The one reason I was giving Matt Serra a chance, and the one reason many people hate Matt Serra is because he's a fighter who can make the fight last. Many fans hate the fact that he can make fights lengthy, he can make fights stagnant, but he can also avoid being demolished by opponents that seem to have an overwhelming advantage over him. This was one distinct advantage I though Serra had, that he is tough to knockout and he would have made a go at taking the fight to the distance. Again, Hughes doesn't have terrible cardio and he's still a much more powerful fighter in my opinion. So how would have Serra mastered that aspect of Matt Hughes?

Add the fact that Serra's ju-jitsu skills have been known to be great at times, it makes for a lot of possibilities that fans may not be seeing. Case in point, Hughes has been susceptible to flexible ju-jitsu opponents on the ground. BJ Penn and Dennis Hallman are two names that come to mind immediately. Hughes seems to have a weakness for slick ju-jitsu games, and depending on which Matt Serra shows up, he could provide some tough technique to counter. Although I believe Hughes still wins that matchup by power, I think it would have been much closer than people would think. Either way, I think Serra will recover and be back to prove that he can hang with some of the best.

Final Thoughts

Regardless of what you thought about Matt Serra's TUF performance or his lackluster boring fights during his TUF stint, fact of the matter is, Matt Serra always has a chance to win if he can extend the length of a fight. His ju-jitsu and flexibility on the ground pose threats to someone like Matt Hughes who has been susceptible in the past to that type of fighter. Although I think Hughes wins it by pure strength, I think the fans are giving less credit to Serra than he deserves. Give the guy a chance, he did beat St. Pierre is a fight that was considered one of the most lopsided easy wins for Pierre and probably a gold mine fight for the UFC.

Don't complain about the interim title tag, embrace it! After all, it's giving us two extra rounds of fighting for essentially another name for a #1 contender tag. Whoever wins the fight is the #1 contender. If you can put up with casual fans saying Pierre or Hughes is the champion for a few months without really knowing what has been going on, then it's not a big deal. If you are the MMA elitist who MUST outknowledge every fan in your path, welcome to hell. Fact is, the UFC found a loophole to get a longer fight for the end of the year event, and it was a nice find indeed. It allows for the possibility of an epic bout between two great combatants.

Lastly, the UFC's welterweight divisions looks to be fairly healthy coming into the new year. With 3 or 4 up-and-coming fighters beginning to look in on the mix at the top, we have some potential matchups for the title shaping up as well as a plethora of possibilities for contendership bouts and bouts to determine who gets into the top-tier of the welterweight division. It's looking to be very healthy in the Welterweight division of the UFC.

MMA-Analyst.com had an illness this past weekend, a very horrible fever, that sidelined me from writing or responding to emails. I'm finally out of that horrendous ordeal and will be answering all of your emails and comments this week.

UFC 78: Validation will roll into the Prudential Arena in Newark, New Jersey on Saturday night. The card features a main event between two TUF winners, Rashad Evans and Michael Bisping. In a light heavyweight matchup, Houston Alexander will be looking to continue his domination of the division by taking on a heavy handed Thiago Silva. Spencer Fisher also looks to keep a good thing going in an explosive battle with Frankie Edgar. The card also features a number of good undercard matchups that should either excite the crowd or bore the fans to death, we'll see who shows up to win. Let's take an in-depth look into what many consider the UFC's weakest card to date, but take a closer look and you may find some gems.

Rashad Evans vs. Michael “The Count” Bisping

Arguably, both of these fighters could definitely cut down to Middleweight and make the division worth a damn, but instead we will see both fighters try to make a run at moving themselves up toward the upper heap in the Light Heavyweight division. Rashad comes into the bout sporting a 10-0-1 record, but has yet to fight any of the top competition. His last bout against Tito Ortiz caused a small controversy due to Ortiz grabbing the fence causing the score for the round to be a draw. Ortiz won the first round 10-9 and lost the last round 9-10 to Evans. It caused the fight to end in a draw and a promise of a rematch. It's rumored that the winner of this matchup will fight Ortiz.

