Cardio Freak MMA News Report 12.07.09: Merry Go Round We Go

Posted by Jeremy Lambert on 12.07.2009

This week in Cardio Freak: A preview of UFC 107 featuring a breakdown of all the main card fights plus predictions. How can Diego Sanchez stop the unstoppable (at Lightweight) BJ Penn? Is Frank Mir too confident in his stand up? Will Clay Guida be awesome as usual? Plus a review of The Ultimate Fight 10 Finale featuring one of the most unpredictable fights ever. Also thoughts on the return of Chuck Liddell and Quinton Jackson. Unlike Houston Alexander and Kimbo Slice it's the column that never gets tired, it's Cardio Freak on 411.



Headline News

UFC heads to Nashville, Tennessee this weekend with a card that was originally headlined by Quinton Jackson vs. Rashad Evans before Jackson retired from fighting forever in fear that Evans would treat him like a bitch and break his shoe off in his mother fuckin ass in his hometown*. That's not the real reason but I know Quinton Jackson is a big fan of the column and I'm hoping that line will get him to come out of retirement and fight Evans. Instead he'll probably end up fighting me. Don't worry folks, I'll take a dive to ensure you don't lose interest in Jackson vs. Evans. I'm a man of the people.

*Writers Note: That line was written Thursday morning. Quinton Jackson announced he was coming out of retirement on Thursday night. I'm taking the credit.



With Jackson vs. Evans off, UFC has put together a good card top to bottom that is headlined by BJ Penn defending his UFC Lightweight title against Diego Sanchez.

A lot of people seem to be writing off Diego Sanchez in this fight but I think that's more of BJ Penn being great rather than Sanchez presenting no challenge to him. Sanchez' striking is the best Penn will see at 155 right now. He hits hard and puts together nice combinations. He has a tendency to rely on the same combinations though; those being the left hook followed the right uppercut and the feint right followed by the left head kick. Look for Sanchez to throw those combinations (especially the left hook-right uppercut combo) about 50 times in this fight. Sanchez also loves to throw the flying knee anytime his opponents back is to the cage. Penn's striking is very basic but effective. He rarely throws a kick unless it's an inside leg kick and he uses the jab as well as anyone in MMA. Penn also has a great counter hook that could come into play if Sanchez does indeed throw the right uppercut time after time.

The real chess match in this fight will be the wrestling of both men. The best position for both fighters is being on top of their opponent and working from there. Getting on top will be about as easy as me getting a date with Taylor Swift. Sanchez entered MMA predominately as a wrestler. He's explosive with his takedowns and drives through them to finish. Unfortunately he'll be trying to takedown BJ Penn, whose takedown defense and balance is legendary. He's almost impossible to takedown unless you're a freak of nature like Georges St. Pierre. The best way to put Penn on his back is to have the same strategy GSP had at UFC 94. Trade strikes with him, make his shoulders heavy, and then go for the legs. For Penn, wrestling is the weakest aspect of his game. He doesn't have an explosive shot but he is strong in the clinch and most of his takedowns come from dropping to a double from the clinch, picking his opponent up, and putting them down.

Sanchez' main strength is his top game. When he gets on top of you he constantly stays busy with passes and strikes and he rarely gives up the position. His main strength unfortunately plays into Penn's main strength, which is the ground game. He's excellent on his back, using the rubber guard to control opponents and threaten with submissions and sweeps, and his guard is almost impossible to pass, again, unless you're a freak of nature like Georges St. Pierre.

Penn's top game is excellent as well. He stays busy with strikes and he makes passing to better positions look like he's using the Staple's button. Sanchez on the bottom is his biggest weakness. He likes to control the posture by isolating an arm and then throwing elbows from the bottom. He's not really a submission threat off his back but does try and use the kimura to create scrambles or sweep.

Like any BJ Penn fight, his conditioning will be questioned. Diego Sanchez is a cardio freak. He pushes a quick pace and never seems to tire out. Penn seemed to have much improved conditioning in the Kenny Florian fight but Florian wasn't setting the pace that Sanchez will likely set. I also doubt that Sanchez will have the same game plan as Florian, which essentially ended up wearing himself out more than Penn.

