UFC.com posted an article today previewing UFC 85. Writer Wayne McCullough gives you a down and dirty preview of what looks like on paper to be one of the weaker MMA cards this year.

Matt Hughes vs Thiago Alves

It’s good to see that Matt Hughes is still fighting, especially heading a card in the UK, because after his loss to Georges St-Pierre I thought that might have been the end of his career. He’s already proved he is the best welterweight of all time. Although he is 10 years older than Alves I think he still has what it takes to compete at the world level.

Alves is unbeaten in his last five fights, the last four by KO. In my opinion, Hughes needs to take the fight to the ground and use his physical strength and wrestling. I think he’s a lot stronger than Alves on the ground so that’s where he needs to be to try for submissions. Alves is better at striking than Hughes, especially when he’s standing. So he’ll want to keep the fight on his feet and counter Hughes’ shots.

Michael Bisping vs Jason Day
I like the way Bisping fights. I’ve been following his career for a while and he’s improving with each fight. His last fight in Montreal was impressive and now that he’s dropped down to middleweight he could be one of the top guys in the division.

Day, a tough guy who also fought in Montreal in his UFC debut, is a striker who loves to use his elbows. I think Bisping is a better all around fighter and favour him to win this fight.

Marcus Davis vs Mike Swick
Davis is almost a local in Britain since he’s fought on several cards in the UK and the fans love him. He’s got a good boxing background and being a southpaw he carries a good right hand, which he has proved in previous fights.

Swick, like his nickname suggests, is “quick” in the Octagon, having scored a couple of fast KO’s. I watched him a few days ago on “Ultimate Knockouts 4” knocking out an opponent in less than 30 seconds.

I think Davis has learned the ground game well and has become a complete fighter and this will be a test for him to see if he can move forward.

Nate Marquardt vs Thales Leites
Marquardt looked good in his last fight with a submission win over Jeremy Horn in February of this year.

He’s a big strong man who has worked hard to improve since his loss to Anderson Silva for the middleweight belt in July 2007. He’s now looking to get back into title contention. Marquardt has better stand up skills than Leites so he should keep this fight on his feet since his opponent is a submission expert – with his last two fights being submission wins.

If Marquardt can avoid the submission attempts he should win this fight.

Fabricio Werdum vs Brandon Vera
Werdum impressively knocked out Gabriel Gonzaga in January 2008. He loves the ground game and that’s the place he likes to be.

Vera is coming off his first loss in the UFC to Tim Sylvia so he’s going to want to get back in the mix. He’s probably better on his feet so that’s where he needs to fight from. Although if Werdum wants to take it to the ground I’m sure Vera will be up for that because he has good grappling skills too.

This is a good match up where the fight could go either way and the winner could move on for a shot at the heavyweight belt.

Along with beautiful UFC ring card girl Arianny Celeste, UFC fighter Stephan Bonnar, and X-Games’ BMX champion T.J. Lavin sit down together and provide their fight predictions for UFC 79 “Nemesis.” They don’t cover the entire fight card, but they do make their predictions on the three big matches of the night: Chuck Liddell vs. Wanderlei Silva, Matt Hughes vs. Georges St. Pierre, and Lyoto Machida vs. Rameau Sokoudjou. Props to www.rawvegas.tv for providing yet another quality video clip. Also, is it just me or did Arianny get a boob job?

No so much, at least if you look at their picks for the last four UFC’s.

There’s not much in the way of big MMA news today, so I thought I’d go a bit random.

For those not familar with the MMA Girls (Joanne and Lauren), they are two hardcore (and attractive) mixed martial arts fans who became popular on the Internet by starting a MySpace page for fans a year ago. On their page, they featured videos of the two of them teaching different grappling techniques.  Needless to say, two cute blondes rolling around in each other’s guard got a lot of attention (you can check out one of these videos here). Soon the video clips went viral and were all over YouTube.

The next step for the MMA Girls was to get into the prediction business. Them seemed to do a pretty good job in the video techniques department I thought I’d research a little bit of their prediction skills. As lovely as these ladies are, it turns out their prediciction capabilities aren’t going to make them rich in Vegas.

