I didn't get a chance to do quick picks for last few UFC events, but the picks are back. Here they are this UFC 87: Seek and Destroy. Obviously St. Pierre vs Fitch, Lesnar and Roger Huerta vs Kenny Florian are interesting fight, but the rest of the card on paper is so so for me.

Cheick Kongo Vs. Dan Evensen - Kongo was kinda ripped off in favor of no talent hack Heath Herring in his last fight but showed some improvement in his ground game and I think came away with a few lessons from the fight. That's all that matters in a close loss like that and Kongo will be better off. Evenson fought in Bodog several times but hasn't beaten anyone of note. UFC's heavyweight division is lacking right now so they're bringing him in to feed to Kongo. Picking Kongo by KO

Luke Cummo Vs. Tamdan McCrory - should be a fun fight as both of the guys have decent standup and like to push the action in their fights. Picking Tamdan McCrory based on his better record of winning against better fighters and his reach.

Jason MacDonald Vs. Demian Maia - another fight that has the potential to be pretty exciting from the ground game perspective. Both MacDonald and Maia's previous victories were exciting finishes. Picking Maia by submission.

Manny Gamburyan Vs. Rob Emerson - Rob Emerson has actually faced several good guys like Pulver, Vasquez, Mishima in his MMA career prior to his appearance on the Ultimate Fighter TV show. Gamburyan has gotten on a few win streak, both by submissions, since list injury loss to Nate Diaz. Seems like Emerson has had issues with good ground guys in the past, so I'm picking Manny Gamburyan by a few very hard rights, takedown, some pounding and submission.

Kenny Florian Vs. Roger Huerta - after watching UFC 87 Countdown and watching the Roger Huerta segment all I can say is wow. What a story! It's amazing what he has achieved coming off his childhood experiences. He was lucky to have had the people that helped him get on his feet, but his hard work and determination kept him on course. This completely throws out his image of happy go lucky mexican college kid who's fed easy fights. Come on, Clay Guida is an easy fight?

Onto Kenny Florian. He is very intelligent and established himself as a lifelong learner of MMA. His dedication and motivation to be the best has been showing in his recent fights. With that said, I think Huerta's has more power and faster pace, so I'm picking Roger Huera by an exciting decision.

Brock Lesnar Vs. Heath Herring - picking Brock Lesnar to give Heath Herring a retirement beating. Straight right, takedown, vicious ground and pount till TKO.  Herring still sucks on the ground after 11 years of being in MMA. This will be much like Jake O'Brian's domination of Herring, only Brock Lesnar will do killer damage.

Georges St-Pierre Vs. Jon Fitch - the event will start in a few minutes, so I'm out of time. Picking Georges St. Pierre by a clean win over the blood and guts of Jon Fitch in a long exciting and gruelling fight!

Out of all the Yahoo! Sports MMA section newly minted MMA "experts" I always considered Dave Meltzer to be the best out of the bunch as he's been around MMA for a while longer than the rest. Most of the time, if I have time, I usually just quickly scan over their MMA coverage as they're often pretty bland and biased and plain bad...cough...Kevin Iole anyone?...cough...cough.

So when Dave Meltzer's Lesnar faces must-win against Herring article showed up on Yahoo.com's front page today I had to check it out. After quickly looking at it I felt compelled to comment on some of the points and errors in his article.

 "Lesnar can’t afford a second straight loss on a major pay-per-view event and still be considered a long-term main eventer."

First of all, Brock Lesnar hasn't been a main eventer in UFC yet. His UFC debut fight with Frank Mir felt like one though because of how much popularity he brought to the UFC from his WWE days and stellar NCAA background to go with that. He can very much afford a second straight loss on a major PPV event also because he, in my opinion, lived up to the hype of being incredibly athletic and fast for his size and most importantly that he put in some hard training and looked very very good for being so inexperienced in MMA. He handily beat on Frank Mir but got caught by a much experienced fighter in a possibly debilitating, however not quite there, submission and didn't want to risk a long term injury. He only made more MMA fans with his loss and created more hype and anticipation as to what he can really do in MMA. He is also a natural competitor and it will be very hard for anyone to turn a fight with him into a boring affair. So he can afford 3-4 more exciting losses with no problem for his UFC popularity at all. But that's not going to happen, he is not losing at UFC 87 - not to the sloppy Heath Herring.

Meltzer then proceeds to comment on the fact that because Brock Lesnar came in at a higher salary of guaranteed $250,000 a fight another loss could really ruin his UFC career.

"The others have been given lower or mid-level opponents to start out with to build their reputation. UFC decided that with what they were paying Lesnar, there was going to be no such slow grooming process."