I realize that over the past few events I've been picking fights but not giving reasons and I apologize for that. When it comes to MMA; it's not who but it's why you pick them. Any man can pick an upset to try and look smart but the man who gives a reason for picking the upset is the true genius.

With that said, I'm picking BJ Penn to win this fight. He's the best Lightweight in the world and I don't feel that anyone in the division can beat him. Sanchez has the striking to hang with Penn but Penn's chin is legendary. As good as Sanchez' wrestling is, Penn's takedown defense is the best in the world and Sanchez will probably wear himself out by continuing to go for multiple takedowns. I think this fight plays out a like a mix of the Sherk and Florian fight. Penn picks apart Sanchez on the feet, gets a takedown in the later rounds, and finishes him off.



The co-main event is a clash between Frank Mir and Cheick Kongo where the stays in Heavyweight title contention and the loser is out of the picture for the time being. This is a classic striker vs. grappler battle as Kongo's technical striking combined with his power is the best in the division while Mir's jiu-jitsu is second to only Rodrigo Nogueira.

There isn't much too this fight. If Mir stays standing with Kongo, he's probably going to get knocked out and if Kongo goes to the ground with Mir, he's probably going to get submitted. Kongo has heavy hands and throws good straight punches. He also throws a lot of body kicks but I don't know how much those will come into play against Mir as they leave him exposed for the takedown. Mir's striking continues to improve but in this fight he'll most likely use it to set up the takedown. He likes to throw an inside leg kick and quickly get the takedown.

There is a question of Mir being overconfident in his striking after the Nogueira fight but it shouldn't be. His striking was good in that fight but he was also fighting a less than 100% Nogueira and the best Heavyweight grappler in MMA. After that fight he took on Brock Lesnar where he focused primarily on his striking and jiu-jitsu, knowing his wrestling wasn't going to be good enough to stuff the shot of Lesnar or take him down. This is the first fight since he fought Antoni Hardonk where Mir has a huge ground advantage, especially if he's on top. Kongo has good ground and pound, especially in the guard but in those fights he's either rocked his opponent on the feet or he's faced guys who have 1/10th the ground skills of Mir.

Like Penn vs. Sanchez, this fight is going to come down to the takedown ability of one man against the takedown defense of the other. Mir doesn't have an explosive takedown but he does a good job setting up his takedowns with strikes. Kongo has never shown great takedown defense, especially on the inside, but maybe he'll surprise us here. I wouldn't bet on it.

I'm picking Mir in this fight just because he should be good enough to put Kongo on his back and he's obviously good enough to submit Kongo. If he is too confident in his striking then he will get knocked out but Mir is a smart guy and I expect him to fight to his strengths.



In what could end up being the best fight of the night, Clay Guida battles Kenny Florian in a fight where the implications are the same as Mir vs. Kongo. Both men need a win to stay in the Lightweight title picture while the loser will have a tough road ahead of them.

Florian has the advantage on the feet. He's a point striker who uses a lot of kicks but has no real knockout power. That's obviously a problem against a guy like Guida who has a hell of a chin and likes to move forward. Guida's striking is rather mundane but he throws a good counter hook with some pop on it. Florian's main strength on the feet is his kicks but those may not come into play against Guida. When Florian kicks, Guida will most likely look to put him on his back every time Florian lifts his leg. The best thing for Guida would be to takedown Florian on one of the first kicks he throws, putting it into his head that he's going to end up on his back any time he kicks. If Guida can take away the kicks from Florian and turn things into a boxing contest, it all of a sudden becomes a wash on the feet because it essentially turns into a boxing match.

Guida's strategy is going to be what it always is. He's going to come out, push the pace, and look for the takedown. Florian's biggest weakness is his takedown defense and Clay Guida is the perfect guy to expose that weakness.

