Jose Canseco???

So Dream announced the four quarter-final fights for the May 26 event in Yokohama for the Super Hulk Tournament, an open-weight tournament. The four quarter-final matches are Ikuhisa Minowa (41-30-8) vs Bob Sapp (10-3-1), Rameau Thierry Soukoudjou (5-4) vs Jan Nortje (2-5), Gegard Mousasi (24-2-1) vs Mark Hunt (5-5) and the last quarter-final match is Hong Man Choi (1-2) vs Jose Canseco (0-0). Yes, that Jose Canseco. As in 462 career major league home run Jose Canseco.

Now lots of people have negative opinions on Jose Canseco. Labeling him a cheater and a steroid user and a bunch more names in the book after he released his two books. Me, I don't care about that. Was not a fan of him when he played and the only thing I really remember him for is the home run that bounced off his head. But MMA? This is a guy who just fought Danny Bonaduce to a draw in a boxing match. If you can't beat a cast member from the Partridge Family, what in the blue hell are you doing trying to start an MMA career? I have no idea what kind of MMA training Canseco has, but I doubt it will be enough. If nothing else, this fight should be good for a laugh. This is typical Japan booking, booking someone with name value instead of fighting ability. I honestly wish I could say I was surprised, but I'm not really.

I thought the days of Pride freak show booking at behind us. Apparently not. And I'll go on the record now, Mousasi to take this tournament despite being one of the two smallest guys in the tournament.

worst TUF nicknames

Sometime I will do a list of the top ten worst nicknames of all time in all of MMA, but lately there have been a lot of guys passing though the TUF house with dumb nicknames. Some have come into the house with the dumb nicknames, some have been given their dumb nicknames while in the UFC. So here, in no particular order, are the worst TUF fighter nicknames.

*Jeff "The Law" Lawson, Josh "Kos" Koscheck, and Kyle "Kingsbu" Kingsbury - when your nickname is half your last name, it shows no creativity.
*Jules "Cotton Mouth From the South" Bruchez - if you know what a cottonmouth is, it's not bad. But the vast majority of people have no idea what the hell a cottonmouth is.
*"Sugar" Shane Nelson - just once I would love to see a boxer or MMA fighter with the name Shane who does not use Sugar as his nickname.
*Ryan "Darth" Bader - We get it, a play on one of the most famous movies all time. Not all that clever, and not that funny. What, someone already had "Princess Lay-you-outa" claimed?
*Krzysztof "The Polish Experiment" Soszynski - I think I speak for everybody when I say what the hell does this even mean?
*Matthew "The Riddler" Riddle - see Jeff Lawson and Ryan Bader above.
*Jon "War Machine" Koppenhaver - wait, since I guess that's now his legal name, it' doesn't count as a nickname any more.
*Joe "J-Lau" Lauzon - See Ryan Bader, but change famous movie to famous female. Not too many fighters want to have a nickname associated to a women I don't think.
*Mikey "The Eastside Assassin" Burnett, Danny "The Assassin" Abaddi, Melvin "The Young Assassin" Guillard, Sam "The Alaskan Assassin" Hoger, Alex "The Assassin" Karalexis, and anyone else who has had some version of Assassin in there nickname.
*Josh "Bring the Pain" Haynes and Keith "The Dean of Mean" Jardine - Nicknames should be adjectives most of the time, not a sentence.
*Brad "The Hillbilly Heartthrob" Imes - falls in the phrase category, but his one is just beyond stupid. If your nickname is based on your looks and not on your fighting ability, not a good sign.
*Chris "The Crippler" Leben - Not that it is a bad nickname par say, but the fact that Zuffa changed it to that from his original nickname, the best nickname ever in MMA history, "The Catsmasher"

M-1 in Japan

In about 15 hours, M-1 Challenge is having another team event in Japan. The event is going to be streamed live over at CageWarriors. France vs Spain, USA West vs South Korea, and Japan vs England as well as the Fedor Emelianenko vs Shinya Aoki. I really enjoy these M-1 team challenge events. I have always found team mma to be a guilty pleasure of mine. I think the IFL failed because they promoted the team aspect backwards. They promoted the team aspect first and the individual fights secondary. I think it should be the other way around, the individual fights first and then team aspect second. Have the individual fights mean something and then if the first 4 fights go 2-2, and the 5th fight just happens to decide the team battle, even better. Disapointed they didn't put in a Canadian team this year. With 16 spots, they definitly had the room for it. At least they dropped the Turkish team which was originally planned. I can name one fighter from Turkey off the top of my head.

