With our recent prediction success in the latest few events and my miraculous domination of the MMAPlayground.com Secondary League's wagering contest, here's a little status update on our small success in predicting one of the toughest cards that the UFC has put out in quite some time from a perspective of potential upsets.

Leland Roling - 9/10 (Picked Cummo over Fioravanti)
Joe Schmitt - 8/10 (Picked Henderson, Cummo)

Overall, we didn't do a bad job considering my reluctance to pick favorites on the undercard and lower main card fights. I had some real problems picking Jon Fitch over Chris Wilson for the mere fact that Wilson's striking was much better... and it showed. Wilson's standup nearly put the daze in Fitch's step and could have potentially put an end to Fitch's long streak of wins. Fitch turned to what he knows best, and that's his dominant wrestling on the ground. For the most part, Wilson did a good job neutralizing it early. As the fight wore on however, it was obvious that Wilson grew more tired and more susceptible to punches while on his back. It wasn't an overly impressive performance by Fitch, but it got the job done.

Sanchez vs. Bielkheden was another tough call for me. Bielkheden has some solid credentials and a BTT background. He's fairly strong, a good wrestler, and has some solid ground and pound skills that I thought could possibly overwhelm Sanchez. The early week reports that Sanchez had been back to powerlifting and improving his overall strength led me to my decision to pick Diego based on the fact that he would probably be able to hold Bielkheden down and pound him. Fortunately, he was able to use his power to pound Bielkheden into submission late in the first round.

I expected Hazelett to be a problem for Koscheck due to his vast jiu-jitsu ground game, but the standup war that ensued caught me off guard and made me nervous in my pick to stick with Koscheck. Koscheck did however come out with some much better striking than I had anticipated, but I thought it would have improved enough for him to get the TKO win, which was exactly what happened.

The toughest pick of the evening was Heath Herring over Cheick Kongo. I honestly didn't know what type of Kongo would show up to the arena on Saturday. I've been a strong believer that the French MMA scene just isn't upgrading with the rest of the MMA world. French Top Team specifically needs to refocus on other skillsets instead of a heavy emphasis on Muay Thai. Herring, without any ground training leading up to the fight, was able to show the big weakness in Kongo's game. Kongo was virtually defenseless in side control, and it completely lost him this fight. Herring's "in your face" rushes when the action was stood up were brilliant in closing the distance and keeping Kongo from unloading. Herring did a great job despite the lack of ground training.

Silva was a tough pick for everyone that I talked to, but from the get go, I was really leaning toward Silva for one reason alone. I thought he had more tools in his bag of skills to finish Henderson. His striking was much better and his ground game was at least on par with Henderson as far as defending against potential ground and pound from Henderson. People believed in the Henderson hype regarding his top control wrestling, but many forget that he had problems in PRIDE with keeping little Japanese fighters down on the ground. His wrestling was impressive in the first round, but I kept rethinking his fights in PRIDE and knowing that Anderson could slip from Henderson's top control eventually as the fight went on. We never got a chance to see any of that happen however. Silva's striking dominated and eventually caught Henderson. That's what ended the fight. Henderson losing via rear naked choke was only the result of Silva's dynamic striking on his feet.

Overall event thoughts

I wasn't overly impressed with the event. Silva vs. Henderson lived up to the much anticipated hype as I was very excited to finally get the main event going. The fights leading up to the main event were a bit lackluster in my mind. Herring vs. Kongo was a decent scrap. It had some chess match aspects on the ground, but overall, I was disappointed in the level of competition that Kongo was perceived as being before the fight. He really looked green on the ground, and his legacy was being touted as the next big striker in the Heavyweight division.

Leben has turned into a darkhorse candidate for being one of the more exciting fighters in the UFC. People love to hate him at times, but he loves to put on a show for the fans. What's not to like about that?

Koscheck and Sanchez both looked strong in their returns to the cage. We could see a potential move up for both fighters, but Koscheck is a free agent now. Will the UFC make an attempt to re-sign him? Look out, EliteXC could be knocking on the door.

Overall, the event was decent, but nothing special to talk about. I think it'll reflect in the buy numbers just as it already has in the live gate numbers. It wasn't a huge success, but it was successful nonetheless. The Ultimate Fight Night show in April should provide the much needed jolt of fireworks that we as MMA fans are looking forward to.