UFC 79 picks

Vince135792003

Just thought I'd put a thread up for arguably their biggest show of the year.

I'm going with Silva and St. Pierre for the 2 main events.

Here's some news from the weigh in from Meltzer:

Wanderlei Silva and Chuck Liddell had a pull-apart at the weigh-ins this afternoon in Las Vegas.

After Liddell weighed in and was stepping off the scale, Silva took off his shirt and did his trademark staredown. At that point, Silva moved his head, like he was about to do a short head-butt, but Liddell moved away and flipped Silva off. Tempers flared but things were broken up in a few seconds.

No such problems with Matt Hughes and Georges St. Pierre, who actually hugged after their weigh-in.

The crowd clearly saw these two matches as the show. There was some interest in Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou and Manny Gamburyan, but the huge reactions were saved for the main events.

Liddell got the loudest reaction, followed closely by St. Pierre. Hughes got a mixed reaction with a lot of boos. There were also a few noticeable boos for Liddell with scattered chants for "Silva." Nevertheless, Liddell got the rock star standing ovation.

Press conference and weigh in tussle can be seen at www.ufc.com

There's also a free show breaking down all of the fights at www.f4wonline.com with Mike Coughlin (who is excellent) called Five Star radio.

gimmick

Going away until New years day so won't see this until at least then. GSP Vs Hughes will be the show stealer. Really looking forward to that one.

I will be intested to see how Manny Gamburian will do also. Felt he was very hard done by in his loss in the final of TUF, in so far as it would have been a bloody good fight had h not dislocated his shoulder.

SuperWoody101

Is this Sunday on Bravo the only place this can be seen in the UK?

Vince135792003

SuperWoody101 wrote: »

Is this Sunday on Bravo the only place this can be seen in the UK?

Yep.

The Sparrow

Two really tough fights to call. Nobody knows which Wanderlei or Chuck will step into the octagon. Maybe both of them are finished as top class fighters or one or both will regain the magic that made them so great. It will be interesting to see who is tentative and who is willing to go bang. If I had to pick I think I would have to go with Wanderlei just because he is training with Randy Couture and we all now that Xtreme Couture fighters always go in with a good gameplan. Will Silva try and take Chuck down and shock everyone with a submission win?! Unlikely but I'm sure Randy will have figured out some sort of strategy as he knows Chuck as well as anybody.

GSP v Hughes is also pretty tough to pick. If you look at the last fight and the dominant win by GSP then you would have to think that Hughes will lose. But in the first fight when Hughes dominated it was clear that GSP's head was not right . So what about now? How will GSP recover from the Serra loss? Is his confidence shot or will he be doubly determined to prove himself again? And how will the fact that GSP took this fight with a months notice affect his performance? With Matt Hughes you pretty much get what it says on the tin. All of the questions are about GSP and for that reason I will pick Matt Hughes . Although if GSP is 100% then he should win. But I just think he will find it difficult to shake the Serra loss.

I'm also really excited to see Sokoudjou. This is an interesting fight because he could really be a superstar or the next Houston Alexander. He was dominant in Pride with two big upset wins but much like Houston Alexander we haven't seen a lot of his game. How is he on the ground? We really just don't know. And can he get an exciting fight from Machida?

Vince135792003

GSP beat Josh Koscheck in August. That answered the question to me on how he would respond to losing to Serra.

Plus GSP was training with the Canadian wrestling team with the idea of going to the Olympic trials which says a heck of alot for his wrestling. And if there was one thing you'd like to be training before you get a call on short notice to fight Hughes, it's wrestling.

If anything Hughes is the guy whose training would have been effected more. He went from a guy who he could take down quite easily in Serra to a guy to GSP who out wrestled arguably the best wrestler in the UFC that being Koscheck back in August.

I respect Hughes big time but GSP is just better than him in every area in 2007. If it goes into the 3rd round I'd be surprised.

The Sparrow

Vince135792003 wrote: »

GSP beat Josh Koscheck in August. That answered the question to me on how he would respond to losing to Serra.

I completely forgot that fight ever happened! Appologies!

Also I watched the UFC countdown show last night and unless I fell asleep during it they never mentioned the Koscheck fight either. Your right of course. But screw it I'm still picking Hughes!