Guida will most likely by on top if the fight hits the ground. Florian has a good ground game but his game is top based. Look for Florian to throw a lot of elbows off his back, much like Diego Sanchez did against Guida. Guida has an active top game but in more of a control fighter than a punishing one. His submission defense is good but it's a bit overrated. I'm not sure if Florian has the skills off his back to submit Guida but he should be able to threaten to create scrambles.

I like Guida to win this fight because his biggest strength is Florian's biggest weakness. I don't think Florian will be able to stop the takedowns of Guida and on top Guida should be able to avoid the submissions of Florian and grind out the decision. It probably won't live up the "fight of the year" hype I've seen people give it but it should still be a good fight.



Jon Fitch takes on Dustin Haze….wait, UFC didn't listen to me and book Fitch vs. Hazelett when it seemed to make sense. I'm sorry. Instead Jon Fitch will take on Mike Pierce, a relatively unknown fighter who is coming off a victory over Brock Larson.

This should be a win for Fitch. He's the more well-rounded and experienced fighter and he's just a tough dude. Most of Pierce's victories have come by controlling his opponents with his wrestling or finishing them on the ground. Fitch isn't an easy guy to control or finish. Just ask Georges St. Pierre. Fitch is a big guy at Welterweight and should be able to use his size and skill to defeat Pierce. It may be your typical "grind it out and get it done" performance by Fitch but a win is a win.



Paul Buentello returns to the Octagon against up and comer Stefan Struve.

I've been really impressed with Struve in his last two fights. His stand up game isn't great but he does a good job at using his long limbs, especially on the inside. He doesn't want to stand and trade with Buentello though because "The Head Hunter" does just that. He throws with power and always looks for the knockout. Struve was overwhelmed early by Junior dos Santos back at UFC 95 so I expect Buentello to come out swinging and looking to put Struve away.

Struve's biggest strength is on the ground. He's very slick off his back and uses his long limbs to his advantage. Buentello has never shown much of a ground game and certainly not to the level of Struve. If the fight hits the ground, Struve will submit Buentello.

I think Struve takes this fight and it ends up playing out a lot like Kongo vs. Mir. He'll survive the initial flurry, eventually the fight will hit the ground, and Struve will pick up the submission victory.



Official Predictions:

*BJ Penn to defeat Diego Sanchez by Submission in Round Four
*Frank Mir to defeat Cheick Kongo by Submission in Round One
*Clay Guida to defeat Kenny Florian by Decision
*Jon Fitch to defeat Mike Pierce by Decision
*Stefan Struve to defeat Paul Buentello by Submission in Round Two

Major UFC/WEC News



The Ultimate Fighter 10 Finale took place this past Saturday. Here are the results:

*Roy Nelson defeated Brendan Schaub via KO at 3:25 in Round One to win Season 10 of The Ultimate Fighter
*Matt Hamill defeated Jon Jones via DQ (illegal downward elbow) at 4:14 in Round One
*Kimbo Slice defeated Houston Alexander via Unanimous Decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27)
*Frankie Edgar defeated Matt Veach via Submission (Rear Naked Choke) at 2:22 in Round 2
*Matt Mitrione defeated Marcus Jones via KO at 0:10 in Round Two

Well the most predictable TUF season ever ended with the predictable ending. Roy Nelson captured the Ultimate Fighter 10 crown with a KO victory over Brendan Schaub in an outcome that only shocked the, "KIMBO IS GONNA WIN CAUSE IT'S RIGGED" conspirators. Nelson probably didn't need to go through the TUF tournament to secure a UFC contract but I'm sure he's not complaining about the six figures and exposure. Nelson is a good addition to the Heavyweight division. He'll be a tough fight for any Heavyweight and has the talent to pull off an upset or two. I also liked how he topped Forrest Griffin, one of his on and off training partners, for the most appropriate walk in music. Who knows where Schaub goes. He's a decent fighter but this was clearly a down year as far as talent for TUF. He's seemed to improve since the show and training with Greg Jackson should lead to more improvements so maybe he has a future.

