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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