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UFC 141 Lesnar vs. Overeem: Preview, Fight Card, PPV Info, Predictions & More

They always say to save the best for last, and UFC 141 will give fans the biggest and best fight of the year on the 364th day of 2011 when Brock Lesnar makes his return to the Octagon after 14 months away to challenge kickboxing expert Alistair Overeem…

Lesnar and Overeem will have huge ramifications on the heavyweight division for a long time to come. The winner will get a shot at new champion Junior dos Santos in 2012, while the loser will have work to do in order to climb into the title picture.

Where: MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nev.

When: Friday, December 30 at 10 p.m. ET

Watch: Facebook undercard fights at 6:50 p.m. ET, preliminary fights at 9 p.m. ET on Spike TV, main card fights at 10 p.m. ET on pay-per-view; online pay-per-view streaming (must pay $44.99) at UFC.tv, Yahoo! Sports, UStream, Android or iPhone.

FIGHT CARD

Main Card

Heavyweight Bout: Brock Lesnar vs. Alistair Overeem

Lightweight Bout: Nate Diaz vs. Donald Cerrone

Welterweight Bout: Jon Fitch vs. Johny Hendricks

Light Heavyweight Bout: Vladimir Matyushenko vs. Alexander Gustaffson

Featherweight Bout: Nam Phan vs. Jimy Hettes

Preliminary Card (Spike TV)

Featherweight Bout: Ross Pearson vs. Junior Assuncao

Lightweight Bout: Anthony Njokuani vs. Danny Castillo

Preliminary Card (Facebook)

Welterweight Bout: Dong Hyun Kim vs. Sean Pierson

Lightweight Bout: Jacob Volkmann vs. Efrain Escudero

Welterweight Bout: Matt Riddle vs. Luis Ramos

Featherweight Bout: Manvel Gamburyan vs. Diego Nunes

Brock Lesnar’s Keys to Victory

Don’t try to do too much too quick, and work the fight to the ground.

Being off for 14 months is hard enough. Being off for that long and having to go through another bout with diverticulitis makes things that much harder. Lesnar is a freak of nature, and he will need every bit of his athleticism in this fight.

He needs to let the fight come to him by waiting for Overeem to go for a big shot so that he can take him down. It will be hard for him to win a stand-up battle, so anything he can do to get this fight to the ground is going to be done.

Alistair Overeem’s Keys to Victory

Prove that he can avoid a takedown, and use his stand-up power to score a knockout.

The one distinct advantage that Overeem has in this fight is in the stand-up. We all know that Lesnar has difficulty taking punches, so he is going to try everything in his power to get the fight to the ground.

If he can frustrate Lesnar early by not going to the ground, he will control the tempo and force Lesnar into fighting a style that he isn’t comfortable with.

What They Are Saying

Brock Lesnar has never been one to make excuses. He tells things exactly like he sees them, and he knows how difficult his journey back to the Octagon has been. But in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, he said doesn’t want to talk about diverticulitis or use it as a crutch.

“I mean, I’ve answered a million questions about my health here. That’s the best that you can come up with today? I feel great, I feel very, very good coming into this fight. I can’t score it (the improvement in my health) on scales of one to 10. I mean, come on guys, I feel good,” he said.

After some controversy about Overeem’s drug test, he was finally able to get a conditional license to make this fight official. UFC president Dana White expressed his joy, and relief, on Twitter.

Undercard Fight to Watch: Jacob Volkmann vs. Efrain Escudero

It is always dangerous predicting two ground fighters to have a good fight, because there is a chance that it could just turn into a battle for positioning for three rounds and turn into the worst fight on the card.

But Volkmann and Escudero are both so strong and effective on the ground that I expect we will see a number of submission attempts that make this fight worth seeing. Even if it goes to the judges, it should still feature enough action to make it exciting.

Main-Event Prediction

Lesnar vs. Overeem is the easiest fight in the world to analyze but so hard to predict because we don’t know how Lesnar’s body is going to react to the 14-month layoff.

The easy part is figuring out how the fight will be won. If Lesnar gets the fight to the ground, it’s over because Overeem has no ground game to speak of.

If Overeem is able to keep it standing and turn it into a battle of striking, he will win because Lesnar has never been good at defending himself against strong strikers.

In the end, there are more questions surrounding Lesnar in this fight than Overeem, so I see “The Dutch Cyclone” walking away with a victory in his first UFC fight.

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UFC 138 Results: Mark Munoz’s Win Won’t Put Him in Middleweight Title Contention

UFC 138 wound up being one of the better mixed martial arts events of the year, though the main event did not leave everyone in the arena and watching on television with a warm, fuzzy feeling.Mark Munoz was able to get a victory over Chris Leben thanks…

UFC 138 wound up being one of the better mixed martial arts events of the year, though the main event did not leave everyone in the arena and watching on television with a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Mark Munoz was able to get a victory over Chris Leben thanks to a stoppage in between the second and third rounds, but it does not warrant Munoz being talked about as a middleweight title contender.