Over the last 4 UFC’s, the blondes have amassed a record of 7 wins with 11 losses (the Elvis Sinosic of predicitions). The girls went 0-5 at UFC 76 by picking Thiago, Diego, Kazahiro, Shogun, and Liddell to win. However I will give them some credit as Liddell and Shogun were huge upsets.

They slightly redeemed themselves by going 2-2 at UFC 77 correctly picking Silva and Bonnar but incorrectly picking going with Vera and Kalib. Records for UFC 75 (2-2) and UFC 74 (3-2).

Who knows, maybe if I went back further and looked at their last 10 UFC predictions they would have a winning record. This post is nothing against the girls, I dig them. I “investigated” at their prediction history purely out of curiousity and slight boredom. 

You can check out their website here.

Randy has become a natural at picking winners (ie, Gonzaga over Cro Cop) and has shared with the Fight Network his pedictions for UFC 76.  His thoughts on the main event,

“Somebody’s going down in this one, more than likely Jardine. I think the knockout will come in the first or second, depends on Chuck. If he’s a little tentative at first it may take him a little longer. Jardine’s gonna wade in. That’s what he does.  Liddell to win.”

Other winners include Forrest Griffen, Jon Fitch, Lyoto Machida, and Tyson Griffin. Check out the Fight Network article to see Couture’s brief commentary on those fights.

It’s no surprise that former UFC light heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell is an odds on heavy favorite over tomorrow’s challenger Keith Jardine, but 91% is a bit high.  Could Liddell really beat Jardine 9 out of 10 times?  Jardine is no push over but it appears that his loss to Houston Alexander really tarnished his reputation.  Here are the results of the current UFC 76 fight poll as determined on UFC.com.

Chuck Liddell  91%
Keith Jardine 9%

Matt Winman  82%
Michihiro Omigawa  12%

Jerem Stephens  78%
Diego Saraiva  12%

Christian Wellishch  75%
Scott Junk  25%

Lyoto Machida  70%
Kazuhiro Nakamura  30%

Rich Clementi 65%
Anthony Johnson  35%

Mauricio Rua  63%
Forrest Griffin 37%

Thiago Tavares  60%
Tyson Griffin  40%

Diego Sanchez  56%
Jon Fitch  44%

Source: UFC.com

It’s kind of nice to see a MMA professional actually commit to picking a winner as opposed to just saying, “if it goes to the ground, it benefits fighter A.  If they stay on their feet, then fighter B has a better chance.”  If you are professional in the sport, just call a winner and stand by it.  That’s what Stephen “The Fight Professor” Quadros has done.  For those MMA fans not familiar with Quadros, he’s been in the biz a long long time as a analyst and color commentator for organizations such as Pride, K1, ShoXC, and Cage Rage.  He carries a decent amount of respect in the community. 

He talked with Budo Videos and did some straight talking regarding the UFC Championship fight between Quinton Jackson and Dan Henderson.  Some of his more interesting thoughts include,

“Frankly I’m a little curious as to why they rushed into setting up this particular match (Henderson/Jackson) so quickly. Both were stars in the organization formerly know as Pride, but relatively obscure here in the states (Quinton has since gained some degree of exposure when he destroyed the UFC®’s poster boy Chuck Liddell). One would think that they had so many options to help build the organizational “rivalry” (sigh) up, or at least the champion versus champion angle by possibly making Dan and Quinton coaches on The Ultimate Fighter “reality” TV show, or at minimum have them both fight separate matches on at least one card together and THEN, after they introduced Henderson to those who only know the post-TUF era of the sport, put them in the Octagon® against each other.”

and

“As charismatic as Quinton “Rampage” Jackson is, it baffles me as to why he has not been marketed more aggressively by the UFC®. His reactive yet charming personality is tailor made for television and talk show hosts would surely find loads of ways to have fun with him as guest. But instead he’s been shipped to England and taken off pay-per-view (this UFC® will be aired free on Spike TV in the states).”

His thoughts on the Championship fight… (more…)