Jon Jones may have lost the fight but he won the war. No one who watched that fight thought Jones lost as he dominated Hamill in every aspect. He threw around Hamill and beat him up badly on the ground to the point where it could have been stopped and no one would have argued. Jones is at fault here as he didn't need to throw the downward elbows. I don't think the ref would have stopped the fight as Jones was slowing down his ground and pound but he was still in complete control and just made a mistake. Matt Hamill wasn't going to win the fight though regardless of the illegal elbow. Not only did he dislocate his shoulder but there was no indication that he had any answer for the speed and strength of Jones. Jones showed in this fight that he's a scary man. At only 22 years old he's incredibly quick and strong and should be a threat in the division for years to come.

If you predicted that Kimbo vs. Houston would go to a decision then you're either really rich or a liar. Houston came out with a game plan and while it was smart, it sure was boring. Two minutes into the fight my dad described Houston's strategy as the "merry go round strategy" and in the second round Joe Rogan (being a smart man, much like my dad) echoed the thought. I thought the fight should have been scored a draw just because it would have been the perfect ending from what we expected to what we got. Despite circling and only throwing leg kicks in the first round, I gave the round to Houston feeling that the leg kicks were by far the most significant strike of the round as I don't think Kimbo landed a single clean shot. The second round was all Kimbo with him throwing around Houston and dominating him on the ground and could have been a 10-8 round. The third round was close but the leg kick that put Kimbo down followed by the final flurry by Houston seemed to be enough to give him the round. At the end of the fight both men looked dead tired and I thought they were going to collapse right there leading to the ref doing a double ten count.



Kimbo Slice is a great novelty fighter but he's not a fighter. Had he faced anyone not named Houston Alexander, he wouldn't have stood a chance. His striking isn't very good and he has no conditioning. He's strong on the ground to where he can muscle in and out of positions but he benefitted from facing someone like Houston Alexander whose ground game is worse than Kimbo's. He's going to draw people in because of who he is but he's never going to make it as anything more than just a novelty. As for Houston, he's done with UFC. He underperformed in a fight he should have easily won and didn't deliver the brawl that was expected of him. He's lost his last four UFC fights.

Frankie Edgar continues to show a lot of improvement in his game and he looked very good against a game Matt Veach. Veach was able to muscle him around in the first round but he wore himself out with those takedowns that he did nothing with and from there Edgar picked him apart on the feet. Edgar's boxing continues to improve and he showed that he has some power in his hands as well. He may still be a bit undersized at the weight because it's been shown that bigger guys can toss him around a bit but his speed and overall skill makes up for his lack of size. Hopefully he fights the winner of Florian vs. Guida next as I think that's the smartest fight for both men.

You can't help but feel bad for Marcus Jones. He seems like such a nice guy who really enjoys learning all the aspects of fighting but his stand up game is just terrible and he can't take a punch. If Jones was in his 20's then he'd have time to improve and probably become a contender in the Heavyweight division but he's 36 years old, has football mileage on him, and doesn't want to risk his health. I hope he sticks with training jiu-jitsu because he always seemed to love training but he just can't take shots to the head and come out healthy in the end. Mitrione looked a lot better in this fight than he did on the show but he was fighting a guy with no stand up so him scoring the KO victory wasn't all that shocking. The perfect next fight for Mitrione would be against Kimbo Slice because it's another stand up guy for Kimbo to fight, a guy whose ego is big enough to where he'll want to give it his all against Kimbo, and someone who the fans don't like.

Overall The Ultimate Finale 10 was a good show. Kimbo vs. Houston didn't live up to the hype but in a weird way it surpassed the hype. Everything else outside of the Hamill vs. Jones finish was good stuff.



On December 5 during The Ultimate Fighter 10 Finale, Dana White announced that Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz would be the coaches on season 11 of The Ultimate Fighter and would fight at the end of the season.

Could Dana White have been less enthused about making that announcement? He clearly doesn't want Liddell to fight again but I guess he got tired of arguing about it with him.

