The UFC will make its return to Nashville, TN this Friday for UFC on FX. Featured in the main event will be Jim Miller (20-3) and Melvin Guillard (46-10-3 1NC), two lightweights who are looking to get back into title contention after ending 2011 …
The UFC will make its return to Nashville, TN this Friday for UFC on FX. Featured in the main event will be Jim Miller (20-3) and Melvin Guillard (46-10-3 1NC), two lightweights who are looking to get back into title contention after ending 2011 with disappointing losses. In a welterweight scrap, Duane Ludwig will meet fellow UFC veteran Josh […]
Filed under: UFCCan Melvin Guillard get back on track after his swift loss to Joe Lauzon in October? Or is Jim Miller going to hand Guillard yet another submission loss? Who’s more likely to keep his recent momentum going, Duane Ludwig or Josh Neer? An…
Can Melvin Guillard get back on track after his swift loss to Joe Lauzon in October? Or is Jim Miller going to hand Guillard yet another submission loss? Who’s more likely to keep his recent momentum going, Duane Ludwig or Josh Neer? And what kind of heavyweight brawl are Pat Barry and Christian Morecraft going to give us?
I’ll attempt to answer those questions and more as I predict the winners of Friday night’s UFC event below.
What: UFC on FX 1: Guillard vs. Miller
When: Friday, the Fuel TV preliminary fights begin at 6 p.m. ET and the FX main card begins at 9.
Where: Bridgestone Arena, Nashville, Tennessee
Predictions on the four FX fights below.
Melvin Guillard vs. Jim Miller Guillard has a ton of talent, and when he’s on his game he can look spectacular. The problem is there’s a certain type of fighter who can take Guillard off his game, and Miller is exactly that kind of fighter.
Nine years and 42 fights into into his professional MMA career, Guillard still hasn’t given us any reason to think he’s going to beat a guy like Miller, who can take him down and submit him on the ground. Guillard has nine losses in his career, and eight of them came by submission. Miller has 20 wins in his career, and 11 of them came by submission.
Guillard is a good enough striker that it’s possible he could catch Miller and become the first person ever to finish him. But it’s much more likely that Miller will make Guillard tap. Pick: Miller
Duane Ludwig vs. Josh Neer Things have gone very well for Ludwig lately, as he’s on a surprising two-fight winning streak in the UFC and was recently handed the record for the fastest knockout in UFC history, as the UFC decided to ignore the Nevada State Athletic Commission, which says Ludwig took 11 seconds to knock Jonathan Goulet out, and call it officially a six-second knockout.
So will Ludwig keep his momentum going against Neer? I don’t think so. Neer is on a five-fight winning streak and looked good in his UFC return against Keith Wisniewski in October. After a couple years out of the UFC, Neer appears to be focused and determined to get his career back on track, and I see him earning a big win against Ludwig. Pick: Neer
Mike Easton vs. Jared Papazian Easton is a very impressive young bantamweight who made his UFC debut with a TKO of Byron Bloodworth in October. I love Easton’s potential to make waves in the UFC. Easton was originally slated to fight Ken Stone on this card, but when Stone suffered an injury, Papazian stepped in on short notice to fill the slot. Papazian is a solid prospect making his UFC debut, but Papazian would be better suited as a flyweight, and he’s not quite ready for an opponent on Easton’s level. Pick: Easton
Pat Barry vs. Christian Morecraft Both of these heavyweights are coming off losses, and if the heavyweight division weren’t so shallow I’d think the loser might be in danger of getting cut by the UFC. But the heavyweight division is shallow, and so the UFC needs guys like Barry and Morecraft, who are both limited as fighters but both usually put on good shows. It wouldn’t shock me to see Barry soften Morecraft up with leg kicks and finish him off with punches, but Barry struggles so much on the ground that I suspect Morecraft is going to take Barry down and make him tap. Pick: Morecraft
For Mark Munoz, the goal remains the same. It’s just the timeline that needs to be altered.