The Fedor/Aoki bout is rather pointless. I can just imagine how much stalk the keyboard warriors will put in this fight. This exhibition bout means nothing and yet people will look at it and say stuff like "Aoki exposed Fedor on the ground" or something like this. This bout will be more half-assed than half the stuff in the WWE these days.

Prediction record for the year right now is 164-70-5-9 for a record of 70.0% Last week only had two fights I picked so not much change in the record. My picks for the M-1 card tomorrow:
M-1 CHALLENGE
Christian M'Pumbu (11-2-1) vs Enoc Solves (3-0) - Christian M'Pumbu
Fabio Negao (8-4) vs Myung Ho Bae (7-3) - Myung Ho Bae
Givanildo Santana (11-1) vs Min Suk Heo (4-8) - Givanildo Santana
Doo Hee Lee (3-4) vs Shane del Rosario (5-0) - Shane del Rosario
Hidehiko Hasegawa (16-11-6) vs Simon Phillips (6-2) - Hidehiko Hasegama
Rob Broughton (8-4-1) vs Yusuke Kawaguchi (8-0) - Yusuke Kawaguchi

Bellator tourney's

Reports are out now that it looks like Bellator Fighting Championships will indeed be getting a second season this fall. The even better news? It looks like it could be on ESPN or ESPN2 instead of on ESPN Deportives. This is great news as these Bellator tournaments are really quite solid efforts.

I have always been a fan of old school tournaments. I don't like the 3 fights all in one night, but each fight being 4-6 weeks apart, I love. It allows the fights to be built up with a back story. Some people aren't all that fond of these tourney's, saying they are all mostly one man tourney's, and in some cases that is true. But there are a lot of fighters that could very easily be in the top 10 a few years from now. Just look at the records of who is left:

Featherweights - Joe Soto (5-0), Wilson Reis (7-0), Yahir Reyes (13-5-0-1), Estevan Payne (7-1) - the 4 participants left have a combined winning percentage of 84.2%.
Lightweight - Eddie Alvarez (16-2), Eric Reynolds (10-1), Jorge Masvidal (17-3), Toby Imada (21-12) - 75.3% winning percentage
Welterweight - Lyman Good (8-0), Jorge Ortiz (16-4-0-1), Dave Menne (43-15-2), Omar de la Cruz (4-1) - 78.0% winning percentage
Middleweight - Hector Lombard (19-2-1-1), Damien Stelly (10-2), Jared Hess (7-0-1), Yosmany Cabezas (8-1) - 89.8% winning percentage

Wilson Reis should have not too many problems winning the FW tournament. Alvarez and Masvidal should meet in the final at LW which I think will be a very good match. MW tournament is the most wide-open field, although I am leaning towards Lyman Good. And Hector Lombard is the favorite at MW, although any of the other guys have a chance.

I am so glad that this promotion is doing a second season. Because it has to happen in about 5 months, (August to December), it will probably only be 4, 8-man tournaments again. Hopefully Light Heavyweight and Heavyweight as well as two others. And call me a dreamer (it will never happen), but something i would love to see play-out through all of 2010, 16 man tournaments at HW, LHW, MW, WW, LW, FW and then have 8-women tournaments, 135 an over and 135 and under. Can you just imagine the hype that would build for a December finale featuring the 8 finals of each of those tournaments?

5 favorite KO's of all time

Here is a list of my top five favorite KO's of all time. Not necessarily the cleanest KO's of all time, or the most brutal of all time, but the ones I could watch over and over again.

5. Heath Herring KO's Yoshihiro Nakao (K-1 - December 31, 2005)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i50ksaN6q3U
Obviously not a fight KO but I still laugh every time I see this video. Nakao deserved this. Herring is one of the guys you would least want to do that against.

4. Kid Yamamoto KO's Kazuyuki Miyata (K-1 - May 3, 2006)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUsF7HQ0CtY
The cleanest flying knee KO I have ever seen. The fact that is happened 4 seconds into the fight makes this KO even better.

3. Marcus Aurelio KO's Keegan Marshall (North American Challenge - April 4, 2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6oiADjOdFg
Like most people, I still don't think Capoeira is effective in MMA, but this KO shows that every style has its strengths.

2. Tyler Bryan and Shawn Parker double KO (LOF 25 - May 16, 2008)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t09on2wuCs
You could watch 10,000 fights and not see this happen once. It is one of the rarest occurrences in MMA (I know of only 2 fights were it has happened), two guys landing punches at the same time and knocking each other out.