Bisping is also coming off a controversial fight that is considered one of the worst decisions by a judging crew in MMA this year. Many fans believe Matt Hamill won their matchup at UFC 75. Bisping also comes into this matchup with an undefeated record of 14-0, but like Evans, hasn't fought top competition.

This battle will be a matchup of conflicting styles to an extent. Bisping definitely would rather stand and Rashad seems to like to work the standup enough to set up his wrestling abilities. Bisping showed some good boxing technique against Hamill and seems to have improved his standup significantly, but he showed hesitation in running through Hamill because he was a wrestler. We could see the same thing from Bisping in this battle unless he somehow works on being aggressive against a wrestler. Obviously, he wasn't comfortable in his abilities enough to get into the zone of a wrestler in his last bout, but Hamill didn't try to do much when taking down Bisping. Bisping also had zero takedown defense against Hamill. It should definitely be a gauge for Bisping to learn from. Evans has some decent standup with a combination of kicks and punching. His defense is okay, but his wrestling ability will be the skill that could propel him to win this fight.

My pick for this fight will be Rashad Evans based on the pure fact that Bisping's sprawl was non-existent in his last bout. I believe Evans will shoot his hips and put Bisping to the floor pretty quickly, and I don't think Bisping has the massive power to knockout Evans very quickly. Bisping has knocked fighters out, but in the UFC, he remains cautious. He doesn't want to overextend his stride and get caught or get taken down quickly. Rashad doesn't really have finishing power, so I'll take him by decision

Pick: Rashad Evans by Unanimous Decision.

Houston Alexander vs. Thiago Silva

Houston is somewhat of a sensation in the UFC currently. He came in to fight Keith Jardine as a late replacement likely to lose to Jardine and ended up spectacularly knocking him out instantly. His raw power is uncanny in providing him knockouts. His last bout against Alessio Sakara proved to be a quick fight and wasn't entirely a test to Alexander's abilities. Alessio came out before the battle stating he was going to try to fight with Houston's strength because he felt he had a better boxing game. Bad idea playing into Houston's strength. Will Thiago have a better gameplan?

Silva, if you hadn't noticed, is a Chute Box fighter, hence the last name. Like many of the Chute Box fighters, he possesses some outstanding Muay Thai skills and a good ju-jitsu base on the ground. Silva is the type of opponent the UFC looks to be setting up for Houston to punch out. Although Silva has some great standup, Houston's power could be a potential problem for Silva. Interestingly enough, many people said that about Tomasz Drwal. I found it odd how people picked Drwal who seemed to have horrible standup, but a ton of power. Drwal's looping punches were evident in many of the fights leading up to the bout and it almost seemed as if he was just swinging for the fence with no regard as to how he would defend the counter. Silva took advantage. Houston seems to have a better gameplan for strikers though. If he can't catch you standing, he will catch you in the clinch. Silva has had some impressive battles, but I believe Alexander's strength will be no match. The X factor is Alexander's cardio. Will he be able to continue battle if it hits the second round?

Pick: Houston Alexander via first round (T)KO.

Frank “The Answer” Edgar vs. Spencer “The King” Fisher

A battle of a couple of bangers, this fight looks to have the makings of a great back and forth battle. Fisher has experience on his side sporting a veteran record of 20-3, Edgar is fairly new with a 7-0 record. I'll make this a brief breakdown since I'm rather interested in seeing how this fight will pan out because it's a fairly tough battle to determine. Both fighters are very well-rounded, tough as nails, and have had some very good success. Edgar took out Bocek recently at UFC 73 and a very tough Tyson Griffin at UFC 67. Fisher is coming off an exciting battle against Sam Stout at UFN 10.

This is going to come down to who can outstrike their opponent before they decide to hit the mat, if they do at all. Fisher is unbelievably tough to beat and has only been stopped once, the other two losses being by decision. Edgar seems to also be the type of fighter who has a tendency to go the distance much like Fisher has done recently. I believe Fisher's experience, toughness, and overall ability to recover should push him through on this one.