It is easy to understand why Munoz would be talked about as a contender for Anderson Silva: He has won seven of his last eight fights, including four straight, and is finally starting to beat higher-caliber middleweight fighters. However, his resume does not scream No. 1 contender or even No. 2 or 3 for that matter. He can get into the mix with a couple more victories over upper-echelon fighters, but not before then.

Still, that did not stop UFC announcer Joe Rogan from posing the question to Munoz after he was declared the winner thanks to a nasty gash over Leben’s left eye that left him unable to see.

“Anderson Silva is by far the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world,” Munoz said. “I give him all the respect and honor, but I think I deserve a title shot. I consider him a friend, but right now I would love to get a title shot.”No disrespect to Munoz, who is a good fighter in his own right, but the reason that he is not going to get that shot and Chael Sonnen in all likelihood will is because he knows how to promote a fight.

UFC is as much about shameless self-promotion and building yourself up as it is about performing in the octagon.

Sonnen has the ability to do that. Munoz, clearly, does not. You have to make Dana White and Joe Silva take notice of you if you want a shot.

A victory over Leben is a good start for Munoz, and he could have helped himself a lot more with some gloating and promotion, but instead he just took the win and hopes that someone will pay attention to him.

Munoz’s résumé is far from complete, so he should get into title contention at some point, but he still has a lot left to prove before he gets talked about with the best middleweights that UFC has to offer.

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UFC 137 Results: Nick Diaz Talks Himself Back into Welterweight Title Contention

Nick Diaz is not a great talker. He opens his mouth, but rarely does he have any idea what is going to come out. At UFC 137 on Saturday night, you had the sense that he finally figured out what he wanted to say. It turns out that promo was all he needed to get back what was rightfully his in the first place: A fight with Georges St-Pierre for the UFC welterweight championship.

Diaz defeated B.J. Penn via unanimous decision in a fantastic fight. With the crowd chanting “GSP” before the judges’ scores were even read, Diaz made sure that they had something else to remember.

“I don’t think Georges is hurt,” Diaz said, “I think he’s scared.”

That line was right out of the Chael Sonnen book, because it was at that precise moment when UFC president Dana White knew he had to call Carlos Condit and tell him that his title shot would have to wait, because he had a huge money fight sitting on the table, and the time to do it was now.

“I’ve known Georges St-Pierre since 2004,” White said. “He’s one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met, and he’s always exactly the same no matter what the situation is, no matter who he’s fighting. Since 2004, I’ve never seen him like he was tonight. Georges St-Pierre flipped out tonight after Nick Diaz was in the ring, and Nick needs motivation. He’s got it. He’s going to fight Georges St-Pierre.”

St-Pierre told White that, “[Diaz] the most disrespectful human being I’ve ever met, and I’m going to put the worst beating you’ve ever seen on him in the UFC.”

As much as Diaz drives White and the rest of the UFC management team nuts because he doesn’t do the promotional work for his fights or know how to act in public, he is the right man to fight St-Pierre. Condit is a good fighter, but he does not have the name cache to get a fight with St-Pierre over. He will earn a title shot with another victory.

But the next one belongs to Diaz, and he has earned with his performance in the octagon and on the microphone. UFC doesn’t need him to show up to press conferences; all they have to do is play the clip of the post-fight interview over and over again.

Diaz knew that winning the fight against Penn wasn’t going to be good enough to get him his title shot back, so he did the one thing he knew would set the world on fire: He called out arguably the most popular fighter in mixed martial arts today as a coward.

It can never again be said that Diaz is anything less than a genius. All we have to do is wait until Super Bowl weekend to find out if he can back up his talk.

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Jon Jones: Medical Suspension Gives UFC Champion Another Excuse vs. Rashad Evans

After destroying Quinton Jackson at UFC 135, Jon Jones stood in the octagon with his next opponent, Rashad Evans, and said that he was upset his former training partner was ruining another big day for him. But the light heavyweight champion won’t have …

According to a report on MMAJunkie.com, Jones received a six-month medical suspension. Details of the suspension were not made public, but Jackson, who was beaten around the octagon for four rounds before getting choked out, was only given a two-month suspension.

This is yet another convenient excuse that Jones has to use to avoid his long-awaited, much-anticipated fight with Evans.

Earlier this year, after Jones won the light heavyweight championship, he was supposed to defend the title against Evans, but a mysterious hand injury forced him to withdraw from the fight. It was believed that the injury would require surgery, but Jones was advised not to have the surgery.

So Evans, who had been on the shelf for over a year waiting for then-champion Mauricio Rua to recover from injuries, decided that he had to get back in the octagon, and took a fight with Phil Davis.