On Thursday morning at 10 am PT, the UFC middleweight will go from surging contender to surgery center when he undergoes a procedure to remove floating bone chips in his right elbow. The surgery will be performed by Dr. Ronald Kvitne of the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic, the same medical group that recently performed UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre‘s successful ACL repair.
Munoz aims to scale the same heights that St-Pierre has reached in his career, namely as king of his division. It is a goal that seemed in his sights as recently as one week ago, when he was preparing to face Chael Sonnen at UFC at January 28’s UFC on FOX 2 for the right to face middleweight champ Anderson Silva.
Munoz told MMA Fighting that during a training session last Friday, he was engaged in a wrestling scramble when his elbow slipped out and he felt two pops. He sparred four more rounds that night, but by the end of his workout, he couldn’t even pick up his gym bag.
By the next day, he’d flown to Las Vegas, had his arm examined, and received a cortisone shot in hopes of going through with the fight, but it was not to be. The injury had rendered his arm nearly useless, and Munoz’s hopes of becoming No. 1 contender were forced to give way to the reality that he would instead need surgery.
“It’s definitely a hard pill to swallow,” he said on Tuesday afternoon, less than 24 hours from his surgery. “Everything happens for a reason. In my mind I can’t see it right now. But I truly believe in my heart, soul and mind, I’ll be stronger because of it. I don’t want to be consumed with negative thoughts. With the guys around me, my kids, my family, I can’t think that way. I’m a man of faith, and I truly believe everything will work out for the good. So now it’s just being confronted with what’s in front of me, going about it the best I can and seeing what the future holds for me.”
At least he can rationalize the setback with the knowledge that the operation was an inevitability.
In fact, Munoz (12-2) had already mentally prepared himself for surgery following his last fight, a TKO stoppage of Chris Leben at last November’s UFC 138. The victory was his fourth straight, and seventh in his last eight fights. But just as Munoz began to make plans to go on the shelf, Silva was diagnosed with an injury of his own, leaving Sonnen with no opponent for early 2012. When Munoz got the call from UFC matchmaker Joe Silva for a chance to fight Sonnen for top contender status, he instantly decided to go for it.
That’s the same as it had been for Munoz for a while. He said the initial injury that began his elbow problems took place in his first WEC fight, way back in June 2008. But the fights and opportunities came so fast and furious, he could never find the appropriate time to address the issue.
“It’s been a problem a long time but I never got it fixed,” he said. “Over time, it kept hurting, but I’d fight through it, because I was sparring well and grappling well. But now the loose bodies there make it so I can’t even move my arm. It locks up every time.”
Munoz says the bone fragments are stuck in his elbow joint, making him unable to properly flex his right arm. He can’t push or pull with the arm, making it essentially useless during the grind of a fight. The surgery will clean out the loose pieces, and Munoz said he’s been told he’ll be unable to train for 4-6 weeks as it mends.
He hopes to fight again as soon as late April or early May, saying he’s hoping to get on the “fast track” to coming back. As such, he said he’s already working on increasing his physical therapy frequency from three sessions a week to five.
But it won’t be enough to get him the opportunity he wanted. Somehow, he said, he’ll bring himself to watch the UFC on FOX show, a event that was supposed to announce him as the next contender. He expects Sonnen to take Bisping down and grind out a win, setting up a rematch with Silva. And when that happens, Munoz will be there, breathing down their necks, promising to eventually find the winner down the line.
“It’s been the goal since I started fighting,” he said. “I want to be at the top.”
UFC on FX 1 will usher in the first official card to air on the FX channel as per the deal with Fox, and is headlined by a lightweight showdown between “The Young Assassin” Melvin Guillard and Jim Miller (pictured, top, orange trunks). Whil…
UFC on FX 1 will usher in the first official card to air on the FX channel as per the deal with Fox, and is headlined by a lightweight showdown between “The Young Assassin” Melvin Guillard and Jim Miller (pictured, top, orange trunks). While the card looks like a fantastic display of free fights and […]
Filed under: UFC, MMA Fighting Exclusive, NewsJim Miller isn’t the kind of fighter to make excuses after a fight. That’s why it took some prodding to find out why he didn’t look like himself in his loss to Ben Henderson last August.
