UFC 123: Rampage vs Machida

Main card
Light Heavyweight bout: Quinton Jackson vs. Lyoto Machida
Welterweight bout: Matt Hughes vs. B.J. Penn
Middleweight bout: Gerald Harris vs. Maiquel Falcão
Light Heavyweight bout: Phil Davis vs. Tim Boetsch
Lightweight bout: George Sotiropoulos vs. Joe Lauzon

Spike TV card
Welterweight bout: Matt Brown vs. Brian Foster
Middleweight bout: Aaron Simpson vs. Mark Muñoz

Preliminary card
Welterweight bout: Karo Parisyan vs. Dennis Hallman
Lightweight bout: Edson Barboza vs. Mike Lullo
Lightweight bout: Paul Kelly vs. T.J. O'Brien
Lightweight bout: Tyson Griffin vs. Nik Lentz



Thoughts?

Id honestly go for Lyoto Machida and Matt Hughes to pick up the wins, im a Rampage fan but after what I seen against Rashad I think Rampage has lost it a bit with other commitments, Penn v Hughes could be any ones but im sticking my neck out for Hughes.

Main card
Light Heavyweight bout: Quinton Jackson vs. Lyoto Machida. I am going to pick Machida in this fight, because he is soooo damn hard to hit. If Rampage is able to land a shot, he will turn off the lights. The thing is, I don't think he is going to be able to land a good shot and I think Machida will win via a Unanimous Decision. As for the fights I did not comment on, I will wait for for Baba and steal what he says.

Welterweight bout: Matt Hughes vs. B.J. Penn. I don't think it will be much of a strech to pick Hughes in this fight. Penn has lost 4-6 fights and he was dominated by Edgar, who used his superior wrestling to control Penn. Hughes striking is not as tech as Edgar, but I think Hughes has more power. To me, this fight will come down to grappling and Hughes will get the win.

Lightweight bout: George Sotiropoulos vs. Joe Lauzon. I was pumped for this fight when it was signed. These are 2 of the best grapplers in thw LW Div and it should be awesome. I G Sot will pull off a Decision win and get one fight closer to a title shot. Before the merger, I thought this could be a number one contenders fight, but Dana has said that Henderson will get the shot, if he wins his next fight.

Spike TV card
Welterweight bout: Matt Brown vs. Brian Foster
Middleweight bout: Aaron Simpson vs. Mark Muñoz. I don't have much to say about the Spike Card.

Preliminary card
Welterweight bout: Karo Parisyan vs. Dennis Hallman. Karo is one of my favorite fighters. There might be better Judo guys in the UFC, but he is my favorite Judo guy

Lightweight bout: Tyson Griffin vs. Nik Lentz. After the WEC/UFC merger, I think that Griffin is one loss away from being out of the UFC. This is a must win for him, but I don't think we have seen much out of him lately and I think he loses.

I Am Rocco wrote:

Id honestly go for Lyoto Machida and Matt Hughes to pick up the wins, im a Rampage fan but after what I seen against Rashad I think Rampage has lost it a bit with other commitments, Penn v Hughes could be any ones but im sticking my neck out for Hughes.

Well Rampage says he's fully committed to fighting now, so he should look better this time around. Of course, it is Rampage, so it could all just be lip service.

On the prelim card, the 2 fights that stand out to me are also Karo/Hallman and Griffin/Lentz.

With respect to whether Karo is the best judo guy in the UFC, I believe he is. The interesting thing here though is that as game as Karo is, Hallman has very good submissions. It's one thing for Karo to take Hallman down, it's another to keep him down and not get caught in anything. I like Karo and I want to see him win, but Hallman can definitely pull off the upset here.

Lentz is coming off a big win last time out and is really looking to move up the ladder. For Griffin, he's really fallen on hard times. A couple fights ago, he was near the top of the division and now he's on the verge of getting cut. I don't believe that he will be though, but that he will instead get a chance to move down a weight class with the new merger. Yeah he''s really muscular, but he's very short and compact and I think he can probably move down and have a bit more success down there.