Then, as soon as Evans took another fight, Jones decides that his hand is in good enough shape to fight again.

It was sketchy at the time, and this latest mystery makes things look even more convenient for Jones.

Now, to be fair to the situation, we don’t know what is wrong with Jones. He might have done something to himself in the fight with Jackson, though he seemed to be in perfect condition in the post-event press conference.

But this whole thing just doesn’t feel right. It is obvious that something is going on in Jones’ mind that will not allow him to fight Evans. I don’t know if it is just the fact that they were so close before, and Jones wants to recapture that bond, or if Evans knows something about Jones that he can exploit in a fight.

Until the mystery of Jones’ medical suspension is revealed—if it ever is—all we have are a series of questions that don’t have answers.

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Lesnar vs. Overeem: Lesnar Must Change Training Regimen to Defeat Overeem

Few fans of mixed martial arts would argue that Brock Lesnar can win a stand up fight against Alistair Overeem when the two men meet at UFC 141 in December.But that does not mean that he is incapable of reaching a point where he can fight standing with…

Few fans of mixed martial arts would argue that Brock Lesnar can win a stand up fight against Alistair Overeem when the two men meet at UFC 141 in December.

But that does not mean that he is incapable of reaching a point where he can fight standing with Overeem; he just has to find the right training partner to help him over the next three months.

There were rumors that Lesnar was going to train with world-class kickboxer Badr Hari to get ready for Overeem, who is a world-class striker in his own right, but Hari’s trainer has denied that rumor.

“I spoke to Badr the other day, and he told me he is still in Morocco just working on basic conditioning stuff,” Mike Passenier said. “Badr training with Brock Lesnar is fiction.”

Even though that rumor turned out to be false, the fact that Lesnar would even be looking at a new trainer to help prepare him for a fight that will likely turn into a stand up fight is a positive sign.

Lesnar knows that his style has to evolve if he wants to compete with the best heavyweight fighters in the world.

As presently constructed, he does not have a chance to compete against fighters like Overeem, Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos. Adding some new wrinkles to go along with his world-class wrestling ability is critical for him if he wants to remain in the mix for the heavyweight championship.

Overeem has improved his skills over the last two years. He used to be a fighter who could only stand and strike with his opponents, which is ironic because when he first started fighting, he was a better submission fighter than stand up fighter.

Overeem has good takedown defense and will not allow Lesnar to attack his legs to take him to the ground.

Lesnar knows that his time in the sport is limited and he has to cash in while he can. He is only going to get paid top dollar as long as he keeps winning fights, and if he does not even try to evolve as a fighter, he is going to fall into obscurity sooner rather than later.

That is why he needs to make sure that training with a world-class kickboxer becomes a reality and is not just a rumor.

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Lesnar vs. Overeem: Quick Finish Awaits Brock Lesnar in Bout with Overeem

When Brock Lesnar and Alistair Overeem square off at UFC 141 on December 30, fans know exactly what they are going to get: two fighters with two very distinct styles of fighting. Lesnar is a world-class wrestler who needs to take the fight to the groun…

When Brock Lesnar and Alistair Overeem square off at UFC 141 on December 30, fans know exactly what they are going to get: two fighters with two very distinct styles of fighting.

Lesnar is a world-class wrestler who needs to take the fight to the ground to have a chance to win. Overeem is a world-class striker who needs to keep the fight standing to have a chance to win.

But of all the ways that this fight can go, the odds of it lasting all five rounds are slim-to-none, and Overeem is very conscious of that fact.

In an interview with Shoot Media, the former Strikeforce heavyweight champion said that there is virtually no way that both these men can fight for 25 minutes.

“I’m going to do what I do best. I expect him to do what he does best. This fight is not going to go the distance, that’s one thing for certain,” Overeem predicted. “Someone is going to get beat up. I’m going to do my best to make sure it’s not me.”

While Overeem likely does not have the stamina to fight a five-round fight against the best UFC has to offer, he is far more capable of pulling it off than Lesnar is. Overeem has actually had fights that have gone into the third round; Lesnar hasn’t. Overeem, while fighting in K-1, has fought multiple times in one night; Lesnar hasn’t.

Plus, and this is more important than any of those previous stats, Lesnar has not fought since October 2010 and is coming off major surgery in which he had 12 inches of his colon removed. To think that he is going to come into this fight in peak physical condition is ludicrous.

Overeem has the kind of striking ability that has given Lesnar fits in the past, and he will have more stamina than Lesnar in this fight—which means that an early finish is in store for Lesnar when this fight happens.

There is too much working against the former UFC heavyweight champion to think that he can contend with a fighter the caliber of Overeem. That is not to say that it is impossible for Lesnar to win, but the deck is stacked against him like it never has been before.

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