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UFC 139 Predictions

Filed under: UFCWill Dan Henderson make a statement in his return to the UFC that he deserves to contend for the light heavyweight belt? Or will Shogun Rua beat Henderson and make a case that he should get another crack at Jon Jones? Can Cung Le thrill…

Filed under: UFC

Will Dan Henderson make a statement in his return to the UFC that he deserves to contend for the light heavyweight belt? Or will Shogun Rua beat Henderson and make a case that he should get another crack at Jon Jones? Can Cung Le thrill the fans in his UFC debut, or will Wanderlei Silva pick up a much-needed win? Will Urijah Faber or Brian Bowles take a big step toward a rematch with bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz?

We’ll examine those questions and more as we predict the winners of Saturday night’s UFC 139 pay-per-view.

What: UFC 139: Shogun vs. Henderson

When: Saturday, the Facebook preliminary fights start at 6 p.m. ET, the Spike card starts at 8 and the pay-per-view starts at 9.

Where: HP Pavilion, San Jose

Predictions on the five pay-per-view fights below.

More Coverage: UFC 139 Fight Card | UFC 139 Results

Maurício “Shogun” Rua vs. Dan Henderson
Henderson left Strikeforce and its light heavyweight belt behind after beating Fedor Emelianenko, and now he’ll try to prove that he deserves a shot at the UFC light heavyweight championship. If he beats Rua, he’d have an excellent case that he deserves to challenge the winner of the upcoming Jones-Lyoto Machida light heavyweight title fight, although Rashad Evans has been waiting for a light heavyweight title shot for a long time, so Henderson may have to get in line.

However, I think it’s going to be a moot point, because I think Rua has the right striking style to frustrate Henderson standing up, and I think he’ll be just good enough on the ground to avoid getting controlled on the canvas by Henderson, who’s a vastly superior wrestler. I like Shogun to win an action-packed fight by decision.
Pick: Rua

Wanderlei Silva vs. Cung Le
I’ve always enjoyed the aesthetic beauty of Le’s san shou style of striking, but I’ve never believed it would be effective against a top-notch opponent. And so I think the result of this fight hangs mostly on whether Silva is, at this point in his career, even close to “top-notch” anymore.

So is he? Based on the way the Axe Murderer looked against Chris Leben, I’d have to say no: Silva buckled the first time he was hit hard and was knocked out in just 27 seconds. Silva is 2-6 in his last eight fights, and four of those six losses have been ugly knockouts, and so I’m going to lean toward Le to win this one, just because I think Silva has taken so much damage through his spectacular career that he just doesn’t have a lot left.
Pick: Le

Urijah Faber vs. Brian Bowles
Faber is another fighter who has had a long and spectacular career but has begun to decline lately: He was 21-1 in his first 22 fights, but has gone just 4-4 in his last eight. However, Faber’s only losses have been to featherweight and bantamweight champions, and he has looked awfully good while winning, too. Bowles is a terrific fighter who has bounced back from serious hand and foot injuries to win two in a row, but Faber has such good wrestling and such a diverse style of striking that he should be able to dictate where the fight goes and win a decision.
Pick: Faber

Martin Kampmann vs. Rick Story
This is a very interesting fight between two guys who are right on the cusp of the welterweight Top 10 but who are coming off disappointing losses. Story’s wrestling might just be enough for him to control Kampmann for 15 minutes and win a decision, but Kampmann has more ways to win, with a good striking game and varied submissions.
Pick: Kampmann

Stephan Bonnar vs. Kyle Kingsbury
This isn’t a great matchup — neither of these guys is even close to the top of the light heavyweight division — but it does have the potential to be an entertaining brawl. Bonnar is a fan favorite riding a two-fight winning streak, but Kingsbury is a better technical striker and should beat Bonnar.
Pick: Kingsbury

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Six MMA Fighters Who Fought Through Illness and Won

(Eder Jones wins fight, loses pie-eating contest.)

This Friday marks the official start of Autumn, and like clockwork, I’m catching a goddamned cold. There’s something about the change of seasons that seems to wreck my immune system, which has grown frail due to a life of solitary blogging and poor hygeine. So as I chug my Airborne/orange juice cocktail, let’s all take inspiration in these six men, who were way worse-off than I am now, and still managed to kick ass.

