UFC Knockout Pool

[Brother Brian]

I thought this might be fun. We've got a decent number of people on the forum who talk about the UFC.

So here's how it works. Each UFC you pick either of the top 2 fights, and make a prediction. If you're right, you move on to the next card. If you miss it, you're knocked out.

So, for UFC 91 your options are:

Brock Lesnar vs. Randy Coture (5 Rounds, for the UFC Championship)

or

Joe Stevenson vs. Kenny Florian (3 Rounds, winner gets a shot at BJ Penn)

[Brother Brian]

And to open the bidding, I'm going to take:

Brock Lesnar

While I'm still not 100% sold on Brock as a top 5 fighter 3 fights into his MMA career, this is a good matchup for him.

Coture and Lesnar both come from a wrestling base. There's a reason why wrestling has weight classes, and Brock's going to walk into the Octagon about 60 lbs heavier than Coture. (Brock walks around at close to 300 lbs and cuts to hit the heavyweight limit of 265. He'll walk in about 285 lbs.) Both are highly skilled wresters, and a good big man beats a good small man.

In the standup, Randy's biggest advantage is in his dirty boxing skills. His clinch fighting is phenominal. Again though, he has to overcome a major strength and speed advantage in Lesnar to get into and maintain a clinch.

At distance, Randy is certainly a more technical striker. If he tries to keep it standing, I expect it to look like his fights with Liddell. In all three, Randy was winning the standup war. In the first fight, he won it throughout the fight. In the second, he won it until he got poked in the eye, and then tried to clinch up and got caught. In the third, he easily won the first round, before getting caught.

The fight with Herring showed that althought his striking skills are still somewhat rudimentary, Lenar makes up for it with significant power.

The only significant area of weakness I see with Lesnar is his submission defense. While Randy has a couple of chokes on his resume, he's not a Jujitsu expert. He could pull out an arbar from the bottom I guess, but I find it a long shot.

Honesty, I dont' think it's an age thing, I just think Lesnar is the kind of fighter who gives Coture fits.

[Kalzazz]

I pick Florian

[carmachu]

Brock is definately a monster. If he's going to win, its going to be early-first or second round. If it becomes a all out war, liek Rampage vs Forret, I think Coture will win.

My pick is going to be Coture. I think he'll figure Brock out and wear him down and out.