The Greatest MMA News Column 09.15.09: TUF 10 Predictions

Posted by Dan Plunkett on 09.15.2009

Ultimate Fighter 10 Predictions; who will be in the finals? How far will Kimbo go? Thoughts on Couture vs. Vera headlining UFC 105, Ricardo Arona's MMA return, Rizzo beating Monson, UFC 103 vs. Mayweather/Marquez, and much more!

Ultimate Fighter 10 Predictions

This is the first season of TUF that I'm excited for since season 5. The hype coming out of this season is insane. You have Rampage and Rashad as coaches, and in case you were wondering they don't play nice with each other. In terms of the fighters, this season isn't the most talent stacked of all time, but there are some good prospects this season.

Of course, Kimbo gets his very own paragraph. Will Kimbo win this season? Certainly not, but he makes this show many times more interesting than it would have been without him. We saw in the extended preview that he wasn't very well received by the cast; I expect their attitude towards him to change throughout the course of the season. Kimbo has a negative reputation in the MMA world because of the way he was marketed by EliteXC, as a result of that many people think he's a bad guy. They couldn't be more wrong. Despite never having met the man, I can tell you that Kimbo is a good guy, or at least he seems like one. In all of his interviews and appearances, you don't hear him saying anything bad about his fellow fighters, no matter what they may say about him. Sure, he's not a very good fighter, but that's no reflection on him as a person.

Now onto the predictions:

Roy Nelson will fight Justin Wren in the finals: Roy "Big Country" Nelson is everybody's favorite to win the show this year, I can't see how you can argue against that. While on paper Big Country has lost his last two fights, they were against Jeff Monson and Andrei Arlovski. There were questionable things that happened in both fights (stand-up in Arlovski fight, decision in Monson fight), but so be it. Nelson is the most talented fighter in the house, and he has the second most fights out of the bunch.

Justin Wren is a guy you may not have heard of before, but I believe he has the best wrestling in the house. For my money, wrestling is the best base for MMA, and when you're a really strong wrestler you have the power to dictate where the fight goes. I am picking Justin Wren's wrestling to take him to the finals, but there are some tough match-ups for him that he'll have to avoid along the way.

Kimbo will not win his first fight: I'm really going out on a limb here. The fact that everybody in that house has seen Kimbo fight is not a good thing for him. They know what he does well, and they know what his weaknesses are. It's no big secret that Kimbo ends up on Rampage's team after seeing the preview for the show. That wouldn't be a huge problem if the other coach didn't have Greg Jackson at his side. Ultimately, Team Rashad will put a fighter across the Octagon from Kimbo that he doesn't match-up well with.

Notice my prediction leaves a loophole for Kimbo to come back, possibly replacing an injured fighter, and win. Recently he stated that he would be fighting at the finale in December, which leads me to believe he may have won a fight.

Rampage fights door; wins by knockout: Why does everybody on this show have to destroy doors when they're angry?



Rashad will be a much better coach then Rampage: Ever since the in-cage stare down at UFC 96, Rampage has been focused on fighting Rashad Evans. The only reason he did this show was so he could fight Rashad at the end of it. While Rampage is busy focusing on Rashad, "Sugar" will be trying to beat Rampage in the competition. He's made it clear he doesn't want Team Rampage to win one fight, and that's a goal I expect him to pursue.


I told you he'd be focused.

The show will debut to record ratings, peak when Kimbo fights, then decrease after that: The past few seasons of TUF have seen a decrease in ratings, that will change. This season will be the highest rated of the shows history. Obviously Kimbo's fight will draw viewers, but after that I don't think as many people will tune in just to see steak grilling Kimbo.

Kimbo won't fight until the last episode of the first round: It doesn't matter when the fight happened during taping. With the use of editing (a form of witchcraft), they will make it seem like Kimbo was the last guy to fight in the first round. This way, they will get the audience looking to see Kimbo fight until at least the fight announcements.


Couture vs. Vera to Headline UFC 105

Even with all of the rumors surrounding UFC 105's main event (5 or so different fights), I can honestly say I didn't think of this one. On November 14, in Manchester, England, Randy Couture will return to the light heavyweight division to take on Brandon "The Truth" Vera. Did I mention it will be FREE on Spike?

"Captain America" doesn't have much to gain in fighting overseas, but getting him on free TV is a good move. For one, Randy Couture is a guy that many people will want to see fight, especially if they don't have to pay for it; he's the biggest draw to fight on a UFC free TV event since Ortiz vs. Shamrock III in 2006.

The event will also benefit the winner in a potential run at the title. After losing two in a row, I'm sure people will have doubts that Couture can compete with a champion as dominant as Lyoto Machida (assuming he defeats Shogun Rua). Should Vera come out the victor, it will be even more meaningful than his win against Frank Mir, and it will skyrocket him into title contention.

In 2006, Brandon Vera seemed to have endless potential in the UFC. He finished his first four UFC opponents, including first round victories over Assuerio Silva and Frank Mir. Had it not been for a contract dispute, Vera probably would have fought Tim Sylvia for the heavyweight title at UFC 68. Instead, Randy Couture got the title shot, jumpstarting one of the most remarkable career revitalizations in MMA history.