1. Shintaro Ishiwatari KO's Kazuhito Ito (Shooto - February 23, 2008)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1ZXqAH3vn4
I have seen this attempted hundreds of times before, but never with results this devastating. It really is the perfect KO in terms of force + angle of impact = one of the best KO's in history.

New UFC cards already?

mmajunkie today has a story about UFC coming out with another set of UFC trading cards. The set will apparently be ready by the time of UFC 100, so mid-July. Are you freaking kidding me? The first set was released the end of February. Is a new set required less than 5 months after the first set comes out? Not only does this devalue the worth of the first set of cards, but it will quickly water down the market.

People were excited about the first set because it really was the first set of MMA cards ever easily available to the North American public (despite what some people say, these were not the first MMA cards ever. Pride did a set a few years back). It was a big deal when this first set came out because it was something that will be worth something someday down the line. And now a second set is coming out already? Many of the fighters will be in both series which is pointless. Major league sports come out with new cards every year. This is because players change teams yearly and there are dozens of new players each year. This is certainly not the case for the UFC. There are not enough changes or new fighters every six months to warrant a new set of cards.

I am a big collector of mma memorabilia. I have unopened boxes of the round 1 series which will be devalued significantly now. Pisses me off a little. I certainly will not be purchasing this second series. I think it is ridiculous that a new series is coming out so soon and another example of the UFC trying to get every cent out of the fans while they can.

Lashley vs Sapp

Over the past couple of days it has come out that former Pride star Bob Sapp will be fighting former WWE star Bobby Lashley on June 27 in Biloxi, Mississippi. Neither guy is a top ten fighter and yet this fight will have more interest regarding in than a lot of fights that would happen between top ten guys.

Neither Sapp or Lashley are freak shows (see Giant Silva in Pride) but both guys are marketable for something other than their mma resume. Bob Sapp is 10-3-1 I believe. Certainly a decent record, but he is well known for his antics outside of the ring, the marketing appearances he has done outside of the ring, and the way he was promoted in Japan. I'm not even sure what would classify as his biggest victory, I'm assuming Kiyoshi Tamura. The two decent fighters he has fought, Nogueira and Fujita, he has lost big. However people are still intrigued to see him fight. This just goes to show you that how you are marketed and how good your management team is can go a long way in getting you attention (see Kimbo Slice as well)

Lashley is 2-0 and could be a legit prospect in the world of MMA. However people I think still care about a pro wrestler coming over to the world of MMA, especially with the success that Brock Lesnar has had in becoming UFC champ. People forget that he was a two-time NAIA national champ in college in wrestling. If that was someone who went straight into MMA today, he would get some attention. But because Lashley is a pro wrestler, that is why he is getting attention. I can't wait to see Lashley potentially develop over his next couple of fights and possibly become a legit top 20 Heavyweight. It also came out yesterday that Bobby Lashley will be fighting Mike Cook in MFC 21 on May15. I would be there ringside for that event doing coverage for sherdog.com and I will get to meet Bobby Lashley.

Is Sapp/Lashley a contenders fight? Not really. Will people be more interested in the outcome of this bout rather than the Chris Lytle/Kevin Burns fight in the UFC the weekend before? By a mile. Am I one of those people? Unfortunately, yes.

Sarah Kaufmann

Slow weekend coming up for MMA action. The only card with more than one decent fight is the PFC show tomorrow night in California. Two fights that I will be making predictions on. The only other thing of note this weekend is Jeff Monson is scheduled to fight UFC 1 veteran Pat Smith. Undefeated Canadian Sarah Kaufmann is fighting on the PFC card and I am very excited.

Sarah Kaufman has two qualities I look for in a female fighter that make me a fan. She's Canadian and she's good-looking. Just kidding. Well I am not kidding about those facts, she is Canadian and she is good looking (no Gina Carano or Michelle Waterson, but still very cute), but I like her for other reasons. She is an all-around outstanding fighter. Since starting her career in small local shows in British Columbia, she worked her way up to TKO and Hardcore Championship Fighting and got some national exposure and now is making her US debut tomorrow night. She has put together a 7-0 record and is far and away the best Canadian female fighter. She is scheduled to fight Sara Schneider tomorrow night. I am looking for Schneider to pick up a fairly easy victory. She is a really good striker and has won ever single one of her fights by T/KO. I'm told her ground skills are compatible to her striking, but I haven't seen much of her ground skills because she has so much success with her striking. It is a shame EliteXC closed down because Kaufman was scheduled to fighter Kristin Young in that organization but it shut down before the fight could happen. Kaufman also apparently has a deal with StrikeForce in addition to her PFC deal so hopefully she will within a year or so be known by everyone as a top female fighter and will be fighting the Cris Santos' and the Gina Carano's of the world.

