UFC 94
 

http://www.mmaconvert.com/wp-content.../cards/gsp.jpg George St. Pierre vs. B.J. Penn http://www.mmaconvert.com/wp-content...ds/bj_penn.jpg @170 lbs.
champion vs. champion - Welterweight Champion, George "Rush" St. Pierre defends his title against Lightweight Champion, B.J. "The Prodogy" Penn. both have near superhuman abilities. GSP has freakish athletisism and The Prodogy has absurd flexibility. GSP has overwhelmed his last three opponents. if anybody can keep from being overwhelmed, it's Penn. i'm gonna pick GSP in this fight that could go either way.


http://www.mmaconvert.com/wp-content...iago_silva.jpg Thiago Silva vs. Lyoto Machida http://www.mmaconvert.com/wp-content...to_machida.jpg @205 lbs.

this, i am looking forward to every bit as much as GSP-Penn 2. IMO the winner of this fight should be No 1 contender for the Light-Heavyweight Title, or at least be next in line after "Rampage". and both men have perfect 13-0 records. Thiago Silva is a seriously though dude with possibly the best ground control / ground and pound i've seen. i do think skilled strikers present a bit of a problem for him though (if they're able to keep it standing). Machida is a skilled stiker, and no slouch on the ground either. plus he is has outstanding takedown defense and an elusive style that frustrates people. no one has been able to figure out how to beat him yet. Lyoto Machida holds a victory over Rich Franklin. i'm gonna pick Lyoto Machida in this fight, probably by decision - but he definitely does not want to end up on the ground in any kind of bottom position against Silva.


http://www.mmaconvert.com/wp-content.../jon_jones.jpg Jon Jones vs. Stephan Bonnar http://www.mmaconvert.com/wp-content...han_bonnar.jpg @205lbs.

i honestly dont know who this kid is. i honestly dont know what Stephan Bonnar has been up to for the last couple of years or so. and i honestly dont know how the UFC decides which fights get on the main card and which fights go on the undercard.


http://www.mmaconvert.com/wp-content.../nate_diaz.jpg Nate Diaz vs. Clay Guida http://www.mmaconvert.com/wp-content...clay_guida.jpg @155 lbs.

Nate Diaz has awesome Gracie JiuJitsu, is pretty well rounded in all aspects of fighting and is very resiliant. Clay "The Carpenter" Guida is an excellent wrestler, a good striker, and a relentless pit-bull with endless cardio. while i think there is a decent chance that Diaz will catch Guida in a choke or an armbar, i think that per se there is an even better chance that Guida physically overwhelms Diaz. so im gonna pick Clay Guida in this fight, probably by decision, but possibly TKO. btw, one of Clay Guida's two losses was a decision to Tyson Griffin in a fight that Guida clearly won IMO.


http://www.mmaconvert.com/wp-content...g-hyun_kim.jpg Dong Hyun Kim vs. Karo Parisyan http://www.mmaconvert.com/wp-content...o_parisyan.jpg @170 lbs.

i dont know anything about Dong Hyun Kim. Karo Parisyan is probably still the best Judo practitioner in the UFC. his stand-up is good but not great. he's solid. i dont know enough about Kim to make a prediction on the match.



http://www.mmaconvert.com/wp-content.../jon_fitch.jpg Jon Fitch vs. Akihiro Gono http://www.mmaconvert.com/wp-content...ihiro_gono.jpg @ 170 lbs.

i honestly dont know anything about Gono, but Fitch's last fight was against dominant Welterweight Champion George St. Pierre. that fight went the distance if memory serves. and now they got Jon Fitch on the undercard. go figure. i'll go ahead and assume Fitch will handle Gono, though i admit that i know nothing of Gono.


http://www.mmaconvert.com/wp-content..._gamburyan.jpg Manny Gamburyan vs. Thiago Tavares http://www.mmaconvert.com/wp-content...go_tavares.jpg @ 155 lbs.

these guys are both solid. i dont know why this isnt on the main card (other than i guess Manvil did kinda get himself knocked out by Rob Emerson). i'll be dissapointed if it isnt televised. can't call it. btw, one of Thiago Tavares's losses was a decesion to Tyson Griffin in a fight that Tavares clearly won IMO.

Bonnar failed a drug test after his Griffin rematch and was suspended for 9 months. He fought Mike Nickels from TUF season........... 2 or 3 and schooled him in BJJ for a few minutes before choking him out. This was last summer i think. then he fought Eric Schafer about a year ago. kicked his ass in the second round. I think he then hurt his knee before his next fight and has been out since

Interestingly about Bonnar, he has only lost to Lyoto Machida, who is still undefeated, Forrest Griffin and rashad Evans. The former and current UFC LHW champs. Mind, his biggest win was probably against Keith Jardine so he is very much on the edge of condendership I think.