GEORGES ST. PIERRE
vs. Thomas Denny @ UCC 12, 1/25/03

Method of victory: TKO (cut), 4:45 of round 2
In his own words: “I took the fight and I was really sick. I was so sick, after the first round I thought I was going to fall unconscious. And I told my cornerman, I’m like, listen, when the second round will start I will try a high kick in the beginning and if I don’t knock out my opponent, I want you to throw the towel. My cornerman look up at me like this, he said ‘Georges, I don’t have a towel, you’re gonna die in the ring.’

And I got so angry, I was like, I can’t believe this guy, he’s supposed to be my friend, he wants me to die in the ring. So I stood up, I hear the [bell], I fought through it, and by some kind of miracle I was able to cut the guy and to TKO him and the referee stopped the fight. I was completely exhausted. That was my toughest fight.”

(Eder Jones wins fight, loses pie-eating contest.)

GEORGES ST. PIERRE
vs. Thomas Denny @ UCC 12, 1/25/03

Method of victory: TKO (cut), 4:45 of round 2
In his own words: ”I took the fight and I was really sick. I was so sick, after the first round I thought I was going to fall unconscious. And I told my cornerman, I’m like, listen, when the second round will start I will try a high kick in the beginning and if I don’t knock out my opponent, I want you to throw the towel. My cornerman look up at me like this, he said ‘Georges, I don’t have a towel, you’re gonna die in the ring.’

RICH FRANKLIN
vs. Aaron Brink @ IFC: Warriors Challenge 11, 1/13/01

Method of victory: TKO (foot injury), 2:42 of round 1; later changed to a no contest
In his own words: “That’s the first time that somebody had flown me out to an event. At the time, the IFC was a California-based organization, and Aaron Brink was a California guy, so I was pretty much brought in to lose. But the interesting thing about that fight is I had gotten very sick beforehand. I was sitting in my hotel room about an hour-and-a-half before the event started, and I had over a 104-degree fever. I skipped the rules meeting, skipped all this stuff and basically just showed up to fight. And you can tell by looking at me on the tape that I was definitely not feeling good.

That was a long night of my life. And that’s actually when Monte Cox started managing me, after that fight. He and I had been at several shows together — I knew who he was, he knew who I was — and he liked me, and he said, ‘I pretty much saw you make about the stupidest decision you’ve ever made in your life tonight. If you’re interested, I’d be willing to manage you and make sure that things like that don’t continue to happen.’”

JOSE ALDO
vs. Mark Hominick @ UFC 129, 4/30/11

Method of victory: Unanimous decision
F*ck antibiotics: Following the fight, Aldo complained to his corner that he should have taken antibiotics, to which his cornerman replied, “Antibiotics would not have helped at all, you’re the champion kid, fuck antibiotics, everything is okay. You fought well, smooth and composed.”
In his coach’s words: ”(Aldo) suffered a cut in one of his toes a week before the fight and got it infected with a bacteria. He was taking a dose of antibiotics and anti-inflammatory for three days, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before the fight so he’d not need to take anything else close to Saturday. I can’t say with 100% certainty that it affected his performance because I’m not a doctor. I give Hominick a lot more credit for enduring the fight than the fact that Aldo took these medications.”

CARLOS CONDIT
vs. Dong Hyun Kim @ UFC 132, 7/2/11

Method of victory: KO, 2:58 of round 1
In his own words: [two weeks before Kim fight] ”My stomach was all fucked up, bro. The first couple days I was throwing up, my stomach hurt bad. I couldn’t sleep at night…This is my first day back training since probably last Friday, so it’s been seven days. I went to a friend’s wedding in Vegas last weekend, and I’m not exactly sure whether I ate something or whether I picked something up or what, but I got really sick. I was throwing up for a few days and was just, I was pretty messed up. I wasn’t able to eat or train for quite a while.”
Greg Jackson adds: “It was so bad we were contemplating canceling the fight, just because he was really, really sick, he lost some weight, he’s not being able to train, and we’re really close to the fight, so it’s very dangerous. So we’ll see how it goes, and if he starts improving we’ll keep him in.”

