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Roy ‘Big Country’ Nelson 15-4 vs Junior ‘Cigano’ Dos Santos 11-1Holding a 13-4 pro record and the last holder of the now defunct IFL’s HW belt, the rotund one, Roy Nelson has fought and defeated Bo Cantrell, Fabiano Scherner, and Brad Imes with losing efforts against Ben Rothwell (in a very close decision), Andrei Arlovski, and Jeff Monson, before being invited as a cast member of TUF10. Probably the most experienced and easily the favorite to win the show early on, Roy ‘Big Country’ Nelson secured his finale spot by crucifying Kimbo Slice, squeaking by Justin Wren and coming back to defeat James McSweeny. A hefty BJJ black belt under Renzo Gracie, Roy has also trained with the Lion’s Den and Ken Shamrock. Often overlooked by the casual fan because of his sloppy and fat-ass appearance, Nelson possesses well rounded skills and has a very smothering and proficient ground attack to go with his well trained boxing. Nelson even has a Grappling Quest submission win over Frank Mir on his resume. Big Country showcased his standup skills in his UFC debut and TUF 10 winning match over Brendan Schaub as he used a big right hook to earn the six-figure contract and needed less than a minute in his last match to land a lights-out left on Stefan Struve’s dome that earned the girthy grappler his second straight KO of the Night bonus.
Nelson is an awesome grappler and despite his appearance, a very athletic big man with cardio that you wouldn’t expect from him. He could be a very profitable underdog pick as he certainly does have his distinct advantages over JDS. Dos Santos is also a legit grappler with an amazing stable of trainers and sparring partners but has not really had a chance to show off much of a ground game. The story in this fight will be the striking of JDS vs the grappling of Nelson. If Nelson can’t close the gap and get inside of Dos Santos’ strikes to score a takedown, his chances of winning this fight decrease by approximately 79% but if he is able to grab hold of the swift swinging Brazilian, expect his chances to increase by nearly 81%. The #7 ranked JDS should be able to out-box Nelson from long range and will enjoy a 3” reach advantage as well as the ability to throw short and powerful strikes if Nelson tries to manhug him. Look for a near repeat of the Nelson vs Arlovski fight as Dos Santos lands some heavy leather and claims his shot at the title. Matt Hughes 44-7 vs Ricardo ‘Big Dog’ Almeida 12-3
Almeida is a veteran of PRIDE, Pancrase, and the UFC holding wins over Akira Shoji, Eugene Jackson, The Punk Minowa, Kazuo Misaki, Nate Marquardt, and Ryo Chonan, with losses coming to Matt Lindland (a DQ for kicks to a downed opponent), and Andrei Semenov. He is associated with the Gracie-Barra Combat Team and holds a 3rd degree BJJ black belt under Renzo Gracie. Almeida ‘retired’ while on a 6-fight win streak to focus on running his school. Once he got that insuppressible competitive itch back, he returned to the UFC and scored a quick guillotine win over Rob Yundt. His next UFC fight was a questionable decision loss in a rather uninspiring showing against Patrick Cote. After a pair of UD wins over Matt Horwich and Kendall Grove, Almeida has decided to drop another weight class (his first two pro fights were at LHW) and try his luck at WW. Scheduled to make his WW debut at UFC 106 against Jon Fitch, Ricardo now finally brought his excellent grappling resume to the 170lb division with an impressive RNC win over Matt Brown. Hughes is a true legend of the sport and a Hall of Fame fighter that garners tons of respect in the fight game. Many dislike him and his douchebag personality, but his skills have always been just as impressive as his heart and work ethic. Almeida is also a well respected part of the MMA community. His school and association with Renzo Gracie has seen him team up with tons of high level sparring partners and students. Hughes has always been successful when he can plant an opponent on his back and work from the top and has underrated striking. Almeida also has been successful when the fight hits the mat, but is a better technical grappler than Hughes is. Hughes would be better off trying to keep the fight standing and execute a boxing based gameplan sticking and moving to stay out of range of Almeida’s takedown attempts. Almeida will eventually find a way to drag the flat footed and aging country breakfast connoisseur to the mat with his unrelenting takedown attempts and it will likely be early. I would look for the Big Dog to overwhelm the former champ on the ground before securing a submission hold and ending Hughes night, and perhaps closing the book on a storied career. Clay ‘the Carpenter’ Guida 26-11 vs Rafael Dos Anjos 14-4Guida is an animal; a wild, spinning ball of hair and fists and feet reminiscent of Taz. There is no off switch for this guy, he wants to finish you and he simply will not stop trying. His strength is his wrestling, but in reality, he overwhelms his opponents with his feverishly furious pace. In addition to being a caveman look-a-like, the Carpenter is also a former crab fisherman and a proud carpenter. Guida has been involved in some of the most exciting MMA matches, including 3 FON bonuses against Tyson Griffin, Nate Diaz, and Diego Sanchez along with very memorable contests against Roger Huerta and Gilbert Melendez. At one point in his career, Guida had a 15 fight win streak going which included wins over Bart Palaszewski and Joe Jordan. A former Strikeforce LW champion, Guida took that title from Josh Thomson before handing it over to Gilbert Melendez. Other career wins for Guida have come against Marcus Aurelio, Samy Schiavo, Mac Danzig, and Diaz with losses coming in efforts against Din Thomas, Griffin, Huerta, Sanchez and Kenny Florian. Clay is coming off an arm triangle submission win over Shannon Gugerty in March which earned him Submission of the Night bonus.
