The Sprawl 1.23.10: Volume 39 - The UFC's Spring of Gold

Posted by Alex Mattis on 01.23.2010

This spring the fate of all five of the UFC's championships is set to be decided. GSP will defend against Dan Hardy, Vitor Belfort is set to get his shot at the gold once again, Machida and Shogun are set for their highly anticipated rematch, and more! On this edition of "The Sprawl," a look at the upcoming action and the build to the Spring of Gold! Come on in!

Hello all and welcome back to "The Sprawl!" I hope all is well with everyone.

On today's edition we're going to look at the upcoming golden season of the UFC. Between March 27 and May 8 all five of the UFC's titles (or four and one made-up one if you ask Brock). Some of the fights for the said titles are being looked at as completely one-sided, but I'm here to tell you that no matter the odds these are fights for any fight fan to be excited about.

LET'S GET DOWN TO IT!!!



The Spring of Gold kicks off at UFC 111 in New Jersey when Georges St. Pierre defends his welterweight title against British sensation Dan Hardy. For some unknown reason I'm really, really excited about this fight. To make matters even better it was recently announced that UFC would once again run this "Primetime" series leading into this fight. If you remember the three-part series that aired before Penn-St. Pierre II you remember its sheer epicness. Add in the guaranteed trash-talk from Hardy and the overall draw that is GSP, this fight is guaranteed to have a great build.



Once the bell rings, however, Dan Hardy is going to be completely out of his element. Hardy is a hell of a fighter with some of the soundest boxing at 170, but he's not where GSP is… and I'm not knocking him, no one at 170 is where GSP is. Dan Hardy's key to winning in the past has been making his opponents fight his fight. He did it with Rory Markham and Marcus Davis and took it to another level with his brilliant performance against Mike Swick. He made Swick come at him, leaving him open for Hardy's well known counter-punches. Dan Hardy is not going to be able to make St. Pierre fight his fight.



GSP is a grinder, he's a breaker, he's a controller. His wrestling is world class and his striking is some of the best ever adapted to MMA, plain and simple he is one of the best P4P and one of the best of all time. Dan Hardy does pose some threats to GSP, but St. Pierre should be able to work his grinding strategy and wear down the Brit, retaining his title.

This fight guarantees fireworks as Dan Hardy brings the heat and if he's going down, he's going down in a gun fight. Even uncommon sense would tell you to put the house on GSP but that doesn't mean one can't be excited about this fight.

The big boys will also take the stage at 111 when an interim-heavyweight champion will be crowned. Former champ Frank Mir, who shall now go as uberMir, will take on the heavy-handed Shane Carwin (who has been waiting to fight for-fucking-ever!!!).Both men have some serious beef with Brock Lesnar and want a shot at him but in classic Royal Rumble fashion one must first eliminate the other.

Come fight night over 520lbs of man will be in the octagon, close to 875lbs if Mazzagatti rocks the ‘stache, this will truly be a clash of heavyweights. Don't let the numbers fool you, however, even though both men will weigh-in around 265 they are two very different 265's.



With his gain of mass it was quite shocking to see that uberMir still posses the speed and sharpness in his striking. His victory over Cheick Kongo was huge! Everyone was predicting for Mir to snatch a submission but I no one expected Mir to drop Kongo first!!! If you were to look up "statement" in the dictionary, an animation of this fight would be next to it… because apparently we can have animations in books now.



Carwin is really only 1-0, you know because what Brock Lesnar says is the gospel, so we don't really know what he is capable of. In all seriousness, in the three fights he has had in the UFC Shane Carwin has shown ungodly strength and punching power. When faced with the biggest challenge of his career, Carwin turned in a highlight reel KO over form title contender Gabriel Gonzaga. In the GG fight Shane showed a solid chin and the ability to easily get back up after being taken down. Most of all, he showed the ability to end a fight with the slightest of punches.

With Shane Carwin's longest fight lasting only two minutes and 11 seconds and Frank Mir's general dislike for those "decision" things, expect these two to collide in a very violent fashion. Mir's speed and superior striking should prove to be the difference maker, but beware Frank very few people in the world have to KO power of "The Engineer."

For the UFC's first trip to Abu Dhabi they're bringing two title fights.



In the co-main event of the evening BJ Penn is slated to defend his title against Frankie Edgar. This is turning into one of those fights that everyone is complaining about, which is unfortunate. Now I'm not here to tell you that Edgar has much of a chance against BJ, but I am here to say that out of the UFC current crop (that BJ hasn't murdered), Edgar sits atop.



Yes, he lost to Gray Maynard but that was nearly two years ago and the careers of those two men have gone in different directions. Both have looked great and fought top flight competition but Edgar has shown more improvement. Edgar posses some of the best fundamental boxing of any 155lb fighter in MMA, the combinations and footwork he showed in the Sean Sherk fight was brilliant. Frankie has also decisively won all his fights since the Maynard loss, whereas Gray has gone to a split decision in his last two fights with a bullshit decision in his last fight. Frankie has looked phenomenal since his loss and is deserving of a top-level fight and I guess in this case that means a title fight.



