sirshannon.com

[UPDATE: Results at the bottom]

Nick Diaz Vs. Gleison Tibau : Nick is on his way out of the UFC, and Tibau is on his way in. I would like to see Nick win again, he has let me down continuously over the last year, but I don’t have any reason to think that he will win. If he loses, this is a “see, you need to come back when you’re ready” fight for Diaz and a “look, he beat Nick Diaz” fight for Tibau. If Diaz wins, he’ll get to walk away from the UFC saying “you guys just fucked up.” I can’t count on Nick to win these days and I don’t think the UFC wants to let him leave on a win, so I am guessing Tibau will win somehow.

I will skip the rest of the undercard because I am not qualified to comment on them.

Joe Stevenson Vs. Dokonjonosuke Mishima : Joe Stevenson just doesn’t impress me. I think people like him, though, and I know nothing of his opponent, so I’ll go with Joe winning by decision after a boring fight.

Alessio Sakara Vs. Drew McFedries : I’ll go with Sakara on this one, simply because he has a better record. I’ve seen him fight once but that isn’t enough to base an opinion on.

Brandon Vera Vs. Frank Mir : Frank Mir needs to win this fight to prove he isn’t finished. Brandon Vera needs to win to prove he deserves some real competition. After Frank’s last fight, I have to go with Brandon Vera. Probably by KO/TKO.

Tim Sylvia Vs. Jeff Monson : Monson by 1st round submission. Nuff said.

Matt Hughes vs. Georges St. Pierre : Matt Hughes by submission, Rear Naked Choke around 1:45 into Round 2.

I’ll be back tomorrow to compare the results with my predictions.

[UPDATED with results 2006-11-19]

Nick Diaz Vs. Gleison Tibau : Diaz won halfway through the second round due to Referee Stoppage, or so I heard, but they didn’t show the fight, even though there was plenty of time to show a few undercard fights thanks to 3 very short fights starting off the main card.  The entire PPV event was under 3 hours so I feel a bit ripped off and assume they didn’t want to show Diaz winning the match because he is leaving for the IFL.

Joe Stevenson Vs. Dokonjonosuke Mishima : I was correct about Joe winning but wrong about when and how.  It was an extremely short fight, ending with a guillotine a little over 2 minutes into the fight.

Alessio Sakara Vs. Drew McFedries : This was a 4-minute slugfest, either of these guys could have been knocked out at any time.  I guessed Sakara would win but I guessed wrong.

Brandon Vera Vs. Frank Mir : Mir looked a lot better than his last fight but didn’t fight much better.  Or maybe Brandon Vera is really that good…  we’ll see.  Vera won this by TKO 69 seconds into the fight.

Tim Sylvia Vs. Jeff Monson : Damn.  Sylvia did his homework and impressed the hell out of me last night.  He completely shut Monson down, avoiding every take down attempt and controlling the entire fight.  The final round was as boring as the final round of Sylvia/Arlovski III and the fight ended with the same results.  Sylvia seemed to think Brandon Vera will be next in line to challenge him.

Matt Hughes vs. Georges St. Pierre : GSP won this fight twice.  Once at the end of round 1 (Hughes was saved by the bell) and again 1:25 into the second round.  GSP avoided every takedown attempt Matt threw at him and Matt took a beating standing up.  Usually Matt takes it to the ground when he gets punched a few times, GSP prevented that and Matt couldn’t hang.  GSP earned the belt, dominating the only fighter to beat him in the UFC.  I look forward to seeing him hand Diego Sanchez his first loss ASAP.

My score (correct/incorrect, going by win/loss only, not when/how): 2 right, 4 wrong.  Doh.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 18th, 2006 at 8:56 pm and is filed under , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.