This, as all of Guida’s fights do, has the potential of being a FON caliber tilt. Guida has a limited skill set which includes basic standup and takedowns as relentless as bill collector’s phone calls. The secret that not many are looking at is that Rafael has shown a very solid takedown defense in his Octagon forays. He has 80% TDD ratio and outstanding BJJ skills when the fight does get to the mat. Clay’s takedowns are like a dog chasing cars, he doesn’t know what to do with it once he gets them, he just does things. He commonly leaves himself open to submissions and sweeps as he all too happy to smother from top control and look for opening to posture up. Dos Anjos on the other hand has the ability to catch a mistake and score a submission win. On the feet, Dos Anjos has shown some technical improvements while Clay just is happy to exchange and test his chin. Rafael just has the technical superiority all around to execute a winning game plan and possibly earn a few bonus checks along the way. Jon Fitch 22-3 1NC vs Thiago ‘the Pitbull’ Alves 16-6Thiago
Alves’ pro career started off pretty rocky with two straight losses,
including an armbar submission to Gleison Tibau in his pro debut. He
bounced back with a 4 fight win streak which included wins over Fabio
Holanda and Marcus Davis before dropping another sub loss. Thiago rebounded
with 3 wins with one over Jason Chambers (that’s right, Jason ‘the
Human Weapon’ Chambers,) and a 15 second KO win that earned him
an invite to face Spencer Fisher in the UFC on his 22nd birthday. Alves
was impressive in that outing, but succumbed to a triangle choke near
the end of the second round. Alves returned to face then undefeated Ansar
Chalangov and displayed a very powerful and dominant performance stopping
him in two and a half minutes. Another win, avenging a previous loss,
over Derrick Noble via TKO earned Alves a date with another up and coming
fighter in Jon Fitch. The Alves-Fitch fight was a terrible fight for
Alves as he was thoroughly dominated by Fitch’s smothering grappling
and completely unable to mount any offense. Alves came back in a big
way with a 7-fight streak that kicked off with a UD win over John Alessio
and followed with a vicious win over Tone DeSouza. Alves got caught using
a diuretic aid in helping him make weight for the Tony DeSouza fight
and was suspended and fined. After his suspension, Alves scored a TKO
win over Kuniyoshi Hironaka and a cut stoppage over Chris Lytle. His
next match was a st Under the wrestling tutelage of Tom Erikson, Fitch became a 4-year wrestling letterman at Purdue as well as the team captain prior to his MMA career. Seeing the money and success of Erikson as well as his frequent visitors to the mats such as Mark Coleman and Gary Goodridge, Fitch became very interested in MMA. Compiling a 10-2 record with 1 NC, Fitch was invited to be a contestant on the first TUF season before getting the call at the airport that he had been cut from the show. His UFC career began shortly after as he was brought in to fight Brock Larson at 185lbs Fitch went on to tie Royce Gracie with the most UFC wins in a row with 8, a record that has since been broken by Anderson Silva. He was also riding a 15-fight win streak when GSP whooped that ass and beat him so bad it looked like he would need a shoehorn to get his hat on. Fitch has excellent top control; he has a black belt in something called Guerilla Jiu-Jitsu, which is a hybrid of Judo and BJJ. He is very experienced, having won against Alex Serdyukov, Jeff Joslin, Shonie Carter, Brock Larson, Josh Burkman, Thiago Alves, Roan Carneiro, Diego Sanchez, Chris Wilson, Akihiro Gono, Paulo Thiago, Mike Pierce, and Ben Saunders with losses coming to Wilson Gouveia, and loss that was so bad it was a win for surviving to GSP as well as a verbal submission loss to Dana White on an issue they were having with the UFC Undisputed video game that led to Fitch’s 24 hour release from the UFC. Fitch also lays claim to a PE Bachelor degree with a minor in History as well as an Indiana teacher’s license and a great nickname. Stick your finger down your throat… that noise that you just made, the gagging vomiting sound like ‘oouwagh’ , that’s Fitch’s nickname that you won’t hear Buffer announce. These two fighters are not the same up and coming WW that fought years ago. Fitch has developed a