Yesterday we discussed the fact that not only is the name Jake Shields still relatively new to a lot of ‘ultimate fighting’ fans, and thus, he’s not widely expected to dethrone Georges St. Pierre, many of the sport’s more ardent observers don’t expect the submission wiz to win either. Case in point? Just shift your eyeballs to the right of your screen right now and take a peek at the betting lines we have up…The mighty GSP is the favorite and then some.
So, who is picking Shields to win? Well, a certain ex-light-heavyweight champ named Chuck Liddell is just one example. Now, keep in mind that Liddell and Shields go way back and that the former Strikeforce champ used to train with “The Iceman,” so either bias is raising its ugly head here, Liddell is making an informed assessment, or, yeah, maybe it’s a bit of both ….Speaking to MMA Fighting, here’s what Liddell had to say about the upcoming UFC 129 main event.
“I’m siding with Jake,” Liddell said. “Jake’s going to have to take him down. I’m expecting him to be in great shape for the fight. He’ll be in great shape for GSP. But yeah, I expect him to take him down and finish him.”
Now if Chuck had predicted Shields to win via highlight reel head kick or something similar, it’s likely the word ‘biased’ would be getting muttered repeatedly right about now. Will Shields, in fact, be able to take down a dude who had few issues countering renowned wrestlers like Josh Koscheck and Jon Fitch? Guess we’ll find out Saturday.
To bet a little dough on this weekend’s action head here.