Today, Vera is seen as a fighter that had a lot of potential, but let it squander. Many just don't see the same fighter that promised to become a double champion in his post-fight interview. I believe that Vera is still a very good fighter and has a window of opportunity to become a champion, but that window is closing.

To me, this fight is very interesting and a solid main event for the show. However, some fans in England probably don't see it my way. January 19, 2008 was the last time we saw a title defended in England, or anywhere overseas for that matter. Since that date, there have been 3 events in England and 2 in other overseas venues. On top of that, the UK fans were promised a title fight on the next event they got (UFC 105).

Do they have a legitimate gripe? To a certain extent they do. However, the UFC was trying to make a middleweight title fight for the event, but that fell through. Ultimately, the UFC will be forced to bring a title fight to the UK, probably in their next visit there following UFC 105.

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Arona, Rizzo, and Filho Win at Bitetti

If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I watched Bitetti Combat on Saturday. Going in with a very good card but some fighters who many would label as "boring" I didn't know what to expect. For me, the most interesting fight of the night was the rematch between Pedro Rizzo and Jeff Monson, so we'll get to that first.

Monson came into the fight with a 7 fight win streak which included wins over Roy Nelson and Sergei Kharitonov. However, in September of 2007 he was defeated by none other than Pedro Rizzo. Rizzo came into Saturday on a 2-fight losing streak, with his last win coming against Monson almost 2 years ago to the week. By fight time, Monson was being talked about as one of the top 15 heavyweights in the world, while Pedro had fallen oh-so far since his losses to Randy Couture.

It was basically the same fight for three rounds: Monson couldn't get the fight to the ground no matter how hard he tried. Taking advantage of this, Pedro used his famous leg kicks to wear Monson down and was clearly the superior striker. Does this win jump Rizzo into the top 15? No, he'll need to get some more wins under his belt, but maybe Pedro isn't as over-the-hill as many thought he was going into the fight.

The main event of the night saw Ricardo Arona return to MMA against Marvin Eastman. I wasn't impressed with Arona in this fight, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say it was the two year layoff that lead to him not finishing Eastman. I'd like to see Arona win another fight or two before moving to Dream, Strikeforce, or the UFC.

What has happened to Paulo Filho? Not long ago he was considered the second best middleweight in MMA, but his last three performances haven't been very impressive. He took home the decision victory on Saturday, but his fight wasn't the best I've ever seen, to put it nicely.

All in all, Bitetti was a good show. The three main fights weren't very good, but the undercard fighters brought it. Fabio Maldonado and Vitor Miranda had the best fight of the night, Ninja Rua CroCop'd "The Brazilian Killa," and Milton Vieira upset Luciano Azevedo.

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UFC 103 vs. Floyd Mayweather

This Saturday will see a very interesting match-up in the "UFC vs. boxing" storyline. As most know by now, UFC 103 is going up against Floyd Mayweather vs. Juan Manuel Marquez on PPV. Let's take a look at the competing shows:

Clearly, the UFC doesn't see Mayweather as much of a threat. They brought anything but the big guns for this event. In the main event, Rich Franklin will fight Vitor Belfort. Franklin has headlined the last two PPV's he's fought on – UFC's 93 and 99. Both of those events were overseas, events which don't do nearly as well on PPV compared to their North American counterparts. However, those events did exceedingly well when compared to other overseas events. UFC 85 (Hughes vs. Alves), drew 225,000 buys, then the normal for overseas events. UFC 93 (Franklin vs. Henderson) in Ireland pulled in 350,000 buys, a 64% increase. UFC 99 (Franklin vs. Silva) did slightly better on PPV than UFC 93.

Vitor Belfort isn't much of a draw. He will be sold on a reputation he attained more than a decade ago, but I don't think his name will move many units. The biggest draw in this event is the UFC brand, which is also how they sold most of the tickets to the event anyway. People trust the UFC to give them 5+ fights every time out, with the majority of them being good. PPV's have been up across the board, I expect UFC 103 to be no different. This show will do about 100,000 more buys now than it would have a year ago.

Floyd Mayweather took part in the biggest PPV in history. His next fight just missed the million buy mark. Now Mayweather is returning to boxing and claiming that he's the one that drew all of those buyers. That isn't true. "Pretty Boy" Floyd is a good draw, but he's not nearly the draw that he thinks he is.

I don't think this fight has been promoted particularly well. I've seen many more commercials for UFC Fight Night and TUF 10 in the past week than I have for this fight. When it was announced that these two events were going head-to-head, I though Mayweather's return would be a big deal and it would be covered in the media as such, I thought it would easily beat UFC 103. Now, I'm not so sure. I like how this card is more stacked than most big boxing cards, but the only fight I've seen promoted was the main event. Maybe they could have gone with a "best boxing card in years" angle to draw in more buyers.

So who will win the PPV battle? Right now, it's too close to call for me. Especially considering I haven't seen the UFC countdown show yet, which is where I get a better idea of how well a show is going to do.


That is it for this week my friends. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to leave a comment, or email me here.


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