The Ultimate Fighting Championship celebrates a monumental landmark tonight with UFC 100. To celebrate the 100th Pay Per View show for the Mixed-Martial Arts company, the UFC has put together a stacked feature card headlined by three main-event caliber fights. Overall the main card has five fights, including two championship bouts. The show takes places from the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas at 10 p.m. ET. Here are my predictions for the main card bouts.
Heavyweight Championship (265 pounds): Champion Brock Lesnar (3-1) vs. Frank Mir (12-3) – This fight is tough to call. Mir one the previous meeting at UFC 81 in February of 2008, but since, both fighters have vastly improved. Lesnar has been over-powering and shown solid boxing in his wins over Heath Herring and Randy Couture. Mir has been on a tear in his last three fights, picking up quick wins over Antoni Hardonk, Lesnar, and Minotaro Nogueira. Mir became the first to stop Nogueria back at UFC 92, which set up the rematch with Lesnar. In this fight, I think Mir’s improved boxing will play a big factor. In the first meeting, Lesnar landed big punches early and pounced on Mir, nearly stopping the fight before Mir pulled of a knee-bar submission. In this fight I think Mir will be able to dictate where the fight goes more than he did in the first meeting. With Mir’s composure and elite level submission ability, I see Mir surviving Lesnar’s early onslaught and then successfully pulling off a submission. I take Mir by submission in round three.
Welterweight Championship (170 pounds): Georges St. Pierre (18-2) vs. Thiago Alves (15-3): This fight really to me is the best fight on the card and should be the most competitive and best display of all-around athleticism. St. Pierre has been on a tear, winning his last five in very convincing fashion. St. Pierre is thought to be one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world, but is facing a very tough test in Alves. Alves presents some new challenges that St. Pierre has never faced. First, Alves will be the larger fighter. Though weighing in at 170 pounds, by fight time, Alves is believed to weigh at least 190 pounds. Will the size advantage hurt GSP’s chances to take Alves down? Second, Alves has tremendous leg kicks, which GSP has never dealt with in a fight. If Alves is able to land a series of kicks to GSP’s lead leg, it could severely hurt St. Pierre’s ability to use all of his weapons. St. Pierre is known for being light on his feet and quick, but with an injured leg, that speed and agility will be much slower. Overall, I think that Alves’ weight cut will be a factor. He looked very depleted at the weigh ins and I don’t suspect that he can fight five full rounds. He will need to end the fight early, and GSP possess the ability to avoid the big strike and fight out of tough positions. I think St. Pierre’s championship pedigree carries him to a win by TKO in the fifth and final round.
Middleweight fight (185 pounds): Dan Henderson (24-7) vs. Michael Bisping (18-1): This is the battle between the Ultimate Fighter coaches from season nine with the winner likely getting a title shot against champion Anderson Silva in the future. Bisping is unbeaten at middleweight, having beaten Charles McCarthy, Jason Day, and Chris Leben, while Henderson is coming off wins over Rousimar Palhares and Rich Franklin. Bisping is a game fighter, but his biggest weakness has been takedown defense. In his only loss to Rashad Evans, Evans scored takedowns at will. Henderson is an Olympic caliber wrestler and should be able to score the takedowns when he needs them. I don’t see this being a classic slugfest, but more of a control fight by Henderson. I will take Hendo by decision.
Welterweight fight (170 pounds): Jon Fitch (18-3) vs. Paulo Thiago (11-0): Thiago scored an unlikely knockout win over Josh Koscheck at UFC 95 and now gets a chance to push himself even higher up the UFC ranks with a win over Fitch. Thiago was losing to Koscheck prior to his knockout, and his likelihood of another upset is not good. Fitch has not been stopped in the UFC and Thiago can’t hit harder than some of the men that have already hit Fitch. I see Fitch using his wrestling to keep the fight on the ground where he will either score late submission or ride out the decision win. To keep with his track record, I will take Fitch by decision.
Middleweight fight (185 pounds): Yoshihiro Akiyama (12-1) vs. Alan Belcher (14-5): Akiyama is making his UFC debut against Belcher. One of the keys in this fight is how Akiyama handles his first fight in the UFC. Many fighters that have established themselves outside of the UFC and stepped into the octagon have struggled, including Dennis Kang, who lost his UFC debut to none other than Belcher. Belcher is riding a mild winning streak of two fights. Belcher shows great potential and talent, yet has lost convincingly to lower-grade fighters like Kendall Grove and Jason Day. Belcher has the ability to win, but I think this fight is where his streak fizzles out. I see Akiyama outclassing him for a submission victory in the second round.