I don't know anything about Jon Jones either, but his sherdog stats tell me he has had 6 fights between April and August last year and won them all. He is 6'4'', 21 years old and if UFC brought him in after only 5 fights, 3 months after his debut, you have to suspect he isn't going to be too bad.

Jon Jones is rumoured to be pretty good down the line, but he will probably just be fodder for a Stephan Bonnar return. (Depending of course on how good Bonnar is on return)

I seriously hope GSP beats Penn, could not stand Penn being a double champion...

Also I really want Thiago Silva to go over Lyoto Machida, but I really can't see it happening...someone who holds victories over BJ Penn, Rich Franklin, Stephan Bonnar and Tito Ortiz has to be doing something right

Also I'm still confused as to why Gono V Fitch is on the undercard...unbelievable

I really want Penn to win. Like GSP is the man and all but I would really like to see Penn take it.

Nonetheless should be an effing sick event I can't wait.

Plus Machida is the man I want to see him win too.

YA yo I have been waiting for Jones televised Debut for mad long. He went to my college and I knew him through his roomate.

His wrestling skills are great which allowed him to win against Gusuamo. He was a bit sloppy in that fight though so hoefully he has improved since then.

The fight:
http://www.mma-core.com/videos/_Jon_...001039&tid=100

The Jardine win was questionable... the entire crowd booed the call, and Jardine was really taking it to him. Wins a win I guess, and it was a good fight, Bonnar got a couple knockdowns, and he can hang with some of the big boys, but I don't personally think he's good enough to be a contender ever. Maybe he'll prove me wrong, he's a real good fighter, he just has too many cracks in his game.

GSP vs. BJ Penn is going to be sick. I think GSP takes it. I don't know how, I don't know where, but I gotta go with my man. Bigger, stronger, more athletic, but BJ is BJ so I'm not counting him out. But GSP should take it for sure.

And I'm going to go with Lyoto over Silva. Lyoto knows how to frustrate the fuck out of everyone he fights, and I don't think Thiago Silva will be any different.

Ok but look at how hes lost to the best of the best. You dont get more questionable than his first fight with griffin, not that it was a bad decision, but you cant label a draw in a tournament. Plus with a guy that can hang in there with anyone the entire fight all while being very aggressive is always on the verge of winning a big fight into contention.

He is capable with his back round to fight just like machida, and the only reason he lost was because of a freak cut.

Yeah you make a good point. He's super well rounded... and very very durable... But I think he has the Chris Lytle syndrom, in that he won't be able to win the big one. He's an animal though, he COULD feasibly step it up a couple of notches and start beating the best of the best.

What suggested to me that perhaps he just doesn't have "it" was the loss to Evans. Rashad took him down at will essentially, and for a guy to be at the top, his take down defense needs to be far better than what he showed against Rashad. Well either that or his jits needs to nullify a strong wreslter's ground control which it didn't, Rashad controlled the fight.

Though on the whole, he has the tools to be a top guy. Guys have stepped it up before, and someone with the skills of Bonnar could be able to. I just personally don't see it happening in a VERY stacked lhw division.

And as far as comparing him to Griffin (which granted you didn't outrightly do) I'll look at both of them in their respective Evan's fights.

Personally, I think what fucked over Griffin was he got a little too comfortable striking with Rashad, and Rashad caught a legkick which he was waiting to do the whole fight, and CRACKED him. Up until that point Forrest was taking it to Rashad. What cost Forrest that fight was his somewhat suspect chin. He was pretty much out of it as soon as he hit the ground and god knows how he survived that first gnp onslaught from Evans.

Whereas Bonnar fought a less explosive and more tentative Evans IMO. He probably also has a better chin than Forrest. Evans outclassed Bonnar with his wrestling the entire fight. He really did nothing the whole fight. I mean it was a long time ago, but I remember watching it almost feeling bad for him because everything he did was nullified.

Maybe it's a matter of game plan with Bonnar... once he starts to employ better gameplans he'll start wining the big fights? :?:

-EDIT- So I guess the difference is no matter what with Bonnar is I always feel he'll lose against the top guys no matter how game he is... whereas someone like Griffin or Jardine has the ability to beat the top guys (as well as get brutally knocked the fuck out) on any given day.

it was more a change in the style of evans. evans is a very explosive fighter, but in his earlier fights he won most of his fights against better guys via lay and pray decisions. His fight with bisbing was one of the most boring fights ever because he took him down and laid on him. just to name an example. same with bonnar. He would have been stupid to stand with them back then.