On the Spike card, the only one that's kind of interesting is Simpson/Munoz. Simpson is a wrestler with knockout power. Munoz is another guy who can take you down, but he's got more vicious ground and pound. Similar styles, close fight, I'll take Munoz though.

Before looking at G-Sot/J-Lau, I'd like to address the LW title picture first. I believe what Dana said was that the winner of Henderson/Pettis will face the winner of Edgar/Maynard, so I don't think it's a forgone conclusion that Henderson will face the winner of Edgar/Maynard just yet. Onto the fight now, I like G-Sot, I like him a lot. He's got a sick ground game, a good gas tank, and he should be all over J-Lau. J-Lau isn't a pushover on the ground, but I just think G-Sot is that good and that active.

Harris/Falcao, I really don't care much about. Don't know how it got on the main card over Karo. Davis/Boetsch. Fairly close I suppose, though I'd give the slight edge to Mr. Wonderful (and btw, his nickname does not do him any good).

Penn/Hughes finishes off their little trilogy. BJ Penn could potentially lose 3 in a row if he can't pick up the victory against Hughes, though there's no way the UFC releases him. The game plan is simple for Hughes: take down him, ground and pound. BJ is already making excuses before the fight saying how Matt Hughes is the bigger fighter, blah blah blah, I don't think BJ can stop Hughes' takedowns right now and he'll need to outpoint Hughes if he wants to win. While BJ is still extremely talented, I'd still bet against him

Jackson/Machida provides a bounce-back opportunity for both fighters. The logical and overwhelming choice would be Machida, but reading something from Rampage today was kind of interesting and made me think twice. Jackson has a solid chin that's been tested a lot more than Machida and he talked about how hard it is to hit Machida, but when you do, he goes down. So he's saying he's willing to take a few punches to the face from Machida if it means that he can unload one good shot at him. If he's really serious about doing that and he feels like his chin is good enough, that could definitely be a winning strategy for him. Do I think he can take those punches on his way in though? Probably not. I've got Machida taking this.

What is the last big fight that BJ has won? I can't remember who he took the LW title off of, but it has been a long time since he has won a big fight and GSP whooped that ass, when BJ went up to 170 the last time. I think Matt Hughes will do what he use to do to everyone, while he was at the top of the 170 Div and that is use his wrestling and control BJ. K-Flo took BJ for this fight, on MMA Live and apperantly he is a big favor in the sports book. Something like 2-1. I think that is way to high of odds and I think Hughes will win and I also think he will finish the fight. I do think BJ will find away to hang for at least 1.5 RDs, but he will gas by the start of the 3rd and Hughes will beat him down.

When I look at this card, the fight that I am most excited about is Louzon vs. G-Sot. G-Sot is an outstanding grappler and it is a joy to watch him work.

I think that if Rampage can get a hold of Machida, Machida will be big trouble. If Rampage is able to hit one of his huge slams and start some ground and pound, Machida will be in big trouble. If Rampage is able to eat some shots and score with his own, more powerfull shots, then Machida is in trouble. The thing is, I don't think any of that will happen. I will not be shocked to see Rampage win, but I would be surprised. Machida has been training with Steven Segal for this fight. Thats right, I said Segal, TMZ played the video. Will that help Machida at all, I would say no.

I think Segal just hangs out with Black House because I remember something like that happening for Anderson Silva too.

BOOKIE...NAO!

lol oh well.. good to see my predictions where no where close.

Penn stunned Hughes, and Rampage I think was lucky to win on the refs decision although I will admit I thought the fight was a tad boring, especially when we have all seen what the two fighters can do.

Yeah...not a lot went well for me this card ^.^ Did get some of the smaller match-ups predicted correctly, but definitely missed on the bigger ones.

I wanted to see Rampage slam Machida like he did Arona though...Machida did his research and he let go before getting killed in there

I didn't bookie a lot of these fights because I have been losing badly. The one fight I did bet on, I lost