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

WEC 50

Cruz does best Tiger Knee impressin on Benavidez's face

Went 5-0 on the main card, that being said this card did hold some surprises for me. Namely the improved takedown defense of Anthony ‘Showtime’ Pettis not to mention his flashy kicks that validate his nickname.

Behold the Au Batido

Scott Jorgenson and Brad Pickett put on the fight of the night as expected, but was still contradictory due to the highly competitive yet one sided end way it was contested. In the main even Dominic Cruz defended his title and gave Joeseph Benavidez another loss in what looked like a replay of their first match up with a bit more feeling. Cruz once again used his hit and run style to frustrate Benavidez who was hoping to stay planted on both feet and hope for a counter and while he was able to land none of the strikes seemed to visibly effect Cruz nor did it change the momentum of the fight. Joeseph had his best round in the fourth where he was able to do serious damage in the clinch where he opened up the champs face with a knee.

In the end it wasn’t enough and Benavidez lost a tough split decision. With Jorgensen coming off his 5th win in a row its safe to assume he will be the next threat to Cruz’s throne and Benavidez will remain a top contender at 135 but will have a better chance at championship gold at 125 whenever the WEC gets the Flyweight division in gear.

Bellator XXV

Had another event with perfect picks on the main card. With that said it wasn’t the most electrifying of events, all fights went to decision. Dan Hornbuckle got a hard fought win after his loss in last seasons welterweight tournament as did everyone else. At the end of the day one can’t complain after the previous Bellator card had all finishes.

Strikeforce: Houston

Muhammad "King Mo' Lawal on his way to losing his title to Rafael "Feijao" Cavalcante

Now onto the most notorious card of last week for all the wrong reasons. Spirited middleweight title fight aside between Tim Kennedy and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, a back and forth battle that went the distance like all other middleweight championship fights since Cung Le relinquished the title. It was an okay fight that was easily forgettable due to the bizarre goings on the rest of the card. From KJ Noons brutal round (and some would say fight) ending combination on Jorge Gurgel.

Ouch

Finishing the round strong or intentional late shot?

And then in the second round, Noons went for the kill yet again throwing what seemed to be an illegal kick/knee to a downed opponent.

It doesn't land flush but that could have been nasty.

Former pro wrestler and army vet Bobby Lashley fought and lost after the end of the 2nd round when he was visibly exhausted and dazed in his fight against Chad Griggs. Oddly enough this wasn’t the biggest story of this fight, that dubious honor will go to one of the most vilified referees in combat sports Jon Schorle and his decision to stand up a mounted Chad Griggs so that Lashley could get a cut checked and not giving Lashley his position back. Not only did this result in an already fatigued having to try to get the position back the hard way it led to him expending the little bit of energy he had left which caused him to lose the fight. Utterly unacceptable at any level.

The main event and 2nd title fight of the evening had newly minted light heavyweight champ King Mo make his first title defense against Anderson Silva training partner and resident muy thai wrecking machine Rafael Feijao. Mo was able to put up 2 good rounds, willing to trade strikes after his wrestling seemed to falter here and there. While he was getting takedowns they were proving difficult to get and it was even harder keeping Feijao on the ground.

This led to Lawal taking chances with his good but still improving stand up, unfortunately the low crouching ‘Cuban’ stance fed right into Calvancantes knees and thai clinch strikes. Despite being up at least 1-1, the 3rd round held a nasty surprise for Lawal as Feijao just pounced on Lawal after tagging him. Mo while stunned tried to get a single leg takedown to shake out the cobwebs but was met with downward elbow after downward elbow, forcing the ref to stop the fight and yet another light heavyweight champ lost his belt in his first title defense in the Strikeforce organization.

All in all a good week of fights and since I will be off work for both the Bellator and UFC cards this week expect fight picks and some twitter action from us here at theclinch.net

Unfortunately I will be at work this evening and will not be able to watch this live, which sucks but its my fault for assuming this was going to be a Sunday card. Bellyaching aside lets get to the picks, main card only.