Fozzy

I'm picking Hughes simply because I've been a big Matt Serra fan for years and I really want to see Hughes vs Serra for the title happen. Every bit of logic for me points to GSP winning though. People are saying that taking a fight on such short notice will work against him, but he's said that he's had a 3 month training camp this time rather than the 2 month training camp that he usually does, and that he was planning to take part in the Canadian Olympic wrestling trials earlier this month if neither Hughes nor Serra had got injured. GSP's training looks to be a lot more extensive than Hughes's too. I hope it's not Hughes's last fight, I'm not a big fan of his but I still want to see him take on Serra sometime

I think Wanderlei is going to plow through Chuck unfortunately. I really think that Silva's prepared better. Chuck said after his last two fights that he's not going to change the way he trains, since it had always worked for him up til those two fights. The cage will just help Silva if anything, but you never know how he'll cope with having the stomps taken away from him. Hopefully he doesn't go doing any by accident!

I'd like to see Sokoudjou win. I remember watching his debut in PRIDE and being impressed by him. He seems like a nice guy and he's got a test in Machida, but it's a test I think he'll pass

I've heard that the UFC could beat boxing for the most revenue from PPV's this year if this event does well, which some may find surprising

Vince135792003

Fozzy wrote: »

I've heard that the UFC could beat boxing for the most revenue from PPV's this year if this event does well, which some may find surprising

UFC haven't released many of their ppv buy rates for this year though so how would anyone know?

fatal

Well...its finally here.

GSP vs Hughes.Hughes is considered by many as the underdog in this fight and rightfully so after his performance at the last meeting between these two.GSP seems to have become a different fighter after his loss to Serra.He joined a new training camp and worked hard on his wrestling-one thing he will need against Hughes.Obviously hughes's gameplan is to bring this fight to the ground and provided he can do it,I think that he could pull it off.If GSP can successfully defend his takedowns and keep the fight standing within clinch then the pendulum swings GSPs way. My pick for this fight is Matt hughes.One has to ask themselves before discounting matt hughes whether this "year of the underdog" could end with one final unexpected winner.If anyone can pull it off,I think matt hughes can.

Silva vs Liddell.Judging from the comments of these two at the press conference and their antics at the weigh ins,I will be surprised if this one goes the full 3 rounds.This fight will pave the way for one of them and almost break the career of the other. Liddells gameplan is obviously to stand and exchange blows which makes me think that Silva has two options which will immediately swing the pendulum his way:
1. go for the takedown
2. Fight within clinch
We all know how hard it is to get and keep chuck grounded.However I think that Silva is one fighter who could successfully do it and submit Lidell.Also,Silva's clinch is top notch.He would cause liddell major problems if he could keep it that way and use his devastasting knees and strikes that way. On paper,Silva with having more tools is the winner.However I dont think that anyone can discount chuck's powerful striking.For me this fight could go either way.If I had to come up with a winner I would be inclined to go with the favourite,Wand.

In other fights,im looking forward to seeing Sokoudjou.As fozzy mentioned,his debut in pride was quite impressive.I think that he has met his match in Machida but I think that he will walk out victorious. Manny gamburian's fight is another one that im looking forward to seeing.If he didnt encounter that unfortunate shoulder injury in his UF finale fight with Nate,he would have no doubt won the contract.I wanna see how well he does in the octagon the second time round.

I put money on most of the UFC ppvs this year,however,I wont be putting any money on this one.Im not confident enough in either of top 2 fights turning out the way that I predict.Also,there are free webcasts available for this.Its just a matter of knowing where to find them:D

Vince135792003

fatal wrote: »

Also,there are free webcasts available for this.Its just a matter of knowing where to find them:D

Well if you know, share!

fatal

Vince135792003 wrote: »

Well if you know, share!

I dont think that its allowed in the open forum but check ur pms

dez_warlock

fatal wrote: »

I dont think that its allowed in the open forum but check ur pms

If you could let me know too that would be great. Thanks.

Vince135792003

fatal wrote: »

I put money on most of the UFC ppvs this year,however,I wont be putting any money on this one.Im not confident enough in either of top 2 fights turning out the way that I predict.

Here's my treble:

1. Sokoudju
2. GSP
3. Silva

If I win, I get 50 euro back on a 9 euro bet. None of my accumulators have come through this year so anyone I back should be scared!

yayamark

fatal wrote: »

I dont think that its allowed in the open forum but check ur pms

Could u pm me too please

Thanks

Fozzy

Vince135792003 wrote: »

UFC haven't released many of their ppv buy rates for this year though so how would anyone know?