My predictions for tomorrow night's PFC card which are the only predictions I am doing for this weekend as there are no other really noteworthy fights. Current prediction record is 162-70-5-9 for 69.8%.
Sarah Schneider vs Sarah Kaufman - Sarah Kaufman
Enoch Wilson vs Shawn Bias - Enoch Wilson

No post tomorrow as I will be out of town.

Anderson top PFP fighter?

First off, a heads up to everyone. One the first day of each month, I will post my top 10 rankings for 7 divisions (HW, LHW, MW, WW, LW, FW, 135 and below) as well as pound for pound rankings. So be on the look out for that.

Now, coming off the second lackluster performance in a row from Anderson Silva, people are questioning whether or not Anderson should still be considered the top pound-for-pound fighter in the world today. Now I should say now that I believe Anderson, Fedor, and GSP are all worthy candidates, all can make strong arguments for being the number 1 guy, and there is no wrong way to rank these guys. With that said, I still believe that Anderson Silva should be ranked the top fighter in the world today.

Let's look at the stats. I consider any fight within the past three years to count in terms of rankings. In that time, Anderson Silva has gone 10-0, including 9-0 in the UFC. At least 6 of those wins have been against guys who were top 10 ranked at the time (Franklin x2, Marquardt, Henderson, Cote, and Leites). And he hasn't had competitive fights with most of them. He has blown them out. Not only that, he has fought at a higher weight class once and he has finished 9 of those 10 opponents. No resume over the past three years comes close to that.

Fedor is 6-0 over the past three years. Only two of those fights have been against top 10 heavyweights (Sylvia and Arlovski). Yes he demolished Sylvia in 36 seconds, but Arlovski looked good against him for a few minutes. So for the lack of quality opposition, I can't rank Fedor at number 1. GSP, yes he has breezed through his last 5 opponents, all top welterweight fighters, but I just can't overlook that lost to Serra yet. Yes he avenged that loss, but it still happened. However, coming off his last couple performances combined with Silva's last two performances, if GSP looks amazing against Thiago Alves, I might have to move him up to number 1.

So right now, I still have Anderson Silva as the number 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world. Like I said, there is no real wrong way to rank Anderson, Fedor, and GSP. Each can make solid cases for the number one spot. For now though, I have Anderson number 1, GSP number 2, and Fedor number 3.

Chuck Liddell

Chuck Liddell lost for the fourth time in five fights this past weekend and obviously everyone is questioning what happens to him now. I will go on the record right now and say that I am not a fan of Chuck Liddell. I have thought he has been on the downside of his career for a few years now (before he started losing) and am honestly glad to say that he will no longer be forced down our throats as the "Biggest MMA superstar of all time" according to Dana White and Zuffa (This title goes to Royce Gracie, Tito Ortiz, or Randy Couture. I think it is fairly save to say that the general population knows those guys better than Liddell).

In Liddell's past seven fights, I have only picked him to win once. I picked him to lose to Renato Sobral, I did pick him to beat Tito Ortiz, and since then I have picked him against Quinton Jackson, Keith Jardine, Wanderlei Silva, Rashad Evans, and Mauricio Rua. Some say I may have just picked against him out of hate, but I have always left my personal feelings out of picking fights. And if you need proof, I have picked 5 of those 7 fights correctly, which is a lot more than most people have got right.

I have always believed that Liddell is a one dimensional fighter. Or two dimensional if you count his eye-poking technique (can you imagine if he fought Dan Bobish? A guy who likes to put fingers in his opponents eyes - Liddell - against someone who when he gets in trouble, fakes getting poked in the eye - Bobish). Liddell has always been an overhand right fighter. Yes he has other skills, but when it all comes down to it, he looks for that one punch. That worked for him 5 years ago, but the sport is always evolving and I think Liddell didn't evolve with the rest of the fighters on the UFC roster. His opponent knew that he would be looking for that one punch and managed to game plan accordingly. Getting brutally knocked out in 3 of his last 5 fights, it is safe to say that Chuck Liddell will never be a top 10 fighter again. He is not Randy Couture who will still be a tough fighter into his 40's. Liddell is done.