He has since evolved into this good stand up fighter and now you see knockouts like the one against chuck and he has an active grownd game which is why you didnt see him lay on forrest.

A lot of that is attributed to grg jackson as well.

A superior wrestler with a good chin and defense can win almost any fight hes in because of the fact that he can take someone down and control them on the ground. This is a very unpopular way to fight and is the reason why rashad took so long to jump up in the rankings.

Yeah that's true. He was fucking boring as shit to watch, though he had some sweet takedowns in his earlier fights. Fuck that fight with Sam Hogar was hard to watch. He almost lost to him!

To be honest I think his striking was always there, I just don't think he wanted to use it because he was too tentative.

I'll also never understand his fight with Ortiz, all he needed to do was use his explosiveness and he could beaten Tito but instead... well we got a pretty poor performance from him. Though I did love it when he took Tito down near the end.

The Jackson camp seems to be working for a lot of guys... I think he instills the confidence in them to go out and fight as opposed to go out and outpoint.

well he is very good at developing gameplans that work for his fighters.

So is Extreme Couture a lot of the time.

Rashad and his team, until about 18 months ago would disagree.

You don't all of a sudden develop a striking game in 18 months. There would have had to be some base skills there. When he was on TUF there were a few fights where he actually used his striking to win. He also ktfoed Sean Salmon with a headkick. (Mind you it's Sean Salmon but you get my point).

He's always had striking, the Jackson Camp has refined it, and given him the confidence to use it.

yes he always had the proper mechanics to throw a punch, but if you dont have the confidence to use your striking.... then you dont have striking.

And you can develop a lot in the span of 18 months! A year and a half is enough time to develop almost any skill you wish to attain.

GSP started training for wrestling and with jacksons camp after his loss with serra and then out wrestled Koz in his next fight.

I believe the raw ability has to have already been there. That's why you don't see Pete Spratt outwrestling Matt Hughes.

Rashad was a pretty good striker before, Jackson's camp lifted it up a notch.

GSP was a very good natural wrestler. He made Frank Trigg look like a retard, and was stuffing Matt Hughes takedowns and had been training with the Canadian Olympic national team for some time as far as I know. Jackson's camp lifted it up a notch.

But yes I'm wrong, you're right, all hail you good sirs. (Even though I'm pretty sure I'm not even arguing with you).

Nice.....

listen, your going to get a hard time because youve said some dumb stuff before...

anyway... look at the different competitors. Some guys are just very athletically inclined. Rashad evans was not the best wrestler, but he is extremely athletic and is capable of doing a lot of diffeent things at the raw level with little training. GSP is just like that too.

Andrei came into my gym 2 years ago and had never wrestled before at all, and now he can stop shots from people who have wrestled all their life like (look these names up) john kading, sean bormet, greg wagner and steve mocco. 2 of those people are national champs and all are all americans. His takedaowns in live wrestling are taking more time, but that has more to do with his confidence in them rather than his ability. when drilling takedowns with him, I would not be able to tell you he had never wrestled before. Now he has done sambo, but you dont do wrestling takedowns in that. You mean to tell me he already had the skill set in place when he had never had formal training before?

With the pete spratt compairason, he probably doesnt have the resources to train at a place that would give him the tools to outwrestle matt huges.

GSP is one of those assholes that cand do anything physically that he wants and takes him a VERY short time within training something to master it. And thats the whole point... 18 months is a LONG time when it comes to athletes like these.

I said stuff you THOUGHT was dumb because I didn't agree with you. I'll grant you have more mma knowledge than me, but it doesn't change my opinion on our arguments.

Doesn't mean we ALWAYS need to argue about everything. It's too much effort and a lot of stuff I agree with you on anyways.

As far as what you said in that post, yeah I definitely hear you. 18 months for a high level athlete is a long time. I guess what I'm getting at is if you expect Marcus Davis for instance, whose ground game has improved leaps and bounds, to be able to roll with someone like BJ Penn or GSP, it's just not going to happen and never will. He can only get to a certain level... he's going to be good and vastly improved, but BJ and GSP have been doing this shit for a long time and were already at an amazing level before Marcus Davis even knew how to do a guillotine choke.

Then again, that's also probably because they are both twice the fighter he is and are on a different level.

Also I guess Arlovski and Evans are two phenomenal athletes and better than most, hence they can pick these things up fairly fast. Sort of like Josh Koscheck. Some guys can do that, some guys can't.

I call them ass holes

You also have to look at their economic status and their resources. A lot of these guys have jobs other than fighting or families and cant spend all their time like the BJs and GSPs just training.

