Anybody got any predictions for tomorrow night? I only have a second, but I’ll post mine quickly:
Chuck by KO, probably in the second round
Rich Franklin by decision
Dan Henderson I’m undecided, but I’d like to see Dan win
Kayo Parisiyan by decision just because I like Kayo
Dong Hyun Kim by KO just because I want to see somebody get knocked out by a Dong on live television
Chuck by decision. I know KOing wrestlers is his bread and butter but I see Rashad being very careful in this fight.
Rich by decision
Dan probably by decision or KO but Palhares has NASTY submissions. Tough call.
Marvin Kampmann hopefully by knockout, can’t stand Nate Marquardt. (Actually I’m am being biased here - Nate probably has a better chance of winning. Ground and pound or decision.)
The Karo fight is off
Dong by whatever he wants. Matt Brown is not ready for the big show.
Heh. Yeah, that line was great. 
Just saw the results.
Well.
The way big matchups have been going lately, if Stephen Hawking rolls into the Octagon to fight Fedor, I’m putting a few bucks on ole’ Stephen…
:eek:
I am equally shocked and bummed. Chuck fights Wanderlei to a standstill and gets rocked by Evans. Put me down for $20 on Hawking as well. 
Eh, Chuck’s almost 39. He’s been fighting on borrowed time for a couple years. He’s also stubbornly refused to evolve. When you not only go in to every fight with the same gameplane, but brag about it, someone is eventually going to figure you out. In his case, 3 of his last 4 opponents have figured him out. And Wanderlei won their fight, IMO.
Out of those three, though, the only one that I think really outclassed him was Jardine. Rampage capitalized on Chuck’s huge mistake of getting overzealous and going to the body without setting it up top first, and with Evans he just plain got caught, which pretty much negates any odds stacked in your favor. I fully admit I’m biased for Chuck, though. Sure, he’s getting on, but so is Randy and so was Foreman when he fought Holyfield at 42. Chuck said before this fight that he wants to go on for three or four more years and he still could, although at this point he might decide not to. On the other hand, he and Rampage are both coming off of losses and would make for a pretty popular fight…
I gotta disagree. I think Jardine (well, Greg Jackson) just put together an elusive gameplan and edged past him. Evans and Jackson capitalized on obvious holes in his game. Juanito saw Chuck throw that wide open body shot in previous fights and had Rampage prepared for it. Rashad trained goading Chuck into the offensive and putting him away with that overhand right - it was no accident.
I seriously doubt Chuck wants any part of Rampage unless it’s for the strap. He’s already lost to him twice; if he lost again it would be impossible to avoid the comparisons to Ken Shamrock. It would be a serious legacy tarnisher.
You make good points, but we’ll have to agree to disagree as gentlemen may do. I don’t think it was a hole in his game, I think it was a simple screwup. Chuck had seen Rampage go down from body shots before and thought he saw an opportunity to end the fight early with a liver shot, so he broke John Hackleman’s cardinal rule of body shots: Never, Never Go To The Body Without Setting It Up Or You Will Get Knocked Out, which he did. The first thing he said to John after coming to was “what happened?” and the first thing that John said was “you went to the fucking body!” All props to Rampage, but if Chuck had stuck to John’s rules it might have been a different fight.
With Evans, his whole gameplan was to run from him, make him overly aggressive, and then time his punches. It worked, obviously, but man, that’s risky. With Chuck that’s just as much a recipe for getting knocked out as it is for doing the knocking. John told him to hang back, keep his left up, and make it a boring fight if that’s what it takes to win, but Chuck thought he had him. If Chuck had hung back instead and used the same strategy he did with Wandi it probably would have been his fight. Again, though, I’m firmly in Chuck’s camp and admittedly biased.
It was actually an uppercut that Chuck was going for, and he was about an inch from landing it when Evans caught him with a peach of a punch. Did you hear that smack?
I think Chuck was the only one who didn’t hear it (just for clarity, though, it was Rampage that Chuck threw the liver shot at). A friend of mine commented that it almost looked like the simultaneous knockdown at the end of Rocky II, but I think he was just trying to make me feel better.
If that uppercut had connected we might have seen a double knockout, like this one.
What was up with that left, anyway? I kept commenting on it throughout the fight - it was way down and just hanging there limp. If Rashad had ever knocked anybody out with a punch before I would’ve predicted it and soon as I saw Chuck’s body language.
Sorry if it seems like I’m putting your guy down, I’m really not, but the uppercut did connect. It hit Rashad in the armpit.
I don’t know, I’d have to watch it again. Like I say, John told him to keep his left up between the rounds. Maybe he was trying to load up for an uppercut, maybe he was overzealous because Rashad seemed to be on the run for the first round. Well, definitely overzealous.
No apology necessary, put him down all you want. I can appreciate respectful disagreement and intelligent commentary from the other viewpoint. Not like it’s an election thread or anything, right? It connected, but I think the lights were switched off by midswing. I just meant if he’d been a hair faster and connected solid, but like they say, if my aunt had testicles, etc. etc.
To get off the topic of Chuck for just a minute - how impressive was Rich Franklin? Matt Hamill is no slouch (beat Bisping decisively IMO) and Rich just annihilated him. His takedown defense really, really surprised me, and throwing that armbar as soon as he was down . . . wow. And how many liver kick knockouts do we see in MMA? Not many. Who knew Franklin could kick like that? Like the announcers said, Bas Rutten would be proud. I’d like to see Anderson move up to 205 and Rich go back down to reign over the middleweight division again.
Oh hell yes. Franklin was on fire. I was hoping to see a good showing from him, but he went beyond all my expectations and showed us pre-Silva Rich again. Dan Henderson looked good, too.
Dan looked good but cautious. A meeting between him and Rich is inevitable at this point - no one else in that division is going to beat either one of them. Who ya got?
Ooh, that’s tough. I straightaway want to say Rich but I don’t want to be too hasty. I’ll have to think on it and get back to you.
Yeah . . . I like Rich more. His heart, work ethic, and attitude have made me a fan. Dan’s got him hands down in the technical skill and experience categories, though. That said, Rich is definitely capable of putting together a winning gameplan. I would have him outpoint Hendo on the feet, work lots of kicks and knees, and frustrate him with defensive wrestling.
It’s just too tough to call.