–Written by TSR MMA contributor Drew Ellis
Posted in: Mixed Martial Arts
Tags: Alan Belcher, Brock Lesnar, Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir, Dan Henderson, Dan Henderson vs. Michael Bisping, Frank Mir, Georges St. Pierre, Georges St. Pierre vs. Thiago Alves, Jon Fitch, Jon Fitch vs. Paulo Thiago, Michael Bisping, Paulo Thiago, Thiago Alves, UFC 100, UFC 100 Free Picks, UFC 100 Predictions, UFC 100 Preview, Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Alan Belcher, Yoshiro Akiyama
Good predictions.
I made all the same choices.
Should be an awesome night of fights
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Well I do believe I will never watch another UFC and pay for it when Brock is on. That fight was fixed if I have ever seen one.
Terrible ref job, bull shit 3 min of laying not making a move in two rounds. The WWE/Boxing era has hit the UFC. Now that Chuck is done the side show is his money maker. Great rest of the card thou
I don’t agree with that assesment of a fixed fight. First, standing the fighters up wouldn’t have changed much. Mir was throwing desperate shots to try and slow Brock down and that didn’t work. Brock controlled Mir on the ground and land solid blows each time. To say that fight was fixed is a stretch. Fact is, Lesnar was the better fighter and is one of the best in the world right now.
No,he only landed shots after Mir opened his lockdown half guard to try and advance, rule is 20 seconds to make move to improve or damage.
Lesnar didnt get a punch landed in round two for over 2 minutes! Why not stand them up? Mir could have held him all day and yes still lost a decision, but he atleast opened up and tried.
Brock is a gimick for Dana.
Round 1 lesnar landed 30-35% of his hammer fist rabbit shots, mir moved from north south, side control, halfguard. he through up kimuras and keylocks. He tried several things.
Lesnar layed there. (not saying he did wrong, just boring and should have been stood up for lack of action)
Round two Mir was more effective striking, made a mistake to follow to the ground and was oversized. But again lesnar did no damage for just over 2 min, He layed in the lockdown half guard and threw 3 punches on Mir’s forearm? Not enough to justify keeping it there
End mir opened up, proped up with an underhook looking for a sweep it appeared and got hammered.
Powerful Lesnar is, a good wrestler yes.
He did win, but in a boring and in my view much aided way. Mir may not have done anything all night, but atleast it wouldnt have looked so obvious.
Money trumps everything in the UFC.
Lesnar is replacing chuck liddel.
Dana needs 1mil plus PPV buys he found his new attraction and will protect it.
Fixed maybe to strong, but biased/aided and rules bent in favor of Lesnar was clear to anyone with a ground game background. Lesnar stalled, until Mir finally opened up.
Would it help the UFC make money to have Brock win? Sure. But, since he signed on, the UFC has not given him an easy fight. He has fought Mir 2x, Heath Herring, and Randy Couture. He didn’t even get an easy first fight with the company like CroCop did in Eddie Sanchez. The UFC may have an interest in seeing Lesnar win, but all they can do is provide him with an opportunity to make a name for himself, the rest is up to him. If they didn’t want to see their top stars lose, they wouldn’t have put Chuck Liddell in bad stylistic matches or be having Anderson Silva fight up a weight class against another of their top stars in Forrest Griffin. The UFC is so far from boxing and a fixed sport. I don’t like Lesnar whatsoever, but I also know that he is not getting a free pass.
Perhaps,
But dont forget not long ago Tito Ortiz was the face of the UFC and he had an easy path to title reign he had.
Like I said maybe not fixed, but def leaned towards him. Cro-Cop is a never was complete in MMA, a stud in K1 kickboxing. Pride was awesome but they didnt encourage a ground game like the UFC happens to favor.
And Forrest will get murdered.
He is not a top 5 light heavy.
he is fun, entertaining, but he never should have won against Rampage.
I think this just proves how not stacked the middle weight and heavyweight divisions are.
Bring in Vitor at 185, get Jake Shields and Robby lawler back. Then the spider can show more.
That’s fair, but if the UFC gets Shields, I would think it would be to fight GSP at 170 where he naturally was prior to fighting Lawler. I would also like to see Nick Diaz back in the UFC to compete at 170 or 185.
While there is no doubt the UFC has financial interest in these guys, the fact is that it is actual combat, and anything can happen. The UFC didn’t see dollar signs when Matt Serra beat GSP, but those things happen. That is what I love about the sport. As much as it seems like Lesnar should dominate the HWY division, there is always a puncher’s chance he will lose.