Honestly? With how many PPV buys Brock Lesnar brought in with his first fight, $250,000 a fight is nothing to UFC at this point for a celebrity of sorts.  They'd need not even 6000 extra PPV buys to recoup that salary. He brought in quite a bit more than that. Come on, they just got done paying Brandon Vera nearly the same for one of the worst fights this year against a mostly unknown wrestler.

"Texan Herring has 41 pro fights over the past 11 years, in nearly every major organization. He became a star in Japan at the age of 22, and has been in the ring with a Who’s Who list of the greatest heavyweights of all-time."

"Herring, a big star during PRIDE’s heyday in Japan when he was known as “The Texas Crazy Horse” for his unique multi-colored hair, noted he’s beaten men bigger than the 6-2 ½, 277-pound Lesnar, as well as higher credentialed wrestlers. He’s best known for a 2000 win over Tom Erikson"

"Herring (28-13), is known for being difficult to finish; he went the distance twice with Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira in their three meetings, after being submitted the first time. But he was beaten by his most famous opponents in Japan, by Cro Cop from strikes on the ground, and by Fedor Emelianenko due to blood."

Brock Lesnar isn't in much danger facing THIS Heath Herring. Yep. The same Heath Herring who showed his true skills against Jake O'Brian, who couldn't finish Brad Imes (where is he now anyways? Still doing gogo-platas at some tiny shows?), who questionably beat Cheick Kongo. 41 pro fights in the past 11 years and he never amounted to anything in nearly every major organization, besides amuzing Japanese fans with his stupid hair cuts.  His supposed wildness or crazyness only amounts to the fact that in 11 years of fighting and training here and there, he still looks as sloppy and amateurish as he did during his "wild days" of wearing leather cloaks for his fight entrances. Lesnar will retire Herring from UFC by beating him in the first round. 

Why is Meltzer talking a loss for Lesnar when he's fighting Herring? Herring hasn't submitted anyone in 5 years, let alone anybody good ever. Sorry comparing his wins over wrestlers 7 years ago doesn't make much sense. He hasn't KO'd anybody in 2 years. What he has done is get dominated on the ground by a ground game newbie Cheik Kongo and got completely tooled by a much smaller Jake O'Brian. Given all that and an enormous amount of sloppyness, Brock Lesnar's chances to lose are minimal.

Also, Nogueira submitted Herring in his second fight not first and what does "by Fedor Emelianenko due to blood" mean? I share Fightlinker's sentiments in how sad it is that Yahoo's Sports MMA has some of the biggest audience out there, especially when they often get to the front page, but their MMA coverage is being done either by very inept people with not much clue about MMA and the fact that they're very biased and often inaccurate.

First half of round 1 was pretty good. In fact the beginning started out kind of like I predicted with Lauzon taking it to the ground and Florian immediately looking to cut with an elbow from the ground. The fight was stopped for a warning to Florian because supposedly he was elbowing the back of the head. Myself and Joe Rogan, as I'm sure thousands of MMA fans were a bit perplexed with Herb Dean's call. It's nearly impossible from that position and angle to elbow the back of the head directly, kind of like trying to bite your own elbows - highly unlikely.

It'll be interesting to see if this sets a precedence for fighters being in the top guard of trying to really bury their head to defend elbows from the bottom or even try to turn the back of their toward the strikes, think Frank Mir getting a "get out of a beating" card from Steverino Mazagatti against Brock Lesnar. I'm willing to bet we'll be seeing this more and more in the near future, unfortunately.

So I'm wondering if it was the huge body kick that Kenny Florian landed right into Lauzon's side and immediately followed up with the cross to the side/liver that completely drained a usually very long lasting Lauzon? Cause shortly after Lauzon who loves ground and pound all of a sudden gave up a good top position to go for a leglock and started gasping for air. It was immediately obvious at that point that he couldn't go on for much longer. Florian took over quick in the second round, got to the mount and started throwing punches on top of helpless and out of gas Lauzon.

To Herb Dean's credit he wasn't stopping the fight just because Florian was arm flailing, he made him work for a while and gave Lauzon all kinds of chances to improve his position. I hope this sets yet another precedence of the refs actually making sure that the arm flailing is doing actual damage from now on. As much as I like Arlovski and that he got a so so win against Jake O'Brian at UFC 82, the ref didn't make him work that hard and do actual damage at arm flailing from the mount.

Good win for Kenny Florian, he seems to hang in there and find a way to win.

Well gotta run, I hear Dana White is sick of p**sies coming on to his Ultimate Fighter show, which is funny cause doesn't he pick them himself every time? Rampage and Forrest are going to make this entertaining for sure!

 

 

To all the fans out there that decided to ignore the fact that Brock Lesnar was a NCAA Division I heavyweight champ and a real elite athlete before he joined WWE to make a living and derogatory comments after his loss to Frank Mir by submission about him still not being "real", please listen to Mr. Sunshine's radio interview of Frank Mir to hear what Frank Mir himself thinks about Brock Lesnar after the fight finally took place.