I don't think this is the last time we will see Chuck Liddell fighting in the UFC. I think he will get one more fight, and it will be promoted as his retirement fight. They will give him a fairly soft opponent that he should beat (a Krzystof Soszynski or a Steve Cantwell) so that he can go out on top. Liddell has made Zuffa a ton of money over the years and that will be Zuffa's way or repaying him for his years of service. Liddell was the first PPV star that most "TUF noobs" saw and as such he became a poster boy for the UFC. You must also remember that Liddell got Dana White into the world of mixed martial arts (White managed Liddell back in the day). Dana and Zuffa will take care of Chuck Liddell for life. After his one send off fight, I feel he will get an ambassador role or something similar and be on the Zuffa payroll for life.

UFC 97 thoughts

Needless to say, the main event was quite a let down. One of the worst title fights in recent memory, although not nearly as bad as Severn/Shamrock 2. I don't blame either guy for the slow start in the first round, it's a title fight with a lot on the line and a feeling out period is to be expected. Leites was hanging in there early but as the fight went on, I'm not sure why he seemed so hesitant to fight. People are blasting Silva for this fight, but it's hard to be exciting when your opponent does not want to fight. Silva is a better counter fighter than he is a coming forward fighter and when he fights someone who is also a counter fighter, it is going to be a poor fight. Silva had better wrestling than in previous fights I thought, and when it comes down to it, I think Silva just wanted to win. I scored the bout 49-46 (10-9 Silva, 10-9 Leites, 10-9 Silva, 10-9 Silva, 10-9 Silva). Next up for Silva I would like to see a fight with Okami (assuming he gets by Miller) and then the winner of that fight face Demian Maia.

I was shocked that so few people had faith in Mauricio Rua before this fight. I never for a second though he would lose to Liddell. Yes he had looked poor in his last two fights, but I believe he justed needed a fight or two to adjust to UFC rules. Not having knees and soccer kicks obvious would hurt him, those were two of his best offensive attacks in Pride. Rua looked in much better shape and we saw glimpses of the Pride Rua. Chuck Liddell, I don't think he will retire. The UFC will at the very least give him a softer fight (a Soszynski or a Cantwell) to let Liddell retire with a W. Liddell is definitly done against top opposition and will never be ranked in the top again in his career. As for Rua, I would like to see him fight a Cane or a Jon Jones next. He could fight a bigger name (loser of Machida/Evans or a Thiago Silva) but I would prefer one more tune up fight against a solid fight before he fights top 10 guys again.

I definitly thought Matt Wiman beat Sam Stout, although it was a close fight that can not be considered a robbery. I scored the bout 29-28 for Wiman (10-9 Wiman, 10-9 Stout, 10-9 Wiman). The first round was close however and a case can certainly be made for Stout winning that round. But I gave it to Wiman. Stout's cardio never ceases to amaze me. Sam Stout saved his UFC career with this victory. He was gone if he lost this fight.

Soszynski will never be a top 10 fighter at Light Heavyweight, but he will be a solid gatekeeper for the decision. He rarely has a boring fight (obviously the Robert Villegas not with standing, although that was not Soszynski's fault. Brian Stann looked lost in the UFC. The UFC absorbing the WEC's Light Heavyweight Division overall was a good thing, but it is too big a jump for Brian Stann. Stann will get more chances in the UFC, but I am expecting nothing from him.

The whole Cane/Cantwell fight, the thing that bugged me the most was that they continue to pronounce Cane's name wrong. It's accented, not pronounced like as in walking cane. Annoys the hell out of me. Anyways, I was a little surprized Cantwell lasted all three rounds. I was expecting Cane to win in the first. Cane tired lately and still has some room to grow, however overall he looked fairly good. I had the bout 29-28 for Cane (10-9 Cane, 10-9 Cantwell, and 10-9 Cane). No way Cane won the second round like two of the judges had it. I don't see Cane beating any top 10 fighters at LHW, but I would like to see him get the chance to. I would like to see him fight Brian Stann next.

Prelim thoughts. Vinicius Magalhaes, Ryo Chonan, and David Bielkheden are all gone from the UFC I have to believe. Jason MacDonald could be gone. I was surprized that Ed Herman pistol-whipped David Loiseau as badly as he did. I thought Loiseau would come out firing in his return to the UFC in his hometown but by all accounts, he looked piss poor. While I was picking Quarry to win, I wasn't expecting him to win so easily. And Kang needed this win desperatley! Cause UFC is paying him a fair amount, and he needed to prove he was worth it. I went a pretty impressive 9 for 12 on my fights picks, missing Stout, Marshall, and Herman.

