Nate Diaz will be fighting at Welterweight for the 2nd time in his career after making an extremely impressive debut in his new weight class at UFC 111, where he defeated Rory Markham via TKO in the very first round. This time out he will face a stern test against veteran welterweight fighter Marcus Davis. Davis has recently got himself back to winning form, defeating Jonathan Goulet at UFC 113 via TKO, after suffering two back-to-back losses. This should be a very exciting fight, although Diaz is known for his excellent jiu-jitsu, he has also shown very impressive striking skills in his previous fights and he tends to keep most of his fights standing if he can help it. With Davis also preferring the striking game this has the potential to turn into an all out brawl. I expect Diaz to be the busier of the two fighters & I expect him to put his 6 inch reach advantage to good use by constantly putting his jab in Davis’ face, the un-relenting style that Diaz possesses can be difficult to work out & it may take Marcus a while to get his timing down. I would give the power advantage to Davis and with his pro boxing experience he has a good chance at taking this fight if he sticks to his technique, however I think that the reach advantage will prove to be a big factor in this fight and I can see Nate taking a unanimous decision by landing more punches, causing Marcus to get frustrated and maybe re-opening some of those old wounds that Davis has.My Prediction: Nate Diaz via decision.
Kenny Florian will take on Gray Maynard in the lightweight division to decide who will challenge the winner of Saturday’s main event for the title. Losing so decisively to BJ Penn may have been the best thing to have happened to Kenny Florian, since that loss he has worked very hard on the weaknesses in his game and has looked better than ever in earning submission wins against Clay Guida & Takanori Gomi respectively. Gray Maynard has also been improving his skill set, working hard on his stand-up to add to his world class wrestling ability, however he has not been as impressive with 6 decisions in his last 6 fights. This will be a very interesting fight, Florian is known for his excellent Muay-Thai and BJJ, however his wrestling has been one of his weaker points so we should get to see just how much improved this area of his game is when he steps in there Maynard, who has excellent wrestling pedigree. In fact this is exactly where I think Gray needs to take the fight in order to get the W, even though he has power in his hands and has worked hard on improving his striking, I still feel that Kenny is much better technically & will pick him apart if he chooses to stand & trade. If Gray uses his takedowns to try and implement his ground & pound then we could very well see him grind out another decision victory. For Kenny to win he is going to need to stuff the takedown and keep the fight standing, he does have a chance at pulling off the submission if the fight does go to the ground, however I think his chances of winning are a lot higher if he keeps Maynard on his feet.My Prediction: Kenny Florian via TKO.
Demian Maia will look to rebound from his humiliating loss to Anderson Silva when he takes on fellow Brazilian Mario Miranda. Maia was out-classed in his last fight at UFC 112 against the middleweight champion Anderson Silva, so no doubt he will want to return and make a statement against Miranda. Miranda is a relative newcomer to the UFC, debuting back at UFC Fight Night: Gomi vs Florian, where he suffered the first loss of his professional career against Gerald Harris via TKO. He followed that fight with a TKO victory against veteran David Loiseau at UFC 115. With Maia’s world class ground game it should be fairly obvious that this is where he has the best chance of winning this fight, Demian has improved all areas of his game lately but his BJJ is still by far his biggest strength. Taking this into consideration I expect Miranda to try to keep his distance and use his 6ft 4 frame to out-strike Maia. Even though Maia lost his last fight, he is still one of the best middleweights in the UFC and I think he’ll prove to be too much for Miranda to handle at this point in his career.My Prediction: Demian Maia via submission.
In the co-main event of the evening we will finally get to see what happens when a world class boxer goes up against a world class mixed martial artist when James Toney takes on Randy Couture. Even though both men are past their primes, this should still be a fun fight to watch. Toney has been training in MMA for a few months now and he is very motivated to represent his sport of boxing and to prove that he has what it takes to be a champion in MMA. Even though he’s been training for a few months, I don’t think this is anywhere near enough time to deal with someone of Couture’s experience. Toney will of course have a punchers chance and the fact that the fight starts standing will give him an opportunity to end things early, however Couture is a very smart fighter and he will not waste any time in closing the distance and taking the fight to the ground. Couture has been dropped numerous times in his career so he should not take Toney lightly as there’s always a chance that he could get caught. However I don’t think Randy is the type of fighter to underestimate his opponents, whereas as Toney does seem to be looking past Couture a bit, even discussing a potential fight against Brock Lesnar. Taking in all of this into consideration Randy has a lot more ways of ending this fight than Toney and I think it’ll only be a matter of time before he takes him down and locks in a submission.My Prediction: Randy Couture via submission.
In a re-match from UFC 112 BJ Penn will get a chance to re-gain his lightweight title when he takes on Frankie Edgar. After their last fight, there was a lot of controversy over the final judges decision. Some people thought that Edgar had done enough to take the fight, while others thought that BJ had done enough to retain the title. Personally I had BJ ahead by a round, but I can see the argument for giving Frankie the round aswell. Edgar executed his game plan to perfection, using his non-stop movement to prevent BJ from getting into his rhythm. Edgar did a very good job of avoiding too much damage by landing his shots and jumping back out of range and also using his superior speed to frustrate BJ. As well as this he also did what many people have failed to do and that was complete a takedown attempt on Penn. Since his game plan worked so well in the first fight I don’t expect Frankie to make any drastic changes, he will surely make slight adjustments but for the most part I think he will continue to use his excellent movement and mix up his attacks just to stop Penn from getting into any sort of rhythm. BJ on the other hand, I expect to be a lot more aggressive in the re-match, he has the power to hurt Frankie but he will need to get his timing down. Also if the striking isn’t working, then he will surely need to mix up his attacks and perhaps look for the takedowns. With his phenomenal ground game this could result in a different outcome if he is able to get Edgar down. I think BJ took this fight lightly the first time around & with him wanting to set the record straight he will have trained like an animal for this re-match. It’s very hard for me to pick against a motivated BJ Penn so for that reason i’m going with Penn to take back the title.My Prediction: BJ Penn via TKO.
