The 12th season of the Ultimate Fighter kicks off with a Ultimate Fight Night held in Austin, Texas. Since this card is lead in to a later show the prelims start at 5 p.m. so I will forgo my picks for them and will focus on the main card only.

Jim Miller vs. Gleison Tibau – Skill wise Miller takes this easy, on paper he is the better striker and grappler. Unfortunately for him Tibau is a dread-naught of a lightweight who was still considered huge back at welterweight. While Miller has been bullyed by bigger wrestlers before (Maynard) he should be savvy enough to not make the same mistake twice. Either way he can’t look as tiny and helpless as Caol Uno did against Gleison.

Miller via UD

Cole Miller vs. Ross Pearson – Of the 3 lightweight bouts this contest has title implications for one of its fighters. The British striker Ross Pearson has not lost a fight in the UFC since winning his six figure contract on the Ultimate Fighter. Cole Millers is far from a chump and has a very good offensive guard game, yet he still gets into silly striking exchanges that cost him rounds and fights here and there. Expect to see another brilliant stand up display from Pearson and some unexpected wrestling from Cole when the heat gets turned up on him.

Pearson via UD

Efrain Escudero vs. Charles Oliveira – Props to Oliveira for stepping up on short notice, but he is in for a long night. Stunning submission of the night performance aside I see Escudero holding most of the advantageous in this fight. Granted Escudero is coming off his first defeat of his career via submission no less I still see this fight the same as the Duffe/Russow fight. Finishing a scrub on the undercard is all well and good but lets see how Oliveira does against a decent fighter before we start heaping more accolades upon the young Brazilian.

Escudero via TKO

Main Event

Nate Marquardt vs. Rousimar Palhares – The main event of the evening will crown a top contender amongst the middleweights in the UFC. Marquardt is a well rounded vet and Palhares is a muscular bjj player known and feared for his leg based submissions. All things considered this comes down to two factors: Who is the better wreslter & better conditioned athlete?

In Marquardt’s last fight he was soundly outwrestled by Chael Sonnen and Palhares is fresh of a suspension from holding on to his last submission a bit too long. Even from his last performance I will still give Nate the edge in grappling, while he isn’t a bjj ace he is a black belt and is defensively sound enough to stay out of trouble as evident in that he has never been submitted in the UFC. And while Palhares is strong as an ox, his small frame for the weight class (5′8) doesn’t lead one to believe that he can carry all that muscle mass through a 15 min war with one of the best 185′ers. If Rousimar doesn’t end this quick Nate is going to out work and damage him.

Marquardt via TKO

The UFC is holding its first event in Boston the hometown of many of its fighter and UFC president Dana White. This card will feature a main event that is a championsip rematch between the new champ Frankie Edgar and former lightweight kingpin BJ Penn. This lightweight filled card will also feature a title eliminator fight between perennial lightweight contender Kenny Florian and the undefeated Grey Maynard.

Oh yeah and Randy Couture is fighting a veteran boxer in the twilight of his career in James Toney, now lets get to the picks. Main card and Spike prelims only.

Preliminary card (Spike TV)

Joe Lauzon vs. Gabe Ruediger – Taking Creepy Joe, he has been put on too many radio shows and podcast for me to pick against him.

Lauzon via TKO

Andre Winner vs. Nik Lentz – Lentz may be a talented fighter but I can’t root for Carnival folk, Andre lives up to his name.

Winner via UD

Main card

Demian Maia vs. Mario Miranda – Going with the underdog here, Miranda is a fellow bjj black belt who should be able to stay out of trouble on the ground and pick Maia apart in the stand up exchanges, watch out for leg kicks.

Miranda via UD

Nate Diaz vs. Marcus Davis – This will be Nicks second time fighting at 170, his welterweight debut had him crushing Rory Markham within the first round. Marcus Davis is a solid vet and scrappy gatekeeper but has a bad habit of getting sucked into brawls/foolish exchanges. I can see Nick using that weird but effective wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man style of boxing to confuse and wound Davis en route to victory.

Diaz via 209-oplatta

Kenny Florian vs. Gray Maynard – This will be a title eliminator between a well rounded veteran and an undefeated up and comer who is the only man to have a win over the current lightweight champ. That being said Florian’s speed and multifaceted arsenal should keep Maynard at bay. If The Bully decides to defer to his wrestling, Kenny’s guard and bjj prowess should turn the table in his favor.

Florian via Submission

Co Main Event

Randy Couture vs. James Toney – Last week on Inside MMA I actually had to search my cable boxes options/settings screen to get the closed captions up so I could understand what Toney was saying in an interview. Before I was able to locate them I stumbled onto the aspect ratio settings and realized with awe and horror that for the 6 months of having AT&T that I have been watching everything in 4:3 standard definition at 480.

I have since changed the settings to full 1080i HD, all thanks to James Toney and his mush mouth.

That being said this is a money fight nothing more or less, don’t be fooled by the ‘Boxing vs. MMA’ tagline.

The UFC, led by former boxer-turned-promoter Dana White, has flourished. “MMA is the king of the [expletive] right now,” Toney said, which is another reason he’s here. He’ll make an estimated $750,000 to $1 million Saturday. In boxing, “I can’t get no fights.”

To envision Toney as some kind of dangerous slugger with a record full of one punch knock outs would be a perversion of reality. The man is defensive wizard who relied on counter punches, accuracy/shot placement and solid combos to defeat (out point) opponents. Even at his natural weight class where he was a force to be reckoned with over a decade ago, he still allow hubris to get the best of him. This is from his first professional loss against an also prime Roy Jones Jr.

Pride comes before the fall.

Randy may not be the fighter he used to be but he is still not the guy you want to make your MMA debut against. Even though I would enjoy the aftermath of a Toney win (for the lulz), I have to go with the obvious pick.

Couture via Submissioon

Finally, I’m really glad this was launched. I’m just hoping that the new episodes from this upcoming season will be the next day after being aired on Spike. Being greedy, I wish they’d air at the same time…I’ll take what I can get though.

From MMAWeekly.com:

The ad-supported website will feature every episode, every fight and every fighter from all 10 seasons of “The Ultimate Fighter,” which premiered on Spike in January 2005. The launch of UltimateFighter.com marks the first time that complete UFC fights are available on the Web for free in an ad-supported model and it is the first vertical website launched for a Spike TV series. Both UFC.com and Spike.com will redirect all traffic related to “The Ultimate Fighter” to the new site.

Pretty brilliant.