Pick: Spencer Fisher via Unanimous Decision.

Karo “The Heat” Parisyan vs. Ryo “Piranha” Chonan

Finally, Karo will fight again and try to make a claim that he deserves a damn title shot already. He comes into this fight at 17-5 with a long layover after his fight with Josh Burkman at UFC 71 in which he made Burkman miss haymakers nearly the entire fight. Pariysan is strictly a judo fighter who loves to put down the hip toss in his matches and dominate his opponent with ground work and fleet footedness. He isn’t overly powerful and has in fact won 7 out of his last 9 fights via decision. To be perfectly honest, I’m not a huge fan of Pariysan for the mere fact that I believe he will get overwhelmed at the top of the heap. He seems to have a great way of avoiding damage, but can’t deal out enough damage to stop an opponent, leaving open the possibility of being beaten in later rounds. Will he be able to stop the “Piranha” from defeating him? I believe he can.

Chonan is a veteran ex-PRIDE fighter with a background in judo. He is most famous for being completely dominated by Anderson Silva in their PRIDE Shockwave 2004 matchup, but somehow pulling off one of the most difficult submissions in the flying scissor heel hook. Quite an impressive fight. Chonan has problems with power as evident in his losses to Dan Henderson and Phil Baroni, and he’s susceptible to the better submission fighters as evident in his loss to Paulo Filho. He was beaten inside the first round by the Brazilian ju-jitsu expert. Although he’s taken some big losses to some strong opponents, Chonan is fairly well-rounded with decent striking skills and an overall excellent judo game. He’s a bit small at 185, but he will be bigger since he is dropping down to 170 for the UFC. Look for him to have a bit more power and size on Parisyan.

A tough matchup indeed. I believe Chonan has the judo skills to really stop Parisyan from moving in on him for big hip tosses and judo moves that could temporarily put Chonan in bad positions. Parisyan is still very well rounded and active in his fights early. Parisyan should be able to keep working Chonan tired and end the fight in a decision win. It’ll be interesting to see if Parisyan shows up with some more power since he’s been off for months and hopefully gaining strength and training during that time.

Pick: Karo Parisyan via Unanimous Decision.

Thiago “Pitbull” Alves vs. Chris “Lights Out” Lytle

Alves is an American Top Team prospect with power in his hands. He has 7 fights in the UFC, 5 wins, with his most notable victories over John Alessio, Tony DeSouza, and Kuniyoshi Hironaka. He has some hard striking that could overwhelm the veteran Chris Lytle. Lytle has been around for quite awhile. He’s a very good submission expert with a number of losses against some big name fighters, but he has been able to been nearly everyone that isn’t near the top of the heap. He’s lost to Matt Hughes and Matt Serra most recently, both by decision. He’s only been stopped once in his 14 losses, losing 13 by decision, making a statement for Lytle’s longevity in his fights.

Alves’s main weakness is his submission defense. In two of his losses, he suffered submissions to Spencer Fisher and Derrick Noble. Problem is, Alves’s power is a huge factor for Lytle, but Lytle seems to avoid the big punches and take the fight to the ground. This is going to be my small upset pick of the night, I’m going to go with Chris Lytle via submission.

Pick: Chris Lytle via submission, second round.

The UFC storms into the Palms in Las Vegas fresh off a spectacular UFC 75 event that featured the unification of the Light Heavyweight Championship,  a destruction of one of the best PRIDE Heavyweight strikers in the MMA world,  and a few surprises from some up and coming fighters such as Houston Alexander and Marcus Davis. What can we expect from the UFC for this Fight Night card on Wednesday night? From the looks of it, we can definitely look forward to such matchups as Kenny Florian vs. Din Thomas and Terry Martin vs. Chris Leben. Also, we will have a number of appearances from The Ultimate Fighter 5 contestants Gray Maynard and Cole Miller as well as the TUF 5 Winner, Nate Diaz. The UFC has put some solid fights on a card that is the precursor to The Ultimate Fighter 6 Season and UFC 76 on Saturday. Let’s take an in-depth look at the UFN 11 fight card.