The competitive nature of divisions under the UFC banner rise and fall, but the 170-pound weight class never falters. Even in 2012, with long-reigning champion Georges St-Pierre on the sidelines with injury, a pack of hungry competitors battled for their place in the divisional hierarchy, and this kept the action flowing in the welterweight ranks. […]
The competitive nature of divisions under the UFC banner rise and fall, but the 170-pound weight class never falters. Even in 2012, with long-reigning champion Georges St-Pierre on the sidelines with injury, a pack of hungry competitors battled for their place in the divisional hierarchy, and this kept the action flowing in the welterweight ranks. […]
On November 16, 2013, at UFC 167, Johny Hendricks shocked the world of MMA with his performance against the reigning and six-year welterweight champion, Georges St-Pierre. “Bigg Rigg” took down, beat up and damaged the champion’s face beyond recognition. Yet, at the end of the two combatants’ epic matchup, to the disbelief of mostly every […]
On November 16, 2013, at UFC 167, Johny Hendricks shocked the world of MMA with his performance against the reigning and six-year welterweight champion, Georges St-Pierre. “Bigg Rigg” took down, beat up and damaged the champion’s face beyond recognition. Yet, at the end of the two combatants’ epic matchup, to the disbelief of mostly every […]
Welterweight Championship Fight Predictions Georges St-Pierre (c) vs Johny Hendricks I saw the weigh ins and Georges is very pumped up for this fight. It will be interesting to see if Hendricks can connect with GSP’s chin since its been clocked before and the switch has been flipped by Serra and Condit before. Hendricks is [&hellip
Welterweight Championship Fight Predictions
Georges St-Pierre (c) vs Johny Hendricks
I saw the weigh ins and Georges is very pumped up for this fight. It will be interesting to see if Hendricks can connect with GSP’s chin since its been clocked before and the switch has been flipped by Serra and Condit before. Hendricks is more powerful than both of those guys (based on in the cage performace).
Pick: GSP has shown an ability to endure, I want to think that GSP will do enough NOT to get knocked out and win a decision in the end as well.
Rashad Evans vs. Chael Sonnen
I just bumped into Evans at WSOF 6 last month and he was in good spirits and looked ready to go. Evans should be too fast for Sonnen and will land more overall strikes. I don’t think Sonnen will be able to keep Evans down long enough to win rounds vs Evans ability to do the same plus better striking.
Pick: Evans.
Rory MacDonald vs. Robbie Lawler
MacDonald is the Wizard. He looks stoic and ready to fight efficiently every time. Lawler looks nasty at this weight now and his added size from fighting at middleweight might be a problem for Rory. We will see.
Cetainly the conditioning edge will go to MacDonald.
Pick: With Rory a huge favorite here, I think there is value in picking Lawler.
Josh Koscheck vs. Tyron Woodley
Woodley really hasn’t faced that many great guys, but he is great himself. He has steamrolled many fighters and is ability to not get taken down is one of the best.
Pick: Odds are about even here. Koscheck’s jaw has been clicked before and Woodley looks like he is getting stronger every fight. I’m torn here, but I will give edge to Koscheck with the experience.
Tim Elliott vs. Ali Bagautinov
Pass
Preliminary card (Fox Sports 1)
Donald Cerrone vs. Evan Dunham
Such a good fight. I can see Dunham winning by submission, but this fight is probably best bet via going the distance.
Pick: Dunham
Ed Herman vs. Thales Leites
Pick: I like Leites here with his return to the UFC. He is a little bigger and I don’t think Herman brings anything that Leites isn’t capable of handling except conditioning, but I think Leites will be prepared since he’s been out of the UFC and will want the taste of the spotlight again. Remember he contended for the title against Silva?
Pick: Leites
Brian Ebersole vs. Rick Story
Also an amazing fight. If this goes the distance Story is the busier fighter. However, I always ride with Ebersole. His experience and ability to fight smart is uncanny.
Pick: Ebersole
Erik Perez vs. Edwin Figueroa
Pass
Preliminary card (Facebook/YouTube)
Jason High vs. Anthony Lapsley
Will Campuzano vs. Sergio Pettis
The odds are way too high here to take Pettis. With Campuzano fighting on short notice I understand why against the undefeated Pettis.