KYLE KINGSBURY
vs. Ricardo Romero @ UFC 126, 2/5/11

Method of victory: TKO, 0:21 of round 1
In his own words: “I actually had a really bad fever the night before the fight. I did a steam room that I’m not used to doing to cut weight because I came in at about 224.5 (pounds) at the beginning of the week on Tuesday, and I like to be about 220.

So they have the nice salon down there at Mandalay Bay, and I hit that up. I was hitting the steam room, and I got a little moisture in my lungs. I was thinking nothing of it, but a couple days went by, and it got worse…Later that night I sweat the bed so bad. I had a fever. I’m still recovering from it…I haven’t really been able to celebrate my win. I haven’t felt that victory yet just because I’ve been so under the weather.”

TIM SYLVIA
vs. Assuerio Silva @ Ultimate Fight Night 3, 1/16/06

Method of victory: Unanimous decision
In his own words: “Not taking anything away from Assuerio, he’s a tough dude, obviously. I hit him a couple of times and couldn’t finish him. I was really sick for the fight. I got really sick Saturday and had problems holding my innards. When I was warming up, I had a few problems, and I actually had a few problems in the ring when I was fighting.

I don’t know what it was. It got really cold when we were outside working out and stuff, going back and forth from the room. I caught something, and I just couldn’t hold in my number twos…If you look at the fight you’ll see that when my shorts came down, you’ll see the wet mark in my underwear.”

(BG)

Ryan Bader vs. Jason Brilz, Stephan Bonnar vs. Kyle Kingsbury Announced for UFC 139

(“…and that’s the ‘bleeding robot’. For my next impression — the ‘bleeding hula girl’.”)

Two pivotal light-heavyweight matchups have been added to UFC 139: Velasquez vs. Dos Santos, November 19th in San Jose. First, in the night’s “no pressure” match, Ryan Bader and Jason Brilz will both try to snap their two-fight losing streaks. Bader is skating on thin ice after being utterly ass-handled by Jon Jones in February, then getting choked out by Tito Ortiz in the upset of the year. Brilz kicked off his losing skid with a valiant effort against Lil’ Nog, followed by a far-less-impressive 20-second knockout loss to Vladimir Matyushenko at UFC 129. Winner keeps their job. Loser…well, who knows anymore?

(“…and that’s the ‘bleeding robot’. For my next impression — the ‘bleeding hula girl’.”)

Meanwhile, beloved light-heavyweight vet Stephan Bonnar — who’s riding his first two-fight win streak since 2007 — will be matching his momentum against TUF 8 vet Kyle Kingsbury, who has won his last four, and is starting to look like a straight-up beast. Bonnar most recently out-scored Igor Pokrajac at the TUF 12 Finale in December, and was slated to face Karlos Vemola at UFC on Versus 5, but had to withdraw due to injury. Kingsbury is coming off his decision win over Fabio Maldonado at the TUF 13 Finale in June, where he showed off some nasty clinch-knees but ate a heap of body shots in the process.

Stephan Bonnar to Meet Kyle Kingsbury at UFC 139 in San Jose

Filed under: UFC, NewsJust about a week after the completion of the card he was supposed to fight on, Stephan Bonnar has a new date for his return.

Bonnar will fight Kyle Kingsbury in a light heavyweight bout at UFC 139 in November. The UFC announced…

Filed under: UFC, News

Just about a week after the completion of the card he was supposed to fight on, Stephan Bonnar has a new date for his return.

Bonnar will fight Kyle Kingsbury in a light heavyweight bout at UFC 139 in November. The UFC announced the fight on Tuesday.

UFC 139 is scheduled for Nov. 19 in San Jose and features a main event heavyweight title fight between champion Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos.