Jim Miller isn’t the kind of fighter to make excuses after a fight. That’s why it took some prodding to find out why he didn’t look like himself in his loss to Ben Henderson last August.
Of course, “Bendo” had a lot to do with that, as well. The former WEC lightweight champion has looked more dominant than ever since moving over to the UFC, and a 3-0 run in 2011 earned him a title shot against champion Frankie Edgar in February.
As for Miller, while he didn’t want to take anything away from Henderson, he did admit to MMAFighting.com that he was battling a kidney infection and mononucleosis during the Henderson fight.
“It really hit me a couple hours after the fight,” Miller said. “I woke up in the middle of the night and had this weird pain my lower back. It just wouldn’t go away. It was something I never felt before and really hope to never feel again, to be perfectly honest. I got home, it was [expletive] traveling, bouncing on the plane and stuff like that was not comfortable. It was actually the first time that I lost weight after a fight because I didn’t have an appetite or stuff like that. It was pretty miserable.”
Miller, who meets Melvin Guillard Friday night in the main event of UFC on FX Fight Night, said he beat the infection with antibiotics and “lots of fluids.” The loss was a devastating one for the AMA Fight Club member, who appeared to be one fight away from fighting for the title. It was Miller’s first loss in eight fights, a stretch that dated back to March 2009.
“I had a bad night. I knew something was wrong and I didn’t adapt to the situation. He fought a great fight, and I just wasn’t capable to keep up that night,” Miller said.
“I really didn’t know that I was sick. I knew something was wrong. I was pretty tired in camp and stuff like that, but when I was warming up for the fight, I knew something was off. I was getting winded just doing my warmup round, and then when we were starting to get ready to go out there, I just didn’t feel like I had energy. And then stepping into the Octagon, I usually have tons of energy flowing around, bouncing around, and I just didn’t feel it. I tried to fight like I normally fight, and I wasn’t able to put him away with that style of fighting. I feel like I should have made the correction, fought a little more conservatively, worked for dominant position and then go for the attack and stuff like that instead of throwing everything I had at him.”
So it’s back to the drawing board for the 28-year-old Miller, who sees similarities between himself and his opponent on Friday night. Guillard also appeared to be one step away from contending for the lightweight title before he lost via submission in just 47 seconds to Joe Lauzon in October.
“There are many similarities [between us],” Miller said. “We both have the same goal and we both want to get right back to where we were and this is a great fight to take that next step and get right back up there.
“I personally didn’t want to fight somebody that hasn’t proven themselves in the division, and he certainly has. So this is exactly what I wanted. I wanted that tough fight and that big name fight, not just a tuneup fight. I want that challenge.”
UFC on FX 1 will usher in the first official card to air on the FX channel as per the deal with Fox, and is headlined by a lightweight showdown between “The Young Assassin” Melvin Guillard and Jim Miller (pictured, top, orange trunks).While the card lo…
UFC on FX 1 will usher in the first official card to air on the FX channel as per the deal with Fox, and is headlined by a lightweight showdown between “The Young Assassin” Melvin Guillard and Jim Miller (pictured, top, orange trunks).
While the card looks like a fantastic display of free fights and a brilliant choice for all fight fans and observers to enjoy, the inner MMA nerd and would-be pundit in most of us is still forced to live with one crushing detail: Some of these guys are in danger of being served their walking papers with a loss this Friday night in Tennessee.
Luckily, the list is not a very long one (actually, there are only three surefire ones, with two that might or might not get the boot with a loss).
For your viewing pleasure and heart-ripping entertainment, here are five of the men fighting for their jobs at UFC on FX: Guillard vs. Miller this Friday night!
(Don’t get your hopes up; Guillard is not on the list.)
Can 
For 
Jim Miller