UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones may go down as the year’s best fighter, but he will have one more test before the year’s end coming in the form of former champion Lyoto Machida. They will meet at UFC 140 on Saturday at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto.
Jones’ victories include those over Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, Quinton Jackson and Ryan Bader. Machida enters the fight having only won one of his last three bouts, but that win came over Hall-of-Famer Randy Couture in spectacular fashion.
In the co-main event, former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir will take on former Pride heavyweight champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira for the second time. Mir defeated Nogueira at UFC 92.
These are my predictions for submission, knockout and fight of the night.
Submission of the Night: Jung Chan-Sung
There is only one way to top off winning Submission of the Year, and Jung Chan-Sung (11-3) will look to get another highlight-reel finish when he faces former title challenger Mark Hominick (20-9) in an anticipated featherweight bout on the main card.
Jung was last seen submitting Leonard Garcia with the first-ever twister submission in the UFC. It won him the Submission of the Year award at the 2011 MMA awards.
If Hominick’s last fight was of any indication, it’s not worth it to stand and try to knock him out. His heart will constantly keep him in the fight no matter how much punishment he takes over the course of the fight. He also has superior stand-up skills to Jung.
Look for Jung to take this fight to the mat after some early exchanges and try to work for a submission. Hominick hasn’t always had the best submission defense, and five of his nine losses have come in that fashion.
This fight easily has the makings to win one of the three bonuses.
Knockout of the Night: John Makdessi
John Makdessi (9-0) is one of the UFC’s most exciting and promising prospects, and he will get the chance to prove it when he faces MMA veteran Dennis Hallman (50-14-2) on the preliminary card of UFC 140.
Makdessi was last seen knocking out Kyle Watson with a spinning back-fist in front of 55,000 hometown fans at UFC 129. He will get the chance to do that once again in front of a smaller crowd, but a hometown crowd nonetheless.
Hallman will be dropping from welterweight to lightweight so it will be interesting to see how the weight cut affects his cardio late in the fight if it goes there.
Makdessi is a relatively undersized opponent, but knows what it means to entertain the crowd. His stand-up technique and kickboxing features a wide array of kicks, and one of them could be the last thing Hallman sees before getting knocked out late in this fight.
Fight of the Night: Jared Hamman vs. Constantinos Philippou
In a preliminary bout set to air on Ion Television, middleweights Jared Hamman (13-3) and Constantinos Philippou (8-2) will look to take a step up in the division and earn another UFC victory.
After a somewhat disappointing win over Jorge Rivera at UFC 133, Philippou should be motivated to put on a show against Hamman, who has won two previous Fight of the Night bonuses and is coming off a very exciting fight versus C.B. Dollaway. Philippou is 1-1 in the UFC with his only loss coming against Nick Catone.
Hamman made his middleweight debut against Dollaway and survived early barrages to come back and stop “The Doberman” in the second round. His toughness is one of his biggest assets, and it is easily making him one of the fan-favorite fighters in the division.
This should be a war no matter which way it goes.
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