Bonnar (13-7, 7-6 UFC) was scheduled to meet Karlos Vemola at UFC on Versus 5 in Milwaukee earlier this month, but had to pull out in June with a Grade II tear of his MCL. After a three-fight skid, Bonnar has won two straight. He won his rematch with Krzysztof Soszynski at UFC 116 by TKO in a Fight of the Night performance. And he dominated Igor Pokrajac for a unanimous decision win at the TUF 12 Finale last December.

Bonnar, the TUF 1 light heavyweight runner-up to Forrest Griffin, has made some waves the last six months or so with a line of shirts started by his company, NGauge Inc., called Trash Talkin’ Kids. The shirts featured cartoon representations of UFC fighters, including Josh Koscheck – which Koscheck threatened a lawsuit over. The shirts have been shelved in favor of a new brand, Punch Buddies. But Bonnar and Koscheck, housemates on TUF 1, have traded barbs through social media. When Koscheck announced Monday he was moving to middleweight to fight at UFC 139, there was speculation that Bonnar might drop down to fight him. But instead, they’ll have to share the same card – just probably not the same locker room.

Kingsbury (11-2, 1 NC, 4-1 UFC), a product of Season 8 of “The Ultimate Fighter,” has won four straight in the UFC after losing his debut to Tom Lawlor at the TUF 8 Finale. His decision wins over Jared Hamman at Fight Night 22 and Fabio Maldonado at the TUF 13 Finale in June were both Fight of the Night winners.

The fight will be a homecoming for Kingsbury, who went to high school in the San Jose suburb of Cupertino, where he wrestled and played football. He was a walk-on for Arizona State’s football team. He lives and trains in San Jose.

UFC 139 will take place at the HP Pavilion and will be the UFC’s debut in the city, which is about 40 miles south of San Francisco. Aside from the heavyweight title fight and Koscheck’s return to middleweight, UFC 139 is expected to feature a bantamweight contenders bout between former champions Brian Bowles and Urijah Faber.

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Jared Hamman Looking to Continue UFC Bonus Streak at Middleweight

Filed under: UFCIt’s hard for a UFC fighter not to feel a little conflicted when he gets a Fight of the Night bonus for a fight that he lost. On one hand, losing sucks. On the other hand, getting handed a wad of extra money doesn’t.

Just ask Jared Ham…

Filed under: UFC

It’s hard for a UFC fighter not to feel a little conflicted when he gets a Fight of the Night bonus for a fight that he lost. On one hand, losing sucks. On the other hand, getting handed a wad of extra money doesn’t.

Just ask Jared Hamman, who’s pocketed the bonus cash in each of his last two UFC fights, though he only won one of them.

“Any time you get a big, fat paycheck like that, you’re like, thank you Lord,” Hamman told MMA Fighting. “But I would take the win over the Fight of the Night money any day.”

Perhaps what’s most remarkable about Hamman’s recent streak of bonuses is that both came in prelim bouts. The Fight of the Night check is more often handed out to main eventers, or least main card fighters, but his performances against Rodney Wallace and Kyle Kingsbury so impressed his boss that Hamman went home with the extra cash anyway.

Maybe that’s good news, considering that he’s booked for a bout with C.B. Dollaway on the prelim portion of Sunday night’s UFC Live event in Milwaukee.

The bout will be Hamman’s first since moving down to 185 pounds following the decision loss to Kingsbury at light heavyweight. The former Division III college football standout said he was motivated to make the drop after seeing how much size he was giving up to guys like Kingsbury, who typically walk around 25 or 30 pounds heavier than he does.

“When I got started in MMA, it was a hobby,” said Hamman. “I just fought at the weight I was at. Being a football player, I always tried to gain weight. Even in my fight camps I would try to maintain this weight gain, because I could always cut it really easily. But after this last fight with Kyle, man, he was humongous. I started looking around at these other 205-[pound]ers and they’re all huge. That’s when I started thinking about going down to 185.”

It helped that he was forced to take some time off to deal with an injury, Hamman said. It allowed him to do a practice cut to see how his body would respond, during which he tried to simulate the UFC experience as closely as possible.

“Weigh-ins are at four o’clock, you have so much time spent traveling to the event, all that, so I did that and I weighed in at four p.m. at 186 [pounds]. Then the next day, on Saturday, I did a fight scenario. I did three five-minute rounds, and I felt great. From there I just decided to go for it.”