UFC 97 predictions

Here are my predictions for UFC 97. I do predictions for a ton of fights each weekend and my goal is to be at 75% for my year end. Now that I have a blog on the internet, I can officially document my picks instead of just writing them out on looseleaf in a book on my desk each week.

As it stands right now, my prediction record for this year so far is 152-67-5-9 for a record of 69.4% through last night's Bellator card. Got to put some wins together if I hope to get up to 75% by year end.

The best full cards I have had this year are UFC 93 (9 for 10 only missing Alan Belcher) and the April 1 Fight Night card (10 for 11 only missing Martin Kampmann). The worst full card was the April 5 Dream card where I went 3 for 10 and I was also bad on UFC 95 and the March 1 WEC card (5 for 10 on both of those cards).

Worst card percentage wise for me was MFC 20 on February 20 where I went 1 for 5 (only picked Antonio McKee right).

My picks for this weekend:
KINGDOM MMA
Jason Miller vs Kola Hose - Jason Miller
UFC 97
Matt Wiman vs Sam Stout- Matt Wiman
Ryo Chonan vs TJ Grant - TJ Grant
David Bielkheden vs Mark Bocek - Mark Bocek
David Loiseau vs Ed Herman - David Loiseau
Jason MacDonald vs Nathan Quarry - Nathan Quarry
Denis Kang vs Xavier Foupa-Pokam - Denis Kang
Eliot Marshall vs Vinicius Magalhaes - Vinicius Magalhaes
Luis Cane vs Steve Cantwell - Luis Cane
Antoni Hardonk vs Cheick Kongo - Cheick Kongo
Brian Stann vs Krzysztof Soszynski - Krzysztof Soszynski
Chuck Liddell vs Mauricio Rua - Mauricio Rua
Anderson Silva vs Thales Leites - Anderson Silva

Pre UFC 97 post

UFC 97 is this weekend in Montreal and I am expecting a rocking crowd, just like last time. I honestly wish they would have booked the Big O. Put the cage at the old home plate, fill in the grandstands behind and then add some temp bleachers where the basepaths would be. Could probably put 30,000 in there and set a North American attendence record.

Not a huge card but anytime Anderson is fighting it's a worthwhile card to watch. Yesterday I realized I can't even picture Thales Leites in my head. I have no idea what the guy looks like. Not good when I can't even recognize the challenge for the UFC Middleweight title. I think I am already looking past Leites at the bunch of guys that are in line for a MW title shot in the next 12 months. Yushin Okami, Demian Maia, Nathan Marquardt, and Michael Bisping. I would like to see Okami get a shot next (August or so), and then Maia (December show), and then assuming that Bisping gets by Henderson, have Bisping fight Marquardt (November or so) and then the winner there fight the MW champ in April 2010. I think it is impossible for Joe Silva to screw up the MW division over the next year or so.

Obviously being in Canada, this card has a ton of Canadians on it. Could be a tough night for some of them. Sam Stout needs a win desperatley to stay in the UFC. He losses and he will be cut I guarantee, and I do think he is going to lose to Wiman. Great to see TJ Grant in the UFC, although he has a tough fight in Ryo Chonan. Not sure who I am going to pick in that fight yet. Bocek and Soszynski should both pick up W's. Great to see David Loiseau back in the UFC with his elbows that get razor-sharp by putting them in a pencil sharpener I do believe. Going to be in tough with Herman, it's a bad style match up for Loiseau, but I am still going with the Crow to pick up the W. Denis Kang should take Foupa-Pokam down and beat him there, but Kang has looked like crap lately so Foupa-Pokam could get the W. Sometime I will explain why I think Kang was one of the most over-rated fighters of the 2000's. Jason MacDonald is the last Canadian on the card, and he will be in very tough with Nate Quarry. I am picking Quarry to win and I think Jason MacDonald could be in trouble if he losses this fight. A loss would drop him to 5-5 in the UFC, and will have dropped 3 of his last 4. He is not a ticket seller and not very marketable and I think he could be gone from the UFC if he losses.

Guys who I think will be cut from the UFC if they lose: Sam Stout, Ryo Chonan, David Bielkheden, Jason MacDonald, and Vinicius Magalhaes

Excited cause since attending UFC 92 back in December, this will be the first UFC I have gotten to watch as it happened. That is the only thing that sucks about working nights, don't get to watch fights.