When Melvin Guillard steps into the Octagon this weekend to face Ross Pearson at UFC Fight Night 30, his career may hang in the balance. He’s lost four of his last six fights, a troublesome situation given that the UFC has released some big-name …
When Melvin Guillard steps into the Octagon this weekend to face Ross Pearson at UFC Fight Night 30, his career may hang in the balance. He’s lost four of his last six fights, a troublesome situation given that the UFC has released some big-name fighters this year.
Should he lose to Pearson, he may very well end up receiving his pink slip along with his check, adrift on the seas of free agency.
Guillard has fought 20 times in the UFC, losing eight of those bouts since 2005. He’s been a fighter who has been up more than down, at least until October of 2011, when his latest skid began.
Yet he has all the tools needed to turn the ship around, win his second fight in a row and perhaps even make a run at the title if he can just be consistent from here on out. After all, he’s done it before.
After Guillard saw a three-fight win streak snapped by a submission loss to Nate Diaz in 2009, he came right back and reeled off five victories, including a TKO over Evan Dunham. He has the athleticism and the power, but there has always been something missing when it came down for the final run.
Call it dedication, focus, discipline; it may or may not be any of these things, but he’s never been able to bring it all together as a cohesive whole on a consistent basis.
Once upon a time I likened Guillard to Zab Judah: a boxer who once upon a time looked to be the future of that sport. He was incredibly fast, explosive and a devastating puncher.
Then it all unraveled, thanks to a single loss. From that point forward, Judah was up and down in his career. He managed to win belts in divisions that were void of truly excellent fighters, but he never remained consistent, except in his inconsistency.
Guillard may not have won a belt in the UFC, but he could probably be a champion in any number of lesser organizations. Early in his career, he fought 10 times in 2003, winning nine bouts, seven via KO/TKO.
But belts in lesser organizations do not possess the luster, the gravitas that a UFC title holds.
And right now, a title shot isn’t even on the radar for Guillard, especially if he loses to Pearson this weekend.
Some fighters have always fought best when their backs are against the wall. Tito Ortiz, who was on an enormous losing streak, defeated Ryan Bader to save his job in the UFC. But Ortiz was a former champion and an established name for the company; to think that Guillard may get the same kind of preferential treatment as Ortiz is unlikely.
In all probability, he needs to defeat Pearson in order to remain a UFC fighter: victory or dismissal.
And so goes the professional career of Melvin Guillard—always on the precipice of either greatness or failure.
(I would totally wear that shirt. But if somebody asks me who it’s supposed to be, I’d tell them it’s Rob Tyner. / Photo via MMADiehards)
Former Olympic wrestler Ben Askren is undefeated in 12 fights since he began fighting MMA in 2009, has won his last two by TKO, and has beaten many of the best welterweights outside of the UFC. It’s little wonder why fans have been curious how the Bellator welterweight champion would do against the best in the world in the UFC and even champion Georges St. Pierre, if only because of Askren’s superb wrestling.
But last week, when White was asked whether the UFC would speak with Askren, whose contract is up with Bellator, White said that his promotion would indeed talk to the 2008 U.S. Olympic Freestlye wrestler.
That was trippy enough, but it’s a testament to the fact that the UFC usually seeks out the best fighters in the world, no matter how popular or “exciting” MMA fans or White himself think they are. Bellator, however, seems to be taking a different approach.
(I would totally wear that shirt. But if somebody asks me who it’s supposed to be, I’d tell them it’s Rob Tyner. / Photo via MMADiehards)
Former Olympic wrestler Ben Askren is undefeated in 12 fights since he began fighting MMA in 2009, has won his last two by TKO, and has beaten many of the best welterweights outside of the UFC. It’s little wonder why fans have been curious how the Bellator welterweight champion would do against the best in the world in the UFC and even champion Georges St. Pierre, if only because of Askren’s superb wrestling.
But last week, when White was asked whether the UFC would speak with Askren, whose contract is up with Bellator, White said that his promotion would indeed talk to the 2008 U.S. Olympic Freestlye wrestler.
That was trippy enough, but it’s a testament to the fact that the UFC usually seeks out the best fighters in the world, no matter how popular or “exciting” MMA fans or White himself think they are. Bellator, however, seems to be taking a different approach.
