UFC 125 takes place on Saturday from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nev. The event features five very intriguing and exciting fights, headlined by a battle for the UFC Lightweight Championship. Here are my thoughts on who will win on the main card bouts.
UFC Lightweight Championship – Frankie Edgar vs. Gray Maynard: I look for the champion to retain his belt and avenge a prior loss to Maynard in 2008. Since that time I feel like Edgar has improved greatly as a fighter while Maynard is simply a slightly better version of himself. Maynard will get some takedowns on the champ, but I expect Edgar to bounce back up and use his boxing to tire the challenger before scoring some takedowns in the later rounds to earn a decision victory.
UFC Middleweight Bout – Chris Leben vs. Brian Stann: While this fight doesn’t deserve co-main event status, it still should be exciting. Leben is riding a wave of momentum that will not be stopped on Saturday as his punching power should carry him to a third round TKO of Stann, who will put up a game effort.
UFC Light Heavyweight Bout – Brandon Vera vs. Thiago Silva: This may be Vera’s final UFC fight as I expect Silva to pressure him and not let him set up his kicks. Silva will do a good job of closing the distance and overwhelming Vera with his power and grappling ability. I like Silva to win by unanimous decision.
UFC Welterweight Bout – Nate Diaz vs. Dong Hyun Kim: Kim is a very under-rated fighter as he is kind of like the Yushin Okami of this weight class as is very strong and bigger than anyone else in the weight class. I like Kim to use that size to get Diaz to the ground and keep him from using his boxing. It probably won’t be the most exciting fight, but it will be another decision win for Kim.
UFC Lightweight Bout – Takanori Gomi vs. Clay Guida: I like Guida and the energy he brings to a fight, but his short arms tend to put him in bad spots against strikers. I think Guida will get careless early in the fight and get caught with a big punch by Guida while will lead to a TKO finish in the opening round.
You may have hated his brash attitude, the way he ran his team or the way he conducted his business. You may even feel that he ruined baseball. But regardless of how you may have felt about him, there’s little denying that George Steinbrenner will forever be one of Major League Baseball’s icons. Steinbrenner passed away in July of this year. He will forever be a man known for helping revolutionize the business side of baseball by being the first owner to sell TV cable rights to the MSG Network. When things eventually went south with MSG, he created the YES Network, which is currently the Yankees’ very own TV station that generates millions in revenue. During his tenure, he took the Yankees from a $10 million franchise to a $1.2 billion juggernaut. In 2005, the Yankees became the first professional sports franchise to be worth an estimated one billion dollars. While many baseball fans came to despise the way he ran his team (mainly because he purchased high priced free agents with reckless abandon due to the fact that he could and others couldn’t), don’t miss the message he often made year in and year out: The Yankees are here to win. He didn’t line his pockets with extra revenue (albeit he generated a lot of extra revenue for his club) – he dumped his money back into the on-field product. Losing wasn’t acceptable and if the Bombers came up short one year, you could bet that Steinbrenner would go after the best talent in the offseason, regardless of what others thought of the approach. How many Pirates and Royals fans wish they had an owner with the same appetite for victory?