I’m fucking pumped for this, it looks great, even if it is only 2 fights that I actually care about.
Again I’m rooting for Cro Cop and hope he can pull out the old Cro cop and kick Pat berry’s head into the crowd, but at the same time, Pat Berry is formidable. He looks awesome, and his kicks look devastating. At any rate, Cro cop performs better when he’s more aggressive.
Liddell vs Franklin should be an interesting match, but I don’t think Chuck is a viable contender anymore. Let’s hope I’m wrong.
My picks:
Franklin - Lidell: Franklin by TKO
Cro cop vs Berry: Berry by KO or Cro Cop by KO
Paulo Thiago vs Martin Kampmann: Thiago by submission or decision.
Rothwell vs Yvel: Yvel by decision or KO/TKO, Yvel’s too athletic for Rothwell and will probably destroy him if Rothwell chooses to stand.
Actually i’m rooting for Barry instead of Crocop, i like small guys on the heavyweight division, but at the same time i really want Crocop to get back on his game and put an outstanding performance.
This is the first UFC event that i don’t give a shit about the main event and i’m eager to watch all the other main fights,
Cro cop should be fighting at LHW not fucking HW. What the fuck’s he gonna do if he does get back on track and has to fight monsters like carwin or lesnar?
This is a pretty good card…Good match-ups from the prelims on up. I do think that Tyson Griffin vs. Evan Dunham should have stayed on the main card instead of Yvel/Rothwell. That could be the fight of the night,imo.
Barry isn’t a small HW. He’s short as hell for the division, but the dude is well over 250lbs. Gonna be rooting for him that’s for sure. Lot’s of potential there if he can develop a half decent wrestling game and a solid ground game in the next few years.
[quote]rundymc wrote:
Barry isn’t a small HW. He’s short as hell for the division, but the dude is well over 250lbs. [/quote]
He’s just now over 250lbs…he has weighed-in no more than 233-236 in his last three fights. He plans on weighing in at 250 for Cro-Cop…hopefully the “new” weight doesn’t affect him negatively.
Franklin - Lidell
Liddell seems rested, motivated and in shape. So I think Liddell.
Cro cop - Berry
Berry if he can control and mark the fight in his favour early on. If not, Cro Cop’s underrated boxing (it’s two classes above most guys, including Pat) will bring a second round win.
All in all, 60/40 chance for Berry. Cropcop just had too many shitty performances lately.
Paulo Thiago - Martin Kampmann
I’m rooting for Kampmann but I see little chance here
Rothwell - Yvel
Rothwell is far to sloppy for a mean bruiser of Yvel’s calibre. If he can stall a bit then he might have a good chance, eventually.
First round, Yvel. After that, still Yvel, then, perhaps Rothwell.
i hope liddell lands a huge overhand right…unfortunately i think franklin is a little too smart to fall prey to liddell’s headhunting…so franklin by dec is probably the smart call.
Franklin’s boxing seems much improved, mainly it looks like he’s actually learned how to be evasive and slip, rather than just relying on that same ducking to the left all the time that he used to do.
Wow, didn’t expect Ace to knock out Chuck in the first round like that. And now Ace’s arm is broken. Chuck should hang it up for good.
Looks like we saw glimpses of the old CroCop. I like how CroCop went Croat/Russian mafia style into “convincing” Dana to give him sub of the night. Barry is legit, has a lot of good fights left in him.
Looks like Thiago got himself BOPE’d. Kampmann looked really sharp. Thiago looked surprisingly flat.
Rothwell/Yvel was a better fight than I thought. Surprised it went the distance. Rothwell looked much improved.
Questionable stop at the end of the Condit/MacDonald fight. MacDonald won the first two rounds, but Condit came out guns blazing, hence the nickname “Natural Born Killer.” MacDonald has a very bright future.
And the Mac Danzig stoppage was nonsense. Yves Lavigne needs to do a better job of reffing (not the first time he’s done something like this).
Still, there’s the 10second tap on the canvas which is hard to miss. Either way, I think it was a good stoppage, Rory just took way too much damage and Condit deserved it for his effort.
Barry needs to check his fight IQ and work on that ground game. Clearly a fish out of water on the mat. The extra weight didn’t come with the required gas tank either. I thought it was funny how he treated the fight like a kickboxing match with 4oz gloves while Mirko was going for TDs and gnp. Being overly respectful may have had something to do with it.
The Rothwell fight, in my opinion, sucked. I don’t expect great cardio from HWs, and yeah, the first round was great, but watching one gassed giant suffocating another for the better part of 2 rounds doesn’t do it for me.
Kampmann didn’t even look like the same fighter in there.
The Chuck fight brought a tear to my eye. Seeing him dominate with aggression and get caught like that sucked, but Franklin has serious balls to do that with a broken arm.
Second the stoppage. You lose if you cannot protect yourself against that kind of punishment.
The Crocop fight was wierd with that much respect going on the whole time, pre fight & during fight.
Crocop clearly knows that by filling holes he can somewhat prolong his career.
His high kick and overall fighting spirit lacked explosivness & determinationm, but his gameplan, to really use all options, tire Barry and his precise boxing won the day.
He still won’t be able to hang with most top ten guys.
From the first seconds I saw Chuck I knew it was the wrong decision to bet on him. While timing was good as ever, his distance was superoff. Contrary to Crocop, he couldn’t just “mix it up”. He needs to set the fight standing and establish some form of control there.
Kampmann was astonishing. Can’t believe what I saw on the ground.
Big Ben won a great fight, however, he won it with his chin. That GnP was vicious. No idea how he survived it.