Shane Roller vs. Anthony Pettis – This is a #1 contender bout for the next shot at the WEC lightweight title. Roller may be the safe bet due to his wrestling, but Pettis has the ability to finish the fight standing or off his back. Going with Pettis on this one.

Showtime via Sub

Cub Swanson vs. Chad Mendes – Swanson is a somewhat one dimensional bjj player who usually lets his reckless style of fighting gets him into trouble. Chad ‘Money’ Mendes is Urijah Fabers protege and a formidable wrestler. Mendes should take this.

Chad via UD or Sub

Scott Jorgensen vs. Brad Pickett – This is a #1 contender bout for the next bantamweight title shot. As a fan of both fighters this is a hard one to pick, Scott is a super aggressive wrestler with solid stand up and the strength of a fully matured farm animal. Brad Pickett is a crafty fighter with a deceptively good ground game for a Englishman. Both are top 10 fighters and I give Scott the edge via coin toss they are so (presumably) evenly matched.

Young Guns Jorgensen via Split Decision

Bart Palaszewski vs. Zack Micklewright – Don’t know too much about Micklewright and am expecting another standard Bartimus performance where he takes a beating and pulls out a miracle sub.

Palaszewski via sub

Main Event – Bantamweight Championship

(Champ) Dominick Cruz vs. Joseph Benavidez – On paper this rematch is a fight of the year candidate. Since the last time they fought Cruz has improved his frenetic hit and run fighting style and won the title, while Joey B has finished his last two opponents, Rani Yahya via brutal tko and then slashing former champ Miguel Torres’s face open then strangling him.

Offensive and defensive abilities aside this fight comes down to one thing, the skill set that defines the lighter weight figters and why the WEC is so exciting: Speed. More specifically who has it and who doesn’t. Dominic Cruz’s style is predicated on his ability to move in and out of striking range, frustrating his opponents and making them swing wildly so he can strike and more specifically counter his opponent at will. He also has the defensive wrestling to keep the fight on his terms. That being said if Benavidez is able to make adjustments and attack appropriately we should be in for a good, competitive fight.

I still see Cruz frustrating the Alpha Male fighter and making his first successful title defense.

Cruz via UD.

The last and in my opinion best event of the month is getting closer with this weekends WEC event. Here is Zuffa head honcho Dana White and USA Today’s MMA columnist Sergio Non talking about WEC 48, the future of the WEC Lightweight division and the recent debacle last weekend in Nashville at the last Strikeforce event. Link to full article.

UFC, with five weight classes, had 13 pay-per-views last year. What gives you confidence that WEC eventually can match the ratio that UFC is doing right now with pay-per-views?

There’s great fights in the WEC. Anybody that’s ever watched these guys fight on Versus knows how these guys always perform. If we did three WEC pay-per-views a year, I think people are going to be interested in buying them.

You’ve got a lightweight title fight on the card. What’s the advantage to having an overlap at 155 between WEC and UFC?

I actually think it’s kind of cool. I think eventually what we do is, we’re going to continue to add to lighter weights, and you’ll end up seeing these (WEC) guys go into the UFC, the 155 pounders.

So once you add flyweight or divisions like that, you can move WEC’s lightweights and move them into UFC, is what you’re saying?

Yup.

While talk of the flyweight division is always nice, it does come through bittersweet since the talks of adding the 125lb weight class has been hinted at for almost a year. The talks of absorbing the WEC’s lightweights sounds promising but could end up being problematic with the 155lb division already being the biggest weight class in the UFC as it is.

With Zuffa taking the slow and steady route towards building the WEC brand. I still believe they would be better off going with the strategy I suggested in an earlier post and just add the lighter weight classes to the UFC and keep the WEC around as their very own farm/minor league promotion for up and comers and over the hill stars they don’t want other promotions to snatch up. This idea has been mentioned by many other blogs and rings of commons sense but time will tell if the advice will be taken into consideration.

The biggest and most important question was never touched upon in the interview. What is Zuffa going to do if PPV is not a viable option for the WEC? We can only wait until after this weekend to get a definitive answer.

While there has yet to be any official word on the topic, the word on the webs is that UFC 111 did pretty damn good last weekend.

