As usual, I say these will be super quick fight picks for UFC 92, but then I'll probably end up writing for an hour. Besides the fact that this is a really star studded event, like the old Pride year end event used to be, here are my picks.

Forrest Griffin Vs. Rashad Evans - what a tough pick this is for me, Rashad has been winning steady and last fight was a huge statement, especially for this confidence in his skills. Even though Forrest beat on Rampage a bit in their last fight, Rampage wasn't nearly at his best, but he has that advantage of going through that tough 25 minute championship fight and after being knocked down in the very first. So I like both guys, but I'm leaning towards Rashad and his power. Picking Rashad Evans.

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira Vs. Frank Mir - I'm honestly not sure what Mir can do to Nogueira. His striking is still isn't good enough for Noguiera and his latest submissions were against guys that are inexperienced at them. I give Nogueira striking advantage, stamina and submissions for that matter. He'll wear Mir out in the very first round, peper him with all kinds of striking. In the second he'll proceed to doing the same and finish Mir in the third. Picking Nogueira by just being better at everything and experience.

Wanderlei Silva Vs. Quinton Jackson - In both of their previous fights Rampage started off better than Silva and as soon as he got into any type of rhythm or a good position he was interrupted. In the first it was the ref for an odd reason, when Rampage was on top and pretty active and could have very well worn Silva out to finish him later. In the second he did great in the first round and spend good energy to get Silva on the ground and be on top before the bell rung. Silva showed why he was still great after exlusively beating up on 10+ japanese fighters and cought Rampage with some amazing forever-highlight reel shots. Again I really like both guys and both faltered lately. I hope Rampage learned from Silva-vs-Liddell, and Silva vs CroCop for that matter, that straight shots are Silva's cryptonite, Achilles's heel, whatever. Silva hopefully got some more good training in at Randy Couture's. So I want Rampage to win and hope he got whatever messed him up for the Griffin fight taken care of and is in better shape physically and metally.

CB Dollaway Vs. Mike Massenzio - picking CB Dollaway and his peruvian necktie, cause I get a feeling Massenzio is there to make CB look good again and promote him further.

Cheick Kongo Vs. Mostapha Al Turk - picking Kongo because he should be pretty hungry for a win after he basically gave away a fight he was winning a no talent hack Heath Herring.

Yushin Okami Vs. Dean Lister - So...like...wtf is Dean Lister still doing in UFC? Honestly! I know Dana hates Yushin Okami, but it is a damn sport that's already so popular that if there are a few guys that are not exiting but beat other good fighters with skill, IT IS OK. I mean, look at how boring Lyoto Machida can be, but he is damn good and in my opinion has redeemed himself when he gave Tito Ortiz the biggest humiliation of his life. Yep, and that's after Randy spaked Tito in front of millions. Anyways, hope Okami beats up Lister and moves on to the contender list for 185 right after.

Ryo Chonan Vs. Brad Blackburn- picking Ryo Chonan.

Other fights - who cares.

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.

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....

So the whole world is buzzing about Microsoft bidding 44 billion dollars to buy Yahoo. All the cool kids are blogging about it, so I thought I have to blog about it too.  Yahoo's been doing pretty bad business wise and show very poor results in this past quarter earnings. There has been talks of Microsoft looking to scoop up Yahoo and actually become a competitor to Google if it'll be able to pull resources of both together, but it's been all talk till yesterday. Microsoft saw an opportunity to come in and put an unsolicited bid for struggling Yahoo. I think this is great for Microsoft and will help them establishing at least some type of competition for Google and forcing both to come out with better products and offerings. I know not a lot of people pay attention but Microsoft has come out with some better offerings than Google recently, for example, Microsoft's maps.live.com and their "bird's eye view". There is more, but this isn't a technology blog is it?

What does this have to do with MMA? Not too much really, for now that is, except for the Kevin Iole and his incredibly incompetent MMA "journalism" and delivery of UFC propaganda scoops directly from Dana White's mouth. Even since he started covering MMA topics at Yahoo Sports' boxing new section, MMA bloggers and fans alike who had a clue consistently called him on being consistently inaccurate and incompetent at covering MMA.  Kevin also established him as the online voice/mouth of Dana White propaganda hype machine. Kevin has, it seems, a unique and exclusive access to Dana White who hates all online media but doesn't ever bother to ask or question Dana on what news or "inside scoop" that Dano feeds him. It's quite bizarre. Why doesn't Dana just come out and say it that Kevin Iole is his personal public relations guy?!?

Kevin's recent reporting related to UFC 81 is really getting attention of being just plain bad with painfully obvious UFC Party Line (as in communist party) bias. I'm not the only one noticing this. FightOpinion has written about it, MMA Analyst wrote about it, BloodyElbow has written about it, Fightlinker wrote about Iole numerous times in the recent past. Here is a lovely example with "comic" to boot.

Yahoo was going to lay off a bunch of people, then Microsoft decides to bid for it. If Microsoft does end up buying Yahoo, there may be even more layoffs. So Microsoft, please, get rid of the hack of an incompetent MMA "journalist" that Kevin Iole is. He is feeding hundreds of thousands new MMA fans something he obviously knows very little about and just regurgitating Dana White's propaganda.

Not all Yahoo Sports MMA coverage is bad though. They do bring lots of good live coverage of weigh-in for example and UFC's press conference calls. Plus they recently hired Dave Meltzer who's been around for a while and knows his stuff, so check out his stuff.