better striking game, although still mostly relies on his smothering grappling attack. Alves is still a Muay Thai wrecking ball, but has gotten a lot harder to take down and a lot harder to keep down than before. I still have Fitch and Alves as the #2 and #3 ranked WW’s in the world and this is a matchup I have been waiting to see for some time. While its’ true both have improved, Alves has improved much more since that night, strengthening his weaknesses and turning into one of MMA’s most feared strikers in the process. I’m thinking Thiago starts off implementing the same gameplan he used against Fitch’s teammate, Kos, by stuffing takedowns and taking Fitch’s legs away from him with thunderous leg kicks. Fitch though is no dummy like Kos was and knows he is a grappler, so he will keep trying to find the openings he needs to take Thiago down and he will be looking for leg kicks to grab unless his time in Thailand left him thinking he was suddenly a stud striker. Thiago should avoid the leg kicks early and just let his hands go on Fitch, his boxing and elbows is far superior to Jon’s and would be the easiest path to a victory. There has been talk that Alves is gonna have a very hard cut to make weight and this could zap his energy, so look out for that in the later minutes of the fight. Anderson ‘the Spider’ Silva 26-4 vs Chael Sonnen 24-10-1
A strong wrestler, Sonnen is a member of Team Quest and has wins over Mayhem Miller, Jason Lambert, Trevor Prangley, Tim Credeur, Amar Suloev, and a strange win over Filho. He also has losses to Filho, Prangley, Forrest Griffin, Jeremy Horn X3, Terry Martin, and Babalu Sobral. Chael is a strong D-1 wrestler from the U of Oregon, a 2-time National Champion, and All-American wrestler as well as a U.S. Olympic alternate. He has a ton of fighting experience and is a well-rounded veteran that has applied his wrestling to MMA in an extraordinary fashion. Currently riding a 3 fight win streak after a tea-bagging inverted triangle loss to Demian Maia, Sonnen has used his smothering offense to defeat Dan Miller, Yushin Okami, and Nate Marquardt in 3 straight decision wins. A master of fight promoting and shit-talking, Sonnen had political aspirations leading up to this fight but dropped out of his race for the Oregon Legislation around mid-June. It’s no secret that Chael wants to grab a hold of Silva and drag
him to the mat. Silva is not great at defending the takedown, but he
is unreal at causing damage in tight spots. The Spider’s knees
and elbows are murder weapons and his kicks and punches are only accentuated
by his ability to create angles and counter strikes with his Matrix like
punch slipping. Anderson can take a punch, but he doesn’t take
many because he uses his footwork and head movement better than anybody
there is; not to mention his stellar dance moves. Essentially, we are
gonna watch a guy that is as impossible to hit as a big league curveball
and has pinpoint accuracy that puts guys to sleep before they even realize
they’ve been hit, face a guy that couldn’t bust a grape in
a fruit fight. Anderson may take his normal amount of time at the beginning
of the fight to get Chael’s rhythm down before he unleashes hell
upon him courtesy of a lightning quick combination. Chael’s chin
is as sturdy as his mouth is big. What’s
funny to me is that he has used his mouth to fool enough people into
thinking he has a great
shot of wearing 12 pounds of gold around his waist. Anderson may be a
arrogant fighter, but he has the skills to back his swagger, people will
remember that Saturday night. |
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| ©2010 Zewkey.com |
Dos Santos pro MMA career started out after an 18-0 pro kickboxing record
and went on to record 5 straight wins in regional shows throughout Brazil
before succumbing to an armbar in his 6th pro fight. JDS went on to defeat
Geronimo Dos Santos in his next match and warranted an invite from the
UFC to be the opponent of heavily favored and highly skilled BJJ wizard,
and eventual legend slayer Fabricio Werdum. As an underdog and relative
unknown, Cigano showed fast hands and scored an impressive win with a
stunning uppercut KO. That KO not only ended Werdum’s night, it
also led to his exit of from the UFC. Using his sound striking, he went
on to topple the Skyscraper Stefan Struve in 54 seconds and set up his