Hmm...good point. I could have sworn that I read it on the Observer site though. Something about the UFC needing 650,000 buys to better boxing's record. But WWE is still way ahead of them

Vince135792003

Fozzy wrote: »

Hmm...good point. I could have sworn that I read it on the Observer site though. Something about the UFC needing 650,000 buys to better boxing's record. But WWE is still way ahead of them

To be honest, just going off limited information, UFC to me would probably be closer to WWE than boxing.

The 2 Mayweather fights this year alone including the UK did 3.5 plus million buys. According to Wikipedia HBO for boxing did a record setting 4.8 million buys this year.

Again going off limited information, UFC was averaging about 400000 plus for the first 6 months which would be in and around what WWE would do given the fact they had a good Wrestlemania.

Again though, that's only me estimating and nobody is starving.

UFC All Access Wanderlei Silva: http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/ufc/video/x3vo9j_ufc-all-access-wanderlei-silva_sport It's a very good show.

fatal

Im just finished watching it now.I think that it was a good ppv and a good end to '07.Anyone that is able to watch it on sunday on bravo should

Vince135792003

fatal wrote: »

Anyone that is able to watch it on sunday on bravo should

I agree.

Fozzy

Vince135792003 wrote: »

To be honest, just going off limited information, UFC to me would probably be closer to WWE than boxing.

I remember where I read it, it was in last week's Figure Four Newsletter. And it was 550,000 that was quoted as the number UFC would have to beat to make more money than boxing

Well worth watching this event.

Sokoudjou looked terrible, he just seemed to lay on the ground when he was on his back. Machida finally finishes a fight though!

Chuck vs Silva was an excellent fight, Wanderlei looked so much smaller than he used to. It's only logical to assume he used steroids. I don't know if he gassed or if some head shots just took their toll, but he just didn't have it in him for the third round. Hopefully he'll get another match as soon as he's fit, a loss for him was better for the UFC than a loss for Chuck I think

GSP is just the perfect MMAist. Great stuff from him. I hope Hughes doesn't retire without fighting Serra. Georges is such a babyface, but a lot of the Americans don't seem to be able to get over the fact that he's Canadian. A thumbs up show

Vince135792003

Fozzy wrote: »

I remember where I read it, it was in last week's Figure Four Newsletter. And it was 550,000 that was quoted as the number UFC would have to beat to make more money than boxing

I don't remember reading that. Maybe I just missed it.

I thought Silva did quite well. He took alot of punishment but kept coming and I think the general fan would have been impressed by his guts. The guy is a fighter.

He's in the wrong division though (not that it a major played part in this fight I don't think in contrast to say Lidell's reach advantage).

He could fight at 185 and people around Vegas that I have read have been saying that for months now. He walks around at about 200lbs apparently and you have guys in his same division like Forrest, Tito and Quinton cutting from 220lbs.

I'd have him fight Bisping with both dropping to 185. The winner could then face Franklin who could then face the winner of Anderson Silva/Henderson.

I would say that in the second round when he looked to be taking control, there were times when he was tentative. The second time Lidell was knocked down, he just let him back up. Obviously in Pride, that situation would have been different, given the rules but even still he didn't even preassurize him.

I wasn't surprised at all in the GSP/Hughes fight. In 2007, St. Pierre is just better in every area.

Also I didn't or never really hear a bad reception for him. I mean geez he was super over in Sacremento the first time he beat Hughes and Hughes clearly got more boos than he did.

It was always gonna be a bit mixed though with the large Canadian contingent. Kind of like when half of the crowd in Las Vegas started to cheer for Mayweather (who is always the bad guy) after the Hatton fans booed the American anthem. Just silly nationalism.

fatal

Fozzy wrote: »

Wanderlei looked so much smaller than he used to. It's only logical to assume he used steroids.

He looked tiny compared to what he looked like on pride.I would not be surprised if he was on the juice in japan.I dont think that they were ever drug tested over there

Vince135792003

Some pictures from the fight:

razorblunt

Spent New Years in New York and stumbled across the viewing party for this in MSG. $30 a ticket with a Q&A with Matt Serra and Forrest Griffin before hand. The place went nuts during the Liddell-Silva fight cheering both on and obviously most went nuts when Hughes tapped.

Kenny Florian, George Sotiropoulos(sp?) and some of the coaches from UF5 were there as well, great craic I must say.