Now Hamman — who usually clocks in at around 215 pounds — will move down in weight to face Dollaway, who’s coming off a knockout loss to Mark Munoz in March. And while a lot gets made of Dollaway’s history as an All-American wrestler, Hamman said he isn’t particularly worried that the bout will turn into a slow grind where no one has the potential to scoop up any bonus cash.

“Even though he has a wrestling background, I think the guy likes to fight. He likes to stand and throw punches and kicks and everything. He obviously also likes to do submissions and wrestling, but I think he’s a fighter. I like to fight guys who aren’t boring, who will come forward and fight me, and the UFC has done a good job of matching me up with guys who like to fight, and I enjoy that. I think this will be another one.”

For Hamman, the move down in weight was less about looking for easier prey, he said, than taking the next step toward being a total professional. Cutting weight, adhering to a strict diet — it’s all part of finding out just how far he can go with his career inside the cage, he explained.

“This was just a hobby before. I love to scrap, to get in there and fight. And to me, I’m grateful that I get to do it at this level. But some things put it in perspective. Like my wife got into a car accident the other week — and she’s fine, not hurt or anything — but it could have gone a lot worse. It reminded me, you’re not always guaranteed to get that next heartbeat. You’re not guaranteed to get that next fight. I’ve tried to hold that in my mind. It makes me take every fight and just go for it.”

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TUF 13 Medical Suspensions: Kingsbury, Cope and Downes With Most Serious Injuries

Filed under: NewsTen fighters from Saturday’s UFC Season 13 Finale of “The Ultimate Fighter” handed down medical suspensions following their fights by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

The most serious potential layoffs are for main card winners K…

Filed under: News

Ten fighters from Saturday’s UFC Season 13 Finale of “The Ultimate Fighter” handed down medical suspensions following their fights by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

The most serious potential layoffs are for main card winners Kyle Kingsbury (pictured) and Chris Cope, and preliminary card loser Danny Downes, all of whom could be out until early December.

The TUF 13 Finale took place at The Pearl at The Palms in Las Vegas and featured a main event win by Tony Ferguson, who became the latest “Ultimate Fighter” winner with a knockout of Ramsey Nijem; and a co-main upset win by Clay Guida over Anthony Pettis. None of those three were given medical suspensions.

Kingsbury must have a fractured left orbital bone cleared by doctors, or he will be unable to fight until Dec. 2. His unanimous decision win over Fabio Maldonado was given the Fight of the Night bonus by UFC president Dana White.

Cope, a TUF 13 semifinalist, dominated housemate Chuck O’Neil for a unanimous decision. But he will need both his thumbs x-rayed and given clearance before coming back or he, too, will be out until Dec. 2.

And Downes, who lost to Jeremy Stephens on the prelims, will need a right hand x-ray, plus that hand and his left shoulder cleared before returning. Otherwise, he’ll be on the shelf until Dec. 2. In the fight, Stephens bent Downes’ left arm behind his back in a kimura, but Downes was able to withstand tapping.

The full list of medical suspensions is below.

Ramsey Nijem: Suspended until July 5 with no contact until June 26.

Tim Credeur: Suspended until July 20 with no contact until July 5.

Kyle Kingsbury: Suspended until July 20 with no contact until July 5. Must have left orbital fracture cleared by an ENT or ophthalmologist, or no contest until Dec. 2.

Fabio Maldonado: Suspended until July 20 with no contact until July 5.

Chris Cope: Must have both thumbs x-rayed; if positive, must be cleared by an orthopedic doctor, or no contest until Dec. 2.

Danny Downes: Suspended until July 20 with no contact until July 5. Must have right hand x-rayed, and right hand and left shoulder must be cleared by an orthopedic doctor, or no contest until Dec. 2.

Josh Grispi: Suspended until June 26 with no contact until June 19.

Shamar Bailey: Suspended until July 5 with no contact until June 26.

Justin Edwards: Suspended until July 5 with no contact until June 26.

Ken Stone: Suspended until Aug. 4 with no contact until July 20.

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