To all the fans to had a clue about Lesnar's athletic experience and his good performance against Frank Mir, also please list to Mr. Sunshine's interview of Frank Mir. It's quite revealing and honest coming from Mir himself. I have to give Mir props for admitting that few times when Brock hit him he was seeing white, not a lot of fighters are honest like that.  Mir also thinks that Brock is for real and has a lot of potential in this sport.

Check out the interview, Mir also gives his thoughts on Nogueira vs Sylvia bout and what's next in the UFC heavyweight division.

So wow, yeah, all the anticipation that led up to this fight, all the speculation and questions were sort of answered. I picked Brock Lesnar to win in my UFC 81 quick picks. He lost the fight unfortunately, but he won respect of many MMA fans that doubted him as being a legitimate threat in MMA. It definitely turned out that way.

The fight started of with Mir low kicking Lesnar and Lesnar catching the kick and immediately taking Mir down. They ended up in Mir's half guard and Lesnar immediately started putting pressure on Mir by vicious looking strikes from the top.  In the process of trying to avoid Lesnar's pressure Mir turns his head a little too much toward Lesnar and Lesnar accidentally punched Mir to the back of his head. It was one single punch that kind of grazingly landed on the back of the head but Steve Mazagatti immediately stopped the fight and took a way a point from Lesnar. WTF? Really? It happens all the time and no referree ever took a way a point on an accidental punch to the back of the heat. I'm completely not sure why Mazagatti did that, especially to a newcomer like Lesnar.

After they were stood up, Mir tried two more kicks which Lesnar countered with a few hard punches which knocked Mir down. Lesnar pounced on Mir, landed in the sidemount/north side and proceeded to unleash another flurry of very hard looking punches. For a moment Mir turned on to his knees and Lesnar quickly spun around him to continue punching from the sidemount on the other side. Mir brought his legs up to try an armbar but Lesnar easily got out of that before he was in any danger. Lesnar continued to keep pressuring Mir with more punches from the top of the guard. He stood up and stepped into Mir's half guard where Mir went for a leglock. Lesnar spun away and threw himself away and down to try to get his leg away from Mir, but Mir held on and went for a kneebar. Lesnar tried to escape for a few seconds and tapped.

In my opinion Lesnar tapped way to quickly with out really trying to escape on a kneebar that did not look like it was applied well. For anybody who's trained in grappling at all and dabbled into kneebars, will know that when you're applying kneebar your hips need to be on the thigh above the knee. Well it was quite clear that Mir's hips weren't even on Lesnar's knee and certainly not above it. It's really clear in the videos and pictures you'll come across of the fight.

I blame Lesnar's trainers for his tap. Most people that are new to leglocks and kneebars in particular are always scared into tapping quickly so that they save their legs fromany damages that leglocks cause. Most leglocks cause some type of increasingly obvious pain, with the exception of the kneebar. Kneebar is one of those things that do not hurt much till the knee pops. But in order for that to happen hips need to be above the knee, leg has to be just perpendicular to the attacker's body and a lot of pressure needs to be applied. I'm especially surprised that he didn't even try to escape the kneebar because Eric "mr leglocks himself" Paulson was in his corner. So Brock Lesnar just didn't want to risk a possibly debilitating injury. Understandable.

Lesnar dominated Mir before he got caught, no question about it. He is big, powerful and real. He showed a lot of promise and some solid ground and pound. I can't wait to see him back and may be fighting someone like Antoni Hardonk who he'd just probably demolish on the ground.

Switching onto Mir for a moment. He won. He caught inexperienced at leglocks Lesnar in a half-baked kneebar. You have to give him credit though for surviving some intense moments when Lesnar was pounding him. I'm taking some credit away from him for faking that he was in any way hurt by the accidental punch to the back of the head though. Mir should may be fight Sylvia again and quit when he most definately will lose.

Great short fight though.

Brock Lesnar vs Frank Mir - Brock Lesnar will run right through Frank Mir. Lots of people are writing Lesnar off against but his wrestling experience and Mir being artificially hyped up by Iole's types will expose Mir and his mediocrity. His biggest win to date is still against another mediocre The Lame-iac Sylvia and even that was a freak accident.

Rodrigo Nogueira vs Tim Sylvia - I want Nogueira to win and really hope he will catch Sylvia with something. He'll punch his way inside and take the find to the ground.

Marvin Eastman vs Terry Martin - I think Martin will take this one with his power

Richardo Almeida vs Yuntd - Almeida, he was really good at one point

Jeremy Horn vs Nate Marquartd - Horn should take this one with some effort

Gleison Tibau vs Tyson Griffin - Griffin will outwork Tibau

Chris Lytle vs Kyle Bradley - Lytle, too much experience

the other two fights - who really cares....