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.

I was just watching UFC Unleashed on Spike and Antonio Rodrigo "Minotauro" Nogueira vs Heath Herring was on; man, it was frustrating to watch.  I didn't like the fight since it was announced. This was to be the third time the two fighters were going to meet and there was completely no point to it. Nogueira already had with a one sided decision win and a submission victory over Herring.  What was the point? To put Nogueira over to US fans? Herring looked like an amature fighter that he's always been in his debut against Jake O'Brian and in all his other fights for that matter. It's disgusting to see his STILL sloppy striking, that's after all those years of supposed striking training in Holland. Bleh...

Herring is big/heavy, strong and wild. It can be tough to fight someone like that. But that's how he got by in all his fights. Let's go over some of his big fights starting in Pride.

vs Willie Peters - scrub from Rings with zero ground game.

vs Tom Erikson - the only fight where herring was actually smaller than his opponent, but so what? He was getting dominated and landed a lucky knee. Erikson never amounted to anything spectacular.

vs Enson Enuoe - we're talking about Enson's next fight after Igov Vovchanchyn's disturbing beating and doubling Enson's head in size from swelling.

vs Vitor Belfort - Herring was fighting a light heavy and couldn't even do anything to him

vs Mark Kerr - same as Erikson fight, get beat on and land a lucky knee

vs Rogdrigo Nogueira (first match) - you know, lots of people at the time called it the greatest heavyweight fights, i beg to differ. It was all Nogueira beating on Herring, standing and on the ground. Herring showed some explosiveness in his escapes - thats's it.

vs Igor Vovchanchyn - ya, he got Vovchanchyn down at the beginning of every round and sat on top of him taking a nap. Vovchanchyn came a way unscathed after that lay and pray.

vs Fedor Emelianenko - it was painful to watch because Fedor was hitting him so hard and landing most of the vicious ground and pound ever seen to date.

vs Mirko CroCop Filipovic - again, his takedowns were sloppy, his stand up was sloppy. CroCop liver kicked him into submission.

vs Gan McGee - "please, make this amature big sloppy loof night stop!!!" i kept thinking when i made myself watch this atrosity of a fight. It was a crime against what MMA. Never watch that one.

vs Nogueira (second fight) - a replay of the first, Nogueira dominating up and down and making him tap with the anaconda choke. Herring again showed nothing.

vs ...aah, what's the point...

My point is that this guy never amounted to anything and rode the hype of his stupid hairdo's and a few lucky breaks. But fight in and fight out, his striking never improved, he's takedown defense never got better, he's takedowns never got less sloppy. A shame really.

I'm not sure what UFC was thinking after keeping him on a contract after the Jake O'Brian fight. I know fighters have off days, but there were zero glimpses of any hope of any improvement...ever.