Intelligently Defending 12.25.08: Five Questions for UFC 92

Posted by Ken Kobel on 12.25.2008

Every MMA event brings about questions and UFC 92 is no different. In this edition of Intelligently Defending we will take a look at five puzzlers that will get answered Saturday night.

UFC 92 is a few days away, so let's take a look at five questions that will be answered on Saturday.

1. Will UFC 92 live up to the hype?

In a three month span, the UFC has promoted three separate cards as blockbusters: UFC 91, UFC 92 and UFC 94.

While UFC 91 and UFC 94 had/have the bigger main events – Brock Lesnar vs. Randy Couture and Georges St-Pierre vs. B.J. Penn, respectively – UFC 92 is being billed as the best overall card of the three and the pieces are in place for it to live up to the billing.

Forrest Griffin vs. Rashad Evans is a close fight and also the first time that two TUF champions have fought each other for a title. Both men have had exciting bouts in the past: Griffin vs. Shogun and Evans vs. Liddell. On the flipside, both men have had a few snoozers: Griffin vs. Ramirez and Evans vs. Bisping. Still, the odds are in the favor of these two coming through with a great fight.

The showdown between Forrest and Rashad will have plenty of support from the rest of the card.

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Frank Mir will be for the Interim-Heavyweight Title and features the two most recent coaches on TUF which should spark a lot of interest. Rounding out the three-headed monster is Quinton Jackson vs. Wanderlei Silva in a must-win fight for both men. Of the trio, this bout is least likely to disappoint as it features two fan favorites renewing a rivalry they started in Pride FC.

We all know that a stacked card on paper does not guarantee a memorable night – so the question is will UFC 92 fall short like so many hyped cards have in the past? Or will it be a classic like UFC 91 was just a month ago?

2) What will be the deciding factor in Griffin vs. Evans?

As mentioned before, Forrest vs. Rashad is a tough fight to pick. Normally, when a fight is too close to call it's because both men's styles and skill-levels are so similar that it is hard to determine who will impose their will. However, this isn't the case with Griffin and Evans since their fighting styles couldn't be any more different.

On one side, you have Forrest who, under the tutelage of Randy Couture, has transformed from a reckless swinging madman to a sound striker with brutal leg kicks and a slick submission game. On the other side, you have Rashad Evans who, under the tutelage of Greg Jackson, has added devastating knockout power to go along with his already strong wrestling.

This fight will likely come down to an X-factor that one man has over the other. There is no shortage of candidates for what this may be: Forrest's heart? Rashad's wrestling? Griffin's technical striking? Evan's explosiveness?

While no one can say for sure who will win this fight – all can agree that it will be fun finding out.

3) How can Mir beat Nogueira?

In the night's co-main event, Frank Mir will try to take the Interim-Heavyweight Title from Minotauro Nogueira. The question is: how on Earth is Mir going to do this?

For years now, Nog has been considered the #2 heavyweight in the world behind Fedor. His top-level grappling, iron chin and never-ending heart have made him a legend in the sport. He has fought and beaten the best in the world and is now on a mission to be crowned the undisputed UFC Heavyweight Champion.

Standing across from the legend will be Mir who, upon returning from his career-threatening motorcycle accident, looked like a shell of his former self. He lost two of his first three fights back and it appeared to be a matter of time before he became completely irrelevant. In recent fights however, he has started to look like the Frank of old by scoring quick submissions on both Antoni Hardonk and Brock Lesnar.

The win over Lesnar propelled him to this shot against Minotauro, but the deck looks stacked against him since Nog appears to be superior in most categories including boxing, cardio, chin and heart. The submission game is too close to call – with some people actually giving the edge to Mir. Still, even if Frank does hold a slim grappling advantage, Nogueira has not been submitted in 37 professional fights.

Frank seems up against it in this fight – but, as we all know, anything can happen in this sport.

4) Is this do-or-die for Rampage?

On September 8, 2008, Quinton Jackson looked to be on top of the world. He had just defeated Dan Henderson to be crowned the undisputed UFC Light-Heavyweight Champion, he was universally ranked the #1 LHW in the world and he looked to be on the verge of becoming MMA's next mainstream star.

Then, at UFC 86 in July, Jackson lost his title to Forrest Griffin. A few days later, he went on a psychotic reckless driving spree in California that gained national coverage and had a falling out with his former trainer, Juanito Ibarra. Suddenly, Quinton's future was in turmoil.

On Saturday, Jackson will get a chance to get his career back on track when he returns to the octagon for the first time since losing his title to Griffin. Obviously, the UFC realized just how much he has been through in the past few months and decided to give Page an easy fight to help him back into the swing of things… Oh wait, they didn't do that at all.

Standing across from Quinton will be Wanderlei Silva, one of the most violent men in the history of the sport and a man who has brutally knocked out Jackson… twice. Two losses in a row don't usually spell the downfall of a career, but it might in this case. Another defeat by Wandy will slide Rampage down the ranks of a crowded division and further draw questions as to whether he has anything left after what he went through these last few months.

5) Will C.B. Dollaway continue to climb the middleweight ladder?

C.B. Dollaway was supposed to win TUF8, but was beaten by Amir Sadollah in the finals for a second time. Since losing that bout he has come back to submit Jesse Taylor and now looks to make it two in a row against Mike Massenzio on Saturday.

While Dollaway seems to have the tools needed to make it big in the sport he has one element working against him – the TUF runner-up curse. Since the shows inception years ago, runners-up have faltered in the UFC and very rarely do they live up to the success of the winners. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule such as Kenny Florian, but when you look at the names of runners-up like Luke Cummo, Josh Haynes, Brad Imes and Tommy Speers it's clear that there have been much more ‘misses' than ‘hits' when it comes to second-place finishers.

Saturday should go a long way to telling us if Dollaway will join KenFlo or if he gets added to the long list of disappointments.

Enjoy the fights Saturday, everyone and be sure to check out the Official Intelligently Defending blog at http://www.IntelligentlyDefending.com for all post-fight thoughts.