It’s a ridiculously stacked card. The co-main event and the Bader vs. Jones fight could easily be main events themselves and here in Brazil many people are calling Anderson vs. Vitor the fight of the century (boxing isn’t that big around here anymore). There are 4 former champions fighting as well as the current middleweight champ and a probable future champion in Jon Jones. The longest winning streak in UFC history is on the line. We’ll be having a lot of people over here in my house to watch the fights and even some of my friends who don’t usually care that much about mma are excited about it.
Is anybody here in the dope gonna watch it? What are your predictions and who are your favorites?
I’m hoping Vitor can do it, but expect Anderson to win easily. Vitor is fast, accurate and very powerful, but Anderson’s the best fighter in the world in my opinion. Vitor’s only chances are to either catch Anderson with a blitz in the first 2 rounds or go for takedowns and finish it by ground and pound before the end of the third. I can’t imagine either guy submitting the other and am sure that if this goes to the championship rounds Vitor’ll have lost already.
For the rest of the card I expect no upsets, though I’ll be cheering for Rocha over Ellenberger and think Bader will be much tougher for Jones to defeat than most people believe.
Many do. Interesting that Jones is the betting favorite against Shogun in the opening odds, especially since he’s taking the fight on six weeks notice. Then again, there is the question of Rua’s knee which evens it up a bit.
I think Pride-era Shogun is one of the few 205ers who could give Jones a run from his money.
I think UFC-era Shogun is going to get steamrolled.
And if he does, it will once and for all prove my theory that Chuck put a curse on that belt before giving it up. Maybe Jones is the chosen one that the strap has been waiting for.
Did they say Silva’s got another fight scheduled in a month or so? I think at this point, they’re going to run out of people for him to fight without handicapping him- no automatic disqualifications post-fight, fighting up another weight class, two guys at once, indian strap match. The guy seems unstoppable, though I will admit that his fights have been starting out pretty slowly lately.
He’s fighting GSP is Georges beats Jake Shields (which . . . come on . . . although to be fair the last time I said that Matt Serra pounded him through the floor).
Heh yeah. I don’t want to be the guy that jinxes GSP, but he seemed to learn a very important lesson in that match against Serra, and hasn’t come out making the same mistakes again.
That’s a tough match to call or decide who to root for. I love GSP, so I’d probably go with him. But on the other hand, I love it when there’s an unstoppable knockout king around, and Silva is that guy.
I thought Ace would win over Griffin and while I did expect Jones to win, I did believe Bader would put up a much harder fight.
I know I’m alone in this, but I think that the Shogun who fought Machida was better than his Pride days younger self. Pride Shogun was much more flashy, but most of those flashy moves missed. When he fought Machida he seemed to me as devastating as he was back then but much more patient and controlled.
To me the question mark is in what shape he’ll be after the new surgery. He looked awful when he fought Griffin and Coleman, so we’ll have to wait and see. I do believe that if he’s in the same shape he was when he fought Lyoto he’ll smoke Jones. Jones is the future (assuming he can continue fighting at 205) but Shogun is a striker and a jiu-jitsu player the likes of which Jones hasn’t fought yet. I don’t think he’ll be ready for all the offense that Rua can bring to the fight.
If Anderson does end up fighting GSP it’ll be very late this year or even at the beginning of 2012. I don’t believe Georges can put on enough muscle mass in less time. GSP has repeatedly stated that if he does go up to middleweight then it’ll be for keeps and that he’d have to have enough time to bulk up in a healthy fashion.
I keep feeling sorry for Yushin Okami, who won a number 1 contender match last November. I think he’s a very worthy challenger but he just can’t compete with a Silva-GSP mega-fight.
I wanted Rich to win but I knew Forrest would use his size to get the decision, and that’s exactly what happened.
Maybe it’s because a lot of what he’s lost is mystique, but he just doesn’t look as aggressive and threatening as he did in Japan.
One theory (wildly unpopular in some circles) is that guys who came up fighting in other countries never developed the skills to pass an American drug test, so they’re the only ones not on PEDs. Another theory is that they don’t cut as much weight in other countries, so these guys are all outsized by quite a bit (just look at Shogun next to Jones).
A lot of people don’t know what Shogun is capable of, so they think Jones will just plow right through him. I know what he’s capable of, and I think Jones will plow right through him. My world won’t be turned upside down or anything if Shogun wins, but I will honestly be surprised.
Okami has been the #1 or near #1 contender for a few years now. His fight with Mike Swick in April of 2007 was supposed to be a #1 contender match (he won). He’s plagued with injuries, he’s boring as hell to watch, he doesn’t speak English, and Anderson Silva is personally disgusted by him because of the way their last fight went. There really aren’t many good reasons to be throwing a title shot at him.
I imagine betting on MMA is doable. It seems that so many people are just fanboys. The bookies play to that, what people will bet, not who they think will actually win.
That’s true in all sports, but it’s always seemed to me that it’s more prevalent in mma.
I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised to find out that Shogun or Wanderlei or Rampage were on PEDs in Japan and I know a huge number of guys are on them. However I don’t think everybody uses them. I’d be shocked to find out Fedor or Minotauro or Anderson were ever on PEDs or, to cite some guys who always fought in the US, GSP or Rich Franklin. PEDs would explain some cases, but not all. Anyways, Rampage, Shogun, Fedor, Anderson, Machida and Minotauro all had great success fighting in the US.
The weight cutting I think is a much bigger problem, but to me the main obstacle to the guys who were used to fighting in Japan are the elbows on the ground. Personally, I hate them. They cause a lot of cuts but are rarely strong enough to truly hurt somebody (Jones is a big exception here). I think disallowing them, like Pride used to do and Strikeforce does makes for more interesting and technical ground battles.
I hope you’re wrong and I hope Shogun is in good enough shape come fight time that we’ll get to find out for sure.
I don’t like Okami’s style either (does anyone?), but I do feel bad for the guy. He was a more deserving challenger than Sonnen or Belfort IMO, but I much preferred that we got the fights we did end up getting. Hell, this won’t happen, but Anderson will have plenty of time to fight Okami while he waits for GSP. I’m sure neither Anderson nor the UFC will be willing to risk the millions of bucks they’d make on the GSP vs. Silva match on this one, but I kinda think they should. (But not really, because if for some reason Okami won I’d cry).