“If Ben’s going to go to the UFC, we should speed up that process so he can go fight. I’d love to see Ben versus GSP,” Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney recently told ESPN.
“I don’t think we’re going to make an offer at this point…So I don’t see any reason to make anybody sit out.”
When Bellator actually wants a fighter, they have no problem making them “sit out” during protracted legal battles. This guy know what we’re talking about.
“If the UFC does make an offer, we’ll take a look at it and move on from there,” Rebney said. “We haven’t been proactive yet. I have nothing but good things to say about Ben as a fighter, but we’re all very aware of how he fights and what he does. It’s not for everyone.”
Not for Bellator, we guess. It appears that Askren is not exciting enough to Bellator and the fact that he’s a dominant, elite fighter isn’t enough to interest them at whatever financial cost they imagine he’ll run them.
So, Bellator currently looks poised to let a champion walk away. Not that they’ve exactly been a bastion of title respect and consistency up to this point anyhow.
If Askren joins the UFC, who do you want to see him face first, nation? He’d become the most accomplished amateur wrestler in the welterweight division immediately. Do you those skills will be enough to challenge the likes of Georges St. Pierre and Johny Hendricks?
Since the beginning of 2012, UFC welterweight Matt Brown has won six consecutive fights, all but one by KO/TKO within the first two rounds. His most recent was a startlingly fast and violent knockout of the previously red-hot Mike Pyle in under thirty seconds this past Saturday at UFC Fight Night 26.
All of a sudden, Brown is more than a tough and exciting fighter — he’s the owner of the most impressive win streak in the division outside of Georges St. Pierre and Johny Hendricks, who meet one another with GSP’s title on the line in November.
Brown has been calling out the champion and, well, now it makes sense. CagePotato spoke with the contender Sunday while he celebrated with family far away from the lights that shone on him kindly in Boston during his latest victory.
“It’s weird, man,” Brown muses while sitting with kids playing and shouting around him. “Obviously, I’m real happy with the result but I do feel a little unfulfilled. It wasn’t the type of fight I prepared for at all. But you take what you can get, right?”
(Can Matt Brown keep rolling through the division’s elite? / Photo via Getty)
Since the beginning of 2012, UFC welterweight Matt Brown has won six consecutive fights, all but one by KO/TKO within the first two rounds. His most recent was a startlingly fast and violent knockout of the previously red-hot Mike Pyle in under thirty seconds this past Saturday at UFC Fight Night 26.
All of a sudden, Brown is more than a tough and exciting fighter — he’s the owner of the most impressive win streak in the division outside of Georges St. Pierre and Johny Hendricks, who meet one another with GSP’s title on the line in November.
Brown has been calling out the champion and, well, now it makes sense. CagePotato spoke with the contender Sunday while he celebrated with family far away from the lights that shone on him kindly in Boston during his latest victory.
“It’s weird, man,” Brown muses while sitting with kids playing and shouting around him. “Obviously, I’m real happy with the result but I do feel a little unfulfilled. It wasn’t the type of fight I prepared for at all. But you take what you can get, right?”
Brown says he is “completely healthy” after the quick fight with Pyle but isn’t sure what his next step will be on his path towards the welterweight championship. “I don’t know what is coming next,” he says when I ask him if he’ll pursue another fight before the November title fight between St. Pierre and Hendricks, or attempt to wait it out and ask for a title fight for his next one.
“We haven’t really talked about that yet. We are just trying to enjoy the moment for a bit. The goal is the title but I don’t really care how we get there. I’m not thinking about that.”
Brown doesn’t seem to read too much into how particularly fast he dispatched of Pyle, who himself was riding a four fight win-streak before running into his former training partner Saturday. “I would probably feel even more confident if it was a longer fight,” Brown confesses.
“Anyone can get caught like that in a short fight.”
Such humility seems contrary in a man who, at the UFC Fight Night 26 post-event presser said that he was in it to do one thing – kick St. Pierre’s ass. But Brown says that his calling out St. Pierre is not a calculated move to make sure he isn’t overlooked.
“It is completely natural,” he says. “He’s the champ and winning the title is why I do this.”
When 
