+++ UFC 112 +++

Saturday 16th April at 6pm!

Two titles on the line with the greatest ever fighting and greatest lightweight ever fighting, both defending their belts!!

BAAAAAABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!


Main Card

Middleweight Championship bout: Anderson Silva (c) vs. Demian Maia

Lightweight Championship bout: B.J. Penn (c) vs. Frankie Edgar

Welterweight bout: Matt Hughes vs. Renzo Gracie
Lightweight bout: Terry Etim vs. Rafael dos Anjos
Middleweight bout: Kendall Grove vs. Mark Munoz

Preliminary Card

Light Heavyweight bout: Alexander Gustafsson vs. Phil Davis
Lightweight bout: Paul Taylor vs. John Gunderson
Welterweight bout: Nick Osipczak vs. Rick Story
Welterweight bout: DaMarques Johnson vs. Brad Blackburn
Lightweight bout: Paul Kelly vs. Matt Veach
Heavyweight bout: Jon Madsen vs. Mostapha Al-turk


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Imagine this. Anderson Silva, 10 and 0 since coming to the UFC, Middleweight King and Pound For Pound Champion, has actually never had a good preparation for any of his fights in the last 4 years. Sounds ludicrous. How can anyone be that good, rule a division with supreme authority and make former champions a weight-class above him look like amateurs, yet not be able to spar for longer than a week in training and struggle to lift weights because of serious issues with floating bone fragments in his right elbow? How would that be possible? Well, it is. That's what's been happening. After dismantling Forrest Griffin at UFC 101 in a fashion that belonged in a Hollywood film, the Spider finally had an operation to sort his elbow out. Now, Silva can prepare properly. Im both extremely excited at the prospect of Anderson possibly improving (and giving us more visually ridiculous feats) and terrified at what he might do to poor Demian Maia.

Maia is my second favourite middleweight (after A.Silva obviously). I love artists like him. Some of the submissions he pulls off are sensational and to a true MMA fan are as aesthetically pleasing as any Cro Cop head kick KO or Chuck Liddell overhand right. He won his first 5 UFC bouts via submission. His Jiu Jitsu is as good as it gets in MMA. He is a 2nd degree black belt in BJJ under Brazilian BJJ legend Fabio Gurgel. Demian showed his weakness when trying to stand with Nate Marquardt for 21 seconds. It was 21 seconds too long as he got KTFO. He is attempting to address his stand-up by training with Wanderlei Silva. He definitely showed improvement on his feet last time out when looking smoother against Dan Miller. However, Im not sure working with a brawler, an out and out warrior like the Axe Murderer, is such a smart idea. Imo, he should be working on being far more technical in his stand-up in order to draw opponents into his clinch/to get a takedown/to draw them into his guard. What Maia doesn't want is a war. Not against anyone, let alone Silva. Leben, Franklin (twice), Marquardt, Irvin and Griffin showed what happens when you go after Anderson. You get destroyed.

If Demian stands for a bit and/or can't take Silva down, he's getting KO'ed - there is simply no need to analyse that part of the fight. So the plan must be for Maia to get get Silva to the ground, preferably on his back. Maia's guard is awesome, but Silva is a lot less vulnerable in top position, despite his loss to a Triangle to Takase in Pride. Should Anderson find himself in Maia's guard, he'll just stand back up anyway. Silva has shown in the past that if he has one weakness, it's his wrestling. He lost a round (the only lost round in 10 fights) against Dan Henderson, a top wrestler who managed to take him down, get him on his back and keep him there. But Spider is a BJJ black belt himself and took no damage at all. For a short time against Lutter, the same thing occurred. So it can be done. However, three things should be pointed out. One, Silva, as mentioned above, will be better prepared for this bout than any other he's had in the UFC. Two, Lutter and Henderson in particular were a lot better on their feet than Maia is and made Silva think a bit regarding body kicks or power punches. And three, Maia utilises the clinch well to take the fight down to his world on the ground - Anderso Silva is a farking monster in the clinch. His Thai plum is the best in the business.

So unfortunately, it doesn't look too good for Maia. He'll get beat in the stand-up, get beat in the clinch and is unlikely to be able to take the fight to the ground. And even if Maia were to get Silva on his back, that's when the hard part begins. While his BJJ is better than Silva's, and Anderson's long limbs are perfect for a submission master like him, Spider is a legit black belt under the Nogueira brothers. There is a huge difference in being better than someone at Jiu-Jitsu and being so much better than them as to actually stop them. GSP and Hardy displayed that perfectly last week.

I'll go with a Silva TKO win in Round 2. 1/6 is value.

And I'm not worrying about this being a repeat of that brutal fight between Anderson and BJJ specialist Thales Leites at UFC 97. Maia is smarter than Leites so won't just lie down like a mug in the hope Silva will follow him, Maia is braver on his feet and will at least give it a go and Maia is simply a lot better than Leites.

I'll be back on with a bit on BJ/Edgar later in the week - needless to say I'll not be forecasting any surprises here. I've been saying since his destruction of Nightmare that he should now be back at 170lb and testing himself against a Fitch or an Alves, before coming in for the fight of his life for a third tilt at GSP. Who knows, with his improvement in conditioning HE could be the first UFC Champ to hold two belts simultaneously in two different weight classes, and not Anderson Silva.

Thinking about it, there is actually not a lot to say about that fight - BJ is superior in every facet of the game. 1/10 is fair enough.

A fight that simply shouldn't be happening in the UFC, or at all, is Hughes vs Renzo Gracie. One is a 37 year old has-been, and the other is a 43 year old never-was. Hughes should have went out on a high after beating Serra. Dana is showing him some loyalty by giving him a fight like this. He knows, Matt knows and we all know that if he was to go in against any top 10 welterweight, he'd get owned. So they give him Renzo, who has signed a 6 fight deal. That's right. A 6 fight deal. WTF. Anyway. At this stage of his career, he Hughes should not be 2/7 to beat anyone, but its a fight I'll be avoiding. Call be ageist and report me if you will, but these granda's should be at home with their pipe, slippers and viagra.

Incidentally, Gracie is the coach of Frankie Edgar. Not going to be a good night for Team Renzo methinks.

There's far better and more interesting fights that the one above, and I'll go into them in the coming days. This is a super card bar Matt/Renzo and the next few months are going to be immense in MMA.

Beats the hell out of Hopkins and Jones boring us all to tears anyway!