BJ is a very natural athlete and picked up jujitsu naturally, but he also had nothing better to do. He was living the good life and could devote all his time to that if he wanted. Same with GSP. He started so early that he made a name for himself and now doesnt have to worry about anything.

They can now either go to where the best guys are, or have the best guys come to them. Thats something that the marcus davis' in the world cant do yet.

well...


I was actually referring to these statements. Theres others like it. It really makes you appear like you dont pay attention to much of what goes on around this forum because Ive seen you around here for a while and stuff like me being a fighter is fairly common knowledge, and you being ignorant to it discredits everything else you have to say because it makes you seem well... ignorant. That then causes things you put here to be criticized more than usual. Again why you havnt figured out this is why youve been getting a harder time is just further proving my point.

I had NO IDEA you were a fighter, like honestly zero clue. I just started posting here again. And I kind of just do my own thing on here anyways. If I had known you were a fighter I wouldn't have said anything like that. The only reason I've been posting here again is cuz my Uni is on strike and I've had nothing to do. I don't really know too many people other than the oldbies.

And the only people giving me a hard time are you and Fabien. You I don't mind, I was kind of a dick and my apollogies, but Fabien kind of just swings off your nuts, and he's always been kind of a twat, for years.

It's really no biggie, you and I both probably have bigger fish to fry, I'd just rather love than hate. But I will take much of the blame for making some blanket statements. However, you did initially jump down my throat so I just chirped you back :p

Well a couple more fight of the night bonuses and he'll be well on his way ;)

Erm, sweeping statement? As well as not true.

I mean, ask Reav. Tell you what, I'll ask him..

Reavant, do I or have I ever acted in any way like I 'swing off your nuts'?

Why you have to apologise for being a cunt, and somehow manage to still make a post where you are insulting someone unprovoked, and even trying to defend your reasons for being a cunt.... you have risen above nothing.

Uni on strike? Try and make some real-life friends. You have been failing here.

Yep that's me, absolutely no friends at all ;)

Tomorrow night, Jon Jones gonna whoops some ass baby!

HAHA no way

I think a lot of people are looking at Bonnar in an the complete wrong light.

While Bonnar was on drug suspension (following the 2nd Griffin fight), after he got his necessary surgeries, he started training at Extreme Couture.

Stephan Bonnar before his second fight with Forrest wasn't fighting at any one real gym so he wasn't getting the type of guidence and training at a world class athlete should be getting. Even without the world class training he was still able to hang with Rashad Evans (obviously not the Rashad Evans of today but still a good fighter) and he was able to beat Keith Jardine (not too diffrent from the Jardine of today) and go toe to toe with Forrest twice (once again not the same as today but still good). That was all with poor training.

As the saying goes iron sharpens iron and since Bonnar has trained at Extreme Couture he's destroyed Mike Nickles (not the best of fighters) and Eric Shafer (a decent fighter) arguably beating the latter while injured. We saw what great training camps have done to the likes of Forrest Griffin, Keith Jardine, and Rashad Evans..

Why can't Extreme Couture do the same for The American Psycho?

I think if Stephan Bonnar can stay away from the injury bug (which is a concern considering his recent history) I think he could make a big leap.

Take this with a grain of salt because I'm a fan but I think Bonnar has another level that we have yet to see from him, heres hoping he acends to that level.

Avatar bet?

The more I think about it, GSP is just too much of a machine for Penn i think. This reminds me of the time when Penn ran into Matt Hughes in his prime and got his arms pinned to the floor and owned. I know Penn was out of shape then and probably wont be now, but still. GSP looks insanely good. I hope i'm wrong and this fight is epic for 4 rounds and then someone gets finished in the 5th, but if i had to bet my life in it, i'd take GSP.

hughes was in his prime when they first met and penn finished him fast. Apparently in the second fight the reason penn looked so gassed out was because a rib separated at the end of the second.

This card has got me very pumped. And I CAN NOT WAIT for this Main Event!

I really don't know whats gunna happen, I just hope it ends with Penn getting his hand raised in victory!

LETS GO BJ!

I'm watching this on sopcast right now. IT's a nice stream :D

GSP! GSP! GSP!

Channelsurfing has an incredibly good stream going at the moment too.

FUCK THAT

Guida should not have won that fight. He basically locked his arms around Diaz and held him against the cage the whole fight. Thats a fucking joke. Plus the guy was belching in the corner like he was drunk. Diaz took him down blind like 4 times. Guida should not have gotten that win. I guess anyone can just lock his arms around a guy and hold them on the cage and get a win. Diaz was robbed.

Karo looks done and he hasnt even got in the ring yet.