The champion of the lightweight division, and undisputed #1 lightweight in the world, looks as though he is in a different dimension than everyone that steps in the cage with him. BJ's last five fights at 155 have been executions, total decimations, often resulted in blood… everywhere. His boxing is damn near perfect; in regards to MMA, and if BJ can get you down it's a done deal.

Would Frankie Edgar have a chance in this fight? A small one. He would need a perfect gameplan and a perfect performance… but crazier things have happened. I heard that this Serra guy knocked out GSP once. Frankie's crisp, technical boxing and footwork could help him as I don't feel BJ has faced as solid of a boxer at 155. However, BJ is just too damn good. I don't see anyone killing that king.



Then onto the main event. Dana White's professed "Pound-4-Pound #1 in the World" Anderson Silva will finally return to the octagon to face what could be his toughest title defense to date. "The Phenom" Vitor Belfort is back in the UFC and came back with a bang, knocking out former champion Rich Franklin in the 1st round. Anderson Silva will be coming off the heels of his unbelievable victory over Forrest Griffin and will be fighting at middleweight for the first time in a year.

With the striking set that both men posses, and the underrated ground-game of both, this fight has all the makings to be a classic. It's the unorthodox, flowing attack of Silva against the technical proficiency and speed of Belfort.



Most would tell you that no one in the world can beat Anderson Silva, and they may be right, but as far as middleweight contenders go Vitor Belfort is about as tough of a challenge as Anderson is going to get. Now with Danny out of the picture, Vitor instantly became the "biggest threat in the UFC to Anderson's title."
I'm as excited for this fight as any other this year. I'm of the belief that now is the prime of Vitor's career and Anderson Silva is at his peak so these two clashing is going to be tremendous. Many more questions will be raised the closer we get to the event. How is the layoff going to affect Anderson? What's Vitor's mental state? Is Anderson too good? Is Vitor too fast?

All these questions will someday be answered, for now I'm just jakked for the fight.

What about you Anderson?



Thanks Anderson.



On May 8th the highly anticipated rematch between Lyoto Machida and Shogun Rua is inked. These two will headline once again, this time taking a trip a little more north to Montreal. The manner in which their first fight unfolded was highly controversial and split the MMA community. I tend to agree with my co-writers here on 411 and believe that Machida did win the fight, but Shogun stepped up and does deserve this rematch.

This is a very big fight for the light heavyweight division as it will foretell the future of the division. If Machida can redeem himself and destroy Shogun it will once again instill that thought in everyone's mind that "that guy is holding the 205lb title for a long time." For Rua this is yet another chance to get back that status he once held during his dominance in PRIDE.



Even though I highly doubt their rematch will look anything like their first encounter, it's always helpful to reflect. If we look back to the first fight we remember Shogun flawlessly executing pretty much the perfect gameplan to defeat Machida. He kept "The Dragon" at a safe distance and used kicks to prevent Machida from using his deadly lunging attack. Shogun also tightened up his boxing considerably. Initially I predicted that Rua's boxing would be his downfall. Throughout his entire career Shogun, in that ChuteBoxe style, wings his punches while keeping his chin up and neck straight. No more. His striking looked better than ever; it was the best performance of his career. As for the champion, Lyoto looked like he couldn't pull the trigger on October 24th. He looked to be completely neutralized and was unable to use the angles and lunging offense that earned him the title and a brutal KO over Rashad Evans. He was able to mount a steady amount of offense, he even hurt Rua considerably late in the fight, but it wasn't the same dominance we had become accustomed to.

I honestly believe that Machida took Shogun lightly. Shogun, up until that point, looked awful in the UFC. Forrest Griffin (that "TUF poster boy, wannabe-fighter" as many of the internet fans think of him) strangled the PRIDE champion in his debut, Rua barely got past Mark Coleman, and I didn't understand why everyone made such a big deal of Shogun's KO over Chuck. I mean Chuck landed some shots and took Rua down with ease, plus this was 2009-Chuck Liddell. One could make a case for Machida taking this challenge lightly. Whatever the case, Shogun was the first person to nullify Lyoto and make him look human.



Both men need to bring something new to the table for the rematch. Machida needs to figure out how to adapt around Shogun's offense… and Shogun needs to prepare a different yet similar gameplan to throw Lyoto off and dictate the pace. As we've seen in many situations like this before, the champ learns his lesson and wins decisively. I expect that to be the case here, but we'll talk about that the closer we get to the fight.

So when the Spring of Gold is over who will be wearing the straps? Well if I were a betting man, I'd put money on all but one retaining.

Well, that's all for me this week.

Remember feedback, as always, is welcome at [e-mail]

This Week's Top 5: Movies of 2009 (IN MY OPINON)
5. Observe & Report
4. District 9
3. Away We Go
2. Up
1. Up In The Air

Take care,
-Alex