Part of me is really excited about the announcement but the rest of me is just disappointed. I was holding out hope that Liddell would be a coach on TUF11 but I was holding out hope that it would be against Forrest Griffin. Instead it's against Ortiz and I just have no desire to see Tito Ortiz do anything anymore. Ortiz was a great coach on season 3 of the show and I thought he came off well on the show but it's still Tito Ortiz, one of the most overrated fighters in MMA history and a guy who has an excuse for everything. I just don't care about him. The show will probably be great due to the interactions of Liddell and Ortiz, mainly Ortiz talking a lot of trash and Liddell reminding him that he's beat him twice. That's probably why they went with Ortiz to coach against Liddell over Griffin because the latter wouldn't have created the dynamic with Liddell that the former will.

As for Liddell vs. Ortiz 3, do we really need it? Liddell won both fights very convincingly and even though he's older, Ortiz is still the perfect match up for him. Unless Liddell's chin is just completely shot or his sprawl goes from legendary to non-existent overnight then I expect the same thing to happen in their third fight. The winner doesn't really gain much but the loser is pretty much done as a top-level fighter.



On December 3, Quinton Jackson announced on his website that he would come out of retirement to fight Rashad Evans. No official fight date has been given.

Everyone saw this coming. After weeks and weeks of hype on TUF, did anyone really think Jackson would just walk away and not fight Evans? If you did then you're either really poor or not very smart. I think he'll end up coming back for just more than the Evans fight as well. Jackson is a born fighter who is only 31 years old. If he beats Evans, he'll most likely be given a title shot and do you really think he's going to turn that down? And if he loses to Evans I don't think his pride will let him just walk away.

Now Rashad Evans just needs to take care of business against Thiago Silva. A loss to Silva wouldn't kill the business of Jackson vs. Evans but it would certainly hurt it. Jackson would be coming off two straight wins while Evans would be coming off two straight losses. The fight just wouldn't have the same meaning.

Minor UFC/WEC News

On December 3, MMAJunkie reported that Gilbert Yvel would face Junior dos Santos at UFC 108. Dos Santos was scheduled to fight Gabriel Gonzaga before Gonzaga pulled out with staph infection. UFC 108 is scheduled for January 2 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

So UFC wouldn't sign Melvin Manhoef because of his lack of ground game yet they've now signed Gilbert Yvel despite his lack of ground game. That makes sense.

Yvel vs. dos Santos has the potential to be a hell of a stand up war but if dos Santos is as good on the ground as Rodrigo Nogueira claims then he shouldn't have too much trouble getting Yvel down and tapping him out. One thing we know is that Yvel is going to bring it on the feet. He has the "finish or be finished" mentality that fans love.

I wonder if Steve Mazzagatti is the ref for this fight and Yvel decides to go crazy again if Dana White would mind. My money is on that he'd publically be upset but truthfully he'd be very excited.

Major Strikeforce/Miscellaneous News



On December 2, Strikeforce announced the signing of Middleweight fighter Melvin Manhoef. On December 3, Strikeforce announced the signing of Lightweight fighter KJ Noons. Neither has a scheduled Strikeforce debut date.

Two solid additions to the Strikeforce roster. Both guys like to stand and trade and that's what casual fans like to see.

The Strikeforce Middleweight division is filled with a ton of fun fights right now with Manhoef, Lawler, Smith, Cung Le, Diaz, and Shamrock. Most of them have striking as their main strength and in the case of Diaz and Shamrock, they're both willing to stand and bang in order to put on a show. Thrown in Miller, Lindland, Shields, and Jacare and Strikeforce's Middleweight division is very good top to bottom.

The KJ Noons signing is only worth it if he agrees to fight Diaz. After all the hype and trash talk between the two, it's the only fight that makes sense. I don't think Noons is a very good fighter and that Diaz likely beats him in the rematch but it's still a fight that must happen.

No More News

That does it for me folks. I'll be back next week with a review of UFC 107 and a preview of Strikeforce: Evolution and WEC 45. Take care everyone.

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