biggest career fight to that point with Pride legend Mirko CroCop. Using
a barrage of knee strikes and punches to the deflated CroCop, Cigano
earned the biggest win in his career by verbal submission as he mentally
and physically battered the Croation. His next match would be at UFC
108 scheduled against Gonzaga, but a staph infection brought in a new
opponent in the dangerous Gilbert Yvel. With an obvious advantage on
the ground, Dos Santos chose to stand with the dangerous Yvel and again
proved to be a very perilous fighter to stand in front of as he took
just over two minutes to secure the TKO win. Finally able to face off
with Gonzaga in his last match, JDS was able to slaughter Gonzaga with
precise strikes. JDS has scored 8 of his wins by TKO, one legit submission
and two verbal submissions with his lone loss coming by armbar. Training
with the Black House team of the Nog brothers, Anderson Silva, Matt Munoz,
Jose Aldo, Jacare Souza, Feijao Cavalcante and a flock of top Brazilian
fighters all confident that he has what it takes to succeed in the HW
division with a BJJ brown belt, JDS looks to fight his way to the top
and with a win here, will have earned himself a top contender slot.
Hughes
is a former collegiate wrestler and a 2-time NJCAA All-American as well
as a 2-time D-1 NCAA All-American. Matt Hughes went on to become the
most dominant UFC WW champion the UFC had ever seen. Hughes’ early
career wins include victories over Dave Menne, Ryan Stout, Akihiro Gono,
Joe Doerkson, Alexandre Barros, and Hiromitsu Kanehara as well as losses
to Jose Landi-Jons and a pair of defeats to Dennis Hallman. After a 7-fight
win streak, Hughes was invited to fight for the title against Carlos
Newton. It appeared Newton had Hughes ready to take a nap with a triangle
choke, but a power bomb style slam by Hughes put Newton out as Hughes
was succumbing to the choke, earning the belt. Hughes went on to defend
his belt against Hayato Sakurai, Carlos Newton, Gil Castillo, Sean Sherk,
and Frank Trigg before losing it to BJ Penn. Hughes went on to beat Charuto
Verissimo and Georges St. Pierre to win back his belt and further defended
it against Frank Trigg. Hughes also went on to score non-title fight
victories against Joe Riggs and UFC legend Royce Gracie before defending
his belt against BJ Penn. From there his belt was lost in an ass whooping
administered by GSP and a bounce back victory over Chris Lytle followed
by another thumping by GSP. In Hughes’ next fight, Muay Thai wrecking
machine, Thiago Alves, aided by some extra weight, soundly defeated Hughes
and showed Hughes’ diminishing skills. This loss, combined with
a knee injury suffered while taking a flying knee to the face and collapsing
upon his own knee, had many talking of retirement. One last feud with
the mouthy Matt Serra was all Hughes wished for as he has spoken about
in the twilight of his illustrious career. A long time Miletich Fighting
Systems fighter, Hughes went on with Robbie Lawler to start the HIT Squad
and currently trains with Lawler, Clay French, and Matt Veach. Hughes
match with Serra finally came to fruition at UFC 98 where Hughes edged
Serra by a UD win and declared he still had some fights left in the tank.
The owner of such UFC records as most wins as a WW, most UFC wins (17)
most UFC title defenses (7) and most consecutive title defenses (tied
with Anderson Silva and Tito Ortiz 5) took on Renzo Gracie and completely
out classed the Gracie warrior with his boxing skills to earn a 14+minute
TKO.
Dos Anjos is an Evolve MMA fighter with a BJJ black belt under famed
BJJ trainer, Roberto Gordo Correa. He was the Fury FC LW champ and has
mostly fought in regional shows in Brazil, before traveling to Japan
for Pancrase fight. After an impressive performance in Japan, he returned
to Brazil to successfully defend his title. The UFC took notice of his
11-2 record and signed him to fight Jeremy Stephens, where he looked
very good for the first two rounds of the fight, working hard for submissions,
takedowns, and position. Stephens had a different plan than going to
the decision, however, and spoiled Dos Anjos’ debut with one of
the most brutal uppercuts seen to date. Dos Anjos eventually woke up
from that strike and faced off with Tyson Griffin in a very entertaining
match with many scrambles and positions but added a loss to his record.
Fearing the pink slip from the UFC, Rafael put on a dominant performance,
using the solid Muay Thai skills he had been honing with Team Sityodtong
in Singapore and his grappling for a UD win over Rob Emerson. He was
next scheduled to face off with Matt Wiman, but an injury got him a new
opponent in Kyle Bradley and he again employed the same gameplan, en
route to a UD win. He next faced off with surging LW Terry Etim and scored
a very nice armbar submission to snag a Sub of the Night bonus and score
his 3rd straight win.
ep
up in competition as he faced Karo Parisyan. Karo wanted to get the fight
to the ground and Alves displayed improved TDD
in that fight, eventually landing a beautiful knee from the clinch and
following Karo to the mat with some strikes to earn the TKO win, bro.
Alves returned to battle two months later against Matt Hughes in a hastily
put together main event and was very impressive in that win displaying
great TDD and striking before finishing Hughes with a flying knee and
some GNP. Unfortunately for Alves, an ankle injury caused him to come
in heavy for that match and cost him the title tot. He was next scheduled
to fight Diego Sanchez in a highly anticipated match, but an injury forced
Diego off, and his archenemy, Josh Koscheck, jumped in and paid the price
with a barrage of leg kicks as Alves earned his shit le tot with a UD
win. Alves faced WW kingpin GSP for the belt and GSP completely dictated
the fight with his superior wrestling skills, getting totally controlled
for 25 minutes. Alves is a beast, he is a huge 170 lb fighter (when he
legally makes 170) and is a Muay Thai Champion as well as a BJJ purple
belt. Alves holds his BJJ purple belt in the same sense that Wanderlei
is a black belt, they can see the moves coming and can defend them, but
they are not attacking with their BJJ and would rather engage with kicks,
fists, elbows, and knees. Training at ATT with a stable of top MMA fighters
from the age of 19, Alves boasts 11 TKO wins in his career and is very
explosive and powerful with his striking but has shown a propensity to
gas out in his fights.
Anderson
Silva is, without a doubt, the baddest man ever to work a McDonald’s
cash register. He trains with Lyoto Machida, Feijao and JZ Cavalcante,
the Nog Brothers, Junior Dos Santos, and Mark Munoz at the Black House.
He is on an 11 fight win streak and has defended his belt a record six
times (7 if you count Lutter not making weight) he was also the Cage
Rage title holder, a belt which he took from the infamous Lee Murray,
until the company’s demise in October of 2008. Anderson is the
unified title holder of the PRIDE and UFC Middleweight belts and holds
the record for consecutive UFC wins with 11. Anderson is widely regarded
as the #1 ranked ‘pound for pound’ fighter in the world.
He is a BJJ black belt under Big Nog and has unreal striking abilities,
specializing in Muay Thai, murder, and occasionally samba. He lost his
MMA debut to Luis Azeredo and also has losses to Daiju Takase, Ryo Chonan,
and a DQ against top MW contender, Yushin Okami. His illustrious career
has seen him become the first man in 20 fights to defeat Mach Sakurai.
Along the way, the Spider has garnered wins over Roan Carneiro, Alex
Steibling, Alex Otsuka, Carlos Newton, Lee Murray, Jeremy Horn, Jorge
Rivera, Curtis Stout, Tony Fryklund, Chris Leben, Rich Franklin (twice,)
Travis Lutter, Nate Marquardt, Dan Henderson, James Irvin, Patrick Cote,
Thales Leites, a complete embarrassment of Forrest Griffin, and a complete
embarrassment of himself in his last outing as he danced around Demian
Maia. A deadly striker with video game striking, Silva uses very creative
angles and an arsenal of strikes to dispose of his opponents. Mixed in
with his underrated ground game and quickness on his feet, Silva has
just about cleared out his division and seeks out challengers in the
LHW division. In his 205Lb debut, he brutalized Muay Thai striker, James
Irvin in just over a minute and opened a gash that will forever remind
Irvin he had a run in with the Spider. In Silva’s next fight, he
used his cat like reflexes to invoke comparisons to Neo as he dodged
Griffin’s punches and landed his own counters to knock down Forrest
repeatedly and ultimately be awarded the TKO win. Drawing much ire from
fans and bosses alike for his recent apparent boredom in the cage, Silva
better bring it this time. 