From Wrestling Observer ,

Early cable estimates, and granted, anything this early in the week can be way off, indicate about 850,000 buys for UFC 111 on 3/27, putting it in the top six for UFC of all-time… Dana White didn’t give a number, but in an exchange of messages before we got any figures, he indicated being thrilled with the early estimates he had gotten and that it looked to be well above my prediction (700,000) going in. If this number holds up, it would be the largest since UFC 101 on 8/8.
…

The number speaks volumes for St. Pierre as a drawing card, where he has to be now be considered No. 2 in the promotion.

Surprise 2x, the first card of the year with a belt on the line does exceedingly well. Granted I would still put 110 over 111 in regards to entertainment value. The fact remains that if you want both the hardcores and casuals to buy the cards, one of the champs has to defend his title. Now with the gypsy curse of 09 behind us and all of the champs feeling better and back to training, Zuffa can generate super card after super card…until it runs out of champs. Which brings me to one of my pre blog twitter rants, which I will (try to) keep short.

I still believe that Zuffa would be wise to add in the bantam and feather weight class’s and absorb the WEC fighters into the UFC then giving the WEC its heavier weight classes back and using it as a super farm league for upcoming fighters to test their skills against proven vets who may not be at UFC level anymore but are still too valuable to let another org have them. With 2 more belts and divisions it would give the organization more leverage with its ppv’s & counter programing of competitors. And since I am wishing big why not let the WEC add in some female divisions for the hell of it. I know Dana has gone on record with his views on FMMA not being his cup of tea and too talent deprived at the highest levels. But with more time and more visibility given to the sport that could change.

Despite the populous view of combat sports only being riveting when two giants slug it out, I think the smaller guys can carve out a niche . The UFC’s public relations team (and a season of TUF) given time can build hype & interest for mma’s lighter fighters at bantam (135lb) and featherweight (145lb) which are equivalent to boxing’s light and welterweight classes where the sports two biggest American stars reside at. If boxing can generate shock waves in the media with the indefinitely doomed Maywheather vs Pacquiao bout, imagine what the UFC could do when they continuously have the best fighters in the world face off, mind games, superstitions and fighter negations be damned.

While there were some fights of divisional importance between 107 and 111, there was definitely something missing from those cards. Bottom line Zuffa would benefit greatly if they were to add more divisions. People like title fights, it is the simplest contest of the best fighting the best. And with 7 champs (if they were to stay healthy and injury free) we could have a title fight if not every month every other month. Which would be a triumph for both fans and Zuffa.

Breaking news from mmajunkie, Dream is hosting another tournament this time in Light Heavyweight 205lb/93kg division. So far the newly acquired Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral is the only fighter listed to compete. But with the well known partnership between Strikeforce & Dream, it’s safe to assume they wouldn’t have any problems exchanging fighters.

We here at The Clinch are all enthused to hear about any major promotions putting on fights with high level talent. But one has to wonder, with a tournament in the division filled with more stars than a monolith…a monolith with a UFC logo to be more precise. How are they going to scare up any noteworthy lhw talent. Its safe to assume that current Strikeforce LHW Champ not to mention the last man that smoked Babalu, Gegard Mousasi will be included. Along with other Japanese fan favorite and freak crusher Rameau Sokodjou who has also been beaten by the Young Vagabond (That’s right I’m bringing back the old nickname, we could even start a poll … once I figure out how its done.)

Granted the side bonus of tournaments like these are for unknown up and comers to darkhorse their way past a favorite and gain some notoriety. Which is totally possible but thanks to Zuffa holding the contracts of the majority of the top 10 and 11 to 20 lhw’s in the world. It will be hard for anyone to see the tournament winner as the best in the world.

Assuming Gegard throws his name into the mix I have him picked as the favorite to win. A query made even more tenuous with the possibility of injury during his first title defense against King Mo. But with the widely held perception of being the single best light heavyweight fighter outside the Zuffa umbrella, one can’t help but see him continue to buzz-saw through all his opponents until/if he fights in the UFC.

Either way it is Dream and Strikeforce’s monumental task of finding exciting talent to fill out the rest of their brackets